#Halloween Girl Graphic Novel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angelisverba · 6 months

Text

praise

in which y/n notices something isn't quite right with her professor, and harry loves chasing this little bunny

word count: 5.5k

pairing: vamp!h and y/n (but really it's more like professor!h with a side of vampire)

warnings: this fic contains graphic depictions of sex and blood.

author's note: happy late halloween!

When y/n was little, her mother always told her to stay inside on Halloween.

She never got to go trick-o-treating like the other kids because of this, not until she was old enough to pay for her own costume, but by that time it was too late because trick-o-treating turned into bar hopping and candy turned into drinks. She took part in these activities for as long as it took for her to figure out that she didn't like alcohol or big crowds or dressing up.

Also by that time, many of the holidays took place around the time that she was stressing about papers and exams and midterms and other deadlines a college students faces around the end of the semester. She was a dedicated, busy little bee with few friends that knew her enough to know that when she's focused, theres no getting her to come out for anything, so they didn't even extend invites.

Which is why she finds herself inside, at the library, on Halloween night. She has a little ear worm of Linus writing his letter to the great pumpkin running around in her brain, but that's as far as her spooky spirit goes. The rest of it is consumed in her paper about sublime notions of nature in the latest gothic novel assigned by her literature professor, Mr. Styles.

Had it been any other teacher, she wouldn't have lingered so much on grammar, word choice, or reading her paper over and over again so that her ideas were clear and concise, but... but there was something about him. She can't really but her finger on it, but a big part of it is fear. Intimidation. He's so... commanding in the way that he carries himself. Almost menancing, his figure carrying the threat of punishment.

He walked into the lecture hall everyday dressed like a model from a vintage academia magazine. Tweed bottoms. Button up shirts. Loafers. Sleek black shoes. A pristine silver watch on his wrist. A golden chain that twinkled on his neck and disappeared into the collars of his shirts like a shooting star. Slicked back chocolate brown hair from which a single curl sometimes escaped and swayed on his forehead like the hooked tail of a monkey. Tailored pants that accentuated the litheness of his hips perfectly so, making her wonder if he had them altered to fit him exactly. A badge on a simple, black attachment pinned on his hip spelled his name underneath a coyly smirking ID picture of his face; Harry Styles.

So y/n had a little crush.

A silly little bundle of love-misted roses perched in her heart with a ribbon and a name tag that had her English professor’s name on it.

She tried to tell herself that it was a school girl’s crush (it literally was), but it was hard to keep her daydreams cemented underneath the rounded realm of reality when her heart kept reading into every single little interaction she had with him, knowing that all her fantasies would only ever exist in her dreams because he was an employee. He was older than her. He would never be interested in a girl, a student, like her. His serious disposition did nothing to quell her.

In fact, it almost egged her on. The perfectionist in her wanted to be perfect for him, so be praised by him for her hard work. She wanted so badly to be his teacher's pet that it reflected in her work ethic. Every paper she turned in was better than her last, she paid rapt attention in class, took the most intricate care in her notes. She always looked her best on the days she had his class- black ballet flats with black skirts, frilly socks, cardigans and collared blouses- ever the neat student. She's every professor's wet dream, she knows this.

Yet, the approval and validation that she craved. No, needed. The validation she needed from him was never given to her, no matter how hard she worked. The notes on her paper were always asking for more, she could do better, she could be more clear, she wasn't quite*getting it. And he always left a note that she should see him in his office hours.

But she couldn't.

Y/n was sure that she would spontaneously combust is she was in an enclosed one-on-one space with him. Which was funny because many of the female students fought for that time with him. One time she heard a few girls in her class say that they tried to call him by his first name and he told them that "it was Professor Styles or Sir to them". Just listening to it second hand was enough to have her squirming. The though it, to have his striking green eyes on only her, his gravely, accented voice directed at her. It was an intoxicating though.

She could imagine it.

He would sit on the other side of his desk in that suave way of his, ankle crossed at his knee, one hand resting on the arm of his chair while the other props his chin up as his finger taps against his sharp cheekbone. He would watch her with an unwavering, predatory gaze, like he's waiting for her to make a mistake to step in and correct her. Y/n would sit in the seat across from him, her hands under her thighs to keep from fidgeting, her lips wet with her spit from how much she'd chew on them, her eyes unfocused and struggling to keep contact with him. The silence in the room would probably be filled with her 'umm's and 'like'. She'd be so nervous, and he would see right through her, and all her hard work would be diminished to nothing.

And then she would probably cry and Professor Styles doesn't really look like the type to console his students, so y/n would just embarrass herself.

So she settles for putting her all into her work, tweaking what he's made notes on from previous papers, and hoping that it's enough, that one of these days she'll she exclamation points at the end of praise instead of at the end of 'explain this'.

With a weepy, overwhelmed sigh, y/n rubbed her fists into her eyes and ran words over and over again in her head. She was the last one in the library, the light from the lamp at her desk was the only source of illumination in her little study corner. This late into the semester the school didn't close libraries, opting to not get in the way of students and their work. It was nearing midnight, and she was getting tired, but this paper was due in two days and she wanted at least one to edit it.

A little delirious from lack of sleep and anger from how difficult this was all turning out to be, y/n blinked back tears. She was a little cold and she was hungry. But she was not going to leave until this paper was finished.

She would however close her eyes, just for a little while. Y/n put her head down on the desk, telling herself that she would only rest her eyes for a few minutes, that she was not going to fall asleep.

But like every college student that snoozes their alarm twenty million times because they're just going to rest their eyes for a few more minutes, she falls asleep.

She startles awake in the dark at the sound of a chair scraping against the floor.

When she jerks upright, Professor Styles is sitting across from her, reading her paper.

***

Harry is so fucking hungry, and he's looking for a snack. Maybe even a meal if he can get away with it.

He hasn't fed in nearly a month, and normally even two weeks is pushing it. But it was the month of October, and as the holidays neared and the parties increased, so did security and people's guard. It was extra hard to find a bite now, not the kind he liked.

Sweet, pure, and innocent. Untainted flavor.

A few days ago he managed to snag a few blood bags from the campus' blood drive center, but it wasn't enough. He craved the puncture, the warmth of a body in his arms, the fresh throb of a pulse underneath his tongue. He wanted the erotic writhing of struggle and submission against his body. Many of his kind didn't share their fondness for this part, but he loved taking care of them afterwards. Making sure they were okay, steady. Sated in the same ways he was. Being a vampire came with the ability of glamour, a bit of mind influencing, so that he was able to make the situation a little more favorable on his end.

He had decided to go for a stroll, having been caught up late in his office grading papers, when he caught a hint of something sweet and familiar in the night air.

It reminded him of one his students, y/n.

She always sat in the middle of the third row with perfect posture, listened to his lectures as if he was God. Her eyes would get mooney, and if he listened hard enough (which to him wasn't really that hard because he was a vampire, he had super human hearing) he could hear her heart beat faster in the seconds that his eyes held contact with her as he talked, delicate and quick like the wings of a hummingbird. Everything she turned in was perfect. She was smart but not pretentious in her way of writing, and something about the way she wrote reminded him about the tender inside of a wrist. Her wrist.

But Harry was mean, and he liked to tease, and he could tell that y/n was waiting. She was sitting on a precipice, hanging on to his very word, her body strung taught and stressed. She was waiting on him. He was going to make her wait until he did as he asked. He wanted one on one time with her, and until then, he wouldn't give her what she wanted.

Whether she realized it or not, she was teasing him, too. In ways that y/n probably wasn't even aware of. The way she bit her lips so they were bright with her blood right underneath the surface, the promise of her heat with every exaggerated sigh she let out as she walked out of his lecture hall. Her clothes, god they killed him.

She wore these black kitten heels once, and they drove him crazy.

Now, he knows his place as Professor, and he didn't just get this job to fuck around. He enjoyed teaching and knowing secretly that he knew first had about the things he was talking about. He loved seeing how his life was absorbed by the younger faces (not that he looked old, he would forever appear to be 23). He respected others, their will, their purpose, and only went as far as his moral compass would let him to take care of his needs.

But he was a man, and he could be brought to his knees by a pretty thing like y/n.

Harry remembers that day, how his trousers were uncomfortable and he had to spend the whole time behind his podium. How he needed to slyly inch a calculating hand to the ever-growing uncomfortable center of his groin and tug the snug fabric away from their vacuum-sealed hold on his hips. It was maddening for him, but uncomfortable for her (he thinks). She never wore them again, and he suspects they may have hurt her delicate feet if the way she kept shifting was anything to go by.

Not that he noticed.

Harry most definitely did not notice that the tip of her toes kept tittering tenderly up and around in slow, hypnotizing circles, meant to relieve pent up tension. He most definitely did not notice that the way her frilly white socks kept sliding down the slope of her ankle with every movement. Or the tantalizing trekk of her delicate fingers against the curve of her thigh, behind her knee, and a little further where the pads of her lucky fingers dug into the soft, aching- he assumed- flesh of her calves. He didn’t fucking hold his breath and become stiller than a statue to try and to hear the sweet, breathy sighs of relief that left her parted lips. No, he did not. That would be a violation of the contract he signed upon assuming his position. It would be betraying the trust of the snarky, reluctant, port-belly head of academics that judged his ambiguous resume with reluctance.

Of course he didn’t. And he wasn’t the slightest bit disappointed that he never saw them again.

This student of his had captured his attention this semester, almost distracting him. Her smell, from what he knows the few times he caught a whiff of it amongst all the others, was sweet, yet not overwhelmingly so. It was mellowed out and warm, and the closest thing he could compare it to from the food he had as a human, was apple pie. She was warm, sweet, honeyed, with the zest of cinnamon.

He wanted to taste her so fucking badly.

Harry doesn't know if it's because he's so hungry that he's smelling her now.

Trailing after the scent with his nose leading the way like a drooling dog, he wonders- no, he knows that he won't be able to fight the urge to taste her if it's really her he finds at the end of the line.

It gets stronger in the library, but from the looks of it, it's dark and empty. From the looks of it, but Harry knows better. He can hear better and smells better, and he knows she's in here. The swift intake of her breath rings in the silence, his ears picking up on the only human sound in the buildings. The near-silent whines that sit at the base of her throat and die before they exit through her nose.

Her hearbeat.

Calm. Steady. Alive.

It sounds like a drum, low and pounding and it thrills him.

He wants to hear it beat faster and faster, like a bunny when it's being chased. He wants to hear the even paced breaths become rapid and disorganized with heightened emotion.

He can smell her, too, the delightful aroma making his fangs itch and his loins ache. Walking further into the library, the stacks of books growing dense with sharp corners and cozy study nooks, he can trace the direct path she took to her spot- the table in the corner with the lamp still on. She has her head resting on her arms, hair haphazardly strewn across the wooden table and some papers, a pencil between her fingers still.

She probably set her head down after saying she was only gong to rest her eyes. She's probably been here for a really long time, he can hear her stomach growling. Shaking his head in disbelief, he pulls the chair back with a motion that's sure to wake her up at the same time that he pinches the paper with two fingers and begins to read.

Waking with a little gasp, y/n straightened. He could pinpoint the exact moment she became fully cognizant of what was happening because her heartbeat picked up in a way that concerned him, and she became utterly still. From the corner of his eye (Harry was reading her paper, a really good paper, and hadn't looked at her. Not even once) he could see her mouth open and close a few times, words escaping her. Y/n rolled the pencil between hands that had begin to perspire and began to chew on her bottom lip.

Internally, Harry groaned. He needed to get her to stop doing that because he was imagining things that no person is his position of power needed to be imagining and his cock was fattening against his thigh. He was hungry in more ways than one for her. A part of him wanted to mark her up like he was a dog and she was his chew toy, licking and sucking and biting on the sweetest parts of her to suckle on her blood; everywhere. The other wanted to do all of those things, and not just for her blood.

He had to get her to speak.

The paper that he held in his hands was probably the best that he was going to get from her class, or maybe all of them put together. The ideas were fresh with just the perfect amount of information from his lectured tossed in for a response to the prompt on the book they were currently discussing. But he had to keep playing his game with her, he had to see her fold like a ragdoll. He wasn't going to tell her what he truly thought about it, how it was so good, how she was such a good student, how she made him so proud. How she was a good girl.

Instead he put the paper down in front of her, crossed his arms and spread his legs in the chair to give his swollen dick some room and said, "you should go home. Have a meal. Go to sleep.”

At this her shoulders sagged, and it was like watching dominoes fall against each other to release different triggers, Her lips crumpled, her chin wobbled, and her eyes blinked away a sea of crystalline tears.

Y/n stared at him, a wet look that punched his gut at the same time that it made his gums salivate and his hips itch to thrust up against the desk like a thing in heat. He looked back at her, his head tipping slowly to the side to track her gaze as it dropped. Like a predatory, he observed her with the kind of stillness that promised a charge of action. That promised death in the maw of a killer.

Her mouth did that thing where it opened and closed again, sounds that came before actual words coming out of her, but never intelligible sentences. Her heart was racing, but her lungs were doing a weird thing. Like they weren't getting enough oxygen.

"Why don't you take a deep breath , hmm? And we can talk about what's going on here," he got up from his chair and stood at the side of his desk, arms crossed and feet spread shoulder width apart, formidable. If she looked closely enough, she would be able to see a thick bulge at his crotch.

But she didn't have a reason to look. He wasn't adjusting himself. He didn't even look like it bothered him.

In fact, he looked almost... mad.

Y/n looked at him straight in the eyes, and her's went doe-like, everything in her stilling like the fawn-like creature in the way of an oncoming vehicle.

Everything, including her breathing.

He wasn't going to have her passed out before all the fun began. Needing to get a grip on her, he took a few heavy steps foward, and pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger, the other hand tucking into his pocket to actually adjust himself this time because it was starting to get uncomfortable.

Tilting her face up and closer to him, he bent forward so that their noses were barely touching. Her warm breath huffed against his nose, and he had to fight the urge to roll his eyes into the back of his head.

"Breathe, y/n. You can do it," peering down at her with his jack slightly slack and his eyes at half mast, he imitated inhaling deeply, and she mimicked his motions. Her lungs expanded, and her heart slowed slightly. "That's it, darling. Again."

She gulped and her hands squeezed the fabric of the plaid tennis skirt she was wearing, bringing the hem up slightly so the thinner skin on the inside of her thighs gleamed at Harry.

Then he smelled it, and this time he didn't fight the shiver that ran through him. She was wetHis eyes closed, and a groan rolled deep in his chest. His body tensed and relaxed at the same time, like a transformation.

And when he opened his eyes, he was a different version of himself.

One that didn't give a fuck that he was a professor and she was his student.

This version only had one goal in mind: to consume her in every way he could until y/n went limp in his arms.

"Now what's the matter, little bunny?"

***

Y/n didn't know what was happening, only that something had... changed.

She might have been a quivering mess for him, but she felt the shift in him. The edge to him. The gleam in his eye. She had seen his body shiver at the same time she felt her pussy clench at his words. That's it, darling. Again. Little bunny.

He was encouraging her, not far off from what she wanted to hear from him. It stroked her muddled brain and made her feel fuzzy all over. Some of what he was saying was very inappropriate. But she could care less.

“W-what?” she mumbled, confused. She blinked so that a few tears ran down her face, and she couldn't even feel embarrassed about it.

“Y’heard me loud and clear, darling. Don’t make me repeat myself," her professor tutted.

"i'm sorry, sir. It's just that... I need to work on my paper." And she mumbled something afterwards. Low enough that he wouldn't have been able hear if he was a human. But he wasn't. That didn't mean he couldn't play with her.

"Speak up, y/n. Good girls don't mumble." His tongue was like a lashing, a reprimand, and she felt the scolding everywhere.

"It needs to be better for you, sir." Gulping, she rubbed her thighs together and shuffled in her seat. Y/n was finally one-on-one with him, and she thought she knew what it would feel like.

She was wrong.

Everything was sensitive. Hot. Cold. She was twitchy and there was this squirrley, jumpy feeling inside her. She wanted to run away like a little mouse, but she also wanted to be warmed in his hands. By his words. She wanted to hear the praise come from him so that she could stop feeling so desperate.

Y/n got like this sometimes. Whiny. Insatiable. But no one ever knew how to handle her, when to realize that she was finally full. So she was always... hungry. Like something inside her needed to be stuffed. Abused a little, maybe. She wanted to be handled and then petted. Fucked and kissed and then held. She wanted to be good.

And being like this with him, in a position that made it seem like that was possible, y/n thrummed.

Humming in realization, he stroked his knuckles down the side of her face in a caress, "and what makes you think it isn't already good?"

She leaned into his touch without realizing it, nuzzling into his hand. All she had to do now was purr. Y/n shut her eyes before speaking, "Y-you... you never-"

"Open your eyes and look at me when you're speaking, bunny." Again, the stern, scolding tone. This time it made her flinch and whimper. Her hips rocked in the chair, and he tracked the movement like a leopard in the trees ready to pounce. Y/n knew that he saw, and her face bloomed with heat.

In a breathy, chocked string of words, "you never leave nice notes on my papers, sir. All the others do, but there never any on mine and I just thought... that I n-needed to work harder to be b-better."

She shuffled again in her seat, and her professor's eyes pinched. His had trailed down to her throat, and he squeezed to hold her still.

“Stop squirming, y/n. You want to be better? Stop fucking squirming," and he released her with a small pulse at the base of her neck. He could feel his teeth bulging under his upper lip, the thrum of her life under his fingers enticing him further. Every bit of reason was escaping him. He was going to lose control. Decades of practice, of edging on months of hunger, were nothing to her allure.

He stepped back at the same time that he realized they weren't close enough.

"Stand up," he told her. He watched as she pushed the chair back and stood on wobbly knees, her gaze still searching for recognition that he had heard what she had said, that he had read between the lines and realized what she needed. "Sit on the edge of the table, facing me so we can speak properly."

When she was seated and her hands began to fiddle in her lap, he stepped close enough that her knees were almost touching his hips. And she couldn't miss it this time. The thick length of him, hard against his hip.

"S-sir?" she prompted meekly.

"You want me to leave nice notes on your papers, y/n?" He asked, settling his hands on either side of her and haunching over her so they were nose-to-nose. She could smell him, strong masculine scents of vintage leather and tobacco and bergamot.

Nodding eagerly like a dog, "mhm. Yes, sir."

"Then why didn't you come see me like I asked on every single one of those papers? You didn't listen to me, so why should I reward you?" He mouthed the words against her skin, trailing them down her jaw to her throat where he teased the skin with the tip of his nose.

The area around her neck felt scorching hot, his lips trailing searingly against her. She couldn't hide how desperate she was anymore. She arched, her body was taught, fighting the urge to wriggle because she couldn't decide if she wanted to get away from him or have more of him, and she needed to be good. He had told her to stop squirming.

"I'm sorry, Professor."

Y/n closed her eyes and tentatively braced herself against him. Trembling hands settled on his arms, thick with deceptive muscle. She could feel the strength hiding beneath the surface, tense like a snake preparing to strike. A strong hand settled at her waist, clamping like iron, and another on cupped her jaw tenderly. It was a dichotomy of treatment. Rough and tender at the same time.

"You were a bad girl, y/n."

Then she felt it, a sharp sting where her throat met her shoulder, where Harry was biting her, and licking her, and suckling at her all at the same time. A mixture of a squeal and a moan jumped out of her, and she dug her fingers into his arms, frozen. Whatever he was doing to her hurt. But it hurt in a good way. A way that made her ache with that need to be filled.

She cried out, "I'm sorry, sir." A wet apology that bared how anguished she was.

His hot tongue flattened against her, and she she vibrated in the place where he left his heavy pant, "are you going to be good for me, bunny?"

"Yes, sir. I wanna be good, please," her head was bobbing in that earnest way again, but with his head in the crook of her neck he could only feel the movement against his hair.

He suckled a little more at bite that was already beginning to close, kissing it tenderly, "gonna be my good little bunny?"

Y/n was huffing, not even bothering to hide that she was horny, “please, p-please- I need-”

“Tell me exactly what you need. C'mon, you can do it,” he coaxed her. The hand at her hip molded the flesh there, pulling her closer to him so she was sitting just at the edge, and her knees were pressed into his dick with the lightest pressure. He bucked against her, a slow roll of his groin against her delicate bare knee.

“I need to cum, sir. I need-”

“Don’t-” he pinched her hip roughing, his thick eyebrows furowing in disapproval, “forget your manners, little bunny. Rude darlings don’t get to cum.”

"Please let me cum, Professor," she repeated, eyes glossy but no longer with tears. This was something else. Something needy. Y/n could feel her slick juices seeping through her panties and making the insides of her thighs sticker. The triangle of cloth was sticking to her, and the tight feeling of it against her clit made her want to scream. It was just barely pushing, a teasing sensation that was driving her crazy.

She wanted him to touch her. To rub her swollen clit until she drenched hand in her cum, and then to- to-

"I'm not sure I should, y/n. You didn't listen to me. Didn't come to my office. Instead I had to come find you here. What about me, hmm? What if I need something from you?" Harry leaned back, letting his hands run down so they rested on her knees and his fingers could play with the hem of her skirt.

"Whatever you need, sir. Please." Y/n was beginning to sound a little broken. Her hips struggled to stay planted on the desk and her knuckled turned white from how hard she gripped the edge of the wood. She would much rather touch him, but he was too far away and she didn't want to upset him. She stared at him, silently pleading for his hands to creep up and shove into her panties, to play with her hole.

"Right now I need to eat you, little bunny. Are you going to let me?" He tilted his head at her again, calculating. Waiting, observing.

"Yes!" Y/n shrieked, her thighs trembling.

"Spead these pretty thighs, darling. Let me have a taste," he crooned down at her as she opened up, her skirting riding so he could see her panties, how wet they were, nearly transparent with her arousal. With a deft finger, he pulled the gusset of her panties to the side and dropped to his knees.

Y/n whined at the look on his face. Mouth parted, eyes half-lidded and downturned. He looked hungry. Desperate.

Without warning he leaned forward and covered her with his mouth, his tongue licking her and then dipping into her pussy to collect what had pooled at her opening, his teeth lighting tapping against her clit. He thrusted his tongue into her once, twice, three times, and that was all it took. A gush of wetness coated his tongue, and her tremors pulsed against his lips.

He leaned back and slapped her cunt with an angry growl, and then shoved two fingers into her, fucking her roughly so his fingers got wet with her, "seriously, y/n? Did I give you permission to cum?"

"N-no, sir," as she sat hunched over his kneeling form still twitching, Harry shoved his fingers into his mouth to lick them clean of her, and then stood up, not even bothering to lay her panties right before yanking her to stand.

"Get up. We're going to walk to my rooms. Your'e doing to do so quietly, and when we get there, you're going to take your punishment like a good girl, do you understand me?" With a single finger pointed at her, y/n understand she was in for it. Her hands flew to pick up her things, showing her papers into her bag and looping it on her shoulder so she was ready to go.

"I understand, Professor"

He took the bag off her shoulder and laid a hand on her lower back, keeping her at his side as he led her out of the library and into the night, "that's better. Come this way. The night is still young, bunny, and we're both in for a treat."

*****

happy halloweenie!! hoped u liked this heehee. missed mr. vamp. lmk ur thoughts!!!

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thatturtleleon · 9 months

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TFP Human Hcs Pt. 2

Note: I love this scene, just look at them LMAO, also here's pt.1

Raf

so this is a bit of a newer headcanon i have of him, but i feel like he's transmasc or genderfluid

raf never really cared about gender roles and things like that, but he overheard miko talking about how she didn't mind being called a girl or a boy or whatever people wanted to call her

he asked her about it and she replied saying she knew herself better than anyone else so it didn't matter what other people thought or wanted to label her, she knew who she was and that's the important part

miko then went back to talking about monster trucks or something and raf's just *cue the mind blown emoji*

lol i love them

he definitely went as the Dr Emmett guy from back to the future or as some mad scientist character for halloween

is actually pretty ok at drawing, just doesn't enjoy it as a hobby that much

LOVES learning about cybertron and its history and everything about it

at first ratchet thought all of raf's questions were annoying but grew to appreciate his curiosity

raf prefers asking ratchet any questions he has about cybertron because optimus goes on telling a long memory/story and trails off from the original question (raf's a sweet kid tho, he listens through the whole thing), while ratchet gives more straightforward answers

dog person

Jack

him and miko have "try not to laugh" challenges (raf's the judge) and usually wins

one time however, miko did something unintentionally funny while doing the challenge and jack let out the loudest screeching laugh they've ever heard, like the type of laugh that bubbles up and explodes when you're trying to hold it in

dated sierra for a little while, then sierra came out as lesbian, they still remained good friends though

(leon try not to HC every girl as a lesbian challenge, failed.)

considered going into the medical field like his mom did but decided it wasn't for him later on

in the future he eventually got a job with the government thanks to agent fowler

goes to drive-in theaters with raf and bumblebee but always ends up falling asleep

bought a mini blue motorcycle figurine and carries it in his bag

cat and dog person

favorite song is "roll on (eighteen wheeler)" by Alabama

discovered that he and optimus had similar taste in music (country music ofc) and plays some songs in the base if it's just him

Miko

makes fun of jack for liking country music

cat person (canonly has cats i believe) but she loves dogs too, except for the crusty tiny white dogs that old people have

drew bulkhead and herself together fighting some decepticons and framed the picture for him as a gift

he cried lol

speaking of gifts, she told the bots about birthdays and all of them immediately wanted to know when all the kid's birthdays were

bulkhead and some of the others took her to a monster truck event and she had the time of her life it was amazing

actually got jack into some of the music she likes, and they like going to smaller concerts around town

she bonds with raf by getting into comics and graphic novels, they both enjoy sci-fi ones

definitely doodles all over her desk at school, especially when she's in detention

although she's VERRYY extroverted, whenever she gets a crush on someone or thinks they're pretty, she gets a little quieter/shyer; not a lot but you can tell

jams out to metal music with bulkhead (canon)

i don't remember if this is canon or not, but she has a bag with pins and stuff she's collected over the years

her bookbag has doodle marks all over it, like little stars and swirls and stuff, very much a miko bookbag

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arimiadev · 4 months

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visual novels I finished in 2023

I played quite a few visual novels in 2023, most of which are indie, and I want to share some highlights from that list. these are all VNs that I played all the way through and loved, so treat this also as a recommendation for each of these.

mahoyo

In the mansion on the hill, there lived two witches... It is the late 1980s—the twilight of an era of beauty and vigor. A boy moves to the city, barely missing two witches living in modern times. The boy leads a completely ordinary life. She carries herself with gallant pride. The girl lives a sleepy, hidden life. Each walks a starlit path. One would never expect their paths to cross. The story of how these three disparate people came together is soon to be told.

I've ranted a ton about mahoyo here and how much I love it. it truly is one of the best looking visual novels I've ever seen and one of my all-time favorites. I'll never be able to approach game direction the same after playing this. please do yourself a favor and play it, it's finally on steam.

model employee

Model Employee is a corporate horror visual novel where players take control of the latest individual amongst millions to start working in one of Tethys' online shopping labyrinthine warehouses. Just discharged from the hospital and massively in debt for their life-saving cybernetics, the player-character must adapt to the "extreme" work-life balance of a Tethys Team Member- but they have help. Penny, the artificial personality that controls all security, waste disposal, and employee surveillance in the facility, specializes in reinforcing an especially cutthroat variety of workplace culture- and she's taken an interest in you. With a vibrant cast, PC-98 inspired visuals and multiple endings, Model Employee is a modern horror story that'll stick with you long after you've clocked out of your shift. If you want to get ahead in your career, you gotta be willing to take some risks.

model employee is such a tightly structured visual novel for being made in just one month, making full use of everything while surprising you at every corner. every part of this game was so well planned and thought out- dystopian corporate satire isn't my cup of tea (we're living it) but the way they present everything in this game makes it feel so much more intense.

itch.io

beary the hatchet

It's Halloween 199X, and you killed someone during your morning shift. Honestly it's inconvenient. This job was imperfect, sure, but you got to wear a mask with no questions asked and the pay was livable. But now you'll have to keep the body in the backrooms till your shift is done. Bummer. "You're... the absolutely WICKED and AWESOME Bearwater Grizzly Killer, aren't you?!" ...and now enters the dreaded true crime fan.

beary the hatchet is such a uniquely lovely game to look at, even if the subject matter is grim. I love the color palette and tones in this, I love the 2.5D graphics, I love how expressive all of the designs are. it's a game oozing with style.

itch.io

disconnect

Late at night, a phone call from a friend keeps disconnecting from you... On and off, on and off, constantly... ...What would you do if you realized your friend wasn't who you thought they were? And how would you react when the truth was finally revealed? ("̷̢̑W̸̨̊o̸̫͊u̷̱͝ḽ̸͛d̴͉̐ ̵̚ͅy̵̜̽o̸̥͗u̷̮̎ ̷̜̏s̶̤̄t̸̥͐i̴̻̕l̸̰͝l̸͉̓ ̷͕́ȁ̸̩c̸̡̓t̵̜̊ ̵͓̈t̶̙̄h̶̦͂e̸̩͠ ̸̩̅s̶̘̏a̷̪͛m̵̮͒e̴͖͑ ̸̭́w̷̨̚á̴̱y̵̯̑?̶͎̌"̷͈̆) Find out what happened to our scaredy-cat protagonist, Indie－a famous horror storyteller on the H-T-M (Horror, Tales, and Mystery) forum. What would she do when she unintentionally uncovered a mystery hidden deep within her own home?

I love the style of disconnect and the unorthodox way of getting to the truth of the matter. I'm not normally one to play furry VNs, but the designs are adorable and I love the presentation of the game, it has a lot of animation in it. there's also one moment not too far in on this screen that made me scream...

itch.io

curse of the juniper tree

Curse of the Juniper tree is a tale of two siblings, a cursed tree and an isolated village. It is a short kinetic visual novel featuring 2d exploration. Walk around the snowy village and talk to its inhabitants! Story is loosely based off the fairytale called The Juniper Tree by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812.

this is a lovely and short story about two siblings living in a frozen land together. it's a very atmospheric story with so many beautiful blues and detailed character designs. the controls were a bit hard to figure out at times but it's worth your time.

itch.io

reaplaced

Grea Perrim is a reaper of souls, and it's her duty to bring the deceased to the other side. But in the world of reapers, death isn't any kind of equalizer. The value of a soul is directly tied to the peculiarity of its death. Grea's supernatural senses bring her to a Halloween house party with three costumed guests. She soon finds the most valuable kind of soul: the victim of a locked-room murder. In order to reap the soul, Grea must unravel the identity of its killer and explain its death in full. Is this the work of a human? A witch? Or something else entirely...?

reaplaced is a fun little whodunnit set on Halloween about a grim reaper out on the hunt who finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. it's much more indepth than I was expecting and the soundtrack is wonderful—there's a lot of small touches to it that make it great.

itch.io

dual chroma [demo]

A gilded king, a powerful sorceress, and a malevolent figure governing a foul legion of beasts in a ruthless war against the Light. For centuries, the Galens Empire has thrived upon the ancient tragedy that formed its foundations. No more than a fading past inked upon the pages of history, the Empire reigned in relative peace—until the monsters returned. As the newest advisor to the Second Prince, you find yourself at the heart of a captivating saga, where mystery, magic, terror, and romance intertwine. Your choices in this narrative will determine not only the Empire's destiny, but also the fate of your heart. But take heed, for the path you tread may shatter the shackles of doomed love or repeat the ruin of Galens' past.

I don't play many otome demos but I played several that were submitted to otome jam this year, with dual chroma being one of them. I was surprised by the amount of care and attention put into the demo- it feels very solid with a lot of polish put into easing the player into this high fantasy world. I think I had an issue with how the tooltips would be shown (probably the frequency of them, as the in-line tooltips are very helpful) but it's been months since then.

itch.io

we know the devil

Anyone can kill the devil; that's why they always make teens the vampire slayers, the magical girls. But some kids can't even get that right; and that's why meangirl Neptune, tomboy Jupiter, and shy shy Venus have to endure one more week of summer camp and each other, singing boring songs about jesus, doing busywork for adults, and hoping god's radio can't hear them. Before they can leave the summer scouts, they've got to spend twelve hours in the loneliest cabin in the woods and wait for the devil to come and live through the night--or not. You know.

we know the devil didn't release this year but I finally got around to playing it. it's a visceral experience, something that feels foreign and familiar at the same time. I love the direction for it, the sketchy monochrome sprites against the colored photos- parts when there aren't any characters on screen feel that much more real, like you're watching found footage because of how tense everything is.

itch.io

doppelganger

The story is set in an alternate universe where the player is struggling with the memories of what they know to be TEMPUS and the mysterious look-alikes who pull them every which way. Can the player figure out the truth about this twisted world and return to the guild?

okay this is a bit of a weird one to end on, I just wanted to talk about it. doppelganger is a game made by holostars staff, i.e. the staff for the vtubing company cover corporation. I went into it expecting very, very little but I was presently surprised by how competently it was made. a lot of "bad" visual novels aren't fun to play, because they're overly long, extremely wordy, and aren't fun to read. I'd say doppelganger is "so bad it's good", which is a rarity for VNs- it's campy at times and over the top but doesn't overstay it's welcome, the pacing is remarkably good for what seem to be first time devs.

I cannot recommend this though if you're not already a fan of holostars tempus, as this is essentially just merch for them- think of it like a higher production voice pack or art pack. if you don't know each of the boys then you'll be lost, but if you do then grab another friend and play it, it took me about 4 hours to finish it with friends.

itch.io

#visual novel #visual novels #indie games #visual novel game #my recommendations

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anika-ann · 2 years

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Chilly Air, Warm Hearts (R.D.)

Type: blurb, one-shot, pre-Knives Out (no murder, Hugh)

Pairing: soft!Ransom Drysdale x reader Word count: 1600

Summary: You and your boyfriend decide to take a stroll down the market in a nearby park to breathe in the atmosphere of fall and upcoming Halloween…

You get cold; Ransom is a gentleman. Mostly.

Warnings: unhealthy amount of fluff, allusions to smut because Ransom, one f-word… and a mostly safe surprise

A/N: It’s all THIS PIC’s fault...; header image by @strangexevansblog, divider by @firefly-graphics

A/N: Now with ADORABLE, spicy and just overall perfect artwork by @citronbun

“Thank you for taking me here,” he whispered, voice sweet and rich like the honey they had put in your drink at the first stall you had stopped at. “I love it here. It’s… a different world.”

A kiss landed on your cheek, loving, appreciative and warm.

You willed your teeth not to clatter as you smiled and glanced at him.

He was beautiful. It wasn’t the designers’ clothes – not the camel coat, not the hoodie, not the slacks that alone cost more than most of the goods at this fall market combined, even if he did look extremely good in them – and it wasn’t even his hair adorably ruffled by the wind or his chill-kissed reddened cheeks.

It was the serenity.

Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the infamous rich playboy scowling at everything that wasn’t wearing at least seven-inch heels and a ten-inch skirt just to catch his eye, seemed perfectly at peace. Happy even.

And he looked at you like you were the only reason he felt that way.

“You’re welcome, Ran. I’m glad you came with me.”

It was only half of the truth.

The other was that while you were not the typical girl you described, you still like to look chic and have his fingers twitch to touch you; therefore, he was the reason you picked his outfit in which you were freezing at this point. It was the second half of October in Boston; if it weren’t for your lovely companion, you’d never dress like that for the occasion.

A blouse covered by a thin sweater and even thinner coat, a skirt that reached your mid-thigs, knee-high stockings and pumps; that wasn’t the best choice if you were to wander the fair in the chilly weather with a freezing wind for over an hour.

In all fairness, you didn’t expect Ransom to enjoy himself so much – just walking around, peeking on different goods, taste testing and generally simply basking each other’s company – and to stay that long.

You should have guessed that the sweater lover would like all things the sweater-weather offered. But Hugh Ransom Drysdale wasn’t the easiest person to read, his past and sadly present, too, leading him to built high walls around his heart and hiding his true feelings behind a mask of cockiness.

He had changed since you had first met him almost a year ago; since he had convinced you to give him a chance.

Yes, he was still the biggest man child you have ever dated. Yes, he could get arrogant and selfish at times. Yes, he could close off and slip on a mask of a man whose stone-cold heart would not be touched by anything. Yes, he’d flaunt money just because he could and it made him feel in control of lie itself, made him feel good.

And then he’d smile.

He’d show how much he grew as a person. He’d fight the demons of his loveless childhood even when confronting them hurt. He’d say with his every gesture that you were the most precious person to him and he’d light up when the hard work he put into his novel bore fruit.

He’d shyly asked for affection and you’d give him as much as he was able to take. Other times, he’d take it on his own or he’d simply smother you with love without warning; a man on a mission to make you feel adored, simply because he could – and because he never wanted you to feel as alone as he once had.

A tug as the hem of your skirt pulled you out of your reverie, the cold wind biting into your skin; reminding you that not even the warmth of Ransom’s affection was doing its job.

You smiled wider despite feeling like your jaw would shake due to the icy air, meeting Ransom’s curious gaze.

“Where did you go, angel?” he teased you lightly, a smile tugging at one corner of his lips.

You shrugged; the lie not malicious, nor untrue. “’tis easy to get lost in your pretty eyes, handsome.”

He chuckled as he stopped to press a lingering kiss to your temple, a low squeaky noise escaping him when your half-frozen nose brushed the sensitive skin of his neck.

Lord, you just wanted to hide it in the crook of his neck until you’d get your sense of smell – lost to the cold – back and revel in the woody musky scent of his expensive cologne. Perhaps sneakily steal some of the warmth from under his undone coat.

“Gee, your nose is freezing, angel,” he huffed, amused.

No shit.

“Just wait till you feel my hands,” you grumbled, the thick material of his luxury coat just so so inviting. “Or I can feel them again.”

Yeah, you weren’t wasting another second.

You slid your hands under the lapels of his coat, sighing in bliss when they got enveloped in the soft heat under his arms. You tucked your nose exactly where you had dreamed of, giggling as Ransom winced at the icicle-like intrusion.

Five seconds later, his large palms sprawled on your hips – oh so warm even over the sweater – , pulling the tight pair of you out of the main market alley. Coloured leaves flashed in your peripheral vision, causing you to peek out from your hide-out, briefly, to find yourself under a massive maple tree.

The next thing you knew, Ransom’s hands were gone and you were engulfed in thick fabric, pressed against Ransom’s front, which resembling a human furnace. You could melt in the heat and at the gentle gesture, heart singing as your boyfriend opened coat further and his broad shoulders shielded you from the whistle of the wind.

His lips spoke a mere inch above your hairline, soft.

“Why didn’t you say you were so cold?” he questioned, bewilderment and tender understanding lacing his voice.

“We were having fun,” you muttered against his dark hoodie, nuzzling into his chest like a cat – and nearly purring like one too. Sensation was slowly returning into your fingers and when you squeezed Ransom’s underarms, he pressed a kiss to the crown of your head. As if you were a queen; his queen.

“Uh-huh.”

“Just give me a sec to warm up,” you whined, breathing in deeply, his cologne tickling your nostrils. “Then we’ll pick up a pumpkin spiced latté and I’ll be as good as new—jesus, this feels good.”

And it did.

You could spend hours like this, hidden in Ransom’s coat – with Ransom wearing it – never caring about the outside world. Strange stares were miles away; the noise of the market muffled by the lapels of the coat.

Ransom snickered above you, shifting minutely as his lips brushed your temple again, drawing a deliberately slow line to your ear.

“Mais oui, mon bel ange… ma rêve, ma raison d’être, prends la chaleur de moi…” he whispered, sin dripping from every syllable, even if you barely understood half of his words; because you weren’t like Mr. Ivy League, who took French as an elective.

“Ransom…” you warned him, feeling him smirk against the underside of your ear.

“Oui, mon ange? Qu’est-ce qui se passe? What’s wrong?”

His body heat was no longer the only source of warmth; his low voice had your insides igniting up alarmingly fast, brain melting as willingly as your gut, pulsing with heat and need.

Fuck you were so weak for this—and Ransom knew all about your language kink, shamelessly exploiting it whenever he got the chance.

“You know what. Stop it.”

Still covered by his coat, you two were the only ones acutely aware of his large palm wandering to your breast, squeezing the tinniest bit before moving lower, down your belly, straight to the small patch of bare skin of your inner thigh between your skirt and stockings.

Your breath hitched, heart racing, each beat sending arousal through your veins, swirling in your belly, where a knot started tightening.

“But I’m just trying to warm you up, mon rêve,” the traitor murmured sultrily, petting the soft skin as he slid his fingertip just half an inch under your skirt. “You know I always warm you up… and I love it when you return the favour and keep me warm afterwards.”

Yes, yes you were very aware of that, thank you very much.

“Bastard,” you hissed playfully, escaping the filthy whispers of his, but not the cage of his arms.

You liked the warmth too much; but it had nothing on the black heat of Ransom’s pupils, blown wide as the images he painted in your head mirrored his own.

You licked your lips at the promise in his eyes, suddenly knowing the walk was over.

“We’re grabbing the first pumpkin we see to carve later and we’re going home,” you decided swiftly, only having a moment to notice Ransom’s smirk and peck his lips before he released you from his hold, taking some of the warmth with him; but Christ, not the heat of your arousal.

“Whatever my girl wants, she gets,” he said cheekily, the not-so-hidden meaning behind his words not lost on you and nearly having you squeeze your thighs together as you tugged at his sleeve.

He chuckled as he let you pull him through between the groups of people by the stalls, leaning to your ear as much as he could with your determined strides.

“I’m sure we’ll have even more fun at home than here, angel.”

Maybe it was the spooky season granting you the gift of a clairvoyant or maybe you simply knew Ransom so well; you knew with absolute certainty that he was right.

You’d have plenty of fun once you made it home; and the crispy weather would no longer be an issue.

Mics masterlist

Thank you for reading and your feedback 💗 Happy fall!

And pardon my French if it’s wrong:

“Mais oui, mon bel ange… ma rêve, ma raison d’être. Prends la chaleur de moi…” – “Of course, my beautiful angel… my dream, the reason of my being. Take my warmth…”

“Oui, mon ange? Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” – “Yes, my angel? What’s going on?”

#fanfiction #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #ransom drysdale imagine #soft ransom drysdale #knives out #ransom drysdale fluff #ransom dysdale fanfic #ransom drysdale fanfiction #chilly air warm hearts #anika ann

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aerialworms-art · 3 months

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I've been wanting to do hourly comic day for ages, finally remembered (at 00:01 on 2nd feb), and here we are! I had a lot of fun with this!

Featuring (in order of appearance) my child Fluffy, Narcissus the brachycephalic cat, Prince the sentient mop dog, and Cassie the-not-so-fluffy-but-also-black cat. And @salty-lich-queen makes an appearance from 19:00-23:00!

I've put a transcript of all the text under the cut cause I was focused on sticking to the hourly thing and forgot about nice lettering 😅

Transcript:

[Page 1]

02/02/2024 (definitely hourly comics day)

00:00-01:00

Me: Ooh, look, hourly comics! There's a lot of these. When is it again?

Search bar: When is hourly comics day? Search results: 1st Feb hourly comics day Me: Aw, fuck.

Me, thinking: No-one will mind if I do it today instead, right? Arrow pointing at me: Going to get snack Arrow pointing at tinsel: Tinsel from 4 Xmas ago Arrow pointing at toy snakes: Snakes from Halloween

Caption: [Int. - Bedroom]

Sweet packet: SWEETS

Me: Oh! Fluffy, thinking: For me? Caption: A surprise kitty!

01:00-02:00

Me, thinking: WTF is wrong with this guy? Caption: Watching Dungeon Meshi for the first time!

Arrow pointing at me: Brushing teeth

Fluffy, thinking: I CRAVE WOTER

02:00-??:??

Caption: Thinkin' bout those old men <3

11:00-12:00

Me: UUUUUUUUGH

12:00-13:00

Me: come... closer...

Me: Time to get up! Fluffy, thinking: Bye!

Me: Actually, I'll just draw some comics first Fluffy, thinking: Oh?

Caption: A few minutes later... Me: Thank you for keeping my foot warm Fluffy, thinking: It's free real estate

Arrow pointing at my dad: My dad My dad: I keep losing books... My dad: Like this Ian Banks one - Me: Oh! The one that's been in the loo for a week?

My dad: AHA! Caption: (yes, it was that one)

13:00-14:00

Caption: Watching more Dungeon Meshi Me/my tea: sluuurp

Me, singing: VOULEZ VOUS! AHA! TAKE ME NOW OR LEAVE Caption: shower ABBA time!

Caption: Back in the bedroom... Me, singing: -DANCE WITH YOU HONEY! IF YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY! DOES YA MOTHER KNOW THAT

Fluffy, thinking: I'm out.

14:00-15:00

Title: The Exciting Adventures of Artie and Fluffy: Leaving the house!

Me: C'mon then! Fluffy: Mow! Mrow! Cat count: 1

Neighbour: Oh! Hello! Cat count: 1

[Page 2]

Me and the neighbour: Small talk Cat count: 1 Dog count: 1

Me: Here, I'll hold her, you go past Fluffy, thinking: DIE Arrow pointing at dog: Oblivious Cat count: 1 Dog count: 1

Me: Hi buddy! Cat count: 2 Dog count: 1

Narcissus, thinking: Friend or Foe? Arrow pointing at Fluffy: Oblivious Cat count: 2 Dog count: 1

Caption: We carried on... Me: Oh! Hello! Cat count: 2 Dog count: 1

Cat count: 2 Dog count: 2!

Fancy lettering: PRINCE! Cat count: 2 Dog count: AWWW

Cat count: 2 Dog count: 2

Cat count: ? Dog count: 2

Cat count: 3! Dog count: 2

Me: Uh oh

Fluffy, thinking: BOO!

Cassie, landing on Prince's head: DONK!

Me: Dude, you ok? Prince, thinking: Look! I can catch my tail!

14:30-15:30

Fluffy, thinking: That's not how I look. Caption: Whoops, spent an hour on this! Cat counter: 3 Dog counter: 3 (one went past while drawing)

15:30-16:00

Me, thinking: Alas, we must part, my love! Fluffy, thinking: What was that noise? Cat counter: 3 Dog counter: 3

Arrow pointing at Prince: Prince again! coming back from school Cat count: 3 Dog count: 7

Me: At last! Arrow pointing at people in the bushes: Three shady people in the bushes (I didn't ask)

Library: Library

16:00-17:00

PLOTTING A GRAPHIC NOVEL

17:00-19:00

Whatsapp contact name: Mum Me, texting: (15:35) Swim after work? Me: (16:54) Missed call Me: (16:59) Heading to pool now come join me! Mum: On my way! (17:04) Cat count: 3 Dog count: 10+??

Police car: POLICE ILOP Me: oo er...

Arrow pointing at a cop: Was saying something about a break-in :S Arrow pointing at cop holding a bag: Stolen goods? Drugs? Arrow pointing at fence behind them: My old infant school

[Page 3]

17:00-19:00 cont.

Scribbled out drawing: IGNORE THIS

Me, thinking: I'm no ordinary girl~

(action) Mum: WAVE! (action) Me: WAVE!

19:00-23:00

My laptop screen: UPERNATURAL

23:00-00:00

Arrow pointing at my chair: Ergonomic chair for back pain Me, thinking: What am I doing?

Me, thinking: Ah, yes. Tumblr logo: t Tumblr post: ~~~~~~DC COMICS Me, thinking: Thinkin' bout those old men again <3

Me: Time for bed!

Fluffy, thinking: Time for FOOD.

#for anyone confused the old men are of course #mcspirk #hourly comics #hourly comic day #comics #hourlies #my art #cats #dogs #artists on tumblr

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thegayhimbo · 6 months

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Stranger Things Rebel Robin (Book and Podcast) Review (Part 2 of 2)

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from the book and podcast!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews. Like, Reblog, and let me know what your thoughts are regarding the show or the upcoming season! :)

Stranger Things Comics/Graphic Novels:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger Things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Stranger Things Into The Fire

Stranger Things Science Camp

Stranger Things “The Game Master” and “Erica’s Quest”

Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons

Stranger Things Kamchatka

Stranger Things Erica The Great

Stranger Things “Creature Feature” and “Summer Special”

Stranger Things Tie-In Books:

Stranger Things Suspicious Minds

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 3 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 3 of 3)

NOTE: If you would like to listen to "Surviving Hawkins," the companion podcast to Rebel Robin, you can find all 6 episodes here.

Part 3: Dash Montague (and people like him)

I wanted to do a separate post talking specifically about Dash's character. It's not just about how Dash relates to Robin's story, but how he's representative of certain types of people I've seen for a while now: Those who claim to fight against social injustices and for people who face discrimination, only for these so-called advocates to reveal themselves to be just as hateful, cruel, condescending, self-serving, contemptuous, and hypocritical as those they criticize. It's a trend that's been around for a while, but started spiking again in recent months due to a number of different factors and world events, and it's caused me (and other mutuals I know) to become deeply distrustful of others currently.

As I noted earlier, Dash is the kind of person who frames himself as a geek/nerd who's unfairly an outcast and deserves better because of how "intelligent" he is. In reality, he is a small-minded prick, and a contender alongside Billy and Angela for one of the most unpleasant and loathsome characters in the series. On the surface, Dash presents himself as a friend to Robin and other members of the Odd Squad (the nickname for Robin's friends). He eventually shows his true colors when cheats on Kate (his girlfriend at the time) and tries to force a kiss on Robin without her consent. When Robin expresses her disgust, this is how Dash responds:

And we later find out that this wasn't a one time thing or a lapse of judgment on his part: He is a serial cheater who had multiple flings with other girls when he was supposed to be dating Kate.

Now, sleazy womanizing creeps are nothing new. Nor is the concept of entitled "Nice Guys" who pretend to be decent people on the surface before showing a nastier side to themselves when they don't get what they want. Dash isn't unique in those departments, and most of us probably know at least one person out there who behaves like this. It's gross, but that isn't what got under my skin.

What made Dash truly revolting to me, aside from how callously he throws away friendships like used condoms, are these observations Robin makes about Dash after he reveals himself to be a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:

People minimizing evil in their own minds.

Inverting the Social Pyramid.

Pretending to want to change things when it's really about coming out on top and looking like the underdog while doing it.

Using intelligence as a means to justify putting others down.

Becoming obsessed with fighting monsters without realizing (or caring) that you've also become one.

Like I said, I have constantly seen these aspects from people who champion themselves on social media as an ally to the oppressed, who love to virtue-signal for everyone to see as if to say "Look at what a great person I am!", who claim to be against cruelty and unfairness, who position themselves as being empathetic and understanding.........and yet constantly reveal their hypocrisy and demonstrate they are the kind of people I want nothing to do with.

I am no stranger to being on the receiving end of belittlement and condescension from these kinds of people. Last year, I had an extremely unpleasant encounter with a Hughie Campbell Stan from The Boys fandom because I said something about the character they didn't like, and they got condescending about it. I proceeded to block them, only for them to use another account to send me a nasty reply accusing me of being "triggered" along with a snide suggestion to leave social media. All of this was followed by a separate post from them where they tried to make it sound like I was unreasonable for blocking them for their behavior and called me "weak." In other words, someone didn't like what I had to say, belittled me about it, got mad when I blocked them over their attitude, used another account to continue harassing me, and then called me weak for not putting up with their bullying. This was over a fictional character from a TV show no less. 🙄 And it was also from a user who not only claims to be against people who use that kind of Trump-like language (i.e. calling people "triggered" and "weak"), but also posts disingenuous messages about caring for other people's self-esteem. She sure as hell didn't care about being unkind to me as long as she could get away with it.

Sadly, she isn't the only person on the Left who acts like this.

There is this idea from people that if you have certain attributes, like serving in the military, or being a part of the Democratic party, or supporting left leaning causes, or NOT voting for people like Trump, or even if you are a part of a minority that faces discrimination for who you are (i.e. being a POC, or LGBT+, or a woman, or a nerd, or whatever is supposed to make you an "outcast" by today's standards), it somehow means you're automatically a good person and your actions are above criticism. I've seen this mentality REPEATEDLY used by people like this to justify being cruel and unkind to others, or saying the type of heinous rhetoric I expect from the Alt-Right as opposed to someone who claims to denounce that kind of behavior (like the Hughie Campbell stan who called me triggered and weak because I wouldn't put up with her patronizing behavior).

At the beginning of this year, there was a Tumblr post that came out which got a lot of traction and controversy.

Now for me, this post was a pretty straight-foward message from the OP about not treating 12 year old boys like they're inherently monstrous before they've actually done anything, and then later acting surprised when people from the Alt-Right swoop in and begin to groom them with their hateful ideologies because the Left demonized them first. Unfortunately, while some people took that message to heart, others..........did not. A post that could be summed up as "Be kind and empathetic" got twisted by other users with their own personal agendas into "YOU'RE PROMOTING MISOGYNY, RACISM, FACISM........" These people not only became the very strawmen the OP was calling out, but also validated the OP's point about the Left's obsession with identity politics, being intelligent over being kind, and demonizing boys:

I find the last two comments ironic considering this is the EXACT mentality Dash has in Rebel Robin: He believes he's smarter than "the popular kids," and uses intelligence (and his insistence that he's an underdog in the social pyramid) to justify his nasty, contemptuous behavior, and then pass it off as him being "morally correct."

Also, speaking as a gay man and someone who's been on the receiving end of bullying and abuse, I'm not impressed with the attempts by these people to justify their thinly-veiled hatred, most of which can be summed up as "I was abused, so it's okay for me to be abusive to others." Disgusted isn't even a good word to express my feelings about this. I don't give a damn who you are, what experiences you've had, what your political affiliations is, or what minority you belong to: If you're going out of your way to be vicious to others and then try to justify it like it's okay, you're a terrible person, and no amount of "intelligence" on your part changes that.

I knew someone like this named Daze_Confuse, a Redditor who was on the site for 10 years before his account got permanently suspended this year. He is someone who identified himself as gay (like me), was against Donald Trump and the Republicans, claimed to speak on behalf of the LGBT+ community and other minorities, and served in a branch of the military.

He is also one of the most vile people I had the unfortunate displeasure of encountering.

This is the kind of person who put other people down out of a sense of moral superiority. This is a person who was repeatedly condescending, contemptuous of people he disagreed with, smug, coasting on self-righteousness, petty, deeply insecure, and cruel to others when he could get away with it. This is the kind of person who made comments designed to shrink others, and then would later try to pass off his comments as "jokes" when he was called out on them by the moderators (which happened frequently). This is the kind of person who, in order to "win" an argument, would go through a person's entire Reddit history and cherry-pick certain comments or posts and take them out-of-context so he could metaphorically beat them into the ground and feel justified in doing so.

This is the kind of person who railed against "toxic masculinity," but never once looked at his own behavior even though it had elements of that.

This is the kind of person who pretended to be against "Nice Guyism" and yet defended people who behaved like that (both fictional characters and real people).

This is the kind of person who acted like he was against bullying (similar to the homophobic troll I dealt with years ago) and yet was one of the most vicious bullies you could run across.

This is the type of person who intentionally went out of his way to provoke fights with people and make others feel bad for having opinions he didn't like or agree with. He did this over fictional characters and TV shows, and he did this with his real life political and social opinions.

I remember coming across him. I wish I hadn't. He made things personal with me in a way I will never forget, or forgive.

He is the embodiment of Dash from the books (with a little bit of Billy Hargrove and Angela sprinkled in there). He was the kind of person who would use intelligence to justify his awful behavior because he constantly believed he was in the right. He is the kind of person who positioned himself as an underdog in society (much like Dash), but was more interested in "inverting the social pyramid" (as Robin would put it). If you saw how many times this guy projected his issues onto others, or went out of his way to paint himself as the smartest person on the site, or expressed jealousy at men who (as he put it) "got pussy" or were conventionally attractive, you'd be able to peg pretty quickly that, for all of his posturing and virtue-signaling and claims about how he was against injustices, he was a worm who only cared about social issues when it was convenient for him.

I won't claim to know the circumstances behind what happened to him, but given that Reddit is a site where incels like this still have their accounts up despite the bile they spew, whatever u/Daze_Confuse did to get permanently suspended must have been egregious enough that the Sitewide Administration wasn't willing to ignore it. Considering how he acted, I'm not surprised. It's gotta sting to lose access to 10 years of posts and comments though.

And if it sounds like I'm being judgmental of him, just know he behaved much worse with multiple people besides me. You reap what you sow: He chose to be a smug asshole, and paid the price for it. The world is better off without him.

My overall point is I'm tired of these types of people. I'm tired of people like Dash who frame themselves as outcasts who are better than the popular crowd, and then reveal themselves to be just as heinous as the people they criticize. I'm tired of seeing people on the Left, who claim to be against injustices and bigotry, engage in the same level of hatred they condemn the Alt-Right for. I'm tired of people who claim to fight for my rights, but would gleefully turn on me in a heartbeat and throw me to the wolves the moment I said or did something that constituted "stepping out of line" in their eyes. I'm tired of people who talk a big game about caring for other people's self-esteem, but will bully others when it's convenient for them (looking at the Hughie Campbell Stan who is still active on this hellsite). I'm tired of seeing people who put on a big show of advocating for social causes, and then use their political ideologies and philosophies to justify being cruel and contemptuous to others. I'm tired of seeing people act like bigots and then trying to pretend they aren't doing that.

I'm not going to claim I'm a paragon of virtue when it comes to doing things right. I've had my moments of being unkind. I've said things before that I look back on with regret and wish I hadn't said. I've acted in ways I'm not proud of. I am not even going to say I'm the most intelligent person on this site. For all of my flaws though, I am consciously making an effort to be better than I was before.

The roughest thing I've seen so far as I've gotten older, aside from people looking for any excuse to be nasty to others because reasons, is how we as a culture have started defining others in extremes, or love digging up other people's history and then flinging it at them as if to say "This is who you are," like there's no way to change it and you will forever be defined by it.

This post put it best: We are so obsessed these days with "gold-star activism" and "purity culture" and looking like the smartest person in the room that a lot of us have abandoned empathy and compassion and refuse to acknowledge when other people grow and attempt to become a better person. There's a difference between someone who continues to behave badly (which is why I am calling out people like u/Daze_Confuse, the Hughie Campbell stan, the homophobic Reddit troll who is unfortunately still active and engaging in the same behavior from years ago, and the users who responded to the post I linked to earlier who justify being vicious to 12 year old boys) vs someone who recognizes that their behavior was bad and makes an effort to grow from it.

In one of the many conversations I've had with my friend @stillhidden, she told me something I haven't ever forgotten: Truly stupid people are the ones who think they're right about everything. They are people who are so calcified in their beliefs that they refuse to change them or consider the idea that they could be in the wrong, even if there's overwhelming evidence to show their thinking is flawed. They lack the self-awareness to realize how awful their behavior is, which leads them to falling down the pipeline of smug superiority, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy.

I see this as the biggest difference between Dash Montague and Steve Harrington: For all of his flaws, or even how he started out at the beginning of the show, Steve isn't stupid like he gets treated by some fans. He's someone who's willing to grow, own up to his actions, and learn from his mistakes. He's someone who's willing to change his thinking and perspective on things, and be the kind of ally and friend that other characters need. It's why I find it annoying whenever Steve-Antis come out of their caves to continue bringing up the same tiresome arguments about Steve's behavior in season 1 to say "THIS IS WHO HE REALLY IS" while ignoring any character development he had later on.

Dash, for all of his talk about being intelligent, is one of the dumbest characters in the series. It takes a special kind of stupidity to throw a friendship with one person (Robin) and a relationship with your girlfriend (Kate) into the trash because you think you know better, and act like your so-called intelligence gives you carte blanche to act however you want to.

If Dash continues behaving like this into adulthood, it's gonna be a rough ride for him, and there's a very real chance he will end up friendless, alone, and bitter. I know plenty of people out there on social media (Reddit, Twitter/X, Tumblr, TikTok, etc) who are still trudging through life with Dash's self-serving mentality, and I can 100% say from what I've seen that it's going poorly for them. They brought it on themselves.

#stranger things #stranger things rebel robin #robin buckley #dash montague #angela stranger things #steve harrington #tgh opinions #tgh reviews #homophobia #bullying #purity culture #lgbt+ books #lgbt+ media #nice guyism #u/Daze_Confuse

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terezis · 6 months

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I haven't seen anyone speculating about this so I wanted to get your thoughts: maybe this is just wishful thinking but what if the McElroys dropped Amnesty merch (the pin and the candle) in October because they’re trying to gauge interest about possibly making an Amnesty graphic novel?? If stolen century/final battle will all be one big boy volume coming out in 2025, they’d have to be starting the development cycle on the next book after that about now

based on the hints they were dropping at the nycc gn panel (nothing major, just jokes about its existence) i think they are probably still working on the next/last(?) balance book right now? obvs i don't know the exact timeline of the dev cycle, but if it has to cover both tsc AND story and song, meaning a bigger book on par with the eleventh hour, at the very least there would be a lot more for carey to draw LOL

i could see the pitch happening simultaneously with the last balance book but i would also think the podcast numbers would be more of a factor for publishers than merch?

genuinely don't want to ruin ur amnesty gn dreams tho LMAO, ur talking to the girl who prays for more balance live shows every time tour dates are released. it just reads to me more october > halloween > spooky monster of the week show....... even if i DO love that pin

#bellafarallones #that said i thnk amnesty is most likely to get a gn if they were going to do another campaign after balance #tightest story for it

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allamericansbitch · 2 years

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Hi everyone! Here’s this weeks addition to my Creator Shoutout Series (october 9 - october 16)! For info about the series, I explained it in the first post here, but generally, it’s to show appreciate to editors and their creations that i love from the past week. To track this series or look at previous shoutouts, please check out the tag on my blog *creatorshoutouts. Have a great week everyone!

stranger things: will and eleven gifset by @anakin--skywalker

taylor swift: ivy graphic by @iseedaylight

selena gomez: my mind and me gifset by @selenas-gomz

get out gifset by @elletao

jessica chastain gifset by @zen-coleman

taylor swift: midnights gifset by @starlighdt

the office: costume contest gifset by @nero-neptune

i know what you did last summer gifset by @breakfastiffanys

taylor swift: begin again gifset by @antoniosvivaldi

halloween (1978): script gifset by @talesfromthecrypts

scream (1996) gifset by @breakfastiffanys

taylor swift: midnights gifset by @treacherous

pride & prejudice gifset by @duchessofhastings

stranger things: the piggyback gifset by @zombiesteve

taylor swift: you are in love graphic by @notmuchfordancing

euphoria: rue bennet gifset by @kiekiecarrera

scooby-doo: monsters unleashed gifset by @steverobin

the black phone gifset by @frodo-sam

taylor swift: right where you left me graphic by @cruellesummer

hocus pocus gifset by @william-byers

what we do in the shadows gifset by @outtagum

taylor swift: glitter gel pen lyrics gifset by @thatwasthenightthingschanged

selena gomez: my mind and me gifset by @levy-tran

stranger things: eddie and dustin gifset by @eddie-dustin

pride & prejudice gifset by @branfraser

taylor swift: 1989 (taylor’s version) concept design by @ssafeandsound

heartstopper: nick and charlie x delicate gifset by @swearphil

nope (2022) gifet by @wongkarawai

knives out gifset by @saws2004

taylor swift: midnight rain merch concept design by @idsb

succesion: roman and tabitha gifset by @rvmanroy

ready or not gifset by @saws2004

horror movie locations gifset by @charitydingle

taylor swift: the other side of the door graphic by @micasa

the midnight club: season one gifset by @batladies

scream (1996): stuart macher gifset by @ashwilliam

stranger things: mike wheeler season one gifset by @dressedforwinter

taylor swift: midnights album cover concept design by @ohgaylor

scream 3: music in film gifset by @madeline-kahn

stranger things: eddie munson gifset by @nicknellsons

taylor swift: 1989 tour gifset by @madeline-kahn

halsey: if i can’t have love, i want power graphic by @h-f-k

ready or not gifset by @buffysummers

taylor swift: midnights tracklist edit by @talaypuens

f.r.i.e.n.d.s: rachel green + green outfits gifset by @maya-hawke

paramore: this is why gifset by @userparamore

taylor swift: midnights side b graphic by @userethereal

ready or not gifset by @elletao

it follows gifset by @buffysummers

taylor swift: i knew you were trouble music video gifset by @tayloralison

stranger things: max mayfield gifset by @minasmurrays

all too well: the short film gifset by @lovestory

final girls gifset by @amandaseyfried

bodies bodies bodies gifset by @thequantumranger

severance gifset by @lousolversons

taylor swift: midnights vinyl concept design by @sparksflys

heartstopper: 1x08 gifset by @simon-eriksson

lorde: fallen fruit graphic by @andtosaturn

taylor swift: midnights tracks as color versions gifset by @antoniosvivaldi

the midnights club gifset by @sulietsexual

nope (2022) gifset by @bollyswood

i know what you did last summer gifset by @queenage

taylor swift: lavender haze art by @marvelous-tunes

anne hathaway gifset by @r-pattinson

brooklyn nine nine: jake peralta gifset by @chrrispine

halloween art by @titsay

the midnight club: episode titles based on christopher pike novels gifset by @nessa007

olivia cooke gifset by @ethanhunt

#*creatorshoutouts

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cropcirclesmp3 · 2 years

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🕸 Boys and girls* of every age, Wouldn't you like to see something strange? 🕸 *and enby legends

With the days getting shorter and darker, and halloween just around the corner is there anything better than sitting down with a hot beverage of your choice and reading a spooky book? Trick question the answer is no! Thus the Studyblr with Knives server brings you the Horror Reading Challenge!

RULES: like with all our reading challenges, the rules are pretty flexible, since the whole point of this is to motivate you to read just a little bit more :) this challenge doesn't have a set timeframe, so it's perfect for both horror beginners and seasoned enjoyers → reblog this post if you're participating → use the tag #studyblr w/knives reading challenge when you post your updates/pics → the challenge is ofc, as usual, also on storygraph (check the notes for the link)

once you’ve read a book that fits a prompt, cross it out on the template and/or share your thoughts on it in a post here on tumblr; make sure to mark any spoilers (hide them under a cut etc.), so people can avoid them if needed :) you can also have just one post and update it as you go, or you can post good ol’ aesthetic book pics!

as always, if you have any questions, feel free to send them to me or the wonderful @bulletnotestudies

[find the alternative template (no blood) below the cut!]

This challenge includes 9 prompts:

[prompts with the bulletpoint function in the tumblr editor; explanations below with shift+enter]

Children’s horror (Horror books written for children as the target audience)

Psychological horror (books that rely on mental, emotional and psychological states to scare the reader)

Horror with queer mcs

Body horror ( horror fiction based around the graphic destruction or alteration of the body)

Supernatural/paranormal horror

the ocean is scary/space is scary (scary books that take place either in space or on the ocean)

graphic novel/comic/manga

Historical fiction or Classics

Folk horror or Cosmic horror (folk horror:uses elements of folklore to scare the reader, Cosmic horror: horror that emphasizes the terror of the unknowable and incomprehensible)

The alternative template:

We hope you enjoy the challenge and can’t wait to see your posts and what books you decide to read for this! Feel free to send me an ask if you want recs or if you have any recs for me!

#studyblr w/knives reading challenge #studyblr w/knives reading challenge: horror #knife gang #studyblr #booklr #bookblr #horror #bookish #storygraph #gloomstudy #learnelle #studyvan #myhoneststudyblr

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punkbakerchristine · 3 months

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hello, tumblr, i am 30 years old and i got into baking and cooking on october 7, 2023–if you know anything about october 7, 2023, you should know how much all of this means to me 😅 i’m a gentile girl trying to be a mensch. am yisrael chai, don’t even think about it 🇮🇱

a little bit about me: i am an artist and a writer with a long background in science and engineering. i love animals (namely, dogs, cats, horses, birds, bats, rabbits, and reptiles), cartoons, books, and movies. i’m a hockey player at heart. i love formula 1. i love top gear and those three zany british men. i love the winter olympics. i love halloween and christmas. i’m a west coast girl. i love hawai’i and the ocean. i’m making a graphic novel. i was friends with chris cornell (yes, him). i’m a grunge fan but grunge fans don’t like me, though: you know that weird little alt rock kid seeing the heavy metal band that no one thinks about? that’s me.

i struggled with anorexia in my late teen years and obesity in the back half of my twenties: if you want to know what it’s like to deal with a debilitating eating disorder and then push nearly 300 pounds, imagine you’re drowning… and then someone hands you a big wedding cake. all jokes aside, i actually have a fat kink, if you can believe that. i actually have a number of kinks, but that’s one of my main ones. i deliberately gained weight to heal from my eating disorder, and to fulfill something that i had been curious about pretty much my whole life (like, “what if i got really fat, as fat as i could be?”) and i felt good. i loved being heavy and the idea of being a “big beautiful woman” if you will (especially when fat women have been worshipped for millennia; the whole skinny craze is relatively new). but i couldn’t keep it up, though: i started having trouble with my heart and my stomach, i was having migraines, and most of all, i was getting edema in my feet.

as of my writing this, since i started losing weight back in mid-july, i have lost 59 pounds, down from my heaviest ever at 268: i crossed the 200 pound threshold back in 2015, and now that i write it out, it would’ve been something to hit that number again after ten years (i’ll go with nine, though 🤷🏻‍♀️).

i’m pansexual and polyamorous. i’m single… but jimmy cracked corn and i don’t care (really, i don’t even think about relationships). i do have a crush, though, on a jewish man and i’ve felt this way about him for almost three years now. i have a crush on him (and he’s even said “i love you” to me) even though he’s in a relationship… yeah. the love of my life is with someone else. but like, i want to see him happy, though, you know? i love him perhaps more so following october 7.

october 7. the day of that attack—the day, the very day—i baked my very first loaf of bread, a simple bloomer courtesy of paul hollywood, one of my influences in the culinary world: as the dough was proofing, i saw a huge horde of people posting about palestine and israel, and it reminded me of a guy who ran into a convenience store at the start of the pandemic and he yelled out, “can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” that was my reaction to it all. i just wanted to know what had happened and no one would tell me… and a friend of mine finally said “pray for israel.” i asked what happened and she told me. i just foresaw everything unraveling from that point forward. so i took the bloomer out of the oven and it felt fated, like it was meant to be. my basic thought was “the world is going to need art and words, and also, people willing to get down and make things to eat”. this is going down fast. (in other words, my healing my body from itself and satisfying a kink had a point after all 😜).

and it might seem counterintuitive, but baking and cooking has actually helped me lose even more weight than i can ever imagine (besides weightlifting and aerobics and boxing and martial arts and yoga, of course). you might think that baking cakes and pies and cookies and making dinner every night would make me 300+ pounds tout suite, but it’s actually done the opposite (so, sorry, feeder community)—and if anything, i enjoy every cookie and slice of cake now. there’s no fad diets here or anything fancy with me, and even with 60 pounds lost i still have a chubby belly (i don’t mind, though—my stomach has been through a lot, it should keep *something*), so i’m definitely not a fitblr.

since october, i’ve felt this need to blog my journey in baking and cooking, and away from my personal blog, too. stuff i made, recipes i think of (and maybe some that need to be passed on, too?), and food i want to make.

my art blog is on here at nuagederose—i also have a therapy blog, theghostandthehealer—and my instagram is badmotorartist. if erotic band fiction (among other things) is your thing, my ao3 is josiebelladonna.

and yeah, i’m 30 and i think i found the proverbial missing jigsaw puzzle piece. age really is just a number!

#text #introductory post #bakers of tumblr #bakers gonna bake

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lisa-l0vely · 1 month

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W.I.T.C.H. show vs. graphic novel? (spoiler I guess?)

so for some reason in volume one of the W.I.T.C.H. graphic novel I have, Cedric calls Elyon "babe" (Ew) at the Halloween party but in a version of the panel I found online he just calls her "little girl"??? I am confused. also either the graphic novel moves really fast or the show moves really slow because it took 14 episodes for Elyon to switch sides but she was on Phobos's side not even halfway through the graphic novel???

And not to mention, Cedric just gains her trust immediately somehow in the graphic novel. What about the Stone of Threbe? What about Caleb? Where is Caleb in the graphic novel??? he appears immediately in the show so I am confused. I'm so sorry I'm new to this fandom.

#w.i.t.c.h comic #w.i.t.c.h phobos #w.i.t.c.h cedric #w.i.t.c.h.#elyon brown #elyon escanor #w.i.t.c.h elyon #w.i.t.c.h. animated series #graphic novel #i am confusion

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weeeeeekly · 2 months

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frankenstein’s monster – lee isa x afab!reader

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info ➜ part one because i want the first part out for valentine’s day but i still have more to write. based off lisa frakenstein & marry shelley’s frankenstein horror novel, movies, & the countless adaptations, so graphic descriptions of killing & gore. zombie!isa, assigned female at birth (afab) reader, halloween enthusiast!reader. this fic is very self-indulgent & gay. we're pretending that homophobia doesn't exist. probably contains minor errors.

wc: 3.1k

WARNINGS !!! this is a safe for work (SFW) fic, but my blog is not safe for work (NSFW) so please no minors (mdni).

author’s note !!! happy valentine’s day!!! where are all my gay girls that love stayc & horror. i just saw lisa frankenstein on friday & i just saw it again, so please bear with me for getting a new obsession. it’s what mary shelley would want. i love weird girl romance!!

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You were driving toward your new home. An old farmhouse your aunt owned for what felt like forever. You had been tasked with house and pet sitting as your aunt was out of the country for a wedding. You always loved visiting her house as it gave you a break from the busy-ish life of living near a city, but not directly in the heart. And she was your favorite aunt in the entire world, so it was no brainer when you agreed. At least you would have something to do for Hallo-weekend.

The last time you were here was the summer before you started college and a few summers have passed since then. The vegetation was still as flush and lively as you last remembered, and the long stretch of dirt road covered by rows of oak trees was your favorite. It looked prettier during the daytime, but the drive from your apartment to your aunt’s house was a few hours since it was in the country.

There was a pesky rouge eyelash that was on your lens that was bothering you as drove. It wasn’t the brightest idea, but this was a private road in the middle of nowhere so there wouldn’t be any people walking. You kept your eyes in the road as you used your free hand that wasn’t on the wheel to take off your glasses to clean them.

Your path was lit by your car’s high beam lights, and you took a second to focus your eyes and attention to cleaning your glasses. The second you looked back up, a fuzzy silhouette of some kind of… animal scared you as you did a hard break in an effort to not hit it. Your heart beat furiously in your chest as the thing ran away and you put your glasses back on. It was too dark to see it properly as it fled off into the rest of the forest.

Probably one of the deer your aunt complained about eating her rose plants.

You ignored your heart slowly settling back to normal pace as you went back to your journey. You allowed yourself to sit in silence for the remainder of the drive since it would only be a few more minutes until you reached your destination. You could go without music for a little bit.

The aging farmhouse was a comforting sight to behold, a dusty rose wooden house with white accents, long sprawling lush, green grass, acres of mismatched fences from quick repairs overtime, and a matching barn behind the house that held the other animals. The nearest neighbor is a quick five-minute drive away or one could take the shortcut through the supposedly haunted cemetery that was hidden behind the town center where the old town used to be.

You never understood why your aunt, parents, and everyone else feared the cemetery. It was just sad how rundown it was and just allowing the memories of everyone laid to rest there to be forgotten. It was quite peaceful to just sit there in the morning during the summer, especially when you were trying to avoid doing chores or forced family time.

You had a favorite grave. It was a very elaborate headstone with a cement face model of the girl buried. The headstone was ancient, so some of the stone was hard to read all you could make out for the name was the letters A, S, and I spaced out to spell a longer name that you couldn’t do a proper stone rubbing, died in 1837, and unmarried. You rolled your eyes the first time you read that since it was the only other piece of information on the headstone and felt disrespectful to reduce her to just her marital status, but it was the 1800s, so you just had to accept history.

You made sure to always be respectful when visiting the cemetery, you would never want to disrupt the peace. You usually just sit on a sprawled-out towel blanket and read aloud a book to the girl. You know that she couldn’t hear you because she was… you know, dead, but it just felt right to do so.

You couldn’t go visit her since it was too late in the night and looked like it was about to storm anyway. You just quickly unpacked the car for the overnight and duffel bag for your weekend stay. The night was loud from the annoying ass cicadas. You just wanted to hurry inside to save your eardrums.

The house was imposing at night with the lights off, but the second you turned the light switch on, it just looked like the 80s threw up on the décor. All the furniture was new when your aunt was born 37 years ago and stayed untouched with a few additions like the smart tv in the living room/kitchen.

The weight of driving for so long was beginning to take its toll on you, so you were struggling to stay awake as you laid on the couch after your hot shower some random video about movie monsters.

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When you wake up a few hours later, it’s storming outside. The sky was light gray, but it was pouring down. You let out a sigh as you stretch and fix yourself a quick breakfast. Thankfully, by the time you’re done eating – the rain stopped. You take the opportunity to do chores for your aunt’s animals in the barn and visit the cemetery before the rain starts up again.

You borrow your aunt’s rain boots and make sure to wear old clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty, leftovers from previous visits. The shortcut was muddy, but nothing that wasn’t difficult to walk over. The forest looks extra beautiful after rain with the trees looking shiny with dewdrops, the light mist of fog, and the sunlight peeking through the clouds. And it smelled like the candle-ized version after it rains.

The grassy, unkempt area was the same as ever as you reach your favorite spot. Her grave was damp from the rain, but still looked clean despite you not visiting for years. You smile as you greet her.

“Hey, it’s me. I’m finally back. I hope you’ve been well. Sorry for not visiting for a while I was busy with school.”

You brush off some stray twigs on the statue and frown as you fix the heart locket you tied around the head years ago when you first discovered the area. It was kind of sad and kind of weird that 13-year-old you decided that you would be the sole groundskeeper. The positive aspect was that you were getting outside and receiving vitamin D.

A raindrop falls from the sky and makes it look like the statue is crying, “Oh, I wish I knew you, but you don’t have to cry about it.”

You let out another sigh as the rain starts to pick up again, so you decide it’s best to head back to your aunt’s place. You walk down the shortcut without looking back due to your time crunch to beat what’s looking like a nasty storm.

The clouds slowly grow a dark gray like the charcoal you use for stone rubbing or your facemasks. You were due for one since this semester has been hard on your sleep schedule and acne was appearing again. Which was extremely annoying since you just got your skin to be clear and a consistent skincare routine since your classes the semester before were easy.

Well, you can’t change the past you from not making your schedule under the assumption that you would be okay with a 9 AM class if you liked the content.

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After settling into the guest room that was unofficially your room, you lay on the bed with your noise cancelling headphones as your face mask dries. The storm was getting louder by the second and you just wanted to get some sleep. You had just done your everything shower, so you were content in your oversized sleep shirt and satin sheets you brought from home. You were definitely going to have good dreams.

You don’t remember when you fell asleep either during the podcast episode about internet drama or the video about your favorite horror video game’s lore. The window shows the beautiful yellow-orange morning in contrast to the disaster of torn up grass, tree branches everywhere, and your aunt’s goats having a fucking buffet.

Wait. Your aunt’s goats eating on plants. The goats that are supposed to be locked in their pin inside the barn.

You scramble out of bed while putting on your glasses and rain jacket. You struggle trying to round up the loose goats and give up as they’re just as stubborn as ignoring you as you are trying to bring them to the barn.

At least they were eating so that was a morning chore you wouldn’t have to do.

The front door to the barn was smashed in and most of the animals inside escaped to the free roam the farm. God, the tornado that rolled in last night was shaping up to be a fucking nightmare, at least that’s what the news channel the old radio in the barn was able to pick up was telling you.

“A local farmer said, and I quote, ‘There was a green lightning bolt that scared off all my chickens.’ Experts are unable to confirm if this is a possibility at this time –”

“Green lightning would be something.” You say as you shove hay into bins for the goats’ dinner in hopes that they’ll wander back into the barn. You wonder how you’ll break to your aunt in text since the time difference was 14 hours. You hope she had insurance.

One of the chickens runs past you, scaring you and causes you to drop the shovel you were holding. Your head flicks into the direction of what sounds like a human-like groan. You can make out some kind of figure in the shadow of the corner of the barn.

“Ah shit.” You sprint out of the barn as whatever the fuck chases after you. You would close the barndoor shut but of course the goddamn tornado had to put a tree through it. The staggered stomps behind you clue you in that thing after you is injured which works in your favor since your adrenaline made you a track star right now.

Taking the shortcut to the cemetery in an attempt to lose your creepy follower, you avoid branches and rocks in your way, so you don’t trip and die like the people in your favorite cheesy horror movies do. You’re better than that. If you’re going out, you’ll be the one to do it and some rando.

When you reach your alleged safety spot, you hop over a hole in the ground as you hear a thump and a delayed groan.

“Serves you right!” Peering down into the hole, your eyes widen as your jaw drops, the sight that greets you is what looks like a girl around your age except her skin is a ghastly gray, dressed in an outdated dress, and covered in dirt.

You continue to stare in shock as the girl tries to stand up but fails to. You watch in horror as it slowly dawns on you that the girl’s left hand is completely missing. Like the-bone-is-showing-and-no-way-it-just-happened-kind-of-missing. Your eyes slowly move to the headstone and your blood turns cold as you realize that the open grave is the one you frequent to. The model statue, the same one that shockingly resembles the girl, is ruined from a lightning strike.

“Are you, like, okay?”

The girl stops struggling for a second to blankly stare at you.

“Okay, so I’ll take that as a ‘no’. Anyway… is that you?” You point to the model statue as the girl lets out a grunt in response and to your shock and surprise, a slow repeated motion of nodding.

“Holy shit. I’m not sure how this is even possible. You’re supposed to be dead and buried.”

The dead girl goes back to trying to climb up the 6-foot hole. You contemplate how you were going to help her out – if you should just hold her only hand and hope her arm doesn’t pop out or if you could throw a rope down and hope for the best. Your thoughts cease as the girl stands on the same level as you.

“How did you get out?”

The girl ignores you as she starts hobbling towards you with her only hand extending towards you. Her cold, dead hand holds your left hand as she leans her head down. You let out a nervous laugh as you slowly move your hand back.

“We just met face to face, so it’s a little too early for that. I don’t know your name. What’s your name?”

The girl moved her hand toward her choker-covered neck and as you step closer you realize that her neck has been sliced through.

“Oh, that’s not good, but it’s okay that you can’t talk.” You look towards the headstone, “Since only 3 letters are readable maybe we can make a nickname out of that? Asi? Isa? I like Isa.”

Newly nicknamed Isa moves her mouth in what looks like an attempt to smile which you take as a beaming acceptance.

“Okay! Nice to meet you, Isa. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

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If you had told your 13-year-old self that you would be helping a corpse into your aunt’s guest shower after she came back to life from a lightning strike, they would have asked what scary movie you stole that from.

After showing Isa the controls to work the shower, you laid out two towels on the bathroom counter and cleaned the mud tracks she left behind. The whole situation was pretty hilarious, at least you had someone your age to hang out with for Halloween in a town mainly occupied by retirees or new families with small children.

You’re interrupted scrubbing out a particularly stubborn patch of mud out of the staircase carpet when the doorbell rings. Your head whips towards the front door as the shower shuts off. Heading over to the door to greet the mystery guest, you put on a grin and open the door.

The face that greets you is one of your aunt’s neighbors that you remember liking, but not enough to remember their name. Your grin becomes genuine as the older lady kindly greets you and goes into a spiel of how she remembers you used to be this tall! You just nod at her story time as the shower turns on again.

“Oh, do you have someone over?”

“Yeah, just a friend.” You pray to every higher power up above to not let Isa walk over to you and the noise by the door. You don’t know how you were going to explain this away.

“You must be busy! I’ll leave you two alone so you can go back to your Halloween movies and such.”

You quickly wave her off and shut the door, wishing her a happy Halloween. You get a slight fright when you turn around and Isa is standing right behind you still looking a ghastly gray in contrast to the hot pink towel combo you left behind but now clean from all the dirt and bugs.

“Oh my god, you scared me! Let’s go back upstairs to get you some clothes.” You help Isa back up the stairs making sure to have her lean on your shoulder to help her balance. You go as slow as she needs to be safe which you don’t mind doing. It’s not like you were in a hurry since your schedule was to do light chores in the barn, waste your life away watching movies, and then maybe going to the grocery store to be candy for Halloween tonight. Which reminds you…

“I should dress you up as a zombie for Halloween which is the truth but not to make anyone want to chase us down with pitchforks and fire.”

Isa grunts as you reach the top stair and go around the corner to your room with some of the clothes you’ve left over the years.

“Sorry for the mess.” You make sure to help her step over your duffel bag by the door and the scattered mess of your makeup by the floor length mirror. You wanted to do an intricate makeup look for Halloween to get use of makeup you’ve had a for a while and to get your money’s worth. You still weren’t sure what you were going to dress up as maybe an iconic horror movie icon or something from your childhood and do fun, glitzy makeup or a basic supernatural creature.

You could just tear up some old clothes for Isa and add some fake blood to her costume. It had been fate that she came back from the dead on Halloween Eve.

You guide Isa to sit on the edge of your bed and open your walk-in closet, "For right now, I'll give you some pjs to wear while I make your zombie costume."

You offer a pair of pjs you wouldn't mind missing and give her space to change. Once she's done you can't help but stare in awe of how cute she looks. Isa almost looks like she could have been born in the same time as you which just shows how much of a timeless beauty she is.

You get a bright idea as you open your backpack, "Do you want to try 21st-century candy?"

#stayc x reader #stayc x fem reader #isa x reader #lee chaeyoung #stayc fanfic

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mfred · 1 year

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🌟Mfred's Best Books of 2022🌟

Comfort Me with Apples by Cathrynne M. Valente

Original Review

It’s a fairy tale retold, a myth re-examined. It’s a mystery, a thriller, and a horror story. But it’s so much more, too. I was mesmerized - trying to understand what was going on, then understanding too much, with a dawning sense of horror at how it would all end.

The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo by Kerrigan Byrne

Original Review

This book put me through the wringer, you guys. I came out the other end definitely dehydrated from crying so much, but also filled to the brim with love and life.

Even Though I Knew the End by CL Polk

Sapphic. Urban Fantasy. Noir. Do I need to say more? OK, I will anyway! Chicago in the winter. Dames smoking Chesterfields and hunting serial killers. Underground queer nightclubs. And magic! And a swoony romance!

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Original Review

Don’t be fooled, Benji is really turning into a monster. White pulls no punches. Bloody, gruesome, and terrifying. It’s so queer, so righteously angry, so necessarily vengeful. But it also holds a place for the tenderness and hope we all need to truly survive.

Thirteens by Kate Alice Marshall

A spooky and super creepy Halloween read, especially for a children’s book! Plus, the power of friendship, loyalty, and believing in yourself.

The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches by Daniel Bergner

Challenges the science behind mental illness and standard pharmaceutical treatments. At once eye-opening, engrossing, and also emotional.

A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

Lucky you! If you didn’t read the first in this series, you now get to read both amazing books! This time we see what happens when the Evil Queen wants a better ending to her story. And also what it means to survive a happy ending.

My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey

Original Review

I loved Myles. I loved his struggle. Every time Taylor did or said something, his heart clenched or he got sweaty or he desperately wanted to kiss her. He’s big, he’s tattooed, he’s unshaven and rides a motorcycle and he is a total dummy about his emotions. It’s great.

Paper Girls, Vols 1-6 by Brian K. Vaughn, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson, & Jared K. Fletcher

Friendship! Time travel! The 1980s! A war between teenagers vs. grownups! This graphic novel series has it all. And the artwork is amazing.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen

Ok, how do you feel about The Bachelor? Cryptids? Horrifically funny violence? This book is so weird and also so, so amazing.

Runaway Girl by Tessa Bailey

A poor little rich girl who really isn’t and a bear of a man dealing with unimaginable loss. Slow burn but awesome tension and chemistry throughout. Plus, the emotional wallop of falling in love. Everything good about romance novels.

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison

Original Review

Amazing. A novel about anger, trauma, families, romance, trusting others, and werewolves. It really takes a good, hard look at why and when and how and how often we get angry– and how we treat others and ourselves when we rage. The werewolf metaphor is grrrreat (see what I did there?) for examining what it means to be an angry woman, in/out of control.

We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper

Original Review

It took me almost two months to finish this book. But it wasn’t boring or slow. In fact, for such a lengthy book, it’s a real page turner. And it’s a fascinating blend of true crime, non fiction and memoir– how Cooper finds her own voice in the story of Jane Britton’s murder.

#best of 2022 #best books of 2022 #hell followed with us #comfort me with apples #such sharp teeth #thirteens #my killer vacation #runaway girl #patricia wants to cuddle #paper girls #a mirror mended #the mind and the moon #the duke with the dragon tattoo #we keep the dead close #book reviews #even though I knew the end

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ghostflowerdreams · 9 months

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Books Similar to Stranger Things

The most obvious starting point is to check out the officially authorized novels that further expand the canonical Stranger Things world, such as Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond. It's a prequel novel that follows Eleven's mother and her time as a test subject in the MKUltra program. Then there's Darkness on the Edge of Town by Adam Christopher, which is about Chief Jim Hopper's old life as a police detective in New York City.

There's more novels that delve into the past of a few of the show’s characters like Runaway Max by Brenna Yovanoff, which explores Max's past--the good and the bad--as well as how she came to find her newfound sense of home in Hawkins, Indiana.

However, if that still isn't enough the next best thing is to find books that are similar to Stranger Things or give off the same feels via plot, the friendship, theme and aspects of it. I know I'm not the only one on the search and so while scouring the web I've compiled a list of the most common book recommendations I've seen people suggest.

I like making lists like these as this is how I also usually form my 'To Be Read' list. Oh, and this isn't any particular order either.

Paper Girls Vol. #1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Cliff Chiang (Artist) & Matt Wilson (Colorist) — is a graphic novel that follows a group of 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls in the early hours after Halloween of 1988, who uncover the most important story of all time. [1]

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix — The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. After an evening of skinny-dipping Gretchen disappears in the woods but returns a few hours later, naked and…different. She’s moody. She’s irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby.

Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries—and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

Ghoul by Brian Keene — There is something in the local cemetery that comes out at night. Something that is unearthing corpses and killing people. It’s the summer of 1984 and Timmy and his friends are looking forward to no school, comic books, and adventure. But instead they will be fighting for their lives.

The ghoul has smelled their blood and it is after them. But that’s not the only monster they will face this summer...

The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson — Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls--a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place--Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories.

The summer Jake turns twelve, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly lighthearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.

Summer of Night (Seasons of Horror #1) by Dan Simmons — It's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase. But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school, their classmate Tubby Cooke vanishes.

Soon, the group discovers stories of other children who once disappeared from Elm Haven. And there are other strange things happening in town: unexplained holes in the ground, a stranger dressed as a World War I soldier, and a rendering-plant truck that seems to be following the five boys. The friends realize that there is a terrible evil lurking in Elm Haven...and they must be the ones to stop it.

Haven by Tom Deady — In 1961, the small town of Haven thought they'd gotten rid of their monster.

After a series of child killings, Paul Greymore was caught carrying a wounded girl. His face, disfigured from a childhood accident, seemed to confirm he was the monster the community hoped to banish. With Paul in prison, the killings stopped.

For seventeen years, Haven was peaceful again. But Paul served his time and has now returned to Haven--the town where he grew up, and the scene of his alleged crimes. Paul insists he didn't commit those crimes, and several townspeople believe him including the local priest, a young boy named Denny, and his best friend Billy.

Trouble is, now that Paul is back home, the bizarre killings have started again--and the patterns match the deaths from Haven's past. If Paul isn't the killer, who is?

Or WHAT is? An unlikely band of adventurers attempts to uncover the truth, delving into long-hidden tunnels that might actually be inhabited by a strange, predatory creature.

One Word Kill (Impossible Times #1) by Mark Lawrence — In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he’s dying. And it isn’t even the strangest thing to happen to him that week.

Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange—yet curiously familiar—man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn’t exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia’s in grave danger, though she doesn’t know it yet. She needs Nick’s help—now.

He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics.

Starr Creek by Nathan Carson — Set in 1986 rural Oregon, Starr Creek features Heavy Metal teens, Christian biker gangs, and hopped up kids on 3-wheeled ATVs. They all collide when strange occurrences unveil an alien world inhabiting the Oregon woods.

Inside by D. M. Siciliano — Set in 1987. Reid is a bully, but he’s still Alex’s best friend. When Reid pushes Alex and their friends into invading a historically haunted Massachusetts house, Alex knows it’s a terrible idea, but indulges his friend. What could go wrong?

Inside, a mysterious Shadow looms in the darkness. The door to the house vanishes, leaving them trapped. The group flees through the tiny, one-roomed house that defies logic, constantly shifting, presenting them with new doors, hallways, and rooms that seem to be plucked from their memories and fears. One by one, the Shadow hunts them, intent on burning them all from within.

Is there any way to escape? Or will they be burned from the inside out?

The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Link Neal & Rhett James McLaughlin — It’s 1992 in Bleak Creek, North Carolina—a sleepy little place with all the trappings of an ordinary Southern town: two Baptist churches, friendly smiles coupled with silent judgments, and an unquenchable appetite for pork products. Beneath the town’s cheerful façade, however, Bleak Creek teens live in constant fear of being sent to the Whitewood School, a local reformatory with a history of putting unruly youths back on the straight and narrow—a record so impeccable that almost everyone is willing to ignore the suspicious deaths that have occurred there over the past decade.

At first, high school freshmen Rex McClendon and Leif Nelson believe what they’ve been told: that the students’ strange demises were all just tragic accidents, the unfortunate consequence of succumbing to vices like Marlboro Lights and Nirvana. But when the shoot for their low-budget horror masterpiece, PolterDog, goes horribly awry—and their best friend, Alicia Boykins, is sent to Whitewood as punishment—Rex and Leif are forced to question everything they know about their unassuming hometown and its cherished school for delinquents.

Eager to rescue their friend, Rex and Leif pair up with recent NYU film school graduate Janine Blitstein to begin piecing together the unsettling truth of the school and its mysterious founder, Wayne Whitewood. What they find will leave them battling an evil beyond their wildest imaginations—one that will shake Bleak Creek to its core.

Dead Flip by Sara Farizan — Growing up, Cori, Maz, and Sam were inseparable best friends, sharing their love for Halloween, arcade games, and one another. Now it’s 1992, Sam has been missing for five years, and Cori and Maz aren’t speaking anymore. How could they be, when Cori is sure Sam is dead and Maz thinks he may have been kidnapped by a supernatural pinball machine? These days, all Maz wants to do is party, buy CDs at Sam Goody, and run away from his past. Meanwhile, Cori is a homecoming queen, hiding her abiding love of horror movies and her queer self under the bubblegum veneer of a high school queen bee. But when Sam returns—still twelve years old while his best friends are now seventeen—Maz and Cori are thrown back together to solve the mystery of what really happened to Sam the night he went missing. Beneath the surface of that mystery lurk secrets the friends never told one another, then and now. And Sam’s is the darkest of all...

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman — Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

Whispering Pines (Whispering Pines #1) by Heidi Lang & Kati Bartkowski — Rae’s father vanished without a trace—and Rae knows what happened to him. But no one believes her when she says that her father didn’t run off, that he was actually taken. Now, a year of therapy later, Rae’s mother decides they need a fresh start, and so they move to a new town in the hope that life can return to normal.

The problem is, there is nothing normal about the town of Whispering Pines.

No one knows this better than Caden. He’s lived in Whispering Pines his entire life, and he’s seen more than his fair share of weird—starting with his own family, as the town is the perfect home base for his mother’s ghost hunting business.

When several kids go missing and then show up like zombies with their eyes removed, many locals brush it off. Just another day in Whispering Pines. But Caden has a dark secret, one that may explain why someone is stealing eyes. And Rae, who knows how it feels to not be believed, may be just the person Caden needs to help him put things right.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand — On the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires.

Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now.

Three teenage girls who come together to face an ancient evil.

Marion: the new girl. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.

Zoey: the pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.

Val: the queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives, a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.

The Devouring Gray (The Devouring Gray #1) by C.L. Herman — On the edge of town a beast haunts the woods, trapped in the Gray, its bonds loosening…

Uprooted from the city, Violet Saunders doesn’t have much hope of fitting in at her new school in Four Paths, a town almost buried in the woodlands of rural New York. The fact that she’s descended from one of the town’s founders doesn’t help much, either—her new neighbours treat her with distant respect, and something very like fear. When she meets Justin, May, Isaac, and Harper, all children of founder families, and sees the otherworldly destruction they can wreak, she starts to wonder if the townsfolk are right to be afraid.

When bodies start to appear in the woods, the locals become downright hostile. Can the teenagers solve the mystery of Four Paths, and their own part in it, before another calamity strikes?

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland — Seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow has always been strange. Something happened to her and her two older sisters when they were children, something they can’t quite remember but that left each of them with an identical half-moon scar at the base of their throats.

Iris has spent most of her teenage years trying to avoid the weirdness that sticks to her like tar. But when her eldest sister, Grey, goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Iris learns just how weird her life can get: horned men start shadowing her, a corpse falls out of her sister’s ceiling, and ugly, impossible memories start to twist their way to the forefront of her mind.

As Iris retraces Grey’s last known footsteps and follows the increasingly bizarre trail of breadcrumbs she left behind, it becomes apparent that the only way to save her sister is to decipher the mystery of what happened to them as children.

The closer Iris gets to the truth, the closer she comes to understanding that the answer is dark and dangerous – and that Grey has been keeping a terrible secret from her for years.

It by Stephen King — is about seven adults who return to their hometown to confront a nightmare they had first stumbled on as teenagers…an evil without a name: It.

Welcome to Derry, Main. It’s a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry the haunting is real...

They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But the promise they made twenty-eight years ago calls them reunite in the same place where, as teenagers, they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children.

Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that terrifying summer return as they prepare to once again battle the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers. [2]

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero — It takes place in a small mining town in Oregon, first in 1977 where a group of kids who call themselves the Blyton Summer Detective Club have uncovered the truth behind a creature called the Sleepy Lake monster and a supposedly haunted mansion.

Years later, in 1990, the meddling kids are all grown up but are called back to that small town when the mystery resurfaces, apparently not as resolved as they had once all thought.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury — is a dark fantasy about two 13-year-old best friends, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling carnival called 'Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Show' that comes to their Midwestern home, Green Town, Illinois, on October 24th.

Whisper (Whispers 1) by Lynette Noni — “Lengard is a secret government facility for extraordinary people,” they told me. I believed them. That was my mistake. There isn’t anyone else in the world like me. I’m different. I’m an anomaly. I’m a monster.

For two years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Subject Six-Eight-Four — ‘Jane Doe’ — has been locked away and experimented on, without uttering a single word.

As Jane’s resolve begins to crack under the influence of her new — and unexpectedly kind — evaluator, she uncovers the truth about Lengard’s mysterious ‘program’, discovering that her own secret is at the heart of a sinister plot … and one wrong move, one wrong word, could change the world.

The Lightning Tree (The NI Revolution Trilogy #1) by Lene Fogelberg — Nature finally rises against humanity.

Flora Reed discovers a lifeless body in her front yard the morning after the last day of her junior year of high school. Matters get worse when more people from her small town are found dead under mysterious circumstances and police take an interest in the boy next door, Carl.

Flora is convinced that Carl is innocent, suspecting that the deaths are somehow connected to her younger sister Fauna's tragic accident a year earlier. What she learns changes everything, and she has to race against time to prevent the killings from spreading. Flora and a small group of friends soon find themselves at the onset of an apocalyptic battle between man and nature, with no one believing their story.

The Call by Peadar Ó Guilín — is set in a unique future of Ireland—or what once was Ireland. Everyday children from as young as 10, fear the day they will get “The Call” – a point in which they are sent the Grey Lands, where they must survive being hunted by the Sidhe for twenty-four hours. Some come back alive, some dead, and some come back…different.

The story focuses mainly on Nessa, a fourteen-year-old girl with twisted legs thanks to polio. While not immune to the taunts and whispers she receives about her disability, she trains hard and is determined to prove to everyone that she can not only survive The Call, but that she deserves to be there.

All Our Hidden Gifts (The Gifts #1) by Caroline O’Donoghue — is set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root.

It follows sixteen-year-old Maeve after she finds a deck of tarot cards while cleaning out an old closet in her Catholic school. She quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at school.

But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

The Door to December by Dean Koontz — Little Melanie had been kidnapped when she was only three. She was nine when she was found wandering the L.A. streets, with blank eyes. What had become of her in all those years of darkness... and what was the terrible secret, clutching at her soul, that she dared not even whisper?

Her loving mother and the police desperately hunted for the answer. They needed Melanie to help get to the bottom of the most savage scene of carnage the city had ever seen. And they would do anything to save her from whatever dreadful force or thing had invaded her young life. But first, they would have to save themselves from a rising tide of terror... and from an icy evil howling through The Door to December.

Infinity's Doorway by David Wind — Arren Blaine is a cop, he doesn't believe in the paranormal. He knows there is no such things as Werewolves or Shifters, until...

"Find me..." The words uttered by the mysterious woman he'd swerved off the road to miss, echo continually in Dallas policeman Arren Blaine's head as he fights to get back into the world of the living, after the almost fatal car crash.

"Find me..." So begins an odyssey of discovery that takes him far from the Dallas P.D. forensic labs and into the frightening world of the supernatural in his search for the woman who had saved his life. A woman he is destined to share eternity with, if he can find her... If he can save her...if she is even human...

Notes:

[1] — There's actually a live-action adaptation of Paper Girls on Amazon Prime. So, if you really like it you can also check it out. This is recommended a lot because there's plenty of striking similarities between Paper Girls and Stranger Things. Both feature a group of young heroes; ordinary kids who grew up in the '80s and are plunged into a series of adventures.

However, Paper Girls is it's own thing and is not an Stranger Things imitation as some people going into it expected it to be. It actually has a different tone, message and concept.

[2] — Stranger Things has many tropes inspired by Stephen King's works such as Carrie, Firestarter, It, The Mist and The Talisman (with a bit of The Body thrown in). This is why whenever someone asks for recommendations his books are always suggested.

#Stranger Things #books #book recommendations #books similar to Stranger Things #list of books #recommended books #books to read #books similar to #tbr #to-be-read list #to be read

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