He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse

I actually did something that felt entirely different in London yesterday and went to see The Mousetrap. I say 'entirely different' because this very much feels like a 'proper' play to me compared to a musical, but I suppose if you're not much of a theater goer then it's all much of a muchness to you. It's the longest running show in London and I've often passed by it near Covent Garden and been curious so I decided to just go for it. It's also my very first interaction with literally anything to do with Agatha Christie as I'm always a bit prejudiced against her work as I associate it so strongly with grandmas in a twee and old fashioned kind of way, but I do love a good crime thriller so I was prepared to be wrong.

Unfortunately I was not wrong and I won't be buying any of her books any time soon, but I still enjoyed it! I didn't look at anything to do with the plot in advance as I really wanted to try and avoid spoilers, I didn't even read the program just in case. So I won't spoil it for you, but just to say that I saw half of the ending coming but not all of it. It does feel like a very old fashioned play to me which I'm not personally a fan of (and why I'm not even interested in old musicals or even revivals of old musicals) There's nothing offensive about it, but for example the humor just doesn't land for me (I'm not into the 'farce' style), the script felt a bit stilted at times, and the plot just relied too heavily on coincidences that just don't feel in any way believable and all of these things stopped me from being able to fully engage with it. But your mileage may vary, and it was certainly one of the most varied audiences I've ever seen in a theater which can only be a good thing.

Of course being in London I had to make use of having so many shops accessible, and of course being me I spent most of it in the book store. I've been spending more time in BookTok/BookTube/Book Reddit lately which has left me with a bit of bookshelf envy. I read a lot, but most of my books are either digital or thrifted and my shelves are a messy hodge-podge as a result. I don't care about most of it, books are made to be read after all, but I've always really admired these recent Hodder editions of Stephen King's works. Stephen King usually has super ugly books so I've never felt bad about having almost his entire bibliography digital only. But then I saw these! Admittedly the two I've bought so far aren't the best examples of this amazing cover art, but look at Misery, 1922, The Body, or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and tell me these aren't well designed covers. And as an illustrator I love that stuff, and as Stephen King is my favorite author I decided that this is the 'aesthetic' book collection I have to have. I'm really excited to build this! Books are really important to me but not something I've ever allowed myself to spend much on, so this really is something that feels like the ultimate treat. All of the spines are a different solid color too, so when I eventually have the full collection it'll form a rainbow on my shelf.

These were the only two books I could find in this binding (there are so many different editions in the UK it's kind of exhausting) and whilst they're not my favorite designs I'm pretty happy with them being the start of my collection - Four Past Midnight which is a collection of novellas which includes The Langoliers was the first book by King I ever read and The Langoliers was my favorite of that collection and arguably what got me started reading him in the first place. So really I couldn't ask for a better place to start my physical book collection.

Vampires will never hurt you

I think Whitby might be one of my very favorite places in the whole world. It's so beautiful and just has a vibe unlike any place I've ever been, although I admit I don't know how much of that is the Dracula stuff because I love vampires. It's a really old seaside town in Yorkshire, England, and was mostly known for it's fishing. Then Bram Stoker came along and decided that the crumbling Abbey on top of the cliff would be a great setting for a little vampire book he was writing, and ever since the town has been associated with Dracula. And I don't know if it is just the rich history of the place, but somehow it manages to do it with class instead of going the tacky route and it gives it a real atmosphere. It's easy to imagine vampires wandering the cobbled streets among the tourists.

Whitby is also famous for it's jet gemstones, which is black and only adds to the town's goth vibes. My parents used to own a gemstone shop when I was a teenager and I'd work there on weekends, and ever since then I've always been inexplicably drawn to jet. It's really a very boring stone to look at compared to the magnificence of something like opal or even bright shards of amethyst, but there's just something about it that calls me. It washes up on the beach here (although it's kind of hard to find because everyone is out treasure hunting) and the streets are full of little locally owned jewelers selling their hand crafted designs. This was my third time I've ever been to Whitby, and I buy myself a little something each time I come. I have a celtic design necklace, a ring, and this time I decided to go big and treated myself to a pendant that I felt really symbolizes the town.

Before Dracula Whitby was known for it's fishing heritage. You can see St Mary's Church on top of the cliff in the background, and the beach where Dracula's ship washed ashore.






Climbing the 199 steps up to the church and Abbey





I'd never been inside the Abbey before, and it was a lot bigger than I was expecting! It's a hundreds of years old ruin so obviously there's not much, but it's still really impressive to look around. It was founded in 657 AD, until it was raided by Danish invaders in 867 AD and left to ruin for 200 years. It was rebuilt as a Benedictine Abbey in the 1220s, until it was destroyed in 1540 due to the Protestant reforms under Henry VIII. It then sustained further damage due to German shell attacks during WWI.

The gift shop is predominantly Dracula related, and I struggled not to buy a few of those beautiful books! I couldn't resist a few bits though.


Time to look at every single black stone on the beach just in case. I did manage to find a few chunks of jet though!

You fell in love with a vampire, torch up for the empire

Although I've played The Sims for years, it was only ever very casually up until just this year. It was always a game I liked, but I never really realized it's potential until YouTube began recommending me Sims videos out of the blue and I saw just what the game had to offer. Of course I then began collecting the various expansion kits, although I always swore off the more supernatural ones as although I like that stuff I felt like I preferred a more realistic game play. Until last month anyway, when I was in the Halloween spirit and bought the Vampires pack on a whim!

I love vampires, they're my favorite supernatural entity and always have been since I first saw Bela Lugosi swirling his cape as Dracula. Recently I've been revisiting the vampire stories I'd missed, a big one being Interview With The Vampire which I loved and can't wait to start my way through the books as soon as I'm done with my current read! So I've been in more of a vampire mood than usual lately, and combined with the stereotypically gothic furniture and fashion items that also come with this game pack, I guess it was obvious I would cave and get it eventually. I figured it would be worth it even if I only bought it for the build and fashion items and completely ignored the vampires as I wasn't sure how I felt about them potentially harassing my mortal Sims and didn't like to think I'd have to be on high alert every night to scare off Vlad. But honestly it's ended up being my most favorite Sims pack I've ever bought!

Buying the pack gives you the additional world of Forgotten Hollow, which is perfectly spooky and always shrouded in mist and darkness so it's the ideal place for your vampires to live. Literally my only complaint about this world is that it's too small, I want to move all of my Sims here but there's only 5 build lots! It also comes with two pre-made vampire families (they're actually the 3 characters on the game cover) and usually I don't bother with the pre-made Sims but I've loved playing with these guys so much!

Vlad's house

First up is Vladislaus Straud, and he gets a bad rep in Simmer circles so he was the first character I checked out when I got the game. And it's his character that absolutely convinces me that this Vampires pack was made by really big vampire fans, or they did a ton of research because the attention to detail is incredible!

The vampires in the game have two forms, their regular day to day look, and their 'dark form' which appears when they bite. Vlad's 'dark form' is based on Nosferatu, the first vampire movie ever made in 1922 (and arguably still the best!) It's basically Dracula, but they didn't have the copyright to make Dracula so they made it anyway but changed the names and a few other details. Because of this, plus the fact it's a German Expressionist movie, it has one of the most unique and distinctive visual identities of any vampire movie ever made, and despite being completely silent it's just as entrancing today as it was 99 years ago. I'm going a bit off topic, but I just really love that they made Vlad into Count Orlok! It's fairly niche and a detail more casual players wouldn't pick up on which makes it even more special, as it's like they were really aiming this pack at Vampire enthusiasts! I also love that despite clearly being an old man Vlad is labeled in the game as a 'young adult' which I'm convinced is a reference to another vampire movie What We Do In The Shadows, specifically this scene with Vladislav:

Vlad's house itself is also incredibly detailed. At first glance it has a really odd layout, but in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula's castle is deliberately supposed to be confusing and disorientating which is how Jonathan Harker gets lost in it. Not to mention that genuine old European castles have weirdly shaped rooms that don't seem to lead anywhere and nonsensical layouts because they've been built on and expanded so much by the various owners over the centuries. A huge castle was a sign of wealth, it didn't matter if you didn't use parts of it, and it's not like they had the kind of designated room styles we have nowadays to fill it. I only explain this because I've just seen a lot of Simmers complain about Vlad's house, and I'm guessing it's because they either don't understand what these old European buildings are like, or are completely unfamiliar with vampire lore so I wanted to take a moment to explain it. Because that's what thrilled me SO MUCH about this game pack - the people that created it either REALLY did their research, or are vampire nerds too!

My favorite characters are actually the other family included in the game, specifically Caleb who is 100% a mid-00s era Emo and I love him for that. He lives with his sister Lilith who has a bit of a Gothabilly vibe with her Betty bangs. Lilith's life aspiration is to raise a vampire family, and Caleb wants to be a good vampire and find a way to survive without drinking the blood of humans 🥺 I tell you I am weak for Caleb, and he's become one of my most played Sims and befriended my main family. He's just perfect.

Caleb visiting my main Sim family doing his vampire thing, and drinking blood plasma from a fruit because he's trying to go vegan

I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about my Sims game, but I'm still so excited about this pack I just had to. It's a weird feeling because on the one hand I really want to talk about Sims stuff because I love it so much and it provides me with such great escapism which I've really needed this past year. But on the other hand, with the simulated life and creativity aspects it feels so personal and I get shy about sharing that - these characters are my OCs, I have stories, backgrounds, and lore that I've created for them in my head, and I'm not sure how much of that I want to put out there, you know? But I'd like to be brave and share a little now and then, especially when it's about new-to-me packs and such (although I've managed to collect a lot of them this year with all of the sales EA have 😬) But anyway! I really can't recommend the Vampires pack enough if you're interested in vampire lore, it does it really well! And I also recommend it if, also like me, you just want to live out your best emo life.