Flash Fiction Friday #4

Monkey Tail

The day I was born was filled with surprises.

Firstly, my parents were expecting to have a baby boy, and this mistake may have been caused by surprise number two; I was born with a tail. It wasn't the kind of tail you might expect - all pink and useless and misshapen - on the contrary, my tail was glorious even then. It was a long and slender thing, covered in beautiful chestnut brown fur. It tapered off into an elegant point which was as white as freshly fallen snow. I swirled it around like a master before I had even managed to squawk out my first cry.

My parents and doctors had planned to remove my tail when I was very young. The doctors assured them that I would be far too young to remember that I ever even had a tail, and my parents didn't want to have child with a mutation, so they agreed. When they eventually found out that it couldn't possibly be removed without paralysing me from the waist down they wept for days.

I very quickly learnt that my tail was an extremely versatile tool indeed and we soon became the very best of friends. As I grew older I insisted on doing absolutely everything with it and annoyed my poor parents immensely. I completely refused to use my hands at meal times and would grip my food with my tail instead, and nothing was out of reach once I had learnt to use it as a climbing tool. My parents often found that I had freed myself from my playpen walls and I could scale the kitchen cupboards as easily as crawling.

When I started school and learnt to write my name with my tail, my teachers disappeared, but my handwriting was the best in the year so no complaints could be made. Some of the other children could be mean; pinching my tail when I wasn't looking and pulling on it as I walked past in the halls, but mostly people were fascinated by it, or jealous. I made many, many friends in those first few weeks and we tore around the school as if we owned it.

*** To be continued.... ***

Fairy Tale Half Sleeve.

I've been so busy with work lately that I've had no time at all to blog or catch up with the ones I'm reading, so I'm looking forward to spending this lazy Easter weekend doing just that!

I finally got around to taking a few pictures of my new Arthur Rackham and fairy tale inspired half sleeve, which I had done last Friday (I can't believe its been a week already!) I wasn't able to get very good photos of it unfortunately, but I did the best I could. Its quite flaky and fuzzy at the moment as its healing, so its not quite looking at its best just yet but I couldn't wait any longer to show it off!

The whole thing was done in one go and took 5 long and painful hours to complete. I'm so glad now that I got it all done at once though - I would have kicked myself if I had given up or wimped out halfway through, and I feel like I really achieved something now. You cant really tell how big it is from these photos, but it goes right from my wrist (the mermaid is from an original Arthur Rackham illustration and is riding a giant fish) to right up over my elbow and onto my upper arm, so its more of a 3/4 sleeve really i guess. The dragons face is right on my elbow and was mostly definitely the most painful part to have tattooed! Little Red Riding Hood came a very close second on the pain scale (as she is right in the inside crease of my elbow) and she has the wolf's shadow on a teapot moon behind her which is poring out the sea down the inside of my arm. I cant wait until its completely healed and I can start having it shaded and coloured in muted, watercolour tones!

On a little side-note, the A-Z Challenge starts on Monday and I'm so excited to get going with it! I've already got a few of the posts written and am anxious to share all the wonderful mythical creatures I've found with you!

The Anatomy of Japanese Monsters.

These interesting illustrations come from the book Yōkai Daizukai by manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, and they show cross sections from 85 'Yōkai' - the traditional monsters and demons from Japanese folklore.

The illustrations show each of the monsters internal organs and gives information about their functions and about the creatures themselves. I wish I was able to read Japanese so that I could buy myself the book, as they are both hideous and fascinating.

Here are some translated exerts for you to enjoy:

The Hyōsube, a child-sized river monster (a relative of the kappa) from Kyushu that lives in underwater caves, ventures onto land at night to eat rice plants. The monster has a relatively small brain, a nervous system specialized in detecting the presence of humans, thick rubbery skin, sharp claws, two small stomachs (one for rice grains and one for fish), a large sac for storing surplus food, and two large oxygen sacs for emergency use. A pair of rotating bone coils produce an illness-inducing bacteria that the monster sprinkles on unsuspecting humans.

The Mannen-dake ("10,000-year bamboo") is a bamboo-like monster that feeds on the souls of lost travelers camping in the woods. Anatomical features include a series of tubes that produce air that causes travelers to lose their way, syringe-like fingers the monster inserts into victims to suck out their souls, and a sac that holds the stolen souls.

The Kuro-kamikiri ("black hair cutter") is a large, black-haired creature that sneaks up on women in the street at night and surreptitiously cuts off their hair. Anatomical features include a brain wired for stealth and trickery, razor-sharp claws, a long, coiling tongue covered in tiny hair-grabbing spines, and a sac for storing sleeping powder used to knock out victims. The digestive system includes an organ that produces a hair-dissolving fluid, as well as an organ with finger-like projections that thump the sides of the intestines to aid digestion.

The Kijimunaa is a playful forest sprite inhabiting the tops of Okinawan banyan trees. Anatomical features include eye sockets equipped with ball bearings that enable the eyeballs to spin freely, strong teeth for devouring crabs and ripping out the eyeballs of fish (a favorite snack), a coat of fur made from tree fibers, and a nervous system adapted for carrying out pranks. The Kijimunaa's brain contains vivid memories of being captured by an octopus - the only thing it fears and hates.

A-Z Challenge.Theme Reveal

So, today is that day that I announce that I shall be taking part in the 2013 A-Z Challenge. If you haven't heard about this then head on over to here to have a little look at what its all about, and maybe sign up too! Its still not too late to join!

Mini Lobo of Some Dark Romanic is the brain behind todays 'big reveal', where people taking part in the challenge can let everyone know what theme they will be using for their posts. 
For my A-Z I shall be writing about Mythical Creatures. Beasts from folklore, myths, religions and traditions from all over the world. I want to concentrate on the lesser known creatures for this challenge, so you'll see no unicorns, fairies or trolls here Im afraid! I'm hoping that we'll learn some interesting and obscure things along the way and I hope that you're willing to join me on this alphabet adventure! I cant wait to get started on April 1st!

During the month of April, all my other posts will be put on hold with the exception of Flash Fiction Friday's, which will carry on as normal. I started writing these with the aim to write one small story every week and I feel like giving myself a month off would be cheating.

If anyone here is also doing the A-Z Challenge then please leave me a comment and I'll pop on over to take a look at your offerings :)

Oz The (not so) Great & Powerful.

After watching this trailer for the new Oz film I was beyond excited when I went to see it on my Birthday - it looked so exciting, colourful and completely rammed full of magic and adventure! However, it was not at all what I expected.

I went into the cinema with such high hopes and was fully ready to be blown away by the story and visuals to come, but when the movie started I found it to be painfully slow and badly acted. As the beginning of the movie is made to look like an old fashioned film I thought that perhaps the bad acting and slowness was also intentional - to further mirror the old films it was based on - so I remained positive that things would improve once we travelled to the wonderful land of Oz. However, again I was sadly disappointed.

Yes, some of the visuals in the movie are quite nice, but its nothing we haven't seen before. In fact, the landscape of Oz reminded me so much of Tim Burtons 'Alice In Wonderland' that it completely pulled me out of the film. Many of the scenes in 'Oz' are so obviously green/blue-screened that it makes the whole movie look cheap and laughable - the scene where Oz and Glinda are travelling inside bubbles is one very good example of this. I'm hoping that the effects look better on a smaller screen, but on the big cinema screen things just looked far too fake for me. I never truly felt like Oz was a real place in which these characters were adventuring and therefore, couldn't fully immerse myself in the story.

Sadly, the acting remained very wooden throughout the movie and I didn't really care about what happened to any of the characters, with the exception of the china doll (who really was the best part of the whole movie). The character of Oz himself was extremely sleazy and grating, and I certainly didn't grow to like him more as the story progressed, which I guess should have been the case.

I wanted so badly to like this movie, and it had so much wonderful potential, but unfortunately I just couldn't see past its many, many flaws. It seems that film-makers seem to have such trouble with converting fairy tales into films and I'm crossing my fingers so hard that the upcoming Jack The Giant Slayer movie is one that does it right! I'll keep you posted.

(These are my own views and opinions, please don't let them put you off going to see this movie. Who knows, you may absolutely love it and completely disagree with me. Let me know if/what you did like about it - I'd love to have my eyes opened to some good in it.)