#The Night of the Simian Terror

[dxwnxdusk]

This secluded area of forest, a moment of peace where his exhausted body has placed itself propped against a tree, slowly sliding down as his bristled fur settles. A soft exhale of air escaping his lips in a faint mist, cold and yet this area provided a bit of warmth that could soothe his infernal aching body. Loose robes that decorated his frame, while they weren't his normal color scheme they still fitted and were more comfortable. Even still he kept the cloak on, the entire thing draped around his body, the hood pulled up to hide his face should anyone try to find him. Eyes closing as he embraces peace and quiet, he doesn't know when he crashes but it happens, escaping the grasp of his night terrors this time it appears.

The snap of a branch awakens him instantly, eyes remaining closed as he listens intently. If someone was trying to sneak up on him they were piss poor at it, if an enemy was coming for him then they obviously stopped seeing his lax figure. He's glad he's got the cloak up now, one eye slowly opening as the exhausted simian decides to see what was possibly around, or coming near.

[morlock-holmes]

I think this is debatable and depends on who and what we're talking about.

I'm not well-acquainted with the genre of Lovecraft revisionism, aside from the following:

Charles Stross' first few Laundry books, which are sort of jocular and only arguably revisionist in this sense;

The first episode of Lovecraft Country, which had dialog so deep into the territory of "They would say that, but not in that way" that I gave up in irritation twenty minutes in;

Shoggoths in Bloom, which I rather liked.

This being said, I've been rereading Lovecraft in prep for some Cthulhu GMing, and here's part of the opening of The Shadow over Innsmouth [All bolding is my own]:

"During the winter of 1927–28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth... No trials, or even definite charges, were reported; nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular gaols of the nation. There were vague statements about disease and concentration camps, and later about dispersal in various naval and military prisons, but nothing positive ever developed. Innsmouth itself was left almost depopulated, and is even now only beginning to shew signs of a sluggishly revived existence. Complaints from many liberal organisations were met with long confidential discussions, and representatives were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons. As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent...

And here's how it ends:

One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea... She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders—destined for him as well—he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too—I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth... This was the dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time, and the sight set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. That morning the mirror definitely told me I had acquired the Innsmouth look. So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendours await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä! No, I shall not shoot myself—I cannot be made to shoot myself! I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

Bolding mine again.

This is the emotional climax of At The Mountains of Madness when the narrator finds four Old Ones that have been killed by a Shoggoth:

They had not been even savages—for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch—perhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defence against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia . . . poor Lake, poor Gedney . . . and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last—what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star-spawn—whatever they had been, they were men!

And their slaves or servitors, the Shoggoths:

[The Shoggoths] had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the Old Ones, and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it seems, developed a semi-stable brain whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones without always obeying it... They seem to have become peculiarly intractable toward the middle of the Permian age, perhaps 150 million years ago, when a veritable war of re-subjugation was waged upon them by the marine Old Ones. Pictures of this war, and of the headless, slime-coated fashion in which the shoggoths typically left their slain victims, held a marvellously fearsome quality despite the intervening abyss of untold ages. The Old Ones had used curious weapons of molecular disturbance against the rebel entities, and in the end had achieved a complete victory. Thereafter the sculptures shewed a period in which shoggoths were tamed and broken by armed Old Ones as the wild horses of the American west were tamed by cowboys.

It's harder to sum up in short excerpts, but The Whisperer in Darkness deals with this as well, with a genuine ambiguity as to exactly how hostile and dangerous the Mi-Go are. How much of the sympathetic portrait which they paint of themselves can we really believe?

The whispering being which pretends to be Harry Akeley contends that perhaps Earth is as frightening and alien to the Mi-Go as Yuggoth would be to us.

Lovecraft, and I think this is really papered over sometimes, didn't just have racist opinions in his personal life; he wrote overtly racist prose and poetry. If we interpret the ending of The Shadow over Innsmouth with the idea that it is meant to be horrible, well, he only encouraged that in some of his other work.

But it's also just overtly not the case that the bizarre and foreign always represents monstrousness and degeneration, as the Old Ones in At The Mountains of Madness demonstrate.

What I will say is that I don't think that any of these stories [EDIT: By which I mean these specific stories I've mentioned, not Lovecraft's entire corpus] represent a lapse into Nihilism in the face of an incomprehensible universe; they deal primarily with our narrators attempting to contend with something dangerous and alien, and the question of how that ought to be viewed constitutes the emotional thread of these stories (Arguably throw The Shadow Out of Time in there too).

If you want to disagree with the narrator of Mountains, or agree with the narrator of Innsmouth, or wonder what it was like for those who had more peaceful contact with the Mi-Go (Are those assertions about cults of wicked men who seek out and destroy the Mi-Go and their allies truth, or self-serving lies, or something in between?) I think that isn't so much missing the point as doing almost exactly what Lovecraft was doing in those stories.

Which, to be honest, now strike me as themselves much more ambiguous than pop culture has made them out to be.

extremely petty and bitchy hot take of the night: making a whole production of how queer and transgressive and anti-racist your take on lovecraft is and how much the guy would have despised it and be spinning in its grave just feels like pro forma marketing at this point. "Lovecraft but fuck Lovecraft' is a whole genre now. You're not breaking any barriers, stop acting like you're blowing people's minds here.

[radarsteddybear]

[celestial-alignment]

“The Night of the Simian Terror” Season 3, Episode 23

[aroace-craigbrice]

Artemis hit over the head and Jim being very concerned. I really love ‘Night of the Simian Terror’. The villain isn’t really a villain. Jim and Artie never really get separated. Artie wears his fringe jacket the whole time and Jim his blue suit.

[shadowyspectre]

Horror curled inside him and made his head snap up. His gaze was unfocused, not really seeing her. But there was terror in his voice. “KID!!” He cried, trying to push himself. His arm gave out under him finally, sending him to the ground with a solid thump. He fell onto his side, the trinket falling out of his scarf. He curled up slightly, breath rattling in his chest. The glamour beneath may have hidden the extent of the spread, but the smell of disease smothered sandalwood and plums. He felt so heavy, and his limbs didn’t feel like cooperating. He could feel the infection wrap tight around his core…he could feel it spread to his arms and legs. 

Fuck, was this it? He couldn’t even lift his head. His ears were unglamoured, the magic focusing solely on covering the sight just under it. Hazy amber eyes faded into purple and black. He stared ahead, struggling to see anything, anything. 

✵✵✵✵

Deep inside, Wukong felt the crushing weight of shame again. He had lost. Even smothering the rest of the abilities, he had lost. The parasite won. Those thoughts were cut off by the falling form puffing into dust. Neither he nor the parasite had the time to react to the war cry. There, he was greeted with an agony that reminded him of his time in The Crucible. The fire blazed through him, tearing into the thing clinging to him like a filthy leech. He does not know if the horrible sound that filled his ears was it or his. Perhaps both. He was burned by holy fire and carved from the inside out. Something inside him cracked at the pressure, almost splintering in half. Yet the immortality forced it together again through sheer will, and he felt it break, over and over again as he burned. Above him was an avenging being, a mixture of himself and the shadow that lay dying in the corner. Awe and shock flickered in but it was smothered by the agony again. 

Yet, being crushed against the stone was nothing to the searing fire in his chest. He could feel it do its work, burn the thing away. There were still fragments clinging on, struggling to keep their hold on him. Dull pain sparked from his scalp as he was gripped, forced to bear witness to the sight before him. Her words stabbed into him, and he looked. Macaque lay before him as if trying to curl into a ball but he just couldn’t do it. The other seemed to see them, to see her. But the awareness slipped away before his eyes, the ebony simian going lip against the stone. Even from here, he could smell that the infection had taken hold. The other was barely clinging on.

She was right. This was his fault. Even more so because he remembered the feeling of his trapped body sinking its claws into Macaque that fateful night. He struggled to push himself up, just enough. The entity screeched in his head, clinging onto the thin strings left. 

Wukong exhaled, a small puff of steam leaving his lips. He was not as he used to be. But…he had to. His magic fanned the dying flames inside him, inside his core. The king slammed his hand against the ground, once, twice. Small flames envelop it, rising from the fur. Before he buried it into his chest and set his core ablaze. 

✵✵✵✵

Distantly, Macaque could hear another yell. But he’s too tired to lift his head. He’d seen enough, surely he’s seen enough now? The ground felt cold, and he knew it shouldn’t. Not with the fire blazing feet from him. The kid…he’d seen…he was sure he’d seen it. There was no other way to explain that this kid was theirs. Or at least, another version of theirs…he wanted to laugh. 

But what would he be laughing for, again?

She could hear the strangled breaths of the shadow simian, as if he was fading. The thought admittedly shocking her out of her tunnel vision of the parasite to gaze back at the other. The shock alone destabilizing her footing, a momentary bit of panic. She may dislike the ebony simian (her own more so than this one) given all the torment she suffered at ones claws, her shoulder still ached with the ghastly wound.

Turning to face him, concern and fear in her eyes as she goes to turn towards him, to run through the barrier and try and help him. (He looks like he's about to die) she can't let that happen. Blood splatters. Her outfit rips as the claw rakes across her shoulder. The sickly wound of a pitch obsidian black surrounded by purple, a familliar claw shaped mark that begins to bleed from the fresh cut. Her body falling forward-

Only for it to vanish in a puff of golden smoke and a haunting war cry that can roughly be translated to 'Let Wukong Testify For Me!' before the entire weight of the staff slams down on the infected golden simian, stabbing through his throat and angled to run down into his chest where it ignites, burning flesh, muscle and even down to segments of bone as she plunges it, wedging it deep and barely getting both spots. She targets the thick masses of the stuff, burning at it violently, to give it no chance of escape. She knows she can't get all of it but it's a hasty made strike, not one of perfect precision. Her glamors long gone as fangs are bared in their full entirity. A face mask resembling the essence of a phoenix on her, bright red and orange colors with tints of gold at the edges. Along with a ebony black tail, rather long with segments of golden coloration seeping in at the tip. A claw gripping his hair and yanking his head back as his body collides with the floor hard enough to create a crater like crack. Forcing him to gaze at Macaque.

"Look at him! Look at what you've done Father."

The word spat out like venom, she won't hide her blood ties but she hardly thinks it applies to this one. She is more so using it to dive deep, to shock his brain into thinking, to break free from the trap of the entity. She's seen him peeking out, perhaps this will push it. "He's dying. This thing is taking him over. It's taken you because you can stop it. He's dying again."

"Because of you."

[pandorasboxofhorrors]

2022: #1-Monkey Business

I remember when I was a tiny tot being brought to theatres to watch films. I was not quite sure what this movie-going experience was all about, at first. Then, around age six, I hypothesized that these films were instructional, warnings to assist and prepare people for the rigors of the realities of the future. There were films about ships sinking with Shelley Winters plummeting. Some movies were about skyscrapers on fire and Robert Wagner dashing through the fire with a wet towel on his head. There were movies featuring earthquakes, and other disasters to warn us so we could be ready. This made sense to my growing, bubbling, and ripening brain. Fiction films as instructional tools to prepare one for the future.

There were oodles of crime films warning us what to avoid, like Death Wish and Dirty Harry. Mad Max and A Clockwork Orange warned us about future mass crime and violent psychos. Films like Soylent Green warned about the future food supply, and that film was coincidentally set in 2022. There are even films about pandemics, environmental disaster, and much of what we have experienced over the last few years. Well, all the zombie film warnings have not come to reality since zombies have never walked this Earth, but we all know how to kill them! The ultimate threat of artificial intelligence is constantly popping up, from Terminator to Westworld to Tron. We have been well trained by movies how to deal with alien invasions, like War the Worlds, Invaders From Mars, and many more. One film that most accurately predicts the future for me is the film Brazil, from body modifications to terrorism.

But one film series has not come true and has no future anticipated date, if or when it ever will come true. I watched these many films as a child, and I was sure that these films would come true in some way because there were so many of them. The Planet of the Apes. I was sure I would be living with ape-men by the year 2020. There were five original films, a tv series, a cartoon, books, comic books, action figures, Halloween costumes, and I even had Planet of the Apes cups and bowls. It had to come true! I counted on it, and as a small child, I knew I would have monkey friends when I was older. Some kids wanted flying cars when they grew up, and I was looking forward to living on the planet of the apes. I wistfully wondered about whether I would need special furniture for these future monkey friends. Would I need in my home hanging chairs, ropes, and hanging banana trees? Would the apes outnumber humans, and would I have to conform to their furniture? And, most importantly, would I need to eat bananas?

I have never eaten a banana. I am not sure if you peel them or unpeel them. They have peels, so taking the peel off must be unpeeling, right? I have no idea, I have never taken that nasty thing off a banana. Possibly having never eaten a banana is somehow unconsciously connected to never having monkey friends… Well, I have slipped on a banana peel before…. I used to slip bananas down the back of the shirt of a next door neighbor when he drifted asleep on his porch at night, and Bardo thought it was funny. But that is my extent of experience with bananas. I am a banana virgin, and I am not ashamed of that. Anyways, do you supposed to do something with those banana peels or just throw them away?

And where are the monkey men? Will we ever get them? I was sure those Planet of the Apes films were preparing us for future monkey men! Let’s not beat around the bush, it’s a primary letdown of being an adult human being: there are no monkey men, we have no monkey friends, no coconut parties. It’s just depressing. After all this crap we have to put up with, environmental disasters, political insanity, and a pandemic, can’t we just have monkey men now? We all deserve millions of monkey men on this planet, a plethora of primates, an abundance of apes, a surfeit of simians, and most definitely a cornucopia of Corneliuses!

I know there are some who share similar views. I worked with a college researcher who had a childhood crush on Chaka from The Land of the Lost. Chaka was a fur covered small apelike protohuman, not exactly sexy, nothing like a sleek sleestak. And there was an evening when a friend of a friend visited me at my apartment many years ago. I was warned that she was eccentric, slightly off kilter. She wandered into my kitchen unescorted to retrieve a beverage, and was gone a long time. When she returned, she was wearing a full body monkey suit she had recovered and donned from a closet. She also had consumed a large bottle of alcohol in that short time, so when she returned to my living room, she sat on the floor, sitting upright wearing the ape suit including the full head covering. She slumped forward and the ape lady barely moved for three hours. Her life signs were periodically checked, until she suddenly recovered and transformed back into a human and quickly left.

If I only knew in my life that would be the closest I ever came to having the monkey men over for a party, I would have taken photos. Monkey men where are you? You are not here yet in 2022, weepers! I will not be daunted, crushed, broken, or left without hope of a monkey man future! It will happen! One day. Until then, I will have to eck an existence off of old videos of Ernie Kovacs’ The Nairobi Trio and repeated viewings of the original Planet of the Apes films. So the waiting continues…

[dragonblobz]

Injuries Pt 4

After another millennium....... here is pt 4 of the fic request made by @lilfriezatyrant of caring for the injured lizard. STILL NO SMUT........ but he's feelin pretty dang feisty sksksksksks. Wrote this to Night of the Wolf by Nox Arcana.

His entire body stiffens. No longer relaxed and languid, it becomes as rigid as stone. All but his face.

Your kiss is chaste. Closed lips pressed to his. But you feel his own lips pull back. Feel the cool moisture of his naked teeth against your soft skin. He’s bared his teeth.

His hand leaves your wrist and you feel these fingers, now icy and brutal, grip your jaw, almost crushing, painful. He wrenches your face from his. His voice is deadly calm.

“Just what do you think you are doing, (Y/N)? Hmmm?”

It hurts to move your jaw, but you are oddly unafraid.

“Satisfying my curiosity.”

His face is the very picture of put upon rage. His mouth is wrenched in a silent snarl. His brows are creased heavily. And a vein pulses just beneath that pale skin at his temple. And his retort is rapid fire, but still that same inhuman calm.

“Fascinating. Not a few moments ago, you reeked of fear at the very idea of touching me. And now, suddenly, you’re brave enough to……… what is this act that you have perpetrated upon me?”

Your eyes go wide.

“It’s…….. a kiss……… surely you know what a kiss is??”

NOW his voice is angry.

“Of COURSE I don’t know what a kiss is, you hateful wretch! And I am not as you! I have no memories other than superficial ones. Why have you done this act upon me?”

You suddenly feel awful. Very guilty. He has amnesia. He is hurt. He is your PATIENT. And here you are kissing him. Even if he HAD insisted that you touch him, he had not asked for this particular action.

“I’m…….. I’m sorry. Really, I am. Just….” The pressure on your jaw becomes unbearable as his grip tightens.

“I gifted you with the honor of touching me……..” His voice has returned to that unnerving calm. “And you invade my personal space in this way?” His other hand now reaches up to trace it’s pointer finger around your lips. His face relaxes and his gaze travels also to your mouth.

“I ought to kill you.”

You feel the first tickles of fear in your stomach as his mouth creases into a smirk. He muses aloud.

“I suppose I WAS forceful.” His grip relaxes slightly, still firm, but no longer painful. And his gaze upon your lips becomes thoughtful.

“How did I come to be here? What happened to me?”

You try to answer as truthfully as you can.

“I’m not…… sure what happened to you. But I found you. And I brought you here.”

“And treated me?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Why did you bring me here? Why did you treat me?”

You don’t answer. His thumb twitches on the skin of your jaw.

“I’ll warn you once. Only once.” He continues to trace your lips. “I cannot recall my own name. But I know that I’m not the kind to be patient with dawdling or with lies…… you are aware that I’m quite capable of killing you, yes?”

“I’m……. I’m aware, yes.” Your voice wavers as you remember the metallic taste as he’d stared down that bear. SOMETHING had been about to happen. You’re sure of it. He’s not lying to you.

“Good. That’s very good. You’re dangerously impulsive, but not stupid. Now…….. I’m almost certain I’m up to no good being here. So WHY are you helping me, (Y/N)?”

“I must.”

“You must? Explain, simian.”

“Before you guys came here……. I was gonna be a doctor. A healer. I couldn’t…… I couldn’t just LEAVE you. You were hurt.” You’re feeling more and more stupid as you speak. Hearing your own reasoning, spoken in your own words, in your own voice….. it sounds very STUPID. Saving a damn alien whom is part of a group of aliens hell bent on usurping your world is probably the DUMBEST thing you’ve ever done.

His mouth now curls into a wicked toothy smile as he speaks.

“You primates and your idiotic predispositions to doing the right thing…….. still…….. I suppose I’m not being very grateful now, am i?”

He’s almost frighteningly calm now. Downright good natured. And just watching such a rapid play of different emotions on his face in under 2 minutes is…… terrifying.

He’s still gripping your jaw. And focusing an intense stare at your lips as that finger stops tracing to tap your bottom lip. Just feather light touches.

Tap.

Your heart is tripping all over itself.

Tap.

“I should probably look at your leg, now.”

“I imagine you should.” That grin becomes downright predatory. His hands don’t move.

Tap.

“I’m really very sorry. About the kiss, I mean…..”

His grip on your jaw changes angle, his finger tips pressing into your cheeks, making your lips purse. At the same time, that other finger slips between your lips to trace your front teeth.

“You look like a fish.” He looks suddenly playful. Amused.

“What are you doing?” Your words sound odd with the way he’s smooshing your cheeks.

His voice is quite bored compared to the impish grin on his face.

“Your curiosity has had it’s fill of satisfaction, (Y/N). I’m afraid you’re going to sate MINE, now.”

The cold lump of lead filling your belly is in direct war with the electric butterflies around it.

“Oh?? And….. and how am I gonna do that?”

There is no real warning before he squeezes your cheeks hard enough to press the flesh of them between your teeth, forcing your mouth open. At the same time that pointer finger, as well as his middle finger, thrusts back into your throat. The knuckles at the top of his hand are scraped uselessly by your teeth. Your throat spasms around these cool digits.

You instinctively try to pull away. You can’t breathe this way. But your face is effectively bridled by that splayed hand whose fingers dig into your cheeks, not inherently harming, but utterly ruthless.

You reach up, grasping the wrist of the hand at your face. Your nails scrape uselessly along this gauntleted amethyst here. You are unable to make any sound other than wet gagging.

His smile fades, replaced by a look far more terrifying than any he’s previously given you. He tilts his head. He doesn’t look angry. He looks curious….. and starving.

“Now THAT is a pretty blush…..”

He scissors those two fingers. And now your body is physically trying to expel them. Grunting coughs around his fingers. Drool pools out of your mouth and down his wrist. He doesn’t seem to care about this.

“Not trying to bite, then? I’m impressed. But I’d advise you to calm your flailing. This tissue feels very delicate.” His voice is almost clinical now.

You attempt to obey him. And are successful in terms of no longer trying to wrench your body away from him. But your chest and back continue to heave, your gagging continues unabated. You cannot help this natural response.

And your lungs are beginning to burn. To scream for air. Tho you are no longer attempting to get away, your hands still tremble on his wrist.

His crimson pupils center on your own. And he leans forward now. Very close. Till those eyes are all you can see. He’s looking into your eyes as if you are a moderately interesting lab specimen. Your tummy blooms in raw terror. Is he going to suffocate you?

Your airway wheezes as he finally removes his fingers. Your mouth is open and slack as you desperately breathe, gasping. You can feel trails of spit running down your flushed chin.

And you can feel your own saliva being smeared on your neck as that hand now grasps here. It is not crushing, but it’s vice like. And the other hand maintains it’s grip on your face. And he stops moving now. Is just watching you gasp, so close that those alien eyes fill your vision.

“A kiss, hmmm?”

You can see the corners of his eyes crinkle. He’s grinning.

“Why do I feel as if you are not showing me what such an action can truly accomplish?”

Those pupils flick downwards. He’s looking at your lips.

“Inferior frightened primate……… but I think you can give me much better than that paltry performance.”

Those pupils return to yours.

“Can’t you…..”

You can’t nod. Can’t really move your neck at all with the way he’s holding you. So you gasp, your voice a croak bubbling from your tender throat.

“I…… I think so……”

He doesn’t wait for any further excuses. Pulls your lips to his. His eyes do not close as a human’s might. He’s watching you very closely.

You respond immediately, your own eyes fluttering shut. You are frightened of him, yes. But the majority of the terror seething in your belly stems from your own instant animal response to him. There is no hesitation. You kiss him with fire.

His lips remain motionless at first. Then, they begin to mimic the actions of your own. As if he’s learning very quickly.

Your hands leave his wrist to trail your fingertips up his firm chest. Up. To drape over his shoulders, your hands cradling the back of his head. Your body presses into his and you can feel how much cooler he is than you even thru the tin material of your shirt. It’s like you’ve lost your mind and he does absolutely nothing to stop you.

You must certainly be a sight. Sitting next to this alien, kissing the shit out of him. His hands grasping your throat and face while his pupils twinkle and dance at your own willful helplessness to his whim.

That tail, still wrapped around your middle, begins an odd rhythmic pulsing. A slow malingering flex which begins at the base and undulates along its length. Culminating in a tightening and then loosening. It’s a repeated pressure, oddly soothing. As if his body is attempting to comfort you, although this does not translate to the ferocity in his eyes.

He suddenly pulls his face away, your seeking lips leaving his with a tiny pop. Your eyes fluttering open again. He’s only pulled his face away tho. His body remains pressed into yours. That tail continues to pulse.

The hand around your throat leaves this to snake the fingertips down your ribs, between your breasts, around your body. Till it’s splayed on your lower back. And he presses you even more firmly to him.

The other hand continues to grasp your face. And he twitches his wrist, forcing your head to tilt. His own head tilts just the same, matching yours. And his dark lips, sparkling with your saliva, pull back from those perfect teeth in an atavistic snarling grin. His voice is a raspy growl.

“Exemplary.”

[greatsagestonemonkey]

Monkie Kid Dream Clips

So a bit of background for this...

The other night I had a really funny/weird dream that was based mostly off of Monkie Kid as well as some really campy horror flicks I’ve been watching in honor of the spook season. And I decided to write out the bits I could remember thanks to some people on the Discord I’m part of saying that I should do it. One of them even suggested that I post them somewhere else, so I decided... why the heck not? So here they are, enjoy!

(Just keep in mind that this is not a complete story, just a compilation of what I can remember since it WAS a dream and I don’t remember all of it...)

A scream cut through the night and practically rattled the cottage to the point where it even caused the grove of bamboo outside to tremble as though affected by an earthquake. Normally, it wasn’ something that Macaque would be concerned with… if it hadn’t made his soul nearly jump out of his body.

“Kid?!” Monkey King sprang up and bolted out of the room, his tail wrapping around a dismayed Macaque and dragging him along. The two of them barreled full on into MK as he flew through the doors at the other end of the corridor, the three now lying in a heap on the floor momentarily before Macaque wriggled his way out from under the pile.

“Thanks, now I have even more bruises to feel in the morning,” he groaned bitterly at MK as he dusted himself off.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Monkey King asked, pulling the child up to his feet only for said child to cling to him and point a shaky arm back into the room he’d just come through.

“There’s a--There are--” though MK was clearly trying to form a full sentence he could only get a few words out at a time. He was known for being over excitable, sure, but this was… 

Well, Macaque thought it was hilarious, but Monkey King was obviously a concerned form of curious.

“Kid, take a deep breath!” Monkey King said, smacking MK on the back gently to snap him out of his panic just long enough for the boy to comply, shoulder sagging as he finally relaxed; albeit a little bit. “There you go… now, what’s wrong?”

“Yeah, uh… there’s a bunch of zombies behind the curtain in there!!” MK cried out, his temporary calm state gone in a flash. 

Macaque raised an eyebrow. “What?” voice dripping with skepticism.

“I’m being serious! There’s like eight of them back there behind this weird curtain veil thing-y and they’ve got these sheets of paper hanging from their--”

“Kid, Kid, calm down. Relax.” Monkey King placed a hand on his shoulder, stifling a chuckle, to MK’s shock, as apparent by the look on his face.

“Relax?! Why?!”

“Here, I’ll show you…” Monkey King said, walking past Macaque and opening the doors MK had just flown through. MK instinctively hid behind his mentor, peeking out from behind him timidly until the simian entered the room and walked to the curtain, pulling it back.

MK could only watch in a mixture of terror and amazement as the Monkey King waved his hand back and forth in front of the covered face of one of the eight corpses that lined the space behind the curtain. Behind the strange piece of yellow paper, the corpse remained blank faced, almost as though sleeping with its faded eyes wide open. He took a hesitant step forward, nearly jumping when a board creaked behind him from Macaque also stepping forward.

“The guy who lives here is a Corpse Walker.” Macaque said, his tone now a bored one. “These stiffs are harmless.”

“A what now?”

“Corpse Walker.” Monkey King reiterated. “It’s an ancient practice performed by monks and priests to move bodies. They use magical charms to reanimate the dead and move them from one place to another in large groups. It was really popular after a large battle, and whatnot.”

“Like I said, they’re harmless.” Macaque said, walking forward and actually leaning on the shoulder of one of the corpses with his arm. “As long as these tags don’t get damaged they’re about as dangerous as a wood plank.”

----

“Would you stop!?”

“What? I’m not doing anything.”

“Oh, then I suppose that thumping is one of those corpses hopping about!?”

Thump… Thump… Thump...

Both froze and gave each other a concerned glance. Neither of them had moved…

“...You… don’t think…?”

“...No. Not at all. Totally just the wind… I’m totally not being sarcastic right now.”

---

The boards at the base of the floor stretched up in an almost full arch, revealing it’s hiding place, and as instructed, MK threw the basket full of rice inside, fling himself back as an unearthly, hissing shriek erupted from the space, followed by a stream of smoke and the smell of something burning. MK wasted no time and sprinted away from the spot he’d been frozen to, still clutching a handful of rice and pressed himself against the wall on the far side of the room.

“H-Ha! Take that!” he shouted before slapping a hand over his mouth… the hand that was…

Crap, he just swallowed the last of his rice.

---

“You okay there kiddo?” Macaque asked as he steadied the boy, eyes falling and widening momentarily as the boy slumped in his grasp. “...Oh well that’s… not good…”

He pulled MK’s collar back as Monkey King closed the gap between them to show off the two fresh puncture wounds as the base of MK’s neck; and Monkey King’s eyes went wide.

“Oh no…!”

---

Scrambling, he grabbed at the first thing he could feel under his hand and brought it forward to use as a shield, or at least something that would stall the Jiangshi long enough for him to be able to get clear, when he noticed that the hopping vampire had stopped, it’s dead eyes locked onto what he was holding; one of the basket’s of rice, mostly empty, but still with a few handfuls of grains contained within.

He could still see. The kid must have missed earlier!

“He can still see!” Macaque called out, hearing Monkey King close the distance between them to hit the vampire square in the ribs with a solid kick.

“Then I’ll keep him busy and you go for the eyes!”

---

It tried to hop… nothing. And again… but still nothing. It’s feet wouldn’t leave the ground!

Now blinded, it could not see that it had hopped after the two monkey’s--who were now safely on Monkey King’s somersault cloud--right into a thick blanket of pitch that had been smeared over the floor.

---

“You feeling any better, Kid?” Monkey King asked, watching as MK wallowed in the barrel of rice wine.

“Ugh… kinda…?” MK groaned in reply.

“I’ll take “kinda”.” Monkey King said with a chuckle.

“One thing’s for sure, I am never criticising those old Jiangshi movies that Mei used to me watch again…” MK said, moving his arms out enough to let them hang off the side of the barrel. “That was rough!”

“You said it. This is why I hate Jiangshi. People from other countries don’t know how lucky they are. All they have to do is wait for sunrise or hold up a cross, but do either of those things bother Jiangshi? Noooooo!” Macaque complained, slouched into his chair. 

“I thought you said those charms were supposed to keep them harmless?” MK questioned.

“They are!”

“So how’d one of them come to life then?”

Macaque grumbled with a shrug, slouching further into the chair tiredly. Monkey King’s ear twitched at an odd sound coming from what should have been the usual sound of Macaque’s clothing shift, and he turned his head, eyes turning gold briefly to examine the other simian. Seconds later, he marched over to Macaque and grabbed his arm, lifting it into the air and reaching under and just behind it.

“I might have an idea about that…” he said, peeling off the now crumpled talisman that was stuck to Macaque’s clothing. “It’s called “static cling”.”

---

(Aaaaaaaaand that’s all I can remember! Sorry… but hope you enjoyed what there was!)

[lilfriezatyrant]

The Gilded Appearance

A few minutes have passed since he disappeared from this terrestrial hell...or rather he was recruited for a very special tournament.

This lousy monkey had actually managed to convince him. But he can't blame him. Anything is better than to have to be exposed to this cocoon and listen to horrible parades with disgusting fairy songs. He is in a gate that connects this world with the beyond...some human with magical powers had brought him here. A circumstance he does not consider important. His body seems stiff. This repulsive shell hanging from a cherry tree tightened him up very much and he had no freedom of movement at all. What an annoyance! And audacity!

He lets his tense neck circle, whereupon a cracking sound can be heard immediately, his pure ivory-coloured skin appears slightly turquoise due to the blue flames flickering in the portal. One eye looks slowly upwards and he immediately notices a glow over his crystalline skull. Immediately an annoyed sigh sets in. "How degrading for me...of course I have to keep this grotesque halo," he closes his eye again, had briefly determined where Goku is and puts his hands on his hips while he slowly struts to him. His tail flickers elegantly with every step behind him. "Hey, Frieza! I am Glad you're he--!" But he interrupts the mouthy voice with a glorious stroke in the pit of this stomach. "Oops, pardon me...my hand slipped...", he opens one eye again, it is almost like a cheeky wink and he rejoices in the pain of this simian barbarian. His white fist bores into his stomach one last time, but before he could react, his face distorts itself into a painful expression. This monkey had started a counterattack! Also a punch in HIS very stomach. He gritted his perfect teeth and heard the cheeky words of the Saiyan. "Oh, I am also sorry. Mine too." Inside he is loaded with wrath, but he keeps the control he has acquired over the last years. A real anger vein pulsates at his temple, but he smiles slightly, his vermilion eyes glowing at his counterpart.

"Okay Frieza, no more hand slipping. We have to hurry. We only have a few minutes left." The emperor stands upright again and immediately recovers from this little unexpected punch. He seems only slightly confused, his eyes widening as Goku gives him a hand. "Take my hand. I will take us away from here immediately", he himself, in his slight amazement, only brings a quiet "Oh?" as an answer. He chuckles slightly amused, "Then what shall slip next?"

But he doesn't take the hand of this monkey, because a ghostly creature floats panickedly towards them...probably it belongs to this other being. "Baba! We are in trouble! There are several creatures outside! We're surrounded!"

The Emperor puts his hands behind his back and cackles slightly. "A welcome party? You did not tell me that, Goku." He jokes with a smirk. But he does not get an answer, and the other goes out of the building.

His tail flickers enthusiastically behind him for a moment before he slowly follows him.

Oh? Fighters from another universe? This should be interesting. Unknown assassins who probably want to destroy fighters from other universes so that they can no longer participate in the tournament. A...perfidious manner, yet effective.

He watches the action, stands at the entrance of the building, his view directly to Goku and the... locusts in the sky. The unsuspecting monkey asks him questions, but his voice only meets with deaf ears. Clever assassins. Loyal people who understand their work...or they will be subjected to even worse torture if they fail?

Although the Saiyan's contact person gets on his nerves...the same answer follows constantly, namely none.

"I won't tell."

But in the next moment the chest of this dog-like alien is pierced and he falls into the water, rises again, his face screamed in pain. It was a deathbeam, straight from the deadly index finger of the Ruler of the Universe. But he had deliberately missed the vital organ so as not to cause an initial death here on Earth...at least not yet. But his shot was so precise and so close to Goku that he had poked his cheek. "Oh...I am sorry again...I guess my hand slipped after all." his smug grin remains and he can see a certain seriousness in Goku's eyes. Of course he has perfectly memorized his previous words in his head. He never forgets. I guess they will have some minutes left for a little warm-up exercise. "You know, my body has become quite soft in hell...", his smug manner can be heard on the outside and his body slowly covers itself in a golden aura. "And I thought I could loosen it up.", his changed ki continues to grow, it jst like a golden flame in which he is blazing and that's exactly how his inside feels: His body is exposed to so much heat that even the strongest material could melt...but he has got used to it, his body and his organs know this procedure...besides he is a cold-blooded being, literally and heat is very pleasant for his organism. Everyone here isn't moving... nobody is talking. Everyone watches this divine transformation, everyone seems to be spellbound. Just the kind of attention he was hoping for. Very good. A promising audience and it will be his greatest pleasure to eviscerate them. Every single being here.

At the moment, however, he is completely focused on this new power, which he has mastered after another stay in his own hell. Glaring light is emitted as his body takes on a new form in this shell. He has spread out his arms, his back is leaning backwards, almost forming a hollow back, his piercing eyes are closed and he still wears his perfect smug grin. It is the coming anticipation of the bloodbath with which he will inaugurate his golden skin.

Although his posture is inviting, every single limb is under tension. He has to bundle this incredible energy before he can release it and each of his metamorphoses is painful, an irrevocable fact. But it is never visible to an outsider.

Every single cell of his slowly changing body takes on an even more resistant form, micro scales merge together to become more robust as well. The purple spheres on his shoulders disappear completely under a stable golden layer. More muscle mass is formed on his membrane. His perfect transformation is almost complete...the colour gold to humiliate every still living Saiyan and to be superior to this monkey race.

And the hot feeling inside does something very curious: slight signs of goose bumps are visible...but only Frieza himself knows this, no one else would noticed. This unbelievable increase in power causes this. He is excited about what is imminent...he  is bloodthirsty and will show no mercy with his finally mastered power.

His strong toes briefly brace themselves, his nails claw into the stone floor before they glow golden for a moment and relax again. The same tension can be seen on his upper body and arms, which have increased considerably in muscle tone. His facial features are also briefly tense for a millisecond before it turns purple and his smirk is still clearly visible with his black lips.

The glistening light had spread over several kilometers during the night and is now slowly fading as his body completes the transformation.

His upper body makes a forward movement. It is like a bow, an invitation for the honour that all attendees were allowed to experience and it is also an augury for the coming disaster. Executed by the Golden Deity who is reborn.

His scarlet eyes open again in a sharp gaze, his golden and massive tail wagging briefly and swiftly once behind him, before he in his sublime form announces his arrival: "Behold the true power of the Golden Frieza!"

@dragonblobz I promised you I will give you a golden terror, didn't I? uwu

[dxwnxdusk]

“  if you walk out that door don’t bother coming back.  ” YOU SENT ME PAIN ON A MONDAY MORNING IM SENDING ONE BACK

"I'm getting a damn drink dumbass! My throats sore!" A growl is restrained in the depths of his throat, barely hidden under his near yelling tone, he doesn't to save his own hearing, ears twitching as his fur faintly bristles. The door opened wide as he steps out, yet he hesitates. Cloak slightly dragging on the ground, he remembers the day the fabric was one an illustrious red, scarlet more than any rose. But what hurts more than the current agony of the wraith's failing body is the way he barely peeks over his own shoulder, more of a hopeful gaze but still he flinches away from those intense golden hues. He can't fully recall what it was like, memories came back in shambles anytime he tried to sleep, the most common night terrors of almost daily occurrence being that faithful day, control robbed from his own body. He only now had that back and even now it wasn't going to be long, he's had his fits. Enough that when the temptation arises to have another all he can do is let out a puff of smoke and wish he even remotely still had the energy. He wouldn't put it past the other to not notice it until the day....

It's funny. Now that he stands in this exact doorway, claws grasping the edge of the door handle that the tall simian recalls brief things of the past. Memories that leave him standing there, looking as if he was pondering, as if he was thinking about leaving. A trembling claw as the edges of his nails leave faint scrapes in the door, before he turns sharply on his heel, nearly slamming the door closed behind him as he comes back inside. Plopping his ass down on the edge of the bed. The edges of the cloak gripped in a white knuckle type grasp.

"....Fine. Then don't cackle at me when I loose my voice trying to keep talking to you without anything in a few hours." A claw waving it off, even as the cloak remains draped around his entire frame. Wearing loose clothing, he'd never live it down if Wukong figured it out. He'd never live it down if-...no. He was gonna live it down. Because he wouldn't be here for the topic to be spoken about, when he went back this time he wouldn't bother crying or calling for the other. He doubt the other had even heard him calling and begging for him down there. That always left a bitter taste strong enough to dissuade the desperation for even a drop of liquid.

[camlistenedto]

Part 9: Albums 801-900

The Chemical Brothers - Born In The Echoes (Deluxe)

Simian Mobile Disco - Welcome To Sideways

Broken Bells - After The Disco

Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence

L D R U - Sizzlar

Suicideyear - Hate Songs EP

Muse - The 2nd Law

Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreak

reliq - Life Prismic

Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon

Foster The People - Sacred Hearts Club

Tyler The Creator - Scum Fuck Flower Boy

Linkin Park - Meteora

Vera Blue - Perennial

Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life

Kilo Kish - Reflections In Real Time

Dan Sultan - Killer

Arcade Fire - Reflektor

Arcade Fire - Everything Now

David Bowie - ...hours

Christine & The Queens - Christine & The Queens

Moon Boots-  First Landing

Chic - Risque

Burial - Burial

Arcade High - Pixel Passion

Jlin - Black Origami

Slushii - Out Of Light

DJ Okawari - Kaleidoscope

Kesha - Rainbow

Grum - Anjunabeats Worldwide 07

FM-84 - Atlas

The Kills - Ash & Ice

Death From Above 1979 - The Physical World

Passion Pit - Tremendous Sea Of Love

Groove Armada - Veritgo

Huerco S - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)

Oneohtrix Point Never - Good Time Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Makeup & Vanity Set - 88:88

Oliver - Full Circle

Tegan and Sara - This Business Of Art

Kylie Minogue - Fever

MNDR - Feed Me Diamonds

Cornelius - Sensuous

Cornelius - Mellow Waves

LCD Soundsystem - American Dream

Bicep - Bicep

CupcakKe - Audacious

Prodigy - The Fat Of The Land

Maya Jane Coles - Take Flight

Zomby - Dedication

!!! - As If

Lunice - CCCLX

Death From Above 1979 - Outrage! Is Now

Scissor Sisters - The Magic Hour

Big Gigantic - A Place Behind The Moon

Leikeli47 - Wash & Set

Burial - Untrue

Spoon - Kill the Moonlight

Dua Lipa - Dua Lipa (Deluxe)

Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Choir of the Mind

Angus & Julia Stone - Snow

Sabaton - Carolus Rex

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1914

Opeth - Sorceress

Thundamentals - Sleeping on your Style

Siriusmo - Comic

D-Block & S-te-fan - Antidote

Terror Jr - Bop 3: The Girl Who Cried Purple

Ibeyi - Ash

Dance With The Dead - Out Of Body

Boys Noize - Oi Oi Oi

Cub Sport - BATS

Kelela - Take Me Apart

TOKiMONSTA - Lune Rouge

Vessels - The Great Distraction

Diplo - Florida

Cornelius - Point

St Vincent - MASSEDUCTION

Anamanaguchi - Capsule Silence XXIV Original Soundtrack Vol. II

Sigur Ros - Takk...

Kllo - Backwater

Giraffage - Too Real

The Bloody Beetroots - The Great Electronic Swindle

The Bombay Royale - The Island Of Dr Electrico

Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express

Fever Ray - Plunge

360 - Vintage Modern

Zola Jesus - Okovi

Anjunadeep 09 compiled by Jody Wisternoff & James Grant

Shamir - Revelations

Selena - Dreaming Of You

Selena Gomez - Revival (Deluxe)

Aqua - Aquarium

FEMM- 80′s/90′s J-POP REVIVAL

Elton John vs PNAU - Good Morning To The Night

PNAU - Changa

Jamiroquai - Automaton

Future Islands - Singles

Hercules & Love Affair - Omnion

Sampa The Great - Birds and the BEE9

[enterinit]

TESO: Elsweyr and other games coming to Xbox One this week

TESO: Elsweyr and other games coming to Xbox One this week. The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr (June 04, 2019) Join over 11 million players in the award-winning online multiplayer RPG. Dragons have invaded Tamriel in The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr, part of the Season of the Dragon year-long adventure! Explore and defend the home of the Khajiit from an ancient evil, and command the undead with the Necromancer class. Features: VENTURE TO ELSWEYR—Explore the Khajiit homeland; a land ravaged by warfare.DEFEND AGAINST DRAGONS —Scaled terror attacks from the skies! Seek new allies and weapons to take them down.A YEAR-LONG EPIC TALE—ESO reaches new storytelling heights with a war against Dragons told across a Chapter and three DLC game packs.WIELD THE POWER OF NECROMANCY—Master control over life and death with a character class that channels the undead. Timespinner (June 04, 2019) Travel back in time to change fate itself in this beautifully crafted story-driven adventure, inspired by classic 90s action-platformers. Join timekeeper Lunais on her quest for revenge against the empire that killed her family, using time-bending powers to explore a vast, connected world. Neon Junctions (June 05, 2019) A first-person puzzle platformer filled with atmosphere of synthwave and the 80s. Plunge into cyberspace and try to overcome 35 levels capable to challenge not only your savvy but also dexterity. Capture and move conductive cubes, close electrical circuits and restore power of the interactive objects around you. Asdivine Dios (June 05, 2019) Among the many worlds the deities have created, there is one world that abounds with life known as Asdivine. But when a spate of disturbances erupts across the globe and an ever spreading murk threatens to destroy it, Izayoi, the deity of Asdivine himself, takes up his cause to save the world he created with his own hands. Suffering from an unfortunate loss of his own divine powers, is there any hope he can succeed? Find out as the curtain raises on this adventure of divine proportions! Boasting a voluminous story, an expansive world, treasure filled dungeons, exciting turn-based battles, weapon creation, and more, the all-inclusive RPG experience is here! Plus, limitless enemies and loot, a multitude of subquests, and even bosses that will blow your mind await! Features Create a new chapter in a grand fantasy RPG featuring turn-based battles!Boasting a voluminous story, an expansive world, treasure filled dungeons, exciting turn-based battles, weapon creation, and more, the all-inclusive RPG experience is hereLimitless enemies and loot, a multitude of subquests, and even bosses that will blow your mind await! MotoGP 19 (June 06, 2019) Speed up your climb to success with this multiplier which doubles reputation and development points earned in Career mode. Immerse yourself in the official 2019 MotoGP™ season and discover the MotoE™. Have fun with the most complete multiplayer experience ever, challenge your friends, create your custom events and become Race Director thanks to dedicated servers! Relive the most thrilling rivalries that made the history of the MotoGP™ in a dedicated mode! Compete with a faster, smarter and more accurate AI, based on machine learning. Create your style by choosing from the widest selection of accessories and brands ever and have fun with new graphic editors, customizing helmet, lower back patch and racing number! Start your Career as a rookie and when you're ready for a trickier challenge, try out the Pro Career and race as a real pro! Toki (June 06, 2019) The return of the wacky monkey!Toki sets off on a new adventure! The cult action/platform game originally released on arcade machines in 1989 is back with a super-simian new version, featuring all-new hand-drawn graphics and re-orchestrated music! Super Blood Hockey (June 07, 2019) Arcade sports gaming gets a shot of adrenaline in Super Blood Hockey, a violent homage to classic 8- and 16-bit ice hockey games. Customize your line-up and take to the ice, using fast-paced skills and bone-crunching brutality to dominate. Prove your hockey prowess in a deadly global tournament or against friends in 4-player local multiplayer. Build and manage your own squad in Franchise Mode – with the right diet and performance enhancing drugs your team can be season champions! Features: Use superior skating, positioning, strategy and blood-splattering violenceTake on the world in a global tournament, where failure results in executionVaried challenges and scenarios, including Turbo Mode and 12 vs 12 Mega RumblePaint the ice with the blood of your friends in 4-player local multiplayerFranchise Mode: Create, recruit and manage your own custom team of inmates in a futuristic world of dystopic blood sportsEnjoy the retro beats of an original soundtrack by chiptunist Shawn Daley Party Golf (June 07, 2019) Party Golf is “less golf, more party”, a crazy, competitive couchplay game for one to eight players. Tee off simultaneously to a psychedelic 2D world, with satisfyingly simple physics, except it’s a frenetic free-for-all to get in the hole. It’s instant fun with endless variety there are trillions of gameplay combinations, from giant banana balls to turbo power-ups. This spontaneous couch party may drive a wedge between friends, but have everyone shouting “just one more round!” 4-player local-multiplayer and even 8-player matches with wacky shared controller modeover 100 included game modes, and you can make your own with our super powerful gameplay customisation systemprocedurally generated terrains so you'll never play the same hole twice ... and crazy powerups, night golf, checkpoints, elimination modes, rat-king... the number of ways to play is practically endless! Omensight: Definitive Edition (June 07, 2019) The kingdom of Urralia is gone, annihilated by a dark deity. In this action murder-mystery game you are the Harbinger, a mythical warrior who must relive and repeat Urralia’s final day to solve a mysterious murder and save the world. Talk with the inhabitants of war-torn Urralia, separate truth from lies, and use the power of Omensight to alter their fates. Choice and consequence, multiple courageous companions, and skillful combat all weave together to deliver a unique blend of narrative and action. With each choice, time and fate is changed, bringing you one step closer to Urralia’s salvation. Features: A narrative experience that blends interactive story with action. Witness events from different perspectives and affect the outcomes through your choicesA diverse cast of characters, each with a role in Urralia's fate. Decide to help or hinder them in your quest to stop the apocalypseFight using fluid, stylish combat that combines swordplay, magical abilities and time manipulation Read the full article

[radarsteddybear]

The end of season 3 of The Wild Wild West is really good for whump

[celestial-alignment]

I wish Artie would read from a book and throw some knowledge at me.

“The Night of the Simian Terror” Season 3, Episode 23

[papermoonloveslucy]

Lucy and the Monsters

S3;E18~ January 25, 1965

Synopsis

When Lucy and Viv decide to check out the horror movies their boys have been watching, Lucy has a nightmare in which she and Viv are trapped in a haunted castle where they encounter a variety of horror movie characters - until their host turns them into witches themselves!  

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Gale Gordon (Theodore J. Mooney), Jimmy Garrett (Jerry Carmichael), Ralph Hart (Sherman Bagley)

Ralph Hart’s face is completely hidden by a Frankenstein mask and he has no dialogue, merely grunts. Viv says “I’m not even sure that is my son under that mask.” This is his first ‘appearance’ since “Lucy’s Contact Lenses” (S3;E10) two months earlier.

Candy Moore (Chris Carmichael) does not appear in this episode.

Guest Cast

George Barrows (Loretta, the Gorilla Maid) played a gorilla in his very first screen credit, Tarzan and His Mate (1934).  He donned the gorilla suit 18 more times from 1954 to 1978. His final simian character was on “The Incredible Hulk.”  This is his first appearance on “The Lucy Show” and he will return as a gorilla in two more.  He also played human characters on two episodes. 

Bob Burns (Ringo, the Werewolf Butler) also played the wolf man in two episodes of TV's “The Adventures of The Spirit” in 1963.  Like George Barrows, Burns played many on-screen gorillas, including on an episode of “My Three Sons” in 1966.  Burns was a good friend of Glenn Strange, the last actor to play Frankenstein in a Universal horror film.  He is also a world renown archivist and historian of props, costumes, and other screen used paraphernalia from science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies. One of his prized possessions is the the wolf's cane handle from The Wolf Man (1941).

The character’s unique moniker is likely a nod to the Beatles’ Ringo Starr.  Early in their career’s the Beatles were known for their long hair!

Jan Arvan (The 'Head' of the Household) played a waiter in Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy in 1955 and a gypsy on “The Munsters” ten years later.  From 1953 to 1971 he was a regular on “The Red Skelton Show” on CBS, often playing Klem Kadiddlehopper's father.  This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.  

Sid Haig (The Mummy) was first employed by Desilu in a 1962 episode of “The Untouchables.” This “Lucy Show” marks his fourth of more than 140 screen credits. He was also seen in a 1969 episode of “Here’s Lucy.”  Haig appeared in the horror re-boots Night of the Living Dead 3D (2006) and Halloween (2007).

James Gonzales (Morris, the Chair) was a popular Hollywood extra who first acted with Lucille Ball in the 1953 film The Long, Long Trailer. He was previously seen on the series as Stan Williams in “Lucy Digs Up a Date” (S1;E2). He was seen in more than 20 episodes of “The Lucy Show” and 3 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

The character name puns on the Morris Chair, an early type of reclining chair by Morris & Company first marketed around 1866. Gonzales is completely concealed by the chair costume and does not speak.

Shepard Sanders (Costume Party Count Dracula) played a psychic on an episode of the TV series “Werewolf” in 1987. This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.  

Several other costumed party-goers appear uncredited in the final scene, but do not speak. They may have been played by the other ‘monsters’ in Lucy’s dream.

Series Camera Coordinator Maury Thompson (above left) and assistant director / associate producer Tommy Thompson (above right) came up with the premise for this episode and receive screen credit for the story.

The episode opens with Lucy reading a magazine article titled “Psychological Reactions in Adolescents to Terror-Inspiring Visual Stimulation”:  

“The over-abundance of spooky stuff in movies and TV can cause traumatic experience in our youngsters.”

Lucy reports that Jerry and Sherman are at the State Theater to see the double-feature The Surfing Werewolf and The Eggplant That Ate Philadelphia. Both of these are fictional films. This is the first mention of the State movie theatre. The Bijou and The Danfield Theatre were both mentioned in “No More Double Dates” S1;E21).  

The title The Eggplant That Ate Philadelphia may have been inspired by the 1960 low-budget comedy / horror film The Little Shop of Horrors, about a mysterious eggplant-shaped plant that thrives on human blood and could be an alien sent to conquer earth. One of the film’s stars, Jackie Joseph, was married to Lucille Ball protégé Ken Berry and would appear on “Here’s Lucy” (using her married named) in 1969.

Jerry wears a black cape and Sherman wears a Frankenstein mask. Other than this visual image, the Frankenstein monster is not mentioned or depicted in the dream. Frankenstein and Dracula were already represented on CBS by “The Munsters” (1964-66) on Thursday nights. The series imagined the Universal monsters in a family-based sitcom similar to “Father Knows Best.”  

Jerry (and later Lucy) use a Remco “Signal Action Ray Space Gun”. Starting in the 1950s, Remco made many variations on this gun, including different colors. It is likely that the electronic sound heard on the soundtrack was added in post-production.

The mothers resolve to check out these movies for themselves.

VIV: “I haven’t seen a movie with a monster since Gone With The Wind.” LUCY: “There was no monster in Gone With The Wind.” VIV: “You didn’t see my date!”

Lucille Ball was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara during the 1939 film's initial casting. The role eventually went to British actress Vivian Leigh (right). The cinema classic will be mentioned several times throughout the series and on “Here’s Lucy.”  

Gale Gordon gets a smattering of entrance applause from the studio audience.  Mr. Mooney jokingly hums a few bars of “Funeral March” to scare Lucy and Viv. Frédéric Chopin's composition is formally known as Piano Sonata No. 2 in B Flat Minor, Opus 35 and was completed in 1839.  

Mr. Mooney mentions his wife, but not by name. Vivian mentions her husband, but also does not use his name. In other episodes, we discover they are named Irma and Ralph, respectively. Both characters remain unseen throughout the series.

Throwing his coat over his shoulders like a cape, Mr. Mooney says 

“It isn't a fit night out for man nor beast!” 

This is a paraphrase of a quote spoken by W.C. Fields in the 1933 film short The Fatal Glass of Beer, which was NOT a horror movie! More beastly wordplay happens later when Dracula (Mr. Mooney) turns the expression “Heavens to Betsy” into “Heavens to Beastie”! 

This is only the second time a scene has taken place in Lucy's bedroom. The first was in “Lucy Buys a Sheep” (S1;E5).  

Lucy protects herself from monsters by wearing a garlic necklace (to ward off evil spirits) and holding one of Jerry's wooden tent stakes (the only way to kill a vampire). Both of these tactics are part of the vampire mythology as set forth in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.

The monster characters featured are mostly from the Universal Studios pantheon of monsters: Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932) and The Wolf Man (1941). Background player Monty O'Grady was a villager in The Wolf Man and later appeared in 14 episodes of “The Lucy Show” and 6 episodes of “Here's Lucy.”  One of Universal's most famous monsters was The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), played by Elsa Lanchester. Lanchester guest-starred as a possible hatchet murderess on “Off To Florida” (ILL S6;E6) and as a hardened criminal in “Lucy Goes To Prison,” a 1973 episode of “Here's Lucy.” The Bride of Frankenstein is also mentioned in “Lucy Writes a Play” (ILL S1;E17). Universal Studios theme parks in Hollywood and Florida later hosted a Lucille Ball exhibit, also selling collectible merchandise and souvenirs.

Count Dracula (Mr. Mooney) calls his werewolf butler by the name 'Ringo.' This is a joke about Ringo Starr of the Beatles, a popular singing group known for their long and shaggy hairstyles. The Beatles have been mentioned several times on “The Lucy Show.” 1965 saw the release of their motion picture Help!

When Lucy and Viv are transformed into witches, they quote the Weird Sisters from William Shakespeare's MacBeth: 

“Double double, toil and trouble. Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

To find out who is the prettiest witch, Lucy and Viv ask the magic mirror by saying “Mirror, mirror on the wall; Who's the fairest of them all?” This is the same query the Evil Queen asks her magic mirror in the 1937 animated Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. In the original Brothers Grimm story that the film is based upon, however, the question posed is “Who is the most beautiful in all the land?”  

In the dream sequence, witch Lucy calls witch Viv 'Sassafrassa.' This is actually the name Lucille Ball gave an imaginary childhood friend who assured her she would one day be a movie star. Once she moved  from Jamestown to nearby Celoron, Lucy would often call her best friend Pauline Lopus 'Pauline Sassafrassa.' Other sources say Lucille Ball imagined herself to be a famous film star named 'Sassafrassa.'  

A mouse also scares Lucy and Viv in “Vivian Sues Lucy” (S1;E10). That episode also features an insert shot of a live mouse. Women being afraid of mice was a typical TV trope of the time.  

When the Mummy tries to help strap Lucy to the operating table, she snaps and says “Please, Mummy! I’d rather do it myself!” The studio audience reacts with a big laugh of recognition. Here’s why…

In 1962, an advertisement for Anacin pain reliever featured a mother trying to assist her grown daughter prepare a meal. “Don’t you think it needs a little salt?”, the mother would say, only to have her nerve-racked daughter shout, “Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself!" Variations on this scenario became popular and were parodied a number of times, including in the Allan Sherman song "Headaches” (”Mother, don't hand me those pills from the shelf, I’d rather do it myself”), the 1966 film The Silencers, and the 1980 film Airplane. 

A year and a day after this “Lucy Show” episode, “My Mother The Car” (starring Lucy’s pal Ann Sothern) aired an episode titled “I’d Rather Do It Myself, Mother” (S1;E20). Coincidentally, the show’s music was by Ralph Carmichael, a real-life combination of VIv’s ex-husband’s first name, and Lucy’s last name! 

Callbacks!

Two years earlier, in the first frame of the June 1963 “The Lucy Show” Gold Key comic book, Viv also feared monsters!  And shaggy dogs, apparently! Ironically, a shaggy dog was featured in the very first episode of “The Lucy Show”.  

This is the first time there has been a 'dream sequence' on “The Lucy Show.” In “Ricky's Old Girlfriend” (ILL S3;E12) Lucy dreams of what life would be like without Ricky if he left her for Carlotta Romero, a sexy Cuban dancer. The dream takes her 25 years into the future.

The most famous dream sequence on “I Love Lucy” was “Lucy Goes To Scotland” (ILL S5;E17) where Lucy Ricardo imagines re-visiting her relatives in Scotland, but dreams in the musical comedy format. Except for the brief opening and closing scenes, the entire episode is comprised of a dream.

The witch voice Lucy uses is very similar to the one she used as the witch in “Little Ricky’s School Pageant” (ILL S6;E10) with a hint of Camille, the Queen of the Gypsies in “The Operetta” (ILL S2;E5).

When witch Lucy and witch Viv try to flee Dracula's castle, the escape turns into an impromptu square dance, with the Head as the caller. This is similar to the impromptu escape that helps the Ricardos and the Mertzes get out of Bent Fork in “Tennessee Bound” (ILL S4;E14). In that episode, Ernie Ford was the caller. 

Lucy Ricardo disguised herself as an armchair when spying on the “New Neighbors” (ILL S1;E21). Like the Morris chair in this episode, Lucy's arms also were the arms of the chair.

Fast Forward!

In a 1970 episode of “Here’s Lucy,” Lucy Carter met the Crown Prince of Horror, Vincent Price.

Trying to flee Count Dracula’s mansion, Lucy and Viv search for a secret passageway in the fireplace, touching all the stones, just like Lucy Carter did when trying to find Mumsie Westcott’s loot in “Lucy Goes To Prison” (HL S5;E18).

Blooper Alerts!

Calendar Conundrum!  This would have made a fun Halloween episode, but instead it inexplicably airs for the first time in January.  

Sitcom Logic Alert!  Mr. Mooney drops by the Carmichael home on the premise of hand-delivering Lucy’s bank statement. As usual, he leaves the door wide open for the duration of his scene.

Sitter Situation! Lucy and Viv recruit Mr. Mooney to 'babysit’ with Jerry and Sherman, but it is not clear why Chris (now in her late teens) cannot watch them or even where she might be.

Whose Bed Is It Anyway? Although they are supposedly sleeping in Lucy’s bedroom, the bed frame and the painting above the bed are the same ones seen in Viv’s bedroom in previous episodes.  

Layout Logic! Lucy’s bedroom in “Lucy Buys a Sheep” (S1;E5) has a completely different layout than this one. The rocking chair and the white wood dresser, however, are the same.

On / Off! In the bedroom, as Viv reaches for the switch, Lucy yells for her not to turn off the lights but the light switch is already in the 'off’ position.

Made For TV Garlic! When Lucy shakes her garlic necklace to ward off the evil spirits, the hollow sound it makes indicates that they are fabricated cloves and not real garlic.

Quick Thinking Viv! When the telephone booth door is flung open to reveal the skeleton, it immediately starts to swing shut again, but Viv quickly grabs it with her right hand and holds it open so the skeleton can be seen on camera and by the studio audience, thus neatly avoiding a re-take. 

Ouch!  Backing out of the fireplace, Vivian Vance bumps her head on the mantle. She doesn’t react vocally, but does grab her head when it happens. The ‘Head’ sees the entire incident.

Check the Gate for Crew! When Lucy and Viv are strapped to a table so Dracula can turn them into witches, the screen fades to black for the commercial break and the head of a crew member prominently enters the camera frame on the right. Unfortunately, the newest DVD release did not eliminate this goof by cropping the frame, as they have done with other bloopers. This same mistake also happened on “I Love Lucy.”

Soggy Bottom! When the potted plant spits up the year-old tea, the spray lands on the tan sofa, making a large wet mark where Viv (dressed in pajamas) is supposed to sit. She scoots over a bit to avoid the wet patch. The sofa stays wet for the rest of the episode. When the magic mirror comes crashing down to the floor rather than saying who is the fairest in the land, Lucy or Viv, part of the Styrofoam wall behind it also caves in!  

Mirror, Mirror on the Floor! When the magic mirror comes crashing down to the floor part of the Styrofoam wall behind it also caves in!  

“Lucy and the Monsters” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5