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The Beast that Bothers

As expected

People, especially games, get eldritch madness wrong a lot and it’s really such a shame.

An ant doesn’t start babbling when they see a circuit board. They find it strange, to them it is a landscape of strange angles and humming monoliths. They may be scared, but that is not madness.

Madness comes when the ant, for a moment, can see as a human does.

It understands those markings are words, symbols with meaning, like a pheromone but infinitely more complex. It can travel unimaginable distances, to lands unlike anything it has seen before. It knows of mirth, embarrassment, love, concepts unimaginable before this moment, and then…

It’s an ant again.

Echoes of things it cannot comprehend swirl around its mind. It cannot make use of this knowledge, but it still remembers. How is it supposed to return to its life? The more the ant saw the harder it is for it to forget. It needs to see it again, understand again. It will do anything to show others, to show itself, nothing else in this tiny world matters.

This is madness.

Thank you for this good PSA because I’m still seeing sincere, published, professional writers doing “ahhhhh oh no this monster was SO UGLY i’m mentally ill now!”

forms of eldritch horror include but are not limited to - nobody will ever believe you, you must live alone with this knowledge - you will never feel safe again, and you realize you were never safe before - everything that was familiar is now strange and abhorrent to the point anything that now seems normal should be held in utmost suspicion - having this new knowledge has opened doors that will continually reveal new equally cursed knowledge without end - death and madness are no longer escapes

I’ve always felt that the idea of madness or sanity in an eldritch horror sense were misnomers. If anything, I feel a better term is a change of perspective. There is nothing inherent in seeing a greater being that “drives you insane”, it’s that this being doesn’t fit into your previous worldview at all and you have to wrestle that. Every character can and should react differently, changing in ways that “make sense” for them. It’s either a change in worldview or attempting to fit the greater being into your preexisting one. Both will have negative results, but will be interesting as hell to explore.

You know what? Unironically, I think this is the best comment I’ve seen on this post.

I know I wasn't supposed to.

But I went into the woods.

Another me came out.

We seem to be equally suspicious that the other is the imposter. I keep checking him for roots and he keeps doing the same to me. Is it a double bluff? Is he gaslighting me into thinking I'm the neverwas thing and he's the human being with organs and anxiety? Is he truly unaware he's a mockery given shape? If he can be unaware of it, I can be too.

That's kind of a lonely thought, really.

-

It's been several days and the tests are all inconclusive. We both bleed normal blood that doesn't turn into a spider and jump to the ceiling when you touch it with a hot wire. We know the same trivia. We pretended to know the same stuff we forgot that we were embarrassed not to remember. We both got uncomfortable at the exact same time when we walked into the cathedral.

We arm wrestled and didn't tie somehow, but we weren't sure if winning meant he was more likely to be fake or less likely.

I worry that we don't really know anything about accursed other selves from the woods.

Wikipedia has been less than helpful.

-

Mom claims she knows which one of us is her 'first boy' but refuses to tell us on the basis that she loves us both and thinks we should get along.

He thinks she can't tell and is too embarrassed to tell us. I think its because she wants to double her chance at grandkids. The difference in opinion is interesting, but is it a sign of an imposter, or the divergence of our experiences?

-

We've decided to flip for the job. I won, so I don't have to find new work. I don't know if that's a win.

I think the curse is that neither one of us is an unnatural imposter out to kill the other. Or else whichever one of us is the monster has realized they don't think my life is worth killing to steal.

I know I think about smashing that copy of my own face open with a rusty fire axe, a gush of sea water and blasphemous screams roiling from the empty hole that should contain bone and brains, and it just seems like a lot of trouble and effort.

I think I'm going to start going by my middle name.

-

Another me just showed up on our doorstep.

He's caked in mud, sticks and twigs in his hair, babbling about harrowing experiences. I'm fixing him some tea while the other-other me hands him the pamphlet we made just in case.

Now he's telling us about the Night King. Like we don't know.

I need a bigger place.

@kgmarcy 's psyduck is tasked with the errand of purchasing a potion at the corner store. its just the show Old Enough but with pokemon

{ID - black and white digital comic of a Psyduck (a short, chubby duck pokemon) being sent on an errand by its trainer.

The Psyduck looks up at its trainer as they fit it with a Stuffle (teddy bear pokemon) backpack. It is then turned around and ushered away. The trainer waves fondly and then whispers, "Go, go, go!"

Psyduck looks back with teary eyes, then steps slowly away. It gets about five steps away before it stops, to the trainer's surprise. It then drops to a sit and starts to sob loudly. The trainer looks incredibly distressed.

END ID}

I found this proverb somewhere on this cursed website. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

So here’s how laws work in the US. The federal government can’t tell the states what to make their drinking age but they can tell the states that if they don’t make the drinking age 21 then they’ll take away all of their money for highways. So the federal drinking age is not 21 but the drinking age is 21 in all 50 states. But not the territories. Because they follow different rules.

The federal government can tell the states to make marijuana illegal however but the states in return can say “lol no” and for the most part the federal government just can’t be assed to enforce this so a bunch of states have made recreational marijuana legal in varying capacities. But the businesses that sell weed can’t use federally backed banks because what they’re doing is still illegal even though it’s legal and that’s why the IRS has regulations for taxing illegal businesses.

Original tweet

I think the logic here is:

>we save people from fires

>fires can kill anyone, including queer people

>we also save queer people from fires

And in an age where paramedics legally refused to save the life of a trans car crash victim, that’s an important sentiment to state

Grabs a sharpie and adds “And Neither Do We”

Don’t worry, it’s there lol.

Inspired by recent discussions of an Actual Play.

Night Flight 🌌