I, Cthulhu, or What's A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)? is a short story written by Neil Gaiman that acts as a parody of the Cthulhu Mythos. The plot goes that Cthulhu, the High Priest of the Elder Gods, is recounting his life story, from his birth to his arrival to Earth, to a servant named Whateley, who is writing the Great Old One's memoir.
It was first published by Dagon, a Cthulhu Mythos Fanzine, and is reposted here
on Tor.com every December. It can also be read here, on Gaiman's website.
I,Cthulhu provides examples of:
- Adaptational Intelligence: Azathoth in the original series was called the Blind Idiot God for a reason, having no mind or agency. Here, he's friends with Cthulhu, Hastur, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Tsathogghua, Shub Niggurath, and Yuggoth, traveling the many planes of existence having fun.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the original books, with a few exceptions, the Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, and Outer Gods had minds completely alien to humans, which meant they couldn't exactly be called "evil". Here, they have minds, desires, and personalities comparable to humanity, making them appear far more malicious.
- Adaptational Wimp: All of existence is merely Azathoth's dream, and everything will cease to exist if he wakes up. Here, Azathoth is awake, yet the story is still happening, implying he's now part of reality instead of the other way around.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Cthulhu asks Whateley if the Old One would ever lie to him when the latter questioned Cthulhu's unrelated anecdote about a cruise magician who accidentally summoned R'lyeh. Cthulhu then confesses that he would lie to Whateley.
- Cthulhu keeps insisting that someone feed the shoggoth. Turns out he means literally.
- Capital Letters Are Magic: As the King in Yellow points out, despite being phonetically identical, "old ones" and "Old Ones" have two different meanings.
- Civilization Destroyer: Cthulhu and his friends were this during their reign on Earth, and Cthulhu will be one again once the stars align to release him.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Seen from the Cosmic Horrors' end, where it's revealed that they're more akin to hedonistic party-goers than incomprehensible forces of destruction and madness.
- Deadpan Snarker: Surprisingly, Cthulhu has a dry wit to him.
- Eldritch Abomination: Featuring the most famous one of them all as the storyteller.
- Humans Are Insects: Cthulhu (not unreasonably) has this opinion, outright calling humanity's kingdoms "ant-empires" towards the end.
- Humans Are Ugly: Cthulhu admits that the first time he saw humans, we "[s]cared the shit out of [him]".
- Jerkass Gods: While the Great Old Ones in the source material were so far removed from humanity that our normal rules of morality couldn't really apply, the Great Old Ones here had fun subjugating and tormenting humanity during their reign on Earth.
- Mean Boss: Cthulhu dictates his story to Whateley, then when he's finished has him fed to the shoggoth.
- Mister Seahorse: While Cthulhu is an Eldritch Abomination from beyond our normal notions of spacetime, and thus gender, he's usually referred to as male. However, at the end he expects he'll be impregnated and eaten by his offspring like he did his mother.
- Mythology Gag:
- Cthulhu's comment that nobody can pronounce his name correctly references how the common "kuh-thoo-loo" was not actually the pronunciation Lovecraft intended; it was "Khlûl'-hloo", as the name is in a language not meant to be said by human vocal cords.
- The King In Yellow describes himself as "a mere colour out of space" when he first came to our plane of reality.
- Cthulhu's servant writing this story down is named Whateley.
- Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: A Great Old One barbeque caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
- Running Gag: Cthulhu being concerned if the shoggoth has been fed.
- Self-Made Orphan: Cthulhu states that he ate his mother at birth after she had devoured his father. He does state that he expects his own spawn to do the same to him, implying this is a natural thing his kind does.
- Time Abyss: Cthulhu states he was born "uncounted aeons ago", and claims that by the time he'll reach sexual years, Earth will be a dead rock. He also states that the Sun of Khhaa'yngnaiih was even older than he was until it finally exploded.
- The Unpronounceable:
- Cthulhu states that no one pronounces his name right, a reference to Lovecraft's intended pronunciation being far more alien and difficult to say than the modern and commonly accepted "kuh-thoo-loo" (Lovecraft's approximation was "Khlûl'-hloo").
- Cthulhu doesn't know how to spell Khhaa’yngnaiih either.
- Weird Moon: Khhaa'yngnaiih's moon was red with blood dripping down it. Cthulhu claims that it's "a real moon", not like our Moon.
- When the Planets Align: Like in the source material, the stars aligning will wake the dreaming Cthulhu to begin the end of the world.
