Humans Are Cthulhu: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''Do you ever feel, in your caves of steel,<br />

''The chill of an ancient fear?<br />

''Do you shudder and say, when you pass this way,<br />

''"A human once walked here?"|''Newton's Wake'', [[Ken MacLeod]]}}

Humanity isn't always on the [[Puny Earthlings|low end of the cosmic totem pole]]. If a story takes the point of view of [[Talking Animal|animals]] or relatively weak or primitive non-humans, there'll be a [[Perspective Flip]] related to [[Clarke's Third Law]] where [[Humans Through Alien Eyes|modern humans]] -- excuse—excuse us; '''''MAN''''' -- shall be seen as unnaturally and [[Humans Are Ugly|nauseatingly]] ''[[Eldritch Abomination|inconceivable]]''.

The non-human creatures will usually consider Man as [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]], and treat it either with wary respect or an odd reverence as a [[A God Am I|divinity]]. Whether it's borne from [[TheydThey Would Cut You Up|survival instinct]] or cultural baggage, most will be reluctant ''at best'' to actively resisting Man's activities, let alone be curious to know them, lest one would suffer in the most merciless manner a the hands of Man's [[Industrialized Evil]]. Possibly the [[Genre Savvy]] [[What Measure Is a Non -Human?|non-human]] society realizes that committing to [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|major action against Man]] would risk breaking the [[Masquerade]], crossing some sort of [[Moral Event Horizon]], or is [[Too Dumb to Live|just]] [[Do Not Taunt Cthulhu|plain]] [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu|suicidal]].

* [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]], or at least [[Neglectful Precursors|lethally careless]] in a [[Jerkass Gods]]/[[The Gods Must Be Lazy]] way.

* Alien to the planet, despite being born of it. Subject to [[GaiasGaia's Vengeance]]. Human culture is [[Humanity Is Infectious|likely considered infectious]] and bad.

One exception to this treatment happens when some non-humans, [[Children Are Special|usually children]], become [[Pals Withwith Jesus|pals with a human]], again [[A Boy and His X|usually another child.]] The contact is treated [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|as an exception rather than a rule]], in that ''this one human'' is different and [[Rousseau Was Right|kind]], while still considering revealing themselves to ''Man'' as a whole as endangering themselves. The non-humans who engage in this contact may or may not have their society's sanction to do so -- itso—it may be verboten and seen as risky, or alternately a [[Broken Masquerade|useful tradition]] where they [[Bond Creatures|selectively reveal themselves to worthy humans]]. There are advantages to getting on a [[Did We Just Have Tea Withwith Cthulhu?|god's good side]], after all.

The non-human society may be a [[Cargo Cult]], primitive fantasy creatures or [[Insufficiently Advanced Alien|Insufficiently Advanced Aliens]]s, a [[Mouse World]], robots, or a [[Hidden Elf Village]] separated from human civilization.

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': {{spoiler|Humans are actually the real last angel and not the [[Ambiguously Gay]] [[White -Haired Pretty Boy]] that you thought it was, and your fellow man will be the final enemy. And they actually succeed in causing the [[EndoftheThe End of the World Asas We Know It]]. Though it's kind of an [[It Was His Sled]] moment.}}

* ''[[Lotte no Omocha]]'': Because humans are extinct in the Monster Realm, almost everyone in Ygvarland have no idea what a human looks like, so when a human was reported walking around in the schoolgrounds, the students imagined him as a long necked monster covered in fur.

* In Warren Ellis's ''Ultimate Galactus'' trilogy for Ultimate [[Marvel]], he spends 3/4 of the series revealing the reimagined version ( {{spoiler|a hundred-thousand-mile long hive mind of giant, world-killing robots}}) of the planet-eating Galactus from the mainstream continuity. When [[X -Men|Professor X]] makes contact with Gah Lakh Tus, he is physically jarred by the utter horror and disgust that the being feels for organic life. In fact, the whole point of Gah Lakh Tus seems to be that of a {{spoiler|universal exterminator, that can sustain itself on any planet's core energy, but is dedicated to seeking out and killing anything organic simply because we creep the living hell out of it}}. In the end, scrappy little humanity/mutants/post-Humanity/[[Humanity/Eagleland|Eagleland]] comes together and uses a horrific, multidimensional superweapon powered by {{spoiler|aborting a baby universe with a hydrogen bomb}}, and giving [[A God Am I|Nick Fury]] an even bigger ego in the process. Maybe Gah Lakh Tus was right to shit itself over us.

* ''[[Bambi (Disney)|Bambi]]''.

* ''[[Watership Down]]'' and ''[[The Plague Dogs (Literature)|The Plague Dogs]]'', both animated films based on books by Richard Adams.

{{quote| '''Holly:''' Men came... filled in the burrows. Couldn't get out. There was a strange sound... hissing! Runs blocked with dead bodies!<br />

[...]<br />

'''Fiver:''' They'll never rest until they've spoiled the earth.<br />

** And then there's the penguin Love-Lace, who thinks that the plastic six-pack holder around his neck is a gift from the gods--atgods—at least until he grows too big for it and it starts choking him.

* The humans-as-aliens idea appears in ''[[Antz (Animation)|Antz]]'' (1998). A plastic-wrapped sandwich is "surrounded by [[Some Kind of Force Field|some kind of force field]]", and an unseen sadistic human with a magnifying glass becomes a Flying Saucer with [[Death Ray]] in a clear take-off of the "It's beautiful" scene in ''[[Independence Day]]''. Also the human at the picnic, who is practically a living mountain compared to the insects (all we ever see are his feet and legs).

* The humans in ''[[The Secret of NIMH (Film)|The Secret of NIMH]]'' often come off this way -- theway—the humans aren't evil, just totally uncaring about animal life (most particularly in the plow and the flashbacks to NIMH).

* In ''[[Monsters Inc.|Monsters, Inc.]]'', the monsters are taught from birth that humans are dangerous and physical contact with them or any of their belongings must be avoided at all costs. There's also a [[Government Agency of Fiction|government agency]] whose sole purpose is to detain monsters who have had physical contact with humans and decontaminate them. Naturally, this has made monsters just as scared of humans as humans are scared of them.

* This seems to be how the bees initially view humanity in ''[[Bee Movie]]'', though that starts to change after the protagonist [[Did We Just Have Tea Withwith Cthulhu?|talks to a human]].

* In ''The [[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]] [[The Movie|Movie]],'' there is supposed to be a monstrous "cyclops" guarding Shell City that kills any creature that tries to enter. He easily (and accidentally) defeats Dennis (probably the toughest guy in the whole [[SpongeBob]] universe; the Strangler apparently being a close second) by stepping on him. He then takes [[SpongeBob]] and Patrick to his gift shop (which ''is'' Shell City) and throughout his scenes he is portrayed as a sadistic monster. He even has an evil laugh. And...he's really just the owner of a waterfront gift shop, sells tacky knick-knacks, and inexplicably never takes off his diving suit.

* The original Felix Salten ''[[Bambi (Disney)|Bambi]]'' novel. Early on, humans are just [[Carnivore Confusion|another predator]], only they are the only ones capable of bringing down a deer (thus the deer protagonists' fear of humans). The deer then believe that humans are Gods, and only the cleverest of them have figured out that guns aren't just magic ("he is only dangerous when he has his third arm"). The humans' use of guns and dogs are a point of contention for the other animals, but mostly because it's just unfair. The ending of the book comes when the Old Buck {{spoiler|shows Bambi [[Not So Invincible After All|a human who has been killed by a gun that backfired]]}}.

* ''[[The Call of the Wild]]'' and ''[[White Fang]]'', at least, have the wolves consider humans as gods--butgods—but not all of them are evil, and White Fang manages to develop a positive relationship with a benevolent human. On the other hand, Buck {{spoiler|killing a human at the end of ''Call of the Wild'' completes his transformation into a wild beast, realizing that they are just as mortal as any other prey.}}

* In [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The Jungle Book (Literaturenovel)|The Jungle Book]]'' humans are recognized as another animal, but also as something else strange and terrifying. Mowgli is the only animal immune to Kaa's hypnosis, and the other animals can't look him in the face: Bagheera says this is why the wolf pack ultimately turned on him. The story "How Fear Came" says that man came to the jungle as a punishment, bringing fire and terror.

* [[George RRR. R. Martin]]'s story ''[http://tinyurl.com/6h7ahu Sandkings]'', which was made into an ''[[Outer Limits]]'' episode. The title aliens worship their human owner until he mistreats them.

** See also Theodore Sturgeon's "[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmic_God:Microcosmic God|Microcosmic God]]", in which a scientist creates hyper-accelerated intelligent creatures, who regard him as a god. They surpass human technology, and the scientist passes off their inventions as his ... for a while.

* The ''[[Silverwing (Literaturenovel)|Silverwing]]'' series by Kenneth Oppel deals with this, particularly the second book, ''Sunwing''. The bats get caught up in a human war when captured, placed in first a false paradise (a conservatory or somesuch) and then exploited, using a fictionalized version of the "Bat Bombs" tested by the US in World War II. At least one of the protagonists loses his parents this way. The humans in the series occasionally simply band bats (just for research, but the bats don't know that). Some colonies of bats believe that humans are evil and banded bats are exiled for fear they will bring bad luck. Other colonies believe that humans are good and the bands are a sign that humans will one day soon help the bats defeat their enemies {{spoiler|which leads to a scene in which Goliath appears decked out in dozens of metal bands -- implying that he killed and ate the bats wearing them previously}}. The protagonists constantly question exactly whose side the humans are on.

* ''[[The Plague Dogs (Literature)|The Plague Dogs]]'', by the same author. At one point, the fugitive dogs discuss whether or not it's possible that humans can communicate across great distances. While they eventually conclude that it's a silly idea, they mention lots of other things -- likethings—like making the sun shine indoors just by touching a wall -- thatwall—that demonstrate just how many "miracles" (from the canine perspective) we perform every day, without even thinking about it.

* In the second tome of the ''[[Empire of the Ants]]'' trilogy by Bernard Werber, the local ants try to exterminate humans (or "fingers"). However, they seriously underestimated our numbers, and their only victory was against a picnicking family, where they made a child seriously ill by pouring wasp venom inside a light wound. After that encounter they realize they were underestimating our numbers and they reevaluate a bit.

{{quote| "I now estimate there are between 100 and 150 Fingers on the planet".}}

* Wonderfully evoked in the short story ''The Horror Out of Time'' by Randall Garrett, which appeared in his 1980 anthology of pastiches, ''Takeoff!'' In the typical Lovecraftian manner it is a first-person account of the narrator's discovery of prehistoric ruins on an island recently lifted from the floor of the sea, his entry into what appears to be a temple there -- andthere—and the mind-breakingly horrific sight of the crucifix, complete with Christ figure, that he finds on its back wall, at which point the reader finally realizes the narrator is not a Victorian human, but some other type of creature which evolved long after mankind disappeared:

{{quote| The creature's horrible five-fingered hands and five-toed feet were ''nailed firmly to a great stone cross!''}}

* The cats in ''[[Literature Warrior Cats]]'' view Twolegs (AKA humans) this way, although they also consider us to be somewhat silly (for doing such things as playing in water or riding on horses). That said, they do have a healthy respect for man, particularly our "monsters" (motorized vehicles), which at one point {{spoiler|destroyed their entire forest home, forcing them to find a new one}}. Some of them, especially ones who used to live as pets, know very well that humans are not [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]], just unable to understand cats, and even remember their old owners affectionately, though they tend to pick up the wild cats' habits and hide whenever humans come around.

** On a funnier note, Wuffles from Pratchett's ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Truth|The Truth]]'' refers to his master, Lord Vetinari, as God. This is lampshaded by Gaspode the Wonder Dog, who admits that Wuffles' views are rather old-fashioned. Of course, Wuffles' master is [[Magnificent Bastard|Lord Vetinari]]. There are ''humans'' who believe that he sees and controls everything.

* More seriously, Granny Aching casts humans as an ''ethical'' Cthulhu in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Wee Free Men|The Wee Free Men]]'', in her "We have a duty" speech to Tiffany. Humans are like gods to livestock, ordering their births and deaths, but have a corresponding responsibility to care for and defend them.

* Taken to its logical conclusion in ''Flies'' by [[Isaac Asimov]]. A maker of fly spray can't figure out why flies constantly circle around him, joking that he must smell like a lady fly in heat. As it turns out, {{spoiler|they believe he's a god punishing them for their sinful ways.}} This is one of the few stories Asimov wrote that qualifies as horror, particularly when you realize the [[Aesop]] he's [[God Is Evil|leading up to]] . . .

** His short story ''With Friends Like These...'' takes a look at the theme from another angle. Ages ago, the old galactic civilization deemed humanity too dangerous and [[The Wall Around the World|sealed off Earth]] until it became a myth, but now aliens needs Mankind's skill at battle against another alien race. So a few representatives go to Earth, see a quiet pastoral culture relaxing in a hammock, and ask the "mythical creatures" to help. Cue the [[Freak -Out|little shock]] when aliens see {{spoiler|that humans are so calm because their hammock is [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|too high]] on [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun Andand Profit|The Kardashev Scale]] to worry. Not only have humans evolved psionic powers and are in telepathic contact with various other mammalian species (which presumably they [[Uplift|Uplifted]]ed), not only is the whole planet filled with machinery and computers for miles below the surface, but ''the entire freaking planet Earth (with moon) breaks orbit to follow the aliens' starship''!}}.

** A story-within-a-story seen in ''Carnivores of Light and Darkness'' tells of two warring anthills contacting a man, probably to get him to help destroy the other mound. One group of ants sees this as a divine miracle.

* Mike Resnick's novella ''[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Views_of_Olduvai_Gorge:Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge|Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge]]'' follows a group of alien archaeologists studying Earth after the fall of the vast, tyrannical Empire of Man and extinction of the feared human race.

* Andrea I. Alton is the author of ''Demon of Undoing'', a novel set on another world where the dominant species is a catlike race. Their culture is incredibly rigid and bound in protocol, so when the spacefaring humans come to their world and are stranded, the humans get labeled as "demons" for the way they shake up the society due to "revolutionary ideas."

* [[Stephen King]]'s short story ''[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Doorway:I Am the Doorway|I Am The Doorway]]'' (appears in the collection ''[[Night Shift]]'') combines this with [[Eldritch Abomination]] when a Lovecraftian alien invades the body of an astronaut and makes him do unspeakable things to his fellow men. It is eventually revealed that the creature is behaving this way because [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation|it finds humans just as horrifying]] as humans find it.

* Richard Ford's novel ''[[Quest For The Faradawn]]'' features a human raised by animals (a la ''[[The Jungle Book (Literaturenovel)|The Jungle Book]]''), going on a quest to save the animals from the murderous savagery of a human civilization that is explicitly described as [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]].

* Oddly enough, the short story [http://www.flashfictiononline.com/fpublic0036-memory-h-p-lovecraft.html "Memory"] by [[HPH.P. Lovecraft]].

* [[Mark Twain]]'s short story "Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls" involves a group of animals who set out on a scientific expedition, defining the works of Man as best they can. For example, a speeding car becomes first the Vernal Equinox, then later the Transit of Venus. http://books.google.ca/books?id={{Dead link}}[[Fga 1 su D Gz Vs C]]

* Harry Turtledove's ''[[World WarWorldwar]]'' series has this to some extent. Humans are twice as big as the aliens known simply as the Race, and evolve far more quickly than the Race or the other two sentient species they'd encountered beforehand, so they're not prepared at all when they invade Earth during World War II, their expectations based on recordings from 800 years before. It reaches its apex at the very end of the series, when {{spoiler|humans are able to create faster than light travel by extrapolating off the Race's technology, leaving them firmly in control of the situation that had been an uneasy balance for several decades.}}

* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' TOS episode "[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_People:The Little People|The Little People]]". Tiny aliens (smaller than ants) worship a human astronaut who discovers (and later mistreats) them.

* Also, there was an ''[[Outer Limits]]'' episode in which some Martian creatures see the human scientist examining them as a god. They even build a statue of him. The scientist then mistreats them, cue to [[Rage Against the Heavens]]. They then get free. Solution: {{spoiler|[[Kill It Withwith Fire]]. If any of them survived, it would just reinforce them in their belief...}}

* In ''[[Babylon Five5]]'' G'Kar invokes this trope to illustrate an encounter with [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] his friendly human scientist had.

{{quote| '''G'Kar''' [lifts an ant from a flower and then puts it back]: I have just picked it up on the tip of my glove. If I put it down again and it asks another ant, "What was that?", how would it explain? There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They're vast, timeless, and if they're aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants, and we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know, we've tried, and we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot or be stepped on.}}

** Interestingly enough, in a later season they attempt to contact the same aliens {{spoiler|to fight against the shadows}}. Ivanova manages to convince them by diplomatically using the most recognized language in the universe...[[Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?|insults.]]

* ''The Forest King'' by [[Three3 Inches of Blood]]. It doesn't last. The trees [[When Trees Attack|get pissed]] and [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|set humanity back by a million years.]]

* The "Eyeballs in the Sky" [[Running Gag]] from ''[[The Perishers]]'', in which a society of crabs in a rockpool worship a pair of giant eyes that appear once every year (when the gang goes to the seaside). Not ''exactly'' this trope, though, as the eyes don't belong to a human but to a dog.

* ''[[GURPS]] [[Bunnies and Burrows]]'' is made of this trope. Unsurprisingly, it's based heavily on ''[[Watership Down]]'', which is ''also'' (largely) made of this trope. The standard ability scores (for rabbits) are 10; humans have scores of 20-40!

* ''[[The Chronicles of Fate]]''. By way of [[Evolutionary Levels]], humanity has evolved into an empire of ''literal'' Cthulhus (or beings so [[A God Am I|divinely powerful]] they might as well be) called The Union. These humans, now called "Unians", have become so terrifyingly [[Time Abyss|powerful and ancient and alien]] they would seem like Cthulhus not just to rabbits or dogs or bats, but to 21st-century humans as well, even good ol' [[HPH.P. Lovecraft|Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, and Nyarlathotep]] would crap their non-existent, [[Alien Geometries|infini-dimensional]] trousers at the prospect of messing with them. Know what the younger races call us? [[Eldritch Abomination|"Old Ones"]].

{{quote| "An empire vast, greater than the infinite, older than the time before time, the immaculate embodiment of might, Gods to the gods, power and radiance and grace and terror and grandeur pure, love and hate and ecstasy and death, walking the worlds as they please, striding time as others would walk across a room, conquering as others would breathe, endlessly, feared and beloved as no others are. The Union is of humanity in only the same sense as humanity is of the bacteria that its cells are evolved from. They are Precursors to all that now is, Elder things, with knowledge and wisdom reclaimed each time from an infinitude of past cycles. They are children to none but Josh, Source-Of-All, younger than none, older than all, firstborn and greatest."}}

* In ''[[Warhammer 40 K,000]]'' the Imperium of Man is the defacto galactic power. It stretches across a million worlds, has entire solar systems devoted to industry and can burn offending planets down to the crust. Over a million fanatical [[Super Soldier|Super Soldiers]]s bring fire and death to its enemies; and that's not mentioning the [[Amazon Brigade|battle nuns]], [[Humongous Mecha|city sized mechs]] and [[We Have Reserves|billions of common soldiers]] humanity can field. To top it off, it's led by a literal [[Physical God]] who gets stronger the more people worship him - and he has uncountable worshippers. While it has problems with the [[Horde of Alien Locusts|extragalactic swarm of locusts the Tyranids]], [[Eldritch Abomination|the extradimensional Chaos Gods]] and [[Physical God|the star gods the C'tan]], anything else is just screwed.

{{quote| "For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat unmoving on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh eaten. Human blood and human flesh - the stuff of which the Imperium is made. (...) Forget the power of technology, science and common humanity. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter and the laughter of thirsting gods."}}

* In ''[[KULT (Tabletop Game)|KULTKult]]'', Humans are immortal superbeings, they are just slumbering and are unaware of their power. The powers that be try to make sure that they don't learn how to change this.

* In ''[[Sim AntSimAnt]]'', one of your objectives as an ant is to drive away the human (whose feet and lawnmower are the greatest threats ants face while above ground). Once this is done, a "For Sale - Any Price" sign appears on the overworld view.

* The ending of Yorito Nagai in ''[[Siren]] 2/Forbbiden Siren 2'': {{spoiler|he enter in a dimension dominated entirely by Yamibitos LIVING LIKE NORMAL HUMANS. Nagai, dominated by the horror, shoot his machine gun against all. A new archive adds to your inventory, the "Yamibito´s Diary". The owner writes: "A terrible monster fell from the sky. The monster was destroyed, but others of its kind still remain in their nest." }}

* ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' advances the idea that humans are slowly destroying the planet, {{spoiler|and that they became such enemies of nature because of long-term exposure to Lavos, an eldritch abomination itself that was the villain of the previous game}}.

* ''[[Devil Survivor 2]]'' gives us one demon who certainly feels this way after suffering a [[No -Holds -Barred Beatdown]] from one of your human allies.

{{quote| ''"How do I put this... Humans have become such dreadful beings."''}}

== WebcomicsWeb Comics ==

{{quote| '''Dora:''' "I've totally seen you take muffins into the bathroom."<br />

* ''[[Captain SNES]]'' has the sprites view the Creators as gods, [[Captain N: theThe Game Master|who sent one of their own to help Videoland]] in its time of need. However, some of those Touched find out that the people who made them had done so for their own entertainment, which, considering that involves the deaths of many of their loved ones done for a child's plaything, they get pretty damn pissed.

** It gets worse. Erfworld runs on [[Bloodless Carnage]], so biologically speaking, Parson may be the only being in the world with a circulatory system. He may be the only organism that exists on a cellular level...at any rate, his biology and physiology are utterly alien, and he's a native of a universe with completely different physical laws...

** Also, there are words in his language that cannot be uttered in their universe. Specifically, even mild swears are automatically censored. And then he [[Precision F -Strike|broke that restriction]] ''by sheer force of will.''

* To the Basement-dwellers in ''[[The Mansion of E (Webcomic)|The Mansion of E]]'', humans have become legendary boogeymen.

* In ''[[Two KindsTwokinds]]'', Humans regularly show up and enslave the [[Petting Zoo People]] after completely wrecking their towns. Humans also live about four times as long as they do (80-9080–90 years to their 20-30), and can use Magic without relying on its crystallized form. The [[Petting Zoo People]] think that humans are devoid of mercy or compassion, and that they eat the ones who can't be used for slave labour. A Keidran's reaction to an average human is, understandably, just short of pants-shitting terror. However, some have figured out that humans are really just sparsely-furred sentient apes with a slow metabolism and [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|a mean streak]], and thus die just as good as anything else when you shoot them with poisoned arrows.

* In plush toy psychiatry game ''[[Die Anstalt]]'', the toys' owners, who so mistreated them, are so mysterious and vague they seem like an alien gods to them. They're all represented with the same barely-humanoid girl silhouette. Her pigtails look like antenna and one time she's introduced with [[Also Sprach Zarathustra|Also]] [[Shout -Out|Sprach]] [[Two Thousand and One2001: A Space Odyssey|Zarathustra]].

{{quote| {{spoiler|Abigor was sitting on his couch, mouth agape, staring at the screen as the credits rolled by. What sort of gods were the humans, to be able to destroy a city with a single bomb? He closed his mouth, then shook his head. A single bomb, capable of annihilating an entire city. An entire army would be nothing. They had played with him, when they could have destroyed him and everyone with him with ease.}} }}

* [http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/10439760/ No humans you are the Old Ones.]{{Dead link}} And everyone is very comfortable with that.

* [http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1166 This track] from [[Erfworld|Rob Balder]] seems at first to be an inversion -- humansinversion—humans are the [[Beverly Hillbillies]] of the galaxy -- butgalaxy—but by the end of the song, the alien narrators seem to be afraid they're underestimating the danger.

* Another /tg/ original, [[The Veil of Madness]], tells of how when humans finally achieved interstellar travel, they came across the remnants of countless alien civilizations, all of them having succumbed to madness and self destruction. Finally, when the make contact with non-insane aliens, they learn the truth. Humanity resides in a pocket of space that makes all sentient lifeforms within it go insane, yet humans are somehow immune. When the non-insane aliens see human ships coming out of their equivalent of the Bermuda triangle, they virtually crap their pants. The humans decide to play up their Cthulhu status, noting that it makes negotiations very easy and deters the aliens from attacking them. Funnily enough, humanity notes that the fact that they're essentially playing a galaxy-sized practical joke lends credence to the idea that they're actually a little crazy.

* ''[[Peace Onon Earth]]'', the classic MGM animated short.

* "The User" in ''[[Re BootReBoot]]''. They rail against his/her taste in games, but come season 3, he/she does the right thing and restores mainframeMainframe from its grim and gritty state. Expanding on that, the sprites respect and fear it, being a dangerous entity who challenges them in games and occasionally creates viruses, but at the same time [[Thank the Maker|sends upgrades and stuff to help the people out]].

* ''[[South Park]]'' combined this with [[GaiasGaia's Vengeance]] in the episode "Lice Capades", where we see the head lice of Clyde being warned by one of them that their "planet" is alive and rejecting their presence after seeing a gigantic eye looking down upon him from the sky (a school nurse, discovering Clyde's lice to begin with) before they are massacred by a liquid which dissolves their bodies (anti-lice shampoo) followed by a hurricane which decimates the survivors (caused by a hair dryer). At one point, one of the lice (still rejecting the idea that the world is alive) shoots several times into Clyde's skin, causing him to obliviously reach back and pluck him off and throw him to the ground. [[Inferred Holocaust|And given the fact that we're told that]] {{spoiler|''[[Inferred Holocaust|all]]'' of the kids in the class had lice...}}

* See the [[Humans Are Cthulhu/Fridge|Fridge]] tabpage for more ideas.

* Some Indigenous peoples of various places have mistaken European Invaders for various things. The Aztecs didn't even realize the Spanish Conquistadors were ''human'' at first, because they'd never seen a horse, much less an armored man on an armored horse. They thought it was some kind of four legged monster with metal skin! The Native Americans mistook [[Mistaken for Gods|Columbus for a god]], some tribes of Aborigines mistook white men for their own dead ancestors [[The Undead|(because white people look like corpses to dark skinned people who've never seen a white person before)]], and of course there's the [[Cargo Cult]]s.

[[Category:Lovecraftian Tropes{{PAGENAME}}]]

[[Category:NightmareCosmic FuelHorror StationattendantTropes]]

[[Category:ErfworldNightmare (Webcomic)/CharactersFuel Station Attendant]]

[[Category:HumansTropes Areof CthulhuHats]]