~

24/writing about it "books belong to their readers"

[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!

[naazaif327]

oh man, so excited to read these when its way too late at night!

[writing-prompt-s]

Your wife changes her hair color every season and her personality adjusts slightly. You’re secretly only in love with Autumn wife. She just came home sporting her Winter color.

[inkskinned]

it’s my fault. it’s just that when we met it was autumn; her red-orange hair and crackling laughter. there’s a little spooky in her, a lot of play. and what a better time for falling?

i didn’t realize it for the first few years - something shifting, something so subtle. the winter makes us all cold, the summer makes us all a little out of our minds. i just loved her, because she was incredible, and i was the luckiest person alive.

it’s just that i realized that spring came with sudden bursts of cold. it’s just that summer frequently raged in with fire sprouting from her lips. it’s just that winter was the worst of all, her eyes dead. it’s just that autumn loves me different; throws herself into it without the clingy sweat of summer. i used to love that summer girl, you know? i loved how wild she was, the way in summer she took every risk she could. but i carried her home drunk one too many times, cleaned up one too many of the messes she made for no reason than to enjoy the sensation of burning. and winter was worse; the shutdown, the isolation. how she became distant, a blizzard, caught up in her own head, unable to tell me what was wrong and unable to think i actually wanted to listen.

she comes home, her hair bleached white. a dark smile on her lips. the shadowy parts of her are back. they loom like icicles overhead. she kisses me with her body held at a distance, a peck on my cheek that feels like an iceberg. she makes polite conversation and we go to bed early, our bodies untouching. 

it is a lonely season, i think on the ninth day of this. winter is cold. winter is known for the death of things. when i look at her, i see the girl i fell for, inhabited by an alien. she was the first women i loved so much i felt it would kill me. i can’t leave. when i wake her up with my crying, she tells me to shush and go back to sleep. she’s different like this, quiet, doesn’t eat. 

three days later i stare at myself in the mirror. i wonder if it’s me. if the fat on my body or something in my face or the wrinkles and she doesn’t love me. i try prettier lingerie, lean cuisine, i try different hair, more makeup, try harder. it doesn’t work. she looks at me the same; that empty gaze that neither loves nor condemns my actions. 

somewhere in februrary i lose it. we’re fighting again, from car to restaurant to car to home again. we fight about stupid things, small things; i tell her i feel she doesn’t love me, she says i’m not listening. the circle goes around and around, old pain peeling back, new pain unhealing. i sleep on the couch.

i wake up when i hear her crying, white hair around her all messed up. the kind of sobbing that only comes at two in the morning, heavy and thick and hurting. my winter girl. my heart is breaking. she looks up at me like i’m her anchor. “i’m sorry i’m like this,” she says. and i start saying, it’s okay i’m here we’re married, but she just shakes her head and says, “I know this isn’t the real me.”

i hold her cold hand. she stares at the blankets. “i am different in winter,” she whispers, “i know i am and i’m sorry.” she looks at me. “why do you think i dye my hair? cut it off? get rid of the old me?”

i tell her it’s okay. we’re together and it’s okay, and then she whispers, “i’m sorry you married four of me.”

we lay there like that, her head on my chest. she falls asleep. i stare at the ceiling, thinking of the way she sounded when she was crying. how i helped put her in that pain. how i promised in sickness and in health and everything in between.

the next day i spend at the library. there aren’t enough books on how to love someone with seasonal affective disorder so i make my own, notes and pages and little ideas on post-its. and i take a deep breath and make myself a promise.

she comes home to her favorite dinner and we kiss and she’s uneasy but that’s okay. the next day i bring home flowers and the next day she finds little love notes in her pockets. i love her quiet, the way winter demands, understand her sex drive is faltering; spend more time just cuddling. we drink wine and we kiss and some part of her starts relaxing. 

the truth is there is no loving someone out of their mental illness. the truth is that you can love someone in despite of it; love them loud enough to give them an excuse to believe they can make their way out of it.

and i learn. i remember the rebirth of spring, when she starts thawing. we kiss and have picnics in pretty dresses. i remember her joy at little birds and her rain dancing. i fall in love with the flowers in her cheeks and the little bursts of cleaning. i fall in love with summer’s slow walks and milkshakes and shouting to music playing too loud on the speakers. i fall in love with her dancing, with the sunfire energy. and when winter comes; i am ready. i remember that snow used to look pretty. i fall in love with the hearth of her, with the holiday, with the slow smile that spreads across her face so shyly. i fall in love with how she looks in boots and mittens and every day i find another reason to love her the way she deserves - they way i always should have.

she comes home with her white hair and dark smile and a package in her hands. i ask to see what it is and that small shy grin comes creeping out. it’s a sunlamp packed in with medication. she looks at me with those wide eyes and that beautiful winter blush. “i’m trying to get better,” she whispers, “i promise.”

recovery doesn’t look immediate. sometimes it isn’t neat. i can’t say we never fight or that we’re suddenly complete. but each day, that tiny girl’s strength gives me another reason. i love her. i love her while she tames the roller coaster of spring; i love her for reigning in the summer storms; i love her for taking her winter and trying to be warm. it is hard, because everything worth it is hard. she spreads out her autumn leaves; mixes the best parts of her into everything. learns to take winter’s silence for a moment before yelling in summer. learns to take autumn’s spice and give it to spring. we are both learning.

one day she comes home and her hair is different, but it’s a style i don’t know. i kiss it and tell her that she’s beautiful and the inside of me swells like a flood. i’m so glad that she’s mine. every part of her. the whole. i am the luckiest person on earth. and i always have been. but she’s hugging me and saying, “thank you for helping me,” and i can’t explain why i’m crying.

this is what love is; not always an emotion but rather your actions. the choices we make when we realize our lives would be empty if the other was absent. this is what love is: letting them grow, helping them find their way in out of the cold. this is what love is: sometimes it takes work to see how the thing you planted together actually grows.

this is what love looks like in an autumn girl: it is winter and she glows.

[sarahakele]

I’m actually sobbing jesus christ

[xhaustedmillennial]

“Words. Words. I play with words, hoping that some combination, even a chance combination, will say what I want. Perhaps better with music? But music attacks my inner ear like an antagonist, it's not my world. The fact is, the real experience can't be described. I think, bitterly, that a row of asterisks, like an old-fashioned novel, might be better. Or a symbol of some kind, a circle perhaps, or a square. Anything at all, but not words. The people who have been there, in the place in themselves where words, patterns, order, dissolve, will know what I mean and others won't. But once having been there, there's a terrible irony, a terrible shrug of the shoulders, and it's not a question of fighting it, or disowning it, or of right or wrong, but simply knowing it is there, always. It's a question of bowing to it, so to speak, with a kind of courtesy, as to an ancient enemy: All right, I know you are there, but we have to preserve the forms, don't we? And perhaps the condition of your existing at all is precisely that we preserve the forms, create the patterns - have you thought of that?”

— Doris Lessing, “The Golden Notebook”

[kaestnrd]

My hallucination I used to see

[niibaataa]

Some Indigenous Poets to Read

Disclaimer: Some of these poems deal with pregnancy, colonialism, substance abuse, murder, death, and historical wrongs. Exercise caution.

Tacey M. Atsitty [Diné] : Anasazi, Lady Birds' Evening Meetings, Things to Do With a Monster.

Billy-Ray Belcourt [Cree] : NDN Homopoetics, If Our Bodies Could Rust, We Would Be Falling Apart, Love is a Moontime Teaching.

CooXooEii Black [Arapaho] : On Mindfulness, Some Notes on Vision, With Scraps We Made Sacred Food.

Trevino L. Brings Plenty [Lakota] : Unpack Poetic, Will, Massacre Song Foundation.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski [Apache] : Nobaude, murder on the gowanus, What To Say Upon Being Asked To Be Friends.

Gladys Cardiff [Cherokee] : Combing, Prayer to Fix The Affections, To Frighten a Storm.

Freddy Chicangana [Yanacuna] : Of Rivers, Footprints, We Still Have Life on This Earth.

Laura Da' [Shawnee] : Bead Workers, The Meadow Views: Sword and Symbolic History, A Mighty Pulverizing Machine.

Natalie Diaz [Mojave] : It Was The Animals, My Brother My Wound, The Facts of Art.

Heid E. Erdrich [Anishinaabe] : De'an, Elemental Conception, Ghost Prisoner.

Jennifer Elise Foerster [Mvskoke] : From "Coosa", Leaving Tulsa, The Other Side.

Eric Gansworth [Onondaga] : Bee, Eel, A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Function.

Joy Harjo [Muscogee] : An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, A Map to The Next World.

Gordon Henry Jr. [Anishinaabe] : How Soon, On the Verve of Verbs, It Was Snowing on The Monuments.

Sy Hoahwah [Comanche/Arapaho] : Colors of The Comanche Nation Flag, Definitive Bright Morning, Typhoni.

LeAnne Howe [Choctaw] : A Duck's Tune, 1918, Iva Describes Her Deathbed.

Hugo Jamioy [Kamentsá] : PUNCTUAL, If You Don't Eat Anything, The Story of My People.

Layli Long Soldier [Lakota] : 38, WHEREAS, Obligations 2.

Janet McAdams [Muscogee] : Flood, The Hands of The Taino, Hunters, Gatherers.

Brandy Nālani McDougall [Kānaka Maoli] : He Mele Aloha no ka Niu, On Finding my Father's First Essay, The Island on Which I Love You.

dg nanouk okpik [Inupiaq-Inuit] : Cell Block on Chena River, Found, If Oil Is Drilled In Bristol Bay.

Simon J. Ortiz [Acoma Pueblo] : Becoming Human, Blind Curse, Busted Boy.

Sara Marie Ortiz [Acoma Pueblo] : Iyáani (Spirit, Breath, Life), Language (part of a compilation), Rush.

Alan Pelaez Lopez [Zapotec] : the afterlife of illegality, A Daily Prayer, Zapotec Crossers.

Tommy Pico [Kumeyaay] : From "Feed", from Junk, You Can't be an NDN Person in Today's World.

Craig Santos Perez [Chamorro] : (First Trimester), from Lisiensan Ga'lago, from "understory".

Cedar Sigo [Suquamish] : Cold Valley, Expensive Magic, Secrets of The Inner Mind.

M. L. Smoker [Assiniboine/Sioux] : Crosscurrent, Heart Butte, Montana, Another Attempt at Rescue.

Laura Tohe [Diné] : For Kathryn, Female Rain, Returning.

Gwen Nell Westerman [Cherokee/Dakota] : Dakota Homecoming, Covalent Bonds, Undivided Interest.

Karenne Wood [Monacan] : Apologies, Abracadabra, an Abecedarian, Chief Totopotamoi, 1654.

Lightning Round! Writers with poetry available on their sites:

Shonda Buchanan [Coharie, Cherokee, Choctaw].

Leonel Lienlaf [Mapuche].

Asani Charles [Choctaw/Chickasaw].

[rneliflua]

There’s also a large grey area between an Offensive Stereotype and “thing that can be misconstrued as a stereotype if one uses a particularly reductive lens of interpretation that the text itself is not endorsing”, and while I believe that creators should hold some level of responsibility to look out for potential unfortunate optics on their work, intentional or not, I also do think that placing the entire onus of trying to anticipate every single bad angle someone somewhere might take when reading the text upon the shoulders of the writers – instead of giving in that there should be also a level of responsibility on the part of the audience not to project whatever biases they might carry onto the text – is the kind of thing that will only end up reducing the range of stories that can be told about marginalized people. 

A japanese-american Beth Harmon would be pidgeonholed as another nerdy asian stock character. Baby Driver with a black lead would be accused of perpetuating stereotypes about black youth and crime. Phantom Of The Opera with a female Phantom would be accused of playing into the predatory lesbian stereotype. Romeo & Juliet with a gay couple would be accused of pulling the bury your gays trope – and no, you can’t just rewrite it into having a happy ending, the final tragedy of the tale is the rock onto which the entire central thesis statement of the play stands on. Remove that one element and you change the whole point of the story from a “look at what senseless hatred does to our youth” cautionary tale to a “love conquers all” inspiration piece, and it may not be the story the author wants to tell.

Sometimes, in order for a given story to function (and keep in mind, by function I don’t mean just logistically, but also thematically) it is necessary that your protagonist has specific personality traits that will play out in significant ways in the story. Or that they come from a specific background that will be an important element to the narrative. Or that they go through a particular experience that will consist on crucial plot point. All those narrative tools and building blocks are considered to be completely harmless and neutral when telling stories about straight/white people but, when applied to marginalized characters, it can be difficult to navigate them as, depending on the type of story you might want to tell, you may be steering dangerously close to falling into Unfortunate Implications™. And trying to find alternatives as to avoid falling into potentially iffy subtext is not always easy, as, depending on how central the “problematic” element to your plot, it could alter the very foundation of the story you’re trying to tell beyond recognition. See the point above about Romeo & Juliet.    

Like, I once saw a woman a gringa obviously accuse the movie Knives Out of racism because the one latina character in the otherwise consistently white and wealthy cast is the nurse, when everyone who watched the movie with their eyes and not their ass can see that the entire tension of the plot hinges upon not only the power imbalance between Martha and the Thrombeys, but also on her isolation as the one latina immigrant navigating a world of white rich people. I’ve seen people paint Rosa Diaz as an example of the Hothead Latina stereotype, when Rosa was originally written as a white woman (named Megan) and only turned latina later when Stephanie Beatriz was cast  – and it’s not like they could write out Rosa’s anger issues to avoid bad optics when it is such a defining trait of her character. I’ve seen people say Mulholland Drive is a lesbophobic movie when its story couldn’t even exist in first place if the fatally toxic lesbian relationship that moves the plot was healthy, or if it was straight.                          

That’s not to say we can’t ever question the larger patterns in stories about certain demographics, or not draw lines between artistic liberty and social responsibility, and much less that I know where such lines should be drawn. I made this post precisely to raise a discussion, not to silence people. But one thing I think it’s important to keep in mind in such discussions is that stereotypes, after all, are all about oversimplification. It is more productive, I believe, to evaluate the quality of the representation in any given piece of fiction by looking first into how much its minority characters are a) deep, complex, well-rounded, b) treated with care by the narrative, with plenty of focus and insight into their inner life, and c) a character in their own right that can carry their own storyline and doesn’t just exist to prop up other character’s stories. And only then, yes, look into their particular characterization, but without ever overlooking aspects such as the context and how nuanced such characterization is handled. Much like we’ve moved on from the simplistic mindset that a good female character is necessarily one that punches good otherwise she’s useless, I really do believe that it is time for us to move on from the the idea that there’s a one-size-fits-all model of good representation and start looking into the core of representation issues (meaning: how painfully flat it is, not to mention scarce) rather than the window dressing.

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but it feels that being a latina author writing about latine characters is a losing game, when there’s extra pressure on minority authors to avoid ~problematic~ optics in their work on the basis of the “you should know better” argument. And this “lower common denominator” approach to representation, that bars people from exploring otherwise interesting and meaningful concepts in stories because the most narrow minded people in the audience will get their biases confirmed, in many ways, sounds like a new form of respectability politics. Why, if it was gringos that created and imposed those stereotypes onto my ethnicity, why it should be my responsibility as a latina creator to dispel such stereotypes by curbing my artistic expression? Instead of asking of them to take responsibility for the lenses and biases they bring onto the text? Why is it too much to ask from people to wrap their minds about the ridiculously basic concept that no story they consume about a marginalized person should be taken as a blanket representation of their entire community?

It’s ridiculous. Gringos at some point came up with the idea that latinos are all naturally inclined to crime, so now I, a latina who loves heist movies, can’t write a latino character who’s a cool car thief. Gentiles created antisemitic propaganda claiming that the jews are all blood drinking monsters, so now jewish authors who love vampires can’t write jewish vampires. Straights made up the idea that lesbian relationships tend to be unhealthy, so now sapphics who are into Brontë-ish gothic romance don’t get to read this type of story with lesbian protagonists. I want to scream.      

And at the end of the day it all boils down to how people see marginalized characters as Representation™ first and narrative tools created to tell good stories later, if at all. White/straight characters get to be evaluated on how entertaining and tridimensional they are, whereas minority characters get to be evaluated on how well they’d fit into an after school special. Fuck this shit.                            

[letterful]

i do love listmaking…

[letterful]

here be two decidedly incomprehensive lists based on highly arbitrary criteria — off the top of my head and in no particular order:

rattling like a bag of bones:

"gretel, from a sudden clearing" & "the promise" & "what the silence says" & "calvary" by marie howe,

"i watched you disappear” by anya krugovoy silver,

"the song of hen's head" & "this is a photograph of me" & "a sad child" by margaret atwood,

"bruise ghazal" & "i go back to may 1937" by sharon olds,

"harold's leap" & "deeply morbid" & "the orphan reformed" & "do take muriel out" & "not waving but drowning" by stevie smith,

"we who are your closest friends" by phillip lopate,

"the loft" by richard jones,

"eating together" & "death poem" & "party" & "you with the crack running through you" & "the numbers" by kim addonizio,

"thanks" by w. s. merwin,

"the bee meeting" & "lady lazarus" & "daddy" & "sheep in fog" & "fever 103" by sylvia plath,

"yesterday he still looked in my eyes" by marina tsvetaeva,

"we don't know how to say goodbye" & "the last toast" by anna akhmatova,

"unknown girl in the maternity ward" & "lessons in hunger" & "the truth the dead know" by anne sexton,

"anne sexton’s last letter to god" by tracey herd,

"aubade" & "the mower" by philip larkin,

"the blue bowl" by jane kenyon,

"her long illness" by donald hall,

"myth" by natasha trethewey,

"the drowned girl" by bertolt brecht,

"in bertram's garden" by donald justice,

"ovid in the third reich" by geoffrey hill,

"report from a besieged city" by zbigniew herbert,

"napoleon" by miroslav holub,

"me up at does" by e.e. cummings,

"snow line" by john berryman,

"the hollow men" by t. s. eliot,

"dedication" & "in warsaw" by czesław miłosz—

resonating like a bright bell:

"what the living do" & "my dead friends" & "magdalene, afterwards" by marie howe,

"funny" by anna kamieńska,

"woman unborn & "i'll open the window" &  “tomorrow they’ll cut me open” by anna świrszczyńska,

"the book of hours" by b. h. fairchild,

"there is a gold light in certain old paintings" by donald justice,

"when eurydice saw him..." (an excerpt) by gregory orr,

"sometimes, when the light" & "the blind leading the blind" & "there are mornings" & "monet refuses the operation" by lisel mueller,

"try to praise the mutilated world" & "transformation" by adam zagajewski,

"the end and the beginning" & "the tower of babel" & "discovery" & "thank-you note" by wisława szymborska,

"all in green went my love riding" by e. e. cummings,

"while eating a pear" & "the dead" by billy collins,

"never again would the birds' song be the same" by robert frost,

"a meeting" by wendell berry, 

"death at daybreak" by anne reeve aldrich,

"next time" by joyce sutphen,

"the god abandons antony" by c. p. cavafy,

"musee des beaux arts" by w. h. auden,

"failing and flying" by jack gilbert,

"goodtime jesus" by james tate,

"all my friends are finding new beliefs" by christian wiman,

"i’m glad your sickness" by marina tsvetaeva,

"angels" by maurya simon,

"the saints" by margaret atwood,

"dirge without music" by edna st. vincent millay,

"a refusal to mourn the death, by fire, of a child in london" & "fern hill" & "do not go gentle into that good night" & "and death shall have no dominion" by dylan thomas,

"high windows" & "an arundel tomb" by philip larkin,

"please read" by mary ruefle,

"it was not death, for i stood up" by emily dickinson,

"men made out of words" by wallace stevens,

"ash wednesday" by t. s. eliot,

"on angels" & "this world" & "if there is no god" & "encounter" by czesław miłosz.

[misledmiseries]

me: I’m a homebody i like to stay at home!

the home: 

muddles my perception of time

Changes in both size and distance

lulls me into sense of safety and twist it into an oppressive paranoia inducing hellouse-scape

compels me to forget my own autonomous existence 

waters down the outside and/ or exaggerate it to mythical extent 

shrinks front door perron when i ascend, jarringly draws it out when i descend.

all its windows views are other walls of itself

the backyard fence looms in every horizon

bitter to abandonment of what belongs under its roof, including me when i go out to buy some good ol orange fanta

 doesn’t look for me under its roof, it always knows where I’m.

when it sleeps doors never open, i don’t know it’s sleeping schedule

whatever happens silently around the corners is real, my apprehension is valid and understandable, and indeed i should panic. 

[kittykat-pikachu]

list of things about mussed up houses

house of leaves by mark z. danielewski

skinamarink by kyle edward ball

the house in the ocean by mister manticore

myhouse.wad by veddge

this house has people in it by alan resnick (possible? its more like the people are the strange thing)

monster house by gil kenan (maybe not messed up in the right way for this list)

burning down the house by the talking heads (only in passing)

additions:

the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson (book)

the haunting of hill house by mike flanagan (tv adaptation of the book)

rose red by stephen king

vivarium by lorcan finnegan

changing planes by ursula k. le guin (not a house, but thematically close)

charlotte markham and the house of darkling by michael boccacino

slade house by dave mitchell

little, big by john crowley

the inner room by robert aickman

phantom architecture by phillip wilkinson

bite size terrors: erobos heaven by anoverthinker (seems like possibly the house isnt whats strange? but i dont know for sure i havent played it)

anatomy by kitty horrorshow

childhood homes (and why we hate them) by qrowscant

the house next door by annie rivers siddon

white is for witching by helen oyeyemi

haunted by poe (album counterpart to house of leaves??? holny crap)

the house with a clock in its walls by john bellairs (also has a movie adaptation)

p.t. by hideo kojima

coraline by neil gaiman (more like the creature is making the house messed up but yeah ill count it)(EDIT: okay yeah that house IS just messed up. forgot the beldam didn't make the other house)

starling house by alix harrow

the witch's house by fummy

house (hausu) by nobuhiko obayashi

the house is alive and the house is hungry by the paper chase

my house walk-through by nana825763

control by sam lake

house of bones by jeffery scott lando

lungbarrow by marc platt

if anyone knows of other things that fit this niche, any type of media, feel free to add on. i'll edit and add it to the original post. i just really like this specific niche

thank you to @bas-fish, @eggmixercortex, @ohiotpke, @posteriorpeasantpresents, @hadoom, @dougielombax, @lite-weaver, @mimillion, @elvriskastello, @apotheoseity, @hauntedhousez, @sophiewooloo, @jumbledthemes for contributing :3

i should sort this + add links putting that on my to-do list

[helpful-writing-tips]

if you're trying to get into the head of your story's antagonist, try writing an "Am I the Asshole" reddit post from their perspective, explaining their problems and their plans for solving them. Let the voice and logic come through.

[writingwithfolklore]

We had a lot of fun with this one on the discord so reblogging it here as well!

[bloodybigwardrobe]

you have invited strangers into your home, helen pevensie, mother of four.

without the blurred sight of joy and relief, it has become impossible to ignore. all the love inside you cannot keep you from seeing the truth. your children are strangers to you. the country has seen them grow taller, your youngest daughter’s hair much longer than you would have it all years past. their hands have more strength in them, their voices ring with an odd lilt and their eyes—it has become hard to look at them straight on, hasn’t it? your children have changed, helen, and as much as you knew they would grow a little in the time away from you, your children have become strangers.

your youngest sings songs you do not know in a language that makes your chest twist in odd ways. you watch her dance in floating steps, bare feet barely touching the dewy grass. when you try and make her wear her sister’s old shoes—growing out of her own faster than you think she ought to—, she looks at you as though you are the child instead of her. her fingers brush leaves with tenderness, and you swear your daughter’s gentle hum makes the drooping plant stand taller than before. you follow her eager leaps to her siblings, her enthusiasm the only thing you still recognise from before the country. yet, she laughs strangely, no longer the giggling girl she used to be but free in a way you have never seen. her smile can drop so fast now, her now-old eyes can turn distant and glassy, and her tears, now rarer, are always silent. it scares you to wonder what robbed her of the heaving sobs a child ought to make use of in the face of upset.

your other daughter—older than your youngest yet still at an age that she cannot be anything but a child—smiles with all the knowledge in the world sitting in the corner of her mouth. her voice is even, without all traces of the desperate importance her peers carry still, that she used to fill her siblings’ ears with at all hours of the day. she folds her hands in her lap with patience and soothes the ache of war in your mind before you even realise she has started speaking. you watch her curl her hair with careful, steady fingers and a straight back, her words a melody as she tells your eldest which move to make without so much a glance at the board off to her right. she reads still, and what a relief you find this sliver of normalcy, even if she’s started taking notes in a shorthand you couldn’t even think to decipher. even if you feel her slipping away, now more like one of the young, confident women in town than a child desperately wishing for a mother’s approval.

your younger son reads plenty as well these days, and it fills you with pride. he is quiet now, sitting still when you find him bent over a book in the armchair of his father. he looks at you with eyes too knowing for a petulant child on the cusp of puberty, and no longer beats his fists against the furniture when one of his siblings dares approach him. he has settled, you realise one evening when you walk into the living room and find him writing in a looping script you don’t recognise, so different from the scratched signature he carved into the doors of your pantry barely a year ago. he speaks sense to your youngest and eldest, respects their contributions without jest. you watch your two middle children pass a book back and forth, each a pen in hand and sheets of paper bridging the gap between them, his face opening up with a smile rather than a scowl. it freezes you mid-step to find such simple joy in him. remember when you sent them away, helen, and how long it had been since he allowed you to see a smile then?

your eldest doesn’t sleep anymore. none of your children care much for bedtimes these days, but at least sleep still finds them. it’s not restful, you know it from the startled yelps that fill the house each night, but they sleep. your eldest makes sure of it. you have not slept through a night since the war began, so it’s easy to discover the way he wanders the halls like a ghost, silent and persistent in a duty he carries with pride. each door is opened, your children soothed before you can even think to make your own way to their beds. his voice sounds deeper than it used to, deeper still than you think possible for a child his age and size. then again, you are never sure if the notches on his door frame are an accurate way to measure whatever it is that makes you feel like your eldest has grown beyond your reach. you watch him open doors, soothe your children, spend his nights in the kitchen, his hands wrapped around a cup of tea with a weariness not even the war should bring to him, not after all the effort you put into keeping him safe.

your children mostly talk to each other now, in a whispered privacy you cannot hope to be a part of. their arms no longer fit around your waist. your daughters are wilder—even your older one, as she carries herself like royalty, has grown teeth too sharp for polite society— and they no longer lean into your hands. your sons are broad-shouldered even before their shirts start being too small again, filling up space you never thought was up for taking. your eldest doesn’t sleep, your middle children take notes when politicians speak on the wireless and shake their heads as though they know better, and your youngest sings for hours in your garden.

who are your children now, helen pevensie, and who pried their childhood out of your shaking hands?

[shadowknight1224]

#the lion the witch and the wardrobe is a horror story (via @linkswings)

[greentrickster]

Daughter of fantasy villains decides to rebel against her parents by actually going through with her arranged marriage to a local golden retriever of a prince instead of running off with some local villain-to-be or conquering said golden retriever’s kingdom and ruling it solo like her parents expect her to. Plus, sue her, she’s into the clean-cut earnest look.

At the same time, local prince charming discovers that he’s actually very into the gothic fiance his parents have landed him with in order to try and establish peace with the local evil lair down the lane, he would never have guessed a spiderweb pattern could look so fetching on a ball gown…?

Meanwhile, two pairs of parents in a tizzy because they both expected their offspring to whole-heartedly reject this union and give them an excuse to conquer their goody-two-shoes/evil neighbours, they’re not supposed to actually like each other-!

[chucktaylorupset]

respective friend groups undergoing culture clash like all of prince charming’s knights are like what vile spell has been used to ensorcel our prince.  we must be on our guard for surely this is but a ruse for an assassination attempt

meanwhile the villain bride’s friends are all like clearly he loves you not, why do you persist in a manner that will ensure your own heart break, i mean if he was taking this seriously there would be at least three assassination attempts by now.  it’s like he doesn’t even notice that you have massive amounts of dark power to covet for his own

smashcut to

fully armored knight, clanging through the hallways in attempts at stealth, blades drawn: i’m just saying, i took an oath of protection.  this feels wrong.

prince charming: it’s not wrong, it’s celebrating cross cultural traditions for my beloved bride

knight: it’s attempted murder

prince charming: it’s a loving attempted murder

[greentrickster]

@chucktaylorupset  Meanwhile the bride has a bouquet of roses, cornflowers, and wheat sheaves on her desk in her room, and she’s not coming out until she’s written a beautiful and moving poem about how they favourably compare to her groom. It’s been three days. She’s gone through an entire raven’s worth of quills (unethically sourced). The ‘toads who used to be my friends’ list has gone up by one. But she’s bent dark forces and eldritch spirits to her will and, by the powers obscene, this will not be the thing that breaks her.

Sorceress friend: Please, just get him an amulet that will double his power at the cost of his soul, no one’s worth this.

Rebellious villainess: (nearly in tears) No, he brought his best knights to the castle and tried to kill me last week, at midnight, I can’t ignore something like that! He even kicked Cathulhu!

Sorceress friend: He nudged it with his foot. And then he apologized to it. In tears.

Rebellious villainess: (actually in tears now, for reasons of feels instead of poetic torment) He’s trying so hard!!!

[greentrickster]

Villainess: Beloathed, I need a goat.

Prince: Of course, darling - may I inquire as to what for?

Villainess: Blood sacrifice to the dark gods, you know how it is.

Prince: …

Prince: …darling, you know I support your lifestyle choices, but I must say this before it potentially happens.

Prince: I’m not all right with human sacrifice. That’s one of my boundaries. I don’t know if you do that or not, but it seemed a topical time to bring it up.

Villainess: (carefree laugh) Oh beloathed, don’t worry yourself about such things, I would never!

Villainess: (leading him off to the goat market) Only incompetents use actual humans. Skilled practitioners of the dark arts know that a goat is not only a sufficient sacrifice, but the superior one.

Prince: You don’t say? Fascinating!

[greentrickster]

@sapphire-monkey One of the nobles against the marriage in the prince’s kingdom invites the villainess to a local village’s blessing ritual, secure in the knowledge that it’s not only custom to wear the absolute palest white or undyed linen/woolen clothing one owns, it’s a requirement of the ritual and sacrilegious to do otherwise. Let’s see you deal with that miss all-black-wardrobe.

She arrives in diaphanous white silk edged with lace that gives the impression of beautifully tattered hems, all of it drifting gently around her on the spring breeze to give the feeling of a wraith from a haunted castle or something of the such. While not her personal cup of tea, she finds the ritual very moving, and absolutely understands why its one of her beloathed’s favorites.

One of the nobles from her kingdom, meanwhile, decides, fuck it, and just turns the prince into a frog. It takes her two minutes to find and fix him.

Villain noble: How.

Villainess: True love’s kiss, bitch.

Villain noble: (seethes)

The prince, meanwhile, pissed off the entire villainous court for the recent engagement ball that was held by knowing and responding accordingly to all the proper threats and insults. He studied before doing this, and he’s not going to shame darling in front of her peers! Bastard even managed to subdue his chivalry long enough to flirt with one of her friends right in front of her, how dare he be so considerate and sensitive to her needs like that-!?

[greentrickster]

First time the Prince finds out Villainess can transform into a gigantic fire-breathing dragon is a very O_OU moment for him.

Villainess: Are you surprised I can? It’s a common ability.

Prince: I didn’t want to assume.

Villainess: …

Prince: (sweats)

Villainess: …you’re picturing me turning into a dragon and riding on my back into battle, aren’t you?

Prince: N-no, no, of course not-!

Villainess: (drapes in his lap) It’s okay, we’d look fantastic. (sly expression) And probably scary enough to get the enemy forces to surrender without any needless bloodshed.

Prince: (sweating) Darling, are you trying to tempt me into putting you into a position where you could be injured in battle?

Villainess: A little. :3 (more seriously) But it is also on the table if we ever need to defend our throne. It’s the sort of thing that form’s for, really.

Prince: If you’re comfortable with it, then very well, it shall be added to the list of acceptable strategies.

(comfortable cuddling for a moment)

Prince: I imagine you make a very majestic dragon.

Villainess: (preening) I really do.

Prince: Perhaps we should have a tapestry done of it, then? It could hang opposite the one of my family’s crest in the throne room when we someday ascend the thrones ourselves.

Villainess: 8O! Beloathed, I would adore a tapestry of that! (cuddles further against him) Oh, and across from your family crest! That would be such a slap in the face to my parents, having a tapestry of me there instead of their own crest.

Prince: (hadn’t thought of it that way, but is happy that she’s happy)

[greentrickster]

Villainess comes in one night thoroughly out of sorts because her stupid cousin’s decided to make a move on her rights to the souls of their ancestors, and the jerk’s competent enough to actually have a potential chance at getting them, too, like he’d even wear the necklace of jewels they’re trapped in-!!!

The Prince listens patiently to her frustration until she’s finished, then considers for a few minutes.

“Darling, about that banquet your family’s having next fortnight - will your cousin be in attendance?”

“Yes, he’ll be using it to lay the groundwork of his plans. Why?”

“Would it be all right if I popped in for a bit? And was rather more… myself than I usually am around your parents?”

“…I suppose it’d be all right.”

“Wonderful!” (kisses her hand) “Perhaps wear those full-arm gloves your friend got you for the event - the ones that allow you to handle blessed objects without them interfering with your dark powers?”

“Well now I’m just curious. I shall do as you request, beloathed.”

The night of he shows up to the banquet positively radiating charm, good will, and benevolence, decked out in full armor that’s glowing slightly. Oh this? It’s the ancestral trappings of one of his relatives who was a champion of the stellar deities, those who guide ones who have become lost in darkness? He’s not a holy champion himself, but he is a fully-realized warrior of light and family, so he’s permitted to wear it at times. Oh yes, he completed his warrior of light trials when he was eighteen, when on a quest and everything! That’s where he earned his sword - it’s actually a shard of sunlight, you know, not metal. That’s why he’s called Prince of the Sun and Stars sometimes - bit of a grandiose title, really, but the artists and poets enjoy playing with the imagery, and who is he to deny them, especially when Darling is so fond of the stars herself! There’s a lass in one of the kingdom’s villages doing a portrait of the two of them together playing with that motif, actually, and it looks like it’s going to to be absolutely lovely when it’s done-

And he continues to be cheerful, charming, and just the nicest, most polite guy for the time he’s there while also reminding everyone in no uncertain terms that, for as long as the forces of evil have been trying to quash the forces of good, his side has been working at the opposite. And his side tends to win more often. And maybe it would be wise not to pick a fight with Darling because he’d hate to have to do battle with a potential in-law in the path of supporting her family’s traditions regarding people who cross them…

Jerk cousin is thoroughly cowed out of making an attempt at the family-filled jewels, and Villainess’s friends are standing with her off to the side going, “Okay, beginning to see what you see in him now.” Villainess herself is walking around with on safely-gloved hand on his arm as he intimidates the hell out of everyone she knows in order to help her protect what’s hers, swooning a little bit inside the whole time.

(Hers might be more diversely applicable, but Villainess isn’t the only one bringing something to the table in terms of power. Prince is generally more useful for things like getting birds to sing in chorus or making friends with bunnies, but his family does specialize in slaying evil. She may be skilled at facing enemies of all sorts, but he’s prepared specifically for anyone in her home court who might try to backstab her.)

[greentrickster]

@ninjakittenarmy  Is the gown made of actual spider silk. Because that sounds fitting, especially since spider silk is actually a really good material.

Princess: “You like it? It’s made of giant spider silk straight from the underdark!”

Prince: Oh uh that’s really- wait, you can make clothes out of spider silk?

Princess: Yeah! It’s really tough too! You can even make light armor out of it.

The two have a several hours long conversation about spider agriculture. The prince receives spider silk under armor as a wedding gift.

Oh my gods, yes, absolutely!

[greentrickster]

@imaginapalminthemorning  #Addams family origin story 

Congratulations, you are officially the smartest person on the entire thread, holy flip-?!?

[greentrickster]

Villainess is chilling in Prince’s court one day and a lady of the court storms up to her in tears, make-up running, and is just, “One of your friends turned my fiance into a newt, a newt, and he fell in the moat before I could catch him and I don’t know how to find him, or how to change him back if I do find him, and the library only has information on frog and bear transformations, and no one knows what to to do and you’re the only person who might know what to do, please help me-!” (bursts into inconsolable tears)

This throws Villainess through a loop, people don’t tend to whole-heartedly throw their trust in others like this at her place, this is super unsettling, so she just responds in the way she usually would, “Oh? And what price are you willing to pay?”

“Anything.”

…ooooooooh that is so, so tempting, why are people in this court so earnest, don’t they realize that the reason the higher nobles are worried about her marriage to their prince is the very real potential that she could use this opportunity to cast their country and its people into a thousand years of ruin and despair, bare minimum…?! But it would make Darling unhappy if she’s too mean about this, so, “How about your dignity, then? First off, we’ll have to get you out of that dress…” (seductive smirk and cock of the hips)

Court lady: (still in tears but hands immediately go to her bodice laces to start undoing)

Villainess: (grabbing her hands) OKAY, WHOA, HOLD UP, WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF COURT, HAVE SOME STANDARDS!!! Just- just go put on something you don’t mind getting all messed up, we’re going to have to get in the moat a bit for this, and even the edges are all muddy.

Court lady: Oh. (sniffles) Okay. Thank-you.

They spend the next three hours dredging around the moat to find the right newt and then perform the right ceremony to turn him human again. He appears naked and covered in mud and court lady unabashedly flings herself into his arms, sobbing in relief this time, and it’s disgustingly wholesome and romantic.

Newt Lordling: (once he’s finished doing a bit of sobbing of his own into his fiance’s hair) Wait, aren’t you Neskatina’s friend? Could you tell her that my sister likes daffodils? Girls, and daffodils? I tried to tell her myself, but the newt thing happened before I could get past asking her to stop with the threatening letters. We- we really don’t send those around here unless we mean it, she’s been finding it a bit upsetting. Daffodils would be much better received.

Villainess: …noted.

[greentrickster]

I thought about them more and… there’s no way Court Lady isn’t going to decide to be friends with Villainess after all this, is there? She helped her save her fiance when she thought him lost to her forever and had nowhere else to turn, they did what amounts to a mini quest together, they’re friends now. Villainess has no idea how to handle it when the next court function comes along and Court Lady scampers over (tear-free this time) and proceeds to spend a decent amount of the evening with her just being… so unabashedly friendly. It’s unnerving.

Prince: She’s grateful to you and wants to be friends.

Villainess: (glowering suspiciously) Sounds fake.

Prince: She thinks you’re nice.

Villainess: Disgusting.

She still goes when Court Lady invites her on a trip to the meadows with some of the other ladies to pick greens, all of them surprised by the discovery that going out to gather flowers and useful herbs and such is something ladies from both courts do from time to time (though for very different reasons). It’s common sense to wear an older outfit that’s all right to get a bit grass- or mud-stained (ladies from the Prince’s court call them their ‘daisy dresses,’ Villainess and her friends call them ‘gathering gowns’), and Villainess is kind of shocked that the pretty nobles from her beloathed’s court do this sort of thing.

The ladies all titter, then it’s story time, because you can bet most of them have a heroic/clever/wise relative somewhere in the family tree who was born a peasant and married or gained nobility for some feat or other, and it’s fun to have someone new in the group who hasn’t heard all the stories before. Villainess is surprised again, because she does actually know some of these stories, but from the relatives of the villain involved (usually told in a ‘you’ll never guess what so-and-so’s idiot relative got thwarted over’ sort of tone). Going on outings like this helps you stay connected to your roots!

Also, Court Lady turns out to be the daughter of the royal apothecary and has a deep knowledge of the properties of various mushrooms. She even knows about poisons because they’re used in medicine sometimes. Villainess might be starting to like her as a person.

Another lady finds a patch of old teasels and braids them into a crown for Villainess, because “They’re all dark and spiky, and about the same colour as your daisy dr- ah, your gathering gown! We tend to make each other flower crowns when we go out, but I thought you might like these better.”

Villainess: …won’t they get deceptively yet horribly tangled in my hair, making the crown stay on well but an absolute nightmare to take off?

Lady: (terrified that she’s judged wrong) Yes…?

Villainess: (trying so hard not to be horribly touched, she’s just allergic to all these non-lethal flowers, that’s why she’s suddenly feeling sniffly) That’s really thoughtful of you.

[greentrickster]

To get a touch spicy - both are shocked to discover that their fiance is under the belief that the alignment they’re not a part of invented bondage.

Prince: It had to have been a villain that invented it, your side’s the one that gets all clever with ropes and knots and everything!

Villainess: No no no, it must have been your side, because safe words and after care!

They are both very perplexed, but also in absolute agreement that they will not be asking their parents about this.

(Because why go with the trope ‘good folks are vanilla in bed and evil folks are spicy’ when you could go with ‘actually one’s moral alignment has no effect on what they’re into in bed and actually it’s a pretty even division of spiciness levels all around’ and have both groups get tripped up by the discovery?)

[greentrickster]

@moviegirlsincedisney​   #amazing #I need comics and books and a tv show #also I imagine after neskatina has sent a bouquet of daffodils with a black ribbon binding them together #she receives a letter threatening her for turning the lordling into a newt from the sister #It’s filled with scathing comments the likes of which neskatina has never heard from the lips of the Good Folk #at the end of the letter written in tiny print is a post script saying ‘did I do it right? you’re cute’ #Neskatina is disturbed when instead of ruining the effect of the whole letter she is instead only further endeared

^Yes, all of this, good, canon!!!

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

This has gotten infinitely better since the last time I saw it.

[frothlad]

It’s the fantasy equivalent of Ensign Stabby.

[greentrickster]

You just- just came for me like that, right from the hip, didn’t even blink, I’m never going to recover and I’m so flattered, thank-you!

[thegeniusidiotnstickmerchant3728]

[Image ID:] A short comic of someone with pointy ears wearing a hat reading something from their laptop, which results in them pulling their hat over their head and screaming. [End ID]

[hurdy-girly]

There’s that semi-common trope in a lot of stuff where the King’s advisor turns out to be super evil, right? I imagine that could play back into this, where the Prince’s father’s advisor is like. Visibly evil and malicious and conniving, complete with backhanded comments and an unsettling name. And Villainess finally meets him and realizes this immediately. She personally finds him to be one of the most tolerable people in the castle, but she is a bit concerned that the Prince doesn’t know and that this man could cause some out of place stress to her Beloathed. Eventually she decides to tell him, and so later that night she asks about it.

Villainess: Beloathed, what do you think of your father’s advisor?

Prince: Him? Oh, he’s been with the family since my father was a boy. He practically raised Father when my grandfather fell ill. We are lucky to have him with us.

Villainess: …are you aware that he’s evil?

Prince: Hm? Oh, yes.

Villainess, now a bit confused: And you haven’t removed him from the job? I would have assumed that your people would not tolerate this kind of darkness, especially so close to power.

Prince, shrugging: It’s kind of a tradition, to be honest. The King’s advisors have all been evil for… well, centuries now. It’s something that mostly goes unspoken. The position tends to corrupt people. Eventually he will reveal a daring plot, and I will defeat him to protect the light and discover something new about the side of good.

Villainess: Hmm. I suppose that makes sense.

And later on the Villainess begins to foil the advisor’s plans, mostly because all of them are mediocre and her beloathed deserves a much more challenging trial than that. The Prince is touched that the Villainess is putting this much attention into such a small, unspoken tradition. The advisor is very confused and upset because “what do you mean that was a bad plan, I even included poison!”

[radwolf76]

you KICK cathulhu? you kick her e̵l̷d̶r̸i̵t̷c̸h̵ ̴f̴o̵r̸m̸ like ye olde foote ball? oh! oh! dungeon for prince! dungeon for prince for a̸̧̪͑ ̶̨͍̐͑t̸͎͒͊h̵͆̔ͅo̷͙͎̿ǔ̴̞͔ṣ̶̜̔͠a̵̭͗͜n̴̰̜̍̒d̴̘͂ ̷̙̗͐y̴͓͐͜e̵̗̓̏a̶̳͎͂r̵͚̈́́ś̵͎͊!

[quilldesignz]

[greentrickster]

8O!!! GUYS, ANOTHER SET OF DESIGNS FOR THESE TWO JUST DROPPED AND THEY’RE GORGEOUS!!!! How is everyone who draws these two so good at character design, holy flip, she looks so elegant and menacing, and the design of his armor is fan-

(notices his hand)

Is- oh gods, he’s wearing a ring in the same colour as her jewels, oh that’s such a beautiful, subtle little touch, I love it!

(Also, one of the odd little things I like best about this piece? Somehow these versions of the couple just look like they’d get along with @nananarc’s version of them. They’re both very distinct takes, but they all feel like they could inhabit the same world, which I choose to interpret as both artists managing to fully encapsulate the vibe of this setting and its characters while also putting their own spins on it. Wonderful!)

[potplant-deactivated20240905]

Favourite opening line to a classic novel?:

"Call me Ishmael"

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a-"

"124 was spiteful. Full of Baby's venom."

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"He was an old man that fished alone in a skiff-"

"All children, except one, grow up."

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs-"

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transfo-"

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins"

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Voting ended onJul 28, 2024

[lilyblisslys]

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” Tyvm

[macrolit]

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

NYT Article.

*************

Q: How many of the 100 have you read? Q: Which ones did you love/hate? Q: What's missing?

Here's the full list.

100. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson 99. How to Be Both, Ali Smith 98. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett 97. Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward 96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman 95. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 94. On Beauty, Zadie Smith 93. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel 92. The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante 91. The Human Stain, Philip Roth 90. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 89. The Return, Hisham Matar 88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters 86. Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight 85. Pastoralia, George Saunders 84. The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee 83. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labutat 82. Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor 81. Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan 80. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante 79. A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin 78. Septology, Jon Fosse 77. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 75. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid 74. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout 73. The Passage of Power, Robert Caro 72. Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 71. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 70. All Aunt Hagar's Children, Edward P. Jones 69. The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander 68. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez 67. Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon 66. We the Animals, Justin Torres 65. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth 64. The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 63. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill 62. 10:04, Ben Lerner 61. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 60. Heavy, Kiese Laymon 59. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 58. Stay True, Hua Hsu 57. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich 56. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 55. The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright 54. Tenth of December, George Saunders 53. Runaway, Alice Munro 52. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson 51. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 50. Trust, Hernan Diaz 49. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 48. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 47. A Mercy, Toni Morrison 46. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt 45. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson 44. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin 43. Postwar, Tony Judt 42. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James 41. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 40. H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald 39. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan 38. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano 37. The Years, Annie Ernaux 36. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 35. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 34. Citizen, Claudia Rankine 33. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward 32. The Lines of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst 31. White Teeth, Zadie Smith 30. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward 29. The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt 28. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 27. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 26. Atonement, Ian McEwan 25. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 24. The Overstory, Richard Powers 23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro 22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo 21. Evicted, Matthew Desmond 20. Erasure, Percival Everett 19. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 18. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders 17. The Sellout, Paul Beatty 16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 15. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee 14. Outline, Rachel Cusk 13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 12. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion 11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz 10. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 9. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro 8. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald 7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 6. 2666, Roberto Bolano 5. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen 4. The Known World, Edward P. Jones 3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel 2. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson 1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[caffeinewitchcraft]

An Exercise in Mary Sue

(story under the cut)

This week’s short story is more of an exercise. I’ve seen a lot of discussion lately about “cringe-y” YA as more and more authors self-publish or get popular via social media.

When I was a teenager and just started writing, one of my biggest fears was creating a Mary Sue. Mary Sues were very Bad and could get you bulled online. They were too powerful, too beautiful, too not-like-other-girls. People would look down on writers who incorporated these elements into the MC and tell them to stop writing entirely.

Now, in my late 20s, I’ve been thinking about that time in my life more and more. Writing was my hobby, sure, but reading was my escape. And, as a teen, I wanted to escape. I wanted to read about characters who were all-powerful, who were confident, who were loved and respected. I wasn’t getting that fulfillment in my daily life, but I was getting that from books.

So why, when I loved reading them so much, was I so afraid of writing Mary Sues?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong in wanting to read or wanting to write an over-powered character. But I’ve come to the realization that it’s HOW you do it that matters. The biggest legitimate criticism against these types of characters is that they’re not believable. How does a teenager defeat a Dark Lord with fifty years of experience? Why does the orphan know how to wield a lightsaber better than those who’ve trained with it for a lifetime? Why is the prophesied hero wittier than the Generals who’ve been planning this battle all along?

“Mary Sue” stories are always missing an explanation. They “tell” rather than “show.” That style of writing never allows a reader to fully engage and forces them to remain in a critical position. There’s no information for the reader to work with! That’s a really frustrating experience and, as a connoisseur of the Mary Sue, it’s one I know well.

I rebel against the idea of “cringe” in writing. So this week I wrote the opening to a YA book with aaaall the hallmarks of a Mary Sue.

Our main character (Junipera, of course) is the most powerful vampire in her Family despite being one of the youngest. She has long silver hair and black eyes that turn red when she’s angry. She is gorgeous and seemingly all-knowing. She’s contemptuous of those around her and effortlessly outwits them no matter the situation. She is Edgy and Arrogant and everything I have tried not to write for most of my life.

BUT I sort of love how she turned out?

As I’ve worked on pulling together two books to release over the next few weeks, this has been extremely soothing for me. I’ve managed to keep finding the joy in writing because of this exercise and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Or, at the very least, I hope that those of you who may be skeptical are given a different angle to think about Mary Sues and their place in literature.

Thanks for reading!

Keep reading

[writing-prompt-s]

You are the wind’s interpreter. What’s it saying?

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Tell Miles, the wind whispers, that he’s a little bitch.

It’s only through years of long practice that Dyta’s able to keep a straight face. The King’s name is Miles? Everyone just sort of assumed he was named after his great grandfather, King Raymus since that’s what he’s written all over the kingdom. She tries to remember if she’s ever heard of a Prince Miles–

“Well?” King Raymus (Miles) asks. He looks down his nose at Dyta, thin lips thinning further. His knuckles are white around his gaudy scepter. “What did the Wind say? Will my reign be remembered? Am I truly the greatest King across the six kingdoms?”

There’re actually 208 kingdoms, the wind hisses out from underneath the door. Which Miles would know if he weren’t a little bitch.

“Yes,” Dyta blurts out. The guards’ glares have been growing each moment she’s been silent and she’s not interested in finding out at what point they use the spears they’re holding. “Super remembered.” She brings her hands up, trying to gesture just how remembered the King is, but the shackles around her wrists hinder the movement. “The wind knows your truth, King Raymus, and it spreads that truth across the globe.”

You never interpret correctly, the wind whines through the gaps in the stone walls. You are the worst wind-speaker I’ve met in centuries.

Dyta’s the only wind-speaker in centuries. That’s why she’s in this whole prisoner mess to begin with. It’s just luck that King Mi-Raymus is vain enough to spend the majority of her captivity asking after what the world thinks of him.

 There are much worse applications of her ability. Spying, for example. And assassination, though she tends to stay away from that one, much to the wind’s chagrin.

Keep reading

[lakevida]

i dont enjoy writing as a hobby because it feels like when people try to take pictures of mirrors to sell online and clearly put effort into minimizing their reflection but theres still an arm and phone in the frame or you can see their fucked up carpeted kitchen in the background with like a wall to wall collection of dusty antlers. im saying someone will notice i have a weird house because i was so focused on nobody noticing that i was naked while taking a pic of this mirror for craigslist and i cant have that but im not getting dressed because its my house. you understand of course