A fanfic written by Shroob_planet, also sometimes known as Clones vs Robots.
The year is 2033, and robots and humans are in a battle over Earth.
Several Let's Players are just on the side lines of this war, until some of them are revealed to be robots themselves and start killing people. Later, it is revealed that all the Let's Players are dead, being either robots or clones.
This Is A Terrible Idea provides examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The gang gets to the robot headquarters through one.
- Affectionate Parody: Of apocalypse fics.
- Artificial Human: Half of the main cast, although nobody knows this at first.
- Ax-Crazy: J.R., Neon, D.C., and Stall most of the time, though the rest of them can be this time to time. The original J.R. was so violently crazy he locked in an asylum.
- Berserk Button: Neon's berserk button is anyone insulting hats near him.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: "Oh great. The two gay guys in this fanfic are evil and we're gonna have to kill them. How long do you think it'll be before we'll get some serious hate mail for this?"
- Cloning Blues: The non-robot half of the main cast.
- Continuity Nod/Call-Back: Several are made to real Let's Plays.
- Death Mountain: What Neon calls the robot factory.
- Freud Was Right:Tyler: Heh, the tower in the distance looks like a dick.Reese: Of course you would think that.
- Giant Mook: Robo-Nemesis.
- Grimy Water: The lake on the robot side.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Jon and J.R. do one they find out that all of them are dead and that most of their friends are either clones or robots. They Go Mad From The Revelation.
- The non-robot teammates do when they find out this information.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Original Neon's curiosity gets her killed.
- Kill It with Fire: Emile uses a flamethrower.
- Kill It with Ice: Jade's Ice Shot.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At one point, J.R. says, "God, why does my life seem like it's in a terrible fanfic?"
- Literally Shattered Lives: What Jade's Ice Shot does.
- Nice Hat: Neon's hats. She loathes anyone insulting them.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The robots' eyes turn red after a certain switch is flipped on.
- Schmuck Bait: Original Neon's death is due to her curiosity.
- Smug Snake: Almost everyone has moments of such an attitude. Jon and Jake behave like this the most often.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The heroes, at first.
- Those Two Guys: Tyler and Josh, Jake and Patrick, and Jay and Perp.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Emile, Jon, Jake, Patrick, YTM, J.R., Neon, D.C., Jade, Stall and Resulka are all clones, and Tim, Josh, Tyler, Lucah, Donna, Slim, Jay, Craig, Pat, H.C. and Damien are all robots.
- Took a Level in Badass: Jake and Patrick get one after defeating the sewer "boss".
- Walk on Water: Hoverboots, worn by both man and machine, enable one to do this.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Main A.I. to robot Damien since the
"turn evil" switch doesn't work on him and he refused to hurt the human heroes.