Last year I tried to make a point to watch more gay things, mostly films and tv shows from the past that for whatever reason I had never gotten around to watching (or in some cases, was way too closeted to even approach). I did okay, but this year I have a much stronger desire to watch a lot more.

The consensus on Reddit is that something important was lost in the streaming version of Queer as Folk US. When they made the show it was before streaming was a thing so they didn't have the music rights for that purpose, and had to replace everything with sound-a-like tracks. Seeing as how even pirated versions of the show use rips from streaming, the only way to watch the show with the original soundtrack are the out-of-print DVDs. So for the past couple of weeks I've been staring at ebay listings weighing whether its worth the cost, and if I value the soundtrack more than picture quality (since I'm sure what's on streaming will look better on my 4K tv than the DVDs will).

I also watched what I thought was the first episode of The Big Gay Sketch Show, but was actually the second, and it's disheartening how difficult it is to find coherent information on as well as a place to watch it. (It's honestly unclear if the third season is available anywhere at all).

In general, I wish there was more value and effort in preserving these television programs in particular. (And movies. I'm still sore that the Priscilla Queen of the Desert 4K release seems to only be a very expensive out-of-print limited edition.)

I didn't use this account much last year because, as I alluded to in my last couple of posts, the first half of 2025 was pretty bad in most areas of my life. By the time things got notably better around June, I was making more of an effort to do things outside of my apartment and away from the internet in general, which led me to essentially dropping any writing/specific television plans I was tentatively making. Ended up watching most of Death in Paradise in the background when I was at home. I've been keeping up with my gacha games, which is about as consistent as I was with anything last year.

Probably the biggest change in terms of my media diet was that I started watching anime again. I resumed these review threads I had been making the past few years, this time on Bluesky rather than Twitter. The most notable thing is I got caught up on Jujutsu Kaisen after putting off the second season for ages, and I got to see the special compilation film in theaters last month.

Some additional recent highlights:

☆ Anime: I was starting to get the itch at the beginning of 2025, but I finally fell back into watching anime in earnest starting with a rewatch of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! in order to watch the follow-up movie. It was the second season of My Dress-Up Darling, possibly my favorite anime of 2025, that fully cemented my return, and the summer craze of The Summer Hikaru Died gave me a really nice communal feeling of watching an anime that I haven't felt in years.

I'm already watching current shows and diving into my backlog. Coincidentally, a bunch of my favorite longer running shows are ending this year, such as Fire Force and Dr. Stone. A usual anime convention is off my roster now so I'm keen to seek out more in order to keep myself busy and in the culture.

☆ Television: Despite all the drama and production issues behind the scenes, I actually really loved most of the most recent season of Doctor Who and The War Between the Land and the Sea. Considering we won't be getting anything new until the Christmas Special at the end of the year, I may end up writing out more of my thoughts on the RTD2 era and the episodes I loved and hated in it, as well as finally finish that long-postponed Wilderness years watch.

Like the rest of the world, I fell in love with Heated Rivalry. As a queer man who is the same age at the same time as both of the lead characters, and came out of the closet on a similar timeline, I resonated with a lot of it despite not being a hot sexy pro athlete. As I said above, I fell into a pattern of marathoning through Death in Paradise at a very rapid pace (with breaks between detective changes, much like how I watched Classic Doctor Who). I also went back and watched some "older" queer television shows like the UK Queer as Folk and Sordid Lives, and I really want to keep that up this year (especially the US Queer as Folk, which I've been curious about since I was a teenager but was too scared to watch.)

The one property that, especially the past few months, that has really fallen off for me is Drag Race. The production and discourse around All Stars 10 is a nightmare that continues to this day (in part because certain cast members can't shut the fuck up) and the seventh season of UK was easily the worst of the UK franchise and might be the most excruciatingly boring of all of them. I've also experienced more (but not enough) drag shows in real life and it's really lowered my opinion of some of the people who get on the show with a clear lack of skill and gas themselves up. The recent seasons of Spain and Canada have been excellent, but in all honesty the rumors of Nicole Paige Brooks being cast on Australia vs the World is what's keeping me hanging on at this point.

☆ Gaming: I'm still playing and enjoying Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves. Genshin and WuWa are in a particularly strong spot right now in my opinion, whereas HSR is in a really weird one. Phainon and Mydei as characters have rewired my brain and I'm lowkey mad I haven't been able to write any fic for them, but that's due in part to the issues I've been having with the game aside from the Currency Wars game mode. The current diplomatic issues between China and Japan has also apparently led to the game scrapping assets for what would have been a Japan-themed region scheduled to drop in a month, so I'm very worried about what this quickly-edited next year of the game will be like. The story of the past year's content was way too bloated and I'm worried this could be a lethal blow to the game.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons also announced, out of nowhere, that there's going to be a new 3.0 update. However, I've been having technical issues with my Switch where controllers won't sync with it, not even the joycons unless they're physically attached, but the months-long issue I've had with my PC has taken precedence.

☆ Theatre: A "new" category for these kinds of posts, but I don't live that far from New York City, and I've come to realize that my only real obstacle to seeing Broadway shows is cost. Logistically, it's actually not that hard? So in the past few months I've seen Beetlejuice and Hamilton on Broadway, and Messy White Gays Off-Broadway. I'm hoping to see more shows in the coming year, such as Oh Mary!, but I also want to see if I can continue my trend in seeing shows with other people and not just settling for going solo (which I'm fine with doing, it's just more fun with other people).

I could go into more things (like concerts and trips) but I think that hits most things I'm interested in talking about on here. I always say I want to post more and then I don't, but I honestly would. It's nice to go back and see what I was up to and what my headspace was like, even if it's just a list of the media I'm consuming. I do want to do more in-depth reviews like I've done in the past, but time will tell.

Happy New Year everyone! Hopefully the rest of it is better than the first week has been.

Got inspired to write something after seeing that the official organization for NaNoWriMo is shutting down, which I'm honestly not too broken up about due to their embrace of AI last year. Despite being trapped in a kind of brainfog for most of March, the last week or so I've felt myself lift out of it and actually managed to write some drafts that may eventually turn into something I can post on AO3. Instead of waiting for November, I'm contemplating setting myself a weekly(?) writing goal to encourage me to stick with it. So far my bursts of inspiration the past couple of years have ended because I either put too much pressure on myself or none at all, so maybe landing in some kind of middle ground is the solution.

Doctor Who returns in a couple of weeks and I still haven't gotten around to finishing the Wilderness Years, which was definitely hampered in part from leaving Twitter where I hosted my threads with my first impressions. The trailer for the new season looks really good, but the way Disney has been handling its properties lately makes me nervous that the rumors of Ncuti Gatwa shooting a regeneration scene may have some truth to them. Regardless, I do have faith that RTD will step in if Disney tries to exert undue control over the show, or condition further funding on catering the show to a rightwing audience.

In my last entry I mentioned I started watching Twin Peaks. I've been enjoying it but it's been a slow burn (I'm not yet done with the first season). I've gotten in the habit the past few years of watching television while simultaneously doing another task, and Twin Peaks is something that really demands my attention in a way that doesn't really allow that. Not that I'm complaining, it's just taking me a bit to readjust.

The world is, well, what it is currently. Trying to delve back more into stimulating/creative pursuits (actually being able to sit down and write more than a couple of paragraphs of fic still seems to evade me, but perhaps one day.)

☆ Television: I finished rewatching the first season of She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat - a very charming J-Drama about two women cooking together and then falling in love. I'm excited to start on season 2, especially since I think I can credit this show with pulling me out of the brain fog I've been in the past few months since the election. The series is based on a manga and I want to pick up physical copies of it from my local bookstore, especially since that version is still ongoing while I'm pretty sure the show has ended.

Last night I also (finally!) started watching Twin Peaks. Did a double take when I realized that the story was actually set on February 24th as well. I am kind of kicking myself for not watching this sooner, both because David Lynch passed earlier this year and because I'm pretty sure I got spoiled at some point for who "the killer" is and I'm 80% sure I know which character it is from the jump, which lowkey sucks. The pilot was fantastic though and I'm looking forward to diving more into it.

I've also been making my way through The Great North, and while I like it I think doing it right after watching all of Central Park and catching up on Bob's Burgers is burning me out on it a little. Keeping up with Drag Race like usual, and also currently watching Abbott Elementary, Happy's Place, and Mayfair Witches week-to-week. Doctor Who is coming back in April and I'm looking forward to it even as I'm nervous for the show's future.

☆ Anime: Started getting the itch to finally start watching more Anime again. Last year I really only watched the reboot of Spice and Wolf (along with a rewatch of the original, and reading the original source material). I somehow got it in my head that now's the time to watch Trigun and I'm not gonna fight it. The question now remains whether I'll watch it while doing cardio like I'm hoping or not.

☆ Gaming: Still doing the daily grind of Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Wuthering Waves. The other day I briefly flirted with redownloading Zenless Zone Zero but keeping up with four live service games is definitely too much especially if I wanna branch out and do other things with my free time. Hello Kitty Island Adventure is finally out on Nintendo Switch but I think I may wait for the physical version to release, especially with the weird flux state the Switch is in right now with it's successor on the horizon.

I'm gonna aim to do more periodic posts like this, especially as a way to keep my brain engaged with how I'm spending my time. As the weather gets better I'd also like to do more activities outside of media consumption and possible creation. Maybe this summer I'll achieve the romantic ideal of sitting in a park somewhere and writing.

So I haven't been in much of a headspace the past couple of months to do my normal type of writing around "event" releases - in this case the 60th Anniversary Specials of Doctor Who and the Xmas Special/First Episode of Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor.

( Spoilers for the 60th Anniversary Specials and The Church on Ruby Road, if it matters )

So my plan of watching all the Wilderness Years content in 2022 didn't pan out for one reason or another, nor did my planned New Who rewatch in 2023 (which has been surprisingly Doctor Who-lite in general). I have spent the past year tinkering with my approach a bit, which involved dividing this era into three sections as well as the TV movie, and it seems like it's mostly worked. The one part I've been going back and forth on is whether to include Reeltime and BBV films in the same ranking or to split them up. In the end I decided since these lists are gonna be divided up as it is why add another. (I will add that I am not watching any BBV material while providing any sort of financial support to the company, in light of what happened last year. Read into that as you will.)

Going into this I was expecting a dip in quality, mostly from visual production and scripting. However, the most common issue I ran into is sound quality, which I'm bringing up here because I suspect the sound mixing may have been fixed in versions of these releases I do not have access to, making it a marginally unfair metric to hold against it. That said, this aspect is important since I had trouble following what was happening in at least two of these. I actually ended up pretty impressed with how most of these turned out visually, to be honest.

Overall, this review covers video content from the '90s released prior to the 1996 TV Movie. This includes two officially licensed "special" productions by the BBC, and four independently-made spinoff films with officially licensed characters and/or monsters. I've ranked each story based on these two designations.

( Mum used to think that you were some sort of spy. We used to hope it, because at least that would be interesting. )

Honestly didn't realize that I haven't posted anything here yet this year. January was both unending and somehow sped by without me really noticing.

The month has mostly been dealing with work stuff and playing Genshin Impact. I've made it pretty far already after only starting a month ago, but I think I've finally hit a stage where it's gonna basically force me to slow down which is probably a good thing. Also been watching (and re-watching) K-Pop survival shows. Boys Planet is fine so far but I'm much more invested in Girl's Re:Verse and Peak Time (which hasn't premiered yet but DKB will be in it so...)

Doctor Who has been more on the back-burner than I had expected in it's anniversary year, but that might be because new episodes are so far away that it's been out of sight out of mind. Kind of bummed that I didn't finish out the Wilderness Years last year but I still have plenty of time. (Honestly Twitter itself might implode before the Specials air at this rate).

The only down side is that my sleeping habits have gotten really bad - either I'm not getting enough or I'm getting too much at the wrong time. It's made it really difficult to do any kind of consistent exercise much less start going to the gym like I've wanted to. I just wish the learning curve for using gym equipment and actually getting some kind of personal training wasn't made so deliberately difficult.
 

I've given myself a couple of days to let the episode sink in, as a lot happened and there was a fair amount I was surprised by (and a couple of things that people theorized that I'm surprised came to pass). Overall I was pretty happy with it even though it suffered from some of the same writing pitfalls as the rest of the Chibnall era, but this definitely erred on the better side.

( As River Song would say: Spoilers )

I debated whether I should write one of these, since we're less than two hours away from the episode's premiere in the UK, but with the looming self-imposed six hour internet blackout to avoid spoilers, I figured now was the last chance I'd have to commit at least some of my thoughts and theories to a post. And I have to stress some, since a sixth month wait for a single episode of television gave me a lot of time to form various thoughts and expectations for one of the biggest episodes of Doctor Who in recent memory.

I have seen the trailers, but I haven't (at least knowingly) been spoiled for anything outside of that that actually happens in the episode. As far as I can tell the people who saw the advanced screening of the episode have been very good about keeping their mouths shut, only confirming that whatever happens with the regeneration at the end was not shown to them. So I'm going into this with high hopes and what I think are reasonable expectations.

( I think I have pretty reasonable expectations, but who knows? )

Haven't posted in ages because for about a month and a half I was crazy busy and in the last couple of weeks I've been doing basically nothing. Though I'll probably have more to post in the coming months as I finally get into Wilderness Years Doctor Who content and the Centenary Special gets closer.

I'm in a weird mental headspace that's definitely not burnout. I experienced that in spades back in the winter. It's more like restlessness I guess? Like there's so much I want to do but can never seem to find the time to actually do it? It doesn't help that my sleep schedule is the worst its been in years the past couple of weeks, and try as I might I cannot seem to fix it.

☆ Television: I've been keeping up with Drag Race the past few weeks but that's really about it as far as Western TV goes. I'm also technically watching Roswell New Mexico but I'm very behind on it, though I do want to get caught up sooner rather than later because it is the final season. I managed to stay current with the final season of Legacies and it was definitely worth the investment.

☆ Anime: The tradeoff to not watching much regular TV is that I'm finally watching anime again! I go through phases where I watch I ton for a while and then none for months at a time, and it feels nice to get caught up with certain shows and get reminded how much I actually do love the medium. This current resurgence is definitely thanks to My Dress-Up Darling. Now I just need to do my rewatch of The Devil is a Part-Timer! so I can actually start watching season 2.

☆ Gaming: It's mostly still just been Animal Crossing and Fortnite, though I recently replayed all of the first Danganronpa game on the Switch, and I loved it but also forgot how long those games are. I was gonna replay the second game right after but I'm taking a bit of a break from it because it's a huge time suck. I have played some more of Wandersong as well and it is a delight, and I want to set aside a day this month in order to play though even more of it. Biggest serotonin boost I've had in a while.

I haven't been super inspired to write lately - bad things happening in the world will do that - but with how this summer has gone I'm hopeful for a creatively fulfilling trajectory this fall (and maybe even a concentrated effort this year to do NaNo and finish up some stuff). I also have stuff I want to say about the concerts I've gone to but I think I'll save that for a different post.