Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we marched toward Valentine’s Day, the theme was supernatural romance.  I didn’t make the deadline, but will see if I can put ’em all on the blog by the last day of this month.  These ones are collaborations with my boyfriend, The Beast From Seattle, aka Cubist Vowels, aka Joseph Kelly, editor and contributor to The Midnight Collection.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 9 — INANIMATE

TITLE:  THE VOICE

CHARACTERS:  Lonely man Tyler.  The Voice, a mysterious voice on the radio dial.

PREMISE:  When Tyler is upset by a song, he turns the radio dial to what should be static.  But he hears a compelling voice, and it seems to hear him.  They get to talkin’, fall in love, but gradually the nearest obnoxious radio station becomes more powerful, takes up more of the dial, overpowering Tyler’s love.

To get The Voice back, he must mess up that obnoxious radio station.  Maybe he blows up their tower, or pirates a rival radio station and changes its frequency.  But how can he have a happily ever after here?  I dunno.

THE HOOK:  Why is it passionate?  How can somebody love somebody else without a physical presence?  No idea what they look like?  No chance to be with them physically?  They’re on some Abelard and Heloise shit.

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 11 — ARTIFICIAL

TITLE:  AISAAC

CHARACTERS:  The Protagonist, a sad person.  AIsaac, an art-producing artificial intelligence.

PREMISE:  The protagonist, a person who we know almost nothing about, is just pouring their feelings into prompts on an AI art generator.  The AI, named AIsaac, produces meaningful responses.  Though they have no words, only images, somehow that’s enough, and love happens.

THE HOOK:  Why is this passionate?  The protagonist initially is just experiencing joy at making interesting art happen with this tool, which, as far as they know, has no feelings of its own.  They pour out their heart just the same, which is both sad and cute in its way.  But what happens when the machine can return that affection?  How can one express love with nothing but images?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 12 — CELESTIAL

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Alien Abduction.

TITLE:  BE NOT AFRAID

CHARACTERS:  Nicola, a laborer building a cathedral.  Hod, an alien being of pure energy.  The jerks, a bunch of alien scrublords who kidnap people, like those Fire in the Sky bozos.

PREMISE:  Nicola is working on the buttresses of a cathedral when some aliens abduct him to do experiments or just kick him around and stuff, in their grody spaceship.  While he’s running around the ship hiding in lockers like an indie horror game, a more kindly alien presence comes to him.

Hod is a being of pure energy who got stuck on the alien ship, but it can communicate telepathically with Nicola, and acts as a guardian angel until they can both be freed.  It can project an image of itself as human-like into his mind, and love can happen.

THE HOOK:  Lovin’ under the gun.  It’s not realistic for characters to have makeouts when they’re in mortal peril, but we all love that stuff, don’t we?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we marched toward Valentine’s Day, the theme was supernatural romance.  I didn’t make the deadline, but will see if I can put ’em all on the blog by the last day of this month.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 7 — NATURAL

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Fascist Elfs.

TITLE:  NIGHT OF THE SHINING HOST

CHARACTERS:  Sonny Kassaye, an Ethiopian Irish trans dude.  Conor O’Halloran, a leprechaun trans dude.

PREMISE:  Sonny is in a transmasc support group at a relatively rural college in Ireland.  One of the guys in his group is not much more than a metre tall, but very self-assured.  Turns out,  Conor is one of Mother Nature’s leprechauns, and he’s come back to rock and roll.  And trans his gender.

Anyway, some elves from the Seelie Court go all nativist and try to exterminate all fun-loving enemies.  It’s Night of the Living Dead but with elfs outside the cabin.  Conor uses leprechaun powers, I guess, and also a revolver with cold iron bullets.

THE HOOK:  Love under pressure.  Conor is all badass and cool, so Sonny is impressed.  But is it a good foundation to a relationship?  Sequels will tell.

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 4 — SHAPESHIFTING

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Paranoia.

TITLE:  MARY PUCK

CHARACTERS:  Sonny Kassaye, an Ethiopian Irish trans dude.  Mary Puck, a pooka.

PREMISE:  For meritorious service to the lower class faerie folk, Sonny has been allowed to walk their faerie paths.  He is a college student by day, faerie anthropologist by night – when he can bear the weirdness.  It turns out several of the faeries he interviewed in that capacity were all the same girl, a compulsive shapeshifter who can assume any shape – human or animal or hybrid.  But she never wears the same face twice, and she’s fallen in love with him.

THE HOOK:  Sonny’s relationship with Conor was dashed upon the rocks of circumstance, and being flexible in attractions, he is amenable to Mary’s courtship.  Sometimes she’s a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes etc.  But how can you love somebody without a consistent face or voice?  Just a rotating cast of hyperactive manic pixie dream weirdos?  It’s a dramatic affair.

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 5 — PARASITIC

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Drowning, Suffocation, Abuse Mention.

TITLE:  KING KELPIE

CHARACTERS:  Sonny Kassaye, an Ethiopian Irish trans dude.  Patrick Donovan, King of the Unseelie Court, a kelpie.

PREMISE:  Sonny’s relationship with Mary Puck ended in tears, but the king of the rough-hewn faeries swoops in to love the pain away.  Problem is, the king is a kelpie, a breath vampire who keeps nearly killing the hapless human.  Also, he’s kind of abusive.

Surprise, this is a story about how Sonny got back together with Conor.  Outraging the king by stealing his human intended, Conor becomes an enemy of the UnSeelie Court.  Dashing feats of derring-do ensue.

THE HOOK:  The part with the Parasitic Monster is a passionate love.  In his most human-like form, Patrick is a huge muscly man, so it’s hard not to get fired up by the erotic powers of the big body.  But who wants to have their breath literally taken away?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance…

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 2 — DEMONIC

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Horror Content, it’s a Spoopy Event Yo.

TITLE:  DER HEXENFLUG

CHARACTERS:  Young Marthe and demonic Dorothea.

PREMISE:  Marthe is invited to an artist’s commune in the Black Forest, and joins for the prospect of relative freedom from a repressive sexist culture.  But freedom was a trap!  The patriarchs were right, libertines are really demons that wanna drown you in devil sauce.  Dorothea seduces her with lust, of course, but also the power of flight.  There’s something about flying naked through the summer night that gets her ronks off.

THE HOOK:  Like Leánnan last year, there’s the romance of the succubus.  Is this sinister creature capable of genuine affection?  Marthe doesn’t know, but it feels like it.  It’s so passionate.  But then, it has to be a ruse, to drag her soul into hell.  When she lets herself be taken into the night sky by Dorothea, who knows if she will disappear into the darkness forever?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

 

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 3 — NAUTICAL

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Colonizers Depicted Romantically, at Least Not Actively Colonizing as of Moment in Story.  Also War, and the Usual Horror Content.  Body Horror?  Sure, why not?

TITLE:  MEN OF WAR

CHARACTERS:  João and António, young Portuguese sailors who are star-crossed lovers.

PREMISE:  The characters are separated for most of the story, which won’t do for a romance.  Probably this could be accommodated with past / present intercutting.  In the past, the poor boys join a Portuguese merchant ship out of economic desperation.  They fall in love.  Classic sailor goof.  Then a Spanish ship attacks, killing everybody onboard.

João survives drifting on a hunk of wood until rescued.  Heralded for surviving those bastardy Spaniards, he goes to work in an admiral’s office.  He finds out Spanish ships are mysteriously having their crews wiped out by an unknown malefactor.  The admiral is cool with Spaniards dying, but wants to know why, for strategic reasons.  João volunteers to investigate by going undercover in the Spanish navy.

Meanwhile António survived by being mysteriously resurrected by an aquatic hive mind, a massively overdeveloped physaliid cnidarian.  He is incorporated into the hive mind, but empowered with lethal stinging tentacles, he crawls aboard Spanish ships in the night to kill everybody.

THE HOOK:  João’s Spanish ship is attacked by António and the lovers are reunited.  It’s cool, but it seems António is suffering more than just his monstrous condition.  They discover his vengeance is harming the hive mind, and he must return to sea.  Can João convince him to give up his vengeance?  If he does, will they be forever parted?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.

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Monsterhearts is a 14 day event (named after a pervy RPG) wherein my writing group votes on a monster each day to include in a story concept.  As we march toward Valentine’s Day, the theme is supernatural romance…

MONSTERHEARTS — DAY 1 — ELDRITCH

CONTENT WARNINGS:  Disability as a Plot Device, Theosophy

TITLE:  TULIP MY TULPA

CHARACTERS: Zach, a cool guy who can barely move and cannot speak.  Tulip, a being with her own spiritual reality, born from his mind.

PREMISE:  Zach was living the cool guy life until the motorcycle accident and the traumatic brain injury.  Living at home and barely alive, his mom the medical woo-meistress talks to him about the things one can do with their mind.  Things like creating a real separate person from yourself, with whom you can keep company while too crippled to speak aloud.

He does the deed, creating a tulpa in his mind named Tulip.  She’s great, in a way, everything he wishes he could be.  But Tulip does have a mind of her own, one bent to love and nurture Zach.  They realize at some point the esoteric spiritual exercise has granted Zach the possibility of recovery from his locked-in state.  But there is a cost.

THE HOOK:  Zach’s mind-body connection is toast, but if he replaces his own mind with that of Tulip, he’ll be able to speak and move more normally again.  But to do that, he’d have to let his own mind dissolve completely.  Tulip loves him too much to let him do that, but also loves him too much to let him stay locked-in forever.  What’s a girl to do?

Cover art by me, ballpoint pen and Photopea.