#the house that cthulu built

[thebibliosphere]

We're looking at decor ideas for Mothman's office, and I'm absolutely living for it because the aesthetic he's going for is like a blend between cyberpunk meets modern gothic Dracula lair. Meanwhile, I'm across the hall in my arsenic mint green office with the bubble gum pink ceiling, living out Barbie's Haunted Dreamhouse with all the skulls and bats everywhere hgkls.

[injuries-in-dust]

I can't remember what it's called, something like "Hostile Architecture."

A theoretical design that would be made in places built to house hazardous stuff like nuclear waste.

Because in ten thousand years, or a million years, or more, humanity may be gone, blasted back to the stone age, or just developed and grown so much they've forgotten their ancient history.

But the nuclear waste will still be a danger.

So the idea behind the hostile architecture (if that is the name) was to build a place that just looks wrong. It just screams "danger" and "Keep away."

You're supposed to look at it and think " that place looks like somewhere I don't want to mess with." and walk in the other direction.

Well, it just randomly popped into my head that lovecraftian creations, like the city of R'lyeh, also fit that description.

"non-Euclidean geometry, colossal structures, and shifts in perspective that can make an observer unsure about what is vertical and what is horizontal."

"vast angles and stone surfaces […] too great to belong to anything right and proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and disturbing hieroglyphs."

"abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours."

It makes people uneasy to look at, makes them want to turn away and leave the area.

Was Cthulu just trying to keep us out of the city just because it was so dangerous?

[ms-demeanor]

We have an electrician coming to give us an estimate tomorrow and it has un-invisibled all the things that I've been overlooking since we moved in so I left after that minimalism post to clean my bathroom ceiling with a magic eraser.

Fan in the bathroom is broken, the window is along the neighbor's yard, which reeks of cat piss so we can't open the window or turn on the fan to air it out and my cousin didn't either when she was renting the house so when we moved in there were water stains from the condensation on the ceiling and after an hour on a stepstool now there aren't.

Now, on to the other bathroom. Which is less of a disaster because fewer people shower in it (either now or when my cousin lived here; she was bad at controlling the ants here so there were ants in the bathroom a lot and it freaked out her kids so they all used the master bath so the hall bath is in pretty decent shape)

(except for the fan that I had to take down the cover for because at one point I was showering in there and I turned the fan heater on then smelled smoke and it turned out the heating coil had broken loose and was burning a hole through the plastic cover)

(This is not the house that cthulu built, this is the house that ADHD ate because all the repairs in the last thirty years have been put off until the last minute and then fixed until "good enough")

[theguywithaoriginalname]

Terraria has got to be the most funniest and chaotic game i have played (also spolier warning ig!!!), you start the game, make a character, create a world and then you're just plopped in there. No tutorial, nothing. You see some dude with brown (i think) hair and just press right-click, see a dialogue option labelled 'help' and think "oh! this gotta be how to go to the tutorial!" and NOPE! Think again fucker 'cause you better chop some wood and build a house because the night is dangerous (OoOoOoOh very spooky). So, you look up "Terraria Beginner Guide" (or something along the lines of that) and y'know you just get going, build houses, explore the underground, maybe built a hellevator, and you even built an arena (im so proud)! Then suddenly the text "You feel an evil Presence watching you" pops up and you know that you better get to your arena 'cause its very spooky big eyeball time (hooray).

So after you beat the very big Eye of Cthulu you get some loot, fast forward to The Wall of Flesh. This is it. The final challenge in Pre-Hardmode. The Gate to see if you have what it takes to go to Hardmode. And now, it begins. After you throw the doll of the person who pranked you out of a Tutorial into the lava below, you hear a roar, before a wall made out of flesh with two huge Eyeballs and a gaping wide Mouth comes at you. It was a great battle, with you seemingly being at equal with the giant fleshy wall. You threw everything you got at it: Bullets, Fire, Ice, even that Imp you found on the street. Ater a long Battle with many Hardships, you won. But only now....

The Fun really begins.

Oh, you thought that you could go out at night? Think again fucker, mf-ing Werewolves. You thought that Molten Armor/ Meteorite Armor was gonna protect you? Dont make me laugh. "Atleast I have my NPCs?" Wrong! You feel vibrations from deep below. Hardmode is the game's most challenging part imo, because not only is everything new, but also beefier, stronger, and more annoying to deal with. Oh, there's also a new Biome where, you guessed it! Everything kills you! It isnt as bad if you're more experienced and prepared alot of stuff, but unfortunately, most newer Players dont do that, and I've even seen some leave permanently because dying constantly wasnt fun anymore. But we dont quit, do we? No. Because our Mamas didnt raise us to be quitters! Uhh motivational quote, yadda yadda yadda etc. So. you actually persist, get better gear, and even kill a mechanical boss! So you get better weapons and gear, kill another Mechanical Boss and the last one is now dead. So you get clorophyte (No i will not look up how it's spelt and i really couldnt care less), get better-er gear and fight Plantera. This pink plant bitch is probably one of the best bosses in the game, and i am sad that it has some of the worst loot in the game imo. anyways, you unlock the temple, kill golem (Man Re-logic really need to buff this dude) get better-er-er gear and fight the lunatic cultist. Kill him, get the only drop (Man Re-logic really need to buff this dude's loot) and fight the celestial pillars. cool, you can now make weapons from SpAaAaAaaAAaace. Each of which correspond to a class (Solar=Melee, Vortex=Ranged,Nebula=Mage,Stardust=Summoner). but suddenly, the screen gets darker and more wonky, the music is gone and then,

The Moon Lord has Awoken!

Out of bloody nowhere, the final boss is here. The Final Challenge. The Wall between you and the End. After having improved so much and died so much, like, WOW those are alot of deaths, you are at the final blockade. And after a battle you will remember forever, you come out on top, victorious. You are at the top of the 2d Mountain. You have beaten everything. You have beaten

Terraria.

[mothman-etd]

Quick hide the power tools

The house that Cthulu built always provides...

[defiantlywhole]

Hey @gallusrostromegalus and @thebibliosphere today's my dad's birthday, so guess what we're doing!

[jbird-the-manwich]

Chaos magic is waaaay more than just sigils

The thing I really like about chaos magic is it provides a nondogmatic framework for experimentation and encourages total personal agency in developing new methods and therein lies the secret to its unbelievably wide inclusion of seemingly totally disparate methodologies. Full spectrum is covered. Like

You wanna try to summon cthulu? That's cool.

You wanna use qr codes rather than sigils? Dope.

You wanna spend the weekend crafting a system of planetary intelligence evocation obfuscated behind obscure Sailor Moon references? Go for it. Just take notes.

You wanna uuencode your grimoire and upload it to pastebin? Totally fine.

You wanna turn your childhood stuffed animal into a servitor housing? Get at it, booboo.

I even like that wannamagus edgelords glom onto it tryna sound intimidating.

Like "oh yeah. Chaos magic. Me too. Big scary. Lets bond. Here's the index for my barbarous toungue and yes ALL WORDS ARE MADE FROM PIECES OF ANAGRAMS FOR THE NAMES OF THE ORIGINAL CAREBEARS MOFO!!"

Who doesn't LIVE for bumping into wastedudes on the internet with a thumbnail of himself making his scary face trying to be the big spooky cuz he heard the name and thought it sounded 1337EV!L when anyone who knows the system knows it is possibly the most lighthearted and toungue in cheek system of results based magical experimentation to have ever existed? I FUCKIN LOVE IT.

Rather than a rigidly dogmatic cathedral system that helps protect and elevate megalomaniacal would be cult leaders you have bait-and-switch exposure of fake gurus practically BUILT IN.

Outwardly it can seem like a flippant do-what-you-want system and viewed through a certain lens, it is - but therein is the beauty because if it DOESN'T WORK then it isn't worth repeating anyway until you've puzzled out why it didn't and if it DOES then you get to play with the underlying theories of why it _did_ when it seemed like it totally shouldn't have. Gnosis first, trappings second, aesthetics never UNLESS the aesthetic was partially responsible for reaching gnosis. Handled well it can be the single most no-nonsense form of magical experimentation. OR it can be the most all-nonsense form of magical experimentation and both approaches are deemed valid in pursuit of results for the sake of experimentation.

Fuckin LOOOOVE IT.

Even has built-in stagnant practice / boredom protection.

Tired of using the same spell all the time? Practice gettin a bit dusty? Do it over from an entirely new angle, utilize a different model and compare your results. Total sandbox plus possibly the closest thing we have so far to a unifying theory of psycho-magical efficacy.

I FUCKIN LOVE IT.

[oldtumblhurgoyf]

CABS Review October 5, 2018

Wow, I really haven’t been to CABS since May. Like I know I’ve been fairly busy in the past two months or so but it seems a bit silly that I skipped 4 months. For those of you who aren’t aware, CABS is the Columbus Area Board game Society and it meets on alternating Fridays and Saturdays at 670 Lakeview Plaza Blvd E, Columbus, OH. They have hundreds of members and thousands of games all ready to play. Your first visit is free and after that it’s either $5 per visit or a year long membership for $60 (prorated throughout the year, so I think it’s just $20 now). If you’re in the area I strongly encourage you to check it out. They also have a pretty active Facebook page.

Buckeye Donuts was the food truck tonight and actually a big motivation for me to get out there again. I waited until they were set up to get a bacon donut hamburger--a glazed donut bun for a hamburger with cheese, egg, and bacon. I prefer to leave the egg off and add BBQ sauce but had it with the egg tonight and no BBQ and it was still plenty tasty. Make one for yourself some time. Just cut the donut in half and toast it slightly on the pan you cooked your burger on. Incredible.

1. Evolution

The first game we played was Evolution. All I could think of it was those three part mix and match picture books...

...which isn’t really what’s going on but it’s not too far off. You have generic species, give them traits that effect how they get food, and then try to collect enough food to feed them all before your opponents do. At the end of the game you get points for having the largest populations of your species, the most evolved species, and the most food collected over the course of the game. We happened to be playing with a biologist so he would point out how the mechanics lined up particularly well with actual scientific concepts. It wasn’t a one-to-one match by any means but it was cool to see him getting excited that he could apply his knowledge to the underlying ideas of the game.

Unfortunately for him, he focused on a carnivore species early while nobody else did. The herbivores/omnivores built up solid defenses he had difficulty assailing and resulted in a few turns where I and another player ate hoards of food. I ended up winning handily thanks mostly to those turns despite losing a species to extinction.

2. Betrayal at House on the Hill

After that we did a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about this one before and while a lot of the charm has worn for me (I’ve just played every haunt at least once at this point and most more than once, and the game play before the haunt now feels very samey and low impact to me), this game did culminate in a nice dramatic moment that made me remember why I have enjoyed it so much in the past.

Our betrayer was intent on summoning Cthulu to end the world. He easily completed the ritual to do so, summoning a demon lord that then began to hunt us down and murder us without mercy. Our big strong guy ran into the room with the demon, grabbed the book used in the summoning, and made a run for the basement. On the demon’s next turn it caught up to him and absolutely eviscerated him in one blow. That left two children to end the deep one and save the world. I ran into the room, grabbed the book from the death clutches of my fallen compatriot, and booked it (heh) to the chasm so I could toss the book in and end the game. But I couldn’t quite make it. The other kid blocked the demon’s path to me, somehow managing to survive a round of combat against the thing. I tossed the book into the chasm on my next turn and banished Cthulu from the mortal realm. It’s also interesting that we could have potentially stolen the book from our compatriot before the ritual was done, destroying it to save our friend from the madness.

3. Splendor

This is just a really solid game with a decent amount of depth. It’s easy to pick up but has enough competition and planning that it stays really interesting throughout. I took off to an early lead then fell behind in the mid game only to rocket back up to a near-victory thanks to regrouping and nabbing an important card. It wasn’t enough for the win, but I was neck-and-neck with the leader going into the last few turns.

Not sure how much I’ll be able to make it back to CABS in the next month or so with all the wedding planning kicking into high gear, but I’ll certainly have to make it out as much as possible these last few months of the year.

[kizzim03]

Scam or Not?

@thebibliosphere

Oh bibliomum! Tender of the Demon Rose, Resident of the House that Cthulu Built, Mightiest of the Hatted, Keeper of the Boners, the Blade against Terrible Vampire Porn, Scholar of Discworld, Sharer of Bread, Bride of Mothman, She that Writes so Others my Learn!....

I humbly request your advice.

The other day a message popped up on my tumblr that went like so:

"Hi! I'm sorry to barge in on your chat like that with an empty account. I've been working with a team on launching a startup lately, and we're looking for writers so I made this account to headhunt. I found your work in the SPN fandom while looking for horror and horror-adjacent content and I wondered if you might be interested in a freelance working opportunity."

I did write one Supernatural Big Bang fanfic back in 2014. It seems a bit odd to headhunt amongst fanfic writers, but to each their own.

She continues to talk about launching an App where people subscribe to stories with audio and visual elements and that the company is looking for writers.  The company is apparently based in LA and has a editing team comprised of Disney/Dreamworks producers.  

That sounds a bit... inconceivable...?

It is mentioned that since the company, SuperBinge, is so new there won't be any information to look up, but she does mention her LinkedIn profile as a reference: Fatima Klilib.

Now, as cool as it would be to actually be paid to write, I'm hesitant to reach out to such an offer for fear of it being a scam like those "audition your child to be a Disney Star" riffs.  I am also leery because if this person had actually read that old SPN fic and looked at my other stories on AO3, they would have found a tag in common with each of them.

VORE.

It's not obvious on my tumblr, but yes, I write plot-based, character-driven stories with a big vore/endosoma element. So having someone ask me to write for them seems a little out there.  

Should I request more information and possibly check out a paying gig? Or should I back the hell away?

I hope you and yours have a restful and productive day and I look forward to the release of Hunger Pangs!

-peachnewt

[vagabondretired]

*And skritches to Stephen King’s dog Molly, aka “Thing of Evil,” seen here with her “faithful sidekick, Dipshit the Moose.”* 70 skulls go on the cake of most-famous-Mainer Stephen King, born September 21, 1947 in Portland, just steps from where I live. (Okay, several thousand steps, but still) King is an unabashed Democrat who isn't afraid to speak his mind, which he occasionally does by blowing up twitter: » From the Book of Republicans: "Lo, we have many assholes running for President. Let us consider, and pick the biggest. And so it was done." » Trump thinks hitting a woman with a golf ball and knocking her down is funny. Myself, I think it indicates a severely fucked-up mind. » Breaking News: Reliable sources reveal that Donald Trump is actually Cthulu. The absurd hairdo isn't absurd at all. It hides the tentacles. » Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, currently in a battle to see who is the craziest man on the planet. » Our governor, Paul LePage, is a bigot, a homophobe, and a racist. I think that about covers it. » Trump promises to veto single payer health care, should it get to his desk. No surprise. His rich friends wouldn't like that at all. » Bill O'Reilly wants you to know that the slaves who built the White House were well-fed. Thanks for sharing, Bill. » Gee, looks like NOBODY killed Freddie Gray. Guess he just died of being black. Funny how that happens in this country. » Little by little, Trump is isolating himself. Soon he'll be Oz the Great and Terrible: little man, big voice, hiding behind a curtain. Today's special in the Chez watering hole, as always: half-off Redrum and Cokes.

[thebibliosphere]

These relentless thunderstorms are killing me.

It feels like I'm getting smacked with a miniature migraine every few days from the weather pressure.

Anyway, did you guys know the average cost of building a 2 car garage is apparently $50k? Not including the cost of pouring a new slab? Haha, wild.

Anyway, if my current garage happened to get struck by lightning so we could claim the insurance, that'd be great... (dear universe, I am only partially kidding. Please be careful with your aim.)

[thebibliosphere]

Feel free to ignore this, I’m just getting my thoughts out before I go mad trying to puzzle this out.

I’m trying to create a staging area for photographing things (books and merchandise, if you’re curious), and I think I’ve found an affordable solution that would also increase our storage space in the living room. (an ongoing struggle in this house)

The problem is, it's the only space where we can put our Christmas tree, and if I were to invest in this item or furniture, there is nowhere else it could be moved to in the house to make room for the tree.

So now my brain is like, well, maybe Home Depot still makes the holo glitter tree. Maybe you could get a smaller version and fit it next to the window...

Except then what do I do with the old tree?

And honestly, I don't like that we can’t see our Christmas tree from the couch because the couch faces the opposite direction (our living room and dining room are one room, the tree frames the dining table in the back while the TV faces the opposite wall where the tv is because it's the only blank wall without a window/built-in in the room) so maybe we should just redo the layout of the entire room???

The TV in that room is somewhat old and freezes up a lot. Maybe if we got a smaller one, it’d fit on the wall with the built-in shelves, and I could move the couch and make space for the Christmas tree...

This is the part where if I was still able bodied I’d start playing furniture Tetris until I figured this out, but alas, I am a sick bitch reliant on the help of others and Mothman’s the type of neurodivergent that hates change in his environment without thorough planning and negotiation.

We’re the epitome of immovable object meets unstoppable force.

Or we would be if I was still physically capable of the gremlin energy my brain puts out.

Anyway. I’ve been thinking about this for hours and it all comes down to the fact that I have too much stuff but also not enough of the right stuff. Annoying.

[thebibliosphere]

I think it says a lot that before I do a thing for pain I search the internet for medical journals, get pissed and send a strongly worded email to the people who wrote something claiming things and citing articles that either have a 2 person sample size or no sources for *their* claim, and then search "the house that cthulu built" on tumblr because I couldn't remember your url, and then searched *your* blog for "steroids" 😂😂😂

Oh dear. It's bad when you try" Reddit" in your Google search to try and get an answer from real people, but it's even worse when you resort to my Tumblr.

I hope you found what you were looking for, and it helped.

[thebibliosphere]

I just went through the tag the house that cthulu built and I think I shall never be the same again. Holy shit. What the fuck. And the fact that theres probably more from before you started using that tag.... the tampon one had me reeling. Not even landlords explains that one. Just no. Also, how's demon rose? Still slowly eating the house?

Oh yeah. Demon Rose is still going strong. We had to cut her back in 2022 because she’d worked her way under the siding and was growing into the literal actual support structure of the house. There’s now a bunch of withered, thorny vines protruding from that side of the house where we couldn’t get them out and we hoped the winter would dry them out and make them more manageable to break free.

It did not.

[thebibliosphere]

Scrolling my inbox is wild sometimes (okay, most of the time) because it’s the weird mix of health questions, people being nice, people showing me pictures of their pets, the occasional person trying to start a discourse. And then, then there’s the people still getting bent out of shape over the colors I’m choosing to paint my house.

Today’s random wtfery? “Isn’t your husband worried about painting your house such emasculating colors. I would be.”

Emasculating. Colors.

I can’t. I can’t even begin to take this seriously. You’ve realized I’ve got zero respect for your sterile home owners association sensibilities, and are going for the “what does your husband think” card because you think my husband merely tolerates my chaotic whims instead of being wholly supportive of whatever brings me joy.

Let me be clear: the only thing my husband worries about when it comes to my home renovation projects is the possibility I might hurt myself. That’s it. He might tease me over being impulsive when I buy 12 sample pots of pink to try out on the walls, but his only concern is that he doesn’t want me to over exert myself and make my chronic condition(s) worse. If he doesn’t like the idea of something, he tells me. It’s this wild thing called “communication,” you might want to try it sometime instead of projecting your own heteronormative dysfunctional relationship onto others.

Emasculating colors. Good grief.

[thebibliosphere]

In fun related house news. The paint is washing off the walls in the old dining room, soon to be my new office, and there's... dark human hair??? coming out of it???

Also, we think it might not actually be like Paint paint. We think it's the stuff you're supposed to put over drywall to make sure the primer sticks. Which is unfortunate, because if so the previous owners applied it to original 1940s cherry wood paneling because, of course, they fucking did.

Anyway. That's how my afternoon went.

Attempting to wash the skirting board to get dust off it, only to have the paint start to slide off the walls and reveal dark hair underneath. Not the weirdest thing the Cthulhu house has thrown at us, but also definitely still on brand.