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Cannibals

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cannibalDangerSign-Small-optYOU MAY BE DEALING WITH A CANNIBAL

DON’T:

1. Call him a big anthropofag. They hate that.

2. Offer her your cat food alien-bait. It’s like giving dishwater to a wine drinker. A cannibal may begin eating human flesh to avoid starvation, but continues to eat it because they actually love the taste of your human veal.

3. Whatever you do don’t just lounge there in the hot tub as the cannibals add sliced carrots and pepper…

DO:

1. Suck in your cheeks and stomach, try to look stringy and undelicious. Cannibals are actually quite picky and properly preparing human meat is a difficult task, so send not-worth-the-time signals.

2. Show her your medic alert jewelry. If you don’t have any medic alert jewelry yet, now is the time to invest. Think diffuse, blood-borne ailments like HIV and Hep C over isolated organ-specific ones – it does no good to spare your kidney if you’re not around to use it.

3. Take a shower immediately following strenuous activity. All that salt on your skin makes you smell like snack food.

4. FREAK OUT! With Cannibals you don’t have to hold back or be brave. In fact, it’s a proven survival strategy. Cannibals know that a protracted, adrenaline soaked, action movie-inspired chase and struggle will spoil the fine taste of your meat. So go ahead and FREAK OUT!

May 12, 2012: Recent evidence shows cannibals may have traded in their big iron pots and open fires for the food supplement business! Cannibal capsules were seized in Seoul, South Korea this week. Check out the news here. The good news here is that you may be able to temporarily calm a cannibal using Baby Aspirin.

Ghosts

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YOU MAY BE DEALING WITH A GHOST

First, the good news. Ghosts are not ALL malevolent, grudge-filled spirits of children who have suffered an untimely abuse-death.

The bad news? Some of them are.

Is your apparition one of those snarly spooks with a vengeful agenda? Or just a harmless haunter with some small unfinished business, like a half-eaten sandwich or a plant that needs watering?

Obviously you don’t need me to tell you how to know the difference. When your bathroom walls bleed and/or your closet growls at you, safe to say it’s a nasty ghosty – no further research required. Do NOT investigate! For the love of dog do NOT go down those stairs or up those stairs or through that door, into those trees or watch the DVD marked DO NOT WATCH. You get the picture.

Problem is, sending your spectral friend back into The Light, does require a bit of research. The key here is SAFE research:

1. If you’re already on speaking terms with your spook, try asking her very politely to spill her story. Then just listen helpfully. Never judge or minimize her eternal pain. Above all this means NOT trying to trump her tale of woe with a better one of your own, ie: no, “Oh that’s nothing, one time MY mom did this…” No matter how boring or convoluted her story gets.

2. If your ghost is less articulate, you will have to work a little harder. Start by researching your building, the builder, its former inhabitants, for example:

  • Google your address for any mysterious news reports.
  • Find the names of former inhabitants and search them.
  • Contact your city or town for info about the property developer.

Talk to your neighbors; it’s possible that your ghost been contacting others. If so don’t be offended. While arguably it makes you a little less special, it could save your life one day. When these neighbors start disappearing, you know it’s Plan B-gone time!

3. Once you have a rough understanding of his ghostly agenda, propose some possible ways you can help him achieve lasting peace. This could be through the proper burial of his remains, the feeding of his beloved dogs, the prosecution of his earthly abuser or just the ultimate destruction of civilization as we know it.

4. When nothing else seems to work, you could be dealing with a ghost who is not vengeful or helpful or busy or reluctant but one who is simply lost. Understand, post-mortem eyesight is far less sensitive to light – an excellent adaptation for those glowy heavenly environs but an impediment to actually finding one’s way there.

This explains why they sometimes get trapped in artificial light sources like TVs and DVDs, computers and photo flashes. To prevent these luminous mistakes, try wrapping all distracting artificial light sources in your home with red caution tape and leave the window open. If your ghost needs better directions than that, try drawing a map with arrows on the wall to clearly indicate the direction and distance to the nearest heavenly light source.

5. If you have one of those ghosts trapped in an old mirror or another shiny old object, you need to follow safe disposal protocol. Call before you dig! If you don’t know a good ghostbuster in your neighbourhood, do your research! Some things have to be incinerated while others call for a midnight burial in a symbolic location. You can’t just put that haunted mirror in the dumpster! 

If The Ghost is You…

First and foremost, don’t despair! Try thinking of yourself as not so much dead, but just corporeally challenged. Sure you may have trouble being seen and not heard, but think of all the perks. You can blink in and out of uncomfortable situations and even hunt down the person(s) who killed you and suck their souls into a secure container for all eternity.

Remember you can always practice incorporeality tricks like running cold water over your hands to re-manifest your old self. Just please, don’t douse yourself in sand or blood. I can’t stress this enough. Sure it’s dramatic, but there are better ways to wake up those phantom limbs. Practice in the mirror until you can manifest your body anywhere, without any external touch cues. Why do you think ghosts are always appearing in mirrors anyway?

One thing to be aware of however, there’s no such thing as a lazy ghost. Unfortunately, unlike vampires or immortals who can choose to loiter for all eternity, your ghosthood comes with a price, normally an important job or mission you will be forced to perform. You may be a banshee soul hunter or a reaper or just a generic grudge keeper but in any case, whatever you are, get ready for a busy and exciting afterlife!

 

 

Humans!!!

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DangerSign-Small-optYOU MAY BE DEALING WITH A HUMAN!!!Seth_twitter

Humans may actually be the most dangerous of all the creatures identified by the Monstrometer.

Humans are a complicated, complicated, COMPLICATED bunch. If you had a nickel for every expert opinion on how to deal with them, you would be so rich that you would never have to deal with them. That’s how complicated humans can be. Even the most benign, garden variety human can be very hazardous to your health and safety at times.

So given that humans are not even my area of expertise – and besides this is kind of a conflict of interest here given that I am a human – what can I add to this research?

Maybe just this one general principle. Never show fear. Because chances are the human is afraid of you too. More afraid than you are. Humans are a notoriously fearful bunch. It’s not entirely our fault. We live short little life spans. We suffer from fang, fur and flight envy, not to mention pitifully limited sensory perceptions. As a result, most humans are painfully aware of their impending death and destruction and this fear is always just under the surface waiting to catch fire. So whatever else you do – and unfortunately I can’t tell you whatever else – but whatever else you do, don’t feed the fear fire. Never show fear.

************************************** IF THE HUMAN IS YOU! *****************************************

Just keep on keeping on!

Kitsune

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Kitsune are a type of werefox that originated in Japan. They have both human, fox and hybrid forms. Unlike werewolves their transformations appear to be unconnected to the lunar cycle. A common feature of Kitsune is multiple fox tails, the strongest of kitsune typically nine tails. Several theories exist about how kitsune get their tails, one of which is that they get a tail for every 110 years old they are up to 880 when they get their 9th tail.

If you cut off one of a kitsune’s tails it reduces their power but it also makes them really really angry… at you… not really a good thing so I suggest avoiding that. (Thanks to Survivor Mr. Mutt for that great survival tip)

One thing that makes kitsune very different from werewolves is that while werewolves are humans who turn into wolves, kitsune are foxes that turn in to humans.

According to kitsunologists on this site including The One, the key to identifying a kitsune in human form is understanding that while kitsune can change into almost any human form, they usually always have some detail wrong. Kitsune with nine tails have the least details wrong. So look for the following telltale signs:

  • pointed ears
  • a tail
  • fox like eyes
  • flame red hair.

“Be cautious with kitsune as some are known to posses people and burn down villages,” cautions The One, adding that kitsune can only be killed by blessed bullets, the breaking of their star ball, or the sin of regret. “Which basically means that they can never regret….. ANYTHING.”

So how often do they change and why and how? If you have any additional intel please add it to the database below.

Thanks for keeping on,

Seth

The following glossary of Kitsune terms provided by Survivor Silver. (<— Thank You)

Bakemono-Kitsune – a name for a sorcerer or evil fox usually as a Reiko, Kiko or Koryo i.e. some sort of non-physical fox

Genko– black fox, usually seen as a good omen

Kiko – spirit fox, see Reiko

Kitsune – fox, a general term for a fox regardless of the circumstance normally used for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ foxes alike

Koryo – haunting fox, see Reiko

Kuko – air fox, very bad kitsune, considered on the same level as Tengu (Japanese goblins)

Nogitsune – wild fox, used at one time to differ between good and bad foxes. At the time they used ‘kitsune’ to mean a good fox/messenger from Inari and nogitsune as all foxes who did mischief and tricked people. Not really considered evil, more like prankish.

Reiko – ghost fox, perhaps not on the ‘evil’ side but definitely a ‘bad’ fox.

Shakko – red fox, could be considered good or €vil, the same as Kitsune really

Tenko – celestial fox, kitsune which have reached the age of 1,000 years, they are usually said to have 9 tails (and sometimes are said to have golden fur) but they are either considered very €vil such as Tamamo-no-mae or benevolent and wise such as messengers to Inari

Yako/Yakan – fox, see Kitsune

Lutin

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A Lutin pretending to be a statue.

Lutin are a kind of house spirit originating from and being most common in France although with French colonial expansion Lutin have spread around the world notably to Quebec, Louisiana and south-east Asia. Many survivologists question Lutin being given their own separate designation from similar and possibly related species like Brownies, Imps, Hobgoblins Kobolds and Leprechauns. I however fall into the other camp that believe that Lutin deserve their own designation. To lump Lutin and Leprechauns into one list is to limit one’s likelihood of living through a link up with these little louses. Lutin may also be referred to as Nain Rouge (French for Red Dwarf) based on their favourite attire.

There are both benevolent and malevolent Lutin and in addition to looking like little people Lutin may also sometimes take the form of small animals like cats.

Characteristics of Lutin:

  1. Like to hang out in gardens
  2. Often appear in travel/vacation photos
  3. Rumoured to dislike salt.
  4. May be able to turn invisible

If you actually are a Lutin then you have good potential for getting a job representing a travel website but probably not as a French Fry cook.

Mummies

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Breaking Mummy News: Mummy Resurrection Alert

More Breaking Mummy News: Secret Society Tries to Trap Mummy Missing From Great Pyramid

Both mysterious and deadly, the mummy is often categorized as a zombie with a heart and who can argue with that? Mummies are after all, a kind of a reanimated human who shambles after you, trailing dirty rags and strings of goo.

But there’s one vitally important – or should I say mortally important – difference between mummies and zombies. Mummies as you probably know, were not created by a biological process but a mystical one. In fact, while websites and museums, movies and games all compete to describe the process of mummification: the washing, the removing of all vital organs except for the heart, the long process of wrapping and desiccation – none of them will tell you what you most need to know about mummies. Namely how to survive an encounter with one. Or worse, what to do if you wake up and you ARE one!

While I have yet to encounter one outside of a museum setting but it’s something I think about a lot lately. Ever since Sam told me some crazy story about mummies… something about the Egyptian goddess Isis who invented mummification to reanimate her murdered husband Osiris, who came back to life eternally pissed-off at his brother whose name apparently was, ah, Seth….!

Needless to say, I’m working on this one. And if your name happens to be Seth too, then I would urge you to vote for adding mummies to the Monstrometer. And if you are a mummy? er, IT WASN’T ME!