Thursday Thirteen

Today, for my TT, I am going to talk about monsters. Specifically, kinds of monsters.

1. Politicians. One of my least favorite monsters. These monsters run around ruining lives by spouting out anything on their pea-brains and then expecting accolades and laws based on their verbosity. They can be members of any political party and any race or gender. They all have very large mouths and blood-sucking tendencies.

2. Giants. Giants in mythology went to war with Zeus and friends for control of the world. The Giants sprang from Gaia via the blood shed from Uranus's manhood (or godhood) when Cronus castrated his father. The Giants were essentially spawn of gods, but they were not friendly with the Olympians. Gaia urged them to turn on Zeus (her grandson) and so they did. The Giants hurled boulders and flaming trees at the sky. Zeus and the other Olympian gods fought back, though in the end they required Heracles to win the day. The days the Giants are sports teams and they are not very scary.

3. Ogres. These are humanoid monsters that eat villagers. Shrek and his ogress are lovable monsters in that they don't seem to really eat anyone. One might also apply this term to Wall Street CEOs and find it accurate.

4. Children. A few of these actually grow up to be politicians; they are the scariest kind. Monster children run around with crayons, scream in the stores, have jelly on their faces, and create havoc in their wake with each step.

That's me! Wasn't I scary?

5. Vampires. These blood-suckers have a new mystic in this world in that they are immortal, sexy, romantic and heroic. Vampires of old were rather nasty villains who wanted the creamy-white throated maiden and their immortality. Some vampires want to destroy the world and others want to save it. The most famous vampire is Dracula, but he has been lost to the charms of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, True Blood and various and sundry other stories about the living dead.


6. Bigfoot. Also known as Sasquatch, these humanoid creatures are ape-like beings that haunt the forests of the United States and Canada. They could also be your hairy uncle on a bad hair day.

7. Dragons. These reptilian creatures are generally huge, scaly and fire-breathing. Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea but was eventually forgotten.

There is also a dragon in Shrek and numerous other movies.

8. Banking officials. Bank officials rate up there with politicians in that they talk a good game but are sinisterly working to make you grovel and writhe in pain in order to take away your assets. They like to make you sign on the dotted line, too. Banking officials come in all shapes and sizes, but are almost always found lounging in bank offices.

9. Changeling. This is a creature left in place of a human child who has been kidnapped by another fairy creature. The changeling is usually sickly. Parents often continued to raise the changeling but treated it poorly if they could not swap it back for their real youngster. This could lead to ill-raised children en masse. See #4 for consideration on how often this might actually be occurring in present day.

10. Radio talk show personalities. These are among the most fierce of monsters, threatening lives and endangering entire civilizations with their hatred and vile-spewing venom. They can be known by their large size, beady little eyes and red faces. Truly hideous to look upon.

11. Not your mommy, mummies! Read closer. Mummies are another kind of living dead (except for the living part for real mummies) in that they are dead bodies wrapped in white strips of cloth that somehow come to life. Bram Stroker, who also created Dracula, gave us mummies as well in the novel The Jewel of the Seven Stars.

12. Ghosts. More dead things. Humanity has a real fascination with life after death, eh? Ghosts are spirits that continue on after the body has passed away. The belief in ghosts has been around forever and is as old as religions. Some famous ghosts include Casper (I used to read those comics when I was young), the three spirits in Dickens' Christmas Carol, and Patrick Swayze's ghost in Ghost.

13. Lastly, there are aliens!



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people. See a list of other participants here. This is number 141 for me.