Wait until you learn about Japanese yokai…
can you define cripids for me OP?
I guess you’ve never heard of German cryptids… Or Polish cryptids… Oooor Nordic cryptids…
I think Japanese cryptids can fit in either category.
Brazilians with our cryptids:
Which one is the Brazilian?
The chick, in this context.
The Boto-cor-de-rosa, or river dolphin, is a real animal
But the cryptid of the same name is a river dolphin that is actually a shapeshifting trickster, who will turn himself into an attractive man (often depicted wearing a fancy hat to cover the blowhole atop his head) and seduce and bang women.
I was joking but this was actually very interesting. Thanks!
Americans with Cryptids:
Translation: War it shall be, then
That’s definitely a bad idea to invite them to tea:
- They know you saw them
- They’ve got permission to enter you house
- You are giving them food!!
It sound like a recipe to get your daughter stolen from you, or to have your house falling down on your head, or losing your mind or straight being skin you and your family.
Carefully go back so they don’t know you saw them.
Do not ever speak to this to anyone, not to your parent, your neighbour, your child not to your SO, not on the internet or your diary and lets hope you don’t speak in your dream.Damn that’s intense.
How about Australian cryptids?
Most of them were killed by the non-cryptid wildlife.
Hmm… Tell me more.
Drop bears?
Waiting patiently for this one. About to hear about leprechauns with bloody 8 legs and a pint of blood from the last person to go walkabout.
Well, I’m waiting cause “They’re ugly and kill people” won’t be enough. You started it, you finished. What are they named? Where are there living? How could you meet them? And how would they kill you?
Psycho killer. Ive heard that song lol
This stereotype is just based on Europeans exoticising native American culture
Yeah exactly, the cryptids are kind but they hate colonizers
That’s why they say God Bless America
MOTHMAN MOTHMAN
And then there’s Norway.
That’s Tony Tony Chopper. Don’t be scared, he’s a doctor.
That brings me back memories of when is was ~5 years old and visiting my father’s cabin in the forest, which had a copy of that painting on the wall. He would put hall of the mountain king on full blast and tell troll stories just to scare me from time to time.
Nøkken was scarier though, kept me from going down to lake alone after dark, which I guess was the original intention of that creature.
What is the name of that picture if you kbow perhaps?
The Water Sprite (Nøkken in Norwegian) by Theodor Kittelsen
He was one of the most popular artists in Norway due to his illustrations of Norwegian fairy tales and legends.
Some of his other works includes:
Pesta (personification of the black death)
And The Forest Troll
Ngl the Pesta ones are quite spooky.
The skogtrollet is rad though
Fuck yeah Savatage! Rare to see referenced in the wild.
Edit: wait I didn’t click the link, did you mean this 80s metal classic or Edvard Greig’s lol
Just heard that song (and band) for the first time, and it’s great!
Hell yeah!
I’m speaking about nordic folklore, so Edvard Grieg. I’m not sure the metal music could ever scare the same way Grieg’s symphony did back then.
Tbf while it is great peer gynt isn’t that frightening either, reminds me of Looney Tunes.
Savatage fucking rules too though, and I just remembered Rainbow also has a song by that title too which also rules!
When all you can see outside the window is the pitch black forest and the moon over the looming mountains in the valley, and your dad start telling you tales of dangerous troll lurking in the forest, The Hall of Mountain King got a different mood over it. Especially when your father is telling you that as the music is reaching its prestissimo finale the troll in the tale is running towards your house lol.
Especially with pictures like this on the wall
Savatage fucking rules too though, and I just remembered Rainbow also has a song by that title too which also rules!
Any metal band that want to draw inspiration from the nordics outside of norse mythology are bound to stumble upon Grieg and Ibsen so that checks out.
If any cryptid out there actually exists, my bet is on bigfoot just because it would be the most mundane, boring thing to be proven real. Just a big ape? Fuck that. I want the Dover Demon to be real because it’s actually interesting.
Bigfoot is just boring enough to be plausible. If they proved it, I would expect a good round of bigfoot memes than a solid meh.
European cryptids can be creepy as hell if you look into older, non-disneyfied versions.
They’ve (euro cryptids) have gotten nerfed over the centuries, and the especially nasty ones probably got wiped out during world War II.
Our (American) culture is strongly combative, and our last giant local war was over a century and a half ago or so. The dark things that have crawled forth from our deepest nightmares and waking dreams are far hungrier, crueller, and have had much more time to proliferate than your feeble, mischievous survivors.
Your cryptids crave petty things, like food, stealing names, or the occasional child. Ours crave the end of all things and the souls of the multitudes, to truck is into turning each hand against every other, and ultimately to drag our shattered remnants kicking and screaming into the dark places under the Earth.
Honestly the disneyification fits in pretty well with old european folklore, the gambit for a lot of our mythological creatures was tricking you into thinking they’re your friends and then a whole towns worth of people vanishes. We have some wendigo stuff style too and it tends to follow a similar style of moral lesson about don’t do x or you will turn into the monster or the monster will come get you.
It is what we deserve
Jackalope: Am I a joke to you? I hope so. It’s kind of my thing.
Wolpertinger: I am your father!
Wasn’t me
Well yeah, you’re a former wolpertinger
