Comments on: Fish Stories

By: Scarlett

Scarlett — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:33:25 +0000

You've done a very fine job as always with one of your creation stories. Seems you like to blend a lot of sources. That early war you keep referring to sounds a lot like the early chapters of the Silmarillion. And the water and the chaos seem to be threads from a few different cultures, Innunit, Norse, Celtic and Egyptian seem to be the dominant ones. It could have been an unholy mash up but you've balanced it well.

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By: Gaudior

Gaudior — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:19:09 +0000

Fun stories! Please note: it's "whence it came," not "from whence it came." "From whence" is redundant

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By: C-La

C-La — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:17:16 +0000

Yeah, the elves have been referred to with the athan-prefix several times in the MUniverse: Ancient Athanasian civilization, athanophobia (re: Jamie's perception of the way Callahan treats Steff). As NullSet said, the elves don't have to breathe, though some choose to. It makes sense that some would leave land and decide to live underwater, especially if there was a conflict like the one that split surface elves and subterranean elves. Now I'm wondering if they all flounced in the same conflict, ending in three levels of elves, one of which seems to have been forgotten. Or maybe it was an older conflict. I also wonder which gender is favored among the submarine elves. And Stonefoot, the elven references use Greek, so while it's the -i that makes it plural (kouros -vs- kouroi), the example you used is a Latin plural (that is often misused today), just to clarify.

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By: Potatohead

Potatohead — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:09:39 +0000

I thought the athanoi were what the octopoids called themselves.

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By: NullSet

NullSet — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 06:11:51 +0000

I have a strong hunch that the athanoi are sea elves. If you don't have to breathe, why would it matter how wet it was around you?

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By: Kit

Kit — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 09:47:21 +0000

The polyp colonies are kind of extending the idea as far as it can go. The mermaids in the main story have mentioned that humans, and a lot of other people, draw too fine distinctions on what they consider intelligent beings because mermaids can, on some level, communicate with fish. The polyps are so far separated from what we consider intelligent and capable of storytelling that they indirectly challenge our concept of communication and sentience. Which humanizes the mermaids in the main story a little, because they brought up fish communicating to show that eating humans makes sense from their perspective.

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By: Stonefoot

Stonefoot — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:34:06 +0000

I can't find a direct reference, but it has to come from thanatos (death) and the "a-" prefix meaning "not, or without": As in "amoral" meaning without morals. (And the "-i" ending is plural - compare "octopi") so the athanoi would be ones who don't die. And that is quite consistent with the context where it's used.

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By: bramble

bramble — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:02:33 +0000

Well, there are a couple of other possible interpretations. It could be that the gods themselves are capable of dying "natural" deaths, it just doesn't happen very often or to gods that still have a strong enough following to notice. It could also be that the "imperfect mortals" (elves seem a good bet, although for me demons also came to mind) are "imperfect" because they are meant to be mortals but lack the major identifying characteristic, mortality. They have the potential to live forever, but are not mentally equipped to deal with it, which is why most elves turn out to be psychotic and/or suicidal sooner or later (and demons, at least from what we've seen, are implied to have a similar tendency toward sociopathic or psychopathic behavior). Gods are a different matter entirely; a god that does not die unless killed is not "imperfect" because that is the way gods are meant to be.

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By: Jason Land

Jason Land — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:23:42 +0000

I understood what nereids were, but what about athanoi?

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By: Chips

Chips — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:35:13 +0000

And good (and bad) horror writers all 'round the world ever since...

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