My name is Ted Neatherwood and I live in a darker world. The strange, the unseen, and the bizarre are everywhere here and weigh heavily on my mind. Join me and my. . . Dark thoughts.
Not Like The Other Boys
The Southern United States is a unique place. It’s being dragged into the 21st Century kicking and screaming with a population rooted in the old ways. It’s not hard to see why. There are places here where a thin line separates civilization from the unknown and it’s often the width of a barbed-wire fence. Stories from the first peoples still echo down the centuries and people avoid some places because they’ve always been avoided. Occasionally a person will see the reason why. The South has its own Bigfoot. We call him the Skunk Ape.
What’s in a Name
The name alone says something about the type of encounters we have. In the Pacific Northwest, Bigfoot is known for leaving mysterious footprints in the soft soil and vanishing without a trace. Here, he gets so close you can smell him. It’s not a pleasant smell. Something like rotting garbage. He’s also more violent than his northern cousin. Campsites destroyed, animals torn apart, and sometimes even the campers themselves grabbed and slung around like a rag doll. When you meet a Skunk Ape, you know it.
While the idea of physical attack is terrifying, it’s not typical. What is typical is the taunting.
Bully of the Woods
Imagine for a moment you’re in the woods, not far from a stream. It’s night. You’ve been out checking your trail cameras. You’ve been finding animal parts but no sign of the culprit. You hear the crickets and the normal sounds of the night. Between one step and the next, all falls silent. That’s when the first pebble hits you. It bounces off the side of your head. You look around in confusion. The second hits you, again, the side of your head. Maybe some of the local kids are out having a laugh.
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“Who’s out there?” you shout angrily.
Then the rocks start coming from all sides. Some larger than pebbles. All coming for your head and chest. You cover your head and duck down trying to protect yourself.
“STOP IT!”
The rocks stop. Then you hear a loud chirping whistle. Something positively inhuman. Then the sound of something, SEVERAL somethings, in fact, moving through the woods. Large somethings moving slowly and deliberately back into the unknown blackness of untouched nature. You know it wasn’t the kids from town. No one else does though. And no one’s going to believe you.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Over the river and through the wood flashed the fleet-footed Red Riding Hood on her way to her “grandmother’s” house.
When running past, who should she see but just one of the little pigs three cowering like but a tiny mouse.
“But my dear piggy, what do you fear?” Red Riding Hood asked as she slunk near, teeth hidden under a sheepish smile.
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The nervous small pig looked up in fright and decided that Red was alright, missing the subtle clues by a mile.
“The Big Bad Wolf, that horrible beast upon the other wee pigs did feast!” the last little pig said with a squeal.
Red Riding Hood laughed with a great growl and threw back her heavy long-robed cowl, in a vast terrifying reveal.
For she was really the wolf Big Bad hidden beneath the cape that he had stolen from Red Riding Hood at point.
“And now I’ve caught you too my pretty and surely t’wouldn’t be a pity if I gobbled you up in this joint.”
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T’was then the wee pig leapt to his feet And cried, “Big Bad Wolf, I shall defeat, for I am no ordinary swine!”
The little pig also wore sheep’s clothes spun in spells every woodland witch knows; Old Granny herself was quite divine.
“Now give me back my granddaughter’s cape, before I grab you by your ruffed nape and send you pig-squealing down the road…”
The wolf dropped the cape and ran, that cur, but Granny was swifter and hexed his fur and the wolf she turned into a toad.
Thus the moral of this story goes, when in the woods, no one really knows what sheepish sheep’s clothing is a ruse that big bad wolves and old witches use.
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So this is actually an intro to my next AI art journey with NightCafe which developed from me not getting the results I wanted (Little Red Riding Hood herself as a wolf). Here’s a preview with Eric’s versions as he is much more literal in his prompting than I am, but where’s the fun in that? 😉
Prompts (from left to right) in Dark Fantasy style, executed Aug. 1, 2023:
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak close up portrait
Bipedal wolf in red cloak close up portrait
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.