What I Watched, Played, and Listened To – February 2026

My monthly media journal – games, music, films, books, and whatever else captured my attention that month.

February felt like a month lived in the rain.

Proper British rain. The sort that hangs in the air all day and turns every walk into a negotiation with puddles and damp sleeves.

I’ve always had a completely irrational hatred of umbrellas, so my strategy has never changed. Coat on, hood up, accept the weather, and keep walking.

There was a lot of that this month.

Rainy walks with Jasper. Coffee with friends. Long stretches of work. A couple of trips into London for the Lunar New Year celebrations, which brought colour and lanterns and noise into an otherwise very grey stretch of winter.

I’m not currently at university, so the rhythm of life right now is a little different from last year. Less academic structure, more work projects, more writing, and a lot more time thinking about media in the context of streaming and the blog.

And somewhere inside all of that, there was still quite a lot of watching, listening, reading, and gaming.

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Learning Video Editing

One of the quieter themes of February has been trying to get to grips with video editing.

I’ve started properly learning DaVinci Resolve, which means a lot of time spent staring at timelines, trimming clips, adjusting audio levels, and occasionally wondering why something that looked simple in a tutorial has suddenly become extremely complicated.

It’s a different way of thinking about storytelling.

Streaming captures the moment as it happens. Editing asks you to step back afterwards and shape the experience into something clearer, funnier, or simply more watchable.

There is definitely a learning curve.

But it is also strangely satisfying when a sequence finally clicks together and the whole thing starts to feel like a proper piece of content rather than a chaotic collection of clips.

Slow progress.

But progress.

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Music

Music ended up being one of the strongest threads running through February.

The “What’s Your Love Song?” project from BTS sent me wandering down all sorts of musical rabbit holes again, revisiting old favourites and rediscovering tracks that had quietly slipped out of rotation.

Most mornings started the same way.

Dawn – Dear My Light

It’s one of those songs that gently sets the tone for the day. Quiet, reflective, and just emotional enough to make the first coffee feel slightly cinematic.

Another EP that kept returning this month was Ren – Vincent’s Tale.

Ren has a way of turning songs into something closer to short films. Vincent’s Tale sits somewhere between music, storytelling, and spoken word, and it’s one of those pieces that demands your full attention when it comes on. Not background music. Something you stop and listen to properly.

Beyond that, the playlists this month were a mixture of familiar favourites and newer releases.

The standout new album for me was ATEEZ, whose latest release includes the absolute banger Adrenaline. It’s one of those songs that demands volume.

I’m also still very happily orbiting the January releases from:

• Heize
• EXO
• Enhypen

Some months develop a very distinct soundtrack.

February definitely did.

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Games

A Date With Death

This month’s smaller streaming project was A Date With Death, a supernatural visual novel that turned out to be far funnier than I expected.

The premise sounds simple. A mysterious figure appears. Conversation follows. Choices are made.

Naturally I managed to trigger one of the worst possible endings fairly quickly.

Which, honestly, feels on brand.

It’s the sort of game that works best when you lean into the chaos of your own decision making.

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The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

Meanwhile, the main gaming adventure continues.

Tel and I have been exploring Return to Moria, which has slowly evolved into an unexpectedly cosy cooperative survival game.

You mine.
You rebuild ruined halls.
You cook mushrooms.
You sing dwarven songs while digging tunnels.

And then occasionally everything tries to kill you.

The sessions are slowly turning into their own little chronicle of our journey through Moria. Equal parts base building, resource chaos, and the discovery that dwarves appear to operate on a deeply mushroom-based economy.

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Dramas / TV

February’s watchlist ended up being wonderfully international.

Without really planning it, I seem to have drifted between Thai, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese shows depending entirely on mood.

Here’s what ended up in rotation:

• Burnout Syndrome (Thai)
• Mobius (Chinese)
• Sniper Butterfly (Chinese)
• Positively Yours (Korean)
• The Boyfriend (Japanese)
• His Man 4 (Korean)

Reality and relationship-based shows like The Boyfriend and His Man always generate interesting conversations online about editing, storytelling, and how audiences interpret what they’re shown.

It’s one of those genres where the meta conversation around the show becomes almost as interesting as the show itself.

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Film

Hamnet

My cinema trip this month was to see Hamnet.

It’s a quiet, emotionally textured film that lingers in your head and does a number on you long after the credits roll. The story explores grief, family, and the small moments that ripple outward into something much larger.

The atmosphere of the film often feels almost painterly.

Not a loud cinematic experience, but a deeply absorbing one.

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Books

Reading this month happened across three different formats, depending on where I was and how tired my eyes were.

Physical books.
Kindle.
Audiobooks.

The three that stayed with me most were:

• In Memoriam – Alice Winn
• Stone and Sky – Ben Aaronovitch
• Ways of Seeing – John Berger

They’re wildly different books, but each carries its own kind of gravity.

Ways of Seeing in particular is one of those works that quietly rewires how you look at images, art, and media. Once you’ve read it, you start noticing things everywhere.

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Podcasts

Podcasts filled a lot of the walking time with Jasper this month.

A mixture of commentary, history, and storytelling ended up in rotation:

• Seasoned Gaming
• Emily D Baker
• Betwixt the Sheets
• Josh Johnson
• The Rest is History
• Stephanie Soo

They’re perfect companions for rainy walks and train journeys.

Some of the best ideas arrive halfway through a dog walk while listening to someone else talk about something completely unrelated.

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February in Small Moments

Looking back, February wasn’t dramatic.

It was quieter than that.

Rain on pavements.
Coffee shops with friends.
Jasper refusing to come inside after a walk.
Music playing while work gets done.

And in between all of that, stories in every possible form.

Games, dramas, books, music, films.

Small worlds to step into while the rain keeps falling outside.

By the end of the month the playlists had shifted again, the watchlist had grown longer instead of shorter, and DaVinci Resolve had claimed several more hours of my life.

But that’s part of the joy of it.

Following the threads that catch your curiosity. Learning new tools. Falling down unexpected rabbit holes of music or film or games.

Then writing it all down so you remember where the month went.

February may have been grey outside.

But it was full of stories.