Curses!

[moonshayde]

Hey flist...

How about some examples of curses? They can be cliche curses, traditional horror curses, silly and stupid curses, folklore curses...whatever. I just want a list of curses and hexes I can tap into for research purposes.

Some of you must be thinking, oh no, because you know why I might be asking. And the answer is yes. *headdesk*

Comments

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Well, I own a copy of the Dictionary of Superstitions, but retyping its contents at random is a little too labor intensive for me right now, as I really really want to leave but am waiting for the gorram cat to get done hiding under the bushes and come in the bloody house.

Anyway, could you make your request more specific?

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

Dude. No. Do NOT go all pod person on me...

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I'm basically looking for people to throw out a few ideas here and there. I saw this very vague prompt for a short fic dealing with cursed amulets or potions and I wanted to try one.

So basically anything that might look kind of attractive at first but be very bad in the end. Nothing to do with fertility or finances. Could be abilities, something personal...

Yeah this does not help, does it?

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Me? *is all innocent*

But Meg, I saw this prompt and I wanna write a quick one! Not like the ones I complain about. Promise!

I just need a curse first...

(Besides, I worked on John!fic this morning. I'm allowed...)

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

How aboooout... someone hexes them into being unable to resist the urge to write hex!fic? :P

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

My serious answer would have to be... Upgrades SPN style?

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

"A plague on both your houses!" ...like that?

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

*snort*

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was thinking of that, but I might save that for a long fic.

I found a challenge comm this morning that had the prompt of potions and amulets and I was like, oh I can do that! And then I realized I couldn't :(

So I'd like to bang out a short fic before the deadline tonight just to prove to myself I can do it :)

I just can't seem to settle on an idea that wouldn't take me a year to write.

I've toyed with invisibility, time going backwards, etc etc, but eh. Most of these require some heavy duty writing. I do want to create an eventually curse and hex list that everyone can tap into if they want.

But you know how picky I am. If I am going to do something curse/hex, I'm going to want it to have a creepy twist or an ill effect. No turning Sam and Dean into mice ;)

I'm sort of leaning toward multiple!Sam right now, but I need a "bad" or "creepy" aspect of it for it to work. or at least a reason behind it. Otherwise, why would anyone bother to make it a hex in the first place?

That's my biggest issue. The hex/curse needs to make sense.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Yeah in that vain. I'm lookign for something I can use to write a short hex/curse fic that isn't meant to be 100% cracky. Something that could start off kind of funny but have serious consequences.

But would be short. Because I can tend to go on and on and on.

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

Oh! You could make one of the Sams evil! :D

[autumndandelion.livejournal.com]

When I first saw your question, I thought you wanted some examples of cliche curses, traditional, silly, stupid, etc like damn, oh drat, and fie on it. I don't know any hexes and such.

[twasadark.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know if it will help any but I know that women in the past often referred to menstruation as "the curse." LOL.

[superbadgirl]

You know those stupid spam curses posted in YouTube, Imeem, MySpace in comments - the ones that start off "don't read this. If you do you'll be cursed..."? I think one of those could be highly entertaining for SPN.

Aha, like this infamous one:

In 1945, a young girl named katu lata kulu came over to America in a grey boat from Africa. A mysterious man killed her by cutting the word "LATUALATUKA" into her back. now that you have read this message, she will come to your house on a full moon and steal your soul unless you follow these directions: 1. Retype this message as a comment for 3 other video

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, I've got nothing. Sorry. This is all about black cats crossing one's path and that sort of thing, not stuff you actually do on purpose with "real" magic.

[maychorian.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the one from the Stephen King novel, Thinner, where a fat guy is cursed by a gypsy and starts losing weight. No matter what he eats he just keeps losing and losing, until he's just skin and bones. It got really creepy really fast.

There's the traditional "witch's" curses of making children sick or crops fail, cows go dry, bread always burn, that sort of thing.

An object that always carries a literal raincloud around with it? That could be sort of funny, with Sam or Dean constantly under a gloomy cloud, seems appropriate at first, until they realize...

[autumnrae89.livejournal.com]

At first I thought you wanted to know some swearwords! lol.

Umm, you could do like someone said an update of an old curse. The Greeks are good for stuff like that. For example; Heracles (Or Hercules as he's most known) was given a poison...not sure if it's shirt or jacket... but it obviously eventually killed him. Maybe in your fic you could make it something else and have the person be saved.

Okay... that was the first thing that popped into my head. If you want something different lemme know. :D Or you could go Buffy style and have an amulet bring back an old demon from the dead or make 'em sing. ;)

[ankh-lj.livejournal.com]

There's an example of one here:
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/c/curses.html

[larienelengasse.livejournal.com]

This is a little specific, but could be adapted:

"Bell, book and candle; candle, book, and bell
Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.” ~ from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

And this isn't a curse, specifically, but a charm:

1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.
3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!

1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

~ from Shakespeare's Macbeth, of course...

[larienelengasse.livejournal.com]

At first I thought you wanted to know some swearwords! lol.

Me too.... And I had a LIST. *snort*

[autumnrae89.livejournal.com]

Don't waste it! Tell me your list. :P

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

The Evil Eye hex (is lame)...

*hugs*

[ausiewanab.livejournal.com]

We have a cursed stupid pig at work that if he leaves our pod area then the taker is going to be cursed with high CRT (call resolution time), long calls, forget to clock off, and bad reviews.

Its sad, yes. We call him Perciville Pig

[jedishadowolf.livejournal.com]

classic curse from the Chinese - may you live in interesting times.

:)

or you could go the silly route - a cursed amulet that makes you dance till you die from exhaustion.