The Red Flower of Cactus Hell @theredflowerofcactushell - Tumblr Blog

hey. don’t cry. crush two cloves of garlic into a pot with a dollop of olive oil and stir until golden then add one can of crushed tomatoes a bit of balsamic vinegar half a tablespoon of brown sugar half a cup of grated parmesan cheese and stir for a few minutes adding a handful of fresh spinach until wilted and mix in pasta of your choice ok?

crabussy

PEACE AND LOVE!!!!!!!!

gallusrostromegalus

This might be the best brown butter sage ravioli I've ever made?

This is one of those dishes that sounds really hard and expensive but it's not. The recipe is:

- half a thing of butternut ravioli from Costco ($7.99 for the whole pack.

- butter ($4 for the brick but I'm buying extra fancy super-local butter)

- fresh sage leaves (free out of the yard, or $3 for a pack at King Soopers)

(inflation is a real bitch. $15 for two dinners worth, now. it was like $9 last year.)

1. Start boiling water on the highest setting your cooktop has.

2. In separate pan, put in what feels like a somewhat excessive amount of butter on medium heat.

3. While water is boiling and butter is melting, pick the sage leaves off the stems.

4. By the time the water boils, the butter should be bubbling. Put ravioli in water and sage leaves in the butter.

5. Stir sage leaves in butter occasionally until they're crunchy-crispy and the butter solids turn a rich brown. This takes about as long as it takes the ravioli to cook, 4-6 minutes.

5. Drain ravioli, add the butter and sage leaves and stir. Pull out a couple sage leaves to garnish if you feel Fancy.

6. Plate, add some fresh pepper, take a pic because it's dope as hell, and eat.

canni8al

friend just told me that he and his siblings used to play a game called "abraham lincoln and the slimy slug" wherein one person is abraham lincoln, with a full range of motion, and one person is a slimy slug inside a sleeping bag

and they would fight. and of course abraham lincoln would just beat the absolute shit out of the slimy slug

humansarespaceorcsforeal

I need more scary space hazards that are based on sea creatures.

Giant Angler fish with lights that mimic the nearby space station.

Massive space jellies with the wreckage of ship caught in its drifting tentacles.

Space squid that have an ink that scrambles scanners and blots out the stars.

Just, creatures living out in the ether. I think space is more terrifying and wonderful that way.

theweirdwideweb

Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!

theweirdwideweb

For all my uninsured judys out there it's for Walgreens only: walgreens.rxsense.com

theweirdwideweb

handsmotif

as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!

goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you

some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!

if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too

good luck out there 👍

horriblewarlock

Visit Original Link

esoanem

lucy8675309

OK Tumblr Geriatric Ward, let’s talk about your posture-

there are things you should be doing now to prevent yourself from starting to look like 🥀

Why does it matter? Future you would like to avoid the pain, limited motion, and fall risk that goes along with worsening posture.

What’s the focus?

1. Keep the flexibility in your spine

2. Stretch the muscles in the front

3. Strengthen the muscle in the back

Here are some simple things you can do daily while sitting and when you get up to go into the bathroom or the kitchen

Keep the flexibility by doing these repeated movements: 10 repetitions several times a day

The goal is to give yourself a double or triple chin. Keep your nose pointing forward, don’t let it tip up or down

Thoracic extension- use a chair with a seat back that comes up to the level of your shoulder blades. Try to bend back over the top of the chair without arching away from the seat back and without extending your neck. If the pressure from the top of the chair is uncomfortable you can place a towel there

Stretch the muscles in the front by using a door frame. This one will feel good afterwards

If this isn’t enough of a stretch you can do one side at a time. If you have the right arm up step forward with the right foot and turn slightly to the left. Then do it on the other side.

Strengthen the muscles in the back by squeezing your shoulder blades together for a count of 10 and then repeating 10 times. You can do this several times a day Hint: Don’t lift your shoulder blades up

There are lots more exercises for strengthening your back muscles but this is a good starting point and easy to do. I like doing it while driving

Tips:

Do the best you can

If it hurts stop

Envision future you saying thank you each time you do one of the exercises

brightlotusmoon

NOTE: I can do most of these with the cerebral palsy. In fact, a lot of these little exercises are automatically part of my physical therapy. My problem is I already have hyperlordosis, spine arthritis, and cervicogenic headache. These have helped me at least try to have a posture.

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW GOOD THIS ADVICE IS

kaijuposting

The kaiju of the Pacific Rim draft script

Travis Beacham's Pacific Rim draft script has a ton of problems, but the kaiju are definitely none of them! They're definitely a little different from the movie kaiju, biologically-speaking. They have red blood rather than blue, and there's nothing to suggest that toxic blood is a standard feature. There's also no reveal that they're clones with identical DNA.

(NOTE: I said earlier that it's unclear whether they have a hivemind, but I overlooked where Doctor Ivo Czerny said that there's a telepathic part of their brain that's tuned to signals from the Anteverse. The script doesn't use the word "hivemind," but the idea's pretty obviously there.) Here's a list of the kaiju from the draft script:

TRESPASSER: The first kaiju to pass through the Interstice. Category 5. Attacked Osaka and killed Mako Mori's father. Description: ...long and crocodilian, scabrously armored with rugged scales and scutes. Notes: This is the first of several kaiju to share a name with a kaiju in the actual film. However, Trespasser - like all of the others - doesn't have much in common with its movie counterpart.

UNNAMED NIGHTMARE KAIJU: Early in the story, Felicity "Flick" Kincaid has a nightmare about her dead fiance Yancy Antrobus, and sees a kaiju. Description: Hundreds of feet overhead, it's jagged jaws glow furnace-like from within. Ignescent saliva drips from it's teeth like molten napalm, fueling the encroaching wildfire. Notes: Yeah, toxic glowing blood is cool, but saliva that sets shit on fire? That's absolutely metal, man. DENGUE: Encountered by Newt and Flick in Miraflores, defeated by Puma Real. Description: Arachnoid legs bristling with hairs. Scores of black eyes above a wide reptilian grin. Some unholy fusion of tarantula and dragon. An obscene, alien spectacle. Notes: Dengue doesn't just resemble a tarantula - this beast can flick hairs like one, too! They don't appeal to be particularly damaging to the jaeger Puma Real, but at the size of arrows they're definitely a problem for the civilian population.

SLATTERN: Appears in one of Raleigh Antrobus and Mako Mori's training simulations. Description: SLATTERN boasts a shape like an armless carnosaur: a thick, serpentine body on mighty raptorial legs. A head vaguely like a moray eel. A long tail, barbed at the end. It draws patient predatory circles around us, lean and powerful as a panther, scales shifting between jet black and iridescent blue in the fog-stifled light. Notes: The way this is described sounds like it would look absolutely goofy if you drew it out, which is the opposite of a problem where kaiju are concerned.

TORTUGA: The kaiju that killed Yancy Antrobus. Shows up a lot through Raleigh's flashbacks. Description: Tortuga is described as "hulking and turtle-like, carapace studded with jagged rows of bony plates." It's also described with a "trifurcated beak" and a "harpoon-like tongue." Notes: On the one hand, Knifehead made a much more imposing figure than Tortuga. On the other... we don't really have enough turtle kaiju.

UNNAMED WOODLOUSE KAIJU: Lets off an EMP in Busan. Description: Described as "a mountain of crustacean armor, like an outsized mole crab or woodlouse." And "Under its semi-translucent carapace, something writhes and shifts." Notes: We were THIS CLOSE to having an isopod kaiju! Oh well, at least the kaiju skin mites look like isopods - I can't really complain too much, can I? INVIDIA: That thing squirming around inside the isopod is the cat-3 kaiju Invidia! Fought and defeated by Raleigh Antrobus and Mako Mori. Description: Described as "a spindly, mantid shape; tall as a skyscraper." She's described as having "a viper-like head" and "a set of long translucent wings." Notes: Invidia can't fly, but her wings give her added mobility - and create vortices in the air that throw vehicles around! Also, Invidia fills the same narrative role as Otachi - she's the first kaiju that Raleigh and Mako defeat together, using their jaeger's sword.

OOLONG: Appears in one of Mako Mori and Raleigh Antrobus's training simulations. Description: ...a chitinous crab-like dragon with black exoskeletal armor and giant pincers. Notes: I think a spider-dragon and a crab-dragon in one movie might be a little redundant, but I feel like this beast has potential.

KOMODO: A cat-4 kaiju that attacks Minato Mirai. Defeated by Duc and Kaori Jessup. Description: A long, lizard-like creature called KOMODO. Rows of teeth curl sloppily from his jaws. A baroque frill of coiled and braided horns embellishes his head. He scrabbles on six splayed legs; tail terminating in a spiked thagomizer. Notes: Do you know how many kaiju have thagomizers? Not nearly enough of them. Also, this GINORMOUS beast (it's taller than Lady Danger!) spits acid. Definitely inspired Otachi a bit.

FULCRUM: A kaiju that attacks Minato Mirai along with Komodo. Defeated by Mako Mori and Raleigh Antrobus. Description: Tentacles hide his jaws. Longer tentacles trail from his taloned arms. A scourge of tails whips the air behind him. He is kaiju FULCRUM -- an alien chaos of tentacles and dinosaurian limbs, his movements fluid and menacing, as much like a predator stalking primeval jungles as like a kraken prowling sunken ruins. He glisters with bioluminescence. He climbs ashore and rises to his full height -- almost a third bigger than the Mark-2. He lashes out with one of his long tentacles. The mech dodges and as the tentacle rakes past us, we see the rows of cruel, hooked claws running the length of it. Notes: Not to sound like a kaiju groupie, but I love Fulcrum. This absolute BEAST tosses around these things called "Berserkers" - small tentacle-covered creatures that grab and rip apart anything they can get hold of before they swell up and EXPLODE. Oh, and when they rip its head off? Its body just keeps going! Role-wise, Fulcrum seems to have inspired Leatherback a bit - and perhaps inspired the tentacles on Leatherback's head? UNNAMED WORMLIKE KAIJU: Briefly attacks Lady Danger. Description: Described as "wormlike" and having "crocodilian jaws." That's all there is to it, really.

TENGU: Appears toward the story's climax, as Lady Danger approaches the Interstice. Defeated by Duc and Kaori Jessup. Description: A horrific skein of dozens of viper heads on long sinuous necks erupting from a body like a naked bat. Notes: Absolutely hideous beast! Makes me think Ghidorah and Rodan. I'd honestly like to see this one on film. PHARAOH: Appears toward the story's climax. Defeated by Kaori and Duc Jessup. Description: Something between a scarab and a bull, with vicious mandibles and long horns like a rhino beetle. Notes: This one just sounds like a scaled-up beetle. It's a little difficult to imagine that it would be anything other than a Very Good Boy if left to its own devices. I mean, it's probably only attacking the jaegers because it thinks they're mating rivals. SCUNNER: Appears toward the story's climax. Defeated by Kaori and Duc Jessup. Description: Beige-hued skin lends it a disturbingly human look; but grotesquely misshapen, joints bulging and twisted. A skull-like face, jaws over-crowded with jagged teeth. Notes: I really think the sudden appearance of a human-looking kaiju would have been very jarring! It wouldn't have worked in the film that was actually made, but part of me wants to see a movie where this could have happened.

rodrigobera04

Third round, this time with dragon type.

Here it is:

DRAGON pure

Small dragons lined up, forming a larger dragon,like wishwash does.

Dragon playing hide and seek, blending in with the landscape.

Kaiju turtle with a draconic skull for its shell.

Imp with huge ears like wings, drinks the blood of other dragons.

Draconic two-headed dog, used as security.

Beast with a long neck that goes around its body.

Tarasque with armored hull articulated like an armadillo.

Robust underground dragon with echolocation, with a bat-like face.

Feathered wyvern followed by her eggshell-helmeted chicks.

DRAGON/GRASS

Cactus lizard, carrying a cactus full of water on its back like a hump.

Nocturnal creature with an intimidating bat-flower face.

Dragon parasite strangler fig, wrapped around trees for steal their essence.

Small pollinating wyvern like a hummingbird carrying seeds and pollen.

Leafy sea dragon orchid, floating through the treetops.

Nudibranch covered in vegetation capturing energy from the sun.

Literal dragonfly with Venus flytraps for claws to catch prey.

Parasaurolophus with a wooden trumpet to whistle.

Vegetable drake blowing fragrant smoke of flowers and herbs.

DRAGON/ROCK

Dragon with rocky skin, pretending to be a cave and swallowing prey.

Beast with rock skin and chipped stone claw that sharpens on its body.

Cave lizard men use pieces of fossils as their weapons.

Comet in the shape of a dragon's head and with its trail of light as a body.

Avian gargoyle that rests during the day, like a pooto.

Devilish-looking monster resembling a stone idol.

Mythical beast with gemstone scales that reflect flaming light.

Hybrid of a triceratops and nurikabe with chameleon camouflage.

Winged beast with dragon wings shaped like a drill to open the ground.

DRAGON/ICE

Polychaete worm opening the ice with its jaws.

Female dragon born from an egg exposed to low temperatures.

Crocodile sleeping on an iceberg, with only its mouth and paws sticking out.

Hairy beast with large tusks, remotely reminiscent of a mammoth or yak.

Monster with a flat body, hidden in the snow and sliding in avalanches.

Polar sea monster, its sounds can be heard from the bottom, for kilometers.

Oni-like creature, blowing blizzards from its inflatable throat.

Polar reptile capable of changing its colors to those of the northern lights/southern lights.

Beast with icy blood that, when injured, freezes the attacker on contact.

DRAGON/FIRE

Pig-nosed drake who shoots like fire like a pistol.

Little dragon running and exploding with its lit fuse tail.

Bird of paradise dragon doing mating dances setting fire to its scales.

Wolf beast blowing fire into houses and stealing cattle, like in fairy tales.

Hybrid between a stingray and a bat that lives in lava, it burns its prey by covering it.

Turtle with soup-smelling breath, which attracts prey.

Pangolin with healing scales, its meat can cure diseases according to some.

Rocket dragon, has holes in its back used as turbines.

Male dragon hatched from an egg exposed to high temperatures.

DRAGON/GROUND

Terrestrial catfish that causes earthquakes.

Draconian vicuña with membranes that blow clouds of sand.

Flat crocodile that hides in the dunes.

Huge sandworm with a converging body of a whale.

Hydra eel, emerging from a mud puddle behind its prey.

Serpent like elephant trunk that blows sand, based on grootslang.

Camouflaged predator imitating a tree, as if it were a stick insect.

Snake with reliefs of footprints on the body, rotating and leaving deceptive tracks.

Lizard sticking out its tongue that is actually its real head.

DRAGON/GHOST

Dragon that has been decapitated but can separate its head from its body.

Parchment with a drawing of a dragon on it, which gives it life.

Diaphonized seahorse, with transparent skin and colorful skeleton.

Crocodilian boogeyman, based on the cuca monster,sings a dreamy song.

Dragon skin bag, gaining characteristics of his living "self", like a mouth.

Ancient monster described in a book, with the haunted ink giving it life.

Giant Dracula vampire bat, haunting abandoned castles.

Dragon hunter wearing the skin of a slain dragon as armor.

Undead kaiju that breathes will-o'-the-wisp.

DRAGON/FAIRY

Griffin laying eggs in other dragons' nests, like a cuckoo.

Chinese parade dancing lion, doing acrobatics,fight evil spirits.

Ruby sea dragon, blows pearls from its mouth like a cannon.

Lamia disguised as a maiden or nymph, swallowing approaching prey.

Carp purifying the polluted rivers and lakes by their magical scales.

Small dragon but can transform into a huge beast in defense, like a spriggan.

Unicorn dragon with magical and healing horn, but very fierce.

Lunar fairy based on vespertilio homo, with bat characteristics.

Shinchu immune to poison, predator of poisonous Pokémon.

DRAGON/BUG

Prehistoric cockroach with features of a dinosaur.

Titan beetle cutting down trees with one bite.

Giant mutant ant, like those from a B movie.

Giant tarantula hidden by its foliage camouflage, considered a cryptid.

Thorny katydid with wings looking like a dragon's eyes.

Huge mosquito stealing cattle to drink blood.

Horde of worms imitating a huge dragon.

Wingless parasitic fly that lives in the caves of noibat and noivern

Mandarin wasp causing destruction in bug-type creations.

DRAGON/DARK

Alien eldritch dragon with tentacles on its face and wings.

Yakuza lizards with scales resembling tattoos.

Dinosaur cryptid with dark skin to camouflage itself at night.

Serpent swallowing solrock and lunatone, alluding to bakunawa, apofis, etc.

Gecko with a false head on its tail to prevent decapitation.

Monster like a peanutbug with a hideous fake face on its wings.

Oviraptor preying on other dragons' nests, stealing eggs.

Two-headed beast, one head sings a hypnotic song and the other attacks.

Dragon in "sheep's clothing", uses its jaws to imitate horns.

DRAGON/STEEL

Heraldic animalistic monster with metallic fur.

Folklore monster who faced heroes, swords are stuck in his body.

Dragon covered in molten metal, using its heat.

Dragon with a chain with a metal ball, pinning him to the ground.

Diabolical creature deceiving the greedy with illusions of coins in its mouth.

Metallic wyrm with a metallic head and body, cuts everything like a knife.

Carnifex screaming and creating sound waves heard from far.

Precious mineral-eating cave creature.

Winged dragon closing its wings like a shield.

DRAGON/ELECTRIC

Albatross/iguana chimera, creates electrical storms.

Alligator with electric bite.

Fast raptor, kills prey with a surprise electric shock.

Sachihoko covering herself with her tail, like a mohawk that attracts lightning.

Duck-billed dinosaur, its beak has bio-electric organs.

Dragons like bats, flying in clouds to catch electricity, personify thunder.

Bichir can electrocute like an eel, with fins in the form of lightning.

Dragon with bioluminescent tail like firefly abdomen.

Ouroboros creating infinite energy by biting its tail.

DRAGON/FIGHTING

Iridescent python twitched and whipped its body.

Monster with mutated arms that form a second jaw.

Dragon knight with scales forming swords.

Massive bullfrog sumo wrestler, crushing the opponent.

Hydra that instead of heads, has extra arms.

Bird of terror with strong legs for crushing and kicking.

Anfisbena fighting among themselves to see who takes over the direction.

Wuxia themed tiger and dragon hybrid predator.

Demon with sharp claws and slashing wings based on devilman.

DRAGON/NORMAL

Monster with three pairs of jaws, looking like a strange dog.

Immense dragon looking like a huge mattress, almost always sleeping.

Little dinosaur with a bait-shaped tail for catching fish.

Small lizard but with a huge roar.

Reptile shedding its skin, which takes the form of colorful and stylish clothing.

Angelic-looking beast with sonic abilities.

Rubber dinosaur capable of inflating itself.

Dragon with a beard of colorful scales, used for display.

Long tatzelwurm coiled over its victim.

DRAGON/FLYING

Flock of birds that form an immense winged creature.

Roc launching its tough eggs onto its prey.

Colorful kite pterodactyl creating tornado winds.

Dragon without wings,but it swallows air to blow and also levitate.

Dinosaur turning into a bird when it evolves.

Amphitera with colorful wings and a body that makes a rattling noise.

Flying turtle, its head is hidden in the shell and comes out like a cuckoo clock.

Symbiotic dragon with butterflies, letting them drink his tears.

Wyvern goose used as a guard dog, very fierce and with a serrated beak.

DRAGON/WATER

Kaiju lobster making water turn to steam.

Kraken sea serpent, covered in tentacles and a beak that cuts metal.

Oriental dragon made of water, always dripping raindrops.

Soft-shelled turtle, its shell is shaped like wings for gliding.

Tiny, seemingly dull fish with the mouth of a sarcastic fringhead.

Monitor lizard abandoning the land and becoming a mosasaur-like monster.

Sea monster in the form of a waterspout.

Gar turning amphibian and looking like a spinosaurus.

Supernatural aquatic horse that runs on water, covered in wet, sticky mucus.

FINAL MYTHICAL:

Pixie dragon dragon/fairy, created from children's imagination of fairy tales.

Wait for more.

rodrigobera04

Draconic ultra beasts, let's go:

UB-036 TITANIC (DRAGON pure)

Large Kaiju, a mix of several dinosaurs, would be one of the biggest in the game.

UB-037 MEMBRANE (DRAGON/FLYING)

Floating life form with membranes like kites, feeding on particles.

UB-038 COCOON (DRAGON/GROUND)

Insectoid monster undergoing metamorphosis in a clay cocoon.

UB-039 FAT (DRAGON/ICE)

Fat and hairy draconic mammal, polar creature warmed by its fire and fur.

UB-040 (DRAGON/WATER)

Marine predator imitating a boat and floating on the surface.

UB-041 (DRAGON/STEEL)

Bestial automaton from an ancient civilization, made for surveillance.

UB-042 ERUPTION (DRAGON/FIRE)

Huge lava wyrm, hiding in the earth and emerging from it, causing eruptions.

UB-043 ELDER (DRAGON/GRASS)

Draconic tree that can live for centuries and has a twisted and ancient appearance.

UB-044 POSSESSION (DRAGON/DARK)

Monster controlled from inside its mouth by a red-eyed parasite.

UB-045 FLAT (DRAGON/NORMAL)

Snake flattening its body and becoming "invisible" when viewed horizontally.

UB-046 KINGDOM (DRAGON/BUG)

Insectoid dragon queen carrying a "hive" on her back where her offspring are kept.

UB-047 MOUNTING (DRAGON/FAIRY)

Pegasus with an alien but angelic appearance; legends say that heroes ride it.

UB-048 ABDUCTION (DRAGON/GHOST)

Dragon aircraft invisible, catches prey without leaving a trace.

UB-049 CATAPULT (DRAGON/FIGHTING)

Kaiju with a horn like two hands together that grab the opponent and throw them.

UB-050 SWALLOW (DRAGON/ELECTRIC)

Dragon with luminous and hypnotic mouth and throat, attracting the victim.

UB-051 SMASH (DRAGON/ROCK)

Beast with a rocky mouth like a vise to grind vegetation and ores.

cinemagorgeous

In 1980, Steven Spielberg briefly considered making a dark sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind called Night Skies. The film was to feature many different alien characters. Spielberg ultimately abandoned the idea, choosing instead to make a film starring only one alien, E.T.

Legendary makeup artist and creature designer Rick Baker recently shared these images, documenting his work on the project before it was abandoned.

lindsayetumbls

Uh, “Night Skies” was never intended to be a sequel to Close Encounters. Unless you mean, like, spiritual sequel or something.

But these designs are very cool.

titleknown

Holy hell that top one is terrifying.

And, ifyou’re looking for some good horror featuring Grey-type aliens, watch V/H/S/2. There’s a really great short in there by the dude who made Hobo With A Shotgun (Jason Eisner), and the Greys are fucking terrifying in there.

aardwolfpack

In another time, on another blog, I had a grand idea. I’d make screen captures of creatures and post them along with interesting trivia and witty summaries of the movies they came from. Maybe I’ll start that series now. Maybe not. “In the end, after all man’s defenses had failed, the alien invaders were slain by the humblest thing that God in his wisdom put upon this Earth, the German shepherd.” This is not the actual closing narration of I Married a Monster from Outer Space, but it might as well have been. Aliens with simple and easily exploitable weaknesses are a staple of science fiction, especially the many alien invasion films of the 1950s. The Blob was harmed by cold, the Invisible Invaders were harmed by loud noises, and the Monolith Monsters and Triffids were both harmed by salt water (except in the book where the Triffids aren’t really defeated at all). But the titular monsters in I Married a Monster from Outer Space, a garden-variety sci-fi horror flick about members of an alien species that is entirely male due to radiation (huh?) masquerading as humans in order to reproduce, have perhaps the stupidest Achilles’ heel ever conceived: dogs. If given the chance, any dog will instinctively attack these aliens and tear the hoses out of their breathing apparati, causing them to suffocate. Because apparently they built their breathing equipment out of beef jerky. A pair of German shepherds take out their entire H.Q., allowing the townsfolk to get inside and pull the plugs out of the illusion-projecting machines, which makes the disguised aliens not only revert to their monstrous forms, but die instantly. Add this stupid resolution to glacial plot progress, a heroine too dumb to leave her husband after she learns he’s a puppy-killing alien, some of the worst day-for-night filming ever (in one of the “nighttime” scenes the shadows indicate it’s noon), and the fact that nothing about the aliens is consistent, and you have the recipe for a terrible movie. But there is one bright spot in this awful mess. The aliens are, quite simply, beautiful. These stills show the best glimpses we’re given of these woman-craving creatures from the Andromeda Constellation. To get a clear shot, you have to go to publicity photos.

Here are the best I’ve found, with the alien giving us the standard lurching terror pose and his Robby the Robot impression. It looks like a tree shaped into the crude semblance of a man, clad in what can only be described as “space pants.” Like an inordinate number of fictional aliens, it has three digits on each hand and two on each foot. Its inhuman eyes slightly resemble those of a planarian. The tubes which supply it with the gas it breathes (implied in a throwaway line to be methane) blend seamlessly into its head at one end, looking like extensions of the two hemispheres of its lopsided cerebrum, while the other ends penetrate either side of the chest. Are we meant to believe these aliens have tanks of methane in their heads with hoses going directly into their lungs, which have been overgrown by tissue? The only part of the whole assembly that actually looks artificial is a black sphere with a white circle painted on it, which is held in a strange elliptical lamprey-like mouth. The attention to detail is quite nice, with little veins and fissures all over the suit. Not only does it look truly organic, it looks like it’s not made of the same stuff as any earthly animal, or at least any vertebrate. I think it’s best not to ask what was actually going on during conjugal relations between these aliens and the human women. So sublime and idiosyncratic was this extraterrestrial species that the Diener toy company saw fit to immortalize (if that’s the right word…it’s not) it in a series of mini-figures everybody has kicking around their house but nobody knows the name of. Neato Coolville and MinifiguresXD do a good job of covering Diener’s Space Creatures and the accompanying Space Raiders, and C616 has a great macro mini-figure photo of the one I’m talking about.

Exquisite! But besides the cool aliens and the nostalgiarific toy they inspired, I Married a Monster from Outer Space has one other claim to fame (or at least a ride on the coattail’s of someone else’s success). It was released in a double feature with The Blob on September 12, 1958. The Blob, of course went on to be extremely popular, was remade with great success on its 30th anniversary, and today stands as one of the most iconic horror films of that horror-film-packed decade that was the 1950s. By contrast, I Married a Monster from Outer Space faded into obscurity, despite its astonishingly well-designed aliens. It wasn’t even picked up by Mystery Science Theater 3000 (although its leading lady, Gloria Talbott, is in two films they featured). The Internet Movie Database tells us that I Married a Monster from Outer Space was originally slated to be the A-movie, and The Blob, an independent production picked up by Paramount, the B-movie. “Early marketing tests and initial bookings indicated that a larger share of the ticket buyers were coming for [The Blob], so it became the main feature and more money was spent on its promotion.” I’m a little skeptical of this. I Married a Monster from Outer Space is in black and white, while The Blob is in color and has much higher production values. Independent or not, I’ve never heard of any pairing of a color and a black and white film where the latter topped the bill. This post wouldn’t be complete without the excitingly garish marker drawing Scumdogg made based on the mini-figure based on the alien from I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

I’ll let this distract you from my inability to write a conclusion.

titleknown

Reblogging because of my undying love for cheesy B-movie monsters and also because PLEASE MAKE THIS INTO A SERIES PLEASE!

random-thought-depository

Idea I got tangential to a discussion on a socialist humanity Mass Effect AU premise on SV, copying and pasting from my relevant posts there:

Point: if you get rid of aging and most disease, the main thing that kills people will be accidents, suicides, and murders, and there's probably a lot that can be done to make accidental death less likely that we don't bother with because old age usually kills us long before an accident can.

One of I'm sure many examples: we have subway stations with rails in open roughly person-height depressions that people can just fall into, our society considers this risk acceptable, but I expect in a society of unaging people there'd be some kind of partition with doors separating the passenger platform and the track (much like our elevators usually have a door on the elevator compartment itself and doors on the access points of the elevator shaft).

Similarly, I expect a society of unaging people would become much more scrupulous than us about removing trip hazards, making vehicles as safe as possible, etc.. I expect they'd also automate dangerous jobs like construction pretty much as much as possible, much more than we do.

Really, if you're going to go with a dystopian angle for the Asari, I think the one I'd go with is having them rely heavily on aliens for dangerous jobs, on the logic that if an Asari construction worker falls off a scaffold and splats like a bug on a windshield on the ground 500 meters below, they've lost centuries or millennia of life and a shot at living to see the stars burn out, but if it happens to a human, oh well, the congenital terminal degenerative disease they were born with (aging/senescence) will probably kill them within 50 years anyway, so they lose much less. A wealthy society with an unaging citizen class surrounded by societies of people who age might look a bit like those Gulf petro-states where much of the actual work-force is a subaltern class of foreign migrant laborers.

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Aside following a tangent from the last paragraph of my previous post: "they're unaging and see their own lives as much more valuable than the lives of aliens with limited lifespans because they lose so much more if they die" would make a much more interesting rationale for Batarians being chauvinistic slavers than "they're just kind of generic evil nationalists."

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Edit: I think a species like that would probably have a vibe less like canon Batarians and more like stereotypical fantasy Elves at their worst or Skeksis. E.g. they'd be reclusive and hikikomori-ish cause their whole lives are structured around reducing risk to themselves, meeting one face to face would be a special event because they rely heavily on mercenaries and janissaries and robots to do their fighting for them and on Mouth of Sauron type minions and remote communication for diplomacy. And they might contemptuously refer to shorter-lived races as "mortals" like Dracula or some asshole fantasy Elf would.

I really like this as an idea for an "evil empire" faction in a space opera setting! Much more original villain motivation than the millionth variation on generic tyranny or religion of evil or whatever! And it's a rationale for slavery and imperialism that stands up at least a bit better to the "raw materials would probably be super-abundant for a society with interstellar travel" and "a society with interstellar travel would probably have pretty good automation" objections.

More ideas for a faction like this:

So, I'm thinking give them something a little like the canon Batarian kind of pathetic Space North Korea vibe, but different, and also adjust it for a setting that's less heavy on the human-wank, so make them a faction that could credibly get trashed in a conflict that's more like the setting's equivalent of the 1895-96 Italian-Ethiopian War.

So I'm thinking lean heavily on the Skeksis parallel here. As part of that, give them a vibe a little like "what if Panem from The Hunger Games invented warp drive and met advanced aliens?"

These aliens are naturally long-lived and slow-breeding, and their risk-aversion compounds this (reproduction may be risky to them like it is to female humans, and even if it isn't reproduction is risky in that it introduces a new and potentially unpredictable player to the social landscape), so their population is very small. Their territory basically consists of their homeworld plus maybe some asteroid mines and other space infrastructure in their home solar system. Almost all of their population is on their homeworld; they may even have a thing like Known Space Puppeteers where members of their species who take the risk of leaving their homeworld are literally considered insane (but usefully so) by most of the species. Even their homeworld has a very small population, maybe a few hundred million tops, plausibly only tens of millions, and most of those are the "mortal" slaves who make up most of the actual population. It's basically ocean and wasteland, a bunch of giant sprawling estates, a single capital city, and a minimalistic and heavily automated infrastructure to support that.

Obviously, these people have no reason to fight aliens for resources or living room. Rather, what they're short of is labor. To this end, they sometimes send out ships to capture slaves though raiding and piracy. Maybe they also buy slaves from some of the shittier empires they have contacts with too.

Possibly there's some shorter-lived indigenous sapient species on their planet that they co-evolved with or enslaved early in the history of their civilization, and their slave-raiding is just their attempt at folding aliens into that system, mostly an attempt at acquiring captives with valuable knowledge and skills (in which case captives will probably get less chains and whips slavery and more subtler forms of coercion). Or maybe their present social system is a reaction to contact with "mortal" sapient species and the "mortal" slaves on their planet are all captives or the descendants of captives (probably mostly the latter, though I think they'd carefully control reproduction among their slaves and keep their slave population either stable or growing only very slowly - they'd be scared of the possibility of their much faster-breeding slaves becoming too numerous to easily control, and being unaging they'd have very long planning horizons).

The slave-masters have a very small population and are a highly privileged class. Each one lives like a feudal lord, tended and pampered and protected by robots and slaves. They rarely do any physical labor: that's much too dangerous! They live in a floating world of luxury and status games; their society has kind of a Heian court vibe. They often scheme and intrigue against each other, flex and dunk on each other, and seek to sideline and disempower each other, but these struggles are mostly relatively non-violent because they have a sense that the life of one of their own is precious and a solidarity based on that which transcends whether they like each other as people. This obviously fits with their ideology, but it's also instinctive, reflecting an evolutionary history as a long-lived slow-breeding species for whom every viable offspring was precious; quite likely they embraced the ideology because it resonates with their instincts. The idea of killing or even injuring one of their own is viscerally horrifying and repellent to them and they would resort to such measures only in the most extreme circumstances; they've probably executed, like, a single digit number of their own kind in the last few millennia, and each one of those is remembered as an infamous traitor whose depraved betrayals of their own kind are overshadowed only by the mind-searing horror of the punishment meted out to them.

I think one of them would make a good video game antagonist cause they'd lend themselves well to meeting one of them being a boss fight. Like I said, for an outsider meeting one face-to-face would be a rare special event because they'd be very reluctant to expose themselves to the risk of close proximity to an outsider, but 1) if they did, it'd be with the best protection their society could arrange, 2) very long lifespans and slow breeding is only likely to be selected for if there's little risk of dying by accident or predation, so it would be most likely to happen in a species where mature individuals were pretty hard to kill. So an individual of this species would likely be very reclusive and hikikomori-like but very formidable if they actually showed up for a fight. In a Mass Effect context, think maybe a giant being comparable in dimensions to an elephant or T-Rex which also is a very powerful biotic, is packing the best weapons and protected by the best protective suit its society can produce with no expense spared, controls a personal squad of combat robots and elite janissaries (themselves dangerous opponents!), and has thousands of years of experience. If you manage to kill it the others of its kind will spend millennia mourning it and hating you for the unimaginable crime of destroying a mind that was already vast and ancient when the capstone was laid on the Great Pyramid at Giza.

One thing I like about this idea is, like... Somebody said in that discussion that the point of species like Batarians, Dilgar, etc. is to basically be a super-evil version of Spain for a war that is to humans what the Spanish-American War was to the USA, and I think with this idea it'd be obvious that it's really more like the First Italian-Ethiopian War or the time Idi Amin got his ass kicked by Tanzania. Like I said, one of these unaging slaver aliens would be a very formidable opponent at the small scale, but if you zoom out to what sort of threat they'd be on the galactic scale it'd be kind of obvious that humans bragging about beating up on them just shows how pathetic Earth still is compared to the setting's great powers; their tiny population makes the idea that they could be any kind of existential threat to the real big players a joke, they'd be basically the setting's equivalent of, like, if Somali pirates were somehow controlled by North Korea, and really, the idea that they'd be any kind of threat to Earth is kind of seriously embarrassing for anyone pushing a "HUMANS STRONK" line, they probably have less people than Bangladesh and that's doing the equivalent of counting the helots with the Spartans.