McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Vilify a Spider
Quantus:
I need to vilify a Spider. Sounds easy at first, but I dont just need something nasty, I need Quintessential Vilified Spider, the epitome of everything we hate and fear about spiders, the reason they are right there with snakes as the most common phobia, and are literally hardwired into our brains danger-sense.
What would such a creature look and act like?
Ill give you some background: Without getting into too much exposition, the setting is a modern urban fantasy not terribly unlike American gods, but in this case ancient spirits make pacts with special/anointed humans to take over some aspect of the modern world, if they want to stay relevant/powerful. As an example, the Atomic Age is the result a pact with the Phoenix's; they get a place in the modern world rather than slipping into myth and loosing power. Now the Main Character is in a position to make another such bargain, and one of the parties that approaches him is the Master/Progenitor Spider, ruler of the Arachnids (though probably at war with a Scorpion Clan somewhere). Anyway, I want to evoke the master hunter in the center of his vast web, and something you can converse with, something more intellectual than a giant atavistic spider-monster. But I still want him to speak to the archetypal fear that crosses so many cultures.
Any thoughts?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
Sorry, I love spiders.
Make it a cat, otoh, and I could probably get places.
Griffyn612:
Eyes
- Their eyes are multifaceted. What are they looking at? What are they seeing?
- Their eyes are so alien that we can't comprehend them. What are they thinking?
Speed
- So fast. Their stillness hypnotizes us into thinking they're dead or scared. And then they move. Not necessarily away from us/danger, but toward.
Reaction
- For those that move, they typically come at you rather than fleeing.
- For those that freeze, it doesn't seem like they're afraid. It's like they're calculating their chances against you.
Movement
- Aside from just their speed being alarming, their movement is creepy. We can't easily comprehend moving so smoothly as things that have so many legs.
Web
- Practically invisible, until you walk into it, and then you feel it everywhere. And you know that the spider might have been on it, and now it might be on you.
- High tensile strength for such a small material. It clings to you, and you're left with a feeling that you can't get free of it.
Modern take on a Spider?
- The internet, a literal web of communication connecting everyone and everything.
- The spider collects information in its web based on pulses as its prey touches upon it, similar to spying on the web.
- The spider's multifaceted eyes lends itself to seeing many things at once at different angles.
Purpose
- Gathers information about everyone and everything.
- Watches silently through electronic devices, as cameras act as its multifaceted eyes. That sense of being watched? Guess who.
- Information is its poison. It can strike at anyone, knowing their secrets, and can lay false trails as needed.
- It operates a web that draws people in and is impossible to escape.
Physical Manifestation
- I imagine a figure keeping itself mostly in shadows, to conceal its movements.
- I imagine a silent figure, leaving one wondering where it is and what it's thinking.
- I imagine an odd speech pattern, to maintain a mysterious and alien mindset.
- I imagine a predatory aura, leaving one in a constant state of fight or flight.
- I imagine a still figure, that moves entirely too fast when you're not looking, and hard to track.
- Keep the alien eyes.
- Keep the extra limbs that move smoothly.
Quantus:
That's actually pretty fantastic! And you have the Modern Take and Purpose exactly right. The MC will be making the pact for the Internet (and by exetension the Virtual World, which becomes more abstractly significant), and so it will come down to the Spiders that are the more obvious "Webmasters" but are very predatory about it, making the www a trap and hunting ground. The contrasting option will eventually be Forest spirits, which monitor similarly complex systems, but with a purpse more aligned to cultivations and healthy growth, rather than weaponization. fantastic. And you have teh Modern take and Purpose exactly right. The MC will be making the pact for the Internet, and so the Spiders will
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: Quantus on April 08, 2015, 09:24:02 PM ---That's actually pretty fantastic! And you have the Modern Take and Purpose exactly right. The MC will be making the pact for the Internet (and by exetension the Virtual World, which becomes more abstractly significant), and so it will come down to the Spiders that are the more obvious "Webmasters" but are very predatory about it, making the www a trap and hunting ground. The contrasting option will eventually be Forest spirits, which monitor similarly complex systems, but with a purpse more aligned to cultivations and healthy growth, rather than weaponization. fantastic. And you have teh Modern take and Purpose exactly right. The MC will be making the pact for the Internet, and so the Spiders will
--- End quote ---
For the spider character then, I'd definitely go with the "less is more". Nobody is terrified by the seen monster. Its the unseen monster lurking in shadows or out of sight, stalking them, that scares them. As a pinnacle Spider-concept, the master spider should be able to encompass any spider trait, such as the Trapdoor spider that hunts unseen until it strikes, or a web weaver, or a shadow lurking spider like a brown recluse or black widow.
Drawing the main character in would be more in line, rather than having the Spider come to the character. Glimpses of the spider would be scarier than seeing it in full, unless there's an eventual confrontation where full visibility is required. Having the main character spinning to face where he thinks the spiders is because it moves around him in shadows, speaking from different directions, that type of thing.
As for the modern concept, I think its interesting that spiderwebs have an electrostatic charge that draws in both prey and particles drifting by. The web will actually drift toward a nearby prey due to the charge. The fact that devices are all electricity and temptations that draw people in, and then people end up losing time on the internet because they can't seem to break away, are interesting concepts to correlate to the spider-web.
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