December 29th - January 4th 2026

Movies

• Midsommar | Ari Aster | 2019 - I vaguely remember this film releasing, but never seeing it. I only recall the abject terror on friends faces when recalling their experience watching it, which did prime me for some sort of terror at the beginning and toward the end. I want to write a more thoughtful version of this, but my thesis on A24 is that they perfectly reproduce traumatic, meaningful moments, but only an over-aestheticized, shallow version of it. In other words, these are films that appropriate trauma for the pallettes of NYU grads and upper middle class families. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad, in fact the cinematic vision, use of color, unique slew of actors, and creative freedom has to be a net good for the film industry. It’s more that if you have been through some of the themes of A24 films, or what they are allegories for, then they necessarily lose some of their vigo. They lose some or all of their shock factor. You have little empathy or development to do, as you have already experienced it. And, you probably wouldn’t want to relive these themes.
  In many ways this is how I felt wrapping up Midsommar. How many passive-aggressive moments I have endured where your partners eyebrow flick can silence you, or their feigned walking away could break you down. In no way does the film offer a sense of closure or alternative future. Not that it’s supposed to, but I think this is what separates trauma porn from authentic narratives. Few people who endure these types of trauma, I imagine, would end a movie without following one of these two general paths: I experienced something terrible, so I healed and am better because of it (and here’s how with all the pain/terror of that growth) or I can’t face what this has done to me and here is a treatise and my coping with repeat exposure to the pain, with some insightful end.
  A24 films almost always end with weak characters missing their moment to be more than they are because of the real psychological and material conditions of their existence. You watch, tears streaming down your face, as they don’t chase after their potential love. You watch as they reach the end of the heroes journey, only to turn back at the last moment. It’s painful and emotional, but leaves me feeling more like the end of Tarantino film - used and violated. My emotions were exposed to get a rise out of me, rather than to instill some point that may let me process in post-vulnerability.
  Ultimately, I don’t think people should walk away from a movie like Midsommar, or any A24 film, with the sentiment “Wow, bad things happen to people, and look how bad that looks.” It doesn’t communicate understanding, which could build empathy. It breeds pity and fetishization, which marginalized people do not need. It reinforces a sense that we cannot take care of ourselves, and it is our inability that needs to be intervened upon, rather than the systems that cause our state of being. Films don’t have to always be communicating some moral lesson, in fact that has gone awry and aged poorly many times, but when it comes to deeper, emotional narratives there is an added layer of responsibility to the viewer.
• Alien: Prometheus | Ridley Scott | 2012 - A perplexing movie to say the least. What happened to cassette tape futurism, Ridley?? This film looks like a Halo film, rather than the tactile, neon industrial punk aesthetics of every other Ridley Scott Alien film. And it thoroughly suffers because of it. Charlize Theron’s character literally felt like she was in a different movie. Idris Elba’s character, as opposed to Danny McBride in Covenant, which felt much more out of place. I was so happy to get lore context, as that’s what set a part Covenant, but Prometheus felt like two visions in competition. A thriller/action film more akin to Predator, and a prestige, slow narrative-horror. While much of this movie is salvageable or even good - I genuinely think the story of David and how he progresses is unexpected and excellent just given the synthetic’s role in Alien - but the constant interruptions of pure action or laughably silly scenes just takes you out of the good.

Music

• PRAGMATA - The Bounded Sountrack | Yasumasa Kitagawa | 2025 - From the demo I played, and I am finally picking up on the background score while I am playing which was the goal! I really like every song. “Dawn” for high-intensity and “Memories Are You - Core Cut” for the slower vibes.
• Welcome to My Blue Sky | MOMMA | 2025 - Excellent lesbian album end-to-end!!

Podcasts

• The age of piracy ended with LimeWire | Version History | The Verge - For anyone who remembers anything about file-sharing up until the late 2000s, this is an excellent watch/listen. I grew up in the latter stages of LimeWire - it kind of had a cult level of respect to it - but I can’t recall using it as I was more familiar watching my brother do those things. I was really present for the BitTorrent era. The podcast does an excellent job historicizing the technology and placing the legal and cultural context of its rise into perspective.
• Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm, “Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life” | New Books in Critical Theory - A very cool take on how Medieval peoples understood and oriented to time, and how modernism shifted these values. I just adore this host, he seems like a sweetheart and very invested in learning about this history.

Books/Manga

• Love Bullet - The Red Yuri!! Pretty bold to already take on the colored yuri moniker if you ask me. I barely got 10 or so pages in last night, and the concept is super strong. I worry it’s going to have the shonen effect where all the time and energy will be spent on making excellent action sequences, rather than on the romance dynamics. Way too early to say, and I’m excited and already drawn in by their first quandry!
• Hungerstone | Kat Dunn | 2025 - I am about two-thirds the way through now and we are getting some escalation, which is nice. I am perplexed about how I feel about this book. On the one hand it’s terribly slow and the reveal about Carmilla is impossible to feel original just given the context of this book. The writing isn’t bad per se, but it does more telling than showing, so it often feels like you are being hit over the head with exactly what the character is rather than experiencing who they are.
  On the other hand, on almost every page there is some excellence sentence that may stop you in your tracks. Oftentimes it’s about the miserable main character and her jarring honesty about herself and how that reality is becoming undone. It’s very introspective and real.
  It’s an easy and relatively quick read, so I will finish it, I just hope something noteworthy happens to close it out.

YouTube

• So You Want to Make a Website… Where to Start? | LuvstarKei IRL - MAKE A WEBSITE NOW!! Be the cringe, unique beautiful spirit you were meant to be. Join NeoCities, get on a webring and be the coolest person you know.
• Why Did the PS2 Look So COOL? | ExtraMint - This was the first time I learned about the EmotionEngine in the PS2. It’s so worth it to give this video a watch and immerse yourself in what may be the best era in gaming history.
• 2010s Aesthetics Were Weird… - Truly pierced my soul with older brother core. Countless memories sneaking down into my brother’s room when he was away. He had our family PC moved into his room, which was in the basement - which only added to the mystique. He was an emo and went to mosh-y metal concerts since middle school. This was such a cool video to bring those specific moments to an aesthetic!!

Games

• PRAGMATA Demo | CAPCOM - This is an excellent demo and will make for a really fun game, I have no doubt! In my 25 minutes of play time I essentially liked everything. The in-game music, menu music, and all of the little sound effects when interacting with the menu are perfect. I have already downloaded the soundtrack!
  More than anything, this game is fun. The systems are clearly play-tested to the n-th degree. The animations and mechanics feel buttery smooth. With the demo, each mechanic naturally builds onto each other until the core systems are revealed. Even the fairly significant jump between a standard third-person shooting experience into the hacking mini-game was seamless, which is quite the difficult thing to pull off! It adds a really fun and dynamic layer to gameplay with an immediately communicated skill ceiling (you can drag your cursor through the grid maze to maximize effects). The grid-based hacking also does away with using consumables, and therefore limits the number of key mappings you have to keep track of, which I am a huge fan of! Also, gun ammo is severely limited, which I love. It makes them pretty locked to specific encounters, and makes you more intentional akin to survival horror.
  The only dislikes I have for this game are the main characters voice actor I find annoying. And the AI at the end of the demo. The gir’s voice actor is okay, so I may just play in a different language if that is an option. The storytelling is pretty light in the demo, and is primarily told through datapads and holo scences a la Mass Effect. This is a pretty big let down for me. It feels antiquated in a game that in every other way feels so modern and polished.
  I’m not sure if I will buy this game and play to completion, but the idea of mech-y Dead Space is super intriguing and the gameplay is super satisfying.