Genre: Gothic

  • A Guest in the House

    A Guest in the House

    After many lonely years, Abby’s just gotten married. She met her new husband, a recently widowed dentist, when he arrived in town with his young daughter seeking a new start. Although it’s strange living in the shadow of her predecessor, Abby does her best to be a good wife and mother, but the more she

    Get in there >>

  • Just Like Home

    Just Like Home

    “Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she’s come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there. Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to

    Get in there >>

  • Victorian Psycho

    Victorian Psycho

    Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess. She’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate’s dreary confines and the more she learns of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds

    Get in there >>

  • Motherthing

    Motherthing

    She’s dead in the basement. And she’s refusing to leave… When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become

    Get in there >>

  • Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror

    Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror

    This one took me a long time to read. Not because it was bad, but because sometimes reading one story was like being hit by a bus, and then I needed a long break before I went back to it. Horror is a reflection of the writer’s struggles, a very open dialogue about the problems

    Get in there >>

  • Don’t Let the Forest In

    Don’t Let the Forest In

    *Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him. Kill for him.* High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for

    Get in there >>

  • Lady Devil

    Lady Devil

    PLEASE BE MINDFUL OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS. Finally. I finally finished this story. Once, eons ago, I started reading this while it was updating. It was one of those services where you need to unlock chapters with money each time so I (as usual) fell off the horse. Now I have finally read the whole

    Get in there >>

  • My Darling Dreadful Thing

    My Darling Dreadful Thing

    Love beyond death, love in death, love truly and hard.

    Get in there >>

Welcome to the Menagerie.

Here is where M logs their media activity. Partly because Goodreads is forgettable and keeping physical logs is harder. Sometimes M writes a lot. Sometimes M doesn’t write enough. It doesn’t matter. This is just a for-fun little blog so that M can remember what they thought about whatever they watched or read or played or. Whatever.


What is M?

I read. Voraciously. I have subscriptions to those book things on digital retailers. I consume books at nearly all hours. The hours I don’t spend reading? I’m writing. I’m drawing. I have a problem. I have a problem in that I love to read things that are in the same vein repeatedly. Book journals don’t work and as much as I text my friends screenshots of book passages, it doesn’t scratch the itch. Now I’m going to be doing… tiny… tiny book reports.


Truck-Kun Kill Count:


Books & Light Novels Read in 2025: 19/50
38%
Comics Read in 2026: 39/200
19%
Physical Owned Books Read: 477/830
58%


Menagerie Categories


Tagged in the Menagerie

Absolute Asshole NPC (86) A Fetish For Suffering (45) Can't Say No (67) Chekov's Gun (42) Childhood Friends (50) Curiosity Fucks You Up (76) Cursed (58) Damsel in Distress (57) Damsel in Distress (subverted) (85) Dangerous Reputation (85) Doting Husband (64) Double Identity (41) Everyone Loves MC (87) Evil Eyes & Big Heart (49) Fan Service (92) Grumpy x Sunshine (52) Hypercompetent MC (72) If You Love Them, Set Them Free (49) I Know a Guy (46) Last Minute Hero (97) Loss of Humanity (50) Main Character Coloring (69) MC's Skewed Metrics (71) Mean Boy (118) Mean Boy Love Interest (47) Modern Morals (45) Nat 20s (89) Not Actually Dead (74) Nuclear Revenge (68) OP Protag (91) Petty Revenge (44) Power of Friendship (73) Power of Love (68) Self-Sacrifice (67) Shock Value (44) Sympathetic Evil (63) The Moral is Community (60) Tragic Backstory (76) Twist! (55) Uniquely Skilled (87) Unreliable Narrator (53) Weird and Wacky On Purpose (74) Western-Style Fantasy (83) Wrong Place Wrong Time (64) Zero to Hero (77)


Slime Pen