A collection of notes on whatever gave me experience points in 2025.
This was a partial tally because this year sucked and I closed access to Dad's Netflix, meaning a whole lot of movies weren't recorded. I also did a lousy job tracking articles I read. In 2026 I'll actually use Obsidian to track things in the moment, and then transcribe them here.
There are too many choice lines to quote here, so I'm going with this one: "... I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself."
"He’s a true believer in stories. It’s how he thinks. A story is a “frame I understand.” He struggled in school until he realized everything from history to biology can be understood as a story. (A sperm cell, for example, must undertake a typical three-act Hero’s Journey.)"
Three striking quotes: "Blockbuster punished customers for being forgetful; Netflix rewarded them for being mindless.", "Rather than cultivate [the success of a competitive environment based around multiple film buyers and studios], the largest Hollywood studios spent the first decade of the new millennium stamping it out." and "At Amazon, Hope discovered he was in the customer acquisition business, not the film business." The amount of times I said "motherfuckers" while reading this article has to be a record.
Started and ended the year with the Ana and Din mysteries. Come for the whodunnit, stay for the powerfully written afterword where he doubles on the non-controversial idea of "Kings are bad."
I wasn't sure what I expected when I picked this up, but it wasn't this: A series of essays on writing from a children's author and teacher that fought for imagination in the time of Mussolini and the rise of Facism. It's so good and hopefully I'll use it as I get into writing short stories. I can't shut up about it.
I picked this up after enjoying The Dead Take the A Train and having it recommended to me by Alex. It's so full of rage and I loved it. I continue to love takes on "classic" stories - in this case The Little Mermaid.
Four books: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet; A Closed and Common Orbit; Record of a Spaceborn Few; and The Galaxy, and the Ground Within. They tell quiet, somewhat inter-connected stories for a galaxy learning to find itself. Chambers has my number every time. These books helped me get through this garbage year.
A barn-burner of a book. I couldn't put it down. Julie is one of the sympathetic protagonists I've read in a long time and the world Khaw and Kadrey created is dark in the most fun way.
I love that whodunits and mysteries are having such a massive resurgence. The interplay between the two leads is what makes this book unique. And the giant monsters the world has to protect itself from while also using them as natural resources.
A romance disguised as a sci-fi novella and a sci-fi novella disguised as a romance. And now I know what an epistolary novel is! I wonder how a storytelling device like this could work in comics?
Jimenez's use of language is just beautiful. A line that stuck in my mind: "“I have lived a long time," she said. "And the longer I live, the more it surprises me, and saddens me, how wise the young must become to live in this world.”
A Zatanna origin story, of sorts, and it's so good. I love DC's Black Label line because it doesn't require me to read endless crossover issues and creatures can really go to town on the story they want to tell. Tamaki's plot is somehow tight and expansive and Rodriguez's storytelling is becoming the gold standard to me for playing the comic form while still being easy to follow. It's so good.
I read these first at 19 and 20, when Moore released the ABC line at Wildstorm. It was extremely formative for me. From Williams' layouts to Moore's textbook style take on his grand theory of magic presented in super science hero form. I've thought about it ever since and it's held up as a gold standard in my mine of what comics can do. Reading it again 25 years later, I'm happy to see just a few tarnishes on the gold (the language of Sophie's best friend is really grating, but she does sound like a 20-something from '99, and one-off lines about sexual assault show up), but the celebration of imagination still shines through.
Ellis is so prolific - released his first colleciton in 2024, and here's the next already. Plus he does does strips almost daily on social media. His horror work is eerie and wonderful, with what I think is a love of 80s and 90s horror films through out. He's on my must buy list.
I love the world of Black Hammer and having one of my favorite artists take it on meant I couldn't miss it. And I was right. It makes for a great take on superhero books and how it doesn't have to fit in Marvel or DC's house style.
Stevenson's graphic novel deserves all the rewards it won. Watching the art mature through its pages, while still feeling cohesive, was interesting to see. The story was way sadder then I thought it would be, but also so hopeful. That's been a huge theme in works that resonated with me this year.
It feels good to read something so fresh. I feel like a lot of books I checked out this year had their influences on their sleeve, and Nights doesn't at all. The interplay of the main characters is what sells it, of course.
I watched the anime ages ago, and honestly didn't even know it was a manga originally. I'm able to grab it courtesy of my local library and has the same cozy dread feeling as the show. In long running manga like this, it's always interesting to see the art evolve and the storytelling improve. The Japanese market has a lot of forgiveness, similar to the webcomic world here.
I hate PvPvE extractor games. I'm just not quick enough and don't have the time to endlessly play it. This one, however, has something delightful in its exploration qualities (a theme of games I've dug this year.) I hope the matchmaking rumors are true cause getting did in by folks with gibberish in their names
The way this game let's nearly everyone play how they want so we can all enjoy the story the studio wanted to tell us is masterful. What a work of art.
A lovely send off for my favorite series. The forward momentum of the game play and lack of massive open-world-explore-it-all-ness worked really well for it in a crowded field of decision-paralysis creating games.
Excellent nostalgia fun that helped me understand deck builder, turn based games. The '90s Midnight Suns era of Marvel Comics is one of my favorites, and it was well translated to today's storytelling tastes in the game. I don't have much hope for a sequel, but fingers crossed.
A gem of an exploration game. The multiplayer experience of creating your dirigible and finding what happened to the world was ... charming? I just kept wanting to know more and more. I'm lookig for to Far From Home's next game to see if they go more story-focused then experience-focused.
The synthesis between the art style and the music was lovely. The amount of stories in video games dealing with grief is innumerable, but this one felt alive.
Sloan's newsletter is a monthly journey through the web. He connects it all in ways he might not even realize (outside of his table of contents.) It feels similar to all the connections across Mr. Penumbra, Sourdough, and Moonbound.
My favorite of the Knives Out series so far. I love an examination on organized religion through the facet of various genres (see also Midnight Mass). The style of shots changing to reflect the tone of various movie periods was really nice. It's something done a look in comics, but I don't think it's often pulled off so well in movies.
An excellent, excellent popcorn film. I never say that in a derogatory way: movies can be fun! and you eat through your popcorn immediately! (Seen in the theater)
A fantastic portrait of creative person always struggling to find his way forward. Also, I always love a story where it's not a focus on a "oh look how young and amazing some is and was." Age is no restriction on creativity, growth, and change.
I don't have a big love of Superman - the comics or the movies - so I went in to this expecting something fun but not much more. The hope that drives it all forward was unexpected though. Gunn's work often has a hidden mean streak - even the Guardians of the Galaxy films - but this was just about fighting to make things better, even if the world rejects it.
This movie. THIS FUCKING MOVIE. Just a masterful film from beginning to end. It's a horror movie that fed - ha - all of needs for what I want a horror movie to be. The now-famous music scene wasn't even my favorite part.
I knew nothing about the history of Sly and the Family Stone outside of good music and the marriage stunt, and I really enjoyed the story it told. I paused it a bunch to go look up the actual events, in a good way!
Baz Luhrmann's style takes a second seat to the story at the Moulin Rouge. Which is crazy to say, because the style is thick on this one, but it all serves the story. Some weird imperialistic notes aren't fun though.
The cast's ability to take what should be unnatural dialogue and make it feel realistic, heavy, and rhythmic is great. The interconnecting plot threads come together well, making this gruntled detective story feel fresh with just the right side of over the top.
This show is perfect for me and it's nothing I could ever dream of making. A story told through conversations and inter-personal relationships yet still creating tension and excitement episode after episode.
Still one of the most beautiful series - animated or otherwise - I've ever watched. A constant source of inspiration. I need to rewatch it more regularly. And I thought it was much older than 11 years!
Raphael Bob-Waksberg comes out swinging again. The connections over the different time periods makes for a a really layered story with the character development feeling natural. And holy shit is it hilarious and poignant . Less dark then Bojack, thank goodness.
Similar to The Three-Body Problem, Patheon starts in a very specific place and then the story expands widely and wildly. In our age of AI-fantaicism, it's yet another story with warnings that will be ignored. I'm glad this is getting a wider audience on Netflix after AMC+ fell apart.
Gatwa's season ended way too soon. It's for reasons only they know - and should know - but I'm still bummed about it. I hope that Gatwa's Doctor stands the test of time as the force of optimism, change, and rebellion that we saw him as.
There was a shift in a later season that had the Barn's cast touring the countryside and visiting other craftspeople. It was a great view in to professions supported by the government in a way that can be seen as explicitly
One of the quietest, fantasy animes I've ever seen. The animation of things like blades of grass and leaves in the air do so much scene setting. The tale of what happens to an elf after a DnD-style adventure ends is a great hook and they tell the story so well here.
