This is the kickoff to a new series exploring nature that is kind of horrifying, at least in ways. Our first subject is Vampires Among Us. There are lots of animals named for vampires, sometimes due to folklore and sometimes for their appearance (like the Vampire Squid), but most of these animals don’t have blood sucking tendencies.
Bats & Birds
There are legit vampire leaf-nosed bats in Central and South America that drink blood. They feed on mammals and are often shown to feed on livestock. They’d be kinda cute if they weren’t so creepy. There are also vampiric birds: some finches in the Galapagos have developed the taste for blood of other birds, mainly seabirds that flock to the islands to raise their young.
Vampire Bats
Leeches & Lampreys & More
And then you get into leeches and lampreys and other denizens of the water that are known to attach themselves to larger creatures and drink their blood. Leeches were even believed to have medicinal value (and still are in certain circumstances). And there are also numerous plants that are known to be parasitic and feed on other plants, wrapping their roots or vines around others to steal nutrients.
Lamprey Teeth
Spiders
Now I’m going to drift off into the realm where this becomes truly horrific. Spiders. Now, spiders aren’t vampires per se, seeing as how they actually kill their prey – they don’t just feed off of it while it remains living and wanders about its business. But because of their structure, they cannot eat solid foods, so they have to inject their prey with enzymes to liquefy it so they can slurp it out like a protein shake. That’s sort of vampirism on steroids if you ask me, just the kind that no one is coming back from.
Spider Eating
Bloodsucking Bugs
But let’s get back on topic. Now let’s consider mites and ticks and fleas and mosquitoes and the like. Some drink blood for their survival; others do so as part of their reproductive cycle (like mosquitoes which otherwise eat fruit and nectar but need the extra protein from blood to grow their eggs).
Ticks need to feed on blood once at every stage of their life cycle and can pick up diseases along the way (like Lyme Disease) but don’t always do so. Different ticks are more likely to come in contact with different things and often humans are not their preferred meal but they are opportunistic and will feed on whatever is available when necessary. Symptoms of illness from tick bites may take years to develop and can have really weird side effects (like the allergy associated with Lone Star Ticks which makes a person unable to consume mammalian flesh).
Spider
Jennifer Weigel is a multi-disciplinary mixed media conceptual artist residing in Kansas USA. Weigel utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas, including assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video and writing. You can find more of her work at:
https://www.jenniferweigelart.com/
https://www.jenniferweigelprojects.com/
https://jenniferweigelwords.wordpress.com/
So here is our last installment of our AI journey exploring the idea of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad wolf being one and the same. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva. Feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this exploration if you missed them.
Dark Fantasy style, Aug. 1, 2023
A non sequitur I know, but I couldn’t resist. If you picked up where we left off you’ll get it.
Dark Fantasy, Aug. 1, 2023
Seriously?! Again with the cropped off head cop out…
Artistic Portrait, Aug. 1, 2023
Finally! That was a journey. And not even worth the result, in my opinion.
Anyway, here is a bonus montage I made out of a bunch of additional Red Riding Hood prompts for an article that never happened…
AI art generated Nov. 4, 2023
Prompts for Montage:
1.) What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf were one and the same being? 2.) Her wolf face peering out of her red cloak, fangs dripping with the blood of another victim, lost in the forest and never found. 3.) Little Red Riding Hood closes in for the kill, lunging from her red cloak, her wolf fangs dripping with blood. 4.) I am Little Red Riding Hood. I am the Big Bad Wolf. I am coming for you. 5.) Howling within, the rage sears forth from the red cloak, discarded in the deep woods. Red Riding Hood succumbs to the lycanthropy. 6.) Heaving breaths. Dripping blood. Red Riding Hood is not what she appears. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 7.) Her red cloak masks the fangs hidden below the surface. 8.) It starts with a long sighing breath. Waiting. The wolf within stirs. 9.) Red Riding Hood trembles. She succumbs to the lycanthropy. 10.) The wolf bursts forth from within. It takes over Little Red Riding Hood’s mind, her body, her being. 11.) Red Riding Hood howls. She is ravenous with hunger for blood. The wolf within has taken over. Mind, spirit, body. She feasts on the blood of the moon. 12.) Big Bad Wolf Red Riding Hood ravenous blood moon feast 13.) Blood moon beckons. I. Little Red Big Bad Riding Hood Wolf. Freedom howling night curse. 14.) Beware. Bewolf. BeRedRidingHood. Betwixt. Beyond. 15.) I pad quietly as the forest dissolves around me. Red Riding Hood and Wolf, one and the same. 16.) Wolf within howling dark recesses of the mind, Red Riding Hood lost 17.) Red Riding Hood HOWL wolf bane true existence polymorph within-and-without. 18.) Red howl Riding Wolf dark existence brooding within
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.
Sinister style, Aug. 1, 2023
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Anime V2 style, Aug. 1, 2023
Ugh. Maybe not.
Sinister style, Aug. 1, 2023
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.
Artistic Portrait style, Aug. 1, 2023
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.
Sinister style, July 29, 2023
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…