index

january 2024

hi! not much to talk about this month tbh. not much going on, honestly for the best. between hrt and not having to work, i feel pleasantly neutral for once. was able to complete an art project so that's nice. i do very much need to go back to painting traditionally though, that's one of february's goals (as i work towards figuring out just What i wanna do for my master's project — possibly a more polished version of the nonexistent knight yuri or dataplankton. maybe i should devote myself to finishing the latter next month as well.)

links:

• exploring an abandoned minecraft world
• the disturbing development of a haunted game... — about akumakira's basilisk. man i think i should have played basilisk 2000 for myself, i've had it wishlisted for ages. oh well i still think i'd enjoy it even post spoilers
• the lesbianism of shirley jackson. i feel sooo normal about this 👍

art

most of my art this month has been for the vn, which was a really nice project to work on. pretty low stakes and let me focus on just getting it finished. some parts were like milking stone (i don't like drawing interiors and furniture at all...) but overall a very satisfactory process. also drew the whale fall fursona twice as warmups, need to draw them more! oh and i got a new, larger drawing tablet. really should have upgraded way way earlier because this is so much more comfortable. drew jesus erotica to test it out in the wild.

the visual novel (bertha)

yeah i finished my entry for the queer vampire jam this month! it's based off a segment of carmilla, a story within a story that functions as a bit of a cautionary tale for laura. while i'd have liked to make a homage to the kind of 70s-80s movie that really represents the lesbian vampire trope to me that felt a little too ambitious. maybe i was overly cautious, but i'd never worked with renpy before, and there's a lot of assets that go into a vn. so i'm pretty content with my restrained scope, because it meant actually making something. can you imagine me not even attempting at an interactive fiction jam focused on queer vampires. it's my fucking hole it's made for me. i can always just make more stuff in the future.

media

games

• reset day (2022): so cutes :3
• the phantom of the black rose revue: act 1 (2023): ahh i remember when this one was but a tumblr post. can't wait for the full vn, this looks gorgeous, the music is great and. yknow.
• picayune dreams (2023): beat it and now working on unlocking all upgrades and beating overdrive 1 (it's HARD). true ending will come when it comes tbh, flawless boss kills aren't all that hard (maybe because my main strat from the beginning has been 'flawless the bosses to keep health and get free upgrade', and my loadout is rather focused on not getting hit. my glass cannon swag) but i've a tendency to fumble the bag regardless, so i often get hit exactly once per boss. i love this game, def recommend it. it's kinda meditative. trance state. great ost
• blood orange (2023): thalassophobia yipee !! i'm not really afraid of underwater stuff but i love underwater horror so so much (on account of loving underwater stuff in general). really cool short game, check it out
• portal: revolution (2024): fun fact i love portal and have played both games but finished neither (i did beat the coop campaign at least). haven't finished this one yet either. anyway, really solid mod, but performance is lowkey abysmal. it's a mod for a 2011 game! be period accurate! also i miss glados :( but the voice acting is really quite good!

focusing on not starting new stuff bc i have a chunky backlog. working on touhou 7, i'm getting much better and i really wanna beat the game this year (i thought i was gonna do it last year but i was put in a bit of a meat grinder and forgor) (btw i stg sakuya wasn't selectable from the beginning. i always play reimu)

movies and series

• dungeon meshi (2024): save me dunmeshi....... i LOVE the animation! my friends marcille laios chilchuck and senshi are MOVING and SPEAKING! marcille!!!!
• 1670 (2023): oh it's a fun one. the jokes about antisemitism feel kinda off tho... idk
• haute tension (2003): really really good slasher, tense and threatening and relentless, but undercut by a psycho tier twist. don't think we can reclaim this one babes (mayyyybe if we went on the psychological horror route but honestly. it'd take a lot of elbow grease to fix it. of course being a lesbian can make you feel like a fucked up person but that becomes cyclical when the very cause of those feelings is media such as this) but like. was def worth the watch. just go in aware of the fundamental lesbophobia lol lmao :(
• pokémon concierge (2023): so cutes.....
• the moth diaries (2011): we could have had it all....... but we didn't. full review
• sleepaway camp (1983): oh it's so unremarkable. i don't think it'd be really remembered at all if not for its place on analyses of trans people in horror. made me want to rewatch let's scare jessica to death for some reason. also. that dude has beef with a 14 year old lmao. also also the aunt fucking ATE !
• saltburn (2023): controversial take apparently but i liked it. nice little brainless affair, great cast, it's a period piece, a veneer of good looking Film, intoxicating really. grave scene goes on my very short erotic tragedy list thank you.
• creepypasta (2023): dying to find out anything about this movie because it feels SO distinctively like a student project or something where each of the eight (!) directors made a short or two and they just smashed it together on adobe premiere. felt like watching a dubious creepypasta compilation with friends, except most segments didn't feel like pastas at all. authorship and ip rights gets tricky but i was expecting at least more bootlegs. there were like two we (consensus) found fairly interesting and creepypasta-like, and the effects are overall pretty nice. watch hazel's normal creepypasta retrospective instead.
• the green knight (2021): this came out how long ago?? oh man. good movey. i too wanna put my hand against dev patel's cheek, see what the fuss is about. but i'll say. the costumes kinda lost me in the castle part. ye olde sweatshirt.
• the curse (2023-2024): the curse has been lifted ! it was so hard to watch at times. loved every minute. it's good :thumbsup: love the camerawork so much....... loooove a voyeuristic camera love the reality tv vibes when they're not actually recording...... and the finale was uhhhhhhhhh memorable to say the least
• rope (1948): old films drive me crazy those suits are so beautifully tailored. brandon's two breasted navy suit is incredible. janet's dress! of course the movie is greatttt who'd have fucking guessed huh. the sunset! the camerawork! the fucking tension of course! hitch and his cock huh....
• sweeney todd (2007): alan rickmannn hiiii. god i really was dying to watch a musical but not rewatch potp again. tim burton + johnny depp is the worst combo in the world but must be said i was a goth teen once and todd is a whole ass gender, nice singing voice too.anyway i found the music lacking and the aesthetics kinda drab... like i know the point is to be gloomy but didn't really do it for me. also the way johanna is an absolute non-character and then her 'arc' is left unfinished like. ok.
• i know what you did last summer (1997): missyyy! i read lois duncan's down a dark hall last year and found it mid. of course from what i gather this isn't a super faithful adaptation so whatever but it's also kinda forgettable. it's just fine yknow. nothing about it really stood out to me. found the ending to be an absolute drag too, the climatic showdown took forever and the epilogue is kinda eh. anyway. man door hand hook car door 👍
• inferno (1980): as to be expected from argento, the visuals and music go insanely hard. the diving scene at the beginning is incredible. also shoutout to the insane scene where a hot dog food truck guy just runs up and kills a man being eaten alive by rats. i guess that's new york city for you. that could definitely have been pruned but overall you can't just not enjoy the show.
• hellbender (2021): izzy girl you are so weird and offputting. movie could have been good but it's just kinda nothingburger tbh. not much in terms of tension or stakes, which is a shame since the premise is neat.
• emma. (2020): anya taylor-joy is so good in period films... despite my annoyance at the perceived movie-market saturation by her and mia goth they're great, the whole cast is quite good. nice costumes too. the movie is alright
• novitiate (2017): man i didn't realize this was gonna be so self serious. also looks bland as hell i have to be real here. it doesn't not make sense given the setting bit's boring to look at. it's often giving something they'd make us watch in religious ed at school except the framing is rather at odds with that lmao. it's not exactly anti catholic but not. not that either yknow what i mean? secret third thing. centrist about cloistered nuns and vatican ii. the only reason i kept at it was because the premise was actually pretty interesting but i don't think the protag has enough actual protagonism and there isn't much attention given to vatican ii either so what are we even doing here
• rebecca (1940): pretty good, shame about the hays code. might read the book at some point too.
• lancelot du lac (1974): really like the way this is shot. very understated.

books and manga

• promising new blood (jodie carrion): good god i needed something fucked up and visceral to jumpstart my brain in the new year. didn't adore it but finished it in two sittings and enjoyed it a lot regardless
• the moth diaries (rachel klein): figured i'd check the book out sooner rather than later since january was assigned lesbian vampire month (because i'm making the vn). and i'm so glad i did, i really liked it! i understand why the movie kinda failed, the vignettes format isn't very cinematic and it's much more about being inside the narrator's head. and she's a great narrator! very well characterized, great voice. so deep in denial. i highlighted a lot of quotes here, which i don't usually do but honestly she drives me a little insane. girl you need a 'am i a lesbian' quiz so bad but the internet isn't around yet......
• the death of ivan ilyich (leo tolstoy): yeah man it's good. need to read more dead russians but i'm rarely in the mood for long books because i have so much i wanna read all the time i don't like getting locked into something (even if it's really really good like i'm sure anna karenina is)
• the iliac crest (cristina rivera garza): inch resting. like the texture but i definitely need to read some stories by amparo dávila and then reread it, probably in the original spanish
• psycho nymph exile (porpentine heartscape): highly textural
• knights of sidonia (tsutomu nihei): finished! yeah it's a good manga but would be better if nihei weren't so cishet man...
• maya's funeral procession (yukari ichijo): cool gothic one shot, really like the art style and it's a very solid story. it has such a giallo vibe... this could have been a great european movie fr.
• trans and genderqueer subjects in medieval hagiography (ed. blake gutt and alicia spencer-hall): read some of the essays, haven't finished yet because i'm just jumping in occasionally.
• vampires and violets: lesbians in film (andrea weiss): really good, would love to read something similar that fills the gap between the 90s and today. obsessed with the chapter on vampires being the only one underlined on the pdf i read.
• the castle of crossed destinies (italo calvino): good. his mixing the "usual" medieval-esque elements with unexpected contemporary technologies is really neat.

i also started bachelard's the poetics of space but it kicked my ass so it's pretty much a dnf. couldn't finish the first chapter sadly. i'd love to power through it in the future but right now i decided to just move on so i could read more things.

see you soon!

index