Happy New Year, everyone! This week’s round-up includes getting frustrated by Pluribus, starting a Substack, wondering why our parents always forced us to ‘clean’ our plates, and much more.

Television

The biggest show of the week for me was Pluribus. I gave in to the hype, resubscribed to Apple TV, and it was totally worth it. The basic premise is, an alien entity takes over all human consciousness on Earth bar thirteen people who appear to be immune and remain themselves. The entity, a hive mind, are peaceful and insist they are helping mankind by eradicating all negativity, essentially. But our leading lady, Carol (played by Rhea Seehorn), is not happy about it. In fact, she wasn’t happy before the world changed. It’s an intriguing story, but I have found Carol to be a very annoying and frustrating main character. She goes against almost every norm of an MC, letting her anger take the lead, meaning she doesn’t get around to asking actual questions until later on (if at all!). I’m sure much of her is meant to be that way, but by the third episode it gets a little tiresome watching it all unfold through her eyes. Thankfully near the end of the season we hone get to see another perspective. On the whole though, it’s well worth a watch for the creative and unique story and some of the characters.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll probably be aware that Stranger Things has officially come to an end, and so will my talking/writing about it (for now…). Without spoilers, the finale was, in my opinion, very well done and definitely emotional. I feel the Duffer brothers could have maybe taken it a little further and killed off another character or two, but maybe they wanted to take pity on these characters that they and we have come to love. I was thinking about why I personally love it so much, and I decided the reasons are three: the horror (my favourite genre), the 80s setting (my favourite decade), and the characters (all unique and entertaining in their own ways). Anyway, for me this was definitely a case of ‘it’s about the journey’ than it was about the ending. I’m already gagging to watch it all over again.

I also finally finished House of Guinness. It was mildly enjoyable, and although it was tipped to be the new Peaky Blinders, I don’t think it had quite the same charm. At times it reminded me more of Downton Abbey, so I suppose if you’re a fan of both of those shows, you might also (mildly) enjoy it. It may also put you in the mood for a pint of Guinness – it certainly did me!

Film

Well, here are my basic stats for films in 2025 thanks to Letterboxd. In all honesty, that’s about all I have to report for film this week, as I haven’t watched any films since December 31st(!). My last film of the year was Superman (2025) in case you wanted to know, though that probably doesn’t come as a surprise. I also hit 2000 lifetime films watched (or at least 2000 films I’ve remembered to add to my Letterboxd), which is pretty cool. I fully expect to get back on the film watching this week in. In fact, the next two months ought to be jam-packed as film award season begins very soon! Technically it began with the film festivals toward the end of last summer, but the BIG ceremonies are quickly coming up (BAFTAs, Golden Globes, the Oscars).

Literature

I have just recently started a Substack devoted to my reading of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I’m fairly far into the book, but I have so many quotes highlighted that I wanted a place to write down my thoughts about them and hopefully hear others’ thoughts, too. My first post went up yesterday, and I hope to make it a weekly thing. Check it out, and if you’re on Substack, let me know!

It’s time for a fresh slate of reading goals! I posted during the week about my top ten books of 2025, and I’m hoping to read 70 this year, up from the 65 I read last year. I’m already one book down with Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew, a collection of some of his short stories. It’s a great book, but then I’m a fan of everything I’ve read of his so far. My currently reading list includes Alchemised (I fully expect to finally finish this one by the end of the month), The Once and Future King (I fully expect to finally finish this one by the end of the year…heh), Meditations (see above), rereading The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (though technically on Audible and read by the extraordinary Andy Serkis), Paradise Lost (doing this as a deep-dive readalong that’s expected to last the whole year), rereading Wuthering Heights (in preparation for Emerald Fennell‘s film adaptation next month) and Saga of the Swamp Thing, Book Two (my third favourite comic book character). A good start to the year, I think!

I also finally edited and posted a third part to one of my stories on Wattpad and changed the title – what was Echoes of Eternity is now called In the Beginning, which I’m not entirely fond of but is a more apt title for the story. Please check it out if you enjoy historical fiction and have a few minutes to spare!

Gaming

I’m very proud of myself for staying away from the January sales this year. There are many games I’m dying to play, but logically I know I won’t get around to them for quite some time, so I may as well wait until I have time, and by then prices ought to have gone down further (smart.) With a new Tomb Raider game out this year too, I better get saving!

Speaking of which, I have delved back in to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and I must admit, it’s better than I remember. It still doesn’t have the same shine to it as the original games I’m so fond of, and this version of Lara Croft does still grind my gears something awful, but it’s enjoyable enough. I’m also following a walkthrough because I kinda wanna get it out of the way asap…

Life

I think I’ve had quite a productive seven business days off of work, and though I was too busy/it was too cold to get outside much, I think semi-hibernation was called for. The rest (in spite of productivity) has done me the world of good. As someone who used to work many years in retail, I don’t take this much time off for granted (though, to be fair, those who work in Korean hagwons don’t generally get to choose annual leave, which is part and parcel of the hagwon game I’m afraid, so it balances out). One of the biggest things I’m proud of achieving during this break is finally making a decent tuna-mayo pasta. I always had trouble getting it all to stick together nicely, and thanks to the internet, I finally cracked it. I’ll be living off of that for the next month, thank you very much.

A Random Fact I Learned This Week

Remember when you were a kid and your parent(s)/guardian(s) said you couldn’t leave the table until you’d ‘cleaned your plate’? I never really thought all that much about it, but how much has that fucked up our eating habits? It’s not ok to waste a lot of food, but what if we were full before we got to the last bite? What if it was a food we genuinely didn’t like? Well, we had to force it down. Apparently this initially came about because of food rationing during WWII in which food was scarce – ‘Boomer’ parents had this mentality drilled into them from their parents during/after the war, and it never left them. We are learning from this now. Give ourselves (and kids) smaller portions rather than insisting on eating a ton of everything. If we (they) want more, get (provide) more. Have more awareness of the amount of food being eaten and how your body feels. If there is any food leftover, it can be refrigerated or recycled. It’s an interesting topic of conversation at the moment.

One last quick note: The Dawn Summary will now become a bimonthly post, mostly to allow me to focus on other areas of my writing, including Dawn of the Tapes, Substack, Wattpad and other creative endeavours, and it will hopefully give me more interesting things to write about!