mugs upon mugs upon mugs upon paper

jules | 29 | she/her | langblr | spanish or vanish on the reg | i follow from moss-milquetoast |

[wouldyouliketoseemymask]

This is a compiled list of some of my favorite pieces of short horror fiction, ranging from classics to modern-day horror, and includes links to where the full story can be read for free. Please be aware that any of these stories may contain subject matter you find disturbing, offensive, or otherwise distressing. Exercise caution when reading. Image art is from Scarecrow: Year One.

PSYCHOLOGICAL: tense, dread-inducing horror that preys upon the human psyche and aims to frighten on a mental or emotional level. 

“The Frolic” by Thomas Ligotti, 1989

“Button, Button” by Richard Matheson, 1970

“89.1 FM” by Jimmy Juliano, 2015

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892

“Death at 421 Stockholm Street“ by C.K. Walker, 2016

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973

“An Empty Prison” by Matt Dymerski, 2018

“A Suspicious Gift” by Algernon Blackwood, 1906

CURSED: stories concerning characters afflicted with a curse, either by procuring a plagued object or as punishment for their own nefarious actions.

“How Spoilers Bleed” by Clive Barker, 1991

“A Warning to the Curious” by M.R. James, 1925

“each thing i show you is a piece of my death” by Stephen J. Barringer and Gemma Files, 2010

“The Road Virus Heads North” by Stephen King, 1999

“Ring Once for Death” by Robert Arthur, 1954

“The Mary Hillenbrand Cassette“ by Jimmy Juliano, 2016

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs, 1902

MONSTERS: tales of ghouls, creeps, and everything in between.

“The Curse of Yig” by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, 1929 

“The Oddkids” by S.M. Piper, 2015

“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” by Richard Matheson

“The Graveyard Rats” by Henry Kuttner, 1936

“Tall Man” by C.K. Walker, 2016 

“The Quest for Blank Claveringi“ by Patricia Highsmith, 1967

“The Showers” by Dylan Sindelar, 2012

CLASSICS: terrifying fiction written by innovators of literary horror. 

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

“The Interlopers” by Saki, 1919 

“The Statement of Randolph Carter“ by H.P. Lovecraft, 1920

“The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Pierce, 1893

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, 1820 

“August Heat” by W.F. Harvey, 1910

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1843

SUPERNATURAL: stories varying from spooky to sober, featuring lurking specters, wandering souls, and those haunted by ghosts and grief. 

“Nora’s Visitor” by Russell R. James, 2011

“The Pale Man” by Julius Long, 1934

“A Collapse of Horses” by Brian Evenson, 2013

“The Jigsaw Puzzle” by J.B. Stamper, 1977 

“The Mayor Will Make A Brief Statement and then Take Questions” by David Nickle, 2013

“The Night Wire” by H.F. Arnold, 1926 

“Postcards from Natalie” by Carrie Laben, 2016

UNSETTLING: fiction that explores particularly disturbing topics, such as mutilation, violence, and body horror. Not recommended for readers who may be offended or upset by graphic content.  

“Survivor Type” by Stephen King, 1982

“I’m On My Deathbed So I’m Coming Clean…” by M.J. Pack, 2018

“In the Hills, the Cities” by Clive Barker, 1984

“The New Fish” by T.W. Grim, 2013

“The Screwfly Solution” by Racoona Sheldon, 1977

“In the Darkness of the Fields” by Ho_Jun, 2015 

“The October Game” by Ray Bradbury, 1948

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, 1967 

HAPPY READING, HORROR FANS!

[wouldyouliketoseemymask]

I’ve been doing some reading and have more stories to add: 

PSYCHOLOGICAL: 

“Paradise Pine” by C.K. Walker, 2016

“Suffer the Little Children” by Stephen King, 1972 

“Rocking Horse Creek” by C.K. Walker, 2016

“The Ledge” by Stephen King, 1978

“Ted the Caver” by Ted, 2001

“The Fly-paper” by Elizabeth Taylor, 1969

CURSED:

“The Reaper’s Image” by Stephen King, 1969

“Correspondence” by Bloodstains, 2011

“Casting the Runes” by M.R. James, 1911 

“The Dionaea House” by Eric Heisserer, 2004

“1408″ by Stephen King, 1999

“Stinson Beach” by Walter Smith, 2011

MONSTERS:

“The Crawlers” by Jimmy Juliano, 2014 

“Pickman’s Model” by H.P. Lovecraft, 1927

“Dollhouse” by C.K. Walker, 2016

“I Love My Grandparents’ Fireplace” by Rona Vaselaar, 2016

“Click-clack the Rattlebag“ by Neil Gaiman, 2015

CLASSICS:

“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” by M.R. James, 1904 

“The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson, 1907 

“The Cask of Amontillado“ by Edgar Allan Poe, 1847

“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury, 1952

“Cool Air” by H.P. Lovecraft, 1928

SUPERNATURAL:

“It Was a Different Time” by Cymoril Melnibone, 2018

“The Testament of Magdalen Blair” by Aleister Crowley, 1929 

“Instructions for the Babysitter” by CR Jones, 2018

“The Hand” by Guy de Maupassant, 1880 

“63 Years Ago” by Jake Healey, 2016

UNSETTLING:

“Window” by Bob Leman, 1980 

“No Matter Which Way We Turned” by Brian Evenson, 2016

“The M Show Fan Club” by lenalona, 2013

“The Dune” by Stephen King, 2011

“Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament“ by Clive Barker, 1984

“The Judge” by Rona Vaselaar, 2015

ENJOY!

[wouldyouliketoseemymask]

Here’s some more stories I’ve enjoyed, bringing the list total to 125 scary tales:

PSYCHOLOGICAL:

“Nightcrawlers” by Robert R.  Mccammon, 1984

“Burn” by C.K. Walker, 2016

“Examination Day” by Henry Slesar, 1958

“Miriam” by Truman Capote, 1945

“To See the Invisible Man” by Robert Silverberg, 1979 

“A Conversation with a Stranger on the Bus” by C.M., 2019

“The Man Who Loved Flowers” by Stephen King, 1977

“Paleontologists Were We” by C.K. Walker, 2016

CURSED:

“The Hourglass Tattoo” by The Dead Canary, 2019

“I Uncovered the Disturbing Truth Behind a Haunted Film…” by Joel Farrelly, 2015

“Moomaw’s Curses” by Pippinacious, 2017

“A Curse is Killing My Friends and I’m Next” by Zamil Akhtar, 2017

“The Cat From Hell” by Stephen King, 1977

“I’ve Been Getting Strange Letters from the St. Louis Prison” by Andrew Harmon, 2015

“The Ash-tree” by M.R. James, 1904

MONSTERS:

“The Midnight Meat Train” by Clive Barker, 1984

“Recluse” by Jimmy Juliano, 2016

“The Raft” by Stephen King, 1982

“Mr. Widemouth” by perfectcircle35, 2010

“The Beast of Averoigne” by Clark Ashton Smith, 1932

“Graveyard Shift” by Stephen King, 1970

“The Puppet in the Tree” by Dopabeane, 2018

“The Autopsy” by Michael Shea, 1980

CLASSICS: 

“The Triumph of Night” by Edith Wharton, 1914

“Specialty of the House” by Stanley Ellin, 1956

“The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842

“The Mezzotint” by M.R. James, 1904

“The Occupant of the Room” by Algernon Blackwood, 1917

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, 1966

“The Waxwork” by A.M. Burrage, 1931

“The Terrible Old Man” by H.P. Lovecraft, 1920

SUPERNATURAL:

“The Stillwood King” by Kris Straub, 2008

“She’s Gotten One Step Closer Every Night…” by Nick Botic, 2018

“Beauty” by Robert R. Mccammon, 1990

“My Girlfriend Talks in Her Sleep…” by Ryan Matthews, 2018

“The Everlasting Club” by Arthur Gray, 1910

“Char” by C.K. Walker, 2016

“The River Styx Runs Upstream” by Dan Simmons, 1981 

“Lemon Blossom Girl” by Kris Straub, 2008

“How to Summon the Butter Street Hitchhiker” by Chris Hicks, 2018

UNSETTLING:

“Soft” by F. Paul Wilson, 1984

“The Taxidermied Child” by Tobias Wade, 2019

“It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby, 1953

“Magnum Opus” by C.K. Walker, 2016

“Something Passed By” by Robert R. McCammon, 1990

“The Stretching Party” by Nick Botic, 2018

“Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” by Joe R. Lansdale, 1991

“Other People” by Neil Gaiman, 2001

HAVE FUN!

[cosmogyros]

Yesterday I went with a friend to our favorite feminist-queer bookshop and I ended up getting a couple of books even though I hadn't intended to :') Judith Butler's latest (Who's Afraid of Gender?) and Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis, which I've been wanting for years.

Afterwards we sat and drank coffee and ate pastries and chatted for hours, and it was sooo nice. Getting home took ages because the silly Querdenker were having a demonstration downtown (apparently they've moved on to protesting the Russia-Ukraine war instead of just claiming that COVID-19 was a hoax, so that feels like a step forward at least), but I saw this lovely building plus a firefighter fountain!

[morningautumn]

a million study guides.. | morningautumn

˜”°•.˜”°• in the photo:

Kokuyo Muji Pen 0.5 mm | Writech Retractable Highlighter | PaperMate Flair | RK Royal Kludge R98 Keyboard | iCasso Desk Mat •°”˜.•°”˜

[chanth-thara]

You Are On Native Land collects stories and art donated by some of comics' biggest Indigenous creators such as Jon Proudstar, Maria Wolf, and Steph Littlebird. Tales of Native resistance; family and kinship; love and grief fill this beautiful collection, which includes a special reprint of TRIBAL FORCE #1, credited as the first comic to feature a superhero team made up entirely of Indigenous heroes.

GUYS THIS COMES OUT SEPTEMBER 2026 I NEED EVERYONE TO PULL THIS IT LOOKS SO PEAK

[tineiya]

[genderoutlaws]

Never read Baldwin before?

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

Going to Meet the Man (pdf download)

[creatingblackcharacters]

My next Black History Month request:

Pick one of James Baldwin's works and read it!!! The Fire Next Time is an excellent essay, most of us are familiar with the quote on gay white people from The Last Interview but not the rest of it. If Beale Street Could Talk even has a movie!

[sea-mists]

literally though if you feel like your life is slipping through your fingers and every day goes too fast… try doing hard things, not just taking the easy route, like reading and making art and exercising and cooking a meal from scratch and journaling, doing these things without distraction, without being absorbed on a screen… the time will stretch and you’ll be reminded that life is long and beautiful if you make it so.

[queriesntheories]

Reblogging this with these tags because oh my goodness

To the person I reblogged this from THANK YOU i am now going to stick this on my pinboard where I’m gonna see it every single day

“Life is long and beautiful if you make it so”

[whatagrump]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[tineiya]

[genderoutlaws]

Never read Baldwin before?

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

Going to Meet the Man (pdf download)

[creatingblackcharacters]

My next Black History Month request:

Pick one of James Baldwin's works and read it!!! The Fire Next Time is an excellent essay, most of us are familiar with the quote on gay white people from The Last Interview but not the rest of it. If Beale Street Could Talk even has a movie!

[peachdoxie]

There's a bunch of adhd advice out there that's like "people with adhd tend to work better under deadlines due to the anxiety so here are ways to artificially induce a stress response in order to get you to get work done" and it's like well what if I don't want to be stressed out all the time in order to function

[electrictopaper]

this gold shouldn't stay in the comments

[pannndora]

hey loves, I’ve been reading through the comments and loads of people are asking how to not fall into this pattern because that’s all they know. so, here’s some advice from Auntie Pan who’s been in the trenches (stress-caused disabilities and chronic illnesses).

context: grew up in an abusive, controlling home, escaped to uni, had a prolonged mental breakdown, became a teacher and worked in a dysfunctional school with amazing kids and nightmare management for years. I did not realise I have adhd and autism for a long time. (You might even be able to scroll back through this blog to find the time around which I did realise lol.)

ANYWAY, things that have helped me because my body can no longer handle any kind of stress without flaring up:

If you’re doing anything that requires you to do a lot of prep before you begin the actual thing (e.g. cooking, deep cleaning a room, moving house), mise en place. That’s a fancy french way of saying get everything ready before you begin. So if I’m cooking idk spaghetti carbonara, that means fry and chop the bacon, separate the egg yolks from the whites, put water in the kettle, put dry spaghetti into a pan. Once everything’s ready, it reduces the mental load and means I can focus on the actual cooking and any clean up that I can do along the way. H/t to @ms-demeanor for this, you changed my life!

the Might As Well rule. This one works really well for me but you gotta be careful otherwise you’ll get sucked into the Vortex. Basically, let’s imagine you’re in the bathroom, brushing your teeth. You notice that the extra roll of toilet paper has been used. instead of thinking, “I’ll get to that later”, and then forgetting about it until you sit down on the bog (no judgement, we’ve all been there), you think “Might As Well put an extra roll while I’m here!” This tends to help with the little tasks that build up over time. This Does Not Work for big tasks.

Leading on from no.2, Do It Immediately/ASAP really helps me too. My current boss will email me on a Friday and say, ‘don’t reply to this now! Leave it til monday!’ But she and i both know that if i leave it til monday, I will forget and get stressed and this will make me Very Ill. So, instead, the moment i receive the email, I’ll either schedule in replying to it as soon as I’m done with my current thing, OR I’ll reply to it immediately.

Anything that can’t be actioned immediately, i mark as Unread. Anything Unread in my inbox is a future action, and i check those Unread emails/texts/whatevers Every. Day. To make sure whether today is the day i have the info to action it. (This also means i have to stay on top of my inbox. I read all my emails and then mark them accordingly. I’m also brutal with unsubscribing)

The House Always Wins. Both in a literal sense, because i am in a constant battle with keeping my house clean, and i know now that I’ll never get it as clean as i want it. It’s impossible, i no longer have the energy or stamina to vacuum and scrub everything. But also just in a life sense. I’m never going to achieve things to perfection, and perfect is the opposite of done. And getting things done is that much more important when you have limited energy and strength. Accept that you often have to half-arse life in order to Full-Arse the few things that really matter to you.

Have multiples of everything, everywhere. I wear support gloves, so i need to have handcream at every sink and everywhere i sit down in the house. I try to keep it unobtrusive, but it means i don’t have to trek upstairs just to moisturise my hands. Gum, phone chargers, pens and pencils, water bottles, hand sanitizer, whatever you need.

Work with people, even if it’s online. Body doubling actually works. Also I’ve found that if I’m working on assignments, taking myself to a library or study area that isn’t my bedroom helps so much.

Show off! Tell people on here or elsewhere in your life about the fact that you’ve just written 100 words! Or that you’ve cleaned the fridge and that’s a really big deal for you. Celebrate your wins, no matter how small.

Basically, you’re aiming to reduce the mental load as much as possible. Wear the same types of clothes all the time to minimise the amount of laundry. Eat the same three lunches so decision fatigue doesn’t take over.

All of this takes time to implement and it is cumulative, but i hope it helps. Reading the comments on this post, i finally understand why adhd is comorbid with so many other conditions. let’s take care of each other <3

[ms-demeanor]

I'm so glad to hear that helped you!

For anybody looking for resources from someone dealing with actual ADHD, I have an incomplete but ever growing list of ADHD tips, tools, and suggestions on my website.

A lot of the pages on that site are adapted from my tumblr posts, for instance I'm adapting this post about car repair projects with ADHD into a guide on project management and completion with ADHD.

(Red links are stuff that I've got planned but haven't published for reasons that are probably clear to anyone looking for ADHD advice online)

[loveridden1999]

when james baldwin said "not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced"

[boombox-fuckboy]

2026 Bandcamp Friday Fiction Podcast Catalogue:

Podcasts & Specials Menu

Bandcamp Friday is an event where artists on Bandcamp get 100% of the profits from any purchase you make. Consider supporting your favourite fiction podcasters, and get some crisp audio in the process.

Dates

(Starts at midnight, runs all day)

Friday, February 6th (UTC-08:00)

Friday, March 6th (UTC-08:00)

Friday, May 1st (UTC-07:00)

Friday, August 7th (UTC-07:00)

Friday, September 4th (UTC-07:00)

Friday, October 2nd (UTC-07:00)

Friday, November 6th (UTC-07:00)

Friday, December 4th (UTC-08:00)

Fiction Podcasts

Anamnesis (Full Audio Drama + Soundtrack)

Awake (Full Show)

The Bright Sessions (Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3 • Season 4 • Season 5 • The AM Archives • The College Tapes • Epilogue)

Camlann (Season 1)

The Dungeon Economic Model (The Complete Series)

Folxlore (Part 1 • Part 2)

Generation Crossing (Full Narrative Album)

Hearthbound (Full Series • Supercut/Road Trip Version)

Inn Between (Season 1 • Season 2 • Season 3)

Ms Shipton's Travelling Tea Shop (Full)

Old Gods of Appalachia (Season 1 • Season 3)

Sidequesting (Season 1 • Season 2)

The Tower (Part I • Part II • Part III • Finale)

What Will Be Here

Podcast Specials

The Deca Tapes (Puzzle Box)

The Dungeon Economic Model (Halloween Special)

Leaving Corvat (TEMPLE OF SLEEP)

Welcome To Night Vale (Live Shows: Condos • The Debate • The Librarian • The Investigators • Ghost Stories • All Hail • A Spy in the Desert • The Haunting of Night Vale)

Where The Stars Fell (The Christmas Chronicle)

For the 2026 Fiction Podcast Music menu, click HERE

Additions are very welcome.

[tineiya]

[genderoutlaws]

Never read Baldwin before?

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

Going to Meet the Man (pdf download)

[creatingblackcharacters]

My next Black History Month request:

Pick one of James Baldwin's works and read it!!! The Fire Next Time is an excellent essay, most of us are familiar with the quote on gay white people from The Last Interview but not the rest of it. If Beale Street Could Talk even has a movie!

[kness]

Hang in there, little guy.

[buffalo-tracks]

Internet archive links to books I've started to recommend if you care about indigenous people and anti-colonialism.

The Wretched of the Earth

Discourse On Colonialism

Making Space for Indigenous Feminism

Settlers: The Mythology Of The White Proletariat from Mayflower to Modern

Red Skin, White Masks : Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition

Borderlands/La Frontera

As We Have Always Done

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Books I couldn't find on the archive but still recommend you purchase or check out at the library:

[marxisforbros]

Conversation with a Native Son: Maya Angelou and James Baldwin

[iloveyou9]

[evilkitten3]

context according to instagram:

original image from the magazine:

[grovedg]

Found a scan of this issue on the Internet Archive (it's the back cover). This scan is 4000x6000 for all your high resolution needs!

La Domenica Del Corriere v60 n29 1958-07-20 (Darwin-IA) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

La Domenica Del Corriere v60 n29 July 20 1958, Milan, Italy, 36 pages, 40 lira.Front and rear covers by Walter Molino.

[pomme-poire-peche]

The caption reads: "Defeated by roses. Near Turin's Lingotto station, along a lonely path, Miss Guida Concetta Rinino, 28 years old, who was bringing a nice bunch of roses to a relative, was accosted by an unknown young man. The young woman, rather than losing heart, defended herself with extraordinary energy, using the bunch of flowers as a weapon. So it was that the scoundrel, his face all scratched up, had to flee. (Drawing by Walter Molino.)"

[teaboot]

Incredible. At a distance I understand how the woman might appear to be the abuser and the man the sympathetic victim, but the second you zoom into the man’s face the pink-cheeked rage- not remorse, or rejection, or embarrassment- not heartbreak or despair- but RAGE- the deeper story speaks itself into your suspicions.

And the bit where they’re HER roses? Almost a relief, but also sadder, as she will arrive at whatever event without them, or with them destroyed.

Do you think when the righteous anger and anxiety and annoyance fade, when she arrives at her destination- will her loved ones applaud her? Will she be proud? Will her hands shake? Will she walk home with company from then out, and for how long?

In this moment, she is provoked into anger. Anger is good- it appears strong. But look at his face. Would you put it past him to linger there after dark, in case she returns alone?

What story will HE tell, of ‘I was perfectly polite, but she didn’t even give me a chance- women like that, they’d swoon for a jerk in a heartbeat, but kind and flattering men like me?…”

I love this piece. It paints both stories while illustrating the power dynamics and struggles at play. This should be shown in art classes

[plasmalink]

No googling, curious about something

If someone is "favouring their left leg" as they walk, which leg is injured?

Left leg

Right leg

Voting ended onJan 13

[plasmalink]

Things are going well

[elodieunderglass]

Spoiler

When a horse doth stand but firme vpon..three feete..fauoring the other.

G. Markham, Cavelarice ii. Cited in the OED. 1607 usage.

If someone is “favouring” a limb, it’s because they’re hesitant to place weight on that limb.

[elodieunderglass]

Okay normally I'm on the side of "words mean whatever we need them to mean".

but guys, I don’t like the suggestion that it’s what is happening here. Being unfamiliar with the term, and guessing its meaning based on vibes, doesn’t mean you have equal authority on whether it’s “correct” with the community who actively use this word in a technical sense.

please do consider that if you haven't been exposed to the word in the context it's used in, "both are correct" and "you can interpret it differently" and “there is no right or wrong answer” and “it feels like it SHOULD be X” cannot be a fully realised take. Sure, linguistics recognises there are rules in which meaning changes - but “laypeople being unfamiliar with the word, and liking vibes better” isn’t one of them.

You can do that with most words, especially slang, and shape them to the needs of the majority, but this isn't like... a fanfiction word, invented for fanfic and, like, solely used for injured hockey players where it doesn’t matter if the injured limb swaps sides 4 times in a sex scene and phases through a stomach. It is, in its context, a bit more load-bearing (ha) than that.

It's fine to be unfamiliar with the context, and it's fine for words to change, but do just take a quick second to hear it in a native sentence!

One of the most common ways of using this word is to assess four-legged animals. "Favouring" is a specific grouping of behaviour - a hesitancy in gait, stiffness, reluctance to put weight on a limb. It’s often inconsistent, as the animal tries to compensate or conceal the pain. It may not be a full limp or obvious lameness, since prey animals especially will actively try to conceal this; favouring is a subtle reluctance, and a useful word for a very specific recognisable behaviour that the animal is usually trying to lie about. (That’s probably why it’s used in romance fiction, as it’s an interestingly romantic and stoic way to react to pain, and doesn’t mean the limb is inconveniently disabled. A fictional character favouring a wounded leg can wince attractively when it’s jostled, but it doesn’t matter too much if the author forgets and has them run to the door suddenly - “favouring” isn’t incompatible with “running” in horses either.)

The sentence “Favouring the off hind” is equestrian jargon: it means “pain behaviour on the back right leg.” It does not mean “opposite-pain in the not-on deer” and is not confusing in its professional register.

If you've only vaguely heard of "myeloma", and most people in a poll are guessing it's a skin cancer, that doesn't mean that myeloma and melanoma can now readily collapse into the same word - they're under active use in their native contexts, where the people frequently using them do need to communicate the difference between skin and blood cancer.

A poll of laypeople misunderstanding “myeloma,” or non-horse-people misunderstanding “favouring,” isn’t quite enough to indicate a full semantic shift and change of meaning of the term. The community that uses the term “favouring” in the context of “limb injury” - vets, farriers, farmers, commentators, equestrians - knows what it means and uses it consistently in the same way. They’re not confused. because to them, it isn’t a vibesy, sex-scene-hand waving word. It’s a cluster of pain signals.

If you aren’t familiar with that usage, then that’s really more about your own lack of familiarity. Not all interpretations DO carry equal authority, especially when one is just confusion/unfamiliarity. You just haven’t met it before, and that’s fine.

Tl;dr: I’m all for words changing meanings, but we shouldn’t be too quick to declare that when it’s based entirely on unfamiliarity and vibes-based readings.