#Monster Culture

[theillusionofpants]

So I am teaching monster culture to a group of my seniors in preparation for reading Frankenstein (how do I underline on mobile?). The text we are reading is an academic one and typical of college level, but jarring and difficult for high school. I prepped them by telling them that their goal wasn't to understand everything, and I fully expected them not to understand the whole thing, but to pick out parts that they thought important or to vocalize the questions they have so that they exist in the world. These kids, who u have known for all of four days put their whole ass into this. It took them twice as long as I originally thought but they were focused and confused and trudged along.

When they were done, before we got to their analysis, I said something like this:

" You know before we get into it, I just want to say that during this process, there was a time when I looked around the room and you all were reading this very difficult text. Your heads were down, you were asking each other questions, you were engaged. We have known each other for less than a week and I just want to say it shows a lot of trust that you didn't immediately give up on the text, so thank you"

The little smiles on their faces when they realized that they actually HAD been engaged in this difficult task mixed with the understanding that I saw them do it and appreciated it is gonna keep me running for a bit. Sometimes my job is fucking great.

[flingmetothemoon]

Headcanons - Halloween with Dracula's Daughter

Inspired by @froggywritesstuff's Teddy Lobo Halloween headcanon post because I'm a Teddy/Marya shipper and decided the post is just incomplete without the other half of my OTP's complementary response. The reader in question will be gender neutral and up to interpretation, and my personal interpretation is a certain crackhead Lobo ofc. XD

I might add more headcanons later, just wanna get the basics done with during that time of the night

Fandom: Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Character: Marya Zaleska

Scenario: She spends Halloween night with you

Content warning: Not much other than mentions of blood bag drinking, physical fights and harming of humans in horror movies

Word count: Idk. Still an amature fanfic writer and learning as I go XD

Marya has mixed feelings about Halloween

On one side of the coin, she loves the concept of human mortals and monsters being in peace with each other and spending time as friends instead of engaging in wars with each other

Her favorite aspect of Halloween is trick-or-treating, where she gets say hello to the children and hand out candy

As a matter of fact, one of the traditions she and the fellow monsters like to participate in when she doesn't have tasks to do that relates to Castle Dracula is door-to-door treat giving. Depending on the season the fruits and vegetables grow in, monsters would go scavenging for those valuable edibles, find and collect honey, glaze carved bites in honey, harden them, collect them in a bowl carved melon or pumpkin and deliver them to a neighbor. Oftentimes before handing out the candied fruit, the neighbor would get a good scare before having a good laugh over the scare

Monsters essentially has been trick-or-treating before it became popular among mortals, usually as a way of maintaining virtuous traits such as kindness, generosity, hospitality and humor in spite of their monstrous appearance

But on the other side, Marya doesn't like how it seems that mortals are appreciating monsters, but all for the wrong reasons: By portraying them as demonized caricatures and using them as mere entertainment

She essentially views it as her kind’s equivalent of cultural appropriation

She also wonders why human mortals have to wait for one day of the year to spend good times with those different than them when they can try doing it any time and day

As a vampire, Marya wonders if her appearance and outfit is good enough to be considered an outfit to go out in. She only hopes that human mortals who pass by her assume she's merely in convincing makeup, not anything more than that

Being unable to see her own reflection on mirrors, Marya appreciates having you to do her hair and makeup

She can do her own claws though

Before going out to do anything, she makes sure she has a good big drink of a blood bag to avoid any potential thirst incidents later on

She would prefer the night to be a happy and peaceful one, but if you were to get into a fight and get a black eye or bloody nose in an interesting way to impress her or in response to anyone having any negative to say about her outfit, her vampirist instincts would kick in and she will get her sharp claws out and hiss the hell out of anyone who dares harm her loved one

Marya is good at decorating by crafting natural resources such as twigs, leaves, carved pumpkins, spider webs and skeleton bones

Another part of monster culture is foraging for edibles such as turnips, melons and pumpkins, decorating and/or carving faces, sucking it's flesh and seeds out, and trapping a fire wisp into it to light the inside like a lantern

How monsters prepare food in general is similar to how warrior cats do it (At least according to Bonefall)

Marya takes advantage of the night to show you how it's done

For her kind, most monsters carve and light jack-o-lanterns with a purpose of a warm light source that doesn't burn their flesh into crisp unlike the direct sun and to scare off potential threats, scaring them with the idea that jack-o-lanterns craved by monsters have concealed evil spirits that could unleash and haunt those who trespass their turfs with a purpose of killing them

She doesn't really mind where are you take her to, she'll even agree to go to a party to meet up with new people

After a while however, she remembers she has sensitive hearing and loud, crowded parties gets a little too much for her and she wants to go somewhere more remote and quieter

Scary movies mostly confuse Marya, particularly because she doesn't understand why human mortals derive pleasure out of making entertainment of their kind getting their limbs torn apart by bigger and stronger monsters

What Marya is ultimately interested in spending Halloween night is patrolling around the city, knowing that any monsters lurking nearby the human area could take advantage of a holiday centering around them and actually inflict harm on the weaker, innocent ones

The long night ends with Marya requiring cuddling, lovemaking and playing with long hair (she's been so utterly touch starved for decades so ofc she would)

[whispersofdragons]

Just a reminder to everyone:

In monster culture, this 🤍 is not a heart, it's a SOUL

While in human culture, it often means love, either romantic or platonic, or just a general fondness for something, it means something very different to monsters.

SOULS are closely guarded and only shown to the person they trust most, usually a romantic partner.

So, that symbol is considered extremely lewd. Basically, there's a reason it's so prevalent in Lustverses fashion choices, and most monsters wouldn't be caught wearing something with that design unless they're trying to arouse others or make them extremely uncomfortable

[diaryofaphilosopher]

"The shift from the Afro-Caribbean zombie to the U.S. zombie is clear: in Caribbean folklore, people are scared of becoming zombies, whereas in U.S. narratives people are scared of zombies. This shift is significant because it maps the movement from the zombie as victim (Caribbean) to the zombie as an aggressive and terrifying monster who consumes human flesh (U.S.). In Haitian folklore, for instance, zombies do not physically threaten people; rather, the threat comes from the voduon practice whereby the sorcerer (master) subjugates the individual by robbing the victim of free will, language and cognition. The zombie is enslaved."

— Justin D. Edwards, "Mapping Tropical Gothic in the Americas" in Tropical Gothic in Literature and Culture.

Follow Diary of a Philosopher for more quotes!

[melomancy]

Kate Bush as the Sound Monster in Experiment IV (1986)

[hobgobknowsbest]

[kekwcomics]

[thisdarlingluna]

A delightful couple of episodes and now I have a few things to check out.

[zombiekitty33]

half life fanartist late to half life anniversary millions dead

[flingmetothemoon]

Exploring around New Orleans on a frightful Halloween night, Countess Marya Zaleska runs into a ghost attempting to frighten her, but their efforts cutely backfires as the Countess of love and atonement boops it's nonexistent nose and flusters it so much it poofs out of existence

Comic inspiration: Today is Halloween and I had ponders on how Marya would spend the Halloween night, and I make up cuter origins of ghosts. I thought if not a small creature getting tangled up in a white sheet from the laundry hanger, what if instead of dead people passing on to the afterlife to haunt those who remain living, ghosts are more like crystalized wind creatures that camouflages like chameleons and glows light like fireflies?

Also ghosts go by they/them pronouns because they don't grasp the concept of gender in my imaginary word XD

[tea-n-ink]

Homesickness is where the heart is

[nazrigar]

Dinovember 2024: Children of the Lizard King

For Dinovember, a tribute to the one, and only, Tyrannosaurus rex.

A creature whose impact on pop culture is SO prevalent, it's basically an ambassador species to the field of Paleontology.

From King Kong, to The Land before Time, to Jurassic Park, to Prehistoric Planet, there has been SO many interpretations of the dinosaur, and creatures that took influence FROM Tyrannosaurus rex, I could have filled the entire page with more, but I had to stop at 65 so that the flow and composition of the piece would work.

See if your favorite T.rex or T.rex inspired critter is here!

And of course, a special shout out to @tyrantisterror , whose big green fella up top helped inspire me to continue doing art!

[s0fter-sin]

mermay idea

mers keep their faces covered as a way to indicate social status and familiarity. warriors have intricate masks, handcrafted when they win their first battle and the more detailed a mask is, the more accomplished the wearer is. they're rarely shed and are only taken off for their closest kin and mates

warrior bull shark mer!soap seeing human!ghost, seeing his skull mask and immediately knowing he's a high ranking warrior; one to be feared going off the numerous scars covering his body

an ideal and worthy mate, so long as he can prove his prowess

so he follows him as he's deployed on a mission near the ocean and is smitten when he sees how ruthless and capable he is; bathing himself in his enemies blood. he keeps his distance, not wanting to tempt fate but ghost spies the tip of his fin cutting through the water

and he's nothing if not an opportunist; kicking the bodies off the pier to the waiting jaws below

but soap? all he sees is the first step in a courting ritual

and he has to come up with something truly brilliant to match such a glorious offering

on ghost's part, it's been difficult getting people to understand the depths of his dependence on his mask. price thinks it's something to overcome, gaz and other soldiers just think it's an accessory to help with intimidation

the few partners he's tried to have thought he was someone to "fix"; nothing more than an object, a notch on their belt to prove how "good" of a partner they were to put in so much work to make him better. it always leaves him feeling violated, more so than if they'd just taken his mask off outright. one night stands were hardly worth it either; scratching a physical itch but falling so short of the intimacy and connection he craves that he feels worse off than he'd started

when he finally meets the mer that's been hunting him across the country, sees the bright red mask so artfully hewn and attached to his face?

it's like looking at a reflection of himself

he might have finally found the understanding he's been searching for

[melomancy]

Kate Bush on the set of The Line, The Cross, and The Curve (1993)

[hobgobknowsbest]

[improper-use-of-germx]

I know you’ve probably writing about it before, but there is just something so lovely about a human not understanding alien courting customs and accidentally doing a lot of them to an alien, who is feeling like they are getting a lot of mixed signals from their human friend! Would that be a usable request? Love your writing!!!

OOOH anon I'm such a sucker for "accidentally doing something considered flirtatious by a different species toward a member of said species"

I feel like in the kind of modern sci-fi settings I use for my writing there's an extra level of awareness and drama, because while an alien surrounded by members of their own kind might assume you're coming onto them purposefully, your alien crewmate is very aware of the cultural differences that come with interspecies work. They know you're unaware of the courting methods of their species, much less the specific traditions of their people.

They wouldn't expect you to know that sort of information anyhow, so they're not offended when you offer to share from your canteen during a mission without realizing the intimate, personal implications of the gesture. How would you know? Humans share drinks all the time, they were thirsty. What kind of friend would you be if you didn't share?

You were right, of course. Water-sharing to you was just a kind gesture, there was no reason to deny your affection. Their mouth met where yours had been, and they feel so close to you they ache.

There are times they feel guilty. When you shut your eyes and stretch, casually letting the entire universe know that you trust them to protect you when your tired, or when you drape one of your blankets over the both of you while you watch a movie and they can smell you from all sides. There are times they want to tell you: This doesn't mean as little to me as it means to you. You're kissing me in my native tongue, y'know.

They know they shouldn't be indulging in the idea that you're acting on any kind of romantic interest, but they just can't bring themself to tell you. There was too much of a chance you would stop.