Current State of Affairs for the Dead Fear Group, reviewed by DJay32

What the fuck was this garbage. Archangard has gone down in quality. Sad! Very sad!

Graham, Positive, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

Graham, Positive is a twenty-five post blogella written by DarkShadows, and can be read here (cw: disease). Its primary Fear is the Plague Doctor.

This story is framed as a blog kept by an epidemiologist named Richard Graham for the purpose of educating the public about ways to stay safe from disease. Graham sticks to educational posts until he’s called to respond to an outbreak of an especially deadly strain of MRSA.

Graham, Positive was inspired by the public panic over the Ebola outbreak of 2014. In addition to the subject matter, the author’s own experience in lab science plays a big role here in making the story feel believable, which is what, in my opinion, makes it a good piece of horror. Despite the fantastical elements in the story, there really could be an outbreak of a deadly, antibiotic-resistant bacterium in the real world. On a smaller scale, any of us really could contract a terminal disease at any time, no matter how hard we work to minimize our chances. This is the kind of horror that serves to make us feel aware of the actual danger we are in, right this minute, in real life, and that is very, very effective.

I do wish there’d been more foreshadowing regarding Wahlberg, if he was indeed the person who crashed Allison’s dinner party. He was introduced only one post prior to that, which made the ending feel rather abrupt. Even if Wahlberg wasn’t an Oathbreaker, I feel that the story would flow more smoothly if he had been present in earlier posts, or not present at all. Elsewhere, the author does an excellent job of foreshadowing events and making them feel natural.

This is a great piece, and fairly short as well. Highly recommended. 

The All Seeing I, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

Burn the Sky is a blogpasta written by Omega, and can be read here. Its primary Fear is the Convocation.

The themes of Burn the Sky, while certainly not unusual, aren’t ones that we see a lot in the Fear Mythos, and I think that makes it interesting. Environmental concerns are very good for provoking guilt, which is its own special kind of horror.

The prose is interesting, too – it’s got a flavorful noir atmosphere, and the story is told through transcripts of emails, telephone conversations, journal entries, and newspaper articles. It’s very well-paced and economical. None of the posts felt out of place or unnecessary. It could perhaps have benefited from a little extra proofreading, but overall it’s a very, very solidly written blogpasta, and I recommend it highly.

Twelve Days, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

Twelve Days is a fifteen-post blog written by DarkShadows, and can be read here (cw: death, terminal illness). It features many Fears. Spoilers ahead.

The story’s about the emotional journey of Michael Zarkoff, whose wife Andrea is diagnosed with an aggressive, fast-spreading breast cancer. The doctors say she has a good chance of survival with chemotherapy, but Michael and Andrea are both, understandably, terrified. Michael’s Fears begin haunting him during this period of emotional disturbance.

Twelve Days is notable for multiple reasons, the foremost of which is its poignant depiction of Michael’s grief, fear, and guilt. It was almost emotionally taxing to read (I’ll admit I teared up at one point – I’ve grown soft in my old age), and I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to write, since it’s inspired by some of the author’s own life experiences. DarkShadows has done an excellent job of making the reader empathize with Michael’s experience.

The blog also features some interesting portrayals of Fears. Michael’s demons manifest in many different ways – from a surgeon at the hospital where Andrea’s staying to a priest at his church. I think the blog’s message is one of survival – of grief, of mental illness, and of life. After Andrea’s death, the Man and the Girl insist that Michael tell them what he’s going to do next. Michael’s response is that he doesn’t know, but he thinks he has to get through today first. As someone with mental illnesses, this really hit home for me – this sort of one-step-at-a-time, slow healing process is something I used for years. It’s implied that Michael suffers from an anxiety disorder in addition to his grief, so Twelve Days works on two different levels, both of which jive very well with one another.

I’d most definitely recommend this blog. It’s truly excellent.

Urban Malefic, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

Urban Malefic is a 38-post blog by TheSomnambulist, and can be read here (cw: some sexual content). Many Fears are present in the story, but the primary one is the Empty City. Spoilers ahead.

The blog is about a man by the name of Portnoy Augustus, who wakes up in a strange room with inward-pointing corners and then falls into the sun. As he journeys through the Empty City, he learns that the Fears have brought him here for some kind of test. His thoughts are transcribed by a device called the PsiMe, hence the stream-of-consciousness narrative. It feels almost like a science fiction story at times, which I found interesting.

I think Urban Malefic’s greatest strength is its creativity and description of the City’s bizarre architecture and events. The first post got me interested, and my interest was sustained to the end of the blog. I was very curious about what was going to happen next, and how it would end. I’d call it very well-written in that respect.

The grammar wasn’t the best, but I actually think it worked well with the stream-of-consciousness flow of the story, and there were only a couple of points where I found it distracting. There were a couple of things I didn’t understand: how did Portnoy become godlike at the end of the story? Sheer resolve? I wasn’t quite clear on that. Also, why would the Fears go to the trouble of implanting the PsiMe and creating the blog for it? What do they gain from that? I think the story would have been improved if the author had included explanations for these things. As usual, I apologize if I missed something.

I liked Urban Malefic, and I’d recommend it because it’s engaging, creative, and weird. Weird is good.

EDIT: TheSomnambulist has informed me that Portnoy had some kind of connection with the Empty City, enabling him to gain control over it at the end of the story, and that this is further explored later in the Amalgam Saga, of which Urban Malefic is a part.

Burn the Sky, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

Burn the Sky is a blogpasta written by Omega, and can be read here. Its primary Fear is the Convocation.

The themes of Burn the Sky, while certainly not unusual, aren’t ones that we see a lot in the Fear Mythos, and I think that makes it interesting. Environmental concerns are very good for provoking guilt, which is its own special kind of horror.

The prose is interesting, too – it’s got a flavorful noir atmosphere, and the story is told through transcripts of emails, telephone conversations, journal entries, and newspaper articles. It’s very well-paced and economical. None of the posts felt out of place or unnecessary. It could perhaps have benefited from a little extra proofreading, but overall it’s a very, very solidly written blogpasta, and I recommend it highly.

A Place for My Head, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

A Place for My Head is a blogpasta by Apostate, and can be read here (cw: suicide, self-injury, child abuse, graphic violence). Its primary Fear is the Unnamed Child.

First, let me say that I love this blog’s portrayal of the Unnamed Child. I’m under the impression that it’s one of the more difficult Fears to work with, but A Place for My Head pulls it off beautifully. The imagery in the last post is genuinely disturbing, and I especially loved Paula’s soliloquy at the very end. There were a handful of typos, but not enough that they were distracting.

I don’t think I have any legitimate suggestions for improvement. It might have been interesting if we’d had more time to explore the relationship between Paula and Allie (I’m a little curious as to how exactly they met? Just in an internet chatroom?), but the story works perfectly well as it is; we don’t necessarily need all the details.

I’d recommend A Place for My Head for its innovative, poignant portrayal of the Unnamed Child.

My Soul is on Fire, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

My Soul is on Fire is a blog by Acelegin, and can be read here. Its main Fear is the Dying Man.

This blog is interesting because it felt more like an action-adventure story than a horror story. It reminded me of a Japanese fighting game such as Soul Calibur, as it’s filled with superpowered characters fighting outlandish battles with one another. While I appreciate Fearblogs outside the horror genre, I felt that in this case the execution was sorely lacking.

My first major complaint is that the plot was very unstructured and didn’t keep my attention. It seemed to drag on and on without actually getting me invested in the story or characters, like I was listening to Estren say “…and then this happened, and then this, and then this, and then, and then, and then…” Details started to blur and I had to go back and reread parts on multiple occasions. I still can’t figure out exactly why Estren and HELLFIRE decided to look for Silvermist or who “future guy” is.

My second complaint is that that the characters all felt pretty much the same. HELLFIRE was the only one who stood out at all, and even then he didn’t feel quite consistent. Characters’ motives were often unclear. HELLFIRE seems to have an ulterior motive when it comes to finding the Godslayer, but why is Estren going along with him? And why is Amy sticking around? Supposedly Estren “owns” her, but the Game Master used to and she switched to Estren’s side over a bet. She could easily take off. The characters in this story felt like puppets rather than people, like they were only doing things because the plot demanded it.

I think My Soul is on Fire could have been an interesting blog if the execution had been better. I’m sure there are plenty of people who’d be interested in Fearblogs of this genre. I think the blog could have been improved if the author had paid more attention to his characters, who they were, and why they were doing what they were doing. The plot would have naturally become more interesting and engaging if I had been invested in the characters. Additionally, there are many typos throughout the blog that could have easily been caught with a bit of proofreading. This may seem like a minor thing, but I strongly believe that if such issues can be fixed, they should, as error-free prose makes a story seem more professional and improves flow.

Prestidigitation, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

Prestidigitation is a blogpasta by TheSomnambulist, and can be read here. Its main Fear is the Choir.

This blog’s protagonist is Marcinius Trowess, who starts blogging in-story as a school project. He begins hearing strange things at night: first skittering noises, then footsteps and slamming doors. He runs away from home when he overhears his parents plotting to kill him, but the Choir continue to manipulate him.

I thought it was interesting how easily Prestidigitation lends itself to an alternate interpretation. The Choir only manifests within the text as sounds and voices heard solely by the protagonist; one might come to the conclusion that Marcinius had simply developed an unusually destructive case of schizophrenia. I’m not sure if this ambiguity was intentional on the part of the author, but I found it intriguing. I also liked the ends to which Prestidigitation uses the Choir – straightforward yet chilling.

I didn’t care for the use of Morse code in the final post. For one, I felt that it was unnecessary to make readers go to the trouble of decoding it, especially in a blog that hadn’t previously used codes or ARG elements. There was also no in-story explanation given as to why Marcinius was suddenly posting in Morse code when he’d never done so before. Also, throughout the blog, commas are practically never used when they should be. It’s possible that this was a stylistic decision made to give Marcinius personality, but I found it distracting (my inner grammar policeman is showing here).

Overall, I have a mixed opinion of Prestidigitation. On the one hand, I liked the way it used the Choir and the ambiguity therein; on the other, many small stylistic issues prevented me from enjoying it fully. I would recommend it to those interested in the Choir, but not to those who find grammatical errors as distracting as I do.

The Neon Gospel, reviewed by Hexillith

[Editor's note: This review was written externally and copied to the Mythos Review by its author.]

The Neon Gospel is a blogpasta written by Apostate, and can be read here. Its main Fear is the Dying Man.

This is a polished and well-written piece chock full of body horror. The protagonist, Hector, is a bitter young adult who resolves to “get busy living or get busy dying” after witnessing his grandfather’s death to cancer. Well, not exactly – those tumors were actually caused by a Dying Man shard by the name of Capricorn, who’s now possessing Hector. This manifests first in what Hector thinks is somnambulism, but soon he’s missing time and finding himself in strange places with no clue how he got there, and the same kinds of tumors he saw on his grandfather are appearing in his own body.

I think The Neon Gospel’s greatest strength lies in its strong plot and smooth storytelling. In reading it one gets the impression that the author knew exactly where the story was going to go and what needed to be done to get it there, resulting in nearly seamless flow. It also has that sense of creeping dread which is so important in the horror genre, and has it in spades. My only complaint is that a few details seemed vague or unclear. For example, Capricorn claims that Hector ‘let him in,’ but there’s nothing in the account of his grandfather’s death that would suggest that. This is, admittedly, probably not something that most people would notice or care about on a casual read-through (and I apologize sincerely if I missed something).

This is an excellent blogpasta and certainly makes my list of favorites. I would very much like to see more of Capricorn, although The Neon Gospel shines on its own.