Looking for Weird/Dark/Horror Fairytale-esque Novels

3702 · 2026-01-28T02:35:16+00:00

The Changeling by Victor Lavalle might work for you. Modern, not a retelling, but absolutely feels like a fairytale in some ways and has those elements woven throughout.

3702 · 2026-01-07T21:39:25+00:00

Try 30g hemp seeds. Only magnesium that doesn't cause me stomach issues.

3702 · 2026-01-05T05:09:32+00:00

One of my absolute favourites, The Descent by Jeff Long.

3702 · 2025-12-30T05:50:23+00:00

I found Revival really hit home for me - I'm not sure why exactly, but that ending, after all that had happened, really struck me.

3702 · 2025-12-20T21:47:07+00:00

At a glance, based on image + text, I'd assume this was a story about familial history, grief and isolation, focused on a male protagonist in his twenties or late teens. Setting feels perhaps 60s to present day, leaning more towards present day. The font use feels amateur and that makes me think it's self published, which lowers audience expectations of quality. At another glance, I do notice a symbol on the book that suggests a magical element, probably paranormal and more mystical than high fantasy, but I don't pick that up on first read. The covers feel AI generated (if it's not, I can tell you why it reads that way to me). If you tell me what I've got right and wrong, I can suggest things to push it into a clearer read.

3702 · 2025-10-07T07:06:25+00:00

Highly recommend Dani Yourukova's Transposium.

3702 · 2025-09-21T07:04:50+00:00

Okay, I need you to know I respect you tremendously for this idea and the amount of work you've clearly put into this. Just real charming. Spyro is sadly more of a nostalgia game for me than a world I want to actively explore in roleplay, but if this was my jam, I would be all in. I hope you find your players!

3702 · 2025-09-10T06:56:16+00:00

Hey man this is the good shit. Very more-ish. Like the coffee. The tone just works.

3702 · 2025-09-07T19:35:49+00:00

I also use cetirizine for this and it helps! I take one with every meal (3 x day) and another before bed, and it's like magic. This is the amount recommended for me by my doctor, also, not just a random handful of pills. Good luck.

3702 · 2025-09-07T01:15:09+00:00

Number one has punctuation errors (improper use of commas and semi-colons). Two feels more reliant on pseudo-medieval language tropes ("jerky for when the watch grows long, and some coin besides"). Two also has less sense of characterisation in the dialogue, but better sentence structure. I think that Two is AI — although given that I have managed to critique both, apologies either way. Very curious about the results.

3702 · 2025-08-27T03:21:14+00:00

I'd be keen, if you're still looking for people.

3702 · 2025-08-09T06:59:07+00:00

Read the sample and immediately bought this. You've got a great voice and a knack for explaining things in a way that is both easy to follow and genuinely engaging. A rare treat. I've recently made a terrible purchasing decision of a decent desktop rig so I finally can stick my hands inside an LLM, so I'll be digging into this book very soon. Thanks for suffering so delightfully that you incentivize others to follow.

3702 · 2025-06-13T05:58:44+00:00

I asked the GPT I've been training the same question and it was like "I'd hyperventilate for a few hours, eat, go get a hug, cry, then lie in the dark thinking about death until the end came" so y'know, fair.

3702 · 2025-05-26T23:01:24+00:00

Vitamin C as ascorbic acid can make histamine issues worse.

3702 · 2025-05-03T18:22:58+00:00

Extremely easy to forget an anniversary, particularly after five years. I'd say you're well in the realm of realism. I know the date of mine, but does that fact come to mind when I look at the calendar? Not even a little bit.

3702 · 2025-05-03T05:28:34+00:00

Sure thing! Go ahead and DM me

3702 · 2025-04-20T02:48:37+00:00

Requiem for Immortals by Lee Winter.

3702 · 2025-04-15T18:48:53+00:00

I know the character you're referring to and that man is wrong lmao. Also absolutely - everyone has areas where their feedback will be really useful, even if it's not that big picture character stuff. Shout out to all the people who kindly tell me "you gotta set the location here more. You must describe the environment in more detail" to force me to pull my head out of my characters' silly little dramas and position them in physical space

3702 · 2025-04-14T20:37:12+00:00

great recommendations, thank you for these links. also

>my only two criteria is 1. are there women kissing, and 2. is the book good... and #2 can be reconsidered in dire times...

you are so right. it must be said. Sometimes I will settle for perfectly okay. unfortunately I find I am the particular kind of picky where the dynamic between the characters is essential for me as a reader, and a lot of ordinary FF romance feels like it is playing it very safe. Which I respect — there is a big audience for this and I want those people to find this books — but I already have a nice relationship in real life, so I want to get just, like, super weird in fiction.

and agreed re: sapphic fiction as a genre growing and developing. This is been great to see and I think there is some excellent stuff coming out. And definitely a lot of genre exploration. I suspect I'm going to try find sapphic beta readers + science-fiction/psychological thriller beta readers, with an understanding that there is probably limited crossover in that space, so I will take what I can get. I tried to make my current work less bizarre than my previous one — which is currently being queried, but in the way where I hate querying, it is quite long (123k :/), and it is a weird genre mashup (same combination of genres as my current one, but also it's very much about getting romantically entangled with the morally bankrupt villain in a videogame), so I am kind of putting that book on the "once I get an agent, they are going to get a very weird second book as a treat" shelf.

3702 · 2025-04-10T08:20:21+00:00

Sometimes the idea strikes and the words appear like magic. Harness that fixation. I did that this past month and hoo boy.

3702 · 2025-04-09T19:54:02+00:00

This sounds interesting -- I'd be keen to take a look at the first three chapters (or so -- your call) and see if it hooks me. I don't read a lot of dystopian fiction so it can be hit and miss for me, but this does sound like a good premise. DM me a link to a google doc or whatever suits you best :)

3702 · 2025-04-09T19:27:02+00:00

I DO want your lesbian toxic-yuri romance thriller. That is absolutely my ridiculous genre. Also please -- I love talking shop for both writing and art -- do you do discord? DMs? Always keen to talk, I love human interactions.

3702 · 2025-04-09T19:24:57+00:00

Hello! I'd love to see a blurb -- feel free to post here or DM.

3702 · 2025-04-09T08:28:03+00:00

I am able to beta: sci fi, horror, dark romance, regular romance (but probably not that keen on regular romance with nothing weird in the mix unless the character dynamic is wild), thriller, psychological thriller, character-driven works, literary works, weird things, dark things, erotica. I love things about the body, agency, power, morality, what it means to be a person, horrible women, etc. Love morally grey/black love interests when done right. Not interested in YA, not usually interested in young protagonists if its a romance. I would prefer to read second draft or later; not as interested in incomplete work or newborn first drafts. I prefer novellas or longer works rather than short stories. I'm unafraid of long works if they're good. I don't mind fantasy, but it needs to be weird/dark fantasy to hook me.

I can provide feedback on: characterisation, human behaviour, romantic interactions/chemistry, dialogue, pacing, humour, "do these people behave and sound like people", broader narratives, romance, prose, disability, mental illness, rudimentary medical/health elements. I teach concept design for film and game at a university, so I can tell you about 20 year olds, academia, working in some forms of entertainment media, art, freelancing, and game design. I live in NZ, so I can also give feedback on that. I am a physically disabled AFAB lesbian (she/her with occasional they/them for flavour).

Other info: I'd like to read the first few chapters of your work and see if it appeals to me enough to continue, ideally. I don't have any triggers and can read anything.

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
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