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Lovecraftian Magical Girls

I disagree with the idea that Lovecraftian horror (In the sense of cosmic horror, more than in the sense of "stuff Lovecraft wrote") and magical girl shows are polar opposites. (And am glad to see it's not just me) The main difference, to my view, is:

In Lovecraftian Horror, those few who become aware of the secret dark side of the universe are ultimately consumed by it. Exceptions usually react by trying to hide from the terrible things that make up the True Universe in a feeble attempt to extend their pathetic lives a meager few years.

In a magical girl show, some of those who become aware of the secret dark side of the universe proceed to punch it in its goddamn face with love, striving to protect all the poor saps who would otherwise be consumed by the terrible things that lurk in the dark.

If you really look at magical girl stories, they are dark. (And I don't just mean cases like Madoka) Certainly, there's a tendency that foiling villainous plots

A Lovecraftian story will spend more time grinding the audience's face in the inherent awfullness of the universe, with speeches about how We'll Get Through This Together being a signal to the gibbering monsters to come suck the marrow from your bones, but the basic nature of the universe isn't that different. It's how successfully people cope with it that's different. Or more precisely how successfully the protagonist copes.

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That said, a story in which magical girls are empowered by eldritch, uncaring abominations who do it to serve their own mysterious and terrible ends sounds awesome.

Sailor Cthulhu: fighting off alien invaders so Dread Cthulhu has no competition when he finally awakens with alien geometries and horrific attacks on the mind. (Or whatever is more Cthulhu-y)

Sailor Crawling Chaos: the dark magical girl, here to make the entire world a reflection of her own horrible life. Nyarlathotep is willing to grant her the power to make it happen because, you know, he's horrible like that.

Etc.

(I'm unfortunately more familiar with vaguely Lovecraftian fiction than with the original Mythos...)
 
Magical Girls might have incredible powers, but in the end they can't win without human empathy. In Lovecraft, knowledge is power and power corrupts the user. A story that combines the two would be about choosing not to use power when it's possible to solve conflicts without it.
 
I would argue that "knowledge is power and power corrupts" is more of a Chaosium and Call of Cthulhu RPG thing than actual Lovecraft. Reading terrible books and going insane from it, strangely enough, is NOT something that happens in his stories. Yes, there are books full of forbidden knowledge, but you won't be hurt by reading them. Rather, the problem is that after you've read them, you now know just enough to start recognizing the horrible shit that happens in our reality.

Actually reading the Necronomicon will just make you go "Huh. That was weird and interesting. Oh well, on with my life!"

It's just that the next day, you'll see something that makes you go "Oh shit, it's just like the Mad Arab said!"

Which, amusingly enough, has a paralell in Madoka Magica: When Sayaka talks about how they now live in a new world because they know about Witches. How Madoka can't really talk about Mami's death with her family. How the girls, even before they make their wishes, are isolated from the rest of humanity by the knowledge of what the world is really like, and has been like all along.
 
This isn't connected to Lovecraftian stuff directly, it's a general observation about magical girls (and kid superheroes in general). Why don't they tell anyone? Surely the government would care if the world was about to be eaten -- after all, the homeland doesn't get much more insecure than that! It would certainly help with problems of their parents grounding them! Remember, they can transform and levitate, so they could certainly prove they weren't simply bonkers.

My headcanon about why the magical girls in my previous Sailor Moonbeast post don't tell the governments of Earth about the evil sea monsters is that they want only one fight. There will always be power-hungry fools who think they can control the power of the Mythos, what if they were not madmen summoning in garrets but instead had the resources and legitimacy of a civilized government behind them? There will always be avaricious men who scheme for dominion over more than they already possess -- what if these venal criminals knew about dark magic?

The combination might not be as bad as the Deep Ones and their vile scheme, but it would still be dangerous indeed. And it wouldn't just be once. No matter how many times the Sailor Soldiers defeated a plot, their would always be another. Better a single struggle -- however high the stakes might be, and however painful and hard the fight -- than a thousand lesser struggles, not all of which could be won.
 
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Emote Control said:
This isn't connected to Lovecraftian stuff directly, it's a general observation about magical girls (and kid superheroes in general). Why don't they tell anyone? Surely the government would care if the world was about to be eaten -- after all, the homeland doesn't get much more insecure than that! It would certainly help with problems of their parents grounding them! Remember, they can transform and levitate, so they could certainly prove they weren't simply bonkers.

My headcanon about why the magical girls in my previous Sailor Moonbeast post don't tell the governments of Earth about the evil sea monsters is that they want only one fight. There will always be power-hungry fools who think they can control the power of the Mythos, what if they were not madmen summoning in garrets but instead had the resources and legitimacy of a civilized government behind them? There will always be avaricious men who scheme for dominion over more than they already possess -- what if these venal criminals knew about dark magic?

The combination might not be as bad as the Deep Ones and their vile scheme, but it would still be dangerous indeed. And it wouldn't just be once. No matter how many times the Sailor Soldiers defeated a plot, their would always be another. Better a single struggle -- however high the stakes might be, and however painful and hard the fight -- than a thousand lesser struggles, not all of which could be won.
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In a Lovecraftian world where knowledge of the Old Ones, Cthluhu, and even the Deep Ones is mostly just hidden/obscure/esoteric knowledge, I'm assuming the answer to why they wouldn't tell authorities is more simple: they think no one would believe them. I mean, unless you showed up in person holding like, the severed head of a byakhee to show to the police, I'm guessing most authorities would assume you're just doing the equivalent of a prank call.
Worst case scenario, they hand the police the severed head, and the police, secretly being followers of Nyarlathotep, lead them into a locked interrogation room and attempt to kill off the heroes. Then, in the process of busting out, they have to (hopefully non-lethally) assault the police, and soon the magical girls become official targets by the police instead of just masked vigilantes who hold back the tides of darkness and fight crime while looking pretty.

Btw, is Sailor Moonbeast a story you're writing in length, or was that blurb all we'll get to see of it? /hoping-more-is-on-the-way
 
I considered that the Sorcerer Soldiers (more Lovecraftian than Sailor Soldiers) might think no one would believe them -- but if they broke into Colbert during a live broadcast and started throwing fireballs around, they'd get past any conspiracies they didn't know about. But in this scenario, the problem is that everyone will believe them -- and what then? Every army, intelligence agency, terrorist group and drug cartel will want the power and wealth of the Deep Ones, and anything else out there, for itself. Civilization will be destroyed anyway, pretty fast.

As for writing it in length, no. I'm taking classes, and working, and my remaining energies are still devoted to the Terminator Universe Expanded you see in my sig. But if someone else wants to run with Sorcerer Moonbeast, I'd be delighted to beta.
 
Aranfan said:
Technically the Cats of Ulthar are just normal cats from a town named Ulthar. But yeah, felines tend to be good guys in lovecraft.
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Insofar as any cat is normal in Lovecraft.

I mean, it's basically a fact that all cats can travel to the Moon at will, and know all the secrets that predate the building of the Sphinx.
 
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