by Bizarrocomics.com
As you seemed to enjoy last week’s post, Are you in a Regency Romance Novel?, I’ve got another one for you, also by The Toast (again, I would have reblogged, but The Toast doesn’t allow that).
This one, written by Abi Inman, answers the burning question in everyone’s mind…
Are you in a Gothic Horror Novel?
- All animals are underfed, black, and vaguely eldritch. They all hate you.
- You are a man. If you’re a woman, you are the love interest of the man, and you are dead.
- All the women you know have died in childbirth. All the children you know are orphans. You are an orphan.
- It’s foggy. If it’s not foggy, it’s smoggy. Or misty. Some form of particulate matter is in the air.
- You are arranged to be married to someone sickly.
- You tend to dismiss odd noises, prophetic ramblings of mad men, and the death of small animals en masse with a shrug and an offhand “It’s probably nothing.”
- Everyone’s last name starts with “Van” or “Von Roth.”
- One of your children is crushed to death by a humongous helmet on the day of their wedding.
- Everything is gloomy, like that song “Blue” by Eiffel 65 but replace the word “blue” with “gloomy.” You are gloomy. Your life is gloomy and the castle you live in is gloomy. Your underfed black dog is gloomy.
- Skulls feature prominently in all interior decorating.
- You are in a small town. There is a deep dark secret that only the members of the town know. The outside world can never find out.
- It is also a sleepy little town. “Nothing ever happens around here,” says one of the locals. It’s true. Only three people live there and they all died in childbirth.
- You go wandering somewhere very cold, and almost freeze to death, but are saved by the fortuitous arrival of a crew of explorers.
- You are in a monastery.
- You are on a moor.
- There is something in the walls (or the wallpaper, or the pipes, or the floors).
- Your house has a garret, which is firmly locked for reasons you will not disclose.
- You hate everyone, except for one woman you are incredibly attracted to. She hates you.
- At least half of the people you know are mad. If you are not yet mad yourself, you are probably well on your way.
- The other half are ghosts.
- You have recently discovered an old document of some kind. Most likely a journal, but possibly a map or letters written by a dead family member.
- All the portraits in your house have peepholes cut in the eyes.
- Important events in your life are always preceded by a storm, or at least a stiff wind.
- Your house is very dusty and there are cobwebs everywhere. Basically everything is either dust or a cobweb. There isn’t even anything under the dust anymore, just more dust.
- You call your bedroom your “chambers.” There is something at your chamber door.
- You are near, or on, the ocean.
- Someone is keeping a captain’s log.
- A book with a malicious spirit trapped inside was very well hidden somewhere no one should have ever found it, and definitely not ineffectually thrown in a chest or a tomb somewhere, but you found it anyway because you’re so curious and full of hubris.
- There is an Evil Creature. Its name is comprised entirely of consonants and punctuation.
- There was a traumatic event in your childhood involving beach caves.
- You are in love with your cousin.
- Some form of Catholic imagery has just been appropriated and misused.
- You have a love/hate relationship with a grotesquely malformed creature that you are repulsed by, but also pity.
- Something is wrong. Something is terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly wrong.
- You’re looking at something man was not meant to see. You can’t even comprehend it. It has parallel lines intersecting each other, and it goes on for infinity but you can see all of it, and other stuff that’s just really impossible. Like, think about M.C. Escher but then also scary and also your eyeballs are bleeding probably.
- You have experienced unspeakable things. Everything has been resolved in the bleakest way possible. Your only hope is that you will take this secret to the grave.
Hilarious. Wondering if one could write a book with all of them in it…
Ooh, nice!! The definitive gothic horror novel! Love it! 😀
Uh-oh. A few of these things sound damnably familiar. There’s something terribly wrong…
Oops, if something creaks behind you, run for the door! 😀
Too, too funny! I’m off to read the other one now (busy week last week).
Right?? 😀
The previous one is just as fun, I believe. I’m looking forward to hearing if you enjoyed it 🙂
😀 😀 😀
So funny! I can’t wait to read…”Are you in a Sci-fi/fantasy novel?”
I might have to write that one myself. 🙂
Runaway Smile showed up in my mailbox yesterday!
Huh? How? I don’t remember sending something out 😮
The ‘you hate everyone except a girl who hates you’ reminds me of high school.
A Gothic high school, perhaps?
A bit. Though I have met many a teen with that mentality. 🙂
I know; as I was typing the line I thought, “what’s the difference with a normal school, again?”
Exactly. Things do kind of improve in college.
I am immortal, fabulously wealthy, and so charismatic I seduce statues by accident. Yet I regard my existence as a curse. Can I be in the novel?
…Not that it matters. My scenes will only showcase the inevitability of damnation.
Seducing statues by accident is such a pain… Yes, your plight has definitely won you a place in any novel!
Woe! Once more my witty conversation and fine manners have made others welcome me amongst them.
Would that I were a humble peasant, dying honestly alone and unloved of a painful and disfiguring disease and not a dark Adonis, cursed to experience constant fortune.
Alas, we each have our cross to bear… statue wooing being yours.
Haha, very good! 😀
That’s why I had to share! 😀
Hilarious, oh so true. and very popular.
I know, that’s why I had to share 😀
your definition shows another side of interesting novel behavior!
Yep! That about sums it up.
Yep, it’s a nice recap 🙂
Another good piece of advice which would render many gothic novels obsolete is.
“Don’t go into the cellar alone!”
Cheers
MTM
The end! 😀
It’s like Martin once said, “Lord Stark survives and saves the kingdom. The end. Where’s the fun in that?”
Right! 😉