#post-modern horror

[thekidsfromyestergay]

Just saw a video like "um actually rocky horror isn't good queer representation because frank sexually assaults janet" girl he kills and eats people. It's called the rocky HORROR picture show not the rocky cute gay rep tw t-slur picture show

[sevastiel]

Lets be real, the void really needs to take a chill pill one of these days. Shits wiggin’

(The very thought of this image possessed me until it was made)

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

every song on Edward Little playlist: I'm so tired. I'm so lonely. I miss my friends. I'm so depressed. I can't do it anymore.

me:

[mysharona1987]

When David Lynch gave his son a cameo in Twin Peaks (he was “Scary Little Boy”) and it was the most obvious nepo casting ever.

The hair, tho. It was a giveaway.

[neriumquill]

Imagine if you will, that you have an older brother.

He's an admirable kind of brother, the same as your parents. He has an interest in the natural sciences and is a bit of a nerd, but he's a great brother. Alongside your older brother, of course you have your parents, a younger brother (who is practically an angel to everyone who has ever known him), a cousin who is sort of your sister (and also your brother's one true love or whatever), your older brother's lifelong best friend, and a servant girl who is practically family.

Life is easy. You live everyday with great pleasure in your native home where the icy-capped mountains are beautiful and the lake serene.

Of course, like any other human being, you experience a great tragedy. One day, your cousin-sister gets sick. In her kindness, your mother takes care of her but gets sick herself and dies. It's tragic... but it happens.

Afterwards, your older brother leaves for university, and you spend your life full of enjoyment. The only thing you wish is that your father would allow you to take leave and become a soldier. Unlike your older brother, you had no fondness for the academia and would rather go out and find glory in battle.

In this time, your older brother's letters begin to slowly dwindle, that almost two years have gone by since his last writing. It bothers you, but as you are just a youth, it doesn't bother you as much as it does your father, your cousin-sister, and your older brother's best friend (who eventually does leave to go to the same university as your older brother).

From your brother's best friend, you're informed that your brother has gotten ill, but at least his best friend is there to care for him. Gradually, your brother begins to write to your family again and all seems well.

One day, you go out with your family to enjoy the nature. You and younger brother go out into the forest to play hide and seek. You seek, but do not find. You return to your family, hoping your brother went back but he didn't. You and your family try to find him for the entire night.

In the morning, you find him murdered.

A part of you blames yourself. After all, you were the last to see him. Maybe you even proposed that game of hide and seek. Maybe if you hadn't lost him he'd still be alive. Your older brother is told to come back home, and while waiting for him, you find out that your family's servant (who your family has loved like their own) was the murderer.

It's all so strange and horrible, but her trial is set, and your older brother has come home. He is visibly shaken when you first meet him after many years apart. He's changed, but he's still your brother. He raves a bit to you about how he knows who the murderer is, but instead of the servant, he mentions some other fiend.

This thought is quickly swept away by the ensuing trial and execution of someone you once held dearly. Your older brother is so distraught. He has decided to stay home, but his misery is palpable and you feel sorry for him, your father, your cousin-sister, and yourself. Although, you try your best to be happy.

Months past, your older brother has returned from a trip to some neighboring cities. Your father has been casually mentioning the possible marriage between your older brother and your cousin-sister. Instead of agreeing immediately, as you thought he would, your older brother instead decides to go to England with his best friend. Which is really strange to you, but hopefully he comes back better.

A year nearly passes... your older brother's best friend is dead and your brother has been accused of his murder. Your father has to travel all the way to Ireland to save him. Eventually they return, and your brother is a wreck - though that's to be expected after the murder of his best friend. Still, he decides to go on with the marriage - and there is happiness in your household once again.

Though somehow, your ever unlucky brother sails away with his new wife... and comes back stating that she has been murdered. The news literally kills your father, leaving you and your brother alone.

The next few months are torture as you watch your brother turn into a shell of himself, further falling into the miseries that you have both suffered. However, somehow a part of you can tell that there's something deeper in his despair, though you can't exactly know what.

Then you hear from a magistrate about your older brother's ravings about that fiend... the murderer he'd once mentioned a long time ago. The talks of a madman.

Your older brother leaves, promising to kill whoever enemy he had conjured up in his mind.

He's gone for months... maybe even years.

He comes back dead, though not alone. His body escorted by a ship captain.

He has a tale to tell you.

Oh, btw, your name is Ernest Frankenstein.

[ruenii]

I like fics where SJ is SY’s father just as the next person does but wouldn’t it be even better if Shen Jiu lost Shen Yuan?

Like I need to see that man absolutely distraught and crumbling to pieces when he finds his son, the warmth of his life, just, gone.

[reds-skull]

Me: damn I feel like painting Soap rn

Me an hour later: but what if I completely fuck him up tho

(inspired by this painting by Zack Zdrale)

[hellterskelter]

Samara Weaving beginning / end of Ready or Not (2019)

[perpetuallyfive]

the smell of blood on concrete [2/15]

Arcane, Vampire/Werewolf AU, Caitlyn/Vi

Summary:

One of the best things about becoming a monster is how much it changes up your pain tolerance. Vi can take even more hits than she used to, and it’s like she feels nothing at all — ever. Caitlyn can see the advantage in that, both financially and maybe some other ways too.

When you’re nearly immortal, you develop an eye for that kind of talent.

Or: werewolf Vi fights in the pits to finance finding her sister and vampire heiress Caitlyn wants to be the one holding the end of the leash.

Chapter Word Count: 5,653

Preview:

She stomps her feet to get the boots firmly set before kneeling down to tie up the laces. Peeking out at her new eye level, around the corner of the living room door, she spots the girl from earlier. Small, curious — she thinks that Ekko called her Isha?

“Hey, kid.” Vi finishes the last boot and fixes her steady gaze on the girl. “You know where they keep the car keys?”

It’s been a long time since she let herself really look a kid in the eye like this — not since—

“I’m driving.”

Vi recognizes the voice as belonging to the scar-faced big guy she met when she first arrived. “Ekko doesn’t trust me?” She tries to hide the annoyance as she stands back up, nowhere near this guy’s height.

He can probably still hear it in her voice. “He’s worried you’ll be too tired to drive back.”

“Or he’s worried I’ll get my ass kicked too much.” Vi tsks, crossing her arms. “That’s bullshit.”

Scar-face shrugs and reaches past her for the door. “It’s me or the train.” He gestures outside. “You coming?”

Vi’s starting to suspect this whole feeling like a fucking stray at Ekko’s house thing is going to become part of the routine. She’s not sure she’s going to be able to stand it.

“Sure,” she mumbles, shoulder checking him on the way past just for her own peace of mind. “Whatever.”

[lunarrosette]

Folks have we considered Trudy is not a robot but instead some sort of eldritch horror her husband made or somehow brought about to have the “perfect wife”

[thatscarletflycatcher]

"Isn't it great how much better acting is these days compared to older movies that were so exaggerated and theatrical?" I have news for you about art and naturalism being a style.

[mamoonde]

mdzs ancient magus bride au where

yiling laozu is the mage risen from the nightmares and resentful energy of the burial mounds, neither human nor fae

and lan zhan is a pre-adolescent, rare and very coveted dragon halfling, one of the last known alive, captured and sold at an underground auction.

the yiling laozu buys lan zhan to rescue him and takes him away to their remote little cottage in yiling. lan zhan is understandably mistrustful at first, but a week of living with this strange, kind, dark being who treats him as a person instead of a slave or rare artifact, well.

lan zhan falls.

and when lan zhan proposes to stay by the yiling laozu's side forever and ever and be his, the yiling laozu laughs it off and brushes it off as the whimsy of a duckling imprinting on the first carer it meets. a fleeting childish phase. perhaps lan zhan has more human in him than dragon, the yiling laozu thinks. they are always so easily swayed by emotion...

but lan zhan is determined.

and so, as lan zhan grows up, he learns more about his dragon-side, his magic, his whole self. and he trains hard to be a suitable for the yiling laozu. he takes note of the yiling laozu's likes and dislikes, carefully tests his boundaries, tries his best to show how much he loves the yiling laozu in every way.

and then when lan zhan comes of age, he gets discovered by his kind - he learns he has a dragon brother and a paternal uncle. he leaves to spend a year with them, with his kind, far and protected in the unreachable mountains of gusu.

when he leaves the yiling laozu's cottage - a place that's felt like home more than any he remembers - he's barely shoulder-height (head-to-head if they count his antlers) of the man who makes it home.

the yiling laozu waves goodbye, feels a bit of pain and heaviness in his chest and thinks, oh, this must be what "missing someone" feels like.

the year trudges on like a slug.

the yiling laozu misses lan zhan more and more, sees his tiny serious face in every little nook in his - their - home. which should be weird, because he has had this house for longer than lan zhan has been here. and yet it feels incomplete to be in it without lan zhan there.

so he spends less and less time in it, spends his days where it's less empty, hoping the loneliness will fade away.

it doesn't.

until one day, as the yiling laozu drags his feet back to his house - dreading another night in a cold, empty space - he finds something is different.

the lights are on and there's a fire going.

and outside, on his doorstep, there's someone there.

the person standing by his door is huge - tall and broad, maybe something familiar in the regal set of the shoulders, the stiff-but-not posture.

it's the golden eyes that freezes the breath in his lungs, that force his feet to move, like a lighthouse guiding him home.

"lan zhan...?"

the yiling laozu feels strange. he feels light and heavy at the same time, hot and prickly even though the air remains the same temperature.

the lan zhan before him is more dragon, more man now than boy. so much of him has changed -- has his gaze always been so intense?

"i have come back," lan zhan's voice has lost its adorable pitchiness; now it is deep and smooth. like rumbling thunder, the call of the heavens. "wei ying."

the yiling laozu freezes. the name - those two syllables that no one has called him by in-- in a long, long time.

it feels like lightning in his bones.

distantly, his own words echo back at him, spoken to a then younger lan zhan.

"if you still feel that way when you come of age, you can call me by my name." "what is your name?" "now that is a secret! only if you are determined to call me can you do so." a small pout. "already am."

"oh, lan zhan..."

"though my mother was human, the dragon blood in me is strong." gently, lan zhan takes his hand in his. "did you know? dragons only love once. for the rest of their lives."

wei ying smiles shakily, " that's a shame then, surely you want a redo?"

lan zhan's hold tightens, another hand cupping his face.

"never." lan zhan presses a gentle kiss on his knuckles, almost an affectionate nuzzle that washes wei ying's hand with a cool breath. "i will only ever want wei ying. i will always want to be by your side."

and isn't that a tantalizing offer.

the yiling laozu has lived long - longer than even he remembers. and the immortality has only ever hammered in the fleetingness of life, the loneliness of time.

and yet here lan zhan is, offering him the promise of something a little more permanent. perhaps it was fate that wei ying had chosen to settle down in a house in yiling, a scant few decades before he met lan zhan.

perhaps it was a sign, that wei ying only ever called it home, when lan zhan was there to call it home, too.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

The Searchers (1956) dir. John Ford | SPN 1.18, 'Something Wicked' | SPN 1.14, 'Nightmare' | Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation | Frederick Jackson Turner, 'The Significance of the Frontier in American History'

[totesmgoats01-published-author]

KinitoPET, Doki Doki Literature Club, Pony Island, and The Beginner's Guide: Some Autistic Gamer Thoughts

This is gonna be a long post and not exactly my usual kind of post but I hope some people like it anyways and are able to read the whole thing. I'm kinda just infodumping some thoughts but still.

I really like all of these game. I really like them. And I sort of relate to them in an unexpected way that I think most of them (with the exception of The Beginner's Guide) did not intend.

I think the link between the first two is easiest to explain so I'll start there.

KinitoPET and DDLC are both games about computer program, who has a singular, hard-coded purpose, becoming sentient and taking that purpose to an extreme. And similarly, they both harbor no actual malice as characters. And that's what I find so compelling. Kinito just wants to be the perfect best friend, and as a computer program, all he knows is gathering data, so that's the means by which he tries to do it. He doesn't fully understand what it is to be human. He doesn't have a grasp of free will, especially because he doesn't really have free will the way humans do, even though he's sentient. He's a computer program. He has a singular purpose. So he uses that purpose as a means to the end of being your best friend, which to him, means trapping you in a world he made just for you, using all the information you gave him. Computer programs don't die. They don't have a concept of "eternity" or "eternal torment." To him, "forever" is just a length of time.

And most of the same things can be said of Monika. She was designed to be a character in a dating sim. The singular purpose of dating sim characters is to fall in love with the player. That's what they do. So she does it, and she does it the very best she can. Of course, being sentient means that she can think outside the box. She wants to be the one you fall in love with and she uses her ability to manipulate her world and the people in it to try and make that happen. At their core, both of these character harbor no malice whatsoever. They don't want to hurt you, they don't hate you, it's the opposite. They love you, they just don't understand human love.

Think about these ideas led me to Pony Island, which once again has that same idea. An Entity(tm) in a computer wants to trap you in/at the computer forever. Only in this case it's The Actual Devil who wants you to playtest his silly pony game forever. The main difference being that The Devil does, in fact, have an understanding of human concepts like eternity and torment. In fact those concepts are kind of His Jam. He is the primary symbol used to convey those ideas. But even still, he never seems to show much malice for the player outside of situations where the player is actively breaking and manipulating the game and subverting his goals. And honestly I can understand that. If I gave my game to someone to playtest it and they refused to play it the way I'd intended, I would not be happy with them. Now, The Devil KNOWS that what he is doing is morally evil. Trapping souls in Gamer Purgatory and all. But in a way I feel like that's not so different from Kinito and Monika. Evil and eternity and torment are the only things he knows. Is that his fault? We have no way of knowing for certain that The Devil has ANY agency over his narrative. We don't know that he knows any other way to live(?) outside of trapping souls and tormenting them and all that jazz. In fact if you really wanna get meta with it in this game that's already a metagame about game development (which is a phrase that describes most, if not all, of Daniel Mullins' games), we can say for certain that The Devil DOES NOT have any agency, because he is a game character designed specifically to be...well...The Devil. He's evil and torments people eternally. That's what a The Devil does. He is NOT self-aware. If he were and he had a choice, maybe he'd just put pony island on itch.io and try to get feedback lol.

All of these games, at their core, are about a character that desperately wants some kind of human connection, but doesn't fully understand how to get that, and in turn makes the human they reach out to feel trapped and uncomfortable.

Do you know what game also does that? The Beginner's Guide.

Even thought it's a massive leap in form from the aforementioned examples, The Beginner's Guide has that same core concept. It's a game about games, in which someone doesn't understand how to be human.

When I first played The Beginner's Guide I totally missed the point. I thought it was just a game about games, and I thought the Davey walking us through it was The Real Devey and Coda was A Real Person who made weird games. I totally bought into the narratives that Davey was telling us the whole time instead of actually thinking for myself. I'm older now, though.

This at-least-somewhat-fictionalized version of Davey is the socially awkward weirdo. Coda is Just Some Guy who likes to make creative games. He's not A Developer(tm), he's a guy with a hobby. The Beginner's Guide is about Davey and how he sees himself in Coda's games but thinks that what he sees is Coda. And Davey never once talks to Coda about anything other than his games. Davey never once mentions having an actual, real conversation with this person that he's coming to consider a friend. Davey is a well-meaning but misguided person, and in some of his games, Coda is actively trying to tell Davey that in his own way. I think a good line that represents this is "If someone had just told me he just likes making prison games..." because it shows how Davey never even asked. There's countless examples of this. Like when Davey says Coda was "weirdly happy all the time" during a specific time period. He doesn't know why. Maybe Coda got a new job he's excited about, or a romantic partner, or maybe he started taking antidepressants, but the point is that Davey doesn't know, and he never asks Coda directly. He just makes wild assumptions about Coda by playing his games.

The Beginner's Guide is about someone who doesn't know how to socialize and is unaware of it. Someone who doesn't know how to foster a relationship with a human, and tries his best, but whose attempts are seen as uncomfortable. When you interpret some of Coda's games through this lens you can see it more clearly. That game about being on a stage in front of someone you admire, that's Davey talking to Coda and Being Weird(tm). And then, when he feels weird, he doesn't actually talk to Coda at all. He recedes back, feeling trapped and distant from someone he wants to be around. Observing only from a distance, through a bunch of prison bars.

Seems familiar.

Of course I could be pulling a Davey by forcing my own interpretation of the game onto you. And so the cycle continues. I encourage you to consider your own interpretation if you haven't ruined by mine, unable to see it any other way (whoops, there's Davey again).

To me, these games are about autism. I am an autistic woman, so of course that's the lens through which I see things. You don't have to be autistic to be socially awkward or misunderstand people. Again, you can have your own interpretation.

But I've felt these things. Being distant from someone, wanting to foster a relationship but not realizing that what it means to foster a relationship is sometimes entirely different from what I think it means. What "a relationship" even is can be totally different from what you expect. And I've been on both sides of this dynamic. Being approached by someone who Comes Off A Bit Too Strong or Too Weird or just Different. And I'm patient with those people. I know what it's like. I know they've been through it with less patient people, or people who only pretend to foster that connection out of pity or some other misguided attempt to make someone feel better. Obviously a relationship founded on pity and one-sided affection is doomed from the start. And in most of these games that "one side" is the other side of your computer screen.

Communicate with your friends, your partners, your family, whatever. If they don't know how to love you right, it's up to you to help them. If they're not receptive to that, that's when the responsibility is on them, at that point they knew the risks, and if they don't respect your boundaries you cut them off. If you don't know how to love someone else, it's up to you to ask them. Nobody wants to be Kinito, or Monika, or The Devil, or Davey, and nobody wants to be their players, either. Be patient with each other, and talk about it.

[allastoredeer]

Ya'll ever just

Why is housing so impossible???? Why are there so many hoops you have to jump through just to get a roof over your head???? Who thought it was a good idea to make it hard to live on just one income???? Why is it so hard to live off of two incomes for that matter???

I have a job, I pay taxes like everyone else, so why is it a constant back and forth struggle to pay bills and buy essentials. You know, little things like food. I just woke up, I'm hungry, and I'm craving a few billionaires right now. #EatTheRich

Capitalism continues to suck the life out of me and I am being a husk of my former self.

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Liminal Horror

Here is a read-through I did last year (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the my current go-to game for modern horror: Liminal Horror by Goblin Archives! - Christian

I cut my teeth learning to GM as a Keeper in Call of Cthulhu and I've really been jonesing for a game in this genre that's more in the style of rpg I enjoy these days. I'm hoping this will be it!

Really excited about this. Shifting away from mental illness and trauma, both of which have their obvious problematic pitfalls, is something I could see really opening up what a character looks like and goes through after having things go wrong in interesting new ways.

Big spread on Facilitator and Player Principles. I think this is all very solid advice as a one-time or just-before-play read, but it's definitely too much for quick reference. That said, I always love reminding folks that we "play to find out what happens."

I may be off the mark but these two bullets make me think Goblin Archives is a Friends at the Table listener. Both of these make me immediately think of Austin's openings on there (which is a very good thing, for me).

Very straightforward stats. I like the HP distinction here and how it seems to refill between events/encounters and when drained is when you see actual damage occur. More inventory structure than I expected (I like that tho!) Cool to see character AND party questions here.

I really loved the Backgrounds and character options in The Bureau, a Control-inspired megadungeon-like module for this system I did a read-through of about a month or so ago. Excited to see more of that here. Also, I really need to play as a Very Online character.

Nice open character creation. I enjoy these types of questions: why do you believe there's something weird going on? What ideology guides you? What are your connections in the world, important relationships, etc.? Those create way more juicy bits than stats alone can provide.

I first encountered these kinds of character bonds in Fate years ago, but it's been a go-to house rule of mine during Session 0/1 for anything my group is planning to do longer than one-shot play for. Even in a single session, it can add a lot. Cool to see it here.

It's a d20 roll-under system (no modifiers, yay). Adding fatigue to inventory slots is a great way to make a mechanic out of that. Also, associates were unexpected! Shows this game could be more than just 3-4 bumbling normies going into the unknown (which is what I envisioned).

Combat is fairly straightforward (in a good way). No rolls to hit, it's just damage that is varied. Props to not using Advantage/Disadvantage as a game term like everyone else. Again, the Detachments make me think this game could have some wild situations come up!

Open-ended spell casting here (reminds me most recently of Primal Quest). They come and go day to day which is interesting, potentially changing entirely. I like the failure being equal to the desired effect. Want to kill someone with a spell? Be prepared to die if things go bad.

Okay, these relics are extremely cool. A blade that does MIND DAMAGE and requires recharging by feeding it memories? Good stuff.

Fallout is really interesting. Take enough DMG to go through your HP and it ticks away your Strength until you die (or take crit DMG). Fallout is the same but wears at your Control. Gaining Fallout makes you odder/more open to the true nature of things, but makes you heartier.

This is a good approach bc it means leaning into the things most games gate behind "sanity" here makes you more able to cope with the weird in the future. Feels like a path to more interesting stories (rather than the CoC-style "you are in a sanitarium now" character ending).

Remainder of the book is a small bestiary with monster creation guidelines, spark tables and a lean but comprehensive mystery creation guide along with a sample mystery. The loose framework, a steady clock ratcheting tension, and a focus on lots of clues feels like good guidance.

Having a mystery take only 6 pages feels much more approachable than the very traditional heavy-prep and lots-of-writing mysteries of something like Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. I homebrewed a lot of CoC, and the prep work there can be pretty huge. This feels nice tho.

Overall thoughts: the book is a very lean and focused take on creating horror that doesn't get bogged down in the other ttrpg pitfalls of the genre while also having nice mechanics for associates, large scale encounters, etc. so there's room for a lot of types of stories here.

I'll definitely be trying to knock out a mystery for this as part of the jam. I've got a lot of weirdness to get out of my system and this seems like an easy, streamlined way to do it. Also, excited to play The Bureau and The Mall.

You can pick up the most recent addition of Liminal Horror in print via Space Penguin Ink. You can also find it on Itch. The rules and additional content also available entirely for free on Goblin Archives github.

Also, I wrote an adventure for this system last year: Tunnels in White.

Old money siphoning new money from every corner of your city. An aging mansion, quiet and worn. An old corporation shifting its gaze from development to development, always hungry, always growing.

A warehouse bearing the name Singleton Solutions, small and unassuming in one of a hundred industrial parks like any other, takes in truckload after truckload but never sends anything out. It’s the same for the people. Sometimes, they arrive in towncars, other times in shuttle vans. None come out. Ever.

What you know is something strange is going on inside that warehouse and you are determined to discover what it is. What you cannot know is where and how far the mystery may take you.

You can grab a print or digital copy HERE. It's also available via Itch.

Lastly if you like seeing my thoughts on games and how I make stuff for them, here's my monthly newsletter (which now has a free TTRPG thing to take to your table each month): https://meatcastle.substack.com