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 have been worse than usual in composing very slight ideas to justify whatever cover I was able to squeak out of Midjourney and Photopea.  In Midjourney I’m using versions 6.0 and 5.2 and Niji 6.  Some of these needed a lot more Photopea, some practically nothing.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY TEN:  BEASTLY

TITLE:  UNDER THE BEAST MOON

CHARACTERS:  Aramis Spinoza: the Wan Dreamer, Rath Darrow: the Beast

PREMISE:  A pallid young dude trips through the forest looking for his lost memories. He’s sure they’re out there, somewhere, and won’t be dissuaded. But the world has turned into a gnarly beasthouse, and everything wants to eat him. A dark stranger appears and tries to get him to give up his quest, retreat to safety, but he refuses, and as they travel love begins.

THE HOOK:  Dark Stranger Rath is actually one of the beasts – so powerful that he can devour other beasts for food – and was actually about to eat Aramis when he changed his mind on a whim. Or is it something more? He tries to maintain a human guise, so as not to scare the dude, but he can’t keep that up forever…

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY ELEVEN:  MUTATED

TITLE:  MUTANT REIGN

CHARACTERS:  Jonathan Israel: the Mutant Man, Jonathan Tullio: his Powerless Sidekick

PREMISE:  The two Johnnies are buff gay mechanics in a retrofuturist metropolis. Tullio is more of a tinkerer, Israel more of a philosopher. Something gets in the water or whatever, and rats are mutated by evil, heeding the call of some kinda Ratlord. Some of them are the size of small buildings with horns and scales and fangs, not even recognizable as rats. Israel somehow gets mutated by the same evil, but can control it, and uses his powers to fight the monsters. Tullio tries to keep him safe with gizmos and fisticuffs, the things a non-superpowered guy can do.

THE HOOK:  What if the mutation takes control, and Johnny Israel becomes a rampaging monster? Will Johnny Tullio have the stuff to do what’s necessary? Probably love wins.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY TWELVE:  HYBRID

TITLE:  ROSE GOLD

CHARACTERS:  Isadora Kors: a CyberMonster, Stuck Steppy: her Human Lover

PREMISE:  Isadora and Steppy are street punks in a world run by evil corporations, so like, this could take place any time in the last several decades lol. Steppy is known as Stuck Steppy because she keeps catching knives in streetfights. Isadora catches the biggest knife of all trying to save Steppy, a machete that ends her life quick.

But corporate medics notice her cells match a certain profile and route her corpse straight to Brycine Prosthetics, where they sustain the life in her tissues long enough to reanimate that bod – with experimental photosynthetic cybernetics. I guess every cyberpunk has its rose thorns, just like every cowboy sings a sad sad song.

THE HOOK:  Isadora is part plant and part machine and part the lady Steppy loves. She can be rescued from a lab, but without the lab, how long can she live? Drama.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY THIRTEEN:  DEMONIC

TITLE:  MEN ARE EVIL

CHARACTERS:  Linda Goldman: a Lady, Mark Anthony Aguirre: a Man, or Is He a Demon?

PREMISE:  Linda and Mark Anthony are trans for trans lovers in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco when the world began to melt in 1974. They’re scrounging together the funds to medically transition and Mark Anthony decides it’s time to start doing the testosteroni. The problem? It starts transitioning him into a Demon.

THE HOOK:  The horrible transphobic feminists were right – being a man is inherently evil! It’s impossible to change who you are, what nature makes you, and all gender essentialisms are dogmatical troof of the universe. Or maybe they just accidentally scored a bad batch, in their economic desperation. At any rate, Mark Anthony must destroy the world with fire unless his loving lady can cool his jets. Will he have to detrans just to survive? Fuck that noise.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY FOURTEEN:  AND THE REST
All Those That Lost Previous Voting, Lumped Into One…
ARTIFICIAL, CELESTIAL, CURSED, DREAMER, ELDRITCH, GHOULISH, GIGANTIC, INANIMATE, MINUSCULE, NATURAL, OVER-POWERED

TITLE:  A HOUSE UNDER HEAVEN

CHARACTERS:  Brooke Storm: the New Girl, TallDeer Rayburn: the Philosopher, Dollhouse: a Mansion, and Celeste: the Stars Themselves

PREMISE:  Brooke is that clumsy but enchantingly beautiful new girl in town, and the popular kids want her to be theirs, but she is drawn to ghoulish (GHOULISH) trans dude TallDeer Rayburn. TallDeer cracks wise about how everybody is skeletons inside and to the grave we shall all return and stuff, and nobody likes him. They circle each other in weird courtship until the night he reveals – he is Accursed (CURSED) by Philosophy. In an effort to understand what a Man really is, for the purposes of transing his genders, TallDeer’s meditations brought him in contact with Plato’s Realm of Forms – a real place where the ideals of all things exist, and the rest of our reality is its pathetic shadow. This eldritch (ELDRITCH) knowledge makes him dangerous. The more he knows of your soul, the more abstract you could become. It makes sense, trust me.

THE HOOK:  TallDeer is like, my philosophy will kill you Brooke. I love you too but it can never be. She’s like, take me you darkly majestic (OVERPOWERED) monster. He takes her to his mansion in the woods, and things start to suck…

Brooke and TallDeer have some bad arguments and it’s like Bella and Beast up in there. Brooke retreats from the middle floors, yea, unto the roof. Up there she falls in love with the depths of the night sky, and it comes to love her back (CELESTIAL, NATURAL). That sky comes to her in dreams (DREAMER) in a human-like form so they can bone down. TallDeer finds out she’s been untrue and is like, no! Banished from rooftops!

Brooke goes to the basement, where she finds a dusty little (MINUSCULE) dollhouse (INANIMATE, ARTIFICIAL) that is a replica of the mansion she’s trapped in. Out of rage at her imprisonment, she knocks it on the floor, and the whole building shakes. It cries out, no, I’m the building you’re in, this is the tiny version of the real me (GIGANTIC). She is sad for him and commits to patching him up. TallDeer is like, you damn well betta! You broke it you bought it.

But then she falls in love with the dollhouse / mansion, who is a swell guy when you get to know him. TallDeer is filled with sorrow and rages until he realizes there’s no keeping that girl from being in love with the world. He uses his eldritch overpowers to embody the sky and the mansion in human bodies named Celeste and Dollhouse respectively, and lets her have her lovers.

In gratitude she forgives TallDeer, and invites him into this Polycule. They lived happily ever after but probably fucked up the fabric of reality somethin’ fierce.

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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 have been worse than usual in composing very slight ideas to justify whatever cover I was able to squeak out of Midjourney and Photopea.  In Midjourney I’m using versions 6.0 and 5.2 and Niji 6.  Some of these needed a lot more Photopea, some practically nothing.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY SIX:  NAUTICAL

TITLE:  GOSETTE AND VIVIAN AND ONE MILLION TON OF FISH HEADS IN OIL

CHARACTERS:  Vivian Pearl: the Beloved, Gosette Aland: a Shapeshifting Abyssal Monster

PREMISE:  Shud ya desira ken hin fra yon, hinna Portinsmuth sonly ine or tuther – men fra woem, blake fra wise, rond fra thin – an most acrux? Folk fra Fesh.  Folk are a’ye an I, Fesh are a’yon beests adeep – amorfin and bespeckt wid scale an wesker.

Wellasn’t ye kennit, ine feshmen set hes mine against God, crosst ine fra tuther to be folkwoem, so enamerd he upon harta ine folkwoem true.  Shud God despiset, so shud we, an sure we’ll do arpart thet God prevale.  Aymen.

THE HOOK:  State een base, slubbit and bubbit, form flu een den oot, born von deef and vor deef retorn.  But nine, seen I she – Vivian, aland and adeer, perfected een state as still.  Soght I state as still, form perfected, and a hand will hold as fingers abone and aflesh fare-firm.  Call you I Gosette Aland, or perish aneath the million ton.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY SEVEN:  LEGENDARY

TITLE:  JEFFREY WOODS, MY BELOVED

CHARACTERS:  Jeff the Killer: Reformed Creepypasta, Samantha “Sam” Sapphire: Not Like Other Girls

PREMISE:  Legendary juvenile mass murderer Jeff the Killer was finally captured – or did he turn himself in?  As a child, he was not able to be executed nor sentenced for life, under the state laws of the moment, and he was released with monitoring upon his twenty-fifth birthday, a changed man.  But the scars of his misdeeds remained, so that all could recognize him on sight.

A blind cowboy with a headstrong fiery daughter hired him to be a ranch hand.  At first she threatened to tell her dad and get him fired, but she saw the solemn look of remorse in his eyes, and instead committed to teaching that suburb slicker and maniac to do cowboy things – up to and including lovin’.

THE HOOK:  How can you do normie stuff when you’ve seen flesh torn asunder, life leaving the eyes of your victims, and delighted in it?  Every neck looks like a target, even that of yer darling dear.  Jeffrey must learn not only how to live free without doing murders, but how to roll ’em rope, and brand ’em.  Rawhide!  Also some hetero shit I guess.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY EIGHT:  FIERY

TITLE:  YOU’RE TO BLAME

CHARACTERS:  Ian Astbury: Lead Singer of The Cult, Monica: the Fire Woman

PREMISE:  Ian Astbury, lead singer of The Cult, was alone with his lover in front of a crackling fireplace, and she casually quipped about how meaningless his lyrics are.  A far-away mysterious look overtook his features, and she asked about it.  He recalled and told to her for the first time his reason for writing Fire Woman.  It was about his ex-girlfriend of a few fateful nights, Monica – a supernatural being.

THE HOOK:  Monica was a djinnah, made of smokeless flame during the creation of the Earth.  She was always drawn to people, flirting and having the romance that she could achieve before the sad news came to light – She can’t fuck because she’ll burn your junk off.  Fire Woman, you’re to blame.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY NINE:  SEASONAL

TITLE:  BUNNY NIGHT

CHARACTERS:  Suela Gonsalves: a Waitress in Sleazy Dive Bar, Vica Perez Salvatore: her Fellow Waitress, WereBunny

PREMISE:  In honor of Easter, the Coyote Ugly-esque dive bar “Mac’s” held a Bunny Night. The waitresses would wear tutus and bunny ears.  But little did they know, holding such an event on Sunday offended Resurrection Jesus (as opposed to Baby Jesus, who is more chill), and he sent the Easter Bunny with wrath.  That blood-drenched leporine stalked Mac’s invisible at ankle level, looking for a way to sow disaster.  He nipped Vica’s skin, and she contracted a curse.

THE HOOK:  What a terrible night for a curse.  Vica became a giant rabbit woman.  Problem is, a frightened herbivore will attack any perceived foe, so it can get away and raid a produce aisle.  She slaughtered the sinful bargoers.  The survivors teamed up to take her down, but Suela betrayed them to help Vica live.  She always had a crush on that girl.

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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 have been worse than usual in composing very slight ideas to justify whatever cover I was able to squeak out of Midjourney and Photopea.  In Midjourney I’m using versions 6.0 and 5.2 and Niji 6.  Some of these needed a lot more Photopea, some practically nothing.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY ONE:  INSECTOID

TITLE:  I WAS A TEENAGE LOCUST

CHARACTERS:  Knute Burley: the Teenage Locust, Rita Lawson: the Babe, and Joel Simons: the Teenage Kestrel

PREMISE:  Joel and Knute are buddies and the most popular guys in school. Joel is low-key jelly of Knute’s slightly superior appeal.  When Knute gets mutated by a pesticide accident into a giant Locust, people are at first terrified, but people are won over by the mild-mannered and genial way he goes about his old life, despite deformity, and he becomes even more popular.  Rita was once torn between two lovers, but the mutation becomes the clincher.

THE HOOK:  The story is passionate because of the intensity of the love triangle.  What is it that’s so appealing about Knute as a locust?  Pity at his hideous state transforms to fascination.  Joel’s jealousy leads him to want what Knute has, and recreate the incident.  But he transforms instead into a giant kestrel, a kind of bug-eating falcon, and ruins homecoming.  The struggle is surreal.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY TWO:  SHAPESHIFTER

TITLE:  I WAS A TEENAGE KESTREL

CHARACTERS:  Joel Simons: the Teenage Kestrel, Fernanda Wahl: the Love Interest, General Butch Ulster: the Antagonist

PREMISE:  Joel was electrocuted and presumed exploded at the end of I Was a Teenage Locust, but he’d actually flown far away, on wings of despair.  He plopped into a village where he resumed human form and tried to forget the past.  But he could only suppress his kestrelness in short bursts, leading him to monster out at inopportune times.  Fernanda, the spicy redhead all the boys were after, took an interest in his brooding charms and mysterious behavior, which itself transformed shapeshifter style into affection for his birdy alter ego.

THE HOOK:  The story is passionate because secret boy has secret power, and girl is o’erwhelmed by the majesty of nature gone wrong.  Also an army general decides flying people must be commies and tries to root him out and take him down.  Love under the gun.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY THREE:  PARASITE

TITLE:  THE LEATHER JACKET

CHARACTERS:  Corinthia Brandesford: the Protagonist, Theobald Fenimore: the Love Interest, Buer: the Leather Jacket

PREMISE:  Corinthia met brooding Heathcliff type Theobald at the wee-kend party of the Umpwutherington Brandesfords’.  He never took off his leather jacket, which was a rather hideous affair, worse as time went on.  But he was a feet-sweeper-offer.  On the other hand, was he wearing the jacket or was the jacket wearing him?

THE HOOK:  A demonic jacket has taken over a man’s body.  He’s witty and wacky and totally into Corinthia.  But Theobald’s exploitation is a necessary aspect of this relationship, which was surely against god’s will.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY FOUR:  SHADOW

TITLE:  ENDYMION’S SILHOUETTE

CHARACTERS:  Dashiell Stockton: the Creator, Shadow: the Created

PREMISE:  Dashiell was part of a circle of naughty gay men, who knew they were accursed by god for being true to themselves, and sought therefore to find what other condemnable things they could get up along the way down.  Black magic, in fact.  Usually he was just the sex appeal at the ceremony, but one weekend he was left behind while tripping on morphine, and found himself alone in the sorcerer’s chambers when the reverie broke.  He did a little unsupervised magic of his own, raising a shadow version of himself.  They talked for hours about secrets of the cosmos and sensuous delights.  This wasn’t just another version of himself, was it?  A demon?  A fallen angel?  They get it on.

THE HOOK:  Is it real or is it selfcest?  Forbidden love.

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MONSTER HEARTS DAY FIVE:  ARTIFICIAL OR NATURAL EXPERIMENTAL

TITLE:  SWEETNESS

CHARACTERS:  Dr. Delicious: the Man, Sugar: the Natural, and Aspartame: the Artificial

PREMISE:  Dr. Delicious lived in an anime world of colorful tiered cityscapes where people in the street were not animated, just drawn mid-motion while crowd patter played in the soundtrack.  He used cyber-alchemy to conjure the spirit of Sugar, a girl with auburn hair and amber eyes, a killer with kindness, an elemental of white crystal and overgrown grass blades when there were no humans around.  But his boss said no, she is not enough.  Bring forth the spirit of Aspartame, hollow and potent, brightly colored and utterly ephemeral.

THE HOOK:  Love triangle again.  Sugar and Aspartame vie for the affections of the alchemist, embodying their own bizarre qualities, but he is a bad dad(dy dom) and they may sometimes seek affection in each other’s arms.  Who will win?  (Whoever wins the poll.  Day Five’s poll hasn’t closed, but is close between Artificial and Natural monsters, Artificial up by one vote.)  Science won.  I thought doing a post for the two frontrunners in the poll would be a safe bet, then worst place came from behind for a dark horse victory.  Congrats, Experimental.

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