Ghoul-ie Gourinchas 👻

what if I said this was a #mswl

honestly? #mswl for a grounded/speculative story featuring an Ellen Ripley-esque character at its heart: a working mother (in this house Alien: Isolation *is* canon, tyvm), full of grit and tenacity, *excellent* at her job, no romantic ties to speak of, a utility-fashion icon,,,

if you take Mars to mean the Roman god of war, this is a hell of a #mswl vibe

absolutely fascinated by the ongoing fall of FTX/crypto and would definitely not mind seeing a smart, incisive literary thriller on the subject 👀 #mswl

is it weird if I say I want to read a speculative novel, similar to the evolution of the Goncharov meme, where a collective unreality is collaborated on by a wide and disparate community, until eventually the lines between what's true and what isn't are thoroughly blurred #mswl

this is the ULTIMATE aesthetic, pls when will someone give me a book/show/video game/ttrpg set in a world like this I am on my KNEES

#mswl obviously

also to be clear! I do consider YA (preferably upper YA) but anything middle grade and younger is not for me, sorry!

I'll add on more to this thread whenever I can, but that should be a good start, hey? but tl;dr— I love stories that make us question the world and how we understand it. I love a frisson. I love the things that go bump in the night. I love writing that melts on the tongue.

#MSWL

- anything set in a part of the world different to the US, Canada, or the UK (or, if set in the UK, set in the north of England, northern Ireland, rural spaces, etc)

#MSWL

- neo-western
- unconventional, unreliable, unlikeable narrators and central characters
- trans and queer joy, but also trans and queer rage
- diverse perspectives

#MSWL

- suspense and psychological thrillers, but specifically with a textured, vibrant sense of setting (think Gillian Flynn’s SHARP OBJECTS)
- folklore and mythological retellings, particularly non-Eurocentric traditions
- magical realism

#MSWL

- speculative fiction
(I prefer grounded, literary sci-fi + fantasy. no secondary worlds, but rather our world steeped in liminal magic and/or technology. anything creepy, toothy, gritty, strange, something that sends a shiver down your spine.)

#MSWL

in terms of GENRES and NARRATIVES, I love:

- historical, particularly 19th and 20th century and particularly focused on international, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ stories
- alternate history
- dark academia
- horror and gothic
- character-led literary fiction

#MSWL

first, I'm someone who's always been gripped by VOICE, WRITING STYLE, and PROSE. so I'm looking for:

- anything in the book club, upmarket, literary spaces
- lush, poetic writing
- deep and intricate world/lore-building (when applicable)

#MSWL

#mswl frankly

I have *obsessively* been playing Hades for the past nine days, so, naturally: #mswl for folklore or myth retellings; #mswl for fraught family dynamics, particularly difficult fathers; and #mswl for a polyam triad in the vein of Thanatos x Zagreus x Megaera 💕

casual #mswl I'm just saying !!!

where oh where is my upmarket/literary retelling of the Tiresias myth from a trans perspective, I will beg for it once a month until it materialises into existence by sheer force of will #mswl

or a female-led gothic thriller set in rural Yorkshire. or a dark academia story, rife with ghosts and hauntings and murder, set in Scotland against the lashes and winds of the North Sea

I'm trying to put my #mswl together for y'all but every time I write something I want to read I get way too specific about it

like yes please I would like a queer retelling of the Morrígan myth set during the Irish War of Independence with speculative magic vibes