[ SECRET POST #5187 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5187 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



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03.
[Gnosia]


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04.


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05.
[I Care a Lot (on Netflix)]


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06.
[X-Files]


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08.
[Lolita Fashion Youtuber Tyler Willis]


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09. [SPOILERS for The Story of Yanxi Palace]



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10. [WARNING for discussion of pedophilia/child molestation]

























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #742.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

04. https://i.imgur.com/tcMXY32.png

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

Transcript: For some reason, I've always gravitated towards Lovecraft's more ambiguous portrayals of eldritch abominations. Stuff like "Pickman's Model" and the Dream Cycle are more interesting to me than stuff like "Shadow Over Innsmouth" or "At the Mountains of Madness," where the creatures are openly malevolent.

Maybe it's because I'm primarily a sci fi person rather than a horror person. Maybe it's because the idea of weird stuff that can drive you mad just chilling is more frightening to me than stuff that's specifically out to get you. Whatever the reason, I feel like I'm kinda doing Lovecraft wrong.

Also, read "Pickman's Model," it's my favorite Lovecraft short story and features a painter who is very chill about eldritch abominations, which is super cool to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Pickman is such a thought provoking character, I love him.

I like the subtler weirdness too, but it's harder to do well so it's more likely to come off boring.

[feotakahari]

I haven’t read Lovecraft, but a lot of villains who’re described as “Lovecraftian” feel like a child kicking over an anthill, or perhaps one of those JRPG final bosses who wants to destroy the world because happiness irritates them. I feel like something so far beyond human knowledge shouldn’t even have motives that are recognizable to a human.

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of Lovecraft's entities don't have really recognisable motives. Or motives at all, in the case of Azathoth, who is a mindless force of raw nuclear chaos at the centre of the universe who will destroy it just as a basic biological fact of regaining consciousness. If he's not asleep, stuff goes boom.

If you're getting a 'kid kicking anthills' feeling, they're probably basing them on or inspired by Nyarlathotep, who is Lovecraft's dickbag elder god, and more or less the only one of them with a) much of a consciousness, and b) any understanding of the awareness and opinions of lower entities like humans. Even the Great Old Ones like Cthulhu are usually more self-absorbed. Nyarlathotep is the one who goes out of his way to screw with lesser beings for shits and giggles.

[(Anonymous)]

Cthulhu is an eldritch babysitter who got the eldritch babies to finally sleep and that's why he's cranky. Hot take.

[(Anonymous)]

I adore the Dream Cycle, though in my case that's because I love dark fantasy. They're perfect for that mythopoeic, exploratory, madness-and-adventure sort of feeling.

My favourite Lovecraft story, though, is The Terrible Old Man, which goes all the way down in scale to a, well, terrible old man. Who you absolutely should not rob. Because you're in a Lovecraft story, and he's a creepy old man with a house full of eerie pendulum bottles that he talks to, who pays for groceries with gold coins and yet somehow has never been robbed before. Danger, Will Robinson! In a similar vein, both to this and Pickman's, the Music of Erich Zann is also quite good.

I think Lovecraft is better at the more extreme ends of the scale. All the way down with your Pickmans and Zanns, or all the way up with Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth, the vast mindless eldritch forces shaping the universe. It's in the middle, when you're dealing with Great Old Ones and Deep Ones and Mi-Go (and, admittedly, Nyarlathotep) that he gets a bit 'blunt evil eldritch force that wants to kill and/or corrupt you'.

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, you may not be doing Lovecraft the way he wanted to come across, but fuck that guy anyway, and I agree. A scale of horror so far beyond human importance that we're at most collateral damage is way more interesting to me than "mean monster bad"

And "Pickman's Model" is excellent.

[(Anonymous)]

Pickman's Model is my personal favorite, OP!