i consolidated the old /recs page and the 'favorite media' sections on my /about page into one place: /media! it's virtually all the same content as before, except for a few updates:
new favorite media
anime: odd taxi
new reviews
games: yakuza 0
books: we could be so good by cat sebastian
for the rss feed, i plan on batching minor updates (like pins, bookmarks, etc.) together in digests; the following are the new updates from around january until now:
internal links are styled with dotted underlines, external links are styled with solid underlines. the standard external link symbols were an eyesore given how many links i have on my site, so i hope this is a fine compromise.
clickable images have a different border color from regular images.
wrapped posts have distinct color palettes! this excites me too much.
templates now have a "see in action" section that link back to pages using them.
new york, 1958: against his better judgment, a closeted reporter catches feelings for his boss's son. the boss's son, slated to take over the paper despite his overwhelming incompetency, looks to his coworker when everything crumbles around him. neither of them can ignore their chemistry nor the risk of being together.
it's hard to parse specifically what i love about this book because the answer is everything. everything was lovely! i don't know much about queer history prior to stonewall, and it was so special seeing glimpses of what queer life may have looked like during that time, with walt whitman's leaves of grass collection, the hays code & the films that pushed back like some like it hot (1959), mccarthy-era politics, the jfk election, the mlk marches, the advent of the newspaper... cat sebastian cites when brooklyn was queer by hugh ryan, an account of queer history in brooklyn from the 1850s, which is, similarly, endlessly fascinating and grounding—and offers perspective on queer history as it intersects with racism, sexism, and class, as most surviving accounts of queer history come from upper class white men. the push and pull of liberation always existed, and queer life still found a way in spite.
the main couple had me legitimately kicking my feet in bed. everyone's character felt so realistic, their spark emerges so naturally, nothing feels unearned. the yearners stay winning! we've never lost!!
a high schooler with an obsession for a popular male idol group can't contain herself when tamon, her oshi, is the next client at her housekeeping job. but instead of meeting the heartthrob idol, she finds a severely depressed man who's nothing like his on-stage persona.
if you told me that a shoujo idol anime romanticizing power-fantasy parasocial relationships would've captivated me like this, i would've rolled my eyes at you, AND YET this delusional, ridiculous bullshit charmed me in ways i didn't know possible. this was so stupid! i loved it! there were so many good bits; utage's head exploding into pixellated danganronpa-pink gore when tamon flirts with her, utage's inner monologue asking "is she dni?" when she finds out her teacher is a stan of the same group, utage reciting instruction manuals(?) at 500 words per minute when her brain short circuits...
there was a moment at the end of episode 5 or 6 where i thought the anime was really gonna go there when unpacking how messy their dynamic was, but it never quite does. which is fine, because the spectacle of the show for me was the absurdity more than the "romance." i'm 100% certain idol anime isn't normally like this, but this show is gonna bait me into watching more of this genre, isn't it...
fun game, not much more to say. kiryu and majima are married. victor deadlock's favorite hobby is listening to perverts by ethel cain. my emulator crashes when i try to use the photobooth shop. everyone is homosexual.
new york, 1960: a breakout baseball star faces the worst season of his life after being humiliated on national television. a newswriter, still mourning the loss of a secret partner, is assigned to ghostwrite the star's public diary entries. their unlikely player-reporter relationship draws attention.
i didn't plan on reading both books in this series back-to-back considering how fast i blitzed through the first, but april was so awful that i needed something to get my spirits up. another cat sebastian banger—much more focused on grief than the previous, but more than pays off with the most tender moments. i love how the book handled mark's depression as a widow as well as eddie's underdog story; those two arcs complemented each other so well. do i like baseball? after this and shinada's yakuza 5 storyline, should i get into baseball?
The Sluts by Dennis Cooper: 2004 queer horror novel.
unbelievable reviews of an unwell gay escort grow more and more alarming.
i had to dnf this about a third of the way in because i'm a coward and the snuff stuff was a bit much for me :-( which makes me sad because the storytelling was so interesting! it's a story told through reviews, transcripts, and forum threads—there's a lot of unreliable narration to chew on, and i loved the subtler details like the escort's weight dropping with each new review. big warnings for death, murder, disease, sexual violence, the works.
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid: 2019 queer romance novel.
two hockey stars are rivals on the ice and something much more complicated behind closed doors.
i blame you should be so lucky for baiting me into sports romance. "this reads like fanfiction" is mean-spirited critique but it's the most succinct way to summarize my feelings lol. genuinely shocked to see that this was a professionally published novel given how little editing seems to have taken place? ("first time?" asks james franco) i can see the appeal, but i couldn't take this seriously with their relationship being described as "fucking weird" and "fucking dangerous" everysinglechapter, nor could i get into the smut with phrasing like, and i quote, "licked the moisture off Ilya’s slit." are we witnessing camp?
Wild at Heart dir. David Lynch: 1990 crime-romance film.
young lovers run away from parole and an abusive home to start a new life together. an overprotective mother hires a hitman to seperate them permanently.
