Shut up and let me see your jazz hands

There's this leather jacket on the My Chemical Romance webstore that I've been umming and ahhing over for the longest time. I couldn't decide just how much I liked it (and I hadn't registered the price tag!) but as I wanted to order some stuff anyway I figured I'd finally get it. Until I did see the price, anyway! I don't know about you, but when I make my mind up that I want something it's difficult to convince myself otherwise so I started to form a plan. I liked the jacket, but to be honest I'd kind of remembered it differently and preferred my imaginary version to what was actually available, so surely it couldn't be that hard to just thrift a jacket and paint on it myself, right?

I tried really hard to thrift a jacket. I wanted this to be long lasting, so I was hoping I might even be able to thrift a real leather one. I know, dream big, but I traveled to three different towns and couldn't even find a fake one, so ended up just buying a faux leather jacket brand new as I couldn't wait anymore. I bought proper leather paint, as although there's a ton of tutorials out there telling you to just use artists acrylics, as an artist who uses acrylics I really don't recommend this. If you don't mind it cracking and peeling off after a few wears then fine, go ahead, but if you want it to last just buy the proper stuff. I went with Angelus which I'd used before to paint a pair of shoes and knew it held up well, and went with silver and pewter to mirror the design of the original jacket.

I spent a long time figuring out the design, I even spent time analyzing the serif font, which is called 'Blacker' by the way and available as a free trial on DAfont (not sponsored, just hope I can help out another fan and put this weirdly niche knowledge to good use!) I also traced over the newer sigils logo which is what I convinced myself the jacket design actually was for a while. I know the design was supposed to read like a tombstone and now it doesn't, but I still prefer it. I also drew up a version where the text circled the logo entirely but it looked too cluttered and made it difficult to read, and I just liked this more.

I spent a while printing it out in various sizes, then I went around all of the design with an exacto knife to create a stencil. I then decided the paper was too flimsy and covered it in sticky tape before cutting everything out again, before trialing the stencil on a scrap piece of paper. I was really worried about the paint bleeding under the stencil and making a mess. I tried both painting and dabbing with various sized paintbrushes, and then found this kids kit that had some sponges on sticks which turned out to be the best! I did a single light layer of this, and traced around the sigils with a white gel pen so I could paint the rest by hand once I knew where everything went.

The stencil had bled on a couple of letters (you can really see on the first M) and I was panicking because I didn't want to have to go around the letters with black paint that might not be an exact match to the jacket and make the whole thing look a bit crap and amateur. Google told me to use acetone to lift it but I didn't want to risk ruining the faux leather, so I used isopropyl alcohol and it took some rubbing but it worked!

I took this photo because I thought I'd finished and started to clear up, but when I moved the jacket away from my brightly lit desk and hung it over my chair I realized how patchy it looked. I'd wanted it to look 'distressed' like the inspiration jacket design, but there's a difference between 'distressed' and 'bad paint job' so I went over the whole thing again. You can see the difference with the actual finished version below and I think you'll agree it was worth it.

I'm really proud of how it came out, and I think I like the jacket even more because I made it! Most alt cultures are built on a history of DIY, so doing stuff like this always feels way more satisfying than "mall bought". It also sent me way back, as I remembered when I was a teenager and couldn't afford band shirts so I'd painstakingly trace the various logos of whoever was my current fav onto plain tshirts with Tipp-Ex and Sharpies. It really didn't look good, but I guess it gave me some good practice!

Leaves are fallin' down on the beautiful ground

I've been meaning to go out and take some photos of autumn for a while, but it seemed like the trees didn't feel orange enough until all of a sudden they were. I love autumn. I love wandering outside with all of the smells, all of the colors, and the air just feels different. There's something so genuinely magical about it all.

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. Naturally I then began collecting the various expansion kits, although I always swore off the more supernatural themed packs as despite my interest in 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 almost 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'd avoided because of its reputation of purple prose but have to say I loved the movie way more than I ever thought I would and can't wait to start my way through the books as soon as I'm done with my current read! All this to say 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 - 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, and I've even thought about getting into streaming and such things. 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.

Down where the gulls dance driftwood lying drying for the fire

One of my favorite things about this time of year are the wild seals that turn up on the beaches to have their pups. It's usually a very busy beach at any other time of year, but everything just comes to a complete stop for a few weeks to give the seals their peace.