Cthulhu
Cthulhu is an aquatic creature native to the the southern Pacific, who rose from Its lowly origins as a Japanese porn star to become God. [1], and soon became the name brand leader in Eldritch Horror. Clever publicity and marketing have given Cthulhu a reputation for omnipotence, rugosity, and squamousness that it has enjoyed since the 1920s.[2] Yet through it all, Cthulhu has not lost the common touch, and remains a man(-thing) of the (fish-)people.
"Cthumley" from the streets of Cthompton to its friends, Cthulhu divides Its time between work and play. Sure, everyone knows about Its efforts to keep the South Pacific free of debris, and Its pioneering work in long-distance communications. But not many people know where Cthulhu went to school[3] or what Cthulhu likes to have for breakfast [4]. Since retiring from professional soul-shattering Cthulhu prefers spend its quiet time enjoying cartoons and playing World of Warcraft.
Personal relationships are rumored with Margaret Thatcher, due to their shared ethos of total devastation, apocalyptic destruction and the end of life on this planet as we know it.
Currently, Cthulhu is thought to be an Eurgrebu. Its whale-squid ancestry makes It invulnerable to sunlight; however, Cthulhu still enjoys living in dark places, i.e. its sunken vacation home R'lyeh. Cthulhu remains the only Eurgrebu (or any kind of Grue for that matter) to ever go to college. He was presented the Minorities Achievement Award at the 26th annual Los Angeles Education Convention, after which he promptly devoured all of those present.
Though Cthulhu enjoys spending time in Its ancient sunken vacation home R'lyeh, It makes frequent trips to Cedar Point, Tokyo, and the Bay Area, and maintains a business office in Provo, Utah [5].
Though name-recognition is as strong as ever, in recent years Cthulhu has made an effort to reach a younger audience, making guest appearances on such shows as Digimon, Ghostbusters, The Jerry Springer Show, and The View[6].
Although technically he has not awakened from his watery slumber, he now hosts a phone-in show where he dispenses advice in-between reminders that HE WILL EAT YOUR SOULS![7]
Biology
Cthulhu is not to be confused with the Cthulhu (from the Latin for "sheath" or "scabbard" ), which is the tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female mammals, or to the cloaca in female birds and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a Cthulhu, which is the terminal part of the oviduct.
It wasn't until 1910 that H.P. Hovercraft discovered Cthulhus and began to record his famous sexual fantasies about them in a series of novels and short stories. These books are nonfiction, and are well-known for containing no typographic errors whatsoever.
In this case, however Cthulhu refers to a creature (Cthulhuious squajillimous, or the Lesser Norfolk Rugose Cthulhu) that is native to the South Pacific but, when removed from its natural environment, became exceedingly wealthy and influential, maintaining summer homes in Monaco, Grand Cayman, and R'lyeh, and attracting followers who worship it as some sort of deity.
There have been reports of Cthulhu's sexually molesting mobile homes. This tragic story was told in the Metallurgical Opera The Calls of Cthulhu.
In more recent years, Cthulhu and his spawn played vital roles as walk-on actors in the Duke Nukem video game series, and writers for the television show "Lost." [8]
Education
Cthulhu performed relatively well in his early schooling, achieving good marks in most subjects, especially geometry class. Fellow students would often tease young Cthulhu, who would soon find themselves plagued by dreams of non-euclidean angles and eldritch titans from beyond sanity. All but one of these children took their own lives, and the final one was hit by a bus before he had a chance. His cousin, the elephant deity called Pluppykanet (nickname was Fluffy for various reasons), was a fellow student and supported him during his ordeals at this time.
Cthulhu himself went on to university, where he completed a fine arts degree in ancient civilizations, mythology and archaeology. His marks were exemplary, with reviewers often commenting his knowledge exceeded that of modern science, as if he were present for the events. When approached on the issue, Cthulhu himself asserts he was asleep in R'lyeh at the time.
Cthulhu completed its master's thesis entitled Entities Gnawing at the Rim of the Universe - the Great Old Ones and Feminist Theory, for which it received numerous accolades, but unfortunately It ate Its faculty adviser and was unable to graduate.
Fans
Cthulhu, along with Kaptainskye and Eddie Money, is easily one of the most popular Eldritch amphibious deities in modern history. Over the years, he has amassed legions of devoted followers, well-paid engagements on the conservative lecture circuit, and more fish-heads than you can shake a stick at. [9]
Cthulhu, backed by the moral support of dozens of fans and a few devoted but underpaid German accountants, has recently convinced the government to allow the creation of a holiday dedicated to him. For more information see Cthulhu Day.
Recently Cthulhu has taken to encouraging sculpting in Its friends and fans. It prefers bas-reliefs in clay, especially portraits.
The Nation of Cthulhu
After the native frog-squid-sheep-people were colonized by the population of England's mental hospitals, Cthulhu was declared "annoying" and "gormless" by the U.N. Secretary-General. "Also cyclopean," the Secretary-General said after a bit. "And a bit squamous."
These dire utterances started an eldritch slap-fight that has nary abated since.
The national anthem of Cthulhu is "Ia Shoggoth, Ia Shoggoth, O Cannonball Armchair, My Rocket of Love." This, as far as anyone can tell, is Japanese, and was most stirringly performed at the 1987 Special Olympics by Japanese national pop band Pizzicato Five.
Its national bird is the pseudonatural canary, which is exactly like a regular canary but with extra tentacles for realistic gripping action.
Its national flag is red, white and blue and includes a maple leaf with an eyeball in the center strangling a baby.
Any resemblance between the Nation of Cthulhu and the mythical island of Malta is coincidental.
Cth 'n' Ny: The TV Show
Despite excessive tension between other nations and Cthulhu, Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep co-starred in the first and only season of Cth 'n' Ny, a TV show depicting the bumbling attempts of the comically-incompetent pair (played by Cth and Ny themselves) to devour all life, with their overly complicated plans consistently thrown awry by amusing errors caused by their damn near unpronounceable language.
The series didn't air at all, but at the last minute Fox picked it up to replace its prime-time reality show, Who Wants To Film a Reality Show? The show was canceled after almost a full season, when 80% of the audience went insane and shrieked wildly in strange inhuman tongues, attacked family members, sacrificed small animals, gnawed the flesh from their own hands, and grew gills[10].
Since the cancellation, Cthulhu has branched into other media. His new online news-service advice column already has 37,280 blind followers.
Cthulhu's Wager
Based on Pascal's Wager, Cthulhu's Wager measures the benefits/punishments of belief/non-belief in Cthulhu.
It follows logic as such:
- Cthulhu, if he exists, exists somewhere inaccessible to human beings, so we cannot be certain of his existence or nonexistence.
- If Cthulhu exists, he will give a quick and relatively merciful death to those who have worshiped him and expressed their belief through self-flagellation and ritual sacrifice.
- If Cthulhu exists, he will condemn those who have not worshipped him to an eternity of suffering and torment.
- You may worship Cthulhu, and Cthulhu exists, in which case you get a swift death.
- You may worship Cthulhu, and Cthulhu doesn't exist, in which case you gain nothing.
- You may not worship Cthulhu, and Cthulhu doesn't exist, in which you gain nothing.
- You may not worship Cthulhu, and Cthulhu exists, in which case you suffer infinite pain.
The following table shows the values assigned to each possible outcome:
Cthulhu exists | Cthulhu does not exist | |
---|---|---|
Worship of Cthulhu | < ∞ (finite pain) | < ∞ (finite pain) |
Non-Worship of Cthulhu | = ∞ (infinite pain) | 0 |
Now you must wager: do you choose to worship him or not?
So we can describe our calculus of pain, holding as the probability that Cthulhu exists, and that he does not exist.
If you worship him, we assign as the pain if he does exist, and as the pain if he does not exist. is less than because in both instances you go through the pain associated with worshipping Cthulhu, but in , you also get eaten, which is more painful.
If you worship him your expected pain is some finite constant:
For the case where you do not worship him, we assign as the pain if he does exist, and as the pain if he does not exist. will be zero or negative, because you actually get pleasure if you don't worship him and he does not exist.
If you do not worship him, your expected pain is:
However, , the pain if he does exist and you don't worship him, is infinite. Therefore, expected pain is infinite if you do not worship him, no matter what the associated probability .
As infinite pain is always greater than any finite pain, is always greater than .
Therefore, in order to minimize your pain, the only rational thing for you to do is to pick , and worship Cthulhu through self-flagellation and ritual sacrifice. QED
Hobbies of Cthulhu
- Consuming the souls of mortals
- Dreaming dark dreams in R'lyeh in his vast crypt outside of time
- Listening to Electric Wizard
- Haunting the tenebrous depths of the human subconscious with unspeakable horrors
- A bit of light BDSM play
- Unleashing the eldritch terrors of the Elder Ones upon a terrified and helpless world
- Running for public office
- Sending his eye to scare two-dimensional adventurers (often unsuccessfully)
Secret Life as a Draenei
There is a conspiracy theory that Cthulhu is actually a Draenei, and is covering it up with all the news reports of his extremely active sex life. The only facts this theory seems to be based on is that Draenei also have very active sex lives, but no other information relating Cthulhu to the Draenei has been found. Under the present secretive "Don't ask, don't gibber" policy, we may never really know.
Cthulhu in Literature
- The Phone Call of Cthulhu
- The Whisperer in Darkness
- At the Mountains of Madness
- Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President
- The Cthulu Presidency
- Tom Clancy's Code: R'LYEH
- The Declaration of Independence
References
- ↑ Roughly eight billion years ago a sperm whale and a squid, while fighting, accidentally impregnated each other. Not hot; not hot at all. The resulting child was too ugly to die
- ↑ far outstripping rivals like Leviathan, Monstro the Whale, Dagon, the Deep Ones, and Aquaman
- ↑ College Beyond Space and Time, BFA Library Studies, minor in Communications
- ↑ souls of virgin lawyers
- ↑ see Dr. Alan Alda's From Sleeping R'lyeh to Utah Lake: Secret Adoration of Dread Cthulhu in Provo, Utah University of Arkham Press; 1951
- ↑ lose d6 sanity for reading this footnote
- ↑ [fullurl:UnScripts:Winnegan's Fake}} The Calls for Cthulhu show, episode 1]
- ↑ lose d10 sanity for reading this footnote
- ↑ according to my calculations the number of fish-heads necessary to cause a black-hole singularity, making it impossible to shake a stick anywhere in the vicinity, is 4x10^30.
- ↑ results varied according to marketplace
See Also
- My Neighbor Cthulhu
- Cthulhu for Prez!
- Cthulhu Day
- Davy Jones
- H. P. Lovecraft
- Cthulhu v. Japan
- Cthulhu Spawn
- Jim Henson
- Flying Spaghetti Monster
- HowTo:Avoid tentacle rape
- Nyarlathotep
- Baile Átha Cliath
- Squid
- Octopus
- UnNews:Ask Cthulhu
- My First Necronomicon
- Animutation
- Ben Stein
External links
Preceded by: Flying Spaghetti Monster |
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Succeeded by: Ving Rhames |
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