Distinctive cover for a pulpy men’s paperback, I’m guessing from the late 1960s by the singer’s teased hair and polka-dotted bodysuit. However the chest straps are very un-1960s, even for Paco Rabanne. And note those clawed hands, hard eyeliner, and sad Francoise Hardy face!
Magical experimentation created this hybrid between hedgehog and lion.
Need some spells about animals for your campaign? Look no further.
| Aelbun’s Annoying Sparrow: Enchants a nearby sparrow to harass an opponent by diving at it and flying in its face. Humanoid creatures will attack at -1 capacity.
Blandoth’s Wrack Sea Serpent: Causes great pain in sea serpents of all kinds. Most often used for torture. Born of the Wolf: This spell convinces the victim they are a werewolf. Charm of the Minotaur: Bestows on the caster all the charisma of a fully grown minotaur, which is to say, none, except to another minotaur. Frogspider: Turns frogs or toads into spiders, and vice versa. If the original form was poisonous, so is the changed form. Glove of the Dragon: Rare and powerful, the dragon glove corresponds to any dragon type. It enables the user to create a mini version of the dragon’s breath weapon merely by pointing a finger. Most versions of this glove depict scales and claws. Grinlo’s Chanting Cats: When activated, this spell causes all cats (including magical ones) in the area to chant a short phrase over and over, like “Go back! There is danger” or “The witch is out at the moment” in high-pitching, mewing voices. Impish Bull: Enchants a nearby bull into acting in a mischievous manner. Keep Hound: Successfully enables the caster to adopt a stray dog. Minotaur Musk: Used as a vital ingredient in enchanted perfumes. Phoenix Tinderbox: When someone tries to light a fire with this cursed tinderbox, it completely burns both the box and the user up. Primrose’s Psittacine Fraternity: Spell that makes the caster understand parrot language and makes the caster more attractive to them. Often used to train parrots. Vyrez’s Fractious Hare: Confuses and enrages any lapine animal to the point of attack. Whip of the Squid: This magical whip resembles a cat o’ nine tails. Six whips are normal length, two are much longer and tipped with small hooks. The total number of attacks is eight. The longer strands can hook into an opponent and draw them closer. This whip gives +3 on attacks when used on the sea (i.e. on a boat) or by the sea (on a beach.) Wyvern Wool: A very rare, highly magical, fibrous substance sometimes found growing on the undersides of sexually mature wyverns that are ready to mate. Wyvern wool can be of any color and is harsh to the touch. It is an essential ingredient in magical rope and certain types of magical clothing. Zhism’s Clasping Scorpion: This small, brass pin in the shape of a scorpion will hold any two items together indefinitely. |
Over the summer as I was immersed in Narnia I read a lot about the Old Testament, and in turn about the ancient civilizations of the Near and Middle East. Most people know of Ur, Assyria, and the Phoenicians, but there were many others more obscure — Adiabene, the Girgashites, Hayasa-Azzi. Some were kingdoms, others city-states. Some might have been only a single tribe of like ethnicity.
Looking for a 4,000 year old civilization to pull out of your hat? Here’s a few.
| Zith-Ronem
Bithcarmid Empire Athan Luda Aslumei Duam Lom Arsnannid Empire Chulah-Boenai The Kingdom of Nibaron Tarhia Betmna The Ebbagites Tarram-Raaith Zian Midath Huzonis Aadan |
Parthachian Empire
Ebumel Kingdom of Koshenal Umram City of Sabna City-state of Ebbaveh Upper Merthaean Kingdom Mamarna Charonian Empire Babyanis Thebuan The Uthean Lands Emael Abbolita Kushdanni Thaanis |
Seena Owens as a Babylonian Empress in the silent film classic Intolerance, 1929.
The 1980s were, perhaps, the Golden Age of the teen movie. Exemplified by John Hughes, these slightly raunchy, traditionally romantic movies had wholesome names like Sweet Sixteen and Pretty in Pink that belied the nasty origins of their conception. Which came from the pages of The National Lampoon, of which Hughes was a writer. Yes, that National Lampoon, the bastion of hip, white maledom demonstrating its privilege like a dick wagging out of a fly. What Hughes did was strip it of its satire and injected sentimentality.
I hated these movies. Even their titles sound porny. Which sounds strange from a porn writer, I know. But I dislike the disingenuousness of them.
Though beloved by teens in their time, the movies were aspirational, not actual. In fact, the plots were likely wish fulfillment on the part of the male writers and directors. The suave teens in them got to have the fun, sex-filled adventures the creators never had in the prudish 1950s or politically unstable 1960s with its threat of The Draft. If they were about teen girls, they were pining after an older or wealthier boy, getting their wish at the story’s conclusion … sexist and dull, no matter how alluringly packaged they were.
Anyway, if you need to reference a 1980s teen movie in your work, here’s a list of imaginary ones.
| Valley Babes
Fresh Pink One Wild Guy War Drive My Private Boy The Bad Date Licensed to Dance Roller Genius |
Private Games
Some Kind of Risky Revenge of the Crush Rebel In Pink Real Boy in a Red War Love Club Admirer A Little About What Drives Nerds Nuts Fast Love at Sixteen |
Extinct prehistoric deer Sinomegaloceros, which boastged a triceratops-like frill over its head.
A selection of randomly generated SFF novel titles that appeared in my Twitter feed 2017 – 2020. Any one of them would make a fine book.
| Rebellion’s Acolyte
Shadows of Stinging Grass Dowsing the Dragon Harry Potter and the Brawler of Blackworth Harry Potter and the Assassin’s Blade A Ring of Dust and Shadow The Last Werehawk How Bright the Protector Court of Dogs Reign of Daggers The Skinwalker’s Kiss The Bear, the Barbarian, and the Belfry The Electric Covenent The Girl in the Phantom Slippers Thermoprison |
Not sure what this is or what it means. But it’s cool nonetheless.
Over the past few years there has been a lot of attention devoted to the idea that AI — artificial intelligence — will eventually be writing fiction. There’s tons of example in the Twitter and YouTube communities, mostly due to the efforts of comedy writer Keaton Patti, who uses predictive text to compose random, hilarious bits of writing based on infomercials, Hallmark movies, and the like. They’re entertaining, but often attributed to a bot forced to watched movies or TV commercials. Nothing could be further than the truth. Predictive text as exists on a cell phone and a neural network trained to read, and generate, text are two different things. Neural network text tends to meander off topic, according to Janelle Shane, and shows a lack of meaning and context. In other words, it doesn’t quite all fit together. At the present point, anything it generates still needs human tweaking to become readable, and amusing, and not a random word salad.
Before InferKit went to pay-only ($20 a month to use the engine, which I can’t afford) I generated a ton of random nonsense. Every once in a while the neural network came through out something unexpected. Like this bit of a top-secret memo.
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To: RvB-Scot
Just remember the following; His Majesty’s Air Force bombed CERBERUS to bring her up to Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). And being a Black Uncle Tom, it worked brilliantly. |
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… or this piece of literary fiction (tweaked by me.)
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All over, the redwood forests are burning. Woods are stripped and harvests burned; I saw the sun fall like a dragon’s breath. The sound of the fire makes me paralyzed and the whup whup whup of burning wood, some flames with faces like babies. | |
I was able to string a group of thematically connected phrases into song lyrics that could have been written by the Canadian rock group Rush.
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CONNECTION AND SPEED
Hopelessly lost on the moon, |
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Mostly, though, the random pieces — paragraphs and sentences standing out in a list — were parts of reviews for movies, albums, books, or DVDs.
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On the Slopes also features songs such as “A Lighter Shade of Blue,” “Sweet Simple Kettle,” “Moon to Go Blue” and “Let Me Take Your Picture.” During this trilogy of 5 discs, the Twilight movies will only appear on one side of the disc. However, each (side) of the 1 disc is an animated horror movie. | |
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In a scene worthy of a filmmaker’s wildest imagination, the cousins marvel as the hypnotic beings merge into a grinning formation: Three dwarfs, a gothic crossdresser, a recently deceased mermaid and a magician. | |
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PULSIVE ARTIST PORTRAITS, by Olafur Eliasson. Scenes from the author’s experiences of living with and, increasingly, alongside the disabled. |
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The review below was as long as it got.
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Teach Me to Read It comes from Scottish author Ewan Morrison (my usual fave.) It’s a historical tale of swordfighter Ewan Marnin, who goes on a treasure hunt around the world. This limited edition features scenes from all the books, though here I only saw the action from Journey to the Sunset in particular (maybe it was because it was the one I read first?) | |
Predictive text generates more coherent pieces. Using the Harry Potter keyboard from the robotnik.com site, I generated this short Harry Potter chapter, which sort of makes sense if you squint at it sideways.
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Harry is not quiet with his magic
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