Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,2 (click to see context) from:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. It can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
to:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle [=lordoftheclowns=][[note]]Known here as Tropers/{{Scraggle}}[[/note]] and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. It can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
moderator restored to earlier version
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,39 (click to see context) from:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. It can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
to:
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1 (click to see context) from:
L
to:
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,39 (click to see context) from:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. It can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
to:
Haunted by a series of inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man Charles Duncan flies into the Soviet Union and seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on ''The Red Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators kept within the depths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and they've been kept alive and suffocating for ''decades''.]]
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves, threatening to feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa".
* MadArtist: Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being of madness and mayhem who places such things into his animated film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* PreMortemOneLiner: [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* {{Sadist}}: [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.']]
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue ''The Red Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 16 (click to see context) from:
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
to:
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, example, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 25 (click to see context) from:
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befalls many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
to:
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befalls befell many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: [[spoiler:Cardinous goes all out in the climax:]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
-->[[spoiler:"My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure. Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,2 (click to see context) from:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
to:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. It can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 8 (click to see context) from:
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on The Red Monarch, as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
to:
* ApocalypticLog: Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on The ''The Red Monarch, Monarch'', as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* BodyHorror: Flynn notes, towards the end of his journal, he and the other animators seem to be growing ''hyphae'' out the back of their neck. [[spoiler:Flash-forward a couple of decades and their faces have been overgrown with a bloody, fungal moss that overtakes their noses and eyes.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The old Pole doesn't exactly seem all there, casually forgetting his own name and letting his own house run into horrific squalor as he seems oblivious to it. Ironically enough, by the end of the story, the Pole seems [[TheCloudcuckoolanderWasRight the sanest character in the plot]].
* FauxAffablyEvil: There's little denying Cardinous' sympathies are decidedly ''not'' with the animators by the end, but he at least projects an image of superficial friendliness as time goes on.
* {{Gonk}}: The old Pole is very, ''very'' unpleasant looking, and his house is even worse. He's a pretty decent guy in spite of that, though.
Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheYellowKing'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa"]].
to:
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheYellowKing'', ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa"]].Carcosa".
* NothingIsScarier: Loads of it. What are the No Rooms? What is Cardinous ''really''? What's in ''The Red Monarch''? Very little ends up explicit at the end of things.
* RealityWarper: Cardinous ''may'' have been this on some degree. Flynn noted that he and the others awoke one day in Cardinous' studio pulled from all over the world, and both ''The Red Monarch'' and Brilliance Studios itself seem to have no place in reality except for the few who even recall it existed.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
* Room101: The "No Rooms" as Flynn calls them, strange rooms that Cardinous took staff he was less than pleased by. Days later, those people would come back... ''different'', more productive and enthusiastic but with something unspeakably ''wrong'' about them.
Changed line(s) 27,28 (click to see context) from:
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
to:
* TheyCalledMeMad: The Pole's sole condition to letting Duncan know about what he remembers of ''The Red Monarch'' is to simply ''believe'' him as opposed to all of the others who've ignored his seemingly-mad ravings.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursuethe ''The Red Monarch film Monarch'' despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* YouCannotGraspTheTrueForm: [[spoiler:Everything revolving around Cardinous' cartoons in the end, as well as Cardinous' own true form.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 1,4 (click to see context) from:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Plagued by a series of haunted dreams he cannot explain, a desperate American man delves into the history of a forgotten animation studio from the Soviet Union and the lost masterpiece it created in a bid to find some answers - and unearths something horrible rightfully forgotten by history. Part of the Never Mythos.
Plagued by a series of haunted dreams he cannot explain, a desperate American man delves into the history of a forgotten animation studio from the Soviet Union and the lost masterpiece it created in a bid to find some answers - and unearths something horrible rightfully forgotten by history. Part of the Never Mythos.
to:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and an entry in ''Literature/TheNeverMythos''. can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Plagued Haunted by a series of haunted dreams he cannot explain, a desperate inexplicable, persistent dreams, American man delves Charles Duncan flies into the history of a forgotten animation studio from the Soviet Union and the seeks help from an old Polish man who tells him that his dreams revolve around a film called ''The Red Monarch'', a seemingly lost masterpiece it created in a bid work of animation from the 60s that vanished -- alongside its enigmatic director, Vladik Cardinous, and its producer, Brilliance Studios -- seemingly into thin air. Determined to find some sort of answers - to the mystery, Duncan rides into Newark to find the abandoned studio that created the film, and unearths something horrible rightfully forgotten by history. Part of the Never Mythos.
finds out [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow there was a very good reason that film was never found]].
Changed line(s) 8,14 (click to see context) from:
* ApocalypticLog: The animator's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on The Red Monarch, as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves.
* BrownNote: The Red Monarch inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with the Red Monarch distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: the fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms-and Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Duncan's mind does ''not'' last at the end, in true Lovecraftian fashion.
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves.
* BrownNote: The Red Monarch inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with the Red Monarch distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: the fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms-and Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Duncan's mind does ''not'' last at the end, in true Lovecraftian fashion.
to:
* ApocalypticLog: The animator's Flynn Wilhelm Lacey's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on The Red Monarch, as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
*BadBoss: Cardinous kept his AndIMustScream: [[spoiler:The other animators as practical slaves.
* BrownNote: The Red Monarch inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to saykept within the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the worlddepths of Brilliance Studios have been mutated by a thick red fungus, and nothing hints they can be stopped.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The lead is killed,they've been kept alive and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with the Red Monarch distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.suffocating for ''decades''.]]
*EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: the fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms-and Vladik BadBoss: Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example kept his animators as well, whose true form is barely perceivable practical slaves, threatening to human eyes.feed them their own fingers and sending those who he disfavored to his ominously-named "No Rooms."
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* GoMadFromTheRevelation:Duncan's mind Hinted to have been the eventual fate of Flynn from seeing one of Cardinous' cartoons, as well as the field trip of children that saw it as well. [[spoiler:Duncan's mind, too, does ''not'' last at the end, end when he discovers what's beneath the studio, in true Lovecraftian fashion.]]
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
*
* BrownNote: The Red Monarch inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say
* CosmicHorrorStory: Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The lead is killed,
*
* BrownNote: ''The Red Monarch'' inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* CosmicHorrorStory: [[spoiler:Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.]]
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with ''The Red Monarch'' distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* GoMadFromTheRevelation:
* HairTriggerTemper: Cardinous had one, with seemingly anything viable to throw him into fits of screaming rage.
* HumanoidAbomination: [[spoiler:The fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms ripped from the reprieve of death.]]
Changed line(s) 16,18 (click to see context) from:
* MadArtist: A being who revels in madness and mayhem, who places such things into his animated film.
* PreMortemOneLiner: To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."
* {{Sadist}}: Cardinous may be a horrific monster, but he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.'
* PreMortemOneLiner: To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."
* {{Sadist}}: Cardinous may be a horrific monster, but he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.'
to:
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story's title is a shout-out to ''Literature/TheYellowKing'', and the plot vaguely follows along the lines of some of the short stories featuring the King (up to a ShoutOut early in the story referencing "lost Carcosa"]].
* MadArtist:A Cardinous is a deranged, erratic man who blends every kind of animation style one can name from the time -- from stop-motion animation influenced by Vladislav Starevich, from traditional animation in styles pulled from America to Japan to Germany -- into a revolutionary work of art the world has never seen before. [[spoiler:The truth of ''The Red Monarch'' is ''far'' worse; Cardinous is a being who revels in of madness and mayhem, mayhem who places such things into his animated film.
film to spread them all across the Soviet Union, and after, the world.]]
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befalls many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* PreMortemOneLiner:To [[spoiler:To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."
"]]
* {{Sadist}}:Cardinous [[spoiler:Cardinous may be a horrific monster, horrific, unknowable EldritchAbomination, but there is ''one'' aspect that is decidedly human: he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.'']]
* MadArtist:
* MindRape: Flynn notes that Cardinous did... ''things'' to the minds of him and his other animators, casually altering their memory and perception of the world around them while hinting he could do worse by "editing" them, a fate that befalls many of Cardinous' disfavored animators.
* MoodSwinger: Cardinous' temper was noted to have flown erratically, with ''vicious'' anger contrasted with serene pleasantness Flynn notes is even ''more'' unnerving than his rages.
* NoNameGiven: The old Pole in the beginning never has his name revealed, and blithely states that he's forgotten when Duncan presses him directly.
* PreMortemOneLiner:
* {{Sadist}}:
Changed line(s) 20,21 (click to see context) from:
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler: It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler: The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler: The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
to:
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler: It [[spoiler:It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan:[[spoiler: The [[spoiler:The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
* WasOnceAMan:
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Duncan's mind does ''not'' last at the end, in true Lovecraftian fashion.
Added DiffLines:
* MadArtist: A being who revels in madness and mayhem, who places such things into his animated film.
* PreMortemOneLiner: To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."
* PreMortemOneLiner: To all mankind: "Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you."
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* CosmicHorrorStory: Steadily revealed that eldritch horrors are about to use an obscure animation film to overwhelm the world and nothing hints they can be stopped.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 7 (click to see context) from:
to:
* ApocalypseHow: The story ends with [[spoiler: Cardinous about to kick off a horrific apocalypse.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 16 (click to see context) from:
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler; It costs him his life.]]
to:
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler; [[spoiler: It costs him his life.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
''The Red Monarch'' is a horror [[WebOriginalFiction short story]] by Scraggle and can be read [[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3321565/1/The-Red-Monarch here]].
Plagued by a series of haunted dreams he cannot explain, a desperate American man delves into the history of a forgotten animation studio from the Soviet Union and the lost masterpiece it created in a bid to find some answers - and unearths something horrible rightfully forgotten by history. Part of the Never Mythos.
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypticLog: The animator's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on The Red Monarch, as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves.
* BrownNote: The Red Monarch inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with the Red Monarch distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: the fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms-and Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* {{Sadist}}: Cardinous may be a horrific monster, but he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.'
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler; It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler: The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
Plagued by a series of haunted dreams he cannot explain, a desperate American man delves into the history of a forgotten animation studio from the Soviet Union and the lost masterpiece it created in a bid to find some answers - and unearths something horrible rightfully forgotten by history. Part of the Never Mythos.
----
!! The work contains examples of the following tropes:
* ApocalypticLog: The animator's journal is one big one, detailing the horrific occurrences in working on The Red Monarch, as it gets steadily more and more disturbing.
* BadBoss: Cardinous kept his animators as practical slaves.
* BrownNote: The Red Monarch inspires some ''terrifying'' things, to say the least...
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The lead is killed, and Cardinous's plan is beginning, with the Red Monarch distributed and a plot to turn the earth into a twisted hellscape.]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler: the fate of the former animators: mutated into twisted lifeforms-and Vladik Cardinous is a particularly monstrous example as well, whose true form is barely perceivable to human eyes.]]
* LargeHam: Cardinous gives an epic, dramatic speech at the climax that's quite memorable.
* {{Sadist}}: Cardinous may be a horrific monster, but he relishes causing pain, referring to it as his 'eternal pleasure.'
* ShownTheirWork: Quite a bit in here on animation history.
* TooDumbToLive: Duncan decides to pursue the Red Monarch film despite having become aware something is very, very, ''very'' wrong. [[spoiler; It costs him his life.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler: The fate of the twisted abominations in the old studio. They were once humans twisted into monsters by Cardinous. Whatever Cardinous truly is.]]
