People Wonder Why I Write Depressing Stories · 3:38pm Apr 29th, 2016
This morning, my girlfriend woke up a bit frisky. She was flirting with me, but I wasn't really flirting back. I wasn't rejecting her of course, but she could tell it was a bit of an effort for me to keep acting interested. And so she asked, "What's wrong?"
I explained that my dreams last night had involved sex, but I wouldn't really call them enjoyable, and it had left me a bit out of sorts.
I was chosen to be the one to read through the pages of the Necronomicon, for the book desires to be read, and one must be sacrificed to its hunger in order to save us all. After that, the dream was a series of short, hazy "vingettes", 1001 Tales style. Read a page, have a brief hazy sequence of what that story depicts. They started bad. Werewolves, insects that devour cities, terrible plagues upon the earth. But the further I read, the worse and worse they got, mixing graphic gore with deeper existentialist horror.
The last one before I woke up was "Atef, the False Desire Etched In Acid." It was a worm about twice the size of a horse, that predated on humans by dissolving them and slurping up their remains, but had the special power that anyone who observed it would see something they wanted to be close to or considered sexually attractive and nonthreatening.
The dream started with me as the sacrifice, thrown down into it's lair. I quickly made a blindfold out of the tattered remains of the previous sacrifice's shirt. Blind, and slamming into every object in my path (it hurt) I fled the lair able to hear it right behind me. It was a palpable terror, and my heart pounding nearly woke me up in bed several times. And so I ran, until I felt sunlight, and sprinted out into the open, and shouted for help -- and my friends came and asked what was wrong.
So, with my friends there, I removed the blindfold and looked back -- and explained that I really wanted them to meet my girlfriend. They cooed and made polite sounds and introduced themselves and told me I was lucky to be dating a chick so far out of my league. All the while, the worm oozed acid from it's leathery skin, while it's circular maw of lamprey-like teeth clicked. It was in no hurry, sitting there in a slothful stupor, waiting for us to come to it.
Which we did, of course. I did. The rest of the dream was us "making out," complete with an emotional sense that this is really sexy and attractive (and the associated physical symptoms), but the visual was clearly my face being slowly melted off by acid and the skin scraped away by those lamprey teeth once it was pliable enough. Like wax. I awoke aroused, but also with a powerful sense of dread, and more than that, filth. Something dirty, and something wrong.
Overall, my girlfriend took it pretty well I would say. Nobody likes being turned down by their SO, but she's always been understanding and sweet.
Will have to make it up to her later.
Baby, I promise I'm not a murderous alien worm.
I'm a changeling faerie here to charm you and steal you from your family, there's a difference.
And - I understand, really. You'll be okay, I promise.
I'm sure she is sweet.
SHE HAS ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD TO WAIT, AFTER ALL...
3905265
It's okay. I'll get him next time
Ah jeez that sounds really awful. I'm lucky in that I pretty much never remember nightmares anymore (I don't know if I have them; I'm asleep)
3905235 wow, Author of the well of pyrene? ( which I swear I will read someday in the nebulous future) talk about a pony fiction power couple!
Whaaaaaaaa
3905313
Through the Well of Pirene, yes!
And thanks, I'm rather proud of Jax, too.
3905346 I realized I had mangled the title, and was going to go back and fix it, but I forgot, because I am very harebrained, but also because I'm driving to work right now. (Don't worry I'm using talk to text, not typing this)
Welp, that's as good (or bad!) a case of having too much imagination for your own good that I've seen in a while.
Holy shit, son. Buy a dreamcatcher, or something.
Luna really needs to stop taking nights off.
I always hear about Lovecraft, and of course Cthullu, but never read anything by him. Your stories make me want to change that. Not necessarily scary but enough to unease you.
3905556 But it's his inspiration! If she interfered he would have nothing to write about.
There's an SCP like that. c.c
3905622
Ironically?
A lot of the Lovecraft you see today is a flanderized version of the original works. He had some freaky shit, don't get me wrong, but there was almost a heroic air to it.
3905659
*om nom nom*
Man, there are some days when it just doesn't pay to stay in bed. D:
What the hell, Jax's subconscious. What the hell.
So you woke up, and your first instinct wasn't to transmute this dream into erotic roleplay? Weirdo.
3905309
Well, you know what they say; you won't have any nightmares if you never dream.
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Well played
3905823 derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/11/28/1032014__safe_fluttershy_screencap_smiling_animated_cute_looking+at+you_magic_flying_wide+eyes.gif
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Not exactly. It's more that the focus has narrowed to a specific band of his works, more "The Rats in the Walls" than "The Silver Key". Lovecraft's pieces had a variety of moods but when people say Lovecraftian these days they tend to mean one specific one.
Another thing present in the originals that we've lost , thankfully, is the old-timey casual racism. The Rats in the Walls, for example, is excellent as long as you can look past the protagonist naming his cat "Nigger-Man" because it's black. He seems to like the cat so it doesn't come off as quite badly as it could, but it's still something that wouldn't fly in a modern book.
A chilling tale. While I've had some dreams wilder than I could have imagined (though apparently I did), I haven't had a nightmare in a long time. Heck, in one of the last ones I remember having, after the third or so scary death I was just standing around bored waiting for the monster to jump at me. Most dreams either end either in the middle of something, or after a sad event at worst.
As an example: One I could have sworn I wrote down somewhere involved finding a gem that appeared to give me alicorn-like powers and SPACE LASERS. I fought an entire oncoming space fleet with them, but after I defeated them all I met a hologram of Twi that told me it was all a recording/distress beacon from Equestria's long dead civilization, and I was sitting slack-jawed in the ancient temple where I had found it, doomed to waste away like all the adventurers before me who touched the gem. I still gave the place a positive review on Yelp because the space battles were thrilling.
Now, nightmares you can't wake up from? Those are scary.
3905647 SCP 597?
(No images, but I sure ain't linking that myself.)
3905974
031 actually.
You have vivid dreams like that often, GaP?
Sorry about that. Must have miscalibrated my orbital mind-control lasers. You were just supposed to vote for Trump.
Your nightmares come with titles?
Your nightmares are going to give me nightmares. Also, holy crap... You told her that one?!
3905974
Not recursive sure if accidentally or if you just just lucidity.
3905235
"I'm kidnapping you away from your family! Forever!"
'Hooray!'
"Usually my victims are less enthusiastic."
'My family is awful and you are cute.'
3905265
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3905313
Thank you! Though man, I really need to get back into regular updates. I'm doing a writing panel at Bronycon and worried someone will go: "So how much, precisely, have you written since you did this panel last year?"
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3905463
So that the dreams can all get caught in the catcher and distill down into a super concentrated DOOM NIGHTMARE form? I don't think so!
3905647
I just read it.
I also hate you more than a little now.
3905721
My subconscious hates me. Just, a lot. Like, I know my writing is super depressing? But it's important to keep in mind that it gets made /less/ twisted during the editing process, not more. The first drafts of a lot of my stories are a kind of incoherent slurry of dark imagery and cruel irony.
3906885
All the time actually, yeah. One of my more positive dreams ended up as a story on FiMFic (just posted it). But most of my dreams are vivid and detailed.
3908817
Actually, yes. They're surprisingly detailed!
3912656
My girlfriend and I have a very open, trust-based relationship. It comes up a lot when one of you is crazy.
Also, hey you!
3921784
Hon, you're my most enthusiastic of victims.
3921793
Ah, I wondered. I have friends whose dreams are also very vivid, some because they take medications and others just because apparently. Disturbing dreams are a common trait among all of them.
3921789
Don't hate the messenger, dogg! :B
3921798
Okay, now hear me out. So once upon a time, there was this... guy. Let's call him Alph. Alph the Second. This guy was huge. Like, infinite huge. Bigger than infinite huge, even.
Anyway, Alph had a... girl. They had a really trusting relationship. Alph would tell her everything, and often the same thing in multiple ways just to make sure she got it. The guy was also really open, like every time she thought she was pushing up against his boundaries, he'd just get deeper. She would tell him things too, of course. She'd tell him everything.
So one day the girl thought, this guy is too good. He doesn't hide anything, and he has so much to say. But he has so much going on, how do I know that I really understand him? She couldn't answer that, and it chewed her up inside. It started affecting their relationship.
The girl thought she'd ask her friend... Ernie. Ernie knows everything about relationships. If she wanted her relationship to be functional again, Ernie was the man for the job.
So the girl went to Ernie and told him about her problem. Ernie, smart guy that he was, had an idea. He said to her, if she wants to prove to herself that she really understands Alph, she should ask Alph to tell her anything and everything he wanted, as much as she could retain. If she could tell Alph the same thing back, but in her own way, then she really did understand him.
The girl really wanted this, but she was getting nervous. Putting herself to the test like that was more than a little daunting.
"Do you think I can do it?"
Ernie had nothing to hide. He looked her straight in the eye and said, "Fuck if I know."
Regardless, the girl knew what she wanted. That night, after spending hours preparing herself, she went to Alph's place. She told him what was bothering her, and she told him what Ernie had said. She wanted to try Ernie's suggestion. Alph agreed.
And that was that.
So how did the test go? Well, this girl was special. Let's just say that no can say Choice failed.
Howdy!