Maybe you've already seen the video below; it's the latest viral hit (I saw it on io9, myself). According to marine biologists, the answer to your inevitable question of "What the fucking blue hell is that thing?" is, it's a rare kind of jellyfish. But here's what I think, when I look at something like this.
Right from the get-go, I know it has to be an Old One; and since it's in the ocean, that narrows it down (mostly) to Cthulhu and Dagon. Then again, it could be a minion. The point it, this is definitely a Lovecraftian monster, and that means all kind of unspeakable horrors...and, if your mind works like mine, speakable kink.
Now, since I'm such a fan of EMC, my next thought is that it's obviously a Lovecraftian monster designed to MC unsuspecting divers. Obviously, it billows like that to mesmerize its prey.
At this point, my old-school-Stephen-King-fan joins the party, reminding me of an short story called (IIRC) "The Raft." In it, a group of teenagers gets stuck on a wooden raft in the middle of a lake, corralled by some sort of oil-slick-like monster that tries to lure them into its clutches with flickering lights. In one of the few scenes I still remember, a pretty girl is leaning over the edge of the raft, staring right into the predator's metaphorical eyes but too far gone to realize what she's doing.
Sadly, King's monster only kills its victims. But the video below makes me think of all kinds of other possibilities. Maybe this Lovecraftian monster embraces its prey and sucks, not the life, but the will out of them. Then perhaps it coats them in its own squicky effluence, creating a sort of Cthulhian pearl. Something that appeals to its own very specialized sense of aesthetics.
After that, the only question remaining is whether the monster hoards its pearls in some deep-sea treasure hold, or whether it sends them back to the surface to lure more recruits.
But why don't you answer that question for yourself?
2 comments:
That reminds me of one of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, "The Sunken Land" collected in "Swords Against Death".
I'll confess I googled the title.
F&GM hire on (or are shanghaied) onto an expedition to this island that rises out of the ocean every few centuries. Legends abound of the treasure hidden in caves on the island. The party gets to the cave, but something feels wrong and F&GM have to swordfight their way out of captivity. They are swimming off the island and they look back. In the distance, they can see the main party is running out of the cave, but dark floppy sea like things pursuing them, or dropping from the cave ceiling. The tiny human figures are enveloped by the dark things, struggle a little, then crawl back into the glowing cave, and the island sinks back into the ocean for another few centuries.
MC wasn't mentioned in the story, but I liked to insert that into the narrative.
The Raft is phenomenal. When I was a kid, my Dad told me the story and I found incredibly riveting and scary. The funny part is he couldn't remember the name of the story or the collection it appeared in.
Years later, when I was first venturing onto the internet, I put my mind to tracking the story down. By now my EMC fetish had activated and I discovered a whole new reason to appreciate the tale when I finally got myself a copy of Skeleton Crew.
Hmmm I may have to go looking for manippable-images...this really has my mind working all the sudden.
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