Hags

What did I enjoy in 2025?

So. The time has come again. And all too quickly. The wheel of seasons has turned and from bitter heat comes miserable cold and suffering…
Miserable cold, suffering, and one more thing: Hags’ 2025 Round-Up.

This was the year of Bikes and Sandals for me. I got a single-speed bicycle at the end of January from a local cycle shop on Mill Road: a Raleigh Chiltern which I have come to adore and treasure in much the same way - I imagine - as one does their first car. I’ve used it almost every day, cycling up and down Cambridge. I love that it’s gearless: it makes the whole thing so much simpler and stops me stressing about whether I’m using them correctly or not. I went on a bunch of rides to villages outside of Cambridge as well as two 25 mile (each way) rides to Ely with my cyclist friend Lewis (and the second also with tennis-pro Lucy). What a joy. Riding to another city is a consciousness-expanding experience in realising the potential of your personal mobility. I’d like to do a proper multi-day cycle tour soon.
As for the sandals, I bought a cheap pair of hiking sandals in February and wore them almost exclusively the whole year (especially while cycling). Sandals are cool.

I didn’t have a strict regiment of creative stuff this year, which was refreshing. I still got a bunch done though! I released MARGRAVE, which I believe to be the first ever adventure for the delightful Vyrmhack wargame & rpg system. I also did IDOL THIEVES OF OLD URUK, a pretty good dungeon for the promising Appendix N Jam. I also did an orientalism-crawl because I read too many wikipedia pages on the Caucasus. No. This year I mostly did a bunch of miniature model painting: I’ve ended up with five Mordheim warbands at this point! I have Fomorians, vampire conquistadors, hillbilly cultists, donkey-headed bodybuilders, and drowned slaves. Lots of tonal variation. But lead is very fun to paint, especially lead sculpted by Oakbound Miniatures, which is a delightful UK-based company and a much better (and efficient) way to spend your money than Games Workshop.

I also spent a lot more time in the local community this year. After watching Challengers, historic tennis-pro Lucy and I started going out to play tennis on the courts across Cambridge. That’s good exercise. But what’s better? Table-tennis. In the soon-to-be-decommissioned Grafton Centre, just by my house, an empty commercial unit had been turned into a free ‘Ping-Pong-Parlour’. Me and Lucy would, once a week or so, pop out to play table tennis until we were both knackered before going to the Blue Moon for a pint (or to Thrive for a coffee). Those times were probably the highlight of my year. Being out in public playing sports in the company of a diverse like-minded community was lovely. You got to know faces! Like ‘Facking-Matherfacker’, who once screamed his name after losing a close point. It probably helped that I’m pretty good at Table Tennis. Unfortunately, those times have gone. The Parlour was closed down with no warning. We tried playing on the one outdoor table we could find in the howling October wind, which obviously didn’t work. Me and Lucy will try and find a place to resume our Heated Rivalry (wait what not like that) in the new year. For now though, my table-tennis passion has been rooted firmly in watching the delightful Fan Zhendong. I love him.

You may also be able to tell that I remodelled my website a bit and made it better on mobile. Especially the homepage.

Anyway. Enough of that. Time for the main event. Games, then RPGs, then Web Pages, then Films, then TV, and then, as always, Albums. Without further ado, say it with me folks: It’s Listing Time!

I played a bunch of games this year!

Silksong sucks and is everything wrong with video games. A bunch of Australian dudes think they’re rockstars because they made a (pretty good) riff on Metroid and Dark Souls. They go away and spend seven years making their scale-crept Sophomore offering. It does some cute things. It steals the “fall and you go back to the beginning” thing from Jump King Quest. It steals the turning animation and tools from Symphony of the Night. And it steals the needlessly didactic design of Celeste. Silksong picks up in difficulty from the end of Hollow Knight with a few key differences. Each boss and ‘elite enemy’ requires you to play in the exact way that the Enlightened Designers intended you to. It’s your job to Guess What’s In Their Head, and Lord Help You if you try to do it a different way. The biggest casualty of this is the delightful down-slash ‘pogo’, which is continuously punished by bosses. I don’t think that a ‘normal person’ could beat this game without significant guidance.

I am also going to have to put a quick Mild Spoiler Warning here because I take issue with the game’s Dismal feminist themes. These Australian blokes thought “oi cobber we should make this game about the sheilas!” and then included So Much Internalised Misogyny that it’s breathtaking. You play as a haughty and self-assured woman who is continually put down, humbled, and denigrated. You are harassed, crept on, kidnapped, and flung into dark pits of rapacious men. There are two separate rape revenge sequences, the second including an extended quest where you have to scrounge up the resources to get a back-alley abortion. The arc of Hornet’s character is learning to suppress her ambition and instead embrace her maternal instincts and care for the community. I’ll put it this way: the based taciturn chad Knight from Hollow Knight was never treated like this. And there’s a simple reason for that: he was a man, and Hornet is literally the “Gendered Child”. This travesty is why Sensitivity Consultants exist.

Anyway, beyond the Computer Screen I've continued to enjoy roleplaying games. I've even played in a few good ones this year!

I also read a bunch of good RPG blogposts this year!

More generally, I also found a bunch of really good web pages and articles this year. I started reading the Grauniad Online too, which has been very pleasant. I quite like everything beyond their reporting (though even that isn't terrible).

I read more books than usual this year. Still not as many as I’d like. I think the trick is listening to audiobooks. And picking books that aren’t actively painful to consume. Here’s a few examples:

On the 2nd of January I put on The Beast starring Lea Seydoux. It resulted in me vowing to not suggest any slow films all year. As a result, I watched lots of good films this year! It was also a lot of fun going through other people’s recommendations (especially Star Wars). Here’s a couple of my most notable ones from this year:

I watched A Lot of shows this year. Lys put on a lot of her favourite anime, and I did like most of them! As a result, most of the following list is anime. But that’s ok, because these ones are all good:

Well, that’s all folks. Just music to go. In my post for 2024 I predicted that things would slowly continue to change for better or worse. That’s pretty much true, even if we did take a few big hits and dole out a few (but fewer) big (but smaller) ones ourselves. Personally, I’ve done alright for myself: I met new people and made new friends, and continued on at NCEA's Living England to great success. I kept up all my traditions (sending cards, hosting dinner parties, visiting people) without fail. I did things which will hopefully improve my various health stats (especially cycling). I was basically vegan all year too!
In the new year I’m hoping to do more stuff in my local community, including growing even more stuff in my garden (and actually staking my sunflowers so they stay up). Maybe - with a bit of luck - I'll also pick up table tennis again if we find another facility. There’s also a public zine library in Cambridge which I’m hoping to contribute to. I also want to spend more time at the pub (especially the Blue Moon). Anyway, it’s time for ten albums.

By the way I saw a bunch of live music this year. The best gig I saw by far though was AGAM. Indian carnatic music combined with heavy prog rock. It's mental. We were (apart from two white girlfriends brought along by other people) the only white people there. It was a quintalingual show or something. There was so much audience participation with lyrics and stuff. There was a crazy drums vs bhangra duel at the end. It was goated. Also the stall normally used for merch was instead occupied by an indian restaurant catering. And immediately after the show ended (no encore) there was a raffle for health insurance. Booky times. But now. Ten albums for real.

I hope that everyone has had a lovely Christmas, and I wish the best in 2026 to all the Guys and Dolls and So On. Hugs and kisses.

Your Dread-Queen,
Hags