I held off saying goodbye for so long because I thought it would just make me want his attention more. At this point I wonder if I cared about him as much as I just didn't want him to leave. I have a strong sense of justice and feel wronged.

He is not my lover.

I remember having a more stable sense of identity back then. The world started to squeeze on me tighter, I changed against my will, suffocating in place and the things that once brought me joy are nigh unto ripples in the cracked mud at the bottom of a dried creek bed. Well there was motion here once. I remember he was part of that stability. I felt like I might finally be able to swallow my greivances with people and hold onto someone. His spirituality and contemplation piqued my interest, I thought here was someone I can bounce ideas with with. But the terrible thing is how kind he was. Syrupy, at times. I thought him a reliable friend, and he was. For about a year or two.

Then silence. Waves in a dry creek bed and waiting for rain. After confronting the clouds I got a drop. Waves in a dry creek bed. He believed friendship is like romance. Isn't it? But should it be? He would take it personally if a friend would refuse to share a burden with him. But he won't share mine? If I did something wrong I will never know because he won't tell me.

How much did I care about him? I thought I knew myself back then. I could give you an itemized list of things I liked and what they meant to me. I had a specific sense of stupidity in my rambling. I was a spirit, I was mold infected and deeply unhappy yet able to flail around in the dark for joy. One thing after another. I can't even recount the particular events but I just know, coming out the other side I'm numb. He was just the final pillar to crumble I suppose, and there is a little dark bruise where a peice of rubble shot out at my leg. When it brushes against the furniture it burns like hell. If I press it at the edges just right though, it aches and tingles. I laugh. Maybe I can fix this. Waves in a dry creek bed. What the fuck happened here?

Sometimes I hope he'll never reach out. Sometimes I press the edges of that bruise. But whatever happens, I'm gone. The sun has risen and set, I came near to death, I found happiness I found greif, my landscape has changed outwardly and inwardly has changed. If he wants to make up for his absense in these times, he'd better get his ass running to catch up.

7/26/25

Lately I've been more productive with art, learned to compromise and cut corners and I still feel slow as fuck. I want to be pumping out something every DAY and most pieces, even relatively simple ones, take like 2 or 3. If it weren't for the pressure of finding a way to make money I wonder if I would be this way. I mean if I was making money some other way then I'd have less time for art and that would create pressure, and I have so many ideas that don't even reach a sketchbook. I used to get maybe 1/4 of what I wanted done, now it's closer to 1/3. My goal is 3/4 because not every idea is necessarily conductive to good art. So it's a good number.

My hot take is that not everyone is an artist, but fame and money shouldn't be considered the gateway to being (a good) one either. It's not hypocritical for me to say this as I'm aspiring to make money off of mine, I need to survive. But I think the true ideal we should aspire towards is building a society where you can have a practical day job that doesn't eat your soul and debilatate your ability to create. People would rather think this is just how things are and always should be, that being pressured into a popularity contest is ideal already and that's just being an artist IS; we should quit accepting this as the ideal by defining artistry by fame and money. Or at the very least? Be honest about how dismal it is that artists all feel the need to join this popularity contest. Don't you love how most advice on how to gain a following chalks up to "commodify friendships with other artists" and "make art you don't like"? Yeah I think it DOES work actually. But I'm not willing to commit hard to that. If you have mastered those last two points of advice then I applaud you, truly. I just can't stomach it.

But then, what IS an artist to me? I find "everyone is an artist" annoying for the same reason I would if "everyone is a developer" became the next hot sentamentality. I actually don't think doing something for two minutes when you're bored on a hot Tuesday makes that thing a core tennant of your personality. Someone who is an artist is someone whose desire to create bleeds out; even when doing practical things I find myself trying to make it into a visual statement. A lot of people do not care about art beyond making their minimalist living room slightly less dismal. Or like. Tits*. I simply don't think everyone possesses the spirit. More accurate statements would be "everyone CAN create art" or "everyone CAN be an artist". But if you're reading this and wondering if I would invalidate your identity as an artist, nah. If you're defining yourself that way I assume you already got the juice. It's just these broad sweeping statements about the entire population of the earth that make me roll my eyes a little.

*There's nothing wrong with this, I'm just saying a lot of people aren't going to care about the effort and detail that goes into art lol

I don't want to write a whole post about this so I'm just gonna toss this in, that "music is a universal language" annoys me as a statement too. Some people literally cannot comprehend melody. Some people just like other things. And it grinds my gears when people act like someone that doesn't listen to much music is effectively souless.

7/17/25

In Atlanta, Adriana Smith's corpse was used as an incubator. She had been 9 weeks pregnant when declared brain-dead, and was kept on life-support against her family's wishes for three months to allow the fetus to grow until it was prematurely delivered through a c-section. The average weight of a newborn is 7-7.5 pounds. It was 1 pound and 13 ounces.

I know things are terrible and difficult and I don't fault anyone for not wanting to see this, but I would ask those of you who did not realize this is the point we've reached in America--read this article by Houdini. He sums it up in better words than I can. The Forced Birth Regime Has Succeeded In Necro Incubation

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6/20/25

Once upon a time, there was a man who had the gift to craft whatever he desired. He sold or gave away many of these creations; what he was soon to realize however, is that they would come alive and do the opposite of what he created them for, attacking, and often killing, their owners. So he reasoned, if whatever he made became the opposite of what he created it for, if he would make a monster, it would become the opposite and fight against his failed creations. Years later, a girl that can see ghosts re-discovers this anti-monster in a basement--the dummy.

I read a lot of comics, but none have been food for my soul quite as this one. It's not to my usual tastes, but it is sweet, perhaps in a way I wouldn't have fully appreciated a few years ago, and Paris, the dummy (or puppet as he prefers to call humself), has quickly become my favorite character right next to Ena.

It is a common trope to have characters with a tragic past find ultimate healing or fufillment through romance, which can make for a compelling story, but I don't like the idea that romance is inherently fufilling, and as far as found family, I guess I just don't gravitate towards the kinds of stories that tend to have it. It's a nice change of pace, though. And not overly corny. So it's refreshing that the main character does not persevere because of promises of romance, but rather, that he sees a being so much more vunerable than him that looks up to him, despite being, well, the way he is mentally, and determines not to let her down. I think Paris realizes that however HE feels about himself--it won't change the reality that Yumi still loves him. She is still scared. And he decides to, for lack of more delicate terms, get over it and be there for her.

The funny thing I've noticed though, is it's often Paris that needs help throughout the story. Yumi gets in trouble quite a few times, yes, but ususually it's BECAUSE she's helping him or someone else. Is this like, a flaw? I don't know, I think it's kind of subjective. In real life, would I let a child be these kind of situations? Like, maybe! I mean she can see ghosts, but I can't, so she's definitely got the upper hand there. Does this make me a terrible person? VERY subjective! Ultimately I think it depends on mochamura's intentions for the story, which I'm not sure about. Life threatening aspects aside though, I appreciate how much respect is given to Yumi as a person, not because of her powers, but just as Yumi. I feel often stories centering children unintentionally tend to carry this message that, you'll gain respect once everyone realizes you're special, when in reality you should already get respect just for being a human fucking being. Yumi is already respected and loved before anyone learns of her ability to see ghosts.

There is sort a theme of self realization and going against your peers from Paris' perspective, but it's kind of...different from the way this trope is usually played? Paris doesn't particularly have a desire to see the world or go against the grain, it's not even that his creator views his actions by themself as wrong. The way he's misunderstood is a little more subtle than that. The creator fears the free will of his creation. Often the message here would be ~staying true to yourself~ or whatever, and like, yeah, but we can go a step further than that. While I generally chose to view Dummy's Dummy through a more literal lense, I think you could also compare Paris' backstory to the paranoia people often have of someone lower than them on the social ladder, coming to their level and subjugating them. It's okay to love someone beneath you from a distance, but god forbid you find out they have an equal ability to have complex throughts and move through the world as you do.

On the subect of the creator, though, I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. When Paris saw Ivan and immediately started running towards him, despite having said so much against him, it was kind of heart breaking, knowing this is still how Paris felt. But something about the way Ivan acted was off putting. I guess I wanted the first words out of his mouth to be "I am so sorry I put you through this" or something to that effect. But he doesn't. If I locked someone away in a box for so many years I would have been on my god damn knees. I get such drama is simply not the author's style, and as it is we had children drowning in goop and Paris in shreds. I don't hate Ivan either. I don't hate Ivan and Paris maybe repairing their relationship. I just felt there could have been a bit more in this scene. Maybe I should write a fanfic about this.

The narrative itself is what I'm focusing on because I have so many thoughts about it, but I'd just like to also throw in a word for the art, because god is it so good, with amazing attention to detail, fluidity, and dynamics. I was introduced to The Dummy's Dummy through the reboot, so when I saw the original I was fucking FLOORED at how much mochamura's style has changed and improved. It gives me hopes for my artistic future!

All in all, I like The Dummy's Dummy for its nuanced characters and down-to-earth view of the difficulties of being a person, while maintaining a dramatic horror plot all the while, and I look forward to seeing more from mochamura.

Scratched my itch. Wetted my swamp. Case'd my pillow. Thankyou

6/6/25

Dream BBQ Review

Dream BBQ has two components to it which have defined much of my taste in media, that being, a split character and a surreal world. In this game you play as Ena, a character with two personalities, represented by a rather on-the-nose physical color split, whose main task is to "find the boss". Being an aventure game with only minor platform and puzzle elements, I feel its stength lies in atmosphere above all else, perfectly balancing relatability of the characters with chaos of the world.

Before Dream BBQ, Ena was already traversing strange low poly landscapes with her pal Moony in an untitled video Series by Joel G. His inspiration for her design came from the painting "Girl Before A Mirror" By Pablo Picasso and the art of Romero Britto, so it's no surprise Dream BBQ is reminicient of a surreal painting you've been sucked into.

Interestingly though, most of the characters are represented by flat 2d animations rather than 3d models. I'm sure this mix is more common than I'm aware of, but I've only ever seen it done one other time and it looked like ass. In Dream BBQ, however, though the flat images look odd from certain angles, they somehow meld with the enviroment well most of the time and I wouldn't have it any other way. Of course the concept of mixing 2d and 3d isn't new in animation, it's just not something I've seen done in games much. Part of the reason it works well here is intentionality of course, but I think the world itself looking as odd as it does certainly helps the contrast not to stand out much; severed legs swimming in an ocean of blood with no explainable origin, a toilet as a sacred place, and pants with coral growing out of them.

I have always had a fixation on the surreal, perhaps as a means of expressing the unexpressible, maybe because some part of me is deeply fucked up and cannot comprehend what I was given, or perhaps I am simply unsatysfied with what I'm expected to live with. Whatever the case, it's always been a part of me. And maybe that's why I'm so willing to put aside everything I've learned about this world and imagine myself in that one. If I was born in Dream BBQ, I don't imagine things would be much different for me on an emotional level. Even if you're not like me, I'm sure you're able to relate to the characters in some way, though. That's what I love about this game. It's a a beautiful dance between emotional relatability and the absurd; maybe you have a shitty job, you're treated like shit for breathing, you have a religious complex, seek forgiveness... presented as a vibrant collage of cultures and artforms and blood and so on.

I can't write this entire review and not mention our beloved main character of course. I find troubled characters with unstable or even multiple personalities facsinating. Not in a literal DID sense, but in a spiritual or symbolic sense. In Ena's case, actually physical. You can examples of this in many of my previous favorites: Reigan Arataka, Vincent Law, Lain and so on. Ena's two personalities, represented by two different voices, are "Meanie Ena" and "Salesperson Ena"; and the way she spontaneously switches between the two mesmorizes me. Meanie is demanding and honest to a fault, whereas Salesperson maintains this eerily unmovable and hollow positivity. I don't like it when people try to diagnose her, if she is meant to be relatable I believe it's in a broader sense and that it's reductive to measure her personality to our real-world standards.

It's not all serious, though. Another one of the interesting aspects of Dream BBQ's absurdity, which carries over from the previous series, is the humor in surprisingly blunt dialouge; "Seek help, pull yourself up by your boob straps" "Go away, Ena, and get a life! That is my quest for you today" being two well known examples. On the other hand... well, there's the sacred toilet. I'm sure the devs were laughing their heads off writing some of the lines for it, but it's also an integral part of the entirety of chapter one. I don't think you can say it's not serious exactly. For fucks sake, the scene where Ena actually sees the toilet for the first time was one of the most emotional parts of the whole thing to me. It's funny how much the characters hate Ena and it's also saddening and I fully think that's how it's supposed to be. Life itself is absurdly funny.

All in all, it's been a long time since any piece of media appealed to me this strongly, I think it's a surreal masterpiece, and I strongly look forward to seeing where the next chapters lead us to.

5/17/25