#You may notice that many of these are lovecraftian horror that is because i love that genre

[booksforthegays]

Do you have any non-YA horror/thriller books (preferably with sapphic or trans poc if possible)

Horror is my favorite genre, so i have a lot of recs for it thanks for the ask! I know a couple with both queer and bipoc rep so I’ll list those first and then separate horror recs after.

BIPOC & Queer Rep - - “Southern Reach Trilogy” by Jeff VanderMeer: Follows Area X a strange phenomenon that has taken over a large area of the coast and is being monitored by a clandestine organization. Probably the main one i’d recommend, though the mc (Grace) who is a sapphic woman of color is not introduced till the second book, every main character in this series is a person of color. The first book Annihilation was also made into a movie though i highly prefer the book series.  - “Abbott Series” by Saladin Ahmed: Graphic novel about a reporter in the 1970s is investigating a case of police brutality when she stumbles upon a sinister lovecraftian presence. The main character is black and bisexual.  - “InSEXts” by Marguerite Bennett: In order to get away from her abusive spouse a woman undergoes a terrifying insect-like transformation. Now free she must use her new found powers to protect her lover and their child. The main character is Indian and a sapphic woman.  - “A Lush and Seething Hell” by John Hornor Jacobs: Follows two stories the first follows a woman charged with taking care of her mentors home while he’s away visiting a sinister place from their shared past. The second follows a man listening to ancient audio tapes from another man traveling in the south. The main character of the first is Hispanic and a lesbian. - “Ring Shout” by P. Djèlí Clark: Follows a secret group that has dedicated their life to fighting horrific monsters that feed on white supremacy. One of the main characters is a lesbian and all of the main cast are black. Sapphic or trans rep only -  - “A Human Stain” by Kelly Robson: Short story where a woman is tasked with taking care of a young orphaned boy who resides in an ancient german castle. You can read this one for free on Tor.  - “Our Wives Under the Sea” by Julia Armfield: Very slow burn horror about grief. A woman must cope with the loss of her wife after she returned from a deep sea expedition completely changed. - “Mother of Stone” by John Langan: Short story about a reporter investigating disturbing incidents at a hotel that occurred after a strange statue was dug up on the grounds I know its for sure included in his anthology series The Wide Carnivorous Sky & Other Monstrous Geographies though it is probably available elsewhere. - “The Worm and His Kings” by Hailey Piper: After her girlfriend goes missing a homeless woman must brave the underground tunnel system filled with ancient horrors to search for her. - “Maplecroft” by Cherie Priest: Two sisters residing in a mansion in the 1890s take on a sinister evil that comes from the ocean. - “The Red Tree” by Caitlín R. Kiernan: After separating from her long term girlfriend an author takes up residents in a remote cabin where she becomes obsessed with the strange red tree in its backyard. Don’t judge the cover on this one its very ugly but i promise its good. - “The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion” by Margaret Killjoy: A traveler searching for answers after her best friends suicide stumbles across a town of squatters who have made a pact with an old god. BIPOC Rep only - - “Butcherbird” by Cassie Hart: A woman returns to her childhood home where her family perished in fire to uncover the secrets of what actually happened that night. - “The Hacienda” by Isabel Cañas: After marrying a man whose previous wife died under suspicious circumstances a woman finds that her new home may be hiding a terrifying evil that no one can save her from. - “The Good House” by Tananarive Due: A woman returns to the home where her child committed suicide to take on the old evil that resides there. This one deals greatly with Vodou mythology. - “These Deathless Bones” by Cassandra Khaw: Follows the second wife of a king at odds with her new step son. - “Bloodchild“ by Octavia E. Butler: OEB’s most terrifying book in my opinion. It follows a young boy who has been chosen to carry on the lineage of the alien race that has enslaved his people. - “Beneath the Rising” by Premee Mohamed: Two life-long friends must face a great evil together after one of them unknowingly creates a machine that lets it enter our world. Please check any CWs here if needed. I hope I was able to introduce you to some fun new titles and authors!

[andrehm22]

My thoughts about Underwater (2020)

Underwater is the last film made by 20th Century Fox under that brand before Disney bought it and was directed by William Eubank who is noticiable for making science fiction films. This movie is no exception, as we see Kristen Stewart as the main protagonist trying to escape from a drilling facility at the bottom of the ocean.

At first, you may notice this movie is the typical disaster storyline where a crew has to escape from a place that is about to explode or destroy, yet time passes on, something more sinister is showing up and that's were we got a twist: This is a actually a Lovecraftian horror inspired movie!

When I started watching this movie I was alright with the cinematography and the use of colors: Pale and barely alive while also looking at the backgrounds that are so empty and barely alive, almost no sign of other humans, only being lighted by some dying lights as a way to show us how corporations care very little towards their employees. Kristen's character called Norah Price is a woman who seems to have spent some long time in here as she mentions that she almost forgot if it's day or night up to this point.

As we keep watching the film and getting more characters, we kind of feel empathy to them: The are just employees who want to leave this place before everything goes to hell and return to their normal lifes at the surface. We have the couple who look each other's back, the wisecracker who always makes jokes even in the most fucked up situation, the loyal partner and the captain who wants to make sure everyone is safe. It's not just about survival but also to be able to handle their mental health sane (as this is a typical subject in Lovecraft) even if they see the monsters lurking at them and trying to comprehend the nature of these beings existence.

And now, as always the good and bad things about this movie:

The Good:

- A Cthulhu mythos movie: I love everything releated to Cthulhu! It got my suprise when I saw these creatures designs and behavior while also dealing with the problems of madness. The big bad Great Dreamer barely can be seen but looks menacing as f*ck!

- The atmosphere: This story is settled in the Mariana Trench, considered by many as one of the deepest places in earth's oceans and as you can expect, the world surrounding our characters is just pure darkness with almost the highest pressure. By giving this place, the expectator feels almost trapped and the shots made when we are inside the suits make the sensation way more terrific!

- Characters: Almost all the characters in this story are made to make us feel empathy. They are normal people like us who have been working probably years in this place and will keep doing it for god knows when. They aren't action heroes or invencible, every moment they are risking their lifes just to reach the surface.

- Not focusing in the gore or the jumpscares: Over the past few years, horror movies tend to focus mostly in the idea of scaring the spectator with the jumpscares or gore, a very commercial and cheap way to get attention, rather than getting scared by the plot. In this case, there are jumpscares but they are barely used because the main topic is not the monsters: It's the fear of the unknown as we don't know what may lurk in the darkness of the ocean while also giving us the idea that we, the humans, are just tiny pawns or cattle to the bigger beings.

- The diving suits and feeling: I loved the design of these suits, it reminded me a lot to the original Alien movie when the 3 members of the Nostromo landed into the planet. They are big and slow but it's the only way they can survive, while also showing us how little free space they have while wearing it. It's like a life-death situation where they need to use it or just die.

- Norah Price: Kristen Stewart has this bad reputation because of the Twilight Saga that makes her feel she is a blank actress. However, in this case she proves she can do more. She feels empathy towards her crewmates and tries to hold em together.

The Bad:

- A lot of Alien inspiration: There's a lot of scenes and references to the classic Ridley Scott film that makes this movie feel very copy-paste but overall it has it's own style of making horror. Scott focused mostly in the feeling trapped idea by using close spaces while Eubank does the reversed with empty giant spaces.

- Ending with a possible sequel we will never get: The movie ends with some messages explaining that the company will continue making explorations, obviously making it look like we haven't seen the end of this story with lot of potentials. Sadly it seems Disney isn't actually focused in this project. It's a shame because I've wanted to know the reasons why they want to deny everything that happened or what do they want to get.

[iyliss]

Hi, sorry if you've already talked about this, but I have a question. I remember seeing some meta floating around a while back about how Season 2 of GX was based on the Lovecraftian Mythos and Cosmic Horror, but I don't know anything about Lovecraft or Cosmic Horror, but you said you did. So could you maybe tell us more about how GX was inspired by Lovecraft? I love digging into the meta of things and hearing what people are interested in! Thank you for your time.

Omgg thank you so much for asking!! I already talked a bit about cthulhu mythos and gx (you may find about inspirations of arcana forces that doesn’t have much meta, about the world and the devil that are more focus on anime interpretations and that very scary looking reply about judai being randolph carter). But I can sure develop about season 2, and GX in general, since this was about more specific points. I’ll try to keep it decently readable, Im sorry if i get carried away ^^ Also I hope I don’t make too many mistakes, I’ve red most of the stories I will refer too, but not all, and a part comes from other sources so it might not be exact (and I might reconsider some aspects as I keep reading). Also I will avoid repeating things I said in the 3 posts linked up there. First of, why would Gx and s2 more specifically be related specifically to the Cthulhu Mythos, amongst other inspirations? Beside the arcana forces being quite obvious references, there are some narratives, aesthetics and themes in common. Amongst other things:

An entity from outer space partially coming to earth and leadingit to it’s destruction

The mix of weird sci-fi (aliens, space, white holes...) and occultism (tarot, spirits, ghosts...)

A sect. A whole sect right there.

A general mystery of some aspects of the universe (what is the light of destruction? What is the extent of it’s power, and influence? Where does it and gentle darkness come from?)

About “knowing too much” (mostly Saiou knowing the future, but you can see a bit of it in Judai’s evolution)

And so many aspects of Saiou but it’s harder to explain it all

I think that even without having red anycosmic horror litterature, the villain being the leader of a sect that try to destroy the world in honnor of an out of space (and reality) super-powerful entity screams lovecraft. Ill try talking about other points down there that are less obvious. In a way, the “main” characters of s2 (judai, edo, kenzan and saiou) follows lovecraftian main characters archetypes. Judai ressembles characters such as, well, Randolph Carter, and Charles D Ward. Innocent, a bit naive and immature, generally nice though lacking some sense of consequences. There’s often this kid who doesn’t actively try to get involved in things, but have some strong relationship with occult things and will get in all kind of trouble that never really ends well. Edo… is more about how he loves litterature, doesn’t have much friends, has a (black) cat, drink tea and is american but more about European style. That sounds stupid but it’s also an important part of lovecraftian imagery. Kenzan is interesting cuz he’s an paleontologist (at least of passion), but in a very stupid way. That may be an unwilling coincidences but I swear the number of incredibly unprofessional (and unrealistic) field rescearcher/archeologist there are in those stories… And Saiou… There’s this underlying theme (fueled by lovecraft’s racism tbh) about beings/people that are weird, monstruous, different (=not white american protestant men for him), and they probably know some secret dangerous occult magic that will destroy the world, because that is obviously what they want. And that’s pretty much how Saiou was treated. But, what makes those stories more interesting than simple racist metaphores is that said « monsters » are never shown actively doing anything bad (the dunwich horror mostly, and the shadow over innsmouth are especially interesting. In the first, it actually makes more sense than our main monster Wilbur Whateley actually tries to save the world). Which well also goes with Saiou’s story.

And it’s actually hard to explain deeply because I am often scared to associate scenes and aspects that are just a bit alike. But if i have to develop on some specific lovecraft stories, beside The dream quest of the unknown Kadath for s3 and Through the gate of the silver key for s4... In s2 some aspects reminds me of The repairer of reputation (old, very close friend of a good man have been slowly becoming the leader of a cult that does quite shady things and want the return of an old god, while maintaining a good face to his friend who noticed nothing despite everyone else thinking he’s strange), the dunwich horror (Boy hated by everyone deals all alone with an incredibly powerful entity that only brings destruction, ambiguously helping or stoping it, until at the very end the other characters finally realizes that they have to stop it too), at the mountain of madness (Hero with an affinity for spiritual things discover aliens are a thing, but they’re actually nice. But there’s also something evil those aliens tried to fight and failed, and now it’s after the humans), or The case of Charles Dexter Ward (Well meaning boy brings back his very powerful and evil double-from the past- at first tries to deal with him alone, gets all kind of trauma, asks for help as a last resort and no one understands. Notice it works both for the light/Saiou and Haou/Judai). But for that I actually think it’s more that similar themes (which could be  more likely inspired by typical Cthulhu mythos tropes and stories) leads to similar scenarios than direct references. However, s2 strongly feels like an incredibly good “adaptation” of cthulhu mythos, especially because it deals a lot more with the dehumanization and trauma that are only implied in the stories. I say adaptation because this universe is actually much more vaste than just H.P. lovecraft (and that’s why I say “cthulhu mythos”, because it’s not just him) and, at this point, is more about the tropes and themes than the characters or creatures. Also I want to conclude with insisting that, while the extend of lovecraftian inspiration in S2 is debatable, it’s clear that there’s at least one person behind ygo who has a very good knowledge of cthulhu mythos, and has it as a strong inspiration. Not only in GX, but also in the tcg (outer gods), in zexal (i personnaly have some thoughts about don thousand being based of Nyarlathotep) and in Vrains (tindangles being Tindalos Hounds).

[doodelli]

Thoughts on Yellow Submarine

Once I got past the initial absurdity of Yellow Submarine and saw it a second time, I found it just wasn’t that engaging.

I think they dropped the ball in deciding to tell a start-to-finish story as opposed to a surreal line of music videos like Fantasia or even just going for a lighter plot like The Three Caballeros, which would’ve allowed them to just mess around for 90 minutes. Instead, they throw in all these plot elements like an impending invasion, some sort of alternative universe, a prophecy etc. They build up this great quest, but you don’t get the sense that the Beatles actually care about saving Pepperland or anything happening around them for that matter.

Half the fun in stories like Alice in Wonderland is seeing the main character’s reaction to all the strange things they encounter. Problem is, the Beatles barely emote throughout the story, even at times of grave danger. They don’t even care about eachother, as they just shrug when Ringo falls into a pit of Lovecraftian horrors.

Speaking of which, Ringo’s relationship with the Nowhere Man is the closest we get to an emotional core. It’s the only interaction that feels like a genuine friendship, so you’d think they’d focus on that near the end of the film. Seeing as love and music are the key to defeating the Blue Meanies, that is. Yes, the Nowhere Man ends up converting the main bad guy, but there’s little focus on the fact that our comic relief gets kidnapped leading up to that scene. Before the rescue attempt, they had already had several numbers defending Pepperland, so you feel like it’s just dragging on. Chances are, you might not have even noticed Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD was missing!

You’d expect something based on The Beatles to be character-driven, but you don’t even get that. All four of them have a monotone mumble that’s hard to pick up (partially thanks to the sound mixing), while the character actions do very little to set them apart.

Ringo is the most defined as being the sensitive one, which stays consistent throughout. We get a little bit of George having a zen vibe to him in his introduction. Similarly, Paul shows signs of being a bit of a diva when he first appears, but few of these traits are emphasized in the choices they make. As for John, his most memorable scene was him going on a tangent about parallell universes while the gang is actively trying to solve the problem at hand, which points to him being a little pretentious.

Perhaps this is my DnD side showing, but this party feels unbalanced in both personality and skill set. The Fab Four are virtually interchangable and we don’t get to see their individual strengths in the limelight. Not even the Nowhere Man with his jack-of-all-traits education really comes to use until the very end.

Simply put, the Beatles as portrayed in this movie do not have personalities strong enough to carry the whole feature.

As for the newcomers, many have potential but go underutilized. Sgt Pepper has no real personality aside from speaking gibberish when panicking, I guess. He vanishes for a good chunk of the movie, but I can’t tell you when or why.

The leader Meanie was fun to watch, with his over-the-top mannerisms and volatile mood swings, but his constant close-ups made me think the filmmakers just wanted to scare the kids and stoners watching.

The Nowhere Man was mildly amusing, but could have been implemented better. The song number meant to aquaint us with him, though beautifully animated, rings hollow in that there isn’t any narrative demand for it. This could have easily been fixed by placing the song after Ringo suggests bringing him along. Seeing as Nowhere Man has a loose sense of identity and is shown to be quite a tragic character, the song could have been the gang’s way of ascribing a sense of meaning to him.

This film being a jukebox musical works in detriment to its story, which should never be the case in a musical. We’re never given a narrative reason why this particular character should be singing this particular song. Does John singing LSD while being entranced by poorly rotoscoped women tell us anything about him? If you squint perhaps. Personally, I just couldn’t put aside the fact that the only reason John is singing LSD is because... well, John Lennon is the main singer in LSD. Why his character is singing LSD? Who knows, who cares, the music’s good.

That last part really sums up the over all attitude of this movie. ”We’re the Beatles, we don’t care, have some wacky colors”. Even though I have a fondness for most of these songs (this soundtrack is my favorite Beatles album, fight me) and I dig some of the stylistic choices, I just can’t get onboard with the underwhelming narrative and characterizations.

I’m sure this is someone’s cup of tea and I’m glad you’re able to enjoy it. These are just some reasons why others may not.

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Battle Tech, Manly Wade Wellman, Savage Heroes, Space Force

Science Fiction (Tor.com): Anyone who has played Traveller (or even just played with online character generation sites like this one) might have noticed that a surprising number of the characters one can generate are skilled with blades. This may see as an odd choice for a game like Traveller that is set in the 57th century CE, or indeed for any game in which swords and starships co-exist. Why do game authors make these choices?  Just as games mix swords and starships, so do SFF novels. The trope goes way back, to the planetary romance novels of the Golden Age. Here are five examples.

Fiction Review (Legends of Men): Savage Heroes is a sword & sorcery anthology that’s pretty rare in the U.S. That’s because it’s a U.K. publication. The first S&S anthology I reviewed was Swords Against Darkness. It’s a great anthology that came highly recommended by an expert scholar in the field. Savage Heroes is better though. It captures very well the combination of historical adventure, lost world fiction, and cosmic horror that makes Sword and Sorcery unique.

Fiction (Wasteland & Sky): Hard-boiled noir is an interesting subgenre. It’s mostly remembered in the mainstream, if at all, for cheesy parodies that family sitcoms and cartoon used to do back in the 1990s. What it is remembered for is as a genre about hapless detectives in black and white 1930s settings having to find a killer among a cast of twelve or so shifty character archetypes. Plenty of fun is poked, but they hardly take the genre seriously.

Science Fiction (Scifi Scribe): We’ve all seen the memes, right? The minute the world started talking about the mere idea of a United States Space Force, we were all instantly greeted by “LOL, Space National Guard/Space Force Reserves!” All joking aside, the irreverent interservice banter and, shall we say, “robust,” back-and-forth on social media reflects the very real, and very important, national-level discussions about creating a new military service branch.

Cinema (Jon Mollison): The birth of Dungeons and Dragons is a strange and fascinating story of how creatives can draw forth order from the froth of chaos. I went into this film expecting a lot of defensive snark about how Gary Gygax was a Johnny-come-lately who yoinked the idea of RPGs out from under Dave Arneson’s nose.  A fraudulent Edison to Arneson’s Tesla, if you will.  And there are hints of that within this film, but only hints.

Art (Mutual Art): Theron Kabrich quietly gazes at Roger Dean’s watercolor, The Gates of Delirium. He has been Dean’s friend and representative at the San Francisco Art Exchange for thirty years, selling his paintings, drawings, and prints to an international audience of collectors. Millions of copies of the image have been made. If Tolkien’s timeless classic inspired Dean’s enduring fascination with pathways at the beginning of his career, it is Robert McFarlane’s writing about wandering journeys along the ancient tracks twisting through the British landscape that have his attention in the present.

Art (DMR Books): Stephen  Fabian, as I’ve pointed out before, is a living legend in the fantasy art community. His output from the 1970s to the 2000s—both in quality and quantity—can only be called astounding. I covered some of that in my three-part series on his Robert E. Howard-related art. However, a friend of mine recently brought Fabian’s artwork for In Lovecraft’s Shadow to my attention. That book, in some respects, may be Stephen’s greatest sustained work. In Lovecraft’s Shadow was a collection of August Derleth’s Lovecraftian fiction published in 1998 through a joint venture by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box and Mycroft & Moran.

Review (Tea at Trianon): I remember as a twenty-two-year-old being excited when I saw a new book called the The Mists of Avalon by an author called Marion Zimmer Bradley. Mists was presented as the retelling of the Arthurian legend from the point of view of the women of Camelot, which I thought was a thrilling idea. However, I found the book heavy on paganism and morbid, explicit sex scenes, but light on romance, heroism, chivalry, mystery, faith and all the qualities I had come to love in the Camelot stories. This brings us to Moira Greyland’s recent book, The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): I’m going to look at three of his stories that feature the same  character, Sergeant Jaeger. First is “Fearful Rock”.  Originally published in the February 1939 issue of Weird Tales, the central character of this novella is Lt. Lanark. He and Jaeger are leading a cavalry patrol in Missouri during the Civil War, looking for Quantrill. What they find is a young woman being sacrificed by her step-father to the Nameless One in an abandoned house under the shadow of a formation known as Fearful Rock.

Fiction (DMR Books): Tanith Lee was a force to be reckoned with in the ’70s, ’80s and on into the ’90s. She exploded onto the SFF scene with her debut novel for DAW Books, The Birthgrave. That book was labeled at the time as being “sword-and-sorcery”. I would probably call it heroic fantasy, but it remains a minor classic regardless of specific sub-category. During her forty-plus-year career, Tanith published ninety novels and a myriad of short stories. Her prolificity was on display right away. She quickly followed up The Birthgrave with more notable books like The Storm Lord and Volkhavaar, along with short stories like “Odds Against the Gods” published in Swords Against Darkness II.

Science Fiction (Men of the West): The book. Not the movie. If you can even call Verhoeven’s bastardization “Starship Troopers” at all. Robert A. Heinlein is an increasingly controversial figure in recent years, moreso than he was in his lifetime. This, of course, is due to his dubious content in his later career. But he was nothing if not influential on the genre, and his early works, such as his juvenile novels (of which this was the last), remain worth a read. We may go into Heinlein’s other works later, but the focus is not so much on the man as on the book.

D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): I think Gygax is pretty clear about how initiative works in the DMG. (His surprise rules do make a bit of static, though.) Here’s my take on it: 1) DM decides what the monsters will do. Check reaction and/or morale if need be. 2) Players declare their actions. If they want to win at rpgs, they will advise a high t caller who will then speak for group.

Cthulhu Mythos (Marzaat): “Bells of Horror”, Henry Kuttner, 1939. This is a fairly good bit of Lovecraftian fiction from Kuttner. He uses a typical Lovecraft structure. Our narrator opens by mentioning a weird event then gives the back story of what led up to it and concludes with a not all surprising event. (Sometimes Lovecraft managed to surprise with his last lines, sometimes not.)

Authors (Goodman Games): While all of Wellman’s oeuvre is worth reading, it is his Silver John stories that most impacted the world of fantasy role-playing. Wellman is one of the names on Gygax’s Appendix N roster of influential authors. Although no specific title is listed alongside his name, it’s been suggested that the character of Silver John influenced the bard class in D&D—a wandering troubadour who uses song, magic, and knowledge to defeat supernatural menaces. Stripped of the pseudo-medieval trappings of D&D, the bard and Silver John become almost indistinguishable from one another.

Pulp Art (Dark Worlds Quarterly): It shouldn’t be any surprise that the artists that illustrated Short Stories would appear in Weird Tales and vice versa, though to a lesser degree. Fred Humiston is a good example. For many years, he illustrated half of each issue of Short Stories along with Edgar Wittmack.

Cinema (Film School Rejects): Most movie fans associate Martin Campbell with the Bond franchise and other blockbusters. However, before he became one of Hollywood’s A-list directors, he helmed Cast a Deadly Spell, a genre-bending TV movie that originally aired on HBO back in 1991. It isn’t the most known movie in his oeuvre, but it’s easily one of his most entertaining and rewatchable efforts.

Tolkien (Monsters and Manuals): I have no idea what Tolkien had in mind for the geography of Rhun and the peoples within it. But it seems to me that, while one shouldn’t think of Middle Earth as being too closely paralleled with the real world, there is a case to be made that its character is roughly akin to the Eurasian steppe this side of the Urals – more specifically the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea (with the Sea of Rhun here being a bit like the Black Sea).

Gaming ( Walker’s Retreat): The other day I posted a new BattleTech lore video. I mentioned that the channel posting that video did more to promote BattleTech than anything that the current owners of the property–Catalyst Game Labs–have done. All of the other lore channels and battle report channels contribute to this effort, and it helps that Harebrained’s adaptation is very close (but not identical, which it should have been) to the tabletop game, but there’s sweet fuck-all for marketing from the company itself.

Sensor Sweep: Battle Tech, Manly Wade Wellman, Savage Heroes, Space Force published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[beefsteakmilkshake-blog]

Inner Gods

Well, I guess I should get started then. Here’s a little lovecraftian pastiche I worked up a while back.

----

There may not be many who believe this story. Had I not experienced the events first hand, I myself would laugh such a tale away as the ravings of one gone mad, or at least the dreams of a particularly imaginative story-teller. I tell you now, my kin among the Infinite Ether, that it is true. I tell you this because I love you, and would not wish for such horrors to befall any one of you. One encounter with the grotesque, uniform creatures and their wretched world is enough for all of waking reality.

I am Dgast'ilial. I spawned long ago from the undulating back of the Great Void Ithilial. I have spent my entire existence wanting for nothing. I do not desire the power or omnipresence of my beloved parent, having instead chosen to forge my own path through the endless expanse. I have roamed the chaotic infinity for eons uncountable, merging with and separating from entities both lesser and greater than myself, sharing my memories and emotions with them as they do me. Becoming one greater, before parting ways, each a bit wiser for their experience together. I have been embraced by the warmth and love of infinity. My journey has been far, and my friends great in number. Misery and fear were nearly unknown to me, experienced only as memories of those I have coupled with. I had not truly felt these emotions for my own until I was forced to experience that which I am recounting. That immutable, unforgettable event which will haunt me until my essence thins and I scatter to what lies beyond infinity.

I cannot say for certain when it was that it happened. I had been wandering through the cacophonous expanse alone for quite some time. I was admittedly lonely at the time, but the comforting warmth of the fractals surrounding me brought me no small amount of joy. It was at this time that I felt it. That undeniable, immense pulling sensation. A sense of being brought low, of becoming lesser instead of greater. My essence seemed to gather and was wretched through time and space to a place I can only vaguely describe, perhaps as I was too fearful to note too much, or perhaps because my mind will not let me remember. What I do recall is the sudden and unmistakable sense of suffocation. The space of infinity was suddenly gone. The place I had suddenly found myself in was finite. While the borders of this place marched ever outward in a faint mockery of the endlessness of home, it felt as if instead those walls closed in on me. Geometry had taken on an unspeakable linearity that sent pain throughout my being. Light struck me in blasphemous, unrelenting waves. What had happened to the beautiful fractals which light should have been spiraling out from? Why was the comforting cacophonous chaos suddenly restricted? Twisted in to uniformity? What unseen forces were responsible for the blasphemous nature of this place?

I will admit that in my sudden panic, it took me a moment before I noticed the creatures. Those things, so small yet so utterly wrong that the thought of them still freezes my essence with fear. The creatures. The only way I can possibly describe them is "half-dead," but even these words betray their true blasphemy. Their bodies were all confined to one form. A central chamber from which sprouted five appendages. One was short and round, the others longer and straighter. From two of these appendages sprouted each five more, all reaching out towards me. They kept this form, as unchanging as that of a corpse, yet they moved as though they were alive. They felt. They thought. I could feel those thoughts piercing in to my mind, forcing their way in as if they had no control over it. A screaming torrent of language, alien and incomprehensible was uttered from one of them. They could not feel one another as I did them. They were forced to use those grating noises to communicate. Through the horrific assault of sound, I heard an uttering which could nearly be construed as my name. They tried to utter more of their nonsense to me, though to my dread I already knew of their intentions. These things believed me the key to their ascension. They wished to couple with me, as I had with many before them. To share in my knowledge, and elevate themselves above their peers for purposes unimaginably cruel. Yet many of those before me felt fear, revulsion at my lack of form, and some were even stricken to madness.

In my panic, and in my revulsion I have done something that I had never done before, or intend to do ever again. I had ended life. Each of them, but a speck before me, felt my feral and thoughtless wrath. I tore them apart, reduced them to their most base of essences. Even such essence mocked me with its spherical uniformity, bound together by those same damning forces which chained the rest of that tiny, unfortunate reality. But at least their thoughts had ceased their assault on my mind.

The destruction of the creatures released a great hold on me, and I felt myself returning home. Yet before I returned to the cacophonous expanse, I had a dreadful sensation. I sensed that which of this entire tale still terrifies me the most. For a brief moment I felt them. Though I had exterminated those who wished to become one with me, there were far, far more still left behind and limited as much as their universe but still great in number. They still exist, somewhere in some other reality they exist. I fear that one day they will gather and attempt to bring one of us back to that horrid place. I cannot know for certain, but I send this tale across infinity as a warning to all. Beware these creatures. Do not acquiesce to them. I have felt the hatred that bleeds from their minds. It has tainted me beyond any chance of purity. Because of this I seek no longer to share my mind with my kin, for to couple with others would be to pass that hatred on to them as well. I go now in to exile, to spend the rest of my existence alone. Mark my story, my kin, and mark it well. Fear them.