july 2022

hullo! all went well with my thesis, which means my work's only just began -_- i should be excited to see my ~vision~ realized but tbh i'm just kinda procrastinating... well, can't be helped though! tiny log this month, pretty uneventful. i've been writing a thingaring about vampires but it's not done yet (taking a break from it as i figure some things out) (it's my usual essay-adjacent fare) (i want to write a short story but it's complicated)

new on the site: more dataplankton; i consider act I done now, which sounds a bit dramatic for something that's just seven pages, but whatever. i'll work on the rest of it eventually, but i only have so much time and brainpower and i have a lot of thoughts i want to work on as well :0

line drawing; the nude torso of a man, crucified. red spectral hands touch his waist and chest

artfight

arfight artfight!! as predicted, i didn't manage to get a lot of attacks done, but it was pretty fun regardless! i'm linking to the attacks themselves here, but you can also see them on my artfight tag on tumblr :)

sketchy digital painting of a dark canine, wearing a green gas mask with a long “snout”, standing against a dark red background

celestialcave's asphyxiation

digital drawing of an anthropomorphic weevil wearing a starry blue wizard robe, matching pointy hat and a lilac scarf, holding a wooden staff. the hat’s large brim obscures its eyes, and its long antennae end in tufts, resembling a mustache

weevil wizard for ascalaphid

media

[lie] i was very normal about vampires this month!

games

the enigma machine: extremely good little horror game from the dev of echostasis. i mean, technically echostasis is from the enigma machine's dev, especially since echostasis is still on demo. regardless, i loooooove the way he does glitches and his specific style of retro computer graphics! highly recommend it. also. do you know what's funny? i found out i actually already owned this game — it's on itch's racial justice bundle — but you know how it is with that bundle, i just didn't notice and grabbed it on steam's summer sale. well, yeah, it's great, a story that can only really exist in the medium of videogames, and i wonder just HOW did he make the gnarliest glitches. oh and speaking of which, big flashing warning for this game :0
genesis noir: actually only played a half hour and refunded... i thought i'd really enjoy it but nah i didn't. idk it just didn't feel good to play. you know how i said zelda is a game that doesn't shut up? this kinda felt the same way, strangely enough
yakuza 0: got it after the refund, it's really nice. i'll say i'm feeling rather sick and tired of cutscenes, but i really love the combat, the pacing and the side stories. my laptop drops some frames here and there though, which really sucks
somnium angelus: yume nikki fan game with a really really cute art style, which was what really drew me to it in the first place. even the awkward controls are quite charming, it's a nice way to spend 15-ish minutes

movies

the bad guys (2022): it's alright! it's pretty fun and the animation is nicely stylized. the plot is kinda weird though? there's a meteorite of all things as a central plot element, which i felt doesn't mesh too well with the furries? also it's pretty weird that all the animals are important characters, while the background characters are all human... it just didn't felt fully thought through
vampire hunter d: bloodlust (2000): auauauuuuu honestly
fight club (1999): i mean do i even have to say anything. it's a good movey
crimes of the future (2022): AUAUAUUUUUU HONESTLY. really fucking good, this verge of transhumanity is a great setting, the performances are great, the story is great. loved it
mad god (2021): gross and nasty and goopy and dreadful, this is a masterpiece from both technical and aesthetic standpoints. really fucking good. the only thing i found underwhelming was the soundtrack... it's pretty good but i just wish it was More. anyway, i'm really happy this beast of a movie exists

books (45/50)

a psalm for the wild-built (becky chambers): this has been in my to-read list for a while. in fact, since it was called "unnamed solarpunk novella" on goodreads, because i'd read to be taught, if fortunate and checked out the author probably. anyway, it's nice but it should not have been a novella. it's the first book of a series and it shows; it reads exactly like the first hundred-ish pages of a novel, which means i might not bother with book 2... it is pretty nice though
mongrels (stephen graham jones): loved it! it's a rather grimy book, really neat
carmilla (j. sheridan le fanu): i had a sudden craving for homoerotic vampires so i did something i never ever do: put mongrels into a brief intermission to read this book, which i never had before, for some reason. it's... rather unsexy tbh. after finishing it i had a dream where i was watching a video essay that talked about a film adaptation that was much more explicit in its homoeroticism, but i've never watched any so who knows. but yeah since it's not as widely used in pop culture it doesn't suffer from "they don't know they're in dracula" which is nice. carmilla does the alucard thing with her name twice though. overall it holds up alright
the vampire lestat (anne rice): re-read because, see above. i have a really weird translation of this book, but it's got a fun cover / overall design so win some lose some. as for the book, i think it's alright. one thing i find odd though, is how unsexual lestat is. idk how anne rice manages it but his kisses feel chaste to the point of being infuriatingly biblical — in fact, i'd forgotten this book was explicit about lestat's relationships with men
transgender marxism (edited by elle o'rourke and jules joanne gleeson): essay anthology, really solid. a very interesting idea proposed here is that, contrary to the usual narrative, sex was invented to support the reality of gender. much like race was invented to justify and uphold colonialism and slavery, the idea of binary sex — and of intersex people as merely defective versions of either sex — gives the gender binary a (pseudo)scientific backing, causing it to be seen as natural, innate, inevitable.
the route of ice and salt (josé luis zárate): forgive the "the [noun] of [noun] and [noun]" YA title, this is a 1998 mexican homoerotic horror novella about dracula's journey to england. i stumbled across this book by pure chance (someone i follow posted their recent reads of tumblr), the fact that it was in the middle of my vampirism era was just one of life's little gifts. well, the book fucks
berserk (kentaro miura): yeah plopping it along with the books. posted my full thoughts on tumblr, but in short i really liked it despite its shortcomings, and i'm excited for the next chapters!!
all tomorrows (c.m. kosemen): really cool! i've read the author thinks it's kinda cringe nowadays and i kinda get it, but it's pretty neat still
the last unicorn (peter s. beagle): loved it, i love fairytale type books like these

see you soon :)

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