october round-up

october was....fine, i guess? i think i was zoned tf out for most of it i can't lie. i did decide to take a break from twitter though which i think was a smart decision, it's making me feel a lot less stressed out and less screen time gives me more time to focus on other things, plus not constantly oversharing makes me feel...less overbearing/annoying i guess, which is something i stressed out over a lot (and i need to work on that lol), but yeah :) i do still check twitter but it's less and i think i'm going to maintain that going forward, so if you need me my discord is ofthevalley#0914 !!
since i'm sharing less on twitter, i'll put a nice memory i had today here: i decided to walk home from class today and i took the route that was a little longer but meant i could walk over the moor near my house, and i was listening to ghosting and wishlist by hit kpop group txt while watching the sky turn peachy-pink as the cold wind whipped against my cheeks....it was great :) i love autumn and cold weather, it just feels homely to me. sidenote: why are wishlist and ghosting by txt 2 of the best songs ever. seriously
less twitter time ALSO meant i read/watched a lot more things this month, so what i'm going to do is share the title/rating of everything but only talk about the ones i have things to say about. yeah :) i hope november is kind to me, and to all of you as well <3 i have some deadlines due in nov but i'm not too worried about them i think i can manage it (inb4 i can't). AND the new horizons update is this week!!! ahhh!!! exciting. ok let's get into it

books 📚

THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR BY AMAL EL-MOHTAR & MAX GLADSTONE ★★★★★

IRON WIDOW BY XIRAN JAY ZHAO ★★.75

￫ i really wanted to like this because a lot of people do, but man... it suffers from debut book syndrome hardcore. a breakneck plot that could have been good if anyone was fleshed out enough, which they sadly weren't because there wasn't enough time spent in one place to do so. plus the writing style itself was... a lot more juvenile than i was expecting? i didn't know anything about the author going on so i suppose if you know of them from their youtube channel you might have expected this kind of tone, but for me it felt misplaced for such a story. i did like the plot itself and thought it had interesting commentaries and aesthetics, but it fell so, so flat for me sadly.

COME TUMBLING DOWN BY SEANAN MCGUIRE ★★★★

THE DEAD AND THE DARK BY COURTNEY GOULD ★★★★★

￫ this book... i can't believe how much i liked it to say it's YA. i went in expecting a creepy horror-thriller with small town vibes and a twist of paranormal - which it was, it was like reading life is strange or something honestly. hm. maybe that's why i liked the vibes so much lol - but i didn't expect the plot to touch on homophobia so much and that really hit me. it's so well done. and THIS is a debut novel too so that's even MORE surprising seeing as my track record with debut YAs this year is... well, not great. god. i really did like this. if you like: small town in PNW vibes where everyone knows everyone and everyone is hiding something, gay ghost hunter dads, sapphic characters, ghosts, murder, genuinely frightening moments to say it's a YA horror, devastation... you'll like this. i think this is the most 'me' book ever huh i'm reading over that pitch and i'm like. Yeah you WOULD like this idiot. lol

TENDER IS THE FLESH BY AGUSTINA BAZTERRICA ★★★

￫ viscerally uncomfortable with an extremely fucked ending. read the synopsis and you'll see why

CARMILLA BY J. SHERIDAN LE FANU ★★

RULES FOR VANISHING BY KATE ALICE MARSHALL ★★★★

SILVER IN THE WOOD BY EMILY TESH ★★★

films 📽️

ok holy shit looking at october i WAS going to post all of them but. i watched FOURTEEN (14!) films so there is no way in hell i'm posting them all i am much too lazy. PLUS i didn't give some of them ratings because i watched them for class. uhhh. yeah i guess i'll post the ones i have the most to say about. like i said at the start. idiot. but yeah i'm saving you all from reading fourteen titles you're so welcome

THE LOST BOYS DIR. JOEL SCHUMACHER ★★★★ rewatch

￫ it's the halloween month so i rewatched this :) i love this movie. it's so goofy and dorky. there's characters called The Frog Brothers and they're kid vampire hunters who work out of a comics shop and corey feldman does a weird deep voice for seemingly zero reason. it's the best. we do love a fun little vampire flick that is gay AND homophobic. shoutout to the grandpa he's literally who i aspire to be in life. aka a fucking weirdo but like in a fun way

SLEEPY HOLLOW DIR. TIM BURTON ★★★

￫ i'll be honest most of the films i watched this month were rewatches i just can't be bothered rehashing my thoughts so i'm just gonna talk about this i guess. it was fine. the vibes were great but also tim burton i will hit you with my monster truck. love how ichabod crane was such a fucking wuss. i know what you did in the wolf among us bitch! and christina ricci was pretty. yeah. it was fine. idk what to say why don't YOU write the review

shows 📺

if you saw how i said i was currently watching cowboy bebop last month and expected to see it here no you didn't. i am notoriously bad at watching and finishing shows it is a miracle that there is anything to put here quite honestly. thankfully (although not at all) i am burned out on tv again so maybe i can leave this out next time <3

OVER THE GARDEN WALL dark fantasy, comedy-drama, horror rewatch

￫ annual rewatch baby!!! i love this show. we all know this. everyone on earth knows this. i'm so stoked to get my tattoo dedicated to the show in december :) elijah wood can die though. but yeah other than that i do adore this show with my entire being it's just... truly perfect. i cannot go a year without rewatching it or i'll wither away. oh potatus et molassus and all that. <3 <3 <3 <3

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS mockumentary, comedy, horror caught up (3 seasons)

￫ i'm so glad i'm writing this while i'm tired because if i wasn't i would be going absolutely fucking insane oh my god this show is SO good. please watch it. you all have to watch it it's on disney plus or you can pirate it i don't give a FUCK please. if you like the film the show develops on the lore and comedy and EVERYTHING soooo well and it ties in to the movie too god FUCK i love this show. i'm insane. nandermo got me. nadja is my beloved. i am unfortunately aware of the fact that colin robinson and i are the same person. laszlo my beloved and also my DETESTED for the SEASON 3 FINALE are you KIDDING ME???? spoilers but AAARRRGGGGHHHH......anyway. please watch it. if you're the kind of person who only watches shit with gay people in: the main cast is 5 characters and all of them are queer. the vampires are all bi and i'm pretty sure guillermo is gay? if not he's for sure bi. and there's other rep too it's genuinely like. so good. it understands that vampires are just horny bisexual idiot bitches <3 so true

music/kpop 🎶

it is GOING to be all kpop again and i have to confront that. i'm not gonna do a kpop section because i do not remember any other releases in october other than one and we all know what that is. and if you don't you will just from the last.fm stats. i am insane and i'm never going to die

TOP ARTISTS

1. enhypen (119 plays)
2. tomorrow x together (92 plays)
3. the bedquilt ramblers (33 plays)
4. phoebe bridgers (24 plays)
5. stray kids (23 plays)

TOP TRACKS

1. attention, please! by enhypen (46 scrobbles)
2. no rules by tomorrow x together (32 scrobbles)
3. LOSER=LOVER by tomorrow x together (24 scrobbles)
4. long journey home by the bedquilt ramblers (20 scrobbles)
5. drunk-dazed by enhypen (17 scrobbles)
6. this world is not my home by the bedquilt ramblers (13 scrobbles)
7. tamed-dashed by enhypen (12 scrobbles)
8. cheese by stray kids (11 scrobbles)
9. go big or go home by enhypen (10 scrobbles)
10. silvertongue by young the giant (10 scrobbles)

...okay, this looks bad. but i can explain some of these. for example: 2, 5 and 8 fall under 'songs i need to listen to on the bus or i will die for real'. 4 and 6 come from me relistening to songs from the kentucky route zero soundtrack, realising i never processed that game and its final 2 acts, and crying for a good long while about it and then adding those two songs to my playlist. the others i... well. let's see what kpop releases happened in october shall we! (if any other release happened in october no it didn't. as you can see, i clearly did not remember it):

ENHYPEN DIMENSION: DILEMMA

￫ i... guys it's too late for this. the clock is about to strike midnight i'm about to go running like cinderella away from talking about what happened to me with this era and accidentally leave my glass shoe, which is my top scrobbled song, on the stairs for someone like sunny to discover and then Never Let Me Forget. it's a good comeback! i hate the styling for the title track. why did they do a sporty summer song in OCTOBER? it's the VAMPIRE MONTH. you FREAKS. it was a fucking banger song though i can't lie it did do a grow on me. some really solid b-sides too!! i really like upper side dreamin' and go big or go home, i'm glad they decided to promote them. oh wait sorry guys do you see that elephant in the corner? the corner of this room? that we're in? wearing an 'attention, please!' nametag? yeah let's just ignore him for a bit maybe he'll leave. (i really, really like that song. for the guitar solo. NOT! heeseung. so what if he's my boy girlfriend i CANNOT legally talk about it.) ummm. jungwon :) he's perfect to me <3 perfect sonboy

highlights: attention, please!, upper side dreamin', tamed-dashed

OH SHIT I REMEMBERED ANOTHER ONE

SEVENTEEN ATTACCA

￫ oh yeah this happened! i did like the title don't get me wrong but i was occupied with other stuff (blacking out in a daze to see heeseung had apparated into my camera roll like some kind of shitty magician). the b-sides....were not great! actually that's a lie. to you is PERFECT. what a perfect seventeen bside. i miss when they used to make those all the time. because these unit b-sides were pure ass and hole and i do not know what crossed their fucking minds. i'm going to run at woozi with an axe like i'm patrick bateman or something

highlights: to you, rock with you, crush