Goodbye 2025

We’re back at the end of another year, but we’re also on the precipice of the beginning of a new one. As is always the case, I like to say farewell to the year that we have lived through on the final day of the year, and today is no different. Tonight, we say farewell to 2025. At the end of 2024, I expressed concern about the US Presidential Election result, the return of a Commander-in-Chief in America who is synonymous with the post-factual era, and all the scary elements attributed to it. I was also nervous about the armed conflicts that continued to dominate the world. But I desperately tried to hold onto a hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as it looked like it could be, that the US election result and the rhetoric that immediately followed it weren’t as destructive as they had seemed, and that we could still find a way. I tried to remind my readers just how important it was to speak truth to power, to hold your leaders accountable, and to fight for justice. So, how were those fears and that hope reflected in the year that we actually got in 2025?

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Look for the Light: The Last of Us: Part II is a Truly Special Game

The Last of Us: Part II – Naughty Dog – Sony – PS4 Screenshot

The following article features story spoilers for the entirety of both The Last of Us and The Last of Us: Part II. Do not read the article before you finish both games.

In 2013, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us — my favorite video game ever made —  was released exclusively on PlayStation 3 (it was later remastered on PlayStation 4) to near-universal praise and numerous accolades. On the surface-level, this was a survival horror game in the zombie sub-genre. But it was also so much more than that. It was a story about love and rediscovering something to fight for. Gamers primarily played as Joel Miller (Troy Baker), a smuggler without scruples, who was tasked with transporting a young girl, Ellie (Ashley Johnson), across the United States for the purpose of crafting a vaccine to the fungal virus that had turned infected humans into ruthless barely-human creatures without rational thought. Continue reading “Look for the Light: The Last of Us: Part II is a Truly Special Game”