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may 2024

hey. kinda forgot to write the bloggy part this month. now it's the 29th and i have a mild cold made worse by the terrible air quality. my laptop charger is bungled again (some design oversight or whatever makes it very fragile (it's got a thin pin that doesn't really plug well into the connector) and while it's not getting beat up as such i'm not gonna baby it. i literally never had this happen before and i've been using laptops since middle school). still charging but being a brat about it. so i went and bought a decade-old thinkpad t440 to use as a more reliable daily driver, even if it has less and older ram (but 8gb dd3 is still quite respectable, especially since i'm going with full time linux in this machine (i've been using steam on linux these days and it's doing quite well)). can't say i don't find that exciting.

as we speak it's the 31st and it has just arrived. setup is gonna take some time and might even be for naught because it sadly houses an hdd, which is just pretty unforgivable nowadays. it's an entire terabyte though so we'll see how it handles things in practice. it doesn't feel too bad for now. other than that, it only needs perhaps a better display. it's pretty good so far (a few hours).

• you don't need a backlog. i don't really keep one as such — my steam library is organized in folders (highly recommend it btw, preface the names with alphanumeric codes since there's no custom sorting), with things i'm currently playing in a group and things i never opened in another, while both my desktops (linux and windows) are littered with zips from itch.io. but i do feel the vague weight of games-as-homework. this video motivated me to clean up my desktops a bit, especially of games i played started but haven't really felt like finishing (such as mushroom musume). it'd be nice to play everything that catches my eye, but i'll do it on a spur of the moment basis for a little while and see how that goes.
• taxi truths — yellow taxi goes vroom.
• noctis iv: finding life on "latent indigo". i found out about this space exploration game on cohost ages ago, though i haven't played it (yet). it looks gorgeous, feels like a lost lineage of gaming in a way (though i'll never pretend to know anything much about gaming history. i'm only 23.)
• the vow preview. oops this is from march but i'm not the most diligent at checking my rss reader... (i should just have subbed by email i suppose). anyway it's an upcoming graphic novel and it's looking pretty cool.
• girl stuff vol. 2. actually check out all of her zines on itch (they're not all nsfw, and the others don't have gore). really good sequential art, cool story. and yeah pretty hot. a really cute detail on her work is the characters being drawn in their feral form for expressivity, it's really cool and i don't think i've seen it before?
• sexcorp. - sexo violência rio são paulo. goes harddddd. it's tagged both goth and baile funk you just know you'll have a good time.
• filesfound. "documenting the files found on obsolete data storage"! we love to see it! there's an article on neko95! there's a rss feed too!
• collage, gamefeel, history, form.
• the bizarre world of fake video games. vermis mentioned!! another banger from mr. wolf.

art

more digital pastels with my friend the 3ds. my new tablet has barely got any use lmao.

this one's an iteration of this painting, which as i said over at cohost, was inspired by the way porn artists often draw these penetration "schematics" as a way to depict something internal in this more tactile way. i felt the fact the penetrating object curls up like a finger would be lost if the receiving object looked stiff, but i think the flexible fleshy substance looks rather out of place in this world. the transparency is closer to this original concept and works much better in the setting i think.

oh and also. one of earth's dom bank prize dragons, you could win this girl in a raffle some day ^_^

media

games

• observation (2020): good fucking riddance!!! do not play this game. unless you're extremely confident on your ability and patience to navigate as a floaty disembodied thing in zero-g, maybe even then. the interface parts are decent (except for the worst mouse in the world because god hates me personally) but despite what the game page looks like, there's very little of that. the experience is like watching 2001 while kubrick kicks you in the teeth and ribs and tits. it's rare that i say this but i fucking hated this game. the story isn't enough payoff to make suffering through the nausea inducing controls worth it. right after finished i thought "man this could have been good probably if i had been immersed enough through gameplay" but after thinking more about it nah. couldn't help comparing the game to signalis the whole time. just go play that.
  look this is gonna get long and spoilery so i'm gonna details you rq

  it's so underwhelming and straightforward for a scifi thriller. basically humanity discovers signals that indicate a location (near saturn), date (iirc) and a specific human genome (emma's). so there's this secret mission to take emma over there, and the AI you play as (sam) is clearly being influenced by the alien intelligence orchestrating all this, for the purposes of merging emma and sam and (i believe) getting this new entity to bring others to undergo the same process (to unknown ends). like ok pretty cool but... so what? why emma? why should i care about any of this actually tbh. it lacks something intangible, and i think it's characterization. the game is set entirely after things have gone south, and you're already in "bring her" mode pretty much from the outset. you're mostly alone for the bulk of the game, so there's no real interpersonal conflict or clashing interests or betrayal it feels like. it's predictable when it happens in a way. everything could have been cool and effective but it just isn't.

  and that's not for lack of text / time. there are 85 documents / logs, but collecting them is just pure busywork. while i haven't read them all (because my only source was an hour long video) i can confidently say it's mostly fluff. which just seems like a fucking waste. i think effective log-based storytelling needs documents that are genuinely impactful and add to the tension buildup (especially in a mostly linear game like this), and there can't be too many or they become mind clutter and a pixel hunt. careful placement is important.

  also i knowwww i'm a bit biased against heterosexuals (but honestly some of my best friends are straight!) but genuinely the background relationship is so fucking useless. what's it even doing there. yes it only exists in logs but that's my point about the logs being padding! it doesn't make any difference to the story or characters but now there are like ten extra logs just to tell you this relationship existed. and what for! put that energy towards making the main story more suspenseful and better developed good lord. if you must have the romance have it actually add to stakes and tension!

• superhot (2016): played for a bit, it's really cool. pretty hard to have a feel for your hitbox in first person, it's very noticeable when the bullets come in slow motion like this. it's not 100% my style but it feels good to try it out.
• worms armageddon (1999): yeah man it's woims. it's fun as hell, though i always prefer coop to pvp bc when things get competitive i often can't tell if people are feeling genuinely upset or it's part of kayfabe yknow. it's also bugging me that i most definitely have played this before but i cannot think of when. maybe it's just baked into the human dna (maybe i played it on my cousin's computer as a kid)
• rabbit & steel (2024): save me cute little bullet hell roguelike. with coop too!! the demo had me by the throat instantly brother how could i not buy it. the screen can get insanely overwhelming it's great, can't wait to become decent lmao i've beat normal but i know my dps is too low. i love grinding this type of game, slowly building up skill... i even got tetris effect'ed by it. genuinely hmu if you wanna play together sometime, i'm not very good yet but i try my best ^_^
• neve (demo) (2022?): i truly genuinely believe i was cursed at birth to never find brazilian scifi that i like. i really wanted to like this demo, i think it's got a pretty cool concept with the timed puzzles making the 'you only have one hour of oxygen' premise feel more real. but it's lackluster. some of it is just demo jank i think — i'm sure the final release will have hired an editor or proofreader, and i'm not gonna complain about the presentation being kinda rough. but after half an hour i was just like ok yeah that's enough let me out. and i fucking hate autosaves on most games, but especially narrative games, and especially when there's no on-screen indicator so idk where i'm gonna continue the game from. i know it's the devs trying to force you not to save scum and stick with the consequences of your actions but just trust your player. also have a strong feeling it's got the strange thoughtless heteronormativity. basically i could feel i'd get pissed off with the game. SAD. i'll keep an eye on it though.
• gilgamesh ii (2022): a strange rpg maker almost imsim-ish game. didn't spend long with it — it's the type of esoteric i prefer to hear others talk about than play on my own.
• 4-lung boy (2013)
• dread delusion (2024): dreaddyyyy! it's out of early access! this game looks so good and plays exactly like i like my first person rpgs. i was about to dig into sekiro despite the spotty performance (i'm a laptop gamer and there's only so much an mx350 can do) when it dropped to save me from AAA games. look i love fromsoft and the combat style is great but i'm the indie game player. and dreaddy is very good despite its somewhat buggy release (they're actively putting out hotfixes though!). pretty nice not having the temptation of a wiki to see the outcome of each possible choice too, although i'd love a detailed map, and having to look up stuff in steam forums reveals the worst of gamers (the combat isn't too easy maybe you just put all your points in strength bc you like to play rpgs in the most boring way possible?). and yeah the game is quite good, there's a lot of trekking by foot but the map isn't as large as it seems (it's just quite dense), the quests have interesting choices and none of them feel like filler. it took me around 18 hours to finish the game (with a few quests leftover), which was about as much as i was expecting and in some ways as much game as i can take. won't play a long ass rpg for a while now.
• a shower story (2021)
• synergia (2020): oh man this was a pain to wade through. i read the demo and thought it seemed pretty interesting and then the whole thing just isn't. the visuals and music are nice but the writing is pretty clunky. the romance is boring and the love interest feels really childish. cila's a milquetoast centrist and the game seems to agree with her views. they made a robotgirl yuri thriller lame and boring 😭

movies and series

• love lies bleeding (2024): so much fun!! save me dyke thrillers...... is the ending kinda wack with its clumsy visual metaphor? maybe so but let her cook.
• kill la kill (2014): i finished it! it's fun, i had a good time, i LOVE mako my friend mako! feel real good about figuring out some reveals ahead of time hehe. but i have to say around the time the grand couturier appeared i began to really crave a pmmm rewatch. i really should do it.
• we're all going to the world's fair (2021): cool movie. not as tense as i'd have hoped though. maybe possession permanently set my psychological horror bar too high.
• interview with the vampire (2021-): so we back in the mine...... i'm sorry to say i'm straight up hatewatching this season. it's so fucking sad. you know how many black gay vampires i've seen in my life? you have any idea how badly i want to not hate this series? but then boom. daniel fucking molloy and a string of absolutely terrible pacing decisions and an addiction to ruining any sense of tension whatsoever. this series pisses me off man it could have been so good. as usual, episode-by-episode commentary over on tumblr.

books and manga

• exit strategy (martha wells): more murderbot :3
• the name of the rose (umberto eco): fucking finally getting to it. not for the first time i wish kindle's shitty automated translation had latin. man it's so good. lowkeyyy had me looking at r/latin i must say but i'm not gonna go down that road (yet...?). would be fun to reread it one day per day. definitely gonna revisit it multiple times in my life i think. also it's really a the girls are fightinggggg book, so that's great fun.

i'm now reading el huésped y otros relatos siniestros (amparo dávila). i keep meaning to read stuff in spanish for practice but i kinda lack the confidence. i always felt pretty mid at it when learning and it was only for three years and so long ago. but i really shouldn't, this has been pretty straightforward. also dual wielding what manner of man (st john starling).

see you soon!

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