Friday 30 May 2014

Gatecrashing May Monster Madness

I sadly miss the sign up call for May Monster Madness being hosted by Annie Walls, Little Gothic Horrors and Something wicKED this way comes so I've decided to unofficially gatecrash the party on my own by putting my own two penneth of monster madness up.

Since I learned about the party last weekend I've been trying to think about how I feel on monsters. I just don't do horror or gore yet I love reading other peoples creepy stories etc. When I was little monsters were suppose to be the bogyman etc that lived under the bed or in the wardrobe ready to burst out and cause mayhem as soon as you fell asleep. I was always an inquisitive child though (some people would probably translate that in to being bloody minded) and while some children went to bed fearful, I decided if there was a monster living anywhere in my room I was going to find it. Not sure what I planned to do with it if I had found one but I was definitely going to face it head on. Didn't matter how many times I looked under the bed or in cupboards though before I went to bed I never did come across one.

Terry Pratchett uses his characters as always to give completely practical and sensible advice on dealing with monsters in his discworld books.

[Twyla hears a bogeyman under her bed. Susan bashes it with a poker and hauls it out from under the bed]
Twyla: Do The Voice on it.
Slimazel the Bogeyman: No! Not The Voice.
Twyla: Hit it on the head with a poker.
Slimazel the Bogeyman: Not the poker.
Susan: This is a friendly warning. Understand? Because it's Hogswatch.
Slimazel the Bogeyman: What are you? A witch or something?
Susan: I'm just... something. Now you won't be around here again, will you? Or we'll put your head under the blanket. It's got fluffy bunnies on it.
Slimazel the Bogeyman: Fluffy bunnies. No!
Susan: [sternly] Go away and stop bothering me.
Twyla: That wasn't as much fun as the one last month. You know, the one when you kicked him in the trousers. 

and of course Granny Weatherwax always the most sensible of witches when it came to dealing with monsters of any kind.

Granny Weatherwax had never heard of psychiatry and would have had no truck with it even if she had. There are some arts too black even for a witch. She practiced headology—practiced, in fact, until she was very good at it. And though there may be some superficial similarities between a psychiatrist and a headologist, there is a huge practical difference. A psychiatrist, dealing with a man who fears he is being followed by a large and terrible monster, will endeavor to convince him that monsters don’t exist. Granny Weatherwax would simply give him a chair to stand on and a very heavy stick.

 As I grew older I didn't understand my peer groups obsession with horror films. I didn't and still don't like them because I didn't like the gore but the monsters themselves, I just didn't get what was so scary, they were after all just people dressed up as characters from fiction. I still have not worked out why some people think those fictional characters are so frightening, Ok they killed people, so did people in other types of films, what made one more scary than the other? What always upset me in any films was if an animal got killed, monsters never seemed to do that, too my young mind that put them one up on humans. Gradually it dawned on me that the real monsters in this life have always been of human form, not fictional characters. I guess you could say I've now got a soft spot for fictional monsters, I think they've had a bad press, on the other hand, carrying a heavy stick never hurts.


Please visit the hosts I've linked too at the top of the post so that you can see who else is playing in the party and visit them for more delicious monster madness.

Thanks for stopping by.





16 comments:

  1. I do love a gatecrasher - you're such a rebel ;)

    I completely agree. I find some fictional monsters endearing, especially Frankenstein, and I'll always have a soft spot for Bela Lugosi's Dracula too.

    Have a lovely day and thank you for visiting my blog today :)

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  2. I'm sooo glad you gatecrashed!

    I, too, have a soft spot for monsters in fiction. They are usually true to their character--they were created to maim and terrify, so they do. And sometimes they don't. The latter gives me hope when it comes to human monsters. Maybe one day they will realize that they don't have to be...

    "I just don't do horror or gore yet I love reading other peoples creepy stories," but "I decided if there was a monster living anywhere in my room I was going to find it." LOVE it!

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    1. I guess when I say I don't do horror or gore I mean it in the same way as I don't do strange happenings or ghosts. I prefer to avoid it or them if at all possible but sometimes they just happen or appear and you have to deal with what that instance brings. I didn't particularly want to find a monster in my room as a child but if there was one there I wanted to know about it. In the same way as I never want to see ghosts but if they are there, you have to deal with it.

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    2. We might not like some things, but if they're there... we deal. ;-)

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  3. I'm sooo glad you gatecrashed!

    I, too, have a soft spot for monsters in fiction. They are usually true to their character--they were created to maim and terrify, so they do. And sometimes they don't. The latter gives me hope when it comes to human monsters. Maybe one day they will realize that they don't have to be...

    "I just don't do horror or gore yet I love reading other peoples creepy stories," but "I decided if there was a monster living anywhere in my room I was going to find it." LOVE it!

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    1. I guess when I say I don't do horror or gore I mean it in the same way as I don't do strange happenings or ghosts. I prefer to avoid it or them if at all possible but sometimes they just happen or appear and you have to deal with what that instance brings. I didn't particularly want to find a monster in my room as a child but if there was one there I wanted to know about it. In the same way as I never want to see ghosts but if they are there, you have to deal with it.

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  4. I'm sooo glad you gatecrashed!

    I, too, have a soft spot for monsters in fiction. They are usually true to their character--they were created to maim and terrify, so they do. And sometimes they don't. The latter gives me hope when it comes to human monsters. Maybe one day they will realize that they don't have to be...

    "I just don't do horror or gore yet I love reading other peoples creepy stories," but "I decided if there was a monster living anywhere in my room I was going to find it." LOVE it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess when I say I don't do horror or gore I mean it in the same way as I don't do strange happenings or ghosts. I prefer to avoid it or them if at all possible but sometimes they just happen or appear and you have to deal with what that instance brings. I didn't particularly want to find a monster in my room as a child but if there was one there I wanted to know about it. In the same way as I never want to see ghosts but if they are there, you have to deal with it.

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  5. Yay on the gatecrashing! I'm thinking of joining you! I don't really do monsters either, because I get terribly sad when they reveal their human side, usually just before they die. (King Kong, Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula. That and I don't do blood. I can write about it, but can't read about it. Your advice from Terry is very practical, thank you! And my monster was in the wardrobe; I had to sleep with a chair propped against it to keep the door shut. (I was 16...) Thank you for gatecrashing!

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    1. Oh do join me in gatecrashing Rhissanna, I'd love to see what you come up with. I agree with you on the human side of monsters, I think that was part of my problem, I always by the end of the film ended up on their side feeling sorry for them. I'm sure I must be wired different to other folk. :) I also don't mind blood when writing but don't like gore on screen at all. My fictional alter ego is happy hunting poachers on paper but in real life I'm a total scardy cat.

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    2. Oh do join me in gatecrashing Rhissanna, I'd love to see what you come up with. I agree with you on the human side of monsters, I think that was part of my problem, I always by the end of the film ended up on their side feeling sorry for them. I'm sure I must be wired different to other folk. :) I also don't mind blood when writing but don't like gore on screen at all. My fictional alter ego is happy hunting poachers on paper but in real life I'm a total scardy cat.

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    3. Oh do join me in gatecrashing Rhissanna, I'd love to see what you come up with. I agree with you on the human side of monsters, I think that was part of my problem, I always by the end of the film ended up on their side feeling sorry for them. I'm sure I must be wired different to other folk. :) I also don't mind blood when writing but don't like gore on screen at all. My fictional alter ego is happy hunting poachers on paper but in real life I'm a total scardy cat.

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  6. I loved the funny excerpts you included! Combining comedy with the macabre is so much fun! Have a great weekend. :)

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    1. I love combining comedy with the macabre. All the witches, werewolves and vampires who inhabit my miniature houses have a back story and it always includes humour, none of them are out and out monsters.

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  7. I'm glad you gatecrashed! The more the monster-y merrier! I always worry more about the animals in movies than the humans too. And I agree, many monsters are simply misunderstood... although that stick is handy, just in case. ;D

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