Hello and welcome back. This is Issue 17 of “a bit of bird words” and, well. Happy new year. It’s probably 2026 where you are now, right?

Rather than talk too much about December, I’m going to attempt to give you some kind of wrap-up for the whole year. What were my favorite things? In a turbulent year, what were my rocks?

(One of those rocks? The cheese fondue we have for New Year’s Eve every year. I look forward to it for at least three months prior to the event.)

Game of the year: MOTHER 3 (2006)

2025 was a bad year for me. It might have been for you, too. The loss of a close friend was still fresh as January began.

I started MOTHER 3 at the end of 2024, actually, and only finished it at the very start of 2025. It was a hard game to play at the time; I’ve written about it before. Going back and reading that post is also kind of hard for me right now.

The whole series, for me, is adept at capturing what being a kid felt like: the world is so much larger, more fantastical, and sometimes more dangerous. And then we grow up, and we find that process to have its own fantasies and dangers; the world expands, but also shrinks. We want to look back with fondness on what came before, but we know things will never be the same again. You can’t go back.

MOTHER 3 is that moment where you look back and know there’s no returning to that time. But if you want the future to be different, you still have time for that. You can choose or act in a way that shapes that future. Hopefully, you do it with love in your heart.

Honorable mentions

• WEBFISHING (2024)

• The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls (1992)

• LANCER (not a video game but still very important)

Book of the year: Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor

I was going to pick The Hades Calculus, but I remembered reading this one more recently. It’s a book that, periodically, I asked myself if I disliked.

I think maybe what really created the friction between us is that this book is emphatically, proudly optimistic and I happened to read it at a time when I felt anything but. I didn’t write a ton of notes for this book, but it had me thinking a lot while reading. Anything I might be able to say feels like it would be deeply watered-down and incoherent, but I appreciate that this book made me think about how I came to my current feelings about technology.

Honorable mentions

• The Hades Calculus, Maria Ying

• The End of Policing, Alex S. Vitale

• The Art of Haiku, Stephen Addiss

Music of the year: Constant Companions, Jamie Paige

I won’t apologize for playing BIRDBRAIN again.

This album hit me like a dang truck and I’m still obsessed with it. I think it’s also been at least partially responsible for me getting (back?) into VOCALOID music. I also won’t apologize for becoming a minor fan of Hatsune Miku.

I’m way more of an album listener than a one-off song listener, but other than BIRDBRAIN, I’d also pick out ROT FOR CLOUT as a standout. But honestly, all of the songs on this album call forward and back to each other and so I can only really recommend that you listen to the whole thing front to back.

And then do it again.

Honorable mentions

• Small Hours, TOKYO GROOVE JYOSHI

• Stay Alta, Estelle

• Rocks in My Pockets, The Mountain Goats

What else?

Despite all the things I loved and achieved in 2025, I’m very glad to see the back of this year. Too much of it was spent feeling as though I were being tossed around in a storm, with no idea where I would land safely or be dashed against the rocks.

I can’t exactly say I feel confident about 2026, but there’s a lot of year ahead. Maybe the universe will surprise me. Or maybe I’ll have to make my own surprises.

My recommendation to you: celebrate. We’ve completed another year, and a fresh one is waiting for us. Let’s shape our future.

See you next month.