/lit/ - Literature

>>15462584
Yes, the Bible, Mein Kampf, Quran, Communist Manifesto. All are really, really spooky.

I've never really read anything properly scary. Spooky thematically sure, gruesome and hard to read sure, but not actually scary.
I wonder if it's because of the horror genre being overtaken by film, which are infinitely better at making scary things scary.
Has anyone read anything that's actually scared them?

Yes.

>>15462837

Yes, I think people who read horror literature are into this kind of thing.

>>15462837
I feel the same, but I haven't read much horror. I enjoy many of the stories I've read though, and I don't mind not being scared. Some anon shared a chanel on youtube called horrorbabble, I'm sure there's more that have narrations, or you can also find collections of short stories online like for Clark Ashton Smith (eldritchdark) etc to read. Maybe it's not about horror anymore but about dread or despair, or suspense.

>>15462837
I mean, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is terrifying but not in a jump scare way like a slasher film.
Whatever you do, don't look up rokos basilisk

>>15463460
Just looked it up and I already developed that idea independently. How fucking stupid do you have to be to not consider that and, better yet, treat it like some profound issue?

>>15463544
>How fucking stupid do you have to be to not consider that and, better yet, treat it like some profound issue
You just have to be an average person on the internet
>woahhhhh duuuuuude AI could like, hurt people, woahhhhhhhhhhhhh

>>15462584
There is only one book that is not spooky.

>>15463460
I had to get to a SLATE article to reach the only interesting part of this concept, and lo, its not a novel one.

>Roko’s Basilisk has told you that if you just take Box B, then it’s got Eternal Torment in it, because Roko’s Basilisk would really you rather take Box A and Box B. In that case, you’d best make sure you’re devoting your life to helping create Roko’s Basilisk! Because, should Roko’s Basilisk come to pass (or worse, if it’s already come to pass and is God of this particular instance of reality) and it sees that you chose not to help it out, you’re screwed.

Again reddit philosophers have overstepped their bounds and assumed we're all people in those train derailment riddles who say "I didn't know which track to switch, but now I am certain" and believe that people only act in self interest. The creation of such an AI would involve a huge amount of people. this fact alone is enough to discourage anyone from being scared that if they don't crack on with it they'll be tortured forever.

>Yudkowsky said that Roko had already given nightmares to several LessWrong users and had brought them to the point of breakdown. Yudkowsky ended up deleting the thread completely, thus assuring that Roko’s Basilisk would become the stuff of legend. It was a thought experiment so dangerous that merely thinking about it was hazardous not only to your mental health, but to your very fate.

Fuck me.

>>15463617
Do people really take more than a fledging moment to think about this? To me, it's like conceptual lizard people ruling the earth, or an alien invasion.
How smooth brained does one need to be to consider this 'philosophy' anything more than a vaguely interesting thought?

>>15463567
That’s clearly not what I’m saying. Well done for showing what a moron you are with that retarded reading comprehension of yours. I’m saying that to publicly behave in a pro-AI manner so that you are favoured by your AI overlords in the future is not a unique or astounding revelation.
SO SHUT THE FUCK UP
>OH WOW LOOK AT THIS CREEPYPASTA I FOUND SO PROFOUND HAHA YOU BRAINLET I’LL STRAW MAN WHAT YOU SAID AHAHAHAHA
This is one of those instances were I wish I could reach through the screen and physically attack you. Genuinely kill yourself. I’m being serious. Fucking die, you stupid cunt.

>>15463662
>not taking joy in doing all you can for the basilisk overlord

>HOUSE OF LEAVES
>JOE HILL
>STEPHEN KING
>H.P. LOVECRAFT
>LIGOTTI
>DRACULA
>KAFKA
>MY DIARY DESU

>>15463885
Fuckin seethe harder dude

>>15464357
Cope

>>15465135
You’ve been outed as a spaz.

>>15462584
Spooky? Yes.
Scary? No.
This is the advantage that film has over literature. I've never felt the same sense of horror from a book that I feel watching a really scary movie. Movies are way more engaging and visceral than a book can be. I think part of it is how we evolved; most of our fears are primal fears of beasts and monsters, and visual mediums can play to this in a way that words on a page cannot.

>>15464357
>DAN SIMMONS
>JACK KETCHUM
>ADAM NEVILL
>ALMA KATSU

>>15462588
they're not spooky they're just spooks

The Candles chapter from Moby Dick

>>15462584
I’ve been scared by books that aren’t super natural, just really fucked up loke Wasp Factory

>>15462584
Anything with adultery in it is terrifying because I'm a low status male and it's extremely likely that any gf I could bumble my way into getting will go behind my back with someone objectively better.

>>15462584
spooky how?
Phantoms in the Brain

>>15462837
Jump scares get me every now and then but ghosts and monsters or even slashers don’t really scare me.
Sharks and snapping turtles are a whole other matter though

>>15462584
I had a sense of dread reading The Sound of Waves which was funny because it never pays off. Everything goes perfectly. Nothing bad happens

>>15466618
lol

>>15463460
>>15463544
rokos basilisk is psuedoscience and retarded
If you unironically believe it neck yourself
>OMG WHAT IF AI RESURRECTS ME AND TORTURES ME FOREVER AAAAAA
literally hell but for people who think they're too smart to believe in hell

>>15469178
also the simulacrum wouldn't be you because you exist right now only a copy of you.Your original conciousness would be long dead. It's literally a non issue for the you that exists now

>>15469198
*it would only be a copy of you

>>15462584
Negronuffincon

>>15462837
This did, but I don't know if that's what you're looking for

>>15469212
Is that the one with Sub-niggur-at?

Spooky? Can books generate horror?
Yes. To the extent of the reader. To fear you need to believe in that which you don't know. Hence why we fear death, demons, and ghosts. They're foreign objects we can't rationalize and thus scare us. Once you realize there's no real logic under which those personifications of the unknown could abide the fear starts to wade off. Similarly in literature, or in any other medium in general, it's the rationalization of the reader, the watcher, which determines the extent to which the author can inflict fear upon him. Watching a low effort jumpscare movie might get you on edge whenever something pops up unexpectedly, but is it really the scare which holds the strongest power, or is it the premise of the ghosts, the demons, the devil wich result scarier? To me, horror died the moment I grew up.

Sade can be pretty disturbing

>>15465954
Ketchum is alright though. Simmons is a hit or miss, even within a single book but overall I like him well enough

>>15469178
Why are you having a go at me? I’m dissing that concept.

>>15468687
It's not a a fucking JOKE YOU FUCKING CUNT it's a very real worry I have going forwards I'm already behind my parents who met when they were 14 and my genetic line will end with me unless I can do something about it and I don't want to raise my wife's son
SO FUCK OFF
IT'S A REAL SORE POINT
dickhead

>>15470900
haha lol yea right

>>15462837
With films, it's mostly the soundtrack that gets me.
One piece of /lit/ that scared me was something by Poe about a dude finding a dead body and progressively finding out he murdered the person in some mad state.
I was a little kid back then though. And as I said, soundtrack is the strongest part of a horror film, and books can't cope with that.

>>15469409
>To me, horror died the moment I grew up.
This is kind of a cringe sentiment, but poignant. As a kid I'd get scared shitless and made my dad sleep in my room to protect me. When I watched that Goosebumps episode where the girl morphs into the magical horror mask she steals (The Haunted Mask), I couldn't sleep for three nights despite my Dad's proximity.

After that final incident, horror media could no longer scare me because I could distinguish between the real and fantastical. The monsters under my bed could no longer strike fear because I knew they were not there. A similar effect occurs when you rationalize that Santa does not exist.

P.s. For the record I actually love a great horror movie/story even if it lacks any scare value.
P.s.s. The only remotely scary thing I've seen recently is Hereditary, and that's only because the mother's severe grief and her frantic fear of mental illness resonated with reality. The scariest things ring true.

>>15462584
I read Mitchell Heisman's suicide note and it has robbed me of all my quality of life.

>>15466575
I found The Candles to be more hype than it was spooky
>I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me.

>>15475304
u read the whole thing?

>>15462584
>>15462837
The ability to be scared by a book is dependent entirely on the strength of your imagination. If you encounter a scary concept and your imagination grabs onto it, you'll scare yourself for years to come. Film is worse in regard as your imagination will fine tune a scary scene or image or thought in a way to make it as scary as possible for you, while a film is someone else's vision. A good scary story, especially one that you can imagine happening you in a normal setting, is always going to be scarier than a film.

Even dumb stuff can do this. I still remember reading a book of "scary stories for kids" or something when I was one and there was a story about this kid who moves into a new house and he starts seeing shadows moving out of the corner of his eyes. Like he'll be sitting at his desk and the shadows under his bed will start creeping across the floor toward him. It gets increasingly intense and until the shadows all over the house start moving toward him even when he looks straight at them and ends with him running into his parent's room and jumping in bed with them, presumably safe, only to look at the ceiling to see three human shaped shadows on it, one each for him and his parents, and the story ends with the shadows dropping down from the ceiling onto them.

Something like that is some great material for a mind with a good imagination and I was flat out fucking terrified of shadows in my house for years after that, not necessarily because it was such a well written scary story but because the concept was something that an active imagination can really run with. I had some vague unease about walking through a room with the lights off well into my late teens because my mind would be conjuring up these scenes of shadows starting to flow toward me as soon as I walked past a dark spot or looked away.

This story scared me when I was young:

A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed.

The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough, it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye. What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to.

This disinclination saved his life. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red.

At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, “Did you look through the keyhole?” The man told her that he had and she said, “Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red.”

>>15476836
This gave me a spook, no lie.

This is the only book that gave me a real, visceral reaction in my gut. Kept me up for days. I have no intention of reading it ever again--it scared me that fucking much.

>>15464357
>>15465954
I always imagine the people who post these to look exactly like the caricatures.

>>15462584
The first time I had ever felt a genuine fear whilst reading a book was not of the imagery shown, but the character depicted; that man being Judge Holden from 'Blood Meridian' - There's a very good reason why he's considered among the greatest characters in fiction.

>>15462837
I feel the same way about film, to be honest. I've always wanted to like scary stuff but every time someone recommends something it just doesn't work for me. Happens with books, movies and video games. I envy people who can enjoy that kind of stuff.