There’s a cat in your neighborhood that only shows up at night. The little fellow is terribly shy and won’t let anyone near it, so you’ve only ever seen it from afar.

There’s a strange energy to this cat, but you don’t understand what it is. Whenever you look at it you feel overwhelmed; a mix of both good and bad emotions drowns you. It’s nothing short of eerie.

As you make your way home after a late visit to a friend’s house, you walk past the cat as it sits on the ground, faintly illuminated by a street light. You decide to take a quick look at it, and you can swear to have seen three shiny eyes look up at you. You felt scared.

A week goes by without the cat ever showing up anywhere near where you live, until, one night, you look out your bedroom’s window and see it… Its three yellow eyes piercing through your soul.

The cat begins to communicate a message…

Types of People: a Group of Small Town Ghost-hunters

The Medium: Has been talking to ghosts since childhood, big round glasses and long cardigan sweater sleeves that cover their hands, wispy hair, has trouble feeling connected to the physical world, speaks rarely and softly, highly empathetic, receives messages in dreams, nurses animals back to health, reads the energy of spaces through touch, often sick and suffers frequent headaches, an easy target for malicious spirits,  sweet and spacey but also sort of creepy,  all of the others in the gang work to protect them, the only person The Skeptic has a soft spot for. 

The Chronicler: deep forest green sweaters over flannel collars, brown corduroys, terrible posture, sends stories off to pulp sci-fi and magazines but almost never gets published, hopes a true paranormal story will be their big break, dopey omnidirectional romantic that flirts awkwardly, clumsy, always knocking over vases/bookshelves, desperate for The Mad Scientist’s approval,  annoys people by comparing stuff to fictional hauntings but their literary knowledge saves them in the end, makes puns at inopportune times, huge nerd,  most likely to fall in love with a ghost. 

The Local Detective: red scarves and black peacoats, always pushing hair out of their face, strong-willed, no-nonsense with eldest sibling energy, unspoken leader, knows intergenerational levels of town gossip and lore, has been friends with The Medium since basically infancy, believes in truth and justice, determined to find answers to questions that haunt their family, the first up the ladder into the spooky attic, superstitious, precise, spends a lot of time going through old newspaper clippings,lots of friends but has trouble getting close to people emotionally, gives a hell of a pep-talk. 

The Skeptic: black lace up boots and tight leather jackets, angsty attitude and floppy hair, reluctantly along for the ride, probably somebody’s bored younger sibling or cousin, sarcastic and prickly, eye-roll city,  tries to sabotage investigations to prove a point, will antagonize ghosts deliberately, loves to start arguments with Local Detective, tends to get trapped in secret rooms with The Liability, has a lot of unresolved issues they refuse to confront until forced to by paranormal circumstances, symbolic self-discovery, probably ends up breaking a curse that saves everybody.

The Liability: striped polo shits under fleece-lined denim jackets, never not wearing a hat, scuffed converse sneakers, incapable of taking things seriously or considering consequences, does dumb daredevil stunts to impress their crush, touches everything, gives all the ghosts goofy nicknames, best friends with the Chronicler- who they view as needing to get out more often, will totally just pick up a clearly cursed item and take it home, second most likely to get possessed after The Medium, intensely loyal despite all their bullshit, would sacrifice themselves to save the group.

 The Mad Scientist:  grey blazers and silver watches, spiral notebooks in shirt pockets, oxford shoes, aspires to revolutionize science by proving the existence of the paranormal, uncommonly and undeniably bright, biology and particle physics knowledge but also knack for practical gadgets, keeps bugs in jars, always carrying around beeping recording equipment,   jazzed about things that should be horrifying, lingers too long in creepy locations because they’re busy collecting samples of something, pines hard for The Local Detective but lacks the confidence to articulate it.

Minding Your Own Business Gothic

• When you hear voices in the walls at night, don’t try to listen to what they’re saying. You don’t want to know.
• If you feel like someone’s watching you it’s because someone is. Try not to think about it.
• Some nights you will experience a strong urge to open the curtains or the blinds on your window and look outside. Don’t. Really, really don’t.
• It’s fine to gaze at the stars, they like to be admired. But be careful, because you can be sure the stars are gazing back, and they like to capture souls. If you begin to feel like you are floating or leaving your body, look away from the stars immediately.
• If an alien being lands/manifests/otherwise arrives on your property, try not to stare. They’re probably lost and embarrassed and would really appreciate it if you could both just pretend that this never happened.
• Not everyone you pass by on the street is human and you’re just going to have to make peace with that.

- Vampires can live forever, except they don’t, because they’re careless. “Hi, I’m Johnny Noctville and this is JACKASS.” They don’t live to one hundred, they’re morons. they think being immortal is being invincible. they are stupid. just fucking, absolute buffoons. 

- they’re not pale skinned. have you noticed how vampires are often like elves, tall, sexy, pale, and European coded, with all the ruffles and fancy dresses and suave suits and they’re an expert in some boring old renaissance art? yeah fuck that, poc vampires. werewolves are the pale ones, and they’re the reasonable and cool-headed ones. 

-no dark-skinned “animalistic” werewolves coded to be native americans or black people or whatever the fuck white people are on these days. they don’t arbitrarily hate vampires, also, they just think they’re a bunch of jackasses who don’t take care of their pets. which they are. 

- their leader isn’t a tall sexy seductress woman who wears dark red or black and has a perfect face and perfect makeup, she’s wearing sweats, a hoodie, and looks so tired you think she’s gotta be a college student.

- she’s one of the oldest vampires, at a whopping 76 years old. you heard that right, vampires are such dumb blood knights, no pun intended, that they’re lucky to live to human ages.

- and guess what, she wears footie pajamas into battle because she literally could not care less. immortality makes people lazy, and i refuse to accept otherwise.

- immortality also makes you NOT care how you look. you can be a lazy son of a bitch and still be vicious enough to lead your coven. sweatpants, sweatshirt, never washes her disgusting hair. 

- also spends entire weeks watching netflix and would literally die from not drinking any blood out of pure apathy. 

- I also refuse to believe vampires aren’t thots. the stupid fucks live forever and never get sick, you  bet they fuck. 

- vampires in Victorian Tale are a blast, what can I say. 

- I just think the whole moody vampire thing isn’t nearly as funny as it could be. as it should be. seriously, imagine being a depressed motherfucker, only a depressed immortal motherfucker who couldn’t die if they wanted to. cheers. 

Cryptid Gang

mothman design by @apollinaresart

Me: i would love to go ghost hunting !!!

Also me: *sees own shadow and screams*

Life is short. Write that novel. Paint that painting. Try new recipes. Learn black magic. Go into the forest at night. Summon an old god. Earn that god’s trust. Become best friends with it. Make a pact and gain good things through it. Brag to everyone else about your new cool ethereal best friend. Be creative.

• Being watched/followed. Can be used with plots like a home invasion or someone watching another person through a webcam.

• Losing control. Can be used with plots like possession, being forced to kill/hurt people to save oneself or a loved one, being blackmailed, etc.

• The nature of humanity. This can work when the “monster” is a human, and can call into question the concept of good and evil. Works well with the above in my opinion, as a human being doing monstrous things can sometimes lead to questions about humanity and whether humankind is good.

• The end of humanity. Can be cheesy (like in a lot of zombie plots), but is innately scary to a lot of people to think about. Things that seem more plausible, such as an apocalypse related to pandemics or environmental pollution, can come across in a more serious way when done subtly.

• Isolation. In some cases this can seem a little too convenient to the plot, but when done right isolation can up the terror of the plot, or even serve as the plot itself. Being trapped somewhere, like in the woods or in a small space, could work for this.

• One’s own insignificance. Most cases I’ve seen where this works well show the character’s smallness in relation to something else. The ocean, space, cosmic gods, etc.

• The unknown. Often works well with the above in my opinion. The ocean and space, for example, would be good settings for this.

• Instinctive responses. The human brain tends to naturally react to things like violence, disease and contamination, and other things that threaten survival. Using these things too gratuitously can easily become campy or even voyeuristic and insensitive, but they can be used well.