#Jim Nix

[convexly]

Pad Thai by Jim Nix Via Flickr: Portland, OR

[spirkme915]

Watching Those Old Scientists with an 8 year old Trekkie in training:

- Spock “laughs” at Boimler’s joke when they’re by the portal and she screams - legitimately screams - whips her around toward me and says, “What is happening? Why is Spock laughing? I’m scared! That’s so scary!”

- (I have to pause and rewind because she’s completely missed Boimler’s reaction. I’m desperately trying not to laugh)

- Chapel and Boimler are in the turbolift talking and after Boimler says he’s afraid he’s messed up Spock, she says, “Wait. Does Spock have a crush on Boimler?”

- (Spoimler nation rise. Even an eight year old sees it)

- Turbolift conversation ends and she looks at me, brow furrowed. “Spock shouldn’t force himself to be human. He’s Vulcan and human. He should be himself.”

- (Out of the mouths of babes, right?)

- Mariner and Boimler are in Pike’s ready room and she’s nodding along as Mariner talks about Hot Spock. “It’s the ears,” she says confidently. “But he shouldn’t smile. That’s creepy.”

- (Gold star analysis. No notes)

[thaliaisalesbian]

i get myself twisted in threads

Chapter 6: with your golden notebook

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

“The kids are going home for the night, Steve.” She’s not sure why she’s telling him this. “Will’s staying, of course, and I think he and El would try to sneak in here to spend the night if Jonathan and I hadn’t already claimed it. Owens is coming tomorrow, he’s bringing another doctor, too. Just in case.” Nancy talks to Steve for another few minutes, running her fingers through his hair—if he were awake, he’d have a fit over it. It’s greasy and flat, and there’s Upside Down goo in it. She feels like she should pour shampoo over her hands and hope that it will help.

Maybe if he wakes up a little tomorrow, she can wash it for him. That might make him feel better. More like himself, at least.

Maybe he’s not going to wake up again. A little voice whispers, and she shuts it down.

She has to. She can’t think about him like that, not now, not ever.

Especially when they’re going to learn more tomorrow. Owens won’t be able to magically fix it all, but he’ll be able to do something.

“Nance?” Jonathan’s setting up an air mattress on the floor. It was either them or Joyce or Hopper staying in here tonight, and Joyce had given them a knowing look when they’d practically begged to stay. “Are you okay?”

She inhales, shakily, and realizes that she’d stopped talking and started crying.

“Is it bad? That I miss him while he’s still here?” She whispers. “It feels like this might be it. The plate, that was bad enough, but this—this feels more real.”

Jonathan knows she means more than right now. It's been months; months she can’t take back.

“I know.” He looks up at her, nothing hidden on his face, not the way Steve tries to hide what he's feeling with his sunglasses and snark. “He’s not going to die overnight.”

Hopefully. He might get a fever, though, or infection might set in, or any other number of horrible things that she knows aren’t likely to happen but her mind keeps coming up with them anyway, shoving them to the front of her brain, making it hard to think about anything else.

Owens will be here tomorrow. If Steve gets an infection, he’ll be able to treat it.

It’s the only good thing she has to think about right now.

She’s missed Steve for longer than just tonight. She’s missed the way he was so good at making her feel better when she didn’t even realize she was sad. She’s missed the way he talked to her, about everything, late at night when neither of them could sleep.

Jonathan doesn’t do that. Not the same way Steve did, and it’s different, a good different, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss Steve.

He’d made it all seem so easy, and in hindsight maybe it’s that she hadn’t seen him struggling because he’d been so focused on her, because he hadn’t wanted her to worry.

“Nancy, it’s late. We can sit and talk to Steve tomorrow.” Jonathan guides her down to the air mattress, holding her tight.

They don’t talk, but they usually don’t need to; it’s like one look explains everything.

Tonight, that’s more true than it’s ever been:  Limbs tangled together, faces wet with tears, a horribly injured Steve Harrington tucked into Jonathan’s bed above them—that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t need words.

finish on ao3

<- 5 7 ->

[dopescissorscashwagon]

Lovely sunset light at Moraine Lake in the Canadian Rockies

📸 Jim Nix Photography

[tozettastone]

Fantasy Novels Recommended By Vibes

A note about warnings and assumptions: I have given no content warnings, but most of these books have them, usually for violence or sexism. Except the middle grade books. I have assumed everyone knows who Tolkien and Jordan and Le Guin and GRRM are and does not require me to recommend them once more. I have also assumed that everyone following me has read and enjoyed the trashiest of fanfiction at some point or other.

Now, let's go.

"I want something that feels like reading the unhinged fanfiction of a 16 year old girl, but written by and for adults so the sex scenes don't make me feel deeply uncomfortable."

Oh boy. Okay. Don't worry, I've got you.

The Black Jewels trilogy by Anne Bishop. High fantasy. If you like to categorise things you will love the worldbuilding in this. Weird and gender essentialist, although not in the way you might expect.

The Merry Gentry series by L K Hamilton. Urban fantasy. Degrades in quality over time. I would say: read the first two, and then continue at your discretion depending on your tolerance.

"Do you have a version of this that is not quite so focused on sex as worldbuilding?"

I do, I do. Not everything that reads like unhinged fanfiction must automatically contain smut.

A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik. It's billed as adult fantasy, but it reads like YA. If you like 2010s fanfiction and wish it were better written more often, you'll love these two.

Any book by Mercedes Lackey will read exactly like fanfiction. I make no comments as to technical quality, but if you like hurt/comfort idfic, you will like these. If you're looking for a zero-romance, one-book introduction to these books, I'd try Brightly Burning.

"That's still a bit too adult. I want something that's fine to read with kids, too!"

Sure! Fantasy loves YA and kids' books, haha.

The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. Middle grade fantasy, leaning heavily on English folklore.

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Young adult urban fantasy. Concerned with the legacy of slavery in the US.

The Old Kingdom trilogy by Garth Nix. Young adult high fantasy. The pacing is strong, the worldbuilding is rad.

Tithe by Holly Black. Young adult fantasy. Her later books are better loved but I reread Tithe and then went and read The Cruel Prince for the first time this year and Tithe is better.

The Tortall books by Tamora Pierce. I like The Immortals, but reasonable minds will differ on this one. Middle grade high fantasy.

The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan. High fantasy, young adult.

"Okay, now I want young adult fantasy like that, but weird."

Weird. Hmm. Okay. Try:

The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce. Horror and fantasy, young adult, but not like... too young an adult. Give it to a 15 year old, not a 10 year old.

"That's... too weird. Put some weird back. I want something suitable for teens that's committed to the aesthetics of weirdness, but is not actually weird."

Alright, here are a couple:

Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz. Historical fantasy, definitely young adult. The grizzly aesthetics of 19th century graverobbing are a gossamer veil over a cute, but not particularly sophisticated, YA novel.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Middle grade fantasy. Less weird than it thinks it is, but still fun to read.

"Enough kids' stuff. I want fast-moving urban fantasy!"

Urban fantasy occupies a weird nexus between fantasy and detective noir, which I'm kinda into. Here are my suggestions:

I think everyone who wants urban fantasy is probably aware of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, but I'll put it here anyway because there's a big fandom for the Dresden Files so if you stick it out for a bit you get access to all the fics. The first one will take you 3.5 hours and if you don't like it, move on — the writing doesn't really change. Also has a TV series.

The Felix Castor novels by Mike Carey. Urban fantasy, a little more grim, but definitely better written.

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. Urban fantasy. Main character is a police officer. I recently finished the first of these books and it was pretty fun, but I can't speak to the remainder of the series.

"Tozette, I fucking loved True Blood."

You're in luck, I can make this a whole category.

I bet you've heard of the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris already, but if you haven't, it's what the TV series was based on. Urban fantasy, but actually kind of rural.

Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by L K Hamilton. Urban fantasy. Another LKH series that starts fun and degrades rapidly. The first three are fun, they come in an omnibus. I was obsessed with this series when I was 17, which both is and isn't a recommendation. Again, this series has a large fandom.

Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong. Urban fantasy. The rest of the Women of the Otherworld series is hit or miss for me, but I do recall liking No Humans Involved.

The Blood Books by Tanya Huff. Urban fantasy. Read if you've ever wished Harry Dresden was female. Also has a TV series!

"Do you have some traditional high fantasy recommendations that aren't Tolkien, Robert Jordan, GRRM, or Ursula K Le Guin? Please?"

Absolutely. Of course. One hundred per cent.

The Elenium trilogy by David & Leigh Eddings. High fantasy. Technically there's also a sequel trilogy, but it's not as good.

The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. High fantasy. Lots of high fantasy politics.

Urshurak by The Bros. Hildebrandt. High fantasy. Extremely Tolkien inspired but with more amazon women in metal bikinis.

The Books of Pellinor by Alison Croggon. High fantasy. There's four of them and while I wouldn't say they're my favourite books ever, I do think they're a solid, competently written high fantasy series that will stop you from contemplating the horrors of reality for at least three days.

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. High fantasy. A great rearrangement of European folklore. I struggled with the representations of women, personally, but they're well constructed stories.

"Recommend something that's fantasy but feels like a totally different genre."

Okay. I can do that. Here you go:

The Chronicles of the Crystal Singers of Ballybran by Anne McCaffrey. It's a trilogy that's set in space and therefore engages with a sci-fi kind of vibe, but if you scratch the surface, the trilogy is fantasy all the way down.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft. Horror, but also historical fantasy.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. The first three books of the Thursday Next series are gold, actually, but start here. This is about a literary detective living in an alternative history setting. Fantasy, but ideal for people who are going to get the rapid fire literary references.

"Tozette, what if you just recommend a single fantasy book, writer, or series, with your whole heart?"

My WHOLE heart? Okay. Here:

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Johannes Cabal the Detective, and Johannes Cabal: the Fear Institute by Jonathan L Howard are each different subgenres of fantasy, and all three of them are absolute fucking bangers. They are the best books on this list according to me. I love them.

[terminusantequem]

Jonathan Meese (German, b. 1971), FAST NIX GEHT MEHR, JAVA JIM!, 2022. Acrylic on canvas, 120.5 x 100.3 cm

[book--brackets]

Author Stats for BFB

When putting together the Best Fantasy Book polls, I noticed that a lot of authors were popular choices, so I thought I'd do a little post about our most popular authors from ones that are in the list only twice to the most common author we have!

The preliminary round for BFB starts tomorrow!

2 Times

J. R. R. Tolkien

Erin Morgenstern

Cassandra Clare

Eoin Colfer

Terry Pratchett

Laini Taylor

Jim Butcher

Robin Hobb

R. F. Kuang

Samantha Shannon

Shannon Hale

Jonathan Stroud

Seanan McGuire

Enid Blyton

Clive Barker

Alix E. Harrow

Scott Westerfeld

Raymond E. Feist

Wayne Thomas Batson

Xiran Jay Zhao

Lloyd Alexander

Meagan Spooner

Katherine Addison

Christina Henry

Gene Wolfe

N. D. Wilson

Emily Rodda

Jude Watson

Ellen Kushner

Cliff McNish

C. J. Cherryh

Garry Kilworth

3 Times

Rick Riordan

Roald Dahl

Brandon Sanderson

Cornelia Funke

Gail Carson Levine

Garth Nix

T. Kingfisher

Patricia C. Wrede

Robin McKinley

Kieron Gillen

Francis Hardinge

4 Times

Holly Black

V. E. Schwab

Naomi Novik

5 Times

Diana Wynne Jones

6 Times

Tamora Pierce

9 Times

Neil Gaiman

Mercedes Lackey

[nixnephili]

Hey Nix!! Just wanted to say that i love LOVE both this au, the lore in it, and your style because 🤌 ITS JUST AMAZING!!

curious about one thing: how would Atsushi address others? ive seen your post about how everyone would address Atsushi but how would Atsushi address others????

anyways i hope you have an amazing day and hope the world of Fyo!Atsushi AU expands <33

What Atsushi calls his superiors:

Nikolai:

• I honestly think he wouldn't address him tbh. Unless necessary, case in which he would use either "Nikolai", on a personal basis or "Nikolai-san" in a public space to display a formality. But otherwise he tends to avoid most interaction or assigning honorifics to his name, as Atsushi deems them undeserved.

Sigma:

• He would address him, politely. Mainly based off genuine respect and gratitude for being allowed in the library at all hours to read. Sigma is kind to Jim so Atsushi addresses him with "Sigma-san" on a regular. In the beggining he would say "mister" or "sir"--> yet again a level of courtesy Nikolai did not earn himself due to his brash behaviour towards the little tiger.

• As far as nicknames maybe a shortened "Siggs"?

Bram:

• Ummm...he would probably just address him as "Bram" or "Bram-san" .

• When in the form of a bat maybe even "Stoker". Atsushi would prefer to set that line between Bat!Bram and normal Bram.

[breathtakingdestinations]

Kvernufoss - Iceland (by Jim Nix) 

[rain-on-wax-feathers]

part one of artfight attacks! chronological order, left to right, top to bottom,

coen for @moookar

slidecat for @indigo-piplup

smiley and tops for YourLocalPlatypus (artfight)

skorp for @eskiinox

aurel for Rakuuu (artfight)

futoculi for @whittingsonder

maera for hxppyhxt (artfight & instagram)

solo for desertangelic (artfight & instagram)

haruhi and adam for anothafell.a (instagram)

nix for euli0s (artfight & instagram)

tak for Beetlord (artfight)

sage for Starburst66 (artfight)

the forsaken for @bonesthebeloved

lola for Auqost (artfight)

henri for @stradiivarrii

dahlia for cumeulus (Instagram & twitter & artfight)

astrid for Starburst66 (artfight)

jim for @lemoonz

wind god design for PersoniPhy (artfight)

cynthia / design an oc for nursebf (instagram)

moon for Froggy_Donuts (artfight & Instagram)

wěi for L3m0nFanta (artfight)

blaire for ParkDoesStuff (instagram)

cadence for @cott-creature

all of these were super fun to draw !!!

[drconstellation]

Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S2 Study

Part 3: Ep.6 Every Day

We are on the last leg of our study of Gabriel as a shoulder angel. He tends to be a left-side angle, but he also likes to take the center spot light at times, which should not be so surprising. Let's see what happens in Ep.6

Jim the assistant book seller keeps to the left-side, as usual, as he helps Aziraphale prepare the bookshop against the demons gathered outside.

Even when he is in the background, Jim is still over Aziraphale's left shoulder.

Jim doesn't take part in the fighting, but has a good view of the action.

He's still hovering in the back-left as they retreat to safety upstairs.

As Shax taunts Aziraphale about going native on Earth, Jim is sent off to his room to get him out of the way. He can't do anything else to help at this point, and may actually be a hindrance.

I've gathered all the relevant screenshots of Gabriel's trial together, rather than treat them in appearance order, just to make things flow a little more smoothly.

While the archangels have their meeting, they are shown projected to four corners of the room. For us as the viewer, though, Gabriel is still positioned on the left-side. So is Saraqael at the start, you might note.

Nah, I'm still demonically-sided.

Even the appearance of the Metatron isn't going to change which side he appears on - he's still the most demon-aligned of them all. You should not be surprised at all by this point. But Saraqael, in her position as "executioner" for the Metatron, has moved the Metatron;s right-side.

Hmm, so he was prepared to be turned into a demon for real, but Metatron and Uriel nixed that idea, and they were merely going to demote him to Scrivener, 38th class. Interesting...

Once he makes good his escape and solitary way into the elevator to Earth, he is on nobody's side. - until he gets inside the book shop.

Once Crowley returns from Heaven with the other archangels, and the demons from Hell appear, we find Crowley, Aziraphale and Jim standing in an arrangement we've seen before, with Crowley on the far right, and Jim on the far left, the opposite of what we might expect. On a larger scale, which can't be seen in this shot, thought, Jim is standing in the middle of the gathering.

Jim approached Beelzebub from their angel-side.

Then takes center stage again as he re-integrates his memories.

Oh, hello! We are now in Gabriel's memories. This is the first time we see Gabriel meeting again with Beelzebub after the fiasco at Tadfield and he is on the angelic right-hand side.

But the next time they meet to negotiate he is on the left-side again. Last time Beelzbub had called the meeting, but this time Gabriel had arranged it, and has a proposal to make - no Armageddon, no war. It's a deal.

It's a date at the cemetery in Edinburgh. Gabriel is admiring himself. Can he get any closer to center stage? Can Beelzebub look at two Gabriels at once?

Beelzebub agrees it is a good likeness, as they stand on the right of screen.

"Sometimes I come here for hours and just...look at it."

If I could find the GIF I would have 1827 Crowley saying "Probably comes here to stare at it. Marveling at his own beauty." That's why Gabriel is slightly to the left here.

There is actually a three-set parallel here, starting from Before the Beginning, with Crowley uttering "You're gorgeous" and Aziraphale giving him a jealous look, then then a similar thing happening as they appraise Gabriel's statue in 1827, then this sequence in the present with Gabriel and Beelzebub - only Beez looks bored to me, not jealous!

Then Beez says "lets go to the pub," leaving the Supreme Archangel gazing at himself... (This is one of the small Aziraphale parallels Beelzebub has in S2, to match with the larger Crowley/Gabriel parallels that are going on.)

They order food and drink together

This is one of the few times we see money exchanged in S2, so Gabriel is doing it right.

Ooh, Gabriel! You're being wicked, miracling all the records in the jukebox to the same thing, just to please your demon!

Once they have their order for goblets of intoxicating liquor, and a packet of crisps, they sit down together, order restored, to talk further.

Back in the present, a restored left-sided Gabriel acknowledges Aziraphale.

And remembers Saraqael - with a bit of help.

Then the right-sided Supreme Archangel turns to find his demon counterpart on the other side of the room.

Gabriel crosses his hands over his heart as he sees Beelzebub, copying the patterns on his vest - the OXO pattern the creator put in to mimic angel wings and halos.

But Gabriel soon switches back to the left-side. If we haven't already mentioned it here, Beelzebub sometimes acts as an Aziraphale parallel, so they need to stand on the right angelic-side, and Gabriel being the Crowley parallel needs to stand on the left demonic-side. Makes sense now, doesn't it?

And off they go in that order, together, into the universe.

We've come to end of the four-part series on how Gabriel appears in scene blocking in S1 and S2. The idea was to look at how often he appears on the left-hand side of the blocking, and how infrequently on the left as a righteous angel. In S2 he spends a just as much time in the center as he does on the left, even hogging the limelight on occasions.

This series moves on with a two-part meta looking at how Gabriel and Crowley are both parallels and foils to each other in Season 2, and by understanding that Gabriel tends to end up on the left in the scene blocking as a demon helps us understand that sometimes he's also standing where Crowley once did - or could. Either way, it gives us a better understanding to both these complex characters.

This meta is part of a series on Gabriel:

Gabriel as a Shoulder Angel: S1 Study

S2 Study Part 1: Ep.1 The Arrival and Ep. 2 The Clue

S2 Study Part 2: Ep.3 I Know Where I'm Going and Ep. 5 The Ball

First Order Archangels Part 1: Maybe You'll See An Archangel

First Order Archangels Part 2: Foils of War

[spirkme915]

i just realized that 2009 star trek starts on jim's bday and star trek: beyond ends on jim's bday. so, if those are the only aos movies we get, it's full circle.

[thaliaisalesbian]

i get myself twisted in threads

Chapter 5: sitting as usual

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

She doesn’t know how Steve manages to stay awake all the way to the Byers’ house. It takes them at least an hour and a half to get there.

It feels so much longer. Maybe it was; even if she had a watch on, Nancy wouldn’t be checking it now. Because they keep stopping to make sure he’s not going to bleed out. They have to. Jonathan uses one of their stops to wrap his jacket around Steve’s torso, pulling it as tight as he can. He ties the sleeves in a knot right above the wound.

Nancy thinks she would have screamed, if someone had done that to her. But Steve is either out of enough that he doesn’t feel the pain, or he doesn’t have the energy to do more than mumble.

Which he’s doing an awful lot of.

The rambling mumble he keeps up is actually calming, in a way. It makes it easier to know he’s still alive, for one, and he’s talking about the kids, everything he knows they like and don’t like.

At least, she’s pretty sure he’s talking about the kids. It’s hard to tell. Half of it is too quiet to hear properly, and slurred on top of that. She’s too terrified, too worried, to pay much attention to what he’s actually saying.

Dustin, Lucas, and Mike are waiting in the yard with the first aid kit when they get there. Joyce and Hopper are just getting out of their cars, parked haphazardly in the yard. Nancy wants to collapse when she sees them; she barely registers that Will, El, and Max are joining the huddle with the others. She does collapse when Hopper lifts Steve up and carries him the rest of the way into the house.

“We’ll come get you when you’re allowed inside. If your parents start calling and asking where you are, you’re going home. I don’t care if you’ve seen him or not.”  Joyce takes the first aid kit from Mike and gets the door for Hopper while he addresses the kids.

“Is he dead?” Dustin asks, staring after them, and, god, she’s too tired for this right now. She can’t handle the kids’ questions and fears when she hasn’t even started to handle her own.

“No, he’s not dead.” She says. “He was still talking to us.” Not coherently by the time they’d gotten here, but he’d been talking.

“Hopper said we shouldn’t be inside for this part.”

“Hopper’s right.” Jonathan sits on the ground, ignoring the blood on his clothes. She’s covered in it, too.

It doesn’t look good.

What if they were too late?

"But we want to see him!"

"Not now." Jonathan glares. "Mom and Hopper have to clean him up first."

"That's a lot of blood." Will points out quietly.

"He'll be fine." Nancy comes far too close to snapping for her comfort; she doesn’t want the kids to catch on just yet that she's not sure Steve will make it this time.

"Nancy, Jonathan? If we could get a little help in here? I'm not exactly big enough to help move Steve." Joyce's voice comes through the door, and they’re both reaching for it before she finishes her sentence.

Jonathan has proof on his clothes, all over his body, of how much blood Steve has lost.

Of how bad the injuries are.

It doesn’t prepare him for how pale Steve is, or the amount of used gauze and bandages on the floor.

How much blood can a person have in their body?

Jonathan tries to remember, but he can’t. But Mom and Hopper’s faces aren’t grim enough for this to be… they’re not going to tell them he’s dead. He’s not dead.

“What do you need?” He asks. The kids are trying to get in, but Nancy is already locking the door behind them.

They don’t need to see Steve like this. Jonathan’s not sure he wants to see Steve like this; bloody and barely-alive. Not when he’s always thought of how he looked on that night, bursting back through the door to save them, swinging the bat like he was planning to hit a grand slam.

Steve’s hand had been warm when Jonathan had grabbed him to pull him away. Since then, he’s had the on-and-off thought that he wants to know if Steve’s hands are always that warm, or if it was just because of the adrenaline rush.

Nancy brushes her hand against his when she turns away from the door. He wants to hold onto her, but they’re both tacky with drying blood.

Of course, a lock won't stop El if she really wants to test it, but something makes Jonathan think that she won't. At least not right away. 

“We really do need help moving him, and I thought you’d both like to change.” Mom manages a half-smile.

“How bad is it?” Nancy’s voice is as steady as she holds her pistols, like she’s prepared to be told Steve will die tomorrow.

(He doesn’t know how she manages it. Right now, his heart is in his throat and he can't get any words out past it.)

“He’s not going to be doing anything for a few weeks.” Hopper says. “If it gets infected, we'll have to take him to a hospital, but Joyce and I did our best. He’s not actively bleeding out anymore. Once we get him into bed, I'm calling Owens.”

A non-answer.

continue reading or finish on ao3

“How bad?” He has to swallow three times before he can repeat Nancy’s question. What if he doesn’t wake up again? “We’re not the kids, Hopper, you can tell us.”

“Honey,” His mom says, softly. “I think he’s lucky to have any flesh left on his right side at all. I don’t know how you got him here alive while walking.”

“He was awake.” Nancy whispers. “The whole time. He kept mumbling, something about the kids. And—Jonathan, you didn’t see the wounds, but he was bitten in the Upside Down too. On his legs. He walked on those for days.”

“He climbed trees, too.” Jonathan adds. “He was sleeping in them.”

“We can rehash that later.” Hopper says. “For now, let’s put him in one of the bedrooms.”

“Mine.” He says immediately. “My bed is big enough.” When he’d outgrown his mom, she’d given him the bigger bed. “And it's the closest.”

His mom—she has the least amount on her of all four of them—goes to change the sheets and clear a path first, while he, Hopper, and Nancy try to figure out how they’re going to carry Steve without bumping him into walls, or waking him up, or dropping him.

Somehow it’s harder than him and Nancy carrying Steve from the lab all the way here.

It takes a few minutes, but they work it out.

“Go shower up, you two.” Hopper says. “Joyce and I will handle the living room mess and the kids.”

“Just don’t take too long, okay?” Mom winks at him, and he knows he’s bright red when they leave the room. He knows she trusts them, and of course they’d never even think about anything like that while Steve is maybe dying on his bed.

“I know she’s joking, but I honestly can’t even think about that right now.” Nancy leans her head on his shoulder. “We have blood everywhere.”

Jonathan feels like scrubbing his skin raw until he doesn’t see Steve’s blood on his hands ever again, but he thinks that’s going to take a while, so he settles for washing Nancy’s back clean for her before she does his.

“Do you think Steve would fit in your clothes?” She asks, pulling on one of his shirts and a pair of pajama pants that she keeps here. “I have a few here, but he certainly doesn’t, and he’s going to need something to wear.”

“It might.” Most of his stuff is a little big on him, it would probably fit Steve. His pants might be a little short, but that will just make checking his ankles easier. “I don’t think putting a shirt on him is a good idea right now though.”

“The kids are going to want to see him.” Nancy takes his desk chair, watching Steve’s chest as he breathes.

They’ll break down his door if they don’t get to, probably. Especially after they locked the door, kept them out.

“Yeah, but what if he starts bleeding again?”

“Just put a blanket over him.” His mom’s in the doorway, holding a trash bag. “We’re not going to be able to save your clothes.”

He tosses their ruined clothes into the bag, trying not to think about how much blood is on them.

“Do we need to take him to a hospital now?” Jonathan’s not sure they can, honestly, because of the nature of the wounds. They don’t have bears around here, and even if they did he doesn’t think this looks like an animal attack.

They also might not be allowed to see him if he's in the hospital. His parents will have to be notified, and then they’ll be in charge, they’ll be free to move him somewhere far away if they want to.

“If things get really bad, we will.” His mom answers. “You know I went to nursing school for a couple of years, and Jim has done field medicine before. He’s trying to get in contact with Owens right now.”

“How much worse is ‘really bad’?” Nancy’s got her arms wrapped around herself. He’d hug her if he thought she’d accept the touch right now.

“I don’t know, honey.”

He looks at Steve, almost as pale as his sheets, torso wrapped in bandages with drying blood still visible on his upper chest.

“What about his ankles?” He can't let himself think about what will happen if Steve dies. He doesn’t think he’d ever be able to sleep in his bed again, knowing his friend had died there. In this room, probably. He’ll have to move in with Will or take the couch. Seal it off, only to come in when he wants to regret everything he never said all over again.

“We took a look at that too; cleaned them up a little and rewrapped them.”

“Why can’t we see him?” He can hear Dustin from here. The kid’s always been the loudest of the bunch, but he’s not sure he’s heard him this distressed in a while.

He doesn’t catch Hopper’s response, too busy staring at the blood and thinking about how close they came to really losing Steve this time.

Because he was willing to sacrifice himself for them. Again.

He'd hardly talked to them, but he’d still been ready to die if it meant they escaped. 

Jonathan had had to practically shove Steve behind him to keep him from using himself as a human shield.

He thinks about Steve’s face, the way he’d pulled that cocky mask back up so quickly when he’d overheard the conversation he and Nancy were having that day.

There’s none of that now, wasn’t any of it in the Upside Down, just a certainty and a protective edge that made the kids feel safe, that made him feel like everything was going to be okay, even if he didn’t know how or when.

It’s not something he’s felt often when dealing with the Upside Down. 

He slides past his mom to the bathroom, soaks a washcloth until it’s dripping, squeezing all the water out multiple times to give himself an extra minute. 

He probably uses too much force to get the blood off. He wishes Steve would complain. He’d be awake, at least. 

When he’s done, Nancy covers Steve with a blanket and sits on the edge of the bed carefully instead of going back to the chair.

“Jon,” she’s staring at Steve still, making sure he’s still alive. “We need to tell him. I can’t—We can’t lose him. Not like this.”

“I know.” He sits opposite her, finds Steve’s wrist under the covers, feeling for his pulse.

It’s there. A little slow, maybe, but it’s there.

“I can’t stop thinking about it.” She admits, “He looked like he was going to cry, and then it was just— gone. He was back to being an asshole and it was like nothing ever changed.”

“He heard the wrong part of that talk,” Jonathan agrees. It’s on a loop in his mind, everything they could have—should have—done differently. He could have caught Steve’s hand again, pulled him in to tell him the truth.

Right now, Steve’s colder than he was the last time Jonathan held his hand.

“Steve?” El’s peeking around the door, eyes wide, and suddenly all he can hear is the way she screamed for him before Nancy had gotten her through the gate.

“Come here, El.” Nancy might be thinking the same thing, because she tucks El into her side. “He’s going to be okay, see? Joyce and Hopper know what they’re doing.”

“I know.” She says. “It is still scary.”

“You’re right, it is.” He knows it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the kids figure out El’s slipped away from them, before they come in demanding to be allowed to sit around him and wait for him to wake up.

For now, they’ll keep this odd, almost grief-like, quiet for just the four three of them.

<- 4 6 ->

[bracketsoffear]

Stranger Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Stranger Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse Blish, James & Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc. Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There? Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Dahl, Roald: The Witches Damico, Gina: Wax Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

French, Tana: The Likeness

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

King, Stephen: Battleground King, Stephen: The Outsider Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

Martin, Ann M. & Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host) Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall Poe, Edgar Allen: William Wilson Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld Robinson, Justin: Everyman Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: Harold Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet Sleator, William: Among the Dolls Sleator, William: The Duplicate Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.

Riley has anxiety--ostracized by the kids at school because of panic attacks--so when she starts to feel like something’s wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps and tries to kill Riley, she can’t chalk it up to an overactive imagination anymore. Worse, after watching Greta disintegrate, only to find another student with the same affliction, she realizes they haven’t been infected, they’ve been infiltrated--by something that can change its shape. And if the group isn’t careful, that something could quickly replace any of them.

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate

Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist, has always had her eye on world domination, and she has to start somewhere...like her class elections! If people vote for her, they’ll be giving her all the control she wants.

But Franny’s platform doesn’t have the same appeal as her competitors who are offering new playground equipment, so she creates The Frandidate. Made of DNA samples from a dog, a chameleon and a parrot, along with a scrap of carpet (so she’ll know where people stand), Franny’s special suit helps her say and do exactly what people want! But when The Frandidate starts making promises she knows she can’t keep, Franny realizes she might have gone too far…

Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse

On her thirteenth birthday, Sarah wishes that she would wake up inside of her dollhouse -- and her wish comes true. The book follows her throughout her day, with pictures that show the increasingly disturbing nature of the world in which she now exists.

Blish, James and Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man

The central premise of this novel concerns a cloning device that requires six different people, one for each duplicate to be created, to be hooked into the machine. Turns out while the memories are copied the personalities and appearances are affected by the subjective views of the various individuals. E.g., one copy is actually a bit shorter and more cowardly than the original because that's how its creator perceived the original while another due to her hero worship was a physically and mentally perfected version of the original.

Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc.

A man acquires a robot to stand in for him at home while he goes away. (A very sophisticated robot that eventually develops sentience, but still one that, if you place your head to the chest, you can hear a clock ticking instead of a heart beating.) However, the robot decides that he likes the original man's life and doesn't want to be stored away in a box in the basement. The solution? He betrays his owner by locking HIM in the box forever while he (the robot) lives the life of the owner, his family completely unaware of the switch. Meanwhile, another man considers doing the same, only to discover that his wife has already replaced herself.

Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

As this post--https://www.tumblr.com/bracketsoffear/718600953914327040/wasnt-here-in-time-for-the-stranger-poll-but--says, "Alpharius is the Primarch of the [...] Alpha Legion, and aside from the ones that have been fully expunged from all Imperial records, he's the primarch we know the least about. We're fairly confident he's actually two twin brothers pretending to be the same guy, Alpharius and Omegon, and that he specializes in infiltration. Beyond that, all bets are off. Literally every event in his life has at least two versions that have been printed in official books and directly contradict each other. The book that compiles his backstory in a neat and sensible manner that doesn't have any internal or external contradictions opens with the blatant admission that all of it is a complete fucking lie. Supposedly, he died at the battle for Pluto, but then he is reported to have been killed several centuries later somewhere else by a completely different guy. Only complicating matters is that pretty much every member of his legion undergoes extensive plastic surgery to look exactly like him. Most of them introduce themselves as Alpharius. It might very well be that both of the times he supposedly died, it was actually just a body double and he's still out there, pretending to be a normal legionary. Every single member of the Alpha Legion is Alpharius, and an alarming number of them actually believe themselves to be him." Anyway, this is the backstory book in question.

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller

The book is a story about reading the first chapters of multiple books that appear to be If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, but are not.

Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There?

A group of American researchers, isolated in their scientific station in Antarctica towards the end of winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They recover an alien creature from the ancient ice. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the appearance, memories, and personality of a living thing it devours, while maintaining its body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over, it tries to become a sled dog.

The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it midway through the transformation process. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution, and a "rule-of-four" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes that they must isolate their base and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, yet they pretend that everything is normal during radio transmissions, to prevent any rescue attempts. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is found to be almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is shapeshifting and telepathic, reading minds and projecting thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections (from Copper and Garry) to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive, as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned.

Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and standing watch. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad, thinking that they are already the last human, or wondering if they could know if they were not human any longer. Ultimately, Kinner, the cook, is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent organisms. He then uses this fact to test which men have been "converted" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire. Fourteen men, including Connant and Garry, are revealed to be Things. The remaining men go to test the isolated Blair, and on the way, see the first albatross of the Antarctic spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from infecting it and flying to civilization.

When they reach Blair's cabin, they discover that he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased, as it is able to squeeze under doors by transforming itself. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady forces it out into the snow and destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards, the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing the construction of a nuclear-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world.

Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly

So, the entire propaganda section for this one will be a spoiler because to explain why this book works as a stranger Leitner is to reveal a major plot twist. So as a start here is the book's description from goodreads:

Whilst organising a mock murder hunt for the village fete hosted by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, a feeling of dread settles on the famous crime novelist Adriane Oliver. Call it instinct, but it's a feeling she just can't explain...or get away from. In desperation she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot -- and her instincts are soon proved correct when the 'pretend' murder victim is discovered playing the scene for real, a rope wrapped tightly around her neck. But it's the great detective who first discovers that in murder hunts, whether mock or real, everyone is playing a part.

In this novel a young girl Marlene is killed during a village fete at Nasse House, a home owned by Sir George Stubbs and his wife Hattie. After the murder, Lady Stubbs goes missing just in time for a visit from her cousin, whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of the novel, it transpired that both Sir George and Hattie were not who they seemed. Sir George being a fake identity of James Folliat, son of the family that owned the Nasse House for centuries, who was thought to be dead. His mother, Amy Folliat, introduced him to the original Hattie, a wealthy but naive girl. James stole Hattie's money and had her killed and replaced by his actual wife, who later spent years pretending to be Hattie with only Amy Folliat aware of the replacement. Due to the news that real Hattie's cousin, who could uncover the ruse, was going to visit. Fake Hattie again transformed to blend among the tourists that came to the fete. To me, this works great as a stranger Leitner due to the book antagonist both pretending to be somebody else and the strong element of kill and replace.

Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Fundamentally about alienation from one's own sense of self and how in order to become yourself you have to become someone else; the main character goes through a major identity crisis and it involves flaying people and wearing their skin

Dahl, Roald: The Witches

A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country.

Damico, Gina: Wax

Wax is a young adult mystery novel by Gina Damico (author of Croak). It was published in 2016.

It takes place in the fictional town of Paraffin, Vermont. Our hero is Poppy Palladino, a teenage girl who wants to be an actor, but is haunted by memories of being humiliated multiple times in the past, especially by a bully named Blake Bursaw. Paraffin is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory, a popular tourist site. While taking a tour in the factory, Poppy wanders off into a secret workroom where she meets Madame Grosholtz, an eccentric maker of wax sculptures. Soon after, the factory mysteriously burns down, but not before Poppy is given a living wax sculpture, who she names Dud, and a candle engraved with a strange message.

Things just get stranger from there, and Poppy must save the entire town from a sinister conspiracy that stems from hundreds of years ago. She becomes unsure of who she can trust, but with the help of Dud, her best friend Jill, and her school theater club, she must make a plan.

***

Paraffin, Vermont, is known the world over as home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. But behind the sunny retail space bursting with overwhelming scents and homemade fudge, seventeen-year-old Poppy Palladino discovers something dark and unsettling: a back room filled with dozens of startlingly life-like wax sculptures, crafted by one very strange old lady. Poppy hightails it home, only to be shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. She tries to return him to the candle factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop—and the old woman is nowhere to be seen.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy resolves to find out who was behind the fire. But in the course of her investigation, she discovers that things in Paraffin aren’t always as they seem, that the Grosholtz Candle Factory isn’t as pure as its reputation—and that some of the townspeople she’s known her entire life may not be as human as they once were. In fact, they’re starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can Poppy and Dud extinguish the evil that’s taking hold of their town before it’s too late?

Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly

"The main character, Bob Arctor, leads a double life as an undercover police agent infiltrating a drug dealing ring. As a part of his cover he starts taking the drug and becomes addicted, and the drug causes the hemispheres of his brain to function separately leading to the emergence of two separate personalities - 'Bob' when he is a drug dealer, and 'Fred' when he is a police agent. both of these personalities do not recognize each other, so for example when he is reviewing footage of him as Bob, he thinks he is spying on some other man. Also, in this world there are 'scramble suits' - special coats that make it impossible to distinguish anything about the wearer's appearance or their voice, and the protagonist is required to wear one of these when he is not undercover. That worsens his split personality, as he has no one who remembers his appearance as 'Fred', and he forgets he was undercover at all and just starts acting as a genuine drug dealer. The distortion of memories, erasure of appearance and the personality swap from Fred to Bob reminds me strongly of not!them. Fred not!themmed himself."

Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth

Short story in which a woman dies, and her boyfriend makes a deal to bring her back. Trouble is, he brings her back... too much. It'd be a funny old world if we were all the same, wouldn't it? Link

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

In Saint Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin works as a titular councillor (rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great[3]), a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed.

Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his physician, Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behaviour is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters a man who looks exactly like him, his double. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

At first, Golyadkin and his double are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz.

***

Constantly rebuffed from the social circles he aspires to frequent, the timid clerk Golyadkin is confronted by the sudden appearance of his double, a more brazen, confident and socially succesful version of himself, who abuses and victimizes the original. As he is increasingly persecuted, Golyadkin finds his social, romantic and professional life unravelling, in a spiral that leads to a catastrophic denouement.

French, Tana: The Likeness

A detective assumes a dead woman’s identity and moves into her shared house, believing one of the housemates to be her killer. She is accepted as the victim (!!!) and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger, trying to stay in character and live the life that she would have lived. She ends up getting psychologically consumed by the part she’s playing, losing track of her own identity. Once she’s completely confused, only person knows for sure who she is—the killer.

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

The presence of another world that resemble the one you know but different, the Other Mother whole deal and the fact that she spies on people using dolls and sews buttons in place of her victim's eyes.

***

A short novella that focuses on 9-year-old Coraline Jones as she fights to restore her family from the clutches of the evil Other Mother.

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Synopsis: "When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…"

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault

You see the hole which perfectly matched you. It haunts you. You can’t resist the urge to climb inside.

It’s your hole, it was made for you.

Once you enter, you keep going, and your limbs begin to lengthen and contort. At the other side of the mountain, you emerge. Miserable, in pain, and spaghetti’s to the point you barely look human.

It’s your hole, it was made for you. But you have to be changed to fit inside. And you will.

(People have been memeing this story but it’s actually excellent body horror. Highly recommend!)

Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

It’s about a town cursed by spirals that corrupt you and drive you mad, but can’t be ignored forever

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little dolly. Her porcelain like face was so smooth, just like a baby. Her mouth even had a tiny hole so she could eat and breathe. But her one beaded glass eye gleamed with mischief and evil. She had waited a long time in the attic for someone to set her free...

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little girl. The only place she was happy was in the attic with her dolly. If she could have seen her little doll's legs kick, she would have been frightened. If she could have felt her little doll's arms squeeze, she would have been shocked. But if she could have read her little doll's thoughts she would have run from the attic forever--for her sweet little dolly only had killing her on her mind...

King, Stephen: Battleground

A toymaker gets his revenge on his killer with a battalion of toy soldiers that invade his apartment.

King, Stephen: The Outsider

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Katie is an ordinary third-grader-except for one very extraordinary problem! She accidentally wished on a shooting star to be anyone but herself. But what Katie soon learns is that wishes really do come true-and in the strangest ways... When the magic wind blows, watch out! Katie switches bodies with someone or something else and hilarity and havoc ensues.

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

There's nothing I can say here that won't ruin the twist. Link: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/o.aspx

Martin, Ann M. and Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World

Annabelle Doll and Tiffany Funcraft are two dolls who have been best friends since they met in Kate Palmer's house at 26 Wetherby Lane. In this sequel to The Doll Peopl e, they hitch a ride in Kate's backpack and find themselves in the biggest adventure of their lives, a day at school! But when an attempt to return home lands them in the wrong house, they're in far deeper trouble than they imagined. Along with a host of new doll friends, they also encounter Mean Mimi, the wickedest doll of all. Mean Mimi is mean-really mean-and she's determined to rule all of Dollkind or else destroy it. Will the world ever be safe for dolls again?

The main horror aspect of this series is the threat of 'Permanent Doll State' -- a divine punishment that will transform violaters permanently into nonliving dolls, though possibly with their sentience still intact.

Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

This is the source material of Tiffany Korta: ""Pop star. Her image was carefully maintained and groomed by her bosses, the skull-masked Executive/Faction Paradox. She became haunted by the concept of her uber-self, the variety of ways in which her image was used -- officially and otherwise -- and the impassible divide between her identity and the perceptions that other people had of her. She began to see her image on screens moving out of sync with her, or saying things that she could not remember saying, as the image she presented to the world evolved beyond her comprehension and control. Eventually, when she confronted the Executive about their plans for her, they destroyed her and replaced her with a different version of herself that went on to destroy her credibility, Not!Them-style. Meanwhile, other versions of her went on homicidal rampages around the world."

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host)

A story about a girl who feels she has a "sister" that lives within her. She haunts her constantly and devastates her life. We never know whether that sister is real or not, but the mere thought of her drives the girl to paranoia and madness. Her main goal is to destroy her, and to do that, she must become just like her.

Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Ten-year-old Paul and his sister Julia are on vacation at the beach one day when they find a shell midden on the shore. When they climb it, they find a crow's nest with a creepy little ragdoll in it. Paul distrusts it immediately, but Julia is entranced, and brings it home, where their parents don't seem to be able to see it. The next morning, Paul hears someone moving around, and follows the sound out to find his sister, possessed by the doll, building a strange blue fire on top of the midden. She freezes him helplessly in place, then jumps into the fire and disappears. Paul rebuilds it and follows Her through, determined to rescue his sister.

So begins a quest to stop the Ragwitch and save his sister (and maybe the world he finds himself in on the side). Throughout, the narrative switches between Paul's journey and Julia Fighting from the Inside despite the Ragwitch's attempts to control her mind.

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall

Trying to escape the vicious King Kobra gang and troubled life at home, eighth graders Barnie and Teresa flee the city. With only four dollars between them, they hop a bus, hoping to find a new life at the end of the line. Destination: Paradise Park. But Paradise Park turns out to be a cement-covered suburban shopping mall--not quite the paradise they had hoped for.

With no money and no home to retum to, they are forced to stay. And paradise park takes them in--in more ways than one. Barnie and Teresa spend their days and nights in the climate-controlled consumer paradise of a large department store. And just when they think they can live there unnoticed forever, Teresa and Barnie find that even Paradise Park has its secrets. Even in the dead of night, they are far from alone...."

(Spoilers: It's not actually living mannequins, but dispossessed and mildly insane teens who dress as mannequins and stand perfectly still all day to avoid detection! Which... I'm not sure is much better.)

Poe, Edgar Allen: William Williamson or William Wilson

The story of a doppelganger. A man with William Wilson's same name and face. A man who begins to act and sound more like him over the years. A man who becomes hostile. A man who haunts him.

***

William Wilson is about a man named William Wilson (or something similar to it) who meets a man with the exact name as him. Gradually, the double begins to resemble him more and more. The double keeps being a general nuisance to him until eventually he kills his double. Only to look in the mirror to see “ mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood”.

"In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”

To me, William Wilson is a perfect example of a Stranger Leitner because it conceptualizes the fear of the other through fear of the self. There is no stranger more unknowable than the stranger in the mirror, staring back at you.

***

The story follows a man "of noble descent" who goes by William Williamson because, although denouncing his profligate past, he does not accept full blame for his actions. William meets another boy in his school who has the same name and roughly the same appearance, and who was even born on the same date. William's name embarrasses him because it sounds "plebeian" or common, and he is irked that he must hear the name twice as much on account of the other William. The boy also dresses like William, walks like him, but can only speak in a whisper. He begins to give advice to William of an unspecified nature, which he refuses to obey, resenting the boy's "arrogance". One night he steals into the other William's bedroom and recoils in horror at the boy's face—which now resembles his own. William then immediately leaves the academy and, in the same week, the other boy follows suit. William eventually goes to university, gradually becoming more debauched and performing what he terms "mischief". For example, he steals from a man by cheating at cards. The other William appears, his face covered, and whispers a few words sufficient to alert others to William's behavior, and then leaves with no others seeing his face. William is haunted by his double in subsequent years, who thwarts plans described by William as driven by ambition, anger and lust. In his latest caper, he attempts to seduce a married noblewoman at Carnival in Rome, but the other William stops him. The enraged protagonist drags his "unresisting" double—who wears identical clothes— into an antechamber, and, after a brief sword fight in which the double participates only reluctantly, stabs him fatally. After William does this, a large mirror suddenly seems to appear. Reflected at him, he sees "mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood": apparently the dead double, "but he spoke no longer in a whisper". The narrator feels as if he is pronouncing the words: "In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

‘There’s a kind of magic in masks. Masks conceal one face, but they reveal another. The one that only comes out in darkness …’

The Opera House in Ankh-Morpork is home to music, theatrics and a harmless masked Ghost who lurks behind the scenes. But now a set of mysterious backstage murders may just stop the show.

Agnes Nitt has left her rural home of Lancre in the hopes of launching a successful singing career in the big city. The only problem is, she doesn’t quite look the part. And there are two witches who would much rather she return home to join their coven.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have travelled to Ankh-Morpork to convince Agnes that life as a witch is much better than one on the stage. Only now they’re caught up in a murder mystery featuring masks and maniacal laughter.

And the show MUST go on . . .

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld

Synopsis: "Anji Kapoor has just had the worst week of her entire life, and things aren't getting any better. She should be back at her desk, not travelling through time and space in a police box with a couple of strange men.

The Doctor (Strange Man No. 1) is supposed to be returning her to Soho 2001 AD. So quite why there are dinosaurs outside, Anji isn't sure. Sad sixties refugee Fitz (Strange Man No. 2) seems to think they're either in prehistoric times or on a parallel Earth. And the Doctor is probably only pretending to know what's going on — because if he really knew, surely he would have mentioned the homicidal triplet princesses, the teen terrorists, the deadly android doubles (and triples) and the hosts of mad robots?

Anji's never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again... "

Why it's Stranger: The setting alone is uncannily bizarre -- a theme park on one of Jupiter's moons devoted to Earth history, with research drawn from mistranslations, myths, and popular fiction. Sinister androids populate the place, and everyone is hiding the most terrible secrets. Meanwhile, Fitz Kreiner is having an identity crisis about being a clone, which is only made worse when he has to battle an Elvis impersonator to the death.

Robinson, Justin: Everyman

Ian Covey is a doppelganger. A mimic. A shapeshifter. He can replace anyone he wants by becoming a perfect copy; taking the victim’s face, his home, his family. His life. No longer a man, but a hungry void, Ian Covey is a monster.

David Tirado is a massive, hideous colony organism, a gestalt entity. The sum of Covey’s discarded parts. A roiling, chaotic patchwork of vast and varied personalities, memories, and physical forms that used to be a man − many men − David Tirado is a monster.

Sophie Tirado’s identity has been eroded by the tides of a long relationship, and now the man she gave herself up for has been stolen away and replaced by a mimic. Caught between the Doppelganger and the Gestalt Entity, she will try to save her husband, but there might be nothing left of him.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask, and evil a thousand faces.

Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: "Harold," Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill your Bones

Two cow farmers, Thomas and Alfred, were bored with their monotonous work one day, so they decided to make a scarecrow out of old sacs stuffed with straw. They based its appearance after another farmer they both hated, even giving it the name: Harold. They tied it to a pole and made fun of it, doing impressions of what his crazy voice might sound like or even just taking their cruelty out on him by kicking or punching him, or smearing food over the sac that was its face. One day they heard a grunt that could only have come from Harold. Thomas suggested throwing him in the fire, but Alfred insisted it was nothing to worry about. Then, Alfred noticed that Harold was growing bigger, but again told themselves it was just their imagination from being in the mountains too long.

Then one day, Harold stands up, walks out of the hut in front of Thomas and Alfred, then climbs up onto the roof and starts stomping around on it like a horse on its hind legs. Terrified and wanting to get away from Harold, they leave with their cows that same day, but halfway there they realize they forgot their milking stools and have to go back. The farmers convince each other that there really is nothing to be afraid of and draw straws to see who will go back. It is Thomas who drew the shorter straw, and now has to go back to to the hut, telling Alfred that he will catch up with him later. When Thomas does not return, Alfred returns to look for him, and sees Harold on the roof of the hut laying out Thomas' skinned corpse to dry in the sun.

Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet

It's a series where a boy turns into a Muppet, and things only get wilder from there. It only really hits proper mind and body horror by book 4, as the entire world begins to undergo MUPPETMORPHOSIS!

Sleator, William: Among the Dolls

When her parents give her a gloomy old dollhouse for her birthday instead of the ten speed bike she's expecting, Vicky is disappointed. But she soon becomes fascinated by the small shadowy world and its inhabitants. The hours she spends playing with the dolls is a good way to escape from her parents's arguments. As Vicky's life becomes more troubled, she starts to take out her frustration on the dolls, making their lives as unhappy as hers. Then one day, Vicky wakes up inside the dollhouse, trapped among the monsters she's created. Bewildered, Vicky is sure she's dreaming. Can she find her way out of this nightmare world?

Sleator, William: The Duplicate

When David finds a mysterious machine that can copy living things, he thinks his problems are over. Now he can be in two places at once: at his grandmother's and out on a date. While the other David is in school, the real one can spend the day at the beach. The possibilities are endless. And they turn terrifying. David's duplicate has a mind, ideas, and desires of his own--and one of them is to see the real David dead.

Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem

So, in this novel, the main character, Harvey Gotham's estranged wife, Effie, apparently joins a terrorist organisation, which causes no end of problems for him. One of the problems being that Harvey refuses to believe that the person in the organisation really is Effie. When shown photographic evidence and even when shown her corpse he remains doubtful that it's her. Nobody else, with the sole exception of his semi-crazy aunt, has any doubts that Effie really is terrorizing Europe. This could be explained by Harvey lying to himself for various reasons or maybe... maybe Effie was replaced by the Stranger and only Harvey can tell. I propose that The Only Problem is really a Stranger's Leitner describing the torment Harvey suffered at the hand of the Stranger.

Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual

Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie

Quiet, cautious Jessie had always lived in the shadow of her dynamic younger brother--her mother's clear favorite. His recent death leaves Jessie and her mother numb with grief. That is, until the morning Jessie cuts her hair and dresses in Jason's clothes, swaggering out of the house in an uncanny imitation of her brother. Her mother is visibly cheered, and for once Jessie is the center of attention at school. But each day Jason takes over Jessie more and more. Can she escape his power?

Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before - and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world. As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…

Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious—during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr. Hyde—has lost none of its ability to shock. Its realistic police-style narrative chillingly relates Jekyll's desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul—and gives voice to our own fears of the violence and evil within us. Written before Freud's naming of the ego and the id, Stevenson's enduring classic demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the personality's inner conflicts—and remains the irresistibly terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.

Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

Evil scarecrows terrorize a small farm.

Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Lindy Powell finds a mysterious ventriloquist's dummy and Lindy decides to call him Slappy. Lindy uses her dummy to gain popularity, and her sister Kris quickly becomes jealous. Lindy and Kris's parents ask the two girls to share the dummy. However, when Kris tries to take Slappy from Lindy, Slappy hits Kris in the face. The next morning, Mr. Powell reveals that he has bought a ventriloquist dummy for Kris from a pawn shop. She decides to call him Mr. Wood. Various strange incidents of Mr. Wood apparently doing horrible things happen, which are eventually revealed as a prank by Lindy. She was tired of Kris being a copycat, so she decided to pull this big prank on Kris. Kris finds a small card in Mr. Wood's pocket that reads, "KARRU MARRI ODONNA LOMA MOLONU KARRANO,". After reading the card out loud, Kris thinks she sees Mr. Wood blink. That night, the Powell's elderly neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, come to visit them. Lindy and Kris's parents ask that their daughters perform a ventriloquist act for their neighbors. Lindy decides to go first, and hers is a success. Before Kris can perform her act, Mr. Wood begins to insult the elderly couple, making fun of their appearances and their breath. Because of this, Kris is grounded but still allowed to attend the school's spring concert the following day. At the concert, while Mrs. Berman is adjusting a microphone for Kris, Mr. Wood begins to insult the teacher for being overweight. Mrs. Berman demands an apology, but Mr. Wood responds by spewing a green substance on the teacher and the audience. Mrs. Bergman tells Kris that she will be suspended from school for this, possibly for life. Mr. Powell announces he will return the dummy to the pawn shop on Monday. Kris locks Mr. Wood in a closet and goes to sleep. Kris is awakened by the sound of footsteps. When Kris decides to investigate, she discovers that Mr. Wood is alive. Mr. Wood tells her that she and Lindy are now his slaves and that the magic words brought him to life. Kris tries to fight the dummy, but Mr. Wood hits her fiercely in the stomach. Kris crawls away from Mr. Wood and screams for help. Lindy hears her sister and goes downstairs to find out what has happened. While Kris tells her sister that the dummy is alive, Mr. Wood surprises the girls. Lindy manages to pin the dummy to the ground and keep him from fleeing. When the girls' parents arrive, Mr. Wood stops moving. Lindy and Kris try to explain what has happened, but their parents refuse to believe the girls. Mr. and Mrs. Powell begin to question Kris's mental well-being, suggesting that they should take her to a doctor. As soon as the parents leave, Mr. Wood comes back to life, insisting that Lindy and Kris are his slaves. The girls try to decapitate the dummy, but they are unable to harm him. Next, the girls trap Mr. Wood in a suitcase and bury him in the backyard. Since they are exhausted, Lindy and Kris go to sleep. When the girls wake up the next morning, they discover that Mr. Wood has freed himself and is waiting for them. Lindy and Kris seek help, but their parents have gone out. To show how serious he is, Mr. Wood begins to choke Barky, the family dog. In an attempt to separate the two, the girls drag Mr. Wood and Barky outside. When Mr. Wood releases Barky, the girls chase the dummy into the path of a nearby steamroller being used for construction at the house next door. Mr. Wood dodges the first steamroller and tells them that both will be his slaves forever. He doesn't notice the second steamroller, however, and it crushes Mr. Wood. A mysterious green mist rises from the smashed dummy's body. The alarmed driver of the steamroller rushes out, thinking it was a kid he ran over, but the kids assure him it was nothing more than a dummy. Lindy, Kris, and Barky return home. When the girls get to their room, they find Slappy waiting for them. Slappy asks if the other dummy is gone.

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Well to start with, doctor who aside, doesn't the title just sound like a stranger leitner? And getting into the plot, it heavily features animate scarecrows made from people. And the main reason I'm submitting this is because it fucked me up real bad. It's thematically way darker and more mature in content than I was expecting from a doctor who novel when I read it at the tender age of 14.

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

The whole plot is about a woman who goes on vacation, loses her documents and decides to roll with it, acquiring new identities through a series of questionable decisions. She gets someone else's passport and credit cards, moves into a different hotel, gets hired as a double of a famous actress, introduces herself with false names, and is very paranoid about being found out. We never learn her actual name, but we do learn that she has always disliked her face and has always tried to choose activities that would draw attention away from her face, so she can pretend it's not even there.

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

The opening of "The Invisible Man" focuses on outside perspectives of the titular character, and the narrative itself refers to him simply as "the stranger". His looks are unusual: he wears large clothes and covers his eyes with tinted glasses, and underneath those, he's covered in bandages, as if he's had some sort of horrible accident. His behavior is strange, too. He's rude and reclusive, holed up in his at an inn and working with bizzare chemical concotions, causing accidents and damage constantly.

Throughout the story, the man, Griffin, becomes increasingly erratic. His attempts to reverse his condition all fail, but the things he can do when he goes unnoticed are increasingly violent and cruel.

When he finally becomes fed up with everything, he reveals himself to the proprietors and patrons of the inn, who are prepared to see anything under the bandages, any manner of injury or disfigurement, but instead, run screaming from the establishment, when he reveals nothing at all.

***

The way other characters interact with Griffin the Invisible Man really reminds me of The Stranger. Throughout the plot he's treated as some sort of impostor/invader/not human anymore. Doubly interesting since we see the uncanny-valley-assigned person's POV, meaning it could work even better as a Leitner that makes a statement giver experience something similar

[claygoestothemovies]

⭐��⭐️⭐️1/2

Greg Berlanti’s FLY ME TO THE MOON had my theater cackling, myself included. Unfortunately, the rom part of this rom-com crashes on take off. Thankfully, this screenwriter (Rose Gilroy, based on a story by Keenan Flynn and Bill Kirstein) at least appears to know how a cat acts in real life, unlike another recent film.

The razor sharp caper follows Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson playing Don Draper if he was fast on his feet and had a sense of humor), a marketing genius who’s “encouraged” by a man working for Nixon (Woody Harrelson) to take on a job in Florida. What will she be marketing? Why, the moon, of course! America is deep in the Space Race, and NASA needs a social facelift if it’s any chance of succeeding. On the more technical side of making Apollo 11 happen is launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), and the last thing he needs is a smart and attractive woman making distractions, or something like that.

The big hook of the film is that in order to ensure that the moon landing goes off without a hitch to the American People and the world, they have to take measures to fake it. The comedy of all of this is hysterical. I haven’t laughed so much at a con since DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS. The jokes consistently land, and make fantastic use of Tricky Dick being in office. Scarlett Johansson is at the top of her game here, more films should let her be funny! Give us a ScarJo/Rachel McAdams buddy comedy, someone! Rose Byrne can come, too! Tatum is fine, and he handles the comedic elements satisfactorily. Harrelson and the rest of the supporting cast seem to be having a marvelous time, especially Jim Rash as the high strung director brought in to make the top secret film. Ray Romano also gives a warm turn as Henry Smalls, a fatherly figure working at NASA. A delightful black kitty is also featured. What a year for cats in cinema!

If this had just been a comedy, I would mostly give it top marks. Although I would definitely deduct points for that inexcusable runtime, no comedy - romantic or otherwise - needs to be 132 minutes long. But it’s not just a comedy. It’s a romantic comedy, and in that department, it somehow fails entirely. Everything about the romance, except for maybe the meet cute, feels so utterly forced I never bought in for a second. It’s the Sixties, I should be feeling Doris Day and Rock Hudson levels of sexual tension between these actors! Johansson could have chemistry with a napkin, yet Tatum seems like he could be her character’s brother; romantic sparks are not the vibe they give while sparring.

While overlong, and that could have been fixed by Nix(on)ing (sorry) the romantic plot, and my issues with the romantic aspects aside, I still had a great time with this one! I laughed a lot of that runtime, enjoyed some possibly revisionist history, and got to see ScarJo rocking period costumes and hair while making all the men around her look dumb. It’s not rocket science, but as far as popcorn entertainment goes, you could do a lot worse.

3.5/5

[aloneinthehellfire]

GOH: The Adults

Gates Of Hell

"Uh, I want you to forget about sales and come work for me at the Hawkins P.D."

"And have to look at your face everyday? I don't think so."

I have written up a quick description for them, including a little backstory and a song (spotify link) I feel represents them in my fic.

JIM HOPPER

The parent should never outlive their child. That's the thought that rolls through his head when he thinks of Sara, a pit of despair in his stomach he can't seem to fill with alcohol. For years he succumbed to his own depression, and for years he was hurting himself even more by pulling away from the one thing he should be most grateful for; you.

Now with El in the picture, he wants nothing more than to be a family again. But he knows he has to prove his love for you never faltered.

song: can't pretend by tom odell

JOYCE BYERS

Joyce Byers has been called many things in her life. Unconventional, overprotective, crazy. But she will never be a bad mother. Her duty is to her kids, to love and protect, and she will let nothing stand in the way. But can she learn to let them fly on their own when it's the only option left?

song: mad woman by taylor swift

taglist: @toomanyfandomsimfanvergent . @sheisjoeschateau . @kthomps914 . @curled-hair-red-lips . @nix-rose .

@palmtreesx3 . @kryztalglear . @sattlersquarry . @hey-barnes-stole-a-jeep . @sadslasher13 .

@iliveonteaandbooks . @innercreationflower . @newyorkangelbaby . @totally-bogus-timelady .

@pansexualhoor . @kitdjarin1 . @chiliwhore .