#also what the fuck lovecraft

[clemaetine]

so glad i wasn't giving birth when chainsaws were used for their intended purpose

this is the funniest tweet i’ve seen in months bye

[sergle]

speaking of yarn ive been meaning to ask since ive heard of it elsewhere, is the general quality of yarn you can get going down? ive been looking into fibercraft but ive been told its getting harder and harder to find actual good thread without some sort of plastic in it, especially for a good price. so ive been wondering is this true or was it made out to be a much larger problem than it really is (in your experience)?

i've only been into crochet for a couple of years, so i'm not a Fiber Arts Veteran who can tell you the difference between shopping for supplies now vs 30 years ago! i don't really have anything to compare Current Yarns to. in my experience, the only thing i can speak on is cost, and it seems like the cost for yarn has probably been going up. animal fibers are certainly more expensive, acrylic yarns are budget-friendly but are synthetic, if that's something you're worried abt.

so i don't think that stuff is Untrue, but i also don't think it's any reason at all to avoid getting into fiber arts, and you can absolutely find yarns made from cotton / wool / bamboo fiber and stuff like that for good prices! it would probably be harder in-person, like in the aisles of a hobby lobby. but i think lion brand and lovecrafts are good sites to browse for yarn/supplies. it's really not a small-scale problem, someone like moi who's recently gotten into crochet and does it for funsies based on my whims/needs isn't going to really notice, i don't think. as an aside, if we're talking about crochet specifically, you can really crochet with anything at all- i've been making a tote bag out of plastic grocery bags, lmao. reduce reuse recycle or whatever. people will also use strips of fabric instead of yarn, and that's good for stuff like rugs / bags / baskets, chunkier projects. (though ig you could probably make some clothing if you cut the strips of fabric thin enough.) so as far as accessibility to the craft, there is that!

[margridarnauds]

The most funny thing about people complaining about DracMina is that there are not actually hoards of DracMina shippers running around, creating ship content or highjacking discourse about Dracula, Mina, novel and such. Yet those complainers are acting as if they are personally oppressed by those shippers while it’s not the case, and it wouldn’t be the problem at all if they were not so obsessed with the shippers or the ship itself tbh.

That's always been what's most bizarre about it because ???? Where are all these Dracmina shippers? Do they have a secret discord server where they talk about Victorian gothic villainfucking? And they didn't invite ME? Can I join?

But like. The truth is that even pre-DD, there wasn't a TON of Dracmina fanfiction/general content, whether it was romanticized and fluffy or not. I've been circling around the Dracula fandom since 2011, scoured for fanfic, and...there was maybe ONE really good series that was dark. ADAPTATIONS are overwhelmingly pro-Dracmina, fine, BUT. A lot of the problems that people complain about. Are only really a major Thing. After Bram Stoker's Dracula. Which imo indicates a broader problem of people getting their first taste of Dracula from that film + its subsequent adaptations and then expanding it to cover ALL Dracula adaptations/interpretations of Dracula. I've ALWAYS seen this kind of endless complaining about Dracmina as if that's a way to prove that you're one of the Real Fans who understands that the Vampires are Bad. Like, congratulations, you read the book! You know that Dracmina is not canon in it! Now go and make content for something you actually DO like! Have some useful conversations about the novel and the themes in it! ANYTHING.

And so many posts are framed as like "instead of Dracmina/the reincarnated wife thing, here is what they SHOULD DO" instead of framing it as "I think it would be really cool if...!" Because even when they're talking about THEIR ships, it's almost inevitably about Dracmina. J0nmina shippers are more obsessed with Dracmina than *I* am. (I wouldn't say I aggressively ship it so much as I hold a little bit of fondness for it thanks to that teen girl who loved the sweeping, gothic romance of the idea of it, especially the musical tbh.)

I see posts about one of my favorite musicals and it's inevitably "Dracula the Musical was kind of good...except for the DRACMINA!" Like, literally no one is forcing you to watch a musical that flopped on Broadway in 2004. (I have my OWN complaints about the musical and how it fails and Wildhorn's general problems with writing plots/women, but like.)

And...I do think that there are valid reasons for supporting Dracmina. Just. As a general thing.

For some people, they might genuinely like darker, fucked up ships. Even the reincarnation thing could be interesting IF it was played up for being as horrific as it should be. Having someone else's memories, someone who Is or Isn't you, being the target of that kind of obsession.

For some people, they might like the idea of "let us be monsters." I see that idea being applied MORE to J0ncula, re: queerness, and, for what it's worth, there is some Victorian literature on the vampire that ALREADY leaned into this. Like, you have (subtextually) queer vampires like Carmilla and Ruthven, who are the highest profile non-Dracula 19th century vampires, but you also have (confirmed) queer authors who were clearly using vampires as a way of discussing queerness like, for example, Eric Stenbock's Count Vardalek, which is an example of a tragic, tortured vampire who is doomed to kill what he loves. (There is also a LOT going on in THAT short story, a lot of which makes it highly uncomfortable for a modern audience, but that's another story.) I've written queer Dracula fic with the idea of the vampirism representing that kind of "I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days" acceptance of the Other and of the Otherness that is present in the Self.

BUT. At the same time, it isn't as if there's ever been a golden age in which women have been allowed to just. Love monsters. It has always been radical. Even today. Women cannot read romance novels or lust after villains openly without handwringing over whether it is Moral or Proper or Whether We'll Get Dangerous Ideas from it. It was the case in the early days of the Gothic genre, when there were concerns over them being amoral (and, I mean, in partial defense of the pearl clutchers...a lot of the early Gothic novels make the later novels look tame in their gleeful use of murder, satanism, incest, and decay, thank you to The Monk.) And I can see the appeal of Dracmina on that level.

And all this is complicated by the racism implicit in the novel, of Dracula as the Evil Foreigner, with his ties to the past and his ancient lineage, who is acting as a threat to the Modern Anglo-American world. How do you grapple with that? It isn't easy. For some people, I know they choose to just. Ignore it. Or try to reframe it as Stoker somehow being progressive. And while I can get the appeal of, say, a black or Catholic Irish Mina, or a black or Mexican Quincey...for ME, that approach isn't satisfactory. I'm not saying it isn't satisfactory for ANYONE, or that it's Problematic or Wrong, but that it doesn't vibe for ME. *I* don't like it because I feel like it de-problematizes the novel, makes it about a multiracial queer polyamorous group trying to take down the Evil White Man. (And also still, unknowingly or not, plays into prejudices around people from the region usually defined in the west as "Eastern Europe" that are still present to this day and which are often invisible.) And, again, some people might like that! I'm not going to police how people recontextualize the novel so long as they understand why other people might *not* like that approach.

For me, I personally choose to aggressively love the Other. And I'm fully aware my approach isn't SUPERIOR, especially when you're dealing with the coded SA in the novel, both against Mina and Jonathan. I understand that some adaptations have slid into rape apologism/denial category. But I also think that some things I've seen come about re: for example, DD is people not really thinking when they say "we want to see Mina be sexually traumatized by an Eastern European monster so that she and her English husband can destroy the Foreigner." Foreigners or people who are not white or not considered to be white, in the Victorian Era and now, are a convenient scapegoat for sexual violence -- at the time that this is being published, lynchings are already happening in the States against black men who are accused of raping white women. Nine years before, while the figure dubbed Jack the Ripper instigated his reign of terror, graffiti appeared that said "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing" -- while Ripperologists have debated the meaning of the graffiti, I have the very mundane explanation that an antisemitic Victorian decided to blame the Jews (TM) for the killings. One of the chief suspects of the crime was Aaron Kosminski a Polish Jew whose major sin, with Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson claiming the main reason that he was never caught was that Jews would not testify against one another. People WANTED the Ripper to be an Eastern European Jewish man murdering and killing English Women (even in the case of the thoroughly Irish Catholic Mary Jane Kelley, her Welsh connections were emphasized over her Irish.) (Also in partial defense of white British men at the time, there were several people were like "hold up, this is kind of antisemitic.")

And I know this is dark stuff, but it's IMPORTANT to ground the depiction of Dracula as a sexual predator in the context that he was being written in, as a character, and why I personally...don't like an uncomplicated SA story. I don't want Mina to lie about it, either (I've seen this with Miranda/Caliban, which is another example of a classic of a classic with Problems with race, and I hate that as well). It's a delicate, delicate line, and I don't think a lot of adaptations have done it WELL, but I also don't think it's SIMPLE to just say "Dracula is a rapist, if you ship Dracmina, you're shipping a rape victim and her rapist." I'm not saying people have to like it or be comfortable with, but I'm asking people to understand like. Why people might go the OTHER way into it. Because the imperialist overtones of Dracula really are the elephant in the room.

One alternative would be to dig into Makt Myrkanna (aka Icelandic Dracula, which also has an earlier Swedish version), where Dracula is an active Eugenicist. It would still be uncomfortable, especially if someone kept the vaguely Lovecraftian ape cult under his castle. (...yes. Really.) BUT it would establish that Dracula isn't inherently a monster because he's a foreigner, he's a monster because he sees Vampires as a master race (which could also be interesting if the protagonists have the Victorian-typical attitude that White Westerners are the pinnacle of civilization, seeing those attitudes turned around on THEM.) I'm not opposed to that. But for me, I prefer vampirefucking.

The thing with classics is that...if they truly deserve the term 'classic'...they will touch people in different ways. Particularly the Gothic genre which relies on extremes of emotion and inner torment and family curses and decay. With the novel Rebecca, people often get into fights on whether Maxim or Rebecca was abusive, whether either or both of them were terrible people, whether Maxim was a misogynist or just an abuse victim lashing out, etc. etc. and the thing I quickly realized is that almost everyone who got really invested in it had a deep personal reason for interpreting it the way they did, and I could see the reasons for WHY they interpreted it that way even when I disagreed. (I still think Rebecca was abusive as a fyi.)

For some people, I know that Jonathan as a victim, as a potentially queer man, who is able to fight against his oppressor in whatever ways he can is really powerful. For some people, Renfield is really important as a mentally ill (again, potentially queer) man who is abused by the medical establishment. For some people, Seward is really important. For some people, the Harkers are important as an adorable, stable couple. For me, as a general enemy of the adorable, I'm neutral. I've read one analysis of vampires as a class thing, and I don't LIKE it because I still feel like it falls into the mistake that bad Leftist analysis generally makes of reducing everything wrong in the world to capitalism (in the same way that bad feminist analysis makes everything about misogyny). Etc. etc. etc. I'm invested in the women. In the women being happy, in having agency however they see fit. This can include with Dracula, with Jonathan, with Van Helsing, with each other, with any other number of options. (But I also want vampirefucking.) If something turns Mina into JUST Jonathan's girlfriend/Supportive Wife or JUST Dracula's bloodbag or even JUST makes them into Wholesome GFs, I'm not invested. I'm not invested in J0nmina, as a ship. I like it best when Jonathan says he'd become a vampire for her, when he's getting a little bit fucky with Victorian norms (though then there's the question of what "Victorian norms" are since, even though I don't think "I would give up Christianity for you" would be considered to be SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE for real people at this time, it's also definitely not out of place in general gothic lit at this time, and clearly those had an audience so...) I don't particularly find "Middle Class English Couple Has Children" is really that enthralling of an ending, when the ending is middle class domesticity. I understand it from a trauma viewpoint, but it isn't really my vibe.

ANYWAY, my point is, at the end of this essay: I agree with you, people should leave Dracmina alone, it's never been the norm in the fandom, I get tired of it being treated as the Root of All Ills in adaptations when there are usually worse things afoot, there are reasons for people to ship it, be careful with how you talk about Drac because it quickly can slide into bigoted territory with baggage that you might not even be aware of. Also most of the adaptations still suck because they don't let the women be people with agency. And if you reduce Mina to Jonathan's GF I hate you because you don't really care about misogyny in the adaptations, you just care that your blorbo has his supportive wife who cries and acts as a madonna figure for the men to huddle around.

[tothesolarium]

how did my professor recommend me The Color of Outer Space

and I found the whole ass wrong book

its about a farm??? I was reading space travel what did I do

[aaaaaaaaraaaaaraaa]

bramcraft hcs? 👁

UH

UH

Braids.

Bram gives lovecraft braids while telling extremely long winded and complex major historical anecdotes as if it's drama from highschool.

That's it that's the post.

[pegging-satan]

If you’d told me that I’d be shipping a bunch of classic lit authors with each other say like, a year ago, I would’ve laughed in your face

[desultorydenouement]

listen. bad people can make good art. do you really read classic books and just listen to what they’re trying to tell you? that’s not what art is about! art is about what they’re not trying to say! art is a porthole into other people’s worlds! it’s a camera into other people’s minds! it’s how they see the world! navigate their lives! and if they’re bad people, and their view of the world inevitably fucked up, READ IT ANYWAY, and see how all their hatreds and fears and selfishness taint the way they view the world, and learn it. see the way it slants. and next time you look at the world around you and find it leaning just a little bit further into hatred and despair and bigotry, you will know enough about perspective to keep yours steady.

[shadow-and-purgatory]

Was anyone going to tell me that HP Lovecraft ALSO died on the Ides of March or was I supposed to find that out for myself

[brotpqueen]

Me writing my fic, having Aziraphale as a university literature student hoping to become an author (okay do I get points for being a LITTLE different than bookshop owner or professor?), meanwhile Crowley is doing astronomy:…

I like how good omens au’s give C&A their jobs.

Crowleys is a doctor, stripper, scientist, botany/history proffesor, sex worker, preist, reptile shop owner, flower shop owner, barista, IT worker, bussines man, police, astronomist, influencer etc

Aziraphale is a bookshop owner. He MIGHT be a proffesor. In literature.

(Look in the reposts for recs)

[waywardsalt]

in my musings abt a bellum x linebeck ship name that doesnt sound like shit im half considering a referential placeholder. probably something to do with the king in yellow with that being a sort of like yknow. half short stories revolving around some unknowable horror related to the color yellow and half short love stories

[baizhoobies]

BSD Men and their Favourite Positions

A/N: OMG my first ever post on here ~ What better way to start off this blog than a little bit of smut with our favourite men? Cooked some of this up with a friend, I hope you enjoy! I ofc couldn’t fit every BSD character in here, depending if its what people want, I may do a part 2 dedicated to the Hunting Dogs, Mushitarō etc and maybe even a part 3 for various BSD women! So let me know if that’s something I should do next!

Warnings:, graphic descriptions of sex, mentions of kinks, 18+, minors dni

Reader is gender neutral with any genitalia !!

Including: Dazai, Atshushi, Kunikida, Ranpo, Fukuzawa, Chūya, Akutagawa, Tachihara, Francis Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lovecraft, Fyodor, Nikolai, Sigma, Ango

𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲

Dazai

I am not entirely sure what this position is called, but picture this: You are laying on your back, Dazai using his strong hands lifts you up by the waist, your legs are over his shoulders and he pulls you into him with a rough thrust. I feel like Dazai is stronger than he looks, so he uses his strength to his advantage, and he most certainly is rough with it. Expect him to man-handle you a lot, he has to have complete control over you - expect to ache the next day, along with some very pretty bruises where his fingers dug in. I’m sure this position has a name but my friend called it the ‘cervix/g spot destroyer 9000’ so we will go with that.

Atsushi

Our sweet Atsushi… oh yeah you are bent over doggy style, gnawing at your neck and shoulders as he pounds into you. He would probably cry a little, but only because he feels so good. Unlike Dazai, its not necessarily about control, but instincts for him. Being with you, he would absolutely go feral and his tiger senses just go crazy. He will have nothing on his mind except the thought of him pinning you down with his weight, cock buried deep inside and his mouth biting anywhere he can sink his teeth into.

Kunikida

I am absolutely biased and I will take liberty in saying that he would be quite partial to pinning you down into a mating press. It makes him feel in control, and of course that being in his ideals, will absolutely follow it to a tee. Its a position where you are able to get the best grunts out of him, as someone who isn’t super vocal (more huffing and panting), having him balls deep in you like this is sure to make him let out some involuntary moans. Also…it doesn’t matter what gender you are, he is getting you pregnant fr. Have you ever seen a man so fuck drunk? WELL YOU ARE ABOUT TO; he can only stay in control for so long until his senses overwrite everything. Not exactly his ideal, is it?

Ranpo

2 words…pillow princess. If you have a dick or a strap, he enjoys being pressed down into the bed, hips up and back arched whilst being hit from the back. He comes across as someone who would enjoy being with someone who could ‘outwit him’, and if that is you, he would willingly relinquish the control he feels that he has over people …to you. I personally believe he is a switch, but his favourite position? Any position where you fuck his brains out completely. Bonus points if you reach around and jerk him off at the same time, you will turn him into a moaning and whining mess.

Fukuzawa

As someone who comes across as traditional, I feel like missionary would be his most preferred position. Its comfortable, can be as slow or as fast as he (and you) feels - but what he likes the most is being able to see your face, the way it looks as you take him in and when you cum. If he isn’t looking at your eyes as he thrusts, he is most certainly resting his face in the nook of your neck, kissing your sensitive skin - you don’t complain, as someone who probably isn’t so vocal during sex, this is the best position to hear his low moans and praises on his lips as he comes undone. It’s also a very versatile position because he can be slow and romantic, full of love and praise, or after a stressful day, he can harshly rut into you with rough fingers digging into your hips.

𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐚

Chūya

Never tell him that you’re a throat goat because he will go absolutely crazy. I mean CRAZY. He will have you laying on a table or a bed/couch if they are tall enough, your head hanging off the edge and your mouth open, taking him in completely. In this position he is able to fuck your throat mercilessly, noticing the bulge in your neck where his cock is buried; seeing it just inflates his ego and will jerk himself off using your throat for extra pressure/friction. If his hand isn’t around your neck, he will absolutely have one hand on your cock/cunt, playing with it for your own pleasure as he feels himself cumming down your throat.

Akutugawa

Also a missionary king, now it may seem ooc of him, but I feel like he would let his guard down with his significant other; like its a side only you get the privilege in seeing. Like he may have this tough exterior, but secretly he just wants to be held. So as much as he can be rough, he relishes in your warmth, your arms around him and pulling him into a hug; it makes him feel safe and secure. If your arms aren’t enveloping him, he will hold your hand, squeezing it as he enters you and when he cums. - Oh he definitely has a thing for holding your hand. Big meanie who is actually a softie!

Tachihara

The man relishes the thought and the feeling of having you sit on his face. You may feel like you are the one in control, but thats far from the truth. His grip is hard on your hips, pulling you further down onto his face, almost worryingly so; but don’t worry, the man knows what he’s doing. If he’s going to die by giving oral then that is a good way to die 🫡 Master tongue for real, like he prides himself. I BET he is the type of guy who gives his tongue a ‘work out’ just so he builds his durability for this very thing!! He won’t even think about cumming first without you cumming from his tongue; on second thought, he might even cum from eating you out alone, he just gets so in the moment…I better stop.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝

Francis Fitzgerald

Whew, okay this man wants you pinned against something, no matter the position; on his desk, against a wall, if its a hard surface, he wants you there. But in terms of favourite I would say against the wall, your legs wrapped around his waist, strong hands gripping and supporting your ass as he plunges deep and hard into you. It would definitely be an ego thing for him, being able to support you and also wreck your shit at the same time. Please do praise him, as his already mentioned ego will inflate and I just know he would fuck you better with each compliment. Expect a very bruised back and aching legs after, he doesn’t intend on taking it easy with you.

Edgar Allen Poe

As hopeless romantic like myself, I feel like he would want to be as close to you as possible with also being able to see your face. As strange as it may sound, but Poe enjoys having you in the lotus position - this way, he is able to feel your entire body grind into him so lovingly. The both of you would sit on his bed, your legs crossed around each other and his cock buried warmly inside of you, here he feels safe and content (you just know he is whimpering into your ear). Its also a good position for you to take more control, I just know ya man is a sub at heart, so do please tell him that he’s a good boy and how much you love his voice, because it will only egg him on to be louder.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

As a man of god, you will probably (definitely) be married to him to get anywhere near him sexually. But when you are married, rest assured that he will want to ravish you. He comes across as someone who has a lot of repressed sexual feelings, therefore he’d want a position that can demonstrate his absolute DESIRE. Because I am feeling generous, I would say either the mating press or cow girl. The mating press for…obvious reasons… his big strong body holding you down with a distinct goal in mind? Oh yes. I would also say the cowgirl, mainly because he would enjoy seeing you come undone on his cock, pulling you down either by your hips or your arms, balls bouncing against your ass…that man has seen god and its you.

Lovecraft

This is a tricky one, I don’t think he would necessarily have a favourite position for his own pleasure, but he would probably take gratification in your pleasure. YOU KNOW he would put those tentacles to good use if you ask him. With this in mind, I picture you asking him to “fill your holes”, which he does, and makes sure to do it where he has full view of the show. If you want his cock specifically, he will have several tentacles wrap themselves around your torso, one forcing your head down, the others keeping your thighs apart and hips up for him to enter you from behind - so in short I suppose his favourite position with you would be doggy !

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝

Fyodor

Thigh fucking, 100%. Something that doesn’t actually involve penetrative sex because of the whole,,,religion thing. Unless you were married, there will be no sex; aside from the loop holes. You are on your back, wearing the fanciest of underwear as Fyodor lifts up and presses your legs together, poking his hard cock through your soft flesh and thrusts. He will curse you out, call you a little temptress or seducer…when he cums it’ll never be inside, not that he hasn’t thought about it, he has. Each time you would do it he would get closer and closer to giving in. “You tempt me…” he’d whisper, there are very few people who could get him to question his faith, his morals…but you…you really are a little charmer, aren’t you?

Nikolai

I had a hard time deciding with Nikolai, but I honestly believe that he would be super into 69-ing. He would probably enjoy the fact that its the ‘sex’ number and make numerous jokes about it outside the bedroom. But INSIDE the bedroom is another matter. He would most likely prefer to be on top, it means that he has more power over you (and that you can’t escape him, not that you’d want to). He would be kind of sadistic too, pressing his cock further and further into your mouth, enjoying hearing the little gags and chokes as he essentially keeps you prisoner under his weight; he would never endanger you but…there is always an element of danger with him.

Sigma

Spooning, its something so intimate and personal to him, both fucking you and hugging you. He gives me the vibe that he just wants to be close to you, he’s clingy and a little possessive, so holding you in this position is heaven to him. You are laying on your side, one leg hooked over his arm, lifting it up so that he has the perfect angle to plunge deep into you. He is so loving when he does this, to him you might as well be made of glass. Expect a thousand kisses along your back and shoulder blades, a few little bites but not too rough, but enough to mark you. Sigma is also a whimperer and whiner, very vocal with it too (possibly even a crier if over-stimulated)

𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚(𝐬)

Ango

Another very subby kinda guy, though definitely a switch in my mind, but I can elaborate in another post tee hee. I want to say his favourite is having you suck his cock. LIKE ofc he enjoys sex, but his favourite thing is seeing you servicing him on your knees, between his legs and swallowing every inch. He’s veryyyy sensitive on his tip, so even delicately kissing it before sucking him in will put him immediately on edge. He may try to establish dominance at first, but rest assured that will not last long. He will find it hard to compose himself, especially if you take every bit of him in your throat. His glasses will fog up, his face red and his fingers fumbling with your hair; awh look at him, you got him all flustered. Another man who whimpers, maybe even cry, but boy he sounds angelic whilst doing so.

A/N: ahhhh okay done!! I hope you enjoyed, I know I did. I fear that there are a few headcanons I’ve made and will have to elaborate on in the future. Like I am so going to dive into the Fyodor thigh fucking headcanon….lord have mercy I’m bout to bust. Alroighhtttt, till next time 🌸

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Fandom

Alan Moore: [appearing in a clap of thunder] BEHOLD! King: the arch magus! Barker: the arch magus! Poe: the arch magus! Lovecraft: the arch magus! Koontz: the grand nagus! Poe: no dean Poe: that's not right Poe: that's star trek Moore: and that is exactly what i came to talk to you all about today

Moore: i have come down from the mountain to share the wisdom imparted to me by the cosmos King: guys! the arch magus is going to share some wisdom! King: everyone be quiet, we gotta hear this! Moore: fandom Moore: is crap King: King: oh well i don't care much for that wisdom at all

Moore: your fannish obsessions have blinded you to the truth! Moore: fandom is bad Diane Duane: even star trek? Moore: even star trek! Chuck Wendig: even star wars? Moore: even star wars! Lafcadio Hearn: even anime? Moore: ESPECIALLY anime!

Moore: fools! can you not see how your fannish obsessions choke art & culture? Moore: it will make it so that you throw a halloween party & play an anime theme song playlist bc you believe halloween songs don't exist! King: that seems like an awful specific complaint King: did that happen to you?

Moore: fandom makes you obsessed with cataloging and blinds you to the truths of this world! Moore: so that you feel no shame when you write really really stupid letters asking 'could dr manhattan beat up the flash?' King: now that you bring that up that's a really good question Moore: NO ITS NOT!!!

King: so could dr manhattan beat up the flash? Poe: he could but he'd have to catch him first Lovecraft: yeah but dr manhattan exists in all realities so it would be really easy for him to catch the flash King: UNLESS King: we're in one of the realities where he FAILS to catch the flash Moore: UGH

Moore: first of all, foolish mortals! Moore: THERE IS NO REALITY IN THE MULTIVERSE IN WHICH DR MANHATTAN WOULD FAIL TO CATCH THE FLASH!! Moore: SO SPEAKETH THE ARCH MAGUS! King: the arch magus! Poe: the arch magus! Lovecraft: the arch magus! Barker: the arch magus! Koontz: the grand nagus!

Moore: and secondly your obsession has blinded you to the real questions of our times Moore: why ask foolish questions about superheroes Moore: when you could be asking the deep questions of life? Moore: like what if dorothy gale fucked the wizard of oz? Moore: and also the wizard was a very old man

Moore: i mean like really old Moore: since a man hits is sexual peak around, oh, 85-100 Moore: you might not like it but that's just science Moore: so speaketh the arch magus! [vanishes in clap of thunder]

[lethesomething]

A classification of Candela Obscura series

As a liveplay, the different Candela Obscura series are interesting, because the Vibe changes every time with the different group setup. So if you're not sure where to start, here is my totally unscientific classification:

Series one: The Vassal and the Veil

The introductory one. Look at this new type of game we have! It is turn of the century inspired so there's street urchins and madams and prim ladies and weird professors, the kind of characters you find in a Dickens novel. Also it's narrated by Matt so Much Body Horror ensues. It's spooky and sad and American Gothic but weirdly, probably the lightest series of the four out now.

Series two: Needle and Thread

The PTSD edition. Now that you know the setting, let's dump a bunch of trauma in it! What is the value of a life? Of a soul? What is it that makes us human? How do fight you supernatural phenomena while still haunted by the ghosts of your past self? Your past life? This one has some of the better action sequences of all the Candela series. The vibe is Lovecraft meets Rambo and I will not elaborate on this.

Series three: Tide and Bone

In which Aabria turns the dial to eleven. There's body horror, there's monster fucking, there's that thing Sam does where he fucks you up with his character's backstory. The world is an unjust place even without all the supernatural horrors and capitalism is going to get all of us killed. The vibe here is a little bit more Dark Horse comics, because the characters themselves are Weirder and less grounded than in the other series.

Series four: The Crimson Mirror

In which Liam tries to murder the characters. As a dm, he has been given a Large Set of Knives with which to stab his characters but he's still just constantly swinging at them with a giant mallet also. This one is High Drama with lots of flashbacks and grappling with how to reassemble a life that has been torn to shreds. Heavy Edgar Allen Poe vibes. This one has some of my favourit acting in the series.

[queer-n-here]

Theres like no Lovecraft content 😭

Can I request instructing him to fuck himself on his own tentacles?

My buddy 🦅 anon also asked for something like this, so here goes!

And yes, bro, that's a thing, I've seen certain pieces like that.

Also, uhm... I'm not sure how I feel about tentacles, but I still write it.

So here it is! Hope y'all like it. (It's a lil short, but I think quality wise it's good, hehe)

Contents: Making Lovecraft fuck himself with his own tentacles.

Warnings: Smut, top male reader, masterbation, tentacle use.

Gah, Lovecraft?

That man is a virgin, and for once, by choice.

He has no interest in sex. It's what normal people do, he thinks. Not for someone like him.

But then you come around, and even though it confuses him, he finds himself drawn to you. It's unusual, so he tries to figure out why in his own ways.

Because he's not used to feeling. And yet here he is.

All that going about, and he ends up on your bed, butt naked and holding his legs apart with his own hands for you to watch as his very own tentacles assault his hole at your command.

His gaze is hazy, calves trembling and cock twitching as moans resound in the room, punctuated every with a rhythmatic squelch, squelch. It feels so good, so good, watching you stroke your cock with your eyes glued to him, kneeling on the bed in front of him.

"Faster," You order, and the tentacles speed up, even as Lovecraft's head falls back on the bed.

Tears would have surely dripped down his face if he had them. His chest is shuddering, and his lips tremble even as he bites them for the millionth time.

He can feel your gaze on him, your eyes raking over his neck, shoulders, chest, torso, before slipping lower and lower as your hand strokes your cock to the same rhythm as his tentacles.

God, Lovecraft wants you to put it in him. But fuck, he doesn't even know why, so he'll make do with what he has now.

His tentacles attack his hole with vigour, and the pleasure is too much, even for his non-human body. But he bites down on the back of his hand and endures it.

Lovecraft loves your gaze on him, and he'll do anything to keep it there.

[chungledown-bimothy]

There's 2 things that bother me about this whole mismag debacle.

Firstly, I'm annoyed that people take such a bad faith approach to things that are inspired/influenced by something popular or defining when the originator of said thing was a bigot. JKR didn't invent wizards or magic boarding schools. She just did it the "best" for lack of a better term. H.P Lovecraft made some really defining works of eldritch horror. He was also incredibly racist and that showed in some of his works. Does that now mean every work of eldrich horror that was influenced by Lovecraft also racist by association? No, because you actually have to look at what those inspired works are saying and not just assume in bad faith that they are racist. (This ties into my 2nd point, but I'm getting).

Secondly, I guarantee that the people complaining haven't actually watched mismag. Because, if they did, they would discover that the entire show so far has been about how a long-standing institution has historically excluded a large portion of people based on prejudiced beliefs, having to enroll those excluded people. And, when they pick the pilot program, they pick 'the worst people' (3 of them are the minorities Hp is racist towards) for the job and purposely set them up to fail so the institution can stay in their bigot ways which have now been "justified." And the pilot program's response (and the shows message) is to say fuck that and the institution and to find power in themselves and prove the institution wrong can force them to change. I wonder how this ties into how mismag is related to HP at all, hmmm?

Apologies for the essay long rant, I'm just tired of the D20 fandom engaging in the most annoying bad faith takes on the show, because this isn't the first ( this is just the loudest) that this has happened.

Anyway, back to the shadows where I lurk

Never apologize for being so completely correct, bestie 💚

[nothingenoughao3]

Why we wanna transition to Mad Scientist (or, revulsion and queerness in horror)

(Hi, @ash-eats-film! This is the thing I mentioned!)

Horror has a few baseline emotions it tries to inflict on the audience. This has been written about for decades, most famously by Stephen King, but the baseline elements most writers agree on are as follows.

Dread: Anxiety over what is about to happen

Terror: The fear of what is occurring right this second

Revulsion: Being forced to interact directly with what's happening right now

Black comedy: Being tricked into laughing at either the terror or the revulsion

Horror: The trauma response to what just happened

A great example of this can be seen in The Evil Dead II (YT link that doesn't include the full context, but does have the, uh, money shot). There's the dread of realizing there's something in the root cellar; the terror of when the Deadite pops up in the trapdoor; the combined revulsion and black comedy of Ash jumping on the Deadite's skull/the door, popping out its eyeball which shoots into Bobby Joe's mouth, and then the horror of what just went down rolling over Ash and his current companions.

Often, revulsion and black comedy go hand in hand. That's because they're tension relievers. The revolting thing becomes ridiculous, and you laugh at how ridiculous it is. This lets you settle down in the midst of the gore and death, just slightly, just enough to get through it... so the horror can fully set in for you, too, once it's over.

You also, often, question your own stability if you laugh in the middle of a gross-out horror scene: "Am I sick? Is there something wrong with me for laughing at X?" This is even worse if the villain starts laughing--now you're questioning whether you're IDing with the monster. Are you okay? Is something wrong with you?

Revulsion is often framed as the slutty member of the good, proper, morally-upright brigade of horror. We have a name for folks who seek out gross-out horror--they're gore-hounds, a term that is virtually always pejorative when applied to other people. We call certain types of horror "torture porn" or "gore porn", as though it is inherently sleazy and sexual to rely on this specific emotional reaction. (Note that we don't have "black comedy-porn", or "dread hounds", even though a dread hound sounds really fucking cool.)

Not to go off on a huge tangent, but I think the issue with media that overly relies on revulsion is that it's unbalanced, not that it's bad. A movie that's nothing but dread never has any emotional payoff. A movie that's nothing but terror never lets the audience relax back into their seats and, paradoxically, will become boring (imagine two hours of jumpscares).

So forth and so on: all aspects of horror rely on each other to survive. That includes scenes that make you go "Awww, sick" while nervously cackling.

Here's the thing: in previous generations, revulsion was similarly understood to be an essential part of horror, but what led to a revolted reaction was very different.

Lovecraft (boo this man! BOOOOO) understood the power of revulsion, which was the source of a lot of his strangest and most vivid descriptions. It was also the source of some of his most bigoted ideas working into his stories. The undercurrent of "non-WASPs are evil because they are repulsive" is as pervasive in his work as "the universe is incomprehensibly vast". You kind of can't get around that.

But there's another thing Lovecraft did to generate revulsion. He wrote a number of stories where an unhealthy focus on corpses, graveyards, graverobbing, and the like is, indirectly or directly, associated with sexual perversion. 

How many, you may ask? Off the top of my head, there's "The Loved Dead", "In the Vault", "The Disinterment", "Pickman's Model", The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, "The Hound" and "Herbert West: Re-Animator". All of these tales share certain themes, which don't repeat beat-for-beat in each tale but do overlap:

Male character becomes obsessed with dead bodies--whether that's stealing them, having sex with them, desecrating them, or resurrecting them.

He is comfortable around death and the dead to a degree that is unusual, sometimes explicitly stating that he prefers the smells/sights of death to those of life.

Terms like "fiendish", "hellish", "abnormal" and "perverse" are used to describe him; his gaze towards dead bodies or to experiments may be framed as "leering" or "speculative".

He is frequently a twink; often described as being frail, if not noticeably beautiful; he may recall being mocked for being "bookish" or "weak" as a child.

He is superficially charming in a way that gets him by in polite society, but not long-term nor in-depth.

He often ensnares an otherwise "normal" man to share his obsessions, effectively recruiting him as an assistant... until the "normal" guy realizes he's about to go on the chopping block (or, in at least one story, already was on the chopping block).

Their crimes involve a lot of sneaking around late at night, locked doors, whispering so they don't get caught (or they'll be killed), secretiveness, glee at getting away with it, and frequently, sharing the same living space.

The Unrepentant Evil Dude is often killed at the end of his tale in a way that implies vigilante/mob justice is at hand. 

The other may be allowed to live if he's very sorry and frames the whole story as being the fault of the other guy, or he may die too while affirming his horrible demise as just, even if it terrifies him.

(One could make an argument that Wilbur Whateley fits into some of these tropes. It's me I'm one)

If this all sounds very gay, Lovecraft probably would have agreed. He had as dim a view of homosexuality as he did on most other things that were Outside The Norm. In other words, we were supposed to see Richard Upton Pickman with his ghouls and think, "Ah, yes, this is a metaphor for queerness", only we were supposed to be revolted by that revelation.

This same attempt at revulsion can be easily read into Victor Frankenstein, and probably more Mad Scientists than I can name offhand (but feel free to in reblogs). Frankenstein's "crimes against nature" were connected to dead bodies as well, and likewise involved a lot of sneaking around, locked doors, and worry about what would happen were he caught with this naked man-thing he's keeping in his dorm. His crime, as with his parody character Herbert West, is creating life outside the bounds of heterosexual cisgender sex. This was meant to revolt readers' sensibilities as much as the whole cutting-up-corpses-and-stitching-them-back-together thing would.

This is why, if we're being honest, "Re-Animator" and "Bride of Re-Animator" are not necessarily gay… they're homophobic. This might be controversial, but stick with me.

I feel like Gordon and Yuzna were tapping into that old-fashioned Revulsion Handbook, including from the source material, which thematically linked Herbert West with queerness. (I'm using "queer" a lot here, but I would personally include trans-friendly readings under that rubric; I'm using "queer" in the analytical sense and not solely in the identity sense.) This means that, ironically, a lot of what we could point to as queer subtext is actually homophobic text.

This is reinforced by the novelization of the first film, written by a homophobe who got Trumpist brainworms later in life. He wanted to make West repulsive to the reader, and therefore, he tried to make West more gay. And IT WORKED. 

To be clear, I'm not accusing anybody, other than the novelist, of being a homophobe. There's a difference between possessing internalized bigoted beliefs which express themselves in writing, versus utilizing tropes originating in bigotry because That's What's Done Around Here. (I can understand why others might not perceive a meaningful difference.) Like the Cuzco lizards, this queerness-as-villainy is definitely a stupid thing ported in from the source material.

I do think that this is why everybody but Our Queen Barbara Crampton seems embarrassed or nonplussed by all the transfags pestering them about fellatio tapes. It's because they don't get why this thing appeals so much to us. It shouldn't. If anything, they should be canceled for having yet another queer-coded villain, along with a number of other plot choices of questionable taste (I'm looking at you, The Head Scene, and I don't like what I see).

Only, uh, it didn't work out that way long-term, did it?

I thank Cronenberg and venereal horror for this, in part. Brutally queer despite not being explicitly gay, venereal horror is what happens when the characters should be revolted, but aren't. 

This kind of thing is horrifying for crossing the line twice: first by being disgusting, then by having characters respond as though it is exciting, or sexually stimulating, or if nothing else, normal. They are perverse. They leer at the dead and the subjects of their experiments. And the disgusting monsters at the center of these narratives are celebrated. Their twisted sexualities are explored with the same brave frankness other filmmakers give to milquetoast cishet missionary nonsense. Their political views are given life and air, and usually, they're right. Their deaths, if they come at all, are framed as tragedies brought on by society's sick rejection of the flesh their brave experimentation.

Cronenberg's the dude who unironically thinks that Shivers (trigger warning for literally everything) has a happy ending. My man David's got subscriptions where others have issues.

Venereal horror has given us a new metaframework for looking at the repulsive, the monstrous, and the problematic and responding to it… differently.

Now here's another thing: Lovecraft likewise provided a structure for embracing the grotesque and the queer.

Pickman, the Decadent artist, paints photorealistic, enormous portraits of ghouls. Literal flesh-eaters. He is fascinated by them, comfortable with them. "Model" heavily implies that Pickman is a ghoul changeling--switched at birth with a human child. This leans into Lovecraft's ideas about heritability being a major source of horror, of course, and seems run of the mill until you get to The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

In there, Pickman appears again, but this time as a ghoul. He has cast off his human social shackles and joined the beings he loves, beings who understand him and support him. Kadath is notable in that the ghouls are actually... like... reliable, loyal, and morally good? Carter's opinion pretty much is, "They do eat human corpses and they smell awful, but they're all very nice and want to help me on my quest, so maybe they're not so bad (if not as good as the cat army)".

This feels like Lovecraft acknowledging that his entire approach of linking queerness, death, and revulsion is fundamentally flawed. Once you become familiar with the repulsive, it becomes not-really-that-repulsive-at-all. You can find beauty in it, and amusement, and love. Pickman embracing his ghoulish nature isn't all that different from Seth Brundle's overall lack of revulsion at his body's transformation. And it's not that different from what a lot of transmasculine folks go through, either.

It's not that transmascs, trans men, and/or transfags don't see what West does as crimes against nature. It's that we're all very fucking tired of being accused of crimes against nature. We're tired of not being able to look at socmed without finding accusations that we're disgusting perverts who sneak around behind closed doors to corrupt innocent, promising people to be our lackeys and partners in crime.

Hell, I refer to my wife as "my partner in crime" not because it's a cute way of acknowledging how well and how much we work together both in life and creativity. It's also because we could have been arrested for our relationship when we got together.

We were illegal.

There was a lot of sneaking around and whispering and trying not to get caught and "what if they call the cops on us if we're clocked". Can I tell my friends about this? Will they reject me or rat me out? Where am I safe? Nowhere. Best to lock the door and then check it again to be sure. Best to be very quiet.

Best to act like a graverobber trying to get their grisly wares back home before good, decent, Christian folk see them.

So when I hear "Blasphemy? Before what God?!", I read it as (whether he's ace or aro, gay or achillean, trans man or transmasc or genderfucked) a queer slogan of defiance, instead of a defense of graverobbing, corpse desecration, and non-consensual resurrection.

We're told we and our bodies are repulsive, so being told that Herbert is also repulsive makes him more relatable. Instead of wondering what the hell's wrong with him for shooting up reagent, we all theorize that it's actually T or has similar effects--because we're all told that T is a toxin that will horribly change and disfigure our bodies. He dresses in a three-piece suit for school, and instead of reading him as a stiff and overly-formal little freak, we assume he's layering up because he hasn't found a hoodie he likes yet. 

He cackles at his horrific creations, and instead of saying "What a fucking freak (anguished)", we say "What a fucking freak (affectionate)" and laugh along with him. Who among us hasn't taken apart our Barbies and tried to combine their parts with the Kens? What is a doll, or a human, but a collection of parts to be rearranged? Haven't we also been told we're freaks for rearranging our own parts?

We've already been told by society at large that we are Herbert West. We're just embracing it, in the proud tradition of venereal horror fans who are not revolted when they ought to be, and I think that's delightful.