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december 2024

what a year huh. jesus fucking christ good riddance.

well it was my one year hrt anniversary this month yippee! it's fun how i just look like more me now.

very brief artlog this month, apologies. not much going on. i'd like to make a 2024 wrap up with favorite things and stuff but i think that might come later in the month!

• the real history of rule 34: really like the angle here of documenting and preserving porn history! specifically fanmade internet porn, which is like. the butt of every joke.
• izzzzi. pretty inch resting format! i'm not the biggest fan of ephemeral social media but i like the digest format / approach. the mutual-only format (hey. remember facebook and adding friends to mutually see each others posts.) is nice privacy wise but it does add a pretty high barrier of entry where you kinda have to convince at least a few people to actually use the thing, pyramid scheme style. idk! compelling but clearly made in lieu of a groupchat... is it that much different from my weird p2p proposition back in september?
• the case against gameplay loops. real and true as fuck.

art

decided to formalize this thing into more of an oc. pathetic fetal creature born only for the slaughter. i think it gives birth to itself when its guts are taken out and stuff. it remembers all of its deaths. well cared for but it longs for heaven and decomposition.

i've been doing some filet crochet also, it's something that's not really my style since there's no practical use really, but it's a pleasant way to busy the hands and mind, and there's some nice antique patterns out there. plus i've been meaning to chart out an heirloom we have for quite some years, but have never got around to it.

i'll stick to this for a bit longer, but i also wanna try colowork, probably knitting intarsia, make a sweater vest. idk. that's a couple months away at least.

media

games

• threshold (2024): it's alright. underwhelming. it overexplains itself and can't really build up or maintain much horror, nor does it have a strong thematic backbone. i just don't get it! it's very shallow and i didn't expect it to be so it feels like i've missed something. it just has very little payoff, there's no point in chasing after different endings or secrets really. brazil difficulty was pretty comfy which i appreciate.
• pokémon tcg neo (2023): romhack of the original gbc game, since i've got pokemon tcg fever but can't stand to look at gen 1 pokeys anymore. i need at least one of my favs and specifically i really want to make espeon/umbreon decks. and i can do that here! although i'm a franchise hater in general and don't think we need more pokemon games, i find it very strange that they never made a tcg game for the ds, which is very well suited for this. same thing with colosseum; i don't get dropping spinoffs with interesting gameplay. anyway this game's fairly easy because of the AI, but it's really fun to have on my phone. AND i get to use my kitties. the cards have nice artwork and are nicely balanced too. i might check out generations as well eventually, even though it also lacks absol.
• the dark queen of mortholme (2024): this is yuri. to me. really neat game, gorgeous art. it's interesting playing against an opponent that gets better over time like this! the game's rigged obviously, your attacks have enough wind up that through input reading the game decides whether you hit or miss, which is a really curious feeling to have. give it a go ^_^

movies and series

• death on the nile (1978): wooo! i love me an old murder mystery. i don't watch movies in the genre nearly enough. of course, this one entered my radar through maggie smith's mean lesbiany realness. i don't want to queerbait you so i'll say that's not quite it but there's no other apt description either. in any case this movie's cast is packed and it's pretty good! i love the single location / locked room murders the best ^_^. you do have to suspend your disbelief a bit to pretend that man was someone you'd get the hots for immediately though.
• conclave (2024): this movie is so much funnn. it's two straight hours of nonstop gossip basically. it's really not trying to engage with the realities of catholic church or philosophical arguments; this isn't the name of the rose. but it's a bunch of middle aged cardinals fightinggg. really entertaining friend group watch, wonder how it is on the theaters.
• appointment with death (agatha christie's poirot, s11e4) (2008): didn't intend to watch two north african poirot mysteries so close to one another but this had been on my queue for a bit on account of tim curry. it's ok, didn't love the execution but no complaints either. i put it on to paint tbh.
• killer nun (1979): a nun goes straight cruising in this one... before there's any killing even. i think the pacing is kinda ass, though it has pretty good killing sequences. it's just kinda mid overall.
• the devil's doorway (2018): it's such a fucking waste to set a movie in a magdalene asylum and 1) not have a woman protagonist 2) invent a possession scenario instead of grappling with the actual real horror of these institutions. for god's sake a doctor proposes lobotomizing an already abused girl! the director set out to talk about that, which is why i don't understand how she could fumble it like this... it's a very well made film, but the script is all over the place and it just doesn't do its subject matter justice yknow. this would be better as psychological horror, not supernatural. maybe i'm just very picky about supernatural horror though, i just find furniture moving around to be very trite.
• friday the 13th (1980): rewatch on friday the 13th! it's a fun movey. i need to get back on track with finishing this franchise. mostly because of the jason x sex scene post. it's plot relevant...
• friday the 13th: part iii (1982): this movie has weird and contrived racism that really makes you aware you're watching the third movie in a horror franchise... why pray tell add a random motorcycle mini-gang that's 2/3rds black and mean to the (white) protags for no reason... well. other notes: you can really see the 3d bait lmao. jason's off the rails and it's a lot of vignette killing of random people, which i can appreciate on a slasher. he's fairly creative too. debbie is a really fun character ^_^. it's crazy that this was enough to make hockey mask jason an icon because it truly isn't that good.
• friday the 13th: the final chapter (1984): spoiler alert they made like 8 movies after this. which is how you can tell this is a very safe and archetypical slasher. i feel this movie really made me understand what it was liek living in the eighties, and why slashers get mocked so much and why scream exists. i've watched bad slashers aplenty, but this isn't that, it's just no more than serviceable. as much as it tries some new things (like adding an older mom character, and a pre-teen, and some dude camping) it still remains at its core "let's put some horny teenagers in a house" in such a tiresome trite way they don't even try to hide with things like, yknow, writing.
• clueless (1995): I FORGOT PAUL RUDD IS HERE. ← i think i said the same thing about romeo + juliet he can't keep getting away with this.
• the bay (2012): this movie is awesome. i found it on the wikipedia page for cymothoa exigua and i think more horror films should be found that way. it's a thoroughly solid and well paced found footage, mockumentary style with various sources and they all feel quite legitimate. it looks very 2012 (not derogatory, surprisingly). i think you do have to suspend your disbelief with regard to the isopod behavior but it's genuinely not that hard — sick and mutated animals can act strangely as a treat since i enjoyed the movie, and the whole point is that it's eco horror, it's unsustainable. idk i just had a great time, i think it's at that phase iv (1974) spot for me. a rock solid 3.5 stars movie, meaning it's a 5 star movie for what it's trying to do yknow.
• DNF the unholy (2021): rare movie DNF but ten minutes in i just realized i didn't care. it just had a sense of nothingness to it, paired with an uninteresting protag and bad reviews, why would i bother. like i don't wanna tell anyone what to do but i think starting your movie explaining that some witch's soul got trapped into a doll (stupid ritual for a catholic priest to do btw) and then smashing that doll before Bad Things Happen is just not good horror filmmaking? why wouldn't you even try to keep some sense of mystery?
• friday the 13th: a new beginning (1985): aw man things are dire stereotypes-wise (and male gaze wise. alternate universe where no one wears a bra [🐬 but like. shaking my head because of the reason behind it]) in this movie. which is a shame because it also has a much less monotonous cast of characters that i could actually care for and get attached to, on paper an insane thing to say about the fifth movie in a up to now rather lukewarm slasher franchise. even the single sceners are pretty fun, i love demon and anita, his girlfriend that has like five lines... i think this really is a very solid new beginning, even if not exactly in the way it was intended (ie setting up a new slasher — girl between this and halloween they just can't pull this sort of thing off with contemporary audiences huh)
• friday the 13th part vi: jason lives (1986): hey tommy got eye surgery and the movie got tone surgery into horror comedy territory. jason has never had any personality so i appreciate this deadpan humor aura to him. it's not really much to write home about but he's much less of a michael myers clone now. however some issues here: imdb says it's tv-ma but i think they were shooting for pg-13 (it did get a 14+ here in brazil, which tracks), and that kinda sucks because they still hate women but now i don't even get the titties anymore, as well as lacking the silly gore one'd expect from a more comedic horror movie. also i hate the whole trying to prove he's not actually the killer thing going on with tommy. it's just a downgrade from 5's characters i think.though i like the sheriff, i think he has a certain tim curry swag to him.

books and manga

• the sex lives of the saints: an erotics of ancient hagiography (virginia burrus): i'd started this one months ago and dropped after the first chapter because i was SO out of my depth. it's pretty interesting but it was challenging to follow since i have no background on the topic at all. i always complain about pop history (et al) books being too shallow though so i'm a lot more satisfied with it being this dense.
• DNF the wicked and the willing (lianyu tan): after that ^ i needed an easy read so. lesbian vampire horror romance time. i think i overcorrected though. this is a very nothing book, from reading reviews i think it's not just me that thinks it starts to sag in the middle. i think it suffers from trying to have a love triangle (i love po lam but we all know there's no point on adding a human love interest to a vampire x human novel), and it feels like it just doesn't know what it wants to do? it just lost me, i realized i didn't give a shit like 2/3rds of the way in. many such cases.
• monk's hood (ellis peters): that's cadfael 3, a much better easy read. i don't intend on reading the whole thing in order because they're just a little too whatever but i'll read a couple others.
• western esotericism: a guide for the perplexed (wouter j. hanegraaff): really easy to follow and a nice overview, wish it was longer.
• amatka (karin tidbeck): auauuauuuuu this one's awesome. annihilation freaks will love it.

happy new year!

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