#tw cthulhu

[phantomarine]

just got my first "monsterfuckery is immoral if the creature isn't bipedal" comment

roger that, boss

may your very boring liver be eaten by eldritch eagles

[incorrectbatfam]

Wait wait wait... there's a Cthulhu Batman?

If I had known that there were not one, but two eldritch Batmans with face tentacles, I would've never joined this fandom

[thebibliosphere]

“Good luck never getting rid of all that glitter.”

Bestie, one of my patreon hardback options was to get glitter bombed by your package, and over 90% of people picked that option. Our Christmas tree is 8ft of holographic glitter. I wear sequins almost every day. This is a glitter-loving household 24/7

Also, I don’t need luck.

I’ve got a Tineco.

Not sponsorered, not an affiliate. I just love my stupid vacuum and its ability to get glitter out of the grain of hardwood.

[sector38]

#NSFW

From Sector: 38

Entry: Ⅰ

Apparently, there was a time when people believed there was an edge to the world - that if you sailed far enough, you'd just fall off the side of the world. I used to find it so funny, I just couldn't understand or comprehend how this world had a definitive end to them

now, I understand.

Sitting at the edge of the sector, the cool metal of the man-made ground pressed against my bare thighs and the cold waters engulfing my feet staring out into the watery abyss.

Technically I wasn’t meant to be there, unless you have a valid pass you're not allowed outside the city walls and considering mine was four days out of date I very much did not want to be caught.

My friends spent their days working, rebuilding our society in miniature while i spent my days sitting at the brink of the universe staring out at the unchanging.

But even if i did work, what would i do? Who would i be? Who could i become?

A reconstructionist? A teacher? A cleaner? A cook?

So Instead I continued to sneak past the guards who can't be much older than me lined up like pawn pieces with faces harder than the boots they wear and sit, stare, soaking up the very thing that left us floating in silent devastation.

I should have brought my watch or my phone it was just that after last time (with me nearly dropping it and all) I thought best not, but now looking at the inky night sky I'm wondering whether that in itself was a mistake. No one is allowed out past curfew (10 pm summer, 8 pm winter) it's too dangerous, too unpredictable.

It's funny, they won't tell us what to be afraid of, and they'll tell us we have nothing to fear then usher us into cages, protection from an invisible entity - an immeasurable enemy.

Still, even I can feel it the shift in the air - the cooling breeze stilted like something holding it back or someone. If I was smarter, I would have left, grimaced at my wet feet in my clean new white socks and black shoes, and slipped in through the city walls -

Except, i was never known for being particularly smart.

Which is why when I saw flashes of colour in the sea instead of running I stayed transfixed - purple and white hues swaying in and out of focus though always remaining in a tight formation, a loose cluster.

They were coming closer to the surface, whatever they were, its colours becoming more pigmented in its hues, its actions becoming more assured and targeted: it was coming for me.

I was frozen, completely and utterly frozen - I couldn't scream or speak, I couldn't even breathe. The only assurance that I hadn't turned to stone was the sounding of my beating heart - and even then, I couldn't place the organ. I felt its ricochets in my throat and stomach but heard it like a gunshot stretched out through time.

A cold encircled my ankles, a loose grip coiling around me, barely touching me. The tenderals, if I can call them that climbed up my body till they poked through the surface of the water and wrapped themselves against my lower thighs.

Now i could see it: long tentacles sprouting from a cluster deeper in the waters - the purple skin translucent inside faint veins iridescent colours shimmering like solar systems from a far of place. The ends were elliptical, curved like she shell of an egg as if blown from molten glass.

My hands once frozen by my side reached out gently to touch the head of the tentacle closest to me - gently i lifted my shaking fingers stopping them in front of the strange creature. With careless inhibition it slithered along my fingertips till it rested in my palm, feeling its weight in my hand and the soft integument.

For a while, the world was just this - just me staring at this creature that seemed to hold each star dead and dying under its skin but then i felt it - the tentacles slight grip on my upper thigh, not as though it was trying to pull my into the waters but instead as though it was searching for something.

The tentacles began to pulse, gently and softly like the humm of birds on a summer night - gentle but unequivocally present before a voice clear yet distorted rung through my mind:

Do not be afraid

then they slipped under my short black skirt.

As if a trance had broken i gasped, dropped my hands in haste and so the head of the tentacle which once occupied a place in my palm opting to try and push my body up and away from the waters and its presence.

But it was too late.

I'd been too distracted, so stupid and curious i didn't notice just how many tentacles had wrapped themselves around me lower body - sensing my resistance they only seemed to hold on tighter tendredals slipping further and further up my inner thighs till they rested over my pastel pink panties.

The tentacle which lay in my hand curled around my wrists like an armlet - as though i was a forgotten pharaoh.

The head of the tenderal under my skirt began to pulse against my underwear, pushing slightly against it dampening the material.

Its words like a ping pong ball bounced around my head, the once empty space echoing its words over and over as its intrusion continued.

They didn't tell us much about the monsters that came with the flood but they did tell us some things of of which being all of them have at least a three percent intelligence increase between them and us. It never meant much to me didn't mean anything that these monsters had minds far superior to beings - i was more confused with how they came about this knowledge.

With which lucky team of xenozoologists gathered them up and spoke to them, communicated them.

I wonder what they would say now, how they would stare down at me in their long white lab coats and tightly pulled back hair as this elderitch creature hummed against my skin.

Do not let your mind wander

The tentacles gripped me wrists tighter, sometime ago they had captured my either wrist as well truly any thoughts of escape which may have entered my mind were banished. The other tentacle began to nudge more incessantly at my underwear - in this moment i couldn't understand how this creature was supposed to be more intelligent than me, no five percent more intelligent than our most intelligent human? And yet it couldn't figure out how to take off my panties? It wasn't like the material was so expensive that they couldn't easily break, with one strong tug they would fall into the waters, floating over the face of the deep blue before perhaps sinking or maybe just continuing to float.

It was then that a feeling overcame me - i hate to say it but it was like the rush of a wave, like the sudden feel of cold water on hot skin and salty water hitting the back of your tongue. It was like a perfect cocktail of euphoria, clarity and anticipation. I understood then all that i could have known.

It wasn't that the monster didn't know how to take of my panties, it wanted me to need it to.

I bit my lip, drawing blood in haste covering a moan that threatened to slip from my lips at the thought - the tang of iron coating my tongue and cheeks, probably dying my teeth.

Silently in my own mind i whispered "please" and that was all it took before it was ripping my underwear of my body and spreading my legs slightly a part with the force and care of a determined lover.

Smaller, colder tentacles the width of my fingers emerged from the waters and gently stroked my entrance - the suddenness and the low temperature had me writhing but the thicker tentacles stopped me from shifting too far from its touch.

Like tongues they flicked slowly against my now pulsing clitoris, heat resting heavy at the bottom of my stomach like a sunken stone. My head threw back in bliss and as my mouth parted to let out a moan a tentacle head filled my mouth - the head was slightly longer than those which had made themselves a home around my wrists and much thicker than those which currently were lapping at my swollen clit.

My mind was in a haze, nipples hardening against my shirt as my eyes oscilated between staring at the sentient monster or the stary firmament above.

I could feel my body becoming hotter, desperate for more contact as i began to push myself closer towards the small tendrils in spite of the tight grip they had on me.

As if sensing my eagerness the beast emerged more tentacles now wrapping around my large breasts, squeezing on them and instantly wetting my shirt. If not for the appendage humming pleasantly in my mouth i have no doubts i would be moaning loud enough to alert the guards.

As if attempting to milk me the tentacles grew more ferocious with their onslaught on my chest, pulling and squeezing till the white buttons popped off my shirt and into the night waters. Rushing forward smaller tentacles once again arose now pressing against my nipples the cold sensation doing nothing for my sweltering internal body temperature.

please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please please, please, please,please, please, please, please, please, please,please, please, please

My mind repeated over and over and over, each plea cluttering my mind till my brain was nothing but a palimpet of want and desire. Thankfully the creature from below was one of compassion.

In front of me the tentacle which once nudged against my nipples opened like a blossoming flower with five petal like shapes and in the centre a white glow, whiter than the sclera of an eye or the color of a cloud no this was a white that almost blinded me almost as white as the sun itself or atleast surrounded by the dark night mind and eyes clouded by lust it was.

They forged forward attaching themselves on my nipples sucking on them like the wet, endless cavity they were before the ones which once flicked against my clit did the same.

The waves on the water began to stir pushing and pulling the fabric of itself apart, before one final tentacle emerged. The appendage sporuted from the water till the tip reached far above my head, floating in front of me the out of water length must have been half my height. Aside from its length it was thicker than all the others by far, the thickness of it being comparable to my (still bound) wrists.

Slowly it bent down before sliding along the metal grounds of the sector nudging against my thighs as it slithered from side to side though still pluging forward like a snake, it was then that i understood its plan

It meant to be inside of me.

It stopped just outside my entrance, gently prodding and nudging again my tight opening, against the tentacle in my mouth i let out a tiny whimper eager and wanting.

Galvanised by my voice coated and dripping in hot want and sticky desire the tentacles holding my thighs and arms lifted me up into the air so i was floating above the metal and the water.

Then i felt it press against me, forcing its way in, as the movements of the tendredals on my breasts and clitoris began sucking more volatile with the tentacles around my breasts squeezing still at even pace, unceasing and unwavering.

Finally it pushed itself in me pressing tightly against my walls but still everceasing in its pursuit - from this angle i could see it losing itself in me and the bulge of my stomach as it pressed inside me.

It was all too much, too much pressure inside of me and outside of me and not to mention the sounds:

The wet squelching, the constant hum of its skin, the disrupted water thrashing against the creature, and my own dampened moans.

As if sensing i was near the creature quickly removed it's appendage from my once filled hole before plunging in without even a beat of rest - my eyes widened and rolled to the back of my head as it repeated the process till i could feel the pressure building inside the appendage of the creature.

Then the the tentacles in my mouth began to mirror it, moving in and out my mouth though slightly more slowly still which each thrust going deeper till i felt it rest on the back of my mouth and then dip into my throat.

The tears which welled in my eyes spilled out over my face and ran down my blushed cheeks before falling silently joining the larger body of water.

I'd been trying so hard, to do or be what I don't know: to be good, to be quiet, to pay attention but in the end, all it took was two words, not even spoken just two telepathically echoed words:

Let go.

And my body was gently convulsing like electricity was being struck through every vein the heat that pooled in my stomach spread snd rushed throughout me - but the creature didn't stop, didn't show any signs of ceasing fucking into me past the point or orgasm and then past the point of overstimulation till it began to plunge more erratically with more fever and less elderitch strategy.

Then i felt the sensation of being filled, as it fucked into me a thick white but translucent substance was pushed into me filling my already swollen belly and then the same substance was filling my mouth.

Its taste was like the smell of rained earth and sugar cubes and fresh whole milk and lavender i swallowed it lapping it up. I felt it begin to retreat but the taste was addictive i began to suck on the appendage feeling it twitch relentlessly in my mouth though ultimately keeping its place inside me as i sucked and swallowed.

The tentacles and tendrils which once held their place on my breast and clitoris slowly pulled away back into the sea as the once which held my thighs and wrists lowered my gently onto the groud with my back against the metal.

I gave one last suck to the tentacle before allowing it to leave my warm, wet mouth and giving it a final lick.

I barely watched it sink back into the ocean, mind and body to fucked out to even think of moving instead content to stare up the flickering stars feeling the warm goo seep out of me as the slight bulge of my stomach deflated.

The last thing I heard before I submitted to the gentle daze of my inner world, and it submerged itself back into its underworld:

See you soon

[konigsblog]

Could I request Cthulhu!König and Cthulhu!Krueger general headcannon please? Like them getting their gear ready and such? Having to deal with tentacles? Please?

two cthulhu's?! yes please :3

tw/cw; hybrid (cthulhu), monster fucking, tentacles, RAPE/NON-CON/DUB-CON,

they're probably brothers, but both fell infatuated and obsessed with you and your precious, weakened body. both of them wanted you; a mortal, something precious. könig's hands wandered you both while his tentacles undressed you. pealing off your panties after you'd washed up on shore after nearly drowning.

you owe them something for saving you... why don't you stay still and let them take what they want as a reward for being so, so protective and kind? they could've left your sorry ass in the sea, letting other sea god's devour and slaughter you in cold blood, pitilessly and mercifully.

krueger's tentacles entered your asshole, while the other gripped around your neck firmly. dizzy, you gag and squirm, only falling limp from the excruciating pain between your soft thighs — the sensation of something large, thick, and slimy slide into your lower regions. your ass ached, it felt raw and bruised. the sounds of muttered german and curses, strings of praise and worship were audible. you panted, gasped before passing out from weakness.

könig and krueger pounded into you, taking the opportunity infront of him for granted!!

“so ein dummes, hübsches ding. Ist ihr einziger zweck, uns zu gefallen? es sollte sein... ein dummes, kleines ding wie sie hat ohne unsere aufmerksamkeit keinen wert.”

krueger breathed out heavily as könig chuckled, gripping your lifeless face and slapping you lightly, watching as you stirred and cried out.

you were so scared — unable to see, your vision unfocused. unable to scream as a thick, large, lengthy limp blocked out your screams and sobs are they brutalised your once perfect body.

translation: “such a stupid, pretty thing. is her only purpose to please us? It should be...a stupid little thing like her holds no value without our pressence.”

[tentaclemilkprincess]

Me after a long day of doing nothing but reading tentacle porn

[purgatory-is-life]

Hey mechs fandom I have more art to share

Context for this exists in my brain. But its mostly just unhinged screaming

[ava-of-shenanigans]

Translating Nyarlathotep’s names, titles, and epithets into Middle Egyptian for funsies

Middle Egyptian is the version of the Ancient Egyptian language that was spoken from about 2000 BCE (4000 years ago) to 1300 BCE (3300 years ago). I’ve been learning it for several months now, but since I am still learning there are many epithets I just do not know how to translate yet (and I could be wrong even about the ones I think I do know how to translate). Also, I’m pretty sure that the lore around Nyarlathotep is that he was in Egypt in the Old Kingdom, when they spoke Old Egyptian not Middle Egyptian, but I don’t know Old Egyptian so fuck it, we ball.

All the hieroglyphs I’m going to show here should be read left to right, top to bottom. If you want to change them to be read right to left (which is how hieroglyphs were usually read), you just have to mirror reverse them so they face the other way. Hieroglyphs can’t be read bottom to top, however, so you can’t change that. Some formatting changes would be required to change the ones that are primarily horizontal to being primarily vertical, and vice versa.

First off: His name.

Originally, I was going to start this post with a punishingly long explanation of exactly what all this means and why I have all these different variations of the name. I think an explanation like that is necessary to put somewhere on this post, but I don’t want to force people who just do not care to read all that, so I’ve put it at the very end beneath a “keep reading.”

Now for (some) epithets and titles:

“Mighty Messenger:”

Transliteration: wpwty wsr. A way to pronounce it: Weputy weser or uputy user.

“Great Messenger:”

Transliteration: wpwty wr. A way to pronounce it: Weputy wer or Uputy ur.

The “Black Pharaoh:”

There are two ways to write this one. The first is this:

Transliteration: nsw km. A way to pronounce it: Nesu kem.

It means “black king” not “black pharaoh,” but I think it might make more sense to say it this way. The way you’d say “black pharaoh” is like this:

Transliteration: pr-ʿȝ km. A way to pronounce it: Per a’a kem.

This literally means “the black Great House,” since the word “pharaoh” literally means “Great House.” This would be sort of like if Nyarlathotep appeared on earth today in the form of a United States president and we called him “the black White House,” or if he appeared as a Russian president and we called him “the black Kremlin.” The problem with this one is that I’m not so clear on if the rules for stacking adjectives would even allow for you to say this.

Also, fun fact, Ancient Egyptians considered black to be a good colour, since they associated it with the fertile soil beside the Nile. So this title would not be sinister to them. Like if Nyarlathotep appeared as a US president and we called him “the cool awesome White House.”

“Soul (of the Other Gods):”

Transliteration: kȝ kywy nṯrw. A way to pronounce it: Ka keywey netcheru.

It’s hard to just translate “soul” directly into Egyptian because the Ancient Egyptians didn’t just believe in “a soul,” they believed in a bunch of different parts of a soul that all did different things. The part I’ve used for this translation is the ka, because I think it’s the closest to what we might think of when we hear the word “soul.” I think you could make an argument that since Nyarlathotep’s job is to go and enact the Other God’s will for them, he could be considered their akh, but the akh is a very distinctly Egyptian concept and has lot to do with being dead and getting to the Egyptian afterlife, so I don’t think it works well here. You might also argue that he could be their heart (ib) since the Egyptians thought that you did your thinking with your heart instead of your brain, and Nyarlathotep seems to be a lot more capable of thought than the rest of the “blind, voiceless, mindless” Other Gods, but hearts don’t go out and do things for you so I don’t think that one works either.

“Soul and messenger (of the Other Gods):”

Transliteration: kȝ wpwty kywy nṯrw. A way to pronounce it: Ka weputy keywey netcheru.

“God of a Thousand Forms:”

Transliteration: nṯr ḫprw ḫȝ. A way to pronounce it: Netcher kheperu kha.

Also, as a bonus, I noticed while I was looking for epithets to translate that Fungi From Yuggoth calls Azathoth the “Lord of All.” That’s an Azathoth epithet, so I don’t really have an excuse to translate it into Egyptian, but “Lord of All” is also a common epithet for the Egyptian god Horus. If I ever write that thing about Egyptian gods fighting Nyarlathotep then I will find a way to exploit this. Anyway, here’s how you can say “Lord of All:”

Transliteration: nb tm. A way to pronounce it: Neb tem.

Nyarlathotep’s name is kind of a nightmare to try and spell with the Ancient Egyptian alphabet (good for him, he’d probably want it that way). Here’s my long ass explanation of why I chose to write it the ways I did in this post:

Why is his name spelled without vowels?:

In Ancient Egyptian writing, the vowels are usually left out and only the consonant sounds in words are written down (it’s a lot like Hebrew in this way). The Egyptians eventually did create a system for writing vowels, and that was used for words that Egyptian readers wouldn’t already know how to pronounce, like foreign names. Nyarlathotep, coming from outer space, would be pretty foreign to them, but the earliest vocalic writing is from the end of the Old Kingdom. I’m going to use that as an excuse to say it didn’t exist when he was around and just not bother with it, because there is no way to spell his name in any vocalic writing system that isn’t incomplete and/or confusing (there are two A’s in there and one of them is right next to an L and that is An Issue). The Is in the spellings of his names with the eye symbol in them do not count as vowels, because they are actually transliteration symbols for a consonant sound.

The L sound:

The L sound in his name is an issue because Ancient Egyptian languages might have had an L sound in them, at some point, but they might’ve not. Basically: If you’ve ever done one of those things that will tell you how to write your name in hieroglyphs, you’ve probably been told that this vulture glyph 𓄿 makes an A sound. That is only true in certain types of vocalic writing. The rest of the time it made a consonant sound. We don’t know what consonant sound, though, because the Egyptians stopped pronouncing it in the New Kingdom. Our best guess (based on it being used to transcribe words from other languages that we know had L and R sounds) is that it made a sound like L or R, which is why I’ve used it here for the L sound.

Why are there all those variations around the TH sound?:

Ancient Egyptian languages did not have a TH sound, and the Egyptian letter T and the Egyptian letter H did not combine to make a new sound like they do in English. They did have an F sound, so you could just spell it Nyarlafotep instead. However, “hotep” (transliteration: ḥtp) is an actual Ancient Egyptian word. It means “peace.” Many Ancient Egyptian names are the name of a god + ḥtp, for example “Amenhotep” which means “Amen is at peace.” That the Ancient Egyptians would have thought Nyarlathotep’s name meant that someone called Nyarlat was at peace is too deliciously ironic to ignore, and that meaning is lost if you spell it NYRLFTP. The two options to preserve that meaning are to make the T the bread loaf glyph 𓏏 (this would change the pronunciation to Nyarlat-hotep) or to try and keep the TH sound somewhat by putting the horned viper glyph 𓆑 in there (this would change the pronunciation to Nyarlaf-hotep).

What do the variations with the eye sign in them mean?:

The eye sign is a hieroglyph that makes two consonant sounds. These sounds are transliterated ir, but that i does not represent an actual I sound (except in vocalic writing). Usually, i made a glottal stop sound, but sometimes it made a Y sound. This means you could use the eye glyph for the consonants YR in his name (and this is cosmic horror, where we like eyeballs and put them on everything wherever we can). However, this might make the name even more confusing to read, because it makes it easy to mistake the Y in the name for a glottal stop.

Why is his name in a cartouche?:

The names of pharaohs (and only pharaohs) were written inside cartouches. And not just any of the pharaoh’s names. Pharaohs had several different types of names, and only the throne name and birth name were written in cartouches. This means it could be debated wether or not it would be proper for his name to be written in a cartouche. However, Nyarlathotep is not actually from Egypt, he’s from space, and at least one of the stories he’s in portrays him as a showman who uses aesthetic connections to Ancient Egypt as a gimmick to get people to come see his brainwashing prophecies of doom, so I feel like he would not care if it was proper or not and would use it anyway because it’s a very recognizable piece of iconography. But if we found hieroglyphic carvings by Ancient Egyptians that warned of the evils of the god Nyarlathotep, his name might not be written in a cartouche and instead be written with the determinative for god 𓀭 after it.

[signsofthreecomic]

Something struck me as I was reading the final book of the Cthulhu Casebooks by James Lovegrove, "The HighGate Horrors". It's less of a fourth book and more of a collection of stories from the same universe, but I digress.

What struck me was that every brilliant mind in the saga was aligned with a different Elder God. Sherlock himself with Cthulhu, Mycroft with Dagon, Moriarty with Nyarlathotep, and Irene Adler wth the goddess Shub-Niggurath. This then promptly spiralled into me wanting a Cthulhu mythos themed original tarot deck and I kind of got carried away, haha!

The lass in number 9 belongs to my good friend @fedorasquidwithglasses , and i drew a bunch of others to round out the major arcana but I figured these six were the best to post. Those extras are for me and my besties alone lol (love you guys)

[album-aurum]

the ghoul (as pickman)

the king (as kuranes)

the dreamer (as carter)

the g̴̟̈́a̵̡͍̦̺͛̋̌̏z̷͍͓͐̌̑͜ë̸͓́͐̉ŕ̶̙̺͕͠͝ (as nyarla)

sort of last dream + inspiration song

ugly cut cause hell huge file-

orig

[therainscene]

Crazy together: Byler, Cthulhu, and cosmic horror

Cthulhu is a queer horror film from 2007 that I've always been fond of. I rewatched it recently and was struck by some of its similarities to Stranger Things: small town vibes, conformity themes, cosmic horror as queer allegory, a gay protagonist with a childhood best friend slash love interest named Mike...

The film has an ambiguously villainous ending for its main character, Russ Marsh, and it's an ending that suits this story pretty well, imo -- so given how much it reminds me of Will's story, I thought it would be interesting to compare the two.

[Content warning for rape and (bloody) attempted suicide, both depicted in the movie and mentioned below the cut.]

👆 [That's the entire movie available for free on YouTube, courtesy of its director. You don't need to watch it to understand this analysis tho. Spoilers ahead.]

Cthulhu is a (very) loose adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth, a cosmic horror story about an outsider who arrives in a small fishing town and unearths a cult that interbreeds with immortal sea-dwelling monsters. He ends up making the horrifying discovery that he's descended from the cult's founder and thus doomed to turn into a monster himself.

The film uses this premise to talk about queerness: As an openly gay man, Russ has always been an outsider and was never going to participate in his hometown's, uh, traditions. Unfortunately, his father is the cult's leader and his sister is infertile -- Russ must participate.

[Yes, that's Cara Buono. If you enjoyed her portrayal of Karen as a loving but deeply conformist family member who does a better job of supporting the status quo than supporting her loved one, but just wished her character was more one-dimensional -- then this is the movie for you!]

Russ doesn't actually know much about the cult at the start of the film -- he fled to the city in his teens and dismisses his father's proselytizing as "Joseph Smith frontier horseshit" -- so it isn't until he returns for his mother's funeral that he begins to unravel the truth.

It's a good metaphor for how it feels to look back on a bigoted or abusive upbringing and realize: wow, that was a lot more fucked up than I thought it was.

As you might expect from cosmic horror though, this isn't a healing or empowering process for Russ.

Rather, he just keeps running into brutal reminders of how powerless he is in the face of the town's overwhelming, ingrained homophobia: at one point he's raped to satisfy his father's need for an heir; at another he's falsely jailed for the rape and murder of a boy he was trying to rescue from the cult.

It's similar to the torture Will endures in S1 and S2: he's kidnapped and symbolically raped, reflecting Troy's coded "killed by some other queer" comment, then bullied for having the audacity to survive it. He even stands up to a literal eldritch monstrosity and is rewarded for his bravery with yet more loss of autonomy.

You might be wondering if these stories even count as cosmic horror. Cthulhu only ever vaguely hints at the existence of, well, Cthulhu, and Stranger Things (which deliberately tweaks its genre every season) reveals that the Mind Flayer was basically just some guy all along.

But I think it's a bit of a misconception that cosmic horror is about star-sized masses of eyeballs and tentacles that drive you insane with their inhuman incomprehensibility.

Really, cosmic horror is about powerlessness, inevitability, and comprehending all too well. To know that horrors exist beyond the everyday facade of human existence -- whether they take the form of unknowable monstrosities from the void or of violent bigotry in an otherwise pleasant town -- is to know that your existence is nothing more than a delicate soap bubble floating in a vast, uncaring universe made exclusively of sharp edges. Even if you return to the everyday world, you can never return to blissful ignorance.

And that’s what drives you insane.

Will has something of a knowledge motif following him around: He's a wizard named Will the Wise. He illuminates. He has True Sight. He's a super-spy. He's part of the hive mind. He was studied in the lab. He was violated at school and in a library. His neck prickles when Vecna is close. He knows what Vecna is thinking.

It's too much cursed knowledge for one little boy to bear.

But he doesn't have to bear it alone.

Will is lucky to have a bunch of loving friends and family, and their support does a lot to help him cope... but even his fiercest supporters, Joyce and Jonathan, tend to be absent for long swathes of time. There's only one character who can be consistently found by Will's side through the majority of every season, and that's the boy who promised to go crazy with him.

[Strictly speaking Mike wasn't by his side in S1... but he fought hard to bring him home the whole time they were apart. Tomayto tomahto.]

Russ has a Mike too. (Literally -- his name is Michael Shields lol.) His childhood best friend reconnects with him soon after he arrives back in town and pretty much immediately becomes his sole trusted confidant as Russ falls down the cultist rabbit hole.

A quick aside -- Russ's past with Mike is a glimpse into a possible future for Byler.

Russ and Will have both been saved by their Mikes from giving in to the despair of being treated so brutally by their towns: Russ's Mike caught him mid-suicide attempt when they were teenagers--

--and Will's Mike, of course, helped rescue him from the Upside Down and sat patiently with him the whole time he was possessed.

Unfortunately, both Mikes are also conformists who are unwilling to leave the safety of comphet. Russ ran away to a more liberal environment where he could exist in peace, but Mike stayed behind and married a woman. This could easily end up being Byler's fate too.

So while Russ and Will might be alive thanks to their Mikes, they now have to live the rest of their lives without the love of the boy who gave them the drive to face it in the first place.

And it isn't as though the boy doesn't want to love him back.

The jury is officially still out on Byler, but Russ's backstory is very much not about a sad gay boy having to get over his sad gay crush on his straight best friend -- it's about a pair of would-be lovers getting torn apart by a town that refuses to let them be themselves.

I want to emphasize that both of these pairings consist of a visibly gay guy and a straight-passing guy.

In both stories it's typically the visibly queer one who actually interacts with the horrors, while the straight-passing one tends to observe from a position of relative safety, either escaping before anything too nasty happens to him, or more often, simply learning about the horrors second-hand from the visible one.

(There's one key exception at the end of Cthulhu -- but we'll come back to that.)

This is such an important dynamic that it's even unsubtly foreshadowed in Byler's first scene together:

This informs the way the characters support each other. We've already seen the obvious the safe one acts as a mental tether for the endangered one so he doesn't go insane with despair dynamic, but there's a reversal too: the authentic one inspires the conformist to join him in what was never really insanity so much as a different way of looking at the world.

Russ doesn't have any designs on seducing Mike -- much like Will, all he expects is some support from his best friend -- but his dogged questioning of the town's status quo still leads directly to Mike breaking out of comphet and admitting to what he's always really wanted:

[Learn from your elders, Byers: this is the proper way to respond when your love interest says that home just isn't the same without you.]

But Cthulhu's protagonists are confident adults who know how to quickly resolve their romantic tension. Byler are frightened kids in a five-act coming-of-age story -- their version is a little messier.

Mike has always been inspired by Will, right from the very first episode -- he decided to risk looking for him in the woods because he figured that's what his brave and kind friend Will would do.

The first two seasons thus show us Byler's dynamic at its best: an endless feedback loop of Will's strength and insight inspires Mike and Mike's devotion supports Will. (Very cleric and paladin of them.) But they're still children at this point, and don't really notice the blossoming queerness in their relationship yet.

S3 adds puberty to the mix and oh boy do they notice the queerness now. Too scary no thank you cancel unsubscribe uninstall. Will's bravery falters. Mike devotes himself to the grim duty of having a girlfriend. The loop breaks under the pressure.

They fight about it in the same location that introduced us to their dynamic and call each other out on failing to hold up their respective ends of the bargain:

"Why aren't you there for me anymore?"

"Why are you refusing to face reality all of a sudden?"

Note that Will's knowledge motif makes a return here -- just before the fight, he dresses up in his Will the Wise costume in an effort to inspire Mike again. But the tone of the scene is silly and cringey -- as correct as Will is to point out that they don't need to abandon their childhood dynamic just because they're growing up, pretending that it isn't going to mature as they age is, um. Unsustainable.

Deep down, Will knows that he'll eventually have to address the terrifying truth that keeps tapping insistently at the back of his neck.

By S4, Mike is starting to come around -- he's still deep in comphet, but he at least recognizes that it's making him unhappy, so he reaches out to Will the Wise for advice. Unfortunately, Will learned the wrong lesson in S3, and all the advice he offers is designed to push Mike back into the arms of comphet.

By the end of the season, Will has even orchestrated a grand heterosexual love confession in the foolish hope that sacrificing his heart on the altar of heteronormativity might finally make the horrors go away. (How's that working out for you, Byers?)

And so we've arrived at that ambiguously villainous ending.

By the climax of Cthulhu, Russ has uncovered the awful truth: his mother was murdered by his father to lure him home, extract offspring from him, and trigger the apocalypse. It's already begun; there's no stopping it. Shambling horrors -- his ancestors -- emerge from the rising sea. Russ is expected to become the immortal leader of this sunken new world.

He and Mike make plans to flee town together, but Russ runs into his father. He's brought to the shore to admire his kingdom before being handed a weapon and commanded to make sacrifice to Cthulhu:

Russ glances between Mike and his father, assessing his options. Soon even the cities will be consumed; he can't Smalltown Boy his way out of this again.

He raises his weapon--

--cut to black, roll credits.

All too often, queer villainy is shown from a straight perspective, presenting queerness as inherently threatening. This is the type of villainy embodied by Vecna: he's a vengeful and predatory outcast who forces his version of reality on others (especially children) and refuses to compromise his dangerous nature.

Cthulhu shows us queer villainy from a queer perspective. Russ, like Will, is harmless: he's kind, has no interest in vengeance, and just wants to live his life in peace. What drives him to villainy is the temptation to throw queerness under the bus in the twisted belief that appeasing the majority is the key to escaping homophobia.

Of course, there is no escape. Sacrificing the man who trusted him to guide him gently into the reality of queerness just means he's succumbed to the madness and become a homophobe himself.

S4 concludes with Will in a similar position to Russ: teetering on the precipice of madness as he helplessly watches the world fall apart at the hands of the villain who would stop at nothing to force him to join his cause.

But where their situations differ is in what cause that villain represents.

Russ's antagonist is a straight homophobe, representing societal homophobia -- far too powerful a force for one man and his lover to have any hope of defeating. But Will's antagonist is that offensively queer-coded-for-straights villain, representing internalized homophobia -- all along, the prickling at the back of Will's neck has been his own instincts warning him of what happens when you allow bigots and abusers to have a say in how you define yourself.

True love can certainly defeat that.

Unlike Russ, Will hasn't reached the end of his story yet--

--and unlike his older namesake, Mike isn't kneeling on the sacrificial altar, but standing by the side of the boy he promised to go crazy with, ready to face the horrors of Hawkins -- together.

[@bylerween2023 day 4 🐙]

[tenebris-metallum]

Sketched out some of how the ghoul transformation process goes in my brain, featuring my boy Eric!!

My design ethos for ghouls is like. 1: Are they recognizable as the human who they used to be? 2: Can Doug Jones play one with minimal CGI a la the Asset from the Shape of Water.

(Eric is a non-op trans man from the 1920s. Please only use he/him for this character)

[reaperlight]

I recently learned that this song is about Hastur/The King in Yellow so now I associate it with John and Arthur.

Lyrics Here:

http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/trivium/inthecourtofthedragon.html#2

[himbo-in-limbo]

TW tentacles and creepy stuff idk

Made a comic about that one time I “met” Azathoth in a dream! (Idk why I was I a dress either in that dream)

Anyone who knows the lore about Azathoth knows about the music of the Outer Gods so that’s how I knew it was him 💀

Also I didn’t mention it in the comic but the whole time I heard “things” talking and whispering to me in an unknown language, in my dream I was talking back but to this day I don’t remember what we were talking about 😭 couldn’t be Azathoth since he’s asleep???

Lord knows what he’s capable of but idk it didn’t feel like he was the one talking anyway 🤷🏽 I could hear him snoring in a way

[tentaclemilkprincess]

BREAKING NEWS: I've just been told that tentacle debauchery would not, in fact, solve all of lifes problems - more on this story at 11

[thevioletscout]

Inside, inside this deep hole together Nobody else can see us share our hopes and dreams In this world or in that world, there’s nowhere we can be In this world or in that world, there’s nowhere we can be Ah, dear God in Heaven, calling on the god of children Covered us from head to toe in bruises from the time you entertained yourself In the tiny sandbox where you play

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

Back with some more Call of Cthulhu art, this time of another investigator of mine; Sibyl Matthews.

After her parents' death Sibyl was adopted by her uncle, the pastor of Arkham's protestant church. Under his care and guidance, she grew into a sweet young lady and a devoted Christian, able to persuade even the most skeptical of people to at least attend a sermon.

Through faith, all things are possible... Right?

- Pose was provided by Figurosity

(Follow @arkham-outskirts to eventually read more about her)