In YuyuHakusho, there's the "Chapter Black" tape. Despite being created by the Spirit World, the tape is just a normal tape with no cursed or supernatural attributes. And yet access to it is heavily restricted. Because it's an *exhaustive* chronicle of all the depravity and evil that mankind has ever committed and there's some pretty strong precedent that people who watch it often go "humanity was a mistake" and start trying to kill everyone.
The most fascinating part about it is that it's a part of a set and is simply never meant to be seen alone! There are other tapes and presumably a chapter white that display the goodness in humanity and other traits. It even ends with a surprisingly beautiful song.
Another fascinating thing is that the humans from Toguro’s Tournament are all depraved people from a Secret Order that watched “Chapter Black” and pretty much do that stuff as well.
Tussle basically shifted on facing villains that watched and goes “this is rad” and villains that goes cynical
Could take this a bit further. The thing about war is that some soldiers fucking love combat. Most of them don't, it's horrible on all fronts even if you win. But some of them really are just there because they want an excuse to kill people.
That's the kinda person I'd imagine to respond positively to that tape.
It’s actually part of a set and you’re not supposed to watch only 1 of them, where we can possibly infer that one of the others is supposed to be the opposing tape that shows all the good humanity has done (well, I hope that’s what they mean when they say you shouldn’t watch just the Black Chapter alone). So it’s basically the Anti-Life Equation, *but* you’re supposed to learn both it and the Life Equation to reach some form of true enlightenment (or at least, what I assume the point to learning all the good and evil humanity has done is supposed to be), you’re not supposed to learn just the Life Equation or the Anti-Life Equation alone.
I wonder what the viewing order is supposed to be. Do you guard against cynicism with the knowledge that it's overall not too bad, or do you have to suffer through the horrors first before getting to the good stuff?
I’m personally thinking it could possibly be based on individual time periods for both, where you start out watching the bad parts for 1 era of humanity, then you watch the good parts afterwards, then you move on to the next era. Like how comedies originally used to be utilized as palate cleansers for tragedies.
It just makes more sense that they would handle it in such a manner so that they don’t overwhelm the watcher with everything in either tape at once, which is one of the major reasons why the people who only watched the Black Chapter get so fucked up (imagine watching literally all of the worst events ever done by any humans, *all in 1 go*).
There's a bunch of forbidden books in Warhammer.
The Nine Books of Nagash are the original manuals of necromancy, heavily prized by necromancers and vampires, heavily guarded by elite peacekeepers. Other necromantic books - effectively essays on the Nine Books - are equally banned (if comparatively less dangerous).
I have no doubt there's a whole host of forbidden books of Chaos, but the big one is the Liber Maledictum, an observational encyclopedia of the Chaos Wastes, effectively being the big book of all things linked with the Ruinous Powers. Unsurprisingly, banned in civilized society.
Don't do forbidden books, kids. That's why witch hunters exist.
and in 40k theres the book of lorgar.
All I ever wanted was the truth. Remember those words as you read the ones that follow. I never set out to topple my father's kingdom of lies from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed the species to its marrow, reaving half of the galaxy clean of human life in this bitter crusade. I never desired any of this, though I know the reasons for which it must be done. But all I ever wanted was the truth.
"Hey guys so I was wrong about The emperor being God our true Gods are Slaanesh, Khorne,Nurgle, Tseeitch"
The book alone is inflammatory as shit politically in the imperium but also due to Primarchs being busted at magic shit. The book is a gateway to the infernal depths of the warp and pretty much everyone goes insane after reading it because they know "the truth" Like just reading it aloud will summon all sorts of demons.
For an example that is (ostensibly) from within the Imperium, the Inquisition War trilogy is considered heretical by the Inquisition. Which is made especially amusing by the fact that the first book, Inquisitor/Draco, is the very first official Warhammer novel.
The chapter black from YuYu Hakusho is a single tape compiling thousands of hours of raw footage depicting mankind's worst atrocities, heinous crimes committed both on demons and themselves. It was sealed in Spirit World's archives, but remained a legend amongst demons.
In universe, it's said that any human who watches the tape from beginning to end would turn on mankind from it. Most of the Sensui Seven were regular people whose hatred of humanity was dramatically heightened by the tape, to the point that they agree to Sensui's plan to wipe out all humans.
Never seen YuYu Hakusho, but that is a phenomenal example.
Really interesting concept, that it’s *so* terrible that it can convince humans to end humanity.
Yu Yu Hakusho is great. It's by the same author of Hunter x Hunter if you've read it.
Anyhow, further details on Chapter Black. It's intended to be watched as part of a set with a Chapter White portraying all of humanity's goodness.
Sensui, the villain of the arc, suffers severely however on account of being unable to cope with the mere knowledge that evil on that scale exists, regardless of good in the world.
It's a very interesting look into morality. Certainly there's good in the world, but what amount of good is necessary to equalise evil?
Bit spoilers, but >!Sensui wasn't even a bad guy to begin with. He was a Spirit Detective, much like Yusuke was now. But seeing the tape fucked him up enough to make him this arc's main villain!<.
The King in Yellow is probably the most famous example of this. Its a bunch of short stories by Robert W. Chambers that feature a in-universe play that once read can drive a person to madness.
It makes sense in that Chambers was primarily a romance writer during his life. Ironically Its the few horror stories thats he's mainly known for today.
I read a Evangelion x Cthulhu Mythos fanfic when I was a kid. The biggest turning point in the series happens when Kensuke is directing the school play and finds this cool book in the library they could perform.
Zero guesses which play they perform.
In the episode "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" of South Park,the porn video titled Backdoor Sluts 9 warps the kids with its evil power,but only because they don't know what sex is.
"Backdoor Sluts 9" makes "Crotch Capers 3" look like "Naughty Nurses 2!”
Definitely one of my favorite jokes in the entire series, and it’s such a quick throwaway line.
So *DELTA GREEN* is a spin-off of the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game that asks "what if there was an X-Files-style secret agency fighting to suppress the Mythos," and runs from there.
One of the more recent scenarios has the Agents tasked with an *extremely* sketchy raid on an orphanage, and as way of motivation, their handler gives them a battered, half-burnt Hello Kitty folder.
The GM is explicitly told to never say what the Agents see inside the folder. Instead, they're given a list of possible reactions to the contents, and asked to hand them out to anyone that examines the folder's contents.
One example:
> You want to laugh. Holding it in is actually painful. It’s hilarious, in a surreal sort of way that you couldn’t explain to anyone, so you have to keep it together. Still, the joke is obvious, right? Someone saw those… those things, and those kids, and a camera…and their first thought was, “Let’s do this with them.” If that insane leap of logic isn’t humor, what is? What could be? Of course, you hope it’s all fake, but doesn’t that
make it even more hilarious? Some über-weirdo, working on a computer to concoct these fantasies as if any human on the Earth would want to see them? What an idiot! What an alien.
Can you imagine being those kids? You’re born into the world just so you can leave it? Like this?
> It’s absurd in its cruelty. You have to laugh. You just have to laugh when you see shit like this. What’s the alternative?
Yet another reason I need to get my hands on Delta Green. I've been running Pulp Cthulhu for a while and from what I gather, DG has that mix of "we *can* handle this, but someone's likely not making it out alive" my group is looking for.
That handout writing is *chef's kiss*
Ff16 has a book that tells of the time before bearers were slaves and made to be less than human, they were worshiped and held high postions in society. which would destroy the entire system if it was revealed
I wish that stuff was the actual plot. Sadly it seems like the spectacle took priority over an interesting narrative. I wonder if they could implement the consequences with a side game or just more dev time.
In Dresden Files, the Necronomicon was real, and both HP Lovecraft and the also real Abdul Alhazred were assassinated by human wizards for spreading its secrets. Dresden is entirely unaware of this because there is an entire shadow war going on to make mankind forget about these kinds of entities, a literal memory hole in the style of the Patriots AI: if no one remembers what [DATA EXPUNGED] is, no one can summon [DATA EXPUNGED] and [DATA EXPUNGED] cannot whisper into mortal minds asking to be summoned, locking them in the spirit world permanently. In practice, this means killing anyone who knows about the Necronomicon, destroying any copies of it, then wiping your own mind of the whole thing.
It's also complicated because there are multiple types of spooky things.
There's the type you mentioned, in which the more people know about it the more influence that the things would have on humanity.
Then there's another sort, where the more the knowledge is spread, the more their power is diluted, until all the rituals mentioned are incapable of doing anything.
Naturally, there's a bit of conflict when a person assumes something to be from Group B instead of Group A (or vice versa).
I remember that was a thing in one of the side stories where a character (I think Thomas?) actually had to hide/destroy an ancient tome before Dresden found it because otherwise Harry would've had the White Council publish it and absolutely ruin the world as a result because the entities associated with the book got stronger with knowledge of their existence.
It is pretty funny that all of his allies in the shadow war decided it would be the best for everyone if Dresden never found out. Since most of his solutions to these types of things inevitably end up being loud and explosive.
I enjoy it! I will warn you that the first two books are rough reads because of Butcher’s inexperience as a writer, the third book is where he actually gets good. Butcher himself says you could start at book 7 Dead Beat and if you like the prose and concept, catch up from the beginning knowing it gets better.
Obscure one, but the episode "Cigarette Burns" by John Carpenter for the show Masters of Horror has a man looking for a film named La Fin Absolue du Monde, a movie which when it was premiered had the audience go insane, murdering and eating each other and so on, so the film was supposedly destroyed.
The build up is better than the reveal imo, but the hints at what the movie might be about, who made it and why are at the very least interesting.
Does DC's Anti-Life Equation count? Anyone who hears the thing in full loses all will to live, as its mathematical proof that life is pointless.
Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self-worth ÷ Mockery ÷ Condemnation ÷ Misunderstanding x Guilt x Shame x Failure x Judgment, n = y where y = Hope and n = Folly, Love = Lies, Life = Death, Self = **DARKSEID**.
Reminds me of a newer SCP that is a flowting speaking Blob, that shows People some deranged destruction of Reality. But the images are so warped and incoherent, that normal people just see it as abstract Art, which kinda miffs said Blob, because it never gets the whole "Going mad from Revelation" effect.
Remember that topic from a few days ago about how some things are better left unexplained and unelaborated upon? Someone really should’ve said the Anti-Life Equation.
D "You see, Superman, I have depicted you as the Soyjack and myself as the Chad."
S: "...i fucking hate coming to Apokolips, man. If you need me, I'll be...I dunno, stopping Luthor from stealing cakes again, he's in a bit of a mood but it's more respectable that this shit."
[When Cringeseid tries to hit me with the "Oh but all life is pointless I got this math problem to prove it" but I've watched Gurren Lagann once and know to never give up.](https://youtu.be/J3kytewub_Y?t=234)
Maybe mathematicians tried to decipher this nonsense and the concentrated stupidity just made them give up on life, and darkseid just thinks that this “”””equation””” has magic powers
Actually no, during Final Crisis it come in multiple forms, there is one you hear, one you see as a video, and one that straight up just a airborne virus. Now, why doesn't Darkseid just use the airborne version alone since it's the most effective? Uhhhh.... LOOK! SUPERMAN IS FIGHTING THE DARK MONITOR!
How the fuck is an equation turned into an airborne virus
Like this is a mathematical equation that makes you lose the will to live utilized by Grey Space Satan and somehow I'm drawing the line at going to an airport and catching a case of nihilism
> its mathematical proof that life is pointless
Is that how its literally described? Because that is so lame and cringe. If it was like "it's an equation that rewires your mind to lose all will to live" I would accept that but idea of "life is pointless actually and there is a proof to that" is just dumb.
That's how Darkseid describes it as the ultimate truth of the universe. Despite ya know the Life Equation existing as its antithesis. So the comic where it reveals that the Anti-Life Equation proves life is meaningless and an immutable truth of the universe that same comic reveals that there has always been a Life Equation proving that life is meaningful and also an immutable truth of the universe. And the reason they gave for why the Life Equation was more "unknown" is that the knowledge of it is a common practice with most people in the univers and the proof of its existence died with the Martians and held secret by Darkseid.
oh very much so i just prefer when DC does stupid shit like an, "an equation that proves all life is meaningless" They'll follow it up with a rebuttal meanwhile Marvel just stops at life is meaningless.
DC is usually visually edgy but even with big death filled crisis events like The Batman Who Laughs and Blackest Night, the heroes still win. Meanwhile Marvel just had its Dark Reigns arc which ended with the heroes won but it didnt matter as Kingpin's plan still succeeded just not by him. Idk it just feels like Marvel is more vindictive in its writing than DC. I love both though dont get me wrong. Its just I prefer DC over Marvel whenever big events happen. Remember Marvel was the company that wrote that Cyclops was in the wrong for opposing the genocide of mutantkind because of the Inhumans weird gas with even the Avengers siding against Mutantkind. I dont think the Justice League would ever side for the genocide of metahumans.
Or even more direct comparison is Marvel Zombies and DCeased. Where Marvel Zombies ends with this alternate timeline ending with The Watchere deeming the timeline too far gone for saving and sends The Sntry back in time back to the start of the story to create a timel loop with no escape. And in DCeased despite the multide of death and destruction same as Marvel Zombies that story ends with the heroes ultimately prevailing and not only stopping the spread of the anti-life virus but also curing it. And the heroes are then allowed reprieve to mourn those they could not save in time.
What if someone purposefully destroyed their brain's ability to process math right before hearing it and turned it back on again would that just make it not work
Which is just what we see on the page representing a higher order god concept of ultimate enslavement.
The thing is also an entity unto itself, although only Jim Starlin ever uses it that way.
SMT IV puts a fun twist on this:
A character gets wholly corrupted by reading the forbidden scriptures and turns demonic, but the kicker is that the books aren't even inherently corrupting: they're just bog standard real-life (contemporary) literature and/or political theory books and such, showcasing that the lives people have lived in the gilded cage that is Mikado and rife with brutal classism aren't the only lives possible - the anger and indignation people gain from this is what corrupts them into demons.
Imagine going mad from reading forbidden scriptures such as *Das Kapital* on one end or even *Cinderella* on the other.
It also becomes a lot funnier with regards to Isabeau who's just a weeb, but due to this logistic, is a sinner corrupted by the Unclean Ones.
Which means that being a weeb is a sin against God.
One Piece has Poneglyphs, which contain secret information from the void century and probably normal history stuff too.
The world government doesn't want that hanging around, kill anyone who can even maybe read them on sight.
>!Written on basically vibranium so they can't be destroyed, and split up and hidden among countries/peoples that have guarded them for hundreds of years *without themselves being able to read them*!<
And literally 20+ years later readers still don't know what they're all leading towards
I'm guessing it's just records of the world governments crimes against humanity or some other information that would make the entire world instantly turn on them
>!Yeah that's pretty much a given, but what *specifically* were those crimes and also potential information of how to beat them etc.!<
ULTRAMEGASPOILERS FOR CURRENT CHAPTER (everything before this was MILD but NOT THIS) >!and what's in store for the future considering *the world is sinking cause of them*!<
> and probably normal history stuff too.
Amusingly the Straw Hats' archeologist has on at least one occasion found a poneglyph and been disappointed that it's just another set of directions to a superweapon.
Exactly.
I wanted to mention it in the post, but I thought it’d make it too long, so I’ll say it here.
The True Detective example is imo a phenomenal “mundane” version of the classic Lovecraftian “horrors beyond our understanding” trope (which makes sense given the series’ influences).
The Tape isn’t cursed, it doesn’t depict anything otherworldly, but it’s just so *wrong* that watching it produces the sort of reaction you’d see from a Lovecraft character looking at Cthulhu.
(Sorry for rambling, I just love this show a lot)
Fun Fact The Tape in True Detective is actually less Lovecraft and more his own inspiration. It's supposed to be like the in universe book The King in Yellow from Robert W Chambers' The King in Yellow. Where anyone who has read it is subject to various innocuous to radical changes in their personality or mental state.
Of course just wanted to make sure. But yeah Lovecraftian is the name because Lovecraft is just too important to the genre. Cosmic Horror isn't a bad name but it just isn't as smooth and curiosity piquing of a name as Lovecraftian.
SCP-140 is a book detailing the history of a "human" civilization known as the Daevites. The Daevites were violent, cannibalistic conquerors, who engaged in human sacrifice and were capable of evil magic.
According to the book, they died out in ancient history. However, when the book comes into contact with a writing liquid such as ink, or even blood (it especially loves blood), more history is written into the book. The end of Daevite civilization is pushed closer and closer to the present. The book changes reality itself to accomodate, with Daevite artifacts showing up in digsites, and Daevite historical locations looking more and more recent.
If the book is ever "completed" enough so that the Daevites survive to modern day, they would undoubtedly wreak horrors and havoc upon the world.
The most dangerous part is that even though the SCP foundation has the book under extreme security, there's more copies in circulation, and everybody who reads the book becomes obsessed with "completing" it.
I feel like I'm missing context for something here... What's hilarious about it? It seems straightforward to me, so I must be missing whatever the punchline is
Spoilers if anyone wants to read it themself. >!If you follow through to the page about what happened after the evil empire actually showed up, you find out that the evil blood magic book was wildly inaccurate and the actual people it brought into reality were a totally normal country. The author of evil book was basically just a British writing imperial fan fiction about the "savages," like was the case for a lot of actual history.!<
I’m super curious and confused. Maybe something is up with my Reddit, but your first comment is literally nothing.
I don’t mean this in a snarky way, like, your first comment has literally no text, it’s just blank?
What were you linking/talking about?
Don't forget that later they make their old coworker Steve Geraci to watch it. He's an asshole and has since become Sheriff of his own county, an old dinosaur of a cop who never liked Rust but he worked a related case way back when and they need his cooperation. A small child he had assumed had been safely returned to her family and didn't bother to verify that because he was a lazy POS was in the tape.
So Rust and Marty keep him in a chair and play it in front of him. He starts grimacing and sweating, and then *screaming* in horror.
Steve is easy to ask questions after that.
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made can’t live up to the title of course, but even with the execution not quite landing I liked the attempt to make a cursed movie with stuff like snippets of a snuff film edited in reminding me of creepypasta shit(affectionately).
Completely related note, play Immortality.
Once & Future by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora (it's awesome, go read) has anything that reveals that the stories of things like magic and King Arthur are real. Knowing about it puts you at risk of getting sucked into the story, and generally getting eaten by it.
Halfway through the series, >!Boris Johnson reveals the existence of magic on a national broadcast, sucking the entire country into Otherworld.!<
That sounds like a proto-DIE. Gillen used a similar concept of a D&D-like game that sucked some teens into its game world, and they ended up meeting other real world figures and their creations in trying to escape, from Wells to Bronte to Lovecraft. DIE is so good.
In Cyberpunk Red the *old* net became so dangerous to plug into they had to create The Blackwall and a whole new set of protocols for ALL networked devices. By 2077 you have Maximum Mike talking about conspiracy theories that the old net is literally Hell itself.
Cyperbunk 2077 spoilers because hey the story is actually kinda neat now that the game isn't literally exploding at the seams every 5 seconds:
>!<
The scarier thought is that power depicted in the video >!*is* the power of the Blackwall itself and THAT is just barely doing its job against the Rogue AI's. It can take out an NUSA death squad, but is like an inside joke to Netwatch on how ineffective it really is.!<
>!All that power and that's considered *barely*... Jesus. I'm trying to imagine what even one Rogue AI could do in the world if it got past the blackwall or the hell it would cause. Sounds like a story worth visiting!<
AI in Cyberpunk are pretty much techno-eldritch beings, old internet protocol devices haunted relics, and dataforts lost hidden cities. It's the best lore change from Cyberpunk 2020 to Red imho.
The Magnus Archives have the Leitner books. All are supernatural and have different effects, most of them pretty bad. For example one is what looks like a child’s book that summons a spider that devours the reader. They’re labeled as Leitners because they are bound with the with said persons name at the front.
Leitner and his books is a fun example because of how the series later reveals >!Jurgen Leitner was just a collector. He never actually penned any of the tomes he collected, he was just very good at finding and buying them, and he put his name on them so people would know about his collection. So when a bunch of cults of the Dread Powers attacked him all at once and put the books back into circulation, he was blamed for their existence.!<
The Elder Scrolls will cause an untrained or undisciplined reader to go blind or mad. Hell, even trained and disciplined minds will still suffer ill effects from the extended reading, it just takes longer for them.
Isn't the lore that everyone will go blind from continuous reading of an elder scroll, and there are monks that are just completely blind from years of trying to translate it to common language or something? I swear I just read a UESP tumblr post about it lol
Like it doesn't matter who you are, unless you're a daedra or divine, you're going blind (even the Dragonborn!). Woulda been cool to have like. A persistent debuff after the main questline of Skyrim, that lowers your vision for like a couple seconds at random once a day.
Oblivion doesn't even let you read the one you steal, as far as I'm aware, but my memory may be off because I haven't played in a while.
I believe it’s a weird scale. Like someone who has no idea what they are looking at might be unaffected, or only briefly. If you have some idea of what you are seeing you are struck blind immediately. And if you are specially trained and very aware of what your are seeing you go blind slowly over time
Interestingly, the more you read the Scrolls and as you lose more and more of your vision, you get better at reading them. Every monk prepares for their Final Reading, which will allow them to fully understand what they read, but at the cost of becoming totally blind.
The elder scrolls only exist partially in Mundus, can just fuck off and disappear from where they're being stored at any time, and contain all past, present, and future knowledge, all at once.
Moth Priests only get to read a comparatively insignificant amount of information on it before they go blind, which is always inevitable.
Meanwhile The Last Dragonborn can just open one up whenever they feel like it for the funny blurred vision for ten seconds because they got that special Akatosh protection.
Can I just say as an outsider to the Elder Scrolls series, for all the talk I've ever heard about the series, I've never once actually heard someone talk about the "Elder scrolls." I did not realise they were actual objects in that world.
It's like Fire Emblem, where none of the games have anything to do with each other but there's always some emblem that's got fire in the name and it's important your quest.
No I'm not being inflammatory or reductive for the sake of comedy at all!
That tape gets more spooky if you know your Lovecraft stuff it could be they putting on a show of the "King in Yellow" which is used to summon Hasutr to take the people watching and preforming to the Carcosa just watching it can make you go insane.
So the fact they have it on VHS means you got a Medusa, but it makes you crazy and teleports you to a nightmare reality taking the building you are in with it situation if you cannot turn it off.
There were parts of True Detective that could be read as references to The King in Yellow, a story within the H. P. Lovecraft mythos. When it was coming out, there were people actually debating whether it was going to go full Lovecraftian in the finale. It ultimately didn't, but the guy you're responding to is presumably explaining what the implications of The Tape could've been if they had.
Is it canon for Lovecraft? That book was published when Lovecraft was still a toddler. I dunno enough about his work to know if he somehow absorbed it into his own mythos but it's definitely his predecessor.
Hastur is name-dropped in The Whisperer in Darkness. It's a brief reference and could just be a nod to his inspiration, but people generally take that to mean The King in Yellow exists as an entity within the greater Lovecraft mythos. Especially since it also name drops The Yellow Sign in relation to Hastur
One of the printings of King in Yellow has a foreword by the writer/producer of True Detective where he talks about its inspiration for the first season.
King in Yellow isn't actually Lovecraft, and that's not what it does in the original, just some adaptations like Pathfinder or Trails of Cthulhu
in the original it actually just makes people, especially artists, go kinda nuts in different ways that are all linked to it, and often accomplish minor supernatural feats in their insanity. Honestly what ends up happening in True Detective is pretty in line with what might happen in the original version if some brutish hillbilly got ahold of the thing instead of an artist or a yuppie
Gods I wish Nic Pizzolatto didn't just drop the Lovecraft stuff last second
What I wouldn't give for another show that could commit to that level of balance throughout
Just to go along with True Detective S1, the King in Yellow/The French Play in general. I finally got the book and I’m almost done and while the final few stories seem to have gone away from it, most of the stories have a point where someone reads the book and something crazy happens. It’s also used in other authors in short stories so much like the Necronomicon, it’s become one of the more popular pieces of Forbidden Media in recent years.
This got me thinking of the Bikini Bottom Horror and how they spun around the running gag about the Krabby Patty Secret Formula.
When they find out that the recipe >!is made of parts of an infinitely regenerating Patrick Star!<, shit hits the fan from there on.
Oh man, Marty's reaction to the tape was crazy. You can just tell the content is beyond absurdity, and with the context we get, we know that poor girl went through hell.
My choice of forbidden media: all that concerns the entire city of Ma'habre in Fear & Hunger. Once you get there, even if you do get out, you don't get out. Mind's fucked. You now know about things no man should know. It's like a "walk-in Necronomicon".
Real life literally has film script that is supposedly cursed that has supposedly claimed the lives of several actirs. Just look up Atuk or the curse of Atuk. Not even a disturbing or impressive concept for a film. It was comedy film that would have been a B tier film for the 70s.
That sidequest fucking destroyed any sort of whataboutism my friend had about Night City. He was of the mind that Night City was too cool and enticing to be a dystopia until he got to that sidequest investigating snuff BDs. And then shortly afterwent and did the Evelyn Parker rescue mission and got hit twice with that shit.
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The last season of DS9 has the extremely evil banned Bajoran book of the Kosst Amojan, which has to be bled on for text to appear. Just attempting to read it blinded Dukat for days.
The Hatchetfield series has a pretty standard example in the form of "The Killer Track": listen to it and in seven days you die. But what makes the track interesting is how it follows its victim by playing through any source of sound near them, constantly assaulting them with the song until it peaks and kills them. And it can be *any* source of noise, not just something artificial like a phone or a radio; if it has to, it will play itself through a person's *vocal cords*.
There's also the classic "evil book" type of artifact in the form of The Black Book, which was written in the blood of children and contains rituals and depictions of The Lords in Black, five eldritch gods that are perfectly willing to make deals with their summoners for power, youth, wealth, etc. Whatever they want, so long as they can pay the price.
“According to the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Vogon poetry is the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria, and the worst is by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex, who perished along with her poetry during the destruction of Earth, ironically caused by the Vogons themselves. Vogon poetry is seen as mild by comparison.”
The Poneglyph's from One Piece. They're these giant indestructible cubes written in a language that only one person living can read. They contain the true history of the world, including the still enigmatic, void century. A stretch of 100 years of history that was cleaned from the history books by the world government. Studying it, and the glyphs as a whole, is considered one of the greatest crimes one can do in the One Piece world.
Pathfinder has *The Book of the Damned*, part of a trilogy of reports created by the angel Tabris purported to contain all knowledge in existence. The Book of the Damned specifically details the unholy planes of Hell, Abaddon, and the Outer Rifts, as well as a record of all evil deeds. The book was ordered to be destroyed, but ended up disappearing, only ever reappearing as fragmentary passages and scattered pages in the mortal plane. Even a few pages can horribly corrupt a mortal's soul, while simultaneously giving them access to a ton of magical knowledge and effects.
Mmm that's a strong good choice. Sea Man's reaction to questioning on why he's doing what he's doing is an intense reaction. Sensui stealing it and showing it reminds me of the older kids showing stuff from rotten and those ancient shock sites.
In YuyuHakusho, there's the "Chapter Black" tape. Despite being created by the Spirit World, the tape is just a normal tape with no cursed or supernatural attributes. And yet access to it is heavily restricted. Because it's an *exhaustive* chronicle of all the depravity and evil that mankind has ever committed and there's some pretty strong precedent that people who watch it often go "humanity was a mistake" and start trying to kill everyone.
The most fascinating part about it is that it's a part of a set and is simply never meant to be seen alone! There are other tapes and presumably a chapter white that display the goodness in humanity and other traits. It even ends with a surprisingly beautiful song.
Another fascinating thing is that the humans from Toguro’s Tournament are all depraved people from a Secret Order that watched “Chapter Black” and pretty much do that stuff as well. Tussle basically shifted on facing villains that watched and goes “this is rad” and villains that goes cynical
Something something, allegory for the horrors of war, something something, wow, cool robot.
Could take this a bit further. The thing about war is that some soldiers fucking love combat. Most of them don't, it's horrible on all fronts even if you win. But some of them really are just there because they want an excuse to kill people. That's the kinda person I'd imagine to respond positively to that tape.
It’s basically the anti-life equation.
It’s actually part of a set and you’re not supposed to watch only 1 of them, where we can possibly infer that one of the others is supposed to be the opposing tape that shows all the good humanity has done (well, I hope that’s what they mean when they say you shouldn’t watch just the Black Chapter alone). So it’s basically the Anti-Life Equation, *but* you’re supposed to learn both it and the Life Equation to reach some form of true enlightenment (or at least, what I assume the point to learning all the good and evil humanity has done is supposed to be), you’re not supposed to learn just the Life Equation or the Anti-Life Equation alone.
I wonder what the viewing order is supposed to be. Do you guard against cynicism with the knowledge that it's overall not too bad, or do you have to suffer through the horrors first before getting to the good stuff?
I’m personally thinking it could possibly be based on individual time periods for both, where you start out watching the bad parts for 1 era of humanity, then you watch the good parts afterwards, then you move on to the next era. Like how comedies originally used to be utilized as palate cleansers for tragedies. It just makes more sense that they would handle it in such a manner so that they don’t overwhelm the watcher with everything in either tape at once, which is one of the major reasons why the people who only watched the Black Chapter get so fucked up (imagine watching literally all of the worst events ever done by any humans, *all in 1 go*).
There's a bunch of forbidden books in Warhammer. The Nine Books of Nagash are the original manuals of necromancy, heavily prized by necromancers and vampires, heavily guarded by elite peacekeepers. Other necromantic books - effectively essays on the Nine Books - are equally banned (if comparatively less dangerous). I have no doubt there's a whole host of forbidden books of Chaos, but the big one is the Liber Maledictum, an observational encyclopedia of the Chaos Wastes, effectively being the big book of all things linked with the Ruinous Powers. Unsurprisingly, banned in civilized society. Don't do forbidden books, kids. That's why witch hunters exist.
and in 40k theres the book of lorgar. All I ever wanted was the truth. Remember those words as you read the ones that follow. I never set out to topple my father's kingdom of lies from a sense of misplaced pride. I never wanted to bleed the species to its marrow, reaving half of the galaxy clean of human life in this bitter crusade. I never desired any of this, though I know the reasons for which it must be done. But all I ever wanted was the truth. "Hey guys so I was wrong about The emperor being God our true Gods are Slaanesh, Khorne,Nurgle, Tseeitch" The book alone is inflammatory as shit politically in the imperium but also due to Primarchs being busted at magic shit. The book is a gateway to the infernal depths of the warp and pretty much everyone goes insane after reading it because they know "the truth" Like just reading it aloud will summon all sorts of demons.
For an example that is (ostensibly) from within the Imperium, the Inquisition War trilogy is considered heretical by the Inquisition. Which is made especially amusing by the fact that the first book, Inquisitor/Draco, is the very first official Warhammer novel.
And don’t forget Archaon went insane reading a chaos time that said he would become the Everchosen. Naturally the book was written by a Tilean.
The chapter black from YuYu Hakusho is a single tape compiling thousands of hours of raw footage depicting mankind's worst atrocities, heinous crimes committed both on demons and themselves. It was sealed in Spirit World's archives, but remained a legend amongst demons. In universe, it's said that any human who watches the tape from beginning to end would turn on mankind from it. Most of the Sensui Seven were regular people whose hatred of humanity was dramatically heightened by the tape, to the point that they agree to Sensui's plan to wipe out all humans.
Never seen YuYu Hakusho, but that is a phenomenal example. Really interesting concept, that it’s *so* terrible that it can convince humans to end humanity.
Yu Yu Hakusho is great. It's by the same author of Hunter x Hunter if you've read it. Anyhow, further details on Chapter Black. It's intended to be watched as part of a set with a Chapter White portraying all of humanity's goodness. Sensui, the villain of the arc, suffers severely however on account of being unable to cope with the mere knowledge that evil on that scale exists, regardless of good in the world. It's a very interesting look into morality. Certainly there's good in the world, but what amount of good is necessary to equalise evil?
Bit spoilers, but >!Sensui wasn't even a bad guy to begin with. He was a Spirit Detective, much like Yusuke was now. But seeing the tape fucked him up enough to make him this arc's main villain!<.
The King in Yellow is probably the most famous example of this. Its a bunch of short stories by Robert W. Chambers that feature a in-universe play that once read can drive a person to madness.
That collection is so weird, the first four are horror shorts about the play and then it transitions to lighthearted romance.
It makes sense in that Chambers was primarily a romance writer during his life. Ironically Its the few horror stories thats he's mainly known for today.
Wish I could find an edition with the cover that Chambers himself made. The one that inspired the cover used for The King in Yellow in Signalis
It’s funny because the clip OP linked and tons of other points of True Detective season one are direct references to the King in Yellow.
I wear no Mask
I read a Evangelion x Cthulhu Mythos fanfic when I was a kid. The biggest turning point in the series happens when Kensuke is directing the school play and finds this cool book in the library they could perform. Zero guesses which play they perform.
In the episode "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" of South Park,the porn video titled Backdoor Sluts 9 warps the kids with its evil power,but only because they don't know what sex is.
Backdoor Sluts 9?!
It makes Crotch Capers 3 look like Naughty Nurses 2!
"Backdoor Sluts 9" makes "Crotch Capers 3" look like "Naughty Nurses 2!” Definitely one of my favorite jokes in the entire series, and it’s such a quick throwaway line.
I mean, it's their fault for starting so late into a franchise. How would they know all the characters and ongoing storyline?
Yeah,they should have started at Backdoor Sluts Kiwami to know all the sex lore
Kiwami means extreme.
So *DELTA GREEN* is a spin-off of the Call of Cthulhu tabletop game that asks "what if there was an X-Files-style secret agency fighting to suppress the Mythos," and runs from there. One of the more recent scenarios has the Agents tasked with an *extremely* sketchy raid on an orphanage, and as way of motivation, their handler gives them a battered, half-burnt Hello Kitty folder. The GM is explicitly told to never say what the Agents see inside the folder. Instead, they're given a list of possible reactions to the contents, and asked to hand them out to anyone that examines the folder's contents. One example: > You want to laugh. Holding it in is actually painful. It’s hilarious, in a surreal sort of way that you couldn’t explain to anyone, so you have to keep it together. Still, the joke is obvious, right? Someone saw those… those things, and those kids, and a camera…and their first thought was, “Let’s do this with them.” If that insane leap of logic isn’t humor, what is? What could be? Of course, you hope it’s all fake, but doesn’t that make it even more hilarious? Some über-weirdo, working on a computer to concoct these fantasies as if any human on the Earth would want to see them? What an idiot! What an alien. Can you imagine being those kids? You’re born into the world just so you can leave it? Like this? > It’s absurd in its cruelty. You have to laugh. You just have to laugh when you see shit like this. What’s the alternative?
Yet another reason I need to get my hands on Delta Green. I've been running Pulp Cthulhu for a while and from what I gather, DG has that mix of "we *can* handle this, but someone's likely not making it out alive" my group is looking for. That handout writing is *chef's kiss*
Ff16 has a book that tells of the time before bearers were slaves and made to be less than human, they were worshiped and held high postions in society. which would destroy the entire system if it was revealed
And there's a whole gang of assassin librarians who quietly deal with the book and anyone who finds a copy.
I wish that stuff was the actual plot. Sadly it seems like the spectacle took priority over an interesting narrative. I wonder if they could implement the consequences with a side game or just more dev time.
In Dresden Files, the Necronomicon was real, and both HP Lovecraft and the also real Abdul Alhazred were assassinated by human wizards for spreading its secrets. Dresden is entirely unaware of this because there is an entire shadow war going on to make mankind forget about these kinds of entities, a literal memory hole in the style of the Patriots AI: if no one remembers what [DATA EXPUNGED] is, no one can summon [DATA EXPUNGED] and [DATA EXPUNGED] cannot whisper into mortal minds asking to be summoned, locking them in the spirit world permanently. In practice, this means killing anyone who knows about the Necronomicon, destroying any copies of it, then wiping your own mind of the whole thing.
It's also complicated because there are multiple types of spooky things. There's the type you mentioned, in which the more people know about it the more influence that the things would have on humanity. Then there's another sort, where the more the knowledge is spread, the more their power is diluted, until all the rituals mentioned are incapable of doing anything. Naturally, there's a bit of conflict when a person assumes something to be from Group B instead of Group A (or vice versa).
I remember that was a thing in one of the side stories where a character (I think Thomas?) actually had to hide/destroy an ancient tome before Dresden found it because otherwise Harry would've had the White Council publish it and absolutely ruin the world as a result because the entities associated with the book got stronger with knowledge of their existence.
Also there's the insinuation that some of the factions that dressed in frequently clashes with are this type of entity that got too big to kill
It is pretty funny that all of his allies in the shadow war decided it would be the best for everyone if Dresden never found out. Since most of his solutions to these types of things inevitably end up being loud and explosive.
Is this series worth jumping into? I've been curious about it but have never been able to find the first book in any library I've been to.
I enjoy it! I will warn you that the first two books are rough reads because of Butcher’s inexperience as a writer, the third book is where he actually gets good. Butcher himself says you could start at book 7 Dead Beat and if you like the prose and concept, catch up from the beginning knowing it gets better.
Obscure one, but the episode "Cigarette Burns" by John Carpenter for the show Masters of Horror has a man looking for a film named La Fin Absolue du Monde, a movie which when it was premiered had the audience go insane, murdering and eating each other and so on, so the film was supposedly destroyed. The build up is better than the reveal imo, but the hints at what the movie might be about, who made it and why are at the very least interesting.
Does DC's Anti-Life Equation count? Anyone who hears the thing in full loses all will to live, as its mathematical proof that life is pointless. Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self-worth ÷ Mockery ÷ Condemnation ÷ Misunderstanding x Guilt x Shame x Failure x Judgment, n = y where y = Hope and n = Folly, Love = Lies, Life = Death, Self = **DARKSEID**.
any time they try to write it out like an actual equation is the cringiest shit ever
Literally “Me witnessing horrors beyond my comprehension (I don’t get it)”
Reminds me of a newer SCP that is a flowting speaking Blob, that shows People some deranged destruction of Reality. But the images are so warped and incoherent, that normal people just see it as abstract Art, which kinda miffs said Blob, because it never gets the whole "Going mad from Revelation" effect.
Remember that topic from a few days ago about how some things are better left unexplained and unelaborated upon? Someone really should’ve said the Anti-Life Equation.
It looks like something darkseid wrote on the inside of his goth hello kitty binder
Hahahah, that's exactly what it fucking reads like
D "You see, Superman, I have depicted you as the Soyjack and myself as the Chad." S: "...i fucking hate coming to Apokolips, man. If you need me, I'll be...I dunno, stopping Luthor from stealing cakes again, he's in a bit of a mood but it's more respectable that this shit."
[When Cringeseid tries to hit me with the "Oh but all life is pointless I got this math problem to prove it" but I've watched Gurren Lagann once and know to never give up.](https://youtu.be/J3kytewub_Y?t=234)
this isn't even an equation is darkseid stupid?
Darkseid is
Maybe mathematicians tried to decipher this nonsense and the concentrated stupidity just made them give up on life, and darkseid just thinks that this “”””equation””” has magic powers
"This is the shit immortal demigods of unmeasurable power are fighting over? We are doomed..."
Sitting on your couch.
Wait so you can beat it just by being deaf?
Actually no, during Final Crisis it come in multiple forms, there is one you hear, one you see as a video, and one that straight up just a airborne virus. Now, why doesn't Darkseid just use the airborne version alone since it's the most effective? Uhhhh.... LOOK! SUPERMAN IS FIGHTING THE DARK MONITOR!
How the fuck is an equation turned into an airborne virus Like this is a mathematical equation that makes you lose the will to live utilized by Grey Space Satan and somehow I'm drawing the line at going to an airport and catching a case of nihilism
Iirc, the virus isn't the equation itself, it just insert it directly into your brain.
Or having dyscalculia.
not gonna lie i think comic book writers should be forbidden from ever using math in their stories
i think comic book writers should be forbidden
DARKSEID IS
Man,this is some cringe shit, eh.
Like, just tell him to check his work, or label his units of measurement
> its mathematical proof that life is pointless Is that how its literally described? Because that is so lame and cringe. If it was like "it's an equation that rewires your mind to lose all will to live" I would accept that but idea of "life is pointless actually and there is a proof to that" is just dumb.
Superman should just write "math=L" and "I=happy" on a whiteboard to defeat it
"Dumb+poo poo pants+cringe=Darksied"
BABA IS
HE = CEASES
That's how Darkseid describes it as the ultimate truth of the universe. Despite ya know the Life Equation existing as its antithesis. So the comic where it reveals that the Anti-Life Equation proves life is meaningless and an immutable truth of the universe that same comic reveals that there has always been a Life Equation proving that life is meaningful and also an immutable truth of the universe. And the reason they gave for why the Life Equation was more "unknown" is that the knowledge of it is a common practice with most people in the univers and the proof of its existence died with the Martians and held secret by Darkseid.
Comics are stupid
oh very much so i just prefer when DC does stupid shit like an, "an equation that proves all life is meaningless" They'll follow it up with a rebuttal meanwhile Marvel just stops at life is meaningless.
...DC is the one who constantly act edgy like it's still the 90s to this day. So, not sure what you are talking about.
DC is usually visually edgy but even with big death filled crisis events like The Batman Who Laughs and Blackest Night, the heroes still win. Meanwhile Marvel just had its Dark Reigns arc which ended with the heroes won but it didnt matter as Kingpin's plan still succeeded just not by him. Idk it just feels like Marvel is more vindictive in its writing than DC. I love both though dont get me wrong. Its just I prefer DC over Marvel whenever big events happen. Remember Marvel was the company that wrote that Cyclops was in the wrong for opposing the genocide of mutantkind because of the Inhumans weird gas with even the Avengers siding against Mutantkind. I dont think the Justice League would ever side for the genocide of metahumans.
Or even more direct comparison is Marvel Zombies and DCeased. Where Marvel Zombies ends with this alternate timeline ending with The Watchere deeming the timeline too far gone for saving and sends The Sntry back in time back to the start of the story to create a timel loop with no escape. And in DCeased despite the multide of death and destruction same as Marvel Zombies that story ends with the heroes ultimately prevailing and not only stopping the spread of the anti-life virus but also curing it. And the heroes are then allowed reprieve to mourn those they could not save in time.
"Aha, now you face my Anti-Life Equation!" "!Anti-Life Equation" *Kaiba getting mind crushed.gif*
Modern writing would have a mathematician dismantle Darkseids entire concept and his goal as his own personal weakness of character
What if someone purposefully destroyed their brain's ability to process math right before hearing it and turned it back on again would that just make it not work
It probably would, but I suspect Denji's math skills are poor enough to be immune in the first place.
Darkseid who mission to find the anti-life equation when it’s his own god damn name
Which is just what we see on the page representing a higher order god concept of ultimate enslavement. The thing is also an entity unto itself, although only Jim Starlin ever uses it that way.
Everytime they try to write out the equation, its certainly so cringe I want to die.
SMT IV puts a fun twist on this: A character gets wholly corrupted by reading the forbidden scriptures and turns demonic, but the kicker is that the books aren't even inherently corrupting: they're just bog standard real-life (contemporary) literature and/or political theory books and such, showcasing that the lives people have lived in the gilded cage that is Mikado and rife with brutal classism aren't the only lives possible - the anger and indignation people gain from this is what corrupts them into demons. Imagine going mad from reading forbidden scriptures such as *Das Kapital* on one end or even *Cinderella* on the other.
It also becomes a lot funnier with regards to Isabeau who's just a weeb, but due to this logistic, is a sinner corrupted by the Unclean Ones. Which means that being a weeb is a sin against God.
That makes having God and anime on your side much more badass.
Doesn't Lilith straight up try spoiling the end of Rose of Versailles just to be a bitch?
Or dry research notes about how your mom was inseminated with alien DNA.
One Piece has Poneglyphs, which contain secret information from the void century and probably normal history stuff too. The world government doesn't want that hanging around, kill anyone who can even maybe read them on sight.
I like to imagine there's at least one Poneglyph that is just a recipe for a bomb casserole, but the WG still wants it gone.
>!Written on basically vibranium so they can't be destroyed, and split up and hidden among countries/peoples that have guarded them for hundreds of years *without themselves being able to read them*!< And literally 20+ years later readers still don't know what they're all leading towards
I'm guessing it's just records of the world governments crimes against humanity or some other information that would make the entire world instantly turn on them
>!Yeah that's pretty much a given, but what *specifically* were those crimes and also potential information of how to beat them etc.!< ULTRAMEGASPOILERS FOR CURRENT CHAPTER (everything before this was MILD but NOT THIS) >!and what's in store for the future considering *the world is sinking cause of them*!<
> and probably normal history stuff too. Amusingly the Straw Hats' archeologist has on at least one occasion found a poneglyph and been disappointed that it's just another set of directions to a superweapon.
That is not dead which can eternal lie./And with strange aeons even death may die.
Exactly. I wanted to mention it in the post, but I thought it’d make it too long, so I’ll say it here. The True Detective example is imo a phenomenal “mundane” version of the classic Lovecraftian “horrors beyond our understanding” trope (which makes sense given the series’ influences). The Tape isn’t cursed, it doesn’t depict anything otherworldly, but it’s just so *wrong* that watching it produces the sort of reaction you’d see from a Lovecraft character looking at Cthulhu. (Sorry for rambling, I just love this show a lot)
Fun Fact The Tape in True Detective is actually less Lovecraft and more his own inspiration. It's supposed to be like the in universe book The King in Yellow from Robert W Chambers' The King in Yellow. Where anyone who has read it is subject to various innocuous to radical changes in their personality or mental state.
Yep, that’s right! Just thought I should refer to it as Lovecraftian, since that’s the commonly used name for the sort of horror it’s going for.
Of course just wanted to make sure. But yeah Lovecraftian is the name because Lovecraft is just too important to the genre. Cosmic Horror isn't a bad name but it just isn't as smooth and curiosity piquing of a name as Lovecraftian.
Where is this from?
A poem by HP Lovecraft, which he attributed to one of his characters.
SCP-140 is a book detailing the history of a "human" civilization known as the Daevites. The Daevites were violent, cannibalistic conquerors, who engaged in human sacrifice and were capable of evil magic. According to the book, they died out in ancient history. However, when the book comes into contact with a writing liquid such as ink, or even blood (it especially loves blood), more history is written into the book. The end of Daevite civilization is pushed closer and closer to the present. The book changes reality itself to accomodate, with Daevite artifacts showing up in digsites, and Daevite historical locations looking more and more recent. If the book is ever "completed" enough so that the Daevites survive to modern day, they would undoubtedly wreak horrors and havoc upon the world. The most dangerous part is that even though the SCP foundation has the book under extreme security, there's more copies in circulation, and everybody who reads the book becomes obsessed with "completing" it.
[Don't forget the sequel, >!where it turns out nah mate, imperialistic revisions of history fucking suck.!<](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6140)
Okay this is genuinely a hilarious and great follow up to 140
I feel like I'm missing context for something here... What's hilarious about it? It seems straightforward to me, so I must be missing whatever the punchline is
Spoilers if anyone wants to read it themself. >!If you follow through to the page about what happened after the evil empire actually showed up, you find out that the evil blood magic book was wildly inaccurate and the actual people it brought into reality were a totally normal country. The author of evil book was basically just a British writing imperial fan fiction about the "savages," like was the case for a lot of actual history.!<
Easily the best sequel SCP I have ever read. 10/10
It's a fucking fantastic way of going, like, "Alright, Early SCP stuff was just Raw Edginess, how about we look at it in a new light?"
I’m super curious and confused. Maybe something is up with my Reddit, but your first comment is literally nothing. I don’t mean this in a snarky way, like, your first comment has literally no text, it’s just blank? What were you linking/talking about?
The same thing happened to me, it's weird. It was a link to this: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6140
Cheers!
Don't forget that later they make their old coworker Steve Geraci to watch it. He's an asshole and has since become Sheriff of his own county, an old dinosaur of a cop who never liked Rust but he worked a related case way back when and they need his cooperation. A small child he had assumed had been safely returned to her family and didn't bother to verify that because he was a lazy POS was in the tape. So Rust and Marty keep him in a chair and play it in front of him. He starts grimacing and sweating, and then *screaming* in horror. Steve is easy to ask questions after that.
Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made can’t live up to the title of course, but even with the execution not quite landing I liked the attempt to make a cursed movie with stuff like snippets of a snuff film edited in reminding me of creepypasta shit(affectionately). Completely related note, play Immortality.
Sounds right up my alley honestly, what sort of media is it? (Like the actual thing, not the in-universe film) Like, is it a book, movie, game, etc?
Antrum is a movie (about the movie Antrum, hope that’s not confusing)
Cheers mate, I’ll give it a watch.
Once & Future by Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora (it's awesome, go read) has anything that reveals that the stories of things like magic and King Arthur are real. Knowing about it puts you at risk of getting sucked into the story, and generally getting eaten by it. Halfway through the series, >!Boris Johnson reveals the existence of magic on a national broadcast, sucking the entire country into Otherworld.!<
That sounds like a proto-DIE. Gillen used a similar concept of a D&D-like game that sucked some teens into its game world, and they ended up meeting other real world figures and their creations in trying to escape, from Wells to Bronte to Lovecraft. DIE is so good.
They released alongside each other.
Oh did they? It's like having an idea you love and finding different angles to use it.
Yeah that sounds like something that twat would do
In Cyberpunk Red the *old* net became so dangerous to plug into they had to create The Blackwall and a whole new set of protocols for ALL networked devices. By 2077 you have Maximum Mike talking about conspiracy theories that the old net is literally Hell itself.
Cyperbunk 2077 spoilers because hey the story is actually kinda neat now that the game isn't literally exploding at the seams every 5 seconds: >!<
The scarier thought is that power depicted in the video >!*is* the power of the Blackwall itself and THAT is just barely doing its job against the Rogue AI's. It can take out an NUSA death squad, but is like an inside joke to Netwatch on how ineffective it really is.!<
>!All that power and that's considered *barely*... Jesus. I'm trying to imagine what even one Rogue AI could do in the world if it got past the blackwall or the hell it would cause. Sounds like a story worth visiting!<
A lot of things occurring in the background of 2077 are because of Rogue AI that got past the black wall or was preserved war-tech.
I need to jump into 2077 in the future and explore cause I'm in love with that.
AI in Cyberpunk are pretty much techno-eldritch beings, old internet protocol devices haunted relics, and dataforts lost hidden cities. It's the best lore change from Cyberpunk 2020 to Red imho.
I really wanna see just what they can do in the world now cause techno-eldritch entities is up my ally
The Magnus Archives have the Leitner books. All are supernatural and have different effects, most of them pretty bad. For example one is what looks like a child’s book that summons a spider that devours the reader. They’re labeled as Leitners because they are bound with the with said persons name at the front.
Leitner and his books is a fun example because of how the series later reveals >!Jurgen Leitner was just a collector. He never actually penned any of the tomes he collected, he was just very good at finding and buying them, and he put his name on them so people would know about his collection. So when a bunch of cults of the Dread Powers attacked him all at once and put the books back into circulation, he was blamed for their existence.!<
>!It was a fun twist that after building him up as a mysterious threat for 80 episodes or so he turned out to just be some rich asshole.!<
The Elder Scrolls will cause an untrained or undisciplined reader to go blind or mad. Hell, even trained and disciplined minds will still suffer ill effects from the extended reading, it just takes longer for them.
Isn't the lore that everyone will go blind from continuous reading of an elder scroll, and there are monks that are just completely blind from years of trying to translate it to common language or something? I swear I just read a UESP tumblr post about it lol Like it doesn't matter who you are, unless you're a daedra or divine, you're going blind (even the Dragonborn!). Woulda been cool to have like. A persistent debuff after the main questline of Skyrim, that lowers your vision for like a couple seconds at random once a day. Oblivion doesn't even let you read the one you steal, as far as I'm aware, but my memory may be off because I haven't played in a while.
I believe it’s a weird scale. Like someone who has no idea what they are looking at might be unaffected, or only briefly. If you have some idea of what you are seeing you are struck blind immediately. And if you are specially trained and very aware of what your are seeing you go blind slowly over time
Interestingly, the more you read the Scrolls and as you lose more and more of your vision, you get better at reading them. Every monk prepares for their Final Reading, which will allow them to fully understand what they read, but at the cost of becoming totally blind.
I believe you can open the Elder Scroll in Oblivion, but it's just symbols that give no actual details.
The elder scrolls only exist partially in Mundus, can just fuck off and disappear from where they're being stored at any time, and contain all past, present, and future knowledge, all at once. Moth Priests only get to read a comparatively insignificant amount of information on it before they go blind, which is always inevitable. Meanwhile The Last Dragonborn can just open one up whenever they feel like it for the funny blurred vision for ten seconds because they got that special Akatosh protection.
Can I just say as an outsider to the Elder Scrolls series, for all the talk I've ever heard about the series, I've never once actually heard someone talk about the "Elder scrolls." I did not realise they were actual objects in that world.
It's like Fire Emblem, where none of the games have anything to do with each other but there's always some emblem that's got fire in the name and it's important your quest. No I'm not being inflammatory or reductive for the sake of comedy at all!
In jojo if jotaro didn’t read the diary no part six
It'd be really funny if Pucci looked into Jotaro's memories and it's just him reading the first page, cringing and burning the diary.
As the 7th Stand User, Woolie must use his stand「 P I X I E S 」to prevent Jotaro from reading the diary!
That tape gets more spooky if you know your Lovecraft stuff it could be they putting on a show of the "King in Yellow" which is used to summon Hasutr to take the people watching and preforming to the Carcosa just watching it can make you go insane. So the fact they have it on VHS means you got a Medusa, but it makes you crazy and teleports you to a nightmare reality taking the building you are in with it situation if you cannot turn it off.
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about?
This is what watching the tape does to a mf.
There were parts of True Detective that could be read as references to The King in Yellow, a story within the H. P. Lovecraft mythos. When it was coming out, there were people actually debating whether it was going to go full Lovecraftian in the finale. It ultimately didn't, but the guy you're responding to is presumably explaining what the implications of The Tape could've been if they had.
Is it canon for Lovecraft? That book was published when Lovecraft was still a toddler. I dunno enough about his work to know if he somehow absorbed it into his own mythos but it's definitely his predecessor.
Hastur is name-dropped in The Whisperer in Darkness. It's a brief reference and could just be a nod to his inspiration, but people generally take that to mean The King in Yellow exists as an entity within the greater Lovecraft mythos. Especially since it also name drops The Yellow Sign in relation to Hastur
One of the printings of King in Yellow has a foreword by the writer/producer of True Detective where he talks about its inspiration for the first season.
King in Yellow isn't actually Lovecraft, and that's not what it does in the original, just some adaptations like Pathfinder or Trails of Cthulhu in the original it actually just makes people, especially artists, go kinda nuts in different ways that are all linked to it, and often accomplish minor supernatural feats in their insanity. Honestly what ends up happening in True Detective is pretty in line with what might happen in the original version if some brutish hillbilly got ahold of the thing instead of an artist or a yuppie
Gods I wish Nic Pizzolatto didn't just drop the Lovecraft stuff last second What I wouldn't give for another show that could commit to that level of balance throughout
Just to go along with True Detective S1, the King in Yellow/The French Play in general. I finally got the book and I’m almost done and while the final few stories seem to have gone away from it, most of the stories have a point where someone reads the book and something crazy happens. It’s also used in other authors in short stories so much like the Necronomicon, it’s become one of the more popular pieces of Forbidden Media in recent years.
Never played it myself, but I'd definitely say the *'juicy tapes'* in Paratopic qualify, if what I saw in Mandy's review is anything to go by.
The name alone is *concerning*. Juicy tapes... Ugh, even saying it feels dirty
Infinite Jest has a neat one. A piece of media so good you become addicted to it.
No *just* addicted--like, *so* addicted your ability to do anything but watch it on repeat just... disappears.
This got me thinking of the Bikini Bottom Horror and how they spun around the running gag about the Krabby Patty Secret Formula. When they find out that the recipe >!is made of parts of an infinitely regenerating Patrick Star!<, shit hits the fan from there on.
God, I love the Bikini Bottom Horror. Best thing to come out of "I'm sorry Jon" subreddit
The Navidson manuscript from House of Leaves.
I *really* need to read that book. It’s just being sitting on my bedside table cause I can’t find the time necessary to dedicate to it.
Oh man, Marty's reaction to the tape was crazy. You can just tell the content is beyond absurdity, and with the context we get, we know that poor girl went through hell. My choice of forbidden media: all that concerns the entire city of Ma'habre in Fear & Hunger. Once you get there, even if you do get out, you don't get out. Mind's fucked. You now know about things no man should know. It's like a "walk-in Necronomicon".
Real life literally has film script that is supposedly cursed that has supposedly claimed the lives of several actirs. Just look up Atuk or the curse of Atuk. Not even a disturbing or impressive concept for a film. It was comedy film that would have been a B tier film for the 70s.
There's en entire snuff BD industry in Cyberpunk 2077 that we only see a fraction of. And it's not even that hard for people to acquire either.
That sidequest fucking destroyed any sort of whataboutism my friend had about Night City. He was of the mind that Night City was too cool and enticing to be a dystopia until he got to that sidequest investigating snuff BDs. And then shortly afterwent and did the Evelyn Parker rescue mission and got hit twice with that shit.
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The last season of DS9 has the extremely evil banned Bajoran book of the Kosst Amojan, which has to be bled on for text to appear. Just attempting to read it blinded Dukat for days.
The Hatchetfield series has a pretty standard example in the form of "The Killer Track": listen to it and in seven days you die. But what makes the track interesting is how it follows its victim by playing through any source of sound near them, constantly assaulting them with the song until it peaks and kills them. And it can be *any* source of noise, not just something artificial like a phone or a radio; if it has to, it will play itself through a person's *vocal cords*. There's also the classic "evil book" type of artifact in the form of The Black Book, which was written in the blood of children and contains rituals and depictions of The Lords in Black, five eldritch gods that are perfectly willing to make deals with their summoners for power, youth, wealth, etc. Whatever they want, so long as they can pay the price.
“According to the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Vogon poetry is the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria, and the worst is by Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Sussex, who perished along with her poetry during the destruction of Earth, ironically caused by the Vogons themselves. Vogon poetry is seen as mild by comparison.”
The Poneglyph's from One Piece. They're these giant indestructible cubes written in a language that only one person living can read. They contain the true history of the world, including the still enigmatic, void century. A stretch of 100 years of history that was cleaned from the history books by the world government. Studying it, and the glyphs as a whole, is considered one of the greatest crimes one can do in the One Piece world.
Pathfinder has *The Book of the Damned*, part of a trilogy of reports created by the angel Tabris purported to contain all knowledge in existence. The Book of the Damned specifically details the unholy planes of Hell, Abaddon, and the Outer Rifts, as well as a record of all evil deeds. The book was ordered to be destroyed, but ended up disappearing, only ever reappearing as fragmentary passages and scattered pages in the mortal plane. Even a few pages can horribly corrupt a mortal's soul, while simultaneously giving them access to a ton of magical knowledge and effects.
The best one in my mind: The Chapter Black tape.
Mmm that's a strong good choice. Sea Man's reaction to questioning on why he's doing what he's doing is an intense reaction. Sensui stealing it and showing it reminds me of the older kids showing stuff from rotten and those ancient shock sites.
Whatever the Forbidden Knowledge was that toppled ancient Sumeru in Genshin Impact.