Shadowgirls

Mondo Kane wrote:Oh, I figured as much from the Proggies profile, A... I was hoping to hook me an answer from the Owlman about whether there's more to it than "Oh noes - we iz fishnomz!"

As in, do people not just accept it as a way of ensuring Innsmouth stays on the map, but something that the first families of Innsmouth welcome; the Lovecraft version of a deb-ball, only with Mervs in Tuxes

"Hi Mr. Johnson. I come take pretty girl-child to ball. Home by midnight. Promise."

Lol! It's plausible if the fishies decide to switch to a more un-apocalyptic religion. On a side note, I think there was a passing mention of how the people of Innsmouth survive by ignoring the strange happenings on the Shadow Over Innsmouth story.

Actually, I believe by the time of the story, the vast majority of the town was either composed of Offspring who just hadn't finished maturing yet, or were the parents of Offspring. They didn't need to ignore the problem, they were all in on it. Only people from out of town ignored the problem... well, except the protagonist.

I doubt the tuxedos ever came into fashion, considering Lovecraft described Deep Ones as smelling like rotting corpses, and looking less like Merv and Neri, and more like this. They weren't 'fishmen', they were 'fishfrogs' with JUST enough 'man' added to be disturbing.

Which, of course, makes it very much a 'Wicker Man' scenario, because you would not have sex with that unless you were a fanatic.

EDIT: Here's the exact passage where Deep Ones make their first real appearance:

I think their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly wed tar articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked.

But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. I knew too well what they must be - for was not the memory of the evil tiara at Newburyport still fresh? They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible - and as I saw them I knew also of what that humped, tiaraed priest in the black church basement had fearsomely reminded me. Their number was past guessing. It seemed to me that there were limitless swarms of them and certainly my momentary glimpse could have shewn only the least fraction. In another instant everything was blotted out by a merciful fit of fainting; the first I had ever had.

So yeah, they aren't pretty. Now, I thought for SURE there was mention that they smelled like corpses, but I'm starting to think I remembered that wrong because I can't seem to find the passage anywhere. Still, one would assume they smell like fish, which still isn't exactly the sexiest thing in the world.

HOLY @#$%^

Yeah, now I think about it, that was probably a hole in Lovecraft's story...

No matter how sick you were, there's no way you could bring yourself to mate with something as hiddeous as what he described (the smell alone would hamper 'performance').

The Dave's on the other hand have created a female fishmonster that, while looking both deadly and alien, is somehow appealing.... Then again, the master can turn offspring into human so maybe he does the same to progenitors for the sake of the 'bonding' process... Plus some air-freshener.

Okay, I finally found the rotting smell I was looking for; but it was referenced in Dagon, not Shadow Over Innsmouth, and it was talking about their city, which had risen to surface from the bottom of the ocean and thus had a lot of dead marine life caught in it. So that's better. Still, they're nasty looking and smell like fish, so... yeah.

Yeah, the Daves definitely made them a lot more palatable. I mean, the males are still horrifying, but the females are not terrible looking, by human standards. If I were drunk, maybe. Or really, really, creepily fond of fish.

Meh... HPL was an odd duck. In his mind, "lower" men were capable of just about any abasement, in pursuit of power/money/etc.

You know, I don't know how much he went into race in Shadow. I mean, normally he was really, really open about his crazy racism. The evil cultists in Call of Cthulhu? Black! The crazy woman who banged Yog-Sototh in The Dunwich Horror? Why she was ::GASP:: an ALBINO! The terror! But I don't recall him ever going into it for Shadow, which is weird for him.

Wasn't there a raving old man in the Shadow Over Inssmouth story that told of how the Marshes "Imported" the creatures? I think there was a passage about the secrecy thing going on and the people deciding to ignore it to some degree thinking that as long as they're getting rich, there's no problem with ignoring some things. Until their curiosity overcame that and a "Purging" went into play. By the time the protagonist visited, the people of Innsmouth have been reduced to reproducing vessels, raving lunatics and the down trodden citizens who fear strangers from outside their town.

Fish generally don't smell strongly until they're dead or beginning to dry out... and if their skins are rubbery-looking in the main, perhaps they're dermatalogically more like marine mammals, like dolphins (which are damn creepy if you ask me... the only living thing you can touch that feels fake regardless how much your eyes tell you it's alive). Perhaps they don't even smell at all (or at least no more than we do as dry-enviroment animals); I mean, think how easy you'd be to track in air if you stank like the cannery at low tide...

Either way, if you're going to give it a try and sign on the dotted line with the EOD, I recommend the shower or the bath (and be suspicious of anyone owning a wetroom who's wife/husband is always out of town on business) - your marine spouse will thank you for it later

Mondo Kane wrote: Fish generally don't smell strongly until they're dead or beginning to dry out... and if their skins are rubbery-looking in the main, perhaps they're dermatalogically more like marine mammals, like dolphins (which are damn creepy if you ask me... the only living thing you can touch that feels fake regardless how much your eyes tell you it's alive). Perhaps they don't even smell at all (or at least no more than we do as dry-enviroment animals); I mean, think how easy you'd be to track in air if you stank like the cannery at low tide...

Either way, if you're going to give it a try and sign on the dotted line with the EOD, I recommend the shower or the bath (and be suspicious of anyone owning a wetroom who's wife/husband is always out of town on business) - your marine spouse will thank you for it later

You see, THIS is the sort of thing that makes you not allowed to ever say 'Don't lump me in with the rest of these deviants!'. Stuff like this.

And Dolphins are very, very scary when you get to know them.

Oh, shush you

I've been giving the subject special consideration for a reason, y'know?

*quirks an eyebrow at MK*

Waaaaait, you like creepy things. You're one of those wierdos that stalk dolphins, hoping to pop one, aren't you?

You wouldn't catch me within twenty feet of one of those creepy little buggers... freaky perpetual grins and skin like warm neoprene; they're downright freaky. I'd rather cuddle a shark.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnH-QOps-Cw[/youtube]

Awwwwwww. I was thinking 'that's the creepiest thing ever'... and then the little girl hugged the shark. And suddenly, the shark has become one of the more heartwarming animals in the world.