Lovecraft Lite/Playing With
Basic Trope: A bleak, pessimistic setting dominated by unfathomable monstrosities from outer space... and wacky heroes who fight them.
- Straight: An ordinary Joe witnesses a Cult worshipping an inconcievably hideous alien god idol and discovers that said god is about to land on Earth, driving most intellectuals on the planet mad with revelatory dreams. Very soon, however, Joe is drafted into a secret Government Agency of Fiction created and equipped specifically to destroy the alien threat.
- Exaggerated: The Agency kills unfathomable attacking alien gods at least once a month. When they get bored, they go after them on their own. In fact, the only one of the classical Lovecraftian deities they haven't killed yet is Azatoth... but only because he hid so well from them.
- Azatoth doesn't hide, he's the head of The Agency.
- Justified: Humans Are Special.
- Alternatively the only thing special about the alien monstrosities is causing insanity in anyone without enough willpower and the ability to grasp the alien spatial warping. If the Agency can get past that, they could kill even the strongest ones with two shots from an elephant rifle.
- Another alternative is that even though these monsters are able to eat planets and drive men insane, humanity luckily has got a few abominations of its own up its sleeve.
- Inverted: An indescribable alien god comes to Earth in order to prevent World War III, teach humans his peaceful ways, and have some tea. All the Sleazy Politicians who wanted WW 3 to happen regard it as the worst thing to ever happen.
- Alternatively: Humans Are Cthulhu.
- Subverted: Joe discovers that the Agency overestimated its power. Big time.
- Double Subverted: ...but the surviving humans organize a desperate defense and by joining forces with the entire humanity, Joe kills the alien with a giant Combined Energy Attack.
- Parodied: A Villain Episode reveals that to at least some of the "alien gods," Humans Are Cthulhu.
- Deconstructed: Although the Government Agency of Fiction can defeat the abominations, defeating them forces them to take morally questionable actions, and many agents get dangerously obsessed with their jobs. As a whole, they're only somewhat better than their enemies.
- Alternatively, if the story is told through the eyes of the abominations, it turns out that humanity is actually one giant Hive Mind. Who lies darkly dreaming indeed...
- Reconstructed: The Government Agency of Fiction employs the best therapists available and is held accountable for their Dirty Business; while they may not like dealing with the Obstructive Bureaucrats they have to deal with, it keeps them from getting anywhere near the Moral Event Horizon.
- Said Hive Mind turns out to be normally peaceful, and allows it's individual selves, well, individuality. It's only if humans at large unite as one that it's power manifests.
- Zig Zagged: The Government Agency of Fiction destorys a powerful abomination, only to find out that they only defeated a Projected Avatar. However, they eventually find a way to challenge the Eldritch Abomination itself... but it fails horribly. A last minute Heroic Sacrifice allows them to seal the thing away... but nobody's sure if they'll be able to do it again if it gets out.
- Averted: If present at all, extra dimensional Eldritch Abominations are treated with the respect they deserve.
- Enforced: "I don't care what the original author wrote! We are making a Cthulhu Mythos cartoon for kids!"
- Lampshaded: "These 'alien gods' the ancients aren't so scary when you have modern firepower."
- Invoked: "You say this ancient, unspeakable monstrosity devours worlds? Call your political connections; we're gonna need funding. And guns. And some nukes."
- Defied: The alien god has a semblance of cruel human sense of humor, so it lets humanity damage it a little before wiping it from the face of the galaxy.
- Discussed: "You'd think that a... thing right out of a Lovecraft book would be invincible." "Lovecraft didn't know about nukes and lasers."
- Conversed: "Cthulhu's fate was sealed the moment they gave him finite Hit Points. No matter how good his defenses, the munchkins will see him dead."
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