A new robot boyfriend at long last! @heartofafae commissioned this wonderful story and I can’t wait for you all to read it.
You had recently gotten a job working at the infamous Hephaestus Academy. It was a dream career you had been hoping for. You were working in the therapy center, helping students and instructors alike. It was amazing, but then there was your coworker, Booker.
He was a cyborg. At one point he had been a normal man, but he had donated his body to science and research. All the remained human of him was his brain, or so he claimed. As far as you could tell there was nothing mortal about this guy anymore.
He was tall and heavy, his body is like black armor. He wears suits, but even under the clothes, you can see the flashing lights of his body underneath. His head has a smooth face where lights shine, showing off his expressions and emotions when he wants.
Ever since you started working at the academy, the two of you have had to work together. According to your supervisor, she wanted both a human and a robotic element in the therapy center. She wanted to make the students, especially the robot ones, feel more welcome and able to open up. With both of you, that was possible.
But Booker seemed not to want to work with you. He often went over your head or ignored your recommendations.
Weylin and Ailill, lovers and traveling companions to Cadell and Vorell.
Weylin is a young druid, taught both by the druid nation and the fae and Ailill is one of the beasts made by Avalbane, the very same sorceress that put the dark shard in Vorell’s breast. he has broken free of her control and is devoted entirely to Weylin.
Hey, a random hypothetical chapter from Tusk Love!
So I’m thinking of making the hypothetical Tusk Love comic a reality! It’ll be a Patreon set up, but I haven’t decided how the set up will be, but rest assured there won’t be a paywall, you’ll see the comic as soon as its up, it really is just a donation to keep me going.
As this is technically a really really grey area, I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to use the name Tusk Love, so there might be a time when I’ll be asked to stop or change the name and setting completely, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
So enjoy the newest random hypothetical chapter of Tusk Love, ya’ll! I’ll get to some actual fucking smut at some point.
The Shape of Water – Elisa x Amphibian Creature – A mute woman with a mysterious past encounters a peculiar creature trapped in her workplace. Turns out, not only is he a live experiment, but also the key to her heart.
Ex Machina – Caleb x Eva – The final steps of this AI’s development process requires a human subject to run a Turing test over the course of a series of sessions. Seems like just another day at the… uh… hidden testing facility?
Avatar – Jake x Neytiri – A man travels to a foreign world, intent on getting some thrills and scouring for precious resources, but finds love with a native female instead– WAAAAIT, this is just Pocahontas, isn’t it?
Shrek – no really, they had babies–
Hellboy series – Liz x Red – A supernatural creature with hellish abilities and a human woman (with powers of her own) navigate the seedy, paranormal world in which they live in while also navigating their feelings for one another.
Romantic Visual Media
Her – Man x Operating System – A philosophical exploration of how human lives entwine with technology. How far is too far? How weird is too weird? Does it even matter?
Megamind – Megamind x Roxanne – A blue-skinned alien with a bulbous head grows up inside a prison and is raised by inmates. Is it any wonder his evil-genius antics aren’t appreciated by his wise-cracking, ethically-sound, average-citizen love interest?
Marvel Universe – Vision x Scarlet Witch – Oh yeah, they’ve been a thing for a while. After they fall in with the Avengers, they also fall in love. Aww, who knew the daughter of Magneto and the son (?) of Ultron could make for a cute, Good-Side couple? They even have kids! (Don’t ask me how that works)
The Bee Movie – According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly–
Platonic or Familial Visual Media
A Monster in Paris – Frank “The Monster” / Main Leads & Town – A monster has been spotted stalking the streets of Paris, but will anyone stop to look past the frightening visage to see the gentle soul within? Also take a look at Lilo & Stitch.
The Cat Returns – Haru / The Baron – A girl thinks the life of a cat isn’t so bad, but what about being a cat’s bride??? Hi-jinks ensue as she tries to escape her fated wedlock and her newfound furry friends come to her rescue!
My Neighbor Totoro – Girls/ Forest Spirits – Another Ghibli movie! a sweet tale of two girls moving into town and encountering the supernatural around their rural home. A charming bond forms between the girls and the local forest spirits.
Robot and Frank – Titular Frank is an elderly man who is way past his prime and living alone, but when his son gets him a robot to help take care of him and the house, Frank thinks it might be time to team up with his new metal friend to get up to his old tricks – mainly, heists and robberies.
The Iron Giant – Hogarth/ Iron Giant – When a giant alien robot crashes on Earth, a human boy has to protect their odd (and possibly dangerous) friendship from his mom, the town, and the U.S. government.
Honorable Mentions
Warm Bodies – Julie x R – I only didn’t include this because, come on. A zombie is still pretty human. But you’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty fun spin on the classic zombie apocalypse setting when one half of your leading couple is one of the walking dead; see also: The Corpse Bride.
Beauty & The Beast – titular characters – Take your pick of which version. Only put this down here because the Beast usually turn into a human at the end. Same deal with Spirited Away.
Bicentennial Man – Similar to The Little Mermaid, titular character here slowly becomes more human on the outside to pursue romantic interests, and changes as a…. person (?) as the result.
Hey, does anyone here remember Ellora’s Cave? It was an online publisher of erotica geared towards women. Most of their books had a sci-fi or fantasy setting and featured all kinds of monsters, aliens and otherworldly beings. There were a couple of similar online publishers but I think Ellora’s Cave was the biggest.
Anyway, they went out of business. If you want to investigate why you can start here:
Back in the day I sometimes purchased books there and and the reason why I remembered them now was because Ellora’s Cave made it so easy to find something specific. They had search functions similar to what you can do on Ao3.
For example if you were looking for some BDSM three-way action involving an alien, a werewolf and human in outer space, you just checked the boxes (MMF, sci-fi, BDSM,…) and Ellora’s Cave delivered. Or it showed the next best thing. A little browsing to discover new kinks you might be into never hurt…
It was glorious. I just wish Amazon or Goodreads had a tagging system, that was just half as effective as the search function I remember from Ellora’s Cave.
The
Church of Armes of the Light has battled the forces of Darkness for
as long as anyone can remember. The great prophecy has foretold that
a band of misfits, led by a high priestess will defeat the Dark Lord
Darvezian, armed with their wits, the blessing of the Light and an
artifact stolen from the merciless Spider Queen.
Their
journey will be long, hard and fraught with danger. Allies will
become enemies; enemies will become allies. And the Dark Lord
will be waiting, always waiting…
Spiderlight
is an exhilarating fantasy quest from Adrian Tchaikovsky, the author
of Guns at Dawn and the Shadows of the Apt series.
This
book was a pleasant surprise. At first glance it’s a classic quest
novel about a small party (priestess, mage, warriors, thief) setting
out to defeat the eeeeeeeeevil Dark Lord.
It
becomes relevant to my (monster) interests when they force a giant
spider to join their party. To make him look less conspicuous the
resident mage attempts to give him a human shape. This goes slightly
wrong. The result is Nth, a man spider described as having a sinewy
physique, gray skin, slightly too long limbs, much too long fingers
and sporting 6 beady eyes as well as razor sharp fangs in a mouth
that, upon occasion, opens a bit too wide in an otherwise handsome face.
He’s also strong and tall. I’m in love.
The
poor spider monster fills his party members with intense disgust. Not
only do they not trust him despite having him placed under a spell
which compels him to obey everything they say, the human questers are
also having a hard time recognizing him as a person. My heart really
broke for Nth. He tried to adjust to an unwanted body complete with
its strange sensations and even stranger states of mind. He is forced
to betray his people, knows that he will never really belong anywhere
ever again and is even denied a free will.
But
slowly some of the party members start being compassionate towards
him and he in turn reaches out to them. A kind of camaraderie
develops between them and they start turning to each other for
comfort. Yes, I mean Nth and the female warrior Cyrene have (drunk)
sex. Moral implications ensue. Cyrene is genuinely worried that she
might have raped him because he’s still under the spell that makes
him obey everything the party members tell him to do. Luckily it
turns out Nth went into the situation willingly. This is quite
astonishing considering he later thanks Cyrene for not eating him
afterwards. He didn’t know that among humans this is not a common thing to do
after sex. 😅
So
Nth starts making friends, first the thief and then Cyrene. By the
end of the novel he has gained at least the respect of all the
questers (except the dead ones…) and is more or less made into a
hero and savior. Needless to say he doesn’t care about those
things. He also regains his free will and that is infinitely more
important to Nth.
The
end is happy enough because it suggests Nth and the two people who
genuinely care about him look forward to a quiet life where they can
escape all forced heroism and live unnoticed and therefore free.
I
have some minor criticisms but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this
book. The language is a bit overwrought but on the other hand this
goes very well with the dry humor the whole novel is infused with.
The POV of view changes quite frequently but it wasn’t confusing
despite all the characters’ voices sounding a little bit too much
alike.
The
book also deals with issues I didn’t expect in a novel about some
questers setting out to defeat the ultimate evil such as racism,
blind faith and bigotry, sexism, crimes committed under duress and
free will in general. Sometimes it’s a bit heavy handed but overall
the inclusion of those themes made the emotional struggle of the
characters very real.
Also have I mentioned that I love Nth? His
characterization is human enough to emphasize with him, yet as a being
of a different species also believably alien. The poor monster
spider boy just wants to be treated like a person.
More books with monsters as the love interest: HERE
Monsters and Villains 