#we all know lovecraft

[sulliedsorrow]

dazai looks at chuuya like he’s found god

[oysters-aint-for-me]

i joined this subreddit called r/BookshelfDetectives or something like that where ppl can post pictures of their bookshelves and you comment on what kind of person you think they are. it’s fun and generally not too catty. but one guy the other day posted his and some close ups and i’m scrolling through and it’s like—ALL OF HP LOVECRAFT. next picture—ALL OF NIETZSCHE AND KIERKEGAARD. next picture—AYN RAND AND RICHARD DAWKINS. literally the bookshelf of the most insufferable man you’ve ever avoided an argument with

[genericswordsmaiden]

Found a Derleth story collection at the bookstore and proceeded to insult him for five minutes straight while explaining to my best friend all the bullshit he did

[zafirosreverie]

I was bored ok?

Meet baby Eleanor, Poecraft's love child (?)

[benetnvsch]

just had a dreadful fucking vision where bones makes an anime original ending for bsd since it'll be caught up with the manga next episode but there's still more season left after that and in that ending chuuya doesn't actually shoot Dazai or whatever and the two go off to beat Fyodor with the power of love/friendship/whatever and just oGHGHGKH ISTG they better not fuck things up like that or I will literally eat dirt-

[fingertipsmp3]

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

[mechagic]

Can someone just assassinate jk rowling so that people can pull a "hp lovecraft" and defile her work to the point its unrecognizable and be able to do so without supporting a terf

Oh and to stop her from using her money to donate to TERF groups

[metaphysicae]

look i love guillermo de toro but his show’s adaptation of dreams at the witch house was a fucking mess (granted he was not the writer but ????)

[lonepower]

I have to admit, I was a bit confused about your reaction to the King-reveal haha. Since I barely actually know anything about the eldritch canon, I just assumed you found the King in Yellow unimpressive compared to others lol

KDGHSLKDFJ I THOUGHT HE WAS JUST LIKE SOME GUY

[ghostliest-ghosty-ghost-bastard]

Attach this to whatever you'd like but I think it's important to remember that one of the nice things about humanity is that when someone has made something new and shiny and a joy to see, it's ok to take that creation away from the person if they are so fucked that they'd ruin it by holding it.

Art can and SHOULD be separated from the artist if the artist ruins the art. Creation deserves it, art and joy deserves it.

To keep the good is the best way to say fuck you to the bad, they don't deserve to drag something nice down into a pit they decides to jump into

((As long as you're not throwing money at the person too btw. Pirating is moral y'all, so is fanfic that says fuck you I'll make it better and not be pathetic about it))

[catgirl-or-furry]

I was having trouble with nightmares a bit ago, which stopped when I started listening to horror stories before bed. And as I listen to my horror tale each night, I enjoy the irony.

[unicornpopcorn14]

Chuuya's reaction to Dazai getting hurt during the Lovecraft fight has always been so interesting to me...

Because it's the kind of worry you'd never expect from a character as gruff as Chuuya, who had displayed nothing but hostility towards Dazai so far. Usually, characters that are labelled as "angry" or "anger issues" (which Chuuya is much more complex than that but you get my point) act more as a tsundere type of way when the one they "don't care about" gets hurt. And show their care in very, very subtle ways (ex. their eyes widen, their mouth parts and closes again, etc) before putting up their front once more.

Chuuya, however, is open, and vocal about it. His worry is clear not only to us, but to Dazai himself, the one he shouldn't be displaying the concern to (as per the cliche). Shouldn't it be some sort of secret that Chuuya does care? Isn't that what skk's dynamic has been shaping up to be until now?

I'm telling you- the way my mind blanked when Chuuya just casually.... showed concern not once, but twice, was a sight to see.

Besides, the context makes it much more confusing, because Dazai isn't some rookie, and Chuuya knows that more than anybody. He was the youngest executive in Port Mafia's history, of course he can handle a hit or two. Of course he'd seen him handle a hit or two, sometimes without batting an eye.

Heck, Chuuya himself was hurling Dazai like a ragdoll in their reunion, which was their last meeting. And you could argue that he was going easy on him, but Dazai has mostly withstood the same damage (as far as I could see), and Chuuya was as bitter as ever.

So that kind of contradicts both what we knew of Chuuya so far, and how their dynamic was shaped to be. I mean, that just makes Chuuya a hypocrite, yeah? What makes him care now, all of a sudden? What makes him care at all?

Well, to me, this backasswards reaction implies one (or more) of the following:

- Dazai rarely got physically hurt during their partnership and thus this is an unexpected thing for him to see (during a mission).

- The four years of separation made Chuuya unsure of how much Dazai can withstand physically now. Also the fact that he isn't in the mafia anymore, aka fighting enemy organizations on the weekly, would naturally make Dazai lose his touch in a way, what prompts Chuuya's reaction.

- Dazai getting taken off guard took him off guard which led to panic. Especially since the situation was (momentarily) out of their depth. Seriously wtf even was Lovecraft?

- During the dungeon scene Dazai was an enemy, while in the Lovecraft fight he was as an ally. The difference might be significant to Chuuya.

- This has always been Chuuya's reaction to Dazai getting hurt regardless of the situation.

- "Only I can hurt him like that" ahh logic

- Asagiri was still experimenting with their dynamic and thus there are some inconsistencies.

This scenario didn't play out again (after their reunion) for me to exactly determine which one is more plausible, but it is 100% canon for Chuuya to shamelessly show his concern and run to Dazai to check on him before properly dealing with their opponent, which I find to be such an appealing layer to their dynamic, and a good spin on the type of character he gets stereotyped as.

Bonus: Dazai also becomes a softy when Chuuya's hurt, especially post corruption. Dead Apple alone displays that multiple times.

All in all, Skk are doing a terrible job at maintaining their 'hostile' and 'antagonistic' relationship post their reunion. Freaks.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Biology

JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: i am born again! hallelujah! Rowling: tell me Rowling: have you heard Rowling: the good word about biology? Poe: what Poe: what is this now?

Rowling: on the Scottish census, i answered that my religion is "biology" Poe: King: Koontz: Lovecraft: Barker: damnnnn Barker: that's real edgy

Mary Shelley: sup fuckers? Poe: joanne says her religion is biology Shelley: haha yes... YES!!! Poe: yes? Shelley: Yes! that's right, fuckers! Shelley: throw out the false morality of religion!! embrace soulless science!

Shelley: finally! The pure, terrifying light of science burns away the shadows of superstition! Shelley: unencumbered by the false morality of so-called religion, mankind can tamper, unimpeded, in God's domain! Shelley: we can make SO many abominations! Shelley: i fuckin' love it!

Rowling: no that iss the oppossite of what i'm trying to ssay Shelley: that's cuz you're weak Shelley: we're attack and dethrone God, fuckers!!

Rowling: that iss not what i meant! Rowling: i meant i hate transs people Shelley: yeah i know what you meant Shelley: i don't give a shit Shelley: my idea is way cooler Barker: yeah she's right that is way cooler

Rowling: no! my religion of biology is actually ANTI-abomination Rowling: i think abominationss are bad Rowling: i'm against them! all of them! Barker: and what abominations are these? Rowling: you know Rowling: transs, fat people, and toiletsss Barker: ya know what, you've lost me

Shelley: abominations are so hot right now Shelley: i'm really into them Barker: not gonna lie i'm actually pretty excited about these abominations now

Koontz: gosh i don't know about all this Shelley: dean what if you made a dog that was SO big Koontz: so big? Shelley: yeah like SO big uh Shelley: so big you needed 2 hands to pet it Koontz: wow! Koontz: that's a big dog! Koontz: that's so big you'd better lead, follow, or get out of the way!

Rowling: thatss the problem with you lot Rowling: alwaysss sso busssy thinking about how to make a big dog, you don't ssstop to think whether you SHOULD make a big dog

[morrithal]

Hey I'm reading the locked tomb now. Thinking about these duos are necros and their cavs is SO funny

Wolf 359 commanders and their seconds in command. Minkowski and Eiffel. Lovelace and Lambert. Kepler and Jacobi. Their bonds. I need to be taken out back and shot

[thesiltverses]

If there’s a list of books or plays or movies or tv series that influenced Eskew/TSV what’d be the top 10?

Probably different every time someone asks! But today let's go with...

Kafka's Castle / Trial / Penal Colony / Metamorphosis, Ligotti's Kafka-inspired stories (e.g The Town Manager) and other semi-adjacent absurdists and brilliant weirdos (Daniil Kharms, David Lynch, Hans Henny Jahn, Kobo Abe, arguably Fernando Pessoa?) who like to deal with social performance, human reaction and the pretence of normality in the face of unbearable strangeness, monstrous impositions and nightmare logic

Beckett's Happy Days / Endgame / Not I / WfG / Malone trilogy for the tragically pointless but inescapable search for meaning and fulfilment in ourselves, in our memories, in other people, in this wasted landscape, etc

Junji Ito's Uzumaki / Gyo / Amigara Fault / other stuff for powerfully making the argument that ludicrous horrors are also terrifying and gross horrors are also hilarious

Works that explore the helpless terror and allure in being horribly transfigured into a final shape that makes sense of us (The Fly / Videodrome, Annihilation, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Society, Ito again) or relatedly the shameless joy of setting fire to our social and familial and societal environment and embracing the wild, devilish, bestial and profane (a lot of stuff, but I'm thinking of the works of Angela Carter and Leonora Carrington and also The Witch and Carrie, that one Clarice Lispector book where she eats a bug)

Dostoevsky's Devils, Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground for his unsurpassed collection of asocial self-obsessives having an existentially bad time and handling that poorly

The 1973 double bill of The Wicker Man / Don't Look Now for exploring the tragedy and horror of how our search for meaning may entrap us into a dead end of meaningless horrors

All of LeGuin's fiction but particularly The Dispossessed and Omelas.

The Wire for its peerless portrayal of a cast of complicated and largely unheroic human beings all attempting to either reach or destroy one another but who are ultimately all adrift and alone in the modern supersystem. The Wire and The Lives of Others for affirming the worth of even futile and powerless to support others who are suffering within that supersystem.

Any and all shit about strange and awful environments which may possibly possess a malevolent will or which are perhaps merely beholden to their own natural laws and we are the ones drawn to destroy ourselves within them (The Stone Tapes and many of Nigel Kneale's other works, The Children of Green Noah, The Haunting of Hill House, Roadside Picnic / Stalker, The Terror, The Minpins, Annihilation again, The Island of Morel, I know House of Leaves is a perfect fit for this but personally I always found it a bit hacky)

Riddley Walker, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and other post-apocalyptic work - to some extent Mad Max and the better Fallout games apply - that find the value and humanity (while recognising the potential for self-destruction) in our absurd efforts to construct meaning and to tell meaningful stories from out of the ruin and chaos all around us.

There's other stuff - The Silt Verses steals a lot of its initial atmospherics from True Detective Season 1, both shows are inevitably in dialogue with the mechanics and themes of Lovecraftian cosmic horror even if I wouldn't call Lovecraft a positive influence - but that's a pretty good list, I think.