12 More Days of Christmas!

Rick Retro’s Realm, The Realm Report #9: Nothing to do with a partridge in a pear tree, just a scheduling issue.

The Realm Report #9: Nothing to do with a partridge in a pear tree, just a scheduling issue.

Merry Christmas! 🎅

This will perhaps be the last issue of The Realm Report in 2025, so let me wish you all a very merry Christmas, and a happy new year!

A Schedule Change

I’m adding twelve days to Project #4, the 2025 Christmas Tour.

I wish I could say that I’m giving you twelve additional great reviews, but the truth is I just can’t keep the original schedule.

I’ve taken a couple of the planned reviews and moved them from the main tour into the Christmas Leftovers portion of the tour. That includes the one scheduled for today. Then I’ve also added in a couple of post-Christmas recovery days. So instead of winding up Project #4 on December 31, I’m now aiming at wrapping it up on January 12. The updated schedule plan is posted here:

I thought I could do it all in December. In my imagination I figured that it shouldn’t be too hard to reformat and upload reviews I wrote last year and release one each day. But in reality, I also wanted to re-watch each reviewed work so that I could add more information than I used to include. Specifically, I’m talking about the Dark Whimsy, Family Suitability and Alignment with Judeo-Christian Values ratings.

I feel like all three of those are valuable ratings that I bring to my reviews. Nowhere else that I know of can you find a Dark Whimsy rating!

Sure, there are lots of places that discuss content, but most of them come from a rather permissive viewpoint. I’m a little tougher. From my Christian viewpoint, I think that when content is questionable or borderline, you should wait until children have matured more before exposing them to that content.

When it comes to Alignment with Judeo-Christian Values, I know of at least a couple websites that address that issue. In this case, I feel like they are often too tough. For example, a film that satirizes bad behavior is not condoning bad behavior, it is mocking bad behavior. I try to look at how ideas are presented to discern the intent of the creators and the messages that they are trying to send.

All that to say that adding those ratings to my previous reviews that lacked them is really important to me. And it’s a major reason for this project. It gives me an opportunity to accomplish the re-reviews while also bringing the content from the original reviews to my now larger audience.

But Here’s the Thing…

Every now and then, I mention that I have a disability, a chronic disease, that sometimes interferes with my ability to work. The weird thing is, that has played no role in this particular schedule change. I’m not entirely surprised. For some reason I’ve noticed that in November and December of most years, my chronic symptoms usually are less severe than the rest of the year. You’d think maybe the climate is part of the reason, but I’m not sure. I’m based in Los Angeles, where the weather doesn’t change much to begin with, and I’m basically homebound in a controlled environment. So who knows?

Instead, it’s just the amount of work, more than expected, that has forced me to extend the schedule. Just to give you an idea, in order to feel like I’m giving an objective accurate report on those three ratings mentioned earlier, I take notes on my phone during a viewing (or reading) of the work I’m reviewing. Typically that at least doubles the time it takes to watch the film or read the literary work. Sometimes, with more complicated works (more adult content or works sending mixed messages), it can triple the reviewing time. So a two-hour film can take me four to six hours to analyze. Then add a couple more hours for finding screenshots, formatting for Substack, etc., and well, I’m working too more hours than I can manage.

I considered keeping to the schedule just by posting old reviews without the new analysis, but I really want to get those done once and for all. So I’m going to keep doing the new analysis, but I can’t keep up the pace of the old schedule while staying healthy and keeping other holiday obligations.

2026 Plans…

…remain uncertain. But I can tell you one thing: I’m resolving to only schedule new projects after having completed at least 75% of the work on them! I don’t like changing release schedules that I’ve published and very much want to remove the necessity of that happening any more.

Behind the Scenes

While working on reviews posted during the current 2025 Christmas Tour, I tweaked a few things that have slightly changed some of the Dark Whimsy ratings and Family Suitability Details ratings. I’ve updated the former changes to this website, and still haven’t updated the latter. I don’t want to take the time right now to complete that, but I will make those changes soon, and include a list of the changes in the next issue of The Realm Report.

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Last updated 2025-12-18