this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
927 points (95.7% liked)
Lemmy Shitpost
26942 readers
4376 users here now
Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.
Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!
Rules:
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means:
-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.
-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.
...
If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
1.Memes
10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)
Reach out to
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But why must we jump into our hole? Why aren't these people driven to drop cell-phones into the hole and record what happens inside?
Stories ultimately are a way for the author to try to connect with the audience.
If there's a connection here you feel with the author, that's real. But all I'm saying is that this story, despite me reading it in its entirety, failed to connect with me.
That's fine. Horror is always subjective. But throughout the entire horror here, I just couldn't get around the fact that this magical compulsion-mechanism could have been solved through much less... horrifying... means? Again, cellphone on a long string. Or whatever. If they really wanted to "explore" the hole (and yes, I seem to recall that "feeling of exploration" being suggested in the story).
Because if you read the whole story you find out that the people whose holes these were did something horrific to deserve this fate over and over again. So their compulsion stems from an external source outside of their control.
I'm not against Karma in stories. Mind you, I don't believe in Karma, but I accept it as a storytelling mechanism. But things with karma don't get more horrific, if anything, it lessens the horror because "I'm a good person, so that won't happen to me". Innocent people dying in horrible ways is more horrific, at least to me.
But as I said before, horror is subjective. I've given this particular story a lot of thought and... it just doesn't scare me. And no matter how much I ponder on it, I can't make the story scare me. I don't know if its my personal experiences or something. But it just doesn't work for me.
It's metaphorical. To drop a camera into the (physical) hole is to take your first step into the (rabbit) hole of research and discovery.
Well, in Cosmic Horror, dropping the camera and perceiving what's in the hole only compels you harder to go in as it only strengthens the Great Old One's grip on your mind.
Which would have been a better story. The more you research, you (inadvertently) get pulled into the mind-virus more and more. That's why cosmic horror is... horrifying. The very act of trying to understand it only pulls you deeper into the horror.
I'm not saying "I don't want an answer" or that "space-magic" isn't cool. I'm saying that it was poorly written. A better written story should have had a good answer to the obvious "Try a cell phone first". The fact that none of the characters tried "obvious" solutions to the problem makes it incredibly unbelievable IMO.
This "hole compels you to jump in" crap is just not as horrifying to me as the better written stories out there. You have to have the main characters do something the target-audience would do, so that the target-audience can form a connection with the characters. Even if "magic" or "supernatural occult stuff" is the answer to the end, you can work around that.