Secondary Findings Winter 2025

8 min readFeb 11, 2025

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

The year begins anew, and with comes a whole bunch more stuff that is definitely not getting its own post because of simply not having time for that. Nonetheless, I definitely enjoyed these things and/or they were notable enough to be listed here. For those not in the know, Secondary Findings is where I talk about a bunch of cool stuff that isn’t anime or manga related. That being said, hope you all enjoy and find something interesting.

Books

Words on pages.

How to Maintain Eye Contact by Robert Wood Lynn

It may or may not surprise any of those reading to find out that my typical reading diet consists primarily on poetry and random short stories I find on the internet. They say don’t judge a book by its cover but I’m going through a bit of a raccoon phase and seeing the cover of this collection with a beady-eyed little critter staring into my soul made me more than curious.

How to Maintain Eye Contact is largely about anxiety surrounding relationships, about little moments between people how to cherish them. One moment lands in a local coffee shop while the next stretches across one of the longest sandbars on a beach in New York. Lynn makes sure that every individual of importance is granted the ungracefulness of being alive and trying to form bonds with others, and that in and of itself is beautiful and kind of amazing.

The Rent Eats First by Eric Sirota

Sirota’s poetry in The Rent Eats First takes his personal experience as a lawyer, combined with the political and economic situation that most people find themselves in these days and makes some powerful pieces out of it. “Weird, Zany, and Hilarious Laws!” sets up a strong message about how people are often distracted from the real horrors of legal discrimination with information that is, at best, irrelevant to their daily lives.

In that same note, many of this collections best pieces are redactions of speeches from presidents and supreme court justices, cutting through much of the political bullshit and getting to the heart of what they are saying. His blackout of Bill Clinton’s speech on welfare reform notes “[making] you work of that broken chance/ that tentative shelter” in reference to the brutal cycle of poverty that many people experience today. Even for those who are not completely attuned to recent political history, there is something here to resonate with.

YouTube

Here are some video essays and other cool pieces of content

This Tiny Robot Changes Lives — But It Can’t Even Walk by DamiLee

https://youtu.be/-iLcOLvNfz0?si=XkVxEmhteUkTAGY7

Talking about politics often involves getting wrapped up in big ideas and expansive political philosophies. Sometimes its helpful, oftentimes not so much. DamiLee has a lot of content bringing her knowledge of architecture to the forefront and connecting it with these big ideas, showing how it can be used for everyday, practical implications.

This video is a prime example of that. In it, she talks about a café which employs people who are bedridden and otherwise can’t leave the hospital or their house. The café does this by allowing said people to control robots via some pretty complicated technology and spatial planning to allow the machines to move throughout the shop. It isn’t a long watch and it helps highlight a group of people who, even among marginalized groups, are often forgotten about by the media.

Everything in America is Gambling Now by Adam Conover

https://youtu.be/1q5CHulFv9o?si=RkV0sBJOwKgEkjnV

Comedian and TV host Adam Conover has been making great education-based content since his days on the self-named Adam Ruins Everything, where he talked extensively about the ways in which people’s misconceptions have led to wildly wrong understandings about different subjects. He’s also just incredibly funny, and adds the comedic angle to a lot of these subjects that can give people a little bit of hope.

The spirit of that show has lived on in much of his YouTube work, and in this particular video he discusses the relatively recent supreme court ruling which legalized online casinos as well as its vast implications. In addition, he notes that the proliferation of gambling culture also has a lot to do with people’s economic anxiety and realizations about how poor their situations truly are.

“Deport Them All” — Who’s to Blame for Springfield’s Immigrant Crisis

https://youtu.be/MI66d8e74nM?si=4J5AztoYUVAwhLBa

The story of Springfield last year and the way its immigrant situation was twisted and manipulated by then candidates Donald Trump and J.D. Vance will likely be used as one of the historical highlights of this era. That is, assuming their are any accurate historical accounts coming from inside the United States in a few decades.

It sounds hyperbolic, but to turn a story of a small town dealing with the effects of immigrants escaping terrible situations via a legal process into a lie about people eating cats and dogs is the type of vile rhetoric that would have been said 80–90 years ago by certain regimes. This kind of on the ground reporting is becoming less and less prevalent as news org continue with mass layoffs while squeezing more and more out of their remaining journalists. Make no mistake, though, it is important.

Video Games

Lets take a small break from the horrors of the real world and talk about pressing some buttons.

Marvel Rivals

Oh look, another team based shooter for me to be bad at…yeah, still gonna play it. I say this as if team-based shooters are normally what I play, but they definitely aren’t. This just happened to be what my friends were going on about for a bit so I gave it a whorl. Survey says: pretty fun. The animations for everything look really solid, and the training mode actually seems pretty in-depth for a brand new game. Can’t see myself playing ranked ever, but nonetheless a good time.

Balatro

This, however, is definitely my speed. Slay the Spire is one of my most played games of all time, and Balatro has a lot of the same energy. Something about rogue-like and deckbuilding mechanics together just makes for a really fun and repayable game.

Admittedly, my knowledge of poker is pretty low and for a while, I thought that would limit my ability to play. However, Balatro takes a pretty lax version of poker rules as the basis for its gameplay, so the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. On top of that, the retro graphics combined with the casino aesthetics makes for a really pretty game. It’s also pretty cheap for how good it is, so there’s that too.

Music

Here’s a new album I found that was pretty cool!

20. by shteppi

This is album that almost feels made for me. It combines rap, edm, indie rock, and digicore in a wonderful fusion all across the project, and lyrically it focuses on shteppi’s journey through being a young trans woman, along with all of the ups and downs that come with it. The title track “20.” delivers bars about her passion for music, and how being trans has affected both her ability to make said music as well as relationships with others. It isn’t the most polished, and some of shteppi’s influence sit a little too plainly on her sleeve, but still worth a listen.

Blogosphere

Some posts from fellow bloggers

Manga Thoughts From 2024 by Scott from Mechanical Anime Reviews

2024 was certainly one of the years of all time, to say the least. However, just cause a year has bad stuff happen doesn’t mean we can’t pull some good out of it, yeah? 2024, along with the latter half of 2023, was the period in which I started paying attention to manga much more heavily, and not just as someone waiting to see what was getting adapted.

Now that Vivian is in her manga reading era, it is nice to look at other people’s work on the subject to see what they are reading. Scott is someone who’s blog I have been paying attention to for a while now, and his tastes and opinions match with mine a decent amount of the time, so it makes sense for me to throw his recommendations up here as well. In particular, Beat and Motion seems like it will be a really good read.

[Review] Dan-Da-Dan: What the Hype Doesn’t Mention by Peggy Sue Wood of The Anime View

Most of the time I don’t read other people’s reviews before writing my own. That may come across as self-absorbed, and to an extent it is, but also a lot of it comes down to knowing myself well enough to know how much my writing is easily influenced by the last thing occupying my mind. Meaning, it is hard for me to not plagiarize other people without doing a lot of research.

However, post-review is a different story. After finishing my own thoughts on the series, which were generally positive, I wanted to seek out some other opinions. Wood describes the series in much more honest terms, talking about how the show comes across to someone who doesn’t enjoy a more vulgar sense of humor. That is, after all, the main draw of the series. Her writing is nothing if not well done, even at times when I’m not 100% inclined to agree.

What kind of media have you all been getting into recently? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you all so much for stopping by. For those who want to read a bit more, feel free to click back up top. Anyone who’s feeling generous or who would like to read some original poetry/short fiction from yours truly, look no further than directly below.