Monster design pet peeves

[SporgyTheMenace]

One thing that annoys me when it comes to monster designs is when it comes to friendly monsters and hostile monsters, often times the friendly monster looks huggable and soft like a giant push toy, while the hostile monsters look more jagged and edgy than a punk rock concert. Now I get its the symbolism or metaphor thing blah blah blah, but I'm a guy that likes a little more realism. For example, crocodiles are scary to look at, but as long you don't display yourself as a threat, they're pretty chill. Meanwhile dolphins would kill and torture baby porpoises for fun, which leads to my second pet peeve.

Why are most monsters I see either very passive that they're basically sitting ducks or extremely hostile that it's like they are infected with rabies? Come on people, a normal dog wouldn't jump out of nowhere and constantly want to bite your balls off... most of the time.

This is probably why I like the dragons in How to Train Your Dragon.

[EmsDeLaRoZ]

Something that annoys me is when the designs are meant to be "natural", let me explain.

If a monster is designed to look like it could belong to real life, or at least, to an environment with similar characteristics of earth, I don't like when it's designed from nonsense, like it floats without wings, feeds from the void of the space or similar things without context. To me, feels like the monster is scary just to be scary, and doesn't justify why it does the things it does.

In real life, every animal (humans included) does things by following their instinct, and I've never seen none of them thinking of destroying every liveform in universe or something.

Monsters with a conscience might be a different case, but almost same thinking. I like to be scared for things that could actually happen in my reality

[Artcompany]

When the monsters are sexually dimorphic in ways that don't make sense. Why do the male dragons look normal but the female ones are bright pink with big long eyelashes and hearts everywhere? At least try to make it look like how real animals are sexually dimorphic instead of adding gender roles to literal animals. It looks so stupid and I don't understand why people keep doing it.

This one is more about intelligent monster races but it needs to be said. I despise it when the male monsters look cool and scary and the females just look like hot human women but green. It's so lazy and sexist.

[Skoops]

Most of what I dislike has to do with designs in a particular context rather than the design in a vacuum. What works for one story/world may not work for another, and a lot of times it's just a matter of things being mismatched.

One thing that I don't love are alien monsters that are clearly just mammals/lizards/insects, etc. Like if you have a fuzzy quadruped with mammalian muscle and bone structures, that's just a dog.

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/5/23 05:15 PM, Artcompany wrote: When the monsters are sexually dimorphic in ways that don't make sense. Why do the male dragons look normal but the female ones are bright pink with big long eyelashes and hearts everywhere? At least try to make it look like how real animals are sexually dimorphic instead of adding gender roles to literal animals. It looks so stupid and I don't understand why people keep doing it.

This one is more about intelligent monster races but it needs to be said. I despise it when the male monsters look cool and scary and the females just look like hot human women but green. It's so lazy and sexist.

Ah yes, that good classic fantasy monster trope, the biggest thing that bugs me about it is why do the female monsters in the species have breasts? Because what makes humans so special is because our women have permanent breasts. It gets especially confusing when it's reptilian-like or bird-like species.

[kmau]

At 12/5/23 02:09 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote: Why are most monsters I see either very passive that they're basically sitting ducks or extremely hostile that it's like they are infected with rabies?

Some writers just want a plot device instead of a proper animal, so they make monsters that attack everything on sight without a sense of self-preservation, like in a videogame.

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/5/23 04:13 PM, EmsDeLaRoZ wrote: Something that annoys me is when the designs are meant to be "natural", let me explain.

If a monster is designed to look like it could belong to real life, or at least, to an environment with similar characteristics of earth, I don't like when it's designed from nonsense, like it floats without wings, feeds from the void of the space or similar things without context. To me, feels like the monster is scary just to be scary, and doesn't justify why it does the things it does.

In real life, every animal (humans included) does things by following their instinct, and I've never seen none of them thinking of destroying every liveform in universe or something.

Monsters with a conscience might be a different case, but almost same thinking. I like to be scared for things that could actually happen in my reality

This is what incapsulates every single dinosaur in the mainstream, please... stop making them overly blood thirsty naked monsters

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/5/23 05:50 PM, Skoops wrote: Most of what I dislike has to do with designs in a particular context rather than the design in a vacuum. What works for one story/world may not work for another, and a lot of times it's just a matter of things being mismatched.

One thing that I don't love are alien monsters that are clearly just mammals/lizards/insects, etc. Like if you have a fuzzy quadruped with mammalian muscle and bone structures, that's just a dog.

I think you would enjoy All Tomorrows aliens or Lovecraft aliens, as they look completely out of this world(pun intended)

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/5/23 06:07 PM, kmau wrote:

At 12/5/23 02:09 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote: Why are most monsters I see either very passive that they're basically sitting ducks or extremely hostile that it's like they are infected with rabies?

Some writers just want a plot device instead of a proper animal, so they make monsters that attack everything on sight without a sense of self-preservation, like in a videogame.

So it’s a "only works best in video games or tabletop RPG, but not well in stories with a lot of world building or believability" scenario.

[kmau]

At 12/5/23 06:14 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 06:07 PM, kmau wrote:

At 12/5/23 02:09 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote: Why are most monsters I see either very passive that they're basically sitting ducks or extremely hostile that it's like they are infected with rabies?

Some writers just want a plot device instead of a proper animal, so they make monsters that attack everything on sight without a sense of self-preservation, like in a videogame.

So it’s a "only works best in video games or tabletop RPG, but not well in stories with a lot of world building or believability" scenario.

I wouldn't go that far, mindless monsters are used in all sorts of media to avoid having to worry about the moral implications of protagonists killing sentient beings or wildlife. Wether they function well or not still depends on worldbuilding and execution, not the medium of storytelling.

[Skoops]

At 12/5/23 06:12 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 05:50 PM, Skoops wrote: Most of what I dislike has to do with designs in a particular context rather than the design in a vacuum. What works for one story/world may not work for another, and a lot of times it's just a matter of things being mismatched.

One thing that I don't love are alien monsters that are clearly just mammals/lizards/insects, etc. Like if you have a fuzzy quadruped with mammalian muscle and bone structures, that's just a dog.

I think you would enjoy All Tomorrows aliens or Lovecraft aliens, as they look completely out of this world(pun intended)

Eldritch horror is everywhere; you couldn't go through the 2010s without tripping over a Cthulhu or two, but I suppose it's because the designs work.

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/5/23 08:11 PM, Skoops wrote:

At 12/5/23 06:12 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 05:50 PM, Skoops wrote: Most of what I dislike has to do with designs in a particular context rather than the design in a vacuum. What works for one story/world may not work for another, and a lot of times it's just a matter of things being mismatched.

One thing that I don't love are alien monsters that are clearly just mammals/lizards/insects, etc. Like if you have a fuzzy quadruped with mammalian muscle and bone structures, that's just a dog.

I think you would enjoy All Tomorrows aliens or Lovecraft aliens, as they look completely out of this world(pun intended)

Eldritch horror is everywhere; you couldn't go through the 2010s without tripping over a Cthulhu or two, but I suppose it's because the designs work.

Cthulhu is overrated and there are creatures that have far more interesting designs, such as the Venusians from In the Walls of Eryx. A species of 7-foot-tall vaguely human bipedal pseudo-reptiles, although they look like reptiles, they have features that separates them from being true reptiles. This is an example of convergent evolution in fiction.

Or my personal favorite, the Mi-Go from The Whisperer in Darkness. An advanced species of space-flying crustacean-like, despite appearing as crustaceans. Their biology and physiology are more akin to fungi or plants, in addition to their bizzare biology is that their atoms vibrate differently from our understanding.

Another are the Old Ones from At the Mountains of Madness. another advanced species that a barrel-like body with a starfish-like head and five tentacles located at the base of their body for water and land lolocomotion. Possessing retractable tentacles for tool usage and two membronance wings for flying and swimming.

But the most bizzare Lovcraft alien is the titular Colour Out of Space, a mysterious species or anomaly existing as an indescribable color and can mutate and drain the life of organisms.

[Artcompany]

At 12/5/23 06:06 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 05:15 PM, Artcompany wrote: When the monsters are sexually dimorphic in ways that don't make sense. Why do the male dragons look normal but the female ones are bright pink with big long eyelashes and hearts everywhere? At least try to make it look like how real animals are sexually dimorphic instead of adding gender roles to literal animals. It looks so stupid and I don't understand why people keep doing it.

This one is more about intelligent monster races but it needs to be said. I despise it when the male monsters look cool and scary and the females just look like hot human women but green. It's so lazy and sexist.

Ah yes, that good classic fantasy monster trope, the biggest thing that bugs me about it is why do the female monsters in the species have breasts? Because what makes humans so special is because our women have permanent breasts. It gets especially confusing when it's reptilian-like or bird-like species.

Omg non mammals having breasts pisses me so much it's unreal

[Skoops]

At 12/5/23 11:05 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 08:11 PM, Skoops wrote:

At 12/5/23 06:12 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 05:50 PM, Skoops wrote: Most of what I dislike has to do with designs in a particular context rather than the design in a vacuum. What works for one story/world may not work for another, and a lot of times it's just a matter of things being mismatched.

One thing that I don't love are alien monsters that are clearly just mammals/lizards/insects, etc. Like if you have a fuzzy quadruped with mammalian muscle and bone structures, that's just a dog.

I think you would enjoy All Tomorrows aliens or Lovecraft aliens, as they look completely out of this world(pun intended)

Eldritch horror is everywhere; you couldn't go through the 2010s without tripping over a Cthulhu or two, but I suppose it's because the designs work.

Cthulhu is overrated and there are creatures that have far more interesting designs, such as the Venusians from In the Walls of Eryx. A species of 7-foot-tall vaguely human bipedal pseudo-reptiles, although they look like reptiles, they have features that separates them from being true reptiles. This is an example of convergent evolution in fiction.

Or my personal favorite, the Mi-Go from The Whisperer in Darkness. An advanced species of space-flying crustacean-like, despite appearing as crustaceans. Their biology and physiology are more akin to fungi or plants, in addition to their bizzare biology is that their atoms vibrate differently from our understanding.

Another are the Old Ones from At the Mountains of Madness. another advanced species that a barrel-like body with a starfish-like head and five tentacles located at the base of their body for water and land lolocomotion. Possessing retractable tentacles for tool usage and two membronance wings for flying and swimming.

But the most bizzare Lovcraft alien is the titular Colour Out of Space, a mysterious species or anomaly existing as an indescribable color and can mutate and drain the life of organisms.

Those are fun ones! Makes me want to replay Bloodborne...

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/6/23 12:33 AM, Frontlined-Backend wrote:

At 12/5/23 06:06 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 05:15 PM, Artcompany wrote: When the monsters are sexually dimorphic in ways that don't make sense. Why do the male dragons look normal but the female ones are bright pink with big long eyelashes and hearts everywhere? At least try to make it look like how real animals are sexually dimorphic instead of adding gender roles to literal animals. It looks so stupid and I don't understand why people keep doing it.

This one is more about intelligent monster races but it needs to be said. I despise it when the male monsters look cool and scary and the females just look like hot human women but green. It's so lazy and sexist.

Ah yes, that good classic fantasy monster trope, the biggest thing that bugs me about it is why do the female monsters in the species have breasts? Because what makes humans so special is because our women have permanent breasts. It gets especially confusing when it's reptilian-like or bird-like species.

How else are they going to get free advertising from porn artists?

Simple, you just have to do the ancient and sacred art of sucking dick.

[SporgyTheMenace]

At 12/5/23 11:14 PM, Artcompany wrote:

At 12/5/23 06:06 PM, SporgyTheMenace wrote:

At 12/5/23 05:15 PM, Artcompany wrote: When the monsters are sexually dimorphic in ways that don't make sense. Why do the male dragons look normal but the female ones are bright pink with big long eyelashes and hearts everywhere? At least try to make it look like how real animals are sexually dimorphic instead of adding gender roles to literal animals. It looks so stupid and I don't understand why people keep doing it.

This one is more about intelligent monster races but it needs to be said. I despise it when the male monsters look cool and scary and the females just look like hot human women but green. It's so lazy and sexist.

Ah yes, that good classic fantasy monster trope, the biggest thing that bugs me about it is why do the female monsters in the species have breasts? Because what makes humans so special is because our women have permanent breasts. It gets especially confusing when it's reptilian-like or bird-like species.

Omg non mammals having breasts pisses me so much it's unreal

The only way to explain this phenomenon is that their "pseudo-breasts", similar to the strange phenomenon of a pseudo-penis seen in some mammals, but this will also mean the males of the species would also have them. The reason why is... pffft I dunno, maybe the species would pretend to be the female of a mammal species to sneak in and steal the young to eat.