Halloween Special: H. P. Lovecraft

HAPPY HALLOWEEN IT'S TIME TO GET SPOOKY WITH HISTORY'S MOST PROBLEMATIC HORROR WRITER LET'S GOOOOO
While there's something to be said for separating the art from the artist, I think there's a lot of merit in CONTEXTUALIZING the art WITH the artist. Did Lovecraft write some pretty incredible horror? Sure! Was he also a raging xenophobe? Absolutely! Are his perspectives on life connected with the stories he felt compelled to tell? Duh! If you look at Lovecraft's writing through the lens of his life, clear patterns emerge that allow us to pin down what exactly he built his horror cosmology out of. It's an invaluable analytical tool that allows us to take apart his writings by getting inside his head. So before you yell at me for Not Separating The Artist From The Art, know that it was completely intentional and I'm not sorry.
3:20 - THE CALL OF CTHULHU
8:40 - COOL AIR
10:36 - THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE
14:38 - THE DUNWICH HORROR
19:32 - THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH
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[@OverlySarcasticProductions]

Hey gang! Can't help but notice the comment section is a little bit on fire. That's all good with me, but one recurring complaint I've noticed has started to get under my skin - namely that my explanation of non-euclidean geometry was insufficient, or even - dare I say - inaccurate. Now this is a fair complaint, because after a lifetime of experience finding that people's eyes glaze over when I talk math at them, I concluded that interrupting a half-hour horror video with a long-winded explanation of a mathematical concept wouldn't go over too well. I put it in layman's terms and used a simple example to illustrate the point. However, since some of the more mathematically-inclined of you took offense, I now present in full a short (but comprehensive) explanation of what exactly non-euclidean geometry is. First, we axiomatically establish euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry has five axioms: 1. We can draw a straight line between any two points. 2. We can infinitely extend a finite straight line. 3. We can draw a circle with any center and radius. 4. All right angles are equal to one another. 5. If two lines intersect with a third line, and the sum of the inner angles of those intersections is less than 180º, then those two lines must intersect if extended far enough. Axiom #5 is known as the PARALLEL POSTULATE. It has many equivalent statements, including the Triangle Postulate ("the sum of the angles in every triangle is 180º") and Playfair's Axiom ("given a line and a point not on that line, there exists ONE line parallel to the given line that intersects the given point"). Euclidean geometry is, broadly, how geometry works on a flat plane. However, there are geometries where the parallel postulate DOES NOT hold. These geometries are called "non-euclidean geometries". There are, in fact, an infinite number of these geometries, and because the only defining characteristic is "the parallel postulate does not hold", they can be all kinds of crazy shapes. (As you can see, my explanation of "this is just how geometry works on a curved surface" is quite reductive, but at the same time serves to get the general impression across without going into too much detail.) An example of a non-euclidean geometry is "Elliptic geometry", geometry on n-dimensional ellipses, which includes "Spherical geometry" as a subset. Spherical geometry is, predictably enough, how geometry works on the two-dimensional surface of a three-dimensional sphere. In spherical geometry, "points" are defined the same as in euclidean geometry, but "line" is redefined to be "the shortest distance between two points over the surface of the sphere", since there is no such thing as a "straight line" on a curved surface. All "lines" in spherical geometry are segments of "great circles" (which is defined as the set of points that exist at the intersection between the sphere and a plane passing through the center of that sphere). The axiom that separates spherical geometry from euclidean geometry and replaces the parallel postulate is "5. There are NO parallel lines". In spherical geometry, every line is a segment of a great circle, and any two great circles intersect at exactly two points. If two lines intersect when extended, they cannot be parallel, and thus there are no parallel lines in spherical geometry. Since the Parallel Postulate is equivalent to Playfair's Axiom, the fact that no parallel lines exist in spherical geometry negates Playfair's Axiom, which thus negates the Parallel Postulate and defines spherical geometry as a non-euclidean geometry. Also, since the Triangle Postulate is another equivalent property to the Parallel Postulate, it is thus negated in spherical geometry. Hence, my use in-video of an example of a triangle drawn on the surface of a sphere whose inner angles sum greater than 180º. Hope that cleared things up (and helped explain why I didn't want to say "see, non-euclidean geometry is just a geometry where Euclid's Parallel Postulate doesn't hold - hold on, let me get the chalkboard to explain what THAT is-" in the video) Peace! -R ✌️

[@blackvial]

*brain drips out of both ears* Right

[@leonr8255]

Man, and I thought Tolkien's fanboys were toxic after you called him a hack in your Poetic Edda video. Keep up the good work, and thanks for the little math lesson! 😊

[@mickeycastronovo7162]

Oh she big smart.

[@TheFiresloth]

Okay, for me, that was just trying to invoke Nyarlathotep, but there's probably some math athletes out there for wich it made perfect sense. Ignore the bigots and keep up the good work ! You're the boss, Red !

[@TheFiresloth]

Bigots for everything else you just said, actually. Like, buzzwords ? Seriously ?

[@Lily-Sinful]

i remember reading Colour Out Of Space when i was twelve or so, and my immediate reaction being "Ah, beige."

[@thalesvondasos]

Have you never seen sand as a kid?!

[@catherinemoul9160]

Why is this funny, I just imagine a bored looking 12 year old reading 'unseen color' saying "beige" then going back to reading

[@Kralisedra]

I didn’t read it until college, and there’s an actual color we can see but doesn’t actually exist on the spectrum: magenta! It’s just the color our brains link between red and violet, but it doesn’t exist and that fact still gives me a headache

[@firstnamelastname5230]

Beige The unholy color

[@averagecoloniser4586]

Such a horror... b e i g e

[@0katsuki0]

can we just appreciate the name 'lovecraft'? imagine if his last name had been johnson. 'Johnsonian' just dosnt sound as mythical as 'Lovecraftian'.

[@jerkchickenblog]

it would if his name has been johnson or smith for the most part. this is how it works with all names. but it does sound a tad more colorful

[@Excelsior1937]

@@jerkchickenblogWell enough other people are also named Johnson that the association wouldn’t really hold I don’t think. You’re right about how subjects give their names their vibe and not the other way around, but there are dozens of recognizable Johnson’s, thousands of more mundane Johnson’s, and only one incredibly recognizable Lovecraft.

[@Asahamana]

Or Gaylord that gets me every time.

[@chloeedmund4350]

I think he once wrote a parody of a love story.

[@menhera758]

​@@Asahamanaah yes, the gaylordian mythos

[@megancress1384]

I just realized the color he's describing is just magenta

[@edslushie570]

This needs more likes. I would not have thought of that but yeah, it works.

[@mewsingsbynatk]

My favorite color is magenta.

[@camilaferrabonel4622]

Magenta doesn't exist and that's a fact.

[@mewsingsbynatk]

@@camilaferrabonel4622 How do you explain magenta pencil crayons, ignoramus?

[@yuuri_]

magenta doesn't exist nice try liberal

[@Galimeer5]

"Colors that man can't comprehend and are dangerous to and warp the biology of flora and fauna" is actually a reasonable description of gamma radiation, and radioactive meteorites are real so Color Out Of Space is technically the most scientifically realistic Lovecraft story

[@KalafinaBTS]

Omg this!!! When she explained that book, the first thing that came to mind is radiation

[@saxogatley1166]

@@KalafinaBTSLovecraft wrote the Color Out of Space in reaction to the Radium Girls incident, or at least that’s what I heard

[@WolfAmaril]

So would the actual color just be Chernikov Radiation?

[@LordDaret]

@@WolfAmaril it would be an angelic blue in the worst case scenario, like the first hour after the Chernobyl disaster. So alluring to look at, and yet so devastatingly deadly to even observe.

[@WolfAmaril]

@@LordDaret that is a pretty accurate description of Chernikov Radiation

[@christopherrobinhood9802]

Tbh, although this was very unintentional, The Color Out of Space always read like radiation poisoning.

[@patrickcross1571]

Right? I mean radiation as a concept was still being explored at the time, so it’d make sense that Howie here would try and make a poorly researched horror story based on it.

[@christopherrobinhood9802]

@@patrickcross1571 But yeah lets not forget what Lovecraft actually wrote this story like.

[@mackenziewoloschuk7375]

That's what I thought it was too after a bit of thinking. It could also be read as Mercury poisoning, since the substance of mercury is rather toxic and does indeed cause madness and even death if taken in the proper doses(the mad hatter was based off this since olden day hat makers would use mercury in the process which would drive the hatters insane). The kids suffer death with the eldest one going insane before they go, and the wife just goes insane before succumbing.

[@brandonporter8509]

And now I kind of want to create something in like a low magic rp setting that’s color out of space inspired but with a better grasp on actual real World physics chemistry and biology. The liquid could be a kind of radioactive liquid mercury alloy and once it fell into a well that would be mercury alloy and radiation water table contamination. And the strange color could be a combination of the color of the item itself and the wavelength of radioactive glow it emits maybe it’s a magenta object emitting a yellow green light or even more unnaturally a yellow green substance with a radioactive magenta glow creating a visual of something simultaneously two opposite complimentary colors that can’t mix into one singular color. The reason for choosing magenta on this is because magenta is the mind point on the gap in the visible light spectrum you get when combining near infrared red with near ultraviolet violet making it a color that Literially does not exist in the spectrum but simultaneously would lie in ultraviolet or in infrared but also exists from a certain perspective behind and equal to yellow green. Making the light magenta would really drive home the idea of unnatural light. So if you want a color out of space like object description with a less outlandish foundation here’s my go at one: The impossibly smooth and shiny, yellow green rock bubbled like an animals stomach packed with blood and being boiled from the inside bulging in places. With each second it seemed to shrink ever so slightly, As if evaporating away like a chunk of dry ice but evaporating and melting from the inside evidenced by the occasional bubble of escaping gas rising to the semisolid metallic exterior to pop and the metal surface to heal Itself back into that smooth shiny shell. When cut it acted like a putty that the deeper down it was cut the less putty and more liquid it became. Almost like a sick bastardization of a lava cake. As it slowly boiled away and the occasional bubble rose through the semisolid skin and popped like a bubble yellow green vapor escaped that seemed to emit an unearthly magenta glow creating for instances this unknowable combination of yellowish green vapor and reddish violet light. A sickly impossible green magenta flash that never lingered long enough to truly be comprehended as a proper color that ever existed, one that never could exist and yet it did. The object would basically be some kind or radioactive mercury alloy that fell to earth around the turn of the 20th century. Before we really knew and understood radiation was a bad thing. My vision for hat it is to ruin the mystery I don’t know some piece of an alien space probe similar in nature to our voyager probe maybe like some alien version of a nuclear radioactive mercury like alloy battery? Nothing malevolent just you know the result if one day In the far far future long after the sun as became a stellar corpse voyager ends up just crashing in some redneck alien’s flower garden.

[@christopherrobinhood9802]

@@brandonporter8509 I've actually been working on something like this for some time now.

[@ryanlytle2214]

I love how the mug on the AC obsessed doctors desk says the “worlds alivest doctor”

[@mrs_mothra547]

Ahhhhahaha I didn't notice!

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

See also the "world's sanest professor" mug at 3:35 and elsewhere! 😆 The Muñoz one got by me despite multiple re-viewings, though, so thanks for spotlighting that!

[@matilda5753]

10:19 if anyone was wondering

[@EllpaFox47]

And I thought the archetypal “worlds okayest doctor” mug was funny

[@pescavelho6151]

The twist in Shadow Over Innsmouth reads differently once you find that H. P. Lovecraft came up with the story after finding out his great-grandmother was Welsh.

[@adriftinglink]

Guess he wanted to show he would obviously never give into that ancestry, so that’s why Mr 1/16 fish boy becomes a fish person fanatic despite hating them all. Makes no sense to me, but I guess ya can’t expect much from a (to put it as light as a feather) paranoid person.

[@sagecolvard9644]

Beautiful.

[@robinchesterfield42]

Wait, wait...WELSH = "actually descended from immortal (and immoral) FISH people? (looks down at self) Huh, no wonder I've always kinda liked seafood and island music...

[@mathphysicsnerd]

Could've been worse He could've written the monster people as weresheep

[@argus2389]

I nearly burst out laughing when I read this. Thank you

[@arirenzi-surprenant]

I’m indigenous and I had no idea I was so villainous! I guess it’s time to enter my villain era.

[@bnbcraft6666]

The only thing worse than an filthy Irishman 😱

[@CoolRunawayvoid]

Entering my villainous era. We can be partners in villainy-

[@afaerfeathers2291]

A good old bastardization arc

[@Akrafena]

yo can I join y'all

[@arirenzi-surprenant]

@@Akrafena of course

[@KillahMate]

I love that "JUST MOVE AWAY" comment, since of course the story was written by a dude for whom moving to a new place would be about as scary as having his life drained by an alien lifeform.

[@sheepbeeps3369]

yup. Most people would've packed up and left, even facing hardship and poverty. Once the wife starts mutating.

[@c.o7993]

Wish I could afford to pack up and move at the drop of a hat

[@nicksuazo4377]

Not gonna lie, I probably would of stayed until the last minute. Just like the reader, I wanna see what happens at the end.

[@nicksuazo4377]

@sluttyMapleSyrup Same 😆

[@roshiron1816]

@@c.o7993 Homeless vs Dead/Mutated. *shrugs* It's debatable which is worse I suppose.

[@CthulhuianBunny]

Just pointing this out because I find it funny: Cthulhu is the grandchild of Yog-Sothoth. So Wilbur Whately & The Dunwich Horror are Cthulhu's uncles.

[@themystic115demon6]

That would be an awkward family reunion.

[@sebastianlepper1431]

@@themystic115demon6 you’d have all these big ass world devouring monsters and then a goat dude shows up with a gun

[@Me-io3wg]

@@sebastianlepper1431 he has the best world devouring weapon of all: a glock

[@mccookies3664]

"Wilbur Whately and the Dunwich Horror" also sounds like a band name

[@trashcanyounot1798]

@@themystic115demon6 Ok, Red needs to draw this lol

[@Dylan_Otto]

"One trips on a corner and clips through the map" There has never been a better sentence to describe a man being swallowed by the one thing he is supposed to stand on

[@babiiesketches5257]

*Wait that actually happens*

[@GodOfOrphans]

@@babiiesketches5257 I just checked my copy of Call of Cthulu and yeah kinda, the prose is a lot less comical but that is basically what happens.

[@mr.potato2223]

Can you quote?

[@GodOfOrphans]

@@mr.potato2223 "Parker slipped as the other three were plunging frenziedly over endless vistas of green-crusted rock to the boat, and Johansen swears he was swallowed up by an angle of masonry which shouldn't have been there; an angle which was acute, but behaved as if it were obtuse." quoted directly from Call of Cthulu.

[@mr.potato2223]

@@GodOfOrphans thank you

[@SwordlordRoy]

The best way I have heard Lovecraft described was from Mr. Welch's Call of Cthulhu Mad Musing: "The man was clinically phobic, and I don't mean violent hatred but more curling up in the fetal position and sucking his thumb. The man didn't have Issues, he had Volumes."

[@LordZadrenoss]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[@Hulkzilla0]

"He didn't have issues. He had VOLUMES." is an incredible description.

[@catp6946]

I assume someone's mentioned this joke: "Lovecraft was afraid of his shadow because it was black."

[@kambennett2487]

Hahaha, I laughed harder at this than I should have. :D

[@josephroszell]

Ha then he fainted

[@RogueT-Rex8468]

Catherine Preimesberger lmao XDDD.

[@desdinovaincarnate9703]

And because he thought it was Nyarlathotep watching him through a dark humanoid figure on the ground

[@gisellechausse5261]

LOL :D

[@iapetusmccool]

Lovecraft had lots of phobias that influenced his stories. You mentioned several, but there was one other that seemed to stand out for me: Old buildings. And by "old" I mean "more than 100 years old". I don't know how he'd cope if visited the UK.

[@Eshanas]

He goes to Europe and becomes a massive conspiracist. Huh, maybe he should had, being of old British (and Welsh?) stock.

[@Alusnovalotus]

Iapetus McCool that’s why no one took him seriously during his lifetime.

[@vikramkrishnan6414]

Rats in the Walls, anyone?

[@levongevorgyan6789]

He wrote about an old England Priory actually. Exham Priory. And by old I mean built on an altar of Cybelle and Attis old. Rats in the Walls. Scariest book her wrote.

[@instinctbrosgaming9699]

I mean, he put an old house in his second-ever story "The Alcemist" so yeah

[@jacklandismusic]

When you were talking about the island casualties in "The Call of Cthulhu" and said that "one trips on a corner and clips through the map", I thought that was just total bullshit for a joke. Then I read the story, and I now wouldn't describe it any other way.

[@thatbluegamet]

So wait that is actually what happened to that guy he fell through the floor

[@dogocatostudios8719]

Yes, please tell how.

[@Kortegard0341]

Dammit Bethesda

[@puffinthemuffin2127]

Ah yes, the Cthulhu skip.

[@iguessthisisnowmyname2258]

They were running with wooden plates again.......

[@dadab22]

The color out of space is actually one of my favorites, if shift just one element...replace "color" with "radiation." Then literally everything makes more sense, and even becomes a cautionary tale about how radiation is indiscriminate, and the dangers of nuclear waste...and how often times, goverments don't take proper caution around toxic waste, as they are literally going to turn the area into a water resivoir.

[@runman624]

A modern folktale for the wrong reason

[@dadab22]

@@runman624 couldn't have explained it better

[@robinchesterfield42]

Dude that would SO work. It's a horrifying _environmental_ cautionary tale just waiting to happen! Now we just need to figure out an actually _plausible_ reason why the family wouldn't JUST! FLIPPIN'! MOVE! and we're all set.

[@dadab22]

@@robinchesterfield42 Very simple. They can't afford to. Their harvest was ruined by the radiation, meaning they don't have the money. You'd be suprised how many people are hin horrible, even lethal living conditions in the real world, and are unable to move because they have literally no where else to go.

[@Beacuzz]

@@robinchesterfield42 broke. Selling a farm that isn't growing good food gets hard

[@minimonkeymasher8888]

Lovecraft's horror aesthetic reminds of when you close your eyes and you see a bunch of random patterns under your eyelids. A constantly shifting, random assortment of patterns not seen in the natural world. Lovecraft managed to turn that into something physical and dark. Super cool. Shame about the... everything-except-rich-white-people-phobia and rampant paranoia.

[@morantNO1]

I recommend "The Magnus Archives" podcast. Super cool Lovecraftian horror without the racism and bad writing. Red also recommended them in her trope talk about horror, that is how I discovered them.

[@JonathanHarker7523]

@@morantNO1 Same! What’s your favorite episode?

[@morantNO1]

@@JonathanHarker7523 Spoiler warning for the show I guess. I am at episode 151 and my favourite was probably 142 - scrutiny, where the archivist is the horror of the day. Amazing concept.

[@catatoblob8598]

While I also love the Magnus Archives, and think that racism is bad, I think we're judging lovecraft by the standards of a world where information is much more readily available and its easier to understand people from different backgrounds from yourself. Paranoia, xenophobia, and the fear of the unknowable are as intrinsic to the lovecraftian horror aethetic as the amorphous crawling horrors are.

[@kingstarscream320]

@@morantNO1 You wish you could write as well as Lovecraft

[@plumey7593]

I can just imagine a posh math teacher chastising a student now: “By god, your level of understanding for non-euclidean geometry is downright Lovecraftian!”

[@viirinsoftworks1304]

I had to read that twice. I thought you said "I can just imagine a plush math teacher"...

[@dheemantanil]

Now why does it sounds like my Lovecraftian Lover Maths teacher when i seriouly fubbed my Maths test

[@mathematicalcabbage]

Ngl, as someone who will prolly end up as a math professor, I'd totally say that. I definitely think it from time to time

[@JaelinBezel]

God should be capitalized as a proper noun?

[@mathematicalcabbage]

@@JaelinBezel perhaps this hypothetical posh math teacher isn't a part of a monotheistic religion but kept on to the cultural usage of "by god" or "oh my god" as an exclamation? Of not then yes, it probably should be. Luckily this hypothetical teacher isn't an English major

[@Pratchettgaiman]

By the way, for people who haven’t read Dunwich Horror, Old Whately literally does cite an actual page number for Wilbur to consult in his spooky book of spookiness, that wasn’t a joke by Red

[@theinimitablejora522]

I see We appear to have found the one thing Lovecraft wasn’t afraid of *Page numbers*

[@HECKproductions]

a suprising amount of things that one would assume are jokes are actually quite literal like the dude who "trips on a corner and clips through the map"

[@Green24152]

@@HECKproductions He was the first man to find the Backrooms.

[@rowanbarnfather7776]

“He tripped on an obtuse angle that acted acute, and fell into a void.” That’s pretty much the full quote, I might have gotten the angles wrong.

[@SpyrosKoronis]

@@rowanbarnfather7776 I read that as "acting cute" and now I have a mental image of a corner with a sweatdrop and blush marks.

[@stewartgames6697]

A common theme that Lovecraft had in his writing was that evil fate and sin - in the form of madness, bodily pollution, & mutation - was inheritable and passed down through the bloodline. You see it in texts like "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "The Rats in the Walls" - past decadence or excess inevitably leaking down the ages to infect and change the living heir, who becomes just as foul and misbegotten as their ancestors. It's basically Lovecraft admitting through his writing that he lived his whole life in constant fear that he would fall to madness & hysteric fits as his mother had. This also explains his racism - once you assume that the past misdeeds of a person's family shape the person themselves, it is logical to assume that people who are poorer or otherwise don't quite fit in with "high society" must come from bad bloodlines where their ancestors were wicked and deplorable, and that such people, too, will do evil and wrong, because it is in their genetic makeup to act that way. It's actually something that still happens today, with ideas like Prosperity Gospel, and it was how Nazism justified itself. All were "logical/rational" conclusions, but based on a faulty assumption: that the capacity to do good and evil is genetically hardwired.

[@lego007guym8]

The ideology of Nazism is focused more on ethnic groups as whole than certain bloodlines, but yeah its still pretty damn similar.

[@Hoogalindo]

I can only pity Lovecraft. That man was fucked.

[@silverhawkscape2677]

Unless you had high psychopathic tendencies.

[@IceQueen975]

Critical Race Theory does this too.

[@LioTangg]

@@IceQueen975 It quite literally does not

[@Swaxeman]

Honestly my favorite plot twist in a HP Lovecraft story is in the alchemist, where a curse is placed on a family, where every member is doomed to die at age 35, and it turns out that the thing killing them is the person who placed the curse, now immortal, just stabs them or something

[@bluemariomedia8351]

So he just stab them when they are 35?

[@Swaxeman]

@@bluemariomedia8351 I think he poisons them, my bad

[@inkmaster5480]

I think there's a relatively new Blue Oyster Cult song based on that book.

[@Swaxeman]

@@inkmaster5480 Oh my god there is that is so weird

[@clockworktri]

Okay, that's hilarious!

[@aro7889]

I know I'm replying on a vid from a few years ago but I wanted to shed some light on the bit of the video that mentions that H. P. Lovecraft having "To delicate of a constitution for math". I asked a few college math professors I know and this is what they told me: Back around 1890 ~ 1920 there were obviously no computers, as such all math was usually done in rooms with tons of chalkboard or in lecture rooms with stacks of paper. A lot of the time these rooms were windowless or just had very poor ventilation. This was also before air conditioners were really a thing - as mentioned in the video. Because of all this the rooms were usually very hot and likely had tons of chalk dust in the air, especially if there was more than one person in the room. This would / could result in someone with a weak constitution passing out fairly regularly; this is likely what the comment about him being too delicate for math was based off.

[@scouttyra]

This is very interesting. My first thought was that he possibly had dyscalculia.

[@kryptonavenger2024]

Huh, neat. Learn something new everyday.

[@southpakrules]

You came here for logic, reason & method? C'mon...

[@beatle4-117]

Damn, I think I also would've had too weak a constitution for math. That sounds extremely not fun.

[@oryanstudios2252]

So back in the day... only those with the toughest lungs could be mathematicians. Cool

[@atoaster1209]

As a mixed-race person, I like referring to myself as a Lovecraftian horror.

[@xzenitramx666]

I know the feeling

[@atoaster1209]

@@xzenitramx666 Hello, fellow Lovecraftian nightmare!

[@xzenitramx666]

@@atoaster1209 both of us are the bad guys in HP lovecraft universe

[@unclearety9371]

underrated comment

[@orrorsaness5942]

At least you aren’t a white hillbilly. They’re even worse villains.

[@hjt091]

The Call of Cthulhu: the journal of a man reading the journal of a man listening to the story of a man who had weird nightmare

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Yeah, gotta say the multiple onion-layers of re-tellers, expositors and writers of letters, journals etc often make it pretty hard for me to keep track of who's who not just in Lovecraft but also in Victorian Gothic as well...! 😅 It's a weird literary device, & I don't quite understand why they did it. Trying to make the horrific more tolerable by adding emotional distance...? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Attempting to add some kind of suspense via nested narrators...? Gaining freedom to kill off more key characters by allowing them to exposit in writing after their death...??

[@cal_ward]

It's like Frankenstein's :Sad life(Monster) story in whining life story (Frankenstein's) in depressing life story(Robert Walton) in a letter sent to some dude's sister(Robert's sister) all written by another person who had a sad life (Mary Shelley)

[@salem-01]

@@anna_in_aotearoa3166while I’m definitely not a fan of it I can kind of understand it to a point. With it you can do multiple layers of people discovering some new horror and dropping subtle or outright hints to the plot to create a lot of slow or very sudden reveals. It’s pretty fucking stupid but for Lovecrafts style of horror it becomes less horrifically boring and convoluted and more of a barely passable writing device

[@salem-01]

@@cal_warddon’t forget the part where the monster is describing another random family describing their soap opera like life which to Frankenstein who is describing it to Robert and you get the idea

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

@@salem-01 That makes it makes at least a little bit of sense; thank you! I can kind of get my head around using that type of narration-nesting as a way of layering suspense (even if, like you, I'm definitely not a fan 😆)

[@Raziera]

The odd thing about color out of space is that a lot of what it does sounds like nuclear radiation ( or at least the magical comic book versions of it) before nuclear radiation.

[@robinchesterfield42]

Yeah. He kind of gave everyone and everything living in that area supernatural space-cancer. That slowly and very painfully kills you over time. Checks out!

[@valterfara5027]

How much radiation is that thing emitting so your fucking bones turn into the liquid of a glow stick?

[@richard6196]

Reminds me of the fallout version of radiation which has a approx. 80% chance of turning you into a immortal radiation zombie-sorta. Fallout also took some inpiration from H. P. for some minor locarions/quests.

[@sashimimisha]

He was ahead of his time in some regards. Maybe the idea of radiation had been discussed at the time which gave him some ideas, even if it hadn't been broadly applied within practical science.

[@sofieselene]

Nuclear radiation was known in Lovecraft's time, and in fact was extremely popular for a while as its newness and obscurity caused snake oil salesmen to claim that it was, among other things, a panacea.

[@geekgirl_luv4262]

So Color Out of Space is basically just “what if magenta was sentient and wanted you dead?”

[@Mossprite21]

This is amazing and it’s needs more attention

[@moistnugget4147]

It could also have been chartreuse or beige

[@geekgirl_luv4262]

@@moistnugget4147 the holy trinity of technically non-existent colors go on a murder spree

[@REDACTEDbox]

magentient

[@andersonborba2060]

@@geekgirl_luv4262 as I was so properly corrected in this comment section there is an entire spectrum of non-single wavelength colors, including magenta, pink, brown, beige (and any other color that cannot be reproduced with a single wavelength)... To be fair the rarity is the actual spectral colors which exist in the infinite space between 400 and 790 THz...

[@augmenautus]

"He lacked the constitution for math" So an English major?

[@jouheikisaragi6075]

Bruh. That cut surprisingly deep.

[@Grim_Sister]

Worse. An Arts major

[@Lauren.E.O]

That hurt 😔

[@albehoe2327]

This feels like an attack-

[@ThePa1riot]

Fully admitted.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

I can only presume lovecraft would be scared of salsa -somewhat foreign -wet -red like blood with weird chunks in it -horrors too spicy for delicate New England palate to comprehend (even the mild flavor)

[@Space_Snax]

He’d make a story based on it 100%

[@AnimeSunglasses]

For hot second I thought you meant the dance. Which quite frankly, I'm sure HPL would have ALSO hated.

[@dallasrover5515]

I love how everyone at the University is horrified while the dog is there just so proud of himself.

[@CelestialAnamoly]

Such a good pupper!

[@Xbalanque84]

Frankly, he should be.

[@supersam0388]

I thought he was wearing a tiny suit jacket until I realized he just tore the fabric and buttons off Wilbur

[@havel4385]

Throw dogs at the great old ones and no more great old ones

[@Someonecalledeli]

Good boy! (Or girl) :D

[@jurassickaiju14]

Can we take a moment to appreciate how _good_ the art gets here? The shading and coloring in the sequences of Wilcox's nightmares and Armitage looking at Wilbur's readings of Yog-Sothoh are darkly gorgeous, and the depictions of what happens to the Gardner family are downright _nightmarish._

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Thank you for noting this! Was just looking at the undersea dream sequence and going "WOW"!! The colouring, edge lighting & use of semi-transparency are super impressive... AND she can sing and tell stories well, this is an unfair amount of talent in one person! 🤪

[@BNK2442]

Or how bad the writing was.

[@Natoursofcourse]

@@BNK2442 or are you just mad because the book was written by a racist. Tough cakes dude but roughly 70% of what narrative and historical structure is written off of is written and documented by a person with some kind of -phobe Or- cist

[@Sacchi_Hikaru]

@@Natoursofcourse is this supposed to be some kind of gotcha Lovecraft was so racist even his fellow racists told him to dial it back a little

[@Natoursofcourse]

@@Sacchi_Hikaru yea lmao. Sorry I had a bad day. Still, i wont think this video or the books are poorly written

[@Alucard-A-La-Carte]

I've read that Lovecraft was likely born with syphilis transmitted to his mother by his philandering father, which would explain his mother's slow descent as well as his consistent horror around inherited sin and sickness. But I don't think it's confirmed, still an interesting notion. Also I never get over the humor of Cthulhu, god of the old gods, ancient and unknowable nightmare that lurks beneath the waves, whose mere stirring sends artists and thinkers into screaming madness, is overcome by slamming a boat into its face.

[@AGrumpyPanda]

Not overcome, just temporarily inconvenienced. As Red said, you can't deal with an Old One the way you deal with a Disney villain.

[@jansasiadek2507]

Lovecraft was an Ateist, but he still could hate sins probably

[@XanderPGK]

Lovecraft predicted The Little Mermaid! 😂

[@starwarsnerd100]

In modern stories they show how powerful the kaiju or alien mothership is by having it shrug off a nuclear bomb with minimal damage. I guess back then their equivalent of that trope was hitting it with a steam boat? It was probably a lot more impressive at the time.

[@oculttheexegaming2509]

And that's how the "Did you just punch out Cthulhu?" trope was born.

[@kokodoko4798]

In all fairness, Cool Air sounds more like a Junji Ito type story

[@VitaNewbo]

So, also in the comments is the idea that the story would work better if there was a final twist of the narrator being dead, and the Ac now keeping the narrator alive instead of the doctor. That to me is very, very Junji Ito.

[@jadenbryant9283]

@@VitaNewbo and Junji Ito stories do kinda have a lovecraft feel to them

[@Cheezbuckets]

I’m about 80% sure that Junji Ito has said somewhere at some point that Lovecraftian horror was an inspiration for him. I can’t remember where I read or hear that, but Junji Ito’s reoccurring themes of mind-bending horrors that are beyond human comprehension (particularly in Spiral/Uzumaki and Hellstar Remina, imo) certainly seems Lovecraft-inspired.

[@chrll]

"This is my AC! It was made for me!"

[@catbatrat1760]

@@chrll NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 😭

[@Alza.art4518]

It’s weird, H.P. Lovecraft feels like a fictional character from Edgar Allen poe

[@demonslayeredits6491]

Agreed, we are now am Fictional characters in an Edger Alan Poe Poem/Short Story

[@coyotedelamancha]

Curses, they have discovered the terrible truth. Now we have to kill them.

[@centristcommisar7828]

Seems like his style: A paranoid thirty-something-year-old man so afraid of progress and other people that he imagines enemies and Eldritch Horrors after seeing something as benal as an Air Conditioner.

[@dylangroves6527]

I know what you mean.

[@RequiemPoete]

And so the A/C kept on clanking, clanking at my chamber door. The doctor's stank when too close was irritating ever more. That is why I H.P. Lovecraft Brought down the ax upon the dark skinned doctor with a final laugh.

[@PaulGAckerman]

I died every time Red cuts herself off when saying "unlike any seen on Earth."

[@PaganBradTube]

8 times in total, in case anyone was wondering.

[@SophieFox947]

@@PaganBradTube Just enough for him to be on his ninth life... He's a cat person, I suppose.

[@Ashley-the-fox]

@@SophieFox947 red isn't a dude

[@achmodinivswe9500]

@@Ashley-the-fox I think he was referring to Paul

[@Ashley-the-fox]

@@achmodinivswe9500 ok sorry enjoy your day friend

[@theman6422]

One of my friends explained Lovecraft to me as: “Earthbound but if it was made by an LSD abuser who went scuba diving one day”

[@babiiesketches5257]

WHY IS THAT ACCURATE XD

[@tyto9188]

I really can't argue against this... This is surprisingly true...

[@calamitygroove6738]

id say subnautica

[@mothtoflame4843]

Now i need to go diving after taking an acid tab

[@grimble4564]

Also don't forget the racism

[@onikoneko]

"...and writes her off as pretty thoroughly dead" I think the implication here is that Ammi killed her, because at that point in the story the narrator goes on about how people can do terrible things out of necessity, that Ammi had a broken-off chair leg in his hands that he didn't remember picking up, and that he was certain there was nothing left alive in the attic after he left.

[@slwrabbits]

That's honestly pretty horrifying, as I'm guessing the implication is that he dissociated while killing her. Yikes.

[@jy3n2]

I wonder what Lovecraft would have made of imaginary numbers.

[@Cyfrik]

As a complete tonal U-turn from this, I recall reading somewhere that imaginary numbers are what inspired Lewis Carrol to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

[@luisdaniel9542]

@@Cyfrik yes, also stuff like limits and infinite sums, to him it was nothing but useless junk that had no real purpose

[@xzenitramx666]

Aleph nule omega will blow up his mind

[@redwitch12]

Become seized by confused panic and existential terror, then go on to write a story about an inbred rural cult somehow using imaginary numbers to open the gateway to the unknowable realm where the Old Ones lie entombed, only to be thwarted at the last moment by scholarly upper-middle-class New Englanders. Obviously.

[@7superdaimajin]

What would Lovecraft have made of imaginary numbers? Nothing. Upon hearing of them, Lovecraft would have fainted. Weak constitution, you know.

[@tsulee7876]

“ ‘Protagonist discovers secret fish-person ancestry and is invited to live in luxury under the sea’: plot of Shadow Over Innsmouth, Aquaman, and Barbie in a Mermaid Tale?” This has to be one of or the most hilarious thing I’ve read in the credits!

[@mrraisintheawsome]

I'm a history major and "the world must never know that 'for ritual purposes' is code for 'we have no idea what this is'" is one of the most hilariously and painfully accurate things I've heard in a while 🤣

[@Tekdruid]

Future archaeologists unearthing a Furby: "So... ritual purposes I guess?" _"Yeeeeeah..."_

[@moasamuelson]

@@Tekdruid Even better, long Furby

[@carolinemcgovern4488]

I mean, half the time it's gonna be accurate because everything we do is a ritual for something,

[@ciphergacha9100]

@@Tekdruid well to be fair

[@WaituSnaiku]

@@Tekdruid are you saying that furbys are for ritual purposes

[@John_Weiss]

3:17 Horrible Phobias Lovecraft 8:44 Hippopotamus Lovecraft 9:40 Hates Progress Lovecraft

[@Ark...........]

Ha

[@Swordhand1]

Hot Pockets Lovecraft. Hewlett Packard Lovecraft. Hoi Polloi Lovecraft. Let's keep the jokes going!

[@hexiguex6968]

Hot Potatoes Lovecraft, House (of) Pancakes Lovecraft, Howdy Pardner Lovecraft

[@John_Weiss]

​@@hexiguex6968 Hairy Palms Lovecraft Hellish Planets Lovecraft Humiliatingly Poor Lovecraft Hit Points Lovecraft Hopelessly Prude Lovecraft

[@londonmason6129]

@@Swordhand1 hopelessly pathetic lovecraft

[@cultofloki8361]

Entire city: *brings relics and literal spells to counter the horror* Morgan: “If it eats another shed, we’ll pump it with lead. If it even breathes, we’ll shatter it’s knees”

[@DonPatrono]

"Professor Morgan, please detail us why did you decide to bring a gun to our bout with the chtonic entity" "But of course my esteemed colleagues, as you can see on this graph, there is this function of y=x that has a linear increase, whereas on the X axis you can find the amount of "shagging around" while on the Y axis there is the correspective amount of "encountering results", and given the linear increase it's obvious that the more you fuck around, the more you find out, and that eldritch being has fucked around quite a lot over yonder and is in dire need to find out" "Marvelous, professor, reminds me of the fourth principle of Enthropy, Stay Strapped or Get Hyperdimensionally Clapped" "Truly great words of wisdom"

[@scumbaggaming9418]

Morgan decided to approach an eldritch horror like the Scout in TF2 "Think fast, chucklenuts!" "Grass grows, birds fly, and brotha? I hurt people." *"Yo what's up?"*

[@skem9622]

@@DonPatrono now that is good

[@Allium95]

That's the definition of american

[@ValeBridges]

@@scumbaggaming9418 Or Engineer, "I solve practical problems. F'rinstance, how am I gonna stop some big mean mother hubbard from tearing me a structurally non-Euclidean new behind? The answer... use a gun. And if that don't work... use more gun."

[@OverlordZenith]

There is one thing Lovecraft fears more than anything else: Describing things.

[@dlee827]

The word "cyclopean" does appear an awful lot in Mountains of Madness.

[@Fleshi_Guy615]

I suppose he dislikes Tolkien

[@VL-rh5tu]

Yep, everything is just "unlike anything seen on earth" 😱☠️

[@helast3916]

And Brown people

[@chumplestiltskin7927]

I once partook in a drinking game wherein you took a shot everything he said queer to describe something.

[@Telawin]

I feel like the ending of "Cold Air" sums up everything about lovecraft's views on science perfectly this man was kept alive for 18 years past his own death. but because he did die eventually it was "the failure of medical science"

[@christophermacintyre5890]

He probably didn't believe in buying extended warranties either.

[@OsirusHandle]

@@christophermacintyre5890 Thats how everyone thinks about it today.

[@mattisvov]

I actually didn't thought about that. But you make a very good point.

[@jgray1831]

Also shows his clear misunderstanding of science by saying “survived 18 years after his death” lmao

[@TheKingDaMan]

Him dying was due to modern medicine failing. Doesn't diminish modern science succeeding gloriously for 18 years one bit.

[@Jarakin]

“Exit, pursued by Cthulhu” may just be the greatest Shakespeare reference I’ve ever heard

[@angusrosecranz4178]

the secret to immortality? Air Conditioning

[@nullpoint3346]

No, that's just to reduce the rate of decay.

[@somebodycooliguess1597]

And/or fish breeding

[@lego007guym8]

Yep, makes sense

[@atlasfragilis9971]

What about fish over ice, get immortality and reduction of decay in one go!

[@pmikky6808]

Can confirm. My house has AC and I have never died

[@joshuakim5240]

My favorite drawing among this entire video is the one with the fish people procession purely because the leader of the procession is literally just a bipedal fish in dapper clothes. It's like he's saying: "Bitch i may be a fish, but i'm still more suave than you'll ever be." to any humans that might happen to see him.

[@1krani]

Clearly, Mr. Codfish has hooked up with some shady characters since leaving Nabumbu Lagoon.

[@dawnlandspodcast8217]

It's Obed Marsh's fishman son. He always liked to look nice, and damned if being an Eldritch horror is gonna stop him

[@samlevy9897]

@@dawnlandspodcast8217 I love it

[@iceluvndiva21]

XD yaaaaaaaaaas!

[@gabrielbastos18]

@@dawnlandspodcast8217 Actually, it is his grandson, who is a son of his 1st son from his 1st (human) wife. Barnaba's (Old Man Marsh) mother, however, was a fish-person; his father was called, and I kid you not, Onesiphorus.

[@damonwallace2914]

"magic not-being-invisible-anymore juice" so... paint?

[@slappybio1686]

or Holy water

[@eoincampbell1584]

If I mix my water colors with holy water will I be able to paint holy paintings?

[@pastorTracy911]

Eoin Campbell yes

[@eoincampbell1584]

@@pastorTracy911 Thank you Pastor, I will go on with this knowledge given to me by such a reliable source as yourself.

[@jobansand]

@@eoincampbell1584 No

[@Halloweenish]

Interviewer: “So, Mr Lovecraft, everyone’s dying to know. How do you write such effective horror stories?” HP: “Well, what can I say? I just wrote based on what scared me.” Interviewer: “Ah, I see, so you wrote based on yours fears of existentialism and cosmic nightmares?” HP: “Yes, among other things…” *sips tea while glaring at an AC vent*

[@menhera758]

Underrated comment

[@springfaux6991]

*Also staring at minorities with sheer horror*

[@discmanthecdlord]

​@@springfaux6991also stares at the ocean with sheer horror

[@wjzav1971]

To be fair, ACs are pretty creepy when you think about it.

[@Van-Leo]

*stares at interviewer until he can assess their race*

[@raptalos9412]

Is no one gonna talk about two people brought MAGIC and the third dude was like “Hey, here’s a GUN!”

[@natmorse-noland9133]

"Behold, the most powerful spell of all!"

[@stratigangames508]

@@natmorse-noland9133 kaboom

[@jangmo-othewarrior3602]

My favorite Lovecraft character based on that along.

[@Phantom-qr1ug]

*Bald Eagle screeches in the distance*

[@jito7377]

@@Phantom-qr1ug Thanks for illustrating my thoughts. It's ju so 'Murica.

[@wratched]

One massive historical irony: Lovecraft loved Irish people, because he thought they were all descended from Celtic druids and so were all psychic. This was at a time when people were putting up signs saying "No blacks, no dogs, no Irish". Also, he loved Hispanic people. Two of his best bred heroes are Hispanics. He thought they were all descended from Aztecs so were in tune with the whole "dark alien gods" thing.

[@leooreillydoyle7990]

As an Irish person, i am incredibly flattered/confused/insulted

[@admin.slayerenryu]

@@leooreillydoyle7990 As a Mexican person, I agree.

[@hysterical5408]

Huh... guess I'm Psychic then.

[@mikd157]

As someone who’s both Irish and Hispanic, I also feel flattered/insulted/confused

[@SorowFame]

I guess that makes sense if Lovecraft cared more about breeding than race.

[@ianwhelan-miller90]

As silly as the light thing is in Color out of Space, it does kind of capture the utter horror that is acute radiation syndrome and environmental damage from unseen sources such as groundwater contamination and other pollution factors...

[@merlenclownshuffles]

Ground water?

[@neeklmamp4955]

Ground water contamination

[@secondairy]

@@merlenclownshuffles there's pockets of water underground called aquifers that's why we build wells

[@RainaRamsay]

That's ... true.

[@mrs_mothra547]

Yeah, that one actually freaks me out

[@joshleggett4551]

When you read At The Mountains of Madness you realize just how much Lovecraft feared penguins

[@billuraral1870]

The Penguins of Madagascar would give him a stroke

[@slwrabbits]

Everything I learn about this guy just keeps topping itself in incredulousness and hilarity.

[@AskMia411]

YES OMG!!! Finally someone else brought this up! I had to put the book down and laugh hysterically for a good twenty minutes when the protagonist nearly pissed himself over a penguin waddling out of the darkness. In a story filled with truly scary and ominous horrors, a *penguin* of all things (granted, a very large penguin) terrifying the narrator is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read. And it’s not just the giant penguins he’s scared of. Earlier in the story he finds regular penguins horrifying and creepy. Which is Lovecraft’s fatal flaw in writing- he assumes that things he finds creepy are inherently creepy to everyone, and therefore doesn’t explain WHY they’re creepy.

[@1015chrissy]

“He’s also super ugly...” Continues to draw Wilbur grow up to look creepishly handsome

[@elshelalu2027]

L?

[@ForrestFox626]

That is just Red's great artwork.

[@marymccann3500]

The monsterfuckers would be all over this guy if this story came out today

[@woomyinkling3765]

Fan girls draw Wilbur too yaoi ish

[@melvinmerkelhopper5752]

@@marymccann3500 Some guy named Stanley Sargent wrote a story called The Black Brat of Dunwich in which WIlbur is portrayed as a hero.

[@peelslowly28]

Honestly, with the air conditioning story, he claims that his demise is "thanks to the failure of modern technology" when in reality that modern technology kept him alive 18 years after his natural expiration date. So honestly I'd say it was worth it.

[@erinfinn2273]

Also, if he's smart enough to stay alive using an AC and a cocktail of chemicals, why wouldn't he have a back up AC?

[@nathansingleton7532]

@@erinfinn2273 I mean....wasn't air conditioning by the time the story was written basically a new technology? Probably just _couldn't_ get a backup because it's really rare and expensive

[@metaparalysis3441]

@@nathansingleton7532 your life or your dough?

[@chimera9818]

@@nathansingleton7532 true but you would assume you will have some backup if it was so important to your existence even if it was expensive

[@SerialElfYT]

@@chimera9818 He had a backup, it's called asking the kindly neighbour kid to fetch some ice and a repair man.

[@commanderjason7786]

Y'know, if Lovecraft lived long enough to witness the Atomic Age, I wonder what he would've made in reaction to hearing about bombs that can wipe out cities in one go, while leaving a strange, invisible, and deadly force (radiation) around it. He'd probably try making some kind of sequel to Color Out Of Space including radiation, if anything.

[@Joetheknight406]

Maybe the uranium could be the remains of an old one, and by using it we are spreading his influence

[@commanderjason7786]

@@Joetheknight406 I can imagine him using uranium as the remains, that's actually a really good idea. Kinda reminds me how the Apothicons from COD Zombies used Element 115 to corrupt humans.

[@ThePa1riot]

H.P.: CALLED IT!

[@Dustifer]

He would write godzilla, which is already something about atomic bombs

[@Joetheknight406]

@@Dustifer originally it was more about the ecological impact.

[@lukeroberson2115]

"Too delicate of a constitution for math" is HILARIOUS when you remember Red has a math degree.

[@ANDELE3025]

Its even funnier for anyone who knows how the base and field axioms work and thus know when one is broken with a projection, conversion and transition of field based representation when it comes to cross field or outright multidisciplinary problems, giving us the truth that Red herself has a constitution far weaker than Lovecrafts for math despite her degree and his complete lack of advanced professional education on the topic. Or to make it simpler, a to b and parallel c to d dont cease being parallel just because you placed them on a sphere. If they would, you would have to do irl playthroughs of hyperbolica or manifold daily.

[@TerryBradstreet]

Someone in another comment pointed out that studying in non-air conditioned homes could be really dusty and hot and generally bad for people with weak lungs.

[@redpup112]

@@TerryBradstreet and yet, as is self-evident through his work, Lovecraft *hated* AC!

[@TerryBradstreet]

@@redpup112 it didn’t even exist when he was a kid; he encountered it as an adult. And if he couldn’t stand its noise and noxious smells and leaking as an adult, he surely wouldn’t want to put up with it as a child

[@ammarhusain6235]

Thurston was a master of non-euclidean geometry, so sharing a name with this character is also funny.

[@RitcheyRich]

Every picture of Lovecraft makes it look like he's holding a frog in his mouth

[@MerkhVision]

You’re right lol wtf

[@beccag2758]

Oh my gosh you’re right😂😂

[@Elm04]

Tom Holland is secretly HP Lovecraft.

[@massmoney829]

Lmfao, I'm dead 😂

[@codybroadfoot7386]

Maybe his teeth probably just sucked

[@adiraiju9336]

Personally, I thought "Cool Air" was easily the creepiest of the bunch. Partly because I'm a New Yorker who's relying on A/C to deal with the latest heat wave, but also because it's less... I dunno, less extreme than the others. No evil alien gods or incomprehensible horrors here, just a guy who should have died some time ago discovering that his time is up, and the horror of the people around him discovering it should have been up years ago in spectacularly gory fashion.

[@douglassilva4057]

If you haven't read yet, hebert west is also very good.

[@SingingSealRiana]

My favorit too. Well my absolut favorits are the case of Charles dexter ward and the thing on the doorstep but the vibe is similar, the real horror is human

[@levongevorgyan6789]

I thought Rats in the Walls was the worst.

[@mothpawbs027]

Personally I think Polaris is one of his freakiest, about a guy who sees a magical city appear on the marsh (or moorland?? Can't remember) outside his house and begins exploring the city every night while his reality fades around him. That and Color Out Of Space are my personal favorites

[@SingingSealRiana]

@@mothpawbs027 sounds great, thanks for the recommendation ^^

[@andersonborba2060]

So, fun fact: the color out of space is weirdly accurate, though Lovecraft didn't intend it. There is a color the humans perceive that is not on the visible spectrum (this color does not have a wavelength). TL; DR: Lovecraft basically described Magenta. A colour that we often see, but that has no wavelength associated with it. The reason we see it is because our visual recognition system does not allow for a specific redundancy (A small visual glitch). So for some context: The way our brain perceives color is through specific cells in our eyes that get stimulated to the maximum when an electromagnetic wave of a specific wavelength reaches them. We have three types of photoreceptor cells in our eyes, each is stimulated to the maximum by a particular wave. The color for each type of cell is Red, Green and Blue. The colors in between in the electromagnetic spectrum are recreated in our brain because our cells are being stimulated to lesser degrees and our brain does an averaging to reach back to the original color associated with the wave that created the stimulus on those cells. Now Magenta. The thing is: the in-between color when our red and blue cells are stimulated should be a shade of green (on account of a perfect average), but already have a green receptor that is not being stimulated. What does our brain do? what does best: it fills in the blanks, it creates something that not necessarily exists in the spectrum of light. Now comes the question: How can we perceive a color that has no wavelength associated with it? How come there is a way to stimulate the cells at both ends of the visible spectrum without stimulating the one in the middle? The answer is: by putting two wave-emitters really close together. The fun fact is that we cannot tell how many waves are stimulating a region containing hundreds of photoreceivers. So the only way to perceive is by having a "not green" group of waves stimulating a specific point in the retina.

[@bloodstoneore4630]

Finally someone explains it

[@katyajohnson790]

This is a fun explanation, but it obscures some of the scientific basis. Magenta does not have *a* wavelength, but it is not accurate to say it has *no* associated wavelength. It has two associated wavelengths - those for red and blue. It's not a 'glitch' to be able to perceive a combination of two wavelengths! For the same reason, our brain is not 'creating something that does not exist in the spectrum of light' for magenta, it is interpreting a combination of wavelengths, just like it does for pretty much all visual information. There are many other colours that are associated with more than one wavelength - they are called extra-spectral colours. Other examples are grey, white, black, pink, and brown.

[@lissaquon607]

Well that explains why my family can't look at the magenta grow lamp for too long. It gives us headaches and weird color vibrations afterwards.

[@HowardHank]

My head hurts

[@henryfleischer404]

I wonder if this is why a magenta and black checkerboard is sometimes used to denote a missing texture.

[@noizepusher7594]

Imagine being so anxious that you create a new fear.

[@animalia5554]

Sounds like me, my anxiety knows no limits

[@DrShaym]

I would be scared too if I went to a town where everybody looked like Steve Buscemi.

[@theless-than-goodhunter7019]

Dr Shaym Do you think god stays in heaven, because he to is afraid of what he’s created...?

[@alexsolomons2996]

Big fan of your work

[@ahardworker2154]

Ha

[@brendanswain939]

Your that cool dude who roasts feminists, right?

[@pissedoffturtle7333]

@La Tigresa del Mar Probably something to do with the ability most sentient people have to make a separation between entertainment and the person who created it.

[@bibniebt]

In spite of the sarcastic style, the summaries of the stories, especially Shadow over Insmouth, were actually still quite suspenseful. Red's got some damn fine talent at drawing a creepy scene

[@ChloeStarz_]

rick mann ????

[@holden_7597]

Lynlee 831 I’m gonna guess that someone deleted their racist comment.

[@gewreid5946]

Yeah, that color out of space section was disturbing. Fits the story so well. That was actually one of the only lovecraft stories to really spook me.

[@sebastianmorataboada9795]

Yeah, that color would have genuinely spooked me if it weren't of the anticlimatic 'uNliKE aNy oThEr'

[@pietrayday9915]

It's a testament to the stories as well that, even when you're pointing out the worst or most ludicrous things about them while skimming over the stories' strengths, they still stand up well as effective horror stories, enough so that they inspire even a harsh critic of them to draw such moody and unsettling illustrations.

[@LordDeathwing17]

When an archeologist says something was for “ritual purposes,” they mean “we have no idea what this thing is.” When they say something was for “fertility ritual purposes,” they mean “using the term ‘ancient dildo’ in academic papers is heavily frowned upon.”

[@nasdfghidgf8081]

This made me laugh more then it should have

[@arandomkobold8403]

Also "field release" means you dropped the little bastard, "impromptu dissection" means you just squashed it.

[@annakilifa331]

@@arandomkobold8403 well, that's not exactly an archeology thing. ...I hope. 🤔😅

[@arandomkobold8403]

@@annakilifa331 not with that attitude

[@Slayerlord13]

I support making the term "ancient dildo" acceptable in academic papers!

[@cyfrostan]

I feel like Red strikes a good ballance between calling out Lovecraft's bigotry, making fun of the stuff that's silly in his stories, acknowledging the unique strengths of his creative work and even having some sympathy for this man's awful life. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate a nuanced perspective like that.

[@davidthor4405]

THIS! The intellectual scene needs more Reds

[@catloverandminionbeliever]

right, a lot of people are complaining how red highlights his VERY MUCH REAL racism and bigotry (you should see the name of his cat) and are missing their point completely. lovecraft is a renowned author that influenced a lot of our culture today, he’s famous for his work for a reason. ppl don’t understand that you can like Lovecraft and his work while also acknowledging he was a racist, instead of jumping through mountains to prove he wasnt.

[@baldbeardedbassist]

"You mean there exist colors that man has never seen? WHAT MIGHT THEY BE CAPABLE OF?" very quotable, very good

[@notoffensivenpc8400]

chernobyl: let me show you hiroshima and nagasaki: oh let us do that first fukushima: is the partys till going? the sun: keep getting rid of that ozone layer and you will see

[@darensomintegillardig20]

Skin cancer

[@asingularitytypeofperson9917]

Everything from microwave ovens to everybody dies of nuclear fallout and radiation poisoning, apparently.

[@votecthulhu9378]

I mean regular colored people are already capable of a lot of violence... what might those people be capable of?

[@richmcgee434]

Relevant facts - the 1904 World's Fair featured an ancestor of modern medical imaging X-Ray machines, and X-Rays themselves were discovered in 1895. The idea of colors outside the visible spectrum was a well-established fact by the time Howie was in grade school.

[@neptunes-nebula6233]

I can't get over him having "too delicate a constitution for math"

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G XD

[@merlenclownshuffles]

@@Ramsey276one itym Mt

[@kylajensen1957]

Hey, it's a big fat mood, especially for someone in remedial algebra who flunked their last chemistry exam 💀

[@DragonbIaze052]

Imagine applying that logic to games like D&D. "Ah yes, your Intelligence is 20, but your Constitution is only a 6, so you can't figure out how math works."

[@darrylatkins5049]

Idk. I'm a writer and philosopher and I can't stand math and am not very good at it

[@momok232]

The entire Color out of Space section is incredible, from the "You mean there are colors no man has ever seen? WHAT MIGHT THEY BE CAPABLE OF?!?" To the mysterious colors gag.

[@AM-uk3vm]

They're capable of causing horrible cancers..

[@Tintelinus]

Tbf that light is radiation which can definitly fuck you up I guess.

[@mikaroni_and_cheez]

And it's spooooooooookyyyyy

[@andrewfleenor7459]

Hilarious and also reliably gives me chills.

[@IronpenWorldbuilding]

I don’t know why, but H. P. Lovecraft with googly eyes is probably the most bizarrely hilarious thing I’ve ever seen. 11:03

[@fantasticalfox]

“armitage has some latin spells,rice has a bug spray bottle full of not being invisible anymore juice and morgan just brought a really big gun” there are three kinds of people

[@lenatrask-trafton190]

alice l tag yourself, i’m armitage

[@fantasticalfox]

I’m probably a mix of armitage and morgan. mostly morgan

[@robinchesterfield42]

"not being invisible anymore juice" so THAT'S where that one weird powder comes from in "Dungeons of Dredmor". Huh! It does exactly that in the game, too--although the description is worded more like "makes things seen that should have remained unseen". So yeah, Lovecraftian vibe there too.

[@YaBoiKeith]

@@fantasticalfox Magic, science, and gun.

[@craftynerdybookish]

Cleric, wizard, fighter

[@Arindam1262]

Being colorblind, I have a very difficult time being afraid of the Color, because "unseen color" to me is just "bloodred."

[@Azzabackam]

I've honestly never gotten a solid answer to this question, and I'm sorry if you've gotten this before: what do you see in place of the colors you can't? Other colors? Just grey?

[@Arindam1262]

@@Azzabackam Depends on the color. Red and brown blend together, and so do green and brown, though reds tend to turn darker browns and greens lighter, so I almost never get them mixed up, though it's happened once or twice. I also have a hard time telling purples and blues apart.

[@Azzabackam]

@@Arindam1262 Interesting. I've never heard of brown getting mixed in. Have you ever seen colors "unlike ANY seen on Earth"?

[@aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa790]

@@Azzabackam Sounds like you could use Google.

[@thomastakesatollforthedark2231]

Azzabackam how would... he? Know? To... him? bloodred and green are colours never before seen before on earth

[@batking4342]

Why does HP Lovecraft look like Zuckerberg

[@ansrfururactions]

You mean "why does H.P. lovecraft look like a robot"

[@thedapperassassin3717]

Damnit, those nuts in Dunwich are at it again.

[@Vajrapani108]

"The case of mark Zuckerberg"

[@failuretv814]

You mean "why is HP lovecraft a Lizard person" ?

[@tortis6342]

@@Vajrapani108 missed opportunity for “The Mark of Zuckerburg”

[@irisoftheeye]

I love how everyone has different reasons for researching Lovecraft. Some read the stories and wanted to know more, some like Lovecraft-inspired horror, some heard about his cat, some wanted to make fun of the guy. For me, I need Yog-Sothoth related knowledge to write a fanfic about murderous space pirates and their eldritch Norse friend.

[@notthed6534]

Some heard about his cat. 😂😂😂 I forgot about his cat.

[@arcainchaos]

…Would these space pirates happen to be The Mechanisms?

[@irisoftheeye]

@@arcainchaos and i said no, you know, like a liar.

[@deaniesaurus]

_a mysterious colour, unlike any seen on earth-_

[@cozycr8485]

aka magenta

[@anastasianicolaenco4476]

I just love the delivery here hahaha

[@GreyAngel]

My favorite quote

[@maxteraform]

Since this is Lovecraft, it was probably black

[@goldenegg8of100]

@@cozycr8485 it’s magenta, with blobs and streaks of orange and pink.

[@amadhollow635]

Fun fact, he stopped being racist around 33 and called himself out about it I forget if it's in his memoirs or letters to a friend, but if I recall "how shameful for me to not grow up until 33, but better then than not at all" is the best quote talking about it.

[@royalpayn4089]

He also joined the Socialist party before he died, which... I'm not sure what to make of that.

[@alexschalk5439]

I wouldn't say he stopped being racist. Started taking efforts to be less racist would be better.

[@burnyoulearn]

Noooo! we cant say that! we must still burn effigies of him in the streets to appease the hyper-sensitive ones....

[@burnyoulearn]

@@royalpayn4089 Socialism was rather vogue among poor, working-class Americans during that time. He grew up during the Gilded Age and witnessed the 1% machine gunning of striking coal miners. Even the "Roaring Twenties" furthered the divide between working class and their capitalist overlords. This was a prime time to join a union and advocate for a social safety net.

[@burnyoulearn]

@EL AUTENTICO HIs tombstone reads, "I am Providence"

[@madimorelli5955]

The delivery of “JUST MOVE AWAY.” absolutely sends me into fits of giggles every time I watch this

[@thatdidact7893]

Would just like to say that as funny as the line is, Lovecraft accounts for this. Nahum's entire family was directly at the site of the meteorite crash and drinking the well water. They were all slowly being mentally affected. "Zenas never come back from the well . . . can’t git away . . . draws ye . . . ye know summ’at’s comin’, but ’tain’t no use . . ." Red mentions that the surveyor wonders if Ammi was still under the influence of the meteorite because he never left the area, and that's because It's exactly what happened to Nahum and his family.

[@literallyglados]

@@thatdidact7893 wow that quote is nearly as incomprehensible as the words of an elder god

[@knightofarkronia9968]

‘WE WANT TO MOVE, BUT IT WON’T LET US!’

[@thebaldcat6708]

0:00 Intro 0:48 Lovecraft’s life 3:20 The Call of Cthulhu 8:41 Cool Air 10:37 The Color Out of Space 14:38 The Dunwich Horror 19:33 The Shadow Over Innsmouth

[@galaxycroissant9992]

Omg I just realized-- In "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", even before he finds out about his fish ancestry, Robert has the same eyes as the fish people! If you look closely, you can see that the lines on the bottom of his eyes are in the center instead of the outside of each eye. Great attention to detail!

[@sojoboscribe1342]

That's actually in keeping with the story. Even from the beginning a lot of people say Olmstead looks sort of Innsmouth-y around the eyes

[@thehermit8618]

Oh my god, i felt his design was odd but i couldn't quite pin down why. Some sharp sight you got

[@jackmurray411]

Cimento in all other people’s eyes, the bottom half doesn’t actually connect, their left open, while Insmouth people have fully closed bottom halves of their eyes

[@gavinyang5766]

brotha, my guy your brain is actually humongous.

[@TheLangenator]

Weirdly enough, Lovecraft himself also has the Insmouth eyes throughout most of this video...

[@bobbyiaconis7335]

He bumped into a... BLACK GUY... *dramatic music and a gasp* I laughed a bit too hard

[@CollinMcLean]

It's honestly funny just how weirdly racist he is...

[@jalaiclay6843]

Alright? Hopefully people aren’t like that right?

[@Bronasaxon]

The black guy who was strongly implied to be a cultist who killed the professor with a poisoned needle. He did NOT literally die because he was in proximity of a black person.

[@00Trademark00]

@@Bronasaxon I guess the point is that every single villian in Lovecraft's stories is someone non-English. The more non-English you are the more suspicious you are. However, Lovecraft wasn't a Nazi or even a Dixieland kind of white supremacist, he was really an "English supremacist". I think it is quite important to note that his wife was Jewish, I think he was really very literally xenophobic - afraid of the unknown, not really racist in any other way. I find his racism almost funny - I had a chuckle when I read a story of his where there are three ne'er-do-wells (who end up very badly,basiscally in some sort of soul jars) who are Irish, Polish and Czech - I'm Czech. Obviously he describes how uneducated and primitive these three guys are and how questionable their morals are. Still, I don't think Lovecraft's stories aged badly - the racism is so over-the-top and yet so "innocent" that it doesn't really feel insulting at all, at times it even feels like a parody of racism. And it is not like it is the central part of his stories, the evil tribes from Oceania, black voodoo cultists, degenerate immigrants (white, by modern US standards anyway ... but for Lovecraft even Germans are not really "white" - Prussians perhaps, Bavarians definitely not :-) ) are just a backdrop and could be replaced by anyone else. The stories revolve about unknown and unfathomable evils from the vastness of the universe, not really about racism even though racism definitely is present in most stories.

[@Dimizar]

"I like how the story says bumped by "an aquatic looking n***o."

[@shfree3397]

I love that "Call of Cthulhu" is a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. Oh and some diary entries. It is the definition of tell and not show.

[@arempy5836]

How is it tell and not show?

[@beccag2758]

I mean, Frankenstein has that family’s story being told by the monster while he tells the story to Victor while he tells it to the ships captain whose writing to his sister.

[@firstnamelastname7244]

@@beccag2758 I guess telling your story through a convoluted series of flashbacks and journal entries was the norm back then or something.

[@Shpooptypants13]

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a purely anecdotal story about Dracula if your into that

[@cat_lord6415]

I mean, they are meant to be unspeakable horrors. would be weird to show that to the reader. or something.

[@Brainflayer]

In my opinion, the way the Color Out Of Space movie handled the story's adaptation was pretty good, namely by making the color in question visibly portrayed as bright Magenta Pink, a color that appears nowhere in the natural world.

[@Firebender554]

I got curious so I looked up when Magenta was invented and Google said 1859

[@CartoonHero1986]

I just like to laugh at the fact that Lovecraft spent his life writing up horrors that would haunt anyone's nightmares if you think about them too much, but all it would take to elicit that same irrational fear and terror in Lovecraft is introduce him to a person of South East Asian heritage.

[@reine-du-ciel]

as a southeast asian, the idea of someone being terrified just by knowing me is amusing.

[@pakki6555]

Me being from south asia like 😂😂😂

[@bleddynwolf8463]

@@reine-du-ciel go my child, take pleasure in your power to strike fear in the hearts of conservative white dudes

[@Messilegend1000]

@@reine-du-ciel "He is...Southern??? And Eastern??? And ASIAN??? What, and he eats fish too? Dont tell me he also eats ri- he does??? Not the rice. Anything but fish n rice. Oh god oh man"

[@mistertea603]

@@reine-du-ciel you know that scene in spongebob with the two cops...? I emagine doing that with your picture

[@mikekazz5353]

I kinda want a Bob Ross esque tutorial on an Eldritch creature painting. "Let's use titanium white to highlight the burnt sienna skin tone, here *tsk,* here, and here, and you know what let's add an happy uncanny mouth right here oh the forehead, and for fun we'll put a decrepit little cabin in the background, now don't tell anyone it's our little secret."

[@arandomzoomer4837]

This deserves more likes. Yeah and then it would be funny to see the audience go mad as he painted it.

[@SStarry_Days]

I wish this happened.

[@Samrules888]

starbound frackinuniverse?

[@SStarry_Days]

Now let’s add a happy little cult.

[@sesfilmsllc]

Now let’s give this happy little Elder god a friend.

[@VandanaSingh-zr9ji]

He would be seriously scared of shrimps for being super powerful eye monster because they can see a lot more colours

[@DarkestElemental616]

Also they punch with the force of a bullet. Rainbow death.

[@DiamondsRexpensive]

If they can see more colors than us, then my dream is to become a shrimp.

[@themardbard9096]

Evidence: Shrimp can see many colors humans cannot, and shrimp are from the very scary ocean. Conclusion: Shrimp are descendents of the Great Old Ones.

[@anomisk4789]

I'm honestly more surprised he wasn't writing more horror stories about birds 🤣

[@tpxt-rexpredatorxenomorph9200]

You mean mantis shrimp or the pistol shrimp

[@stephanielester7571]

Me, watching the Call of Cthulhu summary: "Wait, that's where it ends? What about Cthulhu? What about the cult? Hey Lovecraft, you left a dangling plotline, take it back!" 😅

[@msun6526]

Art teachers be like: *MYSTERIOUS COLOURS UNLIKE ANY SEEN ON EARTH*

[@queenkaterose]

here were dragons apparently there’s (maybe just) one color/colour we can see it’s magenta

[@gracec7225]

as an art student I want to say you're wrong... but also kind of not really.....

[@aldijanazukic9813]

I’M BLUE ABUDE ABUDIE ABUDE ABUDIE!

[@lyinar]

Despite Lovecraft's many, many, many flaws as a person, he did at least give us a story where a generational death curse turns out to be both a hoax and entirely true in the most hilariously petty way ever: In "The Alchemist", the immortal who "cursed" the family to have all their descendants die at the age of 32 is literally doing all the leg-work himself and just straight-up murdering them whenever the one of them hits the right age. No magic is involved in their deaths aside from their murderer's immortality, he's just THAT stubborn.

[@billuraral1870]

Not to mention his name was Charles Sorcérer Yep...Chuck Wizard

[@ecurps1]

"I cast [punch]!"

[@Flt.Hawkeye]

​@@ecurps1that must state: I. CAST. FIST!

[@siyacer]

Damn.

[@KyleRayner12]

I guess if you're immortal, your time is less valuable.

[@simpleplan32230]

*Mysterious Colour Unlike Any Seen on Earth* This is my new favorite meme.

[@charliejones3272]

Biracial person: *exists before the thought of it even exists* White Person: *Mysterious Colour Unlike Any Seen on Earth* apologies if anyone takes offence to this

[@weldonwin]

@@charliejones3272 Mysterious Skintones, like none seen in Massachusetts

[@JustAChinesePleb]

@@charliejones3272 Anglosaxon whites*

[@euansmith3699]

A meme unlike any seen on Earth!

[@TheHutchy01]

Imagine old Howard's reaction to the new Little Mermaid. Non-white fish people is pretty much the worst thing he could ever imagine

[@saisameer8771]

Well the movie did flop.

[@ForrestFox626]

I think a lot of new things would cause H.P. to have a massive heart attack

[@Flt.Hawkeye]

​@@ForrestFox626or 7. Simultaiously

[@korben600]

Everyone's talking about how fucked up LC would be seeing hentai and shit, meanwhile I'm over here thinking that the mere *idea* of radiation and nuclear weapons might just cause Lovecraft to spontaneously combust. "Hey, remember how you wrote that whole thing about 'a meteor with light you can't see that kills people'? Yeah turns out that's bullshit, but we *have* found a material that poisons literally anything it touches, to the point that even being in proximity to some of the more nasty versions of the stuff will cause your body to *break down on itself within days.* ...also this material can be turned into bombs so powerful, even *one* will kill literally your entire hometown in the blast. The poison-y affects come afterwards to infect any of the survivors and anyone who comes to help. Oh! And even if you survive that, it'll probably fuck up any future kids you plan on having. ...also we made like...twenty thousand of these bombs? And pointed them at each other for shits and giggles? Don't worry, things have gotten better. We're down to like only a few thousand now. What was that? You wanted to go back to 1936? 'My constitution can't handle this'? OH RIGHT. I forgot to mention, all this occurs within the next *decade* for you. Have fun buddy! :)"

[@raymundoserna3449]

I bet he would write on crazy book about it after he gets over the major mental break down

[@mikemed1978]

Nice thought

[@HBHaga]

Early radiation research is, most likely, what got him onto that track in the first place.

[@fakename7725]

Yeah, like, if he’s scared of EM waves outside visible light, imagine how fucked up he would be learning that they can pierce through almost anything and obliterate your bones, lungs and skin

[@gratuitouslurking8610]

Don't forget, last I knew we still had a good dozen of those bombs unaccounted for? Sweet dreams.

[@paulinet68]

The color unlike any on Earth seems to just be radiation. Makes things glow, makes crops weird, makes area uninhabitable, and is on the radiation wave spectrum. If we look at a meteor as just a very radioactive meteor, possibly made from incredibly enriched uranium (or an isotope that doesn't occur on Earth), the story would partially make sense.

[@thekinginyellowmessiahofha6308]

This is a setting with ancient alien gods and sentient cats in space, pretty sure it’s just living color.

[@jellofish2590]

Oh yeah and uranium is a metal so it wouldn't chip, like what they said in the book

[@Xalerdane]

Remember, you have a higher degree of education than the dingbat racist who wrote the story.

[@raymondwiggins354]

14:10 she says "mysterious colors unlike any on earth"so much she just cuts herself off

[@dull_demon4717]

that- thats the point

[@victorconway444]

"Hates Progress Lovecraft" lmao that was gold

[@WraythSkitzofrenik]

Tshirt logo???

[@ENTITY-ls5xo]

Hippo Potamus Lovecraft

[@victorconway444]

@@WraythSkitzofrenik You flatter me

[@raptalos9412]

High Potato Lovecraft

[@thehopesystem3795]

"Horrible Phobias Lovecraft" did it for me

[@eldritchmayosandwich]

Petition to resurrect Lovecraft and have him play Subnautica, a game practically built on eldritch horrors. (Edit: punctuation, because yes.)

[@justvibin1447]

Also make him watch "Shape of Water"

[@springfaux6991]

"MAKE HIM PLAY FALLEN LONDON"

[@misteraskman3668]

Just the concept of Aquaman would make him shortcircuit.

[@jadenbryant9283]

​@@misteraskman3668which is funny because there is a verison of aquaman that is related to the lovecraftain mythos that being the kryptonian epic version

[@irisoftheeye]

Imagine him listening to The Magnus Archives. Lovecraftian horror AND gay people. Literally the stuff of nightmares for him

[@BowandSvent]

"OH GOD ITS DARK WHAT COSMOLOGICAL HORROR IS THIS?!" "You blinked, Lovecraft."

[@Dustifer]

"WHAT MIGHT THIS DARKNESS BE CAPABLE OF"

[@matthewgallaway3675]

@@Dustifer “It dies real fast Howard. That’s what it’s capable of.”

[@alexconn7473]

@@matthewgallaway3675 "oh don't bother trying to explain it to him that Lovecraft is a fool who's scared of everything" pulls out hand mirror "here Howard look at this" "gah what manner of ungodly abomination is this?!" "See what I mean?"

[@_AniMason_]

Actually Lovecraft never closed his eyes because all he would see would be black

[@ghazghkullthraka9714]

‘BUT WHAT OF THE LONG DARKNESS?!’ ‘You took a nap, you moron’

[@ThreeGoddesses]

I just want to say, if a space rock came down and glowed with a color that was outside the spectrum of light we could normally percieve but we could percieve that same color, I would also be a tad freaked out. Like, if suddenly I could see ultraviolet wavelengths but only on a specific rock, wouldnt that be weird?

[@cageybee7221]

there are people who have had to have parts of their eyes removed due to medical conditions like cataracts. turns out, one of those parts is a filter that blocks out the ultraviolet spectrum in order to protect your eyes. those people could see ultraviolet in some capacity, and described it as a very bright whitish violet. which makes about as much sense as anything these days.

[@latrodectusmactans7592]

I'd be more scared of radiation than anything else. Especially when the rock is reducing in size.

[@toyamwarr]

That’s what I thought when I first heard the plot. “Are they suddenly seeing UV light like butterflies can in addition to visible light? Can they see gamma rays and x-rays as well?” Then I thought they were suddenly seeing color for the first time like in “The Giver” and they didn’t know how to process this new information. Nope. It’s just a color. A color they can see but can’t name.

[@Flame-rp6yq]

it was most likely magenta since it appears in between red and violet wavelengths which are on either sides of the visible light spectrum and the human mind is one of the only ones that can perceive it it was recently named in the late 1850s by dye makers and made into printing ink in the 1890s and one of the first photographs of a nebula was taken in the 1880s of the Orion Nebula, which is unlike anything man has seen before, and are colors out of space, which would seem strange and maddening to the paranoid Lovecraft who already has a fear of the sheer vastness of the seemingly infinite cosmos and its unknown reaches.

[@vonschlesien]

​@@toyamwarr A lot of the "people glowing in the dark and dying horribly" also reads, to post-1945 eyes, as radiation. A lot of later Lovecraftian fiction channels fear not of the foreigner, but of technology and environmental damage. Honestly, this aesthetic/structure fits a lot of more modern themes *better* than it fits Lovecraft's fears of the foreign and of "impure" ancestry.

[@edslushie570]

“Half-Human, Half-Octopus, Half-Dragon.” “This is what happens when you lack the constitution for math.”

[@lyndacrnmr]

No, no. You don’t understand. It has three halves because it is non-Euclidean!

[@bonogiamboni4830]

Half man, half bear and half pig.

[@Guardsman--ku9wi]

@@bonogiamboni4830 I see you are also a man of culture.

[@toprak3479]

@@bonogiamboni4830 Does it also bear the ability to levitate?

[@bonogiamboni4830]

@@toprak3479 sure, why not.

[@dragonsword2253]

I come back to this video every year. It's a tradition for me to hear Red dunk on Hopelessly Pennyless Lovecraft once per October

[@ArcstoneBionicle]

10:23 Can we please get a mug reading "Worlds Alivest Doctor" if one doesn't already exist?

[@celestewright4454]

Don't forget at 3:34 , there's "the world's sanest professor" with tentacles!

[@woodfur00]

W.D. Gaster (no I will not apologize)

[@Deidara525]

I love the anthropology joke of "ritual purposes?" "we already knew that." For those that don't know, in archaeology and anthropology, if you don't know what something is, you say it's for ritual because really, anything is ritual. Brushing your teeth? Ritual. Cooking? Ritual. Praying to some unknowable god who will destroy your world? Ritual! Getting ready for bed? By golly, you guessed it, that's ritual! It's a catch all for "heck if I know."

[@khamulthewack4732]

I am now wiser and apparently more zealously ritualistic than I had realized. My refrigerator is practically an altar.

[@iceluvndiva21]

Ritual or Routine..... You decide!

[@guyjay]

It's also code for "this was clearly used for masturbation, but we don't want to acknowledge it." Sometimes the word "fertility" will be attached to it if it very obviously looks like genitalia and it is impossible to dismiss it as something else, but if there's even the slightest bit of ambiguity - "ritual."

[@Valery0p5]

@@guyjay talk about the Linga and the Yoni 😅

[@caitlinbrewer4843]

Fertility ritual = ancient dildo

[@Howtragicforyou]

There is this wonderful moment in “At the Mountains of Madness” where Dyer admits that he doesn’t blame the elder things for what they did to his people because it was much the same as any of his people would do to them. It’s this weird little moment of lucidity.

[@toprak3479]

That one is one of his latest works and I consider it proof that Lovecraft was starting to see the flaws in his views

[@LocutusBorgOf]

@@toprak3479 there's a wonderful hbomberguy video about Lovecraft that expands on this point, I imagine you've seen it

[@toprak3479]

@@LocutusBorgOf No I haven't. I don't even know who that is lol but I'll check that out

[@piratekingomega3292]

@@toprak3479 During the great depression his world view basically collapsed. There was no noble aristocracy coming in to save the day, no proof of white “superiority”. white men and women were suffering just the same as black men and women and it broke him. He began to realize that all of his work was advocating for a belief he personally saw get disproven…and then immediately died of cancer. He wrote only a few books about this new world view with an underlying sense of dread that people might read them to support a cause he no longer believed, to justify oppressing people he started to feel sorry for.

[@dradronicgaming744]

@@piratekingomega3292 that is genuinely depressing