Recbox for HandmaidenOfHorror

[beyondthealgorithm_mod]

Username: HandmaidenOfHorror

Preferred Genres: literally any!

DNW Genres: none!

Preferred Media Types: Any, though given I don’t live in an English-speaking country I may have difficult access to English language books

DNW Media Types: None!

General Likes: Stories dealing with trauma of any kind, psychological/cosmic/abstract horror (think of the best creepypastas around rather than mainstream horror movies and novels), mysteries, complex constructed worlds (both scifi and fantasy), LGBT+ themes (I can forgive most clichés if it’s an explicitly LGBT story)

General DNWs: shallow, clichéd plots, especially typical rom-com

Fandom Preferences: Any

Requests for Content Warnings: Animal and child abuse/death

Examples of Media Enjoyed: Kaze to Ki no Uta, anything by Hagio Moto (Poe no Ichizoku, Thomas no Shinzou, Gin no Sankaku, AA’ etc.) or Riyoko Ikeda (Versailles no Bara, Onii-sama e, Claudine!), Angel Sanctuary, Tokyo Babylon & X, Earthian, Loveless, Noir (anime), Captive Prince, Pandora Hearts, Black Butler, Far Sector (DC)

Examples of Media to Avoid: MCU/DCU (but I like some of their comics and their other animated adaptations), rom-com, Twilight & derivative teen romances

Streaming Services I Can Access: None, but I’ve always managed ;)

Languages I'm Comfortable With: English, Japanese, Polish, I may try reading in Chinese but I’m far from perfect, and I forgot most of my German and Russian

Comments

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski [book]

[interuniversal_geometer]

i wanted to recommend the book "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski bc you said that you enjoyed horror and especially psychological and abstract horror, which i feel that this book very much is. it’s been sort of a while since I’ve read this book but i remember enjoying it greatly.

its really complicated to explain but basically the book is a series of layered narratives. the first layer of the narrative is a documentary about a house that is bigger on the inside (i know this sounds...kinda silly but suffice it to say theres A LOT of horror elements in this book and the house being bigger on the inside is distinctly disturbing, even apart from all the stuff that they end up doing inside of the house). the second layer of the narrative is the book that an old man wrote ABOUT the documentary. the third layer of the narrative is about this guy Johnny, who found the old man's book about the documentary after the old man died. he also finds that there's no record of the old man, of a lot of the people who the old man references in the book (in fact the ones that do exist claim to never have met the old man) and that there's no record of the documentary having every have been made either. johnny's section is written entirely in footnotes that seem to go on for pages at a time and also give us a glimpse into his own life. (there's a further layer of narrative above that which is Another editor who shows up in the footnotes sometimes? but we dont really learn their story iirc). overall its such a good read. i read it many years ago and its stuck with me ever since

content you said you would like warned for: johnny’s mother was abusive as were his foster parents. there was also a child whose photograph one of the characters took and who ended up dying.

Re: House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski [book]

[leahandillyana]

Thank you, that sounds splendid, exactly the kind of thing I enjoy the most!

[wolffyluna]

I have a two-for-one rec for things you might enjoy!

We Know The Devil is a short (~1.5-3 hours) visual novel about three troubled teens at a summer camp that tries to un-trouble them through hard work, singing about Jesus... and putting them in an abandoned cabin to fight the Devil. It's psychological/religious/magical realism horror with beautiful atmosphere. The dialogue is great, and feels realistic to how late night summer camp conversations feel, if not what they are actually like. And all the major characters are LGBT. Warnings for heavily implied child abuse, the fact that while the camp is not explicitly a conversion therapy camp, it does come across that way.

Heaven Will Be Mine is a longer sci fi visual novel made by the same people as We Know The Devil. Earth sent people out into space in giant robots to fight an unknowable, alien Existential Threat... which turned out to be pointless. So Earth is asking them to come back, whether they want to give up the freedom of space or not. You pick one of three pilots to play in each run of the game, as you try and grapple with your relationship to the other pilots and the factions you are part of (which have varying attitudes of "Let's go back to Earth," "Let's stay in space and bring everyone else to space" and "oh, so you think us being in space makes us less human? COOL.") It's got some beautiful worldbuilding it gives you in bits and pieces that you have to try and puzzle out. And being in space is a metaphor for being LGBT-- but all the main characters are textually LGBT too, and it leads to an interesting interplay of the metaphorical and real. Warning for child abuse.

[leahandillyana]

Thank you, these seem really interesting!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, you stated that you liked Far Sector by DC, so I would like to suggest Green Lanterns (2016), because it majorly focuses on Jessica Cruz's trauma and anxiety, as well as having a deep relationship with her partner Simon Baz. I would ALSO like to recommend JSA (1999) because of its focus on Alan Scott, who has recently been revealed to be gay in the main universe, as well as dealing with several members of Infinity Inc.'s (a team of JSA kids from the 80s) trauma. Just in general JSA is really good for building up an extended universe, and a lot of characters from different comics are closely tied to different members of the team. Personally I had a lot of fun with it.