over the past year or so, i've been thinking a lot about how i consume media. one of the things i've come to realize is that i'm actually not very good at describing why i like something, i just know when i do and when i don't! so i'm going to try and make an effort to delve deeper into my mindscape and understand what makes my favorite things mean so much to me.. or why there are just some things i absolutely hate.

i've decided to do this by writing a monthly log of new things i listened to, watched, or read and this is my first post. i'm gonna try and be more intentional about these things. i hope that by sharing these thoughts with all of you, you are also able to discover something you like! please let me know if you do :)

this was a big music month for me! i listened to a lot of new artists and revisited some albums i didn't feel i appreciated enough. sorry in advance, this bit is going to be lengthy. by the way, shout out to all my friends who recommended music to me, of course! you know who you are >:)

oh, and if you want to follow what i'm really liking this year, check out my spotify playlist!

everything harmony by the lemon twigs
i found this album through theneedledrop, who shared some of his favorite albums of the year for 2023 with this one being somewhere near the top if i'm remembering correctly. this style of music reminds me so much of the music my parents played in the car as i was growing up. it's extremely nostalgic and melodic and overall a very pleasant listen, pretty reminiscent of the beatles :)
favorite songs: when winter comes around, every day is the worst day of my life, in my head

charli by charli xcx
i have been listening to a lot of charli lately! i feel she was seriously getting talked about a lot more with the release of this album, but i've spent most of my time listening to crash and how i'm feeling now. this is a pretty forward and catchy pop album! charli does a good job of balancing tried and true pop formulas with more experimental hyperpop, making it a pretty accessible album for fans of both genres. i like this a lot but i don't think i like it more than her 2 more recent ones.
favorite songs: white mercedes, 1999, february 2017 (ft. clairo & yaeji)

heaven knows & to hell with it by pinkpantheress
other than the parts of her discography that became tiktok audios and her feature on beatopia, i was unfamiliar with pinkpantheress. i find that her sound is pretty unique in the current pop landscape. also that yeah! adlib she has is so good & the bells on capable of love are perfect to me. her mixtape and debut album to hell with it and heaven knows do not differ too much in sound¹ so they're pretty similar, but she has a lot of on-repeat worthy tracks on both albums and boy's a liar pt.2 MIGHT be SOTY?? i will say i listen to heaven knows a lot more though, it sounds way more refined² and distinct to me.
favorite songs (heaven knows): capable of love, true romance, boy's a liar pt.2
favorite songs (to hell with it): all my friends know, reason, nineteen

a little disaster & call for help by pearly drops
i had often seen pearly drops as a recommended artist on spotify, but i never bothered to actually listen to them until i overheard a friend of mine listening to feed the fire and i was like "ohh that's good!". pearly drops are a pretty standard dream/synth pop duo, but they have a sameness to their songs. this doesn't mean the music is bad, it's just a little more difficult for me to find standout songs with them, but the standout songs they do have (to me) are really good. at least you know the albums are cohesive!
favorite songs (a little disaster): feed the fire, take me down, i cry while you sleep
favorite songs (call for help): bloom for me, call for help, final form

mercurial world by magdalena bay
yet another synth/electro pop album! this album feels very much like if you decided to go clubbing in space. it has a very clear vision and does well to execute it. it has a lot of groovy tracks where you can't help but dance a little to the beat. i also like that the songs on this album actually sound pretty distinct from one another, but all still sound like they're part of the same project. this is seriously so good. put it on if you want to have some fun!
favorite songs: you lose!, the beginning, hysterical us

frengers by mew
thank you so much to my friend for recommending this album. this is a near perfect album to me (only falls off slightly in the middle imo), which i don't come across often. it's a lovely little dream pop & rock crossover with a good mix of prog rock and dreamy ballads that just reel you right in. also, this album closes with comforting sounds, arguably one of the best songs i have ever heard. if you're a big fan of phoebe bridgers' "i know the end" as a cathartic closer, you will love comforting sounds for the same reason. at its almost 9 minute runtime you have no idea how it could possibly get better but it does³.
favorite songs: comforting sounds, snow brigade, she came home for christmas

flux by poppy
i got really into poppy last year, having had i disagree on repeat for a couple of weeks or so. poppy likes to switch up her sound every album, so the alt rock on this album was definitely a turn from i disagree's metal. in some ways, i feel this album was a lot "safer" than her previous work, but still very fun to listen to. this is another near-perfect album to me, solidifying poppy as one of my favorite artists!
favorite songs: her, hysteria, lessen the damage

fishmonger & wallsocket by underscores
i used to not like hyperpop and thought i was doomed to never be able to appreciate it but something must have clicked in my brain last year, so now i love hyperpop. where i think underscores stands out is that her music is an odd combination of hyperpop, pop punk, and indietronica which works out SO well. i truly believe that queer people are carrying the music industry on their backs!
favorite songs (fishmonger): spoiled little brat, bozo bozo bozo, kinko's field trip 2006
favorite songs (wallsocket): johnny johnny johnny, old money bitch, cops and robbers

insaint by haru nemuri
i first discovered haru nemuri through theneedledrop, when he initially praised harutosyura. haru nemuri is a very solid heavy rock artist but i haven't listened to her in a hot minute so i decided to give her most recent release a shot at my friend's recommendation. another great listen, to no one's surprise :) it's very raw, emotional, and explosive
favorite songs: flee from sanctuary, inferno, i refuse

flamboyant by dorian electra
yay, the last album under new music (i told you this was a big music month for me)! i'm very familiar with dorian as a name that pops up pretty often in music-focused spaces, and i remember seeing flamboyant when it first came out but i honestly can't remember if i had already listened to it before now. a friend and i were discussing what we liked in songs, and i said i loved twinkly sound effects and they said they understood why i liked hyperpop so much and that i'd love flamboyant so i listened to it. they were correct.
favorite songs: career boy, freaky 4 life, guyliner

i unfortunately did not get to see as many movies as i would have liked this month :( i had a lot of movies in mind but some things just didn't work out, so hopefully i can make up for it with next month! spoiler warning ahead, of course!

the boy and the heron dir. hayao miyazaki
god, i hope miyazaki never stops un-retiring. this was something i watched in cinemas which i was pretty excited about since we barely ever get any actually interesting international movies over here. i kind of wish i watched the dub just to hear robpat, but i digress. this movie was very metaphorical and honestly i'm not very good at analyzing things like that right as it plays out, so i had to do sit down and do some thinking⁴ afterwards. i'm choosing to understand it as a movie that tells you it's okay to want to be a normal person and not seek out greatness, or feel pressured to if great people had come before you. but it's also about loss and learning that it is okay to forget and that it's okay to let go⁵. because this movie focuses so much on loss it also feels apt as a goodbye from miyazaki, if he finally decides to retire for real this time. i think this movie is about a lot of things, and it might be kind of confusing, but it's still comforting nonetheless. and of course it is visually beautiful, it's studio ghibli.

p.s. i think it's hilarious how mahito questions literally nothing in this movie.. ah, classic ghibli

saltburn dir. emerald fennell
this is a VERY beautifully shot movie for sure, and i think this is a pretty popular opinion, but the villain monologue at the end was just so unnecessary and overly indulgent. the way the ending is edited kind of makes it feel like the audience is supposed to be surprised by the fact that oliver is actually batshit? i don't know about you but i figured that out as soon as that guy started slurping cum water OUT OF THE DRAINNNN (why the drain, god?). i also know emerald has mentioned in her interviews that this movie is more about the thin line separating love and obsession so i am begging everyone to stop viewing this as some "eat the rich" movie focusing on class analysis because it is not. this really doesn't say anything other than "people desire being wealthy and some people are willing to do bad things to get there". but again. at least it was pretty, sometimes funny, and always unapologetically horny⁶.

the holdovers dir. alexander payne
oh, how my heart weeps! if you know me, you know i am an absolute sucker for found family so this had pretty much everything i was looking for and more. the holdovers is a christmas movie featuring a grieving mother, an absolute boyfail father, and their pissbaby son. it's a very sweet and tender movie full of love... a reminder that we are all going through something and the least you can do for everyone is to be kind :) the way the plot of this movie unfolded felt very organic, none of the interactions forced, making the ending very rewarding. funny at the perfect moments, genuine and serious when it needed to be. this is tokyo godfathers if it took place in 70s new england. please go see it if you haven't yet!

the time of non-fanservice-y isekai fantasy animanga is NOW!!!

sousou no frieren by kanehito, yamada
my friend actually recommended i read this shortly after it got serialized but due to the recommendation being made while i wasn't actively consuming media, i put it off until this year. i decided to watch the anime since it was on netflix with absolutely no clue on what it would be about and was absolutely blown away. as soon as i was caught up with the anime, i jumped straight into reading the manga and then immediately caught up with that too. frieren reflects a lot on life, death, and time. it asks us to look into ourselves and think about how we spend our time with the people we hold closest. ultimately though, i think all of this is about love⁷. the cast is absolutely wonderful—each character developed so lovingly, with their own fully fleshed out personalities and profound ideals/flaws; they work beautifully together to create some of the most caring, intimate interactions i've seen in media. frieren also does a beautiful job of balancing slice of life with emotional moments, which i really love. overall, it's a very meaningful and emotional series that will probably have you crying every episode/arc. easily one of my new favorites :)

dungeon meshi by kui, ryoko
i actually started dunmeshi a little bit after it first got serialized and got maybe 10 or so chapters in before The Great Media Burnout happened so i put it on hold until this year. since it just got an anime, i thought to myself, what better time to get back into it than now? just like frieren, i watched about 4 episodes of the anime before deciding to read the manga as well. i finished the manga in about a day. this is another series that reflects on life and death (although more of in a circle of life way than an existential way) with a special emphasis on mealtime as a love language. everything i already said about frieren i would say about dunmeshi, though i will say that overall dunmeshi feels a lot more silly and lighthearted. what really stands out to me here are the character designs! if you take a peek at the extra notes and tidbits ryoko-sensei wrote about her design process, you can tell that she really put a lot of thought and care into them and it shows. the world building is also so lovely... i am truly inspired by people who have the power to come up with entirely new mechanics for how reality functions. again, this quickly became another one of my favorites so please go check it out!

i honestly haven't read a book since i was a sophomore or something in highschool, which is almost 10 years ago. isn't that crazy? i made attempts to get back into reading last year with a goal of reading 1 book per month but only ended up reading a grand total of 2 for the year. thankfully, i seem to have gotten my groove back so hopefully i actually make my reading goal this time... most of these reviews i'm copy-pasting from my storygraph since it seems to be the only tracking site i use where i actually write genuine reviews for whatever reason

the nakano thrift shop by hiromi kawakami
wow, this took me a while to read because i honestly found it difficult to get into at times. while i normally love media with slow plots where pretty much nothing happens, i felt this had a little bit too much nothing. it is a very character-driven book first and foremost, so a lot of the story is just their daily interactions with one another and the slice-of-life happenings at the thrift shop which isn't necessarily bad, BUT. the summary kind of paints this as a romance, which is what i was expecting, so i was pretty disappointed when the romance was more of like, a c-plot, if anything. the book does not have a super primary focus on either hitomi or takeo, and seems to share the focus equally with haruo and masayo. the pacing gets thrown off a little when hitomi and takeo make some romantic progress followed up by (i am exaggerating) 50 pages of something random that haruo is fixated on.

however, despite the book being pretty "boring", it is boring in a soft and intimate way and i feel it captures the sort of lackadaiscal life someone would have if majority of their life was showing up to their thrift shop job. there were a lot of conversations between characters i found thoughtful and personal and i liked the dynamic they shared with each other. i'm not sure. i think i was just expecting a little more. this is a book to kind of go through when you want to turn your brain off a little bit /pos

i'm glad my mom died by jennette mccurdy
this is my second time reading something non fiction (the first time was crying in h-mart—something about daughters and their mothers, i guess?) and wow, what a gut-wrenching memoir. it's extremely vulnerable and honest, detailing most of jennette's life and the many things she struggled with growing up and as an adult.

jennette writes wonderfully! she's very good at recounting all of the things she talks about in her book. in the earlier chapters, she perfectly portrays the thought process of a child who loves her mother and although thinks certain things are weird, does not attribute any of it to abuse. she captures the frustrating feeling of someone being able to dissect exactly why you feel the way you do when you're opening up or in therapy. she writes in a way that somehow makes these tragic (but also relatable) things humorous, and that's what keeps the memoir so engaging. it's fast-paced and straight to the point, but not missing out on things that are important for providing additional context.

basically, it's really good, and i'm glad that jennette was able to pursue writing, one way or another. i am only wishing her the best after everything she's been through.

slewfoot: a tale of bewitchery by brom
i wasn't sure i was going to finish this in time to include this in this month's things in review but it made it just in time! this was a very engaging book from start to finish, taking place at the height of puritanism. if you love feminine rage and revenge you will probably like this, especially if you love witches and the idea of befriending some monstrous demon. it has a lot of very good buildup and an absolutely despicable villain ensemble that will have you constantly rooting for abitha, the main character. i promise you will feel like killing her enemies before she does. it was a very engaging book and i honestly had a difficult time putting it down. all i have to say is, good for her!

i tend to hyperfixate on games so i don't expect this to have too much variety every month but i do have quite the backlog on steam so let's see if i manage to get through that this year :')

baldur's gate 3
i am OBSESSED with bg3. i haven't played any of the previous baldur's gate games, but i love dnd, so this is very much up my alley. i love that this game has multiple game modes with different focuses for different kinds of players! i'm obviously playing on story mode because i've always been a narrative over combat person when it comes to dnd and also because i don't want to think too much about minmaxing builds. i've only just started act 2 but i'm having so much fun with this game! there's a lot to do but it's nothing you need to rush, and if anything the game actually rewards you for being more thorough with it. the companions you get are all really fun and complex. they have some pretty interesting likes/dislikes when it comes to romancing them as well; there are some characters like gale who are just good people, more complicated characters like shadowheart who are good but not too good, and characters like astarion who simply live for chaos. another thing i'm also seeing is that this game has a lot of replayability because different classes/races/backgrounds allow you to make different choices, so yes i'm currently running 2 campaigns. and yes i will probably do an evil run just so i can kiss minthara, although i'm not sure i have it in me to kill the druid grove. anyway, play this game for an hour and you'll see why it won game of the year.

storyteller
this is another game i picked up this month! it's a puzzle game that provides you with a prompt, and you must make the characters interact in different settings in a way that allows the prompt to be fulfilled. the first few puzzles are pretty straightforward and easy to figure out, but it gets a lot harder towards the end. i like that you need to try out different combinations in order to figure out certain things, like which characters like/dislike who, and how you can use that information to prompt characters to do certain actions. it's very interesting! this game is also pretty short so it's not a big time commitment either. very fun!

end

i think that just about sums up this month's media! thanks for sticking around and reading the whole thing if you did (though it's totally fine if you didn't), i wasn't expecting it to get this lengthy. i think it's a bit hard trying to recount a month's worth of memories so i am definitely writing february's post as i go along and not a few days before the end of the month.

until next time!

1. if it's not broken don't fix it i guess!↩

2. other than being able to get an even better grasp on her sound on heaven knows, to hell with it's tracks are like 2 minutes at most so sometimes i am left wanting more </3↩

3. i did not originally include comforting sounds on my yearly playlist because i was like, oh god what if someone listens to it and it's an almost 9 minute song and they don't wanna sit through that so i subbed it with snow brigade. but as of writing this review i was like. actually no. it's going on the playlist too. it's too good!↩

4. this "thinking" also involved reading up on how other people perceived the film from letterboxd, reddit, youtube, etc. to help me shape my own opinion... so called free thinkers (pensive)↩

5. i wholeheartedly agree but it is also okay to remember :) just depends on the context of how you're processing that loss, you know what i mean?↩

6. jacob elordi i am sorry for ever finding you cringe, it was just because of the kissing booth i swear↩

7. just look at how himmel and frieren talk about each other.. they literally do everything with the other person in mind. FRIMMEL THE WORLD↩