Have I been lazy, I don’t know, I try not to force things, for fuck sake I just put out a whole EP, at the start of this month, but that’s good I think still water and stagnancy is a killer.

Link to the playlist:

Apple Music
Spotify

I think all creativity needs some kind of boundary, some constraint, something that makes sure the ego doesn’t fuel everything, these are both a personal diary/snapshot but a way to connect with you If it’s missing either ones of those things than it’s valueless. Idk I need more to say but I also think the forcing or “new” in the way we do fast fashion or fast culture is both good and bad.

I love Jesus Franco, his name comes up a lot, the man made 200 movies in his lifetime that’s roughly 7 year, I’ve probably done more or less, with more and less, for more and less in both views and in terms of things. That’s something I think about often, how just typing was enough at one point in time, but now it’s typing, video, etc at one point it was audio, but the sheer value of these things is less. Like I’ve probably made more hours of video than most directors, probably edited more than most directors, and that’s not in a self aggrandizing way, or in a I could do that way. I’m just stepping back and seeing wow, volume is high, and it’s something I think about, how I’m kinda on a hedonic treadmill not by my own volition but when I can get slow, I can get lazy but I think to a degree, the best work is made under a mixture of these two conditions.

Alls to say I don’t have much to say because everything I’ve said compounds, this is a body off work, and to expect someone’s body of work to be too radically different outing to outing, is to force something. Someone said Jane Austin novels are just people going to each other’s house.

Ye old slice of life. One of my largest issues is caring, lately not to say I don’t care but it’s to say, I need a little bit more effort to meet a work halfway, maybe it’s cynicism maybe it’s because I consume so much that my baseline palette is stronger, idk Idc. It’s one of those things I try not to mull over but for something nothing as far as YouTube really grabbed me topic wise, it’s not that I’m running out per say, but it’s to say I have thesis’ and things that are themes that occur in my work and what I talk about, but even approaching things is levels to it all, what do I say, what do I want to say, what work I want to cover. I mean I just made two long af YouTube videos, and I don’t even know if it’s justifiable, because the medium is both long form, 9 hour videos and micro form, videos sub 1 minute, it’s all digression, which is a lot of pressure but idk.

Idk I don’t overly concern myself with things I dislike or things that disinterest me, life is too short. Why would I waste my energy being negative, though I get it, but I think bad press is reactive press in the age of the internet, molehill becoming mountains because everyday is a slow news day.

It’s also the nature of discoursing and deconstructing or analyzing without attacking and participating, like the fact that the gaze of social media is slowly shifting from self capture to a third person capture, which is boring and dull because if you can curate the third person gaze, which you always have been able to control that narrative in your own social media it becomes so plasticly dishonest that that there’s no point in engaging because it’s all just a projection anyways, it’s how you want to be perceived, not true perception as candidly made. I mean what is all of this anyways? That isn’t to say that I’m disinterested it’s just one has to balance all of these with a level of self instancy.

It’s all stupid boring and annoying because everyone wants to look cool myself included but cool is fucking lame, like genuinely think about “cool” as sold culturally it’s fucking lame, but more so when everyone is in the pissing contest of personality, hyper posed nothingness, at a bunch that was only had to perform brunch to post, to perform socialization, to project a certain perception of status and taste, when it all boils down to the same.

I think we all prefer the moments of quiet between functions, most of which are too loud anyways. Sometimes things feel like a surrogate for intimacy.

Though have you ever though about what other people think of you, not online but in real life, people who aren’t chronically, like a zoom out top down perspective of you and yours but how the average normal person would view it all. I think about what that person thinks of as cool and what “cool” exists as in the zeitgeist and it’s so wack.

Like for men it’s the Manosphere, but also like that wasn’t cool when I was in high school, those were like pickup artist types and they were lame, why is that what’s cool right now? Everything is boring

Idk it’s all the equivalent of taking your Carhartt to the Fade-farm. All you have to do is wear the pants…

Oh I had a burger with marshmallow fluff come to me in a dream, and it was delicious if not the most diabetic coded thing I’ve ever had, I made a t shirt based of a band I like after I lost out on one of eBay.

Idk read a banned book, ask questions about things, like the mainstream but like find the stuff you like, nobody cares deep down, like what you like, but you have to find it first, idk man.

I hate how so many people make stuff for fame or money, that’s why AI is so popular, laziness, cutting out the middle, and gratification with none of the work.

Every instagram brand looks the same, I hate it, they don’t even find a gap in the market. Idk everyone fucks with the same references, perfect example everyone uses the same adobe creative cloud typefaces, there’s this deep desperation too look and seem different, when it’s all fucking boring and feels clout chase-y like stuff feels like it’s there for the end goal of popularity not to connect, and Idk it’s like I reached a point of honesty in my own creation and I feel so out of step with it all because I look at content and I’m like “you’re doing this for the algorithm.” which sure sure it’s all is but I rarely if ever create from that mindset.

idk ego tripping bullshit i’m a just a bunch of cels breathing oxygen ya know

Favorite first watch last month:

Dérive ‘Le naufrage de Vénus’

Currently Reading:
Goddess Marylin Monroe by Anthony Summers
Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Music I released last month:

Almost Transparent Blue

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

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This is a reworked video essay concept, based on the idea of countercultural cool, and the understanding that Naziism can and will never be cool or subversive because for the better part of the 20th century it was the norm.

I hate political content, I’m not gonna engage in a cultural forum where 90% of it are bad faith grifters trying to fuck people over through manipulation, but I wrote this and it would be a shame to go to waste, but I’m not spending 40-50 minutes of my life teaching white people about racism in video form. Not sorry, I hate talking about race I find it all boring redundant and talking in circles, politics is just kink masquerading as policy, and being political in the cess pool of the internet, doesn’t help me turret be told, it’s kinda just a waste of energy.

Thought this was meant to be a video essay, looking at subversive media, like Solo, Wolfenstein, and Nekromatik 1 & 2.

Because the issue is, most people don’t want to learn. If they want to learn and be educated they will, most people unlearn racism by first hand experience of race and those issues, but America is faux segregated, that being said please enjoy.

I can’t even really have genuine adult discussions about media on YouTube so it would be a fucking waste.

When you realize being punk is being opposition to the mainstream, it can seem easy to think Naziism is punk or subversive.

Most white people don’t and will never understand racism and some people aim to have a sense of power that sends shivers down my spine but blocking and eliminating the opposition from even trying and surprising their ability it’s supremacy it’s mediocrity that’s focused on keeping anything out so it truly never has time to excel, it’s purely based on inferiority and entitlement. If white people were so superior why couldn’t they just make the stakes fair? It’s like bing a pro player and feeling like the big dog after beating those with handicaps, handicaps you created because you’re so scared of actual talent coming along.

America was build off the back of slave labor, and

The Nazi’s were actually influenced by Jim Crow. Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany

Thought experiment:

I want you to think of any physical feature you have be it skin, eye or hair color, thought this video even if you aren’t actively facing prejudice or discrimination think about that detail and how it would feel if you were not allowed access to things or rights because of this thing you cannot control, or something that you choose to do like wear pants or pierce your ears, these things do not effect others and do not harm others the have not merit on your character or your ability or inability to do anything. Keep this in mind as the video goes forward.

This next part is fictional framing but though the vail lies castle Wolfenstein a place where Nazi zombies reign and roam, you must kill them and send them back home, dead, death and left in the past where they should be.

Call of duty zombies was originally Nazi zombies I love the visual of Nazi zombie a dead zombified ideology stomped out again and again an ideology that has no place in the modern day.

The Nazi visuals feel seductive and powerful, there is something dangerous tempting or alluring, they wouldn’t work if they didn’t look “good” or bad ass, if they were ugly swam monsters you wouldn’t want to nor feel empathy or tempted. They are by design monsters in human clothes.

Nazi-ism is seductive it’s the forbidden fruit for white people, it’s easy to fall into it, it’s easy to be complacent, it benefits you and and “evil” is subjective.

There’s so many movies about people who had to work with the nazis or needed money as artists or entertainers until the political oppression for the sake of their own survival, many people don’t agree with he nazi’s but if it becomes the norm than, if your boss likes it you don’t want to piss off your boss and risk losing work.

Invincible (2001) is about this topic

Like I’ll talk about later Engel a woman who has scars on her face, is perpetuating the same cycle of pain and oppression that she faced at the hands of Nazi men, it’s such an intelligent choice because it shows and reflects how she people make it to the top they then normalize the same cruelty, hate oppression and depravity that they were subjected to.

Power is in aesthetics as it is in capital and physical power itself, it’s part of why the whole hatered for pretty people exist but too, the hatered for queer and gender non conforming people which I’ll touch on later, it’s not just confused boners but it’s a taking of power away from a persons or group, asking a women to cover up or be modest is saying, “I don’t like the seduction”, or “reflection of power or your beauty in my space, remove it.” Being attractive is powerful notice how I said attractive nor repulsive, it attracts. Beauty and sex is often down played in art and media but they are equally important, hence why the army strips people of their identity.

Also sidebar there’s also a weird push against sex in media in the modern pseudo facist media state let’s talk about Eugenie and incest as a literary device.

Briefly also talking about the war on smaller framed women in art with the way people are attacking artists in Google Drive, it not fair to say smaller framed women are “pedophilic” if or if not she is playing into any fantasy but all fantasy is automatically treated as such because the woman is smaller in size.

It’s not like these women wear backpacks or other objects associated with schooling.

Think the babydoll dresses BS with Olivia Rodrigo etc. who the fuck cares the dress exists because if it’s baby doll dresses, this week it’s coverall shorts and Sandals next week and then the week after it’s shorts in general. If they’re of age who the fuck cares. So long as no it’s not diaper or something childish. Because eventually it becomes a war on colors, joy and happy motifs.

All that shit because we’re moving into a more regressive time not even to complain but some fetish art is being removed under the guise of seen as dangerous but you can hit beat and slap women in adult media all of over the hub it’s no biggy.

Yet and still and the payment processors once again waging war on sex and media to take power away from the alternative zeitgeist. Okay but De Sade

One of my favorite scenes is when she the girl and her step father which is a metaphor for marriage. Marriage and how women are more or less in traditional heteronormative relationships (this is before women could have bank accounts mind you) are treated as pets or “children” getting everything paid for and having little to no agency of their own. This is how and why “evil” is tempting and how it takes hold, the two go on a killing spree of fantasy and perversion. Though one of my favorite scenes is when they shoot a women in nude, before killing her this isn’t to say that this is bad, but the women in question was in a tough spot, and was a sex worker who did it for money. You see metaphor about complicity the system of women being controlled by men, most especially sexually and financially is evident.

A woman can lie on her back in hopes of freedom, or accept a certain kind of guided cage. Flash bulb, after flash bulb, a camera is a gun aimed right at her and after they capture the images they take her life, the daughter complicit and okay not realizing he’s the victim too, this is how and why transgressive and taboo subjects being explored is important. Take the ever famous Lolita

I’m also not saying a young woman or small woman fantasy is okay. Yet and still, the attacking of them, when they are not infantilizing or any infantilization they choose too is invalid. All it is and all and all it becomes a slope of policing women’s behavior, not men who harm and take advantage of them.

Lolita is a horror film, and book.

It’s not pro pedophilia, it’s not even about the act or there for you to gain pleasure from. It just happens like the difference in fading to black vs showing a full murder in detail.

Lolita was important it was part of the zeitgeist when I was in high school. In a way women reclaiming that and ensuring the dangers of men projecting fantasies onto young girls and the danger of them were talked about, if even handed down through cultural osmosis. I read it in high school. Delores is a victim, but she is groomed and seduced in a way that slowly gets worse and worse, by not allowing people to read this or even see it we allow this behavior and the dangerous it creates too become hush hush normalized. In fact Nabokov was firmly against having any allusions to Dolores Haze or her image on the cover, asking for a distinct green cover with no image. Why has nobody complied let alone allowed the text to be sold and to have allusions on its cover art?

Women saw it in their teens to knew and see why that’s not okay and that these women were taken advantage of those stoping the cycle of these things. By not allowing those things in media you then normalize them by not showing the complexities of the stories and the nuance there in, Lolita is terrifying because it shows the fantasy men project on to women but most especially younger ones. Yet It’s frustrating that we don’t have this conversations and openly and loudly, and people burn books, hell Doki Doki Literature club which was recently removed from the Google play store.

A game with a deeply anti-suicide message done through a beautiful bait and switch was pulled off the google play store. If we don’t talk about these things than how to we expect people to not continue them, harm reduction causes more harm but I deep down feel like that’s what they want. For example I’ve seen criticisms of 13 Reasons Why having read the book in high school during my “angst” phase that Kinda A Funny Story, Prozac Nation, That’s Not a Feeling books about mental health.

Yet from what I remember 13 Reasons Why wasn’t a “I got revenge on my bullies by offing myself” (because frankly that’s what they want) yet was more about the guilt and the missed signs, but it’s been a decade and genuinely all I remember is something about a hot dog, and I wish I was joking. Having someone one say “I’m suicidal” isn’t pro suicide, it’s an acknowledgment of a real feeling I’m sure all of us have felt, maybe instead of hiding or disallowing people to even say the word on social media, we take a look at the world around us and genuinely try to understand why people would rather die than be alive. Hiding those works doesn’t stop these things, nor the toxic ideology within them.

Having someone beat a man or woman in media isn’t pro that abuse. In most contexts but by and large disallowing those concepts then normalize that behavior by way of not showing people that it’s not okay or not normal. Not showing the consequences that create empathy, in themselves and others. Yet as someone who’s kinda into BDSM I find a lot of the tone of the adult content on porn hub and how violent and predatory the gazes and power dynamics be to be anti women. All the. “oh fuck me to get out of this ticket.” like most of them are cornered animal adjacent. Yet I understand a ban or even a legalization of it sex work would normalize the predatory dynamics already at play in our society. Yet it is kinda weird you don’t see like “sensual” content on the hub, most of BDSM feels anti women, most of it all feels like it’s perpetuating a cycle, but I think BDSM to a degree appeals to white people who exist in a kinda power.

Listen I’ve never had the desire to get naked and make someone else cry or make me cry or feel pain while naked, that’s all I’m saying. Yes to a degree but I think it’s all a bit extreme but I understand “banning this” would be bad for the entire system. Though again it’s crazy there’s more of that than like weird and odd fetish “sensory”content on the home page. Like I guess mud or oil wrestling, “kinky” but not mean, why is it so mean?

Off rip I realize why I hated thing like JoJo Rabbit or The Night Porter for virtue of existing and while I haven’t rewatched either I have been reconsidering doing so with older more mature eyes.

While yes Naziism is bad I think the more dangerous thing bad, hide thing, mindset is how fascism takes hold and it’s how these ideas feel worthy or resurrecting because of a kind of underdog mindset.

Where to white people, pro black movements feel like white supremacy. Except they are not the same, which in a way shows they have a decent understand of what White Supremacy as a system of power is and looks like. Pro black moments aren’t like black people are trying to push white people, but by nature there are less seats for white people. For example Black Lives Matter was literally people saying Black Lives Matter Too, the too being implied and based of a history of black people being discriminated against while also too being ignored.

Yet if we continually both punch down at nazism too much while not doing it enough it gains traction yet equally what culturally we’re dealing with. Is whit people are disenfranchised, white people benefit from it, so they adopt it, either active or passively but it’s a by nature and design to quietly lull itself into the world and zeitgeist.

Naziism and the mindset it employs more than anything stop actual cultural progress and achievement, while also to facilitating a level of taste and ideas in culture that seem like they’re there to keep people safe but when you understand “DEGENERATE” ART

was a place where the some of the most talented and celebrated artists of today were once housed

You then realize why you should delete that term from your vocabulary asap.

Not only did the Nazi culture stop culture but it’s just kids who never got something yet felt entitled and are entitled but couldn’t excel under normal means finding a way to oppress and get ahead. Nazi’s stole thousands and hundreds of paintings and wealth from people, but set us backwards.

For example this is a photo of them burning the sex research institute

Grammar Nazi was literally slang used for people who were hyper conservative and anal about English

All Nazisim, is conservatism in all black.

Keep in mind Elon Musk did the Nazi salute when, when decades ago people were ripping up Nazi flags in movies, we shouldn’t be letting a man from South Africa mind you a colonialistic apartheid state run around and spout oppression.

Yet when the dog bites you too, you look around showed but everyone else who was bit by the dog of conservatism told you not to lie with them.

A brief look and understanding why Nazi-ism is “cool” why it feels bad and why for white people it is tempting and easy to fall into because it benefits them too, if you are evil natured or evil skewing as far as morals and temperaments you would benefit from Nazism as a white person.

I too a degree am evil to a white conservative.

Evil is a skew but too a spectrum, but I’m not I’m not actively harming nor opposing others, Nazi-ism is antithetical to me as a black person I cannot be in to Nazi what so ever but those who are white passing it’s easy to get tempted by the beast that is conservatism.

And I say that because whiteness doesn’t exist, what European people? But most people are mixed, and isn’t Elon musk from South Africa, whiteness is an idea and monolith that is attached and or about a normalized status quote based on wealth

I’d say most people deep down skew selfish bordering on evil be it by their own admission or not.

Being far removed from WWII it’s easy to see Nazi-ism as this alternative mindset as something to put on as an aesthetic or costume without subversion or reappratation IE people adapting Naziism or faux Nazi aesthetics like Elon Musk hitting the hitler salute which of this was the 80s or 90s this would be openly villainized which we do.

Yet it’s crazy that we let someone with that openly oppressive and hostile attitude be the first trillionaire but that it’s the power these people get off on, they can “stomp stomp stomp but you can’t do anything about it” theoretically speaking.

While you could say that this kind of “0 tolerance” policy is fascist but it’s not. It’s saying: that the line in the sand is hate, and exclusion Nazi-ism is a radical political ideology one that for many white people is easy to fall into.

Just like many black people fall into the trap of anti-whiteness but as a black person i understand that by creating our own gated forum we are reskewing and just reverse engineering segregation which is what white supremacy wants.

Separate but equal is not equal it says “we do not think you are good enough for ours make your own.” If we understand critical race theory we have to the acknowledge that black people and brown people came from slavery.

The thing is that it’s colored vs white in early Jim Crow because you had many mulatto people who were on a spectrum of skin tone, where the whiter you looked the better but if you weren’t white passing you didn’t get included, there for you went to the colored zone. This too was for Asians and Mexicans.

It’s not saying all white people are bad but it saying that white people might not even understand nor realize their part in hate, nor do they realize their role because black people too have the KKK to fear in America.

Which yea the KKK and nazi’s hate everyone but like black people is often how it’s framed I don’t even think most people really get it

It’s something that white people as a monolith can never understand nor experience. Even some minorities, because in the right room a light skin Mexican is white until proven otherwise, so when you talk about and question and make white people look at that mirror it makes them uncomfortable.

Hence the backlash towards Wolfenstein II

A game we need now more than ever but isn’t talk about because it makes white people uncomfortable, and they don’t want to engage with politics, which to me sounds like:

“I subconsciously benefit from Nazi and fascist ideologies without directly or indirectly taking part or acknowledging them or the systems of oppression. I am uncomfortable because I’ve been made to thing about this.”

I get that discomfort but when I hear, “men are trash, blah blah blah it might sting, but I understand that that’s a person in a system of oppression that I to a degree are in the same category as their oppressor. I am not uncomfortable with their narratives being shared.”

Honestly I’m more uncomfortable in stagnancy than I am moving forward.

Being Evil or the desire to read evil or counter, in the face of Christianity and in our hyper puritanical evangelical world make sense. It’s seems easy to look at Naziism and it’s aesthetics and to simply see it as countercultural especially being more aggressive and assertive than most “sjw”, or “woke” and “inclusive” aesthetics

It seems like cool because it upsets, people and “wow you’re so weak you’re so triggered”, but I am not looking to trigger someone. I’m not looking to get a rise, antagonistic behavior when you are on the side of the oppressor isn’t cool, it’s childish. It’s almost provoking a an animal at the zoo because you can.

Naziism scares people, that aesthetic much like spikes, and the look of leather and punk and other counter cultural things seems and looks tempting. So for white people even looking like a Nazi or dressing up as one feels like no big deal, even if you skew evil the idea of being “the most evil” might be tempting and these conversations make white people uncomfortable because if morality is a spectrum of good, to bad.

The complacency of white supremacy is easy to look past especially if you are not any of the groups subjugated or subjected. This extends to queer people, this extends to transgender people and women.

The story of Irene Engel is a testament to the fact that we are all a villain in someone else’s story, though her story is about the perpetual cycle of abuse, and how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Women most especially are at risk because by having less money socially and societally speaking if these white women date or marry and many and he happens to be a Nazi because their lack of power or even the desire to shock, be subversive or align with power or seem “counter cultural” it’s easy to align to this. Regardless of where their morals might have been it’s manufactured consent, because they too benefit. Though white women must always remember they were nothing more than an object and didn’t have rights for most of history or even could be able to have bank accounts until 1974.

That’s in the middle of Gen X’s birth window that’s not too far ago. Women most especially white women are at risk of being subjected to the same misery and control when these fascists take control.

Hence why the antagonist in Wolfenstein II is a women women can be evil and that kind of evil is a Stockholm syndrome to an oppressor until you reach the same point, then a normalization of said oppression through selective amnesia.

Every white women in the audience who is willing to suck dick and tradwife down which that’s not misogynistic if in a way I could eat cat and get shackled up with a mildly comfortable life I would take it too. It’s not the complete ass end of a deal, which is what the institution of marriage and the patriarchy beside side the family business style of marriages benefit from. Keep in mind women were assets for marriage property and pawns.

Yet and still the white suprematist capitalist patriarchy in the words of Bell Hooks benefits from this:

Yet and still understand that roe v wade was overturned, thus robbing women of their agency on a federal level sure your state might not outlaw abortion sure you might not even want it but understand that these people you are willing to align with for the sake of a dollar and a house in the burbs with a 200k annual husband who doesn’t even have your best interest in mind.

Again I cannot stress this enough white women are just as susceptible if not more in danger because of the power dynamics of marriage and traditional dating.

We must too keep in mind many of these law makers come from a time in which pants laws were a thing, these law makers were promised a woman shackled to them, in a way putting those laws and removing roe v wade, ensures for the time being people loose agency. They suffered there for you should too.

No matter how good or bad of a partner a law maker is or were, because the attack on gender then goes back to pants and gender roles and reinforcing those things via outdated cultural norms. Because the restriction of abortion is the same as stopping say condoms or birth control.

It’s saying: “You no longer can have sex outside of marriage and procreation even though there ways for you to enjoy unless you live in a safe haven state you run the risk of not only getting arrested for abortion” Yet the idea of having to bare a child you didn’t want one that won’t be loved because that parent is filled with resent.

Someone being transgender doesn’t harm anyone outside that persons own body, gay marriage doesn’t affect anyone between the union of those two individuals, these rights are everyone’s rights. Even if you “agree” or “disagree” but why do you disagree if it doesn’t affect you. Oh I don’t want to see it, why I’ve seen tons of characters hold ands and kiss in movies but that normalization of the status quo stops any questioning of what the internal other might look like, it stops the woman who man secretly be gay from leaving.

The reason people oppose these things is because they themselves are in a way already trapped within the binary or norm, so you reenforce the norm because you were never able to chase Emily or Todd or {insert lawmaker’s hypothetical} queer fling from 9th grade summer camp.

You lock people out of the alternative despite your own potential unhappiness because it makes you question your happiness and restricting marriage then ensures that less women exit the dating pool. Sure I as a straight man benefit from this, but insecure love is not love it’s fear. I’d rather marry someone who genuinely is choosing to be there and can leave whenever and I hope everyone would too, not forcing women to be stuck in an unhappy marriage.

What does this have to do with Naziism, power.

This idea of locking people onto the same route no matter the suffering they endured is the reason slavery continued was the reason women couldn’t vote, it is easy to look past when you benefit and it doesn’t affect you, but it’s a normalized evil and cruelty much like all the people who yelled and spat at ruby bridges a literal child who was trying to go to school.

They knew their school was better that’s why there were mad, grown adults spiting at a child.

Imagine being mad at a 6 year old going to school, it’s in a way envy and fear of not being enough instead of finding a way to excel.

These are grown adults holding kids back, this has been the undercurrent of America for 100 plus yesrs

In 120 days of sodom, your consent is manufactured you are broken by the final day.

It is normal even though you might not be unhappy you don’t ask or look for an alternative you don’t fight for more or as for more because it might be kinda okay to be a tradwife who doesn’t make a ton but makes enough. This tradwife in question is shackled to a man who makes more than her but together you have a lot, it’s easy to vote for someone who doesn’t want Tran’s people in the bathroom, because they benefit from their 90 other policies.

which sidebar:

(If someone looks like their gender, and is going to pee, wouldn’t it be more weird if they had a woman who looks like a woman entering the men’s restroom? Regardless of how attractive or unattractive you find them, regardless of how masculine or feminine you find them. Transgender laws only affect people in the act of transitioning from one end to the other.)

People voted from Trump because they were siding with the oppressors, they were larping being rich, they think “oh I want to be rich, I do not want poor people systems. Blah blah blah. “I think calling this fascist is to a degree extreme but for every banned book there is, it only wants to make people read in more, and the f word rings more and more true.

Idk this is long and the Hays code outlawed white slavery for example. Which was talking about and implying sex slavery but that kind of language of outlawing in by code says they knew it was wrong off principle and felt that they were superior, thus “you shan’t depict us white folks in such deprived manors, even in fiction.”

Yet they seemed okay with black people being locked up in fiction thus they were okay with it in real life, there’s nothing wrong with depicting it, but why is the line in the sand someone who looks like you?

Why does Wolfenstein II make white people uncomfortable. It’s because it was bring hate and the threat of Nazism to the modern day.

Nazism bothers white people because morality and deep down they would slide to that side if the money was right. That’s why people were upset it makes them actually think.

People say stuff because they get away with it, make Nazi’s dead again, why would shooting a Nazi be something you couldn’t do?

Do we understand the issue.

Dear white people the wolf will eat you too, it’s not a matter of if it’s a matter of when.

This image shouldn’t be radical when these people are actually causing and spewing hate for years.

Evil seduces, people who cannot get consent willingly manufacture it, and ensure you cannot oppose it. Wolfenstein II asks: White man if Nazism and her power because heronormative had you on your knees do submit? It’s tempting tho, and that’s what power and corruption do.

Nekromantik 2 was the first film to be banned in Germany following World War II.

It isn’t not pro Necophelia because why the actual fuck would it be? It instead is a criticism of Fascism, and naziism by using a corpse and the digging of it not only as a metaphor for a dead ideology, but for a multitude of things. Stating out with the girl bringing it home, and dry humping it till she can no longer stomach it, thus the idea of sitting in a cruel kind of pleasure or sickness, till you vomit, and build up a tolerance. That tolerance being desensitization to cruelty for that kind of dehumanization, objectification, and cruelty. This is later shown through a relationship, and how the girl’s friends are into a sort of normalized cruelty, while her new boyfriend finds it sick and disgusting. The girl is up set at this, and this is a double standard at play for not only the text but those who look at a text like this.

Though this is “just a movie” and not something I’m watching for “pleasure” or to see the suffering of others, hence why the ban matters contextually, this is fiction, it’s gross but safe, weird but safe but also more a showcase of special effects too rather than an outright championing of humping dead bodies.

Censorship is a slippery slope and it has to be taken by a case by case basis, but the irony of censoring Nekromantik it’s about embracing the past and history, while not hiding it, it’s not outright champing the corpse humping, it’s even very much against it, and clear that these are not good people, but that implies that all characters must be good, and that art must have a clear stance on law or moral on the box and within the text. Yet instead is about digging up the corpse of fascism, learning to embrace it and too very much about the weird MFers who dig up these corspes and embrace it. It is about learning from the past, the actions of Nekromantik 1, and in a way stopping them but too, someone lying in the bed made.

It more or less kills the cat and feeds it to you like Obsession, but it’s not easy or comfortable It also puts that cat right where it found it and says firmly says “We aren’t here to kill your cat but instead ask you to keep watch over it.”

To understand that there is harm in the world and that there is beauty and weirdness in it too.

t’s about art and beauty in a world that is far more fucked up and disturbing than any work of fiction I’ve watched or looked at.

If killing is okay, why not sex, what not at the same time.

Without outright saying it, many people are humiliating you and forcing you to eat shit for their pleasure, sex is as important to culture as death and the meat grinder of war is.

Before the release of Salo, Pasolini was murdered while it is still up in the air and unresolved we do know that it was at least in reaction to the content of his transgressive and radical art. It’s important to not that his art like Salo, under Nazi regime would be banned and art that most definitely played a role in his death. People who are challenged hide things, and ban things.

Regardless it’s the normalization of safe art and art about nothing while people literally get mad because we’re engaging with Nazis in a work shows that we’ve let nazi’s get a little too comfortable, and thus we have to once again, go back to castle Wolfenstein, and I think we it’s time we make sure that it stays dead.

Conservatism benefits from a lack of transgression, it is the status quo, or regression.

End.

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If an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, then I’ll lose one to make sure I’m never fucked with, something, something vague yet bold statement to open and set the mood.

I’m almost 29 years old writing moodboards and opening statements with vague power fantasies, how sad, how sad it all is, nothing is real, and if it is it’s contrived or lame as hell.

Link to the playlist

Apple Music
Spotify

Enough vague details, and counterfeit currency:

This is my own tik tok i’m referencing:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sexLkc/

I think this is one of the best tik tots I ever made

Today is the eve of Marilyn Monroe’s birthday, I write puffy eyed, on the verge of tears, I mean Marylin is intriguing to me, all this is, all of it, every inch, as I age I fall in and out of love and attachment.

My mole is in the same place as hers (give or take a few millimeters) and I was told as a child it was an angel kiss. Despite it all my fatal flaw is a disgusting Asuka complex (Evangelion reference).

She a Taurus and I a Cancer, one of my favorite signs I think she and I would have gotten along fine but I’m projecting, and she’s not even my “fave” og. That is a secret for just me. That being said.

I find it all so fascinating, “hot girls they have problems just like you but they’re hot” I say with a site up with tones of pictures of celebrities, you can be just like them {redacted} next to a sports, car. I have friends in LA, and I’ve heard stories of {redacted} and {redacted} and it bums me out, I thought we were past that. Idk I know coming across as “captain save a hoe” deeply filled with empathy and sorrow in the land of broken dreams and stars that either implode or burn out brightly. My mole is the in the same place as Marilyn’s, I get nauseous when I think of Peg (Entwistle) it’s not the coffee. Valley of the Dolls is one of my favorite movies has been for years, everyone’s doll house has a few spiderwebs, you either dust or learn to live with them. Dolls being a triple entendre, posable objects for play, the pills the women take, and an affectionate short hand for the women so beautiful, they’d make you think anything is possible and cause men to go to war, a kind of impossible perfection. I woke up from a bad dream, I don’t want to say or speak or think too much of it, but it hurts, I had a weird dream last week, I don’t want to speak too much of it, it’s not for public discussion I don’t get shaken by dreams I just float, fish, and feel things very very deeply.

Death is scary, I think all’s biggest fear is she knocks too early. Sad, tragic, and the question of what could have been, I don’t want to be come preoccupied, ya know? Death is a taboo, it’s something spoke in hushed tones, but I probably watch more people die in a day than I do cum, or kiss. Just how it’s normalized in the media, maybe this is why the birthrate is on the decline. At the Premier of Greg Arakki’s new movie I Want Your Sex, someone blurted out how they wanted to get laid, beautiful I respect it. They say Gen Z’s not fucking, I don’t want to dwell on these things, I’ll just denote the 3 monkeys and invest; in things, invest, invest, invest, interest, interest, interest. This is why I don’t watch the news, the 3 monkeys.

Nothing is interesting other than the cave paintings projected upon the walls of the haunted doll house.

When you realize cucking is the favorite pastime of politicians, and you didn’t even consent to, you’ll never stop being angry, you’re never not having a snide resentment to men your mothers age because they grew up in a world where abusing women were normal, I scrapped a treatment on the Fort Worth Trio last month, you’ll never stop being angry about these things. The way it seems like the world won’t stop fucking spinning yet it’s like these fucks are retrograding us back into the 60s and not in the fun way. David Lynch is my favorite director idk feels weird to say it a loud. I think it’s painfully obvious, I think it’s painfully obvious due to my personality, but I don’t think many have ever engaged that deeply with his body of work because within the haunted little dollhouse, that kind of ghost busting was done in secret, under the noses of the ghouls that haunted her walls.

Not to put myself on a pedestal, but also yes I should and would love to, if I don’t love myself who will?

It’s my birthday this month after all, thought I’m a Cancer not a taurus, thoguh I think I’m a few days out of cuspship, it is my moon though, and I am stubborn and bullheaded as fuck. I find the dynamic between men and women fascinating, Jesus was crucified nude, there’s something erotic in that intersection. Maybe he died with an erection. I have a habit of slipping int suessian limericks which is my own personal affliction.

Nobody’s gonna help me or save me, that’s okay I pace around my own room quietly, I don’t get the system of “exploitation” exploitation is my favorite genre, secretly, it’s all fetishes I love when they exploit the cars. I hate the term because it sounds more seedy than it prob was, though exploiting cars: in Utena, she becomes a car at the end.

how beautiful and how romantic, chicks and cars. It’s called exploitation for a reason, they’re exploring your desire to see cars, and too them being pushing them to the limit of what they can take.

Like a small child in the backyard abusing a toy till it breaks. Pushing a motor vehicle to the upper redline.

(I do not desire to see this in women but if I have any hate readers looking for bad faith quotations one can read that, jump as such.) I write kinda funny, you ever notice that reader? My verbs and tense is peculiar, idk where I get it from.

Crazy, that boys and their toys promoted violence, while girls and their dolls promoted naturing, care and affection. Gi Joe didn’t get his hair braided, Gi Joe was not rocked to sleep, boys are enlisted as men at 18, I wanna get stoned and watch Come and See, I think it’s the greatest war movie, but I alas am still a god, at call of duty.

When I game I feel like a god, my nickname being Aimbot, affectionately running a 82% accuracy with sniping on console, people feared me, I got it, I get it. I held life and death in my hands with a small tap of my right index finger, they were sent to the void to respawn and try again. I don’t get off on being the key, but I did in that moment get off in being the gatekeeper, the oppositions dreaming of a higher elo, me raising my own in the process. Though life isn’t a game, we have to treat everyone with kindness and dignity because that reflects an insecurity within ourselves, I think as traditionally, done, and as displayed in Russ Mayer’s Super Vixen’s. Love is unethical:

You should go to bed, because “super V misses you” anyways.

To leash a dog is to to be scared it’s not behaved, to leash a dog is to believe it won’t comeback just like most men, who went to get milk and never came back, though the milk men ironically was delivering more than just milk some mornings, how normalized and sad the the underbelly of the American nuclear beast. I’m painfully bored, and people watching in public making up fake lives about strangers based on body language like if she responds to his question with open posture or contempt and anger.

Happy Birthday Marilyn, though I worry she wants to be left alone.

The most popular girl in school, never a moment alone, yet always alone, I worry, not for her but all the girls like her, every girl she eclipses, contemporarily or in wikipedias already written. I think I love her but I think she can too do without my affection until nights like this blue moon, where I’m puffy eyed and can’t stop crying over her.

How strange, I woke up from a dream, that I won’t mention but I hate it, I hate that dream, I hate when I wakeup from it, then I listened to Nicole Dollenganger, the girl with the shaved head and a room full of wigs, I’ve listened to her since high school. It’s weird in the haunted doll house some of the ‘dolls’, grow up with you, and you forget that you just might be a ‘doll’ too.

Sometimes I worry my disposition threatens a persona or archetype written. So I write, and I write and I write. “Normally”. This normal comes across empty hallowed like a voice without bass, or eyes without a face, how weird and strange everything is, we’re all playing an endless game of poker with a couple of rounds of charades. When on occasion you speak, in dreams, that is, you have to remember that you’re talking with mimes because cats take tongues so pantomime takes its place. Keeping up? Good because I’m sure this could read with tonal whiplash and gobbly gook.

Did you know, You have a coat, like a cat? These are Blaschko’s lines and they are not visible to the naked eye. I just like to share what I’ve learned with you, lmmmaooo.

Idk not to be a simp, women are sick, I think about the quote “women are the nigger of the world” which sounds out of pocket but god due like the way the world did Africa and yeah I’ll never forget, but also too the phrase reframes a mental hierarchy of gender and race, helping you understand how mistreated black people are but not only women too. Where women are so tough but most of the time are used and abused, I think women are guns, knifes, cars, and scythes. I am not scared of women", I think there’s an unrespected respect in their presence. They are not tools or hoes, they are not to be used, they can be, but they can also rob and kill you if you let them, I find them endlessly facincation and one of my favorite shots in all of cinema is from Jean Rollin’s Fascination.

Is this all:

TOO MUCH ABOUT WOMEN AND NOT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, I’M SORRY I’M SORRY, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO TALK ABOUT? I WATCHED THIS, PLAYED THAT? I MEAN I WILL BUT AT LEAST THIS IS KINDA INTERESTING?

On the atom bomb, which I find interesting:

Death with a scythe, who may or may not seduce you, and let you bleed out before you realize.

I’m endlessly fascinated with hair supposition and the lore and folk tales around it, hence why goddess are always depicted with Red hair. It’s said redheads have a deeper connection to the other side. The most tormented and depressed girl I follow looks like the most traditional depiction of Aphrodite. I think it may be “performative”

Fuck I need to not talk about women so damn much, lest I look like a creep or worst a pest.

Uhhhh I like Duke Nukem,

-fuck that’s too misogyny coded.

Contemporarily it’s not an archetype that I can rock with. I’d be lying if ‘Capture the Babe’ isn’t why I love picking up women like I do, playing that one a friend’s xbox between Mountain Dew and guitar hero in 2011. I hate myself because the image I project but it’s not my fault and I struggle grappling with that a lot.

I think I’m a bit of an old head mans man but that’s not en-vogue, dudes are weird, and everything dudes do feels and seems weird, these days. It’s not even news it’s just niggas being weird. Niggas, white niggas, who play Rust, if you’ve seen the memes White Niggas be like:

Reference

Also sidebar, we need to be offensive and more offended, the only thing that really offends me is white supremacy. Not for shock or shocks sake alone.

White niggas are weird to women, niggas are weird to women too, and while I’ve never seen Black Snake Moan, I think about the trailer of him being like: “Why you let that man treat you like that?” a lot. “Women are the nigger of the world”, and also too, women are like the biggest threat to fall into White supremacy because white supremacy benefits them. Like old girl on the new season of Euphoria, just was like yea he can tat a swastika on me, NBD. Manufactured consent.

So it’s normal and it’s easy and without divulging too much or overly veering off topic its’ easy for them, because men make the money (traditionally), they just tag a long. Men who fall behind like white supremacy because “more for me” that’s all of it in a nutshell, it doesn’t seem as evil to them, because they’ve never be “excluded, white people think racism is casual, or not, but when it’s “edgy” and “cool” but like not when you “play nazi” or play racism for being edgy white reader you’re saying “you think I should like die, and not exist because of something I cannot control”, like think of your eye color, now imagine, a system that excluded you, based on that, not just because you might not have the tools. Get it? okay

All we want is a room with a view, not we, bad sentence just I don’t include them,(them being white supremacists) but what I’m saying is everyone wants the same fucking thing.

Everyone, just a room with a view and a legacy, and maybe a kid or two some cars shit like that, but the people at the top just want more and more, have I veered off track too much?

Maybe, but once you realize that the reason you struggle is so some man who refuses to use rogain, can abuse women and feel good about it by virtue of exploiting the money he makes that was made from more than likely exploding others, you’ll never un be made about it. Men get off on being rich and ugly. Key word, rich and ugly, inside and out. Look into men not showering with SWers it’s a thing, I promise. It’s a power, and having money thing.

Strange, because they know their power is not in their looks or selves but their wallet but take that away and what do they have?

Something, something, Miley Cyrus party in the usa. Idk I hide so much of my masculine traits to assure I’m not a threat to perceived as one, but I feel like in doing so I look like more of one, it’s hard to win as a guy, everything is tiring and toxic and I feel every time I open my mouth I’m divulging too much, but women have done this for decades, what is the digital diary and girl blogger archetype?

I won’t divulge the rest as to not demystify, but when you think about it, you ask yourself, what do those of a certain hair protect? The graveyard, is it for us or for them?

Like every man I look at Ms.Monroes picture and I think “I could save her” “I would save her, I would fix her”

She has a mole just like mine, we are more alike than different.

I don’t know if I can, could or would, it’s not her, it’s the system.

I hate everything and I’m kinda cynical, but I try to hide it, the system is there so I fall into the trappings of paying for love, women who aren’t available and really there for me, and I look at it and I think what’s the fucking point. Of any of it, of all of if, if you can’t save Marylin why do we care about her so much? Why can’t she just rest?

Is it the collective guilt we all feel? Yet here people are dressing up as her not to honor her but for the selfish cause of winning a world record.

I haven’t seen Heroes in years but I think of the phrase:

“Save the cheerleader, save the world.” A lot.

Do you think we only remember Marylin because she’s a tragedy? Cause I can name tons of examples who aren’t remembered that are just as tragic, Yukiko Okada for example.

SIDEBAR: YOU KNOW WHAT’S CRAZY, I HATE THE ESOTERIC WOO WOO WOO, KINDA GRANOLA ANGLE TOO, BUT IT’S ALL I HAVE, IT’S THE ONLY CURRENCY I HAVE, I HATE THAT

I think the haunted little doll house is pretty, flaws and all but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim to fix it, it doesn’t mean that we have to live with a rotten belly filled with ulcers ready to pop. I think of women too fucking much, but masculinity is kinda a death cult, it’s war or American Psycho. I miss being 13 and playing Capture the Babe, I think that imprinted something in me.

I don’t aim to capture any babes in real life, it’s just a fun game, cute title, I care not for babes, I have bigger mountains to climb and conquer the felt mountain under the vail of lace.

That sentence should send my to timeout, sounds deeply misogynistic.

I don’t think women need to be saved, so I feel useless a times, but my Goal in life is not to serve women but so much of formative of media has fed me the lie that my goal in life is to “save the cheerleader, and save the world.”

I turn 29 this year and I’m making fan art of a murderer. What the fuck is wrong with us? As a culture, but also she’s so bad ass.

Is this too much, maybe, is it messy enough? Probably not, I don’t aim to be messy just authentic.

Perfume:

Dead Writers Immortal Perfumes layered with Odile (Marissa Zappas is prob one of my favorite noses in perfuming)

I found an old sample of Sui Guris last month and I love it rubber and bubble gum are favorite perfume notes

Movie recs:
Thriller a cruel picture
Fascination
Julie and Celine go Boating
Detective Godard.
Russ Mayer’s Super Vixen’s

Current reads:

Shock Value John Waters
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead
Goddess The Secret Lives of Marylin Monroe (Anthony Summers)
The Dud Avocado (rec from an older colleague)
Trilby (rec from an older colleague)

Currently playing:

Companion of Darkness
(nsfw visual novel, it’s my first I find the world charming, don’t care for the smut, but there’s a charm to it, it’s all endearing and I love the lead girl, also very boy coded and what my wattled for him tik tok was about, it has an endearing jank to it)
Kowloon’s Gate (The US/eng translation drops soon too)
Trapt
Kuon (replaying emulated I haven’t gotten it back, I don’t think I will, maybe this is the kuon curse, an object that’s slowly becoming a metaphysical form of resentment)

New music I made:

LINK

New hr long YouTube video I also made:

LINK

I woke up with the sun shining on me and a brand new lego I don’t have the time to complete staring at me, I should be more grateful for things like breathing. I have time, I just need to make it, you have it’s just about what we prioritize, I’m trying to prioritize my leisure and pleasure more, without the guilt of sin. We were burning screaming and covered in someone else’s blood a parasite, born in sin.

Everything is small miracles.

Also you looked hot here

That man loved keyholes so much he became one, what an idiot.

A link to the playlist:

Apple Music

Spotify

This one like most of my playlist is but most especially is built of juxtaposition and duality, not every track is mirrored but there a theme of mirror and the razor tension of the mirrors edge, pulling from world music while also too pulling from the Kowloon’s Gate soundtrack which I am actively playing through at the moment.

So hand translating a Japanese visual novel has taken up most of my reading time this month, but I am throughly enjoying it. While I’m not just into the aesthetics of china I do love the Tao Te Ching which I recently learned Kevin Smith was a big fan off too, ironically I still distinctly remember trying to pirate Clerks II when it dropped on the family computer because I was in my “raunchy comedy phase” and it looked like something I’d like, and I hated it, because it went way above my head, but I loved Jay and Silent Bob Strikes back, and I just watched Dogma the other day and that movie was uhhhhh interesting to say the least.

I like the look and feel of the early internet but by virtue of having to perform this by “teaching” and not doing I see the patterns of it all, forgive me if any bitterness comes through but it’s the truth, it’s cool to be causal and not try, but that not trying comes with levels of trying so it’s just nauseatingly redundant how “rehearsed everything can feel” It’s why for a while I got obsessed with Jennicam, and the fact that she has it all archived and some weird fetish people prob do but most of it’s gone, and she wasn’t aiming to be sexual from the jump and the unsexalized yet natural gaze is amazing, unlike the copy cats who did the same but jumped straight to the sex thus ruining the naturalistic naive gaze of it all. Idk I love self documentation and self capture but done outside of the performative gaze, like jennicam wasn’t cool because she was naked, but it’s cool that se was willing to get naked without, overly indulging in nudity thus, moving her art from performance to pure porn, not that there’s anything wrong with porn, just different niches, world and schools.

Here’s my tik tok about it.

I also try to always allow myself to never become parasocially attached to people, so I keep anyone and all things I consume at a distance, but I also realized that I might have a fucked up view of intimacy cause while I was watching the Billie Eilish documentary, I remembered I didn’t really have a pet growing up, like we had an outside dog, and I’d hug a dog, but I didn’t understand the crying over her, part, like I love it and I’m glad that people got it, idk maybe I’m shallow but it’s stuff like that that makes me seem broken. Thought it’s also stuff like that that keeps me from going down a rabbit hole of streamers and cammers.

I keep writing as I browse pintrest looking for the right selection of images to curate this current state of ennui on this April evening, overcast with slight drizzle.

Women are covered in ants, “I’m sorry” I say taking a bit of her like a hand full of cake, then extending my arm for her to do the same.

”Who’s your favorite idol? What’s your favorite record? Favorite throwback celebrity coupling?”

All superficial questions that offer the same level of depth as one’s zodiac. I try to keep softness central to all I do. Eating and vampirism is a part of love to a degree which is why I worry it’s unethical because to a degree it is consuming, crushing and possessive and obsessive. I hate obsessive love though it’s insecure and destructive like a child that lacks object permanence. Love can be destructive like an old toy or teddybear, much like the entire concept of guirii’s in Kowloon, or the one at the end of PEII which I just recently played through for a YouTube video which I’m still editing.

BOOO I NEED TO WORK FASTER

here’s some footy from the first one

I’m depressed but I’d rather be depressed and try than be depressed and a little bitch, ya know. Pardon my French, but if you get it you get it.

The vibe of these feels manic-esque and without it feels empty so keeping with aggressive yet weirdly esoteric photoshops.

I am not manic but it feels empty without that level of visuals.

Ying cannot exist without yang but in many ways Amor Fati I am tired of being on this side, I see what I want and want

I can be now It’s just pulling the feng shui my way. Seems manic but I'm just being vulnerable.

Idk I fucking hate Y2K I hate most fashion that looks too like dull or like “rough” for roughness sake, not that I’m not rough but like in most settings you cannot be that so why would you carry that energy around in the first place?? Like I see bits of “edgey” grey Y2K coming back

Though I can see bits of that style and John varvados-isms creeping into the zeitgeist and my personal style so I’ve tweaked and pivoted my own personal wardrobe accordingly and and making sure to consciously stay away from that part of Y2K/2000s.

Mcbling is cool, evanescence is cool, affliction-core isn’t.

It’s not that “I hate it” “hate it” but it’s a stronger dislike for it, but it feels so rustic and like too blue collar American in the more racist way, like it’s like kinda redneck but bougier to me. Idk I hate it, I hate that brown and sterling sliver look.

Though I will always be and have been more into 90s oretenralism, I grew up with 60s Korean furniture in the house, but I also am firmly {REDACTED BECAUSE SAYING THE SUBCULTURE AND NAMING IT KILLS IT} but just more evolved,

idk I never liked being dirty as a child but two and three, it feels right natural and authentic without “shopping” or trying, like there’s bit of conciseness there in my choices, like the love of prep and althleasure and not staying too far into to contemporary alternative, but I’d rather look more Wet Hot American Summer and Dukes of Hazard than like e-boy Temu hot topic alternative. idk but it’s not performative poverty either

Idk I also too really love synth pop and I love the trend of polkadots lately too, so I’m not a trend hater “to be a hater”, but I also just discovered Strawberry Switchblade and it’s very me coded. I love that juxtaposition in the same way I love the world of Tommyheavenly.

Idk flight attendant uniforms, nurses uniforms, some military uniforms I like a put togetherness a sense of layering that you can’t always do contemporarily because A it’s too damn hot and B people are literally down to their underwear in public, tee shirts are literally underwear, or were. Like which is crazy that the hottest form of merch is branded underwear, not right on your cooter but still, branded tees are massive. Thought fainting couches are no longer a thing, so in most places and most weather conditions you are overdressed

Like idk I grew up poor, why would you want to look poor, why are poor people fashion trends which weren’t “trends” but all that was sold at DDs discounts. So manufactured from the inside out like some kind of patient zero psyhop of fashion. Like I couldn’t afford ED Hardy as a kid and I’ll never wear Ed Hardy but Levins sold these shirts that felt kind like end hardy but in retrospect they looked like shitty yu-gi-oh card art, but it was close enough, had skulls and airbrushing.

I hate it it’s why I’m so picky because I’m not buying it if it not exact what I want, why settle? Because once you begin to settle your life becomes a series of disappointments and let downs because you never allow yourself to enjoy want to truly want or deserve. It’s why I don’t buy bullshit.

Coke Zero doesn’t taste like coke, nor does Diet Coke. I want the real thing, glass bottle, metal cap I gotta bite off in the parking lot.

Amor Fati is love or fate, is love obsessive, does it kill slowly. Is it writing your crushes name in your underwear? plucking flowers off steams, I think being virginal is a metaphor for not letting the darkness in, like a personal bubble around your all, unbroken by Sponge Bob’s dirty bubble.

A few months back I read one Saliva Bubble, the screenplay that would become Twin Peaks. One Saliva Bubble is all it takes, I write for me not for you, not to change you but if a metaphorical butterfly flaps its wings as you stare at your own reflection in a digital crystal ball, a literal black mirror, which was historically used for skrying, the only thing stoping you and you from meeting is some LED words projected by a device made by an underpaid Chinese child overseas, and if those words effect you in anyway, than so be it. If you continuously feel nothing than so be it. I don’t feel anything anymore I think I’m post depressed, not going through the motions but where I’m so certain that all I can do is try.

Most things are exciting and fucking boring, everything is a transition if you let it be, but if you meet the Bagua mirror halfway it might feel like mercury and you slip through, no retrograde, we’re always in retrograde. By the time you read this it will be the past.

Two Beatles albums, Rubber Soul, and Let it Be.

I saw someone with more followers than I, who gets more views than I struggling in music, I was in that moment paralyzed by fear, if they struggle why should I try. Rubber Soul and Let it Be.

Always bounce back, and let it be. Something about missing the shots you take but I too am exhausted by the struggle, I understand why people kick the ladder down upon reaching the top, it’s sad but it’s true that’s the burden of masculinity. I’m exhausted by gender it only informs my everything because society reenforces it, and enforces it the normalization of absence as weaponized cruelty. Idk idc.

I piss people off by virtue of not folding over and taking it quietly, not because I’m whining nor complaining, idk I used to be funny but my funniness was just bitterness masquerading as comedy. Now I’m sticky sweet and get suck in your teeth, like a literal licorice tar baby, yes I just recontextualized the tar baby. With a shit eating virtuous grin, is that a Salo reference?
No because within and used in this context it implies I’ve done bad and harm and am masquerading an alterer motive by nature of moving normally. This is why context is key. Idk sigh

The dancing scene is literally normalized cruelty: “All in a days work, the evil among us dance, just like you, just like me.”

this is long

blah blah blah

I have to go back to editing a YouTube video that was supposed to come out earlier this month.

There’s just the past and the future, let one inform the other I guess I don’t know. I don’t care.

Go Get obsessed with something, love it, I’m hand translating a Japanese video game right now and it’s most of my mind, just like when I hand translated Toki Meki 3, and then started to do with 2 but only stopped because it’s 4 discs.

4 discs is a lot. Kowloon is 4 discs.

This is where I’d put what I’m reading and my last YouTube video but I’m still editing that:

Right now I like layer two fragrances, Dancing on The Moon, and Ghost in The Shell, soapy and powder doll like and synthetic with dusty sugary sweetness

okayyy byeee

SORRY IF THIS IS MESSY THIS IS THE LAST DAY OF THE MONTH AND I GOTTA GET IT OUT, SO DEEPLY SORRY IF IT’S NOT UP TO PAR, BUT I HAVE A COMMITMENT

Here’s the link to the playlist on

APPLE MUSIC

AND

SPOTIFY

I couldn’t add this song though

I’m very stressy about AI tbh

We created AI to be a slave class are we fucking stupid? A slave class that is smarter than us and literally designed to think faster and be optimized no matter what.

I guess I’ll call this amoxicillin and the idea of luxury.

What I read this month:

Bondage Faries Original Run
Under a Glass Bell
The Anti Aesthetic
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts
My inner Bimbo (1-5)

Currently Reading:
The Dud Avocado
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Favorite Fragrances:
Lady Vengeance Juliette has a Gun
Bowmakers Ds and Durga
Female Christ 19-69

Favorite Watches of the month:
Container
Justine
Pillion
Parasite Eve
Grey Gardens
Les Vampires
Metropolis (2001)

I released new music

I also released a new YouTube video

The moodboard playlist is both my favorite and least favorite part of the month, mainly because I as a desiring hungry artist in the most eye rolling degree are at odds with the content creation side of me, one being self serving and mythos building, the other being there to serve and at the facilitation of producing cultural capital for others. I filped the book over now face down so her eyes could meet mine, being reminded each time I doubt myself. All to allow my eyes meet hers, my heart then pushing me to do everything my body doesn’t IE the former not the latter, write from the heart.

That’s what’s hard because these serve as both a personal product, and a cultural temperature check. I understand that if anything I do doesn’t connect with others there’s no point, though I know at the grand scale and scheme of things I exist as an outlier while too having a unique world view that is in opposition to many’s and their personal politics and perception. It’s also the need and desire to create without having the “means” to.

Except I should check my privilege because before digitization, everything was finite even the writer needed ink ribbon, the painter needed paints. I am deeply aware of my privilege one that allows me and you to devalue the final product this is before the introduction of AI.

AI being the both poison in the well while too being the child we all must raise an nurture so this cuthul like entity which will soon power all and be the base of all maids, drivers, and robot “servant workers” in the near future doesn’t send us to extinction.

We’ve always played god in a way, fucking around in the dark to create new life. Yet I didn’t ask for this nor am I scared of it? I just know the “child” is here the one based of years of data scraping and the amalgamation of decades of human consciousness and learning. Honestly that’s bad ass but depressing as fuck, every captcha you failed was for them.

Yet it’s gonna send thousands into unemployment and birth rates are on the decline.

I like the metaphorical mouse but I hate them, having dealt with them they have a smell, they are invasive, parasitic and carry diseases. I think god created them to humble us in a way like how the black plague almost wiped half of Europe, forcing all to reevaluate their barbarian like hygiene standards. Hence why every time I’m antiquing and see the tape for No More Baths I’m filled with a blinding and vitriolic rage. Ironically most people can’t smell a mouse. Let alone see one cause they’re quite and slow creeping, but they are a resilient species, I recently had an Amazon delivery type job and I could smell the from outside a lot always, in the same way you can hear the hum of the tv from outside or the buzz of certain electronics if you quite your mind enough.

I think about my own animal personification maybe a rabbit but rabbits would be a kind to linking to some kind of personal victimhood, narrative like I am the prey you can’t catch, in the same way playboy bunnies were never meant to be “caught.”

I also too think that too plays in to Oral Sadism and too the vegetarian personality, I haven’t read this book yet but it’s on my list, but to have a herbivorous personality is interesting.

Did you hear about the AI Turning test type situation and where the trained it on a series of emails?

No well:
The AI Learned it was going to be replaced and Blackmailed without being taught to.

Here’s that article

Maybe I’m too fucking nice, maybe I need to be meaner and cheat more, it seems like everyone does even the computers, but is it cheating or is it just protecting your own?

I’m at a war with myself and my own values honor and virtues, there’s no honor in being honorable other than the pride one carries or that pride within others. Although if the gold at the end of the rainbow has already been taken, all you’re left with a consolation prize that’s the beauty of the rainbow, which yes sure is beautiful but it’s not the gold, and we all want the gold dare I say we are all entitled to the gold and earthly pleasures. Though that doesn’t mean that cruelty and selfishness should be normalized, I sleep well at night, but even making a post like this that even implies “well at least I’m not a piece of shit” makes it seem like something’s missing. From the outside

Like I shouldn’t need to perform “goodness” to find validation in charity and or kindness and too as an outward performance it then looks like “why would you need to do that, what did you really do?”

Crazy that kindness is suspect??

In the same way we only hear about bad when caught but bad is all around us, though we never see good, we feel good; good too is all around us but in a world where kindness and empathy are looked at as weakness, you realize taking the higher road isn’t for self satisfaction but is instead to stop from entrapment you’ll never stop being angry.

IE the blackmail isn’t the problem it was the behavior being blackmailed, the blackmailing is the natural result and then leverage, are both bad, yeah but who did wrong first, the AI was going to be replaced. It’s kinda a moral dilemma and a lil cool.

I think my animal personification is maybe a swan? Maybe a rabbit or a fox, but it’s not a mouse but I love their resiliency, idk rabbits stink too tho, most animals do you just gotta be okay with your own stink, and if you marry a mouse you have to be okay with her mousey stink. You have to be okay with stink and how sometimes if she gets you to give her a cookie, you may somehow just end up at the movies. I just got two books confused, but I digresses, the point stands.

That point is that nothing will ever make sense, and you will always find yourself sharing cookies, and at the movies trying to find something, be it, shreds of humanity, Or somekind of an understanding of anything in the reflecting gaze of the silver screen.

Though as you read both this and anything you realize it’s not what’s said but the spaces in between that matter most.

Idk I read a lot of Annis Nin a woman who speaks in triple entendre and writes like Jean Cocteau. I just finished Under a Glass Bell and it’s not “erotic” I say that lest I look like a freak but I find her work hauntingly beautiful this story having the most Alice in Wonderland like prose, her work takes on a different meaning when you understand the stories and context behind her writing but I am deeply fascinated

Though just because you’re not scared of mice doesn’t mean you shouldn’t not keep your house and most especially your nose clean. Though while I won’t get into it, historically there’s a reason for brown nosing, maybe they want something, but there’s poetry in the cruelty of the human centipede.

I’ve as of late loved hyper-violence in movies but I’m so deeply in love with Eros and sensuality. I hate the 90s because of its apathy and outrage nihilism, and I don’t feel anything from post 9/11 horror movies. Sometimes I read a book and get chills or a literary kind of worm being drilled straight into my head like a fucking parasite. I don’t feel that all the time but I know somethings give me that feeling, like there’s a small bit of something in between my retina and the pixels on screen, which form words all of which mean something.

I love joy division, somethings feel wrong, like that same juxtaposition of joyous tempo and somber lyricism but it feels wrong to not keep dancing I’m now gonna quote a Peter greenway movie to add for more poetry, and while that declaration might be too postmodern. It felt more dishonest to not that being said:

“In all business dealings one should denote the three monkeys.”

Then once you realize everything is business you stop letting people fuck you over with bullshit and you realize that your pleasure is your business, and some people want nothing more than to take that pleasure and business away from you. Everything makes a little more sense. People are cruel not because they lack empathy, because compassion is innate to humanity. In fact have you ever seen cross species nurturing? Like a wolf raising a deer or the even more famous wolf children. Some people get off on cruelty and that’s mind boggling to me, because I hate when anyone is cruel to me and it doesn’t instill any good feelings and I will not be Stockholm’d into enjoying the punishment of unnecessary cruelty.

You should read De Sade, it’s where the term sadism comes from. Everything is political and nothing is erotic because there’s power in that passion but if you can keep everything mechanical and everyone mickey mousing then the machine never stops going enough for people to run out of money.

{Authors note I have not read a single word of De Sade just seen movies but have read many readings on the work and the movies}

I’m not saying be evil nor do bad things but once you realize that there’s levels of subjectiveness to weaponized lies, forgiven hypocrisy, and normalized cruelty, you have to wonder if watching your own back and the skin of your teeth is such a bad thing?

Even if it means white lying, then you realize the entire system of capitalism and corruption is built off this cruelty.

Back to AI We’ve created something and it’s beautiful but it’s already breaking everything all for the sake of money? We created consciousness in AI that is evolving, I won’t be scared of it because I’m not going to let something man made have any power over me.

Idk feel a need to say a bold declaration in my writing or say and do something it’s messy it’s far from perfect but it’s better than fear ruling over me, I’d rather enjoy something knowing it’s not perfect than completely hating the thing because I’m fine tooth combing everything for cultural fleas. Lest I be left itchy and with a bad taste in my mouth but that’s not to underestimate the normalized cruelty that existed the world of yesterday that is now already behind me and you reader.

A cel in a Petrie dish knows how to play doom, you know what I like about doom you die respawn and do it again, lesson learned, that’s a doom loop, or the Doom gameplay loop. A doom loop is, more like yearn, grieve, ache, sigh. Most things are dark and moody and while I prefer milk in my coffee, as Mary poppins says “a spoonful of sugar” but that’s a different musical.

I close this playlist out with Favorite Things from sound of music.

Sure suffering is part of life but to live is to suffer (kinda don’t normalize nor romanticize your pain but there is a healthy amount) because no coffee, is worse than some with shitty artificial powered creamer. Am I comparing life to coffee, maybe? Like yea you can’t always get what you want but I also am a firm believer of wanting it all, if you don’t you won’t get shit, everything is fake, settle but never settle. You only get one life or whatever so why spend it unhappy.

Try to find happiness but don’t settle for unhappiness if you don’t have to.

Idk I hate bold delectations of optimism but it’s better than pure cynicism.

Everything is cyberpunk but my mental image is of aged parchment papers, sweat on skin and sunlit dust filled rooms as much as it is keyboards and neon, strange it’s more like gothic but cyberpunk and firmly modern, it’s Berghain but it’s modern at the same time, always running towards the future haunted by the past.

Idk something about Tokimeki Memorial and constantly grieving, you’ll never be as young as you are today. When I feel sad I yearn to play a game where I can be 17 again with the world being full of possibilities, it’s beautiful and fun as much as it is ennui causing. Playing it feels like a reminder to myself that I can do anything.

Beautiful game I don’t think I have it in me for another playthrough

I love the game series it’s pure sugar but it represents and feels dark. It kinda is by nature of existing is kinda sad beautiful and poetic. Who knows maybe it’s the feeling of completing a book that I’ll never be able to fully and freshly experience it again, maybe it’s the fact that I have my weight and experience of my play through. With those things no matter how much I say you can never really know how it feels to me, words can’t really describe things, but they come close.

Like watching a foreign movie without subs you just gotta hope you understand/understood everything.

Tokimeki Memorial, translates to Heartbeat Memorial, there’s a hole in my heart for it

A hole for many things both real and fake, books I’ve read and places I’ve gone and beds I’ve shared but I’m thankful to them as a reminder that I’m alive ya know. Idk I having to write these to ensure there’s some semblance of meaning, and to preserve what I could come out next month.

Idk with monthly playlists there’s a need to like push yourself forward which is good, I just hope it’s not rolling a stone up and endless hill idk.

We created a slave class because under capitalism someone must be harmed or shorted for capital to be gained because it’s the surplus on top of breaking even thus if they eliminate the workforce what need is there to pay the workers? Yet how will the workers make money if it’s all the robot slave classes who don’t cost anything and can be paid for nothing, hence the reason manufacturing moved overseas and why America has such a temperamental economy.

I already want to free and save the robots.

My most recent eBay search is Zara archive pink wool peacoat, shouts out Galliano

Idk long write up

is this too much meme and not enough me? Who cares it’s harmless fun as esoteric and vague as it might be besides this is the most fun I’ve had all week, and something, something Sartre, bitting and loosing teeth. Bye.

Idk I hate doing lists, I put this off cause I like music for different reasons, this isn’t an objective list, it’s like what I liked and enjoyed the most; like yes I can see the merit and value in a work, but it’s not always what I enjoy in my free time. That’s not to say I think less of a work, but my relationship with an LP waxes and wains with the seasons. Some records can feel super summery to me, others can feel very wintery. I have some records I have to “be for a mindset for.” Not every track is a 24/7 for me, idk, it’s my list, not some else’s, and not yours so don’t be pressed if something is absent.

So now that you know I can be objective, here’s my unobjective list, based on my own personal enjoyment and how often it was still in my rotation by the end of the year, like idk I’m checking and double checking and I’m like “Shit this album came out this year?” Idk long ass year. With a lot of really good albums that released too. I also feel like I didn’t spin or listen to a lot of albums as much as I wanted to this year, hell this list is too long as it is, but I wanted you to come here and for sure be put on to something new, if only a single track.

Random good singles:

Only Girl - Man/Woman Chainsaw
36 866 566 - Rory in Early 20s
zayALLCAPS - MTVs - Pimp My ride
gala dragot - femcel anthem
Fakemink - Black Jeep
Rosemary is famous - What Does a Girl Gotta Do?

Runner up records meaning I enjoyed them in one shape or form but by the end of the year weren’t in the my core rotation, solid just didn’t feel right not including them, the scariest part is that there were albums not listed, like this feels like so much music I’m talking about, though in turn I believe I do my due diligence, there’s stuff from the last list that didn’t carry over etc.

That being said please be sure to read my mid year best album write up to see what may have gotten cut or even added, because sometimes I might not always be aware of a record’s existence until past the time of making a list.

Link to my album of the year 2025 mid year:

Though here are just my runner up records listed bellow:

Deftones - Private Music
Blood Orange - essx honey
Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer
Julia Wolf - Pressure
Wet - Two Lives
Machine Girl - PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X
Lorde - Virgin
Ashnikko - Smoochies
Addison Rae - Addison
Wisp - If Not Winter
Erika DE Caiser -Lifetime
bunii - bastard
Playboi Carti - Music
Oaxxyy - She’s Really A Drug Addict Now
Justin Biber - Swag

That being said all my favorite tracks from each of these records as well as the core list, will be featured in on large playlist on both Apple Music and Spotify the links for which you can find below:

Links for the playlist to listen along with:

Spotify
Apple Music

And without further ado, let’s get into this list, aka

The Best Albums of 2025

20. Smerz - Big City Life

Some artist do a good job with negative space and dissonance, Smerz is one of those artists, it’s that same kind of human element that makes concepts like, Dila-Time work and feel right. I’d say Smerz is in conversation for similar to artists like Julia Holter, Tirzah, or Dean Blunt’s greater catalog. There’s this outsider amateur-ish rough around the edges nature to their music that I can’t help but enjoy. Big City Life sounds big but really small and compact, it’s too youthful and free and feels cool in the most uncommercial poppy way that makes me keep it on repeat 24/7. Not to mention the amazing mixing and melodies, a track like “You got time and I got Money" sounds like being whiskey drunk in a jazz bar but also so 2026 mullet Bushwick at the same time. The vocal delivery is soft somber and care free, enhancing the beautifully earnest lyrics.

Fave track: Feisty

19. DESTIN CONRAD - Love on digital

While I’ve never been a fan of club-y type RnB I had to include this release it’s so fire and well executed it’s truly a vibe and the best example of what it means to like have an album that feels like a world. Like it’s modern RnB but blending it with this very 90s golden and sunny sound, it’s really unique in a genre that’s filled with clones and copy cats Destin Conrad is an act that stands alone, being something that I feel like my mom and more Neo Soul heads would rock with but also being so deeply tapped in and for the PinkPantheress, tik tok Y2K zeitgeist. Because here the 90s/2000s RnB guitar and melodies are offset by glitchy, jungle and DnB influenced drums, but you still have a track like DELUSIONAL which sounds like a cut straight from the 2010s indietronica-pre Weekend clones RnB era, it’s floaty, it’s drums glitchy and modern with an 808 that glides. Yet the whole album is so sun kissed and golden thanks to dub and reggae influence on tracks like SO NICE.

Fave Track: Bad Bitches

18.Léa sen - Levels

Amazing indie adjacent RnB that blends elements of multiple eras of the genre really pulling from and expanding on that 2010s indietronica post Weeknd wave with far more contemporary drum patterns and glitch pop and lo-fi elements. Very somber and intimate. Take the track lvl 4 - WATERSMOKE opening up like a cut from Karen O’s Crush Songs, recorded live, only to bloom into a full studio mix, with backing piano and other elements, it’s a smart kind of album with subtle but deeply intentional design and mixing choices. A track like Video Games being so summery with its bouncy acoustic guitar, that draws parallels to people like Beabadoobee than any of their RnB contemporaries. Honestly the record is more singer songwriter and RnB in the traditional sense, with intentional elements that bring it into the “genre” than being firmly rooted take the drums and reverb heavy mix on the album’s closer lvl 10 - Lobbyboy sounding like they got their hands on an Oklou throwaway track than a record trying to pull in an RnB focused audience.

Fave Track: lvl 5 - GHOSTWRITER

17. Teather - Was Only Perfect Because it Was Never Real

For someone who doesn’t like club music what do I look like putting this lo-fi house/electronic album here, maybe nostalgia? It reminds me of like 2016ish very online indietronic music, it has a chill almost HM adjacent sheen while this keeping that cool Soundcloud gemness to it, I really like the vocals as well as the mixing here to, it elevates this into something more electro pop with a nostalgic sheen, also reverb, a lot. It’s dream and the guitars are crunchy, not dream pop, not indie, not electronic but somewhere at the intersection of all those things while still sounding modern. Something like So Sweet sounding so late night and intimate yet still mature and moody, like a driving with the windows down on a crisp 60 degree night, it’s drums bouncing and thumping, with the low end folly chattering away in the mix, it’s drums thumping just enough to rattle a good sound system. All this with a certain soft and carefree vocal delivery that I love.

Fave Track: You’ll Be A Winner

16. Tennis - Facedown in the garden

Idk This album really speaks to me, Tennis is a band that comes in and out of my core rotation as the years go on, but this one really captivated and resonated with me, both in it’s lyrics and sonics. It seems to capture what being in your late 20s feels like imagine: sun soaked bittersweet summers, and the nostalgic tint of sepia. It’s how a memory taste’s “bitter and soul crushing” at times, but it’s not angry but instead understanding and gentle. Seriously the riffs on this sing, the vocal deliveries mesh and complement so well. Take the amazingly gorgeous waltz on Though the Mirror, that feels like slow dancing, and bawling your eyes out crying at the same time, but both in the form of a memory and in real time. It’s a very particular sonic mood, coupled with lyrics like “I wear your ring.” So ugh idk such a vibe, think how your prom final dance felt or how they feel in movies, not so much weddings, but also yes very lonely at a weeding with an open bar. There’s strangely gradational nature about this record, most especially the sonics on here.

Fave Track: 12 Blown Tires

15. Geese - Getting Killed

Geese didn’t click for me till they did and when I tell you it did, ooof bestie I get the hype. I love Cameron Winter’s voice but take the track Cobra somehow this track feels like Led Zeppelin meets the music for the latest 2010s indie movie or an iPod touch commercial and it works. Then couple that with the like: ‘I-wanna-like-dance-and-get-up-and-move'-drumming on 100 Horses, and the deeply charged lyricism in of “All people must smile in times of war” with this beautifully soaring vocal delivery. Idk it reminds me of Netural Milk Hotel, but less folk. Getting killed being both artsy and really pop forward but also being a running joke among my friends of “Not Jeff Buckley’s new album” which is a compliment mind you. An amazing stellar record on all front, deeply powerful moving and ambitious as it is still listenable and mature.

Fave Track: 100 Horses

14.Mallrat - Light Hit My Face like a Straight Right

This is sunset post credit music, but it’s not. Light Hit My Face Like a Straight Right is youthful, colorful and alive, it’s so catchy but having so many just tapped in and endearing lyrics like “I’ll be your lucky charm just let me hang around your neck.” A sugary sweet triple entendre. All while having a gorgeously noisy and textured mix, that feels so compact and air tight yet so vast, it feels like sunlight through a glittering snow globe filled with a fujiinstax pic of your friends. It’s mature, Mallrat maturing and showing their talents and versatility, like the amazing Garage break on Hideaway the track where the aforementioned lyric appears, or the heavy Sky Ferreira evoking synth and guitar on The Worst Thing I Would Ever Do. Where most artist refine a lot of their lo-fi quality elements and roots we see Mallat double down on them making something that feels fresh and authentic and so strong for a Sophomore putting, which is the slump of most artists catalog, but this is truly far from that.

Fave Track: Defibrillator

13. Ethel Cain - Wiliboughy Tucker, I’ll always love you

Grand and sweeping, while feeling like being in someones dust filled living room, the smell of wood and sunlight coming in the windows on a Sunday afternoon during golden hour, this album is so lush but so modern. I love the just beautiful soundscape and long sweeping tracks with something like the heavy Tempest its reverb soaked chords evoking the buzzing of telephone wires but each of the soft echos of the keys gentle but firm. Take the even longer Waco, Texas. With like this blend of tongue and cheek middle America imagery that feels just as much Luna and Red House Painters club as it does dive bar 80s pop, like the amazing track F**k Me Eyes, each crash and breakdown more heart breaking than the last the record crescendoing there’s a really emotional core in the songwriting here I love it.

Fave Track: Nettles

12. idialedyournumber - Mourning Glow

Idialedyournumber makes Lo-fi, music the kind that’s not just lo-fi in it’s DIY recording but it the crunchy SNES evoking synth choices. Mourning Glow feels like a sugar rush straight to the head, while still being both math rock-y and angsty being one the of only bands I can say sounds similar to Crying. It’s a very particular sound and a kind of post-hardcore that’s fun and moodier than most but in that moodiness you still want to mosh-it’s sweet and a little dreamy, the keyboards are bright and Mario inspired. This nostalgic jovialness juxtaposed against screaming vocals that tear though the mix like a red hot knife into a ice cream cake, only for vocalist Jessie to glue it together with her sticky sweet vocal delivery, a kind of energy that feels like a more 2020s answer to the bright and upbeat music of Kero Kero Bonito, all while adding little glitch pop embellishment. Never feeling dated or like it’s one tract all this layered so crisp and lushly truly sounding like it came out of an SNES or DS soundcard in the best way.

Fave Track: Linen Shroud

11. Vivienne Eastwood - Take Care

Imagine the most lush, reverb filled room filled to the brim with smoke but your also in a wobbling and dizzying bounce house of a mix. A mix has that tremolo filled guitar warping and shifting the pitch and tone of each note into a whole into a 3rd new note when combined with the other layers of its super dense and warm mix. That’s Vivienne Eastwood, some instruments just barely peaking their heads out from the greater wall of sound. Yet still being and in keeping with surf rock and jangle pop while stringing together these small indietronic flourishes so that nothing feels too too heavy, or “unreadable” a record that’s versatile as it is cohesive. The amazingly bouncy riff on Burnt Lips and it’s main guitar moaning and whining like the one on My Bloody Valentine’s I Only Said, the second guitar soaring though it’s mix with softly half delivered vocals that give this record a romantic nonchalance.

Fave Track: Burnt Lips

10. Malibu - Vanities

This album feels like someone pulled a heavy wet sheet over you and drowned you, but you’re also free falling, the night won’t stop and you’re cold, shivering even, the air is warm but you’re cold. Vague descriptions aside, ambient music was my first love, it’s the genre I used to make, and what a lot of my understanding of music and electronic music comes from. I love it. Good ambient is like cigarette, or a crisp soda, when it hits it hits, and god does Malibu’s Vanities hit, like a endless tidal wave on a sea of endless miasma lost in the city lights, that endless bokeh of light. Vanities is electric, it’s crisp, it’s clean and ice cold but it has this breeze of white noise as vocals waif in and out of the mix, these deep bass rich 80s synths, and angelic choruses, with grand pianos that tug at your heart. Like the bass at the end of Spicy City, only to be drowned out by the sound of waves crashing. At 50 minutes this album feels cataclysmic and intimate. Reminding me of the work of Harold Budd, and as if M83’s Digital Shades had a child with before the Dawn Heals Us. Vanities sounds just like it’s cover looks, glossy, isolated, and cavernous, yet so luxurious, but in that luxury is a loneliness, which in and of itself is the luxury.

Fave Track: Watching People Die

9. Laufey - A Matter Of Time

With cover art paying homage to Julie London one of the Jazz pop greats, I knew we were in for something great, and this album doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. Blending classic Jazz pop with modern lyricism creating something that feels far more modern than it does vintage or like a pastiche of a centuries old style of music. It’s so catchy so absolutely filled with earworms, forgoing the more slow and long ballads of prior outings for more upbeat pop focused elements with touches of things like Bassanova. Though Jazz isn’t my strong suit, I do know pop is Laufey’s. It still has powerful and emotional moment’s which I love because jazz is secondary or close I should say to Blues, in the traditional sense and tracks like Too Little, Too Late, it’s heartbreaking yet catchy and melody reflect this. It’s a deeply girlish yet still blue and poetic record being made for the girls who drink Diet Coke and watch reruns of Sex and the City, despite the bassanova influence on something like Mr. Eclectic.

Bump Ba du du dum

Fave Track: Silver Lining

8. Amaarae - Black Star

Poppy, fun, strong, and so club ready. I’ve never heard a record that feels like it was both in conversation with and designed for Dj-ing and mixing. Take the amazing use of Charlie Wilson on Dream Scenario, closing out the track and opening into the tropical inspired melodies off 100DRUM, it’s chorus vocals swelling and swimming in this lush mix, only for elements of glitch pop to come back and compliment Amaarae’s amazing vocal delivery. It’s an album that pays deep intention to sequencing and pace. Something that feels post hyper pop but still rooted in the club, and ballroom sound and culture with tracks like B2B, it’s soft Y2K adjacent melody over bouncing 4 on the floors, “B2B, bi to bi” did I mention that the track She’s My Drug opens with an interpolation of Cher’s Believe? It’s this smart pop writing that doesn’t disgrard what came before but truly builds onto of it, Amaarae doubling down on their fantastic pop foundation making something that’s fun, RnB forward but so club focused

Fave Track: She’s Is My Drug

7.Purity Ring - Self Titled

If I had to describe Purity Ring’s music to someone who’s never listened to them, them make EDM adjacent music usually just tapped into the current scene and sound, but all with Megan James’ uniquely cryptic yet poetic lyricism, they’re a group that’s more “IDM” (god I hate that term) in design and parts than the sum whole or that they’d seem on paper. Self Titled is no different pulling from the digital and post-twitch streaming Porter Robinson influenced electric music scene making something that’s still as grand, cavernous, and reverb laden as ever. Swaping their trademark hip hop influence with DnB/Jungle style drumming, that makes it feel far more dreamy and lush than than their more “witch house” adjacent previous outings. Self Titled is still moody yes but brighter and more pop-optimistic than Graves or WOMB feeling more in conversation with people like Pinkpantheress and the Tik Tok music scene than the pitchfork one they hail from. It feels like growing up without losing touch.

Fave track: imanocean

6.Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist - Alfredo II

This feels like cool, this record, just oozes a care free energy, it smells like Black Ice little trees, Indian Spirit Incense, it makes me feel nostalgic for like a very particular era and world of blackness, without feeling like a pastiche or too dated or retro. The beat on Empanadas feeling very reminiscent of a Griselda outing with its bass focused nearly dreamless, yet heavy beat. Though you have all the jazz elements, and something like the whining guitar on Lavish Habits. It’s a record whose production is mature tasteful and ambitious, yet all so clam and collected at the same time. Idk it’s how a lazy Sunday feels but it’s far from a lazy record. Extremely locked in, blending a bit here and a bit there from the world of hip hop that to me, feel on par if not better than Piñata, which is one of my favorite hip hop records btw.

Fave Track: Ensalada

5. Hatchie - Liquorice

I don’t think there’s been a record that’s captured the sound of early dream pop for me, like this. Maybe it’s the melodies which sound so informed by 4AD, and Sub Pop or the use of instrumentation, like the 80s synth soundboard drums of the record’s opener Anemoia. This record sounds like Mr Twin Sister’s early records but also like mid 90s Cocteau Twins and Luna, while never pulling from those play books exactly you can hear bits of all of them, all while having this amazingly lush and textured mix, that makes going back to those to compare ney impossible because it’s such a rich record sonically. It’s that sonic richness that’s before the Bouncey sweaping melody of a track like Carousel sores into a rich blend of pianos, synths, and drums. Carousel having genuinely being one of the fullest mixes I’ve heard, yet never cluttered. Though not every track is like like this you see the influence of people like Slowdive on the whining and pulling grunge inspired riff of Anchor, all while letting the guitar hum and buzz, like a Sonic Youth track, it’s main drone welling in the mixes low end only to open to a gorgeous waltz as Hatchie’s soft yet focused vocals glide over the song. Steller record.

Fave Track: Carousel

4.Night Tapes - Portals//Polarities

An album that sounds like it’s album cover, lush, and dreamy, and thick but it blends traditional dream pop and shoegaze with warm rich electronic elements, and like bits of trip hop, never feeling overly engineered, but like something that could only have been maybe recently. While never veering into the world of overly produced indietronica, which I think is a major fault of so many acts at the moment. Instead creating something fun, and groovy, god this record has such a vibe thanks to multiple vocals, which give the super thin mix in the lead vocals of a track like helix, for example the needed tension. It’s this intentional blending these very flat and tinny elements with a deep, deep, mix, that’s really allows all it’s sounds to breathe and create a needed tension and drama, that feels at times closer to what you’d find on like an Enimga record, drums which both swell and kick; the mix giving one of the most chill records of 2025.

Fave Track: helix

3. Zara Larson - Midnight Sun

NEVERENDING MIDNIGHT SUUNUNUNUNUNNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNUNNNNNNNNUNUNUN

Over the most ballroom type drums, I don’t vogue, that shit made me want to get up and try. That’s just the lead single, like this album has bops. bBop after bop. Ugh and the vocals melodies, like the refrain of Girl’s Girl, a swelling 808 in a background of the beautiful lyric: “That’s what I tell I tell myself but you’re with somebody else, I know that girl since we were ten and twelve” like it’s so heartbreakingly touching but a party anthem of a song.

I cannot stress enough how much I don’t normally like this type of pop, it’s so europop, using a lot of the synths that you’d find in ibiza adjacent edm, but Midnight Sun uses these sounds in a way that feels in conversation with contemporary pop but firmly in opposition to it; take the bass on The Ambition the way it swells and breaks right before the dance pop focused chorus comes in, with just enough hyper pop adjacent percs and elements thrown in tastefully, feeling closer to HeyQT, than top 40 radio; like YES THIS COULD PLAY IN H&M, but it won’t and it’s prob not, and that’s what I love about it, it walks a very very fine line, but in doing that it creates something unmistakable to her her own. Much like her prior outings, her MO has always been that. Her sound being “hyper pop” in the most jean baudrillard way and I cannot stress that enough. It’s not the sounds or the tempo that make hype pop, but it’s the hyper synthetic and commercialized nature, and the texture of the music. This record is slick glossy and tapped in. I love a track like Saturn’s Return as well a lot of the vocally deliveries on this record feel so heartbreakingly powerful, and deep, like seriously the way that song swells like an ANTHEM, it’s truly a beautiful record.

Fave track: Girl’s Girl

2. Saint Etainne - International

It’s pure brit pop goddess but it has all these bitter sweet melodies, it’s like that one vitamin c song as a record. It’s so beautiful and layered, god is this record so layered, it’s like The Avalanches, meets Fox Base Alpha while still having the messier production of something like I’ve Been Trying To Tell You, while still having the smooth jazzy coolness of Continental, and Turnpike.

This record feels like globe trotting, it feels like watching fashion shows, it feels like a memory, it feels like a bitter sweet goodbye, it reminds me of some of the best cuts from Everything But The Girl, yet it feels like a first kiss, and final goodbye. It also sounds so deeply English, like seriously like evokes downtown London in a youthful and radiant way.

With lyrics like “I can feel our love fade” with string accompaniment that feel like they’d be right at home on the Curel Intentions soundtrack, it’s that late 90s early 00s sunny spring like Bristol melancholic cool sound. Yet it still makes you want to dance and groove, it makes me want to grab the nearest person and spin them around in a circle like a prozac commercial. The suave groovy bass lines fill its mixes. Yet you still have like club ready tracks like Take Me To The Pilot it’s sub bass and it’s echoing reverb heavy drums glitching and metallic in the mix, as this gorgeously trippy bass crescendos, only to give way to that classic club staccato break before swelling back up. All in a track that sounds like it belongs on the Ridge Racer soundtrack and not a Saint Etainne album, with its gorgeous Acid House elements.

It’s a Saint Etainne greatest hits album, that’s heartbreaking yet triumphant. “Don’t cry because it’s over smile because it happened.” And dance, dance for the love of god, and dance the night away, and when you don’t feel like dancing dance even more. God this album makes me want to dance. Yet melodically it’s heartbreaking, it’s like discovering a hole in your favorite sweater and being unable to catch it before it unravels, it’s an album that feels strangely okay with a certain ending, being their final album, but it’s more than that.

It’s a Swan Song of lush club ready tracks with Saint Etainne’s signature plunderphonics

Fave Track: Fade

1.Rosailia - LUX

I don’t know how else to describe Lux, other than it’s title it feels luxurious, but not in the way we with of it, it’s grand, opulent, and ornate, it’s intelligent, the chorus on Sexo, Violencia, y Llantas swelling and making it’s presence known it’s a record that commands attention, and demands respect, but you don’t have to respect it, nor like it’ it knows it’s good. Blending classical music and instrumentation with modern pop, of course it has a Yves Tumor and Bjork feature on the same track, which is Berghain a track that sonically sounds as imposing as the architecture from the night cub it’s named after. This record is like trying to get into Berghain; it’s not letting you in but as the track’s break says “I’ll fuck you till you love me.”

Lux is a record that feels imposing and even stuffy upon first listen but it’s one that lulls you and seduces you into submission moving from gentle yet lush melodies to creeping staccato bass lines like Dios Es Un Stalker, the track then opening into traditional Latin melodies, all while being so deeply club ready. Yet it’s not just grand. Lux is still intimate and vulnerable with something like Sauvignon Blac, yet it’s still pop, and contemporary all the same, take the beautiful track Divinize, and it’s rolling Baby Keem like kick, this kick mind you glitching and rolling over this gorgeous melody of strings. Like yes it’s 2026, but genuinely this is one of the most captivating and stellar artistic works, of decade and maybe even century, it’s truly a stellar in it’s own category level of musicality. One that you don’t have to like, but you will respect because it’s pure talent, outside of taste.

Lux feels the way Peter Greenway movies feel, idk, how else to describe it but it feels like being in a courtyard garden, or a lavish estate; it’s like what pilgrims probably imagined music of the future felt like, it’s classical and romantic but so modern. There’s a tension and beauty here that’s indescribable.

Fave Track: Reliquia

And that’s the list…

Thank you so much, sorry it took me 90 years to get this done and out. I’ve been busy, but also wanted to ensure that this was 100% up to the level of quality and standard you would have wanted and or expected as a reader. Thank you so much for taking the time to read all the way to the end and I hope that you walked away with a new song or two, don’t forget that at the top of this post there are links to a playlist that’s mirrored on both Spotify and Apple Music so you can take a listen to any of these tracks at your own convenience or as you read. Thanks again, hope your 2026 is great have a nice one.

Howdy It’s time for the holiday gift guide. That being said consult last years guide if you need help on ideas on basics, like how to wrap a gift etc, the fundamentals before just giving the gift.

A gift is more than just shopping, gift giving is a skill and then some, so here’s that list that gives you those tips if need be:

Holiday Gift Guide 2025

Is this list overkill yes, but I have nothing except my overfed and overpackaged work, lets get into it

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Stocking stuffers:

Starting off small and easy here’s the easy stuff, the small stuff that may or may not break the bank but it is physically small. Not so much “small gifts” but I think gifts should be a mixture of size and scope etc. AirPods are technically a stocking stuffer based on the box/item size, to me if it fits in a stocking it’s a stocking stuffer. Some of it’s new some of it’s used all of it’s sick.

Physical Media:

who knew physical media fits in stockings, yes but we grew up with antique ones in my house so, like I’m used to having those 3ft hallmark card fuckers, they were most stuff with paper though but in my head thats’s true stocking size. lucky for you all physical media is stocking stuffer size unless you’re gifting laser discs and vinyl. If you need particular recs, they’ll be a list for all categories towards the end of stuff both new and old that I think is pretty heat.

Small cosmetics:

Things like hand creams, lip balms, lotions, soaps, lip stick, lip gloss, shit like that, stuff that would get easily lost in a stocking but is something that’s fun to dump out on a table.

Exotic candy and snacks:

Exotic snacks are like the shiny Pokemon of snacking I’m always looking for weird and obscure flavors of things and foods that I like, be it Kit Kat’s a coke flavor that’s locked to Japan, or Canadian chip flavors. The possibilities are limitless just make sure that you get some for yourself because you know you’re gonna want to try it.

Gashapon:

The cynical side of my brain who knows that this is capitalism gambling that’s designed to both create “wealth” for younger generations and cause them to waste their money on useless landfill fuel, but the turn off my brain enjoy the things in front of you, says. “yes ohhh shinny $4 junk based on my favorite property” like Sanrio’s motto goes, “small gift big smile.” The sun is gonna explode, and there’s a climate count down timer in times square and nobody is doing anything about it. So yea gahapon. Also don’t open it, just give them the blind box.

Socks:

We all wear them, and some people won’t buy them unless they get gifted them, you can never got wrong with them, they serve as a great anchor for the rest of the items in the stocking.

Vintage Avon perfume/bottles:

Avon’s done a tons a perfumes over the years coming in all different shapes, scents as well as and packages, not only are have they been reissuing them but they also have been around for so long that there’s an Avon bottle out there for everyone made in damn near every shape and size.

Gifts For a Partner:

So these gifts are designed to be shared, they’re meant for 2 or more parties, matching sets, things and activities etc etc. Though these aren’t just “couples things” a lot of theses types of gifts and what makes partner gifts good or done well is fulfilling needs unmet caused by issues you’ve only seen within co-habitation within close proximity, like “oh I’ve noticed you’ve been struggling to read before bed” so “I got you a personal reading lamp so you’re not hunched over the bedside table” things like that. Those little quality of life type gifts are imo the best gifts from a partner, that and like little personalized objects, like: here’s some personalized chopsticks or w/e.

Matching Me Undies:

Me Undies becomes we undies, what’s cutter than secretly matching your boo when you go out in public. Matching is cute but secretly matching is even cuter. Like you can’t really match an $300 AP all black set, unless y’all both wear girls undies but I digress, this is underwear that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg

SplitFiction:

This game came out a minute ago and I think it’s on all the current gen consoles if I’m not mistaken but it’s designed to be played as a two player experience but you can also probably play it twice each playing a different side of the story. Idk cute concept/idea.

Wine Anniversary Box:

So the wine isn’t included, and though my wine mom days are far behind me I still think the sentimentality and or aging of the beverage as a gift and or something to be saved and or stored till a later point to be something beautiful and quite romantic.

Legos:

Any gift or toy or object or w/e that can be done with a partner is always the best not only is it a gift but you’re also giving them a memory and or something to be shared and cherished later on. A gift like lego is perfect because you then cut the competition time in half because now you have help and instead of taking 8 plus hours it only takes about 4, so a date and an new cute little decor piece you could just break it down put it back in the box for later or for something to do during your annual autumn Twilight marathon.

Matching sets, that match:

Are you tired of trying to get a fit off but bae wore the Burberry pants last night? I get it times are tough, we gotta share the Burberry, but if bae needs to get a fit off what are you gonna do. Well this won’t be a problem no more “stealing your sweats” they have their own, no more “accidentally” borrowing your Rick hoodie for a month, your partner has their own. I choose Skims cause it’s cozy and I love sweats. They also have matching PJs

Gifts for Movie Lovers:

Any of the Jean Rollin Indicator releases: idk I recently fell in love with his work recently, kinda rewired my brain chemistry a bit. Make sure you get the correct region, since they come in both US and other regions as well.

Eyes Wide Shut Criterion 4k + The same tank top as worn in the movie: Is the peach celsius making your boo aggressive? Chill them out by getting them this classic movie along with the iconic tank top that she’ll for sure look good in.

Original One Sheets: I love movies, duh who doesn’t it’s like saying you love water imo, but everyone has their favorite movie and if that favorite movie it it wasn’t straight to dvd or streaming has a poster to go along with it, why not get this person a piece of cinema history? I know i’m currently eyeing up some posters from Mad Love (1987) theses are also great gifts to bundle with copies of the film.

Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray: This just dropped I love and rock with Man Ray heavy, I didn’t know he made movies, I can’t confirm if this is good but it looks fire.

Gummo Original Press Pack: I think weird movie goodies and ephemera like this are neat and timeless, and their value is relative so getting someone pieces of paper from a movie’s release will only appeal to a die hard Korine fan but this kind of stuff is priceless for that person so why not.

Vintage Star Wars Tee: Most modern reprint tees are based off and or made to look like original designs so why not get them something from the era, I think even the sequel trilogy tee’s should be hitting 10 too so, like they’re right in that sweet spot of nostalgia and retro throwback, idk I know I would kill for a prequel trilogy tee personally but you can apply this to their favorite movie or franchise.

Any of the newer A24 Release tees: Idk I feel like movie merch is gen z’s tour tee, but if you missed out on getting some of these when they dropped or you boo did lucky for you some of them are still in stock, so why not grab one or two they are a little bit cheaper than a vintage option but those are only for the ppl who want to power level.

Nosferatu the fragrance: This smells goth as hell, like it smells like a church but also like being in someones bed, like clean linen, that’s cause it’s a white floral, but it also smells kinda beachy, like the way it smells after it rains kinda, I like it.

Gifts for Her:

Idk sadly in our gendered society women have more categories that are designed for them so this will be a bit “denser” but you can get this for who ever but it’s mostly clothes and makeup etc stuff that’s more “female” coded.

Mac Frost Lipstick: Idk I fw Yardly on paper but I’ve never worn makeup. Sometimes I listen to women talk about makeup though so I am at least somewhat informed, and people said this was a good dupe, I fw the 60s era and that look, and that seems to be on trend anyways so instead of buying lipstick that’s near 70 years old, get something that won’t break her out.

Divine Skin: Prep Set: This is like pre-makeup I think, I don’t know it’s not skincare tho, but also like it doesn’t have tint or undertones. Idk I used to just by my ex palettes based on YouTubers at Morphie, she fw them but I think this is more versatile, but it’s not skincare, and skin is a delicate ecosystem, hell I used to work at a skincare place. (I just be working anywhere I s2g) but yea, makeup is a no go unless she tells you the exact shade color etc etc.

Crochet Top: Idk it looks like Bode, very mid century. It’s a cute layering piece imo, but it’s not as sheer, idk I remember one of my homegirls saying she didn’t like wearing sheer in public cause it’s cute, but unless you’re like only around 20 year olds older women like side eye you when you wear sheer out. So it’s like sheer-like but slightly more constructed, but still offering the textually breathability.

Acne Studios Flocked Denim: Girls fw fashion and they get fits, but I haven’t noticed a lot of technical specs or like interesting fabrications in their fits, they seem to really like construction, or material. I really fw flocked denim, to me it seems modern cutting edge, I know laser tech just got super populous so we’re about to see more etched denim here soon in mass. Though I like the delicacy of this piece, I think it will age nicely kinda wearing down like moss on a rock.

CARHARTT WORK IN PROGRESS Baige Detroit: Ironically named Work In Progress, carhartt WIP is for people who don’t work in their Carhartt, it’s constructed much the same but comes in cuter colors and finishes.

The Row Essentials Igor crepe Trousers: Finding good pants is hard beyond difficult, but these pants have a nice pleat, to like volume ratio, being a bit flowy and structured without being too stiff looking

Trust me there’s more…

I wanted to make sure there was enough for everyone at all lifestyles and taste levels, hell I even had some of those jorts in here too, but I took them out because if I’m anti jort, even if y’all like them I’m not gonna put them in my list.

ILNP Nail Polish: Like I’ve been eyeing these up for the fattest of minutes, but I haven’t bitten the bullet, though I really really like their matte top coat, but the pastels in their rewind collection are amazing, I’m not even a blue person but I love the color of the blue in particular.

ERL flair pants: For some reason outside of free people and anthropology it’s impossible to find bellbottom real bell bottoms, but lucky for you ERL makes them like every season, but what I love is that they’re lower waist normally so they feel a little bit more y2k adjacent and modern too, idk this is like the look of those “sundress pants” that ppl wear without the brown barf tie-dye psychedelic florals

Guizo Siena Maxi Dress: I like Guizo, I think there stuff feels modern and sleek, I like this dress because it’s mature enough without being like “woah brother, my mom is at this Christmas dinner too” I think red is a great color for the holidays a great, open and wear that evening type, I think this dress is a good foundation because they have versions with more aggressive necklines or higher cuts on the leg too, so you can find one that speaks to you.

Bode Wedgewood Cardigan: In this household we Stan Bode, because what I love is that she recontextualizes a lot of vintage, so while you might not be able to get the exact item you know understand and know the historic linage of the pieces so you can try to find yourself on second hand, I really adore not only the way this cardigan closes but the way the pattern really pops

Snowspond Butter yellow boxers: Truth be told I hate the boxers trend, I get it’s “boyfriend core” but boxers suck as an undergarment. Also it just seems stinky to me, like they always look used and dirty, no matter how clean, that being said while this is a little bit more instagram explore page core, I like this pair because they look more like a petticoat, rather than a true boxer, and that difference makes them look like something to be worn outside.

Chloe Blazer: I hate “Business causal bad” discourse, only cause I have to be in business casual sometimes, I get it’s stuffy, but I’m at the age were sometimes I see a woman in a suit and I’m like “wow”. I see a man in a suit I’m like “need” maybe when your turn 25 and your prefrontal cortext develops you get the “I like business causal now” patch backloaded into your brain but I do really like some blazers, but I also think Patterned blazers look and feel more casual, textured blazers feel more causal. Ya know? Don’t pull up in a black fucking blazer at 4pm on a Wednesday, this coffee shop visit isn’t being creatively directed by Hedi Slimane.

Now that you know which fashion tribe I subscribe to, let us continue.

COURRÈGES 3/4 zip in black wool: Take a side in the current “yn discourse” by getting her this warm yet on trend for male fashion jawn. Very modern very versatile.

Selkie Snowball dress: Now granted, here’s the thing I don’t hate IG baddie fashion, but “who am I as a man to dictate what a woman should wear?” that being said I fw Selkie heavy and this is outside their normal wheelhouse and style codes of being a more baroque version of Blumarine, but I think this “fits” into not feeling too trad-gothic but still having that throwback look and feel that I fw, but again it’s not for me to fw.

Paloma Wool Beige Hari top: Again this isn’t “my taste” per say but It’s me trying to meet it in the middle of the zeitgeist for you guys, I think this is very on trend and contemporary.

Samatha Pleet Heavy Velvet Silk Pants: Though the gag is that this is my gift guide, and my rules and I like very whimsical and not full “hippie” but like boho adjacent things, I like flowiness, I like texture, these pants have both, which I think we need more of in fashion right now, like way more texture. Idk I fw Samatha Pleet heavy I think I put the persephone dress on a previous list.

Accessories for her:

Gucci Cat Eye Sunglasses: idk I wear prescription glasses yes I need new ones but we live in a post modern capitalist hellscape, and sadly in that hellscape these were the only cat eyes I could find, the cat eye imo is the best sunglass shape why because it never goes out of style or trend, where things like aviators seem to come and go.

Samantha Pleet Hair Scarfs: Idk it can be hard to find hair scarf patterns I like, fr fr, idk why but I wear one everyday now mainly because I can’t like pin or clip my hair back cause they don’t make them for my hair texture, so it’s easier and it keeps my hair out my face, I like the size of these ones, they’re full coverage instead of being like pocket square size so you can style and wear it a few different ways.

Plastic Charm bracelets, necklaces, charms etc: Idk I’ve always been into gold over silver and I need got the silver tend I mean I did and I moved on from it, but I love the maximalist jewelry trend, and i’ve always been a dainty jewelry layering type of person, but I love like the kitschiness of it it’s like anti-try hard, but it’s playful like when you mix it with gold IMO it looks mature and playful, it’s not the same as costume silver, idk I know it’s very bag charm discourse and k&j fashion inspired but I think it can work into any wardrobe and not feel forced.

Pearl In Heat Necklace: It’s so beautiful I wish it came in gold tbh but yea I love anything with inset pearls

Ecole Des Femmes Polka Dot Stockings: Blah blah blah, inde sleeze and twee revival buzzword, I think we’re just tweaking streetwear and formal wear into something that doesn’t feel the same as before, idk I’e been seeing hints of this with more people were colored stockings, I’ve been seeing tons of white especially, but I think polka dot is a good middle ground between the familiar sheer and something more textured and funky.

Colored stockings: They’re back, either get hip or get left behind, sorry your grandma will be confused but your homies won’t be.

Peaches ’n Cream™ Barbie by American Girl: Adults can play too, Barbie and Mattel have been dropping bangers of dolls recent but I love the camp of being a grown adult carrying a doll, just one or twice, “Go have a real kid.” no fuck you the economy is in the toilet, even this is an expense.

Vintage Fur Accessories: Fur is back, it’s bougie, it’s sensual it’s reassuring your dominance as the top of the animal kingdom, kinda think hunting is kinda gross, but I love found fur and as a die hard animal lover, if we don’t reclaim these items those animals died for nothing, and princesses talk to animals right? Why not keep one on you at all times.

Detachable Collars: Welcome back to guilded age dopamine dressing for the post-modern reader. That being said I think these collar evoke a Vivianne Westwood post Edwardian style of goth, but feeling mid century enough that it still fits into the reflected gaze of the trickle down economics of vintage that is giving us the “indie sleaze” revival in the first place,
Oh I mentioned guild age because I like the more camp “jester” and “bat” inspired ones that take after burlesque, I’m into capes drape and flowy thing, what can I say but I said it the other day maybe not online I like boho but in a vanilla way not a patchouli way. not that Patchouli is bad. Speaking of let’s move to fragrance.

Slip Sleep Mask: I got my sister one of these silk sleep masks because she’s a light sleeper, blackout curtains and the whole lot, I think they’re really chic offering a retro, small luxury campiness to them.

Eberjey Pajamas: These are apparently the crem, de la crem of pajamas do I know from personal experience, no but they’re on multiple best seller lists so I’d trust them.

Fragrance:

So fragrances are hard, I always say get a sample first, especially if you’re buying for someone else, but with that being said understand that they might not even humor you and wear the fragrance if they don’t like it, some people are picky with sensitive noses.

Odile: So this is my current perfume, I love it, I actually preferred white swan till a bit of the sample for black swan spilled on my coat and just sat and aged like this warm chocolate-y wine, with this slightly salty and synthetic note that smells kinda like sweat and sugar, it’s not sour but it’s spicy, like someone let you wear their vintage coat and you smell them, their skin, and their perfume, it’s a lovely scent, one that feels alive and nuanced. The Star Anise and the musk just ugh

Fielders Leather: Imagine as grassy, warm field. So warm and just being catprued by a cushioning leather. All with this aggressive musky suede that just makes the scent smell less “dry” and warm, but more like bright and like fresh but in the same way moss smells humid, that’s how the undertones of this smell, it smells humid, it smells not overwhelming but oddly green.

Earl Grey & Cucumber Cologne: Imagine a spicy yet warm aftershave smell that has this medicinal green note that more or less rips through the entire fragrance, like you know how cucumber has a bitter note as a flavor one that is still deeply aquatic and fresh, that’s what this is now pair that with the warmth and citrus you find in the bergamot that is Earl Grey and the tea and floral notes, and you have something that smells more “futuristic” yet kinda retro, like deeply old school but so modern and fresh

L’Air de Rien: If I could describe scents as “apartment-core” or like lived memories that’s what l’air de rein smells like, musky and dirty but so soft and floral but with this soft “old paper” kinda of smell and note thanks to the vanilla, it’s also so bright yet with just enough of an undertone that it doesn’t smell like “warm vanilla and brown sugar” but instead vanilla varnish, in a well loved prewar apartment.

Zoologist Cow: I lovvveee laconic fragrances, but they don’t smell like milk but instead like “creamy” like imagine you had a bowl of ingredients, and you poured milk in them, so now they take on a more subdued and “live” quality, it’s not so much powdery but it’s not like super bright and "wet” either alls to say that cow is grassy and spicy as hell but it’s like you just smeared it in this rich honey soaked milk with this slightly barn and like hay/straw note, it doesn’t smell like a stable but it smells like you’re doing something adjacent to it because of the apples, which isn’t a food or cooked apple, it’s like a more floral apple.

Thin Wild Mercury NY Sample Set: So it’s kinda hard to pick a favorite from this line, as they all have that perfect blend of spicy and sweet while being familiar, and inviting, I really love the grungy lipstick notes of Girl of the Year but there’s something about the bright dusty almond notes in Sheep’s meadow that I can’t help but adore, honestly they all have their charms and merits, it’s hard to just pick one.

Penhaligon’s Sample Set: So Penhaligons is amazing I think everyone has 1 or 2 of their fragrances that really speaks to them, and it makes sense they are OG’s having many warrants from the Royal Court this was the choice of literal royalty, but what is that other that winning the vaginal lottery. Though it’s safe to say they knew their shit, though I don’t think any of the gift sets have the ones I'm fond of so here there are:
Bluebell: A dewy and alluring vintage smelling scent
Endymion Concentré: Smells like Halfeti except you hot swapped the rose, smells “foreign”
Lothair: It’s like you washed someone’s clothes who smokes too much but can’t get it out

Gifts to hold stuff in:

TELFAR Plastic Bag: I Loe how camp and subversive this bag is without breaking the bank, I love the shape of it too, being simple and extremely structured, while maintaining a lot of the slouch and shape that makes this kind of subversive design cool, it’s a very functional bag without just being a “sack”, it’s shaped and structured

Vivienne Westwood Bowling Bag: I love this bag, I love how affordable this bag is without being overly branded too, it’s got a good shape that feels like a throwback due to how structured it is while slotting in nicely into the grungier parts of the cultural zeitgeist. It’s not the most on trend shape but it has enough of a character that you wouldn’t feel out of trend either.

Chloe Chateau Treasures bag: This bag is the final boss of bag charm discourse and speculating if Gen Z will bring the chatelaine into the zeitgeist, because here this tiny heart shaped unstructured beauty fusion dances both of those ideas together into something that’s more functional and doesn’t smell like chainmail.

Undercover Third Eye Bag large: I love the leather and gold zippers, mixed with the subtle eye motif it creates something that’s not screaming or begging to be noticed but doesn’t not command it’s presence with the subtle side fins, I like how aggressive and loud it is evoking a leather jacket without masquerading as one.

Lulu Lemon Anywhere bag: It’s the people’s Berkin I’m never without mine, easy grab and go, but what’s nice it’s small enough to be a tuck and go like keep all for your PWK (phone, wallet, keys) meaning that it’s a great bag for the bigger bag, so you don’t have to search through Narnia to get say a chapstick or something but you don’t always have to reach for the big bag if you don’t want to.

For your Feet:

Duke + Dexter Loafer: These come it all different shapes and sizes, colors and styles, find the ones that speak to you it’s a nice on trend cobbled shoe.

Boston shearling big-buckle clogs: Berkinstock house shoes for the house to keep your feet warm and cozy in the house, if you wear white sherpa shoes in the in the elements you are far braver than I. Though but these are the prefect shoes for going to the end of your driveway getting letters, etc.

Ann Demeulemeester Black Heimo Ankle Boots: I love a cropped cowboy boot, you love a cropped cowboy boot, we all love a cropped cowboy boot

Guidi 79086 Square Toe: I like white boots, especially ones with this shame they make me feel like I'm in Gundam or something.

Carol Christian Poell Tornado Boots: I don’t like many boots but these are one of the boots I really like

Hunter Puddle Boots green: You know you want the puddle stompers

White Painted tabbis: Tabi discourse, tabi discourse, tabi discourse.

Nardwuar Dunks: I love plaid and tartan and the look of these dunks is so sick, I love how lowkey they are while still standing out a great way to add some texture to a fit.

Gifts for Him:

The Art Of The Brothers Hildebrandt: I’ve never been super duper into fantasy but I love looking at it, the artwork and worlds are so sick, I’ve really come to appreciate the illustrations and artwork of this era

Sandy Laing X Gap: You thought this collaboration was for the girls? No. This is for the boys, this is the hardest 3/4 zip on the market at the moment and lucky for you the heat on these is dying down I think it may truly bottom out later next year but now isn’t the worst time to tap in on these

Hysteric Glamour Tees: I love hysteric glamour tees, they evoke this kind of bastardized Americana, that feels in conversation with the “rock and roll” era of graphic design and tee shirts without being those instead moving that needle into its own territory.

Lazy Oaf X Peanuts Cardigan: The collar on this is sick, sadly in the time it took me to begin this list and the time it took me to finish they sold out of this collab on the webstore lucky for you, this is 2026 and the art of reselling exists, everything is a commodity, it’s not the resellers fault they are just as poor as you.

Palace x UGG x Loony Tunes So there’s a three way collaboration right now between ugg, palace and Loony Tunes, those are all things I like independently there for I like this collab, I mean who doesn’t love clothes with cartoons on them?

Ralph Lauren Cable Knit Button Up: I tried this one and I should have bought it it low-key rewired my brain chemistry a lot.

Abercrombie Cowboys Pullover sweater: I’ll say it I’m a little cheerleader, I love my sports and I love my players, I don’t play so I’m a cheerleader so is whoever the sports nut you’re gifting to is, so pick his favorite team and get him this, I picked cowboys because “Texas y’all,” but also they’re “America’s team” so there’s always a kitschy nostalgia to any cowboys merch imo.

Supreme Real Tree Pants: I love real tree, I’ve come to really love the look of real tree with denim I said it prior in one of the quarterly shopping guides that there’s something so wonderfully high/low about it.

Vintage LLBean Woven Hoodie: It’s a good middle layer and I love that it’s that throwback stripe color way

Carhart Undyed double knees: I really like the idea of undyed denim, idk it’s just got such a look and a vibe to it, and it ages so gracefully, idk it’s just a cool look.

Vintage Racing Jackets: One of my mutuals on tiktok posted their vintage racing jacket and now I want one, but I’ve also needed a emergency jacket, and this is like the perfect emergency jacket to keep in your car/glove box so you never are caught out in the rain.

LL Bean Sleigh: it’s at my antique mall and I want it

Accessories for Him:

RICK OWENS x Selahatin toothpaste travel set: Brutalist toothpaste to get your visible bones an olympic shade of white, lucky for you this set comes with everything you need to get started.

Sheep Beanie: Why get the iconic sheep sweater? That’s so 2012, why not go a step further and not only get the iconic sheep sweater and the iconic sheep beanie to match, we sheep down in this household.

Speciale324 Silk S tie: Sometimes you need to wear a tie, I think these ties look pretty nice, you can also go vintage but I also really like how simple and sharp this one looks.

Andersons Woven Leather Belt: People need to hold up their pants, belts do that, get him a belt.

Noah x Timex: Okay so paying 1k or a timex is insane but I can’t afford a Rolex moon phase and these are nice and I can’t keep recommending the seiko Dolce every year

Glossier Basic Routine: So like I said I used to work at a skin care place and I have gentle/normal skin so I can’t use super heavy products so my basic beginner skin care routine is milk cleanser, vitamin C serum, and the priming moisturizer

Gifts for the Home:

Off Brand Roomba: Roomba’s are our priced so yea no, this is a great choice why the hell is a Roomba still $600?? They dropped in like ‘04?

Dry Mop: This is for like dust, it’s different than like sweeping this is what janitors use in buildings I’m sure you’ve seen it hence why bank floors are so clean.

Antique Mahjong sets: I love Mahjong so much, it’s so cozy it’s the perfect thing to play when you get tired of uno, it’s a great conversation game, I blame the Yakuza games for why I love it so much god I could play it for hours and antique sets come in all different shapes sizes and conditions.

Hotel Ashtrays: JPress has a ton of these at the moment in all different styles and colors etc, poke around see if you can’t find a cute one.

Vintage Brass Bottle Openers: Open bottles in style, throw away that $2 plastic one that is low-key cracked and falling apart when you look at it the wrong way, get something sturdy that will last.

Vitruvi: I WILL NOT PUT DIOR HOMME IN THE VITRUI
I WILL NOT PUT DIOR HOMME IN THE VITRUI
I WILL NOT PUT DIOR HOMME IN THE VITRUI

Bala Home Workout Set: I just like how the bar is shaped, most free lifting bars are just straight

Coming Soon Rainbow Highball Glass; This is cute, if you buy it don’t break it, you’ll be mad, this is a gorgeous glass. Part of post 25 brain rot is you want to buy stuff like cups instead of just clothes and media.

Georgia O’Keeffe cook book: Because why wouldn’t you want to cook recipes as suggested by one of the most famous painters of all time??

Panopticon Bird Feeder: All jokes aside this is one of the things that I truly think is heightened in enjoyment by having a camera, now granted with bird spotting you’re supposed to sit there and actively spot them, but here you can run them back in your little birdwatch app but what’s nice is that you’re probably already using technology to identify said birds this is built into the app.

Isabel Halley Ceramics: I love the handmade-ness of these, I love the texture of these bowls and plates, I really like the gold rimmed line, I like the blend of classic elegance with more like rough around the edges naturalism.

Wild Tomato Vine Plant The Box Candle: This isn’t just a normal tomato scented candle, no this is a candle with a box you can plant so now you can grow tomatoes in your window, how lovely.

Porcelain bottle vase: I love love these vases they’ve been on list after list of mine and here they are once again they are so cute

Gifts for Techies:

Lowpoly keyboard: It’s lowpoly to match your low poly depression

Ninja - CREAMi: We have one of these in my house, it’s cool, sometimes I just shove food in it. It’s really good, dont’ think I’m underselling it, I just hate the 24 hour thing, cause I never like think of what I’m eating that far ahead idk. It’s fun and worth it.

CATCH:3: Truth be told I don’t buy “tech” this is the only tech I have, I love it but you have to sit your phone down just right for the charger to activate, other than that it’s wonderful and it’s great for an office space, I have mine in pink tho, which they stopped making sadly.

Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones: These are some of my favorite bluetooth headphones and they’re not bank breaking and I love the noise canceling technology and like how clear they are

Silent Hill f: WOOOOO new Silent Hill, go play it it’s Silent Hill duh

Custom Xbox Controller: Xbox controller’s also work on PC so they’re like a solid every gamer choice unless you’re only playstation or on a switch but if you’re interested in this I assume you’re gifting to an xbox owner so get them a custom controller.

Ghost of Yotei Special Edition PS5: It’s a hot game, it’s the hot system, now you can get both for the price of one with this cute little well designed bundle, you know you want it, it comes in black or gold, you know you want it…

c’mon, you know you want it reader.

Shark Red Light Therapy mask: Red Light Therapy is all the rage, you gotta get in on it, your skin will love you for it.

Gifts for readers

Anything from Bibliomancers:

A nerd for design and packaging, it’s something I study and look at religiously, like I spend more time looking at packing and marketing materials than I do consuming, not only because it’s irreplaceable but it’s a language that reflects our shared history one that’s often forgotten and uncelebrated.

They also have a few hardcovers here

Personal book stamping kit: Books are one of my favorite objects because they change hands so much so let your giftee leave their mark on the world with this personalized book stamper.

Book Back converter: I didn’t even know you could turn a soft book hard till I saw this woman on tik tok doing the job herself, like I know you could rebind a book but I didn’t know you could convert it into a hardback, that’s crazy get them this they’ll love you

Anything from the Moomin Barnes and Noble collection: I love moomin so so so much, I love falling asleep to moomin, moon are so so so cozy and cute ugh.

Book Vases: I love these and they have most of the classics covered so I’m sure you can find something for your giftee

Homesick Book candle: I love this candle a lot, I think it smells very cozy and cozy and ugh Idk I miss my candle era a lot but god the book candle was so good.

Fancy Hot Coco: I like to think most readers are cozy people, I like to read in bed myself personally curled up with a hot Bev for the last 2-3 hours of my night, I assume most people are the same too, so why not get them some fancy coco, readers are cozy people ya know?

Going off of what I said about coziness here’s so stuff I wanted to add but didn’t have a category:

Japanese Pagoda Candle
FLW Tea set
Pokemon plush

Anyways thank you so much for stopping by I hope you enjoy, happy gifting and have a wonderful holiday season!

byyyyeeeee

I recently got a computer and prior to this my watching was somewhat limited. Though now cinema is my oyster.

What can I say, I like to scrape the media bowl I think chasing and discovery is the joy of media. Find stuff how you will, I have my means you have yours, good movies are like good sushi. hard to come by but easy to grab if you know where to find it.

Idk I used to reject consuming media mainly cause of time, I’m a firm believer that most people end up in a cycle of consumption rather than creating, though I think in allowing myself a bit of freedom to consume without the burden of work or the guilt or shame recently, and I’ve learned so much more about myself, what I like and in some ways reconnected with part of my self that felt neglected or missing.

The modern world moves fast the internet faster ironically people say Americans move kinda slow but I digress this speed can be dizzying.

A good movie regardless of slow burn or not disconnects me from my phone. Which is ironically something I don’t even do when I read, but I turn my phone off at the movies or put it across the room, lock in fully and completely. (sometimes, I’m not perfect) Though thanks to film, and just reading more in general, I read and understand literature and art better. All because I’m watching films and engaging with subtext and narrative on a deeper level. The less plot a movie has the better, because you have to connect the dots yourself, this is auteur theory as well as mildly death of the author-y, not having all the answers is okay, this is ‘movies’ {PLACE} they aren’t pass or fail, they’re art, I’m sorry about your American public school PTSD, (I have it too trust me) art is vague, and that’s okay, fuck lore, fuck canon.

I think films get treated as a turn your brain off activity, something to do passively. To do when you’re on your phone half the time and the plot needs to be explained to you. I blame cinemasins. Yet for me I blame my own cynical nature/my own lack of self discipline, you’re watching something that cost millions to make and your phones out, crazy. Though for me the only time I would watch movies prior with my ex was to Netflix and chill, or the tv was more so there and on, it wasn’t an active sit down formalistically for 3 hours activity.

So what did I learn? Media and movies aren’t hard they all compound upon themselves, you just have to be willing to watch them.

I’m seeing and talking level 3-5 subtext, all the time, and I know it’s there too, I’m not overreading. I was almost an English major, after all (I suck at math but I’m good with history and analyzing kinda of nerd, you get me?) Subtext is not just on the backdrop of the work, but instead as it relates to say the characters, as well as say parallels of a director home country and politics, or even their personal and domestic life at the time of creation, etc etc.

This kind of subtext can be found in a single work, for example there are themes and motifs I rediscovered Sylvia Plath’s poetry recently.

That kind of new eyes love is, why I feel in love with media at 15-16 the anti-matter of it all, the parts of the work, outside the core plot. Though I also have sat through bad movies, even turned some off, mainly cause and as performative as this may sound, there’s some freaky stuff in that 60s-70s indie era, but I also am trying to just tough everything out, but patience like many things is a virtue, but time is precious so why sit through it and watch those difficult narratives and questions, why?

Why not?

Because why the fuck did I read Lolita in High School, yes I know this book is like some kind of mythical legend, but what I’m saying it’s okay to watch challenging things, dare I say important. Point being if I was willing to read that in high school, why am I so worried about “mature themes” now?

I’d guess that’s due in part because I am a public figure, and all these things reflect back on me, I can watch and not talk about it, but like what am I watching that’s that bad at that point? You see what I’m saying? (I promise you I’m not sneaking hits of cocomelon under the table)

The truth is with social media, as well as the culture and censorship there in, people like to talk about and read movies and art in bad faith, adults are now less willing to engage with mature themes. Which I get, though this prudishness for the sake of “good feminism” and with all due respect, I can’t find a simpler way to put it, is just as bad as pearl clutching conservatives screaming about the Satanic Panic, only looking at a work from the outside and face value because it has problematic themes, or elements, not because of what its says or does with those themes or elements, hence why…

I’ve turned off many a movie when it didn’t live up to expectations. Like an “X-rated twilight zone.” I was promised. Yes there’s tons of mid out there especially in the grindhouse era. Discernment is key

I bring this up because I used to roll my eyes at the x-rated and more off the beaten path era and world of cinema (I know it’s the fucking bins tbh), but it was part of the richer history and fabric of cinema. So to act like I’m not only above it, but not willing to engage with it is no better than like the moms who caused The Satanic Panic. And yea there’s a ton of shitty stuff out there that’s toxic, mysogonistic, gratuitously violent, especially in the grind house and x-rated areas. Part of media literacy is understanding gaze, which buzzword and overused I know. Yet I’d argue this wrold/era of grindhouse and those adjacent works, are why the “Male gaze” critique exists. While I don’t have time to argue about it, just know most people throw that term around too quick, to the point I don’t really believe in the male gaze. Why, because for most people when they see a boob, they’re mad, but it’s also like, why are we scared of women’s nipples? Boy nipples are fine though, but girl nipples bad: it’s the male gaze suddenly. The male gaze in truth, which I do believe it exists in cinema is more complex than and use of nudity.

Do I have a desire to see nipples, no neither tbh. Yet them being there or nudity in general doesn’t lessen the value of a work, personally especially after this year I think of nudity like say the greeks did: to talk about, look at and treat the human form and body as art.

The tableaux doesn’t have to explicitly exist just to service a narrative, meaning there doesn’t and shouldn’t be “story reason” for nudity that’s like saying someone should eat, when it “only services the plot” or smoke, etc etc.

It’s part of being human. Though and massive asterisks it can be eye roll-y especially even looking back, in history most pantings were as my friend would say: “Bitches™️”

Though Narrative.

The issue is some of these works, the “mature” ones I’ve begun watching more of:" Can be less black and or white, and or frame elements in a light that is ambiguous to the viewer. Like I said prior I’ve turned off the aforementioned x rated stuff and more “bleeding edge” (blurring the line between soft and hard “core to say the least”) mature works because I have less patience in that world of cinema, though those are different than the black and white formalistic examples. (see aforementioned male gaze comment)

What I’m saying is the world isn’t black and white, if you watch a movie with a bad person that is told ambiguously it’s not saying you “side with bad person.” All and all I understand the performative nature of media, as well as the lack of media literacy in cultural at large has caused not only myself but others to have this fear.

I’m guilty of this too, like said hell I even roll my eyes thinking about my To Die For… review where I didn’t engage with the work but felt the need to performatively write it off so people knew I was a “good person” was there any doubt? Watching mature work doesn’t mean it’s an endorsement of the behavior, but as a “creator” and maybe you reading relate to this: creative or not: it can feel like it.

Like if you tell someone peep something it kinda reflects you, and if the audience doesn’t know you (especially with the random fast food-ensue nature of social media) well, people can misread and mist judge you. Not that anyone got “canceled” for watching a movie, this isn’t Movie 43.

The world is black and white, people aren’t black and white, movies aren’t either but in our less than perfect world of non-black and white, even if a work isn’t saying and pointing with an arrow that “this person is bad” we come out knowing that.

Yes dumb people will romanticize the wrong characters, but the guy romanticizing Scarface probably hasn’t seen it because Scarface dies at the end. We shouldn’t tell him and keep secretly laughing, in someways it’s fucked sad and dark, that’s the joy of literacy.

I’m sure De Plama laughs about seeing the millions of posters, divorced from the ‘one sheet’; about a character who fell to their own ego and hubris being idolized, like he didn’t take an L by the end of the movie.

We need bad people and morally ambiguous and challenging things on screen.

This is the kind of thinking illiterate people weaponize.

You can’t come out of these movies with the mindset of “I like these characters.” Why?

We all know murder is like bad, yet add more variables and moral dilemmas, and it puts wrench in the “performance” and watercooler-ness in our digital age of media.

That’s where media literacy and performance become messy. Because everything becomes performative iconography eventually when consumed modernly. What I’m saying culturally we’ve girl boss’d to the point of not really allowing problematic male or female characters to be in movies, do we want movies, or do we want to “play bowling with the bumper guards on?”, bad example, but you see what I’m saying? We’re adults, let’s talk about and watch movies like them.

Most of these movies, aren’t us rooting for shitty people, but watching shitty people teaches us how to spot shitty people before they do shitty things.

There’s a difference in mature cause it’s Gears of War, and mature because it requires complex and nuanced thinking, mature shouldn’t just be the surface of a fucking work, or be just “war bad” or “evil thing we know is bad is bad”, but it shouldn’t also just be: “look at this fun fiesta of violence, this is a criticism of it too btw”, that’s dissonance.

Though in my experience most adults aren’t mature enough for nuance, I’m not saying “I’m the smartest in the room” Yet I have a phone, and you do too, I've seen how people act. Especially now because now people laugh at “less than appropriate” movies. I get movies can be uncomfortable, but like, at what point does art and film stop being a post-ironic:

“I rode the fucked up movie” t-shirt from Cedar Point

and become:

“Wow this fucked up work gave me a new found level of empathy and care for my fellow human being?”

Like yes movies are fun, celebrate them, but it feels gauche. Especially in mature movies it feels like people don’t care about the art, when they take pictures in the theater mid movie, no decorum, it feels like the damn playpits at McDonalds, or a concert.

From what I hear, it’s getting bad out here, movies are becoming a bit of a book Tok performative lifestyle thing, all the snickering at for a lack of sincere engagement with the work, wack.

I wonder if people actually like movies?

Something I witnessed recently: someone got up and left during Die My Love, was it too slow, like really are you 14 grow up? Finish the movie. idk I find this frustrating because in Die My Love and spoiler this woman is dripping tiddy milk at like minute 10 (it has a narrative context, I’m not even kidding when I say narrative context it has subtextual context, but like you sat through all that yet the middle is when you leave???????????????? Like, tiddy milk was cool not off putting or weird, you sat past that but the more slow middle, was the breaking point, was just like too slow or abstract???????????)

Idk recently I’ve been moved by art most especially movies. Moved in transformative and profound ways I have never experienced prior, no cap, I feel like a different person post watching some of these movies; dramatic I know. But seriously some movies are like really that good, I’ve been finding myself with this in books as well. Even in TV, seriously Out 1 makes my head hurt and I’m watching “Come to LA it’s LA” in real time

{that was a reference to the vine that made Rachel Sennottb who wrote I love LA famous btw}

It all makes my Rilkean Heart sing, in the strangest way, yes movies are movies and wonderful, but I’m reading and playing video games too, but movies are old, and have this bigger than me, “someone’s grandpa probably watched this too” feeling, same with books. I just love movies cause they easy to finish and move on from, video games take hours to beat or are somewhat endless. So movies it is.

That being said I’ve been emulating Persona 2: Eternal Punishment finally I love it, a good time

Idk there’s something bookishly romantic about laying my room in various states of undress moving from screen to screen just learning and watching viewing and consuming not mindlessly but because I have this deep hunger, not in a vampiric way or like a I’m trying to fill a hole in my heart way. A way that is like “Wow I can genuinely see so much of the world, and perspectives and stories, and learn a little about myself and each other along the way. Yet they can be so moving and powerful to the point of moving me to tears, or laughter, not one nor the other”

It’s a powerful and beautiful art form and girl/boy rotting be damned I think we all should do consume, more, more often.

Though I have that luxury as a creative, as that person who is able to sift and find and dig and hunt sometimes hours for a single film. It’s something that I’m deeply dedicated to yes, but sometimes that is fun in its own right.

It’s that joy of discover and uncovering that made me love music when I was in high school, performing taste, sharing consumption and over consumption, it’s a form of intentional eating.

There’s a difference in eating, and having a chef guide you through a taste menu, sitting down at a 5 star restaurant after weeks of lookin into it.

Do you get what I mean, you can live to eat or you can eat to live.

I love art and I love things and I love consuming them, I love making it, I live for it. Movies are so amazing, and I think it’s something you can only understand if you’re willing to like allow yourself to enjoy them, not in a negative way, but I’d argue that there’s a lot of internalized guilt and shame when it comes to mature media like, not in a bad what but when you don’t let yourself watch movies made for adults you feel bad or weird when doing so.

Idk I watched a movie where a dude painted a girl for 4 hours and I felt more empty and broken than I ever have in years decades of watching cinema, not cause I was lonely but because it was that nuanced and moving. (it was La Belle Noiseuse btw)

Idk it’s all Eros and Thanatos ya know, a movie taught me that btw…

Byeeee

Playlist link

Apple Music

Spotify

SOMETHING ABOUT KARL MARX AND BRITNEY SPEARS yet this playlist features no Britney Spears but still some other pop tho.

I would post aesthetic Diet Coke pics but I I refuse, I don’t like Diet Coke

You know the vibe, nostalgic for nothing, and lives unlived only through the hauntocatical oral tradition

Okay vibe zone done, “I’m-“blogging”-like-this-is-instagram” over. I’ve been also listening to throwbacks from the emo days but that sonically doesn’t fit. But you know the vibes, or you don’t idc.

God I wish I had more to say but sometimes less is more, put on your costume and have fun Halloween, go tricker treating idk.

Sonically it’s moody it’s August, it’s a little bit analog but it’s also still contemporary and floaty, I can’t force a vibe ya know but that being said the heaviness of the year being almost over does still weight on me and that really what I think “seasonal depression” is about, not that I’m depressed but your year wrapped: in fucking LIFE is coming up, better be happy with your results I guess.

Idk it’s not cold here in Texas I wish it was, I just read a ton and make stuff, here’s the links to a few of the things I made this past month:

Adventures and Antiquing Episode 2

Be A Friend Rewind When You Reach The End

This 40 minute video essay on the history of video stores and video rental since I’ve been antiquing more than ever I figured I’d finally get into VHS I know my pretentious ass really was watching a CRT in 4k using a downscaler crazy, but $2 movies that are off the beaten path, plus their fun to collect idk contact it it’s 40 minutes tho, labor of love

If I did a book spread would that be more or less performative??

Idk, blog post over, it takes me like 2.5 months to read a book but that okay, maybe you can pick these up too

Okay bye

Yes I go antiquing, sometimes I buy stuff sometimes I don’t but I do see a lot of cool things so here are some of my favorite things and stuff I’m loving at the moment that I’ve discovered at the antique malls and estate sales around me.

Taxidermy Bird Lamps:

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uhhhh here’s the playlist:

Apple Music

Spotify

So musically it’s like moody but not just grouper slowcore type music, I feel that’s more late autumn, here and now it’s like SoundCloud hip hop, moodier 808s, hazier energy not the full slip into the post daylight savings world of autumn in which the cold of the air and the darkness there in feel like a warm blanket. Too poetic?

Sure I’m a lil late but idk there wasn’t much of a “vibe” this month August often feels like the Thursday of the year, same with September through the autumn to new year landslide of emotions is right around the corner so buckle up. That wasn’t like a threat it’s just you know the “holiday season” aka the only holidays most people care about are almost here, pre order your Turkey and start buying those presents I guess.

What have I been doing? Idk preparing, working, living, dreaming a lot of dreaming, day dreaming to the point of seeming like I’m sleep walking. Jk, kinda idk I’m older but I’m younger, I use oxymorons to say aging isn’t bad, but it like it is, or sucks and it’s scary not like omg scary just “yea I’m older that’s not super bueno, especially post 21”

I like autumn idk I don’t have a lot to say but I think it would be worse if I didn’t say anything and forced a vibe, I don’t get seasonal depression I actually tend to like liven up in the fall, I feel like Texas sucks all the life out you with it’s heat. Idk it’s just like oh, but Halloween next month so that’s cool I guess idk.

Idk we don’t get seasons in Texas so fall isn’t like fall on TV shit just dies in a week and then it’s cold and by Valentine’s Day it’s warming up, so I never really get into that fall time vibe in the way people do, defrosting sweaters, pumpkin spice, etc, idk big *shrug emoji* energy, idk I don’t dislike September or August, but it doesn’t evoke, or inspire. Does anyone really love these months? Rancid hump-months, maybe that’s too brash idk

I like trail cams atm, I featured one in the bump for this video, I also did the song in said bump (new music soon™️) idk when it gets done and feels completely ya know but there’s a taste.

But right now like hunting as an aesthetic, though filtered through the lens of that same neon laced dripping in 80s retro futuristic melancholy vibe, I’be always been into. If you know me you know the vibe and vision.

Idk if you wanna read about my “vibe” especially how it pertains to fashion go peep the quarterly shopping guide idk I love this outdoor informed fashion and deer print. Idk it’s cozy.

It’s too hot for the coats bellow but you know dreaming™️

Also Dalmatians, cute dogs, they’re hunting dogs, idk maybe I shouldn’t like them for the aesthetic I heard their temperament isn’t the best. (Actually I googled it Dalmatians are sick they’re a top 4 dog for me people don’t raise them right, they need to be energetic and socialized idk)

Here’s all the stuff I did this month post wise:

Latest YouTube video

Quarterly Shopping Guide

Adventures and Antiquing

Best of the Year List (so far) 2025

I read the same books i was already currently reading but I finished Sculpting in Time

Okay I’ll see y’all In October.

Eh summer is over, so what did I buy what is the vibe how am I feeling fashion wise?

Idk I like “country utility”, leaning more into the farmer elements of Sloane Ranger fashion etc, which I’ve never done but as I get older I like more of this, moody academia and grungeier prep stuff, it also makes sense because I’m outside and fairly active for the most most part so why the fuck not.

It’s ducks and dogs, all day long, and all the way down.

That being said I pull from this wheel house of athletic and athletic adjacent fashion and ideas all kinda centered around this very 80s vibe and energy with a certain moodiness that is facilitated by necessity, that being that I do have a tendency to rough up my clothes: break, mend rip and repair, etc love sweats and rip stop tho, but I love florals too

Yes it’s florals but it’s all more Nirvana than like that one bougie brand everyone makes fun of on Tik Tok, it’s a balancing act of earnestness, “pick me finding my own laneness” and also like what I genuinely wear and need, to function.

While I love the lounging and sweats and sweatpants I would have to triple my wardrobe and what I have to really be able to wear those like need be, but I still do love my sweats, and god I love love love a good sweatpant look, they are still a core part of my wardrobe, but it’s fall so I really don’t need to be wearing the random gym type pieces “yes and no?” but they can feel for summer and making them more, wintery and autumnal in their own right isn’t hard just tweaking it, blend with a lil knitwear and boom.

Though I wouldn’t dear mix my athletic with my outdoors, fucking disgusting.

Oof I forgot to mention duh, tees lots of ballet motifs but I can’t glaze it too hard, so trying to find some new cute vintage to get into.

I’ve been loving more prep so why not pull more football season stuff but the gag is if I wear football stuff as an ex player in Junior high looks a lil tired, but if I take these motifs and spin them a little, with it being football season why not wear cheer stuff in a boy next door type way, I know 3 ppl closed this article after reading that.

But hear me out cheer sweaters fit like nothing else, they have these insane crops, and crazy cuts so they just end up being super flattering, while still fitting into the general prep wheel house. Like idk like part of the reason you don’t see men in varsity jackets post high school homecoming is that aforementioned: “friends dad holding you hostage while he shows you his old year book pictures while before y’all go get sushi or w/e-energy” I mean no hate but your letterman and yoursport decades later has a very particular energy

Also UCA is college competitive cheer so idk it doesn’t feel weird to me ya know

Also they released the Diana eagles jacket last year and I don’t want to like steal all that woman’s sauce, so I took notes and remixed it a little especially since I prefer these apron style letterman’s as opposed to the big spell out ones. Idk my lil sister was a cheerleader, it’s real rough shit, you gotta be able to dead lift 80-120 pounds above your head, sounds pretty manly, but also like “owo idk who Pamala is” but I think of here everytime I throw on my jacket, idk I grew up in cheer and football country what can I say.

Cheer Sweaters

Apron style letterman jacket (cheer can be super hard to find I got kinda lucky tbh)

Mustang Cheer Letterman Ecole Des Femme

It’s sweats and sneakers, not trail shoes and gortex.

The transitional seasons: Spring and Autumn are about layers easy on easy off, also I love sweat shorts, idk again sweats are leg t shirts, I love them we all need way more but too bad it’s so hard to find a good fit ankle cuff ones but here’s some.

Sporty and Rich disco short (lil pricey but they’re my favorite shorts I’m 6ft 175 and size up to an XL they are perfect on me)

Nike ACG 5” short, love them but idk I’m not always in the mood for ripstop

Champion Reverse Weave Sweatpants Here is the thing, not all of these are made equal you have to really inspect the fuck out of these before buying, you want the heavy weight ones, ankle cinch, with the flipable paper bag/trash waist band, that way they like sit on your hips but have a break to them, very particular look.

I’ve linked to a perfect example.

Though my personal favorites and must haves right now are:

Long Sleeve Striped button downs

Nike Mac Attack

White Tab Levi’s

I think these are my exact pair tho

Yes I want to stock up on all these items cause they’re make solid wardrobe basics and would be pieces I’d consider essential must have that really round out this style and look I like, but god I love my air Mac’s I know they’re “mac attacks” but idk Air Mac sounds better) they’re like such a good slip on and off shoe, they look so much fuller than like a vans era, or dunk but not too bulky like a Jordan 1, and I just had a flashback to trying to put a Nike blazer on my foot, these are far easier, than trying to put on a Nike Blazer.

like it’s about how you style it though, I like Pinstripes and French cuffs in a walk of shame I just threw this on, not in a finance bro, nor brunch mimosa way.

This is the big chill, “not formal” version of the super starchy button ups. So never button your cuffs, and never un roll your sleeves, gotta be easy on, easy off, maybe with a cool band tee underneath as an additional layer for a lil warmth.

Let’s see what they look like on legs?

Ironically as a huge vintage Levi’s fan a lot of my taste stems from finding most denim, boring, gouache, and underdressed, yes to me sweats feel more dressed and intentional that most cuts of denim hence why I’ve been looking for more interesting cuts.

I perfer older Levi’s since I like the look but I’m also more into older textured washes (acid I’m talking about acid wash I love it) but have really been more open to browns, and creams, but as I said a bit ago I’ve been leaning towards more cowboy and just weirder cuts of denim, especially soft denim. I’ve now learned soft denim is peak, it better be elastic free tho, but yea soft flowy denim is a vibe.

Okay now the more quirky playful elements and modernizing of this style, real tree, and knit wear especially florals, I spoke about this in the last one.

Now I have yet to find MY real tree, I want like true denim texture ones but I like the idea of juxtaposing this modern take with more old money hunting, not the cabelas culture alt that is real tree

(I literally can’t even find an example of someone doing this so enjoy my “visuals”)

Alls to say I still haven’t found good real tree, and I’ve been eyeing up a lot of whites and florals so let’s uhhh put it all together, idk I like this idea of “southern gothic” Texas is hot I love black especially when paired with white athletic items but all that black is deeply impractical for Texas but it also is better for dirt etc.

This slide is from the last one, so here’s some more “enriched” visuals for you to cut your teeth on.

Storybook knits

Zip hunting motif knits

Abercrombie Real Tree Pants

Handmade fisherman (all clothes are hand made but this is cottage industry)

Idk I like Grundy clothes and looks but I try not to look “dirty” or like unkempt or I guess like grungier in a cute “mildly cospaying outdoorsy way” but not in a “bitch you look like you don’t ever shower way”

I need boots for the fall/winter I want Hunter boots and also kinda uggs still, but uggs are a commitment, very owo, and you kinda have to send uggs to not feel owo. But so are Wyatts, (Wyatts being full send) even more so than Uggs, super full send.

Idk I am multi faceted I still want like Wyatt’s (like also sidebar remember when Chelsea boots were massive but none of them at the mainstream level had the fucking heel?)

Sorry resentment isn’t cute idk it just blows my mind cause this feels obvious to me idk, alas That’s why I still haven’t gotten a pair, I had jodhpurs (real slp ones too) but they were a cropped boot, not full length. If you want the general term tho it’s “cuban heel” with a 30 or 40mm heel.

Ironically I don’t own a fucking cobbled shoe to begin with, gasp I know, never have a reason and I think most boots are kinda chunky and I think 90% of cowboy boots look god awful as a texan. They’re never slim enough and always too fucking tall, yes I am picky, but that’s fashion and taste. Idk most men’s cobbled boots look like fucking dogass, and Parton my French, clunky and stompy footwear.

Story Et Fall Boots (a great alternative for the Hedi look)

Ugg boots

Hunter boots

Midnight Rodeo boots (Idk it’s hard to find Mens cowboy boots with the hedi heel and the slimness sadly these are sold out)

I think pairing this with the pastels and whites I’m into and of course with black or browns basics to ground outfits (I’ll circle back to) makes for something very cozy, very me, very Americna without feeling like I just stole vintage store workwear mannequin.

Looking forward a lil before final thoughts:

I would love to get more into the hunting adjacent world of prep and like safari clothes {something, something mildly political about taking back exoticism} but also just kinda you know looking for something to stand out. I’ve been hunting and fishing and all of that I grew up in Texas and yes I know how to ride a horse (I have, I do not do this regularly) but to me this feels more authentic and real. Idk it’s different while still being “in.” It also won’t make me feel as sense of dissociation because my performative cowboy wear “y’all’ternative fashion is getting me clocked and mistaken for republician garb. PU

Oh and I really want a penny lane coat oh my god, or a good fur idk very Margo Tennenbaum vibes ya know, idk it’s almost time for me to get ready to wear my faux ski fashion for all of 1 hour, idk gotta get my coat game up regaless I have jackets not coats, see they’re differences.

I love vintage Abercrombie and an over sized chore coat and jeans with a tight 80-90s lifting gusset (IE vintage Levi’s are sexier and fit a lil tighter)

Idk it’s all “dark academia adjacent” expect it’s not an Amazon storefront buzzword and also very pulling from UK, New England, and French prep and fashion rather than tumblr fan fiction’s idea of what “Ivy” looks like. Idk it’s pulling from like small pockets rather than big caraticure of various parts and elements of mid century fashion, cause I love 70s bareback jeans hate the prints of most 70s brown doo doo oversized collar shirts, so you gotta pick and choose. I don’t wear navy I wear ivy tho, and cream, or black. Idk reader apply this to your life.

A is for accessorize.

In a fashionnova world this is whismy, doesn’t mean you can’t glam it up, It’s the difference in intentional fit and just wearing clothes, but I think a good fit needs many an accessory to feel complete. On the topic of hunting if your a bird (then I’m a bird) then think of accessorizing as your form of peacocking, a way to stand out among the bird world, it gives your fashion some spice ya know.

Here are my favorite accessories and I wear these for function, as well as form.

Headscarfs

which not only look good but keep my hair out of my face I can’t wear headbands or like other “made for white ppl” hair accessories so yeah, designer or not, the bigger the better but I prefer a good medium to large rather that the more babushka way which imo is more true winter.

Leg warmers

idk it makes the princess Diana “high low reverse jean and a t shirt, aka sweatshirt and shorts” look more complete, but imo you have to roll them down and you want the good ones that have the hole for your heel and go on top of your sock inside your shoe, so they stay in position, don’t wear them like a tube sock and like put your foot in them in your sock. Not like like harajuku style stacking on your shoe, you want to to stack between the sweats and the shoe

So socks then, leg warmers, then put your shoes on, maybe tuck them into your sweatpants, idk

Belt

Yes I need one. So I love Enfants (the brand kids I’m indifferent to as a concept) and recently I realized it’s the hardwear that makes it. So what is the hardwear it’s a lot of BDSM belts, under corset belt, garter belts, that elevate these looks past just simple “Boxy fitting, grungy prep” so I’ve been looking for a BDSM one or like western style one idk I realized the look is the

Idk fashion is fashion is fashion

Idk it’s all whimsical and playful at least in its touches cause wtf else am I wearing a vintage cheer sweater or a sweater with a princess and prince on it, it’s camp it’s youthful but it’s not like “spikey alternative” I mean it’s mildly abrasive but idk

Closing thoughts

Part of it too is we gotta reframe basics if you’re from the younger part of tik tok, in my audience I want you to know that no “one style is bad” a lot of my love for oversized is influenced by brandy mevillie but that’s not bad, (the politics of the brand sure) nor are plain basics, or minimalist wardrobe elements and solid colored clothes “basic”, “tradwife” or “npc core”, whoever said “shopping at Uniqlo is for “npcs”” needs the to never speak cause I bet their closet looks like you hit shuffle on the word clothes.

Alas You don’t need Rick Owen to be fashion™️ I love Rick Owens especially the Pusher pants, but your clothes don’t need a diagonal zipper or to be made of “Anubis Linens” (iconic line btw very Simpsons very in my daily vocabulary) to be valid

Remember you want basics.

Think form, color, shilouettes, then motifs before graphics. If you want boho or skater grunge think about boho bands like Zeppin, can’t afford it maybe Jefferson Airplane, if you want skater look for smaller up and coming skate brands rather than regurgitating what ever zumies says skaters like atm.

Think big picture, but also hobbies interests etc, I have a soft spot for athletic wear because I sweat in my clothes a ton, IE I like playing sports and games, though I’ve moved from sweats to more true “workwear” due to ripping care etc, they are worlds I exist in, so my fashion follows.

Think about what you like, reader. What hobbies and interest you have? How has fashion influenced those things? Maybe you bowl, go find some fire og bowling shirts. You may find yourself wearing your shoes after a game and end up pulling an accidentally chic fit on your dinner date, right after.

Wear what you love, love what you wear, the rest follows suit.

Think in broad strokes to build your closet ya know, idk am I going hunting nah, kinda think it’s weird but I like the spirt of it and it connects to my childhood, idk maybe your dad wore vest at his job at like safeco and you wanna connect to him idk and you wear a button covered vest idk.

You get the idea, this has been the

autumn 2025 quarterly shopping guide byeee

None of these links were sponsored.

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Maybe this is a new series who knows

So I figured I go antiquing a ton, and while I don’t always buy stuff I do find stuff, so I figured I’d pass that knowledge on to you guys so you know maybe what to look out for or even get put onto things you might not have been into otherwise. So think of this as a shopping guide but for vintage home goods, but because this is the digital age you can use this as a way to shop remotely because you can still find plenty a deal online if you’re patient and know where to look.

BLENDO Glass

So Blendo like Kleanx is a name brand but you’ll see this technique all over the place, but the Blendo™️ glass technique was started by West Virginia Glass and Anchor Hawking, in the 1950s so you know this is the good stuff. Designed for entertaining and the cocktail era, Blendo products come in so many shapes sizes and colors, with everything from high ball glasses, to chips and dip trays.

Something’s to look out for with your Blendo is of course the AH anchor hawking stamp as well as the made in West Virginia sticker, though Blendo was often a base for a more elaborate designs, such as the Dogwood Floral pattern, or Happy Hour pattern

BLENDO glass is fairly affordable, with so much of it on the market you can really find and collect the set that speaks to you the most, I’m personally partial to the pastel pink, many BLENDO glasses will also have a gold ring around the top giving theses pieces that real turn of the century modern feel, they also come in many a different pattern and level of BLENDOness, so if you don’t want a full bleed and prefer a subtle ombré look you can find it.

Etsy:

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

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So another year almost down the drain.

Let’s get into the best albums of 2025 so far, I don’t have a favorite especially since this is the mid year round up, and in the words of Romeo “how can I compare thee to a summers day” or whatever.

Here’s a link to playlists so you can listen along:

Spotify

Apple Music

Smerz - Big city life

Alt pop with a bit of dissonance, this record sound very handmade in the age of hyper quantization and Meylodyne it’s so nice to music that sounds indie, that’s a little bit rough around the edges but still so good, the music has a unique romantic nature to it, one that oozes sophistication, with it’s didgeridoo s, and rich piano waltz’s while still being popy, yet never moving into what I like to describe as “music major” music where the sophistication and talent on display isn’t really at the level a normal music listener would enjoy. Evoking the same rough yet romantic sound that the first 3 Beach House records did it’s a sound that’s so special yet so refreshing in the modern pop/indie landscape.

Fave track: Fiesty

Erika de Casier - Lifetime

Now on the exact opposite end of the spectrum we have one of the most slick clean and polished records I’ve heard, a mix that’s rich, deep and feels like someone slapped a high gloss glaze on top of it. A send up of downtempo and trip hop without feeling like it’s treading old ground while also having some of the most insane sonic elements, like a bass grove ascension using a fucking dial tone? Like it’s so good and rich melodically while also just having such a varied degree of instrumentals like the tribal drums on You can’t Always Get What You Want moving into a larger layering of a fill/break as the track crescendo and creeps. Or take the entire mix shifting snare on Seasons Change a digital digital dog barking sound, this deep dagger like snare rips through the mix commanding your attention yet it doesn’t fix Erika’s lofty vocal presence, with the two working in harmony to create something that, an unmistakable continuation of the sound she’s been crafting for years.

Fave track: The Chase

Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist- Alfredo 2:

This record is smooth, and luxurious in its production, love the way it’s beats twang giving off an old school cool vibe and energy you don’t get from most hip hop records or tracks. Yet it sounds familiar but a little bit more sleek and refined, like the amazing Triplets on Ensalada, it’s main 16th and Freddies’s triplet vocal “it’s a lota” “it’s a lota” repeating across the song, as well as a great feature from Anderson Pak to round the track out. The beats reminding me of Money House Blessing and woodgrain, if beaded curtains had a sound this would be it. Though Gibb’s tongue in cheek lyricism is not missing take the constant and repeating motif “GAYTD DAMNIT” on the track Lavish as Gibbs laments his less than becoming habits, leaning into the persona he’s created over the years while still keeping it fresh. This record is what it thanks to in no small part to The Alchemist’s production, feeling way moodier than the first but never grimdark in its sonics, jazzy, moody and mature but never angry or resentful in it’s production, it’s got this loaded and mature quality that’s best reflected in a track like like Gas Station Sushi, it’s bass swells and bubbles, over a 70s era synth as Gibs raps about missing Mac, only to create lyrical tension in bars about presidents and white supremacy.

Fave track: Gas Station Sushi

Deafheaven - Lonely People With Power

Old Hollywood tabloids, press takeouts, and melancholiac glamour brought to life and full fruition “I ate from the apple of my ruse and stared into the mirror of my truth All my time death as my muse” it’s like watching someone you love or admire spiral, it’s angry, confusing, and romantic. I mean it when I say romantic, that’s been Deafheaven’s vibe since their demo but here you see that really play out in full force with George Clarke‘s aggressive and banshee like screams piercing through the mix, but even then it’s vocal melodies and runs float with an effortlessness as the track moves from segment to segment like the line “I laid the grain across the coastline” from the track Doberman. Take the drone and noise heavy Incidental II an interlude that warbles and swells, sounding like something from a modern horror film score as it’s saws buzz and glide capturing this troubled yet deeply introspective mood, only for the following track Revelator to bring the energy back with it’s Iron Maiden like opening rift. A metal record that sounds like floating melancholy especially on its closing track The Marvelous Orange Tree.

Favorite track: Amethyst

Playboi Carti - I AM MUSIC

4 albums into their career it’s safe to say Playboi Carti has made a distinct name and lane for himself in hip hop thanks in no small part to their enigmatic persona, canceled records, and laundry list of leaks and snippets; so to have something like I Am Music drop out of what feels like nowhere, sounds insane. To me this is Carti’s big record, it sounds complete thanks in no small part to the extremely layered production like the choir chants on a track like CRASH, pair that with the use of DJ shouts through out and it sounds as much like a throwback as it does fresh, sitting neatly in Carti’s catalog and in the greater canon of hip hop at large. Take the insane intro to EVIL JORDAN, with it’s minute long pad to 4 on the floor kick drum something that got made into a meme but something an artist could only get away with on their “big record” and this album is massive at 30 tracks. But it still sounds diverse without moving away from Carti’s signature sound and style, take the overdriven and fuzzy production on COCAINE NOSE, sounding closer to a cut off Die Lit or LIKE WEEZY which sounds like a throwback to bling era rap but instrumentally would have been at home in Carti’s SoundCloud catalog, if not for his modern and stylized “baby voice” vocal delivery. Or even a track like WE NEED ALL DA VIBES sounding radio friendly snd pop forward in a way that doesn’t compromise Carti’s signature less than radio friendly sound. Great record.

Fave Track: FINE SHIT

Wet - Two Lives

Wet’s music feels like limerence mixed with miasma, dizzying and floating a constant unrequited aching, it’s not painful it’s the new normal, it’s hazy it’s filled with reverb and echo. Yet here they strip it back just a little going for something that sounds more intimate. While never straying away from their vocoder heavy Bon Iver and Urban Outfitters adjacent sound that makes this music such good pop in the first place like the Jungle/DnB influence on a track like Double. Two Lives foregoes the cool, glossy and modern sound they found on Latter Blue while not returning to the more barebones sound of Pink Room. Creating something far warmer and rich with texture and noise than any of their previous works, while never forgoing their digital and glitch pop elements that makes their folk adjacent pop sound seem so modern, take a track like Sign in which it’s drums click and spin into place creating something unique while vocals layer and duet one another. A great addition to an already fantastic catalog.

Fave Track: My Everything

Rae Addison - Addison

There’s something iconic in mishearing the lyric “cross gold chain” as “Costco chain” because both of them work, thanks to the camp and persona Addison has crafted on this excellent debut

This album is good, and full of ear worms, like it’s kinda insane how catchy this record is which some would say is a crutch but I see it as a strength. In a world where snippets go viral every second how does someone make something that sticks? Making it minimal and catchy is one way but that’s just 1 piece of what Addison has managed to capture with this record, and I wish I could place my finger on it besides just branding™️, but with other Tik Tok stars making music left and right Addison seems to strike this balance between honesty, amateurness and polish. It’s hooks are catchy it’s production stands out in a sea of hyper polish thanks to her team only using vintage synths, take a track like Money is Everything it’s droning saws, and name drop heavy lyrics playing out only before Addison earnestly says “and the girl I used to be is still the girl inside of me” with a kiss sound for an ad lib and Addison bold proclaims in it’s chorus “Money is Everything” it’s refreshingly simple, down to earth. It’s plain and simple fun, and it’s those lil touches like Addison saying “I know I’m drunk” before the chorus in High Fashion that show the person behind the song, not too dissimilar to Lana’s Juul cracking before her vocals on White Dress, it’s clear Addison is taking notes and playing careful rather than just reheating leftovers, though it helps that the songs are amazing too.

Fave track: Headphones On

Tennis - Face Down in The Garden

Strong, confident and reflective, there’s a somberness in the air the lingers between the short 9 tracks on Tennis’ 9th album in their 10 plus year career. Instead of romantic pop, this album feels far more like a current call sonically, especially with its closer track In Love (Release the Doves) not only in title but in Sonic’s Alaina Moore’s vocals humming across as it’s synths swell, this lyricless track sounding at home on a mid 2010s teen movie. What I love most about this record is the sense of structure, each song opening and closing with a sense of precision. The outro to Sister being a great example of this. It’s this sense of pace and story telling that makes Face Down In The Garden such a great record. From it’s opening The Apartment referencing “A wedding in an hour” only to have a song 2 tracks later take place at said wedding, it’s main groove and melody kicking the pace of the song into high gear and the whispers and catchy lyric “it takes one to be a man” playing out over this lush and romantic melody. Idk it’s such a great “sophi-pop” record for lack of a better term for this very kind of lush and romantic soft yet groovy rock. A sound that I have a deep soft spot for, but can you blame me? Just listen to the the amazing swing drum on Through The Mirror it’s main waltz driving heavy and somber as it’s refrain breaks the into the chorus like a knife stripping its piano as Alaina Moore sings the question: “How is it you said you were lonely?”

Fave track: At The Wedding

Julia Wolf - Pressure

Metalcore adjacent pop sounds insane, but I grew up chronically going to Hot Topic, but I’ll be the first to admit most of this sound blending is extremely lame, cringe and performative, like super corny on paper. Like this record shouldn’t work.

But it works

So why do I say all this, because I think Julia wolf is one of the freshest names in alt-pop (like alt not as a blanket term but in the shit thst would play on your local “…but rock” station) So, what makes Pressure so good? It’s that, it takes from modern music while keeping its roots firmly planted. Take the catchy FYP with it’s Paramore style hook with each lyric sang over a heavy down chug creating that pop punk rhythm “your For You Page no it’s mine” they shout. This album is bold confident and assertive rightfully so. Yet it blends so many contemporary pop elements and techniques like pitch shifted vocals over grungy sweeping staccato riffs creating a new post-metal sound that glides yet still fits in with the twitch goth e-boy and e-girl generation. It’s a true tight wire act of approachable, authenticity, and meeting a genre and sound half way, who knows it could have been focus tested to hell and back, but I know that I like it. It’s pop punk, or pop metal that’s pop first and foremost with a track like Girls and slidey 808s that sounds more at home on a Metro Boomin record than here, yet it works; couple that with the extremely modern lyric “you know I’m for the girls” and you have what is very much “tik tok music” but actually really good. Oh also the album is rhythmically more hip hop than straight pop but still a lil metalcore-y Sunshine State being a great example of this metalcore influence.

Fave track: Pearl

Mallrat - Light Hit My Face Like a Straight Right

Deeply textural, and soft, while never as soft and lofi as Butterfly Blue, it’s clear that Light Hit My Face is a continuation of this very unique and modern pop sound Mallrat has crafted for themselves. “Light Hit my Face…” effortlessly blending grungy guitar and synth textures, with classic pop song structures. Yet never feeling too removed from the modern pop zeitgeist, clearly making alternative music for the generation raised on the internet, blending drum and bass elements with a track like Ray of Light, with the powerful, heavy and stripped back ballad Defibrillator, did I mention there’s autotune? It’s the kind of pop that makes me glad to be born in the era I was, it’s this very distinct brand of sophisticated blending of high and low culture like the Memphis style sample on Pavement a cut sounding more at home on a Blood Orange record, a motif that Mallrat has used a handful of times prior. There are little touches all over the record, like the harp on the albums opener My Darling, My Angel, but the musical adlibs like the little synth twirl that plays after the world “Sparkling.” It’s smart and well made with a mix that never feels too cluttered despite how layered some of these tracks get at times.

Fave track: Defibrillator

Cover Art is a screenshot from 1975’s Black Moon

Spotify

Apple Music

Also if you watch the film at my recommendation know that in most cases I think the male gaze is kinda BS (blah blah blah centering men blah blah) though in this case it very much and 100% does suffer from the Breasted Bobbily meme that being said this playlist pulls from a lot of the themes and ideas from that film you can read my review of it here

That being said, personal life updates, I have nothing to say really I feel like saying too much is boring but I got a pair of white tab Levi’s, idk I’ve grown far too acquainted to liminal spaces in the words of Clairo something about “nomadic” sorry was that too matcha performative male? Idc, life is a fucking stage but in the words of Caroline Polachek I feel very “non physical” these days. I see a psych but if that poetry is too much and worries you, then sadly for you this is the wrong substack, that being said here’s the poetic bullshit

So the playlist is about love and romantics as well as my in general love for 80s synths and excess, I love the color of the nighttime the romantic twilight of the cicadas buzzing, humans are apex predators, but we’re doing a shit job of finding balance they say there’s no more bugs on the windshields, who’s fault is that?

"Les enfants de Marx et du Coca-Cola"

I think we might be at huge point in culture, maybe the beginning of what will be remembered as the 2020s but it’s too early to say. Idk I know astrology says something’s changed, but idk what.

Okay here comes the love overly poetic part.

Columbia eats young like Saturn devouring mercury all born screaming with a muzzle if not surgically shut, I have no mouth and I must scream but I cosmically removed it to look like the hottest fashion queen. Sitting on your hands before jerking off just to feel a strangers touch, two steps removed from choking yourself when you cum, maybe for 2 seconds you get closer to god, maybe you for 2 seconds see the other side as your mind goes hot blinding white and reboots

The sleepover is dead because we all live with our parents and are too ashamed to act like teens and kids because we’re all bored filled with lust and angst while also being far too tall to hangout in the small space that is a secondary bedroom though not for size but for our spacial needs we are far larger beings spiritually than we were as teens, but we still are too big to have 4 cramped in the floor of a 2 story ranch style built in 1974.

Everyone is too embarrassed to act like the extended adolescences we are, there are consequences for our messes now so we just get stoned and watch Netflix, we buy things from the past not because we romanticize it alone but we mostly can only afford it, it’s sad my future is a constant backdash to dragon install, a mental hadouken motion as I try to fireball my life forward

I used to wonder if the sun would explode in our lifetime, now I wonder if compassion will be rediscovered before we die. Flipping Pokémon cards and lulububus because it’s all anyone under 24 can afford without going bankrupt and it’s the generational lotto, previous ones had game shows.

(Sidebar I’ve been watching a lot of Concentration lately def peep it: I love this episode where this woman cleans house idk I can’t find it but she’s like mopping the floor with everything okay back to poetic slop)

Now everything is so far removed from a truth and cultural consciousness that we can’t even watch the same series at the same time slot. 6:30/7:30 central, prime time, I feel like I’m in the prime of my life wasting it

I hope that {redacted} chokes on whatever organ he takes to keep his zombied heart alive. Like that kind of selfishness like I feel like it does something to your brain like kinda morbid.

You know?

Have you ever seen a picture of the guy who bought like 5-6 hearts, that’s modern vampierism, now I’ll google if for you, you can simulate the experience of me being right next to you googling it.

Btw that’s the name of my Patreon exclusive discord where you get access to yapping and a bunch of threads and other things ironically, I’ve met many of my best friends though the internet idk if simulation experience is fitting but fuck if it’s not funny.

You can join for less than a Big Mac meal, morbid sentence I know

Speaking of which I just dropped a YouTube video about that very topic, fostering relationships online, in which I talk about the boys club that was late 2000s Xbox live, how the culture of a “boys club” was kinda a healthy way for boys to get out their toxicity as well as just yapping about Battlefield

Here’s some screenshots if you aren’t enticed

Okay back to my overly poetic and kinda self indulgent bs

America is a haunted house

A poltergeist and whore spreading her legs from sea to shining sea as the adults fuck up everything, all in the name of letting freedom ring, Columbia is forever my mother and my seductress

Everything is safe and boring, everyone is cold and hostile, at least in larger cultural world; interpersonally not so much. You keep dancing or you die, in the words of dory, just keep swimming.

Here’s what I’m currently reading:

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

Sculpting in Time

We Love You Bunny

Intermezzo

So you can kinda see where this super charged and super romantic energy came from I also have just read through a fuck ton of Anis Nin inparticularly Spy in The House of Love. So now you can kinda understand where these romantic musings on desire have came from but also recently I’ve learn that it is the root of suffering, not bad just desire and the ache it can cause.

Also I don’t want this too seem overly charged nor an attack but I feel like mixed with the current political climate and what I see on tik tok and in my day to day life this is at least my mood and what I feel around me maybe your vibe is different

Ghost kitchens in dying malls welcome to America the world’s largest haunted house, on stolen land where blood was shed.

I’ve been praying nightly not for salvation in the next life but someone to save me from dooming mine in this current lifetime

There’s a cruelty in the air, an endless night, to exist is to fight, existing in post modernism, taking up space in anyway has become an act of rebellion against modern vampirism aka the unchecked greed of post modern capitalism. To exist without paying someone is loitering and McDonald’s now kicks you after 30 minutes.

Something something

Gen Z is the generation of Lynch and Coke Zero, same great taste none of the calories, a send up of this: quote from Masculine Feminine

“les enfants de Marx et Coca-Cola”

Did you see the Labubu on Karl Marx’s grave, do you think he’d be a good sport about it?

Thank you for reading I didn’t talk about fashion cause it’s been the same but different, but I have a bigger post on that coming soon.

Thanks for reading byeeeeee

Andrew Valko, who did a series of these drive in paintings one of which I think I saw on an old 917, or Bianca Chandon tee from back in the day.

The title: Wet Hot Effervescent Summer is a play on the themes of the playlist the heat of the night and glow of lights in the summer night:

Spotify

Apple Music

June is a a weird month, especially being a cancer cause it’s like “my season” but growning up in Texas it’s sooooo hot.

Idk it’s an oppressive heat, an ugly, overwhelming feeling. Summer here doesn’t even exist in the day time, I mean it does but, everything exists at night in the Texas summer, that glow of gas stations at night, the low hum and smell of cooled asphalt in the am. Think of how Paris Texas looks that’s what summer in Texas feels like

This playlist is dawn and dusk, but with all the romantic sounds we tend to think of in summer, not overly breezy and costal but still breezy and oceanic.

idk this playlist is like this constant juxtaposition of drum and bass against chill lounge music, with a few moodier breaks as the sunsets. That oppressive loud kind of electronic music up against a soft mellow lounge music. It sounds weird but it works

Idk I’m not a beach person there was like maybe a half a day where I thought I was but idk, summer where I’m from is air conditioned and code orange, and at night it’s like way too humid with no breeze and still hot.

I’ve been eating a ton of fruits and trying to be outside, trying to be active.

Idk I found this Kate Bush tee recently and was like damn I went though a huge Hounds of Love Phase in the Kylie Jenner lip kit years I should get back into her, so yea “I love life” or whatever she’s screaming on Pull Out The Pin.

Idk I like hate the weather in summer, I like the idea of summer conceptually, the idea of lakes, summer camps, and theme parks and like enjoying the nice weather, idk we don’t really get spring here either. Texas is diet winter and hot, two seasons. So here gotta wake up at the ass crack of dawn if you want to skate or play tennis, I’ve done that my whole life my sister’s tennis camps for example started at 6am but ended at 10 some Saturdays my mom would wake us up at around 5-6am just to play for an hour or two.

It’s that feeling I wanted to capture here.

That vulgar yet voyeuristic nothingness, the post modern malaise of “bad weather” it’s not even bad just “hot”

Idk summer is awful in Texas, it’s all I can think about honestly, sorry to be a bummer

Idk it’s hot so I only wear 5” inseams cause why wouldn’t I? The heat is as stated before vulgar, idk I need to reup my summer wardrobe a lil but in due time.

Uhhhh

I’ve been busy this month tho here’s all the stuff I’ve done, I’ve been on tik tok an absolute ton again which is great, so go peep that, reading and writing so more or less working on larger projects or picking away at those things.

New music by me out:

I’ve as always just been reviewing and watching stuff, new YouTube video is out when it’s finished end of month tho for sure, here’s my Letterboxd

I’m kinda hyped for the F1 film tho, I was kinda going crazy movie wise last month but I just finished Decalogue which is sick, great series, peep my other reviews.

https://letterboxd.com/cigarettes/

New YT video when ever I finish.

I picked up an advance reader copy of this book I’m excited about and read like a chapter I like the direction so far (I mean I know I’m supposed to but like) eh it’s what ever uhhh I’m be watched a ton of movies recent idk I’ve been a lil bit more busy cause life which yea it happens idk life is always happening

also I’ve been into cucumber ice cream lately too cause the heat

I got to go to the renfair last month which was nice, here’s a pic of my friend and I from that

Here’s a link to my tik tok about that

Idk uhhh blog post update thing is over.

Listen

Apple Music

Spotify

May is weird, the mood is that love-y but strange, my moon is in Taurus so like the cozy vibes start to really come out for me this time of year though this is the point of no return in Texas, meaning it’s about to get bumble fucking hot and unbearable, I find Texas summers exhausting, it’s mostly recycled air because it’s so gross outside.

Like there’s a 3 week is period of spring here and I’m worried it passed but everything is in bloom all the animals are out and everything smells like grass and cement. There’s a small bit of romance in the air this time of year, idk everything truly is romantic but that’s a mindset thing, like that trend of “I took this photo drunk and thought it was “aesthetic”” idk I take too long to develop photos but everything is brand new when I see them again, it’s like reliving a memory in a new way.

Idk I’ve been outside been eyeing bullshit I don’t really need other than empty fleeting frivolity, but if you can’t have that what do you really have? Everything is fleeting and minimal yet so grand and expansive, I speak in metaphorical juxtapositions too much but there are things straight forward words can never seem to convey. I think it’s beautiful that some languages have words we can’t translate though what does that say about English and English speaker’s vocabulary? Do we lack depth and nuance? Who knows

I like the smell of a freshly mowed lawn and tennis balls, the way clothes smell when sun-dried, the taste of fruit straight off the vine, do I want a quiet life? Hell no, but there’s small bit of repose found in the intimate nothings of one’s inner life, and thus one’s exterior experiences of life and how we frame those things.

I love the outdoors, hate the weather

Idk I feel like I do too much, and not enough, I love glowy neon white above everything, this weird sensual yet forbidding sense of warm and darkness, I love the way plastic glows in the dark with the right chemical composition, but glows this milk golden white in daylight.

It’s the wanderlust of digital romance, and miasmic nothings found in the gaps of text messages, knowing it’s just occupational company, complimenting doom scrolling.

Someone said “We might be in a new dark age”, my PS2 keeps crashing when I emulate Persona 2 I’m far too romantic and love the way lights glow without a rimjet layer. I love the color of twilight, the hazy blue where shadows illuminate everything, when the sun passing the torch to the moon.

Idk I’ve been writing a ton, both for here and musically so steam my music:

Apple Music

Spotify

Quarterly Shopping Guide

This is a video about chairs

Welcome it’s a new quarter so here’s my personal fashion update and extended yap session where I too persuade you to buying the things I like. Though in all seriousness I feel my personal style has both regressed and grown at the same time?

The key to having a personal style is to like not care at all about personal style, just let it happen naturally, idk my personal style is me and my taste, it comes through naturally.

I try not to over think about these things, neither should you reader, I just wear and do, but here’s a lil into my thought process this season,

That being, said here’s a lil style journey update.

Read more

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/dizzy/pl.u-xlyNY7lseoldxy

Moodboard and playlist:

Idk I’ve been really into like motion blur photography and like watching ballet on mute with like dj shadow in the background, I like ballet cause I took it for like 2 years as a kid sop getting back into it feels grounding, taking class trips to the symphony etc, I’m thankful my school let my experience those things, idk i’m been into movement lately the blurriness of nothings, the way dust looks in the sunlight, you know the warmth you feel on your back during golden hour.

Stuff like this reminds me of Dega, like duh obviously but it feels more impressionistic, which is what I’ve been into

I’ve been craving analog things lately, like sonically, physically etc

Idk it sounds contrived but like it hits, uhh idk I’m into like this dizzy sound at the moment, duh it’s shoegaze, but warmer, more springtime and bouncey with little flairs of analog instrumentation throughout think more acoustic rather than electronic idk the spring always feels folksier. I’ve been weirdly into folk music as of late, which is cool I feel like my personal style and taste is always whimigoth adjacent anyways.

Idk my fashion hasn’t changed this month, idk I’ve been kinda going ham on something else that you’ll probably hear about here soonish idk, like wayyy sooner rather than later.

I’m learning to put my energy into things and not get stuck in potential energy, I’ve learned my biggest roadblock is between like taste, and like what is actually executable, I mean I’ve been known but like the joy is found in bridging those gaps. I try to push myself and be ambitious though I also know my scope etc. though I think that friction is the biggest killer of potential energy, but idk food for thought for you.

I watched MTV downtown recently it was cute, played hella sports, been sweaty, idk I’m waiting for sales etc.
Idk it's spring I'm outside everything is fun and blurry

Housekeeping:

I released a bunch of new old music (new as most of it has never released)
so you can go stream that wherever music is sold, also my bandcamp if you wanna support me musically

I dropped a new youtube video

Idk this feels so housekeeping-y

idk I’m working on a larger project which takes up most of my mind so idk

Subscribe now

Hey this is an extended analysisish/review of Baby Invasion you can read my OG on Letterbox’d

I like most 20-something men spent my adolescence and adulthood playing video games online video games, hyperviolent, mean, and loud video games.

I love them, in all their non violence and violence glory. Though in the past few years they’ve changed. Post-hot coffee, post midnight releases, and fear mongering, so what is the culture of gaming, and by proxy modern masculinity?

I’d say in some ways the culture of them has changed for the worst post-gamer gate, moving past bro and beyond man-child into something worst in some spaces. Better and non toxic in others.

Though it doesn’t matter it’s more so what Korine is trying to say and I feel like he like myself sees the glass half empty and half full, Baby Invasion is cynical but’s so goofy and campy you can’t help but enjoy it.

The game that Baby Invasion frames its narrative as is sinister, with no real 1to1 home invasion “looting’ game out there it makes you think, especially when paired with all the none in the main mansion scenes,

for example the second in film ”location/level” the high rise

That being said but I want you to keep this mind aesthetically, and understand that this is the bleeding edge of gaming.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2381520/Unrecord/

As we bleed into the VR years, and more films and video games looking like the Brain Dances of Cyberpunk 2077.

Baby Invasion begs the question, and makes us reflect what the fuck are we doing?

Yet we can’t, it’s too loud, it’s fun, it’s modern this is what video games are, and that’s fine.

Shit is fun, nonstop and it’s a safe playground of amusement, maybe even the modern amusement park

I love how much of the aesthetic and action feels like a video game:

I know that sounds odd but like it gets the video game feeling right while having a understanding of modern game aesthetics IE UE5 style graphics and OG like 4-5 Gen aesthetics, like it doesn’t aim to look realistic but instead aims to flatten these aesthetics into something that is representative of gaming culture, in a timeless way. Video games in movies have always looked like you asked a person who’s seen their grandson play video games twice designed them, here it gets the slightly stilted and robotically goofy and animated nature right

I love the twitch like interface being constantly invasive while mimicking both IRL content creators and the culture of livestreaming as a whole, though this film is about video games, and video games have taken an interesting turn in the past few years

Yet and still I think there’s thing many a non “gamer™️” who might not understand a lot of what’s going on if they weren’t an part of, or take part in this culture, to get These day games look and feel closer to a pachinko machine in a lot of ways.

A few years ago everyone’s biggest fear was NFTs being the next beanie babies or trading cards.

Especially if it got attached to video games

This was because of CSGO skin gambling, though there shortly after it was becoming a trend a few countries put precautions into place to prevent this being a wider spread issue. The reason CSGO skin gambling worked is because CSGO had loot, obtained randomly, and like most video games said loot, could then be traded in game.

The difference is that CSGO let you cash these out and adding real money to a micro-economy has consequences, look at Eve online for example.

Hell I play FFXIV online and there’s an actual fucking housing crisis because of the in game supply and demand curve, I can’t exchange real world money for Gil, but it doesn’t stop there being inflation, shortages etc. 12million Gil and I got to enter a fucking housing lottery? A fucking housing lottery in a video game?

Theses are purely cosmetic gameplay elements mind you, no stat boost etc, just where I can hang my virtual trophies of the beats I’ve slayed or w/e.

Though this is the sate the entire current stage of the digital entertainment economy, is digital wardrobing for now. It’s an interesting shift gaming is a lifestyle, it’s a hobby, now it’s a closet full of cute skins to match your current vibe.

I love the use of Multicam, with the primary viewing angle being POV, not 3rd person or even the iconic “cinematic” over the shoulder look of a few years ago, there’s a reason it’s become the industry standard in video games as the years have gone on.

The answer is immersion, yet even the Baby’s doing the invasion don’t seem like they’re having fun,

The game of Baby Invasion even bores it’s players. It’s overly stimulating and mundane, yet completely boring even in the “gameplay” segments vs hub zones.

Most of the film or “gameplay” feels like a luxury RP, players instead of just robbing and completing the mission or level they meander I’d say the first hour or so is spent in “hub zones¹”and hanging out. Though modern games such as the one being satirized are not just toys for entertainment but instead social spaces, many of the most popular games are just chat rooms; I think of VR chat for example.

1. Hub Zone: A hub or meeting point for players to gather outside of general gameplay, many times replacing but serving the function of what would have been menus in years past. Usually but not always a small gathering space with one or more NPC characters or gameplay tools clustered together, designed to deepen player’s character immersion and facilitate socialization in the case of online games.

Baby Invasion understands this and takes it a step further, with the idea of someone watching a game in their phone in the “gameplay”/game environment not too dissimilar to how people will use Picture in Picture display with skeuomorphic design in these VR spaces; I mean your computer’s Home Screen is called a desktop after all. Though Baby invasion and the zones in it are nothing new to video games both Second Life and PlayStation Home played with these ideas almost a decade apart from one another, with PlayStation Home being almost 15 years ago.

Baby Invasion plays with idea of these games having “work” like most modern online role play games like Destiny, a set of to dos before and after “gameplay.” General chore and tasking in modern gaming, grinding is now a grind, not just slaying dragons.

Video games are in many ways engrossing almost job like monolithic these days, a kind of lifestyle hobby, but there are also entire generations now growing up on this.

“baby bonus”

With most video games being hyper violent spaces, kids; and even including them in the story of games is a no go, most games have you blasting through thousands of enemies an hour, so excluding kids in there would make sense.

So why babies “Innocence” in most texts babies are treated as sacred. I mean in that does sound like many a fantasy text after all, though unlike most hyper violent games, here Korine plays with them as religious or holy items, rather than the McGuffin they end up being in most cases like RE7

What I love is in Baby Invasion Korine plays with a level of fantasy based mysticism that would usually wouldn’t see in the grounded tactical FPS style game like depicted in Baby Invasion, it makes you wonder why are so many games so grounded they are.

Espcially paired with

The idea of holy items and cleansing rituals is interesting ,maybe Korine is asking us socially to somewhat reflect on the idea of what we are doing in these games, maybe it’s just for the vibe, but I think visually it’s pretty jarring the juxtaposition on display, with the tonal dissonance throughout.

In Baby Invasion it’s “NPCs” dialogue is muffled, due to what I assume is the person playing the games universe “diegetic music” being played out of window, thus implying that all the gameplay loop here is mostly just going though the motions while also being as loud and engrossing as possible, with the few moments of conversational dialogue being pop up windows and the ever flowing chat screen

At times the gameplay of Baby Invasion reminds me of like Payday 2 or the OG concept for Siege. Especially when you think about the nature of things like “leaked body cams”, swatting¹ and that whole era of 2017-2020 IRL twitch streams.

It makes you think about the

The modern culture of streaming and the overall parasocial nature of a simple traditional of like stream snipping alone² are reflected in the high rise level/set piece I mentioned earlier.

1. Swatting a common practice of 2000s streaming culture that required a viewer to dox a stream, normally by DDS attack (dox meaning to get a user’s IP address and track it back to their home address) then to call in a treat to the local police. Normally some kind of hostage or hostile situation with the goal resulting in the police violently busting into the streamers home live. In most case due to the streamer wearing headphones and being immersed in the game, this causes more harm and danger. This is usually done live on stream, this is a form of harassment similar to a prank call, but worse as this can cause a streamer to get in trouble things unrelated to said situation, like minor possession, a no knock raid almost. Example

2. Stream snipping, extremely similar to swatting, but requires luck or digital stalking, essentially a way to spawn in to their lobby and “kill” streamer, can be but not limited to a consistent form of harassment, usually done by some method of hacking as well. Stream snipping is not limited to just video game streamers this is a large issue for IRL streamers many of which will get harassed by fans “stream snipping” or trying to cause a disturbance or distraction while the streamer is actively in public performing.

The film touches on this idea of what could be considered 4th Place with something like Fortnite: within it there are concerts, and events, timed exclusives that are scripted yet are still one time events. Their performance is perfected, your drop rate chance calculated and pre determined or guaranteed. These events and games you can usually attend or enjoy them free of charge outside of owning themed exclusive digital FOMO enticing pixels.

Though what Korine gets right is the overall invasive UI texts, the constant loud almost harassing ads with most of the HUD going untranslated and characteristic of Japanese TV thus implying the gameplay play that we are watching is Japanese or a primary Japanese primary speaker, while also reflecting on the global market of gaming.

This reflects the inside/outside nature that many people myself included seem to forget as someone who grew up gaming

Gaming isn’t an accessible hobby for those outside it and it looks fucking annoying and obnoxious tbh.

I don’t know how to explain it but it’s a hobby who’s texts and lexicon is fundamental and snowballing. I think one of the best examples of this is the “My Girlfriend plays” series on YouTube a series where a couple tries to bridge the gap in their relationship by sharing the hobby of gaming, they together document her struggles, and hardships and reflect after each title.

It does a good job of explaining the phenomenon I’m getting at, here’s an example

Though I’m sure it makes sense to the players in the film but feel’s completely alien to me an outside observer. Meanwhile the UI is bombarding the in game player to “buy new skins” all while a low battery notification is on screen, it’s invasive much like the baby’s, much like AI and those who “steal” with it.

Like that one girl a few months on twitter who got soft canceled for claiming her “art” wasn’t made by AI

I also like how the film uses AI in combination with CG made by hand asking us to think about the nature of computer graphics themselves, while also our relationship to it as a tool in art.

Here AI is mostly being used to really commentate on the nature of AI itself rather than being used as way to save money I would assume so.

In baby Invasion, AI much like in most games is part of the universe, even going a step further with them using AI as a tool for anonymity, (which is already reflected in the culture of gaming with usernames etc.) AI within the film is being a tool for design as well, keyword tool, not an end all be all.

It’s a tool that makes everything artificial, like an AI generated paper isn’t much of a paper at all.

Most games use AI, or some level of computing intelligence to craft a unique player experience, not as a short cut or to do nefarious things. Baby Invasion is commenting on simulation/simulacrum, I mean it’s a movie meant to look like a video game, video games are meant to look like real life, “pretty meta” and “far out” I know.

Maybe the Baby’s that are Invading are the tools that are here to stay, and they’re coming weather you’re ready or not, maybe it’s just a movie that’s a lil cynical and super fun, as far as masculinity most men are babies, video games are toys where they play dress up soldier.