I find these amusing, and posting them outside social media is not what the apps who make them want anyway, so I’m both buying into the scheme and not. Here we go.
In which I am a basic-bitch elder millennial
This lineup is largely reflective of the time I most often use Spotify for music: while driving and while writing. If a band’s sound is conducive to both of those activities, they’ll get more of my hours. The Killers and Vampire Weekend both hit both of those quadrants, at least while working on the projects I had this year. I listen to TMBG and Fitz more often when driving. Johnny Marr’s best-of was a go-to while writing this year.
This is a dude-heavy list, which I’m not proud of, but accept.
Songs broken out so that the artists are listed/not cut off:
Same pattern, basically. Though hey, I do love all of these songs. I’m just a little embarrassed by my lack of variety this year.
In which I listen to a lot of podcasts (see above re: elder millennial)
I stand by all of these, podcast nerd status aside. I think Cool People has been my top show two years running? It’s great. If you feel like this is a bad time to be alive, I highly recommend it for a dose of “it was a bad time, but some people still did the right thing, and that’s important.”
In which Crunchyroll cannot accept that I do not care for the most popular subgenre that much
Crunchyroll, the most popular anime streaming service, has gotten on the bandwagon. And their summary slide is broken.
The top genre is just wrong; proof below.
June 20 was the day near the end of my surgery recovery where I watched something like 8 episodes of Chainsaw Man in one day. I was a little stir-crazy.
Spouse watched Yakitate!! Japan earlier this year, but I have seen a good bit of it in years past. (We even cosplayed as the lead and the samurai guy once upon a time.)
Top series:
The order was Yakitate, Natsume’s Book of Friends, and OG Spice & Wolf, which we watched before the reboot started.
Which is why my correct genres are:
And still the roundup assumes we’re all only watching the most popular shounen crap, with its “Action” claim above and all its boring recommendations of cookie-cutter isekai. Yeah, no thanks. I’m unreasonably annoyed by this. Moving on.
A year in which I try really hard to understand cozy fantasy, and mostly don’t
Goodreads, you toxic mess that I should probably divest from. Sigh.
To be fair, the “least/shortest” one is a reader magnet short story from a series I haven’t actually read. I wanted to sample a variety of books from the first Cozy the Day Away sale, and so I picked it up because it was free. I don’t usually do that.
Beers & Beards was fun, as were the other litRPGs I’ve tried, but I’ve come to decide that the genre isn’t for me. I’m glad people are enjoying it. I prefer my books and games / chocolate and peanut butter separate, I guess.
Also, because it deserves it:
Catching up on the books I haven’t already covered in the As a Reader tag:
![Many book covers. Story Genius, Nettle & Bone, The Rainfall Market, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Someone You Can Build a Nest In, When We Walked in Memory [a reread for me], The Chaos Machine, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, The Sapling Cage, How to Get the Girl (And Not Destroy the World), Sisters of Tomorrow, The Resilience Myth, The Teller of Small Fortunes](https://www.serobertsonfiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024goodreadscatchup1-681x1024.png)
No opinions; those I’ll keep to the newsletter. I have talked about a couple of these already, and have more thoughts about more books for January. Of course. (Except to note that When We Walked in Memory was a reread for me, and I’ve slooooowly been listening to the Discworld books on audiobook)
Speaking of keeping books and games separate…
Almost all of my gaming this year was on the Switch; my Steam backlog continues to languish.
Again, I was on medical leave for 75% of June and played Palia probably three hours a day, minimum. I only really played it for May, June and some of July, then got hooked on Graveyard Keeper and kept going. The fact that it still made my #2 most-played game of the year really hammers home what that couple of months was like. Still, it was a nice, if glitchy, distraction and a sunny, low-stress place to send my brain for a while. I keep seeing updates for it on my Switch news feed, but I haven’t ventured back yet.
Also noting that January through March were almost all Tears of the Kingdom. I dove pretty hard into that game to get through the winter and what would prove to be the worst of my health issues. I finished all the shrines and lightroots, even. And I’m not usually a 100% type. (I didn’t truly 100% the game, as I was missing some equipment, but it was fairly close.)