microblog: 2024
*** 12.16.24, i got my tattoo! also resolutions.
header says it all; i got my first-ever tattoo and had the most positive experience at the studio. i decided to be upfront about my issues and the studio folks were nothing but extremely kind and accommodating and went out of their way to help me prepare for it a bit better. i got a little misty-eyed, so taken aback by the kindness of people again.
2024 was a good year for me, overall. i feel like i did a lot of stuff i've been talking about wanting to do, and i have changed a lot as a person in ways i'm pretty happy with i.e. being more outgoing with strangers and showing up to things even when i'm a little tired (without overextending myself). finding more immediately local and DIY events and less small-but-still corporate events has lent itself quite well to this.
i don't really "do" resolutions for a variety of reasons, but i think for 2025 i will set one, which is to properly get into arthurian lit and arthur-related media. i already love this sort of stuff but i want to read more things like l'morte d'arthur and tristan and sir gawain and the green knight etc. (although of course still indulging in more modern adaptations). i've been talking about doing this for years and it hasn't happened, so i think i'll make that my priority next year. i guess i'd also like to make a return to daily journaling, but i really believe with my hobonichi that'll fall back into place within my routine pretty quickly.
*** 12.12.24, swans + future tattoo.
the past few years i've tried desperately to get into the band swans, which is an experimental "band" led by michael gira with frequent collaborators. i've never really been able to get into them although i think the stuff he produces is seriously amazing--but anyway i finally listened to soundtracks for the blind all the way through (as mentioned on my observations page) and...idk. wow. seriously the most one of a kind album ever, it will stick with me forever.
michael gira named his band 'swans' because, "Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments." and that has really stuck with me for whatever reason. so i'm getting a tattoo of a swan on sunday now. it will be my first tattoo. i have terrible obsessive compulsions regarding new things i imbibe or put on my body relating to potential allergic reactions--this combined with having parents who don't like tattoos have scared me off of getting one for a while even though i've toyed with the idea for some time now. i'm getting the swan though. and trying to prove a point to myself:
- obsessive compulsions never benefit you (duh)
- an aged tattoo will be no more unusual than a mole or a freckle (of which you have lots) and there's no reason to expect to feel ashamed of it as it ages, regardless of what you have been told about aging skin and tattoos
- every piercing you have ever gotten has become as indifferent as the aforementioned moles and freckles even though you've also gone through the same self-induced 'will i won't i' terror with those for months
- a swan is a swan and even if gira's comment becomes unimportant to you one day, swan lake and odette and ballet and the swan princess movie and princess tutu and the days spent in boston staring at swans on the lake will become equally important and unimportant as time passes.
- significance of the art itself aside, getting a tattoo will prove to you that you can overcome an obsessive compulsion, and is reason enough to get one anyway.
*** 11.26.24, more art!
how lucky we are to live in a world where still images can speak so deeply to our hearts. once again here i was on tumblr and found this:
this time it an ASCII reproduction of gustav klimt's the kiss. it's by this 4chan user. i'm glad tumblr had a source for this because it's seriously impressive that people can do stuff like this with nothing but a keyboard and some symbols and that our brains can translate something like klimt's maximalist style of painting into a black and white image of parentheses and @ symbols. sidenote, still on my placebo the band kick. whiny+sleazy glam(-ish) rock is back in for my fall&winter 2024 it seems.
*** 11.13.24, on santa ceia: a reprodução das flores.
pretty much the only social media i use anymore is tumblr since i am good about detaching myself from it and not really using it socially. anyway i stumbled across this painting:
it is called santa ceia: a reprodução das flores by neilsen lerner, and it was painted in 1990.
obviously it is a floral recreation of the last supper. something about it just strikes me so deeply. so i am saving it here. beautiful work. i would hang it everywhere if i could. it resonates so very much with me.
for those curious, some of the artists i'm partial to are egon schiele, gustav klimt, caravaggio, edward hopper, edvard munch, range murata, yoshitaka amano, keita tatsuguchi, alfons mucha, and yoshitoshi abe :].
*** 11.4.24, on planners.
in 2023 i got into hobonichi planners halfway thru the year and used my a5 pretty much every day; for 2024 i ended up purchasing the take-a-note bc i was thrown off by the cost of the hobonichis, but i ended up using it for maybe a week or two at best before i bought a weekly nolty. the nolty has served me pretty well as a planner but i was journalling in my hobonichi pretty much every day and i only really use this to write down my events before i put it away. i sucked it up and bought an a6 hobonichi for next year; i'm hoping it will get me back into the act of physical journalling alongside its planner capabilities.
*** 10.30.24, reflecting on a summer camp game.
i was drifting off to bed last night thinking about a time as a kid where over the course of a month-long summer camp i got really invested in fairy lore with a friend and we made up a whole little thing where we were both fairy. of course she was the RAREST fairy, i want to say a lightning fairy, and i was the SECOND rarest, a moon fairy i think? this assessment was performed by gently squeezing your index finger and seeing what pattern the little blood vessels getting squeezed together in your fingertips made. a lightning bolt = lightning, duh, and a crescent moon = moon. obviously. the rorschach ink blot of fairy types.
we, or really just me, got very invested in this made-up world and fairy lore and went around 'diagnosing' our friends with fairy types and telling the girls we didn't really like that sorry, you're just a human :(. boohoo. lol
i believed in it pretty strongly, at least in the way you can believe in something you obviously know is fake, but on one of the last days of the camp when my friend confessed to making it all up, i had a bit of a meltdown anyway and ended our friendship and cried for hours. my parents had been badgering me over the past few weeks that of course i wasn't a fairy i was a normal human and i needed to stop being that emotionally invested in the made-up lore. i think they thought they were protecting me in the inevitable event we got bored or admitted to not wanting to believe in it anymore, but honestly i think i would have cared less about my friend deciding she didn't want to play the game anymore if they hadn't insisted against me caring about something that was obviously fake. something i was defiantly choosing to believe in for the sake of fun and creation with my friend, calling me silly and in over my head and chiding me for usually being "better" than the sort of daydreamers who let their thoughts run away with them--i was always the kid who was mature for his age, after all. i regret how i treated my friend in the aftermath of FairyGate and i wish i really knew why i was so devastated by her betrayal. i have a strong memory of sitting with my knees to my chest crying thinking to myself "i don't really care that much it's not like i actually thought it was real" and not feeling much of anything, so i was aware of my dramatic reaction even at the time it happened. but, idk, i was crying, y'know? i guess it was fun to believe in it despite logic persisting.
i don't really know why i thought of this out of the blue again. i might get embarassed and 'delete' this blog post later, but i thought it might be interesting to document for now and see if i can get some sort of creative non-fiction piece out of it later before i forget about it again or have to grit my teeth to make myself think about it again. i'm trying to be kinder to my memories of who i was as a kid. i think most of us struggle with that though.
*** 10.29.24, on feeling lost in fall.
something about the seasons changing has me so restless. or maybe listless is the right word--unstuck, floating, unanchored, adrift but not really moving. i've been watching a lot of 'autumn' vlogs on youtube i think because of that, even though i hate them most of the time, and even though i think every youtuber these days is the same brand of person. 'slow living in paris' 'my slow life in new york' 'what i do to heal myself living in nyc' 'how i restfully live in paris'. i know it's all the same bullshit fed by people who can afford to live a certain way and i loathe it, but the dreamy shots of fall leaves and watching someone scribble down in a book is soothing for me right now despite it all. on an unrelated note i picked up webfishing the other day and it's been a nice game to keep open while i work. long live the chatroom, forever and ever amen.
*** 10.22.24, formula 1 weekend.
i promised an update after my f1 grand prix trip experience; as mentioned i am not a car person. my only exposure to formula 1 prior to this weekend was being sat down and made to watch a few random episodes of the netflix show, drive to survive, with my dad and my sister, who both really like f1. so when i was invited to go to the prix i thought it'd be a fun way to learn about formula 1 hands-on and let my dad and sister get to share it with me and teach me and hopefully i'd have more interest in it that way, especially since i used to go kart and understand a bit of the "how" with the racing mindset and the strategy that goes into it from the time i spent on the track as a kid. well, to make a long story short, explanations didn't happen and i had a pretty bad time.
it didn't occur to me you'd only be able to see a glimpse or two of the track, and because of the noise there couldn't be commentary from sports announcers or anything--nor could you really talk to each other because you had to shout to be heard. and no one offered information up to me about how it worked, or if it was it was relayed to me like i was learning algebra without having first learned how addition and multiplication work, so this basically amounted to watching a bunch of cars go around the same turn for hours on end. eventually we got radio headsets to tune into the commentary, but it was all greek to me. eventually i gave up and googled stuff at night because no one was explaining things in a way that made sense. so the last day, the actual prix day, i stayed behind. by that point i had googled enough and weasled what i could out of my family to have a little bit of knowledge about the sport, so it was more fun for me to watch the stream, and i think i will try watching this weekend's (10/27) prix on my ipad to see if it can be more fun for me in a different context, but unfortunately the time i spent at the track was a total bust.
i was also consistently taken aback by the flagrant wealth of the sport. it's sort of telling that the majority of these athletes come from a long line of kart and car racers. when i looked up lando norris's wikipedia page, who happens to be my sister and dad's favorite guy, his wikipedia mentions that his family is the 20th wealthiest in all of great britain. like, say no more. the average f1 car costs usd $20 million to make, and i don't know if that even accounts for things like engine upgrades or damage costs over a season. as cool as the cars are and while i think f1 as a sport deserves to exist it is also a struggle for me to really bring myself to care extensively about it when i think about places like gaza being bombed to hell and back or even the people who might be great racecar drivers who can't get a start in the career because they weren't 6 when they started racing karts because their family isn't in the top 20 wealthiest families of great britain. i'm not saying anyone is bad for liking f1 or participating in f1 because their family is rich or anything of course, it's just... i don't know. it really is surprising and a little hard for me to swallow.
tl:dr; did not have fun attending f1 in person without prior knowledge of the sport, enjoyed watching the prix stream and will try watching next weekend's, i should spend some time looking into organizations, charities, and funds f1 gives to to see if the insane wealth of the sport goes into more than just cars that go fast.
*** 10.15.24, thoughts and writing.
a few of my friends are running substacks these days. substacks of all varieties--shop updates, minor blogging, creative non-fiction, etc.. i think my site is a worthy alternative (for me) to substack, but it also makes me wish to write more. maybe one post a week. and then left with the thought: where do i put it? i feel as if i'm eternally concerned about space on my site but the truth is that text files and html+css only files don't take up much space at all. i'll add a section for that sort of thing and see where it goes. funny, this microblog was supposed to be more for that, but i feel like i always speak too bluntly when speaking of myself--and in a way that sometimes feels untrue to who i am. i can't control my deadpan behavior, but i think sometimes i long for the ethereal dreaminess many writers that aren't me seem to have. maybe i'm just jealous of my friends (hi to my friends reading this, i love you!) and i need to take some proper personal steps into curating my voice or something. ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌ idk. life is nothing but a bunch of personal complexes and trying to remake yourself into a person you inevitably become bored with--or so it feels, sometimes.
*** 10.14.24, more lolita + silent hill 2.
wearing egl has been such a joy. no one has been anything but nice to me--the other day i was on a park walk and someone driving out of the nearby grocery store rolled down her window to yell "you are a lolita queen!" at me cheerfully. i was so surprised! i hadn't expected anyone to recognize what i was wearing as a coord. earlier that day a little kid walked by me and said "they're wearing a christmas outfit!" which was cute (my coord was red and white). old people especially have been super sweet--an old lady stopped me at one point to say she loved my dress, and a man walking his dog said "lovely dress!" while he passed by us. i'm not really used to being stopped and complimented for my clothes, and because it's such a massive change of pace from what i usually wear, i'm glad it doesn't just embarrass me but instead makes me feel more and more comfortable wearing these clothes out.
i played the silent hill 2 remake. it was awesome. i thought even if it was just OK it'd be a win, but it was amazing from start to finish. easily my GOTY 2024 (not that i've really been playing modern releases). it was really effectively scary and did a great job at making a game i already know pretty well feel like a totally new thing while still keeping the story beats and everything effectively the same. there were so many moments i was sitting there full of giddy joy over an infinitesimally small detail that the team decided to add into the story; things that have been recognized after years of picking sh2 apart now being fully recognized since modern tech has come so far. seriously, i had a blast and loved every second of the game. if you have a ps5 or a computer that won't blow itself to pieces trying to run the game, i highly recommend picking it up if you have a spare $70. (the price of games is crazy...but that's a post for another time and i don't feel like writing about that right now lol)
since my last post we finally got to go to an actual goth concert + dj event and thank god for it! it was really nice to finally hear someone who actually knew their stuff spinning coldwave tracks. wish there had been a little more deathrock, but i do opt for coldwave over traditional goth rock most of the time anyway.
october tends to be kinda busy for me and my friend group, i guess because this is the time of year everyone puts on horror and gothic-centric events, so it feels like i've done nothing but run around trying to see all the cool things people are putting on, but i've really been trying to go to more small events and i'm happy that i've been doing that. this upcoming week my family is going to see the formula 1 grand prix in texas, so i'm tagging along for that, and i'm not really a car person but my dad used to race and my sister got really into f1 over the last year, so i think it'll be a pretty fun experience. i'm sure i'll have things to say about that in a week or two too.
*** 10.1.24, happy october + djing + goth.
happy umineko month (because it's almost the dates of the rokkenjima massacre) and happy silent hill 2 remake is almost out. today the weather is sweet and cool, a high of 77F. a few weeks ago we had a day mostly in the 50s and i am yearning for that desperately. last night i tried to play cyberpunk 2077 for the first time in a few months but every time they push a new patch my game will crash on booting and i have to spend like 4 hours troubleshooting so i just uninstalled the damn thing because i'd rather ensure i have the space for sh2 when it comes out. it's a pain though because i do like cp2077 but not at the price of having to figure out what file is breaking the game for hours only for me to play like three times before another patch breaks it. anyway, i brought this up to say that i ended up messing around in mixx, an open-source dj platform. i've been sort of thinking about learning how to dj for fun and even bought a controller off ebay i have not used once. now that i'm amassing a collection of mp3s again i have much more music to dabble in the software with. and it was a lot of fun! i'm absolutely terrible at it, of course, but i don't really register songs in terms of BPM so it was fun to do a transition between SoaD's chop suey! and massive attack's dissolved girl of all things just because they share a BPM and would be an easy transition. i guess i'm glad cyberpunk broke because it felt like a more "productive" use of time (although i do miss playing).
my inspiration for getting back to learning how to dj was because my boyfriend and i went to an event at one of our local alternative bars and said event was marketed as goth/post-punk/punk/industrial ... and well that did not happen. the first dj was trying to mix some goth and post-punk but he was terrible. and the second dj, while much better, obviously did not seem to know what goth was. we heard THREE new order songs in the same set and that was the gothiest things got during her set. they even spun grimes?? like that is not goth. anyway the music was not bad by any means, i heard a lot of songs i really liked, it was just disappointing in the context of wanting to listen to goth rock and industrial. i mean, how do you play kill v. maim by grimes but you won't play lovesong or, idk, closer by nine inch nails? so i guess i have to step up and learn how to dj so these people can actually hear clan of xymox at events marketed for goths. it's actually pretty annoying to try and talk about my fondness for the goth genre and have it get boiled down into anything sounding vaguely dark and alternative. i don't even consider myself a goth because frankly i think the label when self-applied is extremely limiting but i can really understand why goths are so annoyed over it all the time the more i try to go to events for that crowd. we even had a random guy come up to us and ask if there were any other goth events in town because, his words, "i don't feel like the djs really get it" like c'mon. anyway hopefully this marks the beginning of a proper dj journey.
despite all my complaining about the goth event i did have a lot of fun and i did like the set, it was just disappointing in the context of wanting to hear the genres that ended up being totally ignored. but i got to wear a proper coord and got some compliments and dancing to the music in platforms and a poofy dress is a huge joy, especially when you have the floor mostly to yourself.
*** 9.23.24, on phantom of the paradise and movies.
one of my favorite movies of all time is brian de palma's phantom of the paradise. it's campy with serious subject matter, deliciously over the top and tacky, all about glam rock, music, showbiz, and the evils of the music industry. i got to see it with some friends at a sold-out screening for the 50th anniversary at my favorite movie theater. we got there too late and had to sit in the front row--i'm 5'2" with one working eye so i ended up massively overstimulated by the end of it, but still, it was a lot of fun.
there was a pre-movie presentation from ari of the swan archives (i added a link to his site in /cool) and he spent this time gushing about the movie, the need for a new restoration, the trials de palma had with fox and led zeppelin to get the movie made. he oozed nothing but adoration for phantom. he talked about how much time he spent tracking down film negatives to restore the movie to its original glory, the struggles he had with finding lost footage. he talked about how led zeppelin won't let them re-release this version of the movie and are unlikely to ever budge on this point. and then something special happened with the movie we watched. even in the front row with one eye and my neck craning up to look at the screen it was an awesome experience i won't ever forget. people laughing, howling, cheering every time beef was introduced. the sheer spectacle of detail in the background that i never noticed before. my eye hurt like hell on the walk home but it was a ton of fun and left me extremely thankful not only for movie theaters and phantom of the paradise but just fans themselves. all this, preserved by basically one guy, by himself, for no reason other than the love of the game. what an awesome guy. thanks ari, thanks swan archives, thanks to my friends. i'll be grateful forever for that night
*** 9.20.24, on fall.
the weather is finally cooling down here. i went ahead and removed the /now page as i think all the updates there can just be turned into microblog posts. there was no real need for a distinction between the two for me since i'm not really maintaining a portfolio.
the silent hill 2 remake comes out in just a handful of weeks -- i'm pretty excited! i'm trying to manage my expectations but everything we have seen of it so far has been nothing but great. i'm about done with a replay of the original, too, and revisiting the game is always a treat. it's incredible how scary a game this old can still be thanks to the sound design.
with fall approaching i'm looking forward to wearing my coord pieces more. i have enough of a base wardrobe to try dressing up in egl a bit more, and the one time i wore it out and about i felt surprisingly confident and un-weird in it. it's just so hot with all the layers and my one complaint is that i'm so used to dressing more casually (i'm a big fan of 50s-ish workwear...which means white t shirt and blue jeans) that i couldn't help being hyperaware of the clothes and how they fit. bloomers + petticoat + skirt is a bit of an adjustment after being so used to just wearing jeans and maybe a belt. i think i'll just get used to it the more i wear my coords though.
*** 8.21.24, on music, spotify, etc.
i cancelled spotify this month and it's had me rethinking my approach with music. there were a variety of reasons i've thought about cancelling, but tl;dr discovering the ceo's zionist takes pushed me to finally pull the plug. for the same price of spotify i can buy like 4 EPs on bandcamp by small artists without even needing to change my monthly budget.
while this blog post aims to discuss more how my relationship w music has been changed by music streaming and is beginning to change again now and not just be about me complaining about spotify, i absolutely have to do that for a minute. first off, the fucking ads. jesus christ. spotify UI is unusable unless you're a premium member. quickly i had to entirely remove the software from my computer because it's just that bad. also my god the pop ups i was getting begging me to resubscribe to premium. grow a backbone, spotify!!
prior to using apple music and then spotify i got most of my music recs from youtube. then it shifted to discover weekly. now that i can't use discover weekly anymore, i've quickly gone back to youtube deep diving. in the weeks leading up to my last day of spotify premium and trying to stop using it as much i quickly noticed how many songs on my liked songs or in my playlists i didn't actually know. i've had a small collection growing on musicbee for a little while since i have an mp3 player, so comparing the albums i have on musicbee where i know every artist pretty well and have a handful of albums by each one vs spotify where you are just sort of incentivized to like at random. it was pretty telling of my consumption habits.
this year i haven't listened to as much music, but since trying to stop using streaming as much, that's also changed. playlists can't be shuffled on spotify anymore, and making playlists is even a bit more of a pain due to how m3u files work. so i've started listening to full albums from top to bottom more instead of just slapping on a random playlist in the background. if i just want background noise, since i WFH, it's easy to go to youtube and put on a random mix there. and then i don't end up with a bunch of songs i only have a vague recollection of in my collection.
my mp3 player doesn't have a bluetooth option, so even just the hassle of having to plug in wired earbuds has sort of deterred me from putting stuff on. and i don't think this is even a bad thing. being forced to deal with the size of my SD cards, reckon with file sizes, have to get metadata for albums i like, plug in my CDs to rip them to my computer, it really forces me to directly engage with the work in a more meaningful way thanks to the inconvenience. i have to pick and choose if i do want all the songs from an album on my mp3, or just a handful. do i value the sonic journey of an album from start to finish more than i do just listening to "be quiet and drive" by deftones? i've found this pleasure has resulted in me not cherrypicking my music as much, which lets me appreciate the songs i've usually skipped over in the past more. again, it's more "inconvenient" but it's a happy trade by forcing me to be more aware of the medium that i'm engaging with. background music in itself is more of a luxury than i ever expected it to feel. i don't listen to stuff when i'm on walks as much either as a result.
i still have to figure out a solution for driving in the car as my car doesn't have a CD player but i think i can probably just get a 3.5mm aux cord and plug that in for the USB option. i know i can download music off bandcamp and stream from there, but i have plenty of albums that aren't available through bandcamp that i'd like to listen to, so it's not a perfect solution. maybe i will update whenever i figure that out. i'm also a big "character playlist" maker enjoyer and thinking about moving a bunch of my playlists onto my mp3 so i can continue to enjoy them is a little daunting, but i'll do it anyway lol.
*** 7.29.24, clubbing + ren faire + the crow
had an extremely busy but very fun weekend. on friday some friends and i went to a sapphic collective house/techno event and it was a total blast. everyone was so sweet and friendly, it's nice to go to clubbing events and notice people's kindness before you notice anything else. no creeps, no weird interactions, just people complimenting each other's outfits and dancing with each other before waving and going separate ways. the music wasn't the best, but i still had a great time--and anyway they played soulja boy's crank that so who am i to complain after getting hit with 2000s nostalgia like that?
the day after we went to the ren faire, which was a lot of fun but also quite exhausting thanks to the heat. i'm over summer. it's that time of year where it's impossible to go out until the sun starts going down, and while i love the summer nights, it's hard to want to go anywhere after 9pm on a tuesday lol. i'm dreaming of my sweaters and being able to layer.
recently, for the first time in my life, i watched the crow, and had an absolute blast. i wish i had seen it when i was 13 because it would have changed the trajectory of my life--hell, it already did, but the impact that movie would have had on my little middle school brain would have been unimaginable. what an awesome movie. way sillier than i expected. brandon lee you were taken from us too soon. anyway, i recommend it if you haven't seen it, especially if you like goth music.
*** 7.16.24, hi again + tsukihime + lolita and egl
been so busy with friends and things (always a good thing) but i haven't had as much time to update the site. i thought having a laptop again would help me with working on the site on the go and update it more frequently to get the blog vibes i sort of want the site to actually have but onedrive is the WORST so anyway my site doesn't sync across my laptop and my main computer, so i prefer to work on it at my main computer because i have a fancy mechanical keyboard that i like to type on. but because i have been so busy, i've been out of the house more often, and haven't wanted to sit at my desk to update the site whenever i'm back when i could be on the couch instead.
speaking of the couch, i got the tsukihime remake on my switch and i have been enjoying it. also, it is pool season and it's really hot here! but good news: i have an AC unit in my bedroom finally! the salty-sweet umami rice crackers from trader joe's are my current snack addiction, and i cannot recommend them enough. not related to tsukihime or AC or summer heat, but they are soo good.
in 2012-2013 i was really into lolita fashion in theory, but could not afford it obviously. i've been getting back into it and am looking forward to making a few coords, dysphoria permitting, and simply letting myself be frilly and doll-like every once in a while. i hope it all works out. i will probably inevitably dedicate a page on the site to it + my closet if it ends up being something i want to pursue. anyway, another reason i haven't done much on the site lately is because i've been windowshopping and scouring secondhand sites for deals.
*** 7.8.24, just an update
how has it already been like a month since i last said something here... i don't really have anything to say, i've been pretty busy and doing lots of irl social things which is a big change from my norm. whatever grease had to say about summer nights, etc.. watched velvet goldmine last night, i really liked it. coveting the tsukihime remake but hoping to stave out the 'want new video game' disease in the hopes that we get it on steam in the next year or so so i can just play it on my steam deck, which i much prefer to my nintendo switch on account of my switch always running out of space on the SD card and my not wanting to buy a new one. outside of that, i've been listening to a lot of visual kei bands again and looking back into stuff about that subculture, which has been fun, and also led me down a rabbit hole of watching videos about other subcultures, meaning i've gotten a lot of youtube recs about tiktok drama circumventing goth gatekeeping et cetera. to which i say: wearing tripp pants but not knowing who bauhaus is a goth does not make.
*** 6.11.24, on the matrix
went to go see the matrix on a big screen yesterday. unfortunately we got rained out since it was an outdoor showing but even then seeing what we could of it on a huge screen like that felt awesome. the matrix was a movie that i was obsessed with as a kid but it's been a few years since i last saw it so it was cool going back to it and remembering and appreciating how much fun it is. cheesy in all the right ways but deeply serious and genuine about its intent, the cinematography is crazy, the fashion, the now retro-futurism vibes (the floppy disks! the brick-like nokia phones!) are second to none.
*** 6.7.24, it's my birthday!
i turn 25 today! it's only 9:02 AM (as of the time of writing this) here so i don't know if i really have any thoughts on it at the moment. 25 feels like a milestone in some ways, that's 1/4th of the way to 100, and admittedly it's a little hard not to be kind of like O_O over it. but i guess part of being an adult is being like well, it's my birthday, that's all there is to it! lol. not to say i'm not excited or anything, i've got some dinner plans tonight and some grill plans on sunday with some friends, and everyone has been so kind as usual. but i guess i don't have any more thoughts beyond the usual "yay thanks"! anyway, here's to another year, and here's to many more ♡
*** 5.17.24, on neocities
there's a real problem with the over-aestheticization of japanese culture on neocities, or other oldweb-themed sites in general. i get it's "nostalgic" to theme your site after a 2008 otaku who calls themselves kawaii desu~, but it's insane how many sites slap buttons with hiragana and katakana all around them just because it looks "old web" and "aesthetic" to them like hiragana is a now-defunct alphabet or something and japanese websites weren't exposed to the same desanitization as western websites over the years. i don't think this critique applies to people who have lots of anime pngs or japanese mascots on their pages, but there's definitely a huge overlap of people doing that with people who i think are guilty of fetishizing something as simple as an alphabet lol...
on one hand do what makes you happy and sparks joy, but i wish people would more seriously consider *why* otaku culture from 2008 was left behind and it wasn't because lucky star is "cringe" or something. some things are better left in the past.
*** 5.9.24, on anime figures
i have been coveting the code geass clamp works figure of lelouch and suzaku (the one where they have a joined earring) for years now. it's pretty much the only figure i've ever really desired (although i do own some others now lol) and...well...i finally own it!!! it still cost a pretty penny but since in-box figures are going for like 500-700 dollars these days (ouch) i was ecstatic when i managed to find one marketed as a junk figure for much cheaper than that. and it's here and on display and it's absolutely beautiful. the only reason i can think of why it was marketed as junk is because it shows light signs of it being displayed, but it's not that noticeable at all unless you're like right up close and staring at it. i'm so happy to have this grail now. and hopefully maybe this will curb me wanting to buy any other figures at cons and stuff lol.
*** 4.11.24, just an update
wow a lot of time already went by since i last wrote something down here.i guess that's good because i've been worried it'll be a mile long before the end of the year. been watching evangelion for the first time in...a while. i watched it in 2014 and then tried a rewatch in 2018 but fell off around episode 18--now i'm on episode 23, so i'm basically homebound. it's weird going back to something as viscerally psychological as evangelion, especially since i was about the age of the kids when i first watched it. and now i'm an adult--not quite as old as misato is (29), but still, the experiences and age is enough to give me a markedly different way of watching the show. i used to not give a damn about misato + kaji + ritsuko and least of all gendo and yui's romance, and now those elements are far more compelling to me.
*** 3.25.24, on ...?
psychopomp is a pretty cool little game. recommend if you like rpgmaker titles of old like OFF and yume nikki. the controls are a little wonky and take some getting used to, but it's free, so, can't really complain.
*** 2.29.24, on music
been in a music slump lately. kind of bored of most of the stuff i've been listening to. i really gotta go on a bandcamp deep-dive again since that seems to be what inspires me the most.
*** 2.7.24, on grundo's cafe
my absence from tweaking the site is basically explained by the fact that i got lucky enough to get a referral code to grundo's cafe, a neopets clone that is more oriented around Ye Olden Days neopets while catering to a smaller community. i absolutely love it. it's been really fun to play on and paintbrush goals and stuff feel completely attainable, so it's nice to be able to dabble more in stuff like avatar collecting and restocking rare items without feeling like i'll never have the pet of my dreams. so all my time has been spent hitting refresh on the spooky foods store lol. outside of that, i found an apartment! so now i have to get ready for the move and stuff and start collecting boxes. i found such a nice space with the biggest balcony i could ever ask for, parking is included in my rent, it's somehow cheaper than the place i'm living in now...i can't help but feel so grateful and so lucky and i'm excited to be moving, although it's gonna be time consuming...haven't even had the time to read and no energy to really play any games. i tried starting dishonored but i'm not vibing with the gameplay much so i might watch an LP of it because the worldbuilding has me quite intrigued. also, i went to a showing of this 90s italian horror comedy called cemetery man with some friends and it absolutely ruled. i'm so glad to be watching all these awesome movies and expand my cinematic horizons.
*** 1.24.24, on nothing in particular
getting ready to move but it being the months leading up to my lease expiring is always a bit stressful. trying to find places and knowing you can't sign a new one bc it's too expensive and then worrying the place might be gone by the time my lease actually runs out is always annoying to keep track of. i'm still playing neopets a bunch and got a referral code to grundo's cafe--thinking of making a page for those whenever i feel up to it. i keep meaning to make my silent hill shrine and i haven't done that yet though either...also thinking of adding a bookshelf because i really hate the UI of goodreads, thestorygraph, literal etc.. and there's no real way to keep track of books i think are interesting but don't own yet vs the books on my shelf that i have yet to read. thinking an html file kind of like my music collection might help with that.
still can't get phantom thread out of my head. i gotta rewatch it asap
*** 1.16.24, on neopets
i keep going through phases with playing neopets and today that was about all i did. a lot of my goals are unattainable again, which is kind of annoying, but it's always fun to open the game up again and just do my dailies for a bit. when will a starry shoyru be mine...
*** 1.12.24, on phantom thread
my friends and i watched phantom thread the other day and i have NOT been able to get that last scene out of my head. everything about it is so crazy. knowing alma isn't going to leave reynolds but isn't quite able to fight back on terms she wants until the end when she finally breaks past the veneer to force him into vulnerability and he just accepts it for what it is and only then can he really truly fall in love with her. he wants so badly to have his walls broken down but refuses in every way to let that happen so her poisoning him and taking violent means to do so is effectively proof of her dedication. crazy movie. loved it
*** 1.9.24, on the year, site thoughts, planners, etc..
how are we already 9 days into 2024? that's crazy. it's been a slow start to the year here but i guess that makes sense what with holidays and all. i already have given up on my take a note planner :( which is a bummer since i was very excited for it, but i quickly realized having the week split across multiple days just didnt work well for my planning style even with the small weekly overview on the first page. so i've been working in a small nolty planner that has a layout akin to a hobonichi weeks (and for a third of the price) and that's been way better for my planning style. i hope i can find a use for the take a note, maybe i'll use it for like. a doodle a day or something. i don't want to let it go to waste! AND i just haven't been drawing much. my poor art blog has been wasting away with me uploading occasional old sketches i don't feel like working on anymore. but i've been reading more poetry and stuff in favor of drawing, so i don't feel too bad about not doing anything at least.
also been thinking about how i'd like to incorporate dithering into my site more so pics load faster. i don't have a real problem with anything loading (yet) but i'd like to address it before i have a bunch of stuff up. hmmm.