Honestly I'm not a big Lovecraft guy. Like I read synopses of his stories and impressionable nerds being driven mad by wacky weirdo shit seems like extremely my thing, but reading actual stories is like pulling teeth. Maybe he was just that bad of a writer or maybe I don't know English well enough to enjoy his verbose nerdy prose...
I've felt it was the opposite. Learning about the reality of capitalism, particularly while being alienated in the imperial core is pretty analogous to discovering that the world is actually at the whim of a cosmic abomination beyond your comprhension. But i like the idea of identifying with comrade Cthulu way more
Love blowing people's minds with that little chestnut
“Did you know lovecraft had a redemption arc” is the “John Lennon beat his wife” for leftists
(Not a mod comment or anything—just shitposting)
Every time I get hammered and then post some weird ass thing on Hexbear, I tell myself I'll stop doing that. Yet here we are once again :agony-minion:
Given the context, where you joking about Jon Arbuckle, garfield's owner? Cause that is kinda funny, like if you said it irl I would probably laugh, it just didn't work well over text.
I guess there's a point to be made that Lovecraft's stories have reactionary themes and then another point that there's nothing wrong with enjoying art that has a "bad" message.
I don’t even think the overarching theme of “the truth is more horrible than the comforting lies we tell ourselves, absolute knowledge of the world will lead to madness” is inherently reactionary.
Racists read into it and believe the ugly truths are racial truths hidden by a cabal of scheming (((old gods))), but it can also be interpreted that the massive amounts of exploitation and suffering throughout the world would lead to total alienation and madness if actually internalized and understood, and the uncaring inhuman system that drives the horror machine forward.
Obviously his xenophobia is rampant in his work and a part, but I would say it is not defining. Xenophobia is fear of the unknown other. Lovecraft obviously also includes themes of the fear of the known, that truth is maddening, which is more of a fear and hatred of oneself.
As I've said I'm not much of a Lovecraft guy, but people generally point out fear of miscegenation and of racially removed other as his reactionary themes.
If this is true my mind is blown. I've never heard this before and it definitely seems like something redditors of all people would bring up
"But the real joke of course is, that all this isn't a matter of choice anyhow! Capitalism is dying from internal as well as external causes, & its own leaders & beneficiaries are less & less able to kid themselves. I'm no economist, but from recent reading I've been able to form a rough picture of the dilemma—the need to restrict consumers' goods & to pile up a needless plethora of producing equipment in order to maintain the irrational surplus called profit—which has caused orthodox economists like Hayek & Robbins to admit that only starvation wages & artificial scarcity could stabilize the profit system in future & avert increasing cyclical depressions of utterly destructive scope. Laissez-faire capitalism is dead—make no mistake about that. The only avenue of survival for plutocracy is a military & emotional fascism whereby millions of persons will be withdrawn from the industrial arena & placed on a dole or in concentration-camps with high-sounding patriotic names. That or socialism—take your choice. In the long run it won't be the New Deal but the mere facts of existence which will be recognised as the real & inevitable slayer of Hooverism. Nobody is going to "destroy the system"—for it has been destroying itself ever since it evolved out of the old agrarian-handicraft economy a century & a half ago.
All this from an antiquated mummy who was on the other side until 1931! Well—I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today ... & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections. Flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! All this comes up with the humiliating force through an incident of a few days ago—when young Conover, having established contact with Henneberger, the ex-owner of WT, obtained from the latter a long epistle which I wrote Edwin Baird on Feby. 3, 1924, in response to a request for biographical & personal data. Little Willis asked permission to publish the text in his combined SFC-Fantasy, & I began looking the thing over to see what it was like—for I had not the least recollection of ever having penned it. Well .... I managed to get through, after about 10 closely typed pages of egotistical reminiscences & showings-off & expressions of opinion about mankind & the universe. I did not faint—but I looked around for a 1924 photograph of myself to burn, spit on, or stick pins in! Holy Hades—was I that much of a dub at ... only 13 years ago? There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centered, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get out more around 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. Well—there was nothing to be done ..... except to rush a note back to Conover & tell him I'd dismember him & run the fragments through a sausage-grinder if he ever thought of printing such a thing! The only consolation lay in the reflection that I had matured a bit since '24. It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all. Here's hoping that Henneberger (quite a get-rich-quick Wallingford in his way) won't try to blacken me with the letter!"
Honesty if Lovecraft had lived beyond 1937, maybe just a decade he could have become a major socialist theoretician up there with the greats, god what a redemption arc that would have made
here's the source if you want to read his letter yourself
https://github.com/punchmonster/Lovecraft-Letters/blob/master/19370207-Catherine-L-Moore.md
I'm kinda out of the loop, seem to remember it's bad because MS bought it?
if dessalines can use it to list US atrocities...
It's cringe that it's owned by msoft but it's fine tbh
Just funny that that's where this is hosted
"I can better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was—wrapped up in the arts, the natural (not social) sciences, the externals of history & antiquarianism, the abstract academic phases of philosophy, & so on—all the one-sided standard lore to which, according to the traditions of the dying order, a liberal education was limited. God! the things that were left out—the inside facts of history, the rational interpretation of periodic social crises, the foundations of economics & sociology, the actual state of the world today … & above all, the habit of applying disinterested reason to problems hitherto approached only with traditional genuflections, flag-waving, & callous shoulder-shrugs! ... There was no getting out of it—I really had thrown all that haughty, complacent, snobbish, self-centered, intolerant bull, & at a mature age when anybody but a perfect damned fool would have known better! That earlier illness had kept me in seclusion, limited my knowledge of the world, & given me something of the fatuous effusiveness of a belated adolescent when I finally was able to get around more in 1920, is hardly much of an excuse. ... It's hard to have done all one's growing up since 33—but that's a damn sight better than not growing up at all."
- Lovecraft in a letter, 1937.
The chuds want the Lovecraft before this, in much the same way that they pretend Helen Keller ended with "wah-wah."
It's a shame he died that year. I would love to see the stories that Lovecraft might've written.
lol, that must be it. Why else would leftists enjoy stories about clinging to sanity in the face of cults devoted to amoral, world destroying forces :thinkin-lenin:
Tbf we only have the word of this racist Anglo virgin that these cosmic truths and eldritch knowledge are so mind-shattering.
Basically what I'm saying is that if I were to see Yog Sothoth, I would simple not go insane. Sorry about your protagonist but im different
I willing to bet there are hundreds of fanfics giving Lovecraft the "Harry Potter and the method of rationality" treatment.
It'd be nice to have the reverse of it, such as a fanfic that acknowledges the real uncaring world-ruining horror that is capitalism.
I mostly respect the hustle of just describing things as indescribable. He's like the anti-Tom Clancy.
Truly the only thing more powerful than describing the indescribable is refusing to describe that which is actually easily described.
Antediluvian abominations
:why-angel: :angel-biblical-shh: :angel-biblical:
I'd say the only exceptions to that are his Dream Cycle and maybe the Shadow out of time. The latter of course was after he came out of his chuddery, what with the aliens being clearly fash.
In innsmouth the main character lives a solitary scholarly existence and is obsessed with racism until he finds purpose and belonging with the people he once shunned. He definitely did not intend it, but the actual text is pretty much a refutation of his own racism.
For real, Dream Quest of Unknown-Kaddath is by far my favorite of his works and I feel like no one talks about it
Interesting. This was the story I had in mind when I wrote "cool premise - a chore to read."
Lovecraft simply doesn't work on the modern reader. He was writing those stories when the mass consciousness was first starting to grapple with the enormity of the universe and the insignificance of the Earth, but now that we're essentially taught those facts from childhood all of the impact of learning about eldritch abominations is gone.
There's a bunch of other plots he had than space god making you feel small and unimportant. Like stories where the protagonists finds out that he's not full anglo-saxon. There is also a story about people being killed by an air conditioner, I think.
Yeah, I tried reading a few of his stories, but bounced off them. First I was shocked he was such an overt racist and wondered how he had ever become acceptable, especially among people who goddamn well know better. Second the fear of the unknown fell flat. It's just something we've moved past. I'm sure it was creepy as hell when the stories were new, but that was a long time ago.
Writing prompt: Lovecraft protagonists are all unreliable narrators, and all their tales about Eldritch monsters are the alien version of orientalism
Cthulhu was just waking up from a nap when some asshole rammed a ship into him
It took the Elder Things hours to calm down their poor pet Shoggoth after a couple of strangers trespassed in their city and stomped around its pen
Some guy in Innsmouth forgets which room he's staying in and tries to open the wrong door, leading the inhabitant to jump out the window while screaming racial obscenities directed at the local tribe of fish peopleNo it's because I identify with the protagonist, discovering eternal incomprehensible horrors that few acknowledge or understand. I always just kinda ignored the whole 'natives worshipping thing' part. Maybe an oversight, but those were always the weakest written parts anyways.
yeah, but that was cause he fancied himself an intellectual and needed his books to be about slightly more than being racist and homophobic
(I'm half joking, I adore cosmic horror)
Sangfielle, the most recent completed season of Friends At The Table, isn't just cosmic horror, but cosmic horror is one of the underpinnings, especially later in the season, and they use it as a vehicle for exploring really interesting stuff.
Like, Sangfielle, the setting, is a former colony that the empire basically fled after their imperialism caused The Ground Itself to get sick and reality to break, and a major underlying theme is that a broken reality is not a GOOD place to live, but it has a beauty and a truth to it that Sangfielle never experienced as a colony.
Here's the overall intro to the season:
spoiler
People'd tell you that the Heartland got sick about 200 years ago, when the dust came, reality left, and the Panic set in. But trust me, it was ailing long before that.
Don't get me wrong, you can understand why someone would die for it in the old days. Greens and golds, bread and honey. But around the time those well-dressed devils of Aldomina swept in, 5-600 years ago, that's when things started to turn. They wanted to fence it in, rows of corn and cane, columns of people. Nations reduced to gardens. Is it any wonder the ground itself started to ache?
No one noticed until about 200 years ago, of course. See, the Truth of the Heartland- the truth of the world- is it cannot be fenced in. So the storms came, and they brought a deep sickness to the plains and valleys. Soil turned barren, animals twisted in form and character, unkind spirits swept through the fields, farmhouses and burgs. Reality began to draw its own Course, unpredictable though never dishonest. And as if in response, a rigid mechanical malediction arrived, delivered by the cursed railway called The Shape. To be near a place touched by such a fearsome Structure is to hear a drum played too on-beat, to see a circle drawn so smoothly as to stumble from its perfect curves.
Those who could, those who held the whips and the pocketbooks, fled. Those left behind tried to find stability, tried to make a home on this re-frontier of ash, metal, and ichor. Aldomina called this territory San Fielle, but there ain't nothing saintly about this place. Now we use the name that our ancestors, those forced to work this land or forced from it, called it under their breath: Sangfielle, the Blood Fields.
And if you ask me, it's holier now than it ever was under Aldomina. For all the terror, all the supposed-unreality, there is something about this land. It is a quilt as much as it is a landscape, each destination unique, shaped by its history and touched by the Heartland's Truth. Cities built into canyon walls, plantation houses turned into well-appointed crypts, temples revisited by their once-absent spirits, blessed by the cackling of ever faithful adherents. And there, in a little alcove in the northern half of a mountain range that cuts this place in two, there's a little mining town whose story is about to be written.
(I just finished listening to it today, so it's really on my mind)
Let's say my partner was big into Welcome to Nightvale when it was a new thing. How likely are they to resonate with this?
In some ways, Sangfielle is what I always wanted Nightvale to be when I was listening to it. In a lot of ways it's more serious and thought-out (though it's still very funny a times). But there are also significant differences.
For the most part, once they switch to their main game system, it takes a few arcs for it to hit its stride. But the very first arc is them using a different game to establish the world- I'd recommend that your partner listen to that first arc (The Curse of Eastern Folly) and see what they think.
Thank you for the tips! We'll have a listen together when we're bumming around on our phones in the living room and trying to avoid going to bed.
I really hope you like it, this is one of those podcasts I want everyone to listen to because it's just fantastic.
If you're interested in a sci-fi mecha Actual Play podcast that examines the effects of empire, their previous season, Partizan, is probably even better than Sangfielle (Crunchyroll half-jokingly called it the best mecha anime of 2020), and they're currently preparing to make a season that's a direct sequel to it
EDIT: I feel like being extra, so here's the intro
spoiler
It is the year 1423 of the Perfect Millennium, and the galaxy has been conquered by the Divine Principality. At the center of this empire, the only place where its five Great Stels meet, there is a moon beating where a heart should be. The moon of Partizan.
Abetted by immortal, machinic gods called Divines, and the legions of Hallowed mechs which extend their terrible reach, the Principality spent millennia sharpening itself on its rivals. What it could not devour it obliterated. What it could not obliterate, it simply outlived. It was an empire, unshakeable.
Until now.
For the first time in the Principality’s long history, two of its five Stels have gone to war with one another, each guided by a ruler with sound claim to the title of Princept, leader of All Divinity. For five years, they have fought to a standstill, while equivacators and scavengers find profit in rubble.
But historical crises do not only serve crass opportunists, they revive opportunity itself. Under the shadow of this war you find yourself wondering: For how long will there be empires? For as long as we breathe? Longer? Will the categories of our conquest outlast us, or could there come a day for something else.
We once dreamt that breaking free from our ancient home in the cosmos would allow us to escape the mass and pull of tyranny and trauma. We failed then, but perennial chaos offers us another chance: Can we launch with such speed that we glide, graceful or imperfect, beyond war and pain? Or is the truth more damning that: Might we carry our own gravity with us?
I think his antipathy extended to a lot more PoC than just black people. His descriptions of Hispanic and Asian people were not flattering from my memory.
Gays weren't even on his radar. Women barely appear in his stories at all, so he doesn't give himself much opportunity to be openly misogynistic. Dude was really laser focused on abominations and racism.
Are you sure? Hbomberguy did a whole video about it centering around a 2010 movie adaptation of a shadow over insmuth called Cthulhu which explores homosexuality and repression etc
edit: Naw, I was wrong he was just mega racist
I'm down for a queer reading of Lovecraft, but I just meant he wasn't openly writing about how horrifying the gays are like he was with PoC
I'm rewatching it right now to verify, but my memory of this includes a section discussing direct examples of homophobia, I'll report back
The world is actually brimming with cool mindbending supernatural alien shit just beneath the surface
:ferret-poggers: :FrogPog: :pog-fish: :pog-dolphin: :sicko-pog: :turtle-pogger:
Fair point, if you take out the "god" part, I'm kinda like Azathoth.
