Sorry, American McGee's Portal.

Sorry, American McGee's Portal.

(a) "Ant contemplates cosmos" is a trope.
TROPE : GENRE :: INGREDIENT : CUISINE

(b) My OP starts with "IF YOU WANT TO etc". That means it's conditional to the defined scenario. "Ant contemplates cosmos" is thus implied to be "a trope present in cosmic horror but I believe there are better ones".

THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTAE!

Not sure. I think the non-fiction equivalent would be philosophy/theology. "Lovecraftian" is a common genre tag for this sort of thing, although I suppose "Kafkaesque" could also work to some degree.

Can you cite any IRL works that play in the space you're describing?

Instead of summoning Dwayne, the ant summons an entomologist named Woodrow.

Also, the resulting story is far less interesting. Cosmic horror, being a genre of fiction, is best when it has DRAMA. Drama fundamentally thrives on someone making bad decisions.

Ironically, current reality is itself a dystopia formed by a society that ignored the dystopian parts of its own dystopias, in favor of the parts that were "cool".

Ants contemplate the cosmos the same as humans do - "whoa, so big/pretty". That's too relatable.

Cosmic madness is actually an ant contemplating a human.

Thank you for your time,
💜🐼Z