synopsis:
An isolated island community experiences miraculous events - and frightening omens - after the arrival of a charismatic, mysterious young priest.

thoughts:
i cannot believe it took me so long to watch this show... wow. it had everything i love: horror, terrifying religious fervor, and vampires. It was SOOOOO good and i was riveted the whole time...

synopsis:
A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

thoughts:
i loved this movie... unsurprising... its a beautiful psychosexual horror and those are my favorite! i really like all of robert eggers films and i think this is my favorite.

synopsis:
A woman returns to her Orthodox Jewish community that shunned her for her attraction to a female childhood friend. Once back, their passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality.

thoughts:
i enjoyed this movie. i liked the commentary about the freedom of being able to choose what we want in life and how so much gets in the way of that, especially ourselves. the lesbian sex scene was very Male Gazey and it was just obviously directed by a dude that wanted to see rachel weisz and rachel mcadams in a lesbian scene lol

synopsis:
Sinister characters converge around a young man devoted to protecting those he loves in a postwar backwoods town teeming with corruption and brutality

thoughts:
pacing and arrangement of this movie vs the book was not something i enjoyed and i don't really like that they didn't make sandy as fucked up as she was in the book but. their whole plot didn't feel as prominent as they were in the book, like they just kinda showed up every now and then imo. robert pattison's character was just as repulsive as he was in the book which was awful to watch on screen

synopsis:
Natsuo Kirino's novel tells a story of random violence in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works a night shift making boxed lunches brutally strangles her deadbeat husband and then seeks the help of her co-workers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime.
thoughts:
i HATED the ending of this book!!! the tension and suspense was built up so good throughout it and then the ending just sucked literally everything out of it. a shame because despite how ""dark"" this book got, i was still hooked with Masako's story and how it would unfold. I hated that it ended the way it did and it took away from Masako's character, imo.

synopsis:
Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

thoughts:
i am usually not a huge sci-fi person but a friend recc'd this to me and i'm really glad i decided to read it because omg... it was soo good. i really love the way peter watts writes humans and how they interact with one another. lots of really intense dread that outshone most of the horror books i've read.

synopsis:
A haunting novel about a black woman who returns to her hometown for a plantation wedding and the horror that ensues as she reconnects with the blood-soaked history of the land and the best friends she left behind.

thoughts:
i really enjoyed this book, especially the glimpses into the main characters past but the pacing of this was.... odd. i felt like we ran through the climax at breakneck speed and then it just. Ended. still, a good read that i was invested enough in that i finished it in a single night

synopsis:
Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s.

thoughts:
this book was crazy ngl. an appalachian gothic always intrigues me as i am from the area so i like seeing Snippets of the familiar, which this book delivered in spades and often in a way that i both liked and disliked. a lot of the writing for the women was the same but i couldn't tell if it was the author's personal bias showing or if he was really good at capturing the small-minded categories people from small towns seem to sort women into: madonna or whore.

synopsis:
While vacationing in a hunting lodge in the Austrian mountains, a middle-aged woman awakens one morning to find herself separated from the rest of the world by an invisible wall. With a cat, a dog, and a cow as her sole companions, she learns how to survive and cope with her loneliness.

thoughts:
i really loved this book and the way the relationship between the narrator and her animals is written. the descriptions of just how empty her world was often left me feeling the same unease and overwhelming dread the narrator was describing. the part where the narrator is ill and having a fever dream actually scared the hell out of me and i have no idea if it was actually that scary or that the fact it was 1 am and pouring rain and just added to the oppresive atmosphere. i did not like how abrubt and sudden plot point happened(literally the last five pages) but otherwise an interesting and unsettling read.

synopsis:
Baldur's Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons, where your choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power.

thoughts:
i'm ngl i think this game is incredibly overhyped, lol. i originally got this game because i'm a sucker for a high fantasy rpg and as an eccentric vampire lover, astarion felt tailor made to lure me to this game. so, i bought it for my birthday last year. and hated it. maybe i'm not cut out for "real" rpgs but this game was such a miserable slog for me that i literally just gave up on it entirely, deleted it from my console, and lamented that i'd essentially flushed 70 dollars down the drain. this year tho i'm on a mission to beat all my unplayed games and cross platform co-op is coming and my friend wants to play it with me, so i decided to give it another chance. also the mod support on console definitely helped me make up my mind because for such a popular rpg the customization of the character creator fucking sucks and hearing "there's mods!" in response to the lack of body diveristy seriously pisses me off LOL. imo, a lot of the fat characters in this game are meant to come off as disgusting/repulsive or they're all "bad" people. so i played it anyway depsite my hate for it and decided that, yeah. it's not as good as everyone made it out to be. for as big as the game is, it still felt incredibly empty in certain points. I was getting dialog trees for routes i never took or things i never did. it was annoying at best and frustrating at worst. also. tav, the self-insert player character, feels incredibly empty with the vacant eyed stare and four expressions. it took me out of whatever "immersion" i was meant to be feeling. high stress situations suddenly became a joke when my tav's face looked like an over exaggerated shocked emoji. at the end of my game karlach's ending scene bugged so badly and i'm fairly certain i missed out on quite a bit of dialog in it lol. the fact this game is 60USD(70 if you're on ps5 like me LOL)and they're still adding endings to this game. be serious. all the companion quests are echoes of one another, like what do you mean they're all victims under the whim of some big bad piece of shit and you can either liberate them from that or make them worse LOL. also, it's not so much a game issue as a community issue but what the fuck is up with the characters that get DO get attention. wyll is right there. karlach is right there. jaheira is right there. shut the hell up about gale!!!!!!!!!!!! also really??? FUCKING GALE? a windbag egotistical dipshit that wont shut up about his ex. fuck him!!!!!

synopsis:
Enter the world of Thedas, a vibrant land of rugged wilderness, treacherous labyrinths, and glittering cities – steeped in conflict and secret magics. Now, a pair of corrupt ancient gods have broken free from centuries of darkness and are hellbent on destroying the world.

thoughts:
this did not feel like a game that took 10 years to make. it did not feel like a dragon age game at all. which is a huge let down as i loved inquisition so much. the dialog is empty, and rings hollow. everyone is my friend and no matter what i say or do they still just end up liking me anyway, even if i go directly against their apparent unshakable beliefs. it felt like none of my choices were my own, all dialog options more or less played out the same. calling this game a rpg seems like a joke as it felt like my character spoke for me more often than i made choices. i didn't feel connected or immersed in my character as there were so many "hey remember that time we did all that stuff we're not gonna bother to show us doing but hey trust me, it happened and now we're the best of friends?" moments it actually drove me crazy. i dont know if rpgs are getting worse or i'm just disenchanted with them but. i'm so bummed. i miss getting lost in them. that being said. i liked the solavellan ending. whatever. fuck that bald elf for making me care about him.