2025
for me
What a fuckin year, huh? It seemed to simultaneously flash before my eyes and drag on endlessly all at the same time.
I have little to report on the personal front this year: I committed social suicide by nuking all my centralized social media accounts while depending on said accounts to keep in contact with anyone, leaving myself only to live as a deranged hermit. Obsessing over hydrangeas. Yelling at deer. Having no idea what’s going on in the news. Still tbd on if this was a good idea or not.
But that freed up a lot of time for learning. The shift off centralized social media prompted me to start working on my personal website again, focusing on developing a place where I am fully in control of my own content again. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any of this, and this post being so embarrassingly late is due in large part to me being overly ambitious with what I wanted to do while still relearning how to do this stuff again. I can’t guarantee any of this will work on mobile.
But it’s okay! This exists primarily for myself to look back on later on. You can look at it too, if you want.
Welcome to my personal time capsule for the year 2025.
🎮 My Year In Gaming
2024 was such an incredible year in gaming that I went into this year absolutely begging for it to be a snoozer so I’d have a chance to catch up. It was not to be. In fact, I think 2025 may have even been better.
I started out the year doing some major PC upgrades: a new graphics card so honkin’ big I needed to upgrade to a whole new case, and with the new case, a new coolant system. It’s a shame I didn’t upgrade the RAM while I was at it. 😭
This is the first time I’ve ever had a PC that can run pretty much anything I throw at it, and my time on consoles plummeted as a result. Though I did take a little time to binge a little Mario Kart World for a bit!
HIGHLIGHTS:
🏆: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Like many, I was absolutely gobsmacked by Clair Obscur. With the way it has swept awards and dominated gaming discourse, it’s hard to imagine that I entered the year having never fucking heard of it at all. This game came out of nowhere and walloped me in the head. Surprises like this are always the best part in reflecting on a year.
The emotional story kept me guessing until the end. The art style had me in awe, and the music stopped me in my tracks more than once to exclaim incoherent noises trying to process what I was even hearing, while I got slapped to and fro in the middle of a battle. It reimagines the modern JRPG in such an obvious way that makes me sit and wonder: what the fuck have they been doing with Final Fantasy this whole time?
A lot of great games were overlooked this year because of this game, but I gotta hand it to them: 🏆 Clair Obscur was the game of the year for me, too.
Silent Hill f
Silent Hill f is a weird one for me: better than I expected it to be in some ways, disappointing in others. Something about it feels smaller, and almost quaint in comparison to last year’s SILENT HILL 2 REMAKE. It’s never particularly scary, and something about the combination of the combat system and camera style makes it feel like a PS2 game to me… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The best games in the series were all on the PS2, right?
But what it does well, it does really well. The story is dark, complex, and profoundly character driven. I love that it evolves with each subsequent playthrough, a New Game+ not just giving you a quick path to alternate endings but an entirely new angle to consider the story from.
It is a very bold move to be so experimental with their first fully original feature Silent Hill title, and I gotta applaud them for taking the risk. For its shortcomings, it does exactly what the original SILENT HILL 2 did for the series: lands that inexplicable Silent Hill feel we’re expecting, while introducing a new idea of what else the series can be.
It just feels good to have this series back, man.
DEATH STRANDING
This was my year of coming around to DEATH STRANDING. I went into the original release with all the wrong biases and expectations: mad about the SILENT HILLS cancellation, yearning for something to scratch that itch, but willing to settle for something along the lines of METAL GEAR SOLID. Death Stranding is none of these things, and really, unlike anything else out there.
With the sequel coming out, I decided to pick up the Director’s Cut and have another crack at it. Freed of my prior expectations, and a little more inclined to simply accept the nonsense it insisted on taking so seriously, I found it a much more compelling and beautiful experience.
I’m still just beginning the sequel and already feel bad that it was 100% overshadowed by Expedition 33 in awards (though I agree E33 deserves it all). Prior to Anno 117 coming along in November to claim 110 hours of my life, I spent more time in Death Stranding’s strange, melancholic world than any other game this year, and I’m glad that I gave it another chance.
STRATEGY+CITY BUILDING GAMING
I’m grouping these all together, because it was a crazy fucking year for a city building addict like myself. My two highest played franchises on Steam are Civilization and Anno, and you mean to tell me that we’re getting a new one of each of them in the same year?? girl bye
Surprisingly, CIVILIZATION VII and ANNO 117 ended up being mixed bags: I’m still on the fence about Civ7’s ages mechanic, though I did enjoy the game overall. Anno 117 is a fantastic, addictive as ever game marred by some really disappointing use of GenAI. (Though another highlight of the year was some of my screenshots and posts calling it out making the NEWS and prompting a response from Ubisoft! Ok activist!)
But we had others this year as well: FARTHEST FRONTIER exiting early access and officially released. And, more on the base management simulator end, I’ve been having a great time with THE ALTERS, enjoying it even more than the developer’s recent FROSTPUNK 2.
📖 Reading
I’ll be honest, my year in reading was pretty tragic. Especially compared to you romantasy girlies.
I wanted to allow myself room to read a few bigger books that are a bit of a commitment to get into, so I only set my goal to 20 for the year. I did hit that number, but… only by the grace of my ongoing reread of Animorphs via their new audiobooks. I’m a fraud!
It’s fun to track monthly pages read and see how it correlates to what I had going on. A strong start in January, when I think I’m going to do any better this year. Dips in the busy spring gardening months with a FULL MONTH of no reading—until July, when things hit maintenance mode and I could finally sit down with a book to enjoy my hard work. On the other hand, you can see the exact moment Anno 117 released and vanished an entire month of my life.
BOOK OF THE YEAR
DEATH’S END
CIXIN LIU
There are books you read and kinda forget about, and there are books that change you. This is one of those. It was the first book I finished this year, and I’m still thinking about it.
The ideas in this trilogy are a lofty, dark reality check that has fundamentally changed the way I see the world. It may sound nihilistic, but I actually find a lot of comfort and freedom in it.
The Full List
Some highlights:
- Finished Fonda Lee’s GREEN BONE SAGA and really recommend it. The genre mash-up of martial arts with urban fantasy and gang wars is nothing I would have picked up without incessant pestering from trusted friends, but I’m glad I listened. The characters and family drama is really top notch.
- Rachel Harrison’s PLAY NICE was a surprise. A (rather cynical) woman is tasked with dealing with the haunted house she grew up in after her mother passes, whom she resents for capitalizing on their family’s experience by exaggerating it for a book deal. I thought it’d be too similar to Grady Hendrix’s HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE, but it stands on its own. Funny, surprisingly insightful on estranged family dynamics, and yes: scary.
- BOYS IN THE VALLEY [Philip Fracassi] was gripping. Brutal. It doesn’t do a lot new—it’s just straight up old-school horror, and sometimes that kind of reliability is exactly what you need.
- I planned to reread Robin Hobb’s THE LIVESHIP TRADERS over the summer. One of my “commitment” reads I’d planned, with each book being around 900 pages of emotional trauma each. I only ended up getting around to the first one. Hobb’s books are ones you really want to sink into and savor, requiring frequent breaks considering all the… atrocities.
I haven’t read these since I was a teenager, and it was great to be back. It was so much fun to read again and catch all the things I’d missed before I knew the full lore of the world.
🎧 Listening
2025 was an immediate bummer of a year to be an American, but at least the musicians were working! What a great fucking year for music, just wall to wall from January through December.
A Year for Amy Lee
The biggest surprise of the year: The Renaivescence of Amy Lee (ha).
Amy Lee hasn’t really gone anywhere over all this time, but she (and Evanescence) have always been slow to release music and a bit shy about it.
This year was a real treat to be an Evanescence fan. Despite not releasing a full album, we had an utter blitz of collaborations and releases lasting the whole year, prompting a sudden resurgence and dare I say… appreciation…? for Evanescence??
That’s been the coolest part: Evanescence has always been something people see as kinda cringe from the emo era (don’t get me started). People know like two of their songs that they wrote as teenagers. Cursed to be too soft for hardcore rock fans, too heavy to qualify as pop girlie enough for the gays to latch on to.
Nostalgia now outweighs the stigma, and people seemed genuinely excited to see her do her thing. I think Amy sensed it too—this is the happiest and most confident I’ve ever seen her. She doesn’t have to fight to prove she belongs in this space any more.
Sleep Token proved to be a continued obsession for me this year. Even in Arcadia is actually most closer to my usual preferred style of music than their previous albums. I never cease to be amazed at number of genres they manage to cram into a single song. The ARG viral marketing leading up to the release was super fun, too.
We had the rare opportunity to see them live here in the US for the tour. While I was mildly disappointed by some aspects of the performance, the set and lighting design was incredible, and I think I’ve managed to outnumber my Halloween decorations with all the Sleep Token swag I’ve picked up this year. Which Vessel shirt shall I wear today?
Me for the last many years watching Hideo Kojima posting zero context selfies with Woodkid:
Another of my all-time favorite artists releasing material this year. Not just an album, but a full fuckin’ video game score!
I feel terrible that Death Stranding 2 was so obliterated by Expedition 33 in awards, and especially for Woodkid. You can tell he put his whole heart into this score, and it’s probably the only time he’ll ever compose for a video game.
But I will give you some flowers here, Woodkid. 💐🧎
A bit quieter on the quieter end was Of Monsters and Men’s return after around 6 years away. If you’ve never listened to them before, they’re sort of like, uh,,, if The Lumineeers had Björk in their band. Don’t tell Nanna I said that.
I highly recommend their album Beneath the Skin. And the one they released this year. Of course.
Their ethereal Icelandic folk music is as weird and transcendent as ever, and they are such kind people. I am so fond of this band, and it was great to see them for their performance in Boston.
I’m throwing Woodkid a bone and listing his arch-nemesis last. 😭
It’s been a long time since a video game’s soundtrack has stopped me in my tracks the way this one did. I have been mercilessly SMACKED into oblivion by enemies so many times because I was glitched out trying to process what the FUCK the music playing even is. So many tracks that start out sounding like generic JRPG music that suddenly burst into some crazy banger outta nowhere.
All from some guy with a SoundCloud they hit up on a video game forum lol.
Here’s a few of my favorite tracks:
📺 Watching
Honestly wasn’t very interested in TV this year, though one highlight was HBO’s 🎈 WELCOME TO DERRY. I’m a huge Stephen King fan, and this was a particular highlight as I’d just gone on the “Derry” tour in Bangor, Maine a couple months earlier. This tour has been a bucket list thing for awhile, and it was so cool to see real life locations I’ve actually been to on the show. They’d done an excellent job of incorporating so many niche easter eggs that would have gone right over my head if I hadn’t gone on that tour, and it was fun catching them all. I can only imagine how exciting it was for the couple that runs the tours back in Bangor to watch.
DIE, MY LOVE
Like most movies I love and adore, DIE, MY LOVE was missed by most and hated by just about as many of them. I do not care.
This is one of the best films I’ve seen in years. I have so much to say about it that it warrants a post all on its own. I’m half-tempted to get back into YouTube, just to talk about this movie.
An incredibly raw and poetic look at depression, isolation, and a crisis of identity. While I fully expect to have forgotten about most of the things on my list this year, this is one of those movies that will become a permanent cultural cornerstone for me, that I’ll be thinking about for years to come.
K-POP DEMON HUNTERS
This movie had absolutely no business being as good as it was. Not even the hype prepared me for it. I put this on for something cute to have playing in the background, but I couldn’t peel my eyes off of it for the entire runtime. Great songs, yes, and very funny, but I truly did not expect it to have so much heart.
If you’ve made it to the end, you are probably as exhausted as I am. Why did I decide to go so extra with this post? Who knows. It was fun, though.
The only intentions I’m setting for 2026 is to survive. And maybe take a few more walks. And finish more things that I’ve started. Beginning with this lil time capsule.
Thanks for reading.
My name is Jeremy, but my friends call me Germ.
I’m a Colorado ex-pat who left behind a corporate life and ghosts of the cult I grew up in to live my autumnal fantasy in the New England woods.
Here, I share my notes as a struggling gardener, my attempts at cosplaying as a tech enthusiast, and general long-winded pop culture commentary.
You can find out more about my other projects, where to find me, and general contact here.
