Signed, Unknown

xoxo. not quite.

[signedunknown]

An Inventory of My Current Obsessions

I like documenting the things I'm obsessed with because my interests tend to arrive all at once and take over my entire personality for a few weeks.

So here's an inventory of my current obsessions before they inevitably get replaced by something else.

1. Blogging

The irony of writing a blog post about blogging is not lost on me.

But ever since I started this blog, my brain has been collecting post ideas like a squirrel preparing for winter. Now I'm not the most experienced blog writer; my credentials are mainly from writing fanfiction on Wattpad, which varied from Justin Bieber to One Direction to Kpop, which I think says enough about the era I grew up in.

2. Merlin

I finished the show years ago

(And am currently rewatching it as I write this).

I am still not over it.

That's all I'm saying.

3. Playlists

I have playlists for seasons.

I have playlists for characters.

I have playlists for emotions.

At this point, I probably communicate better through Spotify than actual words.

4. Coffee

Specifically coffee that feels like it belongs in an autumn movie.

Bonus points if it's raining outside.

I've been making all my coffee at home and rotating between two favorites: a brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso and a Dunkalatte.

I'm aware it's June.

Unfortunately, my personality operates on autumn time.

Watch me count down the days until the Pumpkin Spice Latte and Pumpkin Cream Chai come back to Starbucks.

5. Thinking About Fictional Characters

Not watching them.

Not reading about them.

Thinking about them.

There's a difference.

6. Arthurian Legends

This one is entirely Merlin's fault.

I started by rewatching the show.

Then I started reading about the actual legends.

Then I started reading about the different versions of the legends.

Then I started reading about the historical debates surrounding King Arthur.

At some point I realized I had accidentally fallen into a medieval rabbit hole and wasn't particularly interested in climbing back out.

The thing is, every version of the story is different.

Some make Arthur a hero.

Some make him a tragedy.

Some barely resemble each other at all.

And for some reason, I find that fascinating.

7. Making Ordinary Things Feel Important

Maybe this is less of an obsession and more of a personality trait.

But I've always liked treating small moments like they belong in a story.

A good cup of coffee.

A song played at the right moment.

A rainy afternoon.

A conversation I know I'll remember years from now.

Maybe life is more fun that way.

Romanticizing the small things that might otherwise seem insignificant.

I'll probably make another one of these in a few months.

We'll see how much damage my next hyperfixation does.

Signed,

Unknown

[signedunknown]

People Who Don't Exist But Changed My Life

I've always been the kind of person who gets attached to fictional characters.

Not in a normal way, either.

I mean in the "making playlists for them," "saving edits on Pinterest," and "thinking about them years after I finished the show" kind of way.

The funny thing is that when I look at some of my favorite characters, they don't really have much in common.

1. Hermione Granger

The original overachiever.

She made me believe that being smart was something to be proud of. She was brave, stubborn, and somehow always carrying everyone else's problems on top of her own.

I wanted to be her when I was younger.

Now I just understand why she was stressed all the time.

2. Bonnie Bennett

To this day, I still think Bonnie deserved better.

She spent the entire series saving everyone around her and asking for almost nothing in return.

If loyalty was a person, it would probably be Bonnie Bennett.

3. Bella Swan

I know.

I know.

Trust me, I've heard all the Bella Swan slander before.

But there was always something comforting about her.

Maybe it was how much time she spent inside her own head. Maybe it was because she felt ordinary while everyone around her seemed extraordinary.

4. Aria Montgomery

Aria Montgomery is probably responsible for at least 40% of my personality.

Books, coffee shops, oversized sweaters, and making things significantly more complicated than they need to be.

Looking back, that explains a lot.

5. Merlin

I watched Merlin years ago (and am still rewatching), and somehow he never left.

Nobody talks enough about how much emotional damage this man caused me.

He spent years protecting people who didn't even know what he was sacrificing for them.

The final episode still upsets me.

6. Daenerys Targaryen

Before the writers started fighting demons in the last season, Daenerys represented resilience to me.

Daenerys was one of the most inspiring characters I'd ever seen.

She lost everything multiple times and kept going anyway.

And I think that's why people loved her.

Looking back, I don't think these characters raised me because I wanted to become them.

I think they raised me because they gave me language for parts of myself I didn't know how to explain yet.

Maybe that's what favorite characters really are.

Tiny mirrors we carry around until we grow into the person staring back at us.

Signed,

Unknown.

[signedunknown]

Why I make playlists for Everything

So I have a habit of making playlists about anything.

A favorite video game. A specific memory. A feeling I can't quite explain. One of my favorite characters from a show. Sometimes even an entire season (autumn, obviously).

Some people take pictures to remember things. I prefer to use music for that.

When I hear certain songs, I don't just remember the song itself. I remember where I was when I first listened to it. What I was thinking about. What I was reading. What I was obsessed with at the time. How I felt at the time. A wave of nostalgia always hits me.

I can usually divide my life into playlists.

There are playlists for versions of myself that don't exist anymore. Playlists for places I've never been. Playlists inspired by books, games, and characters who somehow managed to leave fingerprints on my brain.

Maybe that's why I make so many of them.

They're less like playlists and more like time capsules.

A way to keep things from disappearing completely.

One of my favorite playlists is one that I made based on Silent Hill, which is one of my favorite video game series (and movie, unfortunately). I named it "james...you made me happy" mainly because it's themed on Mary from Silent Hill 2.

I have one that focuses more on Mary and then one named "in my restless dreams, i see that town (I think this one mainly just encapsulates the feeling Silent Hill 2 gives more than just Mary).

Even though Mary is technically dead by the start of the game, I feel that Mary's absence surrounds Silent Hill.

She's never really there, and yet she's everywhere.

The town exists because of her. James is there because of her. Every street, every fog-covered road, every empty building feels haunted by the memory of someone who is no longer present.

I once read an interpretation that described Mary as Silent Hill personified. On the surface, both seem cruel, damaged, and corrupted. Mary by her illness. Silent Hill by whatever darkness lingers within it. But if you look deeper, beneath the pain and resentment, there is something gentle there too.

I think that's what makes Mary so memorable.

Not because she's perfect, but because she isn't. She is perfectly imperfect, a realistically human character.

She's loving. She's angry. She's scared. She's bitter. She's human.

Maybe that's why Mary's story resonates with me so much.

Silent Hill 2 is like a story about trying to hold onto something that no longer exists in the way you remember it.

Not monsters or fog or haunted towns.

Memory.

The way we preserve people in our minds long after they're gone. The way guilt can distort them. The way grief can turn a person into an idea.

Sometimes I think that's another reason I make playlists.

They're my own way of preserving things.

A song can hold a memory longer than I can. It can preserve a feeling long after I've forgotten the details. Years later, I'll hear a song and remember a version of myself I haven't thought about in ages.

Maybe that's why I keep making playlists for games, books, seasons, characters, and random moments of my life.

They're like my personal little time capsules.

Not just collections of songs, but collections of memories.

Tiny archives of who I was, what I loved, and what was taking up space in my head at the time.

Years from now, I'll probably listen to one of these playlists and be transported back to this exact version of myself.

The one who was thinking too much about Silent Hill.

And honestly, I think that's kind of the point.

For anyone interested, I've linked both playlists below:

[signedunknown]

Why signed, unknown?

I've always had the habit of collecting things.

Random things. Silly things.

Screenshots I'll never look at again. Quotes from books I haven't even finished. Half-formed story ideas scribbled on my notes while at work. Conversations I replay long after they've ended (I'm a chronic overthinker, unfortunately).

I started this blog because my head is crowded, and everything needs somewhere to go.

Some of these posts will be about books. Some will be about psychology. Some will be about things that happened to me. Some will be completely random. Some might just be late night tangents that made perfect sense at the time.

Think of this less as a blog and more as a collection of things I didn't want to lose.

Anyway.

If you're reading this, welcome.

Signed,

Unknown.