Your main fandom last year?
Irish traditional music, which decidedly does not have a presence on Dreamwidth and which by far occupied the majority of my time (to the exclusion even of reading). I made a ton of progress on flute during the months when humidity levels made playing possible and started regularly playing in two sessions (one pub, one house). As of year's end I had 59 tunes I can play in my sleep, 119 I can play at standard (but not session warp) speed, and 75 that I am working on getting solidly under my fingers.

Your favorite movie watched last year?
I watched only ten movies in 2025, one of which (Hundreds of Beavers) I watched twice, and only five of which (Bolt, Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, Hundreds of Beavers, and Thunderbolts*) I hadn't seen before. Of those, Hundreds of Beavers and Thunderbolts* were the clear favorites. Thunderbolts* was the only movie I saw in a theater.

Your favorite book read last year?
In fiction, Disha Bose's I Will Blossom Anyway, and in nonfiction, Ronald Hutton's Pagan Britain. My full 2025 Reading Roundup is here.

Your favorite TV show of the year?
Dragon Prince: Book 7 - Dark was my favorite fictional show, and The American Revolution my favorite nonfiction show.

Your favorite video game of the year?
Turns out 2025 was not a banner video game year for me, due to a combination of microsoft nuking my computer (and with it my progress on half a dozen games), work craziness that left me too tired for gaming, and the GC having primacy on the consoles. That said, I replayed Thank Goodness Your Here!, a game that just gets better with each run through.

Your favorite song, album, or artist to listen to this year?
Song: RTÉ's live recording of Cran playing Na Ceannabháin Bhána
Album: Hand of Kalliach's Corryvreckan. This is a metal album.
Artist: Cran, who are pretty much what I want Irish traditional music to sound like.

Favorite podcast of the year?
While not exactly a podcast, I watched the heck out of Ronald Hutton's Gresham College lectures on Youtube.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Learning that what I thought was my copy of Cran's debut CD, The Crooked Stair, was actually an unauthorized compilation album released by an unscrupulous label that replaced multiple tracks from Crooked Stair with tunes by a completely different group. I then managed to finally get a copy of the actual Crooked Stair, finally listened to the whole, real, album, and discovered that the missing tunes from the compilation include banger versions of several of my favorites--among them The Hills of Coore, Fiollaigean, and Lexy McAskill. It's been on heavy rotation ever since.

Your biggest fandom disappointment?
I'm so bummed Azhanharad didn't have more page time in Katherine Addison's Tomb of Dragons. I just love this character, and he was criminally underused.

Your TV book boyfriend of the year?
Sturmhond from Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone series is a delight.

Your TV girlfriend of the year?
Harley Cameron's Mercedes Monae ventriloquist puppet promos on AEW were fire.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Having an email exchange with one of the ITM players I absolutely idiolize, who improbably seemed as excited to be talking to me as I was to him.

Fandom resolutions for 2026?
To write and post some fic. I lost several hundred thousand words of in-progress fanfic when microsoft nuked my computer last year, which pretty much destroyed my motivation to write over the following 12 months.

Your biggest fannish anticipations for the new year?
I...don't really have any this year. Let's see what the next 12 months bring!

My complete(ish) 2025 Multimedia List is here.

これで以上です。
I hope everyone who celebrates [...] at this time of year has had a lovely [...] and that all others are having a lovely end to the year.

It has been a crazy *coughmumble* number of weeks since I've managed a post. Giftsmas yesterday was lovely: I have new board games! Books! Fountain pen inks! And (joy of joys) a ceramic burr grinder from the GC, who also seemed pretty happy with the things I got for him. These included two Adrian Tchaikovsky novels--signed!--which he had no idea he was getting. (This took some work--and a slight chance of missing an international flight--and the payoff was more than worth it.)

We decamped mid-afternoon for Geek BBQer DM's house, where we spent the next six hours going gluttonous on Virginia ham, salmon, winter veggie dishes, cheeses, brandied fruit, panettone, several bottles of very good wine, and more baked goods than is advisable with a dozen other Geek BBQers and adjacent family and friends. It was an excellent time and still going strong when we reluctantly excused ourselves and went home, as the GC's holiday leave was cancelled second-to-last minute this year for Reasons and

I spentGiftsmas Eve morning baking, with a break to make stuffed onions for lunch. The afternoon was filled with more baking, and then dinner: Balsamic pork roast, green bean casserole, homemade stuffing, and cranberry relish. We wrapped up in time to make it to Geek BBQ to celebrate with the manager, who comped us some very, very pours (Ardbeg Hypernova, Jefferson's Reserve, and Masculine Charms Of A Hairy Highlander) and half a pound of pulled pork. And we squeezed in annual watches of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and The Fellowship of the Ring.

Tuesday saw the GC working and me baking until dinner, during which we watched Community's Comparative Religion and then headed to Geek BBQ, where we ironed out the final details for Giftsmas dinner and compared notes on the week's EO shenanigans. On Monday, we wrapped up meal planning and seasonal shopping for gifts and the rest of the week, and then I headed to that evening's Monday session. Which I love playing at, but for someone who is asleep by 7:30 more nights than not, the 8:15 start time is...rough.

Sunday was, of course, the Solstice. I'd already finished this year's Solstice read (Howl's Moving Castle) so that was taken care of early. Otherwise, we got the greenery up and I spent seven hours on the annual kitchen clean, cleaning, reorganizing, and inventorying everything in the fridge, freezer, cupboards, and shelves ahead of concentrated holiday baking. After that, we had our final D&D Homebrew 2 Campaign session of the year and it was a banger. Sooooo much plot and character development, all of it unscripted, all of it excellent. There was zero combat, I did one dice roll the entire five-hour session (there were probably fewer than five dice rolls from all the players combined) and it did not feel like anything was lacking.) This is just a phenomenal group with a phenomenal DM and I am so happy to be playing with them.

Last week's Monday Session was rescheduled to Saturday afternoon, which: A+ Would Reschedule Again. I am just so much sharper as a player when I'm *cough* awake.

Last week's Geek BBQ was our annual Whiskey White Elephant. Fully a third of the gifts this year were Scotch whiskies (up from one during the inaugural), which was great news for me. We came away with a very good (although not the best) one, with two snifters into the bargain--a nice bonus, given that we'd previously sacrificed all of ours to various PPVs we've hosted over the year. As another bonus, the two other best bottles were both claimed by good friends RI and HA, meaning we basically own all of them in common now. 😝 Our contribution was also well-received by its final recipient and the other folks who tried it, so that was nice too.

In other miscellany, we watched The American Revolution, which had more of a military (vice political/cultural) focus than I'd expected, but still did a very good job of highlighting where all the vaunted rhetoric fell very, very short in practice. We also made progress on our Geek BBQ group watches of Vinland Saga and Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition, which has been a fascinating experience given that we're about equally divided between people who remember (with varying degrees of fondness and frustration) the original Eva(s) and people who are coming to the universe for the very first time.

これで以上です。
My 2024 time off came in January, and therefore so are my 2024 memes. This one came from [personal profile] kingstoken.


Your main fandom last year?
That would be Baldur’s Gate 3, to such a life-consuming degree it was basically my only fandom in 2024. I played 400+ hours over the course of six months. I have one NPC quest boss battle and the final battle to complete, and then I will have finished the game. I have been avoiding doing either because once they’re done, I will have finished the game. 😭

Your favorite movie watched last year?
My favorite 2024 release was, hands down, Deadpool & Wolverine.

My favorite older but first-time watch was Colossal, which I thought was going to be a kaiju movie, but which is is actually a feminist horror film, and an absolutely excellent one at that.

My favorite documentary was Coded Bias, which was so infuriating I had to repeatedly pause it to go take agitated walks, despite having already read the scholarship it’s presenting.

Your favorite book read last year?
Of the new-to-me books I read in 2024, this is probably a four-way tie between Ann Leckie’s Translation State, Amy Lipcott’s The Outrun, Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, and Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits, which I inhaled in a day and which is still lodged in my brain a week later. Of these four, only the first has a fandom presence (although Glorious Exploits is ripe for one).

Your favorite TV show of the year?
Say Nothing. I rocketed through the book in two days in March and immediately went poking around online to see what others' thoughts were. This revealed that Disney+ had optioned the rights for a screen adaptation. That will never happen, I thought. Fast forward to November, when I saw that it in fact had. But there’s no way it’ll be any good, I thought. It was indeed very good. So good, in fact, that the GC (who doesn't like documentaries or historical dramas) ended up eagerly watching the entire thing.

Your favorite video game of the year?
See: “Your main fandom this year”, above.

Your favorite song, album, or artist to listen to this year?
Song: Crows’ Bored. This song is a freaking banger. As is the album it’s on. As is Crows’ entire catalogue.
Album: Robbie McGowran’s The Irish Way. Just classic, artful playing all the way through.
Artist: Russian Circles. Their albums are phenomenal, as was their live show this fall.

Favorite podcast of the year
The only podcast I listened to start-to-finish this year was Tortoise Media’s Master, which was horrific, excellently written, and wholly believable.

In terms of as-yet-ongoing listens, I enjoyed the Grimfrost and History Fuzz podcasts immensely. The first is a wonderfully in-depth look at various aspects of Norse and Viking history that focuses on the historical record even when that might contradict the dearly held positions of various likely audience democraphics. The latter is an enjoyable look at European and pre-Columbian American archeoastronomy, although listeners will have to put up with a fair amount of purile academic cattiness from the host alongside the good stuff.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
While not a “big” discovery per se, I remain tickled by this BG3 Easter egg.
Specifically, this book, entitledYoshimo Is Willing.


Larian sees you, OG BG players.


Your biggest fandom disappointment?
Pulling a full-on “Troy meets LaVar Burton” when meeting Coinneach MacLeod. How does this happen? I am always so smooth in my head.

Your TV video game boyfriend of the year?
Astarion, aka the Felix Harrowgate of Faerun. What a freaking fantastic character arc.

Your TV video game girlfriend of the year?
Karlach, whose IRL girlfriend I would be in a second, if she existed IRL.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Finding myself less than two feet away from Pac, Cesaro, and Jon Moxley as they made their Dynamite ring entrance last month.


       


Mox turning his cold, cold stare on me for a solid 7 seconds as he stalked by was An Experience.


(Bonus: the GC and I have a friend who wrestles for *mumble mumble* promotion out West. We both wore his t-shirt to the show. He saw us wearing them while watching the live broadcast and was over the moon.)


Fandom resolutions for next year?
I don't really have any? Ideally, I just keep reading, writing, and watching.

Your biggest fannish anticipations for the new year?
I’ve already written about my excitement for Paraic O’Donnell and Natasha Pulley’s new books. To this, let me add the publication of Katherine Addison’s The Tomb of Dragons, which comes out in March.

My full 2024 Multimedia List is here.

これで以上です。
lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
( Jan. 1st, 2025 08:34 am)
Being a list of the movies, podcasts, television, and tabletop and computer games I completed, live shows I went to, and albums I purchased, in 2024.

2024 Multimedia List
Movies
  • A Christmas Story
  • Coded Bias
  • Colossal
  • Deadpool 2
  • Deadpool & Wolverine
  • Mad Max: Furiosa
  • National Lampoon Christmas Vacation
  • Palm Springs
  • Surveilled
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past

    Podcasts
  • Am I Broken: Season 4 Episode 2
  • Master: The allegations against Neil Gaiman

    Live Music
  • And So I Watch You From Afar
  • Beck & the National Symphony Orchestra
  • Caspian
  • Cat Power
  • CSS
  • Dance With The Dead
  • Dandy Warhols
  • Disturbed
  • Djunah
  • Elder
  • Ex-Pilots
  • Falling in Reverse
  • The Hu
  • Iron Maiden
  • Korine
  • Live
  • Modest Mouse
  • Nils Hoffman
  • Nora En Pure
  • Opeth
  • Pixies
  • PJ Harvey
  • Russian Circles
  • Soul Asylum
  • Sleater-Kinney
  • Stone Temple Pilots
  • Sultan & Shepherd
  • Tinlicker
  • Tribulation
  • Tool

    Live Shows
  • AEW Dynamite (December)
  • AEW Rampage (December)
  • AEW Collision (June)
  • AEW Dynamite (June)
  • The Hebridean Baker

    Tabletop Games
  • 4bidden Words
  • Cribbage
  • D&D: The Stygian Gambit
  • Hues & Cues
  • Magic the Gathering: Brotherhood Agents
  • One Night Werewolf
  • The Resistance
  • Stifling Dark: Lumber Yard (villain 1)
  • Stifling Dark: Lumber Yard (villain 2)

    Television
  • AEW: Revolution
  • AEW/RoH: Forbidden Door
  • Adventure Time: Season 5
  • Adventure Time: Season 6
  • Adventure Time: Season 7
  • Dragon Prince: Book 5
  • DragonStrike
  • Good Omens: Season One
  • Good Omens: Season Two
  • Good Omens: Season Two (rewatch)
  • He-Man: Masters of the Universe — Revolution
  • The Night Agent
  • Our Flag Means Death: Season Two
  • The Owl House: Season 2
  • Ren Faire
  • Say Nothing

    Computer/Console Games
  • Samorost
  • Wordle

    Albums Acquired
  • Afro Celt Sound System - Volume 2: Release
  • And So I Watch You From Afar - Jettison
  • And So I Watch You From Afar - Megafauna
  • Black Doldrums - In Limerance
  • Blondie - The Real Real Girl
  • The Bothy Band - Out of the Wind, Into the Sun
  • The Bronzed Chorus - Gleaming
  • The Bronzed Chorus - I'm The Spring
  • Joe Burke - The Tailor's Choice
  • Chery Glazzer - I Don't Want You Anymore
  • CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
  • Brian Conway & Tony DeMarco - Apples In Winter
  • Crows - Beware Believers
  • Crows - Reason Enough
  • Crows - Silver Tongue
  • Clarissa Connelly - Tech Duinn
  • Dandy Warhols - The Black Album
  • Dandy Warhols - This Machine
  • Deanta - Ready For The Storm
  • Deanta - Whisper of a Secret
  • Delain - Dark Waters
  • Delain - Moonbathers
  • Todd Denman - A Celtic Peace
  • Todd Denman - Soustice
  • Disturbed - The Sickness
  • Liz Doherty - Let Scotland Flourish
  • Drones & Bellows - The Dancing Dog
  • Elder - Dead Roots Stirring
  • Elder - Innate Passage
  • Elder - Lore
  • Elder - Spires Burn/Release
  • Elderbrook - Simmer Down
  • Elderbrook - Travel Slow
  • The End of the Ocean - In Excelsis
  • Escape-Ism - Rated Z
  • Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
  • Explosions In The Sky - The End
  • Filska - A Thousand Miles Away
  • Julie Fowlis - Allt
  • Garbage - Bleed Like Me
  • Martin Garrix - Bylaw
  • Martin Garrix - Seven
  • Frankie Gavin - The Master's Return
  • Geraldine Cotter - Traditional Irish Tunes (Disc 1)
  • Geraldine Cotter - Traditional Irish Tunes (Disc 2)
  • Gesaffelstein - Hyperion
  • Gesaffelstein - Novo Sonic System
  • Giolì & Assia - Fire, Hell, and Holy Water
  • Giolì & Assia - Moon Phases
  • God Is An Astronaut - Embers
  • Gothminister - Gothic Electronic Anthems
  • Gothminister - Happiness in Darkness
  • S.C. Hamilton - The Irish Flute Player's Handbook
  • Heilung - Lifa Iotungard
  • The House Band - Another Setting
  • The House Band - October Song
  • The House Band - Rockall
  • Michal Hromek - Celtic Guitar
  • Hyper - Control
  • Keane, Connolly, McGorman - Keane, Connolly, McGorman
  • Brendan Keenan - Brendan Keenan
  • Le Castle Vania - Himmel und Hölle
  • Le Castle Vania - Prophication
  • Le Castle Vania - Troubletron
  • Le Castle Vania - Nobody Gets Out Alive
  • Annie Lennox - Diva
  • Lights & Motion - Bloom
  • Lights & Motion - Chronicle
  • Lights & Motion - Dear Avalanche
  • Lights & Motion - Reanimation
  • Lilt - Onward
  • Lleuwen - Gwin Gan Beibl Budr
  • Robbie MacGowran - The Irish Way
  • Maeve MacKinnon - Don't Sing Love Songs
  • Cathal McConnell - Long Expectant Comes At Last
  • Cathal McConnell & Roger Morton - An Irish Jubilee
  • Ted McGraw - Mostly Set Dances
  • Ted McGraw - Tunes
  • Ted McGraw - More Tunes
  • Ted McGraw - Irish Waltzes
  • Ted McGraw - Scottish Waltzes
  • Ted McGraw - Square and Contra Dance Tunes
  • Ted McGraw - Concertina
  • Therese McInerney & Marian Curtin - The Youth That Belonged To Miltown
  • Justin Mylo - What I Am Looking For
  • Thomas O'Canainn - The Pennyburn Piper
  • Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
  • Sinead O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra
  • Conal O'Grada - An Fheadog Mhor
  • Jerry O'Sullivan - The Invasion
  • Opeth - Blackwater Park
  • Opeth - Damnation
  • Pádraic Keane, Páraic Mac Donnechadha, Maedara Ó Faoláin - Beo
  • Poliça - Lipstick Stains / Still Counts
  • Ruefrex - Flowers For All Occassions
  • Russian Circles - Gnosis
  • Sean Ryan - Siuil Uait
  • Sarasara - Elixir
  • Sarasara - Orgone
  • Shallowhalo - Connection
  • Scottish Rogues - Scottish Rogues
  • *Shels - Laurentian's Atoll
  • *Shels - Plains of the Purple Buffalo
  • *Shels - Sea of the Dying Dhow
  • *Shels - Wingsfortheirsmiles
  • Sylvaine - Eg Er Framand
  • Tuesday the Sky - The Blurred Horizon
  • Tuesday the Sky - Drift
  • Tusks - Gold
  • Underworld - Beaucoup Fish
  • Unwed Sailor - Live at Commvess
  • Unwed Sailor - Mute the Charm
  • Unwed Sailor - Tour EP 2011
  • VA - Masters of the Irish Harp
  • Fintan Vallely - Traditional Irish Music
  • Catriona Watt - Cadal Cuain
  • Year Of No Light - Mneme

  • これで以上です。
    lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
    ( Jan. 2nd, 2024 05:50 pm)
    Another wrap-up post? Sure, why not. I'm only listing media I actively consumed and finished (i.e., no movies on in the background, no games or television series still in progress, no podcasts where I cherrypicked specific episodes to listen to).

    Given everything that went down, I really didn't have the attention span or joy in imagination to consume much visual media in the latter half of the year, but that means there's just more for me to wrap up this year. On the flip side, it was a pretty good year for live music (and we didn't even get to half of the shows we were interested in seeing).

    I may come back at some point and add notes or thoughts about each, but for starters, let's just get the list down.

    Movies
  • Ant Man: Quantumania

  • The Banshees of Inisherin

  • Barbie

  • A Christmas Story

  • Dungeons & Dragons

  • Flash

  • Guardians of the Galaxy 3

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail

  • National Lampoon Christmas Vacation

  • Oppenheimer

  • The Room

  • Scrooged

  • Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

  • Spotlight

  • 올빼미

    TV
  • Adventure Time: Season 3

  • Adventure Time: Season 4

  • Last Week Tonight: Season 10

  • Legend of Vox Machina: Season 2

  • Loki: Season 2

  • Ms. Marvel

  • The Owl House: Season 1

  • Ragnarok: Season 1

  • Werewolf by Night

    Podcasts
  • 30for30: Bikram

    Computer/Console Games
  • Wordle

    Live Music
  • 100 Gecs

  • 311

  • Asking Alexandria

  • Beck

  • Bush

  • Breaking Benjamin

  • Candlebox

  • Cherry Glazrr

  • Cold War Kids

  • Collective Soul

  • Dandy Warhols

  • Disturbed

  • Explosions in the Sky

  • Fear Factory

  • Fever Ray

  • Filter

  • Franz Ferdinand

  • Garbage

  • Godsmack

  • The Hu

  • I Ya Toyah

  • Jinjer

  • Live

  • Live (unplugged)

  • Machinegirl

  • Matt & Kim

  • Metric

  • Mix Master Mike

  • Mushroomhead

  • No Second Troy

  • Noel Gallagher's Flying Circus

  • Paul Okenfold

  • Phoenix

  • Pixies

  • Stabbing Westward

  • Staid

  • Static-X

  • Silversun Pickups

  • Toni Smooth

  • Visors

  • Walkaways

  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs

    Live TV
  • AEW Dynamite

  • AEW Rampage

    Tabletop Games

  • The Captain Is Dead

  • Delta Green one-shot

  • D&D Delian Tomb homebrew campaign

  • D&D Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

  • D&D Feywild homebrew campaign

  • D&D Homebrew campaign: Season 2

  • D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign #1

  • D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign #2

  • D&D Spelljammer Jpop homebrew campaign playtest



    これで以上です。
  • Covering the first five months of the year.

    Doing. )


    Playing. )


    Reading. )


    Watching. )


    Writing. )

    これで以上です。
    .

    Profile

    lebateleur: A picture of the herb sweet woodruff (Default)
    Trismegistus

    Syndicate

    RSS Atom

    Most Popular Tags

    Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

    Style Credit

    Expand Cut Tags

    No cut tags