ekZepp

Junji Ito Edition

https://www.tumblr.com/eldritchfriends

Kidding aside, tale foundry have dedicated an amazing video to this argument

How to Write the Impossible

https://youtu.be/i44KnocYsno?feature=shared

i suggest you to watch it 👍

https://bsky.app/profile/welldipper.bsky.social/post/3l6zwau4zf42r

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18950890

The balancing point of “cozy Lovecraftian horror” is going to be subjective. It needs to at least work as a weird tale on its own; it needs to be a part of or allude to the Mythos in a way that the readers can recognize and respond to. Jose Cruz’ four elements of Familiarity, Sensuousness, Distance, and Fun are all important—but three of those, at least, are typical of most Mythos stories by default. Readers rarely identify with finding our great-great-great-grandma was a Deep One or Ape Princess, or experience the anxiety of living in the attic room of a witch house and dealing with an extradimensional rodent infestation when they really should be focusing on their finals. The Fun aspect of cozy horror is probably the trickiest and most argumentative aspect of the whole business.

That being said, I believe “On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera” (2020) by Elizabeth Bear stands out as a very good representation of cozy Lovecraftian horror. The overall shape of the narrative is intensely familiar: how many scions of Innsmouth (never mentioned under that name) have come back home, in how many different variations? Yet the way the story is told is relatively light and novel: a fifty-something female physics professor with tenure and a penchant for sushi. A perfect setup for any number of funny-because-its-true comments about the lives of women in academia.

...

It is the kind of good, clean fun that you can have when you learn to stop worrying and love the Lovecraft Mythos—and it managed to do it without naming Deep Ones, without running across a copy of the Necronomicon, and only mentioning Miskatonic Univeristy once and in regards to a failed graduate thesis in genetics. If the rules at play seem to owe a little more to the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game than Lovecraft’s original, then at least Bear has the good sense not to recapitulate the entire Mythos, August Derleth style. She gives just enough lore to keep things moving, and no more.

Wield a cursed katana to defend the world of living against Yokai spirits from other realm

... the winter storm rages outside. You knew the rescue will not arrive before tomorrow.

₴₵Ɽ₳₳₳₮₵Ⱨ

You KNEW this wasn't a mission for just three people, that anything could have gone wrong.

S̷̮͌C̶̮̺̄̈́R̷̛̈͜A̵͍͂Ä̷̧͙́͒A̸̤̙͂̀T̸̺̾Ç̶͕͛Ḧ̸̱́͝

You knew that the hole is 800 meters deep and barely large enough to fit one person. Nothing that big can crawl out of tha….S̴̯̗̀͐C̶͕͚͒̄͐R̶̺̦̮̰͐̚A̶̛̻̎̉̊͒Ȧ̸̡͆͒̕Ằ̸͈̮̩͕̈́̊̏ͅT̷̛͙̪̿̋C̸̡͎̪̊̿̂͝H̸̼̀

...

You force your shaking hands to secure your hold on the bottle and with a quick movement drank down the last drop of whiskey. Nothing more left. In the end, you give up. Your right hand moves to the monitor switch and the display turns on, slightly illuminating the small cabin. The recorder still shows the last frame of the transmission before anything was cut out.

S̴̡͎͍̱͓̓̂͋̋͋͝͝C̷̛̬̪̹̳̭͐̎̇̂͘R̶͓̿̃̕̕A̴͓̖̤͚̲̳̋́́A̵̡͇̫̥͉̜͓̍̈́̒͒Ǎ̶̢̝̠̈́̅͗͜T̶̢̼̤̘̜̲̗͑͝C̷̯͍̻̓͆̌̃̀̉H̴̢͙̹̙̊͝!!!