#thinking a lot about monster high recently after watching the full third gen!!

[coincasual]

spooky doodles🫶✨🖤

[jayankles]

Spread the Love - My Forever Favourite Fics

Remember when I said that I asked y’all to send in your favourite fics of your own or someone elses? 

Your Favourites

Well I think It was high time to tell you mine. I had been planning on doing this a long time ago but I hadn’t gotten around to doing it but now here I am posting this showing all my love to the most memorable stories  have read since I joined this site. So without further a do, below are at least 60 stories that I have loved and thoroughly enjoyed. All have a comment about what I liked about it and if you’re lucky you may be on there twice.

BTW it’s a very long post.

Drabbles

Familiar - @torn-and-frayed  I think about this all the time and have probably read this drabble at least three times. I would have loved for it to be turned into a full on oneshot to get the backstory of Dean and the Reader because the angst is just so enticing you can’t help but want to read more.

Oneshots

The Little Princess - @iwantthedean  Jensen has awesome ways to make it up to his daughter. And a sassy one at that too! Love me some daddy!Jensen.

Even Though - @imagineteamfreewill I don’t read a lot of Sam but I couldn’t help but giddly grin at domestic!sam.

Marry Me - @ravengirl94 *slaps hand down on table* this was the cutest shit I have ever read. It was just so fluffy I could help but read it a second and third time.

Downsized - @deanssweetheart23  I love me some toddler!Dean and I think you captured him perfectly, especially his saucy little grabby hands ;)

Always - @winchestersnco  This monster of a oneshot stands at 20k and it was worth the read. From what I can remember, it shows the journey of the relationship between Dean and the reader, following the seasons from one to twelve.

The Asshole Jock - @thegreatficmaster Nini, your fics just make me smile because your personality shines through and makes them so relatable. I love that you made this a gender neutral so every one could enjoy, definitely made me love you and Dean even more.

Sweet Relief - @winchestersnco  Everyone needs some Nurse!Sam in their life so here you go. It is 10k worth of pure and utter greatness.

Wanted - @jotink78 This cute little oneshot explores Dean and the readers daughter’s feeling about not being planned.

Lost and Found - @little-red-83  This is an angsty Gadreel story that I hope someday gets a sequel or second part because there isn’t enough Gadreel love out there, not that I am aware of anyway, but this story is based on the angels falling in season 9 and it hurts my heart so much because the reader went through changes that she didn’t think could happen.

Eyes Like That - @little-red-83 The may be my absolute favourite Gadreel oneshot ever, it shows a different side of the reader that we are all used to reading or writing. It’s filled with angst and I should be called a monster for loving it but I can’t help it It was written so perfectly that I feel sorry for Gadreel.

The Ladybug and the Cowboy - @avasmommy224 This oneshot has Dean Smith in it and has a plus size!reader. For me, that was a win-win and only fueled my love for Dean Smith.

Trials of Silence - @moonlitskinwalker I read this twice. The second time I read it was better than the first. It was just so well written about the struggle the reader went through after losing her hearing and I was glad that someone reblogged it so I could give it the recognition it deserved.

People Can Change - @kas-not-cas I related so much to this AU story because I’m that chubby nerd that is full of self doubt so I fell in love with it and read it a couple of times through tears of how incredible this whole thing was.

A Darker Shade of Love - @roxy-davenport his was just so hot. It’s a little canon divergent but that is what makes this oneshot so great. It included the struggle that MOC!Dean goes through and the transformation into Demon!Dean what makes it so great.

Hold the Line - @lipstickandwhiskey  At first I was intimidated by the word count but sucked it up and read the shit out of it and thank god I did because it was a fantastic read, I loved the build up of the relationship between Dean and the reader.

The Wish Spell - @emilywritesaboutdean I think this fic was the first that I had read from you and I automatically hit that follow button as soon as I read it. I’m glad someone reblogged it and it came on my dash, so I had the opportunity to read it and follow such a nice person.

Don’t Speak - @demondeanismybaby This oneshot hurt in the beginning because it was so relatable but Dean being the adorable fluff ball that he is saves the day again.

Those Eyes [Part 1] [Part 2]  - @demondeanismybaby The first part gave me mixed emotions; the fact that they got along so well in the beginning then it turned out to be lies. The the end of that, I almost burst into tears with how sucky Dean was. Then that second part, it was just rude I thought that Ashley would make it better but no, she made it worse and didn’t care for my fragile little heart. Thanks for that.

Where Is My Mind - @magicalthoughtsendinterriblefics This was a head fuck from the beginning and it messed me up but I loved it from start to finish.

The Kiss - @iwantthedean What can I say about this? Well, apart from the fact that I have read it about three times already, it was amazingly written with any dialogue yet you have conveyed all the words through the loophole. I adore this oneshot because it gave me my love for Dean Smith.

The Smiths - @kayteonline  I recently found your blog and this fic and I turned into a Dean Smith slut even more. I hope there’s more eventually.

Huddled - @kittenofdoomage  A/B/O wasn’t really my thing until I read this oneshot. I also admire the fact that was reader was a strong character in this and helped Dean out.

The Price You Pay - @kittenofdoomage  My heart was torn out of my chest, multiple times and put back together. The sacrifice that both Dean and the Reader made was perfect and the ending was amazing.

Cross My Heart - @deanssweetheart23 Honestly, I read this oneshot and I was all over the place. I was happy, excited, then it got to a certain part in there and my heart dropped. I was in tears before I had even finished it. But thank god I did. Because I absolutely loved it.

Dee - @percywinchester27  This cute oneshot make my heart melt. I absolutely loved the transitions in it, I adored how Dean automatically went into protector mode. And that beautiful ending just made me love you even more, Ana.

Series

Fantasy vs Reality - @avasmommy224 This Dean AU series where Dean has tattoos just melts my heart. There’s angst, fluff and it is absolutely to die for.

Unexpectedly - @winchesterenthusiast  This is another Dean AU that I love. I mean Dean is adorable and FLEETWOOD MAC! I love them! It’s so perfectly written that I can’t get it out of my head. And just so you know, Kait is also an amazing person so there’s that too.

Private Lives - @katnharper This Jensen series is fantastic, it just reels you in from the start. Each chapter just gets better and better, the deeper you delve and I can’t wait for the next part of it.

https://iwantthedean.tumblr.com/post/146472156396/angeles-master-list Nicole, this series is everything. I loved that it was based on the song Jensen covered. I loved the imagery it created and soon I will have to read it again!

Forward - @blacktithe7 This series is just ripping me apart. It explores real life struggles and it’s not just fluff that doesn’t happen all the time. It is absolutely beautiful, each and every word of it. I also love the battle between Jensen and the Reader but my little Jaybird is too cute to harm and what do you do? Hurt her! I shouldn’t have trusted you.

I Know Your Wife (She Wouldn’t Mind) - @teamfreewill-imagine This Jared, Gen, Reader series just pulls me to the Jared side but the fact that Ditto has Jensen and Danneel as adoptive parents and JJ the coolest little sister. So cute with the right amount of angst and smut.

A Little Thing Called Love - @chaos-and-the-calm67 This Jensen series has been put on hold but I remember when it first came out that it played with my emotions because one minute I loved Jensen then the other I just wanted to hurt him but then again I understood why he did what he did. I can’t wait for the next part whenever that may be.

Series Masterlist - @thing-you-do-with-that-thing So I love way too many fics from Kari so I had to link her series master list. Find the following fics because you will not be disappointed: (DEAN) When You Least Expect It, Strawberry Wine, Kill Zone, Ties That Bind, (SAM) The Blue Beach House, (JENSEN) Living With Regrets. These are literally only a few that I love each series that I read just got better and better as you read the next chapter of each story.

Girls Night - @itswitchcraft-not-googlemaps  I think this series is what made me follow you. I read it and automatically hit that like, reblog and follow button. I’d love to have a friend like Jody and you wrote her so well.

Invisible - @just-another-busy-fangirl This is another amazing series, at times it was frustrating when I couldn’t figure out how the Reader would be seen again! But in the end, love conquers all.

They’re Watching - @daydreamingintheimpala This mystery series fucked me up, it was so good and had me on the edge of my seat as I read each chapter. Also, check out The Donor because it gives you all kinds of Daddy!Dean feels.

Beauty and the Beast  - @imagineteamfreewill This series is one of my absolute favourites. It’s all I can think about, and it just makes me want to watch the original and the new movie all the time as I wait for a new part to come out.

Close Every Door - @jotink78  It started with a shopping trip for a supply run and there are warnings that you have to read because it gets a little dark but Joanie tells an amazing story that captures your attention from start to finish.

The Chaos Theory - @frickfracklesackles  Serial Killer!Sam warning. It’s only the beginning but damn is it a good start to an even better story. Also check out Gasoline (Jensen Series)

Lilies and Zeppelin - @deanscolette This Punk!Dean AU took me on a roller coaster of emotions. It hurt but it was also full of love and hate.

Masterlist -> 62 Minutes - @dean-the-smol-bean Luna has put out a one of the best series I’ve read, she’s so talented and manages the slow burn and the love story between Dean and the reader. Unfortunaly there isn’t a separate masterlist so it leads to the full one – look for 62 Minutes and you will not regret it.

Fresh Start - @like-a-bag-of-potatoes This is an AU series to die for. It shows the story of the reader and Dean before they got together and it is brillant story that has been told.

I See Fire - @plaidstiel-wormstache I read this and instantly fell in love with it. I was pulled and drawn in with the reader and her secret and her special powers. It’s what made me follow you, it was so memorable.

Stroke of Luck - @percywinchester27 This series annoys me because it is so good but on the other hand the SLOW burn makes me want to just get them and smash their bloody heads together. We get the insight of Dean and the Reader’s upbringing together and the significance of the best OFC I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Balconies - @lipstickandwhiskey This series was a great read, the seriousness of real life situations and the overall greatness of it all just makes me love it again and again everytime I read it.

Dirty Girl - @sis-tafics It’s Demon!Dean that should be enough but I just can’t leave at that because that wouldn’t be fair because the SMUT is just hot af especially with a Virgin!Reader at the beginning.

Our Little Secret - @sis-tafics this ongoing series is great one to read if you are a kinky son of a bitch but underlying all that smut is a plot that will make you love Dean, flaws and all, even more than usual.

The Good Parent - @faith-in-dean  I’m kinda upset that Franzi lost interest in this story because I was loving this rewrite, and Dad!Dean so...

Series Masterlist - @luci-in-trenchcoats  Michelle is just an amazing writer overall, I was struggling to choose only a few of them, but my favourites are; Simple Man, The Firefighter, Frat Boy, Locked In, Spend the Night and Worlds Best Dad. ← and this is just Dean. The reader is just so fantastically written. Dean is a loving and an adorable dork, who wouldn’t want that?

Wayward Daughters - @chelsea072498  I was enamored with this story from the get go. The detail of this story was just so amazing that most of the time, it’s all I can think about. The story of Dean, the reader and Alex is just so entralling that you can’t help but fall in love with it.

Celebrate Me Home - @callmesweetheartifyoumeanit IT’S 75K WORTH OF PURE AND UTTER HARD WORK. Every new chapter that Moz had put out I absolutely loved. She had captured so many different, conflicting emotions. I cried. A lot. Like a baby. But each part got better and better. The deeper you dove into the story the better you learned the characters and how they think and how they feel. And as you read it, it hits you right in the feels, like all the time. I will definitely be reading this over in the near future.

A Perfect Storm - @nichelle-my-belle This series is what made me follow Nichelle. I just loved the twists and turns at every angle. When you threw in the twist about the reader’s father and who she truly was, that freaking got me. Amazing writing.

Mr and Mrs Smith - @purgatoan I love that in the dean x reader series that both of them are hunters and have to hide it from each other and the little detail that the reader has the tattoo first and then Dean gets it and not the other way around

Where It All Began - @supernatural-jackles I have got to tell you. I fell in love with this series as soon as I laid eyes on it. I had saved it in my drafts and did nothing but read it for a week until I had caught up. Then I just sat there waiting for the next update from Jen.

Masterlist - @supernatural-jackles I also put Jen’s masterlist her because I also loved her ‘Meet My Daughter’ series and ‘Hell on Earth’ series, too, but honestly, you should just go and check it out anyway because she has written some of the most amazing fics that I have read in my life. I mean I try not to fangirl but it’s so hard.

Sexy Mutt - @larajadeschmidt13 I’m not really an OFC reader but I love this Dog!Dean x OFC. Dean, in this, is an aborable little pupper who has no clue how he ended up in a human body.

Stay - @larajadeschmidt13 This fic is another Dean x OFC but this time Dean is a professor! You wouldn’t want to miss that opportunity.

Fire and Ice - @huntingandwritingthings I think that this was the first fic that I had read from your blog, I loved that it showed real life struggles and you brought in an aspect from your own life; the reader being french, it was such a great read.

Undeniable Heat - @katymacsupernatural  I am loving this series so far, it has so many twists and turns as you read each chapter and makes you fall in love with Jensen even more.

Daddy’s Little Lovebug - @torn-and-frayed I love this series it had inspired me to write my own series of Daddy!Dean. Little JoJo make your heart melt from the beginning and just gah it’s too cute. Also check out Send the Pain Below, Fragments and With All My Heart

[culturalgutter]

We people of Earth are experiencing a renaissance in horror on TV like we’ve never enjoyed before, as traditional gatekeepers are dispersed in the wild hunt for content, any content that is compelling or innovative or just plain outré enough to collect people at watercoolers, where presumably advertisers can drop a net on the whole pack and harvest their disposable incomes and/or pineal juices. There’s Scream Queens, Scream, American Horror Story, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, Stranger Things, Bates Motel, and so many more jostling for your eyeballs, and they are all worthy of your eyeballs. The surprisingly gory Supernatural is in its 80th season, I think, and The Walking Dead has proven itself stronger than even zombie fatigue. And for every Penny Dreadful or Hannibal that is cut down, a Twin Peaks or X-Files will rise. But everyone in my house is sick, and have been in various configurations for the last month and a half, so I can’t tell you about any of those new shiny things at the moment.  Sick babies are hell on your Netflix queue. And while David Cronenberg and Anthony Burgess’ epidemiologic horror is also top of mind these days, I find myself ultimately retreating to the comfort food of old favorites. In this case, the genteel rictus smile of Boris Karloff’s Thriller.

Stephen King had high praise for Thriller in 1981’s Danse Macabre*, and you’ve got to respect Stephen King’s opinion in these matters. Deference to King aside, since it wasn’t widely syndicated like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock’s anthology shows, and a slew of others, and I fall in the Gen X cohort that missed the first go-around, I never actually clapped eyes on the show until Netflix picked it up a few years ago. There’s only two seasons, but these are 1960s seasons, so the hour-long format delivers a full 50 minutes of content, not the 37-42 minutes we get today, with a total of 67 episodes, so it certainly doesn’t feel like a short-lived series. I think a show would have to be on for almost a decade in Britain to ding 67 eps.

In a lot of ways, Thriller is just like its horror anthology contemporaries and successors: weird standalone teleplays – usually horror, but sometimes a crime or mystery story —  starring many faces who, if not already famous and beloved, would certainly become so later on: Ida Lupino (who also directed a boatload of these and scripted one), John Carradine, Leslie Neilsen, Ursula Andress, William Shatner, Harry Townes, Elizabeth Montgomery, Rip Torn, Mary Tyler Moore, and on and on and on. The stories tended to be horror siphoned from a very EC Comics vein, where bad people succeeded in bad things, only to be visited with hells of their own making. The most upfront difference was its host, a man once simply billed by his forbidding last name in Universal’s horror heyday, Boris Karloff, who also starred in a handful of the stories as a glorious bonus.

Boris was a big value add, no question, not only bringing the heft of his horror credentials, but investing every host segment with superbly ghoulish glee.  Each episode, after an appropriately shocking cold open, Boris would step into the scene or the camera would pan to reveal him, much in the manner of Rod Serling’s introductions in The Twilight Zone, but instead of Serling’s moralistic omniscience, Boris was conversational and warm, and the bloodier the subject matter, the more delighted he seemed.  It’s a neat trick, possibly unparalleled, to be at once so kindly and so sinister. I could watch nothing but a loop of his host sequences for hours. And Boris really worked for it. When he warned, “And those were no ordinary pigeons. They were pigeons from hell!” you knew he meant it. Before the lights went down for the story proper to begin, he would also introduce the cast, reminding you of the unreality of it all briefly before returning to his convivial threats. I love these sequences, especially when the cast physically walks into the picture with Boris, looking haunted or malign, and I love that, at least initially, Boris referred to them as “Mr. Rip Torn. Miss Patricia Barry,” etc. It’s exquisitely mannered. The tagline was, “As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, this one is a Thriller!” And he was pretty true to his word.**

There were a few clunkers, though there always are, and even the success of the better episodes may be a matter of taste, particularly several decades after some of the punchlines and the story outlines have been retold so often they’re blunted with quaintess. But the source material was as top notch as The Twilight Zone at its height, harvesting work from August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, Richard Matheson, and particularly Robert Bloch, who wrote seven episodes. And hell, Ray Milland directed an episode about Jack the Ripper. There was a ton of talent going into these shows, and if it had had a better timeslot, maybe it would have survived to become the institution The Twilight Zone (deservedly) is. Thriller did at least spawn a comic series, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, which survived the show and Karloff both into the 1980s.

My favorite Thriller episodes all turn on that EC Comics flavor horror. You could easily swap out Boris for the Crypt Keeper as far as that goes, but I do prefer Karloff’s puns. Here, in no particular order, are my five top Thriller episodes for the adventurous viewer. There’s a DVD collection, plus it’s currently showing on the Decades cable channel. You may find many episodes on YouTube.

William Shatner did two Thriller episodes, and I have a hard time picking a favorite. Part of this is simply because Shatner’s really good in both. People make fun, but he’s a damn fine actor, and his black-and-white work could be a lot more restrained than we expect from Captain Kirk or Denny Crane. In “The Hungry Glass,” based on a Robert Bloch story, Shatner is one half of a young married couple who have just bought a house . They were sold the house by a realtor friend, who you may also recognize as Russell “The Professor” Johnson, and it has a spooky reputation that has kept the Century 21 sign out front for a generation. When the Shatners take possession of the house, they’re there for approximately a minute before the realtor’s wife screams that she saw a figure outside the window, and it’s not Torgo because the window overlooks a scenic sheer drop. There are nervous chuckles and rationalizations, but it doesn’t take very long at all for Shatner and his wife to start seeing fleeting figures in reflective surfaces. And then the wife finds an attic full of mirrors.

The second Shatner episode is called “The Grim Reaper,” another Bloch adaptation, and it stars a cursed painting that really looks like sweet heavy metal van art. Here, Shatner is the nephew of a different castaway, Natalie Schafer, who plays an eccentric, exuberant, and very alcoholic mystery writer. She recently acquired the cursed painting because she’s the kind of person who would, and her caring nephew has come to warn her off of it. As he explains, when the scythe of the depicted grim reaper drips blood, someone will soon die. And wouldn’t you know it? He touches the painting to demonstrate and comes away with bloody fingertips. That same night, his aunt discovers her husband is trying to snuggle her assistant. It’s a story that’s equal parts Clue and the Roddy McDowall vignette in the Night Gallery pilot, and it’s perfect.

My third Thriller pick is called “The Hollow Watcher.” The Hollow Watcher is a scarecrow, and  I love demon scarecrow stories. It is also a story of southern white rural poor, which always interests me since, well, I was/will always be, and their treatment always grabs my interest, but it’s fair here.*** It starts with Denver Pyle as a meaner version of Briscoe Darling, attacking his son Hugo’s mail-order Irish bride. As father and son fight it out, the bride sneaks up and whacks Daddy dead. Since the son was pretty well knocked out by his father, she’s able to convince him that he beat his father so profoundly that his father ran away, forsaking his land. Hugo, in hillbilly man-child mode, expresses anxiety that “The Hollow Watcher,” a scarecrow up on the hill/avenging monster will visit judgment on him for raising a hand to his elder. In the meantime, a man claiming to be her brother arrives on the scene, his wife recently dead. Hugo is called away, and brother and sister are revealed to be man and wife grifters with a very Crimson Peak approach to building a nest egg. Hugo might be gone, but the Hollow Watcher still overlooks the property, and as Boris reminds us, “The beliefs of simple country folk can create forces that can certainly surprise you.”

Next, I choose “The Terror in Teakwood,” a story about a hatred between two concert pianists so white-hot, it survives death. Hazel Court plays the wife of the still living pianist Vladimir Vicek (Guy Rolfe), disturbed that since the death of his rival Karnovich, he’s been acting, well, a little weird, and she keeps finding him covered in blood. She thinks that someone is trying to kill him. So she goes to her ex Jerry (Charles Aidman) and asks him to come work as her husband’s manager, while secretly trying to get to the bottom of the blood-covered husband biz. Imagine how worried she’d be if she knew what her husband did at his rival’s grave in the cold open.

Lastly, I recommend “The Incredible Doktor Markesan,” based on an August Derleth story, starring Boris Karloff as the titular doktor with Dick York and Carolyn Kearney as his nephew and nephew’s wife, driven to the door of his Old Dark House in penniless desperation. Markesan, creepier even than his house, agrees to let the poor couple stay, but insists they never leave their room after dark, and just to be sure, he locks them in. Markesan, sweetie, if it didn’t work for Dracula, it’s not going to work for you.

Those are my favorites, but even as I make the list, I want to recommend “The Purple Room” for the Psycho exteriors and Rip Torn almost unrecognizably young, “Mr. George” for its darkly comedic tale of a specter foiling three wicked people’s attempts to kill their young ward, Patricia Barry’s Jekyll and Hyde performance in August Derleth’s “A Wig For Miss Devore,” the weird voodoo weirdness of the Robert E. Howard story “Pigeons From Hell,” and on and on. This show has so many goodies. Even the crime thriller episodes have their good points, like…Robert Lansing. “Late Date” is a pretty good one of those, based on a Cornell Woolrich story. And while there’s a lot of exciting new stuff out there that deserves your attention, just because something’s of a certain vintage, that doesn’t mean you should give it up for dead.

[manic laughter, discordant organ music begins]

* Among Stephen King’s very astute judgments in Danse Macabre, I have, with time and home ownership, come to appreciate his verdict on The Amityville Horror as being mostly horrifying when you think how much money that poor family hemorrhaged.

** Of course, he never legally changed his name from William Henry Pratt, so if a show wasn’t a thriller, I suppose the joke would be on us.

***I will note here that the setting is rural North Carolina, and everyone pronounces the word “hollow” with a long o sound at the end. That has a very spooky ring and is certainly evocative of a man made of straw, but since it refers to a place, i.e. the hollow the scarecrow is watching over, it really should be pronounced “holler,” especially by country folk. I assume no North Carolinians were consulted in the making of this episode.

~~~

Angela does wonder about the alternate timeline where Bela Lugosi hosted an anthology show.

For No Mere Mortal Can Resist We people of Earth are experiencing a renaissance in horror on TV like we’ve never enjoyed before, as traditional gatekeepers are dispersed in the wild hunt for content, any content that is compelling or innovative or just plain outré enough to collect people at watercoolers, where presumably advertisers can drop a net on the whole pack and harvest their disposable incomes and/or pineal juices.