Syl's Blog

October Check-In

I made a post at the beginning of October about my plans for this month, and since we're halfway through, I thought it'd be good to check in and see how I'm doing.

Books and Short Stories

My plans:

As you can see by the strike-throughs, I've finished both Parasite Eve and Frankenstein. I liked them both, although Frankenstein was definitely the better read of the two. I found Parasite Eve to be over-descriptive and too vile for my horror tastes in the end. I enjoyed the first two-thirds of it, but I could've done without most of the final part. Frankenstein was devastatingly sad but a lovely read. As a fan of both horror and classic lit, I'm glad to finally have it under my belt.

I've read six ghost stories so far, all from The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women, which I'm liking so much I've decided to just continue reading from it until I've finished it. My favorite story so far is "Afterward" by Edith Wharton. Its atmosphere is incredible, and I love how unique the ghost is.

Video Games

My plans:

The two games I've finished so far were both great! I loved the witchy world of The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood and the creativity that came with making my own tarot deck.

Paranormasight was wonderful but quite hard! I had to resort to a guide for a few of the puzzles because they had me stumped. I loved the story and the art style, though, and had a great time uncovering the mystery, even if it was a bit convoluted. I also learned that there's a sequel called The Mermaid's Curse, which I'll definitely have to check out in the future.

I made one change in my plans here. I've replaced Haunting Ground with The Doll Shop. The latter came out recently and is a game I've been anticipating for a long time, so it needs to be on the list. Also, Haunting Ground is quite a long game, and I don't think I'll have time to play it in comparison to The Doll Shop, which is a smaller indie. I'll save it for sometime in the future.

Movies and Shows

Not too many plans here:

Initially, I wanted to see Other Mommy in the theater, but I've been anticipating Clayface for much longer, and I think it'll be the more enjoyable theater event. It comes out on the 23rd, so hopefully we can go see it around then.

The other day, I watched a Japanese horror film called Helter Skelter, from 2012, because I saw it was available for free on Plex. I'd heard it was a big inspiration for The Substance, which I absolutely loved, so my interest was piqued. I really liked it! I can definitely see the inspiration, as it's about a Japanese idol who undergoes illegal, experimental plastic surgery and begins to crumble, both physically and mentally. It's very much about the pressure society places on women to be beautiful and perform in particular ways. Both The Substance and Helter Skelter succeed at confronting those issues, in my opinion, and they're both written and directed by women.

Excursions

My plans:

I've accomplished nothing so far! And because of that, you may have noticed that I've removed a few of my initial goals. There's just no feasible way, at this point, that I'll accomplish everything I had on my list before. We're having a garage sale tomorrow, and preparation for that has taken up a significant amount of our time.

I've narrowed down my plans to the few things I want to do the most: one baking project, one outdoors event, a creative endeavor, and a plan that's already set in stone: hanging out with my family on Halloween itself.

I removed "celebrating Danny's birthday" as well, but that's because we're doing that a week later in November. We're going to have friends over for cake and dinner, board games, and maybe a movie. It'll be a fun and festive time, but it's not happening in October.

And that's my mid-month check-in! I'm pretty happy with my progress so far and am looking forward to the rest of the month. I'll be back at the end of October with a final report. 🎃

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#books #personal #video games