This week’s round-up includes getting lost in the Backrooms, losing another much-loved member of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer family, working towards a quieter life, and much more.

Film

This week saw the release of Kane Parson‘s feature-length version of Backrooms, based on his YouTube series. It’s quite an intense concept, that of an apparently never-ending maze of rooms that are both familiar and completely strange, full of distorted walls and objects as well as creatures you don’t want to bump in to. Whenever the original Backrooms photo pops up online, as it has done periodically over the years, it’s always such a weird thing to look at, and I just love that uncanny feeling it gives me, though I would never ever like to find myself in such a place. You can check out my full review of the movie at dawnofthetapes.com if you’re interested!

Television

I mentioned a while back that I’d been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently, being one of the best comfort shows, and I was incredibly sad to learn of the recent passing of Anthony Head who played Giles in the show. Of course to many of us it feels like we’ve lost the character, and in some ways we have, but the world has also lost another tremendous actor. He popped up in so many shows over the years, including Doctor Who and Bridgerton, and he will be so very missed. I’m sure all us Buffy fans send our deepest condolences to his family and friends.

It’s devestating that we’ve now lost three members of the immediate Buffy family, having lost Michelle Trachtenberg last year and Nicholas Brendan just this year, too. It certainly got me contemplating how, as we grow older, death starts to become a regular appearance.

In other news, I’ve also been catching up on From, a horror series that has been running for a few years now. It’s highly intriguing, but it seems to be dragging out a lot regarding the strange town that many people have found themselves in, why it’s there and why they can’t leave. Some of the characters are interesting enough to keep the show alive, but I think there’s only so much more people can take, now it’s on its fourth season, in not knowing much more about it, or the creatures that stalk the town at night.

Literature

I’ve not been very diverse in my reading lately due to being solidly engrossed in Gone with the Wind. It was indeed an incredibly enjoyable book, and the film did well by it, too. In the next couple of weeks I hope to make my way through Leigh Bardugo‘s Ninth House, Homer‘s Iliad and another Swamp Thing comic book!

Gaming

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before (I probably have), but over the past few years I’ve been on-again-off-again playing Palia, an MMO that prioritises cozy, relaxed gaming over confrontational, high-risk gaming. They recently introduced mounts in their Royal Highlands update, and as much as I enjoy getting around faster, they’re not the easiest mounts to control (Disney Dreamlight Valley‘s mount control is much easier tbh). Still, it’s a great fantasy game with a ton of lore in its own world, and I highly recommend if you like slow, easy quests, farming, cooking, etc.!

Speaking of Disney Dreamlight Valley, their recent update brought Hercules to the valley, along with satyr Phil! I’ve enjoyed getting to decorate the Ancient Greek-inspired Mythopia biome in the Storybook Vale expansion with all the things that come in the update, and I fear I may lose a lot of time to more decorating soon(!). Does anyone else feel a little guilty spending too much time decorating in games? I think The Sims ruined us as adults (no regrets!).

I’ve also found myself turning back to an old game, Coffee Talk, on my Nintendo Switch, a console that has been seriously gathering dust since I got the PS5 a couple of years ago! I’ve started ending my days with half an hour playing this game with a cup of hot chocolate or a chai latte, and it’s proven to be a nice way to wind down, almost like reading due to its visual novel style but with minor user interactions. Perhaps this way I’ll finally get to finish it!

Life

I’d been thinking lately about meeting new people and what they tell me about how they grew up. Usually they grew up in one type of place, either the country or a city, sometimes close to woodland or near the sea, and it made me realise how luck my siblings and I were to grow up with variety. Coming from the small and quite environmentally diverse island of Jersey, my first 18 months-two years (I think) were spent at First Tower in St. Helier, near town, followed by a childhood in the countryside of St. Martin, surrounded by country lanes, fields, farms and even Jersey Zoo down the road, then my teenage years in Gorey, bordering both St. Martin and Grouville, and having the beach practically on my doorstep. After the age of 18 I’ve spent most of my adulthood in cities, getting away from the quiet life of my younger years. But as I look ahead to my forties, I think I’m looking for that quiet life again. I’d love to one day retire to Gorey, but I’d need to make a hell of a lot of money first. Ideally I’d soon love to be living in a small town surrounded by fields and woodland, with a beach not too far a distance away, and with easy links to a city. I think if/when I head back to the UK, that’s the kind of place I’d be looking for. Any suggestions?

A Random Thing I Learned This Week

Just today I learned about a charity called Blue Dragon that helps children escape slavery, trafficking and exploitation in Vietnam. It continues to shock me any time I hear about a child suffering in any way, and I don’t know why I still find it shocking when it continues to happen. I guess I just can’t believe we live in the 21st century and people are still committing heinous acts against children. It makes me beyond angry. I don’t think there’s any word that describes how I feel about it. Anyway, if you can, please help support this organisation protect vulnerable children!