Hello lovelies! We’re getting into February and so it’s time for me to wrap up last month with my five favorite things. This past month was filled with a lot of craziness for me, so my mind is a bit scrambled. Here are the five I could come up with while looking back at it all.

The Vampire Chronicles – I’ve been reading Anne Rice’s series for the first time and I kind of can’t get enough of it. For context, I’m coming off of watching The Strain which I couldn’t get into that at all. I really wanted to like it because I love Del Toro, but there is something about the idea of vampirism as a contagion (especially one passed through worms – BLERG!) that I couldn’t get behind. I need my vampires to be sensuous gothic antiheroes I guess, and I get all that and more with this series. I’ve just finished the third book in the series, The Queen of the Damned. Two thumbs up! I really enjoyed exploring the lineage of the vampires through multiple points of view. I liked the themes as well — cruelty, redemption, atonement, etc. Overall, thus far I’d recommend them. Just get ready for a lot of weird tawdry-ness. It’s a bit like someone’s fanfic brought to life.

Procreate – a horrible name, but I really love this app. It’s the iPad’s answer to Photoshop, though it admittedly doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles. It’s a close second though! I wanted to work in layers since an app I talked about previously, Art Set Pro, doesn’t offer that feature and it was making some of my work muddy-looking. This app gave me layers, as well as some cool brushes and techniques to experiment with. Below is the first little cartoon/comic I made with it.

I will be sharing these little doodles on Instagram, but I’ll talk about that more later!

Tom Hanks – This is random, but I recently watched both Sully and Captain Phillips (better late than never, I guess?), and I just thought that Hanks was astounding. It’s not the first time I’ve admired his work of course, but these movies kind of reminded me how much of a treasure he is. The end of Captain Phillips goes into trauma/PTSD a bit and his shaking and dry sobs were just too much! It felt so real that it brought me to tears. He also just seems like a genuinely cool, kind individual. I get why he is America’s sweetheart.

Little Nightmares – I was gifted this game as a bon voyage present by a co-worker. It has such brilliant artwork and I’m really excited to play it more! I can’t give a full rating just yet, but I wanted to share this one because it is super cool thus far. Also, it’s exactly what the name implies. I’m terrified to play. Just look at that creepy ass chef guy!

It reminds me a bit of some of the characters in Alice: Madness Returns. The first time you encounter some of the baddies and that battle music comes on, your heart is racing. I tend to get weirdly macho and start shouting expletives — “I’M COMING FOR YOU, B*TCH! THAT’S RIGHT! OOOH, YOU GOT A WEAPON? I DON’T CARE!” 😀

The Shape of Water– As I said before, I love Del Toro. My introduction was Pan’s Labyrinth and I fell in love with his style from there. Aside from The Devil’s Backbone, I think I’ve seen them all now. I’d say that The Orphanage stood out for me because it played on my mind for a very long time, but I don’t know if it was necessarily my favorite. I don’t know if I could choose one honestly! This film though…just…ugh. I loved it so much! I think Del Toro covered “otherness” from many points of view and he was successful with all of them. Race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, economic and professional hierarchy — it is all explored. Nothing feels contrived or forced to me. It feels like a very genuine examination. As a bonus, it was magical and gorgeous to look at, which we’ve ome to expect from Del Toro. Overall, I just thought it was heart-breaking and wonderful. I plan to buy it as soon as it comes out. Okay, gushing over!

That’s all for January! I know we skipped December because of the holidays, so thanks for coming back after a lapse.