Hi there, and welcome to another episode of this blog thing that I had given up over the past 12 months. It doesn’t feel like that long ago, if you only look at the month-day part of all my blogs and ignore the year part.
I don’t have a solid reason why I’m posting an update all of a sudden, but it boils down to (1) it’s been a year and I have some amount of things to talk about and (2) I’ve been consuming a lot of media recently, and my brain is full of thoughts and opinions that I want to put on paper.
So here goes an update of my 2025:
Wage slave: Reborn!
I started a new job early in the year. That’s probably the second biggest highlight of my year. Unfortunately, I have decided to write this chronologically, so you’ll have to read on to find out what the biggest highlight was.
Sometimes when you don’t know everything, and all you know are the things that you know, it becomes a little bit challenging to pretend you know everything. But I realised I’m probably not the only one, and all I need is to act a little more confident. It’s a hurdle that I’m happy that I have managed to jump over.
My new work pays me a lot more, with a lot less stress (I don’t have to do after hours on-call), and projects that seem to get somewhere. It doesn’t feel like I’m contributing to world peace, but I appreciate the time I have to myself once the clock hits 5pm. And I still have coworkers that probably won’t take me to HR over the various things I have said and will say, so that’s always good.
The Rust Game Jam
We don’t talk about this one.
I got to work with professional artists and animators but the game itself was rather mediocre and buggy 😭. We (tried?) to make a platformer that increases attack speed/momentum the more you hit things. It was supposed to feel very satisfying, but we definitely needed more time to refine the mechanics.
My coworkers keep asking me about when my next game jam is going to be, since somehow I’ve made game jamming, as well as Factorio, my entire wage-slave personality. Help.
I designed and built my first keyboard from scratch
I forget why this happened, but I think I just wanted to get my hands dirty on an electronics project. I designed my first PCB, did some soldering and managed to build my own split keyboard.
Unfortunately, the switches that I picked out ended up being too light for my liking. And there was a strong sense of laziness and procrastination that hit me as I got to designing the case. So it’s kinda half finished, and I probably won’t use it for the foreseeable future.
It works though. It was also very fun learning about electronics. Maybe I should’ve done my bachelor’s in red flannel electronics engineering. I probably won’t do another project any time soon.
Kaiden
Of course this has to be the biggest highlight of my entire life. This was the entire reason why I even started a blog in the first place.
I have finally reached SP皆伝 after 4 years of on and off playing since getting my controller. I couldn’t have done this without the frog hat that Lucas got me, and by extension, my coach Lucas. It felt very bittersweet after passing the slow down in Mei. I didn’t cry and my life did not flash before me like a kaleidoscope. Hang on I’m pretty sure 走馬灯 is not a kaleidoscope, but close enough.
I’m really happy to have pushed through something that I wasn’t really particularly good at through effort alone. I am of the idea that, if you put your heart to it, you’d definitely be able to accomplish it. So it’s good that I managed to not be a counterexample of that.
I hate to admit this, but not reaching 3 digits in osu! has always been one of my regrets. It was something I did not want to experience in IIDX as well. There was a bit of fear when I could clear Mei in step-up but never really managed to seal the deal on the actual dan course. I wonder what I lacked when I was #1.0k at my peak. Maybe I was too focused on that one thing that I ignored the fact that foundations don’t betray thyself.
Unfortunately to keep up with my skill, I have to sink a lot of time into this game. This is something that I don’t really want to be doing right now. I did put Insane 7th Dan as a goal in my new year resolution THAT WAS DONE AS PART OF A WORK ACTIVITY. Oh god do I need to get back to playing to get a raise at work.
Autumn of Reading
Sooo… I picked up Fate/Stay Night while it was on sale after getting a PC adaptation. They do say it’s one of the classics, so I felt maybe I should read it. And honestly this is going to get me into the rest of the TYPE MOON franchise.
It’s nothing like what I remembered of the “people die when they’re killed” anime adaptation. Even in the VN, I’d say the Fate route is fantastic for setting the scene, but the real shit is the UBW route. I still think about how beautiful Mr “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you’re correct“‘s struggle with Archer and his own ideals was. I got really attached to Illya in the HF route, and I’d die to see her smile once again. My whole reflection on F/SN deserves another blog post but I know I would never get to it.
Fate/Zero was one of the first series that I watched as it aired, with the Mother’s Day episode being the most memorable thing I’ve watched on a Mother’s Day. I can’t believe some people watch F/Z without F/SN. I wish I started with the VN before either of these.
Another book that I finished this year was House of Leaves. I finished this around the start of the year, so I don’t have much memories on how I felt about the book itself. It was a very exciting read, and by the end of the book, I was confident to say that this was a love story.
I am currently reading the entire Monogatari series so I don’t have to wait for SHAFT to finish the MadoMagi movie first before adapting Off&Monster season 2. My goal this year is to read more books/LN/VN and feel more things. So please send any recommendations my way, if you think I’d enjoy it.
Finishing Factorio: Space Age on my own…
I spent 150 hrs on a solo save to the edge of the solar system. I played this during work and the stupid AI trainings that I had to do, please don’t tell my boss about it.
Returning as an admiral
I got back into KanColle, my gacha game of choice that I got into maybe 12 years ago, after I saw a tweet on a new Thai Kanmusu. I can never say no to that.
When every game out there have meta changes so drastic that you’d find difficult to get back into, KanColle will never disappoint you with its repetitive, never-changing mechanics. I still equip my girls the same way I did 5 years ago. Damn why didn’t anyone tell me they gave out two Shinden Kai for free!!
On an unrelated note, I also finally got started on that IJN Taihou plastic model kit that I bought from Sydney maybe 3 years back. I never thought cutting and gluing plastic could be so much fun… I also started watching G-Witch, but apart from wanting to be a pilot myself and really enjoying the girls, I’m not really finding myself fascinated by Gundams as much as ships or girls in tanks.
Conclusion, or maybe an afterword
I think I did a lot last year. I’m always very afraid of standing still and not moving forward, but after listing everything I’ve done down, I feel confident that I’ll get to do even more this year. When I think about it, taking a chill job to be able to spend more time doing things I like was really an excuse to grind more IIDX. So with Kaiden off my bucket list, I’m not sure what I should do next. But I guess discovering what that is is part of the fun. I hope you all have a great 2026.