Week 2 Story: The Monstrous City of UT
Long ago in the mystical lands of the southern US, there was a city called UT. The inhabitants of UT were all female and called longhorns; orange four-legged beasts with massive horns coming out of their heads. This disgusting appearance frightened all who happened to stumble across UT in their travels. Luckily for the beasts of UT, their city had a deep connection to magic. The longhorns used this magic to transform their appearance from their natural beast-like state into beautiful human women in order to attract travelers to venture inside their city. Once inside the city the longhorns, still in human form, would flirt and memorize the travelers into marrying them. The longhorns would have their fun with the travelers, and once they became bored of their new husbands, they would shed their magical cloak and reveal their true beast-like state and proceed to eat them.
One day, an explorer by the name of Kyler Murray set out to chart the untamed lands of Texas, the island where UT resided. He gathered 500 of his men and traveled from his home of Norman to Texas. As Murray and his men were traveling over the red river, their boat wrecked on the shores of UT and to their surprise, they were greeted with beautiful women on the beach asking if they were injured. Murray and his men looked around the beach and saw a beautiful city filled with men and women working and thriving as a community. This image was all an illusion of the longhorns magic, but Murray and his men failed to see through it, so they went into UT with the longhorns.
One night while sleeping with his new wife, Murray woke to the sound of crunching. He laid in his bed and peaked his eye open to survey where the sound was coming from. Much to his surprise, the crunching came from his wife who was standing by the doorway. Murray overheard his wife say to herself "Thank goodness that these men had arrived, we have almost run out of the last batch of fresh man" as she continued to bite the fingers off of a severed hand she held. Murray knew that he and his men must leave this island immediately.
The next morning, Murray gathered his men and told them about what he had seen. Some of his men believed him while others chalked it up to a bad dream he must have had. Murray and those who believed him formed a group called the Sooners, as they wanted to get back to Norman sooner rather than later.
A fairy by the name of Baker Mayfield overheard all of this commotion and saw that the Sooners wanted to return home. Mayfield had a personal grudge against the longhorns, as the previous year they waged war on him. Though victorious, Mayfield would never peacefully coexist with the longhorns. Mayfield sent down a magical chariot called a Schooner to help the Sooners escape UT. The Schooner was pulled by two magical horses with bright crimson and cream wings.
Upon seeing the Schooner fly down to the Sooners, the horses spoke in a human voice "Who wants to go home?" Murray and his Sooners all rushed to board the Schooner, and soon they were off on their way back to Norman.
Authors notes:
I retold the story of the Goblin City from the Jataka. I changed the setting of the city and island to UT and Texas, and I changed the goblins to longhorns. I also changed the ship captain to Kyler Murray, the fairy to Baker Mayfield, and the magical horse to the Sooner Schooner as my whole retelling had a emphasis on the OU and UT rivalry.
Bibliography:
Goblin City from "The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India" by W. H. D. Rouse
Link to the story can be found here
Image Info:
Longhorns in their natural state
Hey Matthew! Your story is eye catching because the setting is Oklahoma and Texas, something you wouldn't expect from a retold Jataka story. Including Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield is also a great edition to the story. Part about waking up to the crunching and the crunching was his wife eating a human was disgusting and leaves a lot of room for the imagination to run wild. I wonder if you could go into more detail on that part? You might be able to talk about what it smelled like when he woke up to the sound of crunching, I bet it was terrible! You could even add that the smell was how he proved to his friends that it wasn't a dream. Or you could add a part where he confronts his wife in the morning and asks her if she was eating someone the night before, that would build suspense.
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Great story dude, I was not expecting to see this. I think the humor comes from the contrast of the original meaningful moral parable being retold with a completely silly meaning. My suggestions to make it funnier would be to tell the story more dramatically and seriously, since that would contrast even more with the lighthearted subject matter.
Hey Matthew!
ReplyDeleteThis was real funny, and it was definitely closer to the modern reader from OU. I think this was a really good transformation of the original story, including how you worded it and executed it. For me it was a nice mix of humour and horror of the source material. I was wondering if in the first paragraph, did you mean "memorize" or mesmerize?
-Daana
Howdy Matthew,
ReplyDeleteFirst I would like to say, I got a good laugh when you brought Kyler Murray and Baker Mayfield into the story. It was a plot twist for sure, I did not know where you were going with the story in the beginning, so it was a nice surprise. It was also a creative way to make a dig at UT, which I am all for! I find it quite ironic that so many Texans end up at OU, myself included. Your recreated story was hilarious, but I think if you added some dialogues or quotes in there, if that could make your readers laugh even more. Another suggestion I have is maybe you might want to reconsider the background. I like the back ground on its own, but in my opinion the busy background and the transparent overlay the story is on makes it a bit hard to read. There are colors changing and objects moving in the background when you scroll through the story, which distracts from the story. Overall, I really enjoyed this story and it may or may not be because I strongly dislike UT.
~ Hannah
Hey Matthew,
ReplyDeleteBravo! haha When I first read the title, I knew this would be a good one! I really thought it was creative of you to not only recreate the OU vs TX rilvary in the story but also with the detail you put into it. I really liked how Baker Mayfield was the fairy who came back and saved Kyler and his guys from UT, especially with the line about there will never be peace between the two and then Baker brining in the Schooner as a way to get out. That was genius! I did wonder why UT (of all places) was lucky enough to have this magic powers. I did not really understand why the longhorns also turned into women or humans. Maybe you could have elaborated to this and gave a bit more of a backstory to this, especially since these longhorns are men eating longhorns. scary. What if instead of men coming in, it was a bunch of horses (Boomer and Sooner). Then the longhorns tried to impress them but Boomer figures it out. I thought you did a great job, especially since you took a jab at UT. haha
Hi Matthew!
ReplyDeleteThis story was hilarious, and I don’t even understand football all that well! I really enjoyed the modern twist you put on the story, and how you capitalized on the rivalry present between OU and UT. I have no idea if you are planning on sticking with this theme for your storybook, but I think it could be very entertaining to set the Ramayana on OU campus. You could cast Kyler Murray as Rama, and some other members of the football team as his brothers. I also think it could be interesting if you expanded on this original story, and added in more details about the battle between Kyler and the longhorns. I really enjoyed reading this story, especially because I could tell right away which Jataka tale you were referencing, but you were still able to make the story your own. Keep up the good work, I look forward to reading whatever you write next!