I love this and I feel this really hard as a writer of, specifically, cosmic horror. What do you DO when you're faced with a foe you can't defeat or understand? You still have choices left in your humanity -- not many, but a few -- and the horror is about exploring what those choices are.
I think part of our work as horror writers in 2024 is to help people unlock the parts of themselves that can face terror and adversity without losing their humanity & goodness.
We are entering an era of fear and horror like our species has never faced. We need heart.
It can be scary to go on. It can be tempting to go limp, side with the Ancient Ones, preserve your life a little longer; why *not* join an enemy faction instead of getting crushed to a paste?
And horror says: EVEN IF you have been crushed, or transformed, or even killed, you can still be human.
Because humanity isn't about what you look like or where you've come from; it's what you do. And that's a goofy, PollyAnna, Disneyish thing to say: but show me a single piece of horror that isn't about that. Horror is about what makes us human, what we declare to be human.
What we will defend.
I remember having it earnestly explained to me when I was a child that hot tea helped you cool down because it... made you hotter so your body tried to cool down harder?
