Line #16 NightmareFuel/Erfworld


1	* The [[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%200/39 Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) – Episode 039]] update is disturbing on many levels: Jillian is being interrogated by an old, sickly thin version of Wanda, at the complete mercy of her interrogator, not knowing when or how she ended up here, trapped in a glass coffin in the middle of what seems to be a cemetery full of tombstones of people Wanda both croaked ''and'' uncroaked. Also, Bart, her one-time lover, appears before her, in Haffaton livery, uncroaked. Jillian is scared shitless by this turn of events. As she puts it:
2	-->'''Jillian''': ''Let this still be a dream. Titans, please.''
3	** After several turns imprisoned, it turns out it's ''not'' a dream. Jillian began to be tortured, and said torture changed every couple of days: freezing, thirsty, hearing screams, [[ItMakesSenseInContext rolling]], becoming deaf and blind...
4	* Later on, Wanda states that the process she devised for breaking prisoners was the kinder option. Debatable, but once the full extent of Olive Branch's plans and manipulations come to light, it can certainly seem like it. It's just being touched upon, but Olive's plans nearly broke the world as much as Parson is, and she's not even from another dimension. Wanda describes her greatest crime as finding a way to weaponize peace, such that it leaves people addicted junkies incapable of rational thought and is slowly hollowing out the territory Olive controls, leaving the cities practically ghost towns. The entire thing ends up being an even crueler twist on ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' than ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'' was, if that seems possible. Above everything else, the whole section with Jillian wandering around the Haffaton capital being dimly aware she's blissed out of her gourd and observing the bizarre nature of the city is just plain creepy.
5	** These chapters also make the flower on Wanda's sigil all the more disturbing.
6	** More details of horrific things Olive has done: Haffaton got big by the right of conquest. Because it is so hard to get a caster when popping units, they are usually captured and kept alive. At one point, Haffaton had over a dozen casters. One of them was a thinkamancer. That means they could make all sorts of links between them and invent all sorts of different overpowered things. One of those things was turnamancy box, the glass box used for torturing units until they turn. The other was heroine buds, highly addictive flowers that make user do anything just to get that sense of bliss again. It is implied they are not the only drug plant they created like that. The casters of Haffaton would do linkups while heavily intoxicated. Olive was prejudiced against every other magic except Flower Power, so she got every other caster addicted to heroine buds. It caused every one of the casters to slowly wither and die, which for Olive was proof that Flower Power is the most powerful magic there is. One day, Olive decided she doesn't need a thinkamancer any more. So she got him high, linked with him and just let him get lost in the mindspace, while purposely not helping him find the way back. He died the next turn, from what to the readers is clearly an overdose but was supposed to be completely impossible for Erfworld unit to happen. By the time we find Haffaton, only two casters are alive: Olive and Wanda. And Wanda is skeletal and almost dead.
7	* One must recognize the talent of Xin, the second artist: in the [[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%202/177 89th page of volume 2]], we can assist to a conversation by thinkagram between [[spoiler:cloned]] Slately and Charlie. During the whole scene, Charlie's appearance keeps changing, each one of them being a major villain ([[Franchise/StarWars Emperor Palpatine]], ComicBook/DoctorDoom, [[Anime/DragonballZ Dr. Gero]], [[Film/TheMatrix Agent Smith]]...). In the end, Charlie shows his true colors, delivering this line while assuming the appearance of [[ComicBook/TheJoker The Joker]] (from Christopher Nolan's film), talking about Parson:
8	-->'''Charlie:''' We kill the fat man. [[note]]Notable also because Charlie says 'kill' instead of 'croak'.[[/note]]
9	** And the whole while King Slately's avatar turned into a pawn. This is the first time someone else was transformed during Charley's thinkagrams besides Charley. He doesn't even seem to notice the implication that he is being played...
10	* A poor red-shirt that is stuck in the fire with Parson got to personally watch two of his friends fall to their deaths. That isn't too bad until his HEAD is set on fire and he lives. The 59th text update shows his head after the fire is put out. [[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%202/201 Just scroll down to the bottom]] [[SchmuckBait to see his burns.]]
11	* In [[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%200/81 "Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) - Episode 81"]], Jillian is being cured from her flower addiction by Charlie and Betsy... But it soon dawns on her that ''both'' of them aren't stopping with just that, and have an hidden agenda. Charlie himself manifests in Jillian's minds as a ''swarm of insects'', infiltrating every piece of her mind, something which disturbs her to no end. She tries to scream, but she can't: [[AndIMustScream she is the prisoner of her own mind]]. When she finally finds a way to revolt, Betsy and Charlie manage to catch and destroy the jester, an entity whose role isn't very clear but who always helped Jillian in the past. After he's defeated, he's devoured by Charlie's swarm, and then they proceed to tear up her own mind, until they destroy her comprehension of the situation itself. She realizes that this is worse than croaking, and even considers this even worse than losing her own side, but it's too late. She's suffering a FateWorseThanDeath through MindRape.
12	* In the Lord Crush side story, we get a description of someone being disbanded.
13	-->'''Narration:''' For a moment, the fool continued to stand there as normal, then he began to fold inward into space. He had time to know it was happening, even to look down and see it.\
14	"The comedy is finished," said Dunkin [=McClown=] faintly, then he folded in on himself and vanished with only a little thump: the sound of the room's air rushing together to fill the void.
15	** From that same story, the implication that King Scrofula disbanded his own son. For reference, croaking or disbanding a member of your family, except in the case of Disloyalty, is just as heinous in Erfworld as it is here.
16	** And in the main storyline, Queen Bea of Unaroyal... she did that to an entire ''country''. ''Her'' country. Simultaneously, all at once via taking her own life. The thoughts that must have run through their heads in those few scant moments they had before oblivion. Unthinkable.
17	* You might not notice it right away, but Jillian's [[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%203/10 Thinkagram avatar]] doesn't actually have hearts printed on it. She has 3 heart shaped ''hollows'' on her mental form. This may be in reference to her multiple love interests, none of whom she can be with. Or it might be in reference to how Charlie once erased pieces of her mind. Or both.
18	* The culmination of Parson and Jack's last-ditch plan to [[spoiler:prevent Parson from being turned to Charlescomm]] results in [[spoiler:Parson getting drilled by several shots from heavy machine guns, blowing huge, ''bloody'' holes in his legs]]. This is the first time Parson has been really seriously hurt since he came to Erfworld. He ''[[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%203/121 screams]].''
19	** On the next page, [[spoiler:one bullet goes straight through his right foot in a spray of blood. Another one ''tears half of his left foot off altogether.'']] Parson is just as MadeOfPlasticine as the rest of the Erfworlders when it comes to [[spoiler:heavy weapons]], the difference being ''[[{{Gorn}} he bleeds.]]''
20	* Erfworld is a GeniusLoci, and if it wants you dead, then sooner or later, you ''will be dead''. Charlie has only survived as long as he has by pursuing an absolutely bizarre and incredibly ProperlyParanoid strategy that leaves almost nothing to chance. And even so, the harder he fights, the more the world as a whole starts to revolve around killing him.
21	* The reveal that the Great Minds have been lying about their abilities is unsettling. [[spoiler:The Great Minds turning out to have the ability to kill units at a distance is so much worse. And then they decide to turn on Parson...]]
22	* [[spoiler:Charlie destroys the Thinkamancy Temple.]] That alone would be shocking, but [[spoiler:Isaac has ''changed''. His skin has gone pale, and his eyes have turned sunken and solid pink. He looks like a zombie. Going by the rules of Signamancy, that's really not good.]]
23	** It gets worse: [[spoiler:Parson tries contacting Isaac for help. Isaac just says "deiform" at him, breaking the link. Exactly what's happened to Isaac isn't clear, but it's pretty clear Charlie has managed to unleash something awful.]]
24	* {{Retconjuration}} isn't just an out of story tool for fixing mistakes. The Titans have the power to RetGone and rewrite history even from an inside the story perspective. They once used it to [[spoiler:wipe the 100th original side out of all memory and convert Erfworld from a SugarBowl to a CrapsaccharineWorld. The only evidence they ever even did this was left behind on records subject to RippleEffectProofMemory]].

Context NightmareFuel / Erfworld