#god is an eldritch horror

[drconstellation]

Memento mori

If you have the Good Omens book, you have probably seen the little winged hourglasses that act as section separators.

Then if you paid attention during S2, you would have noticed at least two visual representations of hourglasses appear: One on Jimbriel's assistant shopkeeper vest and a large one in Hell itself.

(There are actually two time-related symbols on Jim's vest, but I'll start with the hourglass symbol.)

These are collectively known as the Memento mori, which is usually translated from the Latin into "remember that you die." It is a philosophical reminder about the inevitability of death, one of the major themes in GOmens, which is ironic since we are seeing from the viewpoint of immortal entities who don't have to face it themselves.

Artistically you may see this expressed by a skull and bones, or a skeleton, a coffin, or wilting flowers. Another form of it is the popular saying tempus fugit or "time flees" inscribed on sundials.

We can also hear it - the Danse Macabre, the piece of music the Bentley plays for Aziraphale on the way to Edinburgh, is another example of this theme, as it depicts the Grim Reaper carrying off the rich and poor alike.

Hurry up Aziraphale, you don't have all day!

The other time-related symbol on Jimbriel's vest is the ancient Greek meander pattern, named after the Maeander river in modern day Turkey.

This represents a winding river folding back on itself in big looping oxbow bends. Symbolically it represents both unity and infinity - the undulating flow of human life that continues on and on into eternity through reproduction.

Sounds like something we've heard before:

AZIRAPHALE: Ah. The point. Ah, well, you've heard of Earth? CROWLEY: Ehhh… Not as such? AZIRAPHALE: Ah. Blue-green planet. It'll be over there somewhere when they roll out that quadrant. Now that's where the “people” that we're currently designing are going to be. I've seen the plans. We're going to start out with a breeding pair, and then pretty soon there'll be oodles of them! They'll breed like...um...well, they'll breed like people.

OK, then. That kind of sums up the two competing main themes in Good Omens nicely. Everthing Has An End or Eternity.

The problem is, they both sound equally horrific.

[cryptid-artha]

The God of the Bible is a Lovecraftian Horror

Disclaimer - This is not meant to offend anybody. If you are offended by the idea of this, just scroll past and don’t read it. This was just for fun, and a bunch of observations I have made. This isn't even meant to be taken seriously and is in no way an attack against any religions, Christian or otherwise. People are allowed to interpret Mythology however they want - no Mythology is above this, so I can take Abrahamic mythology and interpret it however I want to. Thank you.

If you aren’t easily offended and want to read something fun, keep reading!

I have come to the conclusion that the God of the Christian Bible is a Lovecraftian Eldritch horror. Here is the proof.

1 - His real name is never mentioned. Yahweh, Jahova, Elohim … these all mean “Lord” or “King” or “God” and are actually just a title. His real name is said to be unknowable, and that no man may utter it. Many of the Lovecraftian names are not really the name of the creatures mentioned, but rather a translation or title. Even the name people commonly know him by, God, is just a title. It simply describes what he is to the people who follow him.

2 - To look upon the face of God was said to cause blindness, death, or possibly insanity. He is said to be incomprehensible and unknowable. Look at what happened to those who touched the Ark of the Covenant, and what happened to them.

3 - People who had close contact with him went crazy. Ever read Revelations with all the crazy creatures and monsters described? It isn't just revelations either, crazy stuff happened surrounding this entity all throughout his book.

4 - There are incredibly loyal followers who continue to believe despite everything that seems to go against logic and reason. They have engaged in animal sacrifice. There is even a major story in their book about a human sacrifice that is at the core of their entire belief system. There was also a story about a man who was willing to sacrifice his own son on a single command. They built great and ancient monuments to him. Some could, arguably, call many of these followers a cult, has been one of the most dangerous and influential groups throughout history, and was part of what brought about the Dark Ages.

5 - There are tales of destruction and horror - about the End Days when he would come back with terrible wrath, and his followers hope for it to happen and even preach on the streets to spread this dark news.

6 - A quote from the bible says that “I thousand years is but a day to the Lord”, showing just how far removed from anything human this entity is.

7 - The Bible mentions how the Sons of God and the Sons of Men interbred… to create Nephilim. They were described as mighty giants… That sure sounds a lot like the Human/Great Old One hybrids from the Dunwich Horror, or the Deep Ones connected to Dagon.

8 - Jesus, who was said to be his son, had strange powers, survived Crucifixion, and vanished, said to have”Ascended into Heaven” - if no body was found, wouldn’t it make sense that he faded away to nothing like Wilbur Whatley did after his death? That adds to the idea that “Jesus” was a hybrid between a human and a Great Old One.

9 - Further on the subject of Jesus, he was said to be his son - but the Angels were also called the Sons of God - does this mean they were the Spawn of a Great Old One? Sure seems like it to me. Their behavior also lines up with this, in how they exist to serve their master and do his bidding.

10 - The Angels were described with inhuman and twisted features - such as one that was literally wheels covered in eyes and wings. Just like creatures spawning from Lovecraftian Horrors.

11 - He draws many parallels to Yog-Sothoth.

This passage about Yog-Sothoth:

“Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.”

and

“It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self—not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence’s whole unbounded sweep—the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yoggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebula know by an untranslatable Sign…”

And verses describing God from his book:

Revelation 22:13 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.“

Revelation 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

God and Yog-Sothoth both come from Arabic origin, so the lore matches up as well.

Yog-Sothoth AND God both impregnated a human woman in their texts.

Yog-Sothoth siring twins, and Mary having a single child.

12 - His followers have their own book like the Necronomicon. It is called the Bible… which translates to simply “The Book”. Like the Necronomicon, the Book is full of dangerous creatures, horrors beyond time, instructions for rituals and laws, and terrible dark tales that would make the sanest man cringe

If you have anything to add, feel free to! Again, no offense or harm is meant. I am not religious, but I have nothing against folks who are as long as they aren't hurting anybody.

[hinamie]

trick or treat!

[anarchist-rat-swarm]

Got an interesting take on eldritch horror for all you writers out there. It's a bit of a roundabout schlep to reach the actual idea, but writers tend to be readers so I hold you'll stick with me til we get there.

So, consider a 2D creature. Little flat dude, living on the ground. No concept of "up" or "down." He's 2D, he just doesn't parse the concepts and can't perceive them anyways.

He sees you. What he actually sees is just the 2D cross section of you where you intersect with his 2D world, which is probably your footprints. So, as far as he can tell, you are a pair of footprints that are.... apparently one being? He doesn't get how it works exactly, but it's not too far out there, so he just kind of accepts that, yes, humans are The Two That Are One. Spooky. They always seem to use the singular to refer to the pair of themselves, and only differentiate between themselves as Left or Right. But other paired instances of The Two That Are One are, in fact, separate entities. So they're only in sets of two, unless accompanied by a companion called "Cane," which they are sometimes, or even a pair of companions called "Crutches." When Crutches are present, sometimes one of The Two That Are One will be missing entirely. It's a little confusing.

But wait, what now? They disappear and reappear in sequence, teleporting in turns. He never sees them just move like a 2D being, always the stop-start teleporting. Apparently this strange power is called "walking," and its accomplished by The Two That Are One moving through an unseen dimension called "Up," through a process called "lifting" themselves and re-entering the real world farther away in the direction they wanted to go. He can accept the idea of unseen dimensions, and he vaguely gets the idea that one of The Two That Are One must remain anchored in the real world to prevent something called "falling," which is some kind of uncontrolled movement through the unperceivable dimension of "Down." Which is the same dimension as "Up," but...... backwards? Reversed? He's not really clear, but "Falling Down" is presumably bad, so The Two That Are One keep one of themselves here in the real world to prevent it.

Except if they do something called "jumping." Which consists of gathering up their power to hurl themselves through the Up dimension together to reappear together somewhere else in the real world. He isn't sure why they Walk instead of Jump, since it seems better to take both of The Two That Are One together at the same time, but okay.

Okay, what the hell, they can Walk through impenetrable barriers like the great wall of Sidewalk Chalk? How do they go through that? What? They went "Over?" The hell is "Over?" Like 'around' but through the unseen dimension of Up? But they couldn't Walk through the barrier of Wall. Why could they go "Over" Sidewalk Chalk but not Wall?

And they can't go between the four small obstacles of Refrigerator Feet. The area between them is safe from The Two That Are One, for the four Refrigerator Feet are connected to each other in the strange and eldritch dimension of Up. The barriers are too powerful to be moved by The Two That Are One, and it (they?) cannot enter the real world where it is blocked by such powerful forces.

Got all that?

Okay, now consider a 4 dimensional elder god and how we 3D entities would perceive them.

[runtwithwolves]

remember that time Stan agreed to be a vessel

[bet-on-me-13]

The Fentonworks Mega-Lab.

So! AU where the Fentonworks Labs actually stretch Miles upon Miles below the City of Amity Park.

It started when the Fentons wanted to add a simple addition to the original Lab when they ran out of space to store their more dangerous weapons. They didn't want their (at the time) young children getting their hands on their experimental Weaponry, it could blow up in their faces!

So they built a different Wing of the Lab to hold all those Inventions.

Then they ran out of space and added a few extra Storage Rooms. But then they decided it was a hassle to have to carefully transport their Dangerous Inventions all the way to the Storage Rooms, and built a Lab specifically for Dangerous Experiments near that same Section. Then that Lab was occupied for a while, and Jack wanted to start a different experiment as well, so they built a few more.

In the end they just never stopped building onto their Labs.

There are sections of the Mega-Lab that are entirely walled off because a few of their more unstable Experiments contaminated the area. Walking into them was not recommended, else you could walk out with an extra eye or 5.

In other sections, their Captured Ghosts had taken over a few Labs and created a sort of Mad Max style civilization using their discarded weapons and vehicles.

In another, all Ghosts became Humans and all Humans became Ghosts. That was a weird one, to this day they still didn't understand how they pulled that off.

In another, some type of Eldritch Time Ghost had been born, and now sort of always existed and never existed, and began experimenting with its powers. They nicknamed it Clocky because it liked to carry around a stopwatch.

And so many more. At one point a failed Portal Experiment messed with the internal Space of the entire thing. Now there was literally no way of Mapping it. The Fentons still somehow managed to navigate it perfectly.

When Jazz and Danny grew up, they too learned how to navigate the Labs, which is how Danny managed to show his friends the Portal Experimentation Wing in the first place.

Unfortunately, it wasn't safe for anyone aside from the Fentons to enter the Mega-Labs, so one day when the Fenton Family+friends left town on a Week Long Camping/Road Trip, they put up a few Ghost Shields to keep both Humans out and the Ghosts in.

This drew some unwanted attention after some tourists saw the giant Glowng Green Building in the middle of an Illinois Town, and rightfully called the Justice League.

Now, the Justice League had tried to call the owners of the house, but nobody picked up the phone. (An incident with Jack and a Canoe had knocked most of their phones into the lake. They weren't even at the lake yet.)

When nobody picked up, they decided to investigate personally.

After getting into the House, they quickly found a door labeled "Labs: Do Not Enter (unless it we are late for Dinner)" and went into ignoring all the warnings.

They quickly regretted it.

[murk0lurk]

Every Crown Bearer must eventually experience and see their eldritch form, some experience it later in the years of their life, but... Those who see it so young cannot comprehend what has happened to them, and usually end up haunted by the experience.

[skyscrapergods]

has being fucking Massive and Immortality changed the alicorns’ perspective on regular ponies? I imagine they’d get more condescending and distant and stuff

You are surrounded by flies. If you pause, and look closely, you realize the flies are iridescent, with deeply colorful eyes, and beautiful wings like stained glass. It cannot see the colorful windows of your world, but you can try to describe them. But know that doing so take up the creature's precious time. Years to them is mere hours to you. In a long conversation about the stars, you and the fly share ideas and perspectives. You come away delighted with a new view on constellations and what they mean to the common folk.

The fly comes away dazzled, haunted, and halfway to the grave. What was to you a wonderful conversation was years of study, communion, and dedication on the part of the small creature. He gave up any other pursuits, he constructed his life around this cause. He lost his friends, family, and home. You lost your lunch break.

You love this creature. You love the small being that you once were. You want to talk to him again. You want to tell him of the stars, of dreams... but to speak with him twice, at least meaningfully, would take from him the rest of his life. Could you demand that from him for the sake of your own curiosity? Years passed for him already. In the time it took you to draw a breath, his childhood ended. Do you summon him again? Or do you let him go to live his life, what's left of it?

It is painful for everyone. It hurts something in your chest, it breaks the heart of a god. It wounds his family to watch him leave them behind for the sake of what? A mere whim? He had ambitions! He had a story! It's all gone now. Rewritten for your musings.

You leave him. He cries for you but he needs not a goddess. He needs to live, to turn from the sky to his fellow bugs.

That's what he is. A fly. A mere insect to you. To hold him down is to pin him through his soft center, and display his corpse as a record of his extinction.

So look away. Forget the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice, and the intelligence that stirred you to pluck him out his world and keep him in yours. There, he would be a wildflower with a cut stem. He would be beautiful, but he is so small, and so quiet. He would be just a decoration on your table; made to dance and sing for your amusement and then tossed out with the rubbish when he breaks.

You miss him. You love him. But he is a crawling worm and you are the rain. There are many others like him, but you must be careful to only speak a few words to each. Or better yet, say nothing at all. Let them fade and mix into a writhing blur without name, stories, or opinions on stars.

You are surrounded by flies.

[green-green-grass]

🎵 an inch away from more that just friends! 🎵

[i-am-trans-gwender]

In The Call of Cthulhu the titular character is defeated by a steamboat. The story is in the public domain.

The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse is also public domain.

Therefore it is legally possible and canon compliant for Mickey Mouse to defeat Cthulhu.

[lostenzz]

The King in Yellow

bit of a messy concept illustration :P

[drconstellation]

More Half-and-Half-A-Miracle Thoughts

Part 2: The Dark side of Aziraphale

Updated 10 Nov 2023

Part 1: Miracle Power Ranking is here. Part 3: The Third Archangel is here

There was one that thing that struck me about the miracle working scene: why did Gabriel offer crossed hands to the duo?

Gabriel offers his right, his good, heavenly angel-sided hand to Crowley first, and his left, his sinister-sided demon hand to Aziraphale.

And this is NOT an accident.

Its been observed that Gabriel, in his amnesiac state like this, has reverted back to a more base-state angelic being, one of joy, and love, and curiosity. He's acting on instinct here.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. The demon has more light in him than the angel, and Gabriel and can feel that instinctively. This really shouldn't be a surprise to us, its been in our face all along. Now don't get me wrong - Crowley is still a demon, and Aziraphale is still an angel, I'm not saying that they aren't. Mostly we talk about how Crowley isn't all that much of a demon at heart, just "going along with Hell as far as [he] can," but we don't really talk about much about that other side of Aziraphale other than wishing to see more of his BAMF! side.

You know what - its a side that thanks to all of the rest you ops and meta-ists out that that I've come to both fear and appreciate. And let me tell you, if I found myself in a dark alley on a bad night I would hope to God it was Crowley I bumped into , because I feel he would at least give me the choice to walk out alive. I don't think Aziraphale would, I would be at the mercy of how ever he decided he wanted to manipulate the situation...and I find that rather chilling.

Crowley might be the charred demon with a heart of gold, but Aziraphale is the two-sided bastard of an angel he loves. All bright light casts a shadow. Its easy for us to be blinded by the shining light of goodness and right and the side of God (er, hang on, isn't the GO God an eldritch horror in disguise...?) and not be able to see what is hiding behind it.

We rarely see the back of Aziraphale's waistcoat, because he is rarely seen without an overcoat on, a covering of social propriety. There is the noticeable occasion in S2E1 when Crowley comes back to do the apology dance then they perform the hiding miracle (see screenshot below, and it was still hard to chose a good angle for all it went on for several minutes!) and perhaps in S1 when he spends all night reading Agnes Nutter's book. Both times its only in the privacy of the book shop, under the cover of night. So its easy to miss that the color of the back panel is a most un-angelic color: a dark viridian green. I know I keep banging on about this, but its important, and in more ways than one.

[Edit: Since I first wrote this, I've written a mega-meta on all the colours in GO, and some of the following interpretation has changed a little - but the significance of the green still stands!]

All the angels wear some form of a pale colored neutral palette, ranging from white to beige to taupe (white, off-white shades and shades of brown,) with dove-grey for the known in-show seraphim, Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Saraqael. Gold and blue are also associated with Heaven. But Aziraphale is the only angel to wear green and shades of blue-green. He's quite unique in that department.

The colors of Hell are completely different. Black, lots of black. And red, different shades of red. The demons are actually quite a colourful lot, but do tend towards the darker shades. Red is a colour of passion, not just a demonic colour, although it can be associated with the demonic sinister left hand side. The main colour of Hell is actually green - the thick green light that you almost of have to swim through in the crowded halls of Hell, and examples like the green stag on Furfur's sash. It represents chaos, in competition to the rigid lawful nature of Heaven.

So while Aziraphale mostly presents a socially acceptable angelic front, its telling only Crowley has properly glimpsed that dark, shady, bit-of-a-bastard unpredictable side to him - and likes it. (More from Cobragardens about it here in 1793 Paris and 1601 at the Globe.) I mean, come on - this is a being that sent a man to his death so he could go on lunch date? A lunch date he practically concocted just so he could see Crowley. wtf? A being of love who was about to shoot the Antichrist to stop Armageddon? A being who quietly and efficiently discouraged the mafia who threatened to set the book shop on fire from ever returning? (See, told you I didn't want to meet him a dark alley...) Plus we saw him mind-control a whole roomful of people for his Jane Austen-themed ball, just to woo his beloved demon, with no thought of the possible collateral damage. I'm sorry, is this the same "guardian angel" we were all glowing over earlier?

The coat lapel as wings theory adds some weight to this hidden dark side of Aziraphale as well. Aziraphale's lapels always point downwards, towards Hell. Particularly when he has been discorporated and returned to Heaven, where frustrated about being told he has to gear up for war, he instead wonders out loud if he can return to Earth to a possess a body, reasoning that if demons can, he must be able to as well. lmoa! You are so not an angel, my dear! Yet...he isn't a demon either. He's almost...a bit of both. Two sides to a coin. A blend of light and dark. Shades of grey...although he doesn't like to admit it.

Image by lomiel

Back to the shadow-like green panel on the back of the waistcoat.

Actually, on second thoughts, I'm going to put that in Part 3.

[wren-loves-plants]

rocking forward and backward in the fetal position because I will never find half as much dopamine in real life as I do from my eldritch horror podcasts.

[steampoweredwerehog]

Don’t bring your eldritch god into reality; they’ll blow up like a deep-sea fish bro.

Featured text under the cut:

An Entity’s full being isn’t built for gravity, barometric pressure, or physicality. We can only send pieces of ourselves to the mortal world…and even that has mixed success.

Bringing our Whole Selves to this plane is unnatural. Painful. Our bodies immediately try to disperse and dissolve back into the astral plane. Otherwise, the compression of physical space kills us. It would take immense control and pain tolerance to disperse slowly enough to not cause damage.

“And if you couldn’t? What then?”

Growth that rapid is dangerously to nearby life. It’s enough to destroy entire planets.

[*COUGH COUGH* This awful smell…]

“That…sounds bad.”

Yes, that would be bad.

[whereserpentswalk]

There are old gods, gods older than human history. Even the vanir and the titans are young to them. The faeries only talk about them in legend, and the djinn only whisper their names in secret. They are gods so old no human remembers their name, gods of the mammoth steppe and the green Sahara, their last strings upon this earth kept alive by faded paintings on cave walls. They are the gods the nomads prayed to when dodging Saber toothed cats, and the gods that the old shammens evoked when the seas at doggerland. Some of them so old they were prayed to by the Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Their names are forgotten but they stalk the forgotten woods, still existing at the heart of the dreaming, waiting for us. They're so ancient they no longer even look like the gods of humanity, only like strange shapes, and eldritch things. And when they come to humanity now, they come as alien strangers, as things of the night, as things to be feared. These are the elder gods, those first gods that seem so alien to us, long alienated by their subjects, long changing and scheming. Perhaps they still remember us, remember what we once were. Perhaps they miss us.

[writheworm]

things from children’s dreams (2023)