Monday, October 31, 2022

Being a Spooky Fan in the Spooky Season

 I drive down the road, on my way home from running errands, hoping my drive is a little longer than expected because I am enthralled by my podcast. A story about dark eldrich beings awoken in the Apalachas by the exploitation of coal miners and how resident witches have to protect people from monsters that have no issue over tearing a man apart or eating children. 

It was a lovely day in June. 


BTW: All the art on this post is done by me because I figured it was a great place to flex my spooky art. :D

I Don't Wait For October

I love horror all year round. from classic Universal Monsters to Lovecraftian horrors to inserting terrifying creatures into my Dungeons and Dragons games. Little hints of horror decorate my house, including a plaque with the words from a Nightmare Before Christmas song on it and a literal shrine to Cthluhu. I love the scary, the macabre, and the monsterous, and while this isn't specifially unusual in our society it's unusual enough to sometimes still feel like a weirdo, especially to those who don't get it. 

Until one month...



October Baby! 

As soon as I see the first Halloween themed anything at the store my heart flutters, it means that my time is here (and yes, I've stopped complaining when I see Christmas stuff come up early... Mostly...). For 31 glorious days out of the year my tastes in horror are no longer weird, they're downright mainstream. I've seen the cutest church moms start spraying their front porch with fake blood in glee like a serial killer who no longer cares about being caught, and the evil clowns that are usually reserved to just a background on my phone are all over the aisles at the grocery stores, and I am here for all of it. 

Now just for the record, it doesn't matter to me what kind of Halloween you're into. If yours is the super cutesie ghosts and Mickey Mouse in a little vampire outfit I am with you and will cheer you on just as much as the guy next door's tribute to Hellraiser on his front lawn. 

Halloween is the season where for just a brief period out of the year I don't have to feel weird about what I love, because for a moment everyone else celebrates the spooky with me in one way or another.



A Place for Us

Geeks of anything can feel like outsiders, mainly because our interests may not be 100% mainstream. Plenty of people still consider video games, anime and board games for children only, and let's not mention where they still think Dungeons and Dragons comes from. Feeling like an outsider comes with the territory, which is why we love things like Comic Con and Disneyland where we can revel in our interests unimpeded with like-minded individuals. These spaces are created by geeks for geeks to celebrate our passions, and has given those who may not consider themselves geeks a chance to have fun with something they find interesting, if not as heads deep into it as some of us. 

Halloween provides that space for me to let my horror love with the entire world behind me.It's more than  a convention or vacation which only lasts a few days and extends only a few blocks out. It's decorating everyone's lawns, every store selling stuff with ghosts on it, and everybody is handing out candy (That's less for the horror fan inside me and more for the fat kid inside of me) 



The Importance of a Space

Revenge of the Nerds could not be remade today not just because it's problematic but because geeks have infiltrated every level of society. Half the football players on the team now have Twitch streams they set up themselves and find someone in the United States who doesn't know who Iron Man is. That doesn't mean that we don't still need spaces where we can express our passions without fear of being judged. The way to make these spaces without renting out a venue or declaring an international holiday is simple: Let people love what they love. The more we understand that everyone has at least one weird interest we may not understand the better we would be as a species. Halloween validates my love of horror, but so does my weekly murder podcast, my monthly horror anthology (blog on that to come), and all my friends who love me and embrace my passions. 



Happy Halloween and Unpleasant Dreams. 


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