Not to be confused with The Otherworld Series, this is a fanfic anthology written by McGeesJabberwock
, mostly dealing with Darker and Edgier versions of cartoons. This Otherworld is a realm of the mind, where everything anyone imagined or thought of is real, and is ruled by an evil faceless version of the Mad Hatter. It is also an afterlife for the insane but the living can go there, to their specific 'house' to create their own world to escape from reality, usually driving them insane in the progress.
Noteable stories in the collection include:
- Foster's House - A creepier version of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, transforming the characters of the show into evil monsters, which Mac has to fight to reclaim Bloo. There was also a sequel, An Imaginary War. revolving around the friends fighting the Hatter.
- Brandy - Based on Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, this involves Brandy, now a depressed teenage human, entering Whiskers' world and dealing with the madness that follows.
- The Adventures of Claudia - A selection of short stories, about Claudia from The Caribou Kitchen, as well as characters from shows like Avenger Penguins, The Dreamstone and Dora the Explorer.
- The Little Shark - A modern day retelling of The Little Mermaid, only with a shark named Derek, who hates being a shark due to being unloved and his dark side (who ends up being named Dark Side). He then ends up becoming human thanks to a Mad Scientist sea witch called Gwen.
- American Mc Gee's Alyss series - A crossover between American McGee's Alice and The Looking-Glass Wars novels, with the Jabberwock from the former franchise as the main character, the world's meeting through, of all things, a parody of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Gruff - A short tale about the Three Billy Goats Gruff meeting a tribe of goats who worship Shub-Niggurath facing the Queen of Trolls and her malevolent magic.
You can read these stories and find out more about the world here.
This also lead to 'Courage in Otherworld', a project being co-authored by Chris Gammon and CrazyCtCDFan, including their characters as well as putting Courage the Cowardly Dog through the world. Find out more at this website.
The Otherworld Anthology contains examples of:
- Affably Evil - The Hatter, Wilt after going insane (although given what he's like in canon, this is to be expected) and Mr. Whiskers.
- Alternate Universe Fic - Foster's House and Brandy are both alternate takes on their source material, and American McGee's Alyss follows a different continuity to the official Looking Glass Wars.
- All Trolls Are Different - In Gruff, the trolls are reptilian, one-eyed creatures, whose weakness against sunlight can be reversed.
- And Then John Was a Zombie - Brandy
- Anti-Villain - Troll Queen, Whiskers and the Jabberwock
- Ascended Extra - Lorenzo the jaguar, a one-time character on Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, is a major character in Brandy.
- Ax-Crazy - Wilt is this after becoming evil.
- The Bad Guy Wins - When the Hatter gains a new follower..
- Battle in the Center of the Mind
- Big Bad: The Hatter.
- The Blank - The Hatter and Bloo are almost this; the Hatter is mostly just lacking a mouth and Bloo has an eye and a mouth where the other eye should be.
- Bloodier and Gorier
- Body Horror: Those poor imaginary friends!
- Cats Are Mean - Hatter's Cheshire Cat army.
- Composite Character - Frankie and Duchess in Foster's House.
- Although she might have gotten that title from the Duchess in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- The Corrupter - The Hatter, the Shadow and Dark Side
- Corrupt the Cutie - Dark Side tries to do this with Derek and it seems to have happened to Claudia. Courage in Otherworld revolves around this happening to Courage.
- Crapsaccharine World - Whiskers' world may look like a jungle paradise, but...
- Dark Fic
- Dark World
- Deadpan Snarker - Claudia. In Courage in Otherworld, Dark Sonic and Alistair take this role as well.
- Brandy has her moments too.
- Deliberately Monochrome - The main hub of Otherworld
- Don't Go in the Woods - The Hatter lurks in a dark forest.
- Downer Ending: The three-part fanedited short film series. Brandy is permanently transformed into an anthropomorphic dog, Claudia is killed by the Hatter, Tara decides that she has nothing left to live for without Equestria and falls into insanity, and above all, the Hatter wins. The only happy thing about the ending is the fact that when her transformation is complete, Brandy proceeds to beat the living daylights out of Mr. Whiskers.
- Dream Land
- Easily Conquered World
- Eldritch Abomination - The Boyg in Gruff, Zordrak in Claudia
- Everythings Better With Penguins - Who's the bartender of Claudia's favorite pub? Would you believe Marlon the penguin?
- Everything's Even Worse with Sharks - Subverted with Derek, played straight with Dark Side.
- Evil Feels Good
- Eye Scream - Most of the Foster's House versions of the Foster's cast have something bad happen to their eyes - Coco even has a nail through one of them.
- Fish People - Gwen in the Little Shark.
- Fluffy the Terrible - Whiskers.
- Fractured Fairy Tale
- Funny Animal
- God Save Us from the Queen! - Troll Queen in Gruff, and the Red Queens in American Mc Gee's Alyss
- Gollum Made Me Do It - Derek and Dark Side
- Grimmification
- Hannibal Lecture - Dark Side does one to Derek, Zordrak does one to Claudia. Dark Sonic gets a few in Courage in Otherworld.
- Happy Place - People's personal houses
- Haunted House - Foster's House, and Dark Side's domain in Courage.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Derek. He wants somebody to love him, but it's difficult because he's a shark.
- Insane Equals Violent
- Ironic Nursery Tune - 'Who Killed Cock Robin' being used in An Imaginary War.
- Lighter and Softer - The Little Shark is actually lighter than the original Hans Christian Andersen tale. For example, Jenny knows Derek gave his life for her.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My! - Claudia's world is this.
- Literal Split Personality - Derek and Dark Side, Courage and Alistair
- Lizard Folk - The trolls in Gruff
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover
- Mind Screw
- Murder Is the Best Solution
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast - Dark Side, Dark Sonic, The Shadow
- Obligatory Swearing
- Obliviously Evil: Several antagonists, but Whiskers is probably the biggest example.
- Perky Female Minion - The Duchess, who works for the Hatter, not to be confused with the one in Foster's House.
- Pinocchio Syndrome - Derek and the Jabberwock
- Psychopathic Man Child - Whiskers
- Rape as Backstory - In Brandy, it's implied that Lola was raped by Victor ("the Vic" from the original show). Whiskers wasn't happy when he found out...
- Real Trailer, Fake Movie - Gareth created some movie-style trailers for some of the stories, but then moved on to make a series of short films based on the stories using clips from various movies.
- Reference Overdosed - Oh yes.
- Rogues Gallery - Dark Side, the Hatter, Dark Sonic, the Queen of Trolls, the Shadow etc.
- Thematic Rogues Gallery - Most of the villains are evil versions of an innocent's child character, a demon, or both.
- Shared Universe
- Sugar Apocalypse - When the American Mc Gee Mad Hatter attacks the Disney Wonderland.
- Superpowered Evil Side - Dark Side
- Surreal Horror
- Toon Town - Every cartoon character is alive in Otherworld.
- Viewers Are Geniuses - Some very obscure franchises are included in the series.
- Villain-Based Franchise -Before Courage, the Hatter was the closest thing the anthology had to a recurring main character.
- Villain with Good Publicity - While the Hatter has his detractors, he still has gained quite the army.
- Wicked Cultured - The Hatter is so this.
- The Wonderland
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Wilt and Mr. Whiskers.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol - Happens to Brandy in a short story, and the ghosts from it end up becoming villains in Courage.
