sorry if this has been asked before—are you a fan of Lovecraft? (his stories not his ideologies)
not even a little. i’ve mentioned this before, but i used to drink through horror stories when i was younger, and i read a good dozen of his works because he was universally lauded as the master of the genre. i could never wrap my head around why people collectively found him so interesting, and what was wrong with me that i’d put down each story at the end and think “...alright. so what?”
lovecraft is the literary equivalent of shaky-cam in a horror movie. my own anxiety and fears (numerous as they are) projected onto an invitation to just imagine what horror drove that character insane (but he dare not tell me what it was lest i, too, go insane) doesn’t make for masterful writing. it reads as though he’s too nervous to commit to one ending, too afraid to narrow the scope of what makes his premise scary. learning about his ideologies more recently was like finding out the boring, ugly cake everyone said i just had to try actually hadn’t been baked properly and was actually wet in the center. it just... makes sense.
i wish someone who attempts to separate the man from his work could explain to me what’s so good about the work they’re attempting to isolate. what’s in it that makes that separation worth it?
lately i’ve come to suspect that most people who call themselves fans either 1. enjoy the visual aesthetic that movie studios apply when they recreate his works (valid), 2. were inspired by his linguistic style to make better things, and so now the greater body of “lovecraftian” works are overall much better than lovecraft’s original works themselves, or 3. just enjoy being in the know about the deep lore details of his universes. i’m sure it’s fun to trade inside jokes and prove your knowledge of lore from his less mainstream stories, but there are just so many fictional worlds out there that are just... better