BFA DW The Lovecraft Invasion
Nov. 7th, 2024 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabeth6, Flip and Constance meet Calypso Jones, 51st century nonbinary person, and HPLovecraft, racist and writer of nightmares.
The monster of the week is the Somnifax, the Dreamweaver, who can turn all your worst nightmares into realities. That's a being with a lot of potential, and it ends the episode imprisoned, so can be taken for a tour whenever.
The looming threat is that it could make Lovecraft's mythos into reality.
... this either rules out Pathfinder xovers or makes them very very easy, since if you get naturally occuring Somnifax and sometimes people weaponise them, you could get the apocalyptic nightmare fuel of Golarion very easily indeed, and the mythos elements would just mean someone brought some ill advised books, back when.
This however remains a Doctor Who adventure.
The Doctor and Flip go exploring in Lovecraft's mind to get the Somnifax out of it, Flip being a gamer with mythos knowledge, though the Doctor stayed more knowledgeable as is typical in his own adventures.
Back in the waking world Mrs Clarke and Calypso Jones have to babysit Lovecraft, who quickly makes himself entirely obnoxious.
Lovecraft calls Jones something very rude and Jones lists off all the ways they're actually his worst nightmare, mixed race pansexual and not entirely human, and the future.
It felt a bit like the whole rest of the story was an excuse for that line.
Also for using having played Call of Cthulhu as a way to save the world.
For something about meeting the worst nightmares of the famous horror writer it wasn't especially frightening. Which I think worked out to be the point in the end? Lovecraft can't imagine treating these horrifying to him people as people, but when they are treated right they're basically okay.
I think they basically won by staying in their own genre.
It wasn't doing subtle coded metaphor, which is not playing the Dreamland game, but. The Doctor talked about how if you read enough you'll find something you've read was written by a racist, or by someone who blew up planets for fun. Had a conversation with Flip about how to handle it. And then he actually described the adventure they're on as a quest to seperate the author from the work. So, not subtle. He also said clearly and repeatedly that the author's prejudices were all over the text of that work. The story wasn't making any excuses for Lovecraft, it was very blunt about disliking him.
The story closed with the Doctor, trijmphant, declining to spend any more time with Lovecraft. He tells him he could so easily have been a better person. And he makes it clear how abhorrent he finds the author's assumption that the two of them are anything alike.
It's a weird day to hear the Doctor tell off racists.
At the end of the day you are left very clear on two points about Lovecraft: the author is a racist among many other bigoted things, and his nightmares are not real.
But I kind of want to go through it and make it more specific to Flip and Constance. Like it's almost there but needs another pass.
Useful components, not a favourite story.
The monster of the week is the Somnifax, the Dreamweaver, who can turn all your worst nightmares into realities. That's a being with a lot of potential, and it ends the episode imprisoned, so can be taken for a tour whenever.
The looming threat is that it could make Lovecraft's mythos into reality.
... this either rules out Pathfinder xovers or makes them very very easy, since if you get naturally occuring Somnifax and sometimes people weaponise them, you could get the apocalyptic nightmare fuel of Golarion very easily indeed, and the mythos elements would just mean someone brought some ill advised books, back when.
This however remains a Doctor Who adventure.
The Doctor and Flip go exploring in Lovecraft's mind to get the Somnifax out of it, Flip being a gamer with mythos knowledge, though the Doctor stayed more knowledgeable as is typical in his own adventures.
Back in the waking world Mrs Clarke and Calypso Jones have to babysit Lovecraft, who quickly makes himself entirely obnoxious.
Lovecraft calls Jones something very rude and Jones lists off all the ways they're actually his worst nightmare, mixed race pansexual and not entirely human, and the future.
It felt a bit like the whole rest of the story was an excuse for that line.
Also for using having played Call of Cthulhu as a way to save the world.
For something about meeting the worst nightmares of the famous horror writer it wasn't especially frightening. Which I think worked out to be the point in the end? Lovecraft can't imagine treating these horrifying to him people as people, but when they are treated right they're basically okay.
I think they basically won by staying in their own genre.
It wasn't doing subtle coded metaphor, which is not playing the Dreamland game, but. The Doctor talked about how if you read enough you'll find something you've read was written by a racist, or by someone who blew up planets for fun. Had a conversation with Flip about how to handle it. And then he actually described the adventure they're on as a quest to seperate the author from the work. So, not subtle. He also said clearly and repeatedly that the author's prejudices were all over the text of that work. The story wasn't making any excuses for Lovecraft, it was very blunt about disliking him.
The story closed with the Doctor, trijmphant, declining to spend any more time with Lovecraft. He tells him he could so easily have been a better person. And he makes it clear how abhorrent he finds the author's assumption that the two of them are anything alike.
It's a weird day to hear the Doctor tell off racists.
At the end of the day you are left very clear on two points about Lovecraft: the author is a racist among many other bigoted things, and his nightmares are not real.
But I kind of want to go through it and make it more specific to Flip and Constance. Like it's almost there but needs another pass.
Useful components, not a favourite story.