#all crying and stuff they remind me of that (false) urban legend from when i was a kid abt bugs crawling into ur ears at night and

[dateamonster]

please give us an unreasonably long answer about what your favorite classical monstery trait is, why you like it, and your favorite examples of it please please pl

i dont know if this is like a classic monstery trait or even rly what that entails but um im rly into like parasitism and/or monsters whose supposed body is actually just a host.

parasites used to be a big special interest of mine as a kid and even tho it isnt as strong as it was then i feel like that interest has sort of mutated and fused with my current interest in horror (which feels appropriate doesnt it) applying real life parasite logic to monsters sort of forces you to think about stuff like: what does this monster need to survive? how do their habits serve that need? and providing the monster in question is a sapient creature, how does it feel to be something whose existence demands leeching off of other living beings? physically and psychologically. how would that affect the way this creature relates to the world around them?

it also sorta gets me like reverse engineering some of my monsters. "i want this one to have a cool retractable proboscis under their tongue" ok cool now what purpose does that aspect of its biology serve? why would something evolve like this? if it uses it for feeding, what does that indicate about the food source and the method for feeding? and how does that affect their other behaviors?

obviously monsters dont always have to adhere to the rules of reality, but i like when they sorta. pay respect to them. creatures whose biology is subtly reminiscent of real life animals that we already know instinctively spell bad news for humans have sort of an instant advantage in the scariness department just because of that connection. which i think is neat-o!

theres also lots of potential there for exploring some fun body horror stuff (big fav of mine) as well as imo a kind of transhumanist existentialism. like ok if i am a creepy lil monster bug whose biological imperative is to burrow into a living human body and rewire their brain to help me feed and procreate, what is my relationship to this body really? (again assuming the creature in question is sapient ofc)

is it my home? my ride? my friend? unwilling friend maybe but maybe im also pumping said humans brain full of dopamine whenever they help me. does that make us friends? does that make the relationship mutually beneficial? or does that make me an oppressor, overwriting their will to fulfill my needs? and what about my will? arent i, this hungry little insect, just as much a slave to my own bodys demands as them? if, like so many species, i hatched into this body, warmed and nurtured by it, is it my mother? whats the meaningful distinction between me, the controlling parasite, dominating yet fragile, who would die without the flesh i inhabit, and my host, a mind trapped inside the limited mortal flesh it was born to spend its entire existence trapped within?

aaand so on and so forth. honestly im not even a transhumanist i just think the philosophy gives us some cool thought experiments.

anyway my favorite real life parasite is the leucochloridium (even tho i constantly forget its longass name) which infects snails and makes their eyestalks pulse and flash colors to attract predators so it can get eaten, which it needs in order to continue onto the next phase of its life cycle. im not an expert or anything i might be muddying the facts. i just think that shits crazy. natures crazy.

anywayy x2! um um if this interests u i guess i recommend the masters of horror episode "sick girl", "peeps" and "the last days" by scott westerfeld (to be fair i havent read these since middle school and idk how well they hold up but like westerfelds stuff usually goes p hard regardless), "bloodchild" by octavia butler, aaaaand i guess my short story "daja vu"! wink!

thansk for coming to my ted talk happy autism to all and to all a good night