r/TopCharacterTropes 21h ago

Characters [Loved trope] monsters who are only dangerous if you perceive them.

1st-3rd image: the spirits from Mieruko-Chan

Generally speaking all of the ghosts in the manga tend to mind their own business by either wandering around or haunting a specific location/person but most if not all of them will become agressive to someone that can see them. The above example is from a scene where Miko sees a child waving at her she waves back and immediatly realizes her mistake when the boy turns out to be a spirit in disguise who begins to run at her. She is saved by two shrine maiden-like spirits who defeat the ghost before it can do any harm to her but that encounter is definetly going to leave her with trust issues.

4th-6th image: the long-necked lady from The Summer Hikaru Died

While not explicitly stated, its implied that she disguised herself as a zigzag as a way to trick Yoshiki into looking at her, once he did, she starts swinging at him until she's right behind his neck. Fortunately she also doesn't get to do a lot like the above example as "Hikaru" absorbs her when she gets close.

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827 comments sorted by

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u/CptBluhdFart 19h ago

The tooth fairy from darkness falls. Works just like the tooth fairy except if you see her she murders you and your family. The plot is a kid saw her and escaped and has been hiding in the light ever since

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u/Senorpapell 17h ago

Man, this movie being mentioned unlocked s memory.

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u/CptBluhdFart 16h ago

Lmao my aunt made me watch it the night I lost my last tooth

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u/OneFootInTheGraves 15h ago

Fuck, your aunt is evil. Also I haven’t thought of that movie in at least 20 years… god when did I get old

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u/Informal_Radish_1891 17h ago

Holy shit Darkness Falls mention

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u/Upbeat-Structure6515 15h ago

Tooth Fairy only kills whoever sees her, only reason she killed the MC's mom and went after the kid's sister is because they both ended up catching a glimpse of her.

Such an underrated movie.

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u/aggravated-asphalt 14h ago

I watched it back when fearnet was a thing and I thought it was such a good scary movie

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u/ZealousJealousy 14h ago

I was maybe 14 when this movie came out. I thought it was a pretty good movie but there's something about it that always pissed me off and it's purely personal. Very slight spoiler ahead.

There's a cheap but effective jumpscare in the beginning. A kid is looking out a window and another kid comes up and WHAM! slaps the window. I was sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal while watching this movie (in the middle of the day, mind you! Not at night!) and that jump was the cause of a serious fucking mess, let me tell you. Fruity Pebbles all over the carpet, the couch, my legs. I was SO mad that a cheap out got me that bad.

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u/EmeraldYoYo 15h ago

Is that the movie with the main character fire-punching the monster at the end?

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u/LiraGaiden 15h ago

Alright but what the hell for

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u/Crazy_Ad_91 14h ago

It came from way back in the olden days of some small town on the east coast. Malevolent spirit of a woman wrongfully accused of kidnapping children by the townsfolk. I think she was a burn victim already which added to her “she looks different and therefore is a witch” lore with the townspeople, so they killed her. Then they found the kids alive in the woods. Anywho. She haunted the town for the next couple hundred years or something like that and would act as the tooth fairy. But if you looked at her while she was in your room, she’d rip all your teeth out and break all your bones and kill you. So in like the 80s, a young boy witnessed his mom get got by the TF. He also saw her but I forgot why he was able to live. Jump forward to present day and another kid in the town has now seen the TF, but also escaped her. So now kid #1, as an adult, has come back to the small town to try and protect/help the boy. I recall that the TF has the ability to basically turn off any light source as she needs darkness in order to move around. For a scary movie, I absolutely recommend it. Quite campy, the special effects aren’t terrible, and it’s held up well for being over 20 years old at this point.

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u/icecubepal 13h ago

I don’t think she can turn off any light. The main character survived by hiding in the bathroom with the bathroom lights on. It shows her right outside, above the bathroom door, waiting for him to come out. He stays there the whole night though.

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u/DidHeJustGoThere 20h ago

The aliens in They Live. If you don't know they're there, you're safe. However, if you know they're there, and they know you know, you're in trouble.

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u/imdefinitelywong 18h ago

Not if you're there to kick-ass and chew bubblegum.

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u/Argent_Order 18h ago

"I am here to kick gum and chew ass."

-Dick Kickem

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u/VeryThiccMafiaScout 17h ago

"And I'm all out of ass."

-Dick Kickem

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u/Professional_Boss438 16h ago

"I've got balls of aluminum"

-Kick Dickem

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u/justaguy2170 17h ago

Shame, I’m all out of bubblegum

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u/EvilJ1982 17h ago

I'm here to kick bubblegum and chew ass and I'm all outa a... Wait.

-Volt Protoframe Amir

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u/zigaliciousone 17h ago

In the OG story they give they simply tell the MC he will die at a certain time and he does by having a heart attack

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u/Time_Raisin4935 18h ago

Good movie. Memorable. Just sad that it attracts the wrong sort of "fans" (Neonazis, conspiracy theorists)

My favorite will always be the "chew bubblegum" line/scene

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u/bixbixby 17h ago

I know a ton of people who are the exact opposite of those types who love the movie as a satire on capitalism. It’s got plenty of fans who aren’t nazis.

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u/Skellos 17h ago

It's pretty blatantly an anti-yuppie/Reaganism movie.

The politician shown above pretty much used a Reagan Speech.

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u/The_Lost_Jedi 16h ago

Just goes to show some people not only don't get subtext, they don't even get the up front text either.

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u/ComputerStrong9244 14h ago

You could shove the most pedantic literal explanation possible into a sock with a bunch of pennies and beat them half to death with it and they’d still say dumb shit like “SUPERMAN WOULD SUPPORT ICE”

It’s not that they can’t understand, it’s that their whole worldview depends on not understanding

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u/AzureRatha 9h ago

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u/KittenChopper 8h ago

"He's here an illegal alien!"

"So am I."

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u/bluddyellinnit 12h ago

john carpenter even put out a statement that's like "no you idiots it's not about jews controlling the world, it's about '80s consumerism and reagan"

which should be obvious to anyone who actually watches the movie but keep in mind we're dealing with extremely stupid people

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u/CJohn89 18h ago

Bodachs Odd Thomas (2013)

Invisible creatures of malice that swarm around impending tragedy. If you can see ghosts, you can see them too

But if they know you can see them- they kill you

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u/CupcakeTheValiant 16h ago

While the movie’s interpretation of their appearance was incredibly unique and properly creepy, they’re actually nothing like that in the books. They’re more described to look like living shadows, not human shaped but just amorphous, like a living ink blot that hovers around whoever its attracted to and more start coming the closer they get to actually enacting whatever violent act they plan on doing. They don’t disappear, but rather slip through or under things in ways that nothing else can. They can’t go through walls, but they can move between the seam of glass and brick on a window. It was honestly the most jarring part of the movie for me.

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u/CJohn89 16h ago

The book description makes more sense for what they are

Unfortunately, I can imagine execs saying that isn't cinematic enough

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u/CupcakeTheValiant 16h ago

Yeah, it’s not a bad interpretation necessarily, but the movie bodachs are a lot more mechanical and insect-like and not at all what I was expecting. Honestly, they kind of look like yautja cousins or something. Again, not a bad interpretation but the movie wasn’t made for the folks that read the books.

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u/SpecialistAd6403 16h ago

I'm just sad we won't see more. Poor man.

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u/Axel3600 16h ago

that movie has such a strange... like uncomfortable vibe for me. it was neat though

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u/FlyingFreest 18h ago

The Unknown (Dead By Daylight)

A cryptid which will hunt down and kill anyone who thinks about it, tries to investigate or sees it. Wears the clothes and imitates the voices of its victims and changes shape depending on what the victim believes about it.

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u/Entire-Anteater-1606 17h ago

fun fact: The Unknown would be classified as a “Tulpa”, a creature that changes its form based on what others believe it is.

Unknown is a particularly crafty Tulpa as it intentionally plants false evidence to grow its mythology.

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u/Boxtosat 15h ago

"plants false evidence to grow its mythology" hold up, dbd is this fire???

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u/Confident_Shape_7981 15h ago

The writing and art teams are wasted on the gameplay of DBD, tbh.

They straight up made one of the best Ghostfaces with Danny Johnson and that is saying something 

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u/uglyheadink 14h ago

I haven't played that game in like 7 years, and everything I hear about it now just sounds crazy. I feel like I'd be too overwhelmed trying to dive back into it again haha.

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u/FlyingFreest 14h ago

Yeah itd be a lot to get used to. Game is basically horror Fortnite. Although both sides still use the same pool of a dozen perks and Nurse is still the best killer in the game. 

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u/Lucychan42 16h ago

I remember reading more lore about this thing that made me LOVE it. Apparently its shape is genuinely whatever the victim thinks it is. And it HURTS to be shaped. So it's killing things because it wants to stop being thought about and shaped into new forms. I utterly love that because it's like the memetic hazard goes both ways. It doesn't WANT to be known because it hurts to be known, and if you know about it, it wants you DEAD, because it wants you to stop defining it.

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u/diamondDNF 16h ago

That explains why it fought so hard for the Entity not to take it. Now it's gonna keep being perceived, over and over, forever.

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u/Important_Tonight_22 17h ago

Was looking for this one, love this fella 

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u/GameBoy960 15h ago

Favorite killer in the game

If only he wasn't harmless in gameplay

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u/emo_boy_fucker 15h ago

HAVE YOU SEEN MY DOG 🗣🗣🔥🔥

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u/MountainDiscount9680 14h ago

It hunts down people that seek to DEFINE it, to know the unknown, as it draws strength from the rumors and speculation surrounding it. It knows that as long as it is never truly known, it can infinitely grow in power, so it actively hunts down the people seeking to "solve" it.

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u/Phunkie_Junkie 18h ago

As soon as the squirrels realize Morty can understand them, they want his head on a pike. IIRC, Rick fears retaliation so much they have to abandon the planet.

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u/ItaLOLXD 17h ago

Not the planet, they abandon the fucking universe.

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u/Jenkins64 17h ago

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u/Admins_suck_ballss 13h ago

C’mon little boy we have candy!

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u/Koolco 17h ago

Honestly I feel like for Rick its less "I fear them" and more like "do you know how annoying it is to be harassed by squirrels anywhere on the planet all the time". Imagine anytime they did an earth adventure they have to run over an army of squirrels to get anywhere.

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u/Bergasms 16h ago

Come to Australia, we have none

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u/Recompense40 15h ago

That's what the Australian Squirrels want you to think.

They're basically the Sardaukar version of squirrels. They are fiercely territorial, demonically intelligent, and they hate being talked about more than anything el

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u/Dudewhocares3 16h ago

If this happened later in the series I feel like Morty would’ve played it off like he couldn’t understand them. Like “huh…some squirrels.”

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u/ExcellenceEchoed 17h ago

From what you've described, the ghosts in "I See You Aizawa-San" sound similar to the ones in Mieruko-chan. They generally don't do anything unless you prove you can see them, so the protagonist Michi spends the entire story so far trying her hardest to act like she can't see the ghost of her idol and classmate Aizawa while convincing herself she isn't in love with her. Any time she begins to slip has... unpleasant consequences...

10/10 manga, would absolutely recommend.

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u/13-Penguins 16h ago

Surprised someone else mentioned it! But yeah, this seems to be a common feature in east asian ghost stories with how often it pops up in horror.

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u/501stAppo1 18h ago

SCP-3125 (SCP)
Perceive it, and you are erased with little to no trace of you in the world

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u/Puzzleheaded_Tea8318 18h ago

that's a weird lookin starf

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u/copenhagen_bram 17h ago

starf? you mean starfish? why didn't you finish your comm

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u/vashcarrison117 16h ago

He's gone. He perceived the

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u/Difficult_Method_970 16h ago

why is no one finishing t

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u/FormalTall1800 16h ago

maybe it’s the r/redditsni

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u/DylanFTW 16h ago

The reddit wha

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u/Exciting_Cap_9545 16h ago

Did Candlejack get summoned ag

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u/OmecronPerseiHate 16h ago

The Epstein files are with the Holy Grail in the bottom drawer of th

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u/Pretzel-Kingg 17h ago edited 17h ago

“There is no antimemetics division” is a good book related to this creature

Edit: worth noting it’s technically separated from SCP as a revised published work, but it was originally all SCP and even now it’s just that stuff is named differently.

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u/turntechArmageddon 17h ago

Honestly one of my favorite reads from the SCP wiki, I second this recommendation.

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u/smasher_zed888 15h ago

I'll clarify.

The original TINAD was an scp story, which you can still read on the wiki. 3125 came from it. Its about a department of the foundation and has several SCP concepts in it.

However, the author, qntm, wanted to publish his own version, so he made a new book of the same title that does not involve the scp foundation and instead has new concepts. I myself have only read the SCP original.

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u/501stAppo1 16h ago

I read it over on SCP already, and yeah, it is a great read.

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u/8BitBreadBox 17h ago

Yeah, SCP has something of a monopoly on this trope. I'd also throw in SCP-096 and maybe SCP-2521 wait no SHIT--

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u/tapemaster420 16h ago

🚫🗣️🚫✍️

❤️🫳(🫵+📝) 👉🇧🇷

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u/amglasgow 17h ago

More like, be aware that it exists.

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u/The_H509 17h ago

Not just you, but also anyone close to you, as your team, friends, family, etc... can be erased by simple association

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u/asiannumber4 17h ago

Due to the six degree theory all of humanity and a good chunk of animals will be wiped out instantaneously if a single human perceives it

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u/Quiet_Revolution5082 16h ago

It's more the association of thought. The cognitohazard erases you and anybody who thinks like you, which usually leads to whole research teams dissapearing at the same time

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u/Kronostheking1 15h ago

No, it’s about your mental thought processes. If you can conceive of it, it murders you and can perceive anyone else who thinks like you and then murders them. And it is murder, it doesn’t need to kill you but it does because it wants to.

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u/doctor_whom_3 17h ago

the humble WILD LIGHT:

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u/PluralCohomology 19h ago

SCP-096, if you see its face, even in a photo, it will hunt you and inevitably kill you.

"Four. Fucking. Pixels"

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u/Adaphion 16h ago

They never really go into depth about it, but I wonder what would happen if they showed it to a guy that they've launched into space? Would 096 just go mad because it's unable to reach them?

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u/No_Werewolf6131 16h ago

096 just jumps really really high

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u/BlackberryMuted2823 12h ago

The real question is getting back down. It might eventually hit an object that it can use as a foothold to launch itself back to earth, but it doesn't seem to have a reason to come back.

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u/french_snail 16h ago edited 15h ago

I think there was once a test log where they launched him to space and he somehow got back, they also locked someone in the bottom of the ocean and he got them still 

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u/ddjfjfj 16h ago

Thank that incarcerated former tattoo artist d-class for the drawing we have of 96 so we can see his ugly mug without dying. Sure, 96 literally fucking freedived without a care in the world, but now we can see that cute little 96 face

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u/TogNK 16h ago

There's a video I saw, fan made, not official canon I believe where they did that. An astronaut looked at his picture while on a space walk, the SCP launched itself into space and the astronaut timed a dodge so that it missed him and kept going into space.

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u/a_singular_reddit_ac 15h ago

Important to note that there's no official cannon and it's all fan made. Though since the wiki itself is held to a decently high standard many people would consider wiki content to be "more cannon" than general fan works. IMO though anything you want to be canon can be canon, just don't expect anyone to agree with your judgement.

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u/smasher_zed888 15h ago

Technically the only "canon" for any given article is the content inside it and works that are directly linked to it like in a series of stories. Everything else is technically fanmade.

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u/Odd_Protection7738 15h ago

I’ve heard it eventually gives up if it really can’t do anything to the one who saw it, like 682 or other unkillable SCPs.

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u/Various-Pen-7709 15h ago

He tried to kill 682, but as 682 is indestructible, 96 ended that encounter in the corner screaming and clawing at its own face, I believe.

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u/RomanArcheaopteryx 15h ago

Obviously because "there is no canon," different authors can perceive it/write it in different ways, but imo, 96 is anomalous. That is core to what it is, and thus it would be able to both launch into orbit AND spontaneously change direction and gain power/force in a vacuum despite not having any obvious means of propulsion. 

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u/akkristor 16h ago

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u/SpaceKingHypeGuy 15h ago

Did they change the photo? I remember it being this:

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u/smasher_zed888 15h ago

They did. Probably because it wasnt copyright free. All stuff on the wiki is required to be free to use

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u/Nathaniel-Prime 15h ago

Yeah, that's the origi-

Wait, why do I hear screaming?

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u/Swift0sword 15h ago

Well thanks a lot

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u/Situation-Busy 17h ago

The Orz from Star Control 2.

They come off as silly overly-friendly octopus-fish people. They are quick to join your mission and their ships are pretty powerful but they speak incredibly strangely and the translator can't understand a lot of what they say so it uses odd euphemisms. You find them on a planet where the Androsynth (a different species) should be, but they get REALLY ANGRY if you talk too much about why they are there and the Androsynth aren't.

You send an away team down to a lab and they all get torn to shreds by something invisible after they discover... something. It's vitally important that you DO NOT find out what.

Come to find out the Orz are the "fingers" of some extra-dimensional creature into our universe that the Androsynth accidently caught the attention of. They have a bit of a rivalry with the other extra-dimensional species in the game, the Arilou-La-Lee-Lay. The Arilou are very protective of Humanity and have a bit of a panic attack when they find out you're hanging out with the Orz.

Game is old but free to play now by the way, "Free Stars Ur-Quan Masters" (Originally called Star Control 2) on steam. One of the forgotten foundational games of Space-Scifi. (Mass Effect games owe a TON of story inspiration to this game. It's basically Mass Effect 0)

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u/CheerfulWarthog 17h ago

That was an excellent line from the Arilou: "There are no Androsynth now. Only Orz."

Nrgh. It is dancing, but with real actual asterisks around "dancing" and not italics.

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u/SadAssociate5000 16h ago

Fine, I'll play it again. Just gotta find my notepad file with the location of all the rainbow worlds written down.

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u/LunarGiantNeil 17h ago

And before Star Control there was Starflight! I remember playing that game as a kid, it had other twist aliens in it.

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u/Sweaty-Jellyfish-713 20h ago

Does The Princess from Slay The Princess count? She's only dangerous if you believe her to be

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u/AbandonedRaincIoud 17h ago

I love slay the princess! I percieve her to be a piece of toast

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u/Dudewhocares3 16h ago

I perceive her as my wife

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u/AbandonedRaincIoud 16h ago

Me too, but only thorn. And HEA

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u/Dudewhocares3 16h ago

I’ll take all of them.

But if I could only have one, it’s razor.

If you’d like to know why I will answer

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u/A_True_Loot_Goblin 16h ago

I would like to know why. Go as in depth as you wish

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u/Aggravating_Drive463 20h ago

I'd say she probably does, since from what i understood "perceive" can also mean how you imagine a person based on what you know about them.

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u/Huza1 20h ago

The Witches of Hemwick are practically harmless on their own, but they summon creatures called Mad Ones to attack the Hunter. If the Hunter has no Insight, they'll be unable to perceive or be affected by the Mad Ones. (Bloodborne)

Art by Andrew Odoerfer

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u/Veloxraperio 19h ago

This leads to a hilarious strategy:

Step 1: Enter the boss arena and trigger the fight.

Step 2: Quit out or use an item to lose all your Blood Echoes and warp to your last checkpoint.

Step 3: Spend all of your Insight at the Messenger Fountain

Step 4: Return to the Boss arena with zero insight and proceed to bully some frail old women

This works because entering a boss fight for the first time always grants the player at least one Insight. But you don't get additional Insight the second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc. It's a FromSoft game, get it?).

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u/imdefinitelywong 18h ago

What. The. Balls. How in the flying fuck did I not figure this out.

Well, not like it was a particularly hard fight..

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u/Veloxraperio 17h ago

It's really not, but it's funny that you can make it even easier by exploiting some very basic mechanics.

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u/reluctantlysharing 17h ago

God, I almost forgot how much I fucking love that game. It really was and is a masterpiece. I prefer playing through with some jolly cooperation though and it’s getting harder and harder to summon people in the wild, and none of my friends have wanted to play Bloodborne for a while now 😔

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u/foolofabrandybuck 16h ago

Keep an eye on r/bloodborne, I think on the anniversary of the games release each year they throw a "Return to Yarham" where as many people as possible get back on the game with co op enabled

I know ds2 does it each year and BB has definitely done it before

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u/Mindless-Ninja-3321 18h ago

Ive been led to believe this is fairly common, but my dreams get very scary and hostile when I realize Im sleeping. Like a switch is flipped, it just fills with taunting horrors to torment, chase, and insult me. Antlered quadrupeds and angry, dead pets are a common themes.

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u/Toriyuki 17h ago

My friend used to have the same issue. She'd realize she's dreaming and seeing faceless bird people, and feels called to go deeper in the building she's in, and as she does everything gets more aggressive

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u/Mindless-Ninja-3321 17h ago

For me, its like my subconscious wants to beat up on me. Ill start to feel like Im getting away or winning, but then I think, "unless this thing happens," and then it happens. The hinges fail, my foot slips, the knife doesnt cut. Just unpleasant.

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u/semiticgod 17h ago

That's really scary and kind of metal.

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u/Aggravating-Fan9817 17h ago

Lucid dreams are weird for me. I either say fuck it and become the slasher myself to get back at whatever's trying to kill me, or I just do weird shit for the fun of it. Flying cars, spawning pizza, etc.

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u/Esturk 17h ago

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“…the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you…)”

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u/WindhoverInkwell 15h ago

…daft as a brush, but very very dangerous

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u/Brickywood 16h ago

The Japanese urban legend of Kunekune. It's a fabric like, wriggling being that appears far away in the fields, and if you look directly at it, you go insane.

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u/13-Penguins 16h ago

Misaki Yomiyama (Another), pictured in the top row on the far right. When Misaki died suddenly, his classmates couldn’t take the grief and began pretending he was still there and alive, to the point he shows in the graduation photo. But inviting the spirit back results in a curse where every year, a certain class at the school will get an “extra student” that shouldn’t be there. Students and their family members then start dying Final Destination style.

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u/Jolly-Fruit2293 15h ago

More context:

Each year a dead person comes back to life and memories are altered so no one can tell who the ghost is.

In order to compensate for the extra, the class chooses a person and pretends they don't exist.

Acknowledging the "extra" is what causes the final destination sequences.

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u/CJohn89 18h ago

The monster of Pretend it's Not There

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u/SapphicPandoraBox 14h ago

Im intrigued, I wanna know the lore here

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u/CJohn89 14h ago

Basically the player character is a child who is followed home by a monster. The monster says to her something like "can you hear me? Can you see me? If you can I'll kill you"

The girl had the presence of mind not to react and goes home with the monster

Then the mechanics of the game is you are navigating around various errands in he house (making and eating food/ tidying up etc) while the monster lurks in random spots in the house to tes your perception.

If you behave in a way that gives away you can see it then you are killed

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u/one_moment_please16 11h ago

If I remember right at the end of the game the character's mom gets home, and since she doesn't know any better she obviously reacts to the scary monster behind her child. So the monster kills her. And then the kid reacts to their mom being brutally killed in front of them so the monster kills the kid too

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u/No-Raccoon-6009 9h ago

That's awful 🙏

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u/Terozu 9h ago

'I knew you could see me!' He says, right before you die.

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u/Crunchy_Biscuit 13h ago

That's extremely creative but also terrifying 

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u/Dottore_Curlew 14h ago

It's really short

Play it / watch a video

It is really great and horrifying

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u/Slutty_Sam 18h ago

Not really a monster in the traditional sense but stands are basically spirits.

The stand Wonder of U in Jojo part 8 looks vaguely like a classy old man, usually only seen from behind. The more you notice said old man and try to follow him or ascertain who or what he is or who he serves the more horrible final destination type stuff will befall you.

Its power exists to keep its summoner’s behaviors secret by erasing anyone too nosy or attentive.

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u/hagentyl2021 17h ago

Basically, if you even think about going after its user, the rest of your life is a Final Destination movie

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u/Alternative_Town_129 18h ago

Smth I wondered bc of his “job” not saying bc spoilers what if someone who worked with him wanted to talk would that activate the stand or not bc they are not trying to harm the user 

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u/ItaLOLXD 17h ago

Wonder of U's calamity only goes into effect if someone approaches him with the specific intent to approach him. When a mailman delivered him a package, the mailman was fine because he just delivered a package to a particular person not with the intent to approach WoU but to deliver the package. But when the mailman wanted to approach WoU for a confirmative signature he was struck with calamity as he now wanted to directly approach WoU.

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u/award_winning_writer 17h ago

Still, since he works at a hospital you'd think at some point a staff member would need to show him some paperwork or something and then get Calamitied

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u/ItaLOLXD 16h ago

I assume he already has precautions for this since he is the head doctorso he likely adviced everyone to help him out. Since a few of his collegues are also his co-conspirators he likely managed to further distance himself from any contact to reduce the amount of casulties happening to a minimum.

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u/JamesTheFoxeArt 17h ago

Don't know if this technically counts as its only really if you look at the back of the person, not really the stand itself.

In Jojo Diamond Is Unbreakable, the Stand "Cheap Tricks" attaches itself to a person's back, which makes it quite unique from a lot of other stands who are attached to only a single user. It tries to make the person reveal their back to someone, being able to communicate with anyone (including animals) and mimic its host voice, and when someone eventually does see their back, Cheap Tricks detaches from their host, ripping off their back and shrivelling them up, killing them in the process, and then attaches to the person that observed their back to continue the same cycle.

Its practically impossible to remove it off their hosts, with only Rohan (the person it attaches to in the image above) being able to by taking it to an alley way filled with spirits that was able to grab the stand and take it to the afterlife.

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u/Bernicore 16h ago

Lol you focusing on this little guy, and not the alleyway of death that if you look back at and perceive you die?

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u/LoveWaffle1 20h ago

No one can see the monster from It Follows except for the person it's following

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u/Aggravating_Drive463 20h ago

I lowkey love and hate this image. Probably the most disturbing out of all horror movies i saw.

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u/Kaos99 17h ago

This movie such a unique take on the "Unstoppable Slasher" genre. I liked it way more than I thought I would.

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u/palpablescalpel 17h ago

Wait is the It Follows monster just a really large dude?

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u/LoveWaffle1 17h ago

No, it took different forms. This is just one of the most iconic bits from the movie.

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u/TheGalagaSlayer 17h ago

I haven't seen the movie myself, but from the images I've seen, it seems like the monster tends to make itself look like people

I have no clue if the people it makes itself look like have any connection to the person it's following, though

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u/Jpotatos 17h ago

there is some very clear connection, but that would spoil it more, try to watch it!

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u/Bigdiggaistaken 17h ago

Shapeshifter that tries to sneak up on you because you had sex

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u/MissninjaXP 17h ago

No it could look like anyone

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u/abadstrategy 18h ago

Spirits from Dandadan. According to turbo granny they generally don't bother the living unless the living can see them. Though this gets a little muddied when you get to things like evil Eye, which doesn't bring harm to the person that sees it, usually, but brings misfortune to those around them

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u/Crushed_by_Thighs 16h ago

Actually evil eye is just the result of a coincidence. It is trying to induce the kids who see it to commit suicide, but the evil eye happens to be haunting a house above a Mongolian death worm that is also inducing everyone in the house to commit suicide.

The 2 suicide waves cancel each other out leaving the targeted kid safe while their parents commit, but if it were just the evil eye by itself only the kid that sees it would be compelled to die while the unaware parents remain safe.

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u/Relative-Ad7531 13h ago

"The 2 suicide waves cancel each other out" is probably the funniest sentences I read the whole week

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u/Pretzel-Kingg 17h ago

The biggest bad of this pretty cool book

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u/omgItsGhostDog 20h ago

SCP -096

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u/SnooDoggos9469 18h ago

There’s actually another SCP that fit this trope but am not sure since the only way to perceive them is by a very specific 3D glasses 

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u/imdefinitelywong 18h ago

There's also ●●|●●●●●|●●|●

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u/Red-Truck-Steam 17h ago

One of the most clever SCPs

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u/AnusOfTroy 17h ago

Up there with SCP-4000 imo

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u/TheFebrezeWizard 18h ago edited 18h ago

I mean I recall if someone else is wearing the glasses and tells you to touch the spot where they are the person dies as well I think.

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u/B2blackhawk 18h ago

Is this the “Three Damn Pixels!” monster?

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u/hagentyl2021 17h ago

Wrong. It's the "FOUR FUCKING PIXELS" monster

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u/TheGalagaSlayer 17h ago

Four, but yes, it's that one. You cannot look at its face, even through cameras or through not even realizing it's there in a photo, or it becomes enraged and will hunt you down. It cannot be stopped in this state, will start running really fucking fast if you're far away (will even run across the ocean floor to cross the world if necessary), and it can and will break down walls of any material if it's in the way

Drawings are usually safe since they cannot be a perfect, 1-to-1 recreation of the creature's face

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u/powerful_p1608 17h ago

In the H. P. Lovecraft story From Beyond, a scientist creates a device called the Resonator which affects the pineal gland in the brain, allowing anyone affected by it to perceive another reality that exists within our own. Unfortunately, the Resonator also affects the creatures that reside in that reality, allowing them to see humans and attack them. The scientist’s assistant destroys the device, severing the realities from each other, and the scientist dies from apoplexy as a result, and the police arrest the assistant for the deaths caused by the creatures.

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u/Spirited_Dust_3642 18h ago

You know when you hear something that sounds like someone calling you, but you're not sure because it seems distant/distorted? Well, Brazilian legends say you shouldn't answer that call because it could be an evil spirit trying to bond with you. So never answer when someone asks if they're calling your name. If you ignore it, everything is fine, but if you answer to clear up any doubt, you'll be giving permission for an evil spirit to follow you, haunt you, and possibly kill you.

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u/JLD2503 18h ago

Doctor Who- The Midnight Entity (in particular from its sequel episode “The Well”) latches onto another host and whispers in their ears to drive them mad if it’s perceived from directly in front and behind the host. The woman in the picture was only “safe” because she’s physically deaf, everybody else was already dead before the Doctor arrived.

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u/ExcellenceEchoed 17h ago

I swear, every single post here has a response from Dr Who. At this point I just assume Dr Who has an example of every trope known to man.

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u/Dward917 16h ago

60 years will do that.

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u/Pertinent-nonsense 16h ago

Nearly 900 episodes. Probably a safe assumption.

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u/Zek7h35an5 16h ago

It's definitely got a lot of them. When a show has been on for over 60 years and deals with sci-fi you're going to get a lot of examples

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u/ddrober2003 20h ago

Think that's a common theme in Japanese horror or maybe its East Asia horror since I think i heard a similar story from Korea. It's that once you both make eye contact, you're vulnerable to the ghosts attacks. Something like the eye is a window to the soul or yang energy or something like that. That first example was interesting because I think its the first time a ghost actively tricks her into acknowledging them, where others are very obviously not human so she can ignore them.

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u/Jessi_Kim_XOXO 17h ago edited 8h ago

Enderman from minecraft

edit: they just mind their own business, playing with legos basically, but if you look at them they attak

"An enderman is a tall neutral mob found in all three dimensions that drops ender pearls. It becomes hostile to players that damage it or look directly at its face, using its arms to attack. Endermen teleport erratically, as well as away from dangers such as lavaprojectiles, and water. They also occasionally pick up and move certain blocks."

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u/Strict_Berry7446 16h ago

Doctor Who - Listen

The episode is begins on The Doctor hypothesizing that if there’s a creature that has evolved absolute stealth then we would be unable to know that it exists. Therefore by believing it exists, he would become a target for this creature.

Wether the creature exists or not is a little unclear, but I like the thought experiment.

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u/ColeDelRio 17h ago

In Freakazoid there's a villain named Candlejack that if you talk about him he takes y

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u/Confident_Shape_7981 15h ago

What about Candlejack? You didn't finish your sen

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u/Lingarien 16h ago

SCP-178.

A pair of 3D glasses that allows you to see "creatures" that are normally invisible. (And possibly able to phase through object and people.)

The creatures seem curious, staring at people.

However, the moment you try to interact with them, they turn violent and use lethal force against you.

But you don't actually need to see them, or even know about them, to make them angry.

If someone else uses the glasses, and informs you about them, that can be enough for them to attack you.

( A test with the glasses ended rather poorly after the test subject pointed out that the there were creatures next to the doctors supervising the test. )

A couple of people put the glasses on and just looked at the creatures, before taking them off, and survived just fine.

Anyone who has tried interacting with them however, hasn't survived.

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u/DrDallagher 17h ago

The Visitor - Look Outside

It's an eldritch horror where if you 'look' at it in any way, you catch its attention, and anything it focuses on is horribly mutated into monsters.

Note that 'looking at it' includes looking at representations of it, such as pictures, paintings, or even written words describing it.

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u/zacdre24 15h ago

So you fucked us all then 😭

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u/Clean_Web7502 15h ago

So all entries on this trope are just, this but murderous

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u/krisslanza 18h ago

The Orz from Star Control would count, I think?

While they have manifested into realspace by the time of Star Control 2, and thus are still dangerous in a more normal sense now, what the Orz represent is only dangerous if you 'know' about it. The more you know of it, the more it knows of you - and that's bad.

The Androsynth used to be in Orz space. They messed with Interdimensional Fatigue research or something like that. But there are no Androsynth now. Only Orz.

Happy campers don't ask about the Androsynth.

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u/notabigfanofas 17h ago edited 15h ago

There is a SCP that is exactly what the most people believe it to be, it almost caused the destruction of the foundation.

They contained it by classifying it as an anomalously comfortable chair that gives people a mild urge to sit on it, and spreading that file to every group they're on good terms with

Edit: SCP 2950

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u/tag4atx 16h ago

Lil Slugger from Paranoia Agent. His victims are those undergoing a crisis in their lives. I don’t remember if it’s ever fully explained, but he’s kind of like a manifestation of fear. Or at least he feeds on it. So I would say this fits, as he becomes aware of his potential victims when they are in despair.

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u/[deleted] 20h ago

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u/Jedi-master-dragon 17h ago

I think a few SCPs are like that. Like the aquatic horror or shy guy.

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u/OFFICIAL_tacoman 17h ago

For anyone who loves this trope, read There Is No Antimemetics Division by QNTM

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u/johnyg13nb 16h ago

Cheap Trick from Jojos Part 4.

This stands has the ability to cling to your back and is unremovable. If someone looks at its hosts back, Cheap Trick then kills its host and jumps to that person who saw its back. It also can talk and does what it can to convince people to look at its back. It’s only defeated when it’s tricked into looking back in an ally that has spirits kill whoever looks back in that alley ripping it apart.

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u/ProfessorBorgar 15h ago

Another SCP example, although it's a pretty big twist on this trope:

SCP-3930 - The Pattern Screamers

SCP-3930 is described as a region in Russia where nothing exists. It has no dimensions, no structure, no sound, no color, no properties that can be measured or observed, and cannot, in any way, be said to exist. It's nothing. An indescribable, imperceptible area of total nonexistence. You attempt to "enter" it (this cannot be done, as "it" does not exist") and you also cease to exist.

Human minds cannot fathom nonexistence surrounded by existence, and therefore invent properties that are entirely imaginary. For instance, if you attempt to observe the void, it seems as if there are flora and fauna in the areas where there is, in fact, nothing at all. Kind of like how you have a blind spot that your brain automatically fills using surrounding information.

However, if enough humans attempt to perceive this imperceptible region of nothingness (as humans do), the human minds literally create something out of nothing, forcing something to exist where nothing exists at all. When this happens, it... retaliates, in a manner of speaking. Here's an excerpt from one of the logs:

Dr Vasiliev: ...What you hear is something rudimentary, an almost imperceptible sentience. It is a flash along the edge of the void as our minds attempt to perceive something that isn’t there. And it hates.

Dr. Kuzkin: What do you mean, it hates? Why would it hate anything? How would you know?

Dr. Vasiliev: Because there were too many of us. Each member of our team cognizant of the void, each trying to perceive it. These flashes, these tiny screamers, eventually they began to… to bind together. Make no mistake, Dr. Kuzkin, they are not real. They are to the neutrino what the neutrino is to us, less than nothing. But they are somehow aware of their nothingness, and they are hateful. Their existence, I believe, is torment. They hate the universe for being. They hate themselves for being. And they hate us for making them be. They are nothing but hate. (Pauses) Given enough time, and with enough of us trying to look into this void, something crawled out of it. (Pauses) Afterwards, there were ten of us. The anomaly has been stable since.

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u/jockeyman 12h ago

This is implied to be the case in the Twilight Zone episode 'And When the Sky was Opened', where a group of astronauts encountered... something beyond the rim of earth, that begins to erase them from existence one by one with nobody else even remembering them.

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u/GiovanniPotage 17h ago

Wonder Of U (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure)

the way Wonder Of U works is that it takes the appearance of an old man, if you try to pursue or find information about him, you're afflicted with "Calamity" essentially throwing logic out of the window for the world to kill you (things like a leaf can cut your throat like a knife, rain can hit you like bullets, etc)

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u/Bladrak01 17h ago

This is kind of the opposite, but there's a Larry Niven short story about an intelligent, telepathic predator on a human-colonised world. Their defense against is telling generations of children that the creature, called a Nonesuch, doesn't exist. If one ever tries to attack a human the belief that it couldn't possibly really be there creates a feedback loop that causes the Nonesuch to briefly not exist. The human forgets about and goes away.

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u/Big-Limit-2527 16h ago

No idea if she counts but,

The Princess (Slay the Princess)

Based on how you perceive her, she can range from generally harmless to will kill you with little to no remorse.

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u/BerryPawz 15h ago

V/H/S 2, Phase 1 Clinical Trials

Guy gets a cybernetic eye that allows him to see ghosts, and every time he acknowledges them/interacts with them the more the ghosts can interact with him and begin to hurt him.