#kaijune 2024

[eternal-gromnommer]

What if Godzilla looked a bit more like a leopard seal?

[nazrigar]

Kaijune 2024: With the premiere of House of the Dragon season 2, I had a fun lil' thought exercise: How would I transplant an Asoiaf Dragon into Fallout? So here's the result: The Quantum Rad-Dragon.

It's essentially a giant, irradiated blue dragon that breathes blue fire and has spit that ignites anything it touches... and it's all thanks to being hopped on way too much Nuka Cola Quantum.

You see it was but a humble (genetically tampered) Komodo Dragon from a zoo (actually a genetic research testing facility). One day a clueless zoo goer accidentally dropped some Nuka Cola, and the dragon had one little sip...

When the war began and ended, it was already mutating from the radiation, but also had an all-consuming addiction to Nuka Cola... and one day it found the motherload: a truck full of Nuka Cola Quantum. The strontium 90 laced drink mutated the komodo even further, and it became the flying monstrosity you see here!

[radstarsaur]

Kaijune 04: COSMIC PARASITE Most kaiju came from deep underground, but a few seem to have come from somewhere else entirely. Are these Astral Beasts related to the Emergence Kaiju? And does it even matter?

[pytonbies]

And here are all kaijus together! I am real proud of this years entries, which i think are several times better than ones from last year. Can't wait for next year!

-

Ko-fi

Itaku

Twitter

Pixeljoint

Tumblr

Bluesky

Furaffinity

[zealousdragons]

Chimera for kaijune!

[titleknown]

KAIJUNE 2024 #3: CANOJAHARIE

[CONTENT WARNING OUTSIDE OF EPISTOLARY KAYFABE: THIS STORY DEALS WITH THEMES OF SUICIDE AND DEPRESSION]

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You probably don't know who I am, but know that I didn't come here expecting to leave here.

I don't want to pity-party here, you know the drill with cases like me, the kind of autistic that gets into gifted classes while ending up unemployable, parents who let me linger as a NEET even as they wanted me to be someone I couldn't, privileged enough to not be worthy of pity because at least I was allowed to linger but enough of an anxiety-autistic-executive-dysfunction unemployable wreck to be unable to dig myself out.

The usual sad white cismale-ish failennial sob story. Even still, I could have gone along fine. I could've probably survived up to around 40 like this before going out. It was what happened to her that brought me here. I knew her by her handle most of the days I talked to her, PinkJirachi02 if you want to know, but I want you to remember, her name was Maria. 

Do not forget her, even if you forget me, even if you forget the rest of this letter, do not forget that her name was Maria and she believed in everyone. She believed in me. But she's gone now. If she couldn't be saved, what hope was there for me?

I was never a good artist. I dreamed of being an artist, but I never could get there. But if I was going to die, at least I could die artfully, here. 

The haze of the forest was as clear as a dream when I walked in. I knew I was taking the right direction when the trees began to block out the sun, and yet the light still came from somewhere around there.

There were pools of tar, but they were... alive. Like in a memory where things blurred together. The tar dripping from trees merged with the bark, the babbling brooks and bubbling pitch harmonious, the bones I saw moved like things alive and happy but not as their constituent parts had moved. It was beautiful, in a way. A smell of tar that mixed with the scent of the place as it smelled of the forest and earth in all the ways tar did not.

You couldn't see them if you weren't looking for them. I've never been observant myself. But it was my last walk. I might as well observe. Until I didn't observe the reason why I had come here, resting, peacefully. A temple to creation that walked like a beast, tarry back and scarred horns, great paws and the bones of the past, pawing as if they were dreaming. Until they twitched alert.

I walked forward. The creature moved and the earth shook. It turned its head, a skeletal face with the sad smile of the dead. I wasn't afraid to die But he just... looked at me, for a while. Tail whipping back and forth, small flecks of tar still dripping. Unmoving, staring.

For once in my life, I took the first move. I ran and jumped, into the bones, grasping; flailing; before he could move, and gave myself unto the tar.

It took me unto itself, the bones, the eras past. I could see the earth, changing, life and death merging together, plants dying reborn as tar, bones of the dead given life by the ages. And I saw myself. 

But I didn't see the pain. I saw those late nights with friends online, watching and laughing at shitty movies. I saw those days I made my masterpieces of cut up toy parts and epoxy putty. I saw my city, the trips to the old theatre for the all-night horrorthon, the game store where I volunteered to paint terrain. I saw the people who loved me.

And I knew right there that I didn't want to die. I want to live. I want to live, so badly, so deeply, but I couldn't live with this downward spiral where this world I love kept dying or being murdered by the loveless, something had to change, but in change there is life, and I wanted that change, because I wanted to live...

...And then, I was in that forest. Outside of the beast, no tar on my clothes. It was looking at me. Into my eyes. And it said something, in a low rumbling voice that shook the forest.

"GO. BACK. TO GO. FORWARD..."

And with that it went, and the forest went with it. I felt something on my left arm, and I looked at it. There was something very different in its place. 

It's funny, I'd brought this paper here to write a suicide note, but I'd forgotten to write it before jumping in. But I guess it serves a purpose now. If you see Andrea; handle Datajunk, or Robbie; handle RonaldMcVore, or any of the others from the Bowling Alley on Discord, tell 'em I'm going to Tucson. For Maria's sake. For our sake. I'm keeping our promise...

-[There is no name attached to the note, just an indecipherable signature and; on another page the print of a paw with a thumb and four fingers and yet unlike anything else human]

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Ability Notes- You know what hot tar does to living things? Now imagine that but paranatural and with thousands of living(?) bones in it. Do not grapple Canojaharie. And yes, it can also projectile vomit the tar.and leave puddles of it around as traps. Fun!

It also subtly alters the world and organisms around it into its 'image," mostly temporarily but sometimes permanently if something gets a full blast of it and leaves, and though this is usually negligible in a kaiju battle scale, it can make a difference. It can also gain a... simulacra of certain abilities of a dead organism if it absorbs the bones therein, and whether it has access to this abilities... varies, it is speculated based on the parabiological processes few have come along to study.

Bonus Trivia: Nobody's really sure whether the tar or the bones are the "real" Canojaharie, given that "mind-melds" where the participants survive are rare and rarer still is any useful data retrieved. The amount of tar it contains within it is significantly larger than its massive bulk should physically contain, but then again kaiju tell the laws of physics to take a flying leap as a matter of course, so...

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So, another one I made with a broken Battle Cat figure, a bunch of black caulk, lots of dino skeleton figurines, parts from some Halloween skeletons and two nails for horns. A design I'm proud of, though shoutout to @thehungryreaderer for giving me the song to name 'em after.

I hope the protag didn't come off as too cringeworthy, because given how they... well, I've never attempted suicide, but a lot of that comes from my own experience, if you couldn't tell. Also, there's foreshadowing in the story for another entry coming later, but you'll just have to wait and see about that...

And, in the grand  Kaijune tradition, this character and all related narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator. Have fun!

[clumsiestgiantess]

Kaijune: day 1

The weirdest thing happened to me today. I took a walk down one of the hiking trails nearby that I sometimes take on weekends, and I found a tiny hovering light. It was thrumming and vibrating a few feet in the air, and of course the g/t part of my brain said “omg you actually found a fairy!” so I approached it even though I probably should’ve been more cautious.

Long story short, it wasn’t a fairy, but is was some sort of weird hole? Something fell out of it while I was messing with it (I tried poking it with a stick) and when I bent down to look at it and looked back up, the hole was gone. This tiny stitched-together book is what fell out of it.

I do have a little magnifying glass, so I was wondering: Did y’all want to see what’s in here with me?

[thehappyastronaut]

Kaijune 6: Immolate

[pictopye]

KAIJUNE Day 1-5:

Flancortes KAIJUNE Challenge 2024 Illustrations

Been a tad behind at actually posting my art on social media, but here are my first 5 images for KAIJUNE '24 from @Flancortes prompts.

1. Seed - I blended two AZ desert favorites; Devil's Claw seeds (or Unicorn Plant if you prefer) and the Arizona Unicorn Mantis. 2. Bionic - A Portugese Man'o War styled Kaiju with some technological advances. 3. Charged - I didn't quite achieve what I wanted with this one, but done is better than letting perfectionism run amok! 4. Parasite - I blended two types of parasites that have always given me the heebie jeebies; mosquitos and hagfish/lampreys. 5. Nimbus - My inspiration for this is Mammatus clouds - neat pouches or waves of clouds that can be found hanging out underneath cumulonimbus formations..except with eyes.

[gaiakoraidon]

Man how I've missed drawing my hedgehog and wyrm hybrid from my Heart of a God, Soul of a Warrior AU. There's something called Kaijune that happens every year in the month of June, so I thought it would be fitting to have my true form Dark Gaia!Sonic be my entry for Kaijune this year.

[dragoningachahell]

Kaijune: Puubot

Hey, that's not a kaiju! That's just a little robot buddy being adorable!

[pluralfuture]

Kaijune Day 1: Ancient

Lore:

"My name is Samantha Rogers. Recently, as I'm sure you're aware, giant monsters have been appearing with exceeding regularity. While I do try and always view these things from a scientific lens, I can not deny that some explanations may only lie in those we deem supernatural. As such, I have taken it upon myself to document these creatures.

My first expedition took me to the pine forests of Siberia, where locals talked of a giant man attacking any who entered the woods. What I saw was... it was almost unbelievable, even in these times. A creature that shifted forms to drive out intruders. The one sketched here seems to be its most common. I had to sketch from outside the forest, so I could not see the rest of it's body, but it still inspires awe in me. The locals called it Lesnik, and as such, I shall refer to it. Unfortunately, I could not get too close to research the full extent of its shapeshifting abilities. It uses these to attack anyone who even sets foot beyond the tree line, the corpses in the trees evidence enough of what it could do if angered. However, when it looked in my direction, I swear I saw... intelligence in those eyes. And more so, wisdom. The same one might see if talking to an older person. I must return one day to research this beast."

[radstarsaur]

Kaijune 05: RETRO NIMBUS

Post-Emergence, ATMOS was developed to cleanse the air of toxins. As its mental capacities evolved, it found the best way to achieve this was to destroy all Kaiju - And in the process, became humanity's first defender.

[zealousdragons]

Water kaiju! ....Not 100% sure how water physics works but I tried!

[titleknown]

KAIJUNE 2024 #1: BLACK HOLE SUN

You know, that's the thing about the apocalypse. Everyone always acts like it's the end of the world.

The word apocalypse doesn't mean the end of all things, it means a revelation, usually of how fucked shit is. But everyone thinks it's all nuclear winter in the Mojave and Thunderdomes. It's weird how noboody ever gets beyond that. The utilities still work, infrastructure's found a way, most states are intact, hell I'm fucking baffled how the fuck they did it but the Internet Archive people and their fuckoff convoy managed to even keep the net up, even if we only can stream in 480p.

It's just a new normal of city smashing fucking god-monsters we can't do shit about but try to nudge off and clean up after their mess. Everybody knows a guy who knows a guy who got their house smashed by King Diamond or The Twist or whoever. Like politics before, but more literal this time. After the kaiju came out, it wasn't societal collapse but a long, long string of fuckups and failures like global warming on acid while things just... keep happening.

I think it's because the poor bastards are scared of the truth, after the revelation, life continues. Mostly. But sometimes... well, I was paid to write this article about Black Hole Sun, and by fucking god I'm going to write it! 

The thing got its nickname from the fact that we kept finding small towns that were fucking gone. Like, not levelled to rubble, not burnt to ashes, just fucking gone. Where there was a place, there was only dust. We figured it was a predator, picking off the weak one by one, and we found a pattern, a spiral shape, so we figured we'd intercept it, take some photos and leave.

The first sign we should have left was the sound. Usually the wake of a kaiju is very loud from everything else running away or very quiet from everything else being dead. But here, it was just... well, the closest I could compare it to was like a whale speaking in tongues, and the tongues were the old-testament kind. The crew swore they could hear it saying something something, but they'd been drinking. Probably a bad idea near a kaiju site, but if you've seen enough shit you know why it sounds reasonable.

Then we saw the environment. It was on a shitty mostly dead highway as it is, but things were just... less there. I know I'm a fucking reporter, I know I do this shit for a living and was even robbed of a fucking pulitzer for it, but I don't know shit better to say what it was like than that it was less. Everything was less itself, colors less, shape less, mass less, everything was just less!

A lot of the shit crumbled to dust when we touched it. I tried to smoke it. I wish I didn't.

It walked up on us when we were asleep. The sound was the first sign, or rather, the absense of it, a silence that rang out loud as a scream. Like it swallowed up the sounds it left behind as it came, like a boat through it's own wake. Most of the crew made it, god bless 'em, two of 'em didn't. It wasn't the ones that were drinking, no, it was if you were close enough, you were gone. Not crushed, not eaten, gone, no rhyme nor reason for why they were the two taken.

I got pictures, of the flat wastes of nothing and the phantasmogoria of the damn thing eating the world it left as it moved, and god if the fucking paycheck wasn't gratifying, but that didn't capture what it was like to see it, not really.

Grandma once said that you could see the Gods emotions on their faces better than you could people's faces, they were too big not to see. Everyone at the time thought she was a mad old bat, but now, I think I get it. When you deal with kaiju as long as I have, you can see their feelings, too tall, too lheavy for this world. 

And looking at that thing, I saw that it felt nothing. Not that it didn't feel anything, that it felt only nothing.

I don't know what it wants, I don't even think it wants anything except nothing, but god fucking dammit I hope we can find to fight back, or else...

-DW Devlin, reporter

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Ability Notes: they do have the ability to create massive storms of hawking radiation and localized, extremely powerful beams, but most of the time they don't really need to. Most things not only die but are simply unmade just by it walking forward and existing in the viscinity.

Bonus Trivia: They have nothing to do with Liquid Miracle, and the reason for their existence is more akin to what happens when a Ligottian law of physics dreams. Strong will and togetherness can resist its unmaking, but that is rare, and rarer still is the will that can push it back.

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So, after being delayed for months upon months, Kaijune 2024 is finally here! In October! Better late than never (I lie to myself!) And it was this fucker who probably caused a huge chunk of the delays! The core idea was simple, paper mache orb with legs, but then I complicated it with the nightmare of attaching said legs and also doing stuff by twisting the paper I used for it to give it texture that made it a nightmare to paint. But I think it came off well.

And also, because at least one person I showed it to was confused by how I made it, it's wildly labyrinthine and dumb.In that all the Kaiju of Kaijunes 2023 and 2024 are actual physical props I made and kitbashed, 

Then I took photos of them, using wargame terrain from local game stores as the equivalent of miniature sets, and then did some heavy photomanipulation to fill out the "sky" and do wacky Shenanigans with the lighting. Complex, but I think the results end up gorgeous.

...And, in that grand (exceedingly late) Kaijune tradition, this character and all related narrative elements are under a CC-BY 4.0 license, as long as I, Thomas F Johnson, am credited as their creator. Have fun!

[clumsiestgiantess]

Kaijune: Day 30

Safety at last! There are more pages in the book, but I think this is a good place to stop.

The note at the top reads “The driver is taking us all to a base where we’ll be safe. He was able to pick everyone up in a single hand! I so badly want to drive one of these myself, or at the very least step inside one.”

Wait.. there’s a little note tucked into the next page!

I’m afraid that if I try to open it it’ll fall apart, though…