Nouns I Verbed 2025
All the year-end roundups made me want to do something similar. I got 25% of the way towards making a sappy insta post of retrospective memories from this year before I remembered that I hate insta.
2025 is the year that I remembered that I need to take in art before I could really make art. For thematic inspiration, sure, but mostly just to look at something someone made for the sake of it and feel something spark in me to want to make something too. 2024 was survival and recovery focused, and 2025 felt like re-learning how to walk, creatively.
On top of inspiration, I also just feel more interested in the world and what people have said about it through stories. I tend to try and avoid hyper-mainstream things if I can help it, or try and get to it before I get inundated with the internetās opinions about things. I especially am trying to go more niche with what I read, as booktok is something that makes me break out in hives. So here are a bunch of [nouns] that I [verb]ed this year, in no ranked or otherwise deliberate order.
Movies
Mostly stuff that came out this year, and then a few things Iāve been meaning to get to foreverā¦
- Bugonia ā Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone were fantastic in their respective roles. I donāt know that the original narrative was really improved upon by making the main character a QAnon-esque conspiracy theorist given how it ended, but it made me interested in seeing the original film and was a fun time in theaters.
- Sinners ā A Movie. Great time, loved the fresh take on vampires, loved the music. The kind of movie I wish more mainstream blockbusters were. A movie that really improves with each subsequent rewatch, and Iāve rewatched it plenty.
- Wake Up Dead Man ā Love a murder mystery, and a welcome improvement from the previous installment. Liked it more than I liked Glass Onionā GO felt incredibly heavy handed and more comedic than I generally expected it to be, and the original KO movie is a favorite of mine that holds up on the rewatch. Donāt think the ensemble was as elegantly knit as the first one, but again, an improvement from Glass Onion. Loved what they did with the lighting and colors. Man, can you imagine if more movies looked like this?
- Love Lies Bleeding ā Meant to watch this the year it came out, never got around to it. It was fine. I was pretty disengaged with the characters and I donāt think Kristen Stewart is a particularly good actor, but I appreciate any movie with buff women and lesbian sex in theory. Ending was weird but not in a way that I felt worked, but it didnāt really turn me off from it either. Dunno.
- Angelās Egg ā Loved it. Got to see the theatrical release, which only served to make me overwhelmed by the composition and the background art. Had the misfortune of sitting next to a couple where the boyfriend loudly said āI didnāt get itā as soon as credits rolled, which was annoying and really served to drive home the fact that so many stories these days are inundated with over explanation. God forbid we have to sit with our thoughts and feelings to form an individual interpretation!
Books
Didnāt read nearly as many books as I bought this year, which will forever be a mark of shame and a repeated infraction throughout my life. Cāest la vie.
- Spear by Nicola Griffith ā Queer Arthuriana novel(la?). My first Griffith book, Ammonite is sitting on my shelf and I am excited to dig ināI read a very good review of it that made me interested in reading her work. Spear felt very atmospheric and successful in grounding itself in the style of writing and storytelling that Arthuriana requires, while also featuring queerness in a way that rang true both as a reader and in the context of the story. Still have like 20 pages to go but I did like it.
- Salt Slow by Julia Armfield ā Her novel Our Wives Under The Sea has been on my TBR for a minute, but I like to read short stories to get acquainted with an author. Adored this collection, still remember some of these stories very clearlyāāThe Great Awakeā in particularly really spoke to me as a long-time insomniac and yearner. Can you tell Iāve been on a lesbian fiction kick? Could mean anything.
- The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin ā Iām a poser who has only read Le Guinās writing about writing and some of her poetry, so this is my first proper foray into her fiction despite many volumes on my shelf. Anyway, her fiction is as elegant as her nonfiction, if not moreso. The contrast in narrators is really striking, especially when Dr. Haberās smug monologue falters when faced with worldview-altering (and literally world-altering) circumstances. Was also neat to read something set in the PNW, where I currently live.
- Stages of Rot by Linnea Sterte aka turndecassette ā Love Sterteās illustration and storytelling sensibilities, and was eagerly awaiting A Garden Of Spheres arriving on my doorstep. I also adore a whalefall and the imagery of life emerging from decay (see TWFD, etc.) so this knocked it out of the park for me. Iāve also been returning to drawing for personal projects, so I was especially interested in studying Sterteās compositions, paneling, and usage of negative space in her drawings. Excited to crack open AGOS soon.
- Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama ā This has been on my list of āthings to read eventuallyā for years at this point, but as I just mentioned above, Iāve been getting back into drawing for personal projects. Witch Hat has long been praised for its paneling and intricate lines, so I figured it was finally time to read it. Not only was I instantly obsessed with itāI literally stayed up til 2 am 3 nights in a row to read all 92 chaptersābut I was struck with inspiration for a series of blog posts that I wonāt spoil now because I want to dedicate my full attention to them in the new year. Thatās really vague, sorry, but trust that Iāll get to it.
Games
My longest category of nouns, for obvious reasons.
- Blue Prince ā I have 125+ hours in this game. I love this game. I hate this game. I had a great time in a discord server that Iām in where a bunch of us were playing the game so we helped each other with hints and working through puzzlesāmuch prefer that to having to look up the answers via search engine myself. I had a really great time for majority of the game and post-game, but at a certain point the puzzles reach a level of abstraction and a lack of signposting that just made it a slog for me to get through. I didnāt finish the game, though I really wanted to. But it did help me learn that I liked puzzle games that require extensive notetaking, so maybe 2026 will be when I finally play Myst (famous last words)
- Pokemon Legends Z-A ā Currently playing through it as an xmas gift. Itās fun! Mechanically, I miss a lot of elements of the capture and dex mechanics from Legends Arceus, but narratively, the end-game sequence was surprisingly cinematic and very tokusatsu in the best of ways. Weighing whether or not to get the DLC, but I do think the overarching themes of āharmony between people and pokemonā are bound to get muddled and dicey with cordoned off areas for wildlife. But ultimately, pokemon games are a nostalgic toy for me so I donāt reserve a ton of critical thought for their narrative compared to other games. I am definitely not the target audience as I am no longer 10 years old.
- Return of the Obra Dinn ā People have been telling me to play this game for years, and I hate to say it but theyāre right. I played it after burning out on Blue Prince. Incredibly elegant puzzle mechanics, striking visual style, and an overall very satisfying experience. I played it while at the beach with my family, a few miles off from the wreck of the Queen Anneās Revenge. I do not mourn the slave traders and colonizers that died in the game and think it would have narratively benefited from a more critical lens that we examine the horrors of the East India Company from. Fantastical sea monsters aside, the very real spectres of colonialism and slavery were not really touched in the game. Great puzzles though.
- Excavation of Hobs Barrow ā Played this in 2-3 sittings recently streaming it for friends on discord. Really charming game. Classic point and click adventure vibes, some genuinely unsettling moments of folk horror. Was expecting (and hoping) for more gnosticism in the end, given references to archons and esoteric knowledge, but found the resolution of the game slightly weak. Still really enjoyed it though, and the endgame sequence was gut churning.
- Tactics Ogre Reborn ā I am laughably early in this game so I canāt pass judgement really but it is very, very good. Speaking as someone who mostly got into tactics games from the 3DS generation of Fire Emblem games and onwards, playing a game that makes you question nationalism and rebellion is a wildly different experience. Donāt love the RNG elements of certain actions like recruitment, but I am making things harder for myself by attempting to sway every single one of my countrymen to not kill me for refusing to kill innocent villagers.
- Hades 2 ā Those who know me know that Supergiant Games have made the games that made me want to make games. I like to say that Transistor made me want to make games and Pyre made me want to be a narrative designer. So all that is to say that I donāt say this lightly: the writing in Hades 2 pissed me off so bad that since rolling credits I have not picked the game back up. I loved the gameplay, loved the moments where the design team really flexed their muscles (being thrown back to asphodel! the un-pausing! a whole second hades map!) but oh my GOD. They gave themselves the same narrative problems to solve as the first Hades game, the same rakes they barely avoided stepping onā¦ And then put pies on the end of the rakes and stepped on them so hard that the pie filling probably went up their nose and into their brains. Genuinely, it is confounding how much of a downgrade Hades 2 is compared to the other things theyāve done that I love. I might even love those things a little less because of it. But as I was talking about Hades 2 the other day with a friend of mine, this is the first Supergiant game that Iāve played since actually working in the industry. The last one came out while I was in college. So my relationship to them as game makers is now shaped by my own experience as one myself, and as someone intimately familiar with the labor practices and autership problems of the industry at large. Itās unfortunate, but you know what they say, never meet your heroes and never work in the same field as them either.
- Coral Island ā This was recommended to me by a friend as an example of a life sim/farm sim with good writing, which is a concern of mine given that I have been working as a writer for a life sim for the last few years. Happy to say that their recommendation was good! Coral Island scratches the Stardew itch for me and then some, and I really enjoyed my time with it. I think the narrative of cleaning the ocean of pollution is weakened by the magic macguffins of disappearing trash via golden coral (??) but the characters and gameplay are full of enough friction to make them charming to me.
Anyway, thatās about all I have it in me to write about for now. I do want to save more in-depth thoughts and deliberate parallels for future posts that are narrower in scope, so wait for that if youāre interested.
Onion Tax
Iām currently writing from my iPad at my parentās house, so Iām ~3000 miles away from Onion. The Onion Tax is unfortunately not a picture of him but instead my attempt at a medieval rendition of the beast.
I did make this into a linocut, but I donāt have a fresh picture of that on me so this will have to suffice. Happy new year!