MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Eight

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  This year, I’ve been trying to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, there are advantages to doing it the older way.  There’s a lot less control of where and how the text is placed, and what it looks like.  Surprised I’ve kept up the effort this long.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY EIGHT:  MINUSCULE

TITLE:  THE PERFECT ROSE

CHARACTERS:  Lidiya Volitsyev: a Little Old Gardening Lady, The Rose: a Horrible Human-Plant Hybrid.

PREMISE:  Surprise sequel to The Heterose are at It Again, wherein the spawn of Ricky Washington’s transgression against the natural order have gotten out into the wild.  But those seeds don’t turn into rose people unless grown just right, and there is a lot of variability to them.  Some are just a rose that looks kinda like an embryo in the wrong light, some are a disembodied hand surrounded by petals.  But the best gardener is rewarded with The Perfect Rose – that looks like a little lady.

THE HOOK:  Lidiya cares for the rose through the course of its life, and when it starts to go rosewild like its mother had with Ricky, there’s no hetero option on the scene.  This Rose learns to love the one she’s with, in age-appropriate ways during the course of her limited life cycle.  Good girl.

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Seven

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first few, I’ve tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Surprised I’ve kept up the effort this long.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY SEVEN:  CELESTIAL

TITLE:  THE SYLPH

CHARACTERS:  Earlene Roberts: a Teenage Child of Vagabonds, The Sylph: a Spirit in a Tornado.

PREMISE:  Earlene’s parents Clifton and Lil Hominy Roberts were hope-to-die alcoholic stormchasers, who didn’t bother sending her to school, having filled out a couple of forms to pretend they’re homeschooling.  And they were homeschooling, in how to do citizen science in the worst possible way.  Earlene din’t know shit about fuck, and was barely literate, but she did have the foolhardiness to dance in the path of a tornado.

THE HOOK:  Earlene became convinced there was a spirit in the sky that sometimes came down through tornadoes, and wanted her to know something.  She kept pushing her luck, making her parents proud, until she flew away forever.  But she was right, and lived happily ever after.  Somewhere.

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Six

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first few, I’ve tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Surprised I’ve kept up the effort this long.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY SIX:  BEASTLY

TITLE:  LOVE FURIOUSLY

CHARACTERS:  Dave: a Bi-Curious Baseball Boy, Fever: a Shy Gay Kid / Horrible Monster.

PREMISE:  Dave is one of those bi dudes who has different things he likes in the respective genders to which he’s attracted.  He likes ladies smol and soft, men big and strong – and he hasn’t met a man yet that is hard enough to make him take a chance.  A new kid at school named Fever is a smol and soft dude who has a crush on Dave, but this must forever remain unrequited.  Until we find out where Fever gets his name…

THE HOOK:  Fever is so gentle because he repressed all his aggression into a creepy sub-compartment of his body, where it grows hotter and hotter, until he explodes into a giant burning demon.  Dave might be into it.

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Five

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first few, I’ve tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Surprised I’ve kept up the effort this long.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY FIVE:  ELDRITCH

TITLE:  6 Words for Love

CHARACTERS:  Strider: a Nonbinary Computer Scientist, NCM 3.556.A: an Artificial Intelligence.

PREMISE:  Strider was a new model scientist, using tech that had gone past ones and zeros into a more abstract realm.  The early versions of this AI were trained to emulate more fully all the quirks and features of the human mind, to better understand both humans and machines.  But the project lead quickly realized the AI’s potential would be more fully realized if they created entirely novel “lobes” to the digital brain.  Scientists like Strider would theorize about different models of cognition and let the computers program themselves to emulate the theories.

THE HOOK:  NCM 3.556.A is less human than any version yet – a truly alien intelligence.  It has developed bizarre modes of thought that leave the theorists wondering what they created, or what created itself.  It seems to be trying to please Strider, to provide them “enrichment” like one would to a pet parrot, and the hapless enby takes this for love.  But then, what is love?  How many times must I reference Haddaway during this event?

 

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Four

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first few, I’ve tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Surprised I’ve kept up the effort this long.  You can see how the title is a little smaller than one would prefer, and lower in the composition than it should be – a good visual demonstration of the problem.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY FOUR:  OVERPOWERED

TITLE:  PANDORA ADORER

CHARACTERS:  Pandora: a Primeval Force of Nature, Christiane: a four-hundred-year-old kinda immortal lesbian.

PREMISE:  Pandora was an remnant of the divine creation of the world – a tool to generate the life that would fill the mortal realm.  If she opens her legs, monsters come out, and run riot upon the earth.  This wouldn’t be a problem, but she had a great weakness for falling in love, and wanting to bone the hell down.  She met the best lay ever in about 1650 in the Swiss Confederacy, Christiane, who should maybe be called Fistiane, if ya know what I’m sayin’.

THE HOOK:  Whenever she gets laid, manifold demons are unleashed upon the earth.  But the last thing that comes out of her is always something that will help kill those demons, if properly applied, be it a magic talisman or weapon or whatever.  This is the gift of hope.  Also, it’s the tool the lovers use to clean up after themselves, whenever they cave to their heart’s desires and get it on.  Lovers on Tuesday, monster hunters for months afterward.  Pandora’s box is overpowered, but it helps keep Christiane young.

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Three

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first few, I’ve tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Probably won’t keep up the effort for long… The snowy owl on this one ended up with those lil feather “horns” that you see on other owl species, not so much in snowy owls…  whatever.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY THREE:  HYBRID

TITLE:  EMBRACE OF THE OWL BOY

CHARACTERS:  Jenny Fred: a Koyukon / Irish teen, Lemmy Reyes: a Filipino / Anglo / Koyukon teen and Owl’d Boy.

PREMISE:  Jenny is the coolest girl in school but she’s fallen for bad boy Lemmy.  Lemmy is not at all smart, and decides to steal the most expensive thing in town, to pay for their elopement, somewhere far away.  But the artifact is cursed, and he turns into a giant humanoid snowy owl -type thing.

THE HOOK:  Why must I be a teenager in love?  You know how these things go, when the genre was in its heyday.  An actor that will someday be more famous, like Michael Landon or Steve McQueen or Charles Bronson, he plays a teen that gets mutated into a monster.  The less famous girl who will one day become a tabloid footnote barbiturate OD, she is imperiled, and screams.  The authorities shoot boy as he runs away.  His body transforms back into a human shape, while she says something like, who are the real monsters?

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day Two

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first few, I’ve tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Probably won’t keep up the effort for long.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY TWO:  SHADOWY

TITLE:  A SHADOW OF LOVE

CHARACTERS:  Carla Butler: the Debutante, Lavonne Tipton: a The Shadow

PREMISE:  Some rich white dude found himself with the power to see what evil lurks in the hearts of mans, and sought to overcome the urgings of his own dark shadow by questing for justice.  He learned the skill to cloud men’s minds, and became something of a monster.  A monster for goodness, outside of society, fighting crime, forever misunderstood.

What he didn’t know was that being a The Shadow is kinda like vampirism.  He created a new category of creature – in himself – and ultimately passed the curse to one of his underworld associates.  Lavonne found herself seeing evil lurks and doing the mind clouding.  She came to feel that her life as a lady hustler was a disguise, an illusion, and that her true self was blasting on thugs with paired .45s.

While working the Case of the Sacred Scorpions, Lavonne encountered a lady of economic privilege, socially isolated due to being biracial in a place and time where that could be socially isolating.  Carla became fascinated, but her father was like, don’t even think about it, girl.

THE HOOK:  Too late, dad.  Carla was going to bag that Shadow, if she had to become a criminal to get her attention.  Forbidden hijinks ensue.

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The Bestening

Planning on writing the best story in the world this march, for the audience of one husband.  Call this post “thinking out loud,” as I’ve been known to do on stories in the past.  I don’t know how many times I’ve done that in a blog post and had nothing come of it.  Let this one be different.

The majority of the stories he loves the most are in contemporary settings.  The grounding of recognizable reality makes the deviations from such easier to get with, makes magic feel more magical I suppose.  Gotta go contemporary.  Urban, suburban, rural?  It’s tempting when going contemporary to set it far enough back that cellphones were less universal, but I should really get with the times on this.  No narrative crutches.  People should have cellphones that don’t conveniently lose signal when bad guy is closing in.

Puts me in mind of what I was sayin’ about the soap opera bits in Twin Peaks.  I said the show within the show says something about the show, but it also invites you to become aware of yourself as watching a show.  It could make the proceedings feel false, but alternately, it could be the rope ladder that lets killer Bob climb out of your TV, become more real.  A cellphone in a story could create a bridge between maximal fakery and the mind of a reader.  Get got.

The Satoshi Kon movies and series in the big list tend to involve modern technology and media, as a springboard for shenanigans.  Gotta be careful to not go too creepypasta.  In general, that dude’s output was too gonzo for where I’m aiming to be, but there are some subtle vibes hiding in it.  The use of the real world as a foundation for surreal happenings, with a lot of depiction of the aspects of reality that don’t typically show up in our narratives – awkward insterstitial spaces and moments.

I remember how a critic who was disappointed by the lack of an overtly sensible narrative in Inland Empire said it was a “wagon train into Lynchistan” – something that can be a rewarding trip, but less powerful than your Mulholland Drives or Blue Velvets.  How did its surrealism compare with that of Eraserhead?  I dunno, been a minute since I’ve seen both.  Pretty sure I need to start it out feeling less precisely like a dream than either IE or EH.

I think about how in the things we like the most, there may be things we don’t like.  I asked my man what he liked least about Mulholland Drive and he said the scenes with side characters that had dubious relevance to the story.  Similar quibble on some other Lynch stuff, especially for the sillier stuff in Twin Peaks season 2, which may have been the influence of co-creator Mark Frost.

Just the same, I can’t help but remember how having different characters with their own lives does give you a lot more room to explore variations on your theme, and generally get more material out of your story.  Paranoia Agent, Uzumaki, and yeah, Twin Peaks, all made good use of large casts.

On the other other hand, this story is for my audience of one and the word has been handed down from god’s lips.  I may refrain.

On the other other other hand, maybe I can try to come up with a bunch of concepts for side characters and subplots that I don’t spend my word count on, just use to inform scenes that are only half-understood, and add to the surreal atmosphere.

A suburban environment, a lil PNW Gothique.  Everybody has their own personal demons, not everybody bothers to put on a brave face about it.  Black mold.  Al Columbia.  Thompson’s Teeth.  Some kind of mystery shit is happening, and characters are compelled to walk that path.

This stuff almost always has miserable endings.  Hearts get broke.  Makes sense, but ehhhh  I dunno.  I don’t know.  I do not know.

At the end of Pulse, which is basically a ghostpocalypse, it seems like one character is getting away on a boat.  Surely the ghostpocalypse will catch you, but you have your moment.  Likewise Hellstar Remina – doomed survivors have a bleak moment of peace.  Wan joy.  Maybe that’ll be a fair compromise.

The other night I was realizing that I will always fundamentally be a baby, because I only ever think of baby scenarios.  Superheroes, action, SFF.  Genre fiction.  When David Lynch wrote a story, he was thinking about adult concerns – the kind of feelings you can’t cure by punching Green Goblin.  Even if I include an element of supernatural horror, which I surely will, it can’t be the point.  It’s gotta just be a vehicle for the big surreal expression, whatever that is.

Whose feelings am I expressing?  This may be something I can’t puzzle out in public.  It might be too personal.  And is it my person, or my audience’s?  I write something that reflects what I am aware of in his own feelings and struggles, and he sees something that agrees with him, is personally  moved… or finds it too painful to hang with.  I write to express some way I feel, he probably won’t relate or connect, because at the end of the day we are fundamentally different.  He is goth, I am a dork what falls in love with goths.

There’s a whole other branch of things I haven’t considered.  Almost all of these influential stories are personal or small in scope, but some do get apocalyptically colossal.  Or at least have a more grandiose scope, like Panorama Island.  Maybe I should go big.

Comments from my last article that I’m taking onboard, at least, having some version of in the background of the brain:  If powers appear, they could plausibly not be supernatural in nature.  Vast remote gothic mansion with series of vignettes or short scenarios.  Jazzlet won’t read this one.

The surreal thesis.  The big surreal expression.  What feeling am I trying to convey?  Should be something sad or huge, something we can’t escape…  Ya know, I think I’ve got it.  Again, personal.  Now, what kind of nonsense scenario would really pull that theme out and make it land like some Wile E. Coyote trap lands on Wile E. Coyote?  I continue avec mes pensamientos ahora im privat.

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MonsterHearts 2025 – Day One

Don’t Miss Posts.  This MonsterHearts, I’m also having one regular post a day, if you should prefer that kind of thing.  Just look at the posts before or after this one.

MonsterHearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance.  For this first one, I tried to just use “edit” mode in MidJourney to iron out irregularities, even trying to make a legible title in the AI program.  While it’s cool you can now hammer the hands and text into shape, there are a lot of disadvantages to doing that, as opposed to just photoshopping what you need to fix, or placing your title just so.  Probably won’t keep up the effort.

MONSTER HEARTS DAY ONE:  NAUTICAL

TITLE:  LAY HIM IN WATER LILIES

CHARACTERS:  Brother Crispian: the Exorcist, Childeric: the Faun

PREMISE:  A mysterious young dude is tempting all the men of the village into gay dalliances and then being entirely too forthright about the fact when asked.  There are hints he is a supernatural creature, up to no good.  Whatever the case, gotta put the inquisitional spurs to his pale hide.

THE HOOK:  The only way to cleanse the world of Childeric’s sin is to plant a knife in his body – representing each man he has made filthy, thus taking the sin back from them – and for him to be drowned in the river, beneath the water lilies.  So sayeth Father Auribrande.  But you really wanna put a knife in that, Brother Crispian?  Really?

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The Best Story in the World

A perennial subject of discussion with my husband is that he experienced every piece of narrative art that was capable of inspiring him twenty years ago, and the time has passed, like David Lynch himself.  Now there is nothing for him but memories.  Well nerts to that, somebody oughtter make something he is capable of finding exciting and cool again.  I guess it’s got to be me.

Now I’ve tried this before.  When my dude was scoffing at the idea every story should follow nazi fan jojo campbell’s the hero’s journey™, he introduced me to some other ideas on story outlines, including a “gothic” one.  That was not about triumph, in the heroic sense (tho it wasn’t wildly removed from it either), so it fit the idea of a dark melodrama.  I took this and tried to make a story that followed it.

Thus was born Love and Torment, which languishes in about 70% done hell, with many other projects.  The problem with Liebe ist Qual is that I was still hot to make it something I can easily enjoy, so it was in a scifi / fantasy setting adjacent to Josefina y Blasfemia, lousy with super-powered fuckoes doing backflips around neon green space goblins.  (see also this story)  This is, suffice it to say, not goth enough.

He needs a serious story with believable but heightened emotions, that you cannot help but feel because they are earnest, not manipulative, and because they speak to a goth soul.  It can have supernatural stuff in it, but nothing you could imagine being reduced to a role-playing game rule system.  It should feel mysterious, ideally making you want to come to it, rather than being pushy with its narrative.  Gotta have gay dudes in it.  Mulholland Drive is one of his favorite movies ever but gaydies instead of gaydudes probably cost it some points.  In a perfect world it should have iconic stature, emblematizing itself as perfectly as the writing of Franz Kafka, or Angela Carter, or cetera.

It should have all of these things, which means suspending my ego and my desire for self-indulgence, to have a shot at tha brass ring – Best Story in the World, for at least this one guy.

I’m gonna aim to write something like that this March, for what it’s worth, but I got no strong ideas at the moment.  Anybody wanna chip in some notions?  The point of the Spooktober event is to show that ideas are cheap, and we should not have to be precious with them, but if you wanna keep it like the kaiser, fine, no advice for me.  I’ll get through on my own.  But could it be fun to help somebody write the best story that ever existed?

Some things he likes, as notions for inspiration:  Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, Twin Peaks: Firewalk With Me, The Thing, Perfect Blue, Paprika, Paranoia Agent, Silent Hill Games in Order: 3, 2, 1, 4, and after that they are dead to him, Yume Nikki, Kafka’s Metamorphosis (tho he has Josef K’s dying words from The Trial tattooed on his arm) and A Hunger Artist, the goth music of The Cure, Bauhaus, and Joy Division (again with the tattoos), the movies of Kiyoshi Kurosawa like Pulse, Cure, and Sakebi, the comics of Suehiro Maruo (Laughing Vampire, Panorama Island), Al Columbia (The Biologic Show), Charles Burns (Black Hole), and Junji Ito (Uzumaki, Hellstar Remina), and some things less goth: Katamari Damacy, ’80s one hit wonders / fashion…  Maybe that’ll do for now.

If giving me suggestions for this project not so interesting, maybe just reflect in the comments on the things that are your faves of all time, and what they have in common, thematically, if anything.

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Something else I wanted to mention but forgot and don’t feel like editing in:  This is similar in some respects to my notion of trying to write a christian romance.  While stories are almost invariably better if the material is something you’re super into, I still think it’s possible to make something great in a domain or circumstance where you’re not welcome, like Jewish musicians writing christmas songs.  What if I could write an amazing love story that would move hearts around the world, within the genre constraints of shit-fascist-moms-like?  Of course I like all of the things my husband likes, if differently sometimes from how he likes them, so this isn’t directly comparable.  But it’s still trying to work under a creative constraint: Don’t do something that tickles all my peccadilloes, do something for somebody else.

I won’t have as much fun as writing my usual whack shit, but it will feel very worth doing, very worth having done it.  Because my husband is not the only guy in the world who is criminally underserved by pop culture – this could work for anybody else out there who is like him, and feels the sadness of that.

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