#the innsmouth look

[titleknown]

Bad idea: The Shadow Over Smashmouth

[darchildre]

Hey, it is late September, which means it is almost October, which means I am planning for my yearly trip to the Lovecraft film festival, which means I have been thinking about Lovecraft, which means it is time for the yearly resurgence of Sara Has Feelings About Fish People.

You guys, Lovecraft was a terrible dude and he meant the ending of The Shadow Over Innsmouth to be horrifying but instead it's just beautiful and I love it so much.

One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders—destined for him as well—he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too—I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.

[...] That morning the mirror definitely told me I had acquired the Innsmouth look.

So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendours await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä! No, I shall not shoot myself—I cannot be made to shoot myself!

I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

I think about Robert Olmstead and his little cousin all the time, you guys. I hope they made it.

[mellow-normal]

[chronivore]

[trainwiz]

One of these days I'm going to add a town in a game somewhere that's all foggy and isolated and people are way too into sea life and there's lots of aquatic themed decorations and someone coyly talks about how there's a shadow over the town, and you can just immediately ask the weird deformed bartender if people are fucking crabs there.

No poking around in basements or spending finding weird little cairns and fish themed altars, just ask them outright if it's a crab fucking situation and stop beating around the bush.

[vangold]

We're almost at the end of the Creeptober Challenge, but I don't think I can fully avoid addressing the elephant in the room when it comes to Lovecraft . While H P Lovecraft had an outstanding talent for storytelling and we have him to thank for all this fantastic verse, for which a Poe would have patted him on the back appreciatively, there is unfortunately also the latent disgust for anything alien and strange-looking that lurks far too often in his stories - especially where the inhabitants of Innsmouth are concerned, the allegory is painfully clear. All the more reason I felt the need to give the Innsmouth family - who once again fit the Prompt like a bespoke jigsaw piece - a little twist, contrary to the plot usually played out in a human/Deep One relationship. The lady is the Deep One, not the man, there's no gruesome mating ritual or anything going on and we just have a happy little family that happens to fit the Innsmouth look.

Creeptober-Promptlist by @creep-tober

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[groovy-rat-man]

How much money for someone to draw my minecraft skin in this pose?

[kabosustan]

Why's he giving Naruto the Innsmouth stare

[thevioletscout]

Folks, I'm goin' down to St. James Infirmary See my baby there She's stretched out on a long, white table She's so sweet, so cold, so fair

Let her go, let her go, God bless her Wherever she may be She will search this wide world over But she'll never find another sweet man like me

------------------------------------------------------

Some art of my Call of Cthulhu investigator, Nadine Greenwald. A small town girl trying to make it big in Arkham City as a dancer, but a tragic fate potentially waits for her instead.

There are worse things than death after all.

- Pose was provided by Figurosity, but with some alterations of course.

(Psst you can read more about her over at @arkham-outskirts, a blog run by my Keeper.)

[fingertipsmp3]

I’m never beating the “grew up in Innsmouth” allegations forreal

[nepalsaysrawr]

Oh noes!!! Gilligan and the Skipper have turned into fish creatures with the Innsmouth Look! Blub blub blub blub!

[dunkingtruthhasdied]

FISH HEADS FISH HEADS ROLLY POLLY FISH HEADS

[darchildre]

Sorry, I love the end of "Shadow Over Innsmouth" too much, you guys have to deal with me posting it large chunks of it again.

One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea. She lived in a phosphorescent palace of many terraces, with gardens of strange leprous corals and grotesque brachiate efflorescences, and welcomed me with a warmth that may have been sardonic. She had changed—as those who take to the water change—and told me she had never died. Instead, she had gone to a spot her dead son had learned about, and had leaped to a realm whose wonders—destined for him as well—he had spurned with a smoking pistol. This was to be my realm, too—I could not escape it. I would never die, but would live with those who had lived since before man ever walked the earth.

[…] That morning the mirror definitely told me I had acquired the Innsmouth look.

So far I have not shot myself as my uncle Douglas did. I bought an automatic and almost took the step, but certain dreams deterred me. The tense extremes of horror are lessening, and I feel queerly drawn toward the unknown sea-deeps instead of fearing them. I hear and do strange things in sleep, and awake with a kind of exaltation instead of terror. I do not believe I need to wait for the full change as most have waited. If I did, my father would probably shut me up in a sanitarium as my poor little cousin is shut up. Stupendous and unheard-of splendours await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä! No, I shall not shoot myself—I cannot be made to shoot myself!

I shall plan my cousin’s escape from that Canton madhouse, and together we shall go to marvel-shadowed Innsmouth. We shall swim out to that brooding reef in the sea and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-columned Y’ha-nthlei, and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory for ever.

I have so many feelings, you guys.

[dragonkidalumnus]

The androgynous urge to embrace my roots and become a half-fish monstrosity.

[chronivore]

Stefan Poag

[nemospecific]

You start looking into your genealogy and discover that your grandparents were furries?