User blog comment:SnakeTongue237/Top 10 Creepypastas by EmpyrealInvective/@comment-26112985-20150905231042/@comment-24101790-20150906032347

Welp, let's put a special spin on this. You gave your top of your favorite stories of mine, so let's let the (pretentious) author weigh in with his top three stories.

3: Ad Nauseam, Ad Mortem, Ad Infinitum. Let's face it, this one has to make my top list. It's a blending of my existential crisis (what if we only repeat ourselves?) and my personal history. I did live in Kalamazoo, my grandfather was on a respirator (Named the Liberator), and I have/do struggle with an addictive personality. It's a terrifying what-if scenario that I'm glad has managed to hit a chord with a number of users.

2: True Tales of Terror from the Peace Corps. The best anthology of stories that I never wanted anyone to read. I love the fact that these are all true and all of these stories were experienced in the space of two years by volunteers in my group, Agricultura 56, which leaves the door wide open for other stories. The best (most terrifying) part is that it's an open cycle and every volunteer has their own horror story to tell. (One of my friends was trapped in her house by a pack of dogs, another had to get in a physical altercation with a machete-wielding bolo who demanded a kiss as toll for passage on a street late at night, and another is a very personal story from my community about the lowest point in my life that I cannot write out.) It's a horrifying series that is self-perpetuating and that is amazing/terrifying in its own right.

1: We R Leejun. While I'd love to say A Good Ending was one of my most successful stories due to the scope, focus, and emotion that was injected into it, Leejun is one of the few stories I've written that is the perfect mixture of horror, humor, and humanity that I've ever written. It is largely inspired by David Wong's John Dies at the End (seriously, if you haven't read that book yet, do. It is Lovecraftian horror/humor at its finest) and zombie culture (god bless you Romero, Max Brooks, and a majority of other sci-fi writers.) The only story that had me laughing as I wrote it and wondering what was wrong with me at the same time. It is also the only story that inspired a spinoff (Tu Fui, Ego Eris) which was a more serious/dramatic focus on human nature. Seriously, the story is 100 pages long and at the end, I still feel like I had so much more to tell. If that's not the sign of great (or possibly horrible) writing, I don't know what is.

Let's wrap this up by saying how privileged I feel. SnakeTongue237 could have started this off with a number of excellent authors, but they (confusingly) selected me first. To be honest, this is quite the ego booster as when I first started off on the site, I got very little feedback on my stories (The first comment I received was over a month after I had posted it). All emotions aside, I am extremely grateful for the attention and time you all have put into my stories and pointing out the issues. Thank you all.