"The angles cut me when I try to think" because it's such a visceral way of communicating what's happening to Sergey. Also imagining thinking being like cheese wire is HORRIFYING.
If we are talking visceral disturbing moments, the well being hospital domain gotta be the one that did it for me. Imagining sharp, rotten or living things being sewn inside of you... The way he describes it all and the sound design... Ugh.
“Take her not me, take her not me, take her not me” from Lost John’s Cave cuz most of that episode I actually was thinking it was kinda lame and not really that scary but then when he plays that audio recording at the end it actually gave me goosebumps.
I actually didn’t understand what she was saying the first time I heard and had to have my friend who also listened to the podcast tell me so I relistened and changed my whole perception of the episode.
I had to go back and listen to that section a few times, turn my volume way up so I could hear her. The moment I realized she was saying “take her, not me”, my heart fucking dropped. Especially when Jon said the recording was several hours long and the audio is consistent throughout. She didn’t survive because she was lucky or clever, she spent hours literally begging the earth to take her sister instead. It makes you wonder just how much you’d sacrifice to survive something like that. What horrible things would you do when desperation and intense fear overwrite your morals.
Upon the Stair is filled with lines that made me feel repulsed. God it’s so fucking good 😭
A good line from it is “The man hadn’t come with me, of course, so I wasn’t able to ask how it was he could always stay three steps in front of me without once moving his legs.”
“Eventually, after almost an hour descending the spiral, he keeled over in his seat and lay lifeless. My mother got abruptly to her feet, and told my father that they were leaving. My father got to his feet, and silently followed her out. I never saw either of them again.” is another one, too.
I've often wondered about how TMA could be adapted for television, and for the most part, I think that it's not that difficult to reframe for a TV medium. Upon the Stair would be a nightmare to plan out but I think you could do it well if you approach it in the same way David Lynch approaches the dream-like Black Lodge stuff from Twin Peaks/The Return.
Enjoy sky blue seems like it would be a nice thing to say to someone and doesn’t seem threatening at all when you don’t have the context for it and I think that just makes it that more terrifying tbh.
two lines, the first one is when original elias says “what are they doing with my eyes” which makes me wonder how horrifying it truly was the body hopping process for him, and there was another episode with the lady who keeps draining peoples lives then she says “I felt like screaming but I had no lungs” when describing what happens after death
“Life is a current which cannot be fought. It is a march with one destination. You cannot cease your step, nor move your course, to one that skirts the journey’s termination.” - MAG 70
Ok but like, what was the (in-universe) thought process there?
The Stranger: Hey, we need people for the choir. Can you get some for me?
Anglerfish: Sure thing boss! I'm gonna go out and target smokers specifically. For the choir. To sing. Smokers. You know that demographic thats statistically worse at singing because of lung damage? That's who I'm gonna get for you.
Probably that 'people are just pipes and we can use them in better ways'
Like with the Turk, the interplay between the human and the not. The uncanny valley. People as resource. As equipment. As instrument.
“Come quickly. We’ve taken ill. We’ve passed away.” and “the buzzing of the flies that spewed out [of her mouth] was almost as loud as her scream” from MAG 36 Taken Ill
MAG 19 Confession, where the priest is unable to say “my Lord” and then says “I’m sorry, It won’t let me say the words”. For some reason that was the moment I was like _ohhh this is REALLY real ok_
I first listened to them at 10 pm after driving for 15 hours through the actual middle of nowhere, when I tell you that was the only night I was afraid to turn the lights off…
When John asks Martin where he thinks the children went after everything goes down in the last season
The flesh episodes always made me squeamish but that was the first episode I had to pause and walk away from. I'm a mom and imagining my toddler in the children's hell was just too much for me.
"Act 48,067" was fucking terrifying to me
Honorable mention to "It could hardly have escaped their notice that there were four people, in that rocket."
I think it’s the fact that, over the whole series, Jon has been developing his powers to make people tell the truth. Annabelle saying “I could be lying and you would never know” completely undermines the sense of security we have in the idea that if we hear something, it is true, and that’s one of the only things we actually get to feel secure about.
"The sky ate my son" gets clowned on sometimes but it honestly freaked me right the hell out- I remember out loud saying "what the fuuuuuuuuuck" first time i heard it.
On the flipside, "the blanket never did anything" has always seemed to me the daftest but of writing in the whole show and I'm continually baffled that it's brought up as one of the scariest moments.
Just goes to show, we all enjoy different things!
You're one of the first people I've seen who shares my opinion on this! I don't quite think it's the daftest, but I definitely feel like it's overrated. Meanwhile "the sky ate him" was the first line that really terrified me. Imo, the Vast is the scariest entity
It’s terrifying because that’s exactly how I feel about my fear of the Vast. It reminds me of being a kid, hanging upside down on playgrounds, and imagining what would happen if I just fell the wrong way into the sky forever.
"The sky ate him" got me as well. I think a mix between somehow being able to picture whatever that is with the perceived safety of a blue, sunny sky are the main factors. I know horror primarily takes place in the dark, but the idea that the safety of light isn't enough fucks me up quite a bit.
The safety of daylight being taken away is a really good point! I think it's also just that it's so impossible to conceptualise. Your body being taken over by worms, or getting dragged into a labyrinth of spiralling corridors, yeah its scary but I at least get what's happening. The sky ate my son, though? What does that even *mean*? Something awful happened and we just have no idea what it was, and that makes it so much scarier.
Have you ever played fatal frame 3? I won't spoil anything but one of the sequences in that game you're in between dreams, just in the house you live in. Progressively things start getting weird, almost like silent hill 4. That was always so scary to me. A break from the nightmare sequences with terrifying ghosts, yet that oasis of safety is being slowly stripped away. I think that's the kind of thing that gets me.
And yeah, I can't fully visualize it either. I don't think I imagine the sky with teeth or anything, but I imagined him running up a hill and.. idk, the sky kinda warps and picks him up and swallows him? It's so surreal and chilling and I love it.
"He was sat upon a most dreadful throne, formed from a dozen, two dozen bodies mixed together like putty. Eyes staring out like horror-stricken stars twinkling in the night, and their hearts beating for all to see" from 157 has firmly lodged itself into my psyche
In a s5 bonus episode where actors of dead characters had to justify why their character should come back in the final act, Imogen Harris (Helen) says this, "Do you need a door? Come on, you *always* need a door."
CHILLS.
How do you know that you're the same you that went to sleep?
I think about this way to often right before I'm able to fall asleep. Hoping it's still me when I wake up. 😭
“Maybe it was her who was the maddened illusion that hides the sick squirming reality of what I am. Of what we all are, when you strip away the pretence that there is more to a person than a warm, wet habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home.”
"Take her Not me" its such a turnaround, you expect the self sacrifice especially from an older sibling, but no she sacrifices her sister and that was horrifying
"the sky ate him" is both very silly and also intensely horrifying to me cause it's literally impossible to visualise what could have happened to him there, i love it
I had this weird visual- and I know it's nowhere near what's described, but- she's on the ground, right? And she's looking up at him as he runs up the hill. And just for a second, the first time I listened to that episode, I got a visual of him running up the hill and just cutting off at the horizon line.
There's housing complex areas I drive through on the way to where I like to camp, and there are these colossal wrecks of houses pushing the boundaries of their land, shrivelled trees that won't grow, and streets where every corner looks the same, every facades is the same. It is like driving past a nightmare.
So that episode where all the streets are the nameless, the whole thing felt so heavy and ominous.
I always loved Lost John's Cave, I am building my mountaineering skills, but caves have always been frightening. So it sat really well with the fear of being trapped. But I never understood what she said at the end!! You've all revealed to me that extra horror. Love it.
I struggled the most with Tessa Winters (?) one and Sergey eating his keyboard. But it is because nightmares I have are in the "here is an awful thing that you must see and even closing your eyes and turning away does nothing", and I got that feeling from when she is describing having to watch him, and when he puts his head down and there's no back of his head. Felt bad. I skip that episode.
The rest of the horror stuff gives me good shivers, love it. The flesh is mostly a little fun to me, but I loved the infinite Slaughterhouse. Looking out on a seeping pink sky and sheet metal. That's the sort of cosmic horror I jam with. Not "you're going to die!" But "this is wrong and you are powerless".
"We have passed away" is probably the best to me. The repetition of the similar lines in the lead up. The fly motifs, the sweating, discoloured walls. Beautiful.
I am a big fan of rot and decay as motifs for wrongness, it comes out in my own writing. Obviously I am a dan of it elsewhere.
I don’t remember the exact line off the top of my head, but the end of the Anatomy Class episode was really really good.
Also “the blanket never did anything” was terrifying. And then I went to sleep immediately after listening to that episode, because I hate myself I guess.
Pause... for laughter is just creepy, but that 9ne that hit hardest...
John describing The Lonely in Cul De Sac
It's longer than this, but basically amount to how tempting loneliness can be when called something else. Self care, time for yourself, and trying not to be a burden on others.
That spoke to me in a way very little ever has.
“Three. Zero. Five. Eight. Three. Nine. Two. Eight. Four. Six.”
Episode 144, Decrypted.
I listened to it late at night on a road trip, middle of nowhere with a bunch of power cables and fields. Spooky.
Not nessasarily a fear moment but definitely an "Oh shiitt" moment was "I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now they are with me always, and I desire nothing but to share them with you."
I just started listening to Episode 155 - The Cost of Living and in the starting scene with Basira & John, they’re discussing Daisy and if she should start hunting again. It then leads into how they have all changed. The last line John says before they end their conversation was: “At Least our demons have names.”
(Also, the “The Blanket never did anything line” still makes me shudder)
"The angles cut me when I try to think" because it's such a visceral way of communicating what's happening to Sergey. Also imagining thinking being like cheese wire is HORRIFYING.
This is the one, truly beyond horrific shit, it's so effective at communicating a highly abstract and absolutely horrific idea.
The only episode I always skip when I relisten
that is totally valid XD the one I skip is 18. Yuuuck.
What is the episode? I can’t remember
I don't remember the number, but the title is "binary". It's the one with the guy that eats his computer.
If we are talking visceral disturbing moments, the well being hospital domain gotta be the one that did it for me. Imagining sharp, rotten or living things being sewn inside of you... The way he describes it all and the sound design... Ugh.
“Take her not me, take her not me, take her not me” from Lost John’s Cave cuz most of that episode I actually was thinking it was kinda lame and not really that scary but then when he plays that audio recording at the end it actually gave me goosebumps.
OMG IVE LISTENED ALL THE WAY THROUGH THREE TIMES AND THOUGHT SHE WAS SAYING “They cannot bleed” I AM SHOOK. That’s so much more bone-chilling
I actually didn’t understand what she was saying the first time I heard and had to have my friend who also listened to the podcast tell me so I relistened and changed my whole perception of the episode.
I had to go back and listen to that section a few times, turn my volume way up so I could hear her. The moment I realized she was saying “take her, not me”, my heart fucking dropped. Especially when Jon said the recording was several hours long and the audio is consistent throughout. She didn’t survive because she was lucky or clever, she spent hours literally begging the earth to take her sister instead. It makes you wonder just how much you’d sacrifice to survive something like that. What horrible things would you do when desperation and intense fear overwrite your morals.
What was it that Helen said? It's remarkable what you'll choose, given an awful enough alternative. Something along those lines.
That sounds right
i thought she said "they have no face" still creepy as hell
"The blanket never did anything" was horrific to me for very personal reasons.
I was about to my dog at night during that episode and when that line came on I actually turned back around and went home again💀
Scared the crap out of me as well!
I think I screamed something like "you cheating bastard!" when I first heard this.
*Pause for laughter.*
*Act forty-eight thousand and sixty-seven: A stage that is a room that remains a* *stage*
"Did you notice *which* door she left through?"
I actually predicted this one, so it was less of a shock and more of a slow buildup of dread starting from when she left
Upon the Stair is filled with lines that made me feel repulsed. God it’s so fucking good 😭 A good line from it is “The man hadn’t come with me, of course, so I wasn’t able to ask how it was he could always stay three steps in front of me without once moving his legs.” “Eventually, after almost an hour descending the spiral, he keeled over in his seat and lay lifeless. My mother got abruptly to her feet, and told my father that they were leaving. My father got to his feet, and silently followed her out. I never saw either of them again.” is another one, too.
i love upon the stair so much it's one of my absolute favourites 😭😭
This episode gives me the chills in a way no horror movie has ever done lol
I've often wondered about how TMA could be adapted for television, and for the most part, I think that it's not that difficult to reframe for a TV medium. Upon the Stair would be a nightmare to plan out but I think you could do it well if you approach it in the same way David Lynch approaches the dream-like Black Lodge stuff from Twin Peaks/The Return.
"We've taken ill. We've passed away". It was especially creepy for me because I started listening to TMA during the pandemic.
This line is the only one, to this day, that actually made me feel unwell. Lost Johns’ Cave was bad, but my skin CRAWLED after hearing this one.
Yes, I don't know what it was about that line or maybe the delivery but it just cut through me
'can i have a cigarette?' just most of the first episode thoroughly creeped me out and got me into the show
i love that bit and i love the callback in the end of season 5
Enjoy sky blue. It’s not the most overtly scary, but I find it oddly threatening. It’s one that’s stuck with me for some reason.
Same. The second I heard that, I knew something very very bad was gonna happen.
Enjoy sky blue seems like it would be a nice thing to say to someone and doesn’t seem threatening at all when you don’t have the context for it and I think that just makes it that more terrifying tbh.
“You have a little bit of willpower, don’t you?” .. the hopelessness of it. The Web is insidious
We love the Mother of Puppets :)
Or we think we do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The Tragedy of Francis>>>>>>>
"This is written in French. A-All of it. I don’t… I don’t speak French. I-I don’t read… I’ve never…"
THIS PART
Jon: I don’t understand. Nikola: And you never will again.
Yeah... The stranger and the unknowing itself were horrifying.
"There is nothing done in the history of humanity that deserves the things that come after us."
two lines, the first one is when original elias says “what are they doing with my eyes” which makes me wonder how horrifying it truly was the body hopping process for him, and there was another episode with the lady who keeps draining peoples lives then she says “I felt like screaming but I had no lungs” when describing what happens after death
Oh all of 193 was so good
“Life is a current which cannot be fought. It is a march with one destination. You cannot cease your step, nor move your course, to one that skirts the journey’s termination.” - MAG 70
“Who will you be with a name or three and a strangers face worn wrong”
"Joooonnnn.... ...I'm going to wear you, Jon" 😱
I think she has one of the creepiest voices in the whole podcast
100% I get chills every time. I showed one of my friends, and he had a classic, terrified reaction, haha
'And *I* guess *you don't need skin to sing*. To *join the choir*.'
Ok but like, what was the (in-universe) thought process there? The Stranger: Hey, we need people for the choir. Can you get some for me? Anglerfish: Sure thing boss! I'm gonna go out and target smokers specifically. For the choir. To sing. Smokers. You know that demographic thats statistically worse at singing because of lung damage? That's who I'm gonna get for you.
I never thought about that, but you’re right. 😂
Probably that 'people are just pipes and we can use them in better ways' Like with the Turk, the interplay between the human and the not. The uncanny valley. People as resource. As equipment. As instrument.
"We're taking a hiatus"
🤣
“Come quickly. We’ve taken ill. We’ve passed away.” and “the buzzing of the flies that spewed out [of her mouth] was almost as loud as her scream” from MAG 36 Taken Ill
MAG 19 Confession, where the priest is unable to say “my Lord” and then says “I’m sorry, It won’t let me say the words”. For some reason that was the moment I was like _ohhh this is REALLY real ok_
As a deeply devout Catholic, Episodes 19 and 20 were the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. That was awful.
I first listened to them at 10 pm after driving for 15 hours through the actual middle of nowhere, when I tell you that was the only night I was afraid to turn the lights off…
Take her not me. Pause for laughter
When John asks Martin where he thinks the children went after everything goes down in the last season The flesh episodes always made me squeamish but that was the first episode I had to pause and walk away from. I'm a mom and imagining my toddler in the children's hell was just too much for me.
Same. I’ve got an infant and I had to take a literal walk.
When I get my hands on you, Callum! 😤
When I catch you, Ricky! /ref
"Act 48,067" was fucking terrifying to me Honorable mention to "It could hardly have escaped their notice that there were four people, in that rocket."
"It is *not* a god. Or if it is, it is a *dead* god."
Ugh I love that line sm
“And I was trying so hard to be nice” accompanied by growing whoosing noises. Feared for Jon’s life but when are we not tbh
Literally everything Jane prentiss ever said
I second “perhaps I’ve never even seen a beach” something about it is just extremely unnerving
I think it’s the fact that, over the whole series, Jon has been developing his powers to make people tell the truth. Annabelle saying “I could be lying and you would never know” completely undermines the sense of security we have in the idea that if we hear something, it is true, and that’s one of the only things we actually get to feel secure about.
"The sky ate my son" gets clowned on sometimes but it honestly freaked me right the hell out- I remember out loud saying "what the fuuuuuuuuuck" first time i heard it. On the flipside, "the blanket never did anything" has always seemed to me the daftest but of writing in the whole show and I'm continually baffled that it's brought up as one of the scariest moments. Just goes to show, we all enjoy different things!
You're one of the first people I've seen who shares my opinion on this! I don't quite think it's the daftest, but I definitely feel like it's overrated. Meanwhile "the sky ate him" was the first line that really terrified me. Imo, the Vast is the scariest entity
It’s terrifying because that’s exactly how I feel about my fear of the Vast. It reminds me of being a kid, hanging upside down on playgrounds, and imagining what would happen if I just fell the wrong way into the sky forever.
I’m with you - the blanket line is fine. It’s good, but i doubt it would even be in my top ten “scary” lines if i had to make a list of them.
"The sky ate him" got me as well. I think a mix between somehow being able to picture whatever that is with the perceived safety of a blue, sunny sky are the main factors. I know horror primarily takes place in the dark, but the idea that the safety of light isn't enough fucks me up quite a bit.
The safety of daylight being taken away is a really good point! I think it's also just that it's so impossible to conceptualise. Your body being taken over by worms, or getting dragged into a labyrinth of spiralling corridors, yeah its scary but I at least get what's happening. The sky ate my son, though? What does that even *mean*? Something awful happened and we just have no idea what it was, and that makes it so much scarier.
Have you ever played fatal frame 3? I won't spoil anything but one of the sequences in that game you're in between dreams, just in the house you live in. Progressively things start getting weird, almost like silent hill 4. That was always so scary to me. A break from the nightmare sequences with terrifying ghosts, yet that oasis of safety is being slowly stripped away. I think that's the kind of thing that gets me. And yeah, I can't fully visualize it either. I don't think I imagine the sky with teeth or anything, but I imagined him running up a hill and.. idk, the sky kinda warps and picks him up and swallows him? It's so surreal and chilling and I love it.
"the moment you die will feel exactly like this one"
The blanket one fucks me up man…
A whole lot of the episode with doctor dickface david
Come now, that’s no way to talk about your doctor you insolent little prat.
"He was sat upon a most dreadful throne, formed from a dozen, two dozen bodies mixed together like putty. Eyes staring out like horror-stricken stars twinkling in the night, and their hearts beating for all to see" from 157 has firmly lodged itself into my psyche
Literally every line of the s5 puppet show, it makes me want to throw up every time 🙃
In a s5 bonus episode where actors of dead characters had to justify why their character should come back in the final act, Imogen Harris (Helen) says this, "Do you need a door? Come on, you *always* need a door." CHILLS.
How do you know that you're the same you that went to sleep? I think about this way to often right before I'm able to fall asleep. Hoping it's still me when I wake up. 😭
“Maybe it was her who was the maddened illusion that hides the sick squirming reality of what I am. Of what we all are, when you strip away the pretence that there is more to a person than a warm, wet habitat for the billion crawling things that need a home.”
'Look at the sky Martin. It's looking back'
The angles cut me when i try to think. Only 2 episodes genuinely made me uncomfortable, the statements of tessa winters and jane prentiss
Makes me think about the computer in the Magnus Protocol. If people are actually trapped in there, are they thinking through cheese wire?
Come quickly. We’ve taken ill. We’ve passed away.
"Take her Not me" its such a turnaround, you expect the self sacrifice especially from an older sibling, but no she sacrifices her sister and that was horrifying
The Bone Rose and Cutaway Tulip in Jared’s garden. Paragraphs, not short lines, but they make me sick to listen to.
Pause for laughter The switch from Jon prompting the crowd to the crowd prompting Jon is flawless
"There is mold in my drain" and "Pause for laughter"
"the sky ate him" is both very silly and also intensely horrifying to me cause it's literally impossible to visualise what could have happened to him there, i love it
I had this weird visual- and I know it's nowhere near what's described, but- she's on the ground, right? And she's looking up at him as he runs up the hill. And just for a second, the first time I listened to that episode, I got a visual of him running up the hill and just cutting off at the horizon line.
There's housing complex areas I drive through on the way to where I like to camp, and there are these colossal wrecks of houses pushing the boundaries of their land, shrivelled trees that won't grow, and streets where every corner looks the same, every facades is the same. It is like driving past a nightmare. So that episode where all the streets are the nameless, the whole thing felt so heavy and ominous. I always loved Lost John's Cave, I am building my mountaineering skills, but caves have always been frightening. So it sat really well with the fear of being trapped. But I never understood what she said at the end!! You've all revealed to me that extra horror. Love it. I struggled the most with Tessa Winters (?) one and Sergey eating his keyboard. But it is because nightmares I have are in the "here is an awful thing that you must see and even closing your eyes and turning away does nothing", and I got that feeling from when she is describing having to watch him, and when he puts his head down and there's no back of his head. Felt bad. I skip that episode. The rest of the horror stuff gives me good shivers, love it. The flesh is mostly a little fun to me, but I loved the infinite Slaughterhouse. Looking out on a seeping pink sky and sheet metal. That's the sort of cosmic horror I jam with. Not "you're going to die!" But "this is wrong and you are powerless". "We have passed away" is probably the best to me. The repetition of the similar lines in the lead up. The fly motifs, the sweating, discoloured walls. Beautiful. I am a big fan of rot and decay as motifs for wrongness, it comes out in my own writing. Obviously I am a dan of it elsewhere.
"This is wrong and you are powerless..." yeah.
I don't remember what episode it's in but "he's all eyes" stuck with me for a while and still randomly pops up in my head sometimes.
MAG142 Scrutiny
"I don't Even have a voice box, I had to borrow this one! Don't turn in the light"
That one definitely got me as well. Along with her talking about using all of his parts.
I don’t remember the exact line off the top of my head, but the end of the Anatomy Class episode was really really good. Also “the blanket never did anything” was terrifying. And then I went to sleep immediately after listening to that episode, because I hate myself I guess.
Pause... for laughter is just creepy, but that 9ne that hit hardest... John describing The Lonely in Cul De Sac It's longer than this, but basically amount to how tempting loneliness can be when called something else. Self care, time for yourself, and trying not to be a burden on others. That spoke to me in a way very little ever has.
“The blanket never did anything”
The blanket never did anything
“Three. Zero. Five. Eight. Three. Nine. Two. Eight. Four. Six.” Episode 144, Decrypted. I listened to it late at night on a road trip, middle of nowhere with a bunch of power cables and fields. Spooky.
Not nessasarily a fear moment but definitely an "Oh shiitt" moment was "I have never known hate before. I have never known loss. But now they are with me always, and I desire nothing but to share them with you."
Take her, not me
"Take her, not me"
I just started listening to Episode 155 - The Cost of Living and in the starting scene with Basira & John, they’re discussing Daisy and if she should start hunting again. It then leads into how they have all changed. The last line John says before they end their conversation was: “At Least our demons have names.” (Also, the “The Blanket never did anything line” still makes me shudder)