Listen, i’d absolutely fuck a consenting, self-aware monster, but I wouldn’t fuck every monster.
A werewolf, he comes to me and says “hey, you wanna go for a ride?” and I says “sure” because he’s hot.
But If Godzilla came to me and says that, no. Godzilla is a father figure. Not for fucking.
Op the fact that size doesn’t deter you but the principal of the matter and the metaphorical ramifications of sexing Godzilla makes you the perfect 2018 mood honestly
This is the nicest addition to this post I’ve gotten. Its mostly other monsterfuckers calling me a coward.
Highly-radioactive-nerd you’re not a coward, you’re awesome
Fuck that coward shit, you know what you want
You know your limits. 2018 is about getting rid of that bad shit and healing
When I was a child I was afraid of the moon. I used to think that the sky was a giant raven and the moon changing phases was its slowly blinking eye, watching me.
Draw the giant space raven.
This one gave me a lot of inspiration.
SKY RAVEN!! HECK YEAH!! Favorite bird and an awesome concept? Heck yeah. Awesome art? Double heck yeah!! Thank you so much for sharing this with the rest of us! I love it so much!
@absoluteradman If this is not an idea for a short story, I don’t know what is
Corvids collect treasures. Shiny things, pretty things, precious things. And what could be more precious than life?
Life which learns.
Life which grows.
Life which builds.
Life needs to be coddled at first, of course. Giant space birds don’t just pop out of the vacuum, ready to take wing on the stellar winds and soar through the universe. Life needs time, and air, and a shield from solar radiation- life needs a planet. And a planet doesn’t produce a race of giant vacuum defying corvids in a millennium.
So the Raven settled in to wait. And wait a long time, it did. It didn’t mind. The Raven had always been a patient bird, a watchful bird. It stared down upon the planet, slowly blinking, always watching.
The Raven watched as the planet was settled by its ken. They moved from treetop to treetop, forest to forest, spanning all across the world. The Raven watched as the corvids learned cognizance, understanding, and communication. The Raven watched as the other animals settled into their usual roles.
But then The Raven saw something strange.
The direwolves and the direbears were not hunting their prey, the humans, as well as they should have been. And the humans were changing- they began to make their nests in places they normally wouldn’t. They began to construct farms, and villages, and towns, and cities! And the corvids, intelligent as they were, watched the humans develop and build and create- and settled into a role as scavengers!
The Raven was perplexed! The strangest chain of events unfolded as the humans began to dominate the world. They spread and spread, growing and growing, conquering and settling the world as if they were the corvids, and the corvids were left in the dust!
The Raven was confused, and concerned. Perhaps it should do something to right this scenario. Perhaps it should reach down and correct this mistake. But then, perhaps not? Mayhap the direwolves and direbears would rise up and strike down the humans after a while. Mayhap the corvids would rise up in the humans wake and take their place at the top of the food chain.
And yet, as The Raven watched, this seemed less and less likely. And then in the blink of an eye, the predators were gone. The direwolves were hunted to extinction, the direbears driven to the poles, and the lesser wolves domesticated! Domesticated by the humans, of all things!
The Raven felt outrage, disgust, and disappointment. With a sigh and a caw, it spread its wings to catch the wind and float away, in search of some new treasure, some new planet.
And then it saw.
The Raven blinked. It paused, midflight, to be certain. And there it was. A point, no smaller than a pin-prick, of light.
Real, genuine light. Not from the stars, but from the planet itself. From the humans.
They had discovered electricity.
The Raven watched, perplexed and amazed, as the planet spun. When a part of the planet drifted from the light to the dark, the lights would come on. And when that part faced the sun again, the lights would go back out.
The Raven folded its wings. It let the flow of gravity take it, spinning around the planet, always watching, slowly blinking. And as it spun, the world began to glow. The planet, when darkened, would shine. The humans made it shine.
The Raven let out a joyous cry! What greater treasure could there be than life which was shiny? And with contentment, The Raven still floats, watching us. And though we are not corvids, we are still precious.
But what about vampire history teachers. Vampires who read something from a text book then proceed to light the book on fire and throw it out the window because “No. that’s not even close to what really happened. Listen up nerds I’m about to teach you what really happened in France during the revolution”
I need this as a series
Vampires sharing the recipe for Greek fire.
Vampires speaking in dead languages.
Vampires being able to translate untranslatable scripts.
Vampires who react to straightwashing historical figures like “Are you kidding me everyone knew that man was queer!”
Vampires from cultures who were once antagonistic towards each other stubbornly maintaining a friendship that’s lasted longer than their civilizations.
Vampires who honour forgotten deities you won’t find in mythology books.
Also, vampires who secretly saved stuff from the Library of Alexandra.
A vampire show that does not revolve all around sex and eternal cursed love.
nerd vampire whose knowledge of current events is terrible but they can always remember everything that’s considered “history” so they have a super-detailed knowledge of everything up to about thirty years ago and then ?????
vampire who couldn’t tell you what caravaggio was known for but duelled with him at least three times and slept with him at least ten. “cara-who OH YOU MEAN MICHAEL yeah he was cool”
vampire who spent 100 years in a convent and is still so bitter that in all that time they never made her mother superior “GODDAMMIT I HAD SENIORITY! I HAD SENIORITY!” “okay so first off janet, that was six hundred years ago, but more importantly, maybe if you didn’t always start those complaints off with blasphemy…”
vampire professor who just sort of showed up at oxford when it was founded and is still there (and nobody’s noticed because he still never actually shows up to his lectures)
vampire politician who lifts all their campaign speeches wholesale from speeches given 200 years ago and just waits for someone to catch them out (nobody ever does they’re prime minister and their approval ratings are through the roof)
WAIT I HAVE MORE
queer vampire who constantly talks about the fashion for straightness and you need to be really careful because if you tell them straight is default they WILL scream at you for five days straight about what a modern concept heterosexuality is
vampire hoarder who has an entire town where they just kept having to buy new houses to keep their stuff in and some of it’s probably worth tens of millions by now but you’ll never find it in among the 1950s kitschy kitten sculptures and boxes of newspaper (the newspaper is a wonderful mix of yesterday’s guardian and daily courants from 1725)
vampire sailor from manderville’s time who just has so many stories and some of them might even be true
vampire bluestocking girl who took to the internet like a fish to water and spends her whole unlife engaging reddit antifeminists about women’s rights because that’s one fight she’s determined to see through. also with the advent of cheap dyes she literally wears blue socks every day and hopes one day someone gets the joke
vampire doctor who just gets SO CONFUSED about the literature because do you know how hard it is to keep up with medicine kevin? when i got my doctorate we thought leeches were good and then they were bad and now they’re good again? i was published in issue one of the lancet kevin that is 387 lancets kevin how the hell am i meant to remember which one’s current kevin why are they saying cannabis is good for pain like this is news??? (but also lives in a state of wonderment every day in hospital because wow look at all this stuff we can do now look at it kevin!)
entire coven of vampires constantly quibbling over manners because they’re all from different periods: “HATS OFF AT TABLE” “SCREW YOU LEONARD ONLY PEASANTS EAT BAREHEADED” “TABITHA THAT HASN’T BEEN GOOD MANNERS SINCE THE 1500S NOBODY HAS LICE ANY MORE” “IT ISN’T ABOUT LICE LEONARD IT’S ABOUT GOOD MANNERS YOU NEED TO HAVE GOOD MANNERS WHEN YOU HAVE PEOPLE OVER FOR DINNER” “I SWEAR TO GOD TABITHA IF YOU MAKE THAT PUN ONE MORE TIME I WILL SHOVE YOUR STUPID HAT DOWN YOUR THROAT”
vampire musicians who might not have been child prodigies but goddammit 500 years of practicing an instrument is bound to get you somewhere (also knowing the composer and being the first person to start playing a song doesn’t hurt either)
my favorite will always be vampires who know fuck-all about the standard major historical events because they were always somewhere else whenever big shit was going down:
“yeah i heard about the hundred years war but i was in northern african at the time so…”
“the roman empire fell??? how did the fucking roman empire fall??? i spend a fucking handful of decades in india and i come back to this???”
“russia needs to stop having revolutions, i can’t keep them all straight…”
“when did france become a democracy?? and america’s now it’s own country??? i’ve spent the last century in a forest in wallachia scaring small children so––wHat dO yOU meAn we’re calling it romania now??? when the fuck did it become romania???”
“WE HAD A WORLD WAR??? WE HAD TWO WORLD WARS???? well obviously ‘world’ is an exaggeration because i heard nothing about it while i was lost in the amazon rainforest for the last fifty years…”
“listen i spent most of the fourteenth century as a pirate in the south china sea so someone’s gonna had to clue me in on all this ‘black plague’ nonsense.”
Absolutely! I’m glad you asked, because this is one of my favorite genres as well. Here are some of my favorite urban fantasy books:
1. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
This book really encompasses what I love about both authors: you have Pratchett’s razor-sharp satirical wit and intelligence, coupled with the lovingly researched devotion to mythology of Gaiman.
It also has some of the best and most memorable characters I’ve ever encountered, and a lot of quiet wisdom wrapped up in a fun and irreverent package. One of my all-time favorite novels.
This is the kind of book you really can’t forget. Simultaneously dark and colorful, with rich visuals, three-dimensional characters, and a truly unique take on gods in modern society, this book is haunting in the best possible way.
There’s also some great rep for characters of color, queer people, and non-Western religious mythology, in both the book and the show. I highly recommend them both.
(Fair warning, however, that there are child murders, undead wives, and a scene in which a prostitute/love goddess eats a man through her cooch, so it’s definitely not for the faint of heart.)
3. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman.
Okay, I really love Neil Gaiman. His take on urban fantasy is almost everything I aspire to be with my own writing.
As such, it’s really no surprise that this book is awesome: it’s essentially a wonderfully macabre retelling of the Jungle Book, in which a little boy wanders into a graveyard after the murder of his family and is taken in by the ghosts and creatures living there. A bittersweet and surprisingly profound ride.
4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman.
I’ll try to make this the last Neil Gaiman one, I promise. That said, this book seamlessly encounters the trials, tribulations, and profound beauty of being a child in a world made for adults.
That said, though the central plot is about the unnamed narrator recalling the supernatural events of his childhood while returning home for a funeral, the most gut-wrenching aspects of this book are the painfully real and mundane: from child abuse at the hands of a nanny/Eldritch Horror and alienation from his family as a result of it, to his father nearly drowning him in the bathtub for accusing her, Gaiman manages to make these events rooted in reality enough to feel both painful and realistic.
It can be triggering to some, so be warned.
5. The Percy Jackson series (and its successors), by Rick Riordan.
I first read this series when I was around twelve to fourteen, and I’ve been in love ever since: with faithfulness to Greek mythology that will please both bona fide nerds and laymen alike and a charismatic first person narrative, it’s a ride that even the most reluctant reader will be happy to go on.
I’ve been even more pleased by Riordan’s other series, such as the Kane Chronicles and Trials of Apollo, in which he gives spotlight time to some truly amazing characters of color, queer characters, and more.
I give all his work two thumbs up, and recommend readers of all ages check it out.
6. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency series, by Douglas Adams.
Douglas Adams is probably my favorite science fiction author of all time, so it really doesn’t surprise me that he made it onto this list as well.
My personal favorite of this series is probably The Long Dark Tea-Time of the soul, which features the Norse god Thor blowing up an airport in frustration while trying to book a flight. Miraculously, this is not the most absurd thing to happen over the course of the book.
I highly recommend it.
8. The Colour of Magic (and the rest of the Discworld series), by Terry Pratchett.
Terry Pratchett is one of my favorite authors of all time, and the Discworld series is a pretty good example as to why. Featuring Death as a recurring character, satirical takes on every tried-and-true trope of the fantasy genre, and one hilarious and unexpected subversion after another, these books are a delight to read.
My favorite installment might be the Hogfather, in which Death takes on the role of Santa Clause with priceless results. It’s amazing, and I highly recommend it for anyone who loves urban fantasy and satire.
That’s all I can think of for now, but encourage my followers to contribute with their own favorite books and series from the urban fantasy genre.
Robes are stupid. My sorcerer dresses like Petyr Baelish.
To expand: if you are a mage, dress like a noble. Do not dress like a wizard. Pointy conical hat and sky-blue robes is medieval semaphore for “kill first and with extreme prejudice.” Tailored black silk over cloth-of-gold and studded with rubies says “Harmless, but valuable; ransom if possible or kill last.”
If you dress like a noble, they’re not going to pay attention as you take a turn or two to back away from the melee and prepare yourself. The ruse is only broken when you reveal yourself, at which point 8d6 fire damage is screaming toward them at Mach Fuck anyway, so no big.
counterpoint: if you don’t get to dress like someone ran a magical thrift shop through a rototiller and frankensteined the pieces back together what’s the god-damned point of being a wizard
sparksoffandommagic 