A year in review - 2025 recap

Well...


It's been a minute huh. Oops.

// Where have I been?

Anyone who looks at the list of posts would notice I've been gone for a bit. There's not really one particular reason, but rather a bunch of others that just added up.

First, I made my monthly post for January about jailbreaking my badass kindle. Then the next month I got to work on my next project, modding a staples easy button. That didn't work out quite as expected, and I spent the whole month on it, so I figured I would let myself out of the monthly post quota just that one time. The next month I finished the first big era of Lupin III, so I figured I'd write about that once I got around to watching Castle of Cagliostro. Sadly, I did not get around to that for some time, and I forgot to post in March as well. Then when April rolled around I had a big scare where I almost got kicked out of my major in school, so I was freaking out and forgot to post then too. Then in May, school ended, and I went home for what was supposed to be two weeks. Sadly, due to some poorly scheduled appointments, it ended up being more like a month and a week sucked out of my summer, and for two of those weeks smack dab in the middle I was stuck in bed thanks to a wisdom teeth removal. Then, as soon as I got back to Orlando, I had to look for a place to move to from my apartment and then move. After all that, the rest of my summer was busy enough to make me completely forget about this site until about a week ago.

// What have I been up to?

In that time, however, I have had a lot of things happen. Over the summer I started playing bass in a second band, The Stoudemires. Despite some lineup instability I think we're quite good. We've got an ep out everywhere you can listen to music.

Also over the summer, I got quite in to the idea of making synthesizers, and I learned quite a bit on that front. More on that to come later.

I then joined another band. We are a punk band called The Super Duper Badass Awesome Cool-as-Fuck Project (The MCM Project). With any luck we should have a Christmas single coming out the very day this post releases. I'm sorry if you don't like it its not the best.

// So what will happen to this site?

Well, I have some plans. First, I would like to get back on the horse when it comes to the monthly posts. Second, I still plan on redoing the css. Avid forkers would already notice that the colorscheme of the site has been completely changed, and that is a sign of good faith for the future. I'm not sure when I'll have the time for that, but it will happen eventually. Also, the projects page was cool in theory, but I am not a big fan of it, so I'd rather just merge it with the blog. That will be done probably by the time this update is posted. I'd like to add tags in the blog section, but I can't think of a good way to implement that at the moment, so I'm putting it off for later. RSS is still not automated, I'm continuing to do it by hand, but that's okay, because I don't really think anyone is using it. I have been renewed in my desire to keep this site very simple, however, so I will only be using javascript/php for backend stuff, and the frontend will remain purely hand coded css and html. I may eventually implement something that translates markdown into my post formats actually, but right now, html is easy for me, so it's not too inconvenient. The single most frustrating issue facing the site at the moment is having the domain name in the header, because it is so long that it fucks up the mobile version of the site lol. Other than that I have actually grown quite fond of the mobile version thanks to the colorscheme change.

// Finally, on to the recap.

Tada! A recap of things I watched or read this year.

// TV Show of the year

Severance

I watched a good few shows this year. But none of them were quite as special as Severance. Idk what to say dude. It's good.

// Album of the year

The Action - YOUR SONG IS GOOD

One day, I was on the toilet. Not using it or anything, just sitting there, in my apartment, like a week before I moved out. I was scrolling discogs to contemplate which random japanese punk band recommended by my favorite guitarist to add to my wishlist, when I came across an album I already knew and loved, School Jackets' Back to the Dancefloor. I got bored and decided to look at the artist description, when I noticed a sentence I hadn't read before.

"All of their members went on to form Your Song Is Good in 1998."

I was shocked. A band I liked had a second band with all of the original members? This had the potential to be amazing. So, I listened to their first album. And it was different. Not bad, just different. They had traded in the fast, poorly recorded punk for jazzy reggae/calypso. Eventually, I made my way through their first few albums, and found my way to The Action. I could tell it was different. It felt much more like their old styles I had grown to love, but matured into something new. I proceeded to have it on repeat for almost two months. I highly recommend this album to EVERYONE. It's really great.

// Movie of the year

Mind Game

I was honestly not expecting this to be the case. This is the first year since high school that I haven't really had multiple movies blow me away. Even this, wasn't a blown away, best thing i've ever seen type thing, but just a movie I really loved from beginning to end. The only other thing that even came close was Christy, but Sidney Sweeney saying all that shit kinda ruined it for me, and it sucks that is the reason most people didn't give it a chance, because that movie is phenomenal. I don't think it would have beat Mind Game, but still. The Reze movie was also phenomenal, but in the end I think I still liked Mind Game the best. Maybe there would have been a bigger struggle if I got to see No Other Choice before the year was out, but none of the theaters near me got the early December 25 release, so I'm stuck waiting until the 8th.

// Book of the year

The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Stetson

I tried to read more actual books this year, as evidenced by January's Kindle experiment. Ironically, however, my favorite thing I read this year was not something I chose to read, but something I had to read for a class. I have always been a sucker for classic horror, so it's kind of a shock I hadn't read it before now, but this story is frankly amazing. The slow descent into madness induced by the common "treatments" of the time was remarkably written, and learning about its place in history was genuinely incredibly interesting.

// Honorable mentions

I typically don't watch many shows, but I guess this year was different because there were multiple shows that left a big impact on me.

His and Her Circumstances (Kare Kano)

I watched this as a part of my years long quest to watch all of Hideaki Anno's bullshit and the other quest to watch all of Gainax's bullshit, and honestly, I was not expecting much from a romance made by the people who made Gunbuster, Panty and Stocking, and other very boy-ish shows, but holy shit this show is phenomenal.

At least, until it literally falls apart at the seams.

It was clear that the last four episodes are still incredibly written, but it is clear that losing the series director in the middle of producing a season caused a lot of time and budget issues, with one episode being Hiroyuki Imaishi playing with popsicle-stick puppets, and another being a glorified slideshow with brief animated interludes. The fact that it still remains in my mind as mostly great is really a testament to its quality.

Phantom of the Paradise

This movie randomly got recommended to me for free with no ads on youtube. It was awesome.

Steven Universe: Future

I also watched the original this year, but honestly, I liked Future better. I just don't understand why its so hated. I get that people can prefer the original, but Future takes everything I liked about the original and improved it. Originally, I wasn't very fond of how it just ended, but it's been a little over half a year since I watched it, and the ending has grown on me quite a bit. The cut to black was abrupt and I disliked it in the moment, and the short wrap-up after only made it a little better, but after sitting with it, I think that was the best possible thing they could have done. Allowing the issues to not just be immediately "fixed" in the way Steven always tried to have everything fixed showed that he had grown enough to let things take their time to grow and change, instead of forcing himself to be "better" and "fine" like he had for the whole show.

Machina Mori - Various

This one is kind of a last minute addition, as I listened to it after I wrote the original final draft of this post. Because of that, I am not viewing it as a contender for this year, but am putting it in the honorable mentions. I will consider it as a favorite for next year, however it is looking like it will have some steep competition from artists I already enjoy that are releasing albums in 2026. But this album is good. I already love a good comp, and on top of that its really well put together. I can't say I've ever seen a comp album with a piano interlude before. This one is definitely a must listen for anyone in to vocaloid. I'm already considereing picking up a physical, and there's still two songs left in the album as of writing.

Eureka Seven

This had been on my radar for some time and one night I decided to watch it on a whim. I finished it in a bit over a week. A fifty episode show. This was amazing. It's beautifully animated, the story is a lovely look at two kids growing up and learning what it means to be human. The only reason it didn't make the list over Severance was because it faltered a little and started to lose its footing towards the end. It brought it back, but it had a few boring episodes, and an ending that could have been a little more clear. I still greatly recommend it, though.

// And I'm off

I'm looking forward to the new year. I'm sad I didn't read a single new manga last year, but that's looking to change already, as the official translation of a manga I've been waiting for for a long time is waiting for me back home, and I have an untranslated copy of a friend's favorite manga on my "to read" pile as well. I'm not 100% sure yet, but I don't think I'll do the twitter media thread thing this year. It's fun for a little while, but by the end of the year I always fail to keep up with it. So if you're interested in seeing all of that, send a follow to the various media tracking sites listed here. It's funny that I say that as that was the original purpose of this site before it became a blog: it was just supposed to be a not boring version of a linktree/carrd or stuff like that.

I also forgot to mention earlier, but I plan to do a challenge this year that I tried out over the summer, where my goal is to finish watching or reading one thing per day. I don't know how long that will last, but I'm going to try my best, so wish me luck.

See you next year (hopefully) // Forks.