#then take a trip to innsmouth

[nickfoo]

Also The Old Hunters was rlly good u guys. Did you know this? It was rlly rlly rlly good.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

They Both Just Gotta Be Dicks - a Malevolent fic

WARNING: Intermezzo spoilers

Not much surprises Kayne anymore.

A melting Arthur manages.

AO3

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

This is try number six hundred and forty-eight. Or maybe forty-nine? Sure, forty-eight, and who cares, because I am absolutely sure it does not matter at all.

Who would even bother counting? What would be the point?

There isn’t a point, and that is the fucking point.

Yeah, yeah, you two, get your morning started; share the coffee, drop the sugar (seen this eighteen thousand fucking times and how’s that for counting), and here comes the mail courier! 

This part always goes fun. Sometimes Parker dies right away; sometimes there’s a Battle For Supremacy! in which proto-John wins every time and then Parker dies. Sometimes Arthur gets killed in the process, and proto-John gets a maximum of sixty-eight seconds (I did count that) of life outside the Dark World before oopsie-whoopsie can’t kill your host and he goes screaming back. Sometimes—

A man comes out of the shadows (did I see that right?) wearing an absolutely filthy anachronistic hoodie and jeans for a guy twice his size, fucking cold-cocks the mail courier over the head, dumps his bag (yes, I’m just standing here staring, and who wouldn’t), finds proto-John’s book (The fuck! Proto-John’s book!), and then steps back into the shadows and is gone.

Well, I…

I can’t help laughing, screaming it, because what the actual hell was that? I’ve done this five million and eighty-nine times and I have never seen that before!

The door opens, and the detective besties are fussing over the mail courier, but they no longer matter because the book is gone. Arthur’s just not as effective without his little friend.

Silly weird filthy criminal. Did you really think you could slip through shadows and I couldn’t follow?

#

So he’s pretty good with portals! Nice! Took us all the way to the woods outside Innsmouth (fucking nasty place), and breathing like he’s fucking dying, he goes loping through the woods, unconcerned about shoggoths or any other dreadful thing, clutching that book like it’s everything he’s ever wanted, tripping over his boots, which are also too fucking big, and I just gotta know.

I gotta know… and I don’t! Do you know how rare that is?

He’s done something to himself, this gasping-shambling-winner-of a human, and I can’t see his thoughts. Ooh, ooh, ooh, I’m excited enough not to just explode him and take the fucking book back.

He stops. Drops to his knees. Holds the book out. Is clearly about to open the fucker.

Nope, sorry, proto-John spoken for. “Yyyyyyallo.”

He doesn’t jump. Goes real still. “I knew you’d be here,” says Arthur Lester who sounds like somebody put him through a meat grinder and then stuffed him into sausage casing and then smoked him halfway and then popped him in a microwave without poking holes so he blew up in there and then scraped him out and squished him back together in the shape of a man.

Gotta admit, I didn’t see all this coming! “That’s a neat trick,” I say, walking around to the front. “How’d you know?”

That sure is Arthur Lester looking up at me, though he’s missing teeth, and you could just slice meat on those cheekbones. “Because that’s how lucky I am.”

Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. “You must be lucky, Artie, because I don’t know you! How about that? Looks like somebody sure put you through the wringer, though!” Closer, kneeling down, making eye-contact.

His eyes are that funky color of repeated and unaddressed subconjunctival hemorrhage. He’s just breathing like a bull, clutching that book, looking like he wants to bite me.

“You can see!” I tsk. “That just isn’t fair, is it? We should fix that.”

And he says, “I know where your fucking black stone is, you fucking monster,” and just like that, it stops being funny.

I may not know him (conundrum!) but he does know me, and as the smile slides off my face, he starts to shake, so he doesknow me well enough to know he’s in trouble.

“Do you?” I say, high and light and kind of tight. “Do you? Do you? Because that’s important information, Artie, that I would like to have right now! You wouldn’t go claiming something like that if it wasn’t true, would you? Where is it? On you? Did you swallow it, Artie? Am I gonna have to go digging for gold?”

And he says something else he shouldn’t know at all! “It’s on Earth one-two-four-nine aspect B8, you filthy dickhole.”

Yeah, sooooo… this just got weird? “How’d you know that, Artie?” I say, calm, soft, soothing. “That’s not a designation you ought to know.”

“Because you told me, or part of you. The one you fucking killed,” he snarls, spitting, and his hood slips back.

Oh, that ain’t right. Most of his hair is gone. He looks kinda cancerous, definitely grody, really not socially reassuring. I can’t read his mind, but I can peek at other things, and boy-howdy. “Hey, you’re gonna die, Artie!” I say with great cheer.

“I know.” He clutches the book. “It’s okay now.”

“No, I don’t really think it is, Artie, in fact, I’m getting the idea you don’t really understand the stakes here—”

“I know you promised him to me if I got your fucking stone!” Arthur just screams at me, and there’s blood with bile in it flying out of his throat   and that just tastes deeee-lightful. “I got it! I had it! You were supposed to give him back!”

Oh. I tap my chin.

Behind us, a couple of roaming shoggoths spot us, feel me, and run yipping away into the woods. Yeah, yeah.

“I get it,” I say. “You were dealing with another me. Well, good news! I killed them all.”

“I know!” He screams it, and his voice cracks, and he is sobbing all over the book and himself and there’s blood and snot everywhere. 

“You’re so juicy,” I tell him.

“You killed him before he could do it,” Arthur says in that tiny voice he gets when he’s all they won and I can’t and all that weakling bullshit. 

“So… you actually got the black stone?” I say. “Without John.”

“No. With him.” Such a brittle tone! But at least that detail is consistent. “Then we weren’t going to give it to him. He was going to wake the Dreamer.”

Pfft. Well, I know which one of me that was, and good riddance. “That old chestnut?”

“We weren’t going to do it, and he took John, and… and I…”

“Were you gonna trade, Artie?” I all but sing at him. “Trade John for waking the Dreamer and ending everything including John?”

“No,” he says, spraying more blood. “We were going to trick him. But then you ki… you… you showed up and you… you…”

“I killed him!” I remember that one. Suicidal version of me? No, thanks. “I ch-ch-chopped him to bits, and then I stewed the bits, and then I ground him into meat and I ate the whole thing!” And I laugh.

He doesn’t laugh. Artie never does have a good sense of humor.

“Just let me have this,” he suddenly says. “You don’t know what I’ve done to get him. Let me have him, and I’ll tell you where the fucking stone is.”

“Or I could just torture you for it,” I say with a shrug.

“Go the fuck ahead. There’s nothing you could use anymore, and if you do, you won’t know the trick we did. You’ll lose. Even if you get your stone, you’ll lose, because it won’t be the whole fucking thing.”

I laugh again because eh? “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I open this book. I take John into myself. You get what you need.”

“Or I just take the book, and take what I need, and we’re done!”

His laugh is just crazy, grating, crackling delicious, and I lock it away in my head for future use. “You can’t.”

That’s fucking insulting, so I reach to pluck out his defiant little eyeballs.

I…

I missed?

I stare at my hand, outstretched, and at him. “Huh?” I say, as one does.

“You can’t,” he says. “The trade. I get John.”

“Not your John. Not even a John yet,” I point out.

“He will be. I’ll tell him who he is. It’ll be fine. It’s going to be fine.” He’s rocking back and forth now. “All of it will be fine.”

Wow. “You’re a special kind of crazy, ain’tcha?” I try again. I… miss again? I have no idea how that’s happening. I could just cook his cells and do it that way, but I’m so curious! “Okay, this is pretty neat, and all,” I say. “But that book is due elsewhere right now? I mean, we’re already off schedule, and also, my guy, you’ve missed an obvious out. I can just take you with me and make you show me the stone.”

That laugh, Artie, wow! “No, you can’t,” he says all wetly. “Because if I cross another world-boundary, or even step through time at any pace other than normal, I will fucking die.”

I whip out some pince-nez (like you do) and pop them on to try to see him clearly.

Still can’t see his thoughts. Can see a whole lot else. He was not lying. “Oh, Artie, what’d you do to yourself?” I say, already laughing, because this guy is worn so fucking thin that I think rain would tear him apart.

“I hunted,” he says. “I found a way. And I found my way here.”

“You know, most humans who get into magic of this kind do not generally suffer organ jello-ification? Seriously, what’d you do?”

“I only needed to get here,” he says, and his voice is soft, and he strokes the book cover, and wow, Artie, wow.

“Buddy. Pal. You’re that frail, you can’t take him inside you.”

“I know.”

“I mean he’s gonna kill you. At once. Not even on purpose.”

“I know.”

“You’re gonna pop like a cheap condom.”

“I know.” (He would.) “And if you let me, you’ll get what you need.”

“How in fuck will that get me what I—” And all at once, I get it. My laugh is almost as crazy as his. “What’d you do, Artie?”

“I put it here,” he says, pointing to the most egregious bald-spot, the most cancer-looking area. “Yes. I did. You can’t touch me… and you need this piece. If you don’t get it, your stone won’t work for whatever the fuck you’re trying to use it for.”

And it’s so daring and so wild and so stupid? Not like I can’t kill just him and find it in the corpse? “Grammatically heinous, my boy!” I say, affecting a Brigadier General for a moment. “Seriously, though, you shoved part of my stone into your skull?” 

“I do this. I tell you where. You let me have this.”

“This… proto-John.”

“He’s in there.” He curls over the book. “And I’ll make sure he knows… he knows everything.”

“He’ll die with you.”

“With.”

Oh, Artie, Artie, Artie. “You know that doesn’t work? He wouldn’t be tied to you after death.”

“I know. I made sure he would,” he  snarls like some snarly thing, and that’s when I decide to let him do it.

He’s tried so hard, and he’s got information I want, and just look at him! Obsessed! Gross! Melting! How in fuck will proto-John even respond to this? Oh, I missed you so much that I fucking killed us both and bound us somehow in the Dark World? Yeah, that’ll go over great.

He’s still trying to sell me. 

“Let me. You’ll get what you want.”

Oh, fuck, this is gonna be a ride. “He’s not gonna thank you.”

“I don’t care.”

“You know what? You’ve surprised me, Artie. That’s worth a cup of coffee. Go ahead. Steal your John, then trap him after death. I’ll take the li’l stone-bit when you’re gone, and all will be right with the world.”

And he tells me where it is. What year, exactly. What landmass. Even what region. He can’t get closer than that, but that’s okay. That’s okay.

It’s one of many places those three idiots found. I would’ve gotten there eventually, I tell myself, but let’s be real here: Artie just saved me a whole bunch of pointless Arthur-wasting. I know where to send the good ones now. You know. The ones that don’t get flushed.

He’s not even aware I’m here anymore, I think. Cradling that damn book. Does he even remember he had a daughter? I fucking’ swear, this guy… “Hope Faroe likes your new add-on.”

He doesn’t answer me. Wow, Artie. Wow.

He opens the book.

I’ve seen this a thousand times. That blast of power, that wildness of desperate fire, that light reaching for him like a drowning man for a swimming one and pulling them both under.

He chokes. His eyes go from bloodshot blue to bloodshot gold. “John,” he sobs.

Then he pops like a ripe cherry. Good spread, too! Those bone-bits ain’t never coming out of those trees.

Honestly surprised he lasted that long, given the mess he was. How in fuck did he even get that way? It must have taken years. “Oh, oh, I’ve got chills. Years of looking for John? Of ensuring you’d go to the Dark World together? Ahahaha! Ridiculous! Only you, Artie, only you… oh, yeah, you’re dead, you can’t hear me.” I rummage around in the mess.

Know what’s annoying? I can’t see the sliver.

Fuck.

#

It takes me a month to gather all the goo (thanks a ton, Artie), trick someone into touching the gray stone, and then getting them to tell me where the sliver is, and then I can finally fucking touch it.

Sort of.

Gather it, we’ll say.

Fuck. It’s not that small. Things would definitely not have gone right if this were missing. I don’t even know how I’m going to repair the damned thing, but at least I have the sliver.

Thanks. A lot. Artie.

At least I know where to go.

Gotta go find me a new Arthur. This one is no longer interesting. Without a John—proto or not—it won’t fucking work, as I’ve learned through trial and tribulation, though not my own.

I could just kill this now-pointless-Arthur, but eh… I don’t care anymore. His lucky day.

Before I go alternate-Artie-hunting, though, I just have to go take a peek into the land of the dead.

Well, well, well… whaddaya know. It worked. They’re together.

And shouting at each other. Wow, that is some conflict! Figures that even when dead, even after all Arthur did to pull this off, they both just gotta be dicks.

Music to my ears.

[kammy0323]

Innsmouth Rewrite Project Season 1 Introduction

Hello, One and all. I'm back after spending way too long with writer's block. This is... yet another introduction. I'm sorry for doing two back-to-back intros without showing any real content. Worry not, I have something special up my tattered sleeves. I want to make an introduction to the first piece of content I am going to be writing for this page, which is Season 1 of the Innsmouth Writing Project. Without further ado, let's get into the detes. (Yes I sometimes use cyberpunk lingo.)

What Is Innsmouth?

Innsmouth (formerly known as "The Innsmouth Conspiracy") was a Call of Cthulhu campaign I ran between March of 2022 to February of 2024. For those who do not know what Call of Cthulhu is, it is a tabletop role-playing game that takes place in the Cthulhu mythos. Innsmouth was my first time dipping into horror as a writer and a game master. Sadly I was never able to finish it, hence why I started this project. First to relive the glory days and share my favorite story (even though I bastardized H.P. Lovecraft's mythos. Even though that racist bastard deserved it) and second to give Innsmouth the ending it always deserved and to give myself (and the poor characters I tortured for 2 years) closure.

Innsmouth Background

Innsmouth is your average small city on the coast of Massachusetts, save for its mysterious past. The town was founded in 1643 as a simple port town, however throughout its history many mysterious disappearances and rumors of a cult arose, the most strange of the old town's incidents was in 1846, when half of the population went missing, the other half being completely ignorant to the disappearances. In 1928, the entire town was put under siege by federal agents adhering to a government agency nobody had heard of. The town was demolished and most of its remaining locals were killed or scattered to the winds. The official story was that the entire town was in on a massive bootlegging operation...

It took decades to rebuild the town, but in the 50s, Innsmouth was back to normal. Almost. Strange occurrences continue to plague the town which earned it the name "Little Salem", but such incidents are few and far between. That is, until May of 1976. (Yes, this is a historical story.)

Cast:

Detective Johnson Lee Hendricks

Age: 27

Pronouns: He/Him

Orientation: Straight

Occupation: police detective

Backstory: Born and raised in Innsmouth, John is no stranger to Innsmouth's shady past, however, he's always just ignored it, chalking it up to superstition and rumors. Most folks in the town see him as the all-American boy next door. He always did well in school, played sports with all the other boys, and gave back to his community by joining the Innsmouth police department. However, his perfect picket fence life came crashing down when he was drafted to go to war in Vietnam. He served three tours before coming home. The people of the town personally saw him as an upstanding citizen for taking the draft "like a man" but they never knew what he saw in those jungles and all of the horrible things he did, and he never liked to discuss it neither.

Face Claim:

Detective Leo Afton

Age: 23

Pronouns: He/Him

Orientation: pansexual

Occupation: Police Detective

Backstory: Born Leena Afton, Leo was always a strange child sheltered by strange people. Her mother was like every normal mom in his neighborhood, however his dad would be considered a helicopter parent. Leo was always under intense watch from his father, as if his father always expected something to happen. This caused Leo to be isolated from all the other neighborhood kids. When Leo was a young adult he gained the courage to come out to his father as a Trans man. Surprisingly his father accepted him and helped him get top surgery to accommodate his son. The watching never stopped though. Leo fed up with it. Left and moved to Florida and joined the Miami Police Department, however, he still occasionally takes trips to Innsmouth for holidays and to check up on his parents.

Face Claim:

Father Chris Chapel

Age: 45

Pronouns: He/Him

Orientation: Straight

Occupation: Protestant Priest

Backstory: Father Chapel (better known as simply Father Chris) is yet another Innsmouth native. Most of his past is unknown as he tried to stay out of public view for most of his life. However, schoolyard rumors almost universally suggest three things. His family is massive, he has ties to the mafia, and his home has weapons hidden all over it. What is known for sure is that he is a single father trying his best to take care of his son, Michael.

Face Claim:

Frankenstein Edwin Duffy

Age: 37

Pronouns: He/Him

Orientation: Unknown

Occupation: Author

Backstory: Frank is an oddity wrapped in an enigma. He is one of the only characters not to be born in Innsmouth, hailing from Derry, Maine. According to his autobiography, he had a normal childhood until an incident happened in Maine which caused his family to flee the town and spend his adult life in Innsmouth. The only two possessions he brought were a typewriter and a strange book of (what he described as) occult nature. The Innsmouth PD constantly runs wellness checks on him to make sure that he is safe and sound at least physically. Who knows if his mind is even salvageable?

Face Claim:

Well... that's all folks. I look forward to writing and releasing episode one of Innsmouth on... some platform. I'm still figuring out where. When the first episode is finished I'll be sure to send a link or even upload it directly here if possible.

[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.

[morlock-holmes]

I think this is debatable and depends on who and what we're talking about.

I'm not well-acquainted with the genre of Lovecraft revisionism, aside from the following:

Charles Stross' first few Laundry books, which are sort of jocular and only arguably revisionist in this sense;

The first episode of Lovecraft Country, which had dialog so deep into the territory of "They would say that, but not in that way" that I gave up in irritation twenty minutes in;

Shoggoths in Bloom, which I rather liked.

This being said, I've been rereading Lovecraft in prep for some Cthulhu GMing, and here's part of the opening of The Shadow over Innsmouth [All bolding is my own]:

"During the winter of 1927–28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth... No trials, or even definite charges, were reported; nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular gaols of the nation. There were vague statements about disease and concentration camps, and later about dispersal in various naval and military prisons, but nothing positive ever developed. Innsmouth itself was left almost depopulated, and is even now only beginning to shew signs of a sluggishly revived existence. Complaints from many liberal organisations were met with long confidential discussions, and representatives were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons. As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent...

And here's how it ends:

One night I had a frightful dream in which I met my grandmother under the sea... 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... This was the dream in which I saw a shoggoth for the first time, and the sight set me awake in a frenzy of screaming. 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.

Bolding mine again.

This is the emotional climax of At The Mountains of Madness when the narrator finds four Old Ones that have been killed by a Shoggoth:

They had not been even savages—for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch—perhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defence against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia . . . poor Lake, poor Gedney . . . and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last—what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star-spawn—whatever they had been, they were men!

And their slaves or servitors, the Shoggoths:

[The Shoggoths] had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the Old Ones, and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs; but now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion. They had, it seems, developed a semi-stable brain whose separate and occasionally stubborn volition echoed the will of the Old Ones without always obeying it... They seem to have become peculiarly intractable toward the middle of the Permian age, perhaps 150 million years ago, when a veritable war of re-subjugation was waged upon them by the marine Old Ones. Pictures of this war, and of the headless, slime-coated fashion in which the shoggoths typically left their slain victims, held a marvellously fearsome quality despite the intervening abyss of untold ages. The Old Ones had used curious weapons of molecular disturbance against the rebel entities, and in the end had achieved a complete victory. Thereafter the sculptures shewed a period in which shoggoths were tamed and broken by armed Old Ones as the wild horses of the American west were tamed by cowboys.

It's harder to sum up in short excerpts, but The Whisperer in Darkness deals with this as well, with a genuine ambiguity as to exactly how hostile and dangerous the Mi-Go are. How much of the sympathetic portrait which they paint of themselves can we really believe?

The whispering being which pretends to be Harry Akeley contends that perhaps Earth is as frightening and alien to the Mi-Go as Yuggoth would be to us.

Lovecraft, and I think this is really papered over sometimes, didn't just have racist opinions in his personal life; he wrote overtly racist prose and poetry. If we interpret the ending of The Shadow over Innsmouth with the idea that it is meant to be horrible, well, he only encouraged that in some of his other work.

But it's also just overtly not the case that the bizarre and foreign always represents monstrousness and degeneration, as the Old Ones in At The Mountains of Madness demonstrate.

What I will say is that I don't think that any of these stories [EDIT: By which I mean these specific stories I've mentioned, not Lovecraft's entire corpus] represent a lapse into Nihilism in the face of an incomprehensible universe; they deal primarily with our narrators attempting to contend with something dangerous and alien, and the question of how that ought to be viewed constitutes the emotional thread of these stories (Arguably throw The Shadow Out of Time in there too).

If you want to disagree with the narrator of Mountains, or agree with the narrator of Innsmouth, or wonder what it was like for those who had more peaceful contact with the Mi-Go (Are those assertions about cults of wicked men who seek out and destroy the Mi-Go and their allies truth, or self-serving lies, or something in between?) I think that isn't so much missing the point as doing almost exactly what Lovecraft was doing in those stories.

Which, to be honest, now strike me as themselves much more ambiguous than pop culture has made them out to be.

extremely petty and bitchy hot take of the night: making a whole production of how queer and transgressive and anti-racist your take on lovecraft is and how much the guy would have despised it and be spinning in its grave just feels like pro forma marketing at this point. "Lovecraft but fuck Lovecraft' is a whole genre now. You're not breaking any barriers, stop acting like you're blowing people's minds here.

[santoroski-online]

Rex Murphy AI Story

Rex Murphy, the reporter, was known for always being on the scene when disaster struck. He had a knack for finding the most interesting stories, but his luck seemed to always be working against him. No matter how hard he tried, something always seemed to go wrong.

It all started with the Innsmouth incident. Rex had received a tip about strange goings-on in the small coastal town, and he knew it was a story worth pursuing. He arrived in Innsmouth with his camera in hand, ready to document whatever he found. But as he was taking photos of the strange, fish-like creatures that were rumored to inhabit the town, a sudden gust of wind blew his camera into the sea. The photographs were lost, and Rex was left with nothing to show for his trip.

The next disaster struck in Dunwich, where Rex had received a lead about strange tracks in the woods. He had been so close to getting the scoop, but just as he was about to bring the sheriff to the scene, a heavy rainstorm washed away the tracks. Frustrated and disappointed, Rex returned to the city empty-handed once again.

Over time, Rex's terrible luck had exposed him to all sorts of gruesome beasts and occult conspiracies. But rather than giving up, he had developed an inquisitive mind and a sharp wit. He learned to anticipate the next disaster and always kept one step ahead.

Despite the setbacks, Rex never gave up on his passion for reporting. He knew that the next big story was just around the corner, and he was determined to be there when it happened. He had a reputation for being a bit of a "jinx," but he didn't let that stop him from pursuing the truth.

One day, Rex received a tip about a strange occurrence in a remote village deep in the mountains. Without hesitation, he set out to investigate. As he arrived, he found the village in a state of chaos. The villagers were all in a panic, claiming that they had been attacked by a monster.

Rex immediately got to work, interviewing the villagers and gathering information. He soon discovered that the "monster" was actually a creature that had been living in the nearby cave for centuries. It had been disturbed by a group of hikers who had accidentally stumbled upon its lair.

Rex knew this was a story that needed to be told, and he was determined to get to the bottom of it. He ventured into the cave, armed with only his camera and a flashlight. Inside, he found the creature, a massive and terrifying beast. But as he was getting ready to take the picture, his camera failed and he was left without any photographic evidence.

Feeling defeated, Rex wrote an article based on the villagers' testimony but it didn't have the same impact as a visual evidence would have. The story went unnoticed and the creature's habitat was destroyed. Rex's reputation as a reporter suffered and he was left with a feeling of guilt for not being able to save the creature. From that day on, his luck seemed to have completely abandoned him, and he never found another big story again.

[fandomsideworks]

PlayStation 4, XBox One, PC

First Person POV

Horror/Scifi

I’ve been burned by Lovecraft horror games before. Call of Cthulhu was okay (except for the goddamn Shambler sequences); Sinking City (aka “Only Loading Screens Here”) was dismal.

But this.

This is amazing.

Moons of Madness takes the concepts of Lovecraft and ties them into a space setting. You get scifi and cosmic horror that doesn’t shove Cthulhu or Shadows over Innsmouth down your throat. It’s subtler in this respect than the games I mentioned above- you get the eldritch horrors without it feeling like a copy of other Cthulhu works. In spirit, I would compare it to the scifi-horror movie “Underwater”. 

The horror is very much in the atmosphere. Sure there’s a few jumpscares here and there, but there’s also a constant sense of dread that teases you in the prologue and picks up again with a vengeance at the beginning of “The Flooded Greenhouse” segment (only two segments after the prologue. It doesn’t take long). The foggy greenhouse, which makes it impossible to see everything that’s inside, sets you on edge right before shit hits the fan.

There isn’t really combat in this game, but the means by which you avoid threats is pleasantly varied: Some require specific items, you have one situation that requires QTEs, chase/escape scenes, one segment requires stealth, etc. It stops things from getting repetitive.

The puzzles can get a bit obscure in a few places, although one or two I think I made more difficult than it needed to be. Most do not repeat.

I only counted one or two graphical glitches during my gameplay. Not a buggy game at all, from my experience.

It’s not a very long game, either: Altogether, moving at a brisk pace (and assuming you don’t get too tripped up by puzzles) it shouldn’t take much more than four or five hours. I saw some runs on YouTube that were finished in three and a half.

The scenery was excellent. The environment is as varied as you could hope for a base on Mars: Yeah, you’ve got the Space Aesthetic(TM) with the white walls and the laboratories, but they change throughout the game: The greenhouse you see in chapter 1 is not the one you return to in chapter 2. You get to leave the base and see places on Mars, and the main character’s hallucinations/visions take him to different locales too. The devs clearly put effort into making sure the environment and scenery was as diverse as they could make it.

The story was good, very simple. It’s not hard to follow what’s going on, and as the game is short, you don’t really have time to get sidetracked. Shane, the main character, is interesting and his voice actor really does a great job at making him and his words feel real. My one small complaint is that a large chunk of the documents you can pick up/find in this game are... Pointless? Like, they have extremely scientific mining/engineering/coding jargon that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Mechanics were okay, although some of them are a little weird: For instance, turning a crank early on in the game. They tell you to rotate the stick, but what you really have to do is hold the left stick all the way to the right; trying to rotate the stick as instructed will result in failure.

Overall, I thought it was a great little horror game.

9.5/10

[cuddlecave]

Ok, w undersea elder god Ben, i feel like we have 2 options

Option 10, he uses reality warping powers to get Gordn back to the surface, and then he gets curious and manifests a human form to follow him. The human form is much weaker, both physically and power wise, but if he and Gord are on good terms, it would be easy for him to convince the human to make regular trips to the ocean so Ben can return to a larger, more monstery size, and allow for safe noms.

Option 2, Ben uses his deity powers to modify Gordn to adapt to deep sea living. Pressure resistance, water breathing, among other things. It would take a bit to get to that point, and the mods probably start off small, simple things to put Gordn at ease. He waits for permission before making major changes, wanting to earn Gords trust before implying that he wants to keep the human. If Gord is still afraid when he offers a permanent life in the depths, the human might panic.

Oh, potential 3rd option, a mix of the two. Ben grants Gordn the ability to change from human to sea beast at will, and Gordn promises to visit regularly.

When Gordn first gets his ocean-adapted form and is let out, he probably hovers very close to Ben. Ocean big and scary, eldritch bf good and safe.

i feel like gord would initially wanna just go with option 1.... but he can't deny the idea of being able to swim around in the deep ocean and see sights that humans have never seen, in a way they've never seen, is VERY very cool.... maybe it takes a bit for him to warm up to the idea enough to give benb the go-head for an innsmouth make-over. (also silly thought: benb and gord reading some lovecraft stories or watching movie adaptations of them and benb gleefully shit-talking them and pointing out everything they got wrong about Deep Ones/Elder beings)

[blueberryinko]

Mythos: Dagon, Maker of Armies

-

Robert and Amelia were new money. On the greener side of the bay from Innsmouth, Robert’s business selling cigars was singlehandedly keeping the fisherman’s bay from a riot.

So it was baffling to find his accounts lowering in revenue, his accountant calling him day in, day out. “Amelia, have you seen what this new study from those doctors in England have said? Cigars give you cancer!” He’d have to find a new line of work at this rate.

"You're joking!" Amelia wandered over, checking the news bulletin. "Well there's always the fabric markets?" She suggested. Her own endeavours into dressmaking had spawned several factories across New England.

"No, I think it's time I asked the Leader," Robert sighed. The Leader was the head of an order called the Esoteric Order of Dagon, an order dedicated to the worship of the Old Ones. They'd joined up initially thinking it was some form of social club, then revealed to be a religion.

Robert had been skeptical but Amelia had bought into it, she'd always felt out of sorts in the material world and she grasped concepts Robert often failed to about paracausal happenings.

Now both of them were in too deep, and they were members of the group, long-time donators to the cause.

Robert and Amelia got in the car, and a sense of beginning flooded Amelia. This felt like the right step to take, felt like she was about to become something she was always meant to be.

The trip up to the Order headquarters ended in a long, winding road down to a desolate church in the middle of no-where, a mural of a Great One plastered on the forefront of the building. Inside, the interior was candle-lit, the floor a checkerboard pattern and pillars of marble extending up into the arched roof.

The Leader stood cloaked in red and gold lining, face hidden. There was a permanent air of whispers and murmurings, and Amelia often said she could see wisps trail out from under his hood, but never saw his face. “Leader.” Robert bowed his head respectfully. “We have come for guidance. Our business is beginning to fall into the red, and we must find some way to fix it before we end up back at square one.”

The Leader turned to face them. Acolytes shuffled about in the shadows as it mused. “Misfortune is often something humanity must deal with, yes?” It questioned. Robert began to get frustrated. “Leader, you don’t understand.” He told the cloaked one, stress marring his features. “We clawed our way to where we are today and I will not see us put back in the gutter.”

“Husband,” Amelia reminded softly. Robert calmed, standing back by his wife.

The Leader stood motionless for a few moments. Then, it began to lift its hood, and a smoky cranium, eyeless and dark revealed itself. The room grew dark and the Leader seemed to grow in size, mutating, shifting into a beastly, spindly floating thing. Amelia stared, it was a beautiful kind of horror, and Robert seemed to disagree. “What are you?” He cursed, terror chilling his veins.

“I am Dagon, the Maker.” The beast rumbled. “I will assist your plight, but with ONE condition.” It held their fates in its hands, and Amelia kneeled before it. “The condition, old Maker?” She asked.

“Children,” it purred. “You will bear hybrid children within your womb, becoming a true vessel for my spawn. They would be yours in name, but MINE in power.” Amelia had always wanted children, but she’d always thought they were a few years away. Now, she was to become a mother earlier, and to many.

Robert froze. The God knew his desires. Knew he’d wanted to see Amelia permanently round with his children, and had taken that desire. Made it part of His. And Robert didn’t know that he had the willpower to resist. “We accept,” He blurted.

“Goood,” The God drawled. “Our business here is concluded.”

-

Amelia had noticed her pregnancy less than eight weeks later, her belly already rounded. The God had ended up putting three children inside her. She swelled through the weeks gently, her maternal swell bulging forwards into the silk dresses she wore. Her breasts grew several cup sizes and she simply kept growing.

“They feel like ours.” She commented one night during her third trimester. Her huge swell meant that her movement had been restricted for some time, and she actually quite enjoyed the feeling of being gravid. It was indulging her husband’s huge breeding kink as well, she knew just as well as him he loved seeing her swell with babies. “They do,” He rubbed the huge swell in slow circles

Her gown was split open, exposing the belly band she’d had tailored for herself, black and covering her belly for now. Robert rolled it down, exposing the tanned, pinky sized nub of her belly-button. “And this has gotten so big,” he commented. Amelia hummed, acknowledging it when his fingers brushed over the sensitive button. “O-oh! Every part of me is big.” She groaned. “And I’m only gonna get bigger.”

She hit the end of her third trimester, ending up going two weeks overdue. “Uggghhh, I don’t know if I can take much longer-!” She whined, heaving her way through the kitchen, snacking on the latest chocolate cake Robert had baked for her.

She shifted minutely, then felt a crack. Then a splash. “Oh, shit, shit, shit, Robert!” She called, waddling towards their birthing suite. Robert raced towards her. “Time?” He asked. “Time.” Amelia confirmed, groaning as she settled herself onto the bed.

She waited for hours before she was able to push. Amelia shifted, feeling the first baby descend. Robert watched, gasping as the baby visibly moved downwards. “Okay baby, you got this?” He asked his wife.

“I got this.” Amelia pushed, and the baby practically slid down her canal, right into her bulging vagina. “Oh, shit! Baby, ow, oh, oh, ah!! She winced, leaning into a squat. She grunted, a normal human head popping out of her crotch. “OH!”

“You got it!” Robert grinned widely. She looked beautiful like this, and she made it look nearly effortless. Amelia grinned, skin flushed with pregnancy hormones, giving her a warm glow. She bore down and the rest of the baby slid out. The baby looked normal except for the blackened veins, the pale white hair and the black sclera. And yet Amelia fell in love. “Hi baby!” She cooed, holding the baby girl to her chest.

Robert helped her deliver the last two babies. Robert looked upon them. While he had fallen in love too, these babies didn’t feel natural. They felt otherworldly, wrong almost, a discomfort in his bones that told him these babies weren’t meant to exist. “They’re adorable.” He conversed with Amelia. “They’re beautiful.” Amelia agreed.

-

Her next pregnancy was even larger, stuffed with five babies, by her second trimester she’d reached the size she’d been when she’d been overdue with the triplets. Given how short she was and how tall Robert was, it was hardly a surprise that her entire waist had become dominated by the baby-cramped sphere that was her turgid, pregnant gut.

“I’m gonna be huge soon.” She told him, waddling through the grounds one day. She could no longer wear any of the fashionable dresses she used to. Instead she was basically wrapped in a makeshift toga, which in any case wasn’t holding in her breasts anyway, bigger than her head. She was producing colostrum currently, but she pumped for milk every single day, she estimated she got about twelve gallons a day, which to her was insane.

“I know, but these are our children.” Robert had been gaining new hires to help with the massive load of babies they were expecting. Things were getting weird in Innsmouth recently, he’d heard from one of the new hires. The docks had been overrun with new immigrants claiming to hail straight from the sea, and while Robert seemed eager at the new income, their new maid simply smiled, eery and cold. “Be careful what you wish for,” She’d told him, nodding towards the overly bloated Amelia, snacking on yet another morsel, rubbing her turgid tummy.

“The triplets are growing strong.” She commented. They were growing quickly too. They’d surpassed the toddler stage quickly, and Robert was ninety-nine percent certain babies weren’t meant to grow that fast. He knew it was the hybrid in them, and while a normal man would have been jealous, he was proud. His wife was a fertility goddess for a God, capital G, and she was swelling riper and riper every year.

“They’re chaotic too.” Robert had caught their youngest levitating through the halls one night and had had to coax her down with an entire tin of cookies. “You’re growing so big, I can’t wait until you’re a vessel.” He held her gargantuan belly. She let out a little mew, her hands planting themselves over his. “I think you’re more excited about this than I am.” She giggled, her tan, round cheeks rosy and warm.

“Can you blame me?” He replied. “You’re so fat, Amelia. So rounded, so pregnant. Our children grow in this crammed, tight womb, and you’re a breeder for an Old One.” Her breath hitched, turning in a slow heave of her belly to face him. “Yes, husband? Is there something you’d like to do to celebrate that?” She teased. “Very much so.” He growled.

-

Her third pregnancy.. her third pregnancy she carried eight babies. She could barely leave the grounds anymore, and Amelia was basically immobile more often than not. She wasn’t round enough to roll yet, but she could tell she was getting there.

Her firstborn were mature now. As was she. Robert had them taking care of the younger children to help out their other employees within the house. With how big she was, she needed three people just to lift her up onto her feet. She waddled around slowly, her hefty belly wobbling in front of her. Her breasts had grown beyond any metaphor she could conjure for them, constantly attached to breast pumps.

Robert opened the door to the greenhouse, where she sat naked on a chair, her generous asscheeks overflowing the seat. Over the past four years she’d gained three hundred pounds, and the much heavier woman basically wobbled every time she moved.

Robert’s cock throbbed, approaching his wife. “Why is it I can never keep my hands off of you?” He wondered to her aloud. Amelia felt him separate her fat legs, his hands splaying across her expansive belly. “Because I’m your big, pregnant wife. Your breeding whore like a village girl opening her legs to any man who wants her.” She teased.

He stirred, unzipping his trousers. “We’ve made a hundred million in the last year.” He told her, his cock at full mast. He teased her sex, his breath hot on her fattened belly. “Please husband,” she begged. With her consequent breeding frenzy, she’d grown careless about anything business. All she wanted was to be pregnant, she couldn’t live without being full.

Sliding inside her, Robert revelled in how warm, how wet her fattened sex was. Motherhood had been generous to her and with her pregnancies, she was so sensitive she howled upon entry. “Ohhh!”

Amelia grunted and groaned pleasantly. Robert enjoyed teasing those sounds out of her, ensuring she was overwhelmed within minutes. “Robert, Robert, Robbie!” She whined. Her fattened hips wobbled, his cock pulsing inside her.

“I know, I know Amy.” Robert hadn’t been able to get enough of her the last four years. Pregnancy had made her fat and fertile, but watching her had turned him into a beastly, feral thing, craving her plush womanhood every hour of every day. She was a goddess in his eyes, and she was the perfect baby factory.

Amelia bucked atop him. The chair was creaking and groaning below her, eventually snapping with a sickening crack and sending her falling onto her ass. “Shit, are you alright Amelia?” Robert slowed his ministrations. “Mmmmm!” Amelia moaned. “Gonna have bruises…” she pouted. Upon seeing that she was alright, Robert ramped up his pumping again.

Amelia could feel his pace quickening. She accepted it gladly, even if she couldn’t do much on the ground. She mewed and whined, feeling huge and just so, so pregnant. She cried out when his cockhead hit her cervix, her clit throbbing as he fucked her. “Robert!” She cried out, gripping his hands on either side of her belly. Robert pistoned into her again and again, and Amelia could barely keep up.

Wet slapping noises echoed through the greenhouse, Robert’s cock twitching. “Fuck, Amy, I’m going to come.” He grunted. Amelia’s cheeks were bright rosy red, and she was breathless. “Please Robert, seed me, breed me all over again-“ And that tipped him over, Robert unleashing a fountain of cum into her womb, gasping as his orgasm wracked his entire body.

Amelia gushed around him, her tummy gurgling, the babies kicking in response to their mother’s sudden orgasm. She shook quietly, pulsing and shaking. “Nnnnnnffff…” She could barely form words, unable to get up she was that fat.

Robert helped her sit up. “God, you’re radiant.” He panted. Amelia rested her head in the crook of his neck, and Robert hugged her belly.

-

Amelia had another pregnancy, and then on her fifth pregnancy, she did it. She became a vessel.

Three hundred pounds heavier, a few short of a ton, she was pregnant with a staggering fourteen babies. She had been immobile since month five and Amelia had been living in heaven. She had twenty three kids now, and half of them were mature. They took care of the babies dutifully, and her house was full of handmaids and servants.

She’d figured out they were Old Ones the moment they walked in the door, but Robert didn’t see it. She wouldn’t tell him, he didn’t need the stress now that they were billionaires.

Her belly rumbled one night, and almost possessed, Amelia thundered her fat ass down to the cellar.

She ate ravenously, gorging herself through several barrels worth of preserved foods. Stuffing her face with one meal after another, she finally stopped after fourteen servings of makeshift sandwiches.

She laid on her belly, so blissfully fat she could barely move the fat cones of her limbs, when her form shifted. Growling loudly, a sound like air hissing into a balloon emanated from her body. “W-what?” She tried, and watched as her limbs were absorbed into her body permanently, rounding out into a gigantic pregnant ball.

“Robert!” She called upstairs. Minutes later, he rushed downstairs, seeing the ball that his wife had become rocking on her bloated cunt. “I-I did it..” She celebrated aloud to him, flapping her hands. Robert practically had hearts over his eyes, and like a man possessed bowled her onto her back. “Mine, mine, MINE.” He rumbled. Amelia laid back and let him ravage her.

-

They were enjoying her form the next morning when one of the servants opened the door, the Leader walking in. “So your transformation is complete.” It murmured. In the presence of the Old God, her children stirred. “Good. I thought you’d like to know,” it started. “Last night, Innsmouth was wiped away by a flood last night. You are the richest people on the planet, and our children will inherit the remains.”

“Thank you,” Robert shook the Old One’s hand. “You’ve given me the greatest gift possible.” It was not Robert’s gift, Dagon thought, it was his. But he would let Robert think that. “Of course, I am a kind God unlike my siblings. Please, enjoy the fruits of our labour, it seems she’s ready to birth again.” Robert turned, and indeed, a pool of fluid was at Amelia’s feet.

When he next turned back to the Old One, Robert found he was gone. “Thank you,” he whispered to the air again, before turning to help his wife.

How about a cthulhu mythos-related story??

Taking place in the 20th century, a young and rich new money couple is living in a manor somewhere in new england near the coast and somewhere near Innsmouth before the town's destruction.

At first the couple didn't really think about having children, but the couple would find out that their wealth was starting to run out so they had to figure out how to maintain their luxurious litestyle.

Then after asking the leader of the Esoteric Order of Dagon (the husband and wife thought it was some sort of weird name for a social club at first when they joined), the couple made a deal with some deep ones for the wife to be their breeding incubator for hybrids, and in exchange the couple would be rewarded with all sorts of riches.

Then was the years went on (and many pregnancies), at first the wife looked like the very definition of fertility and motherhood as she would often be pregnant with multiples (preggoalways as a reference for that), but later on she would become a permanent pregosphere who never leaves the manor grounds, and with all of their staff (mostly handmaids) actually being deep ones in disguise.

(Also apparently, the reason why the deep ones interbreed with humans in the mythos is because when non-hybrid deep one populations reach a certain size females tend to kill their young for some reason.)

Ooooooooo added to the list.

[thedupshadove]

For as long as H.P. Lovecraft’s work has been appreciated by members of all those minorities he made no secret of despising, people have been thinking of ways to twist and subvert his creations and premises so as to refute his bigoted beliefs. And I think I’ve got mine. I may be playing with fire here, but I’ve spent too much time and mental energy mulling over this not to want to know what others will think of it.

I want you to picture a young man named Robert Olmstead, somewhere between his mid-20s and early 30s. He is a fairly average sort of man, perhaps leaning slightly towards the dreamy and artistic over the athletic. He might lean quite a bit harder if he hadn’t, for all his life, loved the water with a fierce and burning passion. As a small child, he used to fuss when his mother tried to take him out of the bath. One of his earliest vivid memories is of when he was six years old and his family, who lived in Tennessee, took their first vacation to the ocean in his lifetime. The journey had been long, the hotel room had been too hot,  he had slept poorly, and by the time he and his parents had piled back into the car for the final leg of the trip to this “beach” thing he had been bound and determined not to enjoy it. But then they arrived. And he stepped out of the car. And he smelled something unlike anything he’d ever smelled before, and the smell seemed to call him forward, and he zipped ahead of his parents, heedless of his mother’s pleas to put on sunscreen, and he ran and he ran towards the smell and suddenly there it was, an endless endless expanse of beautiful, perfect water, the most amazing thing he’d ever seen, and he near to wept for joy and he needed to be in it, and he ran so fast his legs slipped out from under him twice but he just got up and kept running and finally, finally he was in it and it was the most beautiful feeling he’d ever felt in his life. It was six and a half hours before his parents could convince him to come out. And ever since then he has known that if he ever felt sad, or angry,  or stressed, or lonely, or just a little empty inside, getting himself into water was what helped. Even a bath was something, although space to swim was better, and a natural body of water was also better. So a swimming pool and a creek were about the same, both better than a bath, and a good-sized pond or stream was better than that, a real lake or river better still. But nothing was ever quite as good as the ocean, when he could get to it.

He grows up, and becomes a writer, or a painter, or an architect, or something else that allows him to work from home and take most of his work with him if he moves. (That’s for plot reasons. You’ll see.) And one summer, he decides to take a month to do some traveling around the Northeastern coast. He’s on his way to what was going to be his second stop, when he’s hit with sudden car trouble. He nurses it to the nearest mechanic shop, in a little spit of a Massachusetts fishing town called Innsmouth. The good news, they know what the problem is, and it should be a fairly easy and affordable fix. The bad news, they just ran out of a vital part they need to replace. They’ve already sent off to their supplier for a fresh shipment, but being as out in the boonies as they are,  it’ll be two weeks until said shipment gets there. Well, he won’t get to travel as much as he wanted on this holiday, but at least it’s happening towards the beginning rather than towards the end, eh? So, which way to the local Inn? Er...there isn’t one. Well...where is he supposed to stay? Especially with his now-limited mobility on account of his car just broke down?  Not to fret, there’s an old lady in town, one Hannah Marsh, who has a big empty house with plenty of bedrooms to spare. They’re sure she’ll let him stay with her, it’s just up that road, then you make a left at the little ice-cream shop…

He arrives, knocks, explains his situation, and she immediately hurries him inside with assurances that of course he can stay, not to worry, and he shouldn’t fret about his car either, she knows the boys who run the mechanic shop and they’re first-rate,  just the best, really if only he hadn’t had the bad luck to arrive just as they ran out of that one part he’d be back on the road by now. By time she’s finished imparting all of this, he finds that he’s sitting at her kitchen table with a fried fish sandwich and a glass of milk in front of him. He brings up the subject of the fee for two weeks room and she is shocked, shocked, that he would even suggest such a thing; “What does it cost me to let you sleep in my house, that I should turn around and charge you?” “But I’ll need to shower. What about the increased water bill?” “I’m on a fixed rate, it doesn’t matter how much I use, look at it one way you’ll be helping me get my money’s worth.” “Well if you intend to go on feeding me you might at least let me compensate you for the extra food.” “Hmm. Well, there are a few little home projects I’ve been meaning to get to, but keep putting off. Help me out with those, and we’ll call it square.”

So, after an afternoon spent settling into his room and helping her organize some boxes in the attic and a dinner of a lovely fish-and-potato casserole, Robert settles in for his first night in Innsmouth. In the middle of the night, he hears some movement in the house, and then the front door open and close. The next morning, he asks whether there was some kind of commotion that he had been negligent in not getting up for. “Oh, I just like to take a walk of a night to clear my head, nothing at all to worry about.”

And so, roughly, the next twelve days go. Robert helps Hannah with her little projects around the house, and when they’re not doing that, he often finds himself accompanying her in her daily goings-about. He stares longingly at the ocean once or twice, but it seems that he really likes this brisk little friendly yet bitingly witty old woman, and just keeps following her around. But as the days pass, the strangest feeling keeps creeping up on him, getting stronger each time it does. He’ll be walking through town, or get drawn into a chat with the greengrocer, stand by and listen while Hannah haggles over the price of a pound of fish, and all the while he’s noticing little differences, little things that the people in this town do that he’s never seen anywhere else, little differences in culture and an unfamiliar tilt to the architecture and what sound like religious oaths that he doesn’t recognize, but it feels...right. Feels good. Feels natural. Feels like home. Which is odd, because he’s certain he’s never been here before, and he certainly didn’t grow up in a town like this (Tennessee, remember?), so why does it seem that with every second he spends in this town, the rightness just keeps growing?

On the fourth day he wakes up to find a note from Hannah saying that she’ll be away most of the day, and so of course he shouldn’t be expected to do any of the projects on his own. First, he thinks he’ll take the opportunity to do some swimming, but as he’s walking down the shore he’s stopped by a local who hastily explains that unfortunately the ocean along the town can’t be swum in because...it will scare away the fishes. Yes, that’s it, so sorry to disappoint you, but with fishing being so vital to the local economy you can imagine how important it is to keep the fishes in the water, right? Right? Good, good.

Well, with that stymied,  Robert gets another idea; Hannah’s been such a lovely hostess, and sure he’s been helping her around the house, but he’d like to do something else to show his appreciation. Why doesn’t he make dinner tonight? So he spends the day going around to the various little markets, picking up all the ingredients he’ll need (all the while shadowed by that same inexplicable yet undeniable feeling of rightness and belonging), then takes it all back to Hannah’s house and starts cooking. As he chops and measures and stirs and tastes, he finds himself half-singing half-humming an old song he remembers his grandfather used to sing. And at 6:30 in the evening, Hannah comes home to a pot of fish stew on the table. As she smells the product and takes her first bite, one could almost suspect that a startle passes over her, but there’s nary a tremor in her voice when she asks him where he got the recipe from. “Oh, it’s an old family one.” he replies. “Goes at least as far back as my mother’s father’s mother, if I remember correctly.” “Oh indeed? Well, it’s quite lovely.”

On the evening before the sixth day, Hannah tells Robert that she’ll be gone tomorrow until probably about 1:30-2:00 in the afternoon; she’s going to a religious service. Some inner drive Robert can’t explain compels him to ask if he can come along. Hannah hesitates, then says yes, but warns him that things might look strange, and cautions him against hasty judgment. The next morning he wakes up on the early side, dresses in the best outfit he brought with him, and follows her to a building near the center of town that looks even more unusual than most of the buildings. Inside, it seems that virtually the whole of the town has gathered. They take their seats (not really any sort of pew setup, just a whole bunch of chairs willy-nilly around the large main room) and at first Robert starts to maybe regret tagging along to the services of what appears to be a completely unfamiliar faith. It’s mostly a lot of singing and chanting in a language he doesn’t recognize, but there is a little talking in English too, and from what he can gather there’s a god of some kind called Dagon who, if he’s anywhere in particular, is probably at the bottom of the ocean, and something about a pact, and remembering the balance between lives. As said,  at first it’s awkward for him, being the only person in the room who doesn’t understand what’s going on, but as the service continues that right feeling comes on him again, and he starts to find the atmosphere comforting, even if he isn’t sure of most of what’s being said.

After the service itself there’s a kind of reception/town gathering/informal lunch, and this is where that feeling really kicks into high gear. The food is hitting something in his soul that he hadn’t known he had, there’s strange yet hauntingly familiar music playing in one corner of the room, people are dancing, people are talking, people are laughing, and he nearly falls to his knees, buffeted by waves of right and yes and HomeHomeHome and You belong here, Robert Olmstead. But, he thinks, how can he feel that he belongs here? He knows he’s never been here, so much of this is new to him, yet it calls out to his soul. He wants, he wants...but how dare he, he suddenly realizes. Who is he, to waltz in here and start trying to insert himself? Trying to fit in, trying to be a part of this? No, no, this isn’t right. He has to stop this before he becomes no better than a common thief. And in a panic he runs out of the room and out of the building and then he does fall to his knees, on the ground outside,  gasping for breath and trying desperately to calm his spinning head.

Hannah, who had noticed him starting to look a bit uncomfortable and certainly noticed him rush out, follows him outside and asks, a little sadly, if he’s alright. Oh yes, he responds, yes he’s perfectly fine, he just needed some air, that’s all. So nothing he heard...disturbed him, she asks? What? Oh no, no, not at all! He replies hastily. No, he’s just...not good with crowds sometimes. Please, she shouldn’t let him keep her. She looks a little dubious, but nods and goes back inside, leaving him sitting on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest and wishing he could go swimming. Maybe that would settle his troubled soul.

That night,  not only does he hear the usual sounds of Hannah leaving the house,  he’d swear he hears the sound of some large group, coming from the direction of the sea.

The next few days are a little awkward. On the surface, nothing’s changed—helping Hannah around the house and tagging along with her if she has to go somewhere, chatting all the while, but now the talk seems the littlest bit strained, and he keeps catching her stealing sad, slightly worried glances at him, and of course there’s the fact that now he’s trying to actively hold himself back from feeling too much at home. But by the ninth day, things have settled back down a little (partially because, if he’s being honest, his attempts to not feel comfortable here weren’t working very well, and he’s started slacking off on them.)

But with that slacking off on trying to hold back comes the return of those feelings of guilt for how happy he is being here. And as the happiness builds, so does the guilt, and he spends most of his time wrestling back and forth in his head, scolding himself for his presumptuousness, pleading with his superego to be allowed to just enjoy it while he can, shaking his head in disgust at his interest, which is obviously just a result of encountering something new and exotic, and couldn’t possibly be justified...right? Right, he mustn’t go on like this, after all no one likes a grabby tourist. He doesn’t really belong here (but what if he could…) All this passive enjoyment is very wrong of him (but it feels so right…) Anyway, in just a few more days he’ll be leaving (he doesn’t want to…) and then this foolishness will subside (but what if…) No!

This mental battle stresses him so much that, on the twelfth night, he can’t even get to sleep, and so decides to take a walk along the shore in the hope of clearing his head. As he comes down to the beach he once again begins to hear the sounds of a crowd. He worries that going down to join whatever’s happening would be counter-intuitive to his goal of not inserting himself into this place, but he can’t quite dismiss his curiosity, so he slowly inches closer until he finds a bush he can hide behind (and yes, he does feel a little silly) and peek out around to see what’s going on...and it floors him.

Perhaps it shouldn’t. It’s just a large group of people, swimming and frolicking in the water and hanging out on the beach. But the thing about these people is...they’re Fish People. Bipedal, but with big eyes and scaly bodies and fins coming off, come on, we’ve all seen movies. And maybe it should be terrifying, but as I said, they’re not doing anything...menacing or evil. They’re just hanging out. But as he looks closer at them...he doesn’t quite know how,  but he can recognize some of them. There, that’s the greengrocer. And he thinks that one is one of the men who own the mechanic shop. And that one over there...that’s Hannah. Oh good grief, this is where she’s been going every night! And this must be the real reason why they didn’t want him swimming. And that commotion he heard on the night of the religious service—there had been something about balancing lives, after all. That must have been the other half of the service. Realizing this all at once, he’s unable to stifle a yelp of startled understanding, and then he passes out.

The next morning, he wakes up back in his bed in Hannah’s house. He shakes his head—was last night a dream?—but when he looks down at himself he sees that he’s covered in the scratches that must have come from fainting into a bush. He dresses slowly, cautiously makes his way downstairs, and finds Hannah in the kitchen standing over the stove. “So”, she asks tensely, “Did you sleep well?” “I don’t know”, he responds after a pause, “Did I?”

She turns around to face him. “Robert”, she asks, “have we hurt you? Have we imprisoned you? Have we done anything to make you fear us, or wish us harm?”  

“No”, he replies, confused, “certainly not.”

“Then...can I have your word that after you leave here, you won’t tell a soul what I’m about to tell you?”

“...Alright.”

And so the truth, or at least a sketch of the truth, comes out. Long, long, long ago, so long ago that a lot of the specific details are lost to history, an ancient civilization (no one seems to remember exactly where it was, although one supposes that it must have been coastal) started interbreeding with an aquatic race called the Deep Ones, as well as adopting their religion of worshiping the sea god Dagon. This went on long enough for the hybrids to become a race unto themselves. They can shape-shift between more human and more aquatic forms but must spend at least one hour per day in water (and generally prefer much more), and they are quite long-lived, with an average lifespan of 500 years. And then, some period of time after the hybrid race stabilized...something happened. We’re not sure what it was. We think it involved a neighboring tribe getting worried that these strange fish people were coming to kill them all. Or maybe it was just a land dispute. One of those. But anyway, the only way for the hybrid race to survive was to flee, cutting themselves off from their Deep One brothers and scattering to the four winds. Groups of them traveled here, there, everywhere, staying together in communities when they could, and even occasionally finding new communities of Deep Ones, though not very often. They’ve tried to keep their culture alive, as well as keeping themselves alive, but the general practice now is to keep their true natures secret from “normal” humans, after what happened way back when. A few times, someone or a small group of someones has tried revealing the secret, sick of hiding and convinced that peaceful coexistence should be possible, but as a rule that...hasn’t ended well. And around the turn of the 20th century, one group came to Massachusetts, and founded Innsmouth. So can he see why they didn’t want him finding out—and why she still doesn’t want him telling anyone? Yes, he can, and she has his word that he won’t.

But the next day and a half is, if anything, more awkward still. Because he had thought that finding out this outlandish truth might make his wonderful, impossible at-home feeling diminish, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all. And now he only feels more guilty about it—oh, he feels kinship with these people? He dared to think he might have a place here? Among these people who have had nothing but bullshit thrown at them for thousands of years, who have to keep themselves secret and hidden away, and he wants to, what, join up? Because he likes the food? Robert Jonathan Olmstead, you are a heartless, greedy moron.

And then, just after noon on the fourteenth day, one of the mechanics stops by to tell him that his car is ready. And he has no choice but to thank him, and pay, and take his car back, and pack up his things, and thank Hannah for being such a lovely hostess (“Nonsense, nonsense, thank you for being such a help.”) and get behind the wheel, and, pushing down the ache in his heart with all his might, drive away from Innsmouth. He finds he just isn’t in the vacation mood anymore, opting to just go straight home.

For the next three months, he tries to settle back into life. He tries not to think about Innsmouth, and sometimes succeeds for as much as half an hour at a time (and no, sleep is no respite. Not a single night goes by that he doesn’t dream he’s back there.) But he finds himself incorporating elements of what he saw in Innsmouth into his own work, and has to hastily remove it. And he finds life increasingly...empty, which drives him into whatever water he can get to more and more often. And his eyes are starting to get dry more easily.

And then a local newspaper challenges its readers to trace their family history and find something interesting to write about, and what the hey, he could use a distraction. So he digs out all the family records he can find. It’s mostly pretty boring stuff, with everybody concentrated in the Chattanooga area for several generations back, except for his mother’s paternal grandfather. Who married a girl who seemed to bring none of her relatives with her into the family, but said she came from a small fishing town in Massachusetts. One Hannah Marsh.

Head spinning, he piles into his car first chance he can get and drives straight back to Innsmouth, barely stopping until he’s right outside Hannah’s house, and practically racing up her front step to breathlessly knock on her door. She seems pleased to see him, but surprised,  had he forgotten something when he left and only just noticed it now?

“No, I...look, can I come in?”

“Alright.”

And so they sit down on the couch in her front parlor.

“Hannah, I...” even if there was a tactful way to say this, he’s too keyed-up to find it, “I’m your great-grandson.”

“Yes.”

“So you knew? The whole time I was with you?”

“No. Only after you made my soup.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“At first, explaining how would have meant giving up The Secret. And by time I had to do that anyway, I...was pretty sure you wouldn’t have been happy to hear it.”

“...What?”

“Well as the days went by you started to seem so nervous whenever we were around town. And you had to rush out of the temple because you just couldn’t stand it. So I figured we’d both be better off if I didn’t burden you with the knowledge that you were connected to the freaks on the shore, no?” She’s trying not to sound to hurt, and not succeeding particularly well.

“Is...is that what you thought? Yes, I can see how it must have been. But it wasn’t.” And out it all comes as he pours into her lap the story of his tangled emotions all those two weeks, of the stirring sense of home that he had fought to push down, of how it seemed that the very air of this place had called back memories of his grandfather that he’d buried for so long; of songs and stories and little snippets that seemed to come from nowhere but now it makes sense! They came from here! And when he’s done explaining it all, and watching the strangest set of expressions cross Hannah’s face, he musters his courage and asks the questions that really drove him here. His work is portable. He doesn’t really have that many roots where he lives currently. So could he...could he come back? Move up here and try to...to be a Deep One properly? To learn how it all goes and really do it?

Hannah closes her eyes and turns her head away from him. “No.”

His heart sinks. It feels like an ice-cube has been dropped down his spine. But...he’s come too far, dangit! He has to press on. To at least try to understand “Why not?”

“Robert, do you know why I married your great-grandfather? Because I was sick of it. Not of these people, nor even really of this place,  but of being stuck in this place. Of having to huddle here because the wide world won’t accept us. And though I loved your great-grandfather—no, don’t look at me like that, I did! But keeping this secret from him, artificially aging myself until, as I always knew, deep down, that I would have to, I faked my death and came back here...it was insane. And the lengths we have to go to in order to have any interaction with the outside world. The secrecy, the hiding of something so fundamental to who we are...you don’t want to be a part of this, Robert.”

But I do! He thinks, but since that track has already failed, he instead tries “I’m not sure I have a choice. Ever since I left here, I think I’ve been...changing. I’m starting to need water more and more often. A couple of times it’s almost seemed like I could breathe underwater. So can I come back?”

“No. What you’re talking about happens sometimes. I’m not the first to mix with humans,  not by a long shot. The results of such unions certainly have the potential to become full Deep One hybrids, but they also have every opportunity not to. What you need to do is start spending a lot less time in water, especially submerged. Take showers instead of baths. Avoid lakes and rivers. Breathe no salten air. The burgeoning transformation will subside, in time.”

I don’t want it to! He thinks desperately, and he can’t stop the escaping “But...”

Hannah sighs, “Go home, Robert.”

“I’m trying.”

Again she closes her eyes, sucks in a breath, and turns away, but this time she says, very quietly, “Ask me again.”

“Can I come back?”

Hannah opens her eyes, and they’re shining. A smile breaks over her face. “Yes,” she says softly, “Yes, yes, yes.”

“R...really? Just like that? What changed your mind?”

“Nothing. I had to try to talk you out of it. I’m sorry. We can talk about it.” She’s shaking with joy and, he realizes, so is he. “But I’m so glad you’re doing this. And I’ll be there with you, every step of the way.”

He can’t help it. He throws his arms around her, and they stay that way for some time, crying a little and hugging each other.

[excellent-monster-girl-ideas]

Monster Girl Imagine #476

Hearing tales of the lovely fish-folk of Innsmouth, you decided to take a trip there. However, before you could meet any Innsmouth locals, you instead met something entirely different: a formless protoplasm, able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes - viscious agglutinations of bubbling cells - rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and- oh wait, it's just a Shoggoth girl. ...She's pretty cute, too.

[deliciousdreamblaze]

Kamado

Kamado

Kamado ( Japanese : 水と稲妻 ) is Half-Brother of Damashi Complaints from many liberal organizations were met with long confidential discussions, and representatives were taken on trips to certain camps and prisons. As a result, these societies became surprisingly passive and reticent. Newspaper men were harder to manage but seemed largely to cooperate with the government in the end. Only one paper - a tabloid always discounted because of its wild policy - mentioned the deep diving submarine that discharged torpedoes downward in the marine abyss just beyond Devil Reef. That item, gathered by chance in a haunt of sailors, seemed indeed rather far-fetched since the low, black reef lay a full mile and a half out from Innsmouth Harbour. Ubuyashiki, Keeper of Life

Behaviour

People around the country and in the nearby towns muttered a great deal among themse But at last I am going to defy the ban on speech about this thing. Results, I am certain, are so thorough that no public harm save a shock of repulsion could ever accrue from a hinting of what was found by those horrified men at Innsmouth. Besides, what was found might possibly have more than one explanation. I do not know just how much of the whole tale has been told even to me, and I have many reasons for not wishing to probe deeper. For my contact with this affair has been closer than that of any other layman, and I have carried away impressions which are yet to drive me to drastic measures.lves, but said very little to the outer world. They had talked about dying and half-deserted Innsmouth for nearly a century, and nothing new could be wilder or more hideous than what they had whispered and hinted at years before. Many things had taught them secretiveness, and there was no need to exert pressure on them. Besides, they really knew little; for wide salt marshes, desolate and unpeopled, kept neighbors off from Innsmouth on the landward side. Hokuto and Amagase

Creation

It was I who fled frantically out of Innsmouth in the early morning hours of July 16, 1927, and whose frightened appeals for government inquiry and action brought on the whole reported episode. I was willing enough to stay mute while the affair was fresh and uncertain; but now that it is an old story, with public interest and curiosity gone, I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly-shadowed seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality. The mere telling helps me to restore confidence in my own faculties to reassure myself that I was not the first to succumb to a contagious nightmare hallucination. It helps me, too, in making up my mind regarding a certain terrible step that lies ahead of me. I never heard of Innsmouth till the day before I saw it for the first and - so far - last time. I was celebrating my coming of age by a tour of New England - sightseeing, antiquarian, and genealogical - and had planned to go directly from ancient Newburyport to Arkham, whence my mother's family was derived. I had no car but was travelling by train, trolley, and motor coach, always seeking the cheapest possible route. In Newburyport, they told me that the steam train was the thing to take to Arkham; and it was only at the station ticket-office, when I demurred at the high fare that I learned about Innsmouth The stout, shrewd-faced agent, whose speech shewed him to be no local man, seemed sympathetic toward my efforts at economy and made a suggestion that none of my other informants had offered. Shura, God of War and Life

Shura

That was the first I ever heard of shadowed Innsmouth. Any reference to a town not shown on common maps or listed in recent guidebooks would have interested me, and the agent's odd manner of allusion roused something like real curiosity. A town able to inspire such dislike in it its neighbours, I thought, must be at least rather unusual and worthy of a tourist's attention. If it came before Arkham, I would stop off there, and so I asked the agent to tell me something about it. He was very deliberate and spoke with an air of feeling slightly superior to what he said. Akai

Damashi

Damashi

Damashi ( Japanese : 欺瞞と嘘 ) is Half-Brother of Kamado After twenty-two years of nightmare and terror, saved only by a desperate conviction of the mythical source of certain impressions, I am unwilling to vouch for the truth of that which I think I found in Western Australia on the night of 17-18 July 1935. There is reason to hope that my experience was wholly or partly a hallucination - for which, indeed, abundant causes existed. And yet, its realism was so hideous that I sometimes find hope impossible. Sorcerer powerful and existence godlike eternal

Creation

Tathamet, Great Evil Seven

If the thing did happen, then man must be prepared to accept notions of the cosmos and of his own place in the seething vortex of time, whose merest mention is paralysing. He must, too, be placed on guard against a specific, lurking peril which, though it will never engulf the whole race, may impose monstrous and unguessable horrors upon certain venturesome members of it. Ubuyashiki and Liu Qingge

It is for this latter reason that I urge, with all the force of my being, final abandonment of all the attempts at unearthing those fragments of unknown, primordial masonry which my expedition set out to investigate. Kamado

Biological

Assuming that I was sane and awake, my experience on that night was such as has befallen no man before. It was, moreover, a frightful confirmation of all I had sought to dismiss as myth and dream. Mercifull, there is no proof, for in my fright, I lost the awesome object which would - if real and brought out of that noxious abyss - have formed irrefutable evidence. Shura confronted Samandriel

When I came upon the horror, I was alone - and I have up to now told no one about it. I could not stop the others from digging in its direction, but chance and the shifting sand have so far saved them from finding it. Now, I must formulate some definite statement - not only for the sake of my own mental balance, but to warn such others as may read it seriously. These pages - much in whose earlier parts will be familiar to close readers of the general and scientific press - are written in the cabin of the ship that is bringing me home. I shall give them to my son, Professor Wingate Peaslee of Miskatonic University - the only member of my family who stuck to me after my queer amnesia of long ago, and the man best informed on the inner facts of my case. Of all living persons, he is least likely to ridicule what I shall tell of that fateful night. Akai

Behind

I did not enlighten him orally before sailing because I think he had better have the revelation in written form. Reading and re-reading at leisure will leave with him a more convincing picture than my confused tongue could hope to convey. He can do anything that he thinks best with this account - showing it, with suitable comment, in any quarters where it will be likely to accomplish good. It is for the sake of such readers as unfamiliar with the earlier phases of my case that I am prefacing the revelation itself with a fairly ample summary of its background. Akai

It may be that centuries of dark brooding had given to crumbling, whisper-haunted Arkham a peculiar vulnerability as regards such shadows - though even this seems doubtful in the light of those other cases which I later came to study. But the chief point is that my own ancestry and background are altogether normal. What came came from somewhere else - where I even now hesitate to assert in plain words. Damashi

[queen-parasoul]

Could you please write a story about how Irvin and Fortune would act in a civilian setting?

Irvin stirred his coffee. The Autumn breeze that occasionally swept past calmed his nerves even in the midday bustle of the café. Despite the gaps in his private eye work, this felt like the first time he’d been able to relax in a while.

However, seeing his companion eyeing the nearby jewelry store sent him a pinch of adrenaline. “Don’t you dare.”

“What?” Fortune waved away his concern. “I’m just keeping an eye out for trouble.”

“Trouble for me, maybe.”

She shrugged playfully, and both resumed enjoying their drinks and ambience. Eventually, she couldn’t help but speak up again.

“I wouldn’t get caught, though. Just putting that out there. I’m a cat above the rest.”

“I know.”

“A rare breed.”

“Yep.”

“A-”

“I get it.” Irvin kept his usual cool, but desperately needed a change in subject. “So what are you planning to do then?”

“I’ll probably check up on Minette and her sisters. Maybe take a cat nap later.“

“I mean in the long term. Now that it’s out that you’re still alive, your face is back on the police watch list. Where are you going to keep hiding?“

“Well…that’s the thing.” She tapped her cup with her claws. “Fur once, I want to get out of the shadows. See new things, meet new people. Make some new memories instead of stewing on the old ones. I’m just not sure how to do that without getting caught.”

Irvin pondered that. “What about leaving New Meridian altogether?”

“That’s not a bad idea. I’ll miss Mew-Wan and Minette and Innsmouth, but maybe a change of scenery is what I need after,” She vaguely gestured to herself and the skyline where Medici Tower once stood, “Y’know, all this.”

“I could use a vacation too. I’ve never really left the city myself, and I trust Ben and his team to take care of any Medici still crawling around, especially now that the Labs are officially recommissioned.”

“Do you trust him not to tell any of his bosses about us?”

“He hasn’t snitched so far. I know he won’t.”

As usual on the topic of Big Band, Irvin’s good word failed to convince her. “If you say so. Just in case, maybe we should go somewhere far away. Maybe the Dragon Empire.”

“Very funny.“ He gave that a second thought. “Although, I’ve never been. It’s seems like an interesting place.“

“Lots of good food too. Mew-Wan says it’s nice in the Fall, and he probably has some old friends who would lend us stay with them.“

“…We’re actually going now, aren’t we?“

“If you’re up for it. It’s better than a jail cell.“

He signaled a waiter for the check. “We’d have a lot of packing to do if we want to leave ASAP.”

“Sooo…shopping trip?”

“Guess so. Just remember: no purr-loining.”

She smirked. “I purr-omise. You’re starting to do it too.”

“Yeah.” Irvin smiled and downed the rest of his coffee. “I’m not sure if I hate myself for it yet.”

[darchildre]

Did I spend a ridiculous amount of time yesterday working out the family tree of the narrator from Shadow Over Innsmouth (hereafter Robert Olmstead) and also a basic timeline of all the weird and terrible shit that happened in his life? Yes, that is a thing I did.

Here is a thing that I love about Lovecraft characters: they are all completely unhinged at the beginning of the story but in ways you don't know about until later. "When I was 8 my uncle took a trip to New England to learn about our family history and found out something so horrible that he shot himself. After that, my grandmother disappeared - straight up disappeared! She's probably dead? We don't know. This doesn't seem to bother anyone. Anyway, now that I'm 21, I'm taking a trip to New England to learn about our family history. Surely nothing bad will come of this."

This is before he decides to take a side trip to a creepy town literally everyone warned him about. Robert. What are you doing?

[ineffablefool]

Anyone want a ~550 word first-draft chunk of The Little Mermaid/Shadow Over Innsmouth AU No One Asked For?

NB, the Dagon here is Lovecraft’s Dagon, not the one from Good Omens.  Racist Uncle Howie had a few really fascinating ideas in his time, no idea how to write dialog, and no right living anywhere except in a cave until he could get his bigotry under control.  We take the good and leave the bad, I suppose.

Also there’s probably some verb tense wibbliness, because first draft.  I keep going back and forth on what bits should have what tense.

--

Aziraphale has had a very long time to get up to shenanigans.

Of course, him being Aziraphale, those shenanigans largely take the form of quiet, painstaking research.  But it’s not really done for a Guardian to actually take an interest in the Outside world.  Especially not one of the Four Guardians of the Ancestral Gates.  They are supposed to capture anyone trying to get out past the magical barrier around Y'ha-nthlei, kill any Risen or human trying to get in, and monitor for anything of the Outside that might come too close, so it can be properly disposed of before it can taint the city.

Aziraphale just has his own methods of disposal, is all.

After six thousand years of mostly-unsupervised life this far from civilization, Aziraphale has built himself quite the museum.  There’s a little bit of everything stashed away in the cave system which houses the Eastern Gate, treasures and trinkets that he’s found in shipwrecks, or just floating on the waves.  It’s all carefully labeled and cross-referenced and backed by hundreds, perhaps thousands of pages of notes.  The notes can’t go down into the underwater part of the caves, of course, but Aziraphale has long since built a comfortable little space for himself from a grotto in the forbidden dry.

It has been about six thousand years minus a week since he grew uncomfortable with the idea of being a Guardian and a soldier, and found the hidden tunnel to the rest of the caves, and decided to make a softer life for himself there.  Plenty of time to have made everything just to his liking.

And in the dry parts, above the dark brine of the ocean that spawned him, are all the most precious items of his collection.  The ones that aren’t flotsam, not broken waterlogged junk from the bottom of the sea.

Because he’s been actively collecting, too.  Swimming the last few miles in to shore, and going amongst the humans, and bringing back souvenirs.  

The first time was actually not too long after he was stationed here.  Only a few centuries after the Old War, when Dagon’s loyal children had triumphed, and the traitors had been forced to shed their gills and to Rise.  Aziraphale hadn’t taken anything on that first trip, or for a while afterward.  And before any taking had come the one time he’d actually given something away, instead.  But he’s fairly sure it won’t matter, now, after all this time.  There wasn’t really going to be a Final War against the Risen, probably.  Dagon wouldn’t have to summon the faithful once more.  Aziraphale wouldn’t actually be called back to Y'ha-nthlei to wield his sword of sacred flame.

So no one should ever need to know about him having given it away.

There are, of course, other secrets Aziraphale keeps, things that no one should ever need to know, back in Y'ha-nthlei, far from this nearly-forgotten borderland.  The entire research hobby, obviously.  The fact that Aziraphale has been journeying to the Outside and posing as a human, repeatedly, for a very, very long time.  Even more often lately, now that their habitations have spread to cover every bit of the nearby lands.

But the most damning secret Aziraphale keeps is the one currently pulling SCUBA gear off by the hidden passage into Aziraphale’s home.

--

It’s weird not being able to reference, like, ineffability or miracles or blessings/temptings.  Is there even going to be an Arrangement?  I don’t think there can be.  But they always love each other.  Even when one of ‘em’s got gills.

[veyot]

Oh my, I have been walking around in the rain and lightning, trying to find all the scenes in this story at InnsFest. And, there are three other scary story sets in the sky at Innsmouth. The fest has shops, DJ’s and Shows, too. This is going to take several trips! The easiest teleport to find is right by the landing point. Watch for The Lurking Fear sign. Walk up the road by the car and see if you can find the cabin, the deserted mansion and the graveyard. Be sure to go upstairs in the mansion to see the shadow on the fireplace. The trolley will take you to the next story.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Innsmouth/63/15/1201