hiiiii! i've been gone a while, huh!
i gotta say, i actually...don't feel all that bad about not updating this site much. normally i'd feel a lot worse about not doing things. but this is nice! its really nice not having to worry about Making Content For Site (TM). i can just sort of exist here.
what happened was really just. i got burnt out. all those warnings i had about not overdoing things and i still burnt out! i feel really bad about it, to be honest. i can barely draw or write or do anything. i just sort of play video games and read and be sad. drawing is my main source of joy in life. i was sort of living off of the serotonin that drawing and people talking to me about my art was giving me and now i don't have that anymore. i just feel Bad.
what really pains me, though, is that i was starting to value myself and my art through the number of likes and comments and reblogs and whatever else i got. that just feels bad. i would think to myself "well, this art has to be absolutely perfect, or nobody will like it", and that was just a very unhealthy way of thinking. i'm worth things without other people's attention.
i've been working out of it though, don't worry! been going through art therapy. no wait shit that's a real thing already. anyways. i'm relearning how to do everything! i'm trying traditional art again, and i got some nice new pens to line with! i've been watching and reading a lot of shit also; gotta recharge that creative battery. it's taking a long time but baby i am Getting Through It.
anyways, speaking of things i've been reading and watching!
READING!!
i've been reading the vampire chronicles recently! i've gotten through interview with the vampire and the vampire lestat, and i'm three fourths of the way through queen of the damned. i gotta say: my feelings about this series is very complicated.
on one hand, so much of the book appeals to me. i love vampires! i love weird religious stuff! i love a lot of the characters! like, claudia is so!! the inherent tragedy of being stuck in a child's body forever, even as you grow older- the mind of an adult but lacking the autonomy and freedom of one. that's so fucked up and i mean that in the most complimentary way possible. the fact that she can't bring herself to hate her parents either! she's so much like lestat, even if she hates him- they both love louis to an almost unhealthy extent, and it's what kills them in the end. and speaking of lestat, he's so interesting too! like he's a bitch don't get me wrong but also just...the "conversation" with nicki. his desperate need to get out of his family's house, and his longing for the stage, and the monastery, and his crying at the witch's place...all of these are a lot like when you're a kid and you know there's something different about you, but you don't know what it is at all, so you can only cry when confronted with it. the fact that he is so utterly convinced of his own evil from the moment he becomes a vampire, and yet he still, even unconsciously, does his best to be good. he only hunts killers and thieves. he does his best to make sure his still mortal family and friends are well taken care of. when he sees his mother in pain and dying, he gives the only relief he can. and speaking of gabrielle! i am so intrigued by whatever is going on with her gender. the fact that she's so withdrawn and depressed, and then the moment she is given the freedom of a vampire, she becomes happier, wilder, and the moment she is given the chance to dress in mens clothes, she never wears a dress again. the fact that she's so saddened at the fact that her hair will stay the same length as when she died forever. lestat just straight up says he doesn't see her as a man or a woman anymore! it very much reads as a trans narrative. also! akasha and enkil were fucking terrifying.
and at the same time. it feels like literally every five pages i'm being slapped by the wet fish of racism. louis is a fucking slave owner. there's orientalism everywhere. i keep sending paragraphs of the books to my friends, fucking flabbergasted that it's so deeply racist. also it keeps like. weirdly implying a relationship between louis and claudia that's just so deeply weird. and also lestat saying her saw gabrielle as a lover. that's just fucking weird, my guy. i just...i can't believe the main criticism i saw of anne rice's writing all these years was because of her beliefs about fanficiton and fandom and not the fucking racism and orientalism. it's fucking awful to read because it happens Literally Every Five Seconds. and like i would get it if it was like, these characters are racist to show that they're complicated people who live in a different time than us where the standards are different. but. it's not that. even characters that are supposed to be sympathetic and modern to us, like jesse, are often racist and ignorant almost unknowingly, in their own narration. also? why is every single character in this that's from the middle east and egypt in this white? that's so weird. like obviously light skinned people exist in those countries, but every single character who's from a nonwhite country is described as light skinned. like far be it from me to assume someone else's beliefs, but at some point i have to assume that this is bias on the part of the author. i'm glad the amc adaption has made changes to the series to try to make it less white and racist. i'm fucking glad.
anyways, on a lighter topic, i also read a couple more bridgerton books! i read an offer from a gentleman, and also the prequel first come scandal, which is about one of the bridgerton aunts. i'm gonna reread an offer from a gentleman before i write my review on it, but i'm probably going to write my review of first comes scandal soon!
WATCHING!!
there's really only one show in this section, because i've watched it eight times. it's the sandman. that's gonna require its whole own post because God almighty, what a show. i mean that in the most positive way possible. what a show. my experience with the sandman comics was reading the first five issues in a free period (really a creative writing class, but the teacher just sort of let us do whatever we wanted in the name of creative freedom, which was actually very helpful for me because i used that time to watch speedpaints and read comics, which helped me develop my art style) and getting to rachel, who in the comics just had her titties out, being very embarrassed and ashamed about it, getting to the orgy in 24/7, and thinking, wow, i should not be reading this on a school ipad, and then promptly erasing it from my mind. and i gotta say: im considering rereading the comics because of this show and now that i am not restricted to a school ipad. i'll write a whole coherent post on this later. just know its great.
i also saw nope with my good dear friend charlotte!! WOW what a movie. (MAJOR SPOILERS INCOMING, BY THE WAY) it was genuinely amazing from start to finish. the theme of exploitation and spectacle...who we choose to exploit and how we exploit ourselves...the genuine pants shitting terror of jean jacket. the fucking digestion scene. the chimpanzee. listen i'm freaked out by monkeys. they move so humanlike but they're not. it's so weird. jordan peele has once again hit an obscure fear of mine on the head. also i was terrified of the possibility of being abducted by aliens as a child so this freaked me out. the amount of symbolism and themeing...otis senior being killed by money. literally money going through his eye and how he gave away his daughter's birthright of training jean jacket (the horse) for money. jean jacket (the alien) being an eye and a mouth and also being us, the viewers, who watch and consume spectacle with a hungry mouth, and shit out the screams of the victims and money. the fact that jupe must now exploit his own trauma to get ahead. the asian child in the white family, treated with the same comedy as the wild animal in the human family. the fact that jupe isn't even his name, but it's all he's remembered by. the fact that em can't remember his or the black child actor's names. the assimilation into white society, the way he must also laugh and exploit the trauma that they inflicted on him. and the way he exploits the haywoods! the way he feeds on them the same way jean jacket does! oj! oj the cowboy who has to fight for every bit of respect he gets, who the film stars ignore even as he tells them the information that will save them. there's no grandure with him. he doesn't think he has some sort of bond with jean jacket. it's an animal and he knows animals. there's always work to do and he has to feed his horses. i am madly in love with him. and em! god. em. she's clawing for everything she can get. the fact that the end is a reversal of what happened with jean jacket (the horse) where now she has to tame it when oj can't. the akira slide! the final shot of her staring at the camera and then its revealed that she's staring at the impossible! the impossible she deserved! her brother, alive! angel. i love that fucking guy. what a fundamentally weird dude. he cares so much and yet he's also just fucking weird in the way that a lot of computer guys are weird in a nice way and i love that for him. the fact that he survived by wrapping himself in barbed wire and tarp. literally making himself unviewable and unpalatable. the exploitation of the work done by people of color for the profit of white people. the fact that oj recreates the run done by his ancestor, the first spectacle- and then it is not seen, because antlers sacrifices it for the perfect shot. that jupe is now the the model minority, assilimated and consumed by white culture. that reporters show up immediately after em takes the oprah shot, wanting to take her work for their own. the erasure of people of color from industries they defined. cowboys and filmmakers. the bad miracles. the bad miracles.
anyways, its three thirty am now, and i am very tired, so i will end this little diary entry here. i have to sleep tomorrow and watch the new episode of acofaf and do my homework. FUCK i forgot to talk about acofaf. whatever ill do that when the series is done. good night, sweet dreams!