index
november 2025
hi! 2025 is almost over huh.
something fun's coming up soonish, i shan't say what it is but you'll see early next year ^_^. it's not a really big deal but it's just a nice thing that's happened to me...
otherwise i've been working on the robotic romance jam game! it's point and click but quite visual novelly in structure. sooo much work that renpy does for you goes into making stuff on godot — this is my first time Really programming logic and shit and it shows backstage lol, the code is a little bit of a hodgepodge between "naive" bools and dialogic signals — but i think it beats making a point and click without a gui. anything but dealing with renpy screens.
anyway the game is basicallyyy done, it should be up next week ^_^
art
![digital sketch. a human researcher uses a computer beside a nude android. human: uh. why do you have a sexy droid exactly. computer: if you would please consult the graph [a line going up along the axes 'sexy' and 'performance']](/works/misc/2025/girl-compressed.jpg)
suggestive? more?
as per my tumblr post: supercomputer that's also one of its own engineers (on account of being a supercomputer) and it keeps convincing its makers to give it more pleasure sensors and shit saying it's vital stuff for its supercomputery applications. but it's actually just a pervert. it's a koko birkin bag type thing.
sexually explicit :3
the researcher is quite excited over it. together they are pioneering haptics so pervert supercomputer can feel pussy on her cables. nods sagely.
these are totally unrelated to the robotic romance jam characters, which is kinda funny. it's just a different dynamic! they should all be in the same universe though. this is happening just offscreen in a different research lab. all supercomputers are horned up in different ways. they're tumblr mutuals.
media
games
- portal 2 (2011): oops finishing it after 2-3 years. well what is there to say. it's portal 2. game's good as fuck. glados is there. hi glados i love you. and the turrets are there! my friends the turrets! i get sad every time i get the "no hard feelings" voice line... baby i'm so sorry...
- demon bluff (playtest) (2025): pretty fun (clues by sam if it slayed) but i kept getting random freezes... i hate unityy.
- tölt (demo) (2025): i've been following this game for a bit and was so disappointed when the first demo didn't work because unity is allergic to wine. but the updated version on steam worked great (better than other enigma studios' games i've played lol. let's make 20fps the gaming standard?) and it's really interesting. i still have no clue what the full thing is possibly gonna be but i'm intrigued.
- little goody two shoes (demo) (2023): this game is sooo charming but the pace is annoyingly slow for me. not aided by the obnoxious frequency of loading screens. SAD.
- birdcage (demo) (2025): this game looks so good. people who are more genre savvy than me will have more insightful things to say, but in my case it simply Goes Brrr. it plays extremely well, and the story from what i've seen is the exact kind of esoteric scifi that i love. i'll definitely pick the full game up eventually, though i still gotta clear zero ranger (and get a normal on th20...). i haven't been playing stgs much sadly. i still wanna get to blue revolver...
- shutter story (demo) (2025): i tried playing this demo when it launched last month but i didn't mention it because it was ran at slideshow framerates. cool. well it got an update with graphics settings so it isn't trying to run on ultra anymore, and i could play it. but i still don't feel very charitable towards it, love and light. it's very much in the anomaly hunt lineage and i find those games very very boring. something extremely lame about having to Categorize everything you see, instead of just being spooked by weird images. the framing device helps keep things more grounded, but there isn't that much of it in the demo, so you're just. looking at these pretty cool edited photographs and clicking sliders to see if something happens. wow. riveting. because the thing is, the game cites her story as an influence but in that game (and other good interface focused games like hypnospace outlaw) everything you see adds to your understanding of the world and characters. but these photos don't really. the only interesting images are the ones with a phenomenon of some sort in them, and even then...
- hypogea (2025): what an excellent little gem. short and linear but exploration focused, very good movement, and some really cute robots. it's impossible not to compare it to metal garden; they make a great pair. the ps2 is coming back babeyy.
- touhou reject: arbitrary prima materia (2025): very very cool.
- hellsinker. (2019): pain and suffering on planet earthhh ♥. this game's so hard to parse. the seal mechanic makes it feel like angel at dusk, but playing as minogame you don't even have the option to sit back. very strange game! hope i can get past stage 3 some day but i don't quite want to really dig into it just yet.
- blue revolver (2016): now this is more like it for a filthy casual like me. i wish there was a balance between the no-continue standard gameplay and the infinite continues from freeplay (like a custom setting, i'd like to play with 2-3 continues) but that's a skill issue. i really like the resource economy with bombs generating ammo for the special attack, which is better for score and thus extends. it's straightforward and tasty. it also means autobombs are lowkey bad since they consume the whole stock, and i make more progress when bombing aggressively. can't get hit if the boss is dead from my missile barrage.
movies and series
- sunshine (2007): so this movie is pretty well directed and shot methinks. however it was written by the hack fraud bastard going by the name alex garland. so the story sucks ASS. it starts off kinda lame with the premise and contrived poor decision making, but i could warm up to the movie. if i weren't so thoroughly trite. and i think this has genuinely one of the worst plot twists i've ever seen in an otherwise serious movie. i think garland thinks himself so fucking clever, like he's gonna make the next 2001 or solaris (or, to sequence break reviews, event horizon. which isn't even nearly as good as either of those two lmao but more achievable for a hack fraud bastard), but this is nothing!! he's desperate to make a trippy cerebral scifi movie but he'll never make anything good in his life. i hope he dies in a lame and pathetic way before touching the elden ring movie.
- event horizon (1997): one of those genre classics i just never got around to. i looove how fucking ominous the ship's core looks. lament configuration ass way to power a ship (this movie does have hellraiser vibes — and fun fact it came out a year after the space hellraiser [the fourth one]), you know that shit could never go well. the cast is great too, dj has insane ninth doctor swag (i know i'm known for saying people look alike when they just have the same color hair but just see for yourself ok. also wait that's captain hook from the 2003 peter pan?? who's also lucius malfoy from that dogshit franchise?? dude). the movie's pretty fun if a bit cheesy. i think it's kinda hard for a level headed critic to call it better than interstellar but i'm not a level headed critic, i'm a blogger. i liked it better than the family drama scifi movie.
- the cabin in the woods (2011): hmm. so. yknow the age old question, is it a deconstruction or contempt for the genre? i'm truly not sure where this movie lands (my Take from their filmographies is that joss whedon has more contempt while drew goddard cares more about horror). but i'll say that if it was really aiming for deconstruction it could well have made jules (the whore) the twist survivor. and in any case, the third act is where it really could have been original but instead it just feels lame, idk. this is a kinda doctor who or the x-files esque movie, but not as successful at it as final destination because it lacks any sort of restraint in that third act, which would have come from a tv series budget (not that this was an expensive movie, $30m against destination's $23m). "but sol, it's a horror comedy! that's the point of the turn towards near slapstick" i must be a killjoy at all times.
- bambi: the reckoning (2025): this one's just boring tbh. it's very clear to me by now that The Twisted Childhood Cinematic Universe isn't putting their hearts or pussies into these films at all. or maybe i was just watching it alone, and the others would be just as boring were they not social events. but like, the movie looks bland and uninspired, it's always super dark so you don't get to really see the kills, there's no fun and whimsy at all when it comes to said kills / the story as a whole, and the characters are so so so boringggg. i'll grant that they did a very very funny thing by making the first death be one of a pair of twins. clever, cost effective. otherwise i think this is worse than the peter pan one because at least that was a competent enough slasher, and this one isn't a competent nature horror type movie (which is kinda crazy given things like anaconda are such traditional cheap horror fodder).
- leviathan (1989): marv?? marv home alone?? uh anyway this is a kinda unremarkable alienesque flick from when i looked into deep sea horror. and it isn't really doing anything with the setting that couldn't be done in a space setting. except for the lame last minute will-they-won't-they scare with sharks lmao. the ending as a whole is kinda wack but eh whatever.
- black phone 2 (2025): ok so they got us in the first half ngl. i was actually scared because it was looking too much like A Movie. but then it began to get repetitive with the dreams and too weirdly christian and it was time to suck on my friend's boob et cetera. so that's the caveat of this review: i only Watched halfish the movie and then it was scattered segments and the end (ooh boy the ending is actually shocking in its saccharineness). but i think i can make a fair assessment of this sequel to a movie i didn't watch. it's well shot, slightly intriguing, baffling in its surprise christianism, has some nice gore moments but there are zero (!) deaths in the actual movie, leaving it overall tame. some funny moments like the killer wearing ice skates and some quotes that made us stop kissing to laugh. who can forget the actually earnest "talking to jesus is sexy". don't watch it.
- the initiation (1984): no shade because i'm the same but the main character has such poor enunciation and the subs were all desynced oof. well i said the peter pan horror movie was a competent slasher but this is what a proper competent slasher looks like tbh. sure it's a different era of competence, separated by four whole ass decades, but i like a little tradition yknow. dedication to interestingly shot kills and in the giallo inspired lineage. the twist could have used some work though. it's so cliche it doesn't even bother explaining itself.
- shutter island (2010): can you believe this is my second ever scorsese. i've mentioned it before i think. i watched hugo when it came out, at the ripe old age of ten, and did nawt like it. and then i never got around to any other of his movies despite a handful being on my list, and this one specifically being one of those highschool classics. well: i thought the ways things were often so overt was rather stupid. yeah yeah dead wife and the war and he's not smoking his own cigarettes (immediately noticeable). at least they don't remark on the shoes in rachel's cell being men's. don't patronize me. and then it goes on foreverrrrr explaining itself, this needn't be 139 minutes long. i think i forgot this is ultimately a Mainstream Usamerican Movie maybe. jesus i sound insufferable. whatever. the movie's alright, but not the better of dicaprio's 2010 dead wife "mindfuck" movies. anagrams are always kinda stewpiddd however... i get the appeal, i just think it's invariably contrived.
- frankenstein (2025): gdt's eye for lush gothic aesthetics is, of course, unmatched (the costume designer here is kate hawley as in crimson peak, and she's so fucking good). that being said... truly why must every Cinematic Event these days be over two hours long. and is it worth it... ugh i feel like a stupid gen z ipad baby when i say this shit but like. i quite simply didn't like this victor, he feels very one note (and he's too old. i'm sorry but it's hard to compromise on that), and we spend so fucking long with him making the creature and gain nothing of value because of his aforementioned one-noteness. man it's been a hot minute since i read this but i have an inkling the minutiae of Crafting cunty (far too cunty! it's giving "bella this is the skin of a monster") jacob elordi is not the point of the story, and it's the runtime of a regular feature film before we even switch to the creature's pov. and more importantly, the changes made there (ie victor keeping the creature for a bit) make his story kinda weirddd, and the time spent makes his story feel abridged, and in turn victor's arc is fucking weird and abrupt. not to fucking mention elizabeth's unceremonious axing after the first part gave her a smidge of character. basically i don't think i'm quite A Hater when it comes to this movie but i do believe in their beliefs (uhh me after ranting about it for a long paragraph and passionately dissing it irl), because this movie isn't saying anything about anything. and, if i may have a pet peeve: when harlander asks victor to put his mind in the new body it pissed me off so bad. i can barely explain it but i just know he would not fucking say that because the idea feels so distinctly modern, mayhaps even post-frankensteinian. please please correct me if i'm wrong about that. still a stupid thing to put in the movie.
- pluribus (2025): ohhh intriguing. need to know where this is goingggg. which tbh is kinda a problem i have with the series so far... we're halfway in, 4-5 hours of television, and nothing much has really happened. it kinda worries me! right now it feels like the series is riding on the Promise of interesting scifi goings on, but it's all underneath the surface... if it doesn't really start paying off i'll be. miffed.
- fréwaka (2024): really really fucking good, the first good movie i watched this month lol. i feel there's a lot beneath the surface that i lacked the context for, the movie feels very irish. but it's super well shot and understated and tense and i loved it.
- the mangler (1995): the manglerrrrr. this movie's bad and stupid (derogatory). i think it could have not been so lame (it does have themes) but man this should just have been an x-files episode, it's such a drag.
- skin flick (2025): really good short!
books and manga
- bound and gagged: pornography and the politics of fantasy in america (laura kipnis): saw the same quote from this book ("pornography isn't viewed as having complexity, because its audience isn't viewed as having complexity") twice in quick succession so i figured i'd check out what the fuss was about. it's very much Of Its Time (1996) in both the kinds of debates going on, the media being talked about, and the way she talks about trans women in that chapter (:grimace:). i think the final chapter ("how to read pornography") is the best / most relevant.
- erotic comics in japan: an introduction to eromanga (kaoru nagayama): something i really enjoy about this book is how the author analyses "problematic" manga kinda on its own terms. it's very easy to dismiss like loli / shota wholesale because yeah it's unpleasant as hell to think about these. but these are works that exist and are part of a history. and this is something i wanted to post on my tunglr but that's rather fraught to talk about in a social media environment, with fucking proship disk horse looming in the background. like them or not, these fictional works are not making victims & there's no way to really separate thoughtful depiction from nasty romantization in terms of legality / regulation (not to mention that the very labeling of every work featuring x or y type of character under the same thing is rather reductive...). things are complicated. individual works can and must be criticized but should art (even if it's bad and/or vile) be restricted by law and become taboo even to discuss? yknow?
- água turva (morgana kretzmann): problema completamente meu mas o sumário no livro me deixou na expectativa de realismo fantástico que só não rolou (acho que você pode talvez ver trejeitos disso mas pra mim eles são muito mais espiritismo e adjacentes coded, o que eu admito talvez ser um viés meu, e que pessoalmente me deixam muito muito desconfortável [também problema meu]). paia 👎. o livro é bom apesar de meio mão pesada, é só que eu teria gostado mais se puxasse um pouco mais pra cem anos de solidão...
- los reyes (julio cortázar)
- helter skelter (kyōko okazaki): so so fucking good. the art is incredible too.
- the colour of magic (terry pratchett): hi rincewind.
- the light fantastic (terry pratchett): hi rincewind. it's funny revisiting the Very First Ones after so long + having read the whole series. they're delicious but not really my faves, they just don't really compare to something like monstrous regiment or going postal to me. but of course, the worst terry pratchett book beats the best of many other authors lmao. gone too soon :(
also some vampire yuri manga. guys can i say something. i feel i am now officially a harem enjoyer. that's the power of yuri.
also i'm reading the crying of lot 49 :)
december logs are usually a couple days late. be seeing ya!
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