Hi, my name is dead_heather, and I'm a musician, artist, gamer- just, general media nerd. As of late, I've been getting really invested in a specific genre of aggressive and expressive, chronically-online queer art. The kind of stuff that doesn't hold back, even when it means getting a bit filthy. And there's this one artist in particular who I've become crazy enamored with. Her name is Porpentine Charity Heartscape, and the niche she occupies is impossibly awesome. Here, take a look at her website. Once your eyes adjust to the colors, you'll see video games, drawings, and writings galore. A handful of these works have recieved attention from universities, online publications, and spray-painted guerilla advertisements on the side of convention booths. It's not hard to see why- she's got a totally unique and strong creative vision that would resonate with a lot of my fellow "weird kids" who grew up on the internet. So I'm left to ask: Where the hell is the fanbase for this girl? I'm sure there's one somewhere, but not nearly enough people know about her. Most of the coverage on Charity is over 6 years old, and the vast majority of it covers this experimental novel, Psycho Nymph Exile, which probably isn't the easiest introduction to her work! So I want to introduce you to these works in this more digestable format. Hopefully you will find some kinship in her art.
I've been saying a lot about how great Charity is without actually explaining much about her. Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a "trashgender girl" who's most well known for her experimental video games and novels, though she also creates visual art and art exhibitions. Her video games are usually short text adventures developed in the Twine or Bitsy engines. In an interview with Artforum, she described her graphical games as "little critters plonking around a zone", which is really cute Both her games and literature are brain-melting and explorative, which pairs really nicely with the psychedelic imagery of her drawings and exhibitions. Just look at this stuff, man. If I HAD to classify her work, I guess I would call it ero-guro? Ero-guro is a broad Japanese genre whose name means "grotesque eroticism". I'm specifically comparing Charity to people like Shintaro Kago, though I'd argue her art isn't as... disgusting? The sexual nature of her writing is often content playing with and warping sexuality than providing any perverted pleasure. I'm not personally comfortable media of that variety. Basically, I'm saying Charity doesn't just write smut. Much of her portfolio is sexual in the same sense that the 2nd and 3rd Silent Hill games are. Nobody's getting off to Split Worm... I hope. Her Patreon description says she creates "ero-horror", but this description isn't perfect either. She's too eclectic too categorize! She pulls from all kinds of horror, cyberpunk, poetry, internet culture, and even philosophy at free reign. If this sounds like a lot to take in, I get it. Charity herself once said, "If people could talk about [my art] more easily, it would mean it wasn’t about the unspoken things that I care about, or the slimy, decomposed things." This video was NOT easy to write. The WHOLE REASON I am writing this is so that I can hold your hand as you wade out into her daunting portfolio yourself. On that note, I do have to give some trigger warnings. I'll do my best to keep the video tasteful and accessible for people that cannot directly interact with these projects. Every project that I focus on will be individually TW'd. I WILL AVOID discussing any particularly sensitive topics in explicit detail in this video. But the general trigger warnings are as follows: [NOTE TO SELF: PUT TOGETHER BASIC LIST]. Alright. If you're still here, congratulations. You're in for something good.
In preparing for this video, I wanted to be as thorough as possible with my research. I read every article and interview I could find that as much as mentioned Porpentine Charity Heartscape. I played all her games, read all her writings, and watched all the exhibition recordings I could find at least twice. I made an almost comprehensive notes file that contains notes, summaries, and trigger warnings for every existing Charity work. (There's a link to download that below this video.) I followed Charity's blog. I secured and read as many physical copies of Charity's books as I could- those available included Psycho Nymph Exile in paperback, Low Kill Shelter in paperback, Serious Weakness in paperback, and the My Seaside Adventure artbook. I talked to my friends about my script until they wanted to die. I played games by other developers that Charity had included in her exhibitions. I subbed to the Porpentine patreon, which I recommend checking out. I kept looking up the definition of "Porpentine". I asked myself if this was an addiction. I attended a support group. I checked myself into artistic rehab. I went into artistic remission and went to artistic therapy. I listened to the entire discographies of Devi Mccallion and Ada Rook. I read too many Chuck Paliniuk novels. I watched Belladonna of Sadness AND Lady Snowblood. Those last few things are BARELY even related. My point is that I wanted to ensure this would be the most well-informed beginner's guide I could make. I won't make the nonsense claim to "completely understand" Porpentine Charity Heartscape. But I think that this is someone whose pieces are worth holistically experiency, because each work is so clearly a piece of a larger puzzle. With that out of the way...