Yep. It's exactly what it sounds like. A non-exhaustive list of horror books with queer characters I've read and enjoyed over the years :)
Book titles, authors, and rep listed in text under the cut.
Disclaimer 1: I've listed all f/f as sapphic and all m/m as gay, some of the characters are explicitly bisexual but as it's not always stated (or in some cases I don't remember if it was stated) I've just listed them all together.
Disclaimer 2: These are horror books, some more extreme than others. Be mindful of your own triggers and check the synopsis/trigger warnings before diving in blind.
Disclaimer 3: This list is predominantly sapphic horror because that's what I gravitate to the most lmao
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica (sapphic main character)
I, In the Shadows by Tori Bovalino (sapphic main character, nonbinary side character)
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite (gay main characters)
Wranglestone by Darren Charlton (gay main character)
Feast While You Can by Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta (sapphic main character)
The Ghost Woods by CJ Cooke (sapphic main character)
Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson (sapphic main character)
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean (sapphic main character)
Aviary By Maria Dong (sapphic main character)
Don't Let the Forest In by CG Drews (gay & asexual main character)
Hazelthorn by CG Drews (gay main character)
Hungerstone by Kat Dunn (sapphic main character)
Rottenheart by Kat Dunn (sapphic main characters)
Leech by Hiron Ennes (nonbinary main character)
Eyes, Guts, Throat Bones by Moïra Fowley (sapphic main characters)
A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson (sapphic, polyamorous main character)
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin (sapphic main character)
The Needfire by MK Hardy (sapphic main character)
House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson (sapphic main character)
Moonflow by Bitter Karella (trans, sapphic main character)
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw (nonbinary character)
The Sworn Soldier Series by T. Kingfisher (nonbinary main character)
A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock (gay and sapphic main characters)
A Blood as Bright as the Moon by Andrea Morstabilini (gay main character)
Decomposition Book by Sara van Os (sapphic main character)
Wilder Girls by Rory Power (sapphic main character)
Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt (trans, sapphic main characters)
Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt (trans and nonbinary main characters)
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Schofield (sapphic main character)
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (gay and sapphic main characters)
To Be Devoured by Sara Tantalinger (sapphic main character)
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne (sapphic main character)
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle (sapphic main character)
Bury Our Gays by Chuck Tingle (gay main character)
They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran (sapphic, nonbinary main character, trans side character)
My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen (sapphic main character)
Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White (trans, gay main character, multiple queer side characters)
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White (trans, aroace main character, nonbinary side character)
You Weren’t Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White (trans, gay main character)
All the White Spaces by Ally Wilkes (trans main character, gay side characters)
being trans is awesome ill be like "hey someone was transphobic to me on reddit" and someone else will be like "then get off reddit" and im like "well theyre also transphobic to me on tumblr" and they're like "well thats because youre on tumblr" and ill say "well people are transphobic on instagram and twitter" and people are like "yeah twitter and instagram are cesspits" and its like. i think you guys are missing the point that trans people should not be forced out of any space due to violent rhetoric and threats about who we are and yet its happening all the time. and yall seem to think thats just how it is and it shouldnt be
one of the reblogged tags has inspired me. yes, this is also about places that aren't accepting to trans people, im thinking of the south specifically. i left the south and moved out west, and we love it here, but we miss the south all the time. i lived my whole life in tennessee and i miss it all the time. i think about it all the time. and people will be like "but evan tennessee is a bad place to be trans" and it is. it is a bad place to be trans. but its my HOME. i grew up there, i lived my whole life until last year there, i have so many memories there. and im happy out here and its def more my speed out here but i would love the option to go back if i ever wanted to. and loads of trans people never leave tennessee or the south in general because its their home. trans people shouldnt be constantly forced and encouraged to move hundreds and thousands of miles away from the places they grew up and love because its unsafe to be trans there, it should simply be safe to be trans there
absolutely that too. as a mobility aid using trans person myself; do not let a partner hold you back from doing what you require to be able to be stable and healthy within your body and how you interact with the outside world. i promise you they are not worth it.
one genre of fanfiction that seems to have mostly disappeared since i became an adult is shenanigans-type fics. like not exactly crack but just "the gang goes to 7-11" type, extremely low-stakes plot stories. the beach episodes of fanfiction. i just feel like i don't see those around so much anymore. whered they go. i miss them :(
it would explain so much about Gotham economics if it turned out the only employers who pay a livable minimum wage are 1) Wayne Enterprises duh, but mainly 2) all of Gotham's assorted villains.
sure henching comes with shitty working conditions, but the benefits package is crazy competitive. they have dental
Gotham's villains are so engrained because supervillainy is the only thing propping up the local economy. henching requires no work experience, provides on-the-job training, and has a diversity hiring program (you're willing to commit crimes in tacky matching uniforms? great you're in, here's your gun and clownsuit)
Batman is constantly throwing money trying to compete but the fact remains that henchpeople are Gotham's largest workforce and will be until minimum wage laws catch up to reality
even educated jobs in environmental science are probably getting laundered money from poison Ivy. and a lab equipment tech might notice three different jobs are tied to pamela Isley and also happened to receive grants from "unrelated" shady shell orgs and the next one is setting up a temperature controled penguin habitat for some eccentric obvious mobster.
we need a new supervillain who gets drawn into villainy specifically to make money for funding grants. they come up with a theme and wacky outfit and loony backstory but at the end of the work day they change back into their alter ego (tired scientist with bags under their eyes and a hotpocket stuck in their labcoat). they're actually very mild mannered irl—the villain persona comes from their background in Theatre Arts
And this is why Bruce Wayne keeps trying to fund scientific research. But he doesn’t have the means to fund everything. So yet again villainy ends up still being the largest source of academic funding in Gotham.
When you request funding, if it’s from Wayne enterprises you need to include a bit about how it’ll benefit society. But depending on the shadow org you’re getting it from, every professor knows you need to include stuff about how it might progress or benefit efforts to potentially cure incurable diseases, or progress our understanding of extreme emotions like fear, or protect the environment, etc. There is one company where you merely need to mention penguins at some point, so there’s an academic paper out there about the effects of poverty on the LGBTQ+ community that happens to use a fictional community of penguins as example all the time. Two different organizations only give grants if there are enough puns in the request. And there’s one that seems to only give grants to researchers who want to solve some difficult scientific quandary, some big mathematical or linguistic puzzle or paradox that no one has figured out yet.
