heyo! not much to write here in this log really. for some life updates, i finally switched to linux. i'm using mint and i love it, but i'm kinda annoyed by not having sai, of course... i'm using azpainter, which is similar enough, but with some added features and some missing ones (much like linux itself).
thesis stuff: i've compiled all my AI-gen images i've saved these past few months because i want to reuse them (honor the electricity and whatnot. saves me time and effort too hehe). it's a 50mb folder right now (no compression and missing most of my artbreeder images, and allll gifs). that's basically as much as my whole site right now! idk, just thought it interesting.
new on the site:marrow #4, a little self indulgent ramble on lolita fashion, a long overdue links page featuring some nice sites, and an about section on my homepage. there's also some stuff on my gemini capsule, of course.
art
not a lot of art this month. i'm mostly sketching traditionally rather than drawing digitally, and those aren't polished enough for me to feel like posting. mostly fairly repetitive / recurrent skeletal shapes. i haven't been in much of a mood for digital art.
some more copperplate. i'm most definitely allergic to this medium :')
i've also played a little omori and stanley parable ultra deluxe, but not much of either and not for long (although i enjoyed both of them). i also recently poked around some new game boy games and started theresia on the ds. haven't played much of it, but it's pretty neat so far, i think it's a shame there are so few horror games for these handhelds. probably a mix of hardware limitations and the fact indie games weren't really an option back then, like it is with the switch. thankfully with gb studio there's now room for indie gb games! hopefully they'll get to the ds too at some point. yall know i love my 3ds. oh and the vermillion descent demo, it's super stylish and the music is impeccable (chuck salamone my beloved....) and dynamic! gameplay's still kinda clunky but that's ok, it's just a demo. keeping a close eye on this one :)
also... i watched american horror story s1 (murder house). i literally don't know why i started but idk i got kinda hooked by its terribleness. it's not even actually so bad it's good? it's... odd. the supporting cast is pretty good. everything else isn't. especially the editing, good god the editing is so so bad. but yeah i watched this little artifact of early 2010s tumblr because i'm a chronic procrastinator (this includes procrastinating riverdale... i wanna watch a random season eventually but the stars haven't aligned yet. maybe in a few years when it's completely irrelevant).
um, spoilers for this decade old tv show, but i must say the sheer amount of ghosts in that house is just comedic. my count of ghosts by the start of the finale (which i consider to be episode 12: birth, and you'll agree with me) is TWENTY TWO (22!) — not counting the exterminator guy (who we know died but only appears briefly in the last episode) and violet (who's still pretending to be alive full time). counting these two and violet's family brings us to 27. that's over twice as many ghosts as episodes, just in that one house (and 31 total with the murdered highschoolers). that's a lot of fucking ghosts. here's my list from memory, in roughly chronological order:
the doctor, his wife and the frankenstein baby (3)
the black dahlia (4)
the two nurses (6)
the redhead twins (8)
constance's husband (never seen in ghost form iirc) and moira (10)
constance's lover's wife and kids (13)
constance's son beau (14)
constance's son tate (15)
The 2010 Gays (17)
the three true crime fans (20)
the husband's lover (21)
constance's boyfriend (22)
books (31/50)
60% of my goal! also my kindle acted weird which i'm a little worried about. it's only ten years old!
braiding sweetgrass (robin wall kimmerer): absolutely amazing little non fiction book, it's very good!
the word for world is forest (ursula k. le guin): yes!! yes!! very good!!
the story of silence (alex myers): it's very nice! but the ending... the author aknowledges within the narrative that it's unsatisfactory, and then proceeds to actually end the book in an even less satisfactory note! i get that it's arthurian legend but come on it's also your book, you can change stuff a little. otherwise it's good though, you know me and my gender knights
the ruthless lady's guide to wizardry (c. m. waggoner): i've never read fanfic but this feels distinctively like someone's AU with filed off serials (arguably contemporary pulp fiction) because all worldbuilding elements appeared when necessary and then faded into flavor text. yes including the wizardry. in another book i'd say "damn shame the story didn't explore the world a little more :(" but this one's just not even interesting enough to matter. it's perfectly alright, nothing more than sufficient, the kind of book that makes you realize why people who read mostly fanfic have the most rancid media analysis takes in the world. i also wish the author didn't replace so many swear words with things like "bleepin'" or whatever to show a character is A Fine Lady. it's so fucking annoying. just omit the expletive honestly — the dialogue could use less expletives overall. there's a couple moments of obvious miscaracterization (and one POV accident) that i'm surprised didn't get caught by the editor too, but nothing egregious enough to matter
the unspoken name (a. k. larkwood): it's interesting enough? there's some nice worldbuilding and stuff but honestly i'm too old for this. it's in that weird spot where i think it isn't technically YA but it kinda totally is?* much like the locked tomb books (but i rather enjoy the locked tomb). iykyk. there's a sequel out already but i don't think i'll bother
duty free art (hito steyerl): a collection of essays, so it's a little underwhelming, but fairly interesting still!
the left hand of darkness (ursula k. le guin): re-read. i've been meaning to revisit this for a while (kept putting it off because my copy is hardcover and i hate hardcovers), because i kinda feel like a bad trans le guin fan for not liking the book very much my first time around, in 2019, and i'm not too sure why! i love the story and the world, it's pretty compelling, i was supposed to like it! in this re-read i realized i just don't like genly very much, but in a way that can't be helped. he's a misogynist on purpose. ursula herself also addressed other criticisms of gendered language and heterosexuality, and i don't really hold that against the book. still, i wonder what could have been, a different version of this book that matched the expectations i used to have. overall i think it's fine that i don't like it as much as i wanted to; it's still very good and well written
