Over the past few months I’ve created a character known only as the Sassomancer – a modern-day chaotic neutral necromancer who’s always backlit with sleeves of inconsistent lengths.
I love so much play with this kind of things. I like imagine a fairy of cotton in a Tom Sawyer’s style flying on a cotton field in summer. (this artwork is present in my artbook, for any info contact me on my mail ra.ro81@libero.it)
“hello,” the dark lord said, “i need a library card.”
“everyone needs a library card,” the librarian said brightly, sliding a form across the desk. “fill this out.”
the dark lord produced her own elaborated plumed quill from the depths of her robes and scrawled her name in handwriting that was completely illegible but seemed to whisper the secrets of the dark from the blinding white page. “yes, but i need mine in order to take over the tri-kingdom area.”
the librarian’s polite smile barely faltered. “funny, the last dark lord to try that didn’t bother with a card.”
“yes, and do you see that fool currently ruling our kingdom? no. of course not. utterly ridiculous, to attempt to take over any size country without a library card, much less an intermediate-sized one like this.” she accepted the thin plastic card with a gracious flourish of her gloved hand.
the librarian, adding the new card’s number to the database, privately agreed, but chose not to say anything.
the librarian balanced the pile of pulled books under one elbow and held the list of call numbers in their hand for easy consultation. “intermediate spell casting for grades three and four,” they murmured, running fingers along the peeling spines until they found it. “willing to bet that’s sorrel’s request.”
they fit the large, paperbound book under their elbow and moved on, checking the list again. “magical creatures encyclopedia, L through M. that’s jackaby trying to finish the entire set by midsummer.” they would get that one last to carry it around the shortest amount of time.
“next — the complete guide to raising the dead.” they paused in front of the row of shelves with the right call numbers. they could guess the requester of that one too, but knew better than to say it out loud.
the return slot thunked loudly as it swung open and closed, having swallowed the returned books with a wet gulp.
“good morning,” the dark lord said pleasantly as she looked up from sliding her books in — or as pleasantly as “good morning” could sound when it was uttered by a voice that sounded like gravel being chewed to pieces by the jaws of a large monster.
“it is, very,” the librarian said crisply, conjuring a clean handkerchief for the still-slobbering return slot.
the mouth just visible under the dark lord’s enormous cloak hood curved into a scythe’s blade smile, but she said nothing else.
“did you enjoy your books?” the librarian asked, since she wasn’t moving and there were no other people waiting (most likely because of the dark lord standing there).
the hood nodded up and down. “extremely. especially the taped lecture by doctor dramidius ardorius of the dark arts institute.”
“well, we have many more taped lectures. i especially recommend the one on the healing powers of tea.” they tilted their head in a now get out sign. the poor steam-powered self-checkout contraption would get overheated if people were too scared to check out at the front desk.
they didn’t really expect the dark lord to take the recommendation seriously, but the next day they noticed the cloaked, hooded specter glide out the door with the taped lecture on magic-infused herbal teas tucked between a CD of dark chants and a step-by-step art book on drawing occult symbols.
“you give good recommendations,” the dark lord said with a shrug when the librarian raised their eyes from the front desk’s computer to the shadows of her hood.
the librarian wasn’t sure what to say. “you seem to take up quite a lot of my time.”
“i’m only a simple library patron,” the dark lord replied in a saintly voice that resembled a dragon coughing up a partially digested house. “do you enjoy mermaid song?”
“yes. you can find the library’s collection in the CD section over there.” they looked pointedly back down at the computer.
“i hear there’s a concert on the shore tomorrow evening.”
“perhaps we’ll get a recording of it.”
the dark lord continued taking out books on various unsavory topics. the librarian continued suggesting books on healing, positive thinking, and community service. the dark lord seemed more amused with each visit. her smile was almost charming, when you got past the long, sharp teeth.
the librarian was trying to go about their usual morning ritual of pulling books that had been requested the night before, but the dark lord wouldn’t stop making faces at them from behind gaps in the shelves. she seemed to find it hilarious. the librarian hadn’t decided yet if they were amused or annoyed.
“ooh, look at this,” the dark lord said, pulling a sturdy but beaten up board book featuring a werewolf mid-transformation on the cover from the shelf. “this was my favorite when i was just a little menace.”
“somehow i’m not surprised.”
the dark lord tucked the book into the ridiculous basket made of a large skull that floated alongside her. “didn’t you have a favorite picture book when you were little?”
“Barker the Sentient Book End,” the librarian said promptly. “i screamed for it every night until someone read it to me, long after i’d already memorized each page.”
the dark lord cooed, sounding like a cross between an owl and something eating an owl. “adorable. i knew you had a little monster in you somewhere.”
the librarian crossly debated denying being a monster at all or pointing out they had actual kraken blood in them.
they should have guessed how close the dark lord was from how good her mood was, but it wasn’t until they arrived at work on monday that the librarian heard the news.
“the newest dark lord managed to overthrow the faeyrie monarchy last night. something about combining traditional herbal spells with a newfangled mental magic based on the power of willful thinking… or something. the news reporter mentioned the use of mermaid song in a mild kind of mind control, i think? i wasn’t listening. the good news is, our budget stays in place.”
the librarian contemplated hurling the can of bookmarks across the room, but concluded that it would be both unprofessional and unsatisfying. they settled for aggressively stamping returned, only slightly saliva-covered books with red ink.
the phone clicked loudly. “public library, how can i help you?”
“by taking my offer,” the dark lord said, slightly hesitant voice like a rock slide that wasn’t sure it was ready to slide. “the royal library in the capital needs a new head librarian.”
“why’s that?” the librarian spun in their new swivel chair, tangling the phone cord while they were at it, thinking they wouldn’t want to leave so soon after getting it.
there was a cough like the ocean spitting out a new island. “erm, hmm, last one got… eaten. tragic. these things happen when you’re very, very small, you know.”
“so i’ve heard.” the librarian stretched the phone cord and watched it bounce back. “well, i’m happy where i am.”
“well.” her voice was more disappointed than they’d expected. “it’s a very nice library, you know. large selection of mermaid song in the CD section.”
“the royal library is part of our system. i can request any materials from there that i want to be delivered here.”
a pause. the dark lord had not considered this. “well, maybe i’ll take the royal library out of the system.”
“you wouldn’t dare disrupt the workings of our very intricate library system set up at the dawn of time.”
“maybe i would!”
“no.”
“fine. i wouldn’t.”
the librarian swiveled some more, wrapping the cord around with them until it ran out of give and spun them in the other direction. “would you like to grab a coffee sometime?”
“yes,” the dark lord said, voice too surprised to resemble anything in particular. “i can travel down meet you tomorrow morning.”
“don’t you have things to do?”
they could sense the shrug from the other end of the line. “i’ll move the capital to your town. i can do that, you know. i’m the supreme ruler of the tri-kingdom area.”
“yes,” the librarian agreed, un-spinning to return the phone to its cradle. “just don’t forget who gave you the library card.”
Look, I don’t believe in God, but I will not disrespect the Good Gentlemen of the Hills. That’s just common sense.
Between this and the Icelanders with their elves I do not understand what is going on above the 50th parallel.
My general rule of thumb: you don’t have to believe in everything, but don’t fuck with it, just in case.
^^^ that part
This is truer than true. Especially the Irish part.
Let me tell you what I know about this after living here for nearly thirty years.
This is a modern European country, the home of hot net startups, of Internet giants and (in some places, some very few places) the fastest broadband on Earth. People here live in this century, HARD.
Yet they get nervous about walking up that one hill close to their home after dark, because, you know… stuff happens there.
I know this because Peter and I live next to One Of Those Hills. There are people in our locality who wouldn’t go up our tiny country road on a dark night for love or money. What they make of us being so close to it for so long without harm coming to us, I have no idea. For all I know, it’s ascribed to us being writers (i.e. sort of bards) or mad folk (also in some kind of positive relationship with the Dangerous Side: don’t forget that the root word of “silly”, which used to be English for “crazy”, is the Old English _saelig_, “holy”…) or otherwise somehow weirdly exempt.
And you know what? I’m never going to ask. Because one does not discuss such things. Lest people from outside get the wrong idea about us, about normal modern Irish people living in normal modern Ireland.
You hear about this in whispers, though, in the pub, late at night, when all the tourists have gone to bed or gone away and no one but the locals are around. That hill. That curve in the road. That cold feeling you get in that one place. There is a deep understanding that there is something here older than us, that doesn’t care about us particularly, that (when we obtrude on it) is as willing to kick us in the slats as to let us pass by unmolested.
So you greet the magpies, singly or otherwise. You let stones in the middle of fields be. You apologize to the hawthorn bush when you’re pruning it. If you see something peculiar that cannot be otherwise explained, you are polite to it and pass onward about your business without further comment. And you don’t go on about it afterwards. Because it’s… unwise. Not that you personally know any examples of people who’ve screwed it up, of course. But you don’t meddle, and you learn when to look the other way, not to see, not to hear. Some things have just been here (for various values of “here” and various values of “been”) a lot longer than you have, and will be here still after you’re gone. That’s the way of it. When you hear the story about the idiots who for a prank chainsawed the centuries-old fairy tree a couple of counties over, you say – if asked by a neighbor – exactly what they’re probably thinking: “Poor fuckers. They’re doomed.” And if asked by anybody else you shake your head and say something anodyne about Kids These Days. (While thinking DOOMED all over again, because there are some particularly self-destructive ways to increase entropy.)
Meanwhile, in Iceland: the county council that carelessly knocked a known elf rock off a hillside when repairing a road has had to go dig the rock up from where it got buried during construction, because that road has had the most impossible damn stuff happen to it since that you ever heard of. Doubtless some nice person (maybe they’ll send out for the Priest of Thor or some such) will come along and do a little propitiatory sacrifice of some kind to the alfar, belatedly begging their pardon for the inconvenience.
They’re building the alfar a new temple, too.
Atlantic islands. Faerie: we haz it.
The Southwest is like this in some ways. You don’t go traveling along the highways at night with an empty car seat. Because an empty car seat is an invitation. You stick your luggage, your laptop bag, whatever you got in that seat. Else something best left undiscussed and unnamed (because to discuss it by name is to go ‘AY WE’RE TALKING BOUT YA WE’RE HERE AND ALSO IGNORANT OF WHAT YOU’RE CAPABLE OF’ at the top of your damn lungs at them) will jump in to the car, after which you’re gonna have a bad time.
If you’re out in the woods, you keep constant, consistent count of your party and make sure you know everyone well enough that you can ID them by face alone, lest something imitating a person get at you. They like to insert themselves in the party and just observe before they strike. It’s a game to them. In general you don’t fuck with the weird, you ignore the lights in the sky (no, this isn’t a god damn night vale reference, yes I’m serious) and the woods, you lock up at night and you don’t answer the door for love or money. Whatever or whoever’s knocking ain’t your buddy.
^ So much good advice in this post right here
I live in the south and… you just… don’t go into the woods or fields at night.
Don’t go near big trees in the night
If you live on a farm, don’t look outside the windows at night
I have broken all these rules.
I’ve seen some shit.
If it sounds like your mom, but you didn’t realize your mom is home…. it’s not your mom. Promise.
One walked onto the porch once. Wasn’t fun. But they’re not super keen on guns. Typically bolt when they see one.
You think it’s the neighbor kids.
It’s not the neighbor kids.
Might sound like coyotes but you never really /see/ the coyotes but then wow that one cow was reaaaaaally fucked up this morning. The next night when you hear another one screaming you just turn the tv up a little more. Maybe fire a gun in the air but you don’t go after it. If it is coyotes then it’s probably a pack and you seriously don’t want to fuck with that and if it’s the other thing you seriously REALLY don’t want to fuck with that.
So in the south, especially near the mountains, you just go straight from your car to inside your house, draw your curtains and watch tv.
If you see lights in the fields just fucking leave it alone.
Eyes forward. Don’t be fucking stupid. Mind your own business. Call your neighbors and tell them to bring the cats in. There’s coyotes out. Some of them know. Most of them don’t.
Other than that everything’s a ghost and they died in the civil war. Literally all of everything else is just the civil war. We used to smell old perfume and pipe tobacco in the weeks leading up to the battle anniversaries.
Shit’s wild and I sound fucking crazy but I swear to god it’s true.
Every time this post comes around, it’s my favorite to open up the notes and read the stories. Probably shouldn’t have since I’m sleeping alone tonight, but you know, it’s fine. 😂
Austrian girl here who has lived in Ireland for 5+ years. This shit is LEGIT. I’ve seen it with my own two Catholic eyes.
Sure, visit during the day. That’s alright as long as you’re respectful. But you couldn’t PAY ME ENOUGH to go there at night. These are also the last places where you wanna start littering.
I grew up in southwest Pennsylvania which is a weird mixture of American cultures and environments. I was in the heavily forested mountains (northern Appalachia) but had lots and lots of corn fields and cow pastures. Like the Smoky Mountains and fields of Kansas combined. And being so cut off from a lot of the world, we had our fair share of ghost stories.
We had ‘witches’ in the mountains (more like ghost-women who will snatch you up by making you wander in a daze around the forest like the Blair Witch before killing you or letting you back out into society but you’re… different). Or devils in springs or abandoned wells (don’t look too long into one or something will follow you).
But we also had the cornfield demons. I’ve witnessed this many times. You’ll be in the passenger seat looking out the window and see red glowing eyes in the cornfield. No light shining in that direction. Just two red dots a few inches apart faintly glowing in a pitch black cornfield. They’re not the glow of deer eyes in the headlights. More like the embers of a dying fire. Sometimes, as you drive away, you’ll look out the back window or side mirror and you can see the eyes have moved to the edge of the corn field, still watching you. If you bring it up with the driver, they’ll call you paranoid, but grip the wheel a bit tighter and driver a little faster.
I was walking to a friend’s house one night. It was about 20 minutes down a dirt road with forest on one side and a cornfield on the other. I’ve walked past it many times and wasn’t really concerned. My main worry was coming across a skunk or porcupine. I didn’t have a flashlight because the moonlight was bright enough and I knew the walk really well. Then I saw the eyes. I immediately averted mine (because for some reason that’s how to not annoy it) but they kept wandering back. They were still there, watching. I heard rustling and saw the eyes come closer and I took off running. I got to my friends without a scratch, but I was terrified. I mentioned it to my friend and that’s when I found out it was A Thing. Her parents agreed and shared their stories. I brought it up more and almost everyone knew what I was talking about. It was a phenomenon a lot of folks around town experienced but never mentioned. To this day, I don’t linger around poorly light cornfields at night.
Faeries and Wee Folk and Liminal Spaces, oh myyyy…
I just…yes. This. All of this. And then some.
You don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to believe in it.
But if you know what’s good for you, DON’T FUCK WITH IT.
I was born and raised in the city. My grandparents lived in the outskirts, but then decided to move back to a small mountain town my grandmother’s family used to live in. By small I mean it has less than 20 houses, and everyone knows everyone. It is an old little place, perched on the side of the mountain, with buildings made of stones. Right under it, there are fields, and then the woods.
The first time I visited (more or less 7 years ago) my grandomother was very careful to warn me not to go out when it’s dark. She’s the same woman who taught me about myths and legends, and told me that there are things wandering around. We don’t know who they are, or what they are, but they like to stroll through the town when they know it’s quiet. Usually they are calm, but sometimes they try to get people to come with them back into the woods. They make you see things, imitate noises and voices. They won’t let you come back.
I was skeptical, but I obeyed.
Fast forward to 3 years ago.
I was spending the month with my grandparents, and it was only the three of us since my family decided to stay in Rome. One day around 9 pm (the sun had just set) I was in the kitchen on the second floor, reading at the table, when I my grandmother called me from the garden. The window was open, so I clearly heard her shout “Giorgia! Can you come down a second?”
It wasn’t the first time it had happened: my grandmother had a dog who was pretty old and had trouble walking, so she’d call me down into the garden from time to time to help her move him back inside. But she never asked me to go out at night.
“Is everything okay?” I yelled, still sitting at the table “You need help?”
“Can you come down a second?” she repeated.
I just thought “Meh” and stood up to go downstairs to the lobby and reach the garden-
-and I met my grandmother in the hallway.
I asked her “You don’t need help anymore?”. She just stared at me, so I explained that I heard her call me from the garden.
“You didn’t look down from window, did you?”
I shook my head, and she calmly walked into the kitchen and closed the window.
“You shouldn’t go out, it’s dark.” she told me, getting a bottle of water from the fridge. Like nothing had happened.
“But I heard you call-”
“It’s dark, Giorgia.”
That’s when I fully realized that it wasn’t my grandmother who tried to get me to go out in the night.
And that’s why I don’t fuck with the unknown.
Local legend time.
Here in Central Indiana, there are two local paranormal sites less than ten minutes from my house. The first is Sunken Road.
Sunken Road is this little, one-lane dirt road that runs between two country roads. It runs through a relatively low-lying area that floods a lot, and is pretty marshy in general, covered in this patches of scraggly marsh-forest (a horrible description, but you know what I mean). At one point in the road, it drops down real sharp about five feet, levels out for maybe fifty yards, and goes back up. There’s where the problem is: way back when, they were trying to build a bridge over this dip, because it especially floods. No ones ever said why- I myself probably think it’s an Indian curse, as related to the second legend- but A LOT of people died trying to make this damn bridge. Horses and men drowned or went missing, to the point that they gave up building the thing. You don’t go down this road on a full moon; personally, I think moonless nights are just as bad. People say, on the right night- Halloween, the solstices, New Years, it varies depending on the version- you can still hear the horses scream as they or their masters sink into the muck.
The other legend is Thirteen Graves. Long story short, back in the 1800s, the locals hung a bakers dozen of Indians. Instead of handing the bodies back to the tribe, they buried them in unmarked graves in this local cemetery; I’ve been here only because some of my ancestors are buried there, and Tobago was in broad daylight. Anyway, when they buried these guys, they put these big slabs of rock- limestone or concrete- on top. Can’t remember why, but I’d guess it was to prevent either the locals or the tribe digging them back up. One of the graves particularly is special. Walk along and count them, and you’ll get thirteen; turn and walk back the other way, and you might only get twelve. Supposedly, this one grave, it the right amount of moonlight, gives off a certain glow, though none of the others do. I wouldn’t know; when my friends dragged us there one night, I never got out of the car, and made sure to lock the doors.
Okay look, people always say “Let’s go to Bali for a holiday”, but Bali isn’t known as the Island of the Gods for nothing. Those candle offerings you see next to statues all over the road? And next to trees? They contain beings that you MUST be respectful to. I have heard so many stories of people snuffing candles out, only to accidentally end up in a hospital one way or the other.
Point is, don’t fucking mess with the other side, and be respectful for cultures and old myths even if you don’t believe them.
“HELLO NEIGHBOR STEVE, I WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO BARBEQUE ON THE EVE OF THE BLOOD MOON. I FEEL WE GOT OFF TO A BAD START.”
“NEIGHBOR STEVE, DO YOU NOT WISH TO PARTAKE OF THE UNCLEAN FLESH-MEATS OF PIGS AND THE POLLUTED ESSENCES OF TOMATO? PERHAPS YOU ARE A CAROLINA STYLE MAN, NEIGHBOR STEVE?”
“PUT THE GUN AWAY NEIGHBOR STEVE, YOU KNOW I SHALL ONLY RISE AGAIN WITH THE DAWNING OF THE MOON. WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH THIS MANY TIMES.”
“LOOK AT THIS PICTURE MY SON DREW OF YOU AND CHILD TIMMY, YOUR SON. ARE THEY NOT THE PICTURE OF PACT-MATES? THIS COULD BE YOU AND ME, NEIGHBOR STEVE.”
“YOU MISSED THE UNHOLY NEXUS OF POWER THAT IS THE KEY TO MY CORPOREAL FORM, NEIGHBOR STEVE. YOU WILL NEED TO RELOAD NOW, SO I WILL GO INSIDE TO MY HELL-WIFE AND PUT YOU DOWN AS A SOLID ‘MAYBE’.“
I have the feeling that the families get along great except for Steve. Like, the wives are baking (questionable) brownies together, the kids are playing together, Antler Guy occasionally takes Son and Timmy to school (no car, just carries them in huge swinging strides through a nexus of ungoldly sights in a swirling netherworld shortcut. Sometimes they stop for McDonalds). Hell-wife gave them a potted Audrey Jr., Steve’s wife (who I now christen Sharon) gave them a begonia.
One time Steve tries throwing holy water but all Antler Guy does is thank him, saying that no, Antler Guy isn’t Catholic but it’s the thought that counts, he is so kind to water his creeping deathshade vines regardless.
For Christmas Antler Guy gives Steve a case of ammunition. To be funny/sarcastically mean Steve gets Antler Guy the world’s most hideous Christmas sweater, singing light-up reindeer included. He immediately regrets it because not only does Antler Guy love it and wears it for several months, it will never need batteries because Antler Guy powers it with his own eldritch aura.
When they come back from a holiday to Hawaii, Steve is horrified to find out Sharon bought them matching Hawaiian shirts. He is even more horrified that his wife means it that if he doesn’t wear it he will forever sleep on the couch.
“oh hey,” she said, “it’s a really touristy area, but since you’re gonna be passing through anyway, you might as well stop by pier 29, see the dragons. also, there’s a—”
“hold on,” i said. “i knew your city had mountains, but. dragons? uh, actual living dragons?”
“dude, it’s not a big deal. they’re there all the time. of course they’re majestic and everything, but they’re loud and cranky and mostly they lie around eating garbage. now and then the city council will talk about trying to make them roost somewhere else, but—”
“dragons,” i repeated. i knew it was making me sound like a rube, but it was a lot to take in. “you live in a city that has dragons.”
“no, it’s cool, we used to go see them when i was a little kid. it’s worth doing. but that whole area is mostly dragon-themed gift shops, and the commercialization is kind of a bummer. also, sometimes a dragon will melt somebody’s car and it’s a whole problem.”
“honestly, i forget other cities don’t have them?” she said. “there’s a few other sites on the west coast where they gather. portland calls them wyverns, but that’s a portland thing.”
“chicago’s got, like, bunnies and songbirds,” i told her, “but otherwise it’s just your typical vermin. pigeons, rats, sphinxes—”
“sphinxes? what the hell.”
“oh, yeah, they nest in the el tunnels. sometimes a fucking sphinx will flap down out of nowhere, bring the whole train to a halt until the front car answers a riddle.”
“that sounds exciting,” she said.
“it’s the worst. your train winds up being twenty minutes late, and you just have to hang out hoping somebody up there read their mythology. there’s supposed to be a program where the conductors get trained in riddling, but i don’t know. rahm emmanuel keeps saying it’s not a budget priority.”
“huh,” she said. “guess the grass is always greener and all that. but on some level, it’s nice to remember that even with all these big box stores, the country still has some variety left in it.”
“yeah, did you know that in rhode island they call water fountains ‘bubblers’?” i said.
“whoa, seriously?”
“i read it somewhere. crazy, right?”
“crazy.”
i am here for urbanized mythological creatures
Switzerland has a lot of dragons, but dragons have long since moved on from collecting gold. There’s a purply-scaley one that roosts behind the Mad Mex that refuses to stop hoarding signposts. The city uses banners for the main roads and sells a lot of maps.
Golems love cities–with their stone buildings and sidewalks. There are strict laws about what one is allowed to say to them, because golems tend to be rather literal and very obedient. There’s always one kid who thinks he knows better. He doesn’t.
OH MY GOD THE CHICAGO SPHINXES, DON’T GET ME STARTED. Here’s the thing. When you buy your Ventra card at the machine – which is another one of Rahm’s scams, leasing that out to a private company, wtf was he thinking – it’s supposed to have the answer to the riddle on it, right? The sphinx is supposed to scan the bar code and let the train through.
that never fucking happens. Especially on the Blue Line which is down for maintenance all the time and constantly switching tracks and running shuttles, which means half the time you’ve got a sphinx that came over from the fucking Orange Line or some shit and is full of riddles that only the Irish mooks from Bridgeport understand. Or it’s in Polish only. Or it’s got a glitch that makes it stutter and if you interrupt it, it’ll get snippy and bite your head off. LITERALLY. They hush it up but it happens. Businesses lose millions from sphinx-related tardiness every year.
And then there’s a case back in ‘96 when it was proven after the fact that the “wrong” answer the Red Line Sphinx got was actually A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE REGIONAL VARIATION but by then, the Sphinx had already eaten half a car full of drunken Cubs fans. I know, not much of value was lost there, BUT STILL.
You think SPHINXES are bad? Detroit has imps, thousands of them, and you know what they love? Buses. You know the major form of public transit in Detroit is? BUSES. So the drivers have to literally shoo away imps at every fucking stop, making them 30 minutes late, an HOUR late, and it’s not like there’s anything you can DO, because they’re all leftover from when the car companies were big, and ALL OF THOSE FUCKERS CLOSED.
So of course there were hundreds of orphaned imps, and they kept SAYING they were going to reopen the factories, or at least get some good junkyards, but nooooooooo, they never did, so the imps just bred and bred, and now they’re all over every bus and it’s not like you can ever count on getting anywhere on time and long story short, I’d take a sphinx over imps ANY day.
yeah as someone who did high school and college in michigan and now lives in chicago, i have to say that as far as the age-old sphinxes vs imps debate goes, they’re both terrible in different ways. the imps are way more common and they probably have a wider total reach, and oh my god nothing like trying to board a bus already covered in those little suckers when said bus is already forty minutes late—
(sidenote: ugh people from bloomfield hills saying stuff like “well if i lived in detroit, i’d have the sense to carry around a nice heavy club or walking stick—” yeah dude good luck with your walking stick against two dozen imps)
but the sphinxes. let’s not, uh, sugar coat this: the sphinxes don’t just slow commuters, they kill people. and yes, if you know the riddle, you’re fine. but what if someone else offers their answer first? what if you get some overly cocky freshman philosophy major who takes it upon himself to answer for the whole car?
i think in the back of our minds, all chicagoans know that rahm emmanuel’s administration isn’t gonna lift a finger until one of the sphinxes goes after a wealthy tourist and it makes national news. and even then, we’ll get, like, flashy riddle-solving software installed in all the red line trains, and maybe the brown line, but no way is it gonna cover the whole infrastructure.
basically if you ever need to take the green line or the pink line, you wanna start studying your classical mythology and folklore fucking yesterday.
@copperbadge do puns work on Sphinxes as well as riddles?
You bet your sphinxter they do.
(Sphinxes hate that one but they’re obliged to honor it.)
I heard they sometimes get bad Selkie problems in Monterey Bay…
It was so weird moving to the South and then to the Midwest after growing up in New England because apparently everywhere else unicorns are a big joke to people? I get it, New Hampshire has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate because we’re all a bunch of virgins, ha ha like I’ve never heard THAT one before, but seriously, you try growing perennials when every year the goddamn unicorn herd comes through and eats all your bulbs. MY BACK YARD IS NOT YOUR PERSONAL TULIP BUFFET, LIGHTFOOT.
The Bunyips have a fondness for the sewers. Which is really something when you’re down at Bondi for an early-morning dip and find that the damn beach is closed because another Bunyip has gone for a swim in the sewerage outlet and then waded back in to shore. Oh, sure, the outlets are supposed to be distant enough that the effluent doesn’t come back to shore, but the damned council who proposed it didn’t think about what was going to happen to all those Bunyips who were missing the swamps that got drained when they built Kingsford Smith Airport in Botany Bay. Sure, a population of nearly 10,000 bunyips is going to make do with a couple of waterways that mostly reek of industrial waste. Not. BRILLIANT TOWN PLANNING, Sydney Council. FUCKING BRILLIANT.
On the other hand, for something really spine-crawling, I suggest you look up “Rio Tinto Mining vs. The Quinkins (Imjim). Cape York, 1985.” That was a clusterfuck and a half – the extra half-clusterfuck got added when they tried to bring the military in to ‘solve the problem’. Fourteen of the children have never been recovered, the roads up into the property are impassable, and the closest you can get is within five klicks by air, land, or sea before all the instrumentation goes haywire. The last chopper to try a landing got a mayday out before readings said it plummeted like a stone.
Also, have you seen the sheer idiocy of a government trying to prosecute local spirits who aren’t going to turn up in court for one and wouldn’t recognise your white man’s law even if they did? Not one of the better periods of Australian government.
I suppose Baltimore has it easy, somewhat? Maybe? Cause the people who get in trouble the most with the mermaids are well, tourists. And there’s SIGNS up. All over. Heck, there’s signs in BRAILLE!
But of course you’ll get the drunk, handsy college boys going down to the Inner Harbour cause some older one wants to initiate a freshman, and some freshman thinks it’ll be cheaper than a strip club to see ‘free’ bare boobs.
It’s like none of them read anything to know that above those boobs, behind those lips are a whole bunch of sharp pointed teeth the better to eat them with.
But mostly it’s the tourists who do read the signs, and don’t go hanging over into the water, or trailing fingers from the water-taxi into the water; But who refuse to wear proper sanctioned ear plugs. Some of them just bring their own which aren’t strong enough to block out the sirens. But others just…. don’t believe for some reason?
I don’t know. But it’s in the news a lot when it happens and some tourists will inevitably say they didn’t think the earplugs were important, cause mermaids are beautiful and nice.
Disney has a lot to make up for – not that it’ll ever do it. But. A lot.
And then there’s the other thing. All the jokes about how they ‘thought the city with mermaids would be Seattle’, nudgenudge, wink wink.
And someone has to smack them down with; how many lost women tossed overboard by the slave trade did Seattle get drifting into their harbours in the under-currents? If there’s no proper bodies for mermaids to lay their eggs, there’s no mermaids.
I used to live in Canton, and there’s lovely apartments there. It’s just a touch expensive for the soundproof glass, y’know? But still, early Saturday morning, watching the mermaids float and sun themselves can actually be pretty, if you’re three stories up, a hundred or more yards from the water and with good soundproofing; all the brown and bronze and I saw a red tail once. She was gorgeous, dark skin, red tail, upper body all muscled like a dancer.
so having grown up in pennsylvania and north carolina, i thought i was prepared when i moved to florida for school last year. “after all,” i thought, “how different can a skunk ape really be from a bigfoot?”
well, i still don’t know the answer to that question, because it turns out florida is a really big state, and the particular area i moved to hasn’t seen a skunk ape in over twenty years (though, thanks to breeding programs and conservation efforts, i hear they’re thriving elsewhere).
what i have encountered is basilisks.
they are everywhere in central florida, apparently, and nobody even thought to mention them to me before i moved.
“i’m sorry,” my floridian roommate apologized a few weeks into our cohabitation. “they’re just such a standard part of the background for me. they don’t seem worth freaking out over, to be honest.”
now, i was freaking out, but it turns out the greater basilisks we all know and fear from legends, campfire stories, and the occasional sensationalistic news report only live deep in the swamps. they rarely bother humans. the slithery little guys i’d been seeing out of the corner of my eye on my morning walks– vivid red or gold scales, about the size of a pigeon– are comparatively harmless. yes, if you make direct eye contact with one, it causes an unpleasant pins-and-needles sensation in your arms and legs that can last all day, plus a transient feeling of dizziness and nausea. but it’s not going to paralyze you, let alone turn you to stone. and it’s pretty hard to accidentally make eye contact with a lesser basilisk, anyway. they aren’t confrontational animals; they’ll only try to meet your gaze and stare if they think you’re attacking them or something. (i do worry a little about my second roommate’s dog– she’s been zapped a couple times trying to chase and catch the poor things and, well, she’s a dog, they don’t learn from that kind of experience.)
anyway, turns out most people around here kinda like the lesser basilisks. unlike their large and lethal cousins, they’re mainly insectivores, and they love to eat mosquitoes and roaches. good for pest control!
Ah yeah I’ve heard y’all have problems with basilisk on your side of the state! Hope your roommate’s dog can be kept away from them.
I know the skunk ape population has been on the rise again especially in the national forest in the middle of the state. Who knows, they might migrate back into your area soon!
But as for my area we’ve been having real trouble with the sea serpents lately. They hang around the waterways and rivers during breeding season.
Not that they themselves are the problem I think it’s more people not respecting their habitat. It’s at least once a year some jackass is speeding with a boat in a no wake zone and they’ll cut up their backs pretty bad, even with all the scales. It’s a real shame, especially the juveniles. There’s programs to rescue and rehabilitate them here but it’s hard to get every one, and that’s just the ones that get spotted.
Though I gotta say I’m proud of the legislation we have protecting their nests. People get arrested if they disturb them and we gotta cover the lights on the beach during the hatching season so they can wriggle down to the ocean okay.
All the tourists around here are scared of them and I gotta admit we do have a high attack frequency. My sister’s friend has a friend who got bit by one last year. But I still think it’s cause there’s more tourists in the oceans and the poor things mistaking them for fish or a shark or something. They’re predators and they’re hungry but they’re not man eaters or anything. And they sure are pretty if you catch a glimpse of them, their scales are mostly blues and greens but they’re also always a little iridescent! All those documentaries pretending they’re stone cold killers make me sad
oh, i know! it’s like that shark week baloney– even the discovery channel likes to pretend they’re these vicious, unstoppably bloodthirsty things, like the Terminators of the natural world or something. sure, i guess that makes some people more interested in them, but it also makes a lot of people way more scared of sea monsters than they need to be. most attacks on humans aren’t even fatal, if i’m remembering the statistics right.
mermaids are actually way more dangerous than sea monsters– as someone mentioned upthread– but are there 6-volume cult classic horror movie franchises about killer mermaids with a taste for human flesh? pretty sure there aren’t! (i’m talking about those Behemoth From Butcher’s Bay flicks from the 80s and 90s, of course. i mean, they’re pretty entertaining! but they’re also not what you would call scientifically accurate. at all.)
yeah, i get worked up about this stuff, sorry. where i’m from, bigfoots get a similar bad rap– and they aren’t even predators! there have been all of four confirmed bigfoot attack deaths in the state of pennsylvania, ever, out of like nine attacks total, and all of them involved someone hunting or otherwise antagonizing the bigfoot. well, except for one that might have had rabies, back like a hundred years ago. i think people are just creeped out because, well, they are big– and they kinda look human? like, they’re too close to the uncanny valley to be charismatic megafauna. or whatever.
fantasy book with witches and wizards and magical people but all magic has a price, like
main character, in awe and slightly terrified: what did you have to give up to be able to control storms with your mind?
powerful enchanter, fighting back tears as they pull down the hood of their cloak to reveal a knotted oily mess: my beautiful luscious hair….no matter how many times i wash or brush it, it always looks like this
main character: [horrified gasp]
fortune teller: and speak up when asking your question, these are my cards so they share my partially-deafness
other character, sympathetically: oh, had to trade good hearing for seeing the future?
fortune teller: no, asshole, i was born with it. i got seeing the future for trading in my ability to wink
there’s a legend in this fantasy land about a powerful enchanter who traded their ovaries for the power to create earthquakes. the grumpy semi-sentient force of nature who negotiates these magic deals had thought it was pretty great one, sure to make the recipient of the deal regret making it soon enough (after all, the point is having to suffer a bit in exchange for magic, because life sucks even in magical fantasy kingdoms)
however, soon afterwards, the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature realized the enchanter had been ecstatic to be rid of periods and didn’t care about not having biological children. the GSSFN felt somewhat cheated by this and ever since has had a strict no-trading-internal-organs policy
“fucking humans messing with the system,” it was quoted as saying
actually, cheating the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature out of the suffering it hopes to inflict with the magic deals is a time honored tradition in Magical Fantasy Kingdom, which is primarily made up of sassy little shits. most of the kingdom’s mythology is made up of trickster figures
there’s the legend of the smooth-talking thief who managed, by describing a certain talent of hers as “the ability to form small growths out of her skin and then reabsorb them” with enough quick confusing descriptions to trade the ability to get pimples for the power to become invisible
there’s the boy who brought the GSSFN a bucketful of cold, liquid silver in exchange for the power to cure a certain sickness, only for the GSSFN to realize once the sun had come up that the bucket contained only water reflecting moonlight
there’s the monarch who offered to trade in their power to destroy people with only their words for the seemingly much less valuable power to turn one grain of rice into two grains — only for the GSSFN to realize later it had gotten the ruler’s cutting sarcasm in payment for a power that could end a famine
every year the Grumpy Semi-Sentient Force of Nature gets visits from tens of jewish witches and wizards solemnly offering to give up eating all foods that come from pigs or eating meat at the same time as dairy in exchange for the powers they want
“DO YOU THINK YOU’RE FUCKING CLEVER” says the GSSFN, who has frankly had enough of this shit
sparksoffandommagic 