#not-deer

Some (but not all) of the pages from a circle-shaped zine i made for an art-in-the-mail Patreon bundle last year. It was called ovo which i thought was very funny.

where i live, there's lots of forests about, to the point where it's actually hard to explain sometimes to people up north or in cities. lots of people know that the southern us is full of trees, logically, but very few of them quite grasp just how much of it is trees. there's deep forests on either side of every highway, along every road, in every backyard.

so naturally, most kids around here end up exploring the forests from a pretty young age, and the adults always let them, because that's what they did too, and because it's a nice and easy way to get your kids to leave you alone for a couple hours. but there's rules. some of them are just basic safety rules, and some of them are a little more like superstition. the safety ones are no fun, so here's a short list of some of the superstitious ones:

no whistling

no singing

if you go with someone, don't take your eyes off them. they just might get replaced.

don't go at night

if you're not on a path, and you see one, don't start down that path. you're not gonna find a way off.

don't look too deep into the woods at eye-level

and if something sounds far away, that means it's close, and vice versa

there's a lot more, but those are the main ones. most people i know here don't actually believe in ghosts, or cryptids, or any of that. but every damn one of them follows those rules. maybe it's just cause they were taught them so young, maybe not. for most people, it's a "just in case" type thing.

i, however, am an idiot, and have broken nearly all of them by now. most often it's the "don't go at night" rule. i think i was about 10 when i started walking off into my backyard with a flashlight, and i still do it fairly often. again, this isn't a little yard with a couple dozen trees out back, it's acres and acres of deep forest. i don't consider myself "in the woods" until i can't see my house anymore.

but hey, i'm still alive to tell the tale of the not-quite-deer.

not-quite-deer are just what they sound like. they look like deer, but they sure as hell don't move like deer. i consider myself a skeptic, so my theory is they're diseased somehow, but they've never been aggressive towards me. they're just.... off. they're skinny, and they kinda... twitch? idk how to describe it to be honest. it's like their muscles don't quite work right. sometimes they make this sort of raspy sound. scared the shit out of me first time i heard it. and i only ever see them at night, which is weird, because deer are usually most active at sunrise and sundown.

there's lots of stories and speculation around the not-quite-deer, (sometimes just "not-deer",) at least that i've heard. people say they're possessed, or that they're shapeshifters of some kind, or that they used to be deer, but they got tricked by some predator thing that took their souls. all sorts. they're one of the main reasons behind those rules up above. people say if you look too deep in the trees at eye level, you'll make eye contact, and they'll attack or take your soul or whatever. it's different depending on who's telling the story, as with pretty much all cryptids.

but yeah, that's the not-quite-deer, and a short list of Rules For Walking In The Woods. hope i've spooked you out enough for one night. i'm going to bed.

Ok first, I've heard of the not-deer and I find them cool and fascinating, but quite unsettling. Seeing one in person would probably spook me for weeks. (But stories and drawings aren't that bad)

Also yeah I think you only got through like one or two days of posts so. Makes sense kinda. I guess I don't post about my hyperfixations a ton. Mostly just random boring stuff or weird Situations. Also 3am. Wow. But yay! Cryptids!!

That's interesting that you have a hard time explaining the amount of trees. Where I live there's a fair amount, but mostly farmland. I've gone to alot of national/provincial parks though and yeah I get what you mean. Also backcountry camping (which I love very dearly). That's like. Only trees. And lakes.

But I haven't heard of those types of rules in those places. I have heard of them in relation to the us though. How do you explain that to a child without terrifying them? Some of those are. Very unsettling.

Also would the last one about noise like... Mess with your perception? Cause I feel like if I grew up learning that if something in the woods sounds far away it's close and vice versa, I would start thinking the same way out of the woods too. That sounds disorienting.

Acres and acres of forest as your backyard is crazy. Wow. My parents have half an acre of no woods. And that's considered large to people in the city. If you don't consider yourself in the woods until you can't see your house, does that mean it's technically ok to break the rules while in the trees but not in the woods? Also going out there at night with those rules instilled in you is. Either brave or stupid. Or a combination. Have you ever broken other rules? like the no whistling one? What happened if you did?

Your description of the not deer sounds. Very unsettling. So creepy. But then being diseased could make sense. It could affect their eating/digestion, making them skinny. And maybe they're lungs. Twitchiness... Maybe? That is odd that you only see them at night.

Yeah I've heard some of that speculation about them. I think I heard that they could be skin walkers. The idea that there's Something else out there that took their souls is also very creepy. But then the deer become the soul takers? Or are you also avoiding whatever took the deers souls? Yeah I don't like that idea of accidentally meeting their eyes. You said you saw some. Did you see their eyes? How close were they? Also were they in groups? I think deer usually travel at least in pairs.

Day 15 // Cryptid (part two)

Continued from the research journal of Dr. Bernard Pfieffer, date unknown:

C. Fallax's random (and often deadly) mutations perplex biologists around the world. No one is quite sure how such a thing developed uniformly in a species whose range extends nearly from pole to pole.

So far, the documented mutations all seem to be extra body parts. Eyes, legs, mouths, even antlers. For what purpose would a species need to grow extra limbs or organs, none can say. There is no commonality between these mutations and C. Fallax's territories.

My own studies of the animals lead me to believe that perhaps the codes for such mutations are all lumped inside one specific genome, but only one (or rarely two) trait develops dominantly. Like an advanced terratoma, these traits manifest as fully-functional organs and limbs, posing little detriment to the animal and thus being advantageous to the species as a whole.

can you do a not-deer emoji?? they are my favorite cryptid 🤎

Here ya go !! Can be interpreted as any emotion ,, gonna make a few others later on !!

If you'd like any changes ,, please let us know !

Finally colored this comic I sketched in 2024

Uh-Oh