inktober/wordtober/drawlloween day 8

day 8 Prompt: Yokai

Yokai is a word I looked up:
I don't know Japanese culture.
Bits. Fragments, only, really.
Kitsune the only example I recognized.
Dim memory that :demon: in that millenia old culture
Means something quite different
than what I might assume.
*
Trickster? Demigod? Supernatural being of uncertain motivations?
Is Yokai more like the Fae of Irish tradition?
Or Coyote in Southwest North America?
*
My ignorance is large.
I don't even know if the word is singular or plural
(I'd guess plural)
Wondering could I compare Loki, Hermes, Anansi, in the same category
(are there female Yokai?)
*
Seanan McGuire has a character who's Kitsune.
That's pretty much my whole experience.
*
There's a whole deep mythology I'm missing.
I may never understand.
*
I forgive myself for my own ignorance
and I pray I'll be lucky enough
or kind enough, or careful enough
that others will forgive me for my ignorance, too.

inktober/wordtober/drawlloween day 9

the prompt for day 9 is "Spider Baby" but I looked that up on Wikipedia and reading the entry is plenty enough horror/scary for me. So from me, you get Spider instead, today.

Spider:
I know you,
I know how you move.
That skitter-pause, skitter-pause
Or the swoop-swoop-swoop of the daddy-longlegs.
*
Spider, I know you.
Your webs are annoying
and also beautiful.
Deadly, and a reminder
of how life has rhythms of birth and death,
of feeding and being consumed.
*
You are tiny. Usually.
Why do folks fear you so?
What makes the shudder go down their spines?
*
I mean no shame
to those with a full blown fear
but I trained myself to be kind
when my mother mentioned you eat mosquitoes.
(because MOSQUITOES, ugh)
*
I use the cup and paper to relocate you
I deal with your incursions in my house
and I roll my eyes at the giant fake spiderwebs for Halloween.
*
I am not afraid of you. <3