Small appreciation rant nobody asked for. Do you even have any idea where this image came from?
This image! The one we use every Christmas.
This is from a speculative evolution book by Dougal Dixon, full of imaginings of how man might evolve in the future after countless self inflicted ecological disasters and society collapses. This book veers hard into crazy town. I absolutely love it, but not because I believe in a lick of what's in this book. I love it because it's gross, bizarre, unsettling, and it frankly makes me uncomfortable. Cover shown below.
This book has wild ideas about the future of man not limited to: Symbiotic but far genetically diverged hominids living like Master-Blaster from Beyond Thunderdome.
Parasitic flea humans that suck the blood of what appears to be a pinniped version of a humanoid.
Sea otter humans?
Horse humans. Wild shit.
There's more! Another book by this author is simply called After Man, which explores the potential evolution of wildlife after we become extinct on earth for undefined reasons. This book is only slightly better grounded in the land of reality. It's almost believable, and almost nobody would ask much about it if they found it on your bookshelf. It could lurk on your coffee table among a pile of national geographic mags and a bird watcher's field guide fairly unsuspectingly.
But inside are Sand Sharks, desert piranha bats, blubber kangaroos, monkey cats, and the most horrifying baboon relatives you've ever seen in your life.
And then we have The New Dinosaurs, a book that speculates how dinosaurs might have evolved had the Cretaceous chicxulub impact never occurred. Absolutely unhinged stuff in there too.
If you put all three of these on your coffee table you can screen out any new friends who don't appreciate morbid whimsy! It's like gunshot to keep property taxes low, but more in the way of reminding all of your associates that you love the bizarre without taking it all that seriously.
I absolutely love these books for their absurdity and their simultaneous grains of sensitivity toward the impact we have on the planet. Fun stuff.
Okay so this is a sequel to my previous post (LINK HERE) on the topic of “what do we call these things?”. You may have seen a film, show, or video game with this type of monster before; last time a few people got preoccupied with my chosen examples so I have just doodled a basic version of this trope;
This monster trope has a few key factors;
Extremely fast and deadly - the horror is that if they sense you, they will kill you. They are usually too fast to run from, too strong to fight, the only way to survive is to avoid detection.
They have long forelimbs and shorter hind limbs, often knuckle-walking like an ape
Very skinny physique; when muscled it has lithe musculature, but usually it’s impossibly thin and bony
They evoke the fear of sneaking around at 3am without waking anyone up; in whatever film, game or book they are in they are crucial for evoking a stealthy horror
They are usually blind, instead sensing you with smell or sound (depending on the example)
Usually furless and featherless, either bare skin or scales (depending on the example)
Often have a smooth domed head to emphasize uncanny eyeless-ness.
Tiny tail or nonexistent tail.
The two most popular options from the previous poll will be back for this one, along with others that I got from the notes:
Choose a name...
Lickalikes
Slenderbeasts
Scramblers
Sarcovenators
Crimpy Bats
Night Stalkers
Cloverlikes
Blind Angry Chimps
Voting ended onFeb 2
More information about the options under the cut -
Myself and @barksbog started this as a conversation after watching A Quiet Place, and how similar horror stories, when trying to make characters scared of making sounds, tend to give the enemy creatures a specific appearance. The 1998 video game Resident Evil was an important hallmark both in the horror genre and in video game conventions; I am not a video game designer myself so I cannot talk about how they built 3D environments etc. but it involved the first stealth mechanic in a game in the form of a blind enemy called a Licker, and a lot of horror ever since have made licker-shaped blind monsters, which is where we came up with the term 'Lickalikes' or 'Licker-alikes'
@gingerjaydraws chose the name Slenderbeasts because these sure are beasts which are slender!
@theload points out that After Man (1981) by Dougal Dixon does also have a predator-that-hunts-by-sight, a speculative evolution of bats that run around on there forelimbs while grasping prey with hindlimbs - these are called Night Stalkers. While these do not match the thin apelike appearance of other examples mentioned, Night Stalkers are linked specifically to the Future Predator from Primeval (2007-2011) which is also a speculative evolution of bats. Most of these monsters are not future bats (often aliens or supernatural creatures), however, but @zenosanalytic also said that these monsters are 'Stalkers', and other commenters also noted a bat connection (see further below).
@iamthekaijuking brings forth the most wonderfully literal 'Blind Angry Chimps', which sums up the main features of these monsters perfectly.
@stat-your-shit-up suggested Scrambler and I personally like the sound of that. They sure do scramble! I myself informally call them scrimby scrumblos sometime, which also has the 'scr' sound so I am team scrambler... @pachelbelsheadcanon also suggested 'Crawlers' but I think these guys move faster than a crawl, definitely a scramble.
I love @gentlygolden's idea Sarcovenators, or 'flesh hunters', the scientific flair of the name adds a kind of clinical classification to the monster, which is very much my vibe (one of my main writing projects is scientifically classifying dragons, see @draconesmundi ) so sarcovenator appeals to me a lot.
Both @klomonx and @draptorronin suggested bat-themed ones, possibly based on the bat examples of these monsters (the Night Stalkers from After Man, Future Predators from Primeval, Vampires from Priest, probably more...) and as these monsters have a gait similar to a vampire bat (quadrupedal and loping) and rely on echolocation rather than sight, I can see a bat connection, so out of 'stupid bats' and 'crimpy bats' I put 'crimpy bats' on the options.
'Cloverlikes' is @junoniadoesart's suggestion, based on the monster from the 2008 horror film Cloverfield - a few other kaiju or giant monsters match this body type, such as the MUTO from the 2014 Godzilla film; however both Clovers and MUTOs are more in the business of smashing buildings than attacking individual people for making too much noise; however the body resemblance is undeniable so I have added it to the options.
@kaijubrains suggested "fucked up white boys" which I haven't added to the list but did make me laugh, and it is accurate to a lot of them.
