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Post Day 2 Assignment Here
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12 Replies
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ROB’S TERRIFYING MONSTER
What I learned doing this assignment: I learned that a great monster must be unique, unknown and Terrifying. I also learned that you may not always know your mythology, but it may not matter until the sequel.
Who/What the Monster is: The monster of this story is a Poltergeist. The physical manifestation of a dying serial killer’s guilt that haunts the house he’s dying in. AKA: Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis. The phenomenon takes the form of a serial killer’s past murder victims.
How does the Monster terrorize: It terrorizes with ghostly apparitions of murder victims, strange noises, pungent smells, moving objects, phantom voices, mysterious floating light orbs and physical violence inflicted by invisible ghosts. When the dying man is challenged with uncomfortable conversation or memories of the past, the paranormal activity spikes.
How does the Monster pursue: The poltergeist pursues from the darkness, attacking from the shadows. It knows what scares you and uses it to its advantage. It uses its invisibility to its benefit and only shows itself when drawing from intense power.
How does the Monster isolate: It waits until you are alone and lures you into dark places.
What is the terrible thing they do: They torment and brutalize an old man on his deathbed. The family is helpless as they watch.
How does the Monster cause death: The poltergeist drives you insane, until you want to die. It can trick you into killing yourself, or trick others into committing murder.
What makes this inescapable: The dying man cannot escape his own guilty conscience, which is manifesting as recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis. He is literally punishing himself and his family, subconsciously. The old man is also bedridden and refuses to leave. he wants to die in his home.
Mystery: How can we stop the paranormal threat before it kills the old man and his family. Secondary Mystery – Discovering that the dying man isn’t a sweet/likeable old grandpa…he’s a dying serial killer.
Fear-Provoking Appearance: The ghostly victims take on a variety of appearances, based on how they died.
– The Wife: A rotting corpse wrapped in tattered gory plastic. This is the old man’s first victim. The mother of his only son. We only see the wife at Low Tide because she’s entombed inside Haystack Rock. The salt water acts as a barrier trapping her until Low Tide.
– The Headless Woman: A decomposed woman that’s missing her head.
– The Jigsaw Lady: A decomposed corpse of a woman, whose arms, legs and head have been severed and stitched back on with other people’s body parts.
– The Doll Lady: A ghostly apparition of a woman whose face has been replaced by a porcelain mask.
– The Dragging Lover: The rotting corpse of the wife’s lover, missing the bottom half of his body. It drags itself across the floor with its arms. He’s missing his tongue.
Their Rules:
Though the murder victims/ghosts appear horrific, they are actually trying to communicate with the family and later the paranormal investigators. Their goal is to reveal the old man for what he is, a killer, and to punish him for his past crimes.
It takes energy for spirits to communicate, which they take from electricity/electronics and also from Limestone/minerals and hydro/geomagnetic energy.
Their Mythology:
Twenty something years ago, A man discovers his wife cheating on him. In a fit of rage, the man murders his wife and her lover. He hides his wife’s body inside a cave on Haystack Rock, with the help of his son, who’s unaware that he’s lugging his mom’s body. The wife’s lover is buried in a separate location.
The man discovers he has a taste for murder and begins abducting unsuspecting female tourists in and around Cannon Beach, Oregon. He targets unfaithful woman, as a way to continue to punish his wife’s infidelity. An urban legend is born from his crime spree and he uses that legend as a way to cover his tracks.
The victims now haunt the killer, who pretends to be a normal old grandpa on his deathbed.
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JAYE’S TERRIFYING MONSTER
What I learned is:
1. I placed a lot of importance on mythology and I have been putting a lot of time into crafting a good backstory. While this is something I can touch upon, it should not be a major part of this story. I’ll save it for the sequel.
(Hence, my mythology is the most detailed thing I have right now!)2. I also learned that the monster must be relentless and inescapable, and must be delivered in small doses at the start. It’s also not important to show the whole monster.
Tell us what or who your monster is.
Unwanted children who were drowned in a creekGive us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror:
– These children are highly invasive. They terrorize from within the body.
– They pursue by entrapment and with unrelented aggression.
– They isolate by having control of a house and a portion of the creek that runs through the backyard.
– Their presence disrupts cell phone service… so there’s no calling for help.
– The terrible thing they do is paralyze you with fear, attack, and invade. They murder you from inside your own body.
– It’s inescapable because they have trapped you, and once you’ve crossed the threshold and start disrespecting their hallowed ground, you’re on their turf now.Their Mystery:
How can we escape? Is anyone safe?Their Fear Provoking Appearance:
– Disturbing and grotesque.
– They are shadowy, swampy, they move with precise speed, have hollow eyes, and make unnatural sounds.Their Rules:
They entice with intrigue, play on inhibitions, and strike with no mercy.
No one regarded them, and they regard no one.Their Mythology:
– 1920s — a young white woman is pregnant with a black house servant’s child. At seven months, she barely shows.
– She plans to run away with him, but her baby is premature and she goes into sudden and unexpected labor.
– When the baby is born in her bedroom, with her parents and other house servants giving aid, her father is horrified to learn she was pregnant and it’s black!
– The black house servant makes a run for it and dad gives chase. Kills the man.
– Her mother takes the child away. Says it was stillborn, but the young woman swears she heard it crying.
– Her mother drowns it in the creek.
– The young woman is kept in oppression and is indoctrinated by her father and goes insane.
– When the house is willed to her in the 1950s, she uses it as a “safe house” or “clinic” for women to come and birth babies they don’t want to keep. But instead of organizing adoptions, she drowns the unwanted children. (And we will NOT see any of this blatantly.)
– She will grow up believing that these children (being born to these women who have hidden their pregnancies from husbands or parents) were conceived in sin, and therefore, they are illegitimate.
– She will have been led to believe that her baby deserved to die, and so should these other children.
– So the children are pissed! -
Tony’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is that there are techniques and tools to build your monster to make sure you have an interesting horror script.
Create an early version of your monster.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
a. The monster is the ghost of the wife’s great aunt who left the home to the couple. She is able to physicalize events from the past to haunt the couple. Anyone who attempts to help the couple is killed.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their
Terror:The
monster terrorizes the couple by physicalizing bad memories from their
past and killing anyone who tries to help them.Their
Mystery:The
couple doesn’t know who the monster is and must find out before the next
victim is them.Their Fear
Provoking Appearance:The monster
has blood dripping down their face.Their
Rules:The
couple must stay in the house for one week so that they can receive the
rest of their inheritance.Their
Mythology:The
monster is the great aunt who loves her niece so much that she will kill
for her. -
NADIA’S TERRIFYING MONSTER:
What I learned from this assignment: That giving thought to the monster adds substance to the story; thinking of the monster as the lead character could change the whole story angle.
1- My monster is: Your friendly elderly next door neighbour by day could rip you apart by night.
2- About my monster:
· Their terror: Anyone of age 21 (Bible number symbolizing Sin) in Grahamstown can be massacred and mutilated if caught out after dark. The monster is everywhere as there is more than one monster, it cannot be trusted yet it has the face of kindness and wisdom. Do not tell anyone your real age as it could be the death of you, literally! If they catch you, they will drink your blood and steal your organs, you will die a horrible death and your dead body will be marked by the number 8.
· Their mystery: The monster hides in bright day light: it can be anyone as long as it fits the “number” and is a true believer; but what is the “number” and who believes enough to kill for it?
· Their fear provoking appearance: They look weak yet they become strong just before the kill; their signs of weakness are their weapons and you won’t see them until they strike but by then, it’s too late. They always smile and thank you just before they kill you.
· Their rules: It will get your trust then it will get the rest of you. If you are one of the chosen ones, it will find a way to lure you outside after dark and then kill you. If you have what it needs, then nobody can save you.
· Their mythology: Their twisted and fanatical interpretation of the bible is the key to their killings. The monster(s) lives in a twisted world of biblical symbolism and denial where certain ‘numbers’ have to be killed while other ‘numbers’ have to do the killings, all for the quest of eternal youth.
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CODZILLA
WHAT I LEARNED DOING THIS ASSIGNMENT:
Never considered creating a set of parts to create a monster. I usually just brainstorm in a general manner without much specificity. This is a a great tool for future use.
THEIR TERROR:
The demon boat has risen from the dead to kill everyone responsible for its destruction and murder of its owner. And will slaughter them all across Cape Cod Bay until satisfying its revenge.
The demon boat is a ghost and can rise from the ocean, appear and disappear without warning.
The demon boat rules the Cape Cod Bay, and all its victims are cornered on the water where it preys.
The terrible things the demon boat does is to run over victims.
The demon boat inflicts death with its weight and power and shreds the guilty into bloody pieces with its propellers or crushes them death.
No one can escape the demon boat because it is a ghostly resurrection come from the beyond and humanly impossible to destroy.
THEIR MYSTERY:
How can a destroyed boat come back to life after they shipwrecked it, and how can the guilty survive a supernatural threat that cannot be destroyed again.
THEIR FEAR PROVOKING APPEARANCE:
An ironic visual, disturbing, weapon… this demonic CODZILLA is an undestroyable doppelganger of a 70 foot, 3000 horsepower, thrill boat deliberately shipwrecked and reincarnated by the vengeful spirit of its murdered owner into an evil, sinister dark apparition displaying glowing, deadly eyes and a huge open jaw with large, sharp teeth across its bow.
THEIR RULES:
No matter where its victim run, land or sea, this demon boat will find a way to reach you, until its revenge is fulfilled.
THEIR MYTHOLOGY:
CODZILLA and its owner enjoyed a pleasurable and profitable existence on Cape Cod giving tourists a thrilling ride across the bay at speeds, twists and turns up to 40 miles an hour. Until his greedy family of bankrupt fishermen wanted him to run drugs for them. Refusing to relent their threats, the family murdered him and torched the CODZILLA where they sunk to the bottom of the bay.
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BOB’S TERRIFYING MONSTER
What I learned from doing this assignment: The difficulty in creating a monster with all the nasty monster components whose not temporal. Creating an ethereal being to inflict fear who mainly cannot be seen.
Who/What the Monster is: The monster is a spiritual entity that communicates with the dead and can inflict punishment upon their transgressors, something of an eternal watchman overseeing her purview, which in this case is the world of the dead in a cemetery desecrated to make room for a condo project.
How does the monster terrorize: She has supernatural powers that can infiltrate anywhere in many forms and can evoke the spirits in her domain to do her bidding. Kinda a modern day Igor.
How does the monster pursue: She changes into different forms such as mists, and can disappear, and also has power to invoke dead spirits to assist her. She can do things beyond our level of dimension. She can go anywhere and not be seen.
How does Monster isolate: She is in total control of the hallowed ground beneath the condo built upon the graveyard as well as the confines of the building and its historic stone walls surrounding the new project. At her will, she can confine residents to this environment.
What is the terrible thing they do: She invokes punishment on transgressors to the sanctity of her domain, the “potter’s field” cemetery. She is good with a scythe and uses it on her foes, but has other means of inflicting punishment, such as invoking escalating terror through her intrusion in residences, and arranging disappearances of those on her list.
How does the monster cause death: Physically with a scythe as well as enclosing victims in suffocating chambers in the earth, and can even influence those with high level mental telepathy to kill themselves.
What makes this inescapable: The witch’s absolute power over her domain. She can control enter and exits from the building where the victims reside. No way out, ostensibly.
Mystery: For the guilty, they know their fate. For the innocent, the understanding of their predicament unfolds throughout the traumatic events. While their transgression may be apparently minor, to the witch, it doesn’t matter; they are guilty by association.
Fear provoking images: The haggardness and burning eyes of the witch. The damp marshy environs of her domain, walking visages of the dead, creatures of the tunnels and caverns underneath the building, the decapitation of the first victim.
Their rules: Simple. Six of her spirits in her pursue have been violated and eternally damaged. She needs six victims to right the wrong as a quid pro quo. No bargaining.
Their mythology: The monster is an eternal spirit, along the lines of the transporter of the dead to Hades in Greek mythology. Her role and job is as one who brings dead souls down the Rive Styx, as it were, to their eternal resting place. She is a vengeful, powerful spirit that takes her role seriously and lives many generations. She oversaw all the funerals over many years in this graveyard.
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JAKE’S TERRIFYING MONSTER
What I learned is that the monster must be shrouded in mystery. You want to keep the audience guessing on who this monster is and to make it relentless and terrifying. But don’t give too much away because there might be a sequel.
Also to give the monster a fear-provoking appearance. It’s what makes them unique and ultimately what people will think of when they watch your horror film.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is. It’s the walking corpse/ghost of a man who has been murdered and buried in a family’s backyard. He is out for revenge.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their
Terror: This
monster/ghost terrorizes by stalking and following his victim. He pursues the child of the couple that had killed him and buried him in a shallow grave. He can only be seen by the young boy and nobody else.Their
Mystery: We never get a full glimpse of his face and he never talks. We don’t know what exactly he wants. We just know he is scary and coming after you. He is also
not seen by most, so can he really cause harm, or is this just the character
going insane?Their
Fear Provoking Appearance:
Grotesque, rotting hands, bugs, and maggots crawling out of decomposed
holes in his bodyTheir
Rules: This
ghost/monster doesn’t stop coming for you. He is there to make you remember and he wants to make sure of it. He chases you and clearly wants to cause you harm, but we wonder if he is capable of killing if he’s not real. Is he real? What does he want?Their
Mythology:
All we know is that he is the ghost of a man who was murdered by a young
boy’s parents and was buried in a shallow grave never to be seen or heard
from again. He is risen to make sure this young boy knows he is back from
the dead. -
TERRIFING MONSTER
What I learned was how to create the various elements that make up the monster. The monster is a savage killer. The monster may appear dead at the film’s conclusion, but it survives to be in a sequel.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
The monster is known as Amauga. It resides in the Dead Lakes area of Florida’s Gulf Coast.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their Terror:
The Amauga controls the forests and swamps of the Dead Lakes.
When it’s on the prowl, animals, birds and insects rush away.
It can make itself invisible. It travels through the air, on the wind. It materializes before it strikes.
The Amauga creates a whirlwind that tears the skin off its victims before it rips their bodies apart. Then it feasts.
Their Mystery:
The Amauga guards the hidden gold. How do the gold hunters circumvent and survive the Amauga?
Their Fear-Provoking Appearance:
Amauga has a humanoid appearance with a large heavyset body. Its head is proportionally large with long black stringy hair. It has large green eyes that glow. Its jaw is very large with two rows of teeth and fangs. Its arms are extremely long. It has three fingers with long sharp nails on each hand. It has the stench of rotten meat.
Their Rules:
The Amauga can walk on land, live in water, and travel through the air. It materializes before it strikes. It hunts in the forests and swamps around the Dead Lakes. It kills all variates of creatures and humans.
It guards the hidden gold. Get near the gold, the Amauga will get you.
Their Mythology:
The Amauga is believed to be hundreds of years old and exists in the Deep South. There were reports of it feasting on the corpses of Civil War soldiers.
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Robert R. Smith Terrifying Monster 61721
What I learned doing this assignment is adhere to the characteristics of a monster to shape your monster.
My film title: The Toreph
Assignment Lesson #2
Tell us what or who your monster is?
A Toreph, singular for Teraphim from the Bible Genesis 31. “Teraphim” is usually translated “household gods,” meaning idols. However, another tradition says they were mummified severed heads that were used for the occult purposes of necromancy and divination. It is said that what animated each cultic skull was a small gold nameplate engraved with the name of a demon being placed under the tongue of the skull. – in this case, the demon is the desert demon Azazel of Jewish and Arabic mythology. He is mentioned in Leviticus (16 and 17) and in the mysterious Book of Enoch (13) where he is said to be a commander of the Fallen Angels. My monster is unique, as no one to my knowledge has ever made a monster based on the Teraphim of the Bible, who in my screenplay is discovered in a cave/tomb by an archaeological expedition.
The Monster’s terror:
The Toreph (the Azazel-possessed skull) is capable of moving things by telekinesis. He behaves like a poltergeist, only deadly. He kills Prof. Kendrick, the director of the archaeological dig. He can hypnotize people and disable peoples’ ability to protect themselves. He creates an invisible shield to protect himself from weapons.
The monster’s mystery:
He is relentless and deadly. As for how he can be subdued the answer is simple but hard
to execute. As Azazel possesses the skull when the gold nameplate with his name is placed
under his tongue, so also he is expelled from the skull when the nameplate is removed from under the tongue. The question is, “How to get close enough to do it.” Eventually, Ned, the protagonist does. This brings temporary relief. However, to where does Azazel flee? In the cave where the skull is found, there is the sarcophagus of the mummified body of a Biblical villain, Cushan Rishathaim, Cushan the Doubly-Evil. Ned, Boots Barton, and Kaitlyn Randolph figure that the skull belongs in the Sarcophagus with the body. What happens, however, is that after they place the skull with the body, it is clear that Azazel has fled to possess the body of Cushan and now reunites the skull with the body materially and Cushan arises from the sarcophagus with his doubly evil violence against
the aforementioned archaeologists.
The fear-provoking appearance:
Azazel is a mummified skull when reunited with Cushan he becomes a full and menacing mummy of a villainous ruler of antiquity.
The monster’s rule:
The monster, Azazel-incarnate is unrelentingly deadly against those who do not come to
the cave for occult purposes, i.e., the archaeologists..
The Monster’s Mythology:
Much of his mythology is in my reply to “who is my monster?”
The distant backstory immediate to my film is that a French expedition in the 1970’s had already discovered this tomb/cave. They learned that it was a place of occult practices of
necromancy and divination in the past. And when they had begun to tamper with the
skull, they were assailed with all the occult and deadly power of Azazel. They had found a way of removing the gold nameplate from the mouth of the skull. They threw it away into the desert and sealed the tomb with bricks and stones in the hope that no one would ever enter the cave again. The even erected a sign, “Ne pas creuser. Il n’y a rien à l’intérieur, » « Do not excavate, there is nothing within. » The same words are repeated in Hebrew and Arabic. Yet, more recently, a Bedouin discovers the gold nameplate in the sand and gives it to Prof. Colin Kendrick, who, at that time, was at Jericho for another excavation nearby. Kendrick keeps the nameplate and plans to return to defy the warning of the French archaeologists and excavate the cave. Since time immemorial, the Bedouin have stayed away from the place, which was called Tel Esh-Shaitan or « Devil’s Hill. » and considered it haunted by afareet, or malevolent spirits of the dead. Years later, the film begins with Kendrick accepting his student, the aspiring archaeologist Ned Garner on the expedition to Tel Esh-Shaitan and confides in him the background of Tel Esh-Shaitan, as summarized above. Kendrick shows Ned the gold nameplate with the name of Azazel engraved upon it. When he places it on the table at which they are sitting, the nameplate appears to vibrate like a cell phone, suggesting a malevolent spiritual presence.
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Pamela’s Terrifying Monster
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?”
I found this exercise to be challenging but fun. Starting this outline has made me think (and sometimes overthink) the foundation of my story in a unique way.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is.
The Care Center – a group of soul exterminators who answer to Carras, a deity who keeps order in the world through sacrifices. When Carras broke the rules by taking human form and having a relationship, he now wants to find this woman and tie up loose ends
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
Their
Terror: Ability to seep seamlessly into someone’s everyday life, not as shapeshifter
but as a familiar to the person, a little uncanny valley in their behavior.
Use the proximity to inflict harm or death depending on what they need
from the victim.Their
Mystery: How do you know if someone or something is part of the Care
CenterTheir
Fear-Provoking Appearance: Eyes disappear, and hands grow larger in order
to dispatch the victim in a gruesome or torturous way.Their
Rules: The Care Center cannot be killed outright but can be weakened and
banished back to the Darkness with a gris-gris charmTheir
Mythology: Based on the Hoodoo practices of Louisiana -
Deborah’s Monster
I learned from this assignment that making the rules and separating my villain from all the other monsters helps me find the true nature of the terror.
Terror
A reptilian alien creates hybrid monsters from parts of our characters’ loved ones in order to terrify and demoralize.
She releases one monster at a time to see how our characters will react and how the monster does with hunting and killing.
As their ship approaches the asteroid, a suction pulls them inside. Then the ship’s doors close and the asteroid ship shoots out of the solar system. Their ship is then disabled so they have no chance of escape.
The Alien and her scientists take parts of loved ones and transplant them onto alien species, then set them loose one at a time.
She sets the monsters on them one at a time. Just when the characters collapse in relief, another creature is released with different parts. The characters have no time to process the emotional terror they have experienced before another is upon them.
They are trapped on her ship, with no escape possible.
Mystery
Who is behind the monsters and why are they doing it?
The hybrid monster made of different parts provokes not only terror but emotional terror at seeing their loved ones in such a way.
Monster Rules
The Reptilian Princess is working with scientists to develop a hybrid being that would be formidable in war, both in terrorizing and demoralizing the enemy. She changes up the rules. For instance, after systematically releasing one monster at a time, she might release two. Or after terrorizing them with the people who arrived before them, she may kidnap one of them and use him/her to make a hybrid. She gives no consideration to humans the same way we give no consideration to animals we experiment on. But that is her downfall because she thinks she is smart (and she is highly intelligent) but our characters are underestimated.
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MICHAEL GRECO’s MONSTER and VILLAIN: Hiram ‘Pa’ Talley
HORROR ASSIGNMENT LESSON 2 CRAFTING YOUR MONSTER
WILDTA is that exploring the elements or anchor points of horror provokes ideas as to where the story can go, and to some extent, how it will climax.
CONCEPT / MONSTER-VILLAIN:
Hiram Pa Talley is a wealthy venture capitalist, rare coins enthusiast and land baron serving as self-appointed “Duke” of a three-county area in the rural Midwest. Talley manipulates his baleful wife, his arrogant, entitled and somewhat useless children, his employees, local politicians and business leaders and a mistress or two on the strength of his domineering persona and his money. When Talley and his boat are suddenly missing, along with local teenage girl Celeste, rumors ignite and Talley’s children and hangers-on embark on casual to urgent endeavors to locate his cash and valuables; they focus on Talley’s refuge, his prized boathouse, and do not return. When Celeste emerges, disheveled and partly unclothed, not recalling anything of the episode with Talley or the circumstances of her absence, the town goes into lockdown. Excepting Talley’s youngest daughter, defiant and high-spirited Cordelia.
Terror: Pa Talley has a stranglehold of a three-county area, a phalanx of professionals, employees, odd-jobbers and henchmen, four children and a grandchild, a mousy wife and three itinerant mistresses. The dominion he exercises over them is abidingly psychological; and it is withering, soul-crushing. Those who are attracted or impelled to enter Talley’s lair – his boat and his boathouse – they disappear, some permanently, the lucky ones for several days or weeks. Those lucky ones are affectless, spiritless, unable to recount their tribulations – they are shells of their former selves.
Mystery: Where has Talley cached his wealth? Where has Talley gone, and is he alive? Most importantly, what the Hell is happening to all the people who have visited the boathouse?
Fear-Provoking Appearance: a former college football lineman, Talley is huge, tall and imposing. His jaw is shaped like a bear-trap, his hands are beefy, his nostrils flare out when he breathes – especially when Talley is irritated or stimulated. His most menacing feature is his eyes – big-cat Satanic eyes with a glare that burns through toadies and nemeses alike. To entertain children Talley wears a clown mask – which is somehow almost as alarming as his naked face; even more menacing as everyone in Talley’s orbit understands the menace behind the mask.
Rules – Talley’s Rules are set by Talley: (1) Everyone follows my rules. Everyone is at my disposal. (2) Those who would serve me well, I reward modestly. (3) Those I require for sex and procreation serve at my pleasure, according to their ongoing value to me. (4) Those who try to flatter me, or to curry favor with me: those do not interest me. Those are only worthy of becoming food in my greenhouse and terrarium. Those are a scourge on the Earth and are unfit for more – so they are dispatched and consumed. (5) Those who resist me, those who do not come begging and whimpering to me: those interest me. Those are the ones I put to the test. Those who endure my test: those get to live. As long as they hold true to that stance.
Mythology – Part Leviathan: Hobbes’ conceit, an “ubermensche”; as well as an actual leviathan. Part Rasputin: driven by outsized appetites for sex and power.
Michael Greco
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