Does this work with core media instead of image

Not sure, but I am migrating my sites to Drupal 10 shortly and take the opportunity to look into it.

So, the key issue is the view that comes with the module. It uses the Article's "field_image" field, which is then used in the module's Views Plugin and the Twig template. I'll try to provide a migration path for D10 and core media, but it may take some time.