>>735
I found out about The Magnus Archives recently and have been listening to some stories every night. I tried it during the day, but eh... doesn't have the same punch, you know?
The stories are pretty bite-sized, only 20-30min each, and I listen to 2 or 3 before bed. I like this sort of... "gentle" horror, so to speak. Very few of the stories are about an actual monster out to kill people, it's usually a strange phenomenon, or stuff that could kill you and the person telling the story survived by dumb luck or something like that. I suppose you could say it's somewhat similar to the stuff lovecraft wrote? People are afraid not because they find something dangerous, but because they have no idea whether what they found is dangerous or not, they can barely comprehend it. "Am I in danger? Am I not? I have no clue." I like these stories because they don't rely purely in a sense of fear, but rather the discomfort of lack of information, you dont know how you're supposed to react to this bizarre thing.
I think that's why I like it better than the typical slasher horror. If there is a crazy serial killer or murderous aberration out to get me, I know it wants to kill me and I can react accordingly. Hell, I can even plan fighting back. But a booklet written in an unknown language that gives me vertigo when I try to read it and makes the laws of physics behave strangely in its presence and always finds its way back inside my pocket no matter if I throw it away in a river or burn it? The fuck am I supposed to do about that? Should I even do something about it?
Anyway the lore here is that there is this institute that takes statement from people's experiences with the paranormal, and run some investigations on it, maybe try to solve stuff. Imagine something like the SCP foundation, but with the budget of a lemonade stand. The stories are stuff the new head archivist records while organizing the mess that's the archives of the institute. It is granted that the people survive whatever shit happened to them (at least long enough to give a statement), but it is unsettling regardless. I like the 2nd episode, where the guy accidentally avoids certain death by being stoic to an almost comical degree.