Various Updates and Help? (Patreon)

Hey hey~ ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶I miss you all. Apropos of nothing really, does anyone else watch Black Mirror? Ages ago (2017) I watched the one I think was called "Black Museum" where one of the character's consciousness is uploaded into a monkey doll and it can say: "Monkey Needs a Hug!". So, the day after I saw that episode, I went to my friend's house and her little daughter was playing with a monkey stuffed animal that looked just like the one on the show. So I asked and took the above photo and then added the text later.

Aaaaand, just somehow randomly the photo appeared in my gallery and I was like, Hello! Yes, yes, that's me! I am that monkey.

🐒<-- needs hug.

Things are still in a tizzy here, but I might have found a place to live. My mother-in-law (poor little lamb) is in an aging care facility and no one has been living in her house for many years. I met with my ex and brother-in-law and they said they'd not only be cool with my living there, they'd appreciate it immensely as she was a quite the hoarder and they want to just throw everything into a truck and haul to the dump and I'm like, No, wait! I'm sure there are things that have enormous sentimental value and, well, just value. They're like, naw, we want to dump it all, but if you find anything you want dōzo! Also, I would really like to give that house some love. The garden is overgrown, everything is just...in bad shape. They plan on selling it and splitting the money as soon as she passes away. So who know how long I can live there or get done. But life is nothing if not an adventure, right? (^◇^;)

God. Really, it's just the crows, man. I am going to miss these crows immensely. If the house were closer and I could wave at them and have them follow me...life would nice again. And the sunrises and sunsets. I'll miss those too. They STILL haven't started building behind me yet.

Anyway, there are issues: they told me there are literally no rooms that aren't piled high with crap, and laughed when I asked if I could live there. I guess I need to go look at it first. They gave me a key, so baby steps.

Next!

About the Dark Tales from Japan book I'm working on. I haven't handed in my final table of contents to the publisher yet, but I wanted to share it with you all AND see if anyone had any ideas of stories or creatures that I might have entirely overlooked and would fit perfectly here.

The catch is they want all new (read: obscure) yōkai and ghosts. So nothing that appears in the Book of Folklore OR the oracle cards.

I did manage to fight for Wanyūdō (Soul Takers) and Jikininki (The Corpse Eater) and get them included. They both are in the oracle deck, but their stories are really good and I want to retell them. Editor was fine with that. Plus it leans heavily female (because of all the ghosts) and I want it to be more of a balance between male, female, creature/thing.

Not sure if you can read my, um, thoughts below. The middle two pages are what I'm gravitating towards. (list below photo)

In no particular order:

Tōdaiki

Te-no-me

Enma Daiō

Wanyūdō

Sanshi

Oiwa

Shuten Dōji

Iso Onna

Kiyohime

Ryōmen Sukuna

Korori

Kishibōjin

Jikininki

Satori

Tsuchigumo

Tsurube Otoshi

Okiku

Otsuyu

Datsueba

Gaki

Sukima Onna

Katsura Otoko

Ame Onna

Kasana-san

Ubume

Kuchisake Onna

Oiran Buchi

Kudan

Momiji Gari

Gasha Dokuro

Hyōsube

That's actually too many. Thirty one. One has to go.

But if you have any other ideas, shout out! I can still nix some and add others! You can comment or message me. Either way is awesome. I had actually forgotten about Gasha Dokuro (giant skeleton) but saw some people online are very passionate about him. I did some reading and came up with a great idea for a story for this enormous boney monster. Can't wait to write it. Okay, sending monkey hugs to everyone, XOXO,

I'll record a story or something this week to put up here.

terrie