Hey fellow Last Piners,

I’ve been getting really into hardcore again lately. Particularly early 2000s hardcore of the chaotic variety, also known by a variety of embarrassing names such as screamo, skramz, emo violence, etc. My current obsession is the UK “emo-crust” band Fall of Efrafa, whose claim to fame is a trilogy of albums released between 2005 and 2009 that are inspired by the mythology of Watership Down. I feel like you can only get away with that shit in screamo, psychedelic neo-folk, or prog.

Part of the reason I’ve been listening to more heavy music is because I’ve been thinking about what kind of music I might want to play, were I to ever play music again. I’ve been chewing on that for a while now after plugging in my electric guitar for the first time in years and adding a couple new pedals to my board. I’m not going to bore you with all the details of my signal chain here¹, but it’s been nice thinking about making very loud music again (even as I recognize I don’t know if I would ever want to, like, play shows again; never say never I guess). But anyway, maybe someday you’ll get to hear my yet-to-be-named emo-sludge project.

Things have been busy. Taking on teaching, even an online class, ended up being a hell of a lot of work. I’m glad I did it, and I think I would like to do it again, but I’ll be happy to not do it this coming semester. It’s just been a lot.

I have hardly thought about game design in what feels like months, so I’m looking forward to getting back into it. I have the last two weeks of December off, and I’m hoping that in addition to editing the podcast that may or may not ever come out, I will also have some time to work on one of the three games I’ve got on the backburner, along with playing some guitar and getting some reading done. Of course, there’s a good chance that I’ll just play video games in my underwear the whole time.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fear of the unknown. Partly, I think about it because it’s part of my day job, but I’ve been really reflecting on how so many aspects of my life have been driven by fear rather than what really matters to me. There’s a lot of really scary things happening in the world right now, and it makes sense to feel scared, but I also know that the powers-that-be are counting on our inaction, so I’m hoping that 2026 is the year where I take my own medicine and act courageously, not living without fear but moving with it, letting it be alongside me, a passenger rather than the driver.

I hope this for you, as well.

As we head into the depths of winter, may we all find warmth and comfort in our communities, bracing together against the long, dark nights and the chilling winds.

jex.