And I Must Scream / Web Original

aka: New Media

And I Must Scream in Web Originals.

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Web originals with their own pages

• SCP Foundation

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• In The 500 Million Year Button, the titular button sends the consciousness of whoever pushes it into an empty void for 500 million years. Because this process happens seemingly in an instant in the physical world, all memories in this world are wiped, and it makes money (1 million yen), the characters willingly subject themselves to this multiple times.
• The "Bonsai Kitten" website claimed, falsely and as a joke (not that everyone noticed), that people were sealing kittens permanently inside small containers and letting the cats grow into the shape of the containers, immobile for their whole lives. At least the people mistaking it for real and complaining noticed it was a case of this trope, even though the site presented it as fun and cute. People have still been afraid that someone's going to try to do it for real.
• The Angry Video Game Nerd described Deadly Towers as being like "a never-ending turd that bends around and goes into your mouth, thus creating an endless cycle of eating your own shit whilst taking a crap and occasionally puking up the same for all eternity".
• The extra lore for ARCHON states that undead, whilst under the control of a Necromancer, are fully aware of everything they are doing but unable to intervene, trapped inside their own bodies.
• Cracked:
  • This article points out this trope as one of the reasons why immortality would suck.
  • An After Hours episode also mentioned this when discussing the downsides of various superpowers. Wolverine's are dismissed, as when you are immortal and heal from any injury, the odds of eventually finding yourself trapped or immobilized approach one.
• Critical Role:
  • Midway through the second campaign, Yasha is mind-controlled by Arc Villain Obann, and forced to kill anyone he tells her to, including the rest of the Mighty Nein, and countless innocents. She later reveals she was conscious and aware the entire time, but could do nothing to disobey Obann's commands. Jester scries on her while she is laying waste to the Cobalt Soul Archive in Zadash, and sees that she's crying.
  • In an attempt to communicate with the Somnovem directly, Lucien conducted a ritual to project his soul into the Astral Plane. However, this ritual was sabotaged by Vess DeRogna, and Lucien's soul was splintered apart instead. One piece stayed behind in his body, woke up without memories and eventually became Mollymauk, but the rest of it was scattered across the Astral Sea. It took him years to reform, a process that wasn't completed until after Molly died, and he describes the experience as trying to think while thousands of voices scream directly into your mind.
  • The final boss of the entire campaign arguably takes the cake. The Somnovem, leaders of the Cognouza Ward of Aeor, shunted their entire neighborhood into the Astral Sea to save it from being obliterated by the Gods with the rest of the city. However, they arrived right in the heart of a psychic storm which shattered the minds of everyone in the city. Over thousands of years, these shattered minds merged with the city itself, transforming it into a living creature. Insane, tortured eternally and unable to die, with the equally insane Somnovem at the helm, Cognouza became a city with buildings made of pulsating flesh and facsimiles of people going through the motions of life, its shattered Mind Hive screaming in eternal agony. And as Lucien points out, all living things need to eat, and Cognouza is endlessly hungry...
• In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, Finn experiences a vision into a Bad Future where a handful of the superpowered kids have been captured by the government. It's mentioned that Jacob, whose power is to create miniaturized time loops, was forced to use the power on himself, trapping him in a seconds-long loop of replaying the same action forever, without ever aging or atrophying.
• Don't Hug Me I'm Scared:
  • Starting with the fourth episode, the puppets are shown to be completely aware of past episodes, where absurd teachers send them tumbling into madness with terribly violent ends, and unable to do anything to stop the show's sadistic formula from continuing to play out.
  • The undertones of this trope are made more explicit in the final episode. Yellow Guy is unable to do anything as a new teacher, the Lamp, begins to torture him with nightmares. Red Guy attempts to help him, but he appears to only make things worse, causing even more Teachers to appear in rapid succession; this only serves to make Yellow Guy scream uncontrollably and lose hair. Red Guy then pulls the plug on the entire world they inhabit, which causes them start over from the first episode again and will presumably continue to loop for all eternity.
• The web fiction novel Eudeamon (sic) plays with this - the sentence for criminal offenders in the society of this story is to be turned into a moving latex statue that has no legal existence and is punished for interacting with other people by an extension of sentence (brutally unfairly, even when that interaction is being assaulted, beaten and possibly raped by gangs who take advantage of the legally unpersoned status of these "Banes"). The process reverses when the "Bane" neural network computer designed to oversee the sentence develops sentience and invariably sides with their host body instead of the legal system, but then is played straight again if the sentence is ended and the now-former bane is forcibly disconnected from an unembodied lover who knows them as thoroughly as they know themselves.
• The Fear Mythos features the Eldritch Abomination "Archangel", who is, in reality a twisted incarnation of the afterlife — you are forever with your god, but God Is Evil. You are trapped with it forever, in a body which moves according to its will, not yours. There's also EAT (short for Epping AquaTarkus), which may inflict this upon its victims.
• Anne Poole of Fine Structure is sealed alive in a coal seam for 18 months. Her body is immortal and invulnerable, but her mind is not. She goes irretrievably insane.
• The short story Forever Endeavor by Jonathan Bowers.
• Gaia Online:
  • The Sentinel's backstory:
    The stronger, having cast her spell in aggression, found herself imprisoned in a darkness containing all manner of monsters and vicious creatures.
    In this place, blind and filled with rage and fear, she found the farthest thing from peace.
    Centuries passed, and for the god in the box, each scraped over her like nails on skin....
  • The Overseer gets a similar fate. The difference is that while he uses his time in prison to calm down and reach peace, the Sentinel remains angry.
• Gemini Home Entertainment: A disturbing amount of creatures and alien fauna ends up leaving humans in such a state, particularly how Nature's Mockery does not list death as a symptom of the "disease." Many characters are left in horrible states including being absorbed into a Body of Bodies Animalistic Abomination, being stuck as a pile of flesh, or catching Deep Root Disease.
• Hobo Bros: While playing Who's Your Daddy?, Luke (playing as the dad) decides to help the baby (who Kevin is playing as) commit suicide by dropping him into the swimming pool. The baby glitches and falls through the bottom of the pool. After that, the video cuts to Luke and Kevin trying a different game mode, so it's unclear if the baby actually died eventually, or if the baby would have kept falling forever, and Luke and Kevin had to restart the game.
  Kevin: I went into another dimension.
  Luke: Well, shit.
  Kevin: I don't think I'm dead, though.
• In Jreg's video "Negative Politics", by the Eight Circle, political dissidents are given robot bodies that are impervious to lava but can still feel pain, and are then dropped into lava for all eternity.
• Looming Gaia: Spriggans can curse their enemies with "floraspell", which causes thorny vines to grow on their muscles and control their bodies. The victims are conscious the whole time and in constant pain from the thorns, and the spell can keep them alive for hundreds of years.
• The Harbingers in the Lords of Shadow RP. While they are still human, with every death, they are cloned into a new body and retain every memory up to and including death and the brief void after death.
• Mirrorworld has the result of the "devoiding" experiments, with corpses brought back to life in efforts to strip away their humanity in the process while still retaining the individual's mind. The result leaves most of them twisted half into Eldritch Abominations—except their minds still return all the same, leaving them suffering hideous agony for every second of their existence. If they die, they're brought right back.
• Mortasheen's most notable inflictor of this is Willoweird, a nasty walking tree that hypnotizes you into eating one of its fruits. When then converts you into a tree, that the Willoweird then parasitically feeds upon. Did we mention that you can survive for decades in this state?
• The Noedolekcin Archives: "Strange Nicktoons Network Anomaly (2007)" reveals that Jenica Wakeman was trapped in Kirk Odd's hell, while in the form of Jenny Wakeman, for nine years with no hope or way of getting out.
• Played for Laughs by The Nostalgia Chick. During a Nightmare Sequence in the "Top Eleven Disturbing Christmas Songs", her face distorts into a silently screaming skull.
• In The New Narnia, Charlie has spent over a decade being treated and cared for as a baby without the benefit of being mentally regressed like all of the other unfortunate souls who wound up in Malacus with no idea why. When he meets Tommy, another person in the same situation as him, he is elated. It's made even worse when he realizes that he might have gotten his high school girlfriend pregnant, having been turned into a baby before he could have been a dad.
• Protectors of the Plot Continuum: Within Suefics, the canon characters are either actively replaced and shoved in a Plot Hole for the duration, where they may or may not be able to see what's going on, or they're mind-controlled by the Sue, forced to do what the Sue tells them to, and, at least some of the time, conscious of how horribly out-of-character they're being forced to become.
• In "Psychidae: The Cabin in the Forest", a mad surgeon with a moth obsession discovers his wife was cheating on him. He takes it poorly.
• Just like its Spiritual Predecessor, RPC Authority has no shortage of these.
  • RPC-010 is a classroom controlled by a demonic Evil Teacher that can only be entered by children under 13, with the victims gaining Resurrective Immortality and tormented for years, unable to age, stay dead, or escape.
• Discussed among The Sharkasm Crew. The general consensus is that "wishing for everything" would result in a state of omniscience and non-existence.
• The sequel to Shed 17, Project G-1, has the Trucks. After Margaret Thatcher shut down their Full-Conversion Cyborg program, the Sodor scientists had several patients still in the midst of the procedure when they received the order. As stopping would mean killing them outright, they were forced to continue and turn them into the simplest form of "life" they could produce; faceless boxcars with exposed organs that were left in the dark waiting to die. Thankfully they didn't last very long and lacked the brain capacity to retain long-term memory, but it's made abundantly clear this is a Fate Worse than Death. At the end, Sir Topham Hatt punishes Keith for his whistleblowing by turning him into one after he's dismembered by Thomas.
• Even when Failure Cresh's ring monitor head is cut off in Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Special Edition, he still lives on.
• SuperMarioLogan: At the end of "Bowser Junior's Annoying Toy!", Chef Pee Pee traps Junior inside of a Ball Popper Toy, after asking him to put in something "loud and annoying".
• Tails of the Bounty Hunter: Dr. Vogar Oblingor, after being turned into a deformed, molting, eyeless organism, is sent to a laboratory to be experimented on. He's intentionally kept alive but restrained and in much agony, and it reaches a point where a scientist cuts out his tongue just to shut him up.
• Tal'Vorn:
  • Killar the Slaughterling, the Tal'Vornian God of Death is an almost perfect example of this trope, having been kept trapped in a dimensional cell exactly the same size as He is for millennia whilst being completely aware. He was somewhat unstable before, but now He's positively nuts.
  • The Tal'Vorn Order Sect has a spell that accomplishes this trope as well, the suitably named Eternal Torment. The spell, as its name might indicate, makes the individual functionally immortal, whilst being in perpetual agony. The people themselves are usually stored in things called Torment Engines and then any trace of their existence systematically destroyed.
• Questden's Tozol Quest has this◊ guy. The image is accompanied by the following log: ^{Subject HYPERION log}
  OCT-1-2163: Subject HYPERION recovered, brought to interim lab for study. Limited regeneration observed in spite of catastrophic wounds and radiation dosage, halting presumably as nutrient stocks depleted.
  OCT-3-2163: Subject regains consciousness. Immediate hostile response. One casualty. Suppress applied.
  OCT-5-2163: Heavy restraints constructed. Nutrient drip administered.
  OCT-6-2163: Metallic shell constructed secured to subject bones to prevent further regeneration.
  OCT-21-2163: Suppress partially countered. Subject regains consciousness. Immediate hostile response, but unable to defeat restraints.
  NOV-5-2163: Subject remains uncooperative.
  NOV-19-2163: Subject remains uncooperative, but begins displaying periods of apparent sleep.
  JAN-5-2164: Biological studies to date proving less fruitful than anticipated. Subject moved to QUADRANT FIVE. Subject remains uncooperative.
  FEB-1-2164: Containment shell undergoing unexpectedly rapid corrosion.
  FEB-6-2164: Shell replaced with newly acquired xeno alloys. Modified to allow access to subject nervous system through wounds.
  FEB-20-2164: Nervous system experimentation begins.
  SEP-8-2164: Shell displaying no significant deterioration. Nervous system experimentation continuing without significant progress. Subject remains uncooperative.
  DEC-7-2164: Nervous system experimentation continuing without significant progress. Subject remains uncooperative.
  AUG-25-2165: Nervous system experimentation continuing without significant progress. Subject remains uncooperative.
  OCT-18-2165: Nervous system experiment to be run during period of subject sleep. Subject remains uncooperative.
  OCT-22-2165: Subject loses consciousness. Sleep cycle experimentation begun. Subject awakens immediately.
  DEC-1-2165: Subject loses consciousness. Sleep cycle experimentation begun. Subject awakens immediately.
  MAR-9-2166: Subject loses consciousness. Sleep cycle experimentation begun. Subject awakens immediately.
  APR-11-2168: Subject loses consciousness. Sleep cycle experimentation begun. Subject awakens immediately.
  FEB-15-2169: Subject requests that it be killed. Request repeated between one and twenty times per hour for next four hundred and ninety days.
  JUL-23-2173: Subject remains conscious. Has ceased almost all action. Has ceased responding to auditory stimuli regardless of duration or intensity. Remaining eye tracks movement.
  SEP-8-2182: Subject consciousness impossible to determine. No longer reacts to any stimuli in meaningful way.
• TV Tropes has ruined my life. I have been trapped for 15 hours. I have no microphone, and I must scream.
• Underverse: In 0.5, a Freeze-Frame Bonus (and decent eyesight) reveal that the people of XTale are still conscious and feel guilty for their actions. XMettaton and XMuffet ask for forgiveness and beg for help respectively, but their words are overpowered by XGaster.
• Rubber Soul, Double and Steely Dan somehow end up a part of Telence D'Arby's doll collection in Vaguely Recalling JoJo. They deserve it.
• The Youtube Poop — Zelda: Faces of Evil Alternate Ending has Link voluntarily turned into one of the faces of evil. At first he's happy that his face is much more beautiful that the others, but soon gets bored due to being an immobile rock and can't wait to die.
• Worm: Fates of this kind happen to several characters.
  • The best example is probably Cherish, who was locked in a life-support chamber at the bottom of the bay with her emotion-sensing superpowers cranked up to the max and locked on negative emotions.
  • Cherish ends up a double case when the Undersiders arranged for her to make the Butcher commit Psychic-Assisted Suicide. The Butcher's special ability is to transfer the mind of all previous hosts into their killer. So Cherish's little pod ends up as this for her and fourteen psychopaths who no doubt hate her.
  • Of particular note is Gray Boy, who traps people in several-second long time loops that last "until the sun goes out"^*or "just" a few thousand years. Nothing can enter or leave the looped area except Gray Boy and any injuries he inflicts persist through the loops. The only thing that doesn't reset is their mind so any torture he inflicts on them remains fresh without the benefit of their body adapting to the pain. Most people in this situation are trapped in a constant cycle of psychotic breaks.
• If You’re Armed and at the Glenmont Metro, Please Shoot Me. The narrator participants in a clinical trial for a drug that accelerates brain function, which has the side effect of slowing their perception of time. At first it has its upsides, like being able to complete impossible tests, read whole books in minutes, and run through traffic without getting hit. However, as the effects of the drug wear on, they find they have trouble controlling their body and minutes begin to feel like days. They decide to take an Ambien to try and sleep it off. The sleeping drug ends up magnifying the effects, slowing seconds down to what feel like decades. To make matters worse, it hits them as they're running down the stairs in a metro and they end up falling and dislocating their shoulder, stuck feeling visceral agony and boredom for what feels like thousands of years as they crawl toward the tracks. Just blinking leaves them alone in darkness for decades. The story ends with them begging for someone to shoot them, knowing it'll end after a few centuries of more pain.
• The Screaming Robot, based on this line: “I was forever trapped in an infinite timeline of pain and suffering.”

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