This is how I feel about cosmic horror and its cousins like cosmic wonder tbh. It feels like a little kid whispering the b-word in my ear and looking guilty or giggling because they just said the word “butt” when someone is trying to explain cosmic horror/wonder
With some creatively well done exceptions, this is why I’m bored with Lovecraft and Lovecraft-likes, especially fandom project spinoffs like “Slenderman.” Being told "just looking at this makes you lose your mind ooooooooooooooooo" does nothing for me.
A Stephen Gammel “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” charcoal pencil picture is scarier to me than all of that can be. CW for those that image search for them; they are genuinely creepy and some shook me as a kid for a while.
I feel like one could play with that theme in a lot of interesting ways in a way that all the “wow sure is spooky innit? you can’t even comprehend the spookiness! [cliched spooky mouth noises]” ones completely and utterly fail to. Weave in a little narrative fiat via “magic”/paracausality and you can get a solid exaggerated allegory for all sorts of real revelations about how fucked things are, like people being “driven mad” by the discovery that everything’s collapsing around them and no one is lifting a finger to mitigate it in the least, or that the entire system is a monstrous horror that could stop if people would just stop doing that but they won’t and they’ll kill you for telling them to stop. Or just played straight like Disco Elysium does, since some of its most iconic quotes (like the mask of capital or the mazovian socio-economics thought) fit the bill perfectly.
Or just make it a big shitpost where the maddening text is just “things don’t have to be this bad, they can actually be better than this,” but the reader doesn’t get to know that until the end when a communist sees it and goes “no shit” without any of the effects that befell the liberals that read it.
People say Lovecraft was a bad writer, and they aren’t totally wrong, but his century of imitators have demonstrated how much worse he could have been.
That’s my main beef with BG3 (though it didn’t start with BG3 at all): Illithids are boring to me. I’ve been sick of them since the 90s and they rarely ever do anything new/interesting as much as show up and pretty much hijack any story they’re in until they eventually go away again and I don’t get anything fun out of their presence. They’re knockoff Lovecraft in a way that’s just unpleasant and tedious to me.
ooh yeah I remember that book, it was creepy for me too.
I think you and some others here got it right, being told what to feel is just not a great narrative strategy. Better to let the reader/audience figure it out themselves.
tbqh it has mostly been well-written children’s books that have made me feel things someone in my situation shouldn’t feel ie fear, sorrow, melancholy, horror…The Series of Unfortunate Events and that one plot in Percy Jackson with Circe being some examples
ooh yeah I remember that book, it was creepy for me too.
There were two sequels, one simply titled with “More” added if I recall correctly, and the other “III: More Tales to Chill Your Bones.” The illustrations in some ways dialed it up a notch.
It is up to the author how well they write it. The cosmic horror isn’t from that you can’t comprehend a thing. It is thst you comprehend that everything you thought was important is a lie. Nothing you have or will do has any meaning. You have never been safe, you will never be safe. All your problems could be easily fixed if you could understand the real nature of things. However, you never will. Also rent is still due
It is kinda like getting dialectic materialism actually
It is up to the author how well they write it. The cosmic horror isn’t from that you can’t comprehend a thing. It is thst you comprehend that everything you thought was important is a lie. Nothing you have or will do has any meaning. You have never been safe, you will never be safe. All your problems could be easily fixed if you could understand the real nature of things. However, you never will. Also rent is still due
I’ve seen it written well. I’m still not scared by that even then. I just made a face.
I’m not immune to being scared, not at all. I’m actually quite jumpy about some things. But “things are actually more indifferent, cruel, and arbitrary than you thought” is a miss on me because I’m always open for it getting worse.
It is the kinda fear that speaks to a downwards mobile middle class white guy. So that is why it was the scariest thing to literature types. Alot of work in that genera specifically of modern times point put thst is just the minority experience in America. One I like recently, the winter’s tide series, has the story of innsmouth folk getting sent to internment camps in ww2 along side the japanese. The author is Ruthanna Emry and it is really good if you are interested in a modern take on lovecrafts stuff.
I was very surprised when I read “The Call of Cthulhu” for myself and learned that Cthulhu actually appears in the story, in person. I would’ve bet money that Lovecraft wouldn’t actually show the monster like that. I kinda thought that was the entire point, to keep it vague, looming and intangible.
It is a little odd, but there is a lot (almost everything) about cthulhu that remains unexplained. You get very little of its actual perspective because its effect on the plot has been from mental noise rather than conscious efforts. It clearly doesn’t care much for people, but its broader intentions are left unexplained. You learn a fair bit more in Mountains of Madness (also about the Mi-Go), but there the main monster are the Elder Things, and while you literally get a biologist doing an examination of an Elder Thing corpse in the second chapter, the question of what they are like when they are alive is very different.
Have you ever played Outer Wilds? In my mind that game has the best cosmic horror/wonder I’ve ever experienced. It’s possible you might feel it if you play it. Possibly not though, and, of course, not everyone enjoys Outer Wilds. But if you’re at all curious and have the time/desire to play Outer Wilds, I wholeheartedly suggest it! Go in blind and just see where the experience takes you!
This is how I feel about cosmic horror and its cousins like cosmic wonder tbh. It feels like a little kid whispering the b-word in my ear and looking guilty or giggling because they just said the word “butt” when someone is trying to explain cosmic horror/wonder
With some creatively well done exceptions, this is why I’m bored with Lovecraft and Lovecraft-likes, especially fandom project spinoffs like “Slenderman.” Being told "just looking at this makes you lose your mind ooooooooooooooooo" does nothing for me.
A Stephen Gammel “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” charcoal pencil picture is scarier to me than all of that can be. CW for those that image search for them; they are genuinely creepy and some shook me as a kid for a while.
yeah cause I can look at his face and feel fine. skill issue on the protagonist part
I feel like one could play with that theme in a lot of interesting ways in a way that all the “wow sure is spooky innit? you can’t even comprehend the spookiness! [cliched spooky mouth noises]” ones completely and utterly fail to. Weave in a little narrative fiat via “magic”/paracausality and you can get a solid exaggerated allegory for all sorts of real revelations about how fucked things are, like people being “driven mad” by the discovery that everything’s collapsing around them and no one is lifting a finger to mitigate it in the least, or that the entire system is a monstrous horror that could stop if people would just stop doing that but they won’t and they’ll kill you for telling them to stop. Or just played straight like Disco Elysium does, since some of its most iconic quotes (like the mask of capital or the mazovian socio-economics thought) fit the bill perfectly.
Or just make it a big shitpost where the maddening text is just “things don’t have to be this bad, they can actually be better than this,” but the reader doesn’t get to know that until the end when a communist sees it and goes “no shit” without any of the effects that befell the liberals that read it.
People say Lovecraft was a bad writer, and they aren’t totally wrong, but his century of imitators have demonstrated how much worse he could have been.
That’s my main beef with BG3 (though it didn’t start with BG3 at all): Illithids are boring to me. I’ve been sick of them since the 90s and they rarely ever do anything new/interesting as much as show up and pretty much hijack any story they’re in until they eventually go away again and I don’t get anything fun out of their presence. They’re knockoff Lovecraft in a way that’s just unpleasant and tedious to me.
ooh yeah I remember that book, it was creepy for me too.
I think you and some others here got it right, being told what to feel is just not a great narrative strategy. Better to let the reader/audience figure it out themselves.
tbqh it has mostly been well-written children’s books that have made me feel things someone in my situation shouldn’t feel ie fear, sorrow, melancholy, horror…The Series of Unfortunate Events and that one plot in Percy Jackson with Circe being some examples
There were two sequels, one simply titled with “More” added if I recall correctly, and the other “III: More Tales to Chill Your Bones.” The illustrations in some ways dialed it up a notch.
It is up to the author how well they write it. The cosmic horror isn’t from that you can’t comprehend a thing. It is thst you comprehend that everything you thought was important is a lie. Nothing you have or will do has any meaning. You have never been safe, you will never be safe. All your problems could be easily fixed if you could understand the real nature of things. However, you never will. Also rent is still due
It is kinda like getting dialectic materialism actually
I’ve seen it written well. I’m still not scared by that even then. I just made a
face.
I’m not immune to being scared, not at all. I’m actually quite jumpy about some things. But “things are actually more indifferent, cruel, and arbitrary than you thought” is a miss on me because I’m always open for it getting worse.
It is the kinda fear that speaks to a downwards mobile middle class white guy. So that is why it was the scariest thing to literature types. Alot of work in that genera specifically of modern times point put thst is just the minority experience in America. One I like recently, the winter’s tide series, has the story of innsmouth folk getting sent to internment camps in ww2 along side the japanese. The author is Ruthanna Emry and it is really good if you are interested in a modern take on lovecrafts stuff.
I was very surprised when I read “The Call of Cthulhu” for myself and learned that Cthulhu actually appears in the story, in person. I would’ve bet money that Lovecraft wouldn’t actually show the monster like that. I kinda thought that was the entire point, to keep it vague, looming and intangible.
It is a little odd, but there is a lot (almost everything) about cthulhu that remains unexplained. You get very little of its actual perspective because its effect on the plot has been from mental noise rather than conscious efforts. It clearly doesn’t care much for people, but its broader intentions are left unexplained. You learn a fair bit more in Mountains of Madness (also about the Mi-Go), but there the main monster are the Elder Things, and while you literally get a biologist doing an examination of an Elder Thing corpse in the second chapter, the question of what they are like when they are alive is very different.
I hate you.
alright lets maintain our convivial and comradely manner here
Which picture did you see?
All of them…
Have you ever played Outer Wilds? In my mind that game has the best cosmic horror/wonder I’ve ever experienced. It’s possible you might feel it if you play it. Possibly not though, and, of course, not everyone enjoys Outer Wilds. But if you’re at all curious and have the time/desire to play Outer Wilds, I wholeheartedly suggest it! Go in blind and just see where the experience takes you!
I haven’t but it’s on my wishlist! I do enjoy exploration games like that so I’ll give it a try