Things that both fascinate and horrify you?

[Moloch Sacrifice]

Whale-Shark

Actually, that thing is one of the least-violent among the shark family. I wouldn't recommend swimming with one still, but on a scale of 1-to-screwed, you're looking at a 5 at most with him. It's tigers, great whites, and hammerheads that seem to be the most violent.

In fact, your level of screwed with this little fella is probably even less than if you swam with any of the Baleen whales. This is because Whale Sharks are filter feeders and therefore exhibit passive behavioural patterns. In addition, Whale Sharks do not have the potential to have calves (or pups, in this case) nearby over which they would be defensive, and therefore more easily provoked. Add this to it's cold blooded metabolism, and you're looking at a 0.1 level of screwed at most.

OT, I find it hard to think of anything that is particularly horrifying, most things I tend to find myself too wrapped up in the fascination part to pay too much attention to how disturbed I should be. If I had to choose, I guess I would say that the study of genetics is a good choice, as the complexity of the process and data storage is quite literally the most convoluted instruction book in the known universe. On the other hand, the number of ways it can go wrong, and the consequences of this happening, are rather staggering in their severity.

 

[FalloutJack]

Weeble

Yeah, I forgot about the filter feeding. I just figured it could still do stuff, but not out of malice or anything.

 

[shogunblade]

Bees. I have a tremendous fear of hornets. Keep that shit away from me. I got stung on my dominant hand a few summers ago, and I ended up reading about hornets this afternoon, and I felt phantom pains because of the sting. Not fun.

Also:
Pain. I have a horrifying tolerance to pain, so much so that it makes me giggly more so than it probably should.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Extreme plastic surgery* and extreme obesity. Sometimes the two go together, with stuff like removal of excess skin after massive weight loss.

Both disturb me, but I cannot stop watching anything and everything about either. I find the actual surgery bit genuinely interesting, even though it makes my skin crawl. And I guess with the obesity thing I'm always hoping for them to turn their lives around.

[sub]*Note that I say plastic surgery rather than cosmetic or reconstructive surgery, which is also fascinating but doesn't horrify my.[/sub]

I do find weird medical stuff fascinating but the cosmetic surgery stuff horrifies me a little too much. Like when I see someones skin flapping around I get a little nauseated. Open heart surgery I can watch and enjoy some junior mints.

Once while walking around the back streets of Edinburgh, I found this little shop of antique medical tools and I spent an unusual amount of time there. Didn't buy anything but asked the shopkeeper a lot of questions. The funniest answer was: "No, that's a horse enema, that over there is an elephant enema."

 

[EMWISE94]

Two things for me.

The first is kinda niche but yeah, the things that we don't see. I have this odd fascination that our minds automatically block out certain things from our vision for one reason or another like how we're always able to see our noses but our brain chooses to ignore it. This makes me think that maybe there's a whole bunch of stuff that's just sitting in front of us and we just don't know its there, maybe all those whimsical tales of fairies and unicorns or whatever are based of things people once saw that but our minds evolved to block them out. maybe there's a while other colour that we might be missing out of, I mean its possible to see ultra-violet light if you get this one surgery done on you that's actually corrective eye surgery and the seeing ultra-violet thing is just a side effect. Fascinating! But on the flip side of that coin... what horrors are we not allowed to see? what unspeakable monstrosities might our minds be trying to block out? you know those moments when you think you glimpsed some dark shadowy creature out the corner of your eye and turn and its gone? what if that was a split second i which you saw it? No, wait... you know how after you watch a horror movie at night and your minds still heightened from fear and then every shadow you see looks like some uspeakable horror? What if that state of "everything looks like some shadow fiend!" is actually how reality is! And your mind's just been hiding it from you lest you go mad!? But now you've awakened it and shits just gotten real!! AAAAAHHH!!!

Secondly, large scale secret organisations. I think it'd be cool if there was an organisation that operates worldwide, with operatives everywhere, silently watching and making sure everything's the way it should be, keeping the peace on earth or whatever, like the MiB's... the horrifying part is that they could be SCP Foundation... need i say more?

 

[Blunderboy]

We all have things that we could watch for hours filled with a sense of wonder, and things that make our skin crawl and our spine shiver.
But do any of you have anything that does both?

Mine has to be the ocean.

I mean on one hand it's full of amazing creatures and can be incredibly beautiful.

Sea what I mean? (geddit)

But then I see something like this and I instantly NOPE.

What about you?

Is that what makes you nope? Whale sharks are pretty tame, especially considering they only feed on krill. The REALLY scary shit lives in the deep dark abyss of the ocean. I mean some of that stuff is the stuff of nightmares, and we STILL don't know everything that's down there. What honestly scares me the most is if shit like Sealacanths and giant squids are popping up, what's keeping from some of the more piss your pants scary extinct sea creatures from popping up? Or god forbid, that the sea monster legends have a bit of truth to them.

Once again, Whale shark good.
Bottomless abyss of darkness NOPE.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Those pieces of artwork of Pokemon reimagined as Lovecraftian-like abominations. Those looked cool as hell, even though it looks like some of the poor creatures were in pain or something.

Serial killers and rapists, just because I?m a Psychology student and I find them to be fascinating examples of extreme human psychology and how it can be warped by certain events in a person?s life.

Komodo Dragons. If I ever came face-to-face with one in real life, I?d probably shit myself, but they look so cool.

Wario Land 3?s plot of an evil clown named Rudy enslaved by the inhabitants of a little town he?d trapped in a music-box. The clown is fucking terrifying and used to be one of my reoccurring childhood nightmares, but the concept is brilliant and I?ve always been a fan of the Wario Land games.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Snip about eyes or something

I actually find that concept quite interesting.

It's similiar to Plato's (Aristotle's...?) Cave, which states that everything is actually an imperfect and fragmented illusion created by the brain in order to visualise the broken parts that our brain can't understand.

Think about music: It's nothing. It's just vibrations, loud, irritating movements, that happen to please humans, because of the ways they interact with the brain. Or think about synesthesia, where humans percieve things in an extraordinary sense, such as times with colours or letters with tastes.

Which would also mean that every human sees everything radically differently. Which is... quite amazing, when you think about it.