Showing posts with label Creatures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creatures. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

My Top 10 Fantasy Creatures

A few weeks ago, Jenna Moreci made a You Tube video counting down her top ten favorite fantasy creatures. While I don’t have an Author Tube account, I do have a list of my own. So thanks, Jenna, for the inspiration…and for being an awesome author…and for being a funny You Tuber. Anyways, here’s my personal list:


1. Cabbits from Tenchi Muyo

2. Calcobrena puppets from Final Fantasy 4

3. Demon clown from The Brave Little Toaster

4. Haunted house ghost from Adventures in the Magic Kingdom

5. Luck dragon from The Never Ending Story

6. Marching hammers from Pink Floyd the Wall

7. Moogles from the Final Fantasy franchise

8. Phanto from Super Mario Brothers 2

9. Protoss zealots from Starcraft

10. Shy Guys from Super Mario Brothers 2


And for an honorable mention, I’ve got Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters since we both have bottomless stomachs and hearts of gold. ^_^

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Two-Sentence Horror Stories: Third Strike


Bart Simpson laughed his ass off when he spray painted a penis and testicles on the side of Mr. Burns’s mansion. He screamed in terror when Burns caught him in the act, to which the Nuclear Power Plant tycoon unzipped his own fly and said, “You’re the perfect height for what I’m about to make you do, little boy!”

Travis texted his European girlfriend with grinning and heart emojis while calling her a “Beautiful Bulgarian”. He had a kiwi-sized lump in his throat when his phone auto-corrected his message to “Beautiful Bulge Area” before sending it.

Sammy drove cautiously on a winding mountain road with no guard rails while his wife and baby son snoozed in the back together. For some reason, he thought it would be a good idea to start texting on his smart phone.

A hulking ogress with rotting flesh, maggot-infested fingernails, and drill bit fangs burst through Grayson’s front door with a leonine belch and a paternity test in her hands. While Grayson cowered and shivered behind the easy chair, the ogress tossed the test results in his lap and said, “Congratulations, asshole!”

A stacked WWE Wrestlemania pay-per-view featured the main event of “The Monster Among Men” Braun Strowman vs. “The Modern Day Maharaja” Jinder Mahal for the latter’s WWE Championship in a first blood match. The match ended in five seconds when Jinder poked Braun with a sewing needle and drew a tiny drop of blood, causing the ripped-off fans to destroy the arena in a fiery riot.

Middle school sex ed was off to a rowdy start when the children screamed like banshees and threw paper airplanes at each other. They grew silent, shaky, and wide-eyed when the evilly-grinning professor wrote his name on the chalkboard, which was Mr. Ray Pugh.

Melissa clutched her chest and fought for oxygen when she saw that somebody on Face Book with a Pepe the Frog icon posted a countdown clock for her newborn baby’s eighteenth birthday. She nearly had a conniption when somebody else posted underneath it, “Why wait?”

Colton squirmed and ached in his bent over position while Dr. Smith performed a colonoscopy on him. Colton jumped out of his skin when the doctor said in a jolly voice, “Hey look, we’ve got half a million hits on You Tube!”

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader engaged in an epic light saber battle that saw Vader slice off Luke’s arm. As young Skywalker doubled over in pain, Vader breathed deeply in his ear and said, “Luke…I am your husband!”

Paul logged onto his Porn Hub account in hopes of finding a live teen webcam feed. He nearly lost both his erection and his sanity when he heard a familiar comedian’s voice on the other end of the feed yell, “Hey, hey, hey, come try my king sized pudding pop!”

Shane couldn’t wait to start his new job at Analytical Weaponry, Inc. That was, until he drove up to his workplace and saw the company name on a neon sign, which had all of the letters after the first L in the word Analytical blown out.

George opened his email and found a message demanding fourteen thousand dollars in exchange for keeping quiet about his porn viewing habits. To show there was no playing around, the extortionist put George’s password in the title of the email.

Anderson took a few puffs of his cigarette before coughing up black pudding all over the floor. His stomach ached and his throat soured when he saw that the tar blob had teeth and feces attached to it.

Stacy approached a hotdog cart and asked for a six-inch Polish sausage. Pee-Wee Herman emerged from his crouched position laughing like a madman with his penis sandwiched in a hotdog bun, complete with “mustard, ketchup, and relish” dripping from the tip.

Mary Poppins floated into London with a grimy man on her arm. As she arrived for her babysitting job, she introduced him to the children as Peter File.

“I’m lost without you, my love,” said Prince Charming. He gave his girlfriend a passionate tongue kiss before closing the casket one last time.

“I’d really like to give you a hand job right now,” said Sedona before licking her rosy red lips. Her lover nearly had a heart attack when she pulled off her arm glove and revealed bladed monster fingers underneath.

It is the middle ground between whiny and angry, between involuntary celibacy and a mass shooting, between a toxic romance and full-blown hostility. This is the dimension of pornographic imagination, an area which we call…The Friend Zone!

After Glenn refused to answer the phone, a robotic voice on the answering machine said, “Please return the call to Charles Dahmer at 1-800-666-5150. This is an attempt to collect your blood and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.”

Chase entered his massive pickup truck and blew into the ignition interlock device. After registering a blood alcohol level of 0.87, he was able to start his vehicle and speed off into the busy night.

Marcus shivered in a cold sweat as he paced around his room for hours waiting for his girlfriend to text him back. His tongue and throat dried when she finally sent him a text saying, “We need to talk.”

“Introducing his opponent fighting out of the red corner: a serial killer and totalitarian dictator who holds a spotless record of thirty-two victims, I mean, wins and no losses, stands at 7’3”, weighs in at 500 lbs., and fights out of Charlottesville, Virginia by way of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with a pit stop in North Korea…Bone Saw…McGraw! And when the action begins, our referee in charge of the octagon is Steve Mazzigatti.”

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, a grinning Britney excitedly opened a heart-shaped box from her secret admirer. She screamed and dropped it because instead of chocolates, the box contained the bloody remnants of her aborted son.

Mitchell’s stomach gurgled and growled after eating twenty Carolina Reaper hot wings in a row without even a sip of milk. Fifteen minutes of sweating and tearing up later, when it was his turn to use the toilet, he pulled his pants down and his intestines fell out.

Lexi opened a package hoping it was diapers for her children’s charity drive. Her jaw hit the floor when she found out they were adult diapers with a semen-soaked note saying, “These would look really hot on you, Sexy-Lexi!”

Little Debbie skipped up to a cobweb-covered house dressed as a princess and said, “Trick or Treat!” to the wolf man, who had a pot of candy on his lap. She reached inside and cried buckets when she touched the werewolf’s warm and greasy Snickers bar, which was poking through a hole he cut in the bottom of the pot.

Leonard awakened in the middle of the night to find hundreds of hairy tarantulas crawling all over his naked body and sinking their fangs into his flesh. He tried to scream for help, but one of them crawled inside his mouth and clogged his throat.

Helgor the Barbarian wrapped his massive hands around the goblin’s throat and watched his eyeballs bulge and his face turn bright blue. Helgor whispered seductively into his victim’s ear, “This would be a good time for Autoerotic Asphyxiation!”

After hours of body-shredding labor, Wendy pushed one last time and gave birth to her baby boy. The doctor wrapped the bloody mess in a blanket and said, “Congratulations, it’s a porcupine!”

Bethany and her husband laid naked in bed next to each other while attempting to catch their breath. She smiled at him, licked her fingers, and said, “I haven’t creamed that hard in a long time, Uncle Cletus!”

Tucker browsed through the doggies and kitties at the animal shelter and had a cutesy-wutesy smile on his face the entire time. The adoption agent approached him with a clipboard and said, “Let me know which animal you want and I’ll be sure to send you home with a package of condoms.”

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Monsters


TV SERIES TITLE: Monsters
CREATORS: Richard P. Rubinstein and Mitch Galin
YEARS: 1988-1991
GENRE: Horror Anthology
RATING: TV-14 for violence
GRADE: Fail

In a seemingly ordinary suburban neighborhood, a family of hideous creatures gathers around the TV looking for something to watch. As the cyclops wife says herself, “It’s family hour, there must be something on.” That something turns out to be Monsters, a series of standalone episodes depicting vile creatures taking advantage of foolish humans. For purposes of this review, I will only judge the series based on the first four episodes, because those were the only ones I could get through before tapping out. Those episodes are entitled The Feverman, Holly’s House, New York Honey, and The Vampire Hunter. I’ve seen other episodes of the series in the past, but they share too many negative aspects in common with the first four episodes.

If you’re looking for a series that will scare the holy hell out of you, don’t worry, because your heart rate will remain at a comfortable pace by the time each episode is over. The only thing about the show that scared me the most as a kid was the music during the opening and closing sequences. The organ chord during the commercial break bumper also had a chilling effect on me, so much so that I purposefully put off watching Monsters until I got over that fear. It doesn’t help matters that the deep laughter near the end of the theme song makes me feel as though there’s something behind me, waiting to attack. The music is so creepy that I encourage people to play it on loop whenever trick-or-treaters come to their doors.

Unfortunately, the music is pretty much the only redeeming quality this series has to offer. Mr. Rubinstein and Mr. Galin deserve an A for effort, but once the music is over, things go downhill from there. The acting in these episodes is incredibly cheesy, so much so that it’s hard to sympathize with the characters. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as David McCallum in The Feverman and Richard Belzer in Werewolf of Hollywood, but those exceptions are few and far between. The dialogue isn’t so bad provided it’s conveyed by someone with more experience. But unfortunately, not even the money lines of the series can make me care about characters who are over-the-top and ludicrous. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to take the characters seriously or not. It’s almost as if the series was cheesy on purpose. If that’s the case, then the creators shot themselves in the foot with a double barrel shotgun.

The other thing that bothered me about this series was how slow the pacing of each episode was. I understand that exposition is essential to any story, but sometimes I think there’s more exposition than actual tension. It takes each episode forever to get to the real action. It takes so long, in fact, that I tune out as soon as the juicy parts come to fruition. Maybe it’s my Millennial blood that makes me impatient. Maybe slow storytelling was more effective in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Maybe so much of this series is outdated aside from the giant cell phones and radios. Either way, the agonizingly slow storytelling doesn’t age well in today’s world. I want action! I want drama! I want tension! And I want it now!

The only reason why I decided to revisit this series was because of nostalgic purposes. I remember being a little kid and being legitimately terrified of the music and the monsters themselves. But I’m not a kid anymore and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. There are a lot of shows, like Monsters, that were cool to watch when I was little, but not so cool in the present now that I have a better grasp of storytelling and acting elements. A failing grade goes to this series because it’s cheesier than a stuffed crust pizza.

Friday, November 25, 2016

"Never Again" by Marie Krepps

BOOK TITLE: Never Again
AUTHOR: Marie Krepps
YEAR: 2016
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Creature Fantasy
GRADE: Pass

In a medieval world inhabited by animalistic shape-shifters, Lord Sable is the ruler of the Southern Territory, but he is far from a typical politician. Instead of pushing papers behind a desk, he’s brawling with bandits and monsters as a way of protecting his people. He’s also protective of his little daughter, whose mother died after giving birth. Sable is crass, angry, vulgar, and emotionally cold. When another shape-shifter named Nessa comes into his life, the Southern Lord has to choose between keeping his trauma locked up forever and letting someone in to ease his pain. Nessa has pain of her own and wants to run into Sable’s cold, but strong arms. Will these two come together or tear each other apart? Cooperation is a must considering an unknown enemy is targeting Sable and his family.

I have to be honest here for a moment. At first I was critical of Lord Sable’s character development. He came off as an abusive jerk-ass who would never survive in a liberal democracy. And then I remembered that the story’s environment is anything but a liberal democracy. This is set in medieval times, which means literacy is at its lowest, ignorance is at its highest, and bigotry is everywhere. Instead of scoffing at Sable’s negative attitude, I’m praising Marie Krepps’ ability to stay true to the times. Even with a fantasy genre label, it’s important to keep things real and believable. High five to Ms. Krepps for doing an awesome job of that! And if you’re still not convinced that Sable is capable of being a decent person, keep reading, you’ll get your moment….sort of.

Another thing that deserves praise is a staple of most of Ms. Krepps’ books, the delicious sex scenes. I won’t say who they feature because that would count as a spoiler. But when the sex happens, you feel every muscle twitch, you feel every drop of sweat, you feel ever orgasmic burst of energy, and you’re hungering for more afterwards. Marie doesn’t just tell you what kind of hot sex is going on; she puts you right there in the middle of the action. I’ve always praised her ability to show instead of tell and these luscious scenes are living proof. She’s been doing these kinds of scenes for a long time now and experience has always been the best teacher. Try to remember: this book is not meant to be pornographic. Try really, really hard to remember!

The final thing I want to comment on is this book’s similarities with the long-running anime Inuyasha, which also takes place in medieval times and features demonic animals. Creative fuel can come from anywhere and Marie Krepps is a lifelong fan of anime, so that’s a lot of inspiration to work with. I often picture what it would be like to have Inuyasha and Lord Sable eat dinner together. There would be a lot of wolfing, a lot of swearing, and a lot of lewd behavior. The difference between them? Sable doesn’t have a “sit” necklace to hold him back. On the contrary, he’s made of 100% raw power with cold emotions to boot. In a way, Sable is also comparable to Koga since they’re both wolf shifters and equally vulgar. It’s always nice to see an author use creative fuel in such an innovative way.


This is a Marie Krepps novel in the truest sense: sex, violence, fantasy, romance, and an invitation to a front row seat for the action. She knows exactly what she’s doing when it comes to hooking in readers and never letting go of her death grip until she damn well wants to. This isn’t the last we’re going to see of Lord Sable, Nessa, and the evildoers who want to tear their world apart. This is only the first in what will eventually be a long series of awesome storytelling, high drama, and explosive action. I think she deserves a passing grade for her effort, don’t you agree? Excellent work, Marie! You’ve done it again!