new on site:commission info. i doubt freelancing will ever be a viable job for me; i just hate hustling and self-advertising. i like drawing people's characters though, i missed it! and i can certainly use some income lmao
the lesbian vampire movie page is finally up as well. my reviews are currently short because they were what i wrote at the time of watching, but going forward i'll try to go more in-depth ^_^
"how's the job search going?"
the twenty-some remoras on that whale were the most beautiful thing i've seen in weeks. i tried to make a joke (and my jokes are always earnest, even when they're lies) but honestly that's all there is to it. their grace and what i perceive their relationships to be was beautiful. awesome. (isn't it great how this word has such meanings / connotations and how both of them [...........] [1]?)
i've been reading about fungi and i yearn. i'm simply chronically lonely. of course i feel the draw of mutualism / symbiosis. living is far too heavy a burden to bear alone. i'm a 21 year old teenager and my body feels like a rented house. i'm an artist which is to say a human / unemployable. worms are composting my brain. but also that's what normal is right now. isn't it. it's all cosmic horror all the time. that's not even the right word. anthropocenic horror. oligocenic horror.
perhaps i should stop romanticizing the cabrian explosion. it's hard out there for every single species. are they aware that it's getting harder? could they even grasp the extent of it, the causes? it's cosmic horror for them. and to our brain it's fundamentally the same isn't it? i guess that's the whole deal with hyperobjects.
well at least the remora can go back to its life of moneylessness. we are nore or less exactly as impotent, but it has less bullshit to worry about. i shouldn't think just of the bullshit of course. but the horrors outpace the delights. that is to say i can't find the energy to [.........]. only as a vague haunting as the day disappears and i try to reel it back in before there's tomorrow. it's always suddenly 5pm.
i need so many things that i may as well need an unicorn pony honestly.
...
btw i actually got an interview AND follow-up test actually. i'm writing this to post right after the follow-up interview, in fact, on this january 31st, and it went quite well! although i'm not yet hired (why the hell the personality / profile test is after the actual "can you do the job" test is beyond me) i'm feeling pretty good. and also feeling good about applying to UX stuff in the future, despite my lack of formal design education. so i guess things are looking up? well you and i both are gonna stay in this cliffhanger.
art
got to work on traditional painting again after forever! yipee!
these are assemblages of screenshots of my thesis (which yeah yeah haven't posted yet), made them for the class of 2022 exhibit in march because dealing with getting a computer there (and maintaining it!) is too much hassle. if i were to exhibit a computer program i'd need a lot more time and budget and stuff to make it work Nicely. anyway i wanna make one or two more but i need to resupply first, especially because i want one of them to be bigger than any of the canvases i could paint over.
mixing gouache and acrylics together made for a pretty nice texture. it's that shitty cheap paint used mostly by kids, so the white is quite runny and transparent. i used it nearly like acrylic medium, and it let me mix colors directly on canvas a little bit. the black got less use; i never actually use it for colors (i prefer mixing my own) but it was just perfect for the dirty grey / brown. i'm really pleased with how the colors look, in particular on the meat painting. all this from just four colors (black and white gouache, alizarin crimson (my beloved) and yellow ochre acrylics). i really like using restricted palettes like this, it's honestly just a lot easier than having to think with too many variables.
media
games
pokemon unbound (2021): technically a fire red rom hack, but it's irrecognizable. original story, a modern battle system, plenty of qol, the works. really fun. honestly they should just open source / public domain the early pokemon games, because rom hackers just consistently make great stuff. who'd have guessed not being forced to put out two games a year would make quality improve. anyway, i accidentally gave myself a purple pokemon gimmick early on, and then after getting both crobat and swoobat and not being able to choose between them... decided i'd collect all bat pokemon (crobat, swoobat, noivern and lunala). my two other buddies were garchomp and obviously absol (though absol is pretty late game and i had a vikavolt or drapion until then). ice types dni.
picayune dreams (demo) (2023): quite relaxing horde survival / bullet hell with a great ost. a round is really nice an fast, and i'm very definitely hyped for the full release
movies and series
rin: daughters of mnemosyne (2008): fairly good anime, with an odd choice of six episodes of 45 minutes each (the pacing is good, it was just unexpected). i like the designs (protag wears a non-girlboss suit and glasses? aww you shouldn't have! she's no integra hellsing (bazongas -_-) but ^_^), the story is interesting. "yeah right you watched the titty anime for the plot" i mean come on i watch lesbian vampire sexploitation from the 70s. the tits and the plot are both important. it's about the balance. anyway in the right (trans) hands this would have been a real solid lil series
the menu (2022): ahh it's so fun! really neat casual watch, it's pretty funny and the darker / horror-adjacent parts are pretty fun too, just the sort of thing that makes me physically :D yknow. i'd call it lighthearted even. enjoyed it lots
white noise (2022): could have been good but lacks soul. it's all over the place and not cohesive at all. it has a lot of interesting / compelling stuff in it but it's overall entirely pretentious without deserving it. pointless. the characters and performances are quite good though.
nier:automata ver. 1.1a (2023): well. it's ongoing. haven't played the game but watched a nice let's play, i like it! the 2d animation is very pretty but the 3d is awful tbh. fun overall however
puss in boots: the last wish (2022): the animation is really good in the fight scenes, great style, but it's kinda janky at times. it's quite heavy on the shrek references, it's quite clearly teasing shrek 5. overall it's alright, whatever. i'm not as excited about checking out kids' animations as some of my friends tbh, but it's ok
mobile suit gundam: the witch from mercury (2022): i was dying to watch it as it came out but it was just as i was also dying in general so i only got around to it now. incredible stuff!! holy shit can't wait for s2 owo
otherside picnic (2021): hell yeah brother i might be just in the bullseye of this anime's target audience, i knew that from the get go. haven't actually finished it yet but love everything so far
les diaboliques (1955): the climax of this movie is SO tense. i really liked it, and the novel it's based on sounds quite interesting as well.
la morte vivante (1982): full (it's not that long tbh) review on the dedicated page, but in short, a beautiful beautiful blood-drenched tragedy. reccommended for sure
books and manga
the fires of lust: sex in the middle ages (katherine harvey): pretty good overview, plus it's not written as pop-history! quite liked this book, it's informative enough to be worth the time but not too long or exhausting. i'd love to explore the bibliography to go more in-depth at some point, especifically when it comes to art, but so much to do so much to read yknow.
the bloodborne comics (ales kot): just lumping them together. they're kinda whatever but i love the art
the lifecycle of software objects (ted chiang): i think it's quite good! really loved the writing style, and the story is quite compelling.
my lesbian experience with loneliness (kabi nagata): ough.
capitalist realism: is there no alternative? (mark fisher): look i know it's not meant to be a fun romp, but i found this book to be so fucking boring. like 6-days-for-an-80-page-book boring. it's really abstract, in a way that feels empty. so um yeah i can't really engage with his ideas? like overall he's saying some insightful things or whatever but i was having a hard time not floating away if that makes any sense.
entangled life: how fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures (merlin sheldrake): yeag! that's what life is all about baby. really fun little read
a nós o vosso reino (finisia fideli): your kingdom come, the last of the novellas in that shitty scifi book i started last year. dunno what the lord's prayer got to do with it, because it's a horror piece centered on a new age cult. i think it was the strongest of the bunch, and it could make for a decent movie even, but i'm glad to be done with this book
parker pyne investigates (agatha christie): oddly enough, this edition's back blurb calls pyne "christie's most famous detective published by this publisher". this edition is from 1972 so either they had not published many of her other books at all or ??? this felt like something from a parallel universe. especially when ms. oliver cameos. i've read a lot of agatha christie, it's fun that she still throws some curveballs like this one at me
