Spooky Season: Finishing up the series

Writing about this has been very drawn-out; there was a lot happening. I pursued different themes, and had other things to write about that were not related to Spooky Season at all.

Really, the only thing left is the series:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/03/spooky-season-series.html 

(Perhaps I should note that I have now read the Universal Monsters Mummy book now and I did not hate it.) 

One thing that is absolutely clear after going through them is that if something bugs you in the beginning of a trilogy, it will only get more frustrating. Therefore...

Iron Tongue of Midnight (#3 in The Forge and Fracture Series) by Brittany N. Williams

Yes, the violent fairy scenes got more frequent and gorier. I think that even got to Williams; after one fight something appears around the corner for a cliffhanger, then the next chapter just says it was quickly dispatched. I was dreading the details, but that was still weird.

After all of that, the ease of the resolution didn't feel real or earned.

Angel of the Overpass (#3 in Ghost Roads) by Seanan McGuire

More lore, more expanding mythology and more teenage attitude from ghost Rose. She periodically mentions that she isn't really a teenager anymore, despite still looking like one. I have an idea for how you could demonstrate that. 

Most of the attitude is shown as a way of adding dramatic tension to things she is going to need to do but does not want to do. We all know you are going to do it; just get to it.

I may not be a young and fun person anymore.

While this is the end of the series, there is a shared universe with other series. If I loved these books I would probably be thrilled by that. Nope. 

House of Elephants (#3 in Witchlings) by Claribel A. Ortega

It still gets overly tween at times, but there are aspects that I do like. 

As it is, this one is definitely not a trilogy. A fourth novel is out, as well as a short story and a fifth novel slated for publication later this year. I may read them, but am currently uncommitted.

The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl (#3 in The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club) by Theodora Goss  

Goss is not a bad writer. If she were working with original characters I would probably have been okay. 

I could say that the issue is that she messed with characters that I really like in works I really respect, but I am not a huge fan of Frankenstein or any of the Sherlock Holmes stories and they are part of my irritation, which grew exponentially worse by the end of the series.

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I was going to pursue a tangent before continuing in that vein.

This is the reason for the tangent.

It's not just this, but also The Other Bennett Sister and The Bride and Wuthering Heights.

I need to take some time to complain!  

Related Posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/12/ghostly-childrens-picture-books.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-ghostly-movie.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/monstrous-comics.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/01/ghostly-middle-reader-books-old-school.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/04/spooky-season-new-horizons.html 

Will I celebrate?

There can be a lot more to say about death, disagreement, and disinformation, as well as dehumanization. I will get to that, though I think next week's posts are going to go in a different direction.

First I want to address the other point from the previous post, where part of the justification for Trump celebrating Mueller's death was how hard liberals will celebrate Trump's death:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/04/but-is-that-celebrating.html 

There are a lot of those posts, with non really being that quotable. 

I could be bothered by people making assumptions again, and assumptions that have a vilifying tendency. However, many liberals replied confirming that they will celebrate. Gleefully. 

While there is still a dehumanizing element on the one side, I'm not getting too excited over this one. It was a lie to say that liberals were celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, but the future celebration is only a predication and may well be an accurate one.

(Though if you want to read a bizarre fantasy with replies showing other participants in the mass delusion, here you go: https://x.com/afshineemrani/status/2035869038723887304) 

With all of that being said, I don't picture myself celebrating.

This is not that I am a superior person and above such petty things; if anyone deserves their death celebrated, it's this guy.

He has caused an appalling amount of damage, from physical structures to protocols that acted as guidelines to agreements that increased safety to loss of human life. 

If he has not been the only cause of many people becoming more ignorant and more hateful, he has certainly enabled it.

Therein lies the problem; when he goes, the wreckage will remain.

There might be some sense of relief that he can't do anything else. I find it hard to credit him with any charisma, but there must be some to explain the cult-like devotion. Vance does not have that, but he will still have the endorsement of the evil tech bros that made him the choice, and again, institutions are in ruins.

It would be nice to think that it could help some things, but there will be so much to fix and so many obstructionists -- on the right and the left -- that I don't see any celebrations in my future.

Maybe there will be a shift in the struggle.

I won't begrudge anyone who does get some satisfaction out of it, but I don't think it can be a lasting satisfaction.

I mean, unless it's just joy that someone you hated died. I don't know how much satisfaction you can get out of that. The point is that it won't fix things.

There is a sorrow with that, but that's been here for a while. 

But is that "celebrating"?

I have mentioned hyperbole and exaggeration, but it is probably more of an outright lie that liberals were celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.

I was nonetheless seeing multiple assertions that had happened.

This was happening just after Robert Mueller died, and the president was predictably horrible:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/29/us/mueller-trump-fbi-presidents-standoff 

While it's not worth a lot, there are conservatives who still have a sense of decorum. Because of that, they realized this behavior was not good, but they still didn't want to be too critical of him, which is dangerous. 

Much like leftists, the easiest path is to criticize liberals. This played out in two main ways:

1. This is nothing compared to how liberals will celebrate when Trump dies.
2. What about how they celebrated when Charlie Kirk died?

Laying aside the first one for now, I don't really remember anyone celebrating.

It was not uncommon to point out that he had not been a really good person or a fighter for free speech and open debate.

It was not uncommon to point out that various right-wingers had angry posts about Kirk, most notably Nick Fuentes, though there were others.

After appearing to fall in line that MAGAs should not be pressuring the government for the release of the Epstein Files, Kirk went back on that:

https://www.newsweek.com/jeffrey-epstein-files-update-charlie-kirk-trump-message-2099999 

It was a fairly mild rebellion, but there were people who perceived it as a lack of support and were angry. 

That could have been a motive in the shooting, but with the current FBI's incompetence, I am not sure how definitive an answer we will get. 

Anyway, after the shooting, right-wingers who had posted violent or critical things about Kirk removed them, then started trying to get ordinary people who had posted criticisms of Kirk fired.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/charlie-kirk-critics_n_68c5a9b5e4b0efc9da5fea41  

It's the circle of life.

As people were discussing it, a lot of people pointed out his flaws. That conflicted with the quick lionization of Kirk, as they pointed out that he had not really been that big a deal, with a somewhat limited audience. People who had never heard of him before were now heartbroken at his loss. 

There was a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration in that.

From my point of view, Charlie Kirk was the Campus Crusade for Christ version of Steven Crowder.  I would see his face and have to run through my head "nope, not Matt Walsh, not Gaetz... Wohl? Oh, Kirk."

That may sound mean, but is it celebrating? 

Those critical posts tended to state over and over again that Kirk's flaws did not mean that he deserved to be murdered. 

Someone replied to one of the posts with the accusations of celebration, with exactly that point: posts saying that Kirk sowed division or lied or targeted naive young students then said he didn't deserve to die.

The answer (that I should have bookmarked) was a rebuttal that most of those posts reversed the order.

He didn't deserve to die, BUT... then it's a party.  

I mention the lack of intellectual honesty a lot, but we should note that it accomplishes different things.

Sometimes the purpose is continuing to avoid self-examination and to not let logic or perspective interfere, but part of that is also turning the people you disagree with into monsters.

What kind of insecurity do you need to have that vilification of others is necessary?

Xander

Nicholas Brendon, who played Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died on March 20th. He was less than a month away from turning 55.

Xander was a major character on a show that meant a lot to a lot of people. Without any special powers or supernatural traits, he may have been the easiest to relate to. For many he was the heart of the show. It makes sense that people were upset and expressed grief. 

Perhaps less logical but still not surprising, many people swooped in to criticize that outpouring of grief for such a problematic person. That set off additional people swooping in to ask whether we can't just let people grieve.

For Brendon himself, he did have legal and health issues, some of it pretty well-documented.

The cycle of grief, anger at the grief, and anger at the anger is all pretty familiar. I have even written about it before.

However, since we have a lot of people dying around now, and a lot of people being terrible as a matter of course, perhaps this is a good time to review some things.

We should remember that an actor is not the person that they played, even when there are remarkable physical similarities. 

It's okay to care about entertainers. Their faces are familiar, they create work that we find meaningful... why wouldn't we care? And they're still human beings, which should be a good reason to care, though that doesn't always work out the way you might hope.

With social media we sometimes get more personal sides. Those might be carefully curated, but sometimes you can get an idea of a person and like them better. Plus, with conventions, there are often opportunities to meet and have photos and maybe listen to them on panels.

I don't want to discount any of those experiences.

It would also be a bad idea to worship them. 

It is also okay to care about imperfect people. It's necessary to do so. Otherwise your choices are either shutting your heart down completely for a miserable existence or using denial as the coping tool that allows you to enjoy anyone only by ignoring their flaws.

That one gets used more than it should.

When we know someone's flaws and still love them, that love is a love that can last and grow. Necessary for family, but probably less important for celebrities.

I have said before that it is reductive to focus on whether someone is a good person or a bad person. That's still true, but there are people who try harder to do good and people who don't seem to make any efforts at all in a positive direction.

Fame can mess people up, and health issues can take an emotional toll. 

Dominator culture often rewards people for bad behavior, making it seem reasonable and even admirable.

This is not limited to Nicholas Brendon. I don't actually know that much about him. If some people had bad experiences with him and other people had bad experiences, neither side negates the other.

It is unfortunate that often this mostly gets talked about after someone is dead. If it came up earlier -- maybe someone gets called out or called in -- maybe some people would improve and right some wrongs, or at least try.

One can easily try and get nowhere, though. That happens too.

I can't give you any easy answer for any person. There are some things that I think are important.

We need to be able to reject bad behavior, even from people we like.

We need to be willing to allow attempts to change, even from people we don't like.

We need to prioritize the people who are most vulnerable.

We need to care about each other and wish each other well.  

I'm not expecting the world to end tonight, but if it did, all we would have is our characters and the love that we shared, our knowledge and our memories. 

There are lots of good reasons to try and be better. 

Related posts:  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/03/and-i-like-them.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2018/02/nahm-2017-taking-sides.html 

Spooky Season: New horizons

I know; there was a bit of a gap, as I was last writing about this in January. 

There are always a lot of things to write about. I will try and finish this round next week, with links.

For planned reading that I had mentioned further back, technically there should really only be finishing up the four series I had been reading.

It's never that simple, is it?

I did finish four trilogies, but I was also thinking of other books that I intended to get to eventually that might apply. 

First I should note that there are some books that could go with horror but are Native American written and themed; they don't feel like they belong here so I am saving them. 

Otherwise, I found another three trilogies, sort of.

First off, I have followed Daniel José Older for some time. I actually wanted to read his Bone Street Rumba series, but the library only had that electronically. I do not have an appropriate device, so I started Shadowshaper, the first in the Shadowshaper Cypher series, instead.. 

The setting really feels alive and the people breathe. Well, there are some that stop breathing though they do not stop existing in different ways. Heritage is important, and art, both of which make sense from Older.

There are ways in which it is very beautiful. I probably will read more in this series.  

Maya and the Rising Dark, #1 in the same-named series, by Rena Barron.

I'd added this to my to-read list a while ago, but I can't remember who recommended it. A comic-con was a key factor, so I assume that was part of how it came up.

For the series I was already reading, The Forge and Fracture Series features Orisha as a key part of the world-building, as well as a threat of dangerous foes coming through a breach in what had been providing safety. Those are both true for Maya as well, but the tone is completely different.

While it can feel young, it still handles some complex issues well, including that killing your enemies may be necessary without it being good.

I feel a little less likely to stick with this series than Shadowshaper, but am still not ruling it out.  

I added Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward to my to-read list back in 2016. Again, I don't remember what the recommendation had been. However, I saw it listed as Bois Sauvage #2. A series? You don't say..

Well, kind of. I read #1, Where the Line Bleeds.

Two things about that: while there are three books that all take place in Bois Sauvage -- a place in rural Mississippi -- each book focuses on a different family. 

Having only read one, I do not know if there are characters in common between the three books, though I suspect that does happen.

I can't trust my suspicions, though, because while those two titles and the third, Sing, Unburied, Sing, had me thinking that there would be supernatural elements, there are not. They are just about how difficult and depressing regular life can be.

I may have had a harder time because parents who are present but not (even if it's for the best) may be a harder issue for me right now.

I am not sure if I am going to continue. I might.

I haven't removed number 2 from my to-read list yet, so there's that. 

If I decide to finish these series, or at least read the second offerings, will I decide to do that around October?

That is not impossible. 

Catching up: April 2nd

Something was weird with my Tuesday post, where it just didn't seem to get the visibility that it normally does.

Yesterday it only had eight views. There is a limit to how much I care about views, but I do care some.

In addition, because it was April Fool's Day there was a part of me that worried that anything I posted could come off as a joke. 

That was not the only way the date influenced me. I actually changed the song order on the playlist to have the kind of less serious song up. It was just switching the order of two adjacent songs, so not a big deal, but still something I worried about.

In addition, I somehow miscounted the quotes for Women's History Month and had an extra. Sometimes I just go over into the next month, but a quote about racism on April 1st?

I don't know that anyone is celebrating, but there are too many fools on display all the time now; it puts a real damper on things.

I thought I knew what I was going to write today, but I am simply not feeling it. Maybe I had the order wrong. 

Anyway, here's what's going on.

I am currently working on the literature study for my capstone. There is a research component to the learning module, and before working that out I need to know what other research has said and what areas could use more investigation. 

This mainly involves looking up old academic journals, but not too old. There can be older articles that are foundational and have value for that, but I should not be basing my work on anything outdated. I should be aware of the current state of the academic thought on my topic.

One article that sounded interesting to me was from 2009. That's a little old, but not necessarily useless. 

However, my school library only has issues of that journal going back to 2012. There was an option to purchase, but it was $68.00! You are not important enough for that!

For perspective, a different article I am interested in would also require purchase, but I could have access to the information for 48 hours for $12. That is much more reasonable.

As it is, it looks like I have enough free information available that I probably won't buy anything, but that is one of the issues to consider.

It is taking longer than I had hoped, but this is one of the two assignments that I expected to need more time.

I was telling a friend about the frustration of always thinking I should go through things faster. She advised that I double the time expected and then add fifteen minutes.

It's an interesting way of looking at it. I think of it as two steps: first, you are just underestimating the time, so keep that as a guiding principle. 

Then, weird little things will come up that don't drastically change the schedule, but are still annoying. That's your fifteen minutes.

It could be a lot worse. 

Life expectancy

Remember how people used to talk about celebrity death trifectas? 

I think it was always more myth than reality. If one famous person died, people just talked about that. If a second famous person died shortly after, then people would wait for the third. Even if you got three, the connections were usually pretty tenuous.

Lately, it feels like there have been too many deaths to count in threes, that it's been going on for a while, and while famous people have been included, it is more general than that.

I had indicated that I was going to write about death and how we think about it, but first I want to point out the recent prevalence of it.

Maybe I am just noticing more or it has been weighing on me more heavily.    

We have made it through the first full year since my father's death and have passed some important milestones. My mother is still in hospice and outlasting predictions. I might be a little sensitive on this topic. (We also recently had to say goodbye to a cat we'd had since 2013.)

Still, it feels like more people are dying, often younger or more suddenly than one would hope. It's like there are more accidents, more illness, more suicide, and more exacerbating stress.

All of which would make sense, considering things.

I believe that this life is not all there is, so am not really scared of death; I am hopeful about it. That being said, I am still deeply aware of the grief of separation. Believing that it is only temporary may make it hurt less, but it still hurts.

In addition, I believe that life is precious and significant. There is so much that it can be good to do with this time that we have together that we shouldn't want to see it cut short.

And it keeps happening, to friends and relatives of friends and prominent people and everywhere in between. I don't think it's my imagination.

Over a month ago I asked for learning module suggestions, but much of the feedback I received related to things that were issues where it was not that people didn't know, but probably that they didn't care. That included driving and parking lot etiquette.

I have seen some very dangerous driving lately. It appears to be due to some people not being willing to wait. I have no reason to believe that they don't know that they shouldn't make a turn out of the straight lane or run the light just as it turns red or wait until the absolute end of the line to merge and then assume the person who planned appropriately will have to let you in. 

I also see that people don't seem to know how to do things that I took for granted when I worked retail, like making change or bagging groceries so there wasn't squishing or contamination. These weren't things that I was taught so much as just understood; they were clear if you thought about it. There is less thinking.

There might be reasons there are more accidents.

Not only have most people given up on trying to prevent spreading diseases like COVID, but -- especially with anti-vaxxers -- there may be resistance to preventing any disease. Plus, as we strip away environmental protections and food safety, the odds of taking in something toxic from the food you eat, the water you drink, or the air you breathe goes way up. 

There might be reasons there is more illness. 

That, along with increased racism, hate, dehumanization, and the blaring of all of it, may potentially explain an increase in stress and suicide. 

That's not encouraging, I know.

I know there are limits to what we can do, but let's do what we can. Especially, let's be kind and caring to each other. Those positive interactions feels so much better than doomscrolling. They're more effort, but they are worth it.

Also, if this can end on a somewhat better if still morbid note, two freak accidents have stuck in my mind recently, and maybe there can be some humor here:

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/us-sport/jeff-webb-charlie-kirk-cheerleading-dead-b2942614.html 

First of all, Charlie Kirk's (Kirk is going to come up later) mentor died in a "freak pickleball accident"; I don't understand how those three words go together. 

I guess you can injure your head doing anything. One reason I know life is fragile is learning about how the different things we see in movies and television would really play out. You cannot easily knock someone out temporarily without bad risks, as inconvenient as that is.

Without laughing at death, this terrible guy who mentored another terrible guy (but apparently not in cheer, which he influenced a lot) also had a duck-hunting estate in Arkansas. Who does that?

Then -- and this story is better because it does not end in death and involves a better person -- Pat Smear was injured in a freak gardening accident, requiring a temporary replacement guitarist for the Foo Fighters:

https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/pat-smear-injured-in-gardening-accident 

I can only assume that he was working on a retaining wall and dropped some of the stones on his foot, but it is impossible to get details on it because all you find is This is Spinal Tap jokes, referencing original drummer John "Stumpy" Pepys who died in a bizarre gardening accident that the authorities said it was best to leave unsolved.

So, we can be grateful that Pat is not a drummer, but then I remember that the Foo Fighters painfully lost their real drummer, and that if they hadn't made Spinal Tap II: The End Continues when they did, they wouldn't have had Rob Reiner... 

A lot of it just sucks.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/03/death-life-and-legacy.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/putting-it-out-there.html