Films I Watched in September 2026

Nightcrawler (2014) ★★★★⯪

I wasn't sure how I was gonna like this one, it's always a toss up with Jake Gyllenhaal films, but I really enjoyed it. The film really sucks you in immediately. Every character is doing messed up things but each have their own self justified reasoning for it. My fave is sweet little Rick, who didn't deserve to die, he just wanted $75 a night ☹. The soundtrack for this film is also superb, it brings you fully into the scene that's unfolding in front of you. It also made me feel like I could hear Lou's thoughts as he puts together his sprawling plans in an instant.

His House (2020) ★★★★★

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu were amazing. Both of them, separately and together, absolutely acted their faces off. It was such a soul touching film. The supernatural elements were done very well, you could feel the sense of dread creeping up on you as the spirits slowly started to take over the house and their minds. 

The Whisper Man (2026) ★★★☆☆

A very middle of the road horror film, there was nothing disappointing or lacking in this film. It was just, fine. The acting is good throughout but that isn't surprising, seeing as every single actor in this film, save for the kid, is a very established name (even the kid has been in a big budget film already). The amount of star power in this cast is astounding for how mediocre this film is. Typical mediocre Netflix.

Music So Far in 2026

Untitled #9 (Smáskífa 1) ★★★★⯪

I really love how, despite how quite this song is, it is still able to convey so much. The overlapping elements build up to this beautiful choir of sound that feels like it's spiralling all around you. I think some of the audio tracks are recordings of someone talking played in reverse. That, combined with the distorted speaking, makes it feel as though you are being sent a secret, indecipherable message, one only meant for your ears but unknowable all the same.

Ghosts of The Labor Tophet  ★★★★★

I think I listened to this song on repeat for about a month straight because it infested my mind so deeply. It's at just the right BPM for it to grip onto my mind. Overall, I love the atmosphere this artist creates, from his stage name, to the cover art, to the samples in his songs. It feels as though you have been sucked through a portal to a high tech alternate reality filled with neon green test tubes and cyborgs.

Star Du Métro ★★★★★

I will admit, I discovered this song through a tiktok edit of Shane Hollander. I wish I spoke French, or there was a place where I could translate the lyrics. It kinda reminds me of Leith Ross (one of my all time faves) and how their songs feel as though you are being lulled into a fantastical dreamscape, or you have fallen though the pages of a fairy-tale. This artists, Louizi, pulls you into the clouds and takes you on an adventure.

Family and Friends ★★★★★

This whole album has been seared into my brain forever. I love how light and floaty Oklou's sound is. Her voice is as light as a feather, being blown along by the winds of the fast beats and flickering oscillation of the elements she brings together. I also love how she writes her lyrics, as though she is recounting a vision to you. It also reminds me of the flowery language of hymns.

Unreal Superhero 3 ★★★★☆

I came across this song while looking for KeyGen songs to listen to. I found this playlist on the Internet Archive, a lot of the songs on there aren't on streaming, or if they are I couldn't find them. This is the first song I was able to find and it instantly took hold of me. It is a song you could envision playing over a sprawling montage of a hero going on a great, trekking adventure, the ripping guitar playing as they slay enemies and then the slower piano parts as they complete their expedition up a huge mountain.

Sabir (feat. Billur Battal) ★★★⯪☆

You just can't sit still while listening to this. It takes your hand and demands that you feel the music. Again, I don't know the lyrics but the sound conveys it anyway. The instrumentals are just delicious, I find myself singing along to them as I myself am an instrument.

Tokyo ★★★★⯪

A friend recommended the album this song is from after we spoke about my love for Laurie Anderson's music. I don't know how I had never come across The Books before because they are right up my alley. I love how they use samples and mash together all these different sounds. This also makes me feel as though I am being pulled into an adventure, though this one feels more chaotic and incomprehensible!

Herlengiin Barya ★★★★★

Oh wow, this song takes you on a journey. The quick, fluttering movements draw you in, as if to emphasis the great pulling notes of the violin. The echo and massive quietness surrounding the single instrument only highlights the captivating nature of the performance.

Red Sex (Re-strung) [feat. Rakhi Singh] ★★★★★

I had this song on repeat when I went to Iceland two years ago and I have listened to it on and off consistently this year too. Iceland was the perfect place to become obsessed with this song. The grey skies, ever stretching flat roads, volcanoes, and icebergs, all came together to create the perfect atmosphere for this song to be appreciated. I love the heavy tempo beat that is ever present throughout this song. It feels like you're walking home in the dark, and the tempo is following behind you, and you're not sure if it's getting closer or if you're being paranoid and making it up in you head.

Perverts ★★★★⯪

I was very excited for this album overall, I love Preacher's Daughter so much, it was the first ever concept/ narrative album I'd ever listened to. When Hayden announced this album, she also said it would be different to her other projects and would be a step away from her popular sound in pursuit of her love for ambient and drone music, all of which made me very excited. The visuals she shared at the time also added to that. This album is amazing.

I really like how this song starts, the hymn sets the scene for this song and the rest of the album, establishing the idea of proximity to God, something I've heard her talk about in her YouTube videos. I love how ambient it is, almost all the noise you hear makes you feel like you're in this big, empty void. There is also this mumbling audio backing the whole thing, it almost sounds like you're under water. And her voice comes in, repeating this line "heaven has forsaken the masturbator", and it feels like she's breathing down your neck. Some of the other audio elements seem to replicate both technological sounds, like the flickering of a server, but also start sounding like cicadas too. It jumps around when you wear headphones, like it's circling you. Her voice also follows this route, sounding distorted, like an old tape recording, but also as if she's a robot. A lot of the sound is droning, so when the more sudden parts come in, they really jolt you. I love how, by the end of the song, her voice is so distorted, it sounds like her vocal cords have broken, or she's become something else.

I will eventually post the review of the whole album that I originally wrote in my journal when the album came out.

Photo Slides I Found at a Car Boot Sale

Back in July, I posted about some film clippings and photo slides that I have in my collection. I had procured both of those lots at some point in 2025, so I couldn't believe my luck when, within the same month of making that post, I found another lot while I was at Rosudgeon Car Boot Sale.

For only £15 I was able to snag 6 skinny boxes of slides, and a Boots Star Viewer in pristine condition. In this collection, there turned out to be 188 photos, all of which are centred around tropical holidays and many boat focused trips. There was also some of a dentists working on a patient. At firsts, they felt very out of place but after a closer look, I think the owner of these photos was a dentists who, at least briefly, worked on a boat.

All of the boxes had place names written on them, but unfortunately with the condition I found the slides in, I don't think the right ones were in the right boxes. The places these photos were taken were supposedly Mauritius, Italy, Malta, Dartmouth, and Eagle (?), but I could not distinguish which ones are from which location. The only ones I myself could identify were the ones from Dartmouth, because I also went there earlier this year. That was really cool to see, recognising the places I had recently been, sometimes as close as the same street, but nearly 70 years prior. These date from between November 1963 and December 1981, but there were also some undated ones in the mix too. Once again, I've posted my favourites as large individuals. ♡

188 individual colour 35mm film photos

TV Shows So Far in 2026

Stranger Things (Season 1) ★★★★★

At the start of the year, I wound up rewatching season one of Stranger Things because my brother had never seen it. Oh, this show used to be so good. I have a whole blog post I'll eventually post about the downfall of this show and my opinions on it. My hot take is that this show should have been a limited series. I think this first season is just perfect. Are there parts of the following seasons that I like? Yes, but I think the first season stand well alone, and is the best of all the seasons. I even think the other seasons bring down the first season because, in my opinion, the plot of season one, when watched directly after season five, doesn't work. The world just gets more and more diluted, it's just too different to make sense.

Anyway, lets focus on season one. I absolutely love season one. I love the creepiness, the monster in the dark, and the kids are so charismatic. The costuming and the set feel authentically like the 80s, not like a Halloween costume version of it (like in later seasons). This is the only season I would go back and watch again. What makes up this whole show is not knowing the monster. Whether it's the Demogorgon, or the secret government program, or the mystery kids with magic powers. All of it is mystery, and even if we end season one with a happy ending, it isn't all explained at us in a long monologue. After watching this season again, it made me reflect on the fact that every sci-fi and fantasy show in the last few years always hinges on a world ending plot point. I think a missing kids and one scary monster can bring more to a show than the world almost exploding in every season finale.

The Pitt (Season 2) ★★★★☆

I was completely enamoured with the first season of The Pitt, and was very excited for season two. I will say I'm not massively into medical shows but what I do love is an ensemble cast, and there was a wide array of characters, all of which I liked and couldn't wait to see more of. By the end of season one, my faves were probably Mohan (number 1 on my list for sure), and then Santos, Abbott, Dana, and Collins. The new characters they introduced in season two were also cool, I liked seeing the characters from season one being put in a mentor position with the new medical students, it was nice to see how the different relationships and dynamics had changed since the end of season one. My favourite new characters were Emma and Al-Hashimi. I got 12 episodes into season two, at which point I began to get bored of watching what seemed to be the same scene over and over. I'm frustrated in the direction this show has gone, I understand that you could call Robby the main character (even though it's an ensemble cast) but I don't understand why the writers have decided to act as if every other character was only written to serve his new found arc in the second season. Obviously, they set up his struggles in season one, but it got to a point in season two where I felt like every other scene was just people giving him the same "get your shit together" monologue and then the next scene was him shouting at whichever female colleague wronged him by seemingly getting in his way to the next scene. But even though I have grievances with how the plot lines are developing, I did enjoy the episodes that I watched, and overall the show is well done.

Tell Me Lies (Season 1) ★★⯪☆☆

This show was a short lived stint of me trying to watch a show that apparently everyone on tiktok was obsessed with at the time. It didn't last very long. I don't know what I was expecting because I can't usually latch on to shows that centre around uni/collage/school anyway. This show is painfully American and even more painfully straight. I could not bring myself to care about, never mind like any of the characters. I only got 4 episodes into it before I called it quits. It's just that the main male love interest was just genuinely evil and I couldn't get behind trying to give a fuck if Lucy decided to keep dating him or not.

Off Campus (Season 1) ★★★⯪☆

I watched this because of all of the comparisons people were making between it and Heated Rivalry. I'll say immediately, they are wildly different shows. The only thing to compare is the hockey, and much like Heated Rivalry it is somehow both deeply important to the plot and also barely in it. My understanding is that the biggest point of departure from the books is how toxic the guys are. Basically, in the show they're more progressive and in the book they are more stereotypical frat boys. And this is my main gripe with the plot of the show. If Garret (and the rest of the hockey boys) are nice and woke and not toxic, the whole make-a-deal-with-the-asshole-guy-to-eventually-get-with-the-nice-guy plot doesn't make sense. And the twist of Wait-I-have-feelings-for-the-asshole-guy isn't a twist. Why wouldn't she like him, he's been nothing but nice to her the whole time. It's even worse with Allie's plot line. They made her ex boyfriends a much bigger asshole than Dean, so the whole time she's grappling with the guilt of sleeping with Dean, all I was thinking was, "Why do you feel bad? Sean called your dreams childish, wants you to have boring sex forever, and demanded that you move to Vermont to be his house wife!" I say all of this but I did enjoy watching this show overall, and from what I've heard about the books, these changes are better than if they took the characters straight from the books.

Adults (Season 1 + 2) ★★★★⯪

I had so much fun watching both season of Adults. I'd say my favourites in order are Anton, Issa, Samir, Billie, Paul Baker. Once again, I love an ensemble cast, I love how over the top it all is and how crazy each of the characters are, both individually and all together. I especially love the moments where the plot just completely devolves from reality, like when Issa and Kyle both miraculously had identity lanyards to indicate their points of oppression, or when Anton is in the photo on a Wanted Criminal Poster.

Making Paper Illustrations in July 2026

Electric Caterpillar, 16x9cm, 19/07/26

I've made paper collages and paper cut illustrations before, but I think this is the smallest I've ever managed to go with hand cut stuff. This was insanely fun to make. I first plotted it out by drawing it digitally, flipped it, and then printed out all of the individual shapes onto white paper.

I then stuck those onto the separate colours of card and cut those out by hand. I also printed a sort of stencil, so all of the pieces stuck together in the same orientation. I started by sticking together the body pieces, stuck that to the background piece, and then added the feet, face and antenna, on top. I think the scale I went for was perfect for this design, and was definitely a challenge for me to cut out all of the detail pieces. I had to use tweezers to position and glue them in the right place! This was made as a card for my friend.

Three Little Guys, 7.5x15cm each, 27/07/26

These guys were the project I took with me on holiday in July. I knew they wouldn't consist of too many pieces or colours of card, so it was easy to pack the supplies with the rest of my stuff. I had already planned them out digitally and printed the pieces, so all I did on holiday was cut them out and glue them together. I love how they came out, I wasn't sure I was going to have enough shades of each of the colours to make the features, especially the ears, but I managed. The orange guy was originally going to be pink, but I liked the texture of the orange card I had much better. These were not made to be cards, but instead came to me in a flash of inspiration and had to be made. ♡

My Initial Sketches of each of these Illustrations