#SORRYY THIS IS LATE IT REQUIRED A LOT OF THOUGHT

[spacehorrors]

top five haunted tropes (if that makes sense i just love your thoughts on haunted things)

this does make sense I had to consider it super carefully. I've tried to use the word trope strictly but I have a lot of thoughts. I've also leaned very heavily into haunted house tropes rather than just hauntings to narrow it down ever further.

haunted houses - starting off nice and easy I love haunted houses they're my favourite thing in the world. lots of people have written about what it means that people return to haunted houses and there are so many reasons!! for example it can be about class anxiety or just about the sanctuary of home turning against you. for me, they're the ultimate symbol of my favourite horror: where everything you know turns against you and there's no escape from it. haunted houses are often inescapable and you only realise that when it's too late. haunted houses can also manifest in lots of different ways, from the typical english country house to a eerily empty minimalist flat. there's so many opportunities for lots of different types of horror. that haunting is architectural baby!

hauntings as a cycle of time - this is less of a trope and more of a device I think but I'm going to talk about it anyway. the idea that your childhood ghost was actually you all along. or whenever time gets messed up by hauntings because that was a haunting is!! you have to recognise that it's a different time trying to hold on and there are so many ways that can come across.

the way a haunting is broken - the haunted house on fire is The Image to me like any sort of curse breaking is always interesting but the fact the house has to physically burn down is always fascinating. because rot will make the haunting worse as will any sort of restoration so the only way to drive it out is to burn it to the ground. always fun and compelling and suitably dramatic.

beginning stages of a haunting - one of my favourite phases of a haunting is when we know it's a haunting of course because we're the ones who picked the horror book but the characters don't know. so you can pick out all the things going wrong and watch all the opportunities to escape just pass the character by as the dread builds. again this isn't really a trope but idc I love it. I love the little things that show there is something really wrong.

the place that you shouldn't visit - aka the heart of the house. the part of the house that isn't disguised by any sort of illusion. it's the rotten core and the place the protagonist is told NOT to visit but calls to them. bonus points if someone died there.