dhampyresa

I've spent most of the past couple days having some sort of existential breakdown. This is because I've been wanting to post my art online not because I'm proud of my work (though I am -- itself very weird) or because I want to be able to live off of it (a man can always dream), but because I think it is good enough that other poeple would enjoy seeing it. I keep coming up with reasons to send pictures of my sketchbook to friends. I'm having positive feelings about myself/my skills/my place in the world and it is freaking me the fuck out. Where is this coming from? When's the other shoe gonna drop?! I don't even know where people post art on the internet in these AI-riddled times!

As I've been telling my friends: I'm clearly in my delulu era.

Anyway. I broke open my birthday present to myself, because it is finally relevant: my friend Jonathan is on his way to castle Dracula again. You can see it in the picture below:



French tradition/folklore holds that giving out lily-of-the-valley for May 1 brings good luck to both gifter and giftee.

No, I don't know how Miss Creant managed to hold up the plastic sprig like this without any thumbs.

I love having hot water, hot damn. This is a marked improvement from a week ago. My computer was also not working back then (unrelated) and now it is... Not not working. I'm writing this from my sickbed my phone.

I don't really know what else to say, so have so random thoughts.

In 2015, the grave of F. W. Murnau (of Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens fame) was desecrated, and his head stolen. Murnau died within a month of the premiere of Dracula (of Bela Lugosi fame). Bela Lugosi was buried in his Dracula costume.

JFK died on November 22 1963. Doctor Who premiered on November 23 1963. I can only conclude The Doctor is saving us from a zombie apocalypse. There is a suspiciously amount of Kennedys with holes in their brains.

I fucking love comics. I especially love knowing about how they work as medium and how that makes me appreciate them on an additional level. I wouldn't have enjoyed The Bone Orchard Mythos: Tenement as much if I wasn't also going "bruh the panelling!!!!!" to myself every so often, for example.

Tenement review, since I'm here: BRUH THE PANELLING!!!!! Also the landscapes????? Amazing, 10/10, no notes. The colouring was often very muddy, in a way I think sometimes did a disservice to the story. In other places (the landscapes, the masked people) the colouring was excellent. It maybe was mostly an issue with the faces? Idk. Very Lovecraftian horror. Not sure I understood everything that was going on, but I don't think I was supposed to. It's my favourite of the three Bone Orchard books out so far (then Ten Thousand Black Feathers, and last The Passageway -- this one felt very "we have Enys Men at home").

Enys Men is a 2022 horror movie I got interested in because, as far as I or anyone else seems to know, it is the first movie to have had promitional posters in Cornish (a language closely related to Breton). There is very little Cornish in the actual movie, but I don't regret seeing it. The best way to describe it is "haunting". I thought about it/its atmosphere for days afterwards.

Just finished reading the webtoon Like Mother Like Daughter up to the s2 finale and I need to SCREAM

The Cinderella Boy webtoon is also very very good and I have reread season 1 multiple times. I feel like I ought to be taking notes on how the enemies-to-lovers was develloped.

I don't know why I seem to only be reading comics right now. I want to be reading books too, but I don't seem to want to read any specific books?

As I understand it, it is impossible to steal the relics of a Catholic saint. If a relic is moved, it is always with the saint's approval (if not God's), and the Church can only comply.

Joan of Arc heard the voices of the following three saints: Archangel Michael, Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria. The first two are sauroctones (dragonslaying saints), the latter two virgin saints. The patron saints of France include both Michael and Joan. I don't want to use the word "nepotism", but...

The word "monachoparthenoi" is the term used to talk about saints assigned female as birth who later took on a male identity, often as a monk. Hagiographers have referred to them as using both male and female pronouns.

You can put maple syrup in tea and it's delicious, especially if you make chai.

This youtube short about making miso soup has the GENIUS idea to use a strainer to avoid clumps from the miso paste. This also works for matcha powder if you make matcha latte, btw.

You can put orange blossom flavouring in a glass of milk and it's nice.

Wish I wasn't so tired all the time. Wish I could Do Things. Gonna go cuddle kitty and sleep.

I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I have returned to Miss Creant's home. When you have a cat you're happy both going on vacation (because yay vacation) and coming back (because yay cat).

Another good thing about this vacation was that it took me away from the Paris Olympics. And the heat.

Glasgow was great -- though do be advised that there are now TWO statues of a guy on a horse with a cone on top. I saw a Dali at the Kelvingrove Museum and got to hold (part of) a narwhal tooth. Ate lots of haggis, it's delicious, fucking fight me.

Worldcon was A Lot, but mostly in a good way. I only needed to wear my knee brace once. There was one egregiously bad moderator on a panel I saw. I brought back a, shall we say, "at least it's not drugs" amount of books -- I should weigh them, I bet it'd be funny. Saw some great panels. Talked to many delightful people. My roomates, Lunik and schneefink, got on like a house on fire (in Minecraft). I got clapped for once (for running the mike). Got many many many ribbons. Fucking love collection shit.

I had a literal "squirrel!" moment, where I was talking about being easily disctractible and went "squirrel!" in the middle of my next sentence. In my defence, there was, in fact, a squirrel.

Also got to meet up with netgirl_y2k who was as delightful as last time, if not more <3

Me sowing (eating all the fruit in the house): Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Me reaping (having to go out in the heat to get more fruit): Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

Unless I'm miscounting, there are only 13 Chinese finalists in the 2024 Hugo shortlist. A bit over 11%. I thought there would be more.

I was telling schneefink about how I have no energy for DW posts beyond trivia rn and that nobody wants to hear about how eggs are like witches, which prompted the response "why ARE eggs like witches?" and I said I'd post about it.

To test is eggs are good to eat or not, put them in water. If they sink they're good; if they float, they're bad. Same with witches, or so Monty Python informs me.

And now I never need to google which way around it goes, unlike every time before I came up with this mnemonic.

The 2023 Hugos are having a normal one. Surprised no one has called this "worldControversy" yet.

The amount of racism and sinophobia is almost impressive, lmao. Including in the reactions -- can we stop saying the Chinese HAD to be involved? Because there's nothing proving that and a lot to indicate they were deliberately cut out of any decision making ffs.


On a me-centric note, I thought I saw a comment on file770 to the effect of "since the next four WorldCons are being held in Anglo countries there'll be no issues" but I can't find it again. I'm sure more than one person has thought something like that[1] and just... the next 4 WC being in english-speaking countries is an issue in itself you utter bellends.

Edit 21 Feb: The exact quote (from this comment) was "Having the next 4 Worldcons (likely) taking place in the UK, the liberal parts of the US, and Canada will help a lot."

[1] How do I know? I live in Paris. I know something about people coming into my house and snidely deriding my culture while claiming to be enjoying it -- I found this Medium post to be a good explanation of how Parisians feel.

I'm going to Glasgow 2024 Worldcon, but I'm feeling weirder and weirder about it. What if someone confronts me about being in the wrong bathroom again? It's already pretty clear non-Anglos are only there on sufferance -- and someone being non-binary was brought up as a reason to disqualify them, so... that's nice... I guess I can push "Nous parlons depuis les ténèbres" down my reading list. At least I'll get to avoid at least part of Olympics? They still haven't cleaned up the Seine for those, btw.

I wake up from anxious dreams and discover, like Gregor Samsa, that I have been transformed into a monstrous vermin.

My one and only resolution for 2024 is to pet every cat who'll let me and I AM DOING GREAT SO FAR :D