House Duryea

"Something nice and creepy, please."

[literarydesire]

“But you dont seem like someone with depression”

Sorry, let me just:

Stańczyk by Jan Matejko, 1862

[amourdure-dureamour]

"...I am Pagliacci."

[somesoisauce]

wip! rip season 3 💔🏴‍☠️

[amourdure-dureamour]

Glorious. Would love to see it finished.

[incognitopolls]

What did you feel when you got your first period?

I was happy/excited about it

I was scared because I didn't know what was going on

I was scared for another reason

I felt ashamed/embarrassed

I was annoyed because of the inconvenience

I felt sad like my childhood had ended

Indifferent, I didn't really care about it

More than one of these

Something else

Never had a period/show results

Voting ended onMar 9, 2024

Anon feels like getting their first period was almost traumatic because of how deeply ashamed they felt about it, even though everything about it was normal and they knew it would happen.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[cynopoe]

Okay story time. I was 12 and I knew what a period was. How to put on a pad, to get medicine if it hurt too much. My mom explained it all to me in great detail. So my first period was no big deal to me. I knew it was coming.

However, my dear mom forgot to mention one crucial key element: that it would happen every month. So no, my first period was not a problem. My second one though…

[amourdure-dureamour]

For the sake of discussion, here's my story: I'm chronically ill so my period didn't show up until I was 17. My first thought was "hey! I'm normal!" Then the cramping started and I was very unimpressed. I also found that pad commercials drastically underestimated just how much blood etc. it is possible to eject. I have remained unimpressed ever since. I don't mind being female, but if could willingly eject my uterus and the baggage it comes with, I would. Stupid thing.

[amourdure-dureamour]

He smiled, a little. Or rather, that crease wrinkled back in a poor imitation of amusement. But on his face a smile had no more mirth in it than the grin you see on a skull.

1942“Black Bargain, by Robert Bloch. (1942) Having explored a fair few stories by a slightly fewer number of authors, I’m starting to find those I like. Robert Bloch is one of them. Norman Bates is something of a character, but so is this bored chemist, if you like some darker humour with your evening frights.

[amourdure-dureamour]

Long it lasted, this silent prayer to the dying moon, but finally the huge shadow-man arose, reached below Jarvais, and took from its hiding-place a knife. There was nothing shadowy about the knife.

“The Shadow on the Moor,” Stuart Strauss. (1928).

Moors remain creepy environs, possibly because of the very real danger of getting lost or sinking into hidden muck on a bad step. Mists and damp ground make a ready eerie backdrop for ghostly hounds, fat alien frogs, and shadows of what may or may not actually be waiting there.

[faustandfurious]

Some people on this website learnt the word “trope” and let it settle comfortably into the vocabulary space that should have been occupied by the word “cliché”.

“Trope” is a neutral word. If a particular trope is overused ad nauseam, it becomes a cliché. Saying you hate tropes does not make any sense.

[faustandfurious]

“I hate recurring themes and motifs”

Well, good luck finding fictional content you can safely consume

[faustandfurious]

You can hate particular tropes. You can be violently opposed to reading any YA book where the female protagonist has to choose between a Mysterious Bad Boy and Her Childhood Friend, you can avoid Enemies To Lovers like the plague.

But looking for a work of literature without tropes is like looking for a food recipe without ingredients.

[faustandfurious]

And describing/recommending a literary work simply by listing the tropes it contains is, well, something that I think works a lot better for fanfiction than for original works/published novels.

With fanfiction you have the framework. You know the fandom and the characters. You know the recipe is for chocolate cake, and when someone says “oh hey this is good, it contains hazelnuts and orange”, you can go “that’s great! I love hazelnuts and orange” with the implication that you love them as chocolate cake ingredients.

Recommending a book by listing tropes is like telling someone “you should check out this recipe, it has hazelnuts and orange”. Ok fine, but what kind of recipe is it? Is it a chocolate cake or a fucking salad?

[dollysobsessionwithskulls]

[amourdure-dureamour]

In a moment Stone spoke again. “You speak all tongues?” he asked thickly. And the emergent minikin replied in sudden English: “Yea, verily, all that you speak,” putting out its microscopic tongue, writhing its lips and wagging its head from side to side. We could see the thready ribs on its exiguous flanks heave as if the thing breathed. “Has she forgiven me?” Stone asked in a muffled strangle. “Not while the moss hangs from the cypresses,” the head squeaked. “Not while the stars shine on Lake Pontchartrain will she forgive."

Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White. (1925)

I enjoy this little story, though it can be difficult to ignore the very colonial racism present. Mighty White Explorer goes to Africa and ultimately has a rough time of it. Of course, mighty white explorers need somewhere to go be brave and impressive and Africa seemed to fit the bill: wildest Africa! Strange Africa! Darkest and scariest and completely unexplored by anyone ever (pay no attention to those people over there...or there...or over there) Africa! Where men are tough, women are meek, and a fair few horrifying encounters could probably be avoided if the explorers would actually listen to the locals who darn well know what they’re talking about. Though I enjoy reading stories with adventurous individuals going to places outside my own sphere of experience, it would be nice to see more from other perspectives. What goes through the mind of the guide when these new people arrive and demand to be shown around?

[inber]

Writing period dramas in the discord, lads

[elodieunderglass]

@inber you have tapped a deep vein here

[amourdure-dureamour]

I had no problem picturing any of this.

[manu-graphic-novel]

Trigger Warning: Character Death

Episode 12: La Mariposita

Read on Tapas | Join Manu’s Patreon | Follow on Instagram

It’s the last episode of Part I, and Manu’s dreams are becoming unsettlingly... accurate. 🥺 Here is the translation of the lullaby Manu and Abuelita sing together:

A little butterfly came down from the sky / With its wings spread out and a flower in its beak. / Who are the flowers for if they’re not for me? / Oh dearest Mama, I’m dying for you. / When Daddy comes, I will say to him / That this little butterfly won’t let me sleep. Sleep!

About MANU: At 22, Manuela is just beginning to feel like something in her life is missing when she discovers the reason why: she is a spiritual lightning rod—the last in a line of rare super-mediums. When a sinister threat comes to the New York City barrio where she was raised, she learns she must reclaim her gifts… or lose everything she holds dear.

Join Manu’s Patreon for monthly inks, early access, and behind the scenes goodies!

If you liked this episode, please help spread the word with a reblog! 💜

[lastloversarc]

Honestly the size of the lump in my throat.

The panel for 'I already know'... The power in that.

This episode packs such a punch to the gut with just a few, seemingly simple images. Wow.

[vkelleyart]

I am so, so happy you had this reaction, @lastloversarc! It’s exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you so much!

[sunsbleeding]

ROBERT FROST // https://www.instagram.com/sunlightafterdark/?hl=en

[amourdure-dureamour]

and miles to go before I sleep.

[amourdure-dureamour]

His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way, and I was reminded of a portrait seen in a gallery I had forgotten where, of a certain Gentleman Unknown. Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long distant past—a past where men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways, a past of narrow stairways and dim dungeons, a past of whispers in the dark, of shimmering rapier blades, of silent, exquisite courtesy.

Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier (1938)

By chance, my library app had the audiobook for Rebecca highlighted that day. Remembering an old biography I watched on Alfred Hitchcock and David O’Selznick and in that show a small piece of the film, I opted to start listening. Alas, I’ll have to wait a while to listen to the rest of it. The above passage refers to Maxim de Winter, which is probably the most goth name one could attach to a such a character. I can’t decide if it’s cliche-ish or not. At some point, I’ll have to watch the film.

[amourdure-dureamour]

Whenever I closed my eyes, they were there, nibbling my bones, slicing into my marrow like a macabre feast. Was it the fever that made me delirious? However, every time I woke up, I saw monstrous footprints in the wet clay.

The Child, Codex: “Scavenger,” Othercide.

[amourdure-dureamour]

At last the movements ceased and Conan looked gingerly behind the screen. Then the full horror of it all rushed over the Cimmerian, and he fled, nor did he slacken his headlong flight until the spires of Numalia faded into the dawn behind him. The thought of Set was like a nightmare, and the children of Set who once ruled the earth and who now sleep in their nighted caverns far below the black pyramids. Behind that gilded screen there had been no human body—only the shimmering, headless coils of a gigantic serpent.

The God in the Bowl, by Robert E. Howard. (1952, posthumously)

A short story and not the best of Howard’s in my opinion, but it gives a decent show of Conan’s character in the back and forth interrogation over a murdered man. I do enjoy that ending though.

[cynopoe]

Im honestly so tired of this whole existing thing

[amourdure-dureamour]

Indeed, there are some days when it’s more difficult to maintain a decent suspension of disbelief.

[comparativetarot]

Everything is Fine. Art by Lisa Sterle, from the Modern Witch Tarot.

[amourdure-dureamour]

I get the impression that the inverted version of this would be even more disturbing.

[amourdure-dureamour]

Will the opposing counsel kindly shut up and listen to expert testimony.

“The Drone” by  Abraham Merritt

Not really Gothic, I just liked the line. ;)