Sad Monster and resident coffee gremlin what writes about uncomfortable subjects and fantastical things that lurk in dark places.
//This place be full of adult things, enter at your own risk//
[tags are your friends] || https://oidyre.wordpress.com/||
Hello! I am a sad monster what writes uncomfortable stories about terminally disturbed people (and not people). These come in a few flavors with fantasy, romance and cyberpunk being the big ones.
Horror is prevalent in everything I write, so be prepared for that.
I have a plethora of published fiction, all horror, available in ebook here, here or here if you wanna buy disturbed tales that are more than a little gay. You can also throw money at me here, if you're into that (feed me coffees).
I use this place to share bits and bobs of whatever I’m currently writing(which as of now is a horror romance novel, a vampire detective series, a witch fixer series, a different horror romance novel, a long list of horror shorts, a horror fantasy series, an urban fantasy/cyberpunk trilogy, a fairytale horror novel, a vampire horror novel, a children's horror story and a bunch of things it would best no one asked about), as well as cover images, character sketches, the occasional audiobook test and a free podcast what is live now.
(I also run @sipofsnips and @writeblr-live-again so if those break, you can yell at me)
So if you’re into the dark, weird and more than likely gay, or enjoy characters going through traumatizing events over and over again, you might like what you find here.
//This place be full of adult things, enter at your own risk//
You can find links to all the stuff, what I just mentioned, below.
All the stuff I've written, or am currently writing, in a convenient spot so as not to get bogged down by the myriad of tag games I like doi
how much would you prefer to pay for an individual short story?
$1.50 USD
$2.00 USD
another price under $5 USD
Remaining time: 6 days 20 hours
I apologize this is just in USD, but that's what I use. This would be going forward and maybe not for all my stories? And I'd still give my stories away for free in exchange for an honest review somewhere. I don't have any plans yet, I'm just gathering info rn
Anyone else get annoyed when they see a quote attributed to an author when it's from one of their books and not a thing they said?
That is a line from one of their books not a quote from the author.
Whether positive or negative, whether you agree with it or not, whether they agree with it or not...they didn't say that, they wrote a character saying that.
Shakespeare didn't say 'To be or not to be', Hamlet did yet if you look up quotes from the bard himself you get nothing but lines from his plays.
No one seems to have actual quotes.
But you can find some stuff from Poe, if you like, such as 'I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.'
Which is from a letter he wrote and so an actual quote.
I just...it bothers me. It bothers me so much. If not for all the people decrying any dark topics because it must mean the author is some sort of evil sadist...we have this shit.
I ended up experimenting a lot with this painting, pouring layers of ink washes over the watercolor and building back up with gouache and pastels. I'm trying to get a look that is soft and highly textured but still has clear strong details in places. I haven't gotten it down yet quite the way I want, but this is a step closer!
honestly i think the selling point of romance for me (and where it usually fails to land) is 'can i imagine these people sharing an in-joke'
like, are they in cahoots. can they laugh together. do they have a similar enough or at least complementary enough outlook that they can connect over something being funny (even if it's funny in a fucked up way! sometimes those are the best in-jokes!)
that's not necessarily true love in and of itself, but it does feel like an essential component to me
Recently watched a film called 'The Daemon (2024)' and I have...thoughts.
I will be spoiling it. You've been warned.
First one being it is a fascinating idea, I love me a lake monster what whispers through generations and calls people to give themselves to its waters. Delicious. More, please.
The madness in it was also fascinating, how it plays off guilt and fear and torments people in personal ways.
The design of the monster's initial form, the one seen on the cover, is unique and interesting. Striking when you see it in the movie and it takes up most of the horizon. Huge beastie. Very nice.
Characters were also interesting. To a point. They were a bit thin but believable as people, and that's what matters. I can't remember a single name and that probably says something.
The lake is the star here, the lake and monster and the mystery of why it pulls people to it (you get no answer).
And it is quite the star, the reveal is phenomenal, I loved the big shot of the beastie over the lake with its weirdly tendrilous tentacles wiggling (they look plantlike not fishlike but okay).
It's...the end.
But I'm going to give a rundown of the story to get there, because there were no clues beyond the madness and I am deeply perturbed by where it led.
We get the start of the film from an older man's perspective, as he furiously writes a letter and the camera angles, lighting and twitchy way it moves tells us he's in distress. He hallucinates his arm swelling until it bursts, gasps and worries but goes back to writing. Very important letter. Then he seals up the letter and walks into the lake.
This is important. It is setting our tone and letting us know there is madness afoot and it is related to the lake.
We find out through the course of the film that this death was ruled a suicide but a body was never recovered. We also learn that the man's son has seen this happen before, with his mother, and the man didn't believe him when he said it was the lake that took her.
Our first main character is said son, who is glad his dad is dead until he gets the letter proclaiming him correct and the lake is calling and he's so sorry. So he goes to the lake, of course, can't be a horror movie without a kind of stupid protagonist. He tells his fiance that he's going to his father's lakehouse, don't follow him, goodbye forever.
She doesn't take this well but we'll get back to that.
New character! Not fiance. This one's a therapist at a prison who is being bullied by one of the inmates, her husband is a tool but he does seem to care and is quite supportive. Turns out husband is son's fiance's brother! Because she shows up and asks for help, it's been several weeks since the man disappeared and his son went to the lake to do...whatever.
Therapist wants everyone to go to the lakehouse and check on their friend. She is a busybody and will pay for it.
She is also our new main character and we follow her perspective through the madness and discovery of charcoal sketches of monsters and weirdness going on with this crazy man who won't stop talking crazy. She has horrible nightmares about the inmate bullying her more.
She sees the guy they came there for being weird at the lake, praying to it, then he's walking around with a hole where his face should be.
We get a side perspective of the fiance meeting a man she's been cheating with, who isn't really there, he throws up on her and cocoons her in muck. She dies? Now she's being weird about the lake.
Our main lady's husband is just straight murdered, sliced in half as some darkly humorous callback to something he says when they arrived (it's actually quite funny but I am broken).
Our lady is not okay, everyone is dead or insane and she would like to leave now but no. They're taking her to the lake. Where they tear her open and eat her insid--oh that's just a nightmare, she's writhing on the beach alone. Okay. They want her to 'give in', she does and the lake takes her.
AND WE SEE UNDER THE LAKE
WHERE IT IS GODSDAMNED FUCKING CTHULHU
There's cosmic debris and a big generally accepted Cthulhu shaped entity floating in it and I am done.
I am done with this.
You had a perfectly good beastie. Why ruin it?
Cthulhu is not sleeping in one of the fucking great lakes, he's at the bottom of the ocean (South Pacific specifically).
STOP IT
...I just...
I'm so disappointed.
What's worse is research informs me this was played at a Lovecraft film festival. It was billed as a Lovecraftian Horror yet it plays out like a creature feature or folktale and the only hint that it might be Cthulhu is the madness.
Which could be anything.
He doesn't have a copyright on madness monsters.
So I'm even more disappointed, turns out, because it could have leaned more into it and been a good Lovecraft horror. Instead it's a mediocre creature feature with a shitty Cthulhu jammed in at the end.
➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.
➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.
➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.
➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.
➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.
➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. 'May contain peanuts!'
➡️ Writers are allowed to use 'Creator chose not to warn' for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.
➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is not the same thing as 'no archive warnings apply'.
➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you're reading that upsets you.
➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.
My husband, everyone, who clearly has no idea how much I am already doing.
...I wouldn't even know how or be able to pay anyone and I do not have the skills to manage things like that.
But if anyone else wants to start a zine of weird queer fictions what welcome all genres and aren't pandering to the payment processors or puritans I will gladly hop in to provide eyes for going through submissions or art for covers or just as hypeman.
I'd love to be involved but I don't want to be in charge.
