I didn't use this account much last year because, as I alluded to in my last couple of posts, the first half of 2025 was pretty bad in most areas of my life. By the time things got notably better around June, I was making more of an effort to do things outside of my apartment and away from the internet in general, which led me to essentially dropping any writing/specific television plans I was tentatively making. Ended up watching most of Death in Paradise in the background when I was at home. I've been keeping up with my gacha games, which is about as consistent as I was with anything last year.

Probably the biggest change in terms of my media diet was that I started watching anime again. I resumed these review threads I had been making the past few years, this time on Bluesky rather than Twitter. The most notable thing is I got caught up on Jujutsu Kaisen after putting off the second season for ages, and I got to see the special compilation film in theaters last month.

Some additional recent highlights:

☆ Anime: I was starting to get the itch at the beginning of 2025, but I finally fell back into watching anime in earnest starting with a rewatch of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! in order to watch the follow-up movie. It was the second season of My Dress-Up Darling, possibly my favorite anime of 2025, that fully cemented my return, and the summer craze of The Summer Hikaru Died gave me a really nice communal feeling of watching an anime that I haven't felt in years.

I'm already watching current shows and diving into my backlog. Coincidentally, a bunch of my favorite longer running shows are ending this year, such as Fire Force and Dr. Stone. A usual anime convention is off my roster now so I'm keen to seek out more in order to keep myself busy and in the culture.

☆ Television: Despite all the drama and production issues behind the scenes, I actually really loved most of the most recent season of Doctor Who and The War Between the Land and the Sea. Considering we won't be getting anything new until the Christmas Special at the end of the year, I may end up writing out more of my thoughts on the RTD2 era and the episodes I loved and hated in it, as well as finally finish that long-postponed Wilderness years watch.

Like the rest of the world, I fell in love with Heated Rivalry. As a queer man who is the same age at the same time as both of the lead characters, and came out of the closet on a similar timeline, I resonated with a lot of it despite not being a hot sexy pro athlete. As I said above, I fell into a pattern of marathoning through Death in Paradise at a very rapid pace (with breaks between detective changes, much like how I watched Classic Doctor Who). I also went back and watched some "older" queer television shows like the UK Queer as Folk and Sordid Lives, and I really want to keep that up this year (especially the US Queer as Folk, which I've been curious about since I was a teenager but was too scared to watch.)

The one property that, especially the past few months, that has really fallen off for me is Drag Race. The production and discourse around All Stars 10 is a nightmare that continues to this day (in part because certain cast members can't shut the fuck up) and the seventh season of UK was easily the worst of the UK franchise and might be the most excruciatingly boring of all of them. I've also experienced more (but not enough) drag shows in real life and it's really lowered my opinion of some of the people who get on the show with a clear lack of skill and gas themselves up. The recent seasons of Spain and Canada have been excellent, but in all honesty the rumors of Nicole Paige Brooks being cast on Australia vs the World is what's keeping me hanging on at this point.

☆ Gaming: I'm still playing and enjoying Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves. Genshin and WuWa are in a particularly strong spot right now in my opinion, whereas HSR is in a really weird one. Phainon and Mydei as characters have rewired my brain and I'm lowkey mad I haven't been able to write any fic for them, but that's due in part to the issues I've been having with the game aside from the Currency Wars game mode. The current diplomatic issues between China and Japan has also apparently led to the game scrapping assets for what would have been a Japan-themed region scheduled to drop in a month, so I'm very worried about what this quickly-edited next year of the game will be like. The story of the past year's content was way too bloated and I'm worried this could be a lethal blow to the game.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons also announced, out of nowhere, that there's going to be a new 3.0 update. However, I've been having technical issues with my Switch where controllers won't sync with it, not even the joycons unless they're physically attached, but the months-long issue I've had with my PC has taken precedence.

☆ Theatre: A "new" category for these kinds of posts, but I don't live that far from New York City, and I've come to realize that my only real obstacle to seeing Broadway shows is cost. Logistically, it's actually not that hard? So in the past few months I've seen Beetlejuice and Hamilton on Broadway, and Messy White Gays Off-Broadway. I'm hoping to see more shows in the coming year, such as Oh Mary!, but I also want to see if I can continue my trend in seeing shows with other people and not just settling for going solo (which I'm fine with doing, it's just more fun with other people).

I could go into more things (like concerts and trips) but I think that hits most things I'm interested in talking about on here. I always say I want to post more and then I don't, but I honestly would. It's nice to go back and see what I was up to and what my headspace was like, even if it's just a list of the media I'm consuming. I do want to do more in-depth reviews like I've done in the past, but time will tell.

Happy New Year everyone! Hopefully the rest of it is better than the first week has been.

The world is, well, what it is currently. Trying to delve back more into stimulating/creative pursuits (actually being able to sit down and write more than a couple of paragraphs of fic still seems to evade me, but perhaps one day.)

☆ Television: I finished rewatching the first season of She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat - a very charming J-Drama about two women cooking together and then falling in love. I'm excited to start on season 2, especially since I think I can credit this show with pulling me out of the brain fog I've been in the past few months since the election. The series is based on a manga and I want to pick up physical copies of it from my local bookstore, especially since that version is still ongoing while I'm pretty sure the show has ended.

Last night I also (finally!) started watching Twin Peaks. Did a double take when I realized that the story was actually set on February 24th as well. I am kind of kicking myself for not watching this sooner, both because David Lynch passed earlier this year and because I'm pretty sure I got spoiled at some point for who "the killer" is and I'm 80% sure I know which character it is from the jump, which lowkey sucks. The pilot was fantastic though and I'm looking forward to diving more into it.

I've also been making my way through The Great North, and while I like it I think doing it right after watching all of Central Park and catching up on Bob's Burgers is burning me out on it a little. Keeping up with Drag Race like usual, and also currently watching Abbott Elementary, Happy's Place, and Mayfair Witches week-to-week. Doctor Who is coming back in April and I'm looking forward to it even as I'm nervous for the show's future.

☆ Anime: Started getting the itch to finally start watching more Anime again. Last year I really only watched the reboot of Spice and Wolf (along with a rewatch of the original, and reading the original source material). I somehow got it in my head that now's the time to watch Trigun and I'm not gonna fight it. The question now remains whether I'll watch it while doing cardio like I'm hoping or not.

☆ Gaming: Still doing the daily grind of Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves. The other day I briefly flirted with redownloading Zenless Zone Zero but keeping up with four live service games is definitely too much especially if I wanna branch out and do other things with my free time. Hello Kitty Island Adventure is finally out on Nintendo Switch but I think I may wait for the physical version to release, especially with the weird flux state the Switch is in right now with it's successor on the horizon.

I'm gonna aim to do more periodic posts like this, especially as a way to keep my brain engaged with how I'm spending my time. As the weather gets better I'd also like to do more activities outside of media consumption and possible creation. Maybe this summer I'll achieve the romantic ideal of sitting in a park somewhere and writing.

As I alluded to in previous posts, most of my 2023 has been absorbed with playing Genshin Impact, my newest hyper-fixation, as well as Honkai: Star Rail from the same developer. In retrospect it's not all that surprising this has happened. I have a lot of friends that play both games, I was becoming increasingly burnt out on Fortnite after playing it regularly for nearly three years, and other properties I'm interested in have either ended or are on lengthy breaks (see: Doctor Who)

Because I have these games on the brain, I thought I'd write out some of my thoughts on them so far. I'm pretty much current on both, which means spoilers below the cut for the most recent patches in each (4.1 in Genshin, 1.3 in HSR).

( Lukewarm takes under the cut )

Haven't posted in ages because for about a month and a half I was crazy busy and in the last couple of weeks I've been doing basically nothing. Though I'll probably have more to post in the coming months as I finally get into Wilderness Years Doctor Who content and the Centenary Special gets closer.

I'm in a weird mental headspace that's definitely not burnout. I experienced that in spades back in the winter. It's more like restlessness I guess? Like there's so much I want to do but can never seem to find the time to actually do it? It doesn't help that my sleep schedule is the worst its been in years the past couple of weeks, and try as I might I cannot seem to fix it.

☆ Television: I've been keeping up with Drag Race the past few weeks but that's really about it as far as Western TV goes. I'm also technically watching Roswell New Mexico but I'm very behind on it, though I do want to get caught up sooner rather than later because it is the final season. I managed to stay current with the final season of Legacies and it was definitely worth the investment.

☆ Anime: The tradeoff to not watching much regular TV is that I'm finally watching anime again! I go through phases where I watch I ton for a while and then none for months at a time, and it feels nice to get caught up with certain shows and get reminded how much I actually do love the medium. This current resurgence is definitely thanks to My Dress-Up Darling. Now I just need to do my rewatch of The Devil is a Part-Timer! so I can actually start watching season 2.

☆ Gaming: It's mostly still just been Animal Crossing and Fortnite, though I recently replayed all of the first Danganronpa game on the Switch, and I loved it but also forgot how long those games are. I was gonna replay the second game right after but I'm taking a bit of a break from it because it's a huge time suck. I have played some more of Wandersong as well and it is a delight, and I want to set aside a day this month in order to play though even more of it. Biggest serotonin boost I've had in a while.

I haven't been super inspired to write lately - bad things happening in the world will do that - but with how this summer has gone I'm hopeful for a creatively fulfilling trajectory this fall (and maybe even a concentrated effort this year to do NaNo and finish up some stuff). I also have stuff I want to say about the concerts I've gone to but I think I'll save that for a different post.

The past two weeks have been... fraught to say the least. I went on a really fun vacation right before then but as soon as I got back I was immediately swamped at work and had to deal with a freak power outage over the weekend, so today is the first day where I haven't felt completely burned out. So yeah, no progress on any writing or other creative projects. At this point I'm not holding out much hope on that front until spring rolls around and the weather improves, because I wanna channel whatever motivations and energy I have into getting a semi-consistent workout routine again. (In the past I've had the most success attempting it in March so fingers crossed.)

☆ Television: Still watching Drag Race, and the current regular season is starting to pick up again... which is good because UK Versus the World is really crashing and burning as it limps towards the finish line. (Right now I'm #TeamMoHeart because at least she's been killing the runway every week, but I think they're gonna end up giving it to Blu who I've felt very meh on aside from a couple of bright spots.) I'm really hopeful the upcoming season Drag Race España will be as good as the first one and inject some much-needed enthusiasm back into this sphere.

As far as regular television goes, I hit the pause button on my Golden Girls universe watch for my vacation, and ended up seguing afterward into finally finishing the third season of You, and watching the first seasons of Bridgerton and Archive 81. All three were excellent, and it's making me tentatively wanna dive into more new shows like that even though I'm not really sure I have the drive or the attention span (Squid Game is still sitting in my queue unwatched). Disney Plus is also adding all the Netflix Marvel shows in Mid-March, and conventional wisdom seems to indicate those characters will only become more re-integrated with the main MCU films and tv series, so it might be a good idea to check those off my list? I've had very mixed responses to Phase Four so far so it probably wouldn't hurt.

☆ Gaming: I bought Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Legend Arceus, but I wanna finish all of the Pokémon Sword Expansion Pass content before I officially start those. I should be finishing Isle of Armor tonight so then I can start The Crown Tundra this week, and then I'm planning on starting both of the new games simultaneously. I've also been enjoying New Pokémon Snap quite a lot, and I'm anticipating that one will have a long shelf life for me like Animal Crossing has. I have mixed feelings on the Scarlet and Violet announcement, since I really like the starter designs and the vibe, but I think the art style is veering too much into uncanny valley territory and I wish they'd done something similar to Sword and Shield.

As far as other games go, I've started Yooka-Laylee, which I'm enjoying but I never played that style of game as a kid so it's a bit of a learning curve. I'd also like to get back into and finish EarthBound, Figment, and Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, but I think taking a break from them is a nice recharge. I've still been playing Fortnite on and off but my enthusiasm has definitely waned compared to the last two seasons, and I mostly just wanna hit level 200 before the season ends so I can unlock everything.

The past month has kind of been a weird vibe, and I've both simultaneously been struggling to focus on specific tasks while also hyper-focusing on others. The months-long stranglehold that Drag Race and Fortnite have had on me though seems to be subsiding, though I'm still consuming both.

☆ Gaming: I'm continuing to enjoy playing Animal Crossing, and I've gotten into the habit of at least opening it every day and doing the basic chores. About every 3-4 days I design a house in Happy Home Designer, and since I'm also playing a waiting game when it comes to completing the deep sea creature and insect areas of my museum (I refuse to time travel) this should sustain me for the next few months at least. I know November was the last major free update, but I'm curious if this is the end of the line for this game when it comes to new content or if there are gonna be other, smaller updates at some point in the next couple of years.

The big news here, though, is that I've finally fallen in love with Pokémon again after dealing with some level of burnout with it for the past ten years. The other day I finished all of the main storyline of Pokémon Sword and made it to the battle tower, and now I'm getting started with the Isle of Armor expansion. I've also dipped my toe into New Pokémon Snap, and my copy of Legend Arceus is in the mail (and I'm contemplating getting one of the Gen IV remakes as well). I think Generation VII is still my favorite overall (even though I never ended up finishing Sun) but I'm really enjoying the vibe of this one and how it's all come together. Took me long enough to get on board.

I'm also still playing Fortnite and I've gotten used to the new map, but I'm not overly enamored with this season in general. I think starting out with one of the best seasons ever (last summer's Alien-themed one) kind of spoiled me for this franchise and now everything has to live up to some lofty expectations. I did find myself enjoying that weird Tones and I concert event a few weeks back though, and it did it's job of making me a fan of her music.

☆ Television: I put a bunch of stuff on hold because my normal grind of consuming TV wasn't cutting it for me, and most of what I watch aside from Nancy Drew has been on hiatus since December anyway. I started Abbott Elementary off Twitter recommendations and I'm really enjoying it so far, but the headline item is that I've started rewatching The Golden Girls and it's going to be the "complete binge" I've mulled over doing for the past decade. While I've already seen all of The Golden Girls and it's follow-up, The Golden Palace, I never saw the lesser-known spinoff shows Empty Nest and Nurses (mostly because they couldn't be found anywhere online). However, I now have access to all of it (save for one later episode of Nurses which I still have time to track down) so now I'm gonna consume all of it in broadcast order and let this shared late 80s/early 90s sitcom universe wash over me in full.

I'm also still really into Drag Race, and I'm mostly hopeful that's Pangina's success on Drag Race UK Versus The World will mean that more people will check out the criminally underrated Drag Race Thailand.

☆ Writing: I wrote a couple of pages of a gag fic as a gift to my friend, but there's like a 50% chance I'm gonna scrap it and start over because I made it slightly more complicated than it needed to be. At least I've written something recently. It's the small victories.

It's been a hot minute since I've made a more casual post, and I want to start doing more of these instead of exclusively using this account for giant Doctor Who reviews or motivating myself to write fanfic.

☆ Writing: I started a bunch of fic drafts last year (and the year before) that I never got around to finishing. New mini-goal for 2022 is to finish at least some of those (and fill in more spaces on the 100ships challenge). Also lowkey wanna start writing some Fortnite fic (because I am a clown) but I'm probably gonna have to untangle the lore a little fic first even if I just end up writing about Jonesy getting dicked down lmao.

☆ Gaming: Been playing a lot more Animal Crossing and just got into the Happy Home Paradise expansion. I'm also still in Fortnite hell, and I've started playing some Indie Games on the Switch because of a sale they had towards the end of last year. So far I'm really digging Figment and Wandersong but I'm hoping to play more once I've finished with those.

☆ Television: I'm halfway through the most recent season of You, but honestly I haven't been that inspired to watch much Live Action TV the past month or so aside from Drag Race (and Queen of the Universe and Drag Race Italia were pretty big letdowns imo). I'm excited for the new US season but I really feel like I'm in a rut... which may not be a bad thing? I was consuming a lot of content for a very long time so I could probably stand to slow down a little.

☆ Movies: Encanto and Spider-Man: No Way Home were great, but - especially with the Omicron variant - my big return to watching movies hasn't really panned out. Even before that I never got around to watching Dune, and I did see Eternals but thought it was really bad. Trying to jazz myself up to watch The Matrix and Scream movies for the first time but so far no dice.

☆ Doctor Who: I really liked Eve of the Daleks, but I didn't think it was remarkably better or worse than Flux like a lot of the takes have been. (Though admittedly I guess I liked Flux more than most?) I'm currently wading my way through the "Lost Season" season 27 Big Finish audios, before I figure out how I'm gonna tackle the actual Wilderness Years content and the TV Movie. I also finally started The Edge of Reality... but the controls on Switch are kind of difficult (and it's very obvious that it was originally designed as a VR game) so I kind of haven't gotten back to it. Either way, I'm happy that I still have a wealth of content to get through considering the next two specials seem to be the only New Who we are gonna be getting for quite a while.

Since I now have a rough idea of when I'll be able to get vaccinated, I'm once again attempting to get myself in a good workout routine. This time I have someone holding me accountable, so I'm hopeful this will be the time where it actually sticks. I also haven't watched any anime in the past couple of weeks so I can play catch up with that while I'm on the elliptical rather than try to force my way through Digimon Xros Wars, since at this point watching that feels like a deterrent.

I started RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 5, which means I'm almost caught up with the currently airing seasons. I'm glad because I feel like constantly binging it is making me reach critical mass, and I need to transfer my energy over to something else. Maybe I'll finally get back into audio books now that I'm making my way through some of the Doctor Who audio materials.

I'm also playing Animal Crossing on and off again which I'm pretty happy about. A big part of why is that wellfourthings recently got the game, but some of my other friends started playing again which has been nice. I preordered the new Story of Seasons game so I can always switch over to that if I feel burnt out in a couple of weeks.

Managed to finally fix my sleep schedule and get on a cycle where i don't have to drug myself to get to sleep and set six alarms to get up, but it's also coinciding with things ramping up at work so I'm still feeling a bit tense. It's been one of the few times this past year where I think I would actually benefit from being at the office.

I feel like if I can manage to get back on some semblance of a consistent exercise routine it'll do wonders I just haven't quite been able to make it over that hump yet. It's (finally) starting to get warm enough that I can walk around outside in a sweatshirt so maybe I'll try spending some more time doing that, especially now that I'm back to going through podcasts and audio productions and not just listening to the same five year old Waterparks song or Love Live deep cut on a loop for a week straight.

☆ Television: I finished Drag Race US season 11 and Drag Race UK series 1 and I think I might be burnt out on it a little. I'm almost caught up though so that's great! I can't really psych myself up to watch anything else though even though I'm behind on a bunch of anime, so we'll see how that goes I guess.

☆ Writing: It's nothing really publishable, but I'm writing snippets of fanfic again, which has been fun! Some of them have been off dw100 prompts so maybe I'll end up cleaning those up and posting them. I'm hoping I can get myself back into a headspace where I can finally finish off some projects that have been sitting in my drafts for years. Hetalia finally coming back next month should hopefully help motivate me with the fic for that.

☆ Gaming: I'm gonna try to pick up Animal Crossing again for the St. Patrick's Day event. I made a lot of progress in my BioShock playthrough last week, and I preordered the new Pokemon Snap and Story of Seasons games and I'm looking forward to taking a crack at those too. I forked over the cash for a monthly pass for Love Live All Stars but it's not bringing the same levels of serotonin as it had so I may stop that after this month.

The past month has been pretty uneventful for me personal life-wise (which imo is fine because December was pretty much hell and my dad is mostly past his health issue). Mostly I've kind of been stuck in a holding pattern of wanting to create/not being able to, and running hot and cold with whatever it is I'm watching on TV. I made it through the end of season 9 of RPDR and now I'm back to toggling between The Crown and Leverage with some occasional Classic Who sprinkled in. I thought Quarantine would be easier in winter because I kind of spend this time of year cooped up inside anyway, but at least during the bulk of 2020 I could still go for walks and sit outside as a change of pace.

I've been getting back into Hetalia mostly because I'm back to tracking news/updating the wiki for it. I have some fic drafts for it I'd like to finish but I haven't really had the motivation to write even when putting myself under the pressure of fests or challenges. Even going full caveman horny brain hasn't really moved the needle on the two decidedly nsfw drafts I have (Weirdly both for Glee. I have no idea how I suddenly got re-energized for that fandom of all things this year.) It snowed today and it's supposed to snow again tomorrow, but I'm hopeful this week I can get back in the routine of regularly exercising and that might help jump start me mentally... assuming the hot water in my apartment starts working again and I don't have to drag the landlord down here to fix it.

Other random thoughts:

☆ Best Boys™: I've already fallen behind but I'm still watching a lot of anime this winter season, and it's been a reminder of past best boys and the introduction of new best boys. The fresh roster that's been living rent-free in my brain includes Yuji and Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen, Chrome from Dr. Stone, Keiichi from Higurashi When They Cry, and Reki and Langa from SK8 the Infinity. The boys from Jujutsu Kaisen especially are popular enough that I've hopeful there'll be some really fun merch I'll be able to buy of them in the future.

☆ Game Girls: I've been playing a lot of Love Live All Stars to the point I decided to pay for the monthly membership for the next month specifically, for the serotonin. My bias for the Nijigasaki girls aside, I just really like the gameplay style and story mode of this app more than the original (which I've barely touched this past year save for snagging some login bonuses). I just hope I don't overextend myself and end up burning myself out on this too.

☆ Music: If you told me a year ago that the album I'd have listened to the most at the start of 2021 was Miley Cyrus's I wouldn't have believed you. Between that, Machine Gun Kelly's album, everything Aly & AJ have done the past year and the upcoming Waterparks album I've been very happy. I wasn't a fan of the Waterparks live album though which bums me out since I actually have the bluray for that concert (which I haven't gotten around to watching yet oop). I've also been so used to listening to music by people several years older than me (or in the case of Lorde, several years younger), that it's actually kind of nice to listen to stuff by people roughly my own age (pushing 30).