i’m still alive!! - the loft logs #1

newsletter

the loft logs

Published

December 30, 2025

damn! been awhile hasn’t it! but given that i’ve abandoned this site for nearly a year at one point, two-ish months is nowhere near as bad… so i’ll take it as a win. i have so many half-written post ideas in the backlog, mostly gnōden stuff and talking about the media I have consumed, but trying to write for the joy of it has been a little difficult when i’ve been kinda sorta, in the trenches of life. but it hasn’t been all doom and gloom! so many amazing things have happened in the past couple of months, and even though i’m pretty much going through a quarter-life crisis, i’ve felt incredibly safe and loved throughout. so inspired by my partner¹ cass’ genius idea of a personal newsletter ² (and social media replacement) on the old web, i’ve decided to officially start my own - the loft logs!

about the loft logs

this is still an incredibly drafted concept, i literally came up with it half-an-hour before i started writing it. i’m still not set on the name, it was just the only and quickest one that came to mind that fits the namesake of this space and is somewhat indicative of a newsletter. it’s nice and cozy, and my choice of continuing to use a physical space in the name of a newsletter where i give updates about my life feels fitting for how i’ve been grappling with my relationship with home and place lately³. and it’s also inspired by megan rhiannon’s series names on her youtube channel⁴. maybe i’ll change my mind by the next issue, but for now, loft logs it is!

format + frequency

it’s probably going to be a little messy in this first issue, but i’m thinking something along the lines of - 1) life updates/highlights, 2) media i’ve consumed, 3) gnōden updates, and 4) what i’m working on. i came up with these sections based on what i’ve been excited to talk about, and conveniently enough i think it builds onto my previous posts quite seamlessly!

pre-publication note: y’all i have predictably given myself way too much work for this newsletter. i’m gonna publish it with just the first two (very long) sections, before the year ends, and we’ll see whether i eventually finish the other two. keep ya on ya toes y’kno.

as for frequency… your guess is as good as mine. does it every solstice and equinoxe, which i think is a brilliant idea that my equatorial brain had never thought about (despite already having lived through seasons for three years). and as someone that refuses to acknowledge the passage of time⁵, perhaps that’s the best way to at least make sure i post something semi-regularly. i am very aware that we are a few days past the winter equinoxe, so this plan clearly isn’t set in stone. but you should at least expect a log #2 by march of 2026, where i’ll probably be complaining about the clocks shifting again.

as is the case, i apologise for yet another long preamble that i can never adequately shorten. i promise once i’ve acquainted you with the way this newsletter works here that i won’t need to do it again!! so here goes…

log sections

life lately - self-explanatory! just a little highlights section of what i’ve been up to, the fun stuff i’ve done, places i’ve been, maybe the not-so-fun stuff, etc..
media reel - a collection of media i have consumed, which would primarily consist of books, music, movies/tv shows and internet media (e.g., video essays)
gnōden harvests - you’ve caught a little glimpse into my gnōden, i.e., the ecosystems i’ve created to document and manage knowledge. this section will highlight any updates i’ve made to the system(s), along with my favourite entries (i.e., stuff that has caught my attention/resonated with so much i had to write it down).
seedlings - new projects i’ve started and stuff i’m currently working on!

life lately

am i supposed to address the elephant in the room now…? c’mon, the lot of my friends who send me over a hundred tiktoks are just gonna leave once they’ve read this part. fine…

ya girl is newly partnered!

remember how i said in my first post that i spent the copious amounts of free time i had post-uni to learn how to be human again? yeah i finally entered my hoe phase and fucking-around-and-finding-out turned into actually finding out about love. eugh, cheesy and sappy, i know. shh! i’m learning to embrace it.

and that’s all you’ll get to hear about the circumstances behind how we met (if you know, you know . i guess not that many of you know…)⁶. so meet cass (she/they), she’s a really cool sci-fi writer that i can listen to all day as she talks about movies, fungi and space. she is really fucking cute when she’s all sappy and romantic, and the expanse of her love is something i deeply admire and feel incredibly safe in. we’re polyamourous⁷ - well it’s a tiny bit complicated on my end and i’m still figuring out the term that resonates with me most (poly/enm/relationship anarchist), since she’s currently my only partner (while she has another amazing partner). but i feel like that is currently enough for me! if you can’t already tell, i’ve been living my most queerest life out here, and i wouldn’t trade it for anything, especially not within the confines of heteronormativity .

here’s a little peek into what we’ve been up to together:

saw glimpses of a meteor shower for the first time⁸
exploring each others’ cities. london’s now a lot less overwhelming
going through each other’s vinyl collection
nature walks - identifying fungi, trees, wildflowers
bonding over obscure internet horror
sharing our passion for the old and indie web. we run a website together, of which you shall not know of

and hopefully many, many more memories to be made. we’ve been seeing each other for six months, and made it official on october 22nd <3. my silly demisexual self sure had no idea i would end up this feeling this loved and content… surely.

so that’s one hell of a life update/highlight huh. other than that, life has been both calm and tumultuous. been cozying up at home a lot, mostly reading, writing and doing website stuff in my free time, and of course, watching spooky stuff with violette. had some long-overdue catchups with friends, and spent a lot of sunday mornings perusing boot sales (with random side quests of aimlessly wandering around ikea now that they’ve opened a new store in brighton). despite having little to no spoons for the better part of these months, i still had the opportunity to sit in on a mock viva, peer review a research paper, and co-facilitate my decolonial reading group! so keeping myself somewhat in touch with academia has helped a bit with my sanity.

and of course, can’t forget my quarter-life crisis. i’ve now fully gone into job hunting mode, with hopes and dreams of getting something related to research, but also keeping my options open because employment sure is tough lately. i’m constantly flip-flopping between wondering if i’m ready to step back into academia⁹ versus just wanting to earn a living and focus on more creative avenues in my free time. i know what my purpose is, but i feel like the universe is constantly trying to teach me the lesson of time and direction - that i’m in no rush and obligation to realise this purpose under conventional means. everything still feels a little raw (crashed out a good number of times and had to deal with a couple of rejections) and i’m still floating in a massive pool of uncertainty, so i probably won’t elaborate much more. but fingers crossed! i will have it all figured out. i know i will.

media reel

more free time and a new partner to infodump and exchange interests = lots and lots of new media consumed!

mag’s 2025 reading roundup

super proud of myself this year in the reading department. i made the not-so-wise decision of buying an ereader late last year when i hadn’t finished a book in years, and that turned out to actually be… a pretty wise decision. i began to read a little bit of fiction as a nightly routine to cope with the stress of final year, and then finally poured into my never-ending list of non-fiction, then started to really appreciate and enjoy fiction thanks to cass’ recommendations.

i finished reading a grand total of 10 books this year! which is a pretty huge achievement for someone who couldn’t remember the last book she finished prior to this.

books i’ve finished

genuinely awful book. i read it so i could tear it to shreds for an assignment. he is a controversial figure, as illustrated by an entire chapter of him moaning about how people gave him shit for wanting to collect the dna of silicon valley tech bros to prove that they were more likely to have autistic kids.

didn’t do much for me as someone who was already well-acquainted with disability justice. and i easily sped through this in 5ish hours with zero sleep on a flight. i think it’s a really succinct and well-explained primer into neurodiversity politics and disability justice though! essential reading.

this book was what i hoped autism is not a disease would be. a much-needed historical-structural analysis into how normality was built and how it continues to rely on colonial and capitalist systems to disadvantage those who fall outside its bounds. it critiques the existing neurodiversity movement as still being overly-individualistic and calls for a more collective and political retelling of the movement. very important read in my opinion!

another phenomenal and essential primer read! this was my entry into the fat liberation movement, which is an area of collective liberation that has been one of the last for me to adopt because of my own internalised fatphobia. it’s no-nonsense; lays out very simply and rawly why everyone should care about body justice (not positivity) for all bodies.

my first proper introduction into speculative science fiction, thanks to cass . getting to grips with foreign space and sci-fi terms was difficult at first, but whether or not it made sense no longer mattered twenty pages in, because its characters made it such an enjoyable, cozy read. and there are lots of reflections to be had about where human society is at and where it will be when you read about how an entire galactic society is run centuries past earth’s demise.

i’m 3/5 books through the whole series! the way the chapters jumped between characters was a little choppy in this one, so i didn’t enjoy that. but picking up this book at the peak of my quarter-life crisis, floating between concepts of home, was quite a serendipitous occurrence. cried while reading the last couple of chapters, and generally enjoyed reading about a communist society floating about in space.

another serendipitous pick - i was actually thinking a lot about artificial intelligence’s inherent essence when i was reading this book; whose sentience it is creating (re: a materialist consciousness, and also, racial biases amongst other issues) and what implications that has for the future (which was what we talked about in the most recent decolonial reading group!), among other questions. so reading about what it’s like to become human and what it might be like to be raised by AI was pretty mind-bendy to say the least!

another cass recc ! man… where do i even begin with ursula… i’ve only read one and a half of her books, but the title of being one of the best writers out there is well-deserved. this book, written by a white woman, actually sent me into a deep dive about taoism since she was heavily influenced by it. so influenced she even wrote her own interpretation of the 道德经！i’m buffering an entire post about this one for sure.

i will admit the rating lowered a little because i picked up this book during the beginning stages of my return to fiction, hence there was a little bit of friction with getting used to different literary styles. this was a slow burn; with subtle but also incredibly surreal body horror details. it took me awhile to get it, but i enjoyed where it took me to in the end.

for the book alone… i do think it deserves a fair rating alright! it’s an easy, predictable and frictionless read, and i’m quite a sucker for sappy sapphic romance much more than i’d like to admit. i fucking sobbed at certain parts of this book, and it would work incredibly well as a movie. but this is just me grasping at the straws for good sapphic media¹⁰. i’m not too fond of it anymore, and apparently the author’s not the greatest person out there!

books i’m currently trying to get through

this and the jakarta method have been on my to-read list for ages! by interviewing over 200 activists across the globe, bevins analyses all the large-scale protest movements that occurred in the 2010s, positing it as an overlooked but important part of history, akin to the uprisings and attempted revolutions that occurred through the 60s-70s. was hoping that this would draw up so inspiration for a phd project - kinda did! but we’ve parked that for now. still want to finish the book though.

i’m finally attempting to grasp the complexity of fanon’s work, because it’s so incredibly important and i’m ashamed of myself for taking so long. i’m uh… definitely struggling, even with a study guide alongside it.

i’m halfway through this book but ursula writes in such a simple yet complex way that i feel like i might have to start it all over again.

little christmas gift from cass! jeanette winterson’s one of those authors where i’ve casually told myself for years i’d want to get into their work, in this case, for her book oranges are not the only fruit. this has been quite an enjoyable and easy spooky bedtime read; i’ve been getting through a chapter a day every time i get into bed. some stories have been enjoyable, classic and clever ghouly tropes, while a couple have been quite disappointing and flat.

spotify wrapped

i’ve officially quit spotify premium! in late november i believe. still, i couldn’t resist looking at my wrapped, which i didn’t know was also available to free users . i really shouldn’t have because it kinda sucks! as with previous years, it has somehow squeezed my listening activity to the first half of 2025, so it wasn’t all that informative¹¹. but fret not, i’m trying to give spotify as little money (cough adblock cough) as possible as i continue to transition into other listening options.

i shall instead do my own, manual, wrapped:

top albums of 2025

mayhem – lady gaga
5 / 5
: vanish into you

virgin – lorde
5 / 5
: broken glass

happiness is going to get you – allie x
3.5 / 5
: reunite

eusexua – fka twigs
4 / 5
: sticky

double infinity – big thief
4 / 5
: incomprehensible

princess of power – marina
3.5 / 5
: cupid's girl

the clearing – wolf alice
4 / 5
: white horses

top tunes of 2025

300 dreams – after

what you need – jay som

best laid plans – the beths

drop dead – tei shi

viscus – oklou, fka twigs

coach – sex week

unoriginal – magdalena bay

dracula – tame impala

not afraid – indigo de souza

imanocean – purity ring

just two girls – wolf alice

no room 4 u – prom

ragdoll – dora jar

hands dirty – milk & bone

i actually watched movies + tv shows!

i am unsurpisingly horrid at starting and finishing longer-form media (sigh… am i really a victim of the attention economy). but thanks to cass being so well-versed with movies and the like, we’ve had lots of fun watching new stuff. also having run dry of spooky ufo/paranormal content on youtube, violette and i have been slowly getting back into tv shows.

my year in movies and television

you know what- as iconic as ed and lorraine warren are in the paranormal space, i’m glad this franchise is over. it wasn’t a horrible movie don’t get me wrong, cinematography was pretty sick, but the whole series has been so repetitive. in-your-face horror’s definitely not my thing in terms of truly enjoying it, but they’re still fun to watch!

so glad i finally watched this classic! huge fan of found footage horror so i quite enjoyed this one. not amazing, not bad either; just a cool, fun watch. i feel like it takes special skill to film something fictional in a non-fictional ways, so any piece that does well at that automatically gets at least a 3/5.

saiko the large family (full mockumentary, along with its prequel available on youtube! and a great analysis by reignbot)
i finally watched the original media instead of just watching youtubers do an analysis of it lol. sure, my rankings are pretty skewed given that i haven’t watched much this year, but this is up top on my small list. such a well-made mockumentary (another genre which i also love) that deserves a high spot in the ‘media that hides subtle plot clues incredibly well’ hall of fame. also, love my queen veronica addison.

a random find while cass and i were trying to look for more found footage stuff we both haven’t watched. i wouldn’t say the ‘film something fictional in a non-fictional way’ skill was bad, it just felt very predictable and straightforward. watching this felt like i was going on a big theme park rollercoaster - i’ve seen how it winds and twists before i get on, but i still had fun!

y’kno what i’m not gonna pretend like i paid full attention to this movie, but it screams camp to me, and i enjoyed that.

senritsu kaiki file kowasugi (file 01 - also available on youtube)
also found this mockumentary from reignbot’s video. i think this such a cult classic-style take on japan’s cult classic urban legend - the slit mouthed woman. also great at giving subtle clues (though not as great as saiko), but i’m minusing an entire point because i felt like it moved too slow? they spent what felt like an unnecessary amount of time trying to determine whether the woman’s running speed was unnatural lol.

this was a rewatch, four years later! violette, cass and i were looking for something to watch, and i thought - why haven’t we dived into thai horror?! i very much agree that they have earned the title of being brilliant at creating truly scary horror. and i do think it’s scarier watching this as someone who was raised on buddhist traditions and superstitions. it’s also funny how i got a little annoyed with how they overdid it with using every imaginable horror trope, but i feel like it didn’t ruin the movie?

the only series i watched this year! amazing cinematography and plot, but it moved way too slow (the show just ended and honestly, what more have we learnt?!) and carol is kinda insufferable for too much of the show (i.e., character development just felt slow and choppy). will i still wait and watch season 2? absolutely. maybe i’m more invested in the sapphic plotline more than anything (damn guess i got queerbaited).

digital media that survived the horrors of doomscrolling

i might not be great at catching up with traditional entertainment, but one thing for sure is that i am so locked in with youtube video essays. well, the ratio of essays i’ve actually paid attention to versus ones i’ve just had playing in the background while i’m doing something else and proceed to completely forget is still quite concerning… but there absolutely have been a good many that have deeply resonated with me this year -

proof that i have engaged meaningfully with the internet

as someone that deeply struggles with the concept and passing of time, this really really resonated. i guess i’ve never fully processed how jarring the transition into adulthood was for me, so for the past couple of years, i never properly made time meaningful for myself. and it only seems to get worse as we feel the pressure to tie time to our ability to fit into the demands of capitalism.

went into a commonplacing deep dive just hoping to switch up my notetaking strategies, did not expect to learn so much about why it matters that we relate to knowledge in a decolonial way, even in the way in which we write and organise our notes! she even mentions how the methodologies we have adopted were of course, invented by those who have a vested interest in gatekeeping knowledge.

honestly unsettles me a little whenever she appears on my tiktok… since when we did we allow billionaires to be relatable?! cue discourse on the extent we should hold individual billionaires accountable versus not giving them the attention on social media when they are part of a larger systemic issue.

i really need to limit my yapping about ursula because it deserves a full post! but this video basically analyses her short story the omelas, how it parallels current realities, how it relates to palestine.

i put this video here because thanks to it i learnt that tech products can be medical grade?! kinda cool.

see, true leftists are spongebob stans. i stand by the fact that he’s had a larger imprint on our collective consciouness than the simpsons did.

this is one of the most realistic and achievable version of utopia i’ve come across, hence i think it’s a very important watch. we need utopia to drive us to working towards a better future. though this version does fall short in how it repairs and honours indigenous existence.

part-tldr of braiding sweetgrass, part extension of how language shapes everything else, including our sociopolitical thinking, how we relate to others, etc.. big fan of anna howard’s video essays.

well there’s not much explanation needed for this one - this is the video that started my deep dive into gnōden stuff, which you should read if you haven’t

how i learnt about the term enshittification. great summary.

i love liminal spaces and the lore behind it!! they did an entire series where they went to visit all the iconic ones, and this one in particular they went to the backrooms. insane. must watch.

love their entire 70s house makeover series - and they’re my favourite interior design channel on youtube. one day, i will make my entire house/apartment mcm.

essential lore catchup for the terminally online… like cmon, dashcon actually made a comeback this year and succeeded?! one of the biggest wins of 2025 in my opinion.

this long video essay truly gave me whiplash - i was just as glued in as everyone else during jimcantswim’s peak; something about the way and detail at which he analyses interrogation footage was so gripping. but in retrospect, his analyses really didn’t give significantly more merit than those awful ‘body language analysis’ videos. i guess i implicitly knew and just enjoyed his content as entertainment, but after this deep dive, true crime isn’t really it for me anymore.

Footnotes

yes, partner!! this is absolutely my way of dropping a bombshell on my friends because i’m a) shit with getting back to your messages and checking up on you all, b) why must instagram be the only and primary way of making sure we’re all alive and well?! i hate that damn app.

more details about said partner in this post… that you shall read if you really love me. yes that is an order not a request.↩︎
i must add in her beautifully designed blinkie:

i also need to create my own! surprised i haven’t with how much old web stuff i’ve been doing.↩︎
i say this as i’m drafting this post in a room i’ve lived and mostly (over)worked in for the better of the past three years, and have recently been struggling to allow this space to be healing and restorative for me, nor do i have any idea how long more i have inside this room. and yet, i still feel safe in here, and it’s also a space where i’ve experienced some of my most pivotal and important memories. and i say all of this as i still have a slightly complicated relationship with rest, where i’m currently feeling a little dissociated and restless, and struggling to be as reflective and introspective as i sometimes can be. lotsa weird and complicated feelings coming up that just make me feel tired.↩︎
the loft logs as a name feels like a combination of proof of life and the attic archives, if that makes sense?↩︎
this diva never just thaws out during christmas alright, because time does not exist!!!↩︎
well this ended up being an unintentional copy of cass’ little blurb about us, that’s cute!↩︎
trust the colonised asian dyke to study abroad in the west and achieve Queer Maximus. my chinese new year comeback is gonna go so hard and give every nosy relative an aneurysm.↩︎
growing up in an incredibly light-polluted city i never paid enough attention to the vastness of the sky above me, so this felt extra special :’)↩︎
i spent two weeks in october fleshing out an incredibly detailed phd project… yeah…↩︎
coming from someone that watches carol nearly every christmas↩︎
surprise! wonder who my top artist is… couldn’t have been the four lady gaga concerts i went to in may, right?!↩︎