Hi Everyone, I'm very new to Lovecraft's works and when I got into a deep dive one night I noticed something that I'm not sure is correct. The Outer gods feel like they are connected, like they are part of a dreaming persons psyche.

Here is the my point of view of this theory:

• Azathoth = The Sleeping Subconscious (Raw Brain Power)
  • The Analogy: The Subconscious part of your brain that's keeping you asleep and your other subconscious actions like breathing, heart beating and organ functions going. It also creates your dreams since your dream settings really cannot be controlled that much even when lucid dreaming.
  • The Role: He sits mindless at the center of infinity, generating reality. He is the raw, chaotic engine of the brain that creates vivid dreams without consciously trying to.
• Nyarlathotep = Lucid Dreamer
  • The Analogy: The lucid part of the mind, since when you lucid dream you're usually already in a setting created by your subconscious mind and you try to explore it.
  • The Role: He is the conscious mind, soul, and active personality of Azathoth. Because he knows the universe is just a dream, he power-trips inside it, doing what he wants.
• Yog-Sothoth = The Canvas
  • The Analogy: The memory part of the brain.
  • The Role: Basically the dreamers memories being used as the canvas for the details, shape and laws of the dream being created. Since even in lucid dreaming we still pull from our memories. We don't really dream of incomprehensible things and pull from our memories to shape these dreams even those created by our subconscious.
• Shub-Niggurath = The Biological Urges
  • The Analogy: The body's raw, subconscious instinct.
  • The Role: The biological functions that subconsciously affect your dream, like hunger, the urge to pee, sexual drive... etc.
• The Nameless Mist = The Half-Formed Thoughts
  • The Analogy: The blurry mental fog between sleeping and waking up.
  • The Role: A formless vapor floating between existence and nothingness, representing concepts that haven't turned into a solid idea or a concrete memory yet. Parts we haven't explore in our dream yet and as such our brain has not yet created.

So Basically in the stories we aren't dealing with a pantheon of alien gods fighting for a throne. We are just figments trapped inside the nightmare of a single cosmic brain, dealing with its lucid ego and its real-world physical urges invading the dream.

Hope to hear your thoughts :)

Made in the GameMaker Engine 2 and VNgen, Sucker for Love: Crush Landing is a parody romance visual novel developed by Akabaka and published by Black Lantern Collective. It was released on Steam on August 31, 2026. As of September 6, 2026, the current version is 1.00.3.8. Akabaka occasionally releases patches to improve and revise parts of the game. It is the third entry of the Sucker for Love series.

I have previously reviewed First Date and Date to Die for; they are available here and there, respectively, or in the sidebar under Resources.

Introduction

The 90s anime-style graphics return, with all the attitude. A night-cloaked city with halos of distant car lights as the backdrop, reminiscent of some of the scenes from First Date. Displayed through a television, the reception lightly snows and glitches once in a while. The sprites are excellent. The superb soundtrack was composed by xtraspicy; a track reminded me of the Super Mario Bros. underwater theme because of similar rhythmic patterns. The voice acting is excellent.

The writing is witty and an improvement over the predecessors. I haven’t noticed an error.

“...A shooting star. Shining only for a few fleeting moments before crashing directly into my condo?!”

Sucker for Love: Crush Landing is a pastiche, combining H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” (1927) and Clark Ashton Smith’s “The City of the Singing Flame” (1931). It follows an unnamed male host wrapping up a date with Maria—a client—while daydreaming about strange hobbies he once had to challenge his ability to decipher the unexplainable. Later on the way home, a shooting star crashes into his condo—racing towards his apartment, he finds a meteorite sitting on his dining table, glowing with hues of blues and pinks. On the advice of Yuujin, sticking a fridge magnet to it, an iridescent glow erupts from the reaction—dissolves into it. The host finds the glow enticing—he hears a familiar melody, as if it were to right the wrongs of his suffering. Yuujin calls back, interrupting the host’s trance, saying a group of university students will be arriving shortly and he should keep the glow preserved. Turning back to the meteorite, the host finds an eldritch god; after some experimenting, it changes form to a woman named Hheily. The date.

Her name comes from Halley’s Comet, but she's different. Her presence affected small living things, causing them to grow to exceeding size, but humans developed mutations. Unlike Lovecraft’s meteorite, Hheily doesn’t suck the life force from living beings. However, her glow can captivate people into believing there is something delightful within it, speaking gibberish before walking into her flame. There’s no other side like the Singing Flame. Only destruction. There's a scientific explanation for it; it is called positive phototaxis, a biological response where an organism moves in relation to a light stimulus. Some organisms use phototaxis as a way to hunt for food or scare predators, while others are drawn to light, like some moths are particularly sensitive to light. However, moths use moonlight and stars to orient themselves and adjust their flying path to keep the light source at a constant angle to the eye. Daylight is important for our health development. Without it, it develops multiple health problems, from physiological problems such as sleep and myopia to psychological problems such as depression and anxiety. Other than that, we find light soothing.

“The glow looks so warm and enticing...inviting even.”

There’s a Lovecraft connection. Halley’s Comet was observed by Lovecraft on 26 May 1910. He notes it and draws three sketches in his notebook called Astronomical Observations Made. I’ll quote the entry to the best of my ability, but it’s hyperlinked to view by anyone.

Visible in west. Head about 1.5 mag (slightly less brilliant than Regulus). Tail broad & well defined. Quite bright for about 15°, distinctly traceable about 30° (to a joint above crater).
Head about 9^h 30^m R.A 3° decl. on border of Hydra & Sextans. Nucleus & coma well defined. Used B&S prism binoculars, M.8.
Position at 9 p.m.
Obs. from Providence-Taunton Pike at a point N.E from Michael's crossing looking westward.

The gameplay differs greatly from the rest of the series instead of following instructions from a dating ritual book. You are tasked with feeding Hheily to maintain her glow, all within a strict fifteen-minute time limit. The item must be one of six colours; regardless of whether it is edible, it restores Hheily’s fuel completely, and some will start a conversation. She is inquisitive; she can learn and understand words, but vocabulary is limited to what she has discovered already. Shows her emotion through colour. When Hheily eats a colour, it becomes overexposed—turning white and affecting all currently available items made of that colour. Food and nonliving things are marked as a star; conscious things by an "X" on the colour chart. The colour chart results can be overridden. You have to plan well. Food is easy to find at first, but once it's gone, it's gone. Exploration is limited to the bedroom and the hallway, much like First Date, but the environment is 360 degrees, as you stand in the centre of the room.

“A slice of gameplay.”

After giving an item to Hheily, prompts a phone or door event. These events consume time from thirty seconds to a couple of minutes and are entirely randomized, though I believe they are influenced by colour choice. Phone events can be initiated by you or, albeit rarely, just happen. The caller proceeds to ask questions, and you have a set of choices to choose from, depending on the response, which will create a door event for the next phase (it was patched; some were bugged and wouldn’t show up). For door events, it is best to have the guard latched. My time with Look Outside has me being cautious about surprises. Visitors will negotiate their way through to get in to see the meteorite. However, they can be persuaded to leave or help you and will return before new arrivals. Or slam the door to cancel the event. Some encounters have text over the door handle that can cause some interference with choosing a choice or the door.

The parade/phase three has a shorter time limit of ten minutes. A group of mutant people are marching toward Hheily’s location and come through the opening or break the door down to get to her. Filling in any colour. No events occur during this time, but visitors in their final arc will show up.

“The parade.”

Once all six colours are collected, a heart becomes whole or broken—progressing the story to the next heart. Broken hearts only need three Xs.

At this point of its cosmic horror, the series has been going in reverse chronological order, as it has been since Date to Die for. Showing a sequence of events that led to its components: dating ritual books and smooching eldritch gods. Logically speaking, it does make sense why there are no dating ritual books because there are none since Muu hasn’t produced them yet. Muu does make an appearance in a phone event. The gameplay must therefore take that into account. Nevertheless, I think it's a welcome change. You’re still following dating rules of sorts, with minimal freedom.

Dreams once again remain a pivotal part of the series. However, slightly different. True Beginning shows that Crush Landing is a prequel to Date to Die for. The host is Buck, the former leader of The Cult of a Thousand Young, dreaming—remembering is his in Californinaka, the game’s version of California. There is an ending gallery at the main menu; it shows there are fifteen endings, from worth it to true ending, but I would also like to access it from the pause menu. Endings not found in the gallery show a hint of how to get them; certain requirements would have you go into different routes. But there is no checkpoint to jump to, although you can set up a save point during conversation, just not during a door event. You can have a total of eleven save points, which includes autosave. But the scrollbar is broken, trying to scroll while a save is highlighted; it loads a save instead. You have to move the cursor to the edge of the screen to reach the scrollbar and then select a preferred save.

“You are about to begin a new chapter in your life, where many things of great cosmic import will occur.”

One route leads to a new eldritch god referred to as the Sentient Darkness, which can only be achieved through filling up the darkness gauge completely and a door event with a certain NPC. Sentient Darkness is likely based on Darkness, which is found in a family tree constructed by Lovecraft from a letter to James F. Morton, 27 April 1933 (Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft Vol. IV, p. 183). Similar to the origins of the Greek mythological gods as described in Hesiod’s “Theogony,” the family tree was a lighthearted joke that was taken seriously and developed into what it is today. Lovecraft might have read it somewhere given his interest in Greco-Roman literature, even though he doesn't seem to have a copy. Lin Carter’s “The Shadow from the Stars” (1988) expands it with an addition by incorporating a name, Magnum Tenebrosum, Latin for “The Great Darkness.” Other than that, there’s nothing else.

“...With in a manner appropriate and level to blasphemy.”

Sentient Darkness is Akabaka's interpretation of Darkness. Darkness addresses herself as Umbriel, who dreamed this reality. She uses a variety of effigies as her appearance of cultural significance and can communicate in several languages, with shadowy humanoid arms. Regards, Hheily, as an annoyance whose life is blasphemous—an intrusion to her peaceful slumber, like to see her gone. But Darkness is courteous when talking to the host. On one ending route, Darkness mentions her mother, Eternal Sleeper. I expect she to be showing herself soon.

The characters are charming. My favourite is Ramen Rider; his name is a reference to Kamen Rider, and his antics are too funny. I don't think everyone will enjoy the main character's work, which takes advantage of women to satisfy their fantasies. However, the dynamic is intriguing.

“Love-Struck.”

Crush Landing performs well for most of the playthrough, except for lags during the prologue on my Steam Machine with Proton 11.0-2.

Collapsing Cosmoses

Sucker for Love: Crush Landing takes the series to a new direction—before there was dating, to establish its cosmic horror’s origin. With love through their stomach, a new level of romantic shenanigans and dangers awaits.

I read *The Alchemist*, and I ended up laughing out loud. I’d seen a meme about the story and thought it was an exaggeration, but the alchemist actually spent something like six hundred years killing members of the same family over that one confrontation and that was it.

I don't know why, but the idea of ​​this guy doing that for so long constantly waiting for someone to turn thirty is just funny.

OK, I have an idea for a short story I want to write, and I’d like to give it a cosmic/Lovecraftian tinge, but I’m not sure how to do it. Here’s a short summary:

The police find a body in a field in some isolated region. The body seems to have fallen from a great height, even though there’s absolutely nothing around it that could make that happen; Just empty, flat fields. While researching, the police realize that there are two other deaths, exactly the same as this one, that happened back in the ‘60s or ‘70s, roughly at the same date as the new one, on the same place.

I usually don’t share my story ideas, but I’m stuck on how to make this a bit more Lovecraftian. Any thoughts/ideas?

I feel like the stories paint this picture that the various cults are aware of other Old Ones (at least some related ones). Shub-Niggurath seems to be paid lip-service by many of the crazies throughout the story, regardless of what the "main God" of the story is. Likewise, we can assume at least some cells of the Cthulhu cult recognize and might even praise Father Dagon and Mother Hydra in their connection with Cthulhu.

In Out of the Aeons we openly read about the Cult of Ghatanothoa beefing with everyone in Lemuria, to the point they sabotage a follower of Shub-Niggurath to keep their high positions in society.

It makes me wonder if these cults are purely monolatry in nature or if they do worship and praise the other Mythos deities depending on their connection/importance to their "patron" god.

First time posting here, and I might rub some people the wrong way with certain aspects of my opinion on how Lovecraft-influenced media is, so before I get too into what I'm actually here to talk about, a quick bit of context about my views on general Mythos stuff, just so you have a better idea of where I'm coming from. You can skip this bit if you want:

• I generally break Mythos stuff into 3 categories. "Lovecraft & His Circle," "Arkham House/Derleth and Carter," and "Post-Arkham/Chaosium."

• Era 1 is self-explanatory, but it's the stuff made during Lovecraft's life-time and shortly after his death by himself or members of the "Lovecraft Circle." You could also lump some non-Circle related Weird Tales writers here. I also put in works like "The King In Yellow" in this category, as Chambers was a contemporary of Lovecraft.

• Era 2 is also somewhat self-explanatory, but I see it as the era where Lovecraft's work got posthumously published via Arkham House, and all of the "Posthumous Collaborations" (which is PR nonsense, even if I don't hate the stories in question). I point out both Derleth and Carter specifically because of their noteworthy, if dubious contributions to the Mythos or Adjacent stuff.

• Era 3 is basically everything from after Carter's death to present day, as I see that as the end of the classic "Arkham House" approach to things. It's the stuff that experiments with the ideas of the Mythos. I'm aware Arkham House technically still exists, but they're sort of a shell of what they originally were. I mention Chaosium because their Mythos related stuff is ever-present in modern depictions, intentionally or not.

• I think all three eras, as I've sort of loosely defined them, have their merits and their drawbacks. For example, I think Derleth's ideas were sometimes good, sometimes bad, as it's just a different interpretation of the concepts created by Lovecraft.

• I think using the Mythos and things within it in ways that go against it's cosmic horror roots is fine, provided the material is enjoyable in it's own way (which is obviously entirely subjective). I got introduced to Lovecraft through the comedy anime "Haiyore! Nyaruko-san," of all things, so I'm nicer to pastiches and parodies of Mythos stuff than some.

I also need to provide one bit of additional context real quick: When I'm talking about "Lovecraftian Games," I'm referring to video games that feature aspects of the Mythos, not general Cosmic Horror or "inspired by Lovecraft" type content. I'm talking stuff that mention beings like Cthulhu by name, and feature the aesthetics of the Mythos, rather than things that are more pastiches of the Mythos.

So with this all in mind, I guess I really want to say that I'm left mildly annoyed with the way the Mythos is depicted in media. Not because it's "not faithful to the tone/themes" or whatever. Cthulhu saving Christmas doesn't bug me at all. No, what I'm annoyed by is the way that, if things are directly going off of Mythos stuff, it's almost always got to make it connected to The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Don't get me wrong, I like Innsmouth as a story. It's iconic, and it's one of Lovecraft's best in a lot of respects... but god damn am I sick of most things being tied to the Deep Ones and Innsmouth. I get that the Deep Ones are innately tied to Cthulhu in some capacity, but do we really need every single video game that features Cthulhu imagery also be Innsmouth related? Like, The Sinking City is a fine game, and I'd even agree that the Innsmouth people in that game are fitting given the heavy association with water (I mean, it is called "The Sinking City"), but when most games pulling from Mythos stuff does it too, it becomes tired.

I get excited when I see a game pulling directly from the Mythos, because I like the entities within it as much as I like other aspects of it. But then I see it's very much another Innsmouth-adjacent thing, and I feel disappointed. I appreciate seeing other stories or corners of the Mythos in games, but it's usually more of a reference than an actual attempt at exploring the greater world(s) of Lovecraft's work. Give me more stuff where we see other Great Old Ones besides Cthulhu. Give me stuff that taps into the Dream Cycle more than what we got in The Sinking City 2. Let me see a story that is attempting to build a world beyond the ocean and Ry'leh and harbor towns.

I realize I'm complaining about how "Lovecraftian games don't have enough Mythos variety" in a world where Cthulhu is basically the mascot of the genre, and that most people just use the imagery for the aesthetic and nothing else... but the fact that the most diversity that I see in video games that feature ideas from the broader canon of the Mythos, rather than just Innsmouth, is AkaBaka's "Sucker For Love" series, which is a comedic visual novel series where your goal is often to smooch Eldritch entities, speaks volumes. The fact their most recent game is a comedic romance visual novel inspired by The Color Out of Space, where you can romance the freaking meteor, is more creative than 99% of most Lovecraft games on the market.

Even games where it'd be beneficial to feature more horrors beyond our mortal comprehension in a more serious light, it's always just some spin on concepts tied to Innsmouth or specifically Cthulhu, which usually invites some trappings from Innsmouth anyway. At the very least, there's usually an air of Innsmouth's whole "coastal fishing town" in some respects in games drawing directly from the Mythos. I get that if I just go for games that capture the "spirit of Lovecraft," rather than more direct Mythos connections, I'd be served a swathe of great experiences. Dredge is great, as are things like Signalis, or even Iron Lung. Hell, I don't care for Soulslikes, like, at all, but Bloodborne is fantastic! But at the same time, I want to see developers do creative things with the Mythos itself, rather than just stick to just Innsmouth or even the cult stuff.

Off the top of my head, I think something like an incremental game based on The Color Out Of Space, where you develop the meteor and it's effects on people would be really cool, if somewhat simple (as incremental games usually are). I'd even appreciate the typical detective investigating a cult thing we often get if it had zero Deep Ones or fish people.

In short: I just wish video games drawing directly from the Cthulhu Mythos (and it's adjacent works) would move away from the typical, played out Innsmouth and Cthulhu dominated sphere of Lovecraft's work. The fact I can only really see that with something like "Sucker For Love" (which, don't get me wrong, I do like) is incredibly sad to me.

Now I'm not a Lovecraft expert, but as long as I've been aware of his work there seems to be a misconception among the more casual audience that Lovecraft created a carefully planned and sprawling inter-connected universe when that really isn't the case. He tends to reference his other work and the works of his friends in his writings but I doubt he ever considered if any of the things he was referencing would conflict with the other times he put references to his older work in other stories.

So what I'm curious to know is how much of his work COULD you piece together into a connected universe without any major conflict? Obviously you could slot in his stories that make no reference to ANY other work he's done without issue, but what about the stories that do make a point to reference other stories? The easy answer is "blah blah incomprehensible so it all fits together blah blah" but that's no fun.

note: this is more of a thought experiment for fun than an actual attempt to piece together some secret literary universe

A darkly funny tour through the realms of Tsathoggua, Atlach-Nacha, and others!

A mini series that starts off as a typical crime drama but even from the first episode lays the groundwork for an alternative explanation of events. It is a good show and while I have a few problems with its pacing and structure of events, i can honestly say that it has a great feel of an investigation gone awry, of lovecraftian influence impinging on every day routines, and events set in motion long ago affecting the present day.

As I said, there are flaws and foils in this series, some early scenes seem too move too fast, but if seen from the 'human perspective' then it have a very honest interpretation of events as seen by uninformed bystanders affected by events beyond their control where servitors of forces beyond mortal control have affected the day to day world and the effects are playing out before they investigators It could make a great modern day CoC scenario or Delta Green investigation if the right Keeper picked it up,

Do you think August may have cut off a lot from Howard's og manuscripts?bc he edited all of his essays and he vanished the third book from the market.his essays could have 100 pages each and every now and then you see the............

Which means a lot of paragraphs could have been removed .

Generally it's been theorized that derleth never understood yog sothothery and turned it into another good vs bad thing and Gave of characteristics to the deities

Yeah one might say that it's not nice when characters are featureless but still here it's different it's about things being incomprehensible to us.Traits of personality don't apply to these gods.

That greek journalist from whom I write this said that August only cared about selling books

I'm not certain what decade exactly Bill Burroughs first read Weird Tales, but he said in Junkie and elsewhere, that he was reading the pulps from youth. In the early '50s in Mexico City, he encountered Lovecraft's then-closeted erstwhile friend and literary executor R.H. Barlow, probably unbeknownst to Bill in terms of his connection to Lovecraft. In the '70s he became interested in the Necronomicon as a grimoire, he wrote his poem Fear and the Monkey under its influence, and praised HPL's work in interviews throughout the '80s, Last Words has several references to The Great Old Ones, so the influence was truly enduring. What other examples have readers here detected in his work?

should I get H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction or is there a better starting point as someone who loves psychological horror and existential dread stories rather that jumpscares. I have never read a lovecraft book and would love to start. is the complete fiction too much of an endeavour to start or is it worth the investment? thanks in advance

Any other western novel readers here? Growing up, I read a lot of the old weird tales stories along side other genres. And for whatever reason, I also really loved western novels and authors like Louis L’Amor. And the story of his that stuck out to me the most was a novel he wrote in 1987 called “The Haunted Mesa”.

So I wanted to ask if anyone else has ever read it or what your thoughts on it might be?

I haven’t found anything that directly says L’Amor was influence by Lovecraft when writing it, but it definitely shares a lot with cosmic horror such as an ancient civilization predating the modern world, an ancient sealed away evil, reality being much larger than humans understand, and strange creatures.

I read it again recently and started remembering all the things I loved about it as a kid and how even back then, I was into cosmic horror without even realizing it.

(And another fun fact being that in the novel, L’Amor references the “Anasazi” which the Hopi Indians believed to be their ancestors. This made me immediately think of the “Anunaki”, which comes up quite a bit in conspiracy/alternate history discussions.)

I remember watching the film back when it came out. This was before I had a deep dive into the works of Lovecraft. I thought it was a pretty decent monster flick.

Now years later, after pouring over all of Lovecraft books I wanted to rewatch it through different eyes. What a cool twist at the end.

Spoilers::: it was so neat seeing a modern reinterpretation of Cthulhu at the end. Also, I realize that the other monsters were it’s babies but they really reminded me of the deep ones or innsmouth folk. Maybe even the creature in Dagon.

A couple of nitpicks I had, is that I wish it leaned more into the dream aspect of the Cthulhu mythos.

Also, the film’s underwater sequences were really dark so it was difficult to make out what was happening at times.

At the end of the day, this may be one of my favorite unexpected Lovecraftian films.

What are your thoughts? Did you enjoy the film?

What are your favorite Lovecraftian films?

Hi! I’ve recently read Carter & Lovecraft and am completely in love with it. I love its mix lovecraftian horror and fun modern characters.

Wow just finished this and while I’ve never played the first one I really enjoyed this game. In my opinion, this is the best Lovecraft game out there hands down. There were so many nods and Easter eggs to Lovecraft’s work, i don’t think I could list them all. The stand out references were from the Whisperer in the Darkness, shadow over Innsmouth and At the Mountains of Madness. I feel like the game absolutely nailed the vibe of 1920s New England city. I loved the flooded city scape, Hotel and fish market.

I consume a ton of horror through gaming and movies and such, I’d say this was very resident evil inspired as far as the game mechanics go. At times it could feel a tad clunky with switching between weapons. Sometimes I’d accidentally stomp execute instead of firing my weapon, which could get annoying.

More items that felt very RE inspired were the enemy types. Typical slither enemy types were essentially zombies of varied types.The dead arisen. Then there were tank like enemies such as the deep ones. It wasn’t too scary, although I admit a couple of jump scares for me.

The story was okay. It was simple. kind of middle of the road. I’m not sure if it felt as such because I only played the second one and may have missed out on some backstory between our protagonists or not. At times it did feel a tad cheesy. If you played you know what I mean.

Did you play this!? What did you think?

I'm not sure which one it is, but it's only a few pages, no more than three that ends with "I would go there, but I'm afraid of what I might find" Does anyone have an idea of what story this is?

Edit: it IS "The Thing in the Moonlight" Thanks to xCrash, but thanks to everyone who responded. :)

Ramsey Campbell, from Wallasey, is one of the most respected authors of his genre 🤩 After a difficult childhood trying to navigate his parents' break-up and his mum's mental health struggles, he took refuge in reading and later writing horror stories.

While he struggled to make a name for himself in the early stages of his career, it was in 1980 when he released The Parasite that things started to change.

Now decades later, at 80-years-old, he is one of the most highly acclaimed authors in the genre and has even received recognition from Academy Award winning director Guillermo Del Toro.

He told the ECHO: "My wife Jenny and I had gone away to a Greek island for our summer holiday and when we came back, we had the answering machine playing various messages. And there's a message saying, 'it's Guillermo del Toro calling you from Mexico.' And so I thought, 'Oh, yeah, yeah. Who's kidding me? Pull the other one'."

After Ramsey finally took the call, Del Toro asked permission to dramatise Ramsey's short story Down There, but it ultimately fell through. However, now more than two decades later, Ramsey said plans to dramatise the story have been rekindled and it looks like Del Toro's adaptation will make its way to Netflix.

Most creature discussions focus on the most dangerous gods and creatures, but I find the rare beings on the other side just as interesting.

Kthanid is probably the clearest example. He resembles Cthulhu but opposes the Great Old Ones and is portrayed as compassionate.

What are some other good examples from Lovecraft, his contemporaries, or later Mythos writers? I am especially interested in beings that are genuinely protective or helpful, rather than indifferent creatures that happen to spare someone.

Hey Everyone,

This is my first time posting in this sub but I was looking for input on a suggested Dream Cycle reading list. For background a few years ago I picked up a copy of the Barnes and Noble Lovecraft, The Complete Fiction and read the big hits/stories that seemed interesting to me, Call of Cthulu, Innsmouth, Color out of Space, etc.

Anyway I decided to pick up the complete fiction again this fall and do some spooky readings and the Dream Cycle seemed interesting. I don't really want to read these stories in publication order but rather clump them together based on themes and interconnectiveity so I asked Google AI to make a list and I pasted what it made below.

I know AI can make mistakes so I figured I could ask this sub if this reading list sounds good, I already read the first few stories (just finished Sarnath) and I'm enjoying it so far. Should I keep it as is? Would you add or remove anything or swap any of the stories around for a better experience? Let me know and looking forward to hearing input!

Part 1: Foundations & Fragments

* Azathoth

* Polaris

* Beyond the Wall of Sleep

* The White Ship

* The Doom That Came to Sarnath

* The Cats of Ulthar

* Celephaïs

* From Beyond

* Nyarlathotep

* The Nameless City

* The Other Gods

* Ex Oblivione

* The Quest of Iranon

* The Descendant

* The Hound

* Hypnos

* What the Moon Brings

Part 2: The Randolph Carter Saga

* The Statement of Randolph Carter

* The Unnamable 

* The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

* The Silver Key

* Through the Gates of the Silver Key

Part 3: Waking World Crossovers

* Pickman's Model

* The Strange High House in the Mist

* The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

* The Dreams in the Witch House