-★- Non-kink Story Recs 10/27/2024! -★-

Amelia Thornheart is about a girl who dies and wakes up as her MMO character in a world that isn't the MMO world... okay that doesn't sound great if you don't like isekai's but where most isekai style stories aren't very good, Amelia Thornheart has amazing worldbuilding, fun characters with surprising depth, really cool airship naval battles, a really interesting magic system, and it's gay and fun with quality writing and an interesting story. AKA it's really good and you should read it if you like lesbians, airships, and really good fantasy worldbuilding. They don't even beat around the bush with the gay! It's very unique in its execution and I highly recommend it to literally everyone.

The title is a lie, Vale is absolutely a vampire. It's set in a fleshed out fantasy world that feels very much like the Witcher, except instead of an old guy with cat eyes, our monster hunter is Vale who is very much right from the start obviously a vampire. And she's really lonely in a painfully relatable way of someone who grew up isolated, while also autistic, and being unable to relate to others because she's "different" except instead of just autism, she's a vampire too. Anyway, this story is really good if you're into autistically coded monster girls with lots of issues. The monster stuff is really good, the autism vibes is really good, the tragedy of literally everything going on is really good. so much catharsis. Please give it a read!

This story is really good, unlike most stories by the author, it's a bit lighter on how it portrays the many trauma's going on, but again, it's about an autistic monster girl facing down an apocalypse. It's really fun for a story that's about a bunch of girls in terrible situations with all the trauma and superpowers and such. It's really fun and good and extremely Worm inspired while also being very different from worm. It's good enough I subscribed to her patreon. Go read it.

This story is… it might be Sleepless Domain inspired? But it's cute, and good, and she's an eldritch magical girl, it's a fun read, the powers are neat, the world building is fun. She's got hair tentacles in her magical girl form which is really cool (I have a thing for long prehensile hair in fiction <.<;). It's got a few tiny issues, but it's got interesting worldbuilding, cool powers, fun characters. Give it a try!

Another magical girl story! but better written than the last. A 13 year old in hospice, who has a lot of issues, encounters an eldritch monster, gets saved by another who offers to make her magical girl, and she realizes that becoming a magical girl is the only possible way of fixing her terminal illness. Unfortunately for her, magic runs off of your psyche and issues and gosh this girl has issues, and turning them into superpowers to fight eldritch monsters that prey on trauma is uh… really good… as a story, Liadain is not having a fun time at all. Also the monsters are really interesting, It sorta has a monster of the week thing, and each monster is a new brand of messed up with a completely new rule set based off of a new trauma. The best part is, unlike most of the magical girls (and token magical boy) in the setting, her powers are terrible for direct conflict, she has to fight every opponent the hard way. Anyway you should read it!

Technically I'd read this years ago in the early days of it coming out. Only I dropped it cause it got really intense with the horrifying bits. Then picked it up again… and dropped it again because of the really bad stuff happening was too much. Finally I reread it all the way through except for the two bits that were too much, and it was really good! It's about an autistic necromancer girl, in a world where being a necromancer is very much a thing people will kill you over. Also where your innate powers are powers you are predisposed towards wanting to use, and enjoying using… provided you have any. Anyway, it's a fun romp until it gets very visceral with the trauma. Anyway if you like monster girls that eat people, mind control, autism, fleshed out magic systems, and a unique setting, and aren't put off by torture, mind rape, or genocide (which are all portrayed as bad, but like… they're portrayed in story, multiple times each), then you should read it! (its says a lot that's the only story on the list that needs that level of disclaimer for a rec).

A girl obtained magic to track down the chained man in her dreams that caused a natural disaster that killed her parents, and things only get weirder from there. This story is weird. The way magic works is weird, even on a list of unique magic systems, it's just… weird and it's good at being weird. Anyway, the story starts off with her heading to magic school which is several adventures in and of itself which slowly teach you how magic works, and how magic politics works in the midst of murder mysteries, and life and death magic battles. Also the protagonist is a little shit, she really likes poking people's buttons. Give it a try!

Witch Hunt is really, really good, and for once it's a story that doesn't have a unique magic system or worldbuilding. Instead it takes a DnD magic system, and a victorian era magicpunk setting and knocks it out of the park. Moodie is a trans egg, but that's the B plot, the A plot is that he, they?, she??? This egg and a lot of other folks with monstrous heritage's are getting monster urges all at once, and a group of his regular customers are adventurers looking to solve this problem, and our egg begrudgingly gets dragged into the adventure! Oh and that kinda implies Moodie has monsterous heritage, and welp the egg is half vampire, and blacks out at night, and knows that people are getting hurt during her blackouts. Anyway the writing is great, the story is really well done, and you should give it a read!

This story is good, a girl gets recruited by the enemy of the magical girls to be a faceless extra for the villains with a plan to defeat the demon army from the inside, and things only get sillier from there. Of course all the silliness is because the main character uses silliness to hide from her trauma, which is still silly, but like her silliness is rightfully very dangerous with no regard to her self-preservation for very not silly reasons. Anyway it's just a really good story, it's light with moments of weight, and you should definitely give it a shot!

Did you grow up reading TGTF stories in the early 2000's, to fill the hole in your heart that gender dysphoria left? Then you gotta read this, it's a parody, deconstruction/reconstruction (if you've read tvtropes enough to understand those terms) of TGTF stories. Set in a world where all TGTF tropes exist, with a main character who doesn't believe that, with a closeted trans woman friend who does know and believe that and is trying to get herself force femmed instead of just transitioning the normal way. The story is really funny and both has a bunch of silly fun with the TGTF tropes, while also examining them, deconstructing them, and then reconstructing them, and has a whole, uh not subtext just literal text, of critically examining classic forcefem plots. Anyway as someone who is the target audience it was really really good. Give it a read!

This is a pokemon fanfic that I lost half of 2024 to for very good reason. First it took several weeks of reading sun up to sun down because it's ridiculously long and simultaneously too gripping to put down, and then the next set of months were all writing or daydreaming fanfics of it, because it gave brain worms, the story is very good to get lost in. It's about a girl in Sinnoh who has a togepi and she is scared to be a trainer and then her dad tricks her into going to deliver medicine and she discovers she is obsessed with pokemon battling.

And I'd say a lot more but that's all spoilers, all the best parts of it are spoilers, normally I'd like to do the old timy pre spoiler culture thing and spoil really cool things to get you invested, but I'll abide by modern spoiler culture and not do that. And in exchange you'll take my word for it and read it. This is one of 4 stories that has ever given me this level of brain worms (along with Worm, Human Domestication Guide, and Azarinth Healer).