atelier assay #05
August 2025
Single Choice Jam wrapped up this month and so did the Summer of Translations. The two projects I started for both of them has wound up outgrowing the boxes I originally envisioned for their scope; the first one I had a feeling was ambitious for the amount of time/energy I going in, so I fell back pretty quickly onto another idea hinging on translation as a narrative medium, which I do like a lot. It’s so, so close to a finished state (I did all the hard parts already! They were fun!), but I’ve been sitting in a rut and I’m trying to break myself out of working Deadline To Deadline for hobby things, so for now I’m gently tucking it onto a shelf instead of getting into a fever over it.
IFComp’s deadline has, at the time of this writing, just passed. In a few days, this year’s entries will be unveiled and there will be plenty of fun games to dig into. IFComp 2025 games are now live! I’m looking forward to playing and voting. Maybe this year will be the year I start public reviews too…
It’s been a quiet month for me. An August that couldn’t quite seem to decide what it wanted to be or how.
object experiences
- White miso longbeans
- A creamy balance of milky-sweet and soy-savoury. Went very well with steamed rice and fermented black beans. Very strong white chocolate sensation.
- Le Male, Jean Paul Gaultier
- A classic that I’ve liked before but never owned or worn myself. Pleased with how warm and mellow the vanilla wears on me and how subtle the lavender + mint is. The dry down was a lot cleaner and lighter than I had anticipated, which I am not at all displeased with, though I wish it had a little more longevity.
Vasilisa Azarenka (OC)
music
- “Run Daddy Run”, Miranda Lambert
Ballad-bent country pop. - “Come to the Water”, Maroon 5
Pop. The song that put me in the top 5% of Maroon 5 listeners on Youtube, apparently. 😭 Oh the things themed playlists do to a body… -
“Pretty Little Head”, Eliza Rickman
Folkish pop with a rad visualiser (not linked, contains SFX gore and gorgeous (historically accurate!!) costuming) -
“god’s chariots”, Oklou
dreampop, synthpop. Ethereal and echoey, drifting over grit the way sweaty skin flirts with scraping. -
“Everybody Scream”, Florence + the Machine
baroque pop, melodic and spooky. Best sound mixing of screams into lyrics + melody I have ever heard. (I am very excited for the new album.) -
“Blue Eyes”, Cute Whore
Electropop/dance alternative, a little bit bittersweet like memories of making bad decisions with good people you don’t talk to anymore.- This and its B-side “Slush Puppie” have been in *heavy* rotation the past few weeks for me. Perfect lyrics + mood for a pair of OCs whose terrible relationship has been on the brain lately.
Taran Etoni (OC)
watches
- Portraits of Lovelustreman (Part 1) (2023)
Short film by Benjamin Clementine built around the tracklist of his album And I Have Been.
Jinx Things ✨
- Did more drawing this month. It’s nice to look over art I’ve done in the past year-ish and see improvement!
- Finished translations of some short original fiction into French and Airinakri (a conlang I created a few years ago!), and bound them all up into a Twine file. I’m particularly proud of the Airinakri version—it’s so neat to see it On A Real Page.