I went through 50 movies total, and because of that, the summaries will be much shorter than in other recaps. I will, however write some highlights and maybe a few rankings later on.
I’ll go through the movies and share how present they are in my mind today. I’ll use the film emoji (🎞) for movies watched in theaters, and the sparkle emoji (✨) for movies that were new to me this year. All the others are movies I had seen before.
I only watched a total of 9 animated movies this year, and that’s counting Mufasa: The Lion King. It’s usually a favourite genre of mine, didn’t even represent 20% of my movie watching this time…
Perhaps not any single TRON movie can be considered a masterpiece, but as a whole, the franchise is honestly pretty awesome, and I’m glad it has managed to exist, even if it only is once every decade or so, and never quite landing.
I love how, despite how different all the Alien movies can get, I eventually just learned what to expect and embraced that they always end or get retconned in a very dire way.
I am really so so happy that I watched Revenge of the Sith on theaters, I felt in awe the whole time, a simply glorious feast to the eyes, can’t say it enough.
Again, Grave of the Fireflies late at night with my little sister was incredibly heart-wrenching, we just kept watching it and seeing how things happened and crying a bit… and I’m seriously tearing up a little as I remember it right now.
I watched The Blob from YouTube while at work, it was definitely interesting to have it as a background noise at first, and then for it to somehow get actually interesting. Good stuff.
Was gonna watch One Battle After Another on theaters, but the first 5 minutes were so uncomfortable to watch—it was me and my parents and it got weird quick—which is why we went for TRON: Ares instead, even if it wasn’t that great, it still led me to the rest of the TRON movies, and of course, the masterpiece that is the TRON: Uprising animated show, so, it was the right choice.
And well, those were quite a lot of movies! Almost one movie per week was watched in 2025 by me. That is something I’m pretty happy with.
The Alien saga, the Tron saga, all of those dad movies or random movies with gambling related themes, I have no idea what happened but the point is that it’s over, and this new year is already looking pretty good as well! But that’s something I’ll bring up when the 2026 recap comes along.
For now, this is it, enjoy the read!
]]>Last year was pretty good when it comes to books, I managed to make a lot of progress and even started a new series—even if I hadn’t finished the previous one, but whatever.
I reviewed almost every book I read, so feel free to check out my separate thoughts on each, linked in the titles here. However, I have a few more words about them—as well as some mini-reviews for some books that I didn’t actually review on my website at all! Let’s start from the beginning.
Start: 2025-01-04 End: 2025-01-15 Series: The Expanse #3
I love all of the Expanse books, and this one was an amazing conclusion to the first trilogy of the series. Featuring quite a few characters with different points of views that I really enjoyed. A few of them are a bit forgettable, but the overall product was great!
This one explored quite a bit of how faith and religion have changed in this future, it features themes of revenge and redemption, with some chapters being done from the point of view of the main “antagonist” that causes the conflict of the whole thing.
The science at hand and the catastrophes that go one during this finale are just awesome, lots of great scenes and revelations that completely change the status quo of Human society until then, as interstellar colonization becomes available to Humanity for the first time.
Start: 2025-01-02 End: 2025-01-28
This was an amazing read full of twists and turns, where Poirot has to solve yet another murder mystery.
Featuring a fun Sherlock Holmes parody, a romantic subplot and many many twists and turns that made me unable to follow up on who had done it.
I loved the contrast between Poirot’s methods and the ones his rival does, looking for fingerprints and the like, and of course, reading along with @isa was super fun.
Start: 2025-03-17 End: 2025-05-05 Series: The Expanse #4
Before any paperwork or treaties can be made to control who gets to visits the new worlds, a rogue ship has decided to colonize one of the new planets Humanity has access to.
After a company gets permission to get into the same planet and sent a ship to mine its resources and claim them as their own, conflict ensues, and Holden is tasked to step in and resolve them.
Of course, things don’t go very well when alien technology starts to show up. I loved the build-up of this one, the absolutely catastrophe and implications of how the plot unfolds. Really awesome start to this trilogy.
Start: 2025-02-17 End: 2025-05-09
This was a fantastic one! A classic piece of science fiction satire where we follow the life of a copysmith workin in the marketing industry, tasked with convincing the world to colonize Venus. Mitchell Courtenay is on its way to the top of the company, but he ends up betrayed by a rival, his identity is lost and he’s sent to prison, I mean, to work and live the life of a consumer, enslaved by contracts and debt.
Our protagonist will try everything to get back on track, even joining a resistance to the consumerist propaganda machine, all to get back to his rightful place. A lot of facets of society are explored in this dystopian future—that isn’t far from reality at this point—and I absolutely loved it once it got going.
There are certainly some dated aspects about it, but the story is tight and entertaining and rather thought-provoking, one of the highlights of the year!
Start: 2025-05-09 End: 2025-06-17
This was definitely the weirdest read of the year, featuring a super strange cast of characters in a rather unique setting. It is the weirdest, most mixed book of the bunch I read this year.
Featuring a cast of characters from different time periods and species, during a war across time between the Spiders and the Snakes—two factions that we know very little about. The war stays in the background, as the actual story happens in a pocket of time where soldiers go to rest and recover. The protagonist works providing that relief, as a friend, a nurse, an escort and the like. Suddenly, this pocket of time gets “stuck”, and the device that controls this is stolen, as an atomic bomb starts ticking. And now we are in a detective story!
Honestly, this was fun, but a pain to read, the style and prose is absolutely painful and dated, every character speaks according to their time period and stuff, it was bizarre, but not bad.
Start: 2025-06-17 End: 2025-09-03 Series: The Expanse #5
The story continues and this time all of our protagonists are split apart! Everyone goes on to their own adventures and journeys, facing different problems that will eventually bring them all back together.
As Humanity is eager to embark on to new planets and reach new frontiers, lots of different events begin to unfold, a plot against Holden, against Earth, against Mars and the OPA, that plans to shake the very foundations of mankind.
I absolutely love the political intrigue and the family drama that happens on this one, I was on the edge of my seat as the dangers faced by each and everyone of the Rocinante’s crew grew bigger every second. This was a terrifying entry in the series, and genuinely intense. Lovely stuff.
Start: 2025-08-28 End: 2025-09-04 Series: The Murderbot Diaries #1
As I waited for my Book Club friends to finish up reading The Expanse, I got the Martha Wells Humble Bundle which came with all the Murderbot books. As I saw most are novellas, I decided to give them a go.
This was a lovely action thriller science fiction story introducing us to Murderbot, an android tasked with protecting humans, that managed to jailbreak himself and become free to do whatever he wants. However, he keeps pretending to be just a “SecUnit” and just sticks to watching TV Shows and other media on his free time, interacting as little as possible with his human clients.
At some points things go wrong and he ends up having to save humans who actually care about him as a person, which makes it so he has mixed feelings about life now! A fun read with lots some good actions moments, but more of an introduction to be honest.
Start: 2025-09-05 End: 2025-09-09 Series: The Murderbot Diaries #2
The second book with Murderbot details how he escapes from the humans that liked it because it’s insecure about himself or something.
There’s also the introduction of ART, a super cool smart AI that helpes Murderbot to blend in as a regular-looking human, even causing hair growth and stuff with some advanced code stuff.
Anyway I actually forgot what the exact plot of this one is, but I remember the relationship between Murderbot and ART being absolutely hilarious to read. I think there was not as much action on this one, I may be incorrect, good short story.
Start: 2025-09-16 End: 2025-09-16
In the middle of my reading, there was an obsession with Hollow Knight brewing within me, so I had to order this super neat physical book that featured a lot of art of the game and some nice tidbits of lore. I read the whole thing from start to finish in one day, since there was not a lot of text, featuring more drawings, maps and the like.
I can’t really say much more, there is not a lot of new lore that you can’t find from the wiki page or from YouTube videos, but the finish and the design of the book itself is top notch and it was absolutely worth the purchase given the quality of the materials and printing. An absolutely lovely collector’s item, in my opinion.
Start: 2025-09-09 End: 2025-09-19 Series: The Murderbot Diaries
After meeting ART and continuing his escape from his human friends. Murderbot decides to infiltrate somewhere and actually maybe help his human friends who got in trouble because of his escape.
So he ends up infiltrating as a Security Consultant for an interesting group, featuring a Robot “pet” who is actually the friend of a human who treats her with respect and as an equal. There’s quite an interesting contrast going on here that makes for both wholesome and very funny moments.
The action goes up a notch as well! Which I really enjoyed.
Start: 2025-09-25 End: 2025-10-17 Series: The Expanse #6
And at last, the last Expanse book I read in the year, and the conclusion to the second trilogy of the series. Once again, the conflict continues to focus on Humanity and how everything the series has built upon thus far is changing the way society works.
After a new military power arises, old enemies have to become allies and work together for once. Holden and the crew will also face their own difficulties, with old enemies joining in as well.
This book picks up with a mystery setup since the previous one, and it does so masterfully. I really enjoyed the new character dynamics and how it set everything in place while giving closure to many characters as well. It was fantastic, even if I could already tell how it would end like 10 chapters in advance.
Start: 2025-09-02, End: 2025-10-20
This was an amazing collaborative effort between multiple authors who worked together to make a small collection of short stories. The whole anthology, whose subtitle is Stories from Beyond the Screen’s Edge, was simply a joy to read. I read half of them in one day, and I would have done them all in one sitting if it wasn’t because I’m a professional procrastinator. I will actually read it again and write a proper review soon, because this book deserves it.
I got it physically as a chapbook, and despite some quality issues, the book is just cozy to have in such a state. Definitely worth a read. Not just because it’s a small indie publisher, but because it’s a genuinely thought-provoking collection of human stories, standing up against the AI dystopia we live in today.
Looking at a table of these stats is quite eye opening to be honest, you can easily see how badly I fell during many months, but at the same time, I don’t feel terrible about it, when combined with the manga and the videogames I enjoyed as well! I could have finished at least three more books if I had procrastinated less, but such is life sometimes.
| Month | Pages | Time |
|---|---|---|
| January | 1240 | 26:07 |
| February | 68 | 01:20 |
| March | 223 | 04:48 |
| April | 692 | 12:56 |
| May | 516 | 11:00 |
| June | 303 | 06:10 |
| July | 223 | 04:03 |
| August | 422 | 08:01 |
| September | 857 | 16:25 |
| October | 668 | 12:47 |
| November | 66 | 01:27 |
| December | 54 | 01:24 |
These would be my picks from least to most favorite books, by the way! You should keep in mind I absolutely enjoyed each and every one of these reads, except for maybe the very last one that I actually listened to instead.
In any case, here’s my ranking!
I started a few pages of the following books, and I did enjoy some of them, but for one reason or another I dropped them I didn’t read more than a couple chapters on each, so I’ll happily resume some of them if I have the time, I just need to get over my reading slump.
I grew my physical collection quite a bit this year, even though I didn’t add many of them to my reading list online, I had pics to remind myself I got them, so here’s a list of all the books I acquired in 2025.
Overall, I’m happy with all I’ve managed when it comes to reading, given my focus ended up being somewhere else for most of the year. I want to improve during 2026, even though January was kind of a weak start, especially compared to how nicely I did early last year.
This recap has a bit of everything, it wasn’t as well planned and I kept adding sections I thought were fun, but well, it’s all kinda interesting, I’d say!
In any case, I enjoyed all of what I read, fantastic books and series so far, I had a good time, even if it wasn’t as much.
This is day 12 of #100DaysToOffload
]]>This is inspired by a post by Axxuy, although I went ahead and added a bit more than he did, just because.
All the music with a little spark emoji (✨) are completely new for me this year, and the rest are just regulars that keep showing up, I include the emojis for electronic music (🤖), videogame soundtracks (🕹️) or with singers as well (🎙️). I hope you enjoy some of them!
Most of the stuff I listened to this year is from the same genres I’ve listened to for a few years now. 70s and 80s J-Pop (or City Pop as is known today), Videogame Soundtracks, and Electronic Dance music. I mostly enjoy the chill, jazzy and funky vibes of these over other genres.
Some random musical things I’d like to mention that aren’t as formal, I guess. Songs I saw from movies, or only once, or some random sound or jingle that got stuck, and the like!
I listened to a lot of albums from start to finish this year! Here are some of them I’d like to highlight. I may have selected others if I thought more about it, but decided to just share as they came to my memory.
Reminder that these are not based on stats or scrobbling or anything (even though I have the actual stats on my Listenbrainz, although incomplete).
Some of the names were mentioned already but hey, they may have a lot more great music besides whatever I mentioned.
There you go, that’s a decent summary of the stuff I listened to throughout the year! Some of it is definitely among my favorites, some of it I just consider to be worth sharing, and even if I only played it a few times, they were in my memory for a reason, I’d say.
Either way, this is plenty already! I hope you find something that fits your taste, or at least fulfills the curiosity you may have had regarding my musical taste.
]]>