The months are going by way too fast, and I am kind of sad September (which marks the beginning of spooky season for me) is almost over. I love October, and it is my favorite month of the year, but I don’t want it to fly by! This month has been a lot of HHN, reading, and gaming!

Halloween Horror Nights

We have been to Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights at least one a week since August 28th. This year’s theme isn’t my favorite, which is surprising because Jack the Clown is my favorite icon, but we’ve had a lot of fun! I was expecting the Dr. Oddfellow and Jack being the icons this year that it would be bigger, with more scarezones and variety of characters roaming. It feels like Downtown Clowntown being split into Killer Klowns and then the rest of the circus theme, Fortnitemares being an alley, and Sideshows of Decay are the main scarezones. Infernal Carnival of Nightmares is where you walk in to, and besides the area near the main HHN sign when you walk in the park, I find the scare actors are super sparse. The two main scarezones (Downtown Clowntown and Sideshows of Decay) are my absolute favorite, because I’ve always loved carnival theming and the circus.

I honestly don’t know if I can rank the houses, because I feel like there were a lot of good ones!

1. Hellraiser – I just want to say Matt and I planned on watching the Hellraiser movies to get some background on the house, because two years when I went through A Quiet Place I had zero idea of what was going on. We made it through the first movie, but the acting was terrible and the Cenobites only had a small appearance. We started the second movie, and Matt had shut it off half way because it was so bad. The special effects and the Cenobites character designs were the best part of the movie, but even that couldn’t get us through it. We had a general idea of what was going on, and honestly that was enough for the house. We first did Hellraiser last week during the Scream Early ticket, getting in within 20 minutes, which was awesome (especially since Sinners queue was open but not moving because the house was still closed). The house honestly comes out swinging, with it being loud and dark, and the scare actors during that first experience gave it their all. Every single section where there was an actor placed, they got me perfectly, which was hilarious because there was no down time. I feel like I’m a little biased towards the first time going through the house because towards the end, the three Cenobites jumped out all at once and scared me right before we exited, which was such a scare high (it was awesome). The second and third time (which was this past Wednesday) was really cool, because it gave a chance to really see more details in the house, and really getting a good look at the scare actors and their costumes! I didn’t enjoy the movie, but they did an amazing job at this house.
2. H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: A Halloween Fright-Tacular – We finally got to do H.R. Bloodengutz Wednesday as well, and it was totally worth it. I feel like there is always a “fun” house, where it isn’t scary but more of a spoofy-Halloween vibe, as well as the houses that are actually divided into separate room themes, and this fit the bill. The costumes and sets in this house were amazing, and I think the ones I liked the most were the zombie cheerleader who was in grey scale, the girl pumpkin spice monster, and of course the Pumpkin Lord (who somehow our friends missed even though he was in a giant pumpkin and had his own room 🤣). I did also like the shriveled up merperson corpse who sat in the tiki room as well (which that room along with the others were amazing). H.R. Bloodengutz also kind of gives me Captain Spaulding vibes, with being a goofy psycho, so that also might play a part in why I love this house so much. Perfect theming, and I would love to do this house again!
3. Madlands: Caged Cannibals – I keep saying this house is what the Fallout house should have been, with wild and crazed raiders in the different factions of the zoo (which Matt says is similar to one of the DLCs for Fallout). I loved this house and I keep talking about it because I really enjoyed how gory and gritty it was. We have only done it once, and I feel like I missed a lot of details on it, but really want to go through this one again soon.
4. Cybergoria – This was another Fallout-like house for me, but basically being the plot of being asleep in the cryogenic pods of Fallout 4 gone terribly wrong. I loved the peppy AI-like music before the house (although I don’t like AI in real life), and the clean look of the Facade before the house. The immediate switch into darkness and disarray is so much fun to me, and I love the robotic characters within the house. I know there was a scene with a body split open on a medical table, and I thought those were pretty cool props as well. We have only done the house twice, and each time was during the day during the Scream Early, so the connector point of the house in the Fast & Furious location kind of ruined the immersion because daylight shines through, but eventually I would like to do this house at night.
5. Evil Dead Burn – This was another movie we tried watching, this time after we went in it the first time, and yet another one we shut off early because it was terrible. The movie didn’t seem like Evil Dead, and the beginning was super cringy, so we shut it off early. With that said, this one is probably tied with Hellraiser as one of the houses we’ve done the most. I really like some of the effects in this one, with the decapitated head of the deadite at the beginning of the facade talking as the first effect. The grandmother in the beginning of the house in her stair glider has only worked once in the three times we’ve been in there, with the other two having her stuck at the top of the stairs. The other effects that I like in this house is the bedroom scene, with the body floating under the sheets, as well as the bathroom scene with the strangulation in the air. Evil Dead houses and deadites always scare me, but this is a good house!
6. INVASION: Alien Abduction – We’ve only done this house twice, with the first time being an okay walk through. It was opening night, and the aliens in the country home were kind of more comical than scary. The second time we went through it (on Wednesday) felt like they changed a lot up. There were a lot of wind effects within the house, and I want to say it was louder with more sound effects. I feel like they utilized light and shadows a lot more, with one specific I thought was cool was one of the aliens in front of a spot light so it was giving a really dramatic effect. There was also a floor shaking in one area, which I didn’t remember the first time we went through, but was a cool immersion feature. The set in this one was a lot of fun, though, with parts of the house being destroyed, and then bringing the guest through the outside in between clothing sheets hung up to dry (a scene that they like to do with Texas Chainsaw houses).
7. Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos & Control – I feel terrible to say, but I don’t like Jack’s new design this year at all, and I feel like this house just progressively worsened this year’s character rendition. I know I said before I also love circus themes, but this house is more of a hot neon mess of a circus than anything else. You really can’t see what the sets are supposed to be, besides the beginning of the house. Towards the end it looks like it should be a split path, as if you’re supposed to chose Dr. Oddfellow or Jack, and it’s not. I thought I was going to enjoy this house more, and it was just really “okay”.
8. Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness – We finally got to go through Ozzy on Wednesday as well, and although I’ve seen bits and pieces of it via Youtube, I really didn’t know what to expect. With the combination of the sound effects, I feel like sometimes it was hard to hear the music for the scene. This wasn’t a scary house at all, although they did have some cool characters such as the wolf man, the bat people (of whom I loved), and the Ozzy at the end of the house. I also did like the different scenes, with my favorite being the outside industrial with the raining effect. It was a good nod to the icon, but not my favorite house.
9. Sinners – I can honestly say I don’t remember much of the movie, so I am due for a rewatch, but I was really disappointed with this house. I think they could have done so much more with this house because the scenes were nicely done, and we all like vampires, but I feel like they were piggy backing off the hype of the movie. There were some awkward scenes where characters were just standing around, like Stack and Smoke standing being cool or the bar guitar scene, but it wasn’t scary.
10. Stranger Things 5 – I honestly wasn’t looking forward to Stranger Things this year, because I feel like it’s getting overplayed, especially since the seasons were progressively getting worse. Season 5 was terrible, so I didn’t have high hopes for this house. For what they had to work with, it was fine, but this house wasn’t scary. I will say, I think some of the audio of the characters don’t have a long enough reset, because hearing “suck my fat one” from a child back to back when I haven’t even made it out of the room is really annoying (but I also didn’t like his character in the show either so 🤷🏻‍♀️).

We have still yet to do the Nightmare Fuel, so we need to make it a point to do next time we go. I do like the year to year show, but I also really miss Bill & Ted’s show they used to do with the pop culture references from the past year. Thankfully we still have a whole month left to go of being able to attend HHN!

Reading and Books

I guess it’s been a while since I last updated on what I finished reading and current books! Back in August, I had read The Girl with a Thousand Faces, Good Creature, Piranesi, Slasher Summer, and Amid Clouds and Bones. September I had finished Thornhedge, Snow Crash, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, Dire Bound, The Poisoner, and These Vengeful Wishes. Currently I am trying to get through Coffee Magic for the Modern Witch: A Practical Guide to Coffee Rituals, Divination Readings, Magical Brews, Latte Sigil Writing, and More on my Kobo, The Bewitching on my Kindle, and Demon Copperhead on Libby. I have been feeling like I’ve been slowing down reading, because my last book for Goodreads wasn’t great, but honestly I’ve had a good batch of books.

When I started reading The Girl with a Thousand Faces, I didn’t know if I was going to enjoy it or not. It started off in China with Mercy Chan, this too cool (but in a way I found a bit corny) older woman who had sass, who can talk to ghosts to help them move on from this world. Living in an area where the government doesn’t help, Mercy works for a triad boss, helping cleaning up the streets of ghosts as well as trying to prevent the government from leveling out their city. They formulate a plan to get rid of a ghost who is causing a bigger problem, and things go wrong. Where things start picking up was the flashback, where it explains Mercy Chan’s origin. I don’t want to spoil the twist, because even though the beginning of the book was slow, I really, really enjoyed the book from the origin onward. Words can’t describe how much emotion I felt reading what happened to her when she was young, and it changed my outlook on the beginning of the book. I loved this book so much, I actually ordered a special edition sprayed edge hardcover copy for my shelf!

I saw that the ARC of Good Creature was auto approved for everyone a few months ago, so while reading The Girl with a Thousand Faces, I decided to give it a go. I was really looking forward to another Asian horror/paranormal book, and I was really hoping I would enjoy this story as much as the previous one I read. Initially, I wasn’t crazy about Lamb, the young adult FMC who was scamming grieving families into marrying off their deceased love ones to help them move on. She seemed immature, rude, and cut off from everyone else, not wanting to form any sort of connection. One of the two families that she has a deal with pulls out of the last ceremony she has planned, and so she decides to use a young photo of herself to pose as a stand in on the bride’s side, and things go wrong. Instead, she forms a connection with Felix, the deceased man who died in a car crash, bonded together by a red thread. During the ceremony, something else leeches on and is brought back to the world, eventually causing havoc on the campus of the college that Lamb attends. Lamb, Felix, and Lamb’s two friends team up together to help this creature move on, along with helping Felix also move on to also be at peace. Finishing this book, I actually sobbed because of the character growth and connections Lamb made. This book doesn’t get officially published until March 30th, but I am trying to hold off because really want to get a special edition copy if they release one.

I read Piranesi as apart of one of the Goodreads Achievements because it was previously on my TBR, and I thought it was a good opportunity to pick it up. It has a 4.20 rating on Goodreads, and the cover is interesting to me, so I was expecting a book to fly through (especially since it’s a shorter book). I will say, this book was different, taking place in an unknown labyrinth, following the MMC Piranesi, as well as the only other person within the labyrinth named The Other. Piranesi is a kind and respectable character, with a bit of quirkiness to him, having little trinkets in his hair as well as a multitude of journals he likes to write in to document his days. He enjoys taking care of the multiple skeletal remains and paying his respects, coming up with names and possible backgrounds of each. He also meets up with The Other twice a week to report his findings on the labyrinth, of whom is looking for a certain power. Eventually Piranesi starts finding messages, of whom he decides is 16, and is told by The Other that this person is dangerous. The rest of the story is Piranesi’s interactions with 16 and The Other, and a discovery of who Piranesi is. I can see how this book might be boring to some, but I did enjoy it because it was a bit different than what I normally read.

Slasher Summer was another Goodreads book, which I want to say there wasn’t much on the achievement list. This cover and story gave a major nod to 80s slasher films, which as a book I wasn’t taking too seriously, I did enjoy. There was a variety of characters, all with different personalities, and I really like the way each chapter followed a different character and their interactions. It wasn’t the most mind blowing book, and I won’t say it was my favorite or that I will remember it, but it was a good little seasonal read.

I had to read Amid Clouds and Bones for my book club, and I honestly struggled with this book. It was supposed to be an easy one shot, romantasy read, so I expected it to be something to breeze through. I had started it August 5th, and didn’t complete it until the 25th, and it was like pulling teeth to read it because I just wasn’t enjoying it. I can honestly say romantasy genre isn’t my first choice, and I feel like fairy characters might be overplayed. The story read like a fanfic, with the FMC and the MMC both being incredibly annoying. It was also just smut, and I like reading a book for a story not smut without a plot (and this was just the basic of a basic plot). I finished Good Creature, Piranesi, and Slasher Summer all within the time period of reading this book.

I actually listened to the audiobook of Thornhedge to complete another Goodreads challenge. I have read some of Kingfisher’s other work and have enjoyed them, so while this was on the list of books I could pick from, it was one of the shorter ones. It was cute little listen, with it being a retelling of sleeping beauty with an ever so slight twist. Our FMC, Toadling, is found keeping guard of a tower by a knight, of whom she tries to scare off. She eventually befriends him, telling him a story of the terrible and cruel princess that sleeps in the tower. Toading was a cute little character, with mixed emotions and a big heart, and I loved the relationship between Halim, the MMC, and her.

Snow Crash has been on my TBR for a while, because it was on the list of books recommended within the cyberpunk genre, so I was excited to see it on one of my Goodreads lists. The beginning seemed interesting, but then things got kind of weird. You have two main characters: Hiro (MMC) and 15 year old Y.T. (FMC). Hiro was this badass character going around doing badass things, and Y.T. is this teenage courier, eventually getting hired by the mafia to do delivery requests. I should have found it weird with how some of the older men interacted with Y.T. in the book, because for some reason the author liked to describe how young she was on one page, and then all these inappropriate interactions with adult men towards her down the line. Later in the book, Y.T. somehow gets into a very short lived relationship with Raven, the middle aged antagonist of the book, and the author decides to write out a sex scene between the two (middle aged man and a 15 year old). Whole book left a sour feeling, and I’m side eyeing and judging towards both the author and the readers who put this author on a pedestal for the cyberpunk genre.

The Radium Girls also was on my TBR for the longest time, with me finding a random post on the internet about the real life story. This was another book on a Goodreads challenge, although I had high hopes for this one because it was a real event. This entire book was wild to me, in the sense that I still cannot believe what these women went through. It follows small groups of women in three different cities, all involved in dial painting and lip pointing in the early 1900s using radium. Radium, at the time, was the luxurious new product and was being marketed as such. These women worked in factories, which paid well for the time, with no idea of how dangerous this material was. This was all the while they were providing safety precautions for the men that work in the lab. These poor women developed several serious issues, resulting in a very poor quality of life and even in some cases death. This entire book roped me in, and I had such a range of emotions while reading this book ranging from super sad to angry. I highly recommend reading this book, and I really want to find the show to watch (even though it apparently has poor reviews, but I don’t always believe them).

We had to read Dire Bound for our latest book club book, and I was trying to start it after I had finished The Radium Girls. I was also a little bit intimidated reading this book because it was a little bit longer of a book than I am used to reading, but it has also been on my TBR so what better time than the present? I honestly feel like I flew through this book, reading it within six days. I loved the characters and their different personalities, I loved the different wolves (although I am hoping they go into more detail the other wolves), I loved the setting. Reading reviews on this, people also said this was similar to The Empyrean series, of which is also on my TBR (and I had already purchased the special editions for my shelf because I had loved Dire Bound so much, I’m hoping I love them just as much). Eventually I need to pick up the second one and start reading before the third comes out next year!

The Poisoner has been another book/series on my TBR, with the cover completely drawing me in. I love the colors, I love the snake, I love the flowers, the stylization is beautiful! I had read the summary, and it seemed interesting to me, but then actually finding out it had to do with vampires sold me! I like the fact that Alina, our FMC, is a poisoner who uses her apothecary skills to create concoctions to kill terrible men. The fact that it is set in a Victorian time I really enjoy as well, adding to the Victorian vampire-gothic vibe. I think I would have flown through this book a lot faster if I wasn’t trying to get my Goodreads book completed, because it took me a full month to read, but I can’t describe how much I enjoyed this book and the characters, and really can’t wait to pick up the next book in the series to start (of which I already have all of the books in both hard copy and epub).

Going back to terrible Goodreads books: These Vengeful Wishes was another one I did not enjoy. I thought it had an interesting summary, of a teen moving to a town with a vengeful horse skull spirit lurking, but actually reading the book I didn’t enjoy it. The majority of the characters were unlikable, especially the FMC Ceci. Her and her mother, Marina, move from Miami to a small town somewhere in Florida (I think?) after her mother’s husband/ex-husband gets in trouble with the law. This small town is haunted by La Cegua, who is told to essentially keep the men in check. La Cegua had previously cursed the Sevillas, a prominent family in this town, with all of the men in this lineage dying. I thought it was going to be more compelling, but this was another book I would have rather done something else than read because it was so corny. The way it was written, the characters, the interactions…I was so relieved when I finished this book.

I had picked up Coffee Magic for the Modern Witch for my Kobo, because I thought it was a cute idea of a book to read, especially with me being a coffee fiend. I love little witchcraft books like this, and I love the way it has broken down different types of coffee and different inclusions and their properties so far. The only reason why I haven’t gone back has been me scrambling to finish other books and I am wanting to annotate and highlight things in this book. Eventually I will go back and finish this!

I had started The Bewitching because it was previously on my TBR, possibly because of a Goodreads challenge, and it happened to be on the Spellbound list for the challenges this quarter. This was a book from the author of Mexican Gothic, another book that I have on my TBR, and between that and the description I thought I was going to enjoy it. So far it is following two different FMCs, Minerva in 1998 and Alba in 1908, and hasn’t actually gotten to the witchcraft portion of the book. Second chapter in, however, I got weird vibes. This is when they introduce Alba and her family who are waiting on the arrival of her uncle Arturo after their father’s death. They keep going into the description of how much Alba finds her uncle handsome, and funny, and educated. After checking online, apparently things are going to get more involved and intimate between these two and after finding this out I’m already disgusted that this is the route the author took with Alba’s timeline. I’m only 11% of the way in this book and I know I could DNF it, but between me already paying for the book and it being on these stupid challenge lists, I’m going to give it a little bit more of a chance.

Words can’t describe how much I am disliking Demon Copperhead. To start off, I was disappointed with some of the lists for this quarter’s Goodreads Achievements, so I had slim pickings on the Oprah’s Picks category. I chose Demon Copperhead, because I feel like Appalachia-based stories are kind of interesting and this book couldn’t be further away from interesting. The book is beyond boring and depressing, with Demon being placed in one bad situation to another bad situation. Between his mom being addicted to pills and alcohol, his mom marrying an abusive man, his mom dying, his previous caretakers refusing to take him in, and so on. It’s one depressing event after another, and I would honestly look forward to watching paint dry than continue to listen to this audiobook. I am only at 43%, so I am not even halfway through, with 12 hours still to go, but I am really struggling to finish this one.

Latest Games

There has been a few different games I’ve been playing, and plan on starting! We finished Fran Bow on stream recently, and I am happy the ending wasn’t as sad as Little Misfortune (I cried over that ending because the whole story was so sad). We are still playing Mouse: P.I. For Hire, which I am really enjoying, and plan on starting Kingdom Come: Deliverance II hopefully on Friday. I’ve been picking Stardew Valley up a little at a time again on my personal time instead of streaming, because it is my vegetable state game where I can lounge on the couch and decompress, but since trying to get ahead of my Goodreads reading it kind of got pushed to the back burner.

Unfortunately (or fortunately lol) Matt was talking about the MMO Dune: Awakening getting a single player mode, so I bought that this past weekend and have been really enjoying it! I’ve enjoyed it so much, I’ve become way to unproductive and need to force myself to quit playing. It gives me Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic vibes, and words can’t describe how much I loved that and the sequel growing up! I’m playing a Bene Gesserit (because…witch), but he is going to be creating a Mentat character possibly today. I am loving this game so much!