2025 media roundup
Dec. 31st, 2025 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kumquatwe're kind of BACK! excuse the chopped and screwed html...
bright dead things, ada limon
ghost/home, dennis james sweeney
ghost of, diana khoi nguyen
48kg, batool abu akleen
the memory police, yoko ogawa
the trinity of fundamentals, wisam rafeedie
gideon the ninth, tamsyn muir
the book of form and emptiness, ruth ozeki
harrow the ninth, tamsyn muir 🎧
nona the ninth, tamsyn muir 🎧
greta & valdin, rebecca reilly 🎧
the traitor baru cormorant, seth dickinson 🎧
the monster baru cormorant, seth dickinson 🎧
the tyrant baru cormorant, seth dickinson 🎧
the jasmine throne, tasha suri 🎧
the oleander sword, tasha suri 🎧
the lotus empire, tasha suri 🎧
the left hand of darkness, ursula k. le guin 🎧
bunny, mona awad
giovanni’s room, james baldwin
the bog wife, kay chronister 🎧
parable of the sower, octavia butler 🎧
parable of the talents, octavia butler 🎧
kindred, octavia butler 🎧
the berry pickers, amanda peters 🎧
wandering stars, tommy orange 🎧
there there, tommy orange 🎧
sunburn, chloe michelle howarth 🎧
salt houses, hala alyan
chain-gang all stars, nana kwame adjei-brenyah 🎧
my year of meats, ruth ozeki 🎧
blood of elves, andrzej sapkowski 🎧
lonely crowds, stephanie wambugu 🎧
the mysterious study of doctor sex, tamsyn muir
as yet unsent, tamsyn muir
the unwanted guest, tamsyn muir
rejection, tony tulathimutte
the deepwater bride and other stories, tamsyn muir
princess floralinda and the forty-flight tower, tamsyn muir 🎧
high school, tegan and sara
year of the tiger, alice wong 🎧
securing paradise, vernadette gonzalez
weapons of the weak, james scott
domestic subjects, beth piatote
native lands, shari huhndorf
seattle from the margins, megan asaka
northland, porter fox 🎧
the pacific circuit, alexis madrigal 🎧
the history of sexuality, michel foucault
a necessary balance, lillian ackerman
born of lakes and plains, anne hyde
the red and the white, andrew graybill
listened to a ton of audiobooks this year because i was so busy it felt like the most effective way to multitask while doing chores/drawing/driving, but while my auditory processing has improved i have regretted not being able to save quotes. wandering stars, sunburn, and chain-gang all stars were ones i especially wish i could have annotated as text, on the other hand i think audiobooks are especially good for lengthy sff where the plot/worldbuilding is more interesting than the prose. baru cormorant i’m looking at you miss lapsed phd student… i mean seth dickinson’s prose is fine but there’s more interesting parts of the book, even so i don’t know that i could have gotten through the whole fiscal policy part on paper plus the audiobook narrator was awful. moira quirk on the other hand is a god.
i went FULLLYYYYYY off my rocker about the locked tomb series over the summer and at one point wrote a nonsensical 1500 words of meta at 2 am about girl yaoi and dyke camp and necropolitics. in retrospect i had nothing new to say that hasn't already been more successfully articulated by someone else but i love that there's so much to chew on thematically while still offering ample libidinal fodder for fans... or rather it is precisely through how desire/violence are intertwined that we get at some of the series' central conceits. i really do think they are such a daring and successful set of novels, each of which is doing something completely different with great aplomb, and while i get why people find them difficult/controversial i think the payoff is sooo worth it. i will say lol that it’s been very interesting being on both twitter and tumblr sides of the fandom and seeing such crazy dissonance not only generationally but in perceptions of the books’ themes and fanwork preferences/ideals. as for my own take i’ll say that we know tazmuir is a total edgelord, having been forged in the crucible of HOMESTUCK FIC let’s be real, and if we can’t accept that then we may very well miss where the text is pretty explicitly asking us to go!
i have a lot of overdue poetry and graphic novels for next year and i am also looking forward to reading more things pretending to be other things: currently in middle of possession by a.s. byatt and i am also excited for taiwan travelogue by yang shuang-zi and everything for everyone: an oral history of the new york commune, 2052-2072 by m.e. o’brien and eman abdelhadi.
wait before i forget oomf and i also came up with this fall reading challenge and even though i didn't hit every box i had a lot of fun...
set in or about academia: bunny
city book: there, there
"canon"/a classic: giovanni's room
horror: the bog wife
f/f historical: lonely crowds
published 2000s: the berry pickers
book for work: the history of sexuality
non-conventional chronology: kindred
multi-generational: wandering stars
sci-fi/fantasy: the left hand of darkness
micro or local book: the pacific circuit
published 1900s: parable of the talents
social movement novel: chain-gang all stars
xo kitty, season 2
the secret lives of mormon wives, season 1
severance, seasons 1 & 2
the pitt, season 1
american horror story: coven
over the garden wall
yuri on ice
interview with the vampire, season 1
heated rivalry, season 1
i’m such an amateur tv watcher but this year i really rediscovered watching tv with FRIENDS and have been surfing the zeitgeist accordingly (i think xo kitty is the only one i really watched alone). the hockey boys are nice but i feel so thoroughly normal about them lol. on the other hand it has been absolute bonkers watching yuri on ice for the first time nine years late to the party… a show that i cannot wholeheartedly recommend as "good" but like, i understand why it seized the hearts and minds of a generation
gonjiam haunted asylum
a complete unknown 🍿
i’m still here 🍿
hell house llc
mickey 17 🍿
the bay
incantation
the encampments 🍿
summer wars
promare
maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore 🍿
conclave
sinners 🍿
the skeleton key
the wedding banquet 🍿
bring her back 🍿
house of wax
incantation
it follows
kpop demon hunters
weapons 🍿
may
lake mungo
the medium
the legend of hei
ne zha 2
the legend of hei 2
horror outsold probably for another year in terms of genre. i was delighted to be scared shitless by incantation which was kind of made specifically for me in a lab: found footage, breaking the fourth wall, magical/obsessive thinking, cursed children, trypophobia, mother/daughter bullshit, chinese people, the list goes on… sinners was amazing obviously, and my friends made fun of me for falling asleep in the middle of lake mungo but it was also kind of the perfect horror film to me!!!! and finally legend of hei is ssooooso cute. LUYE JIEJIE i’m free on thursday night etc.
little kitty big city
witcher 3
hades 2
fire emblem awakening
i barely gamed at all except for a 2 week period in november where i played like 75 hours of hades 2, which FUCKS. this is a roguelite dating sim about being mixed race diaspora btw.
escaper, sarah kinsley
bunky becky birthday boy, sleigh bells
synthetica, metric
kiss (deluxe), carly rae jepsen
silent alarm, bloc party
a weekend in the city, bloc party
hot, le sserafim
only cry in the rain, chuu
bloodless, samia
s, stayc
straight line was a lie, the beths
fancy that, pinkpantheress
forever is a feeling, lucy dacus
glory, perfume genius
bird’s eye, ravyn lenae
that’s showbiz baby, jade
heartlands, autoheart
01, now, now
emotion (10th anniversary edition), carly rae jepsen
lovegod, sarah kinsley
changes, soccer mommy
so cynical (badum), le sserafim
only cry in the rain, chuu
north poles, samia
no front teeth, perfume genius ft. aldous harding
shapeshifter, lorde
no joy, the beths
many lives, purity ring
guardian angel, carly rae jepsen
head, shoulders, knees and ankles, hemlocke springs
roses, alisa xayalith
yves, san francisco
artms, san francisco
hitsujibungaku, sakuracon
perfume genius, chicago
lucy dacus, berkeley
japanese breakfast, san francisco
the beths, san francisco
music of the americas, san francisco symphony
stardew valley symphony of seasons, oakland
gumiho, nina ki
yellow face, david henry hwang
the angel island project, oakland ballet
the nutcracker, pacific northwest ballet
theory of water, leanne betasamosake simpson
administering hate, circulating violence, chandan reddy
indigenous confinement on the canadian plains, ben hoy
the bridge of earth, neferti tadiar
suspect policing and state violence against chinese women, laura kang
the fort surrounded, kyle kajihiro
apology and apostrophe, brandi bushman
born of the bear dance, omca
l’eulelogy for our super(re)latives, super futures haunt qollective
i perpetually feel like i’m not taking enough advantage of being on a campus where cool events are always happening but i want to be better about actually attending things and taking notes next year instead of zoning out in the background lesson planning or doing emails or whatever. i also attended a bunch of job talks and conference panels but shan’t dox myself any more than i already have lol.
the SFHQ performance piece was super special i’ll never forget it, like their ability to transmute grief into shared space and invite us to refuse dispossession together, the step dance transitioning into robyn’s dancing on my own like breaking through the surface for air. i’ve been reading their work for years since i was a teenager honestly so it really felt like a full circle kind of moment getting to introduce myself 🥹
in terms of fandom i had an early return to my svt rps roots and wrote fic for the first time in half a decade, became possessed by the toxic lesbian necromancers around midyear and drew a bunch of fanart in very intense/quick succession, and am now enjoying the abandoned ruins of yoi fandom as my holiday season cope (#gotten by the b pairing once more). sylvix week was a nice fall homecoming and i got to play extensively with my friends… i want to do a director’s cut type thing for my sylvix week pieces too.
i was not that consistent about media journaling/writing down reflections but to the limited extent that i did do so i found it helpful to remember and process stuff, so i am going to try to do even better next year :) i would also like to divest more from algorithmically driven media consumption and discovery next year and have to do some more research to set this up. i will save that for another post though... happy new year everyone!!!
📚 books
poetry
bright dead things, ada limon
ghost/home, dennis james sweeney
ghost of, diana khoi nguyen
48kg, batool abu akleen
novels
the memory police, yoko ogawa
the trinity of fundamentals, wisam rafeedie
gideon the ninth, tamsyn muir
the book of form and emptiness, ruth ozeki
harrow the ninth, tamsyn muir 🎧
nona the ninth, tamsyn muir 🎧
greta & valdin, rebecca reilly 🎧
the traitor baru cormorant, seth dickinson 🎧
the monster baru cormorant, seth dickinson 🎧
the tyrant baru cormorant, seth dickinson 🎧
the jasmine throne, tasha suri 🎧
the oleander sword, tasha suri 🎧
the lotus empire, tasha suri 🎧
the left hand of darkness, ursula k. le guin 🎧
bunny, mona awad
giovanni’s room, james baldwin
the bog wife, kay chronister 🎧
parable of the sower, octavia butler 🎧
parable of the talents, octavia butler 🎧
kindred, octavia butler 🎧
the berry pickers, amanda peters 🎧
wandering stars, tommy orange 🎧
there there, tommy orange 🎧
sunburn, chloe michelle howarth 🎧
salt houses, hala alyan
chain-gang all stars, nana kwame adjei-brenyah 🎧
my year of meats, ruth ozeki 🎧
blood of elves, andrzej sapkowski 🎧
lonely crowds, stephanie wambugu 🎧
short stories
the mysterious study of doctor sex, tamsyn muir
as yet unsent, tamsyn muir
the unwanted guest, tamsyn muir
rejection, tony tulathimutte
the deepwater bride and other stories, tamsyn muir
princess floralinda and the forty-flight tower, tamsyn muir 🎧
memoirs
high school, tegan and sara
year of the tiger, alice wong 🎧
nonfiction
securing paradise, vernadette gonzalez
weapons of the weak, james scott
domestic subjects, beth piatote
native lands, shari huhndorf
seattle from the margins, megan asaka
northland, porter fox 🎧
the pacific circuit, alexis madrigal 🎧
the history of sexuality, michel foucault
a necessary balance, lillian ackerman
born of lakes and plains, anne hyde
the red and the white, andrew graybill
listened to a ton of audiobooks this year because i was so busy it felt like the most effective way to multitask while doing chores/drawing/driving, but while my auditory processing has improved i have regretted not being able to save quotes. wandering stars, sunburn, and chain-gang all stars were ones i especially wish i could have annotated as text, on the other hand i think audiobooks are especially good for lengthy sff where the plot/worldbuilding is more interesting than the prose. baru cormorant i’m looking at you miss lapsed phd student… i mean seth dickinson’s prose is fine but there’s more interesting parts of the book, even so i don’t know that i could have gotten through the whole fiscal policy part on paper plus the audiobook narrator was awful. moira quirk on the other hand is a god.
i went FULLLYYYYYY off my rocker about the locked tomb series over the summer and at one point wrote a nonsensical 1500 words of meta at 2 am about girl yaoi and dyke camp and necropolitics. in retrospect i had nothing new to say that hasn't already been more successfully articulated by someone else but i love that there's so much to chew on thematically while still offering ample libidinal fodder for fans... or rather it is precisely through how desire/violence are intertwined that we get at some of the series' central conceits. i really do think they are such a daring and successful set of novels, each of which is doing something completely different with great aplomb, and while i get why people find them difficult/controversial i think the payoff is sooo worth it. i will say lol that it’s been very interesting being on both twitter and tumblr sides of the fandom and seeing such crazy dissonance not only generationally but in perceptions of the books’ themes and fanwork preferences/ideals. as for my own take i’ll say that we know tazmuir is a total edgelord, having been forged in the crucible of HOMESTUCK FIC let’s be real, and if we can’t accept that then we may very well miss where the text is pretty explicitly asking us to go!
i have a lot of overdue poetry and graphic novels for next year and i am also looking forward to reading more things pretending to be other things: currently in middle of possession by a.s. byatt and i am also excited for taiwan travelogue by yang shuang-zi and everything for everyone: an oral history of the new york commune, 2052-2072 by m.e. o’brien and eman abdelhadi.
wait before i forget oomf and i also came up with this fall reading challenge and even though i didn't hit every box i had a lot of fun...
booklist
poetry anthology: ghost ofset in or about academia: bunny
city book: there, there
"canon"/a classic: giovanni's room
horror: the bog wife
f/f historical: lonely crowds
published 2000s: the berry pickers
book for work: the history of sexuality
non-conventional chronology: kindred
multi-generational: wandering stars
sci-fi/fantasy: the left hand of darkness
micro or local book: the pacific circuit
published 1900s: parable of the talents
social movement novel: chain-gang all stars
📺 tv
xo kitty, season 2
the secret lives of mormon wives, season 1
severance, seasons 1 & 2
the pitt, season 1
american horror story: coven
over the garden wall
yuri on ice
interview with the vampire, season 1
heated rivalry, season 1
i’m such an amateur tv watcher but this year i really rediscovered watching tv with FRIENDS and have been surfing the zeitgeist accordingly (i think xo kitty is the only one i really watched alone). the hockey boys are nice but i feel so thoroughly normal about them lol. on the other hand it has been absolute bonkers watching yuri on ice for the first time nine years late to the party… a show that i cannot wholeheartedly recommend as "good" but like, i understand why it seized the hearts and minds of a generation
🎥 movies
gonjiam haunted asylum
a complete unknown 🍿
i’m still here 🍿
hell house llc
mickey 17 🍿
the bay
incantation
the encampments 🍿
summer wars
promare
maɬni—towards the ocean, towards the shore 🍿
conclave
sinners 🍿
the skeleton key
the wedding banquet 🍿
bring her back 🍿
house of wax
incantation
it follows
kpop demon hunters
weapons 🍿
may
lake mungo
the medium
the legend of hei
ne zha 2
the legend of hei 2
horror outsold probably for another year in terms of genre. i was delighted to be scared shitless by incantation which was kind of made specifically for me in a lab: found footage, breaking the fourth wall, magical/obsessive thinking, cursed children, trypophobia, mother/daughter bullshit, chinese people, the list goes on… sinners was amazing obviously, and my friends made fun of me for falling asleep in the middle of lake mungo but it was also kind of the perfect horror film to me!!!! and finally legend of hei is ssooooso cute. LUYE JIEJIE i’m free on thursday night etc.
👾 games
little kitty big city
witcher 3
hades 2
fire emblem awakening
i barely gamed at all except for a 2 week period in november where i played like 75 hours of hades 2, which FUCKS. this is a roguelite dating sim about being mixed race diaspora btw.
🎸 music
fav albums
escaper, sarah kinsley
bunky becky birthday boy, sleigh bells
synthetica, metric
kiss (deluxe), carly rae jepsen
silent alarm, bloc party
a weekend in the city, bloc party
hot, le sserafim
only cry in the rain, chuu
bloodless, samia
s, stayc
straight line was a lie, the beths
fancy that, pinkpantheress
forever is a feeling, lucy dacus
glory, perfume genius
bird’s eye, ravyn lenae
that’s showbiz baby, jade
heartlands, autoheart
01, now, now
emotion (10th anniversary edition), carly rae jepsen
1 song for each month
lovegod, sarah kinsley
changes, soccer mommy
so cynical (badum), le sserafim
only cry in the rain, chuu
north poles, samia
no front teeth, perfume genius ft. aldous harding
shapeshifter, lorde
no joy, the beths
many lives, purity ring
guardian angel, carly rae jepsen
head, shoulders, knees and ankles, hemlocke springs
roses, alisa xayalith
🎭 on stage
concerts
yves, san francisco
artms, san francisco
hitsujibungaku, sakuracon
perfume genius, chicago
lucy dacus, berkeley
japanese breakfast, san francisco
the beths, san francisco
classical
music of the americas, san francisco symphony
stardew valley symphony of seasons, oakland
plays
gumiho, nina ki
yellow face, david henry hwang
dance
the angel island project, oakland ballet
the nutcracker, pacific northwest ballet
🎟️ misc
talks
theory of water, leanne betasamosake simpson
administering hate, circulating violence, chandan reddy
indigenous confinement on the canadian plains, ben hoy
the bridge of earth, neferti tadiar
suspect policing and state violence against chinese women, laura kang
the fort surrounded, kyle kajihiro
apology and apostrophe, brandi bushman
art
born of the bear dance, omca
l’eulelogy for our super(re)latives, super futures haunt qollective
i perpetually feel like i’m not taking enough advantage of being on a campus where cool events are always happening but i want to be better about actually attending things and taking notes next year instead of zoning out in the background lesson planning or doing emails or whatever. i also attended a bunch of job talks and conference panels but shan’t dox myself any more than i already have lol.
the SFHQ performance piece was super special i’ll never forget it, like their ability to transmute grief into shared space and invite us to refuse dispossession together, the step dance transitioning into robyn’s dancing on my own like breaking through the surface for air. i’ve been reading their work for years since i was a teenager honestly so it really felt like a full circle kind of moment getting to introduce myself 🥹
final reflections
in terms of fandom i had an early return to my svt rps roots and wrote fic for the first time in half a decade, became possessed by the toxic lesbian necromancers around midyear and drew a bunch of fanart in very intense/quick succession, and am now enjoying the abandoned ruins of yoi fandom as my holiday season cope (#gotten by the b pairing once more). sylvix week was a nice fall homecoming and i got to play extensively with my friends… i want to do a director’s cut type thing for my sylvix week pieces too.
i was not that consistent about media journaling/writing down reflections but to the limited extent that i did do so i found it helpful to remember and process stuff, so i am going to try to do even better next year :) i would also like to divest more from algorithmically driven media consumption and discovery next year and have to do some more research to set this up. i will save that for another post though... happy new year everyone!!!
no subject
Date: 2026-01-04 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-28 11:50 am (UTC)I've written down so many titles under your name, will be coming back to you when I get to them!!