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Amarcarts
Feb 21, 2007

This looks a lot like suffering.
I see people reference it all the time on the internet but I've never read any of Lovecraft's work nor do I know anybody in RL that references it. What sort of literary level is this? Twilight? Star Wars? Dune? Hamlet? What is the primary demographic of fans? Why does the Cthulhu appeal to people? Is it pronounced "Ka-thool-who" (That's how I pronounce it in my head)?

I would do the research myself but I have a full time job shitposting.

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The Dregs
Dec 29, 2005

MY TREEEEEEEE!
Nobody cares about cthuhlu anymore. That's, like, 2010 poo poo right there.

Rapman the Cook
Aug 24, 2013

by Ralp
The internet takes stuff runs it into the ground and ruins it.

Thats pretty much it.

Heath
Apr 30, 2008

🍂🎃🏞️💦
his head is an octopus and octopi are the most badass of sea creatures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvjcQIJnLg

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

quote:

...those first men formed the cult around tall idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim eras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

Emmideer
Oct 20, 2011

Lovely night, no?
Grimey Drawer
H.P. Lovecraft was a racist who got his inspiration for monsters by looking at pictures of weird fish, and only got popular because of fan-fiction.

Inevitable
Jul 27, 2007

by Ralp
real answer: Sub-par pulp writer in the first half of the 20th century. The stories are rambling messes, the characters are unrelateable and the author's classist/racist world-view soaks every page. BUT despite all that, Lovecraft manages to capture and riff on one of the great universal fears: that mankind is ultimately insignificant in the cosmos, that there is no exceptionalism to our lives, and that if there are, in fact, god like creatures out there they would not give a single poo poo about us and would massacre us all without even thinking once about it.

Lovecraft can be fun to read, but the interesting stuff is buried beneath tiresome pulp conventions so you definitely have to be in the mood for it. I'm not sure why Internet culture has latched on to it so much. Maybe because the above interesting stuff speaks to the dark side inherent in an atheistic world view?

Also, spoiler: The heroes escape Cthulhu by driving a boat through his head.

Demonachizer
Aug 7, 2004

lol

Yaldabaoth
Oct 9, 2012

by Azathoth

Mad Rancher posted:

H.P. Lovecraft was a racist who got his inspiration for monsters by looking at pictures of weird fish, and only got popular because of fan-fiction.

At least Lovecraft put more thought into the backgrounds for his monsters than Stephen King where every monster is just some variant on "Physical manifestation of a deep-rooted fear in the human psyche" which gives them all the depth of an enemy in a videogame

Effectronica
May 31, 2011
Fallen Rib

Yaldabaoth posted:

At least Lovecraft put more thought into the backgrounds for his monsters than Stephen King where every monster is just some variant on "Physical manifestation of a deep-rooted fear in the human psyche" which gives them all the depth of an enemy in a videogame

Look at this nerd who demands freaking backstories for horror monsters.

pixelbaron
Mar 18, 2009

~ Notice me, Shempai! ~
if it wasnt for lovecraft and at the mountains of madness we prob wouldnt have that whole ancient astronaut pseudoscience poo poo like that show ancient aliens

Yaldabaoth
Oct 9, 2012

by Azathoth

Effectronica posted:

Look at this nerd who demands freaking backstories for horror monsters.

Backgrounds make monsters more interesting than just "Random videogame enemy to avoid". I'm not asking for something super detailed, I just want a decent foundation to work off of

hohhat
Sep 25, 2014
Cthuhlu is a pulp creation that distracts us from more relevant and valid objects of cultural worship, like Iron Man or Jedis.

egon_beeblebrox
Mar 1, 2008

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.



I read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward yesterday. Way better than Cthulhu. Still has some weird racism in it.

"....the wife of a very repulsive cast of countenance, probably due to a mixture of negro blood."

Way to go, HP!

Nameless_Steve
Oct 18, 2010

"There are fair questions about shooting non-lethally at retreating civilian combatants."

Nameless_Steve fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Oct 19, 2014

Action Yak
Nov 9, 2008

Inevitable posted:

real answer: Sub-par pulp writer in the first half of the 20th century. The stories are rambling messes, the characters are unrelateable and the author's classist/racist world-view soaks every page. BUT despite all that, Lovecraft manages to capture and riff on one of the great universal fears: that mankind is ultimately insignificant in the cosmos, that there is no exceptionalism to our lives, and that if there are, in fact, god like creatures out there they would not give a single poo poo about us and would massacre us all without even thinking once about it.

Lovecraft can be fun to read, but the interesting stuff is buried beneath tiresome pulp conventions so you definitely have to be in the mood for it. I'm not sure why Internet culture has latched on to it so much. Maybe because the above interesting stuff speaks to the dark side inherent in an atheistic world view?

Also, spoiler: The heroes escape Cthulhu by driving a boat through his head.
This is exactly right. I wish I was this well-spoken, I was just going to say "his stories kind of suck but the monsters are really cool".

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post

Yaldabaoth posted:

Backgrounds make monsters more interesting than just "Random videogame enemy to avoid". I'm not asking for something super detailed, I just want a decent foundation to work off of

oh so you are the type of person they are making dracula origins for

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post
"poo poo, WHY does the creature live in the black lagoon"
- something awful poster yaldabaoth

a hole-y ghost
May 10, 2010

what did randall flag do when he was a babey???

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post
"where did he get those wonderful toys"
- joker, in batman

"gently caress yeah that is a statement i can get behind"
- yaldabaoth watching batman

Digi_Kraken
Sep 4, 2011
gently caress y'all for not liking Howard

His writing is inconsistent but the ideas he explored have had massive influence and some of his stories are great.

Alas Boobylon
Sep 30, 2014
i like the Mi-go the Mi-go are legit

Neurosis
Jun 10, 2003
Fallen Rib

Alas Boobylon posted:

i like the Mi-go the Mi-go are legit

yeah whisperer in the darkness is a real good story

the colour out of space is probably lovecraft's best that is really creepy

there are also authors nowadays who write in the same vein as lovecraft but with good prose and characters and they wouldn't be what they are without the gentlemen from providence

appropriatemetaphor
Jan 26, 2006

ariel is a reverse cthulhu with like the woman part on top and the fishy bits on the bottom

Unbelievably Fat Man
Jun 1, 2000

Innocent people. I could never hurt innocent people.


What if Cthulhu's face tentacles were actually dongs? Makes you think.

hohhat
Sep 25, 2014

Unbelievably Fat Man posted:

What if Cthulhu's face tentacles were actually dongs? Makes you think.

Japanese Cthuhlu.

EmperorFritoBandito
Aug 7, 2010

by exmarx

Agag posted:

Japanese Cthuhlu.

old beast lunatic
Nov 3, 2004

by Hand Knit
Cthuhlu is for Lovecraft newbies. Real aficionados appreciate friend of the family-man the cat.

NorgLyle
Sep 20, 2002

Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

egon_beeblebrox posted:

I read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward yesterday. Way better than Cthulhu. Still has some weird racism in it.

"....the wife of a very repulsive cast of countenance, probably due to a mixture of negro blood."

Way to go, HP!
Lovecraft's hilariously over the top racism is arguably the second best thing about his stories. I was reading one of his more obscure works and the shocking revelation at the end was the main character finding an old locket with a picture of a black woman in it and going insane and I had to put the book down because I was laughing so hard. Come for the monsters, stay to see some prissy 19th century sperg freaking out because there are Hungarians.


VVV This is also true.

SIDS Vicious
Jan 1, 1970


i think mindflayers are cooler than cthulhu sorry but its true

appropriatemetaphor
Jan 26, 2006

Iggy Koopa posted:

i think mindflayers are cooler than cthulhu sorry but its true

drizzt dorden couldn't kill cthulhu but he killed a load of mind flayers so sorry, no

NorgLyle
Sep 20, 2002

Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

quote:

And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences of electricity and psychology and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered.
The Ultimate Face of Evil: A well-educated black man of regal bearing that people listen to. Can't you feel the horror?

Digi_Kraken
Sep 4, 2011
Nobody is questioning whether or not Lovecraft was a loving goon (he was) but I seriously can't believe that people don't acknowledge the profound influence his relatively small body of work has had.

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Race Hate Kramer posted:

Nobody is questioning whether or not Lovecraft was a loving goon (he was) but I seriously can't believe that people don't acknowledge the profound influence his relatively small body of work has had.
It's not like it needs acknowledging. The fact that everyone in this thread knows who he is despite probably never having read so much as one of his short stories proves the point all by itself.

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post
of lovecrafts circle, ron e howard was the best

SIDS Vicious
Jan 1, 1970


appropriatemetaphor posted:

drizzt dorden couldn't kill cthulhu but he killed a load of mind flayers so sorry, no

fag

egon_beeblebrox
Mar 1, 2008

WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.



NorgLyle posted:

Lovecraft's hilariously over the top racism is arguably the second best thing about his stories. I was reading one of his more obscure works and the shocking revelation at the end was the main character finding an old locket with a picture of a black woman in it and going insane and I had to put the book down because I was laughing so hard. Come for the monsters, stay to see some prissy 19th century sperg freaking out because there are Hungarians.

Yeah, that story was hilariously bad.

NorgLyle posted:

The Ultimate Face of Evil: A well-educated black man of regal bearing that people listen to. Can't you feel the horror?

There's an Obama joke there, but who cares.

Stick Figure Mafia
Dec 11, 2004

didn't he say how to pronounce Cthulhu correctly in one of his stories and it involves a bunch of fart noises?

appropriatemetaphor
Jan 26, 2006


a double fag on you :c00lbert:

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Harime Nui
Apr 15, 2008

The New Insincerity

Stick Figure Mafia posted:

didn't he say how to pronounce Cthulhu correctly in one of his stories and it involves a bunch of fart noises?

The proper pronunciation is you make a noise like clearing your throat on the "Cth" and a whistling reedy scream on the "ulhu"

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