10/12/25 - Site updates
Todays movie is The Conjuring, not much else to say as I've been busy updating the desktop with resources and adding lots and lots of new buttons and stamps to the gallery.
10/11/25 - Camping
Today I've been camping with my family. Kids in costumes are going from site to site trick or treating, decorations are up, one site even set up a foux sewer grate with a pennywise mask in it and is attaching treat bags to red balloons. Just a fun day with fun people. In honor of the coolest decorated campsite, todays movie is Stephan Kings IT. The original though, not the remake, even if I love Bill Skarsgard.
10/10/25 - A Couple Quotes
"Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach nature her proper place" - Oscar Wilde
"This is not harmless. You are not breathing."- Richard Siken (Crush)
Movie: The Rite
10/9/25 - Wahoo!
I didn't have time to watch the movie last night (I fell asleep) but I DID get the job! Yippee, time to spend too much at Spirit Halloween! In all seriousness, I needed it, and I'm really happy. I'm officially a night shift worker! I won't get any answers today from the medical appointment, but hey, I'm probably fine. Today I'll probably catch up on the movie I didn't watch yesterday, so I'll leave you with a recommendation. One of my favorite corny 2000s horror movies of all time is House of Wax 2005. Bo Sinclair my beloved, I could make that man worse, and Paris Hilton is in it!
10/8/25 - Big Changes
Tonight I have an interview, this has been my best chance at getting a job in a long time, and tomorrow I have a doctors appointment to finally find out if something suspicious I've had for years is life threatening once and for all. I've been sick all day with nerves, but I'm telling myself these are good things. I won't be getting home from my interview until nearly 2am, but I'll be watching today's horror movie then. I haven't yet seen Late Night With the Devil, but it seems applicable, so that might be tonights film. Goodnight to everyone going to sleep before me.
10/7/25 - Movie Only
Todays movie: the My Bloody Valentine remake! A real update coming tomorrow.
10/6/25 - A Moodboard
This moodboard captured the feeling of Halloween that I love so well, I just had to share it. (Click Here) I've been doing my usual song and dance of figuring out exactly what I want from Spirit Halloween, and I always take pictures so I can rent the books there from alternate sources. So far the things I've settled on as really wanting are a Michael Myers costume (maybe I'll get one to hand out candy) and some Ouija merch, either the purse or hair clips, either way it's all so cute. Todays movie is the Halloween remake by Rob Zombie. Have a good night, everyone!
10/5/25 - Stickerssss
A sticker sheet I made, here for anyone to use! (Click Here) Any time you're proud, slap a sticker on that bad boy. Today I'm watching the Japanese film Audition.
10/4/25 - Boop 2.0 Commemoration
Today I went to a pumpkin patch and picked out one to carve! I also picked up a spooky crochet kit but I'm learning that I am absolute dogshit at things that don't require muscles or computers, so we'll see how that turns out. Maybe I'll post a picture here. Anyway, I'm like 70% sure that anyone reading this would be more familiar with Neocities than Tumblr, so let me introduce you to the Boop counter! (Click Here) On Halloween last year we all got to smack each others blogs as spooky cats. And for todays movie: my mother is trying to demand Jeepers Creepers, but I'm not big on that one, so personally I'LL be watching As Above So Below. Cheers!
10/3/25 - Decorating: Part 2
Where yesterday I showed you the cubby shrine, today I'll show you my button and sticker collections! (With a couple charms mixed in) (Click Here) Today I'm watching Heart Eyes.
10/2/25 - Decorating
Today I want to show off the little Halloween/horror themed shrine I made last year, it's seasonally appropriate. (Click Here) For todays movie I'll be watching Cabin Fever.
10/1/2025 - Halloween Checklist (From my blog)
Eat squash soup/pumpkin roll/other autumn foods (Click food for recipe)
- Make leaf stamps
- Watch horror movies (One every day of October if you have the time)
- Play Haunted by Daylight/Phasmophobias Quest/Other games Halloween events
- Wear a costume on Halloween (Full costume or low-key, either works)
- Pass out candy to kids at night/carry and share a bag of candy corn during the day
- Carve a pumpkin
- Do a corn maze/hay ride/attend a party
- Decorate!
- Visit Spirit Halloween to look around and try the animatronics
- Watch The Chainsaw Awards
I also wanted to add: If youre keeping up with my blog posts, you might want to go to the home page of my website and click where it says "Pastel Goth". Theres a list of themes, and the "Classic Goth" theme is for Halloween! I think for todays movie I'll be starting with Hellraiser.
9/30/25 - One More Day
To be honest, today I just want to share this image with you. (Click Here) I suppose its also worth mentioning for the first time in a while, I've been consistently hitting my steps goal (or at least thats what Google tells me) and I think thats worth being proud of.
9/29/25 - Sticking With It
I missed a few days of posting because I've been busy, but I'm still posting and I'm linking some of my past rants and reviews. I can't promise an update every day, but I will when I have something to say.
Cryptozoology Rant
LINKCryptozoology is the search for and study of animals who haven't been proven to currently exist, whether that be because its supposedly extinct or because people say its straight up bullshit.
I fucking love cryptids. Here's my personal ranking of just some of the cryptids in the notebook Ive been keeping since I was 20, with anecdotes.
- Mongolian Death Worm. Hell yeah baybee, its worm time. Its a Tartar sand boa I'm gonna be so real with you right now. That's what it actually is and I love it. Wiggle on, little buddies. 10/10
- Thunderbirds. Either the Teratornis lived WAY longer than we think OR its an Andean Condor, but either way, I love Big Ass Bird. 10/10 The picture that made me love them:
There's supposedly a picture very similar to this but its a cowboy with the bird nailed to a barn, they say it was in a newspaper in the old west and I would kill to see it.
3) Kraken. Its a giant squid. Not much to say, I just love that for years people went "There's big ass squids" and no one believed them and then a guy straight up CUT OFF A TENTACLE and brought it back and people STILL didn't believe him. How much does your town have to think you're crazy for a whole leg to convince NO ONE. 9/10 very cool
4) Flatwoods monster. I'm gonna be real with you I think this ones made up but I love how cunty they are. Unrateable/10 for being fake but 9/10 for queen vibes.
5) Fresno Night Walkers. We don't know! We have videos of these little guys and no one knows what they are!! 11/10 for cuteness, 9/10 for engaging as hell.
6) Mothman. I'm not talking about him everyone knows him I want to peg him yadda yadda onward!
7) Aliens. They are real. Like I've given pretty reasonable explanations so far but there's military videos?? The Italian government possibly got in a shootout with them? I think we need to just accept this and move on, in 2018 I graduated high school and even our current events professor just let us write about aliens because they'll probably be confirmed in our lifetime. 7/10 We need new info on them, I'm losing interest
8) Loch Ness Monster. She is not real BUT searches for her have funded so much actual research about the ecosystem she deserves a spot anyway. 7/10 Everyone say "Thank you Nessie"
9) Ozark Howler. This is only up here because I love cats, I don't think its anything other than tall tales, but if new evidence came out I would move it up to top 3. 5/10 I love cats
10) Goatman and Jersey Devil. Lets be real its the same thing and its both someones way of saying they saw the devil in their small town. 4/10 for consistency.
11) Dover Demon. This gets to be on this list because it made some people think the Rake is based in reality (its not) and I think that's funny. 3/10 for funniness and alliteration.
12) Loveland Frog Man. People said it was a 4 foot tall frog man. It was definitely an iguana missing a tail from a predator. 3/10 People should have figured that one out sooner.
13) Bigfoot. Oh my GOD shut up about him. Its all Bigfoot, skunk ape, yeti, batsquach, its all Bigfoot and I'm so tired of him. Give everyone else here some love, would you? This guys so pretentious. 1/10 I hate how hes taken over the study of cryptids.
My personal favorite who hasn't been mentioned yet: Chupacabra. It MIGHT be a coyote with mange and the people who claim to have taxidermied ones definitely have coyotes. "But Mark, if that's the case why do you love it? What makes this different?" This is the cryptid where the evidence matches up the LEAST. There's too many different accounts, and there's reason to believe there may actually (FOR ONCE) be a legitimate genetic mutation to create some kind of dog creature in the area. I could do a whole post about them alone but I want you to do your own research and enjoy what you find.
Now go forth and spread the good word of animals that may or may not be real!
Wiccapedia
LINK
WICCAPEDIA: A modern-day white witches guide
[[MORE]]A book review from a (not white, I adore my hexes and curses too much) witch
Throughout this book the terms wiccan and witch are used interchangeably which I will acknowledge is factually incorrect however seeing as the book is on beginner magic I wont throw a fit over. The book is not a book on the history of the occult or witchcraft, which absolutely would have to make that distinction right off the bat. Im hoping that any baby witches would know better and start with history before moving on to reading about how to start practicing and be able to acknowledge this small but aggravating misstep themselves.
Complaints I've had:
- The phase "So mote it be" shows up incessantly. I understand this is how they close out their spells but its not something all, or even most practitioners do and so it became a weight on the writing itself very fast.
- Page 65- 'dark occultists make new moons unusable with chaos magic' (this is paraphrased, other quotes are direct from the book) is the general message in a small chapter here. It isn't dwelled upon or explained, or ever brought up again, though it did take me by surprise, it would have been simple enough to leave those two or three sentences out which is why this shows up on my list.
- On pages 85 and 245 they don't encourage but they do mention that 'some people' prefer to use bottled water instead of tap because its "more pure". Something about it just felt weird considering as witches, aren't we expected to protect the nature we love so much?
- On page 180 the phrase "gypsies" was used a few times in a paragraph, now I know nothing about this issue, and I could be entirely wrong but I believe recently it came to be understood that this is a slur. Now, I do not believe that this was done with any ill intent, just naivety to the issue, which is understandable if you've not done much research further into Roma culture, but it did seem worth mentioning since I don't want someone to jump into this book and be slapped in the face by a slur they didn't expect to see. (Before anyone attacks me, I spelled out the word because if you don't, a block system won't grab it and hide it from people who have the word blocked. Miss me with your performative acts of caring.)
Some notes I have:
- In the candle magic area, specifically pages 70 and 71, I felt the correspondences were mostly accurate though there was some discrepancies I've seen between lots of mainstream sources vs this book on the colors blue and purple. This can change person to person of course but I want to take notes on EVERYTHING I see. (I don't have as much experience as either of these women, I have only been practicing for about 7 or 8ish years, I am just going off of the sheer massive amount of information I take in since I've read so many different accounts)
- In the index spiders are listed as being page 215, I found in my book they were actually 125, this could be based on the specific print of it that I purchased.
- Ley-lines don't appear in the index but there is mention of them which was the only thing I felt deserved a spot in there that didn't have it. (Page 121)
- Page 5 says "Wicca is an open-minded faith that you can fine-tune to suit your own needs. There is no specific rule book to follow," so it is made very clear that they are telling you to take all information on practicing with a pinch of salt (heh, get it? Salt?) I mention this because several reviews also claim that they make many sweeping statements on 'all witches believe-' this or that, which I wasn't even able to find in this book despite the disclaimer.
- On page 155 I found a sweeping statement, the only one I was able to find, though admittedly I didn't read the one chapter on angels. "wiccans do not believe that the devil exists" is the quote, which yes, is annoying but when you consider that they used 'wicca' and not 'witch' in this case, is accurate. Some witches believe in the devil, true.
- This book is class-aware, there is comments on higher prices and notes on what isn't worth it, on how several things aren't really necessary, and with enough research and intent, you can make anything work even on a budget.
- Its worth noting that this book does have a gender binary but not aggressively. There's a couple notes of 'for girls do this, for boys do that' scenarios but its not overly talked about and its clearly not meant with any malice the same way they mentioned a husband marrying a wife in the area on handfastings. These instructions are simple enough to change for your own situation and as a gay trans man I can tell you with assurance it doesn't feel uncomfortable, just kind of like a relative who cares about you and is unaware of anything beyond 'boy' and 'girl'.
- Page 2 refers to their own practice as "angelic wicca". I am mentioning this as it is stated clearly right there at the beginning. I saw several reviews of the book complaining that it wasn't made clear enough that they didn't practice traditional wicca. Nuff said, you just didn't read the intro and that's your own problem.
- As for "angelic wicca", I saw several reviews claiming the book is just FULL of information on angels. I will admit, I didn't read the chapter on angels, but i took a sticky note to mark the whole thing and clarify how much actually talks about them. Below is a picture of my book with the sticky note, as you can see its quite small and no bigger than the focus on any other average kind of magic, and they are not mentioned throughout the book, just offhandedly a few times in the divination section, and it is easy enough to ignore. I would say this book is definitely not defined by this and you could get the book and be happy with the rest of the content even if, like me, you have no interest in angels.
What this book did well:
- I feel like one of this books biggest strengths is its huge range of commentary. It covers lots of different types of witchcraft and does a pretty decent job hitting the basics. I also appreciate the personal stories, I wasn't expecting a informative book to make me laugh but here we are.
What I would say to a baby witch reading this guide:
- Research online more. Read everything you can. Check out moonlight academy. The more research you do before doing anything, the better.
- Make a witch bottle. Just in case. A little extra protection is grand. https://moonlightacademy.tumblr.com/post/155321188310/witch-bottle
- Don't bother reading the first appendix. It's the only, and I mean only, part of the book I genuinely believe isn't helpful and does potentially more harm than good with it's complete criticism of any witch who strays to a slightly darker side of magic now and then.
Wiccapedia doesn't cover every option obviously, there's thousands of ways to practice at least, however another book that does an alright job going over lots of different options and doesn't repeat what we have already seen in Wiccapedia is The Beginners Guide to Divination.
Closing notes and final rating:
Mmm. Maybe a 4/5 stars. 3/5 if I'm being stingy. The information isn't perfect but they do a fantastic job explaining intention even if they pretty much never use the word "intention" itself and the information is at least decent. Worth a read if you really are a beginner or if they have a chapter on something specific you're interested in, my main reason for buying the book is I'm interested in trying a pendulum and I understand that their chapter on it is very well done. (I found it very concise and helpful.) I will say most reviews I've seen are waaay too harsh though. If I could change just one thing I would remove the first appendix entirely and leave the rest.
Sidenote for fun, the symbols on the cover:
The symbols on the cover are never explained in the book aside from the main pentacle, so I thought I would put a name to each so people can do their own research. Clockwise starting at the top, we see the triple-goddess, the triskelion, the horned god, the celtic knot, and the wheel of the year.
Books not in my home library yet that totally should be
- Four
- The Graveyard Book
- Gone Girl
- The Cruel Prince
- Matched
- The Selection
- The Maze Runner
- Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles)
- Fanboy and Goth Girl
- Fangirl
- The Bone Witch
9/26/25 - Struggling
The worst thing about mental illness in my particular experience is it never goes away, but sometimes its hard to see, even for the person experiencing it. I don't recognize it when I skip my usual second, third, and fourth cups of coffee and just sip a little bit of water all day, but it becomes apparent when I'm shirking duties and getting yelled at for not completing tasks, and later in the eventual private breakdown. It's not just me who goes through this and yet every one of us feels so alone when it happens. Well, I'm metaphorically reaching out and handing you a tissue. We're sharing the after-cry headache. Sometimes you feel like the superhero in a marvel movie, and sometimes you feel a little too much like a depression documentary. Or maybe I just shouldn't have watched Boy Interrupted.
9/25/25 - A Challenge
When I made this website I decided to challenge myself to attempt to make it interact with as many senses as possible. You know the five senses we all learned as children, taste, sight, sound, smell, and touch. Well, I'm trying to trick our brains into experiencing them here to help make this an escape. I am most proud of smell, when you to to the "About" page, you might not even notice but in the background vanilla flowers, lavender sprigs, and coffee beans rain down, hopefully making you subconsciously smell it. On the same page I chose pictures of my cats where they look extra fluffy, to make it so you can almost feel them. On the "Café" page theres a youtube video embedded at the bottom, if you play it theres ambient coffee shop sounds, and I also added a pinterest feed to help really sell the visual aspect. That just leaves taste. In my opinion taste is the hardest sense to play on, and I don't have a really good dedicated option for it. Right now, the best I have is just the searchable "food" tag on the main page. If you think of a good way I could add taste, please let me know!
9/24/25 - Abiogenesis
I should review Phasmophobia. Yes, that is the only thing I have to report. I'm depressed and job hunting, give me a break.