The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas Holidays: Insatiable by Jennifer Weigel
In 2020, Haunted MTL brought you the 13 Days of Krampus. Now we offer another exclusive series of holiday horror stories: The Twelve Nightmares of the Holidays. Here’s our very own Jennifer Weigel kicking it off with Insatiable.
He was a jolly old soul with an all-consuming appetite for winter festivities and seasonal accoutrements. Well, at least those focused on one particular holiday at any rate. The other celebrations of the season sort of shrank into baffled silence in the background, whispering murmured concerns amongst one another while shaking their heads. Trying not to draw attention over the spectacle and to hush… Hush…. HUSH!
Every year, the festivities grew. It was innocuous at first. The celebration just crept into the previous occasions, edging its way over a month ahead into traditions under the premise of spreading more joy while the family was together. Everyone seemed so grateful to gather but really needed more to do, so why not start decking the halls and go shopping? It seemed like a good enough bonding activity, and all of the sales and consumerism were supposed to keep the economy going stronger and bigger, so best go ahead and buy… Buy… BUY!
But as time passed, even that just wasn’t enough. There were simply too few fruitcakes and carolers and peppermint scented candles, too little mulled apple cider and eggnog and evergreen flourishes… There was just not enough time to watch all the movies and hear all the music and taste ALL the cookies… The white powder shimmer snow needed to glisten for longer in all of its faux finery, like magic dust to call forth the beauty and majesty of the coming season, yet to be unleashed upon the eagerly anticipatory crowds. The houses needed to be brighter; their blinking lights signaling to all that they were a part of the larger outpouring of joy… Joy… JOY!
But there was still so much room for growth; there just had to be more. So as his appetite grew larger, the jolly old soul loosened his belt buckle another notch and began to eye the next holiday over yet again, although that occasion was all about spookiness and the unexpected, considering death and decay and dread. But surely there was plenty of space for more baubles and bling and yard ornamentation… Oh sure, everything started out a little spookier, but then the overlap began to really take hold and slowly the change began. Stores morphed the two occasions together into all sorts of shopping opportunities and pumpkin spice became king. Even the eerie began to consider the solace and beauty of the coming winter season, the calm and solitude it brings. Because we all know that skeletons need peace… Peace… PEACE!
Yet, even that was not enough, and the jolly old soul began to edge his way earlier and earlier into the year. July seemed like a reachable goal, for we all know that those who like to craft things need an early enough start to get all their projects in order. Especially if they are making gifts for their parents and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces and cousins and second cousins and friends and coworkers and mailmen and garbage collectors and kids teachers and bank tellers and acquaintances and so on… And for those who don’t make things, shopping was becoming an even larger and more pressing need, starting earlier and earlier to be sure that all could disperse as many presents of trinkets or baked goods or money as possible, to shower upon all of those aforementioned, in order to show their goodwill… Goodwill… GOODWILL!
And now the jolly old soul’s minions are everywhere, making sure that everything is running smoothly. Keeping watch over all, whether they are being particularly nice or naughty at any given time, whether they remember to leave out extra milk and cookies, to deck the halls, to trim the trees… Earlier and earlier they come, bells jingling, reindeer hooves click-clacking over the rooftops… With rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, smiling wider and wider… Bearing mistletoe and poinsettias and gingerbread houses and cinnamon spiced nuts and visions of sugarplums and hot cocoa with marshmallows and Charles Dickens and chestnuts roasting over open fires and brightly colored ribbon tied up in bows and paper-wrapped packages and huge feasts with all the trimmings and music and blinking lights and shiny round baubles and plastic icicles and glitter and sparkle and merriment and more… More… MORE!
You’ve almost made it to the end of the finger spiders here at Haunted MTL! Because I made A LOT of unfulfilled requests for a spider out of fingers, I will continue this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva through the month of September… In case you missed out, here are the other parts of this series:
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: hand that is a spider; spider legs as fingers; fingers becoming spider; spider all fingers.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Keep Trying! Yeah, I’m sure you don’t remember being bitten. Because of the ways they warp time and space, and the natural chemical reactions involved, the AI art generated finger spiders’ bite isn’t typically felt. They are still attached to you, feeding… You have to get them off… Keep trying!
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: spider leg fingers; spider made out of hand fingers; hand spider picking banjo; fingers as spider playing banjo.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders That’s All Folks! Well, I guess that’s that then. It’s been nice knowing you. Enjoy your new form. Nothing left for it but to play the banjo…
All of the AI art images used in this series were generated on Thursday, June 13, 2024. If you want to see more freaky spiderness in art here on Haunted MTL, check out Bitten and Soul Catcher. More AI art graphic narratives from Jennifer Weigel have explored Little Red Riding Hood and Into the Deep Woods. Oh, and the Tiny Brain Computers exploration. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
We just can’t get enough of spiders here on Nightmarish Nature… so here are some more creepy spider facts for you to consider, outside of the giants, eating and mating habits, and wasp predation as previously mentioned in this series. Plus the finger spiders have taken over the whole of the month of September, so strap in because they’re here too – no goofy drawings this month just more terror unleashed in the form of AI art, courtesy of NightCafe.
Spiders Are Baby Mama Machines!
Spiders can lay hundreds and thousands of eggs in their egg sacs at a time. And when they hatch, all those tiny baby spiders can balloon, flying to new homes on airborne strands of silk as if raining from the sky… So if you suffer from trypophobia and are weirded out by large quantities of clustered small and tiny objects (especially when they are alive and moving) you may want to steer clear of these little bug bombs.
Spiders Are Athletic Archdukes!
Jumping spiders can leap as far as 40 times their body length. And wolf spiders can run up to 2 feet per second. In movement, spiders have four feet on the ground and four in the air at all times. And they have six knees on each leg for a total of 48 knees – that’s a lot of potential kneecapping, I’d try to take them down a different way if I were you…
Other Interesting Factoids
Spiders are on every continent except Antarctica and there are over 40,000 identified species of them. All spiders produce silk for all that they don’t all make webs, since some prefer to live on the move or ambush from hidey holes. There is a known species of herbivorous spider, the Bagheera Kiplingi, but most are carnivorous or omnivorous. And the longest lived spiders can survive for 40+ years.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
Wow, you’re still with us… So, taking it from Part 1 and Part 2 of this saga, we’re still knuckle deep in finger spiders here at Haunted MTL! Because I made A LOT of unfulfilled requests for a spider out of fingers, I will continue this snarky little AI art series with NightCafe and Canva through the month of September…
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: fingers spider; fingers as spider; fingers as spider legs no hand; spider out of fingers.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders What You Get! This is all on you… You let the terrifying AI art generated finger spiders in the house and then let them crawl on you. When you turn into a spider, that’s all your own doing. Leave me out of it.
Images: Overall design aesthetic of fashion / design advertising spread in muted tones with four AI art rendered images of spiders, built spiders, and spiders on hands, with any given number of legs on spiders and fingers on hands as you’d expect from AI interfacing at this time. Prompts used from top left to lower right include: spider hand; fingers as spider legs; spider hand fingers; spider as fingers.
Text reads: Creepy Crawlies Finger Spiders Look I’m Sorry! I wish I could help. I really really do. Keep scrubbing at it even if your flesh falls off. It’s really your only hope now. You’ve been bitten and there’s not much to do for it now.
All of the AI art images used in this series were generated on Thursday, June 13, 2024. If you want to see more freaky spiderness in art here on Haunted MTL, check out Bitten and Soul Catcher. More AI art graphic narratives from Jennifer Weigel have explored Little Red Riding Hood and Into the Deep Woods. Oh, and the Tiny Brain Computers exploration. To see more such devolutions into AI generated art, check out the Will the Real Jennifer Weigel Please Stand Up? blog.
