I’ve decided that today is to be a day of monsters. Sarnothi monsters, of course.
Have a spooky day, and don’t take anything Grandmother offers you.
Be good, now.
I’ve decided that today is to be a day of monsters. Sarnothi monsters, of course.
Have a spooky day, and don’t take anything Grandmother offers you.
Wow! Sarnothi spoopiness! Nice! Happy Halloween!
Question.
Does the grandmother still curse you if you offer a trade?
How does she react if you offer to help her instead?
Yeah, simply accepting nice things is a weird thing to call “greedy,” unless the culture has a very strong sense of… I’m gonna get the wrong one, aren’t I?… “giri” or “on” in Japanese ethics.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PillarsOfMoralCharacter
The general principle of not taking what you cannot reciprocate. The reason that one Westerner was dumbfounded when he tried to buy a tricycle for a little kid in Japan, only to have the mother react with horror, cry out “What do you want?!” and run off with her kid.
It’s a culture to culture thing. Others require you play little games, like rejecting the gift twice before accepting it the third time. Many of these traditions reflect the culture’s history of wealth (richer cultures just give the gift, poorer play the games) or attitudes toward strangers (the above Japan example is a good one as the Japanese are traditionally wary of anyone new).
Hmm. Trade, she would reject such an offer, might even get offended by it. Offer to help would be denied, she doesn’t need it.
OK I love this! These are awesome. Thank you for sharing. I now kinda want to write a short story about Grandmother Sei Sien… 🙂
Accepting a gift given freely is not greedy. *grumble*
But that’s why it’s a spoopy monster, and not just a kindly old woman.
I imagine that the story might have it’s roots in things like Anglerfish or snapping turtles or mimic eels or the like- bait-using predators that seemingly offer something ‘for free’ but which are actually trying to eat you. Thus, teaching children to never accept handouts helps keep them from falling for bait.
Pantssssssss.
Depends on your view point. Maybe she’s testing your character to see if you are swayed by material things…
Also she’s a malevolent Spirit, they gonna do what they gonna do.
If you let in the Bad Thing, it gets to affect you, basically! Invite in the vampire, etc. Bad spirits gonna bad. Don’t take gifts from strangers; offer to do them a good turn instead.
Well, at least *you* managed something neat for Halloween proper (love the colors, btw!). I didn’t even complete my project in time (due to writer’s block and procrastination and some other factors); I’d originally planned for the finale to post on Halloween, but it looks like it’ll post sometime in November instead.
Still, it’s been neat (if stressful) to be in charge of a project with participants from around the world. And to write my first SCP-inspired fic, with plenty of creepiness to go around….
Hey I’m actually right there with you. My original plan for today was to write a short horror story featuring Tika-Taka and post that, but I couldn’t get it to vibe right. So I drew monsters instead.
The cutest thing so far is one of my dearest fans (and friends) sending me a threatening email regarding a beloved character who, at the end of the chapter, got shot and stumbled offscreen.
Email went like this:
knock knock
[adorable emoticons: ghost ghost knife knife gun gun bomb bomb]
This is a threatening message.
DON’T KILL ELIAS
–I haven’t stopped grinning every time I think of this ^.^
Also, I did not anticipate the amount of highly positive feedback that happens when you turn a character who, in canon, got killed before the series started… into a living rag doll about a foot and a half high.
Practically every reader who’s commented adores that little rag doll. (Rag doll Nathan communicates in rudimentary sign language, is practically immune to fall damage, gets frustrated with tech because of the limitations of his little muslin body (he used to be a coder), and is the only character in the main team immune to the memory-deleting effect that’s slowly making them forget their teammates.)
One sensitive reader, though, got so queasy at the thought of a living rag doll that she couldn’t keep reading the story. Ah well.
As far as monsters: The group part of this project turned out to be unexpectedly awesome in this regard. I gave everyone some basic guidelines, set each one up with a scenario, and gave them almost free reign on the details. Which led to a couple of creepy monsters that I could not have come up with myself, as well as some other horror scenarios that really helped flesh out the world for this AU.
Are you thinking to maybe try that horror story again next year? That could be cool. Or post it on Valentine’s Day 😛
Yay! Halloween spooky page!
…
I didn’t know what else to say.
Hmmm… So if you make a deal with the Eel God (I forget it’s name), accept a gift from Grandmother Sei Sien, run into Tika-Taka, and then get cornered by a school of Kehl Nin Fa Thao, will they all start fighting over who gets to curse you?
Clearly, Grandmother’s curse causes you to renege on your deal with the Eel God, he eats your flesh, Tika-Taka gets your skin, and the Kehl Nin Fa Thao nibble at your soul for eternity.
Great, now I can’t go trick-or-treating and have to spend the evening sobbing in the bottom of my coat cupboard instead. Tika Taka…. Nooooo! I was good! I was good! I tried to be good!
….wait. Hides in corners of houses? AAAuuuhhhh!!!!
Love the Halloween outfit on Selkie, btw.
I don’t get the last one. If someone offers a gift or service, you aren’t being greedy for accepting.
Culturally speaking, it’s a parable against being too quick to accept gifts that are offered seemingly at no price. A cautionary tale against those who would trick you into being bound to them.
Sarnothi monster appear rather Cthulhuesque.
…are those skeletal Sarnothi babies? 😱
Eek! I may not get any sleep tonight! (nonetheless looking forward to reading a book of Sarnothi folk tales someday – or seeing Selkie get one as a gift, perhaps?)
“The Frenzy”, Fine. “The Dancer” and “The Grandmother”, well, that’s just misleading advertising.