"Garfield is having a weird day while relaxing at home, and once a Splut comes along to spread chaos, it just gets weirder and weirder from there."
— The fic's summary
Garfield in: "Along Came a Splut" (or Garfield Has a Bad Day) is a Garfield Fan Fic written by one Bagel Brain (or Kilroy Smythe Umbrick).
The summary above is probably the most plot the fic has — what it does have otherwise is an incredible Random Events Plot where about a million references are made. Suffice it to say, it's probably one of the most nonsensical fanfics out there, and it's not easy to describe in words the madness it contains; it has to be read to be believed.
The story was eventually removed by the author, not long after admitting it was a joke Troll Fic and disowning it.
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Acrofatic: Like in the comics, Garfield is quite nimble, and particularly strong here despite his obesity.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Garfield was already a jerk in the comics, but this story made him even more nasty than he already was. Some of the actions he commits go from being Anti-Hero material to outright crossing the line into villain territory.
- The Splut also goes through this. A harmless nuisance in the comics at worst, but here it's a full blown menace that goes out of its way to try and kill Garfield.
- And That's Terrible:"...the Mama Bran, who wants to commit genocide on the human race; and we all know that's not nice."
- The Trope Namer is directly referenced when Garfield runs over Lex Luthor, who was stealing forty cakes.
- Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: Garfield becomes a star child in the ending.
- Back from the Dead: Abraham Lincoln is inexplicably alive in the story without explanation, but is killed off just as soon as he appears due to the story saying he's supposed to be dead.
- Big Damn Heroes: "Blade Runner" comes out of the blue during the car chase to give Garfield an extra boost of speed in order to evade the Splut.
- Big Eater: Garfield is canonically a glutton, but he never ate three years' worth of cheese nips in mere minutes! And he apparently has to eat every two minutes or he dies.
- Black Comedy: The scene where Abe Lincoln is brutally killed off as soon as he appears by a shard of glass from Garfield's TV impaling him in the head, because he's supposed to be dead to begin with.
- Black-Hole Belly: Garfield eats three years worth of food in minutes with no change in form.
- The Blank: The Pie is described as having eyes, but no expressions are described on it.
- Bold Inflation: The word SUDDENLY just before the Splut appears.
- Brain in a Jar: "Mama Bran" is probably this, despite not being described in detail, since she's obviously meant to be Mother Brain from Metroid.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Garfield does this twice in the story just near and then right at the end.
- Brick Joke: Early in the story, Garfield roundhouse kicks Odie to the moon for being in his way. After the ending, it's revealed Odie is still alive, living happily on the moon.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Happens to Garfield when the Splut first appears. His bowels implode!
- The Cameo: Subverted; a footnote mentions that The Ugly Barnacle was scheduled to make a guest appearance, but cancelled his appearance at the eleventh hour due to his ugliness killing his crew.
- Car Fu: Garfield, while driving the Delorean, runs down Ronald McDonald, Fred Fish, Popeye Doyle, The Batmobile and Lex Luthor while he's desperately trying to escape the Splut. This eventually ends up slowing it down, however.
- Chaos Architecture: Jon's house is somehow now located in the "magical land of Springfield", and it also has the Batcave located directly beneath it.
- Chase-Scene Obstacle Course: Garfield, while being chased in the DeLorean, crashes through every obstacle in his path except fruit carts "which Garfield adores more than anything in life itself".
- Contrived Coincidence: The story is full of these.
- Cool Car: Garfield uses the Delorean for the bulk of the story. The Batmobile also makes a brief cameo as Garfield runs into it during the chase.
-
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Garfield plays Metroid in the beginning, which apparently stars a guy named Metroid, and it involves him saving the whales and resuscitating the Mama Bran. Later, he encounters Blade Runner (as in, a guy named Blade Runner, who runs on roller blades). - Darker and Edgier: A lot more morbid and dark than the comics.
- Death Seeker: Ronald McDonald, after falling on hard times, happily ends his life of hollow product placement by letting Garfield run him over with the DeLorean.
- Deus ex Machina: Practically a literal one at the end, when Garfield and the Splut encounter a Monolith over Jupiter, which fuses them both into a Star Child.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: The Splut. And during the car chase, a "Terminator flying machine" (presumably referring to an HK-Aerial Drone
) comes completely out of nowhere and, for no given reason, begins chase. And then the Death Star appears... - Disproportionate Retribution: Garfield roundhouse kicks and throws Odie to the moon just for being in his way.
- Dreamworks Face: Star Child Garfield gives one to the reader at the end.
- Drives Like Crazy: Garfield during the car chase. He's so urgent to stay ahead of the pie that he's willing to commit vehicular homicide.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Despite the story mentioning Superman living on Earth, Krypton is somehow still around — until the Death Star's super laser gets deflected by the Splut away from Earth, which the story says ends up destroying Krypton. The Death Star itself getting blown up also counts.
- Epic Fail: The Death Star getting effortlessly destroyed by a flying pie.
- Eyeless Face: Subverted; despite being a pie, the Splut is described as having eyes.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Garfield pulls this off with the DeLorean in space to try and escape the Splut, but it turns out it can do exactly the same thing.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: Garfield finds a flamethrower conveniently sitting around Jon's house, but it turns out to be useless against the Splut.
- Flat Character: The Splut is given no personality traits or clear motivation, no expressions, or even a voice. It's practically a force of nature out to harm Garfield and anything that gets in its way, although the story informally describes it as sentient, evil, and having eyes, and considering Garfield fooled it with an impossibly flaccid variation of He Went That Way, it's certainly not very smart.
- Flying Car: The Delorean. It was already capable of this in the movies it hails from, but this story adds the ability for it to travel through deep space.
- Forced Transformation: The Splut turns "Blade Runner" into a pony after helping Garfield, but the story says he gets better.
- For the Evulz: The closest thing to a motive one can assume the Splut has, since the story describes it as evil.
- Fruit Cart: Garfield deliberately avoids running these over during the car chase, due to him loving them more than life itself—but running over anyone else is A-OK.
- Gainax Ending: Not that anything in the fic made sense before, but the ending takes the cake: Garfield and the Splut recreate the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, up to the part where Garfield becomes a star child... who makes a Dreamworks Face and says "Drink more Ovaltine."
- Generic Doomsday Villain: The Splut.
- Get It Over With: Garfield tells the writer this when the light speed chase keeps escalating on and on.
- Glass-Shattering Sound: Garfield plays Simon & Garfunkel (or rather, "Garfunkle") music at full blast, shattering every window in a five mile radius. Why it didn't break his TV is not explained.
- He Went That Way: Garfield manages to fool the Splut by telling it he was elsewhere (pies don't have brains, after all).
- Homage: A chase scene plays out "not unlike Evil Dead 2" (specifically, the scenes of the Evil chasing Ash through the Cabin).
- Hollywood Cyborg: Jon Arbuckle is being rebuilt into the next RoboCop after an accident involving a baboon fused with a cat.
- Hufflepuff House: The Batcave is mentioned to be directly below Jon Arbuckle's house, but it does not appear, since Garfield is unable to access it. And while the Batmobile does make an appearance later in the story, it has no importance otherwise.
- Implacable Man: Absolutely nothing prevents the Splut from stalking Garfield, whether it's a flamethrower or the Death Star! Only fusing with it finally puts an end to its rampage.
- Informed Flaw: The story says Garfield has to eat every two minutes or he dies, but for the rest of the story he goes through at least ten minutes' worth of crap with no repurcussions.
- Insane Troll Logic: The story says that the reason Abe Lincoln is killed off so quickly is because he's supposed to be dead to begin with.
- Jerkass: Garfield. Also, there's the matter of Superman using his heat vision on a doorknob Garfield is using, for no particular reason.
- Kick the Dog: Garfield roundhouse kicking Odie to the moon just for being in his way.
- Kill All Humans: The goal of the "Mama Bran" in the Metroid game Garfield is playing. In story, the Death Star would've done this to Earth, had the Splut not unintentionally blocked its super laser and destroyed it.
- Kill It with Fire: Garfield finds a flamethrower sitting around the house and tries to use it on the Splut, but it only works for one hundred millionth of a second.
- Killer Rabbit: The villain is a sapient flying pie.
- Lampshade Hanging: A lot of the story's humor relies on it when it's not relying on its sheer absurdity.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The story lampshades the irony of a flying pie trying to kill a glutton like Garfield.
- Ludicrous Precision: The flamethrower Garfield uses only stops the Splut for one hundred millionth of a second.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Garfield, Back to the Future, Star Wars and many others all feature in the story.
- Neck Snap: Garfield does this to Doc Brown for no reason whatsoever, although it doesn't kill him. Truth in Television: Neck snaps are definitely lethal, but in real life they usually aren't instant kill moves like you see in most fiction.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: The Splut starts off being invulnerable, but then gets Super-Speed and Reality Warping abilities as the story progresses, with no foreshadowing beforehand. The DeLorean also gains this by being able to fly in space and go past light speed (while it could fly and time travel in the movies, it was never shown or implied to be space travel worthy or to be able to go that fast).
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Splut unintentionally saves the Earth by blocking the Death Stars super laser and blowing it up from within (but unfortunately, also ends up accidentally destroying Krypton in the process due to the super laser splitting off when it hit the Splut).
- Nigh-Invulnerability: The Splut is practically unstoppable in this story—not even the Death Star can destroy it. It takes a literal Deus ex Machina at the end to defeat it.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Garfield jumps out a window early in the story, but is unharmed—he does leave a crater where he landed though.
- No-Sell: The Death Star fires its planet-killing super laser with the Splut in its path, and not only is the pie completely unharmed by it (the beam simply splits off into fragments on contact), it flies right into its cannon and destroys it from the inside!
- Odie Can Breathe in Space: The ending says that Odie is still on the moon.
- Once Upon a Time: The story begins with the words "One sunny day..."
- Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The story starts with a disclaimer saying it won't make sense unless you've read the works of Sigmund Freud. It's doubtful that it would help anyway.
- Ow, My Body Part!: Fred Fish screams his trademark phrase "MY LEG!" when Garfield runs him down while driving.
- "Open!" Says Me: Garfield tries to punch the door open, but fails.
- Person of Mass Destruction: The Splut, although it's largely a proxy of him trying to kill Garfield.
- Physical God: Garfield becomes this at the end.
- Pie in the Face: Subverted; the Splut is clearly trying to kill Garfield here. Fortunately it doesn't get to hit him, but instead gets fused with him.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The Splut is a normal sized pie in appearance, but can do feats such as singlehandedly destroying the Death Star!
- P.O.V. Cam: The story briefly switches to the Pie's viewpoint during the chase scene.
- Product Placement: Garfield eats Cheese Nips in the story. The story also mentions Ronald McDonald being disillusioned with his status as this. And at the end, Garfield tells the reader to "Drink More Ovaltine."
- Reality Warper: The Splut is implied to have shades of this, since it's able to turn Blade Runner into a pony on a whim.
- Reference Overdosed: Enough to get its own page.
- Remembered I Could Fly: Garfield remembers at the right time that the DeLorean can fly, and immediately takes advantage of it.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The story misspells Mother Brain as Mama Bran, and Garfunkel as Garfunkle.
- Rule of Funny: Garfield manages to briefly get the Splut off his trail by literally telling him he's somewhere else. The story at least acknowledges how silly this is, pointing out that pies don't have brains.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The Batcave is mentioned to be 30 miles long in this story, and the climatic space chase goes over 100 sextillion miles per hour!
- Sequel Hook: A footnote at the end reveals that while Jon Arbuckle was not in the story for several reasons, he is set up to become the next RoboCop. Since the story is gone now, a follow up is very unlikely.
- Serial Escalation: The climatic past-Light speed chase. Heck, the whole fic is practically an exercise in how increasingly over the top it can get.
- Series Continuity Error: Superman appears on Earth, but Krypton is somehow still around in the story. And even though Jon Arbuckle did get a life in the comics, here he is described as not having one.
- Silence Is Golden: Despite the abundance of characters, there are exactly five lines of spoken dialogue in the story, three of which are spoken by Garfield, and only one of them is a full sentence and isn't a pop culture reference.
- Short Story: Clocks in at 1,288 words total.
- Stealth Pun: The pie is briefly described as having eyes, this making it pie-eyed. After the end, Jon Arbuckle is being rebuilt into the next RoboCop because he has no life.
- Super-Persistent Missile: The Splut is this in villain form and taken up to eleven; it will stop at absolutely nothing to kill Garfield, and in its case, practically nothing can stop it in the first place.
- Super-Speed: Blade Runner can hit speeds of 100 mph, and both Garfield and the Splut go way, way past light speed during the final chase, enough to get a Lampshade Hanging from Garfield."Can you give it a break, already? We've already broken every speed limit in existence."
- Super-Strength: Zigzagged; Garfield is strong enough to kick Odie to the moon, yet he can't even punch through a wooden door, but immediately after he slams the door shut "with a force that would make the Hulk look like it would take the strength of a man who could move a mountain to break a toothpick." However, the comics have occasionally shown that Garfield has bouts of this in the first place, but not quite as ludicrous as seen here.
- Tele-Frag: Jon Arbuckle is absent from the main plot because he was involved in a horrible accident involving a baboon fused with a cat.
- Took A Level In Bad Ass: The Splut in canon is an unexplained, recurring but harmless nuisance. In this story, not only is it evil, nigh unstoppable and capable of reality warping and super speed, It can blow up the Death Star.
- The End: The story ends with the words Finis, which is French for "the end".
- Took A Level In Jerk Ass: Garfield was already a jerk in the comics, but he does things so amoral here, you wonder why you should root for him in the first place.
- Troperiffic: The entire story is only 1,288 words long and has very little dialogue, but it has a substantial amount of trope filled content in spite of that, largely for its bizarre, stream of conscious narrative, numerous character crossovers and cameos and numerous pop culture references. It uses at least 116 tropes total, not including YMMV tropes (10) and Trivia Tropes (6).
- Troll Fic: The author revealed it was. See trivia for more info.
- Unflinching Walk: Or flight in this case; just after the Splut destroys the Death Star, it emerges unharmed from its explosion and immediately continues its chase after Garfield.
- Unexplained Recovery: The story says Blade Runner eventually got better after being turned into a pony.
- Villain Protagonist: Meta example; "Metroid"'s goal besides saving whales is to resuscitate the Mama Bran, who wants to kill the human race.
- Visual Pun: The Blade Runner, who literally runs on roller blades. It also counts as a Punny Name.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The Death Star's planet-killing super-laser, which proves to be completely useless in destroying the Splut.
- Wizard Needs Food Badly: Exaggerated — apparently, Garfield has to eat every 2 minutes, or else he'll die. This is quickly forgotten about.
