So I Wrote Some Horror

I’ve dabbled in horror before, though not at length, but this one came up and ate my brain. And I’m really fucking proud of it actually.

This one emerged out of some bits of trans community discussion on Bluesky crossed with some conversations I was having with a friend. And also, apparently, I started writing trans body horror while recovering from top surgery, so that’s also kind of a thing.

So into the pot goes trans monster discourse, a bit of Lovecraft, a spoonful of Shelley, something I described when starting to hash out the idea as “you must identify with womanhood, you must desire womanhood (both personally and intimately), this is mandatory, this will be enforced”, treatments of masculinity as intrinsically monstrous and common transmasculine mind-glitches about that, the idea of adolescence as both a crucible for identity and a time when the adults can try to enforce control over it, and the homophobia of the 90s for an added layer of claustrophobia.

What emerged from all that is… I love these kids so much. They’re doing their best in trying circumstances. They’re taking care of each other as best they can. They have a found family, despite parental interference, and they will defend it, and each other, with their lives.

I wrote it as a novella and then the kids came back to me and said “This is underwritten, you need more of these other characters and look how that fleshes out your thematics”, so, welp. (That’s why I’m talking about it now, I hadn’t for the first version and now I’m just. These boys! I love these kids. Also I should probably post here occasionally, shouldn’t I?)