I love animals that are, like, the opposite of cryptids: we know for a fact they exist and have a clear idea of what they look like because we have photographs and individual specimens, but we haven’t the faintest idea where they’re coming from – they just keep showing up out of nowhere, and the locations of their actual population centres are a complete mystery.
I so want examples. anyone who knows of any should post them in notes
You know, like giant squid and such. We know the bastards exist, we have credible first-hand accounts stretching back thousands of years and dead specimens washed up on shore and such, but in centuries of searching we’ve managed exactly one well-documented encounter with a giant squid in its natural habitat. We have no idea what their native range is or what their life-cycle looks like, let alone how many of them are out there.
Are there any reverse-cryptids that /aren’t/ at the bottom of the ocean?
The red-crested tree rat, for one. There have been only three well-documented encounters since 1898, and they just plain disappeared from the zoological record for over a century. The only reason we know they’re not extinct is that one walked right up to a couple of wildlife research interns at a Columbian nature reserve back in 2011, apparently out of pure curiosity, and allowed itself to be photographed and observed for several minutes before disappearing again.
That’s genuinely pretty cool and all, but I absolutely need to talk about how the picture in that Wikipedia article looks like a tiny eldritch horror disguising itself as a peach.
To be fair, based on the actual photos from the 2011 encounter, they really do look like that:
There is a specific and terrifying difference between “never were” monsters and “are not anymore” monsters
“The thing that was not a deer” implies a creature which mimics a deer but imperfectly and the details which are wrong are what makes it terrifying
“The thing that was not a deer anymore” on the other hand implies a thing that USED to be a deer before it was somehow mutated, possessed, parasitically controlled or reanimated improperly and what makes THAT terrifying is the details that are still right and recognizable poking out of all the wrong and horrible malformations.
hey I totally fucked up and forgot the 3rd type, which is “Is Not Anymore And Maybe Never Was” monsters
“The thing which was no longer a deer and maybe never was” implies a creature that, at first glance, completely appears to be a deer, but over time degrades very slowly until you realize (probably too late) that it is not a deer anymore, and had you seen it in this state first, you wouldn’t have recognized it as a deer at all, and there’s a decent chance that it was never actually a deer to begin with but only a very good mimic, and what makes this one scary is the slow change from everything being right to everything being wrong, happening slowly enough that you don’t even notice it until its too late, as well as the fact that something now so clearly not a deer could have fooled you to begin with.
And the fourth type, which is, “I dunno, but it sure ain’t a deer.” Which implies complete confusion about what the creature could be, to the point that even a person as comfortable in this world as someone who would use the word ain’t unironically is uncertain, which should horrify you to the deepest depths of your soul.
one that i particularly enjoyed was the ‘nonesuch’, a beast which when you see it your brain convinces you ‘nope, no way that shit is real’. on some level it becomes less real after having been seen by someone who disbelieves its existence as well
May I propose the additional type of “that’s definitely a deer but deer are much more fucked up than previous realized”, because turning the corner on a trail and having half a dozen deer suddenly turn and look up from eating Thier companion’s remains is a special kind of spooky.
original theory: succubi are always women, incubi are always men
facts: in fact succubus comes from the latin word “succubare” which means “to lie under” and incubus comes from the latin word “incubare” which means “to lie on”
new improved theory: incubi are always tops and succubi are always bottoms. gender doesn’t matter at all.
addendum: if the sex demon in question is versatile, they’re a concubus, from the latin for ‘to lie with/beside’.
Wired: Werewolf Karaoke, and all the locals are really invested in it. So the werewolf pack initiation ceremony is actually just singing “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Have you thought of bulk club runs for giant jars of peanut butter and hotdogs by the gross? I know some werewolves who have.
Hunting licenses are great and deer are delicious, but city doggos can buy a whole cow and have it delivered already in eatable bits. (Sometimes your meat guy will call you and say “so a guy offered me some ostriches, how many do you want” and then family dinners are glorious.)
Don’t think about werewolves who take turns shifting so they can give each other belly rubs.
2. Not to got off on too much of a tangent but consider: At Costco (and probably other bulk stores with butchers but def Costco) you can call in and special order as much beef blood as you want*, so consider:
Werewolf at the checkout at costo with dog toys, a frankly suspicious amount of beef, carob because brownies are great but chocolate is not such a great plan, and an industrial-size lint-roller in her cart. And a giant thing of aresol cheeze whiz. For Cover. And definitely NOT for spraying across the room into her buddy’s mouth while he’s shifted.
And they look over at the cart behing them and it’s a lady with a drum of beef blood, a 12-pack of spf 5000, the order forms for a coffin**, and off-season halloween decorations and-
“Look, I get some cheez. Ya gotta have some cover.” Wolfie sighs. Must be new.
Vamp looks up at them from under thier broad-brimmed hat, and slowly grins, before picking up a high-end videocamera. “I’m shooting a movie, Don’t you know? this is all props and special effects. Your… dog can have a cameo, if I can have your number.”
“Fanged Flirtations” Doesn’t have wide distribution but it’s a cult hit on the cryptid circuit.
New skill: using sign language when mouth is not right shape for words.
it’s all you americans talk about… liminal space this… cryptid that
america is big, we got.,.,.,. its a lot happening here
It’s at least 3,000 miles just from the East Coast to the West, depending on where you start.
If I try to drive from here in Maine to New Mexico, it’s 2,400 miles.
From here to Oregon, 800 miles from my current residence to my relatives in NJ, then another 3,000 miles after that.
A brisk 8 day drive that meanders through mountains, forests, corn fields, dry, flat, empty plains, more mountains, and then a temperate rain forest in Oregon.
The land has some seriously creepy stuff, even just right outside our doors.
There is often barking sounds on the other side of our back door.
At 3 am.
When no one would let their dog out.
It’s a consensus not to even look out the fucking windows at night.
Especially during the winter months.
Nothing chills your heart faster than sitting in front of a window and hearing footsteps breaking through the snow behind you, only to look and not see anything.
I live in a tiny town whose distance from larger cities ranges from 30 miles, to 70 miles. What is in between?
Giant stretches of forests, swamps, pockets of civilization, more trees, farms, wildlife, and winding roads. All of which gives the feeling of nature merely tolerating humans, and that we are one frost heave away from our houses being destroyed, one stretch of undergrowth away from our roads being pulled back into the earth.
And almost every night, we have to convince ourselves that the popping, echoing gunshot sounds are really fireworks, because we have no idea what they might be shooting at.
There’s a reason Stephen King sets almost all his stories in Maine.
New Mexico, stuck under Colorado, next to Texas, and uncomfortably close to Arizona. I grew up there. The air is so dry your skin splits and doesn’t bleed. Coyotes sing at night. It starts off in the distance, but the response comes from all around. The sky, my gods, the sky. In the day it is vast and unfeeling. At night the stars show how little you truly are.
This is the gentle stuff. I’m not going to talk about the whispered tales from those that live on, or close, to the reservations. I’m not going to go on about the years of drought, or how the ground gives way once the rain falls. The frost in the winter stays in the shadows, you can see the line where the sun stops. It will stay there until spring. People don’t tell you about the elevation, or how thin the air truly is. The stretches of empty road with only husks of houses to dot the side of the horizon. There’s no one around for miles except those three houses. How do they live out here? The closest town is half an hour away and it’s just a gas station with a laundry attached.
No one wants to be there. They’re just stuck. It has a talent for pulling people back to it. I’ve been across the country for years, but part of me is still there. The few that do get out don’t return. A visit to family turns into an extended stay. Car troubles, a missed flight, and then suddenly there’s a health scare. Can’t leave Aunt/Uncle/Grandparent alone in their time of need. It’s got you.
Roswell is a joke. A failed National Inquirer article slapped with bumperstickers and half-assed tourist junk. The places that really run that chill down the spine are in the spaces between the sprawling mesas and hidden arroyos. Stand at the top of the Carlsbad Caverns trail. Look a mile down into the darkness. Don’t step off the path. just don’t.
The Land of Entrapment
here in minnesota we’re making jokes about how bad is the limescale in your sink
pretending we don’t know we’re sitting on top of limestone caverns filled with icy water
pretending we don’t suspect something lives down there
dammit jesse now I want to read about the things that live down there
meanwhile in maryland the summer is killing-hot, the air made of wet flannel, white heat-haze glazing the horizon, and the endless cicadas shrilling in every single tree sound like a vast engine revving and falling off, revving and falling off, slow and repeated, and everything is so green, lush poison-green, and you could swear you can hear the things growing, hear the fibrous creak and swell of tendrils flexing
and sometimes in the old places, the oldest places, where the salt-odor of woodsmoke and tobacco never quite go away, there is unexplained music in the night, and you should not try to find out where it’s coming from.
“we didn’t know any better,” the crewman says, and swallows, presenting the chest to the captain. “what do we do now?”
“kill it,” the captain says, but the ice is melting in his eyes.
“we can’t,” the first mate says desperately, praying she won’t have to fight her captain on this. “we can’t. we – i won’t. we won’t.”
“i know.”
x
“daddy,” she says, floating in a tub of seawater in the hold, “daddy, la-la, la-la-la.”
her voice rings like bells. her accent is strange; her mouth isn’t made for human words. it mesmerises even the hardiest amongst them and she wasn’t even trying. the crew has taken to diving for shellfish near the shorelines for her; she loves them, splitting the shells apart with strength seen in no human toddler, slurping down the slimy molluscs inside and laughing, all plump brown cheeks and needle-sharp teeth. she sometimes splashes them for fun with her smooth, rubbery brown tail. even when they get soaked they laugh. they love her.
“daddy,” she calls again, and he can hear the worry in her voice. the storm rocking the ship is harsh and uncaring, and if they go down, she would be the only survivor.
“don’t worry,” he says, and goes over, sitting next to the tub. the first mate, leaning against the wall, pretends not to notice as he quietly begins to sing.
x
“father,” she says, one day, as she leans on the edge of the dock and the captain sits next to her, “why am I here?”
“your mother abandoned you,” he says, as he always has. “we found you adrift, and couldn’t bear to leave you there.”
she picks at the salt-soaked boards, uncertain. her hair is pulled back in a fluffy black puff, the white linen holding it slipping almost over one of her dark eyes. one of her first tattoos, a many-limbed kraken, curls over her right shoulder and down her arm, delicate tendrils wrapped around her calloused fingertips. “alright,” she says.
x
“why am I really here?” she asks the first mate, watching the sun set over the water in streaks of liquid metal that pooled in the troughs of the waves and glittered on the seafoam.
“we didn’t know any better,” the first mate says, staring into the water. “we didn’t know- we didn’t know anything. we didn’t understand why she fought so viciously to guard her treasure. we could not know she protected something a thousand times more precious than the purest gold.”
she wants to be furious, but she can’t. she already knew the answer, from reading the guilt in her father’s eyes and the empty space in her own history. and she can’t hate her family.
“it’s alright,” she says. “i do have a family, anyways. i don’t think i would have liked my other life near as much.”
x
her kraken grows, spreading its tendrils over her torso and arms. she grows too, too large to come on board the ship without being hauled up in a boat from the water. she sings when the storms come and swims before the ship to guide it to safety. she fights off more than one beast of the seas, and gathers a set of scars across her back that she bears with pride. “i don’t mind,” she says, when the captain fusses over her, “now i match all of you.”
the first time their ship is threatened, really threatened, is by another fleet. a friend turned enemy of the first mate. “we shouldn’t fight him,” she says, peering through the spyglass.
“why not?” the mermaid asks.
“he’ll win,” the first mate says.
the mermaid tips her head sideways. Her eyes, dark as the deep waters, gleam in the noon light. “are you sure?” she asks.
x
the enemy fleet surrenders after the flagship is sunk in the night, the anchor ripped off the ship and the planks torn off the hull. the surviving crew, wild-eyed and delirious, whimper and say a sea serpent came from the water and attacked them, say it was longer than the boat and crushed it in its coils. the first mate hears this and has to hide her laughter. the captain apologizes to his daughter for doubting her.
“don’t worry,” she says, with a bright laugh, “it was fun.”
x
the second time, they are pushed by a storm into a royal fleet. they can’t possibly fight them, and they don’t have the time to escape.
“let me up,” the mermaid urges, surfacing starboard and shouting to the crew. “bring me up, quickly, quickly.”
they lower the boat and she piles her sinous form into it, and uses her claws to help the crew pull her up. once on the deck she flops out of the boat and makes her way over to the bow. the crew tries to help but she’s so heavy they can barely lift parts of her.
she crawls up out in front of the rail and wraps her long webbed tail around the prow. the figurehead has served them well so far but they need more right now. she wraps herself around the figurehead and raises her body up into the wind takes a breath of the stinging salt air and sings.
the storm carries her voice on its front to the royal navy. they are enchanted, so stunned by her song that they drop the rigging ropes and let the tillers drift. the pirates sail through the center of the fleet, trailing the storm behind them, and by the time the fleet has managed to regain its senses they are buried in wind and rain and the pirates are gone.
x
she declines guns. instead she carries a harpoon and its launcher, and uses them to board enemy ships, hauling her massive form out of the water to coil on the deck and dispatch enemies with ruthless efficiency. her family is feared across all the sea.
x
“you know we are dying,” the captain says, looking down at her.
she floats next to the ship, so massive she could hold it in her arms. her eyes are wise.
“i know,” she says, “i can feel it coming.”
the first mate stands next to the captain. she never had a lover or a child, and neither did he, but to the mermaid they are her parents. she will always love her daughter. the tattoos are graven in dark swirls across the mermaid’s deep brown skin and the flesh of her tail, even spiraling onto the spiked webbing on her spine and face. her hair is still tied back, this time with a sail that could not be patched one last time.
“we love you,” the first mate says simply, looking down. her own tightly coiled black hair falls in to her face; she shakes the locs out of the way and smiles through her tears. the captain pretends he isnt crying either.
“i love you too,” the mermaid says, and reached up to pull the ship down just a bit, just to hold them one last time.
“guard the ship,” the captain says. “you always have but you know they’re lost without you.”
“without you,” the mermaid corrects, with a shrug that makes waves. “what will we do?”
“i don’t know,” the captain says. “but you’ll help them, won’t you?”
“of course i will,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “i will always protect my family.”
x
the captain and the first mate are gone. the ship has a new captain, young and fearless – of the things she can afford to disregard. she fears and loves the ocean, as all captains do. she does not fear the royal fleet. and she does not fear the mermaid.
“you know, i heard stories about you when i was a little girl,” she says, trailing her fingers in the water next to the dock.
the mermaid stares at her with one eye the size of a dinner table. “is that so?” she hums, smirking with teeth sharper than the swords of the entire navy.
“they said you could sink an entire fleet and that you had skin tougher than dragon scales,” the new captain says, grinning right back at the monster who could eat her without a moment’s hesitation. “i always thought they were telling tall tales.”
“and now?”
“they were right,” the new captain says. “how did they ever befriend you?”
the mermaid smiles, fully this time, her dark eyes gleaming under the white linen sail. “they didn’t know any better.”
the one across the road however… Did Not. It was a Shell station, and the whole thing looked abandoned. The parking lot was badly cracked and had grass and weeds growing everywhere, some of the fuel nozzles appeared to have been ripped out, and the overhang was leaning dangerously. But. All the lights were on, and even though some of the windows were boarded, you still had a good view of the interior. It looked… well stocked? Like the cashier had just wandered into the back for a sec 2/3
and would be back at any time. But it was still off, somehow, in a way I can’t really explain. Just… wrong. Oh! And the lights on the Shell sign worked too! Except, the ’s’ was burnt out, so it just said: ‘HELL’. Definitely the creepiest thing I’ve seen while driving at night so far. Do you think there’s any chance I accidentally wandered too close to the entrance to another dimension? 3/3
OH MAN ENTROPY-RIDDLED GAS STATIONS ARE MY FAVORITE.
DOUBLY SO ENTROPY-RIDDLED GAS STATIONS IN PLACES WHERE GREAT EVIL WAS SPAWNED AW YEAH. I love the juxtaposition of decaying roof and weed-filled lot with the clean and well-stocked interior. Differing levels of entropy is my fave aesthetic. The “HELL” and missing cashier is a nice touch too. In spite of appearances, it’s not that dangerous a place if you mind your manners, don’t go under the structurally compromised part of the overhang and bring along the tire iron if you want o go around back.
You def should have bought a candy bar. If you pay for it and toss a buck in the tip jar it’s not cursed. Say hi to the cashier, ask what they do for fun around there the answer will be incredible- There’s a similar Shell with the burnt-out S and a shambling restaurant named “Boogie’s” next door in Del Norte that I ALWAYS stop at going to and from Durango. They always remember me becuase I show up pretty much exactly at the same time on the same days every year and make a point of being friendly. Chelsea’s a really nice lady who keeps bees and her son gave me a drawing of a tiger for my fridge.
Also wander around the back to look for sets of eyes glowing back at you from under the dumpster. Whatever eats there is full of chaotic energies and of immense power but probably also lonely. Say hi to them. Don’t feed the wildlife though that’s never a good idea. One of the Sonocos in Ravenna has a large gray dog that sleeps behind the store under the AC unit. She’s there every single time I’ve been to Ohio since 1997. She’s had a white muzzle and arthritis but remains otherwise unchanged, always sitting up and wagging her tail when you come by.
It’s also a great place to pick up a rider if you need one. Most people who have to drive cross-country will tell you to put something in the front seat to keep anything from climbing in with you- a box or a plant but NOT a toy or doll, those can get inhabited. And most of the time you’d be right- things like to sit in unoccupied chairs but most of them don’t actually want to leave, and are very upset if you ‘kidnap’ them. The ones that climb into cars while you’re in motion are rude and wicked pranksters at best. Sometimes, however, you’ll find one who needs to get out of town and on certain roads, you want to have something else in the car.
The stretch of I-80 between Green river Wyoming and Laramie is the worst goddamn part of interstate in the country and I have driven over most of it by now. It’s dangerously boring, poorly maintained and exposed to the elements and there’s been a white-out blizzard or hurricane-force windstorm every single time I’ve been on it. As in, the only indication of where the road actualyl IS are those tiny little reflective poles they out up every 1/10th of a mile and you can’t drive over 15 mph becuase the wind is ready to flip your tiny Honda off the road becuase fuck you that’s why.
Most of the time I can find a Fedex truck to stick close behind and drive in the half-second of exposed road in their wake but in January 2014 I was coming back from a funeral in Salt Lake City and it was shaping up to be another nasty whiteout drive with nary a truck in sight. I didn’t have the money to stay in a hotel and it was already getting late and i didn’t want to get stranded if they closed the highway. I also sure as hell didn’t want to drive that Alone.
So I pulled into the Exxon in Green River, Wyoming. It’s a silent and lonely place at the best of times but just after sunset in the middle of January when it’s 10 degrees out is just miserable. You step out and are immediately filled with the compulsion to be Anywhere Else. I pulled up, started filling the tank, then walked around and opened the passenger side door, taking the bag of chips out of the seat.
“Alright here’s the deal-” I announced, leaning against the car and staring at the towers of granite half-buried by the surrounding dessert, dark shapes in a blue-gray sky. “You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to drive this next bit alone. I can take you as far as Laramie if you get me through this. It’s nice. They have trees and an inexplicably good sushi place. I’ll drive you, but you have to get out there. Deal?” I waited, staring at the towers and Nothing Else, listening to the pump tick until the door shut against the wind.
It was still a white-knuckle drive, headlights on low becuase high-beams only caught the driving snow, wind barreling into the Honda in random gusts, occasionally shoving me into oncoming traffic for a second before I could correct, heart at a constant staccato and bile in my throat. I didn’t look over at the passenger side more than I had to out of courtesy- things remain unseen for a reason. I got the impression of tall and long-faced and just as terrified as I was but DAMN if the car stuck to the road in spite of the ice, there were no oncoming cars when I got shoved and we even made good time in a few places. We pulled into the Inexplicably Good Sushi place at the interchange of I-80 and 287 and I put my head on the wheel and cried for a good minute.
“Thank you very much.” I eventually managed. “You were very helpful. I’m gonna get takeout, do you want a Marylin Mon-roll to celebrate?”
“That would be nice.”
“Cool. I’ll leave it on the stump there for you.”
I came back out with takeout, left him his sushi and we parted ways, and I drove the remaining hour back home.
Steel Phoenix Studios 