tropicsbear: Alexandra Trese from Trese with her hair in a ponytail (Trese: Ponytail!Alexandra)
[personal profile] tropicsbear

Ballerina (2025) (8/10)

Ballerina is set between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4, though the story focuses on new character Eve Macarro and her quest for revenge.

We were introduced to the Tarkovsky Theater, one of the Ruska Roma's bases, in John Wick: Chapter 3. There we see what John's childhood was supposedly like and where he probably had his training. What I, personally, found most intriguing about the theater were the ballerinas. Based on what we were shown, all the women in the Ruska Roma were trained in ballet, while all the men were trained in judo. But everyone was also an assassin, and everyone was tatted up and had gnarly injuries from harsh training. A female assassin who relied less on her looks and more on her physicality? Color me intrigued.

And Eve definitely didn't disappoint. Action-wise, I thought this was every bit as good as the main films in the John Wick franchise. It's actually a bit gorier because while John favors guns, Eve seems to have a fondness for grenades. (Let's not get caught up in the physics of whether you can blow someone up in close quarters without also getting blown up. Grenade-fu!)

Cut for length and mild spoilers. )

Random stuff:

  • Hard to pick a favorite fight, but I think I'll go with the flamethrower vs. firehose one. The primal scream Eve let out was 👌🏽 (Not counting this as a spoiler since the scene was in one of the trailers.)
  • I will admit that there's something the movie doesn't quite pull off that's in the main films, but I can't quite put my finger on what's missing. Which isn't to say that this is a bad movie—I think it's great—but there's something in the vibes.

Murderbot News!

Jul. 11th, 2025 10:53 pm
chomiji: An image of a classic spiral galaxy (galaxy)
[personal profile] chomiji

‘Murderbot’ Renewed for Season 2 at Apple TV+

The news comes ahead of the Season 1 finale on July 11. Based on “All Systems Red,” the first novella in Martha Wells’ series “The Murderbot Diaries,” the season stars Alexander Skarsgård as “a self-hacking security construct who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable clients” that “must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe,” per the official logline ... .

tropicsbear: Green silhouette image of Knuckleduster from Vigilantes: BnHA Illegals (Vigilantes: Knuckleduster silhouette)
[personal profile] tropicsbear

Vigilantes: Boku no Hero Academia Illegals (8/10)

Vigilantes is a spin-off story set before the events of Boku no Hero Academia which focuses on vigilantes in a world where being a pro hero is a viable career path. It expands the worldbuilding of BnHA beyond pro heroes and gives more historical information about how society developed after the appearance of Quirks. (Someone in YouTube comments said that Vigilantes is actually more academic about hero society history than BnHA which is more "My Hero Military Camp" sometimes. Absolutely wild and yet weirdly accurate.)

We're introduced to a new set of characters—college student Haimawari Kouichi, "freelance idol" Pop☆Step, and eccentric bruiser Knuckleduster—but lots of pro heroes from the main series appear in supporting roles as well.

Cut for length and spoilers (for the anime and some of the manga). )

Random stuff:

  • There's a distinct lack of protecting secret identities in this show. Kouichi spends more than half the time with his face out in the open even if they explicitly say that vigilantes are technically on the wrong side of the law. (Because even if they're doing good, they're not licensed.)
  • There's a trio of characters who are assholes to Kouichi and Kazuho in E01. Like, assault and beat up levels of being assholes. And yet there's some weird redemption thing going for them by the end of the season? We don't need this.
  • We get a fair share of Tensei AKA Big Iida in this show and I'm eternally grateful for it. We even get a minute of kid!Tenya struggling with his Quirk!! Cutie!!!
  • The animation quality's much more consistent compared to the recent seasons of the main show, and also just higher quality in general. Which is interesting because you'd think that the main series would get more love since it's the central canon. Checking on MyAnimeList, studio Bones produces the main series and Bones Film produces Vigilantes. Poking around the Wikipedia page, it looks like Bones Film is a subsidiary of Bones and different studios in Bones Film work on each series (Studio B for Vigilantes and Studio C for the main BnHA).
  • My per-episode reactions are in the comments of the corresponding posts over at [community profile] bnha_fans. Spoilers abound in the comment discussions, so beware if you check them out.
  • S02 is targeted for release in 2026!

Goblin Emperor and Midsummer

Jul. 10th, 2025 01:24 am
chomiji: hand with crystal orb and word Magic (Fantasy Orb)
[personal profile] chomiji
 Given that Edrehasiver VII became known as the Winter Emperor, I’m not shocked that we don’t have much info about how Midsummer is celebrated in the Ethuveraz (Elflands) in the first book.

But after some searching, I’m saddened to report that there’s nothing in the entire Cemeteries of Amalo on the subject either.  In fact, The Grief of Stones has not a single mention of the word “summer,” and the other two only mention it in reference to things like the summer homes of the nobility.

I’m trying to come up with something for a project, and so far I’ve only come up with fireworks and summer fruits like strawberries and plums.   I imagine that there are various agriculture-related  activities in rural areas among commoners (for example, bonfires rather than fireworks), but does anyone else have any inspirations for Summernight activities among the nobility?
chomiji: An image of a classic spiral galaxy (galaxy)
[personal profile] chomiji

The Earth is ruled by the authoritarian Mandate, which like all such governments is constantly alert for threats to its stability. This extends to its scientific research: although the Mandate has explored space and discovered a number of exoplanets (a few of which have some form of life), it still insists that scientific discoveries must support the philosophy of the Mandate, which holds that human beings are the pinnacle of creation and that other life forms must all be in the process of striving to achieve that same state of being.

Ecologist and xeno-ecologist Arton Daghdev chafes against both these mental manacles and the Mandate in general. Some time before the story opens, he becomes part of a cell of would-be revolutionaries. After discovery of his improper views and rebellious actions, he is sentenced to what is meant to be a short life assisting research on the planet Imno 27g, casually known as Kiln for the strange clusters of pottery buildings scattered over its surface.

Life as a prisoner on Kiln within the research enclave is brutal in all the ways any such prison can be, when the prisoners are nothing but human-shaped machinery to accomplish the goals of their jailers. The Mandate's leadership has absolute control over who among their prisoners lives or dies, and if anyone should harbor the intent to escape, the environment outside the base is all too lively. The death rate among the workers is appalling, but new shipments of convicted crooks and malcontents arrive all the time, so it hardly matters.

None of the weird aliens seem to be builders of the sort needed to create the clusters of mysterious structures or indeed intelligent in any way beyond, perhaps, the level of social insects on Earth. Yet somehow the small, dysfunctional cadre of scientists on Kiln must serve up the desired tidbits of discovery to keep their commandant happy with them: evidence that there once were intelligent humanoids on Kiln.

Cut for more, including some spoilers )

I am an emotional person, and I want to like at least some of the characters about whom I'm reading. Daghdev is prickly, snarky, and fatalistic — but then, he has cause. He's also an unreliable narrator who only reveals to the reader what he wants, when he wants. The situation is really excruciating: people with a deep dislike of body horror might want to avoid this book. And there is not, in fact, a happy ending (at least not IMO).

On the other hand, this is very well written. For me, it moved along at a fantastic clip, and when I went back to check some particulars for this write-up, I found myself reading far more than I had intended because the story caught me up again. Some of the scientific ideas reminded me of other works (Sue Burke's Semiosis surfaced in my thoughts a couple of time), and sometimes I was reminded of something more elusive, a source that I can't recall. Does anyone else who has already read this have thoughts on the book's likely ancestors?

From my viewpoint, this was one of the most "science fictional" of this year's finalists. I think it might be my first choice in the vote.

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