index

may 2025

hiiii this month's log is long as shit (smiles). both talking about my work and some fairly long reviews that stretch my list based format a bit. i've been feeling pretty creative in the sense that i'm creating things yay. i'm slowly working on an artzine for the machine beach vn, but i'm being a little lazy with the art. and if i join the toxic yuri vn jam (i'll decide once the theme is announced, because i don't have any ideas rn) that'll take some time away from it too. but i do think i'll be able to finish it in june. i'm gonna put it up for a couple dollars as a kind of dlc for the vn; i'm thinking of it as a bonus if you choose to tip me basically.

new on the site: "we need more metafictional porn": interrogating the implications of a tumblr reply yayy new short story! author's notes right after the links, they got pretty long and made the artlog structure weird. also, a couple movie reviews: a little more flesh (2020): what if immortality was dogshit, and a caress of the vampire review over at the lezv page.

and some fun links for you:

• what if nobody pets the dog? speculative games writing ^_^
• faceless and quiet. when the short story is a gamefaqs guide...
• for vex ashley, pleasure is an act of resistance. "i'm always like, if someone wants to jerk off to this, they're gonna have to work really fucking hard," ashley says with a laugh. "porn doesn't necessarily have to be about functional, easy masturbation.". finally found four chambers again after being reminded of it through that one maria beatty short i mentioned last month, and now i'm properly looking into it / vex's work. i suggest just searching up her name and clicking everything honestly.
• superhot vr's story was removed. what?. huh crazy that this isn't better known. unhinged thing for a dev to do. and as a bonus now i know what superhot is about (i only played it for a little bit).
• the antisexual antiasceticism of izydor stolarz. looking jorge luis borges up on ao3 strikes again. really nails the tone imo.
• creature talk 6 -arrival-. hey did you know the creature designer for the heptapods has a youtube channel?
• the story behind this perfectly normal photo. yayy i love learning the history behind "internet ephemera" like this, very cool that the artist was reachable, and his work is super interesting, i love the fetish objects. also have yourself an interactive moment and try to figure out how it was done: i assumed it was collaged at the developing stage. idk that much about analog editing (only that retouching has always been done, but we didn't dig into it in class [we only had a semester!]) but i believe it's possible?. once you know the explanation it's very obvious — that's why the shadow looks so sharp!. again, real cool vid ^_^

metaporn story: author's notes

this story was a lot of fun and took me bit longer than i expected because i kept getting sidetracked with research. i suppose a solid half of said research wasn't actually all that useful but i have a curious (and procrastinating) mind, and sometimes that means searching "erotic architecture" and seeing where that leads me (several online articles and a solid chunk of preciado's pornotopia, as well as skimming old playboy magazines [they have 60 years of them over at the internet archive]). the internet archive is really dangerous when you're as susceptible to nerd sniping as i am. but it's important to me that my work is reasonably academically sound when working within the pseudo essay framework, in particular when i'm in dialogue with absolute powerhouses like borges and danielewski. i always say bad media shouldn't remind you of their superior inspirations, because the audience will just wish they were engaging with those works instead, so if i'm explicitly referencing this stuff i better engage with it as well as i can.

honestly let me take more paragraphs to talk about this. because these little "sidequest researches" have been great and for structure's (and sometimes consistency's) sake i had to keep myself from linking stuff within the story; it's already doing a lot at once since i'm trying to both describe fictional works of metafictional erotica and actually write it, perhaps a needless challenge. for example, really late into writing it i found an article (more accurately a chapter from gender and contemporary horror in film) about gay porn parodies of horror movies that had me thinking whether or not porn parodies are inherently metafictional (i decided against it — to me they're definitely in conversation with the original work, but intertextuality does not metanarrative make — but i could be swayed). it also had me pondering whether i should watch halloweiner: friday the fuckteenth and bonesaw.

in short: i'm calling it the metaporn short story because it follows the footsteps of borges' pseudo essays, but it sprouted from the kind of exploration you see in my marrow posts / articles / essays. i wouldn't say it's grounded on research, not necessarily, but there were several pdfs involved and i should have kept track of them.

some more specific notes

1) the play is a format i've been really wanting to explore but i don't really do characters, as i think is pretty clear from my work. the stage managers are lifted from our town, very much a metanarrative work. as a fun fact, i've a role i actually played as a teenager — we split them into two characters like i did here. i wasn't very excited for this play (i don't remember how or why we chose it) but it turned out to be one of my favorite roles, i think it suited me well.

2) while penthouse of leaves is what i most wish was real, my favorite part is the sacred sheep passage. it was a last minute addition (originally it was a shorter entry in the same style as the first one, meant as a "something about this is taboo but we can't know exactly what without further context" example), and i think it works well as a piece of flash fiction, plus i got to use some repetition that i've been wanting to incorporate in my writing since reading a paixão segundo g. h..

3) speaking of penthouse, i browsed through a bunch of magazines on the internet archive — varying degrees of quality i'll tell you that much. there's a lot over there. kutt #3 is my favorite and mostly what i picture for my fake mag, i wish i could find issues 1 and 2 as well. also of note is ball club quarterly #28 specifically because i found this ad for a porno on vhs on page 6 ("nick gets it good") a pretty compelling example of writing that's both purely descriptive and erotic: it's effectively a list of what goes on in the tape but also not dry — it has to be clear but sell the thing as hot. cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see.

4) the part about blank narcissus (passion of the swamp) was a v1.1 patch type thing. as much as i love that short it somehow escaped my mind as i was so focused on literature. i mention it fairly often, but once again, definitely recommended but i don't think you can find it for free anywhere... i myself can't rewatch it anymore... it's on mubi. btw the boys in the sand (1971) director commentary is on archive.org if you're interested in one of its inspirations, but it's really not the same thing — the short is very dreamy in visuals and at 12 minutes it's very condensed; the movie is 70 minutes and while the commentary is fairly interesting i think that much sex can get pretty monotonous and boring.

art

bunch of tiny canvases, i got ten at once and should probably have gone with twenty instead, i can bang out a few of these in a very short time. maybe i should be focusing on zooming into surface detail rather than composition but ehh. i like making the backgrounds...

media

games

• automaton lung (2022): playing it again. to perdition had me craving some weird low poly exploration, and this game does it so well. especially on a portable, it's really easy to just open the game and explore for 20 minutes or so, and i think that's kinda the ideal pace.
• cucina stellata (2025)
• the procession to calvary (2020): ehh it's neat but i found it rather obtuse at times. didn't care much for it.
• touhou kinjoukyou ~ fossilized wonders (demo) (2025): wooooo it's here! this game's fun, and i love the music. nareko has some beautiful patterns, i really love geometric danmaku. does kick my ass too — overall i found it fairly difficult with the pyramids often throwing off the rhythm and resources being a little scarce, but it also comes down to improving my routing. the shot type variety is crazy, it's an interesting system and it doesn't really feel like i need to find The Perfect Combination instead of just getting good.
• virtue's heaven (demo) (2025): looked into it specifically because it's a metroidvania where all your movement options are available at the start, which i think is really really cool and should be done by more games tbh. but it doesn't play well on a keyboard and it's not really for me. still worth looking into though!
• 3d workers island (2024): i'd forgotten to read this when it came out. it's neat though i wish it were actual webpages in some ways... i also think the original idea (making it a 10+ hour video you're not expected to watch in full) is perhaps stronger, but at the same time i think that'd inevitably lead into reddit lore freak bullshit, as people obsessively catalogue all mystery out of it — and this iteration seems to be in part commentary on creepypasta culture that's adjacent to said lore freaks in this post-backrooms world we life in —, and i think this is just short enough to leave a lot of intrigue. but to be entirely honest i also don't really think it's particularly remarkable.
• almost people (2025)
• ravimid (2016): so interesting... i think this might be the first game i've seen that uses the 3d slider (not the only because the same dev has another game with the same control scheme), which i think is pretty brilliant. it's a part of hardware that just fades into the background, so there's something kinda mystical about using it, recontextualizing a console i'm so familiar with. kinda like mooncat (← guy who's only played mooncat).
• stylus conjurer 3ds (2025): my memory is so bad omg. neat concept but i could not memorize the symbols lol
• mooncat (ufo 50) (2024): got around to cherrying it (and getting all levels seen; i don't care about 100% completion in general but this was easy to achieve through just. playing a game that i like for a little longer). red egg on my own, yellow on coop because the boss was kicking my ass and i felt it'd be more fun with help. this game's 2p mode is really really fun! i'm surprised the 2p speedrun isn't better routed, though i also kinda get it (not many people run this game at all). there's also a secret joint custody mode where you and a friend each control one button, and it's a fucking riot. we nearly killed the green boss, which was actually pretty impressive. i mean it when i say this is one of the best games i've played recently, and i'd love a sequel or something (i've seen a hard mode mod but for some reason it's only in the fucking discord. whatever happened to nexus). cannot praise it enough. i have a special fondness for games i can keep entirely in my head, if that makes sense.
• miscellaneous ufo 50 (2024) 2p games: just gonna bundle them, i played a long session with the bestie and we sampled a lot of wares.
  • ninpek is fun but unremarkable.
  • my friend doesn't like mortol but i think i could grow to enjoy it as a puzzle.
  • kick club feels bad with a single ball between two people.
  • bushido ball is great.
  • the big bell race is supposedly easy but it kicked my ass so bad, the campanella is hard to control.
  • caramel caramel is hard as ever, it might be a bad game.
  • hot foot is alright but it's bushido ball's lame cousin.
  • party house doesn't work as a 2p game probably, but we didn't try for long because i wasn't in the mood to learn it.
  • pingolf is fun but too long, should be split into two 9 hole tracks.
  • fist hell is a little slow but i think learning all the combos must be fun.
  • overbold's chicken versus is really interesting, it seemed a little boring at first but it makes for a very cool dynamic.
  • hyper contender was a bad choice right after mooncat because the controls tripped me up, but it's a pretty fun fighting game.
  • elfazar's hat is probably the best we've tried, it's just real solid fun, though i think it suffers a bit from the gigantic hitboxes.
  • overall while i still think the collection isn't really for me, the 2p modes round out the whole thing nicely. we played over steam remote play so we got some lag here and there and we had to Commit To Playing but i can definitely see this on the switch as a nice lazy activity yknow. strange to me it hasn't been ported there yet honestly but these things are more complicated than they seem.
• miscellaneous ufo 50 (2024) 1p games: might as well dust more stuff off.
  • i doubt i'll finish barbuta any time soon because i lack the drive, but it really is good!
  • planet zoldath is annoyinggg.
  • avianos is interesting.
  • warptank's mix of puzzly and action elements is kinda hard to me, i don't love it.
  • rail heist feels like something i'd enjoy but i couldn't, not sure why.
  • vainger is cool but i don't think i'll bother clearing it...
  • valbrace is nice with its real-time combat but i don't wanna dig into a dungeon crawler (specifically, while it's mechanically compelling it's not aesthetically, and i don't like the genre as much when there isn't a story [and cool looking setting] for me to dig into).
  • pilot quest is certainly a game: i keep coming back to it but it's more for idle game minmaxing than actual enjoyment so i don't like it, reminds me too much of predatory freemium mobile games (it has a gameplay loop. yuck).
  • i don't get combatants and don't think i care to.
  • i do get quibble race (golded first try because the cpu got into crippling debt) but i don't like it (idc about gambling).
  • i think overall what i enjoy most in the collection are the shorter git-gud ones... i don't like randomization and the longer games are a little annoying, but that's in part a genre preference thing too. imo this could have just been the petters games.
• stealth crossword (2025): this is fucking awesome. it has flash game energy in the best possible way.
• labyrinth of the demon king (2025): this game's pretty damn cool. it isn't just a creepy dungeon crawler but also a survival horror game. and by god that combo is SCARY. i quite like the combat, it feels pretty good, but it is really challenging and you can't quite avoid it. and enemies keep spawning unpredictably so you can never be sure an area is safe. these two things alone make me freeze honestly — there's horror everywhere for those who suck at dungeon crawlers (shoutout to morrowind's dwemer ruins). the atmosphere becomes so oppressive that the dreary gray exteriors where you can't really see shit are beautiful reprieves. however. i do have some critiques. it's just wayyy too light on puzzles. the first tower has a few, and they're easy but you kinda expect it at that point of the game (and i do think the king's court puzzle is quite good... which is crazy because it's better / harder than the one to exit the tower lmao). and then NOTHING. the visuals also get pretty repetitive; i don't really mind the whole game being set in the silent hill otherworld but the identical grimy rooms start to wear thin, even your fucking sword is dirty, and the sepia palette made the color coded valves in the bathhouse a pain (i stg the green valve isn't even close to greenish. also fuck colorblind people i guess). overall, if we're comparing to recent ps1-ish inspired games, this isn't as good a dungeon crawler as lunacid, nor as good a survival horror as signalis. it has good systems and mechanics (and a bajillion weapons it doesn't really need, i think it could have trimmed that to one per class / type [katana, hammer, naginata]. not to mention talismans) in a way that makes it seem the game launched incomplete: everything past the first dungeon feels placeholdery, sketchy — like they put down the basics intending to come back and flesh things out. the fact there's a puzzle in the first basement that cannot be completed (yet, according to paratext) only heightens and cements that feeling. and frankly, the paratext also tells me the dev's priorities are off; if you must have a free content update, what it needs is not a fist weapon and ng+.
• evaluation (2025)

i basically just started lorelei and the laser eyes (2024) and have been enjoying it greatly... it's exactly the type of shit i like for puzzles. small detail but i really like that it can be played with just the left hand too, rsi friendly.

movies and series

• the prestige (2006): the best thing about getting interstellar over with is that i know it can't get any worse. but honestly i was kinda excited for this one, i like period movies (and period scifi is always nice; the costumes are rather weak here and there though...) and stage magic. the non linearity is nice and works very well. it's a fun movie! the twist with the twins is kinda dumb here (funny that it works so well in her story) but doesn't really harm the movie much (maybe because i knew it beforehand). bale and jackman should have fucked nastyyyy it'd not help things out at all ^_^. +2 dead wives, he really overdid himself here. nolan women count is 5.5 alive / 4 dead in-movie / 1 pre-dead wife.
• following (1998): is cobb a manic pixie dream boy? anyway, i think it might easily the best nolan i've watched yet, and just a solid movie overall. it's really tight, the 70 minute runtime does wonders for pacing. we have our good friend the nonlinear narrative, and it's all very well done. young man is such a james spader role, shame he's american. nolan women count is 5.5 alive / 5 dead in-movie / 1 pre-dead wife.
• morbius (2022): after three years holding the line i had the sudden desire to get morbed. there's something SO x-men about the start of this movie. it's very much a bad 2000s marvel movie, which i kinda welcome. i cannot stand whedonesque movies. now, don't get me wrong, this is no venom and i haaaate jared leto (btw i assume this is what he's like irl) and the movie is deeply stupid but still: it's not afraid of being deeply stupid, and i value that on a superhero flick. no self conscious "he's right behind me isn't he?" bullshit. and matt smith is great. it's still bad though.
• fungicide (2002): this is the proof that you don't need to know anything about programming to make a fmv game. you can just make a movie. the structure truly does feel like a cutscene compilation, possibly not all scenes belonging to the same route. jade is a fun character. delightful killer mushroom puppets in this. very creative editing. you bet your ass the cgi is Of Its Time And Budget. this is a rather absolutely dogshit horror comedy but it's very charming, and i think being mildly intoxicated with a nice friend group might be a great viewing experience.
• chopping mall (1986): oh yeahh baby three movies of a certain quality in a row we're so back. the concept of organizing a parallel play sex event (not even really a party) in a furniture shop showroom is crazy ngl. i mean, glhf and all but it's crazy. anyway, there's some fun kills and no brainpower required, the movie's alright.
• visions of ecstasy (1989): ughh the juxtaposition of lesbian imagery and eroticizing jesus on the cross... top tier nunsploitation, it's only missing side wound (side wussy if you will) fucking... who said that.
• a little more flesh (2020): this movie took an incredible premise (horror movie that's a director recording audio commentary over his late 70s erotic drama) and then was so bad i wrote a 400 word review here and then came back the next day to flesh it out into a full 1.5k word post. dreadful stuff. here's the link again: a little more flesh (2020): what if immortality was dogshit.
• caress of the vampire (1996): the lesbian vampire softcore trenches. full review.
• tenet (2020): early on in this movie i said to my friend it was gonna be a stupid ride. it felt like it was going for a bullet-that-curves vibe (has anyone in the world watched wanted (2008) or was it just me and my classmates) where they'd have to master the backwards-headed bullets. and thankfully it isn't but it's still not very clever. i don't think nolan can do that sort of clever thinky scifi. i do think the backwards and forwards palindromic stuff is a nice take but it also feels like it comes from a place of thinking of a cool visual first... which is fine, visual medium and it does look cool, but yknow. less action more speculation in my scifi please and thank you. this one works better if you don't think about it too hard, which tends to be the case for time travel stuff — i think it has a definitive hole mechanics-wise which kinda made me feel dumb for not following what was happening but in reality is just the movie beign dumb, probably. just focus on the spectacle of lots of good menswear and some very nice exterior shots and the great soundtrack. also: no dead wives and a woman of color... we're making strides. nolan women count is 6.5 alive / 6 dead in-movie / 1 pre-dead wife. i'd be inclined to add another half woman but the scientist is not plot relevant enough, she's only in one scene.
• bloodsisters: leather, dykes and sadomasochism (1995): yayy fun doc. this one's on youtube btw ^_^
• the brood (1979): cronenberg's divorce movie... it's fun but not his best work by far. it really works better if you read it as having an unreliable narrator (that being cronenberg himself).
• the rehearsal (2022-2025): oh this season was crazy. jesus christ. i really liked it! holy shit.
• elisa y marcela (2019): hell yeah find lesbian movies on the wikipedia page for hokusai's dream of the fisherman's wife. well i think it's paced awkwardly and doesn't really build up chemistry very well, the movie's just quite boring and stilted... but! i'm here specifically to see the print's influence on the sex scenes. and yeah i guess isabel coixet could probably pull off an artsy mermaid themed lesbian porno. but this is just rather a tepid slog, seemingly more interested on advocating for legalizing gay marriage than making a good movie, which is bonkers for an argentinian production as late as 2019.
• the handmaiden (2016): yeah so can you believe i hadn't watched this one yet. you know that thing where you lose the right window to engage with a greatly acclaimed work. it's pretty good, but mostly because it looks really pretty and fingersmith is a good source material; ultimately i like the series better, especially as a lesbian story. glad the sharp tooth scene is here (i straight up don't get it but oh yeah babey finger that fucking tooth), but really missed the glove / hand as erogenous zone... also it must be said, we should make some sort of lesbian erotica reading club. and hideko in a suit at the end had me acting unwise as you may have guessed.

books and manga

• foucault's pendulum (umberto eco): MY HOLE IT WAS MADE FOR ME. thoroughly enjoyed this book, even if i'm not learnèd enough yet to fully grasp everything he's saying. i am fascinated by conspiracy thought and i have some knowledge of western esotericism but this book's fucking dense with references, that's the whole point. but it's also very very lighthearted. it's "slow" plot-wise, but that's because it's very interested on anedoctes and side paths, and i found that really appealing (and ended up mimicking through reading a bunch of unrelated articles during my period with the book). what i mean is: rip umberto eco you'd have loved blogging. it's also interesting how the high stakes moment takes so long to come and then is gone without much closure; thematically very resonant when the whole book is about conspiracy thought being a search for stories when real life doesn't work like that. awesome book.
• why didn't they ask evans (agatha christie): woo it's been so long since i last read christie... my favorite relaxing read, as you might be able to guess from my entire and overfull christie shelf.
• an invitation from a crab (panpanya): i love their style so muchhh. very nice and cute oneshots.
• the countersexual manifesto (paul b. preciado): yes my second time reading this book this year. what can i say, it's good and aligns well to my art practice!

reading reloj de arena by enrique anderson imbert. really interesting to introduce yourself to an author through a hundred pairs of short story summaries. cool juxtapositions here.

see you soon!

index