Kirby and the Forgotten Land (2022) + Star-Crossed World DLC (2025)

(10/10) + (9/10)

I was right.

Ok, so getting to play Star Crossed World was a homecoming for me. In the Spring when this was announced I made a whole reaction essay, analysis, speculation, and hypothesis about the final boss. I was hearing those little speculations here and there that it would be Galacta Knight, and as someone who was actively burned the last time I tried to connect my fave to this game (and then AGAIN in RTDLDX), I had very strong opinions on why I believd it couldn't be the case. So strong in fact, that despite this sort of bet being held to me by no one, I swore to see the boss first with my own eyes to confirm that I Was Right.

This was hard given the Switch 2's price and my own being a broke college student, but I had some strategies. Namely, I bout the Switch 2 edition of the game before I had the console, hoping that at some point I may be able to find someone with a console willing to let me borrow it to play. This never came to fruition throughout the Fall and Spring, and eventually by Christmas I just opted to buy the console and play my DLC. But then I realized that, I hadn't played KATFL in a long time, and I wouldn't really be able to appreciate the game without a well-needed replay, so that came first.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is probably the best Kirby game hands down. It is amazing visually, mechanically, NARRATIVELY. Hands down the best story in the series, which I GUESS is surprising for some people to hear because the game doesn't have a lot of cutscenes like its predecessors of Robobot or KSA, but CHRIST the environmental design and the character of the world is immaculate, I remember crying at Wondaria when I first played the game overwhelmed by the message of it all. The message that our love of life and fun and joy as a species will live on beyond us. Even when everything we as a society was is reduced to ruins the fellow living creatures that succeed us will understand and continue to connect with it -- it is executed so quietly and simply, and GORGEOUSLY! Fuck.

My favorite stages are probably Alivel Mall (Staff Side) and the Burning, Churning Powerplant. The first is a majestic recontextualization of the earlier mall levels, which in themselves are beautiful little moment of seeing an entertainment and social space brought to life again. And seeing that energy still with the malls in even worse shape, and even starker image of how these relics will be consumed by time, is powerful. It will continue to be valued as long as it remains in any capacity. And then the powerplant is just a great throwback to other iconic mechanical stages in Kirby, a genre of level I shouted out in the Kirby Interest Hell. And that song was my favorite because of how well it works as a penultimate stage theme as you race to the end to save your little buddy.

And yes, I still loooooove Elfilin so much, he is such a little goober. Like how this game was misconstrued as "Le Dahkest Kirby GAEM!!!" because of its playing with dystopian themes despite its incredibly optimistic twist, Elflin was misunderstood upon first impressions. It was understood to well he would be some kind of twist villain, but the role he ended up playing in relationship to that boss is another simple but elegant story, that to me is about learning to accept different sides of yourself and grow past them. He's been a favorite of mine since because I love Kirby's cute but kind of fucked up characters, especially when they are deeply earnest like Elfilin. AS WELL AS ADORABLE LITTLE CREATURES OOO LA POOKIE!!

And that goes to the center of all of this: GOD AM I SO HAPPY THAT THE DLC BOSS WAS ABOUT ELFILIN AND NOT GALACTA KNIGHT! I. WAS. FUCKING. RIGHT!!! And my reasoning in that essay still stands, Kumazaki and the creative staff have new fish to fry, new ideas to explore, and they are FRESH. I still need to 100% the DLC campaign to get all the ideas together, but I really love the final boss and how it plays into the slight cosmic horror but also beauty that Kirby plays with constantly. I also like that Kumazaki in interviews has talked a lot about Neichel, the fictional singer of the world and her feelings as a native there. You can tell his passion is for everything new he makes and not JUST playing with old tropes over and over. Not that there aren't Kirby Lore-isms to look at, but its your choice to be an idiot and overlook the main narrative and themes just to obsess over that.

Overall, LOVE Kirby and the Forgotten Land -- always have, always will -- and I love this series and I'm happy my appreciation for it as it is payed off. I'm looking forward to sinking my teeth more into these details about the world of my favorite Kirby game specifically and for whatever stories and worlds they create next, God bless Hal Laboratories and NO one else!

Kingdom Hearts R-TFD: "Do No Harm" (2025)

(10/10)

Unlike Hazbin which I was able to wrap up real quick in December, this is something else coming over from 2025 I was watching with my friends on recommendation of them and not me, hence it actually being a great thing to share and not a trauma-bonding watch experience. I remember finishing the very first episode and being absolutely flabbergasted by how hysterical it was all because of the choice of Holly to voice Sora like Joe Pera whoever that is -- I don't even know but it is such an insane, almost visionary choice. I was regularly amazed by how much that choice specifically managed to make the fandub match and sometimes surpass the surreal beauty of Kingdom Hearts as well as really ground the chaos of everything else.

Being a real-time fandub there isn't actually much to talk about it terms of like significance of plot, but it is a feat that over the course of the behemoth they managed to keep running themes and jokes going such as Sora's obsession with cardiology which is such a stupid-funny way to make ANYTHING of the Kingdom "Hearts". But oh God, speaking of nonsensical beauty the theme songs! When I first heard them being hyped up by my friend I didn't really get it cause it just sounded like "Simple and Clean At Home", BUT SOMETIME'S MOM'S COOKING GOES HARD! I really love it, I think more than the original Simple and Clean just because it is so good yet so meaningless. The only real meaning in it being the favorite queer tropes of erotic vivisection, a classic.

I have not been keeping up obsessively with the fandubs, I only really showed up for the Sonic games (and still haven't watched Shadow), but to God this feels like such an elevated project, it is MAGICAL to behold, and having the theme songs it does is really the ribbon on top. It makes me want to play the original Kingdom Hearts not JUST because I want to know what the hell they were dubbing over, but because I kind of hope now the original can elicit anything like this (or more specifically, Do No Harm the theme song) does.

Vividlope (2024)

(10/10)

The original idea for this list in relation to games was to motivate myself to actually beat them. I played the majority of Vividlope in December over my Winter Break and just picked it up again now to try and beat it for the review, but by the late game I would be able to just glance at a level's intro and almost be brought to tears by the idea of playing it.

Vividlope is a BRILLIANT game, and also difficult! I was sold on it by an underrated indie game showcase that marketed it as a great love-letter to the Dreamcast flair with a similarly simple and elegant mechanical design which is super true. All I could think during the first couple of hours was "Fuck, now THIS is a video game!" Like those games of yore it is so arcade-y which each level being a such a unique and fun experience that is always building on itself with new ideas and twists. And at the same time, there is an aesthetic flow throughout everything that means that even if individual worlds and levels don't stand out it's never lacking for character.

And in that fashion its also a deeply frustrating game to play at time. The perspective is very odd, the controls can be very demanding despite this. Enemies are intimidating from the beginning for how they interrupt the puzzles' flow, and they only get bigger and more complex as things go along, on top of more stage hazards. I am serious that you get to a point where you can look at a level and tell it will be such a bad time, sometimes just from ruleset of the map (I hate the infinite color loop...) But it's all GREAT. It is a mother fucking VIDEO GAME! And I've always loved every moment with it -- highly recommend, super underrated.

Forrest Gump (1986)

(9/10)

Voted "Favorite Unfinished Media of 2025" by and for me, I finally got around to finishing the book motivated by the work on my Media Awards and general New Years spirit. I read some 90% of it maybe last year and finished another 7% during some adventures trekking to the nearest local library by bus in the snow and getting thrown outside cause no one can bother to be open past 5 on a Friday. I ended up reading about Gump turning back to his vagabond life just as I was loitering inside a building myself, and it made it feel very cozy to come back to. The ending made me pretty emotional thinking about my growing wish to live a simple life, and I was very happy I read this instead of watching whatever the movie was about?

So, I picked this book up in the summer of last year after watching an interesting video essay about the movie's covert conservative messaging from its attempts to be 'apolitical' Americana fantasy. WHat most interested me - (besides this just being an overall fascinating essay which also gave me another recommendation in "Candide", which I hope to finish this year too) - were the descriptions of the original book with Gump being far more of a well-realized character who swears and fucks and calls the Vietnam War a load of shit. The fact that this poster child movie for representing the mentally handicapped took all the life out of a character originally written with nuance to turn him into this symbol really ticked something in me off, so on that and a general aim to read the sources of media essays I find, I started reading it and it was a fucking BLAST.

This book is so fucking funny, and yes, you will fall in love with Forrest Gump written by Winston Groom. The book is great both in its stupid situational moments and because Forrest has such a well-realized and distinct style of narration. It's narrated from his perspective start to end and in his southern dialect, but it is so vivid and simple at the same time. Just that detail alone does so much to paint Forrest as a character a lot beyond his label as an idiot even if a lot of the book is the joke of situations he gets into, though usually about how people around him react to him.

Even like dumbass shit like this running joke of him saying "I gotta pee" at inopportune times actually comes back for a fucking knock-out by the end when he's running for goddamn office and says it and it becomes a slogan. It's so dumb, its so silly, but also biting in just the right way. And as Deschanel says in their essay, yeah he has opinions on shit! The book is almost always pointed at American culture whether through Gump's own words or the ridiculousness he's put through, and there is an elegance to how it talks about him grappling with his opinions on harder things like grief and regret. You can tell its a lot that he either cannot or doesn't want to put his feelings into words but still feels them deeply and its humanizing.

I really recommend it because its great but still light enough most of the time that its almost a popcorn read. When I started reading it my idea was to watch the movie after I finished it, but even just from what the essay described I never want this character to be ruined for me by a retelling that turns him into a symbol of keeping your head down American fantasy instead of just being this creative character and cultural exploration. The both copies I read have Tom Hank's name bigger than Winston Groom's on the cover pisses me off.

Bradbury's The Veldt (1950)

(10/10)

The Veldt is a story I literally thought about all month since I read it like in the first week. It is so good, it is so so good. I picked it up in an anthology of Ray Bradbury's work and read it and it was so entertaining I didn't even feel the need to read the rest of the stories. So, since I had read 451 last year I knew that I wanted to get into more of Bradbury's work because it just resonated a lot with me, and then a few weeks into 2026 you have a Jacob Geller video which brought up one that sounded super interesting. So after finishing Forrest Gump I picked it up and read it a few days later.

Something I love about Bradbury's dystopias is that they are very ungraceful and blunt in their commentary. Not stupid, but they felt very American to me because they are not very political but just stories about how some of the most common consumerist habits are clearly the root of all evil. Like the TV, blown up into giant wall-to-wall displays in his stories, are clearly satanic to him, and he is very disgusted by their purpose for providing a second world to step into. In 451 this is a tool of distraction from the outside world and even the connection two spouses should have with each other among a million other jabs at earbuds (before they were a thing?) and car culture. In The Veldt the mega-TV is the central demon and plays with the theme of when it comes TOO alive in literal and metaphorical senses.

I think what also makes it so fun is that it is also fundamentally a story about fear of children and losing children to technological advances. It is a story about spoiling your children with material things until those material things become more important to them than you, and they choose to bite the hand that feeds them because all they see is the food. Because you aren't feeding them by hand, you gave them a food dispenser and then threatened to take it away. I think my favorite part of thinking about this story over and over was realizing why the parents were finding their stuff lying around the room every time they went in. It's not a twist it's just clever foreshadowing that works to emphasize just how bad the tension was between the parents and the kids the whole time, and how stupidly oblivious the parents were.

I'm purposefully being vague not because the story is like a mystery or anything, but because you should read it its like 10 pages or something and I love it. I love how cynical it is, how bluntly Bradbury damns so many consumerist traps, and... imagining people getting eaten by lions.

Mario Kart Wii (2008)

(7/10)

Ever since Mario Kart World, and especially its soundtrack, had begun consuming my life I started looking back on older Mario Karts. I had done so with Super Mario Kart a while ago because it was supposed to be the inspiration for a game and didn't enjoy my time with it; I had Super Circuit for my GBA SP (The SPboy) but hated that as well; And I had put my hands on Mario Kart 64 because I also really adore its soundtrack, but it was still a hassle to play. I don't have access to Double Dash, but I had picked up a copy of Mario Kart Wii a while ago and... hated it then too, but decided to give it another chance cause its OST enraptured me too.

I guess first on its soundtrack... so the video "The Best Album of 2025 Isn't An Album" said pretty well how Mario Kart 8 and World are specific leaps in presentations for MK soundtracks not because past ones were bad or lazy, but just because they stepped into an unmissable sound and presence in the games' aesthetics. As someone who has kinda listened to all of these soundtracks now, I definitely think World is unquestionably on top, but I no longer see MK8 (my darling game) as its 2nd. Cause the MKWii soundtrack is AGGRESSIVELY Nintendo. The Wii was one of the last consoles to have its own soundfont which is used to its beautiful fullest in the OST and it gives it SO much character that it honestly in my mind puts MK8's big band approach to shame -- it's almost boring by comparison! Especially with World offering a more character-rich and eclectic take. This to say, I really love the MKWii OST, it kind of tops MK8 for me on sheer personality alone. My favorite tracks are probably Daisy Circuit, Koopa Cape, Grumble Volcano, and Moonview Highway.

Ok, but onto the game -- I hated playing it. This and MKW have chaotic balancing in common as I've heard and very much felt playing both, but what MKW has over Wii is grace. It has tact, it has kindness in its heart. Wii has none of this, and it turns the chaotic item rotation from a teasing joke to an insult. Like surely if you've played World after playing other MK's you've noted how many hazards no longer stop you in place but just through you off thanks to the amazing physics system, and that works wonderfully with the crazy hazards. Wii... if you get hit in Wii you will stop DEAD in your tracks at least and be thrown off for so long at worst. It is criminal when hitting walls, and ridiculous when getting hit by other players -- if you dare to play a small character you will be pinballed around like it's no one's business. And then hazards like bullets and stars that are NOT YOUR FAULT if you get hit by them are as punishing as shells or lightning, it just makes the whole experience unreasonably frustrating.

But I played on, inspired by my nostalgia and new-found appreciation for its aesthetics in context of where the series has gone. I also did come to enjoy it some bit as I realized skill did factor a fair bit into your playing; actually carefully controlling your kart and handling was far more important than it was in 8 or World. But those moments of joy and sense of accomplishment were quickly drowned in a sea of garbage physics moments and item punishment which made me very happy to set down the controller after I was done. I could imagine myself picking it back up once or twice more, but not the way I do World. A fun enough revisit.

Atlyss (2024)

(8/10)

I was on a bottom-of-the-barrel video essay hunt one day when I saw a random video out of the corner of my eye defending some game I'd never heard of which had supposedly been constantly accused of being "furry gooner bait" or something of that ilk, and that game was Atlyss. That defense seemed very warranted however from how the video explained it, and then hearing that it was a $10 MMO with fun gameplay and funny furry guys had me interested enough to buy it on a whim. I was actually surprised by how tame it was given the hooplah, you would think it as super lewd or explicit or something, but it is really hardly more fanservice-y than the average MMO with the only difference being that the fanservice was aimed at fatfurs. I, an enlightened furry, was completely unoffended by this; in fact I often ended up wishing that characters were fatter so that there could be more diversity in body shapes instead of everything being mostly a variation of a chubby hourglass.

On the gameplay: It is super fun! I haven't played a little action RPG in forever and it was way more engaging than I was expecting from such a small project. During the beginning of the month I would be really eager to come back to it and do a little more grinding, and I was rewarded with a satisfying amount of progress everytime through the fun dungeons and bosses. It asks you to engage with your range of weapons, though I tried my best to brute force through everything with the bell weapons because - COME ON - IT'S A HEAVY MAGE WEAPON! IT WAS MADE FOR ME!

I got super attached to my character in a way I rarely get to with the MMOs I try to pick up that lean more into an anime style. There isn't much in the way of compelling plot and characters by itself, but the fun about an MMORPG like this is how the character becomes an extension of your choices, preferences, and memorable excursions. My guy was a fat pink dragon named Bernard; and just through his silly lazy face and the vibe of his starting clothing I decided that in his life (because you play as a revived soul in another dimension here) he was a spoiled annoying prince who was offed by his siblings in a feud that wasn't really his business. A listless soul revived and given a chance to really do something in this new world, whatever that something is supposed to be by the endgame. I didn't play all the way through.

Something else I adore about the character creator is that, well... it might be the only one I've ever encountered where I can actually make my own body shape in it, my chubby bottom-heavy self. Is it somewhat disheartening that this is only in a very fetish-y game and not one altruistically trying to reflect body diversity for its own sake? Maybe. Is it hilarious that my body type is basically the minimum options on all the sliders and even half way through betrats the fetishistic intentions of even having such body types? Maybe. But am I offended by the funny fatfur game that overall has great, simple visuals and a well-crafted gameplay loop? No, and I reccomend it if you're someone like me who loves toony styles and isn't offended by jiggle physics on anthro guys (which you can turn off). I will be looking out for news of its full release since right now it is just in early access, but for now I am very satisfied with getting Bernard to level 10 where he's gained a cute new mage outfit!

Zootopia 2 (2025)

(6/10)

It's OK. The first Zootopia used to be one of my favorite Disney films before years of reflection on its premise and social commentary had started to sour in my mouth. It's kind of like Hamilton (my absolute abhorred) in that respect of just pre-Trump residue, and I think since them other kids films like Elemental and Trolls 2 have done a lot more with their bigotry messages. People somehow give them shit or call them essentialist but all of them still had a lot more room for grace than fucking predators-as-minorites/prey-as-the-privileged, with Judy's perspective basically being that of a rural white woman cop -- christ.

This film somewhat improves on that by being more about a solid historical wrong to be corrected than a systemic dynamic, but it is also more cowardly for trying to now blame everything on one family. And from the loins of that noble house springs forth Pawbert, who I am somewhat torn on. In him is another bold attempt to correct a critique of the original's godawful twist villain by building him up a lot more and almost staring at the camera daring you to complain again. The movie very much wants to have its cake and eat it too with him, and its not bad, literally joking 'you were looking out for the twist villain, weren't you' before revealing himself. And while yes, his reveal is great for a lot more than just shock, there is still an issue of foreshadowing and substance, and in a way the little bit of extra effor makes me feel robbed for that more than I did with the lamb from the first one.

There was a huge missed opportunity to always have Pawbert be an iffy character concealed through his charmingly, awkward demeanor, showing that despite his insecurity he is still someone who is willing to make sacrifices for his privilege through smaller, not overtly villainous ways. We should have had a Pawbert with a micro-aggression counter and multiple red flags before his turn. That is what people hate the most about twist villains is that they have a lack of presence throughout the whole film like other loveable cunts. Sure, his presence throughout the climax is fun, but it could have been more if these people weren't such pussies about making sure their twist villains are so undetectable, its just weakness.

Besides that silly goose, the tone in this one was also very weird to me, with the pacing of some jokes being so rapid-fire it almost reminds me of like Trolls or the Lego Movies, which is out of place for this. I don't think of Disney as making films like that because their stories aren't as absurdist as those offerings, they try to be solid worlds with very solid characters, stakes, and weight. And it gets so embarrassing during that confrontation at the end, another shame because I thought that the tension between Judy and Nick was super compelling and deserved more lipservice than them crying each other that they both just have their own complexes. I feel like their differences would be great grounds for exploration but sigh... despite the politics in my baby movie it does not actually want to be political. It's... OK. But I do have to be sure to scrub Pawbert from my brain before I like him too much for his potential.

Star Wars: Episodes IV - VI, I - III (1977 - 2005)

(10/10), (7/10)

THAT'S RIGHT FUCKER -- 6 MOVIES IN ONE. This all actually just started with my wanting to rewatch Revenge of the Sith because I had missed Anakin (and again, needed Pawbert out of the 'sad meow meow' spot in my heart), but I really don't think any of the Star Wars films are watchable just in isolation.

For the original trilogy, I am still blown away by how immensely FUN the films are, how electric the cast is and their great chemistry with each other, and putting it side by side with the prequels is a really good clue to the latter's problems. I feel somewhat silly even trying to explain what's wrong with the movies cause they entered my life so recently for how much ink has been spilled in fandom-dom about them, but just... the way I've taken to explaining it to people lately is... that watching the prequels is like watching a VERY bad production of a Shakespeare play. YOU KNOW THE PLAY IS FIRE, THE SCRIPT IS FIRE, but the actual people and play being rehearsed in front of you is such dogwater it is beyond painful. It's like eating gourmet food with a dirty, rusty spoon.

People call the writing bad and say that the lines are weird and cringey, but when you think about it the original films also have some silly lines, like all of Luke's delightful little wizard one-liners by the end of episode VI, but you're just so invested in Luke and know him usually that it is effective as a tonal switch. Vader has corny ass lines too but James Earl Jones is just capable of saying anything cool. Similar to his other fellow theater import, everything out of Palpatine's mouth from beginning to end in these films is pure 24k gold. If one good thing came out of rewatching the prequels for me it was adding more forgotten Palpatine lines to my vocabulary.

As I said, i was watching for my meow meow Anakin, but I got kind of derailed from the movies by the end because I learned about how there was this novelization of Episode III that was allegedly one of the greatest pieces of American literature, that just happened to be a Star Wars novelization. I read like 5 pages of it and knew exactly what people fucking meant, and it's made me reluctant to actually finish watching Episode VI (I got half way through it over 2 days) because... GOD THE REAL SHIT'S IN THAT BOOK!! This can't be a review of it yet because now I'm still barely 6 chapters in but IT IS RAW AS FUCK, it does everything right and digs so deep into the characters in the kind of way that a shitty acting performance bars you from feeling.

OUGH. The main lesson of this watch-through was to trust in more supplementary material. It reminds me of the Tarkovsky Star Wars short films and how seeing Anakin's characterization in that - now bolstered by the character animation instead of a flat ass actor - made me realize that I was not insane for thinking he was meant to be a great character.

Imaginal Disk Album (2024)

(10/10)

Doing music was always somewhat problematic for this blog because I tend to listen to music, even when I get into full albums, in a more passive way than I do TV, movies, or games. There was plenty of music I got into last year besides Fancy That, but I simply forgot to write for any of them. And while I promised to myself to be more diligent about that this year, well... so far it's just been me and the Mario Kart soundtracks. But luckily Bandcamp Friday gifted me with an earworm parasite that has lasted me for going on months. Not that I actually bought the whole album on Bandcamp, at the time I was only really obsessed with You Lose! and Killing Time and bought those singles, but since them I have absolutely plunged into obsession with the full album of the latter.

Killing Time itself is a beautiful, transcendent song to me about maladaptive daydreaming and other related mental curses of waiting for your life to start for you, and it is also a great example of the kind of sonic experience that is this album. Soaring from catchy, pop-y, quirky beats into layered, distorted noise, like in "Tunnel Vision", and Mica's wonderful vocals ranging from breathless to hauntingly entranced to almost howling. Other songs later in the album such as "Watching TV", and "Cry For Me" are also great examples of this and a chilling to relisten to over and over. It actually turned me off the first time I listened to it back in 2024, and I won't lie that I did not expect to get invested in the album even my first time revisiting it this year, but after you get lost in it, you really get lost in it!

I think the entire package comes together in its narrative themes too, about romanticism, codependency, avoidance, and obsessiveness. To me it sort of comes off as the journey of a girl through young womanhood, staring with somewhat of an origin story mixed with beautiful metaphor for violent self-growth in "She Looked Like Me", followed by a pained journey through love and beauty standards, break ups, and unhealthy obsessions with how other people are meant to define herself. Even in the end of "Ballad of Matt & Mica" (despite me being pretty sure its meant to be about the artists, I'm not into the meta-lore yet) has this note of doubting what it even means for the protagonist to have found success, still unsure of herself and her agency. It just fucking rocks man, and I just put that shit on any time for anything. Already have a bunch of head AMVs too which may one day hopefully inspire me to get back to my Character Pages.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (2026)

(10/10)

I have been so hyped for this game since announcement fucking forever ago, and I was also always so hyped that it was made for the Switch 1. In all the hysterics over the Switch 2 being a normal price for a video game console, and people swearing that Nintendo was coming into their house to steal money out of their bank account, folks lost track of the fact that Switch 1 was still seeing a bit of support, at least up till the release of the new Rhythm Heaven this year. And I feel like both those more niche but loveable titles are great late releases for the console. For me especially, I've used that window as an excuse to make my island a shrine to my Switch's legacy.

First to be added were Swoocey and Neon OFC, Swooce because she... through complicated personal logistics IS my Nintendo Switch, and Neon as a guest. Then I added some Splatoon 2 OCs, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kirby, Elfilin and Forgo, Mario and Luigi (but butch), some gays from Final Fantasy, Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin, Spamton and Tenna -- and now whoever else I feel. All of these being characters from games on my Switch so I can feel like it's kind of a little home for them like some Wreck-It Ralph shit. I will admit it sucks that that choice means I can't put my OCs on the island, but I've been revisiting the 3DS Tomodachi to do that.

And on the old Tomodachi, it is actually really hard to go back to after all the improvements Living the Dream has made. Mostly the addition of queerness and so many better black hairstyles I was actually getting misty-eyed when making my first mii, but also the GENIUS decision to let you pick up and move miis around. The one for the 3DS has so much deadtime where you have to rely on the miis to do things, but now there is such a great loop in just making your miis meet each other and managing their social circles, on top of the randomness and spontaneousness the game is known for. I have tried all I can to make Tenna confess to Spamton, but instead I've just watched as Neon and butch Mario have gotten married and had a child, there is still so much silliness to love. I shouldn't even really have to recommend this game to you, like it's goddamn Tomodachi Life, it should be a canon experience for everyone.

Project Hail Mary (2026)

(10/10)

Oh, this is a beautiful movie. I first heard about it as A New Movie WitH Ryan Gosling, and then watched one of my Tumblr mutuals be consumed by it, but it was a friend of mine who saw it in theaters who got me around to watching it with them. I'm not the biggest alien sci-fi person I think because when I think about a modern one of those I imagine a very overly artsy and grave film using aliens either as a metaphor for something incredibly abstract or just as a big monster. It's hard for me to think of a live-action sci-fi film I have seen that looked like it would be as goddamn whimsical and heartfelt as this. It has its drama portions but is just very... human and hopeful in a way I super appreciate.

By the time I watched this I had come back from Model UN and all that business which had given me a new perspective on how international level politics sort of vibes. A lot of the people I met were just... almost shockingly pro-human as I would call it as well as serious as hell about their job, and it left me with a lot of hope despite the state of things day to day. That reminded me a lot of what was going on with Eva and the people around Grace, and I think the part of the film besides the adventures with Rocky that makes me so sure of this film's soul was that it was not an us vs them comparison with a negative finger towards humans. It was about the importance of sacrifice and work and connection between all intelligent life in the film, and even with the non-sapient creatures in the astrophage and the astrophage-phage -- the goal was to balance rather than eradicate despite how dire things were.

If you've ever interacted with anyone and said "they have a beautiful soul" that's how I feel with this movie. Not to mention how smart it is, I need to give it a good rewatch sometime to soak in more details and the like, because friends of mine more deep into it are always pointing things out to me. Awesome ass movie -- amaze, amaze, amaze!

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982 Stage Recording)

(10/10)

One day I was working at Target as a cashier by a register where a woman was trying to help teach her child to pay for things on her own. The girl looked up at her mom to ask some silly question and the woman sang to her, "You are young... the world has been kind to you... You will learn...". Besides being deeply funny on its own, I recognized it as being from Sweeney Todd, one of my favorite movie musicals, and upon making it clear to her which version I recognized her head basically snapped towards me with a (lighthearted) glare, telling me I HAVE to see it on stage. At the time I found this rather insulting, I mean who the fuck was paying for my tickets to the plane and show necessary to go see that shit? Since then I have gotten to watch a Broadway productionf or the first time in my life, of Les Mis, and lowkey I do get the difference in impact. And I had always planned to go see the show in person when a reasonable chance appeared before me.

But, being recently annoyed by similar sentiments in online discourse I said "fuck you snobs" and just watched a recording of the original cast run. In multiple 3 minute parts and in 480p as god intended. And I will give the snobs half a credit, that stage script is way better than the movie. I prefer some of the vocal performances of the original and don't mind it as a Burtonian interpretation, but it is very interesting that... pretty much everything that was cut and streamlined to fit into the movie was... the development of the female characters. And also that Burton's rule of cool for Depp's Sweeney Todd was to make him really cold and cruel towards Mrs. Lovett despite them having such chemistry on stage. I'm really not sure if I can live without this version of the characters from now on.

The worst done by far is Johanna, who is reduced to absolutely nothing in the movie but maybe a shocking twist on the damsel in distress trope where instead of being grateful and hopeful she seems perpetually traumatized as she is whisked away. Wooow, so fucking profound Burton -- IN THE ORIGINAL SHE IS SO DELIGHTFUL! She is a full character as a damsel, funny and sweet, and who - again - HAS WONDERFUL CHEMISTRY WITH HER LOVE INTEREST ANTHONY! One of my favorite songs now is probably "Kiss Me" because it is a great little exercise for her voice in the romance subplot and what adorable love-struck puppies the two are. They feel like just an instrument of the tragedy in Burton's film, just one lucky enough to not end up soaked in the bloodbath of the final act, but on stage it's clear they're meant to be a relief from the angst of Todd. AND, DARE I SAY, THEIR ON COMMENTARY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMANIZING VICTIMS!

Sweeney Todd is a story about how romantic revenge leads you on a fruitless quest where, spoilers, Todd ends up killing the very woman he loved because he turned a blind eye to the world and her not being in her idealized state. She suffered right in front of his eyes but he was cruel to her so trapped in his own tormented self-myth. Anthony saves Johanna yes after falling in love with her at first glance, but after talking to her and planning with her and sticking to her no matter what. It is a hopeful reversal and not just a fake dark plottwist that gives me as a woman a character to work off of and not a fucking doll. Pisses me off severe'ly. Still love this tragedy, and I'm looking forward now to exploring more of its iterations that hopefully do not leave my new favorite Disney princess out in the cold.

Helluva Boss, Season 1 - 2 (2020 - Present)

(8/10)

Ok, so I will say one thing -- I like this show a lot more than Hazbin Hotel! It's not that its conceptually better, I think both shows had a lot of potential to be an amazing complementary duo of explorations of La Vivzie-verse, but unfortunately they both suck for similar reasons that just weigh on Hazbin more. One of those mutual reasons being casually misogynistic writing, which is a critique that slowly dragged me into watching this show. And I understand why it is such a bigger target in critique of this show, because Vivzie's casual misogyny mixed with Brandon Rogers' sensibilities makes it turn towards violent in a way I highly doubt either really intended. The way I've been saying it to people is that Vivzie's misogyny is fandomite typical absence of work on women characters without any especial malice (unless they're in the way of male blorbos), and that void is filled in by Brandon Rogers' over the top vulgarity that flatters no one, but now takes up a disproportionate space in the female characters' arcs.

In Hazbin I think most of the female characters suffer writing problems similar to the men, with the exception of Vox and Alastor whom oppress everyone else with their inflated screen time. In Helluva it is HIGHLY notable, I think because the comedy focus makes dramatic moments stand out more - so you notice how many jarring tender plotbeats men have and notice the lack of those for the female characters. Quickly. And it is incredibly unfortunate because I really like the characters in this show! And I really want to have more reasons to like the female characters that the show is just not allowing me! And I like pretty much everyone in this show more than Stolas, for reasons not unlike why I dislike Vox and Alastor.

I wouldn't say his screentime is inflated - he is kind of a main dramatic character - but god I just don't buy him. The show gets into his angst way too quickly and it makes him annoying, and he is just one of the most irritating examples of how Vivzie wants to do something with class in her stories but doesn't really think about how this shit works. If he had spent a lot more time being earnestly spoiled in unsympathetic ways the way that Blitzo is so obviously a whirlwind of selfishness and trouble, I think his arc would have been more satisfying. But now I only have this stupid bird twink and his cryfests, and his terribly written wife.

I hope for more interesting explorations of the class barrier between him and the imps in the third season dearly. Unlike Hazbin I actually have a fair bit of hope that this show will at least continue to be entertaining as hell. It really makes the beauty of an indie project like it show at its best - this fun, manic, often beautifully animated, queer fuckfest. I think Vivzie and Rogers make a good duo of head creatives, and would make a far better one if they payed more attention to their female characters. In the meantime Blitzo may actually be a bi/pansexual icon for me I fear...

The Great Contradition: The Tragic Side of the American Founding (2025)

(10/10)

Some time during the school year I read about a really good documentary on the multiracial character of the American Revolution, which has always been a sleeper interest of mine since watching Alexander Avila's great video on Obama Era Liberalism in Hamilton. So, then when I saw this book sitting on a shelf I figured it would be good to indulge myself on this topic. It's relatively short but packed with great observations on the topic. Not really ABOUT the black and indigenous people in the story of the revolution but just how the founding father maneuvered politically with the topics. And it's funny because you would assume learning about stuff like this - why slavery persisted despite EVERYONE knowing that emancipation was a parallel ideal with independence, and that the genocide and occupation of indigenous lands persisted despite being anti-imperial in ideology - would make one less reverent of the founding fathers, but it had the opposite effect on me. Because it perfectly put into context that these were POLITICAL MANUEVERS, not ideological, and without negating the horrors of these choices you understand their canniness.

And part of what makes that understandable is understanding how much those actual positive qualities of the revolutionary sentiment were obstructed by two forces: the Southern social order, and the a-political movements of the American citizenry. It actually goes somewhat without saying that the actual PEOPLE involved in any revolution are not ideologically in line with the thought leaders, the masses just do not have that level of consciousness they fight for what feels right to them not what they read out of a bunch of books, but it was kind of appalling how consistently the Southern leadership in and outside of the Founding Fathers' circle completely contradicted everything they stood for in order to maintain their way of life. They didn't even really participate in the Revolution because they could care less who ruled them as long as they kept their enslaved, and during efforts to create the original confederate structure and to federalize, Southern representatives would REGULARLY threaten to completely abandon and thus ruin the project if the topic of slavery was not ignored; they held the entire future of the nation hostage to continue their system without even ideological justification.

WHICH THERE WERE MANY OF. One of the joys of the length of time reading this was when a classmate of mine from Model UN (who was running for Student Gov. President, keep that in mind) was discussing politics with me, and we were talking about Israel and Palestine. He asked me a great question after kinda being a little struck by my knowledge on it as he had had a very 'its too complicated' mindset, and in great faith he just asked: "What do you think can be done to fix it?" And I said I was not sure, but it would take an effort equal to de-nazification of Germany and I just hope we are moving towards some resolution. Trying to be profound he said the issue must have been like with American slavery where we "didn't understand" how bad it was until the Revolutionary War, and I used this book as my source against that thinking. A great reason to read non-fiction now is that you can cite it in an argument without sounding as stupid as if you had cited a video essay.

And something I had wished I realized at the time was that American slavery and Israel's apartheid over Palestine are alike as political issues in the American consciousness, but for the exact opposite reason he said. That people KNEW the whole time and strong arguments were always made for the case of the oppressed, but those who still knew but didn't care or were actively enabling the cruelty would just enter thought-cancelling rhetoric into the political arena until things seemed "inevitable", and, will likely reach an ideological breaking point. I just pray that the future reparations to the Palestinians does not fall apart as atrociously as reconstruction.

I almost stopped and skipped to the end at the single chapter on the Indigenous policy, but it was honestly one of the most intriguing parts of the book showing that the federal US government initially and effortfully sought fair relations with the indigenous peoples as a matter of foreign policy, but they simply did not have the force to enforce their own rules. Whether this is too graceful to their failures, I think the underlying idea observation that very few of the actual people of America were on the side of peace with indigenous Americans is true one, and parallels my understanding of these things from my seminar class a semester before. These days the scripts if usually flipped with the people being the least war and disruption-hungry and the government dragging us a long, but that is an effect of public schooling on civic education, worldliness, and the rise of mass media. And then the final chapters were honestly a punch in the gut, tearing into the psychology of Washington and Jefferson as Southern despots over their plantations and how the same mentality that held them back from fully pursuing equality in their own estates was that which consumed the antebellum south and led to its stagnation under the slave economy. It was the writing of someone who (as I noticed at the back of the book) had a lot to say about someone like Jefferson and had already written about it.

Overall just a FANTASTIC and really eye-opening book, and the experience of it has kept me glued on trying to keep up my reading. I will find that documentary for the July 4th season however.

Persepolis (2001-2003)

(10/10)

Last year, my reading of My Sister Guard Your Veil led me to watching the Persepolis, both works which stuck with me. Then this spring while I was shelving books at work I noticed the original graphic novel and decided to give it a read, which ended up being a very different experience. If not for the expanded and more intimate narrative that comes to the medium of the graphic novel, the current bullshit war of the US and Israel against Iran and Satrapi's sudden death just a few weeks after I finished reading make it seem more pertinent than ever. There were moments of the graphic novel that made me cry that didn't in the film, and some new favorite scenes of mine that never even made it into the film.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie was rather different from the film where Marjene sics the police on a man to get herself out of a bind. In the film she did this to be rid of a catcaller, but in the original she completely fabricated the story to avoid the police's attention on her given her fear they would arrest her for being made-up in public. It was both a more dire situation, and a more disgusting reaction, especially her trying to make light of it to her grandmother afterwards who scolds her for her lack of solidarity with her people. It contrasts well with an earlier story left out of the film about her father disallowing their poor maidgirl to fraternize with a neighbor, and a young Marjene having seen the girl like a sister - and read a concerning amount of Marx for her age - cries whether the father really cares for the lowerclass. The confrontation now is not just about solidarity despite gender, but also across class lines in face of her own privileges.

The more detailed pace that a graphic novel can take helped emotional and informational beats hit and stick better, as well as giving me a more nuanced view of just how privileged her family was in Iran as the descendants of royals. And especially how despite this, her lifestyle to me appeared visibly upper-working class - having a nice apartment, buying CDs and memorabilia, going to a liberal school. I appreciate how much more dimension I see in her life thanks to this revisit, and I think it really made her death hit so much harder. Especially the fact she allegedly died of a broken heart when one of the turning points of the book is her nearly dying in Europe due to a break-up after surviving so much in Iran. The dissonance between the two lives and the meaning of 'privilege' in face of just the spontaneity of life is heavy in the work, and you can tell it was the musings of a very beautiful and thoughtful soul.

I can see myself looking to purchase the graphic novels for myself as I really adore the artstyle. I complimented before that it sits perfectly between modernist, classical elegance, and incredibly human in its cartooning. It is deeply inspiring and has me really wanting to dive into comic art.

The Backrooms (2006)

(10/10)

I am going to be so, so for real with you, I was not expecting this movie to be SHIT, but it left me with CHILLS in the theater after watching it. My little brother was more raving to see it than me and we caught the midnight release on Thursday, and I was expecting it to kinda just do what the online series with a cinematic coat of paint, probably dragging it closer to Stranger Things than before, but BOY WAS I FUCKING WRONG. The Backrooms (2026) is the best Silent Hill movie adaption we've ever gotten -- THAT'S the direction it went in and it BALLED. I was so not expecting to be invested in the characters and to continue to think about them afterwards, but they are in there along with the thing that ACTUALLY kept me up at night about the film -- using the Backrooms to explore the surreal horror of memory. Of the mind, of our cycles and traps, and the way we relive distorted versions of our experiences. It punches so hard in the transition flashback into the final act and especially, ESPECIALLY for the ending. Walking out the theater I think I heard people chittering beside me about trying to "understand" what the ending "meant", or that it disappointed them -- THEY ARE FOOLS. That ending is not to be understood it is to be FELT, it is meant to just haunt you purely, AND ITS BALLSY AND I LOVE IT.

I think another thing that makes the film so tantalizing to me was its incredible focus on psychology, not just as a psychological horror but in having a therapist and client relationship at the center of the story and taking A LOT of time to flesh out the therapist, sometimes more (and in my opinion a bit to the detriment) of the client character. Not just as a psychologist myself but one coming off of my first experiences in a clinical/care setting, the way they played with this felt very true to what I had seen and I applauded it for doing that while still being incredibly dark! To not say too much the ending is not exactly hopeful for either of them psychologically, and for a moment it kind of upset me as I'm not a fan of narratives that reinforce ideas about mental illness being inescapable, but I think the story is just so about the way we get trapped by it and is still so thoughtful in execution that I have to give it kudos. I really feel a standalone essay on the psychology in this film coming up, but only after a rewatch.

Then finally more mechanically, the film is flawed! I am giving it a 10/10, but if it weren't for the pacing it would be 100/10. WITHIN scenes, it is immaculate, you really see Kane Parsons' found footage experience creating a uniquely slow and insidious pace that draws you into each (BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED BY CARPENTERS) space, but the actual plot moves along too quick moving from the second to third acts. Basically, this movie was like 75 minutes but it could have been 4 hours easily, it could have been an endless fever dream of watching these fuckers sink into a nightmare mind-fuck and I would have been seated for ALL OF IT. I am happy it got to do so much that was unconventional, but if it had just broken that one with the length of the film it could have been something more than amazing!

Overall HIGHLY recommend whether you like the webseries or not, whether you like Backrooms as monster/chase horror as not because it just milks everything I could have asked for out of the concept for a movie. Fucking elevated and we need to celebrate adaptions like this that fit the medium without talking down to fans while still respecting the FUCK out of the source material.

Iron Lung (2026)

(7/10)

To not be too cruel right off the bat, Iron Lung is a lot more like what I thought the Backrooms movie was gonna be, but that doesn't mean its bad!! It is still a film that respects itself as its own project, and besides Markiplier Markipliering out on a few tasteful occasions, it does not feel like a fanservice fest. I only knew the premise of Iron Lung and not much about its "lore" or endings but I was really engaged the whole time and enjoyed the twists, even if things got a bit too hectic to follow near the end. I had a pretty hard time understanding what Simonipleir was trying to accomplish in the midst of all the chaos, but I will not lie and say that the chaos was not compelling.

One thing too is that by the end of it I was saying to my friends it came off as more of a thriller film to me than horror, and I had a hard time communicating way, especially to my friend who was just scared the whole time anyways lmao. But I think what I meant was just that there was an action and objective-based plot focus that made the horrors seem less like scares and more like obstacles. Usually a horror film is less about something bad happening to someone on their way to an objective than it is about them falling into some trap I think is the difference. And also, I do think that the sort of tone and style of the film was just not... sophisticated enough to be horror? At least like not to the standards we have today, like I know this would do numbers in the mid-century sci-fi/horror genre era, but I am used to things that look and feel a different way.

Either way, really great time though unlike the Backrooms I DON'T feel like I can recommend it to everyone. Most internet horror fans for sure, and anyone who likes Markiplier's pretty mug (or wants to support indie projects), but it still has that indie, youtuber-on-a-single-set charm that is still somewhat niche.

The History of White People (2010)

(9/10)

There's a part of me that feels a bit disingenuous putting this on here because I didn't full read through the book, I more skimmed, because it is a huge ass book. But I did get to its ending, read through a substantial amount of material, and come away with a lot to say about the book so neh-neh to my perfectionist self -- its like reviewing a video game after speeding through it. I almost didn't reach the end too cause I just picked it up at the library and was planning on putting it down twice. The first time I was about to I read a review on the back that made me realize the author was a woman so I kept reading just to support a girlie, and the second time I saw her portrait on the back page and realized she was a black woman, so then I was reading to support a sister.

The two sections which stuck out to me the most were one on Tocqueville, darling of early American political analysis, and a later on on the modern consolidation of what identity during the mid 20th century. I had only read the tiniest sliver of Tocqueville so I can't blame my readings, but hearing that he had but a small chapter to address the slave society south and found it to completely contradict his positive image of American before averting his eyes in confusion is deeply interesting, and I can see myself seeking out that sometime. It goes a long with the image that The Great Contradiction drew with how the South perversely held onto everything so undemocratic, cruel, and despotic about its way of life in complete opposition to the Revolutionary ideals which flourished more in the North. The country seemed to have really been two separate realities at the time and it makes it no surprise that things eventually had to come to civil war. Modernly we often make it JUST about slavery as a sort of dissociated concept from the US otherwise being whole, but the difference between a slave and free society is staggering in consuming all things economic, social, and political. Not that the North was not still virulently racist, but in an incredibly different way.

But on that racism, the story of whiteness throughout the 20th century is basically the story of how the North finally got to create their own segregated society. This period of history and this aspect of it has ALWAYS been a deep fascination of mine, but it is often just hard to talk about because it is taboo to talk about whiteness cause then you allegedly start sounding like a Nazi. But that is the trap, that is the thought-cancelling rhetoric because just because the thinking was different or worse does not mean it should not be studied. The way that many European ethnicities were able to escape the non-white label is not a matter of "race being applied less loosely today" it is a matter of understanding it as the social construction it is and its place in maintaining hierarchy. It's why honestly me entire ideology is that white people need to start having ethnic pride and not identifying wholly with whiteness anymore. It is just a social class distinction, but your ethnicity and familial background is a real heritage to be proud of! And it'll make y'all shut the ever loving fuck up about 'Why can't we have WHITE pride if you guys have BLACK pride?' -- THAT'S NOT HOW THIS SHIT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And as much as my fascination in this comes from wanting to root for ethnic minorities in the earliest 20th century out of a love of diversity and recognition that the US has always been racially diverse no matter what definition you use, It was entertaining how that sympathy is constantly punished when learning about how these ethnicities eventually integrated into whiteness through violent anti-blackness. Somewhere in that chapter was an excerpt where an Italian-American explained how the first time he felt truly American was when he engaged in an anti-black race riot in Harlem, spoken with pride as if the story is inspiring. Then after an routine but never not horrific recounting of how the GI Bill and New Deal policies which created the American middle class were systematically denied to black folks, you get a wave of newly white-washed ethnics talking about the pride they have in their parents for 'working so hard' to get out of their ghettos. These people who would a few decades later buy hook, line, and sinker the "Welfare Queen" rhetoric meant to drive a final stake through the heart of black social movement. AND NOT TO MENTION THAT THE 'ANGLOS' WHO CAME BEFORE ALL OF THEM WOULD GET FREE LAND OUT WEST CONSTANTLY. It's the kind of stuff that drives you mad when you think about it.

Which is why I think about it! Cause being able to communicate this twisting path to people snaps them out of the easy reality they get to sit in because of all the myths and lies told about this country intended, wholly to keep it segregated and create new kinds of segregation. Despite the gentle tone I appreciated in The Great Contradiction, it is never for a moment to make me believe this country is not fundamentally racist.