One of Everything: March

why did i start giving these subtitles

I went to Paris for a week this month and that pretty much dominated my life. It was my first international trip since 2019 and honestly I had a great time. I drank Orangina and ate chouquettes, mostly. Also I think my French got better but who knows.

When I wasn’t having the best vacation ever, I played Next Fest demos and picked up some stuff in the Steam sale. I got Death Stranding, although I haven’t started it yet due to still being in the middle of FF7 Rebirth (the steam deck only has so much disk space). I also got 4 or 5 small games I’ll get to at some point. I read 100 pages of the Sally Rooney book I've been trying to read since September at the airport. (She has one writing voice I like and unfortunately for me that is NOT the free indirect discourse thing she’s doing for Peter’s sections in Intermezzo. Also I think she’s much better at writing women than men, also unfortunate for a book about 2 men.)

New York is fine too, I guess. It’s finally warm here. Here’s what else I got up to in March:

Show

The Magicians

This is sort of cheating as I only watched the first episode. I’ve been watching Merlin which is a similar kind of low budget show with a million episodes, but Merlin is charming in a goofy way. Everyone seems happy to be there acting.

Everyone in the Magicians seems like they ended up there on accident and are angry to be there (which, considering the Narnia plot of the story, kind of makes sense but not in the way the vibe is coming through.) I was surprised I liked the Bright Sword so much when I reviewed it last year because I absolutely hated the Magicians when I was in high school, mostly because the main character sucks (on purpose but, you’re still stuck in his head for 2 books before that changes). I hoped the show would change my mind but that’s not the case. The writing is quite bad and not in a fun way. And I still just don’t like Narnia stories.

Game

Silverybield Foss

A Bitsy game about exploring a swampy mountain. I started learning to use Bitsy this month, and before I did I played through a couple of “classic” Bitsy games (which, if you are reading this and have a favorite Bitsy game, please tell me about it!) It’s simple, you just move around the screen and interact with one object to move to the next screen. What I really like about this game is the backgrounds; the developer did a great job making the textures of grass and stone all look different from each other. It takes about 10 minutes to play, cool thing.

Etrian Odyssey III

I started this game 2 years ago, got to the second level, and got scared by the huge enemies that follow you around. It’s nonsense how a big orange ball can be 10x more terrifying than a scarily designed enemy. This is a game where discovery creates most of the difficulty, and ergo I’ve been using guides to make things slightly easier on myself. I may never finish this game but then again, I thought I’d never come back to it and here we are. I named my party after the Latin names of flowers.

Etrian Odyssey has no story, so it’s a perfect game to play while you watch TV or watch someone playing the same game but slightly behind where you are (which I like to do). Lately however, I’m considering whether “podcast games” are a malign influence for me. It’s easy to play Etrian Odyssey III for half a day while I rewatch Severance and then realize my free time has been swallowed up by, what exactly? Mapping one floor and grinding for monster livers? And I was only half-paying attention while I did it! If you don’t play video games you might be thinking “and this is different from the other stuff you play how?” There are some games I can play at half-attention and some I can’t; Trails in the Sky, for instance, required my full attention 90% of the time, and as a result I remember it more and more fondly. Dividing your attention feels good, but it makes time pass really quickly, and that feels bad in retrospect.

I read this essay by Joey Schutz and I felt the description of “smoothness” captures what I’m feeling. Time slides off these games like water off rubber. I’m also getting over what I feel is an overuse of Instagram, a platform I don’t have a reason to be on more than once a week, yet open in moments when I have nothing else to do. When I have trouble switching tasks, Instagram keeps me stuck in a loop, a feeling that’s extremely frustrating. Yet I’m using these things for a reason: to have something to totally occupy my brain. I think I’m better than most people at being alone with my thoughts, yet I fall into this trap more and more often lately. To address this problem, I’m trying to go on more walks without my headphones, which has been nice.

Book

How to Do Nothing

I put this after the previous entry on the post before I started writing either one, I promise. This book came out in 2018 and man does it show. Not in a bad way, but in the introduction there is a note about arts grants being destroyed by the first Trump presidency. Although of course it doesn’t say “first,” like that joke in Severance about the World Wars.

Anyway, this book is less about doing nothing and more about refusal. Nothing is actually a way of conveying relaxation and preparation, two things that can feel intimidating to engage in. Relaxing with the intention to rest up and do something later can apply a lot of pressure, such that the relaxation doesn’t seem to count. I think that’s why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to; I have a hard time conceiving how I could apply both aspects of this to my life (acting and feeling refreshed) although she gave plenty of examples. If that’s less stressful for you to think about, I’d recommend this book.

Movie

13 Going on 30

I always thought “thirty, flirty and thriving” was a fun catch phrase that maybe came up once in this movie. It turns out it’s a magic mantra that the main character says like 10 times. The ending of this movie is so mid that it got rid of all my early 2000s nostalgia all by itself. What do you mean the girl has to give up her magazine career and get married and live in New Jersey? We don’t have to want to go back to this time period, I promise.

Comic

Ok now it’s time to brag. When I was in France I got to pick up the France-only art book of Witch Hat Atelier concept and manga art. I found it at a huge bookstore called Gibert Joseph and my boyfriend helped me read the cover note at the beginning. It’s a beautiful book and I’ve been looking through it in the morning when I drink my coffee.

Other

Friends at the Table: Perpetua

I’ve been trying to listen to this podcast for 8 years, huh? The problem with how much of this podcast there is is that I either start from the beginning and then fall off, or start when a new season starts but it turns out the season is a sequel to a previous season. I listened to and enjoyed Marielda, the 12-episode series from 201(??), and finally I’m clued into the podcast at the same time as they’re releasing a brand new season. And it’s based on JRPGs! I’m looking forward to listening to this while I play Trails from Zero. (Which I’m on chapter 2 of now, so will finish in… 2026?)

I also saw the Rouen Cathedral series (Monet’s paintings of the Rouen Cathedral at different times of day) at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. It’s one of my new favorite paintings.

Favorite Thing I Wrote

I didn't write much this month, but I guested on Girl Mode!

Favorite Thing I Read

I reread James Baldwin's essay A Stranger in the Village.

See you next month!