Awake for the day.

[matt_doyle]

Well, I'm up early, Dear Readers, after a nightmare about zombies as detailed and macabre as anything I've ever seen in a movie.  It pilfered elements of my life, Doctor Who, Varsity Blues, Eberron, and Persona 4 together to get its setting and cast of characters, which was a little bizarre I admit -- especially the inclusion of Varsity Blues, I mean, really?

But it also contained ideas and sequences I wish I could forget, including a very fucking creepy explanation for why traditional movie zombies shamble and mumble a lot.

They're toddlers.  Precocious viral consciousnesses, only newly woken up in a dead body and needing to rebuild it - eating human flesh is the logical way to get all the right building blocks.  For a few minutes, a newly animated zombies flops about... then it crawls and teethes on everything around it... then, within hours, it stumbles to its feet and starts making more coherent sounds...

...eventually, it walks and talks just like a person.  Good enough to fool you, at least for a little while.  And according to the ones I met in my dream, given enough time and enough to eat... the transformation goes on.


Can't sleep.  Zombies will eat me.

Comments

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

*grumblegrumblepedanticgrumble* You're not thinking of actual traditional zombies, you're thinking of movie zombies. Traditional zombies are people whose souls have been sucked out by . . . actually, I'm not sure what the correct term is . . . a houngan is a priest, and they don't typically do anything this extreme, since it puts people off and they have a place in the community to maintain . . . an unethical practitioner of Voudoun or Hoodoo, who then resurrects the body to be his (since they're usually men, AFAICT) servant. They don't eat human flesh at all, much less brains.

No, no, of course I don't spend too much time studying folklore! What one earth are you talking about!

[matt_doyle]

*wince* You are absolutely correct, and I know better. Let me edit to make that phrase "traditional movie zombies."

I blame my lack of caffeine and zombie nightmare related bleariness for this, XD.

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

See, you know how to handle pedants. Smile and nod and tell them they're right, and correct yourself. :D

I will totally forgive you, in that case. Don't mind me, I have a cranky this morning.

[matt_doyle]

I have a strong tendency towards pedantry myself, so I understand the editorial urge... and I've studied my fair share of folklore too, and when you;re right, you're right.

If you can forgive my zombie error, I can certainly forgive your cranky, :-P. Mornings can be like that.

[inaurolillium.livejournal.com]

Particularly when the morning is the second half of my workday, yeah.

Many things have been making me cranky tonight. I have been venting my spleen by pedanting all over the internet. Thanks for putting up with it.

[matt_doyle]

You're very welcome.

[hradzka.livejournal.com]

...eventually, it walks and talks just like a person. Good enough to fool you, at least for a little while. And according to the ones I met in my dream, given enough time and enough to eat... the transformation goes on.

You need to put other projects on hold and write that into a screenplay. Now.

[matt_doyle]

The thought has crossed my mind.

[matt_doyle]

Problem is, I've never written a screenplay...

Though the notion is kicking about in my head, now. Post-zombiepocalypse, set in a secure compound where they're studying the zombie phenomenon, watching in horror as their test subject gets smarter and more alive on even, say, a couple pounds of pork a day... and as they realize the implications of this, their recon team comes back to base after its first extended patrol...
or something.

[hradzka.livejournal.com]

Your short story writing suggests that you could make the translation pretty well. It's an odd skill; some prose writers can do it and some can't. You could always try it as a novella first.

Your set-up is really good. Not sure about the pork idea; perhaps the scientists get somebody who's being executed for hoarding, or somebody gets trapped with the zombie by accident, and the zombie gets overfed?

Biggest thing you'll have to watch is not making it too much like THE THING. I think the "becoming something else" transition is the way to that; keep evolving the situation, and you're gold.

[celebros.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Or write it into something.

[lesstraveled.livejournal.com]

Dude, I dig this. The world-building possiblities! Like if someone is a zombie-hunter and that's all well and good when they're shooting at shambling corpses, but then they'd be horrified to discover that they were actually shooting sentient beings etc. WHAT NEXT.

Also, Varsity Blues, lololol.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Interesting concept. Also nightmarish--standard movie zombies are creepy enough already. :-)