#the lovecraftian discourse monsters

[copperbadge]

Therapist had me doing research again (it's not hard but I do respect how fast she clocked my need to verify scholarship) and I came across one of those weird situations where a community is having an internal controversy about something wildly invisible to people outside said community.

So, for the inevitable PowerPoint, I found and screengrabbed the post which best encapsulates that feeling:

[ID: a screengrab of a post by @slimegargoyle reading "*steps one degree of separation outside my normal Tumblr orbit* oh wow you people are all out of your minds". @deadpanwalking replies in tags, "I'm quietly ice fishing with my mutuals but sometimes I perceive the shadows of lovecraftian discourse monsters passing below the surface."]

Just tossing it up here in case anyone else needs a handy meme response to questions like "why don't we talk about the orangutan" or "why is every serious article about this maladaptive coping behavior also very specifically about chronic pain?"

Not related or anything but if you have chronic pain you may be interested in the article Catastrophizing: A Form of Pain Shaming by Gwenn Herman, which is a fascinating introduction to how the term is used to dismiss rational human reactions to a fairly common disability.

[fallingsatellive]

Mutuals: there's been some rancid hot takes about whether therians can watch animal media ethically so I'm gonna set the record straight and--

Me coming out from under the rock I was under: There was what? I didn't notice. Would you like to come under this rock and hang out the soil is so damp and cool and the ecosystem is thriving

[emathevampire]

i love cities and graffiti. it’s like tumblr in the wild. you will be exposed to niche lovecraftian discourse monsters the likes of which you cannot imagine the second you google a “fuck <insert thing here>” sticker

communities you have never heard of are calling each other names in languages you don’t understand by slapping up stickers and scribbling in sharpie all over your local walls

and for the low low price of a quick internet search and dive into a reddit thread, i too can experience for a brief moment what it is like to be an unsuspecting fool clicking on a link to one of my most unhinged tumblr posts

[maryellencarter]

Every so often, rotating posts in your mind on tumblr dot hell as you do, you find yourself face to squamous tendril with a previously undescribed Lovecraftian discourse monster, and you have to figure out how the hell to provide a scientific description of the beast.

Which is to say: I have identified a gap in how people talk about queer representation. A gap both so wide and so unnoticed that it contributes largely to misunderstandings, accusations, flamewars, and callouts.

You, and each of us, likely agree with one and only one of these two statements:

* "Queer representation includes any explicit depiction of queer activity, negative or positive. An evil lesbian dominatrix who uses hitting on the heroine to demonstrate her evil, a same-sex teacher/underage student relationship, or an unpleasant and unattractive authority figure shown with a harem of multiple sexes, are all technically queer representation. Additionally, having queer representation does not by itself make a work more valuable or less valuable."

* "Queer representation is a positive factor that always makes a work more valuable. Therefore, it is extremely important to select carefully among depictions of queer activity, and apply the positive label of Representation only to the ones that we personally identify with and/or wish people to emulate. Additionally, if a person describes a specific depiction as Representation, it is certain that the person identifies with it personally and/or wishes people to emulate it."

As you can see, a person who agrees with the second statement is likely to be absolutely horrified by some of the things that get called "queer representation" by a person who agrees with the first statement -- because they believe that calling something queer representation is an endorsement of the *kind* of queer behavior it depicts, that only socially desirable queer behavior can be called Representation.

At the same time, a person who agrees with the first statement is likely to be baffled and frustrated by some of the things that get called "not queer representation" by a person who agrees with the second statement -- because they believe that denying something the title of Representation requires either a denial that it was queer (or "queer enough"), or a denial that it was depicted.

(I, being a person on the internet, also agree with one and only one of these two statements, but I am trying very hard to represent both of them accurately. And I think it would probably be very helpful to clarity if we could all consider that both viewpoints exist, when having conversations about depictions of queerness in media.)

[room429]

I wish I had the shameless confidence of the people in cosmic-horror TTRPG discourse who say "if the players can fight a monster with magic or see a Great Old One and escape it's not authentically Lovecraftian"

[mosscaps]

i love how i’ve curated my tumblr experience. i didn’t even know the end of aot dropped until i saw it on twitter. i have that shit blocked to no end and i follow people who are normal and it’s really paying off 

[ghost-shipping]

Discoursing over any age gap in fiction is stupid but I can at least understand the people upset about things like teacher/student relationships or one’s between a kid and their guardian because irl people have been hurt in similar situations. I don’t agree with being upset at it being in fiction obviously but I can at least understand where they’re coming from.

But young human/ancient being relationship discourse is something I will like legit never understand like what do you think it’s normalizing? Who’s trauma is it identical to? You think there’s a real life equivalent to Bella and Edward? You think people are gonna find real evil demons to fuck after reading a beetlebabes fic? You think fucking a lovecraftian monster with 16x your lifespan is possible? What are the consequences for “normalizing” these dynamics in your brain even when this type of violence isn’t possible irl. It’s like trying to cancel mortal combat for it’s violence because irl some people have ptsd from drive by shootings or something. They aren’t comparable at all!

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Ew (Not sure if we're still mutuals lol no hard feelings if not)

(we are! i watch the star wars discourse pass through your blog as one might observe lovecraftian monsters passing below the surface of an ocean) -keeps getting attached to pathetic men bent on revenge

-cares about star wars. #cringe

-seeing your blog always awakens a nostalgia in me for rvb, which is also cringe

[plucky-passerine]

Okay so I wanna preface my response by saying that I’m an English major currently working on a thesis about modern depictions of Cosmic Horror as compared to Lovecraft’s works, which includes Junji Ito as one of the examples of the former. So while I’m not necessarily an expert on cosmic horror or its derivatives, I have spent a lot of time researching it.

And while you’re correct that not all of Junji Ito’s work necessarily falls under the genre of cosmic horror, a great deal of it does, and that’s by design.

Before I continue I would like to acknowledge that I will be referring to the genre as “cosmic horror” rather than “Lovecraftian”. There’s been a big push to do this in genre studies for a while now in no small part due to Lovecraft’s rampant xenophobia and racism, much of which was blatantly reflected in his works. And while it might seem like a cop-out or “separating the art from the artist”, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that cosmic horror as a genre exists in large part due to Lovecraft’s influence, and that there are plenty of notable examples of cosmic horror created by people of color to this day that aims to analyze, deconstruct, or reclaim this subgenre of horror from its bigoted roots.

That said, my biggest gripe with your argument is that you seem to be operating under a limited (or at least incomplete) understanding of what cosmic horror is. Cosmic horror isn't just the fear of the unknown, it's the fear of insignificance, the fear that you will be unmade by something inescapable and unfathomable.

By that definition a lot of Junji Ito's works actively address this fear. The horror of The Enigma of Amigari Fault involves the "call of the void" and the human urge towards self destruction, a compulsion the protagonists can't fight no matter how hard they try, and a terrible discovery so ancient nobody remembers that it ever existed until it reappears. Uzumaki follows a lot of storylines involving a lot of different fears, but the connecting element is the idea that this town is "infected" by the abstract concept of a spiral, a threat that is borderline incomprehensible and impossible to fight. And those are just a couple of his most well known works; Junji Ito has plenty of works in which the horrifying element has no known cause, no way to escape, and represents something much larger than any of the victims it takes (eg, The Hanging Balloons, Earthbound, and Smashed are some of my personal favorite examples).

I will grant that not all of Junji Ito's works operate off of cosmic horror. Quite a few, like the Human Chair, involve body horror instead. While body horror is not necessarily mutually exclusive to cosmic horror (as evidenced by the numerous cosmic horror works employing it as part of the narrative), it tends to be a more grounded form of horror. As you said, "you know what the horror is", and the horror is the fragility and mutability of the human form.

Additionally, a lot of Junji Ito's works play off of Japanese cultural fears. Themes like isolation, self destruction, ancestral responsibility, and the consequences of war all come up repeatedly in his works, and all are themes that are not necessarily inherently connected to cosmic horror.

I will also concede that "calling any freaky horror 'lovecraftian'" is an unfortunately common problem in casual discourse. This is in part because, in absence of academic study of genre definitions, people tend to use well known examples to inform their personal definitions, and a lot of people tend to connect Lovecraft to Cthulhu, abstract and "weird" monsters, and the vague idea of madness. Specifying "cosmic horror" might help in part to separate this association, but then we would probably have a lot of casual definitions connecting it to aliens. But that's probably a not entirely avoidable problem.

That said, a lot of Junji Ito's work is genuinely "lovecraftian", if for no other reason than the fact that Junji Ito himself is quoted as having H. P. Lovecraft as a large influence for his work. We can discuss the ramifications of his work being at least partially inspired by the work of a man who was considered horrifically racist even in his own time, but that does not mean that influence isn't there.

Anyway, mostly I wrote this response because this is a subject I am actively invested in and I feel like saying that using cosmic horror or even "lovecraftian" to describe Junji Ito's work is wrong both misunderstands cosmic horror as a literary genre and glosses over the complexity of his work. Junji Ito is a master of rendering horror in both tangibly disturbing and psychologically horrifying forms at once, grappling with both the daily fears and anxieties of human life as well as the philosophical anxieties of our own existence within the same set of beautifully (and disgustingly) drawn circumstances. I feel as though claiming Junji Ito's work isn't cosmic horror does the same disservice as claiming that's all it is.

I wanna leave off by saying I hope this response doesn't come across as combative or pretentious. I'm autistic and horror and genre studies is my special interest, and Junji Ito is genuinely one of my all time favorite horror writers, so I felt like I had to chime in or else I was gonna combust lol. I'm more than happy to continue this discussion or provide cited sources if you're interested. I have a lot of books on cosmic horror (and "weird fiction" which is a whole different discussion entirely, and in fact what Junji Ito's work would probably be most accurately described as), and I'd be more than happy to quote passages from them :D

just saw someone call junji ito lovecraftian (loads shotgun)

[gracedcoup]

sometimes I see OM! artists tagging their art of the demon bros w/ “don’t tag as ship” and it reminds me of that one post talking about being a simple ice fisherman occasionally catching glimpses of lovecraftian discourse monsters in the far depths. idk what y’all are being beset by out there and I hope I never do

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

oh to have stopped watching voltron on season 2,,, ur a lucky duck,,, i wish i couldve known better than to sit through 8 seasons of queer baiting just for the "lance is altean now" plotline,,, or Shiro's dead fiancé,,, or the random guy they paired him with in the end,,,, who literally had one line,,,,

laskdjalkjd yeah my interaction with all voltron content after season 2 was to see lovecraftian discourse monsters pass just within sight of my dash, go "boy howdy that aint none a my business" and cheerfully pretend the show got canceled 😂

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

I never interacted with the Homestuck fandom at large much at all, and I think it’s very funny that by this point I’ve curated my feed to be about 73% Good, Well-Characterized Content, and then 27% Complaints and Rebuttals of Terrible Fanon Takes which I never would have learned about otherwise.

The vibe is very much that post of “I’m sitting ice-fishing with my mutuals, and sometimes see shadows of lovecraftian discourse monsters lurking below the surface”

I’m the fisher that keeps catching eldritch horrors

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Someone I didn't know existed got called out by someone else I didn't know existed, and I'm learning everything about it second or third hand through the reblogs of a half dozen mutuals or so. It's like that ice fishing post, I'm catching a glimpse at the shadow of some lovecraftian discourse monster which is lurking right below the surface.

Welp

[mikkaeus]

oh my lord the lovecraftian discourse monsters are really too close for comfort

[permian-tropos]

Brendol Hux for the character ask.

1. How I feel about this character

I’m really fond of a version of him that absolutely doesn’t exist in canon, though it’s based on some canon elements. He has a particular position in canon that I think is cool -- being a link between the problems/evils of the Jedi Order and the evils of the First Order -- and there’s no way to take that really good content and bestow it to a different character because it IS Brendol’s thing. So I’m remodeling the mean dad man. I can make other mean dads but I can’t make many other architects of the stormtrooper program.

But basically, as a guy who is ideologically descended from the Jedi, he’s the sort of villain that ought to have been more accessible. You should be able to read about him doing appalling things but be invested in what’s going on so you can understand those appalling things in a wider context. It should be engaging to get stuff from his POV. I don’t think we’ve had any Brendol POV content in canon at all, and canon writers seem like they’re not particularly interested in making him someone you want to see more of. Plus, I don’t think they ever want to talk about how messed up the clone program was. Brendol being inspired by the clone program only implicates the Jedi if Brendol is relatable enough that you can see how the Jedi playing fast and loose with morality could have a corrupting effect on others.

Besides that though his British boarding school aesthetic is good actually, and the times he’s allowed to be affably evil really sold me.  

2. All the people I ship romantically with this character

As most of you know, Armitage’s mother, but an OC named Moira who is Palpatine’s daughter and is a powerful Dark Side user who was an Inquisitor for a while and then hides out on Arkanis doing her own thing. She and Brendol are gross and sappy together, even though they do have some pretty major relationship troubles. Evil power couple.

Maratelle, in the sense that she used to be in love with him back when he was hiding the worst of his ambitions.

I’ll put Sloane and Rax on the same line here because I lowkey like the idea of either of them having a thing with Brendol, sort of an X with benefits situation because they’re all having depressed midlife crises.  

3. My non-romantic OTP for this character

This will be hard to convey without a lot of context but I created another OC, a FO officer around Finn’s age who used to be a trooper, that would have a relationship to Brendol kind of intentionally paralleling Rey and Luke in TLJ. Brendol survives his canon death but lives in exile (no longer evil) with Moira, and then this OC discovers them while trying to save stormtroopers on Starkiller from this supernatural disease that is connected to/caused by reconditioning. It’s like when Rey discovers that her hero wasn’t what she expected but worse, but in the end my OC and the Hux parents have this very tentative, pained familiarity… I was inspired by in canon Brendol sort of approving of Zare Leonis for being nicer than he thinks is appropriate, so my OC comes along aggressively trying to do the right thing and Brendol is disillusioned with his old career and he lets himself care about one more person, someone who he once terribly wronged (by, you know, kidnapping). Yah he get redeemed in that story im just fukcing rolling with it u know how it is... it’s also inspired by the idea of redeemed Vader sticking around long enough to have quiet domestic scenes especially since this version of Brendol has a very damaged body (considering how he canonically died). But instead of being a cyborg he’s a, uh, sea monster chimera for some bonus Lovecraftian vibes and because Moira is a monsterfucker and she put him back together.

4. My unpopular opinion about this character

Most of my opinions about him are unpopular but it’s not like there’s a ton of discourse around him though, since he’s not  seen as a seductive threat to morals like Kylo Ren lol. I don’t think the people who have strong negative feelings about Brendol because, say, they love Armitage, would really be offended by my version. So my opinions are not super contentious, just unusual. Also, it’d be hard for other people to come up with the same ideas about Brendol as me since I’m inventing so much of my own content for it. 

5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Would prefer canon not do anything more with him because I want to keep my playground of ideas going.

However, I think he could have been in TLJ as part of the arc that culminates in Finn and Rose vs Hux and Phasma. He could start off with Armitage as a parallel to Leia with Poe, and he’s not really Armitage’s villain because I want to make sure to emphasize how his villainy affected Finn and Rose (Finn is obvious, and the Order kidnapped kids from Rose’s homeworld too). So he wouldn’t be abusing Armitage for his failures, in fact he’d be forced to watch Snoke doing that, and Armitage is clearly hurt and angry that his father won’t/can’t protect him but it’s not that they completely hate each other. But later Finn and Rose could clash with Brendol in that execution scene, so they get to talk about their backstories a little more, and Phasma could shoot Brendol as part of that deleted scene where she kills the troopers after Finn reveals her treachery, and then Armitage actually watches his father die but he’s not ok with it actually and I think all that would be solid drama. 

[vifetoile]

Saw a post complaining about “anti anti’s” and let me tell you, that’s the shadow of a lovecraftian discourse monster that just passed me by