Why Cosmic Horror isn't Scary 

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Saw something like "Fear is knowing you're in a monster-filled forest. Terror is seeing one run at you. Horror is realizing your feet are glued to the ground" and I think that applies pretty well here. Jumpscares and stuff would fit under the spike of terror, where true horror is more a constant realization that there's nothing you can do about the terror.

The line between cultist and victim in a Cosmic Horror story is thin. The cultists aren't the ones that are scared.

Ironically, the concept of cosmic "bliss" instills a lot of fear to me by framing cosmic experiences as pleasure and gift in exchange of your puny life is very haunting. Imagine how many would fall for it if one should appear in current times where most feel worthless. Millions would just be gone in an instant like a snap.

That's very interesting, because i literally had a nightmare, where some kind of otherworldy buzzing noise and echoed whisper tried to enter my mind and drive me crazy and i was so terrified that i decided that i should give in to it, because i thought "if i give in and become insane it won't terrify and hurt anymore" so i did it and it stopped. But then i woke up and realized it was my alarm clock lol.

The cosmic doesn't make me feel small, it makes the universe feel grand and wondrous. It's something to explore and discover, not to cower and hide from.

Ironically, I find the "hopeful" cosmic horror to be infinitely more terrifying than the one that's actually supposed to scare me. It's often said that the way the characters react to a situation changes how the audience perceives it. Generally, this is meant to imply that if the characters are scared, sad, happy, etc., then the audience will be, too. In this case, at least for me, I think it works the opposite. In a lot of cosmic horror, where the people go "mad," I think they're too self-aware of their madness for it to really be scary. Like... they're scared, they're trembling, that is the reaction they're supposed to have, which makes them sane, and that sanity makes it easy to stomach as an audience member. But if they react with bliss, hope, etc. to their own annihilation, which is contrary not just to their nature but their own established personalities beforehand, then doesn't that actually make them insane? I personally find that genuinely horrifying (never mind the parallels this has to severe depression, though that adds another layer, too). Like, what kind of horrific entity could essentially rewrite their way of thinking such that they abandon themselves in favor of death over some fleeting, meaningless feeling, event, or thing, especially because it makes them *happy* somehow? Not to mention just how cultish that is, which is perfectly in line with what you'd expect out of cosmic horror. I think this video sought out to establish a hopeful alternate to cosmic horror but instead showed me what actual effective cosmic horror looks like.

"Behold, cosmic horrors beyond your comprehension!" "..." "What, are you not afraid?" "I don't get it"

People forget that H.P. Lovecraft was not a Horror author. He wrote weird tales, for a weird tales magazine. It is a credit to Lovecraft that we think of him as a Horror writer.

To me the lack of fear from cosmic horror stuff is akin to walking alongside a highway. You can coexist quite (or almost) serenely with dangerously fast vehicles a couple of meters away from you, and only truly freak out when one really steers into you. No use losing one’s mind before anything’s happened. You can get queasy imagining the worst stuff, but you still got to move on.

Honestly, I think the Sublime is when you're at the middle of that spectrum, but rather than being a bland grayness, it's the extremes of both black and white together.

growing up in an abusive household kind of ruined horror for me, I usually fear the things that are known, because the unknown was always an escape for me.

When I was explaining my taste for very surreal and sublime styles in fiction and even in the way I want to present myself, a friend of mine coined the term "Eldritch Majesty" and it stuck with me since. This idea of being so grand, so immense, so powerful, that witnessing your beauty is so overwhelmingly shocking you can't turn away; while so beautiful you don't even want to, has really stuck with me. I don't fear the scale of the cosmos and my smallness compared to it. I see only wonder at the vastness and strangeness of it all: the potential that it holds is literally limitless. I want, in some way, to channel some of that beauty: to be something alien, something sublime. There is no such thing as oblivion, only change: no direction to go in life but forward. Even weighed down by burnout, I still dream of it. That my discovery of self will lead me to a form of transcendence. Way to influence a world I've felt powerless towards for too long. This really did inspire me and I've finally pushed past my anxiety to mention this.

I feel like another way to describe cosmic bliss could be awe, when I go to the museum and see a skeleton of a dinosaur I feel in awe that it ever existed at all, if it was alive it could easily kill me and I would feel very scared but the fear goes away when you think about how beutiful of an animal it must have been when it was alive

I love cosmic horror, but whenever my thoughts drift to how much I don’t matter in the vast expanse of the universe, it’s immediately followed by “why does it matter that I don’t matter? If I can never possibly be as great as the universe, why worry about it? All that matters to me is me and the people around me”

As soon as you said "blissful" it clicked! I remember listening to a lot of cosmic horror a while back, and I strangely found the thought of an inevitable cosmic truth of futility comforting. It made me strangely stop worrying about the little things, zooming out to feel bliss

I find the singing flame far more terrifying, unlike the cosmic horror with indifference and driving you insane in which you lose yourself, cosmic bliss seems to start with the death of the self, altering of who you are . Half the time in cosmic horror you have the capacity to stop digging and leave the cosmic bliss draws you in even when you stepped away like a sirens song

I get so much more horrified when this “cosmic bliss” concept is used. It freaks me out more than regular horror. Watching somebody lose their sense of self, and autonomy is terrifying. And the seeing them be joyful about it!? Ugh it gives me chills. I never perceive it as bliss. I perceive it as someone on their last rope giving it all up to madness. Not even trying to live

Honestly I find the Singing Flame _scarier_ than the Nameless City. To me it feels more insidious and more terrifying. The fact that its victims are _happy_ about destroying themselves just makes the horror worse, because that happiness isn't theirs. It's the flame itself, reaching into their mind, violating the sovereignty that a person has over their own life and self (something that is important but already tenuous, and for some must be fought hard for every day in order to maintain). They don't want it, it _makes_ them want it. There is no reason for them to want it other than its own hunger, if you can call it that. I guess it comes down to trust, or faith: whether you believe that the sublime object really is a blissful release, or if its compulsion is something more sinister. Personally, I can't bring myself to place that kind of trust in something, especially something alien and unknown. Maybe it's colored by the fact that I'm viewing it through the lens of someone who has grappled with suicidal ideation, but entities that promise sweet release from existence itself can be nothing but monstrous.

I think a great author of cosmic horror is Junji-Ito. He gets that, I believe, for most the horror part of cosmic horror is the loss of control. Horrific forces beyond your control and too large may destroy you, at their whim at any time they feel like. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Cosmic bliss is a pretty good descriptor of how i feel in adoration. Combined with disbelief and joy that such an entity actually cares about humanity let alone an individual

If anything, the Singing Flame sounds more terrifying than the Radiant Void ever was. We are not designed to interact with the void, but neither is it with us. The danger it poses is one of circumstance. The Flame draws us in, robs us of the choice of existence with the vague promise of something grander, yet in the end only brings inescapable destruction. It's description brings to mind the anglerfish, a bright beacon of promised salvation that is nothing but a lure, the tool of something hiding in the dark, willing to strip us of everything we are just to feed itself.

I felt that "Sublime" sensation when I was going home from college one day just when a typhoon dropped. The torrential rain, the whipping wind, and the sudden pause of human activity around as everyone fled and cars piled. I felt miniscule, but also excited, that I'm enduring a powerful storm just to reach home. It's was almost meditative because all I can hear was the rain on my umbrella and all I can feel was wet and cold. Every step forward felt like I'm defying it, and it was a formative experience.

Honestly, Cosmic Horror isn't Scary anymore* We been so over exposed to it , that it lost it's charm, the faceless has a face, the unpronounceable name now has a widely accepted way to pronounce it, we gave the unimaginable a form. It's like giving Cthulhu a stat sheet and HP. Yu are doing it wrong.

For me, a lot of cosmic horror doesn't get to me because I simply never related to the idea that we were ever on the top of the cosmic totem pole, and never actually got the whole ant analogy. Life is life, its scale doesnt matter, and as an animist I'm also a believer in spirits of everything right down to the wider universe and everything connecting together, and also fully accepted us just being a small part of a greater universe, and that we need to cherish our little speck. That said, I do find stories like that fungis horrifying, although that feelsore like body horror. Also, the Reapers from Mass Effect. The fact that those bastards essentially made the galaxy into their own free range garden to harvest every 50 millennia and that we inadvertently fell right into their trap hook line and sinker was... Something

there's a certain calmness in acepting chaos as is, and not trying to comprehend it, just experience it That's why I never found cosmic horror scary, but calming, the idea of having some primordial form of chaos is... relaxing? I don't know why, it just is

Anything can be scary with the right set of tools/skills, but horror as a genre is hard to do right. Cosmic horror for all its reputation and elements, is no exception to this. Probably more so as failing to sell the horror or intrigue will just make it look confusing and/or pretentious.

For me, I find comfort in the genre. The fact that someone else has put the emotion so perfectly into words mean that someone else has felt it. The Silver Key is arguably my favourite Lovecraft story. There is no monster, no undead wizard or grand conspiracy, just the dread of being alive in an uncaring society.

Cosmic horror isn't scary because it doesn't really matter to us. It just is. Just as us humans exist, so do they. Maybe they can do things, maybe there are things out of our reach. Does it really matter? After all, despite all that, we still strive to do what we want to do. The realization changes nothing. So let's not worry about it too much, shall we? Let's focus on the more important things. After all, no matter what happens, we will continue to reach for our goals. That's what we've always done, and that's what we'll always do.

Being formerly suicidal and dealing with passive ideation even now, I find myself in the position to utter a sentence that is very rarely applicable: Lovercraft was the sensible one here. I can think of nothing scarier than an alluring excuse to die.

These descriptions of cosmic 'bliss', those stories are actually scarier to me. They are the same otherness, but one does not hide what it is, it is awesome and terrible and beyond all knowledge, and that is terrifying, and the fear keeps you at bay from that danger. The other is a temptation, an intenseness that overwhelms self-will and draws one into its dangers, masking them as 'bliss'. One is a warning sign, the other a trap.

Gotta be honest, the whole "humanity is insignificant in the universe" thing just feels like a challenge to me rather than a "crushing horror" or whatever.

(TW SUICIDE!!) I feel like this "Cosmic Bliss" Works perfectly as a metaphor for being suicidal. As someone who still gets suicidal thoughts even after trying so hard to recover, the allure of stopping to exist and ending this crisis I never asked to be part of is still in the back of my mind. Today I learned about a new way of writing cosmic horror that actually resonates with me which makes it even more frightening.

Maybe the real cosmic horror was the friends we made along the way.

Something that will always haunt me with both its terror and wonder is the edge of the reef. Decades ago, while on vacation, I swam out from the beach, out past the shallows and over the reef to the very edge, and stopped. The reef ended abruptly, and all that lay beyond was the infinite. To this day, I can still feel what I felt that day.

I think one of the greatest cosmic horror on youtube is "velma meets other velma" or something along the lines. There feeling of hopelesness, the monster so beyond your reach, your understanding, beyond anything. And the fact "it" is not something that wants to harm you but just... controls every fiber of your being, existence. This was terrifying, uncanny and beautiful

I might be a bit insane but I've always felt bliss from those, especially the liminal spaces, like all this neverending halls, empty abandoned, or just something gigantic, but so beautiful I understand that it is a threat, but I have to appreciate the beauty of it

Cosmic horror can be scary. But most of the time it awakens the very same flaw it portrays in the humans the stories depict. Curiosity. We aren't nearly as scared as we are fascinated. We want to know more. At least that's how I see it. The biggest reason it isn't as scary as it was in Lovecraft's time is because we have plenty of knowledge of the world. I still fear the idea of visiting a place like Insmouth, or getting caught up in an end of the world scenario without hopes of stopping it.

I like one analogy a friend said to me that didn't find Junji Ito (some he does) or H.P Lovecraft's work scary. Because it was too big (in the sense of scale), it is like numbers of people in a crowd, when seeing that number or hearing about it, it is hard to really vision how big that actually is, unless you see it yourself, and even then it is hard to really grasp how many it is, and you loose the personal part of it all, it becomes a statistic rather than Michael and Rachel for example. But 20 people in his room is much easier to grasp and he can vision it, and it feels more personal. That is why he enjoys more horror stories that have just a few characters and/or a much more close/claustrophobic feel. Not sure if I managed to explain it properly. But that was what made me understand why he had "issues" with those certain stories. For me it is the other way around, feeling insignificant and small in comparison to the rest of the world, the powerlessness of doing anything to change it is what scares me.

As a aspiring Concept Artist who knows the importance of visual Story Telling and Philosophie of Design trough nuances and narrative parralels and looks for this spark in everything i do.... Im really glad i stumbled upon your channel your voice is soothing too i may even use your Videos to draw and just feel 🩶

as many here already said - the descriptions of cosmic bliss used in this video are more horrifying than the horror ones. we guess it's because in all of bliss ones the person loses their free will, they are unnaturally compelled. the cosmic bliss - for us it would be more of the realisation and experience of being part of something so unimaginably great. on every scale world so different and chaotic that we may never comprehend it but so deeply beautiful and fascinating. and it's all around us. and we don't need to step into it because we are already part of it.

I always understood the horror of cosmic horror comes from a direct attack to every narcissistic ideal you may posses. You have no narcissistic ideals, the perspective of an indifferent incognoscible power capable of obliterating you at any second’s notice, it’s neither frightening nor liberating. It’s just another Monday.

The reason I don't find cosmic horror scary is because I'm not intimidated by the unknown. the sublime isn't horrible or unknowable - only beyond our reach for the moment. The existential themes and ineffable beings in cosmic horror don't worry me because they fail to make me question my worldview. They don't cause me to fear what I don't understand - there's just nothing to understand.

Can't get over how stunning the new opening is.

It's interesting I don't find cosmic horror scary usually. Cosmic bliss I often do tho. There's something about the dichotomy of the unknown and potentially dangers mixed with good feelings. Something scary or clearly bad is simple, even if you don't understand it. Simply reject it. However when that thing calls to you, generates awe and bliss it invites me to engage with it in a more meaningful way. There's a fear of losing control that almost reminds me of body horror. I love jini ito for this. He kinda touches all 3. Stories like Tomi and The Enigma of Amigara Fault. There's this unknowable thing, it's dangers yet it's awe inspiring. How that awe inspiringness, the experience of the sublime effects the characters and me. That scares me

So cosmic horror is a strange case for me. It's a genre that I find myself drawn to, I read any book or watch any movie or play any game remotely related to the concept. But I can't say that it particularly scares me, at least not in the Lovecraftian tradition. It does give me a sense of awe either, nor even ambivalence. I think I just find it narratively fascinating. Part of that is due to Lovecraft's own biases, his fear of the unknown, and by extension, anyone who didn't fit what he deemed as acceptable, which often even included himself. I fundamentally don't share that fear. When confronted with the unknown, I seek to understand it, and failing that, content myself with knowing that I cannot. What does fascinate me about cosmic horror, and scares me when done well, is how it relates to people and the systems we create. Cthulhu, Yog Sothoth, they're just fathomless beings akin to gods that couldn't care less about us. But Nyarlathotep, that scares me. A being of such immense and unknowable power, much like his kin, but unlike them, it notices us. And it delights in our suffering. It goes out of its way to manipulate us, drive us to pain and cruelty, to control us through means eldritch and human in nature. What scares me, I suppose, is that idea that there are forces beyond us that want us to hurt, to be controlled all for some grand scheme or sheer sadism.

One of the best example of this, came as a short skit in Rick and Morty, where Rick builds a perfect flat piece of floor, for Morty to experience. It's just a flat surface, but it is perfect, and Mortys mind is not made to cope with perfection, even in such a small amount as a flat surface. It truly breakes him, and all the rest of the world now feels hollow, empty and wrong when compared to the perfection he once felt. It wasn't scary, painfull or dangerous in any way. Just a small inanimate area of floor, but it drowe him insane, and changed all his perspectives and priorities. Life became before and after the experience. Truly cosmic bliss

This video hands down explained why horror and especially cosmic horror has always been my escape from chronic depression and bad thoughts. It gives me peace like nothing else. And now I kinda get why. Thank you so much for this video ❤

The stories you talk as examples of bliss, I found them more terrifying than the cosmic horror, the flame, and the "spore" seem to be more horrid, because, they are a threat, but you don't notice it.

I remember thinking about what God might look like as an 11-year-old. I thought of a giant, star-sized mirror bending light and reality around themself. I also thought of the dreamlike music of the Stone Tower Temple upside down. I’ve always been drawn to the unknown expanses, whether the deep ocean or space

I can't speak for others, but I always thought cosmic horror was scary. It's just something that goes so beyond my comprehention and makes me feel even smaller in the great scale of things, that it makes me feel overwhelmed, which contribute for my fear

I’ve never been able to explain it. But Lovecraft stories always comforted me. I often fall asleep to audiobooks of his. This is a great explanation, thank you.

An observation I find thought-provoking is that while listening to your description of the singing flame, the emotion I felt was something like a deep yearning. I’m not an emotional person in reality so having a noticeable internal reaction stood out to me, and I wondered for a moment: Was this what the character felt when he left the city? He went home, but deep down he longed to ‘go home’ to the flame… From an outside perspective I imagine it could be taken as oddly disturbing that this was my genuine reaction. The idea that the flame in the story is so alluring that even the reader (myself) on the other side of the fourth wall, grounded in the real world, could feel the same draw to it - I picture that’s the impression one can get from my anecdote. As for me I find the idea of the flame comforting, even heartwarming. The idea that a vast and incomprehensible force in the universe would be so compassionate to mortal things like ourselves as to welcome us into its embrace so kindly. It offers to lift the burdens from our shoulders and guide us home. In a way, it feels like the unconditional love of a cosmic parental figure. It also makes me think about how incredibly easy it would be to turn me into a cultist or even cult leader character if I lived in one of these cosmic horror stories. Hahaha

It's a great day when Tale Foundry uploads, keep it up, TaleBot :D

Its not necessarily scary to me, but more beautiful in a grotesque way

Cosmic bliss is such a beautiful concept. I read many are afraid of it but I resonate with it. The feeling of loosing yourself might be a bit sad, scary even but I feel like getting to go out in bliss is what I would love. Shed all earthly chains and know youll be happy, even if you meet your end shortly after. The most exciting concept to me was always total eraseur, noone knows you existed, noone tears and no sadness as you get consumed into the vast nothingness of nonexistance with a smile on your face. Im not suicidal, too many people I love and roo many that love me to even consider this life wasted, but as someone who struggles daily. Cosmic Bliss, is a beautiful.

I vibe with this one alot. Ideas of corruption into obsession or characters religiously devoted to something that destroys them just has a unique quality to me. Make it a slow burn, add some manipulation, let the characters think its their choice... *chefs kiss* One of my favourite modern examples is ASPs "Verfallen" Albums (MC falls in love with a hotel and the ghost who's living body it is painted as. Then the hotel starts eating it's guests.)

I know this person, who used to suffer from constant anxiety and depression, and then they experienced a moment of sublime. THey regonized that they indeed are just dust in the universe, but for them, personally... I actually took away their anxiety and started their healing process from the depression. For them, their anxieties came pretty much everything feeling like the Hugest Thing(tm), and regocnizing that their mistakes and wins didn't really effect the whole world in staggeringly strong way was great relief, and gave them some freedom from their own head. So, I think insignifigance is only as scary or blissful as the angle you look at it. It kinda only matters if you want to be larger than life, or are just content to exists and experience life as it is. And of course, the mood you are in affects it too. Great video. Love your work

Weirdly cosmic horror falls into the bliss category for me. I want there to be something more than the mundane. The thought of it brings me a sense of almost ecstasy.

I've barely started this video but I just had to pause it and say how much I love your intro. The animation style is so whimsical and reminds me of the DreamWorks stop motion movies. You have the coolest intro I've ever seen. Congratulations, it's the fastest I've ever subbed to a channel haha.

I'm going through and watching/listening to these videos while I'm working. And it is making me want to work on a story I've sat on for years. But also to experiment with new things and just see how they go. I greatly appreciate these videos.

Honestly, I find the summary of the singing flame story scarier than the summary of the nameless city story. The radiant void leaves the explorer terrified and questioning their own sanity, but there's no explicit warping of their mind beyond natural reaction. The singing flame is scarier to me because it raises the question "how much of the explorer is truly left after their encounter with it (prior to actually jumping into it of course)". Is the explorer in the story of the singing flame even truly themself once they've been entranced? Or has the singing flame tampered with their brain directly (certainly seems so to me). That forceful loss of self, that undermining of free will, is far scarier to me than "character encounters something indescribably terrifying and is now understandably terrified". The latter is too logical a reaction to something meant to defy logic. But something that can twist your mind and emotions to make you illogically want something you don't understand (particularly when you KNOW you don't understand it), especially when it's clearly a threat to you, feels like a far more effective attack on the sense of self than something that just leaves you terrified and grappling with the fact you didn't understand reality anywhere near as well as you thought you did. Because even if you have to conclude you didn't understand reality at all, how much can that truly effect how you live your life? Will your lack of understanding of reality really effect your life at all just cause you're made aware of it? Whatever the case, you still have a choice in how you deal with what you've confronted. There's potential for recovery from terror and confronting the fact you don't understand something, but there's no hope for recovery from a force that infects your mind and steals your ability to choose from you. How can you recover when the thing you'd be recovering from forcibly compels you surrender to it? Cosmic horror often has scary imagery, but cosmic "bliss" sounds to me like a far more insidious cosmic horror, because it's far more effective at destroying you, and it does so not through threat to your life or your sanity, but through a threat to your will. Cosmic horror makes you fear and/or run from the threat. Cosmic "bliss" give you no choice but to mindlessly amble towards the threat, because once you confront it, you're it's puppet.

I really think that one's past life experience makes or breaks cosmic horror stuff: as an autist, I grew up feeling life already was incomprehensible. I acutely knew of Dementia, Alzheimer's, rabies, prion diseases, radiation sickness, and other ways brains can horribly malfunction. I read and heard about how terrifying the world could be before starting school, stuff like the holocaust, racist and sexist murders, tortures, and so on - reading (hyperlexia) about history was not reassuring and showed how utterly mad and random life can be. That plus being emotionally abused by my parents to feel like absolutely everything was my fault, stuff like reading about the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy's torture box where you got to experience truly how utterly insignificant in relation to the universe sounded incredibly reassuring rather than terrifying. I already knew life wasn't fair, to be shown I don't matter at all would have been a huge weight off my shoulders and would have let me be more "selfish" (have more healthy boundaries).

For me Lovecraftian stories aren't scary (except for the most cruel ones), they are fascinating like a dark fairy tail. The concept of alien creatures who are so different that we barely can understand (if at all) is very fascinating. The stupid, dull and merciless horrors of everyday life without any mystery are way scarier. For example the Elder Ones in the Mountains of Madness aren't scary at all. Awake in unfamiliar world from their long anabyosis attacked by dogs and see their fellows vivisected, they reacted exactly like humans would react in that kind of situation

This is a beautiful watch and I thank you for putting it together, it's very much appreciated.

I'd argue that people today can't feel cosmic horror the way people used to. To me, the fear of the Radiant Void is knowing that you're already somewhere you don't belong, and suddenly you're feeling pressured to stay forever. People back then would feel that alien sense of unbelonging keenly, because they came from a world of relatively stable expectations. But we of the modern day are accustomed to dealing with culture shocks and resisting various pressures, and our modern self concept is far from what our forebearers would call a natural state of being. Our food, housing, clothing, technology, sexuality, cities, and driving from city to city daily... To our ancestors who lived relatively close with nature, surely they'd feel the horror of incompatibility if it was us beaconing them through the portal...

I can’t help but recall the anime series, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. In it, Haruhi experiences a disappointing version of the sublime when she goes to a baseball game. She thought about how populated the stadium was and how small it was compared to the population of the rest of the world. She felt small, but it wasn’t humbling to her, it was humbling to humanity as a whole. Such vastness, yet no one felt special. One can’t stand out to her unless you’re an alien, an esper, or a time traveler. She spends the whole series looking for the truly sublime

OMG thank you so much for this. I am writing on a story that has exactly this theme for the two main characters and while I enjoy the Lovecraft universe and stories, the "bliss" aspect of it seems quite elusive at times. I hadn't heard of the "city of the living flame" story before and what you said about it absolutely spoke to me. Thank you for the inspiration!

Amusing concept. I actually started a Pathfinder game, myself and had a backdrop of this cosmic being trying to slowly transform the world. This was not meant to be the focus of the story, they were meant to use the rumors to follow into a land-war between various regional city-states. However, seeing the devotees to this Old God, how they were blissful in their love for it and the promises they say it gives it, it became a focus... So much a focus that, despite the characters being Pious to their own Gods (who in this setting are real and actually interact with their follows), they decided to seek out these cultists and... help them. One even being slowly corrupted by the offer of assistance and the promise of love when he communed with his God about how to help a series of undead, of all things. They have seen sights of the fate of the followers - they lose themselves, the living ones have difficulty with speech, slurring, losing the ability to connect coherent thoughts as this Old God give them knowledge so expansive it makes it difficult for the followers to keep their thoughts from spilling out or being overloaded. They see the ones who die in worship of this God takes them into itself, they become an amalgamation of emotions, knowledge, experiences and bodies. They are no longer individuals, they are together, feeling and knowing and sensing everything at once... And yet... They are helping it. I expected them to be disgusted by the physical transformations, writhing tentacles, losing their forms to become a melted mass of slime. They have increasing trouble to speak, to think, but they worship the being in hope and a promise of love and connection with it and the followers. I figured many would see this as traditional cult behavior, the love-bombing, the promises, the ostracization of society and the 'Proper' Religions making them outcasts. Though one player dropped out, the one who was more intense in following and helping the cult, the others continue on. They are even at the point when they make a connection that will irreversibly connect a part of the world they're on to be melded with this other-worldly entity's own, yet they continue. They even went against one of the Churches lead by a scholar. But, at the same time, they are morally good characters and it does seem the negative treatment of those desperate cultists, through their own lives - many of the ones who joined the cult did so because of them already being on the lower rung of society or treated unfairly - and especially through the Polythestic Churches that try to quash the belief of there being earlier, older Gods than the ones they follow. It could be they see the treatment of the cultists as unfair, the words of the God that they hear spoken through its acolytes and even the God speaking briefly to them and its desires making it sound they want the best for those who worship it. Especially when one of the Gods they communed with was harsh, blunt and focused on purity to be accepted for reincarnation.

My response to the white void is just "Where's the shotgun! there's evil to vanquish!" I like cosmic horror as an impossible foe to stand against

Cosmic horror affects me less in the sense of being insignificant in the face of entities to whom we are less than a speck of dust, and more in the sense of their absolute incomprehensibility. I feel in myself a powerful urge to know, to catalogue, to categorize, and the knowledge that there exist things that do not, will not, and cannot be known, do not fit into categories, and laugh at any attempts at comprehension, generates a sort of deep despair. It doesn’t make me feel insignificant because I’m small, it makes me feel insignificant because my reason, the faculty we pride ourselves on as humans, is revealed as useless, our quest for knowledge nothing more than a cosmic joke.

This really put cosmic horror in a context I think I understand. Having read so much Judeo-Christian philosophy and theology, the idea of an existential loss of control and significance seemed kind of passe to me, and I figured out what I've been missing. That flame story and the song lines up almost perfectly with my actual world-view, except that the leaping into the flame, giving up control, isn't destruction but a completion of purpose having surrendered that devotion of self to something, as you said, sublime. In some ways it reminds me of the allegory of the cave, where anyone not hearing the flame's song, or else fighting it, could be seen as the people still in the darkness. Still it explains the disconnect I've had with the genre; when the cosmic isn't something to be terrified of, but delighted in, stories about its horror and dangers kind of bounce off the psyche.

I get a sense of "sublime" when I watch at some videos about black holes or the dimension of galaxies or stuff like that. These videos makes me feel so small and so insignificant, and yet it also feels good, it feels peaceful

Weirldly I think I actually found this version /more/ frightening xD I think its that in Cosmic Horror, if I'm afriad of the thing then well, yeah it makes sense to be afraid and fight back against oblivion,even if its useless. But to be in someway made to /want/ oblivion, to see the dissolution of my Self as desirable, to have my individuality not undone by mere death but be made to Want it...thats actually terrifying to me

I don't know how many other people can relate, but personally I'm drawn to the works of Lovecraft because of my experience in an abusive religious household (Jehovah's Witnesses). Every day I was in deep thought about cosmic horrors of inevitable devine genocide, and my own salvation would be uncertain. I'm fully awake and out of that cult now, but that fear still resonates with me. It intrigues me seeing the same fear replicated in fiction, with the knowledge of it being fiction giving me comfort and healing my own trauma. I wonder if there are others who share this experience

You have one of the most well made video intros of any channel 😊

Ahh thanks for the contrast - will be useful for my writing its def what i was always looking for to go beyond just cosmic horror and bring the positivity to the idea. Really communicates the human religious experience, drugs, love etc with dark themes.

This is probably one of my favorite videos of yours. I rarely comment on videos, but I just wanted to give my 2 cents on Cosmic Horror and explain why Lovecraft is my favorite author, even as someone who normally don’t like horror or spooky stuff. My biggest fear in life is being forgotten. The fact that when I die and some times has passed, there will be nothing in this world to indicate that I’ve ever been here. No one will remember my name, remember what I’ve done, remember my accomplishments, remember my struggles or anything else. It is something I think about nearly every day and something that has affected my life drastically. It’s one of the reasons why I first started playing music, in hopes of maybe getting remembered that way, but unless you’re someone like Mozart or The Beatles that’s pretty much impossible, since eventually people will forget about the music. That’s why I’m pursuing a career in academia, with the hope of doing some research and finding out something about our existence to expand our knowledge of the universe and us. Even when I’m long gone and my name might have been lost to time, at least I would have had a some kind of impact, no matter how unbelievably tiny. That’s why I think cosmic horror is so scary. It challenges my biggest fear in life, reminding me of my insignificance in the universe. But in some way, also reassures me that this is okay, in some weird way. That none of us are significant. None of us are special and we will all eventually be lost to time. And yet, I do everything I can to avoid this fate. Because to me, if I don’t try to make some kind of impact, then there isn’t really any reason for me to continue living. If I died right now my friends would forget about me after some time, after they’re dead my name will probably never be spoken again. As if I’m a grain of salt dissolving in the salty ocean. As a grain of salt I still am there, no matter how tiny in comparison to the ocean, but when dissolved I’m just completely gone.

And now here I stand at the edge of a paradox, for I find the examples of cosmic bliss presented in this video all the more horrifying than any story of cosmic horror I know of.

What a fantastic explanation, this helps me immensely with my investigative horror book I have been a role player and a GM for 20+ years and have enjoyed Cuthulu but I have always struggled to interpret what caused those emotions. A excellent video

You've made a lot of video's about the "ineffible". What I can't comprehand is how your videos have so few likes. I adore your vids!

"Fear is a luxury for those who still have a sliver of hope." I can't exactly remember where I heard that quote, but I think it applies here.

I feel like the "scariness" of cosmic horror is more due to how it's just further from our reach. We don't know what it is, so we're afraid. Fear of the unknown. Though imo, the scariest horror tend to be more "personal" fears and threats than something as grand and cosmic as Cthulhu or Azathoth

I really need this, I've been getting pretty freaked out about cosmic horror, mainly about stuff like All Tomorrows

Great video. Loved it! Some games do tinker with this idea of the great and amazing and the terror. One such example is the gama Bioshock, which both in Rupture (which was an underwater city) and Columbia (a sky city) both try to catch you by how sublime they are/were, before giving you the terror they've become and also how, in the Columbia case, people may ignore all of that, since they got used to it, even though terrible things may be happening.

Just read call of cthulhu....and have almost completed mandela catalogue...now here for a perspective...

Cosmic Horror has always fascinated me because it's beautiful? Mesmerizing? I don't really know what word ro use and i want to share it to my friends but i can't really tell them because i know they'll not understand but oh well, great video btw!

I appreciate this video so much because I have always found the concept of things bigger than me, like how huge our universe is, almost comforting and I've never had a word to describe that, and now I do so I guess I don't experience terror, just cosmic bliss haha.

i had this video on my watch later forever to watch as i draw. I literally almost fall off my chair when u mentioned annihilation bc i was thinking of it so much i flailed my hands on the air and did a silent little wail bc its 2 am. I love this video i love annihilation im so autism ab this rn

To me, seeing others in eldritch bliss and hering its call in my mind is the most potent form of eldritch horror.

I will always view Beyond the Aquila Rift as one of the best examples of cosmic horror. The twist, although terrifying visually, is tragic in the sense that the protagonist doesn't understand what he's looking at and perceives it to be harmful, even though it is truly benevolent. Our understanding of what we see changes how we see it.

I think this sums up a significant part of why cosmic horror is possibly my favourite genre. It's always fascinated more than it scared me.

Once experienced a storm while camping. All night my tent was on the verge of blowing away and if I wasn’t in it, the tent probably would’ve. The next morning after the storm had passed I felt such a joy and quiet. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.

The fall into insanity I didn’t really understand. But I heard somewhere that Lovecraft was terrified of his own descent into madness being unavoidable with both his parents being hospitalized for mental health.

I feel like Cosmic horror isn't scary and more so interesting. The story of the Singing Flame honestly made me feel more uncomfortable than any concept I've read from Lovecraft. This could be from my personal experience and perspective on things. The weight of expectations and hope for myself and humanity may lead to inevitable disappointment. The idea of humans being so small and insignificant offers a relief from these expectations. There is a comfort in knowing that my decisions and feelings are small, and knowing there is a is a higher being that I have no control over puts things in perspective (like the cosmic / bliss indifference you mentioned). It kind of seems similar to a religion, where faith in the higher being can give people the inner strength to tackle obstacles in their life, or fulling engross themselves in the culture. Back to cosmic horror, the mix of interesting lore and indescribable creatures leaves so much room for exploration, creativity, and mystery.

I really appreciate that you saw all those comments and didn't brush them off as people who are too [insert negative adjective here] to "get it." (Like, um, I did at first.) Instead you dug deeper and examined cosmic horror from a different lens and explored alternative emotions it can give. What a great video! (Also, shout out to the Angelarium! I edited those books and they are delightful!)

Cosmic bliss is such a powerful emotion and im so happy i finally have a name for it thank you so much

Many people prefer the Hell part in the Divina Comedia, however my favorite part is the heaven because all of it is filled with cosmic bliss, and this is much more scary

It is scary, but in a very unique way - if someone is afraid to lose their beliefs and understanding of reality - cosmic horror IS terrifying for that person.

I would be angered if he told me to not try to understand! But then again, I wouldn't bother looking for specific human lives, when there are greater mysteries to seek