Spoilers up to and including Week 7 will be unmarked!
- Angst Aversion: The idea of playing as a corrupting figure that's slowly infecting the rest of the FNF cast and succeeding can be an understandable turn off for some, especially when contrasted with the comedic and lighthearted nature of the original game. While Week 8 brings in some levity with the introduction of the entertainingly cool Soul Boyfriend and finally giving a loss to the Corruption as Boyfriend breaks free of it, it is still rather rough sitting through 5 dark weeks before things begin to look up for the heroes.
- Anti-Climax Boss: Due to the song’s much slower pace in comparison to the other two in Week 9 and repeating patterns in the chart, “Yandere Attack” is often considered to be a bit weak as a finale. A different version of the song was finished afterwards that later captured the emotion of the climax, which will be added to the playable mod once it's fully finished.
- Best Level Ever:
- Week 6 has wonderful music, multiple challenging note charts, and several visual effects only possible through heavy modifications of the engine; top it all with very emotional scenes thanks to the power of cutscenes and you get the most gracefully designed level in the entire mod.
- Week 7, albeit lacking dialogue, makes up with Daddy Dearest's struggle to defeat Boyfriend, in this level, the mod continues to show its seamless sprite-swapping capabilities by having the final song have Daddy Dearest fight against every other corrupted enemy one by one. To cap it off, Daddy Dearest's defeat couldn't be any less tragic, as he gave up trying to survive the moment he was set to fight against his wife.
- Common Knowledge: It is often said in the community (including this very trope page) that Daddy Dearest's week is week 7, but this has never been confirmed. The reason it says anything about a week 7 in the description of the video for "Lament" instead of a week 6 like it said it prior episode's is because the week 7 update of original Friday Night Funkin' came out around this time. This is also why weeks following that have been numbered from 8 onwards are like that simply for convenience.
- Evil Is Cool: There are plenty who find the corrupted designs of the characters both unique and cool, along with the songs they make to corrupt their enemies.
- Fandom Heresy: While people tend to depict various characters from mods being corrupted, there are a few targets that most believe just aren't possible to be corrupted successfully, either due to Memetic Badass status, In-Universe logic, or statements from the target mod creators themselves.
- It's generally accepted that any fanmade video that involves successfully corrupting Tricky (specifically his The Tricky Mod incarnation) is to be discredited immediately, as Tricky would either No-Sell the corruption, find a way to benefit from it due to the power of the Portable Improbability Drive, or simply use the latter to disregard the corruption entirely and utterly thrash Boyfriend into submission, if not end him outright. And those who are familiar with the story of Madness Combat will know that Tricky's form in "Expurgation" is a corrupted form, created when the Auditor tried to absorb his corpse and failed when Tricky got revived and took over both Hell and the Auditor himself; So you can only imagine how corrupting an alive Tricky would go.
- Bob is seen as a being beyond that of the Corruption thanks to his Eldritch Abomination status and his ability to pretty much crash the game to theoretically stop Boyfriend from winning. However, unlike other examples on this list, Bob is canonically stated by his creator that he's not only immune to the titular virus, but is even able to corrupt those corrupted by it with his own power.
- Matt and Shaggy - who both have their own popular mods, Wii Funkin' and VS Shaggy, respectively - are two of some of the most iconic Memetic Badasses in media, and are believed to be more than able to effortlessly take down the corruption with only a tiny percentage of their power. Thanks to the Shaggy X Matt mod, its heavily believed the two could team up to easily annihilate it.
- It's commonly accepted among fans that Flippy (more specifically his Vs. Flippy: Flipped Out! incarnation) cannot be affected by the Corruption in his flipped out state, as he may find a way to overpower, or outright kill Corrupted Boyfriend before he can get infected. The fact that his evil side is near-invincible in his home series also helps, as only two characters, Lumpy and the Tiger General, were able to put up a tough fight against him, with the latter being very close to killing him.
- In an odd case of Everyone Has Standards, some even argue that all of the opponents faced in Vs Sonic.exe could successfully defeat the Corruption for various reasons; Being inherently demonic instead of being malicious code (meaning they lack the same weakness Senpai and Spirit did) (Sonic.exe, Lord X, EXE, and arguably Tails Doll, Sunky.MPEG and Sanic.exe) or being corrupters or being corrupted in some other way (Tails, Knuckles, Eggman, Majin and Fleetway Super Sonic).
- It's also accepted that the Trollge individuals can't be corrupted, as they are corrupted by something else already.
- The world of HoloFunk is canonically stated to have at least one ace in the hole that would quickly put an end to the Corruption, owing to the Urban Fantasy setting invoked by the nature of the source media and most of its characters having everything they need to face the Corruption head-onnote . Even before this became canon, fanmade videos crossing over the mod and Corruption were met with discomfort if not ire by the HoloFunk development team.
- Fanon: Author-sanctioned fanart depicts the corrupted Pico being able to detach the chains binding his torso and use them as a melee weapon. This has not been proven canon as of the end of Week 10.
- Faux Symbolism: During "Hivemind", the Tank Amalgam spouts out many Bible quotes that originate from the book of Revelation. The quotes the Tank Amalgam says are used to declare his high status as a god and his invincibility towards Boyfriend, Pico, and Girlfriend. Despite what Tankman says, the mod itself doesn't have any themes relating to religion and his so-called title as Alpha and Omega doesn't mean much in the long run, since he is only a Big Bad Wannabe that fails to the threat of the Harvester.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series has a sizable following amongst Koreans, as evidenced by the decent amount of art from them retweeted by Phantom Fear, who is based out of the United Kingdom.
- Genius Bonus: At first, the title "Dead Pixel" seems to just be a cheeky reference to how Senpai isn't going to survive his encounter with Boyfriend and Girlfriend. However, the term "dead pixel" actually refers to an LCD in a screen breaking, causing the area it was supposed to light to remain black; fitting, considering the corruption manifests itself in the game as black blocky pixels glitching over the character sprites.
- Iron Woobie: Boyfriend is put through hell, his mind put to sleep while his body is taken by the corruption to spread the virus to his loved ones. When he finally "wakes up", the corruption attempts to break him back into compliance, something Boyfriend is genuinely affected by, and nearly gives in when the corruption fools him into thinking it instantly reversed his progress with Girlfriend. Despite this, he continues to press on and try to fix what the corruption broke, keeping up his usual cocky demeanor to the best of his ability.
- Jerkass Woobie: Girlfriend's parents are bastards with little care towards anyone but themselves and their daughter, who they are overprotective of to the point of Comedic Sociopathy. However, said overprotectiveness indirectly lead to a world-wide apocalypse with their daughter as one of the main causes, and their attempts to fight back result in them losing everything.
- Memetic Badass:
- Corrupted Boyfriend being an unstoppable force is further exacerbated by the fandom - look up any mod, add Corrupted to it, and you're likely to find a video that has Boyfriend corrupting the guest star of the mod.
- Due to the absurd sheer power of the Corruption and Corrupted Boyfriend's own memetic status, mod characters who are canonically stated by their creators to be immune to and able to fight back against the Corruption successfully are seen as ultra badasses, such as Bob from literally every fnf mod ever.
- Memetic Mutation:
- "This all happened because of a Christmas decoration." Explanation
- "Corruption mod be like"Explanation
- "AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!"Explanation
- *crys* why...Explanation
- "Pico is Xenophanes."Explanation
- "NO WAY TANKMAN BECAME WITHERED BONNIE"Explanation
- Older Than They Think: The final song for Week 9, "Yandere Attack", wasn't originally composed for the mod, but rather for Dazuko Kazuya's "Etherflux BOSSFIGHT" album before being remixed and repurposed for FNF Corruption.
- Play the Game, Skip the Story: Due to the story's bleak tone, it's not uncommon for people to just listen to the OST while skipping the mod itself, as even those who don't like the dark direction agree the music is great.
- Signature Scene:
- Week 2, where Skid and Pump put up their Last Stand against the corruption. It stands out among the other weeks for reaffirming the story's willingness to take a full sledgehammer to the idea of Plot Armor while also demonstrating a marked evolution in both music and art quality.
- Week 6 is also considerable as the mod's peaking point, as it has features little to no mods were capable of at the time, fully original music, and is the most emotionally charged level in the entire game.
- Soul Boyfriend's guitar solo during the climax of Week 8's "Neuroses" immediately became popular among the community, resulting in an outpouring of art of both the scene and the character in general. Tellingly, the following song, "Discharge", follows up on the moment's popularity by having Boyfriend join Soul Boyfriend in a series of guitar duets to break free of the Corruption.
- Unexpected Character: For many viewers, Tankman making an appearance in his corrupt state in Friday Night Funkin': Corruption came a surprise for them. It's been believed that Tankman wasn't going to be in this mod, since a majority of the victims had been corrupted and Daddy Dearest was supposedly the Final Boss for the Corruption. It isn't until "Brainstorm", where he was teased to appear in Week 11 is when people became shocked at Tankman's arrival for this mod.
- Visual Effects of Awesome:
- In addition to pixel art on par with the original game's, Week 6 features seamless sprite swapping mid-battle, something that isn't possible within the original game's engine, even better, the sprite swapping is synced to a very specific instrument and doesn't just swap the sprite of the rival, but also the background on its entirety.
- Week 7 features sprite-swapping in the form of Daddy Dearest slowly getting rid of the Corruption in "Dusk", and him facing off against a different opponent in certain intervals of "Deathmatch", and that is without mentioning the background and the slowly glowing faces of the Corruption shells peeking.
- Boyfriend's restored mindscape in Week 8's "MEMORY//LEAK". A beautiful sunrise overlooks a mountain range and lake, and the song ends in the clouds above, where the sun is shining even brighter and the sky is filled with stars. The setting perfectly encapsulates Boyfriend finally breaking free and Week 8's hopeful ending.
- In Week 10, the One-Winged Angel Nexus form of Evil Pico stands out for being a concept not yet shown off in the mod before, and it shows, with the form sporting crystalline arms and pupilless eyes, as well as a lack of mouth. Said form also proves to put up quite a fight against Boyfriend.
- Though it only had a single day, the Tank Amalgam makes up for it greatly with the many animated cutscenes included in the battle against it. The Tank Amalgam is given two angles to demonstrate his large size and to increase the intimidation he poses to Boyfriend, Pico, and Girlfriend. Furthermore, Tankman is given the ability to fire a powerful laser out of his mouth, which is something that was never shown in the original version of Tankman.
- The Woobie: Skid is a small child whose Plot Armor was brutally ripped away from him, watching his best friend get turned into a hollow shell while he was helpless to stop it, before getting thrust into a battle with someone who wanted to inflict the same fate onto him — and despite his best efforts, they succeeded. His mounting terror as he tries and fails to beat Boyfriend is heartbreaking to watch.
