Now with a sandbox!
It appears that many Nightmare Fuel pages have problems, including:
1. Listing non-scary things that made the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable at worst.
2. Having spoiler tags on them (which is against the page's guidelines).
3. Listing Fridge Horror and fan theories.
And much more!
On a few occasions, people from outside the site's community have pointed out our overly lax usage of Nightmare Fuel to make fun of us, meaning that it can legitimately harm our reputation to let this go unchecked.
The TRS thread
meant for redefining Nightmare Fuel started to become a place for cleaning up Nightmare Fuel pages in general, so we may as well move these discussions to Long Term Projects where they belong.
Here are the guidelines to determine whether something is Nightmare Fuel or not.
- This is a page whose name is intended to be taken more literally than most. It's not enough for material to be scary; to truly qualify, it has to be frightening enough to legitimately unnerve/disturb the viewer, with actually being nightmare-inducing as the ultimate endpoint.
- Good signs that something IS Nightmare Fuel include if:
- It left you feeling shaken even after the credits had rolled, you turned the last page, or are otherwise done with the work.
- You have a hard time falling asleep if you think about it at night, or have a literal nightmare about it.
- You dread that episode, scene, level, chapter, or song during re-watches, and consider skipping it.
- With that said, don't add something just because it happens to be your personal phobia. For example, spiders can be scary and many people have arachnophobia, but just because a spider happens to be in the work, it does not make a Nightmare Fuel entry. It needs to reasonably be scary to someone without the phobia.
- Don't confuse tension with fear. If the hero is in trouble, but you know he'll make it out okay at the end, it's probably not Nightmare Fuel unless the threat is especially disturbing.
- Good signs that something IS Nightmare Fuel include if:
- Explain WHY the entry scared you. Try to convey your sense of fear to your readers. Avoid putting up Zero-Context Examples.
- Remember that Weblinks Are Not Examples, and neither are quotes on their own. You should explain the horror in your own words, rather than rely on others to do so.
- Don't add things that might have scared someone. If it didn't scare you, and you don't personally know anyone else who was scared, you shouldn't be adding it to Nightmare Fuel.
- Nightmare Fuel should stick to you even after you're done with the work.
- If something is initially presented as scary but turns out to be harmless, it's most likely not Nightmare Fuel since The Reveal makes the scariness vanish.
- Jump Scares are a good source of Nightmare Fuel, but not all of them automatically qualify: being startled is not the same as being scared.
- Hypotheticals are not Nightmare Fuel:
- Remember that Trailers Always Lie: a scene that is presented as scary in the trailer could very well turn out to be inoffensive in the finished work. Only add examples from unreleased works if they were especially terrifying in the previews.
- Fan theories do not belong on the Nightmare Fuel page under any circumstance. No matter how much evidence they have to support them, don't add them until they've been officially confirmed. In the meanwhile, take them to Wild Mass Guessing.
- Fridge Horror goes on the Fridge page, not Nightmare Fuel. Don't add it unless it's Ascended Fridge Horror.
- Keep in mind the work's intended audience when considering whether or not something is Nightmare Fuel.
- If something is normal or expected in the genre, it does not automatically qualify. Violence in a Fighting Series or gore in a horror movie must be especially disturbing or gruesome by the work's standards to be Nightmare Fuel.
- Remember that Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films. If a work is rated PG-13 or higher but would only be scary to young children, it's not Nightmare Fuel.
- The standards on what qualifies as Nightmare Fuel are especially stringent on works aimed at children and pre-teens: kids have hyperactive imaginations, so even something benign can give them nightmares.
- Spoiler tags do not belong on Nightmare Fuel pages. Much of what scares us comes from inherently spoilery stuff such as death and the unknown, so finding spoilers on these pages should be expected.
- Nightmare Fuel is an Audience Reaction, so it needs to be scary for the audience. Describing how the characters react to something scary isn't needed. Just because something scares them, that doesn't mean it scares us as well.
- Nightmare Fuel is a No Real Life Examples, Please! page. Meta-examples involving the actors, production, or behind-the-scenes incidents are not allowed.
Guidelines when proposing cleanup of a page:
- Some rules are pretty objective. If you see a Zero-Context Example, Fridge Horror, Real Life example, speculation, In-Universe reaction that isn't scary to the viewers, examples that explicitly describe themselves as not being very scary (including "mildly creepy", "somewhat unnerving", and other synonymous phrases), or examples that are just scene summaries without going into detail about why it's so scary, you can (and should) remove them immediately without coming here to ask.
- You should also strip all spoiler tags from the page. Itty Bitty Wiki Tools has a tool for that, but it can cause problems, so if you use it be sure to preview the page and thoroughly look it over.
- Once you've fixed the objective issues with the page, bring it here so we can look at the more subjective problems, such as examples that may not be scary enough to qualify. If a consensus is reached that a certain entry does not qualify, it can be removed.
Edited by Zuxtron on Aug 1st 2020 at 9:40:30 AM
Any pronouns
The Hacker is a Laughably Evil villain who has gone through In-Universe Villain Decay. I wasn't scared of him when I was little, but I think we should just rephrase the entry to emphasize that the target audience would be scared of him.
Also, I'm still in favor of cutting NightmareFuel.PBS Kids, as it is a pointless index that makes us look bad.
We are the best friends, we stand as one. Whatever life may bring, we are never alone.
I am too like I said. I just meant that in this case it was an example.
Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.
I can chase the wind, I can race the rain
NightmareFuel.Schoolhouse Rock is a mess, and I think it can be safely cutlisted.
Multiplication Rock
- "Figure Eight" can also come off as depressing and cold (as per the winter setting of the short). It's just slow.
- "If you skate/Upon thin ice/You'd be wise/If you thought twice/Before you made another single move..." Those lines are accompanied by a boy skating a figure eight on thin ice, falling through and jumping back out nearly frozen to death. Slapstick.
- The song as a whole has a very downer tone to it, which combined with the (mostly) fun and colorful imagery makes for some serious Soundtrack Dissonance. See above. Just a slower song than usual.
- The aliens and space setting in "Little Twelvetoes". In fact, the song itself was rarely shown due to how unsettling kids found it. Source to it being rarely shown for scaring kids? Watching it now, it's very trippy, but not at all scary.
Grammar Rock
- The girl in "A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing" is almost always smiling, falling into Unintentional Uncanny Valley due to how big her smile is on her head. It is a normal smile that, to give an idea of its not-scary status, is basically the same large curved line of a smile that Little Miss Sunshine has in the Mr. Men franchise.
- "Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla". Something about those bizarre body proportions and Slasher Smile... I just see proportions that the average cartoon character has and if that is a slasher smile, we might as well call what Waluigi has one too.
- The idea of his sister and an aardvark being in love is a bit squicky. As stated in the entry itself, it's not nightmare fuel but rather squick.
America Rock
- "The Great American Melting Pot" has a lot of unintentionally cannibalistic imagery. Of particular note are the children diving into the melting pot as though it were a swimming pool, and the fact that Lady Liberty clearly has a cookbook. Fridge Horror
- Some may find the artstyle of "Three-Ring Government" unnerving due to how often people look absolutely inhuman. For example, the Legislative jugglers, the one member of the Supreme Court whose face resembles a skull, and... It is true that a lot of the time humans here don't exactly look like humans, but it's not scary.
- The five criminals depicted as the "wrongs" of society to be balanced out: a mafioso, a thug with a scar and blunt weapon, a man wearing a trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat, a long-nosed blue-skinned man in a suit, and a horrifyingly burned thing with pointed ears, a gruesome grimace, and a lit stick of dynamite. The burned dynamite criminal thing is the only thing here I think does count, as while he and the rest of the criminals are only on screen for a few seconds I can see him royally freaking out some kids.
Science Rock
- "Them Not-So-Dry Bones" has the skeleton of one of the singers jump out of his body, leaving his skin a pile of apparently lifeless mush. That same skin is then tried on by a newer, taller skeleton. Who knew Schoolhouse Rock! was capable of such borderline macabre imagery? As the page image (which is from this short) shows, the writeup here is very exaggerated. It isn't body horror much at all, let alone And I Must Scream. It's just a visual showing that we all have skeletons inside us and not very graphic. The overall vibes of the short are akin to the likes of the Monster Mash, a little spooky, but in a fun, family friendly way.
Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on Feb 11th 2023 at 5:39:15 AM
She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqk
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Cut with a vengeance.
Angry babby
Popping in to confirm Motherboard was creepy. It's times like these I wish Accidental Nightmare Fuel was still a thing...
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Found Motherboard very slightly unsettling as a kid myself.
TRS Queue | Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
There's still Unintentional Uncanny Valley, at least.
Now we're so young, but we're probably gonna die
Cyberchase did scare me a bit as a kid. Not Hacker, but Motherboard for sure. There was also this big Cyberchase Flash exploration game with a Transylvania-themed area that had dismal red coloring, scary music, and all kinds of ominous creatures that did legitimately freak me out (to the point that when my brother played the game, I'd hope he wouldn't go there).
The things in my dreams wish they could chase me!
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Accidental Nightmare Fuel and Nightmare Fuel were merged. So something accidentally terrifying, like Motherboard, is completely valid for Nightmare Fuel.
Edit: I will also say that it is not Unintentional Uncanny Valley. Motherboard is creepy, but it's not because they look too realistic. Though if people disagree, fair enough.
Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 11th 2023 at 8:59:55 AM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Should Sagwa The Chinese Siamese Cat be cut? It only has 3 examples, and the second one is not NF:
- Near the end of the episode "Sick Day", the story scene where Sagwa gets captured and has a scared reaction because of Sheegwa telling her that she didn't play with her. Throughout the episode, Sagwa is heard screaming in fear. There's something creepy about hearing your favorite character scream with fear, especially since they rarely show fear at all.
- The episode where Tai-Tai keeps Fu-Fu as her lucky bat...seeing Fu-Fu dressed in that robe (and later that hat). The fact that this episode wasn't on Youtube until 2016 probably makes it a nasty shock for long-time internet-introduced fans.
- To some fans, the fact that Sagwa was almost (accidentally) taken away from her own family in "Sagwa the Stray". Doubles as Tear Jerker.
With the second one: one, it doesn't specify what episode; two, I don't know how it not being available on You Tube for years makes it scary; and three, Fu-Fu wearing people clothes sounds funny, and only scary if you were already scared of bats. That leaves two examples, and I don't know whether they're valid. I'm trying to think of this from a toddler's POV, since that's the target audience, and I guess maybe hearing a favorite character scream is scary? But I think two examples is too few to qualify for a page.
The only other content on the page are some commented-out examples (including one comparing the shi-tzu's face to Five Nights At Freddy's) that seem exaggerated, an I don't think they'll be missed if we cut the page.
I have put the Saga NF fuel page on the cutlist.
I think NightmareFuel.Franklin can safely be cut.
- “Franklin is Lost”, in which Franklin goes off into the woods while looking for Fox when his mother reminds him not to go in there. You cannot imagine how scared he is since he hides in his shell from all the frightening things. This one really isn't scary, it just has a mildly "kid-friendly 'spooky'" kind of atmosphere.
- "Franklin and the Turtle Lake Treasure" At first it starts off happy and cute but then things turn dark when Franklin's Grandma tells the story about how her parents died in the fire it actually shows the house on fire with Grandma Turtle crying and upset. It gets even worse that later on Granny becomes sick Franklin believes that she could die at any minute! Franklin and the gang go on the adventure to find Granny's time capsule to make her feel better but they get in so many real dangers like almost falling down the highest cliff! They survived and Granny gets better in the end but still. Run-on sentences aside, I can't see this scaring someone, even from the target audience.
It's also only two examples (the minimum for NF pages is four IIRC), so even if someone comes here and says "actually this example did scare me as a kid" (which is fine), we'd probably still cut the page and move said example to YMMV.
(they/them)
I would like to ask the mods on the Edit Locked Pages thread if they could remove the following warning message from the NightmareFuel.RWBY page:
First Members see episodes 1 week before public release. As a courtesy, please do not trope them for 1 week until they have been released to the general public. Please only trope the episodes that have been released to the general public. For more information, please visit the RWBY Forum thread.
The show is now being released exclusively on Crunchyroll, requiring everyone to subscribe to a premium account in order to watch it. In 12 months time, it will become available on Rooster Teeth's website for FIRST members. There are apparently plans for it to become freely available to the general public eventually, but when has not been announced.
The general feeling on the RWBY thread is that this current rule has become a bit redundant at best, and unwieldly at worst.
Is everyone okay with me making this request?
Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 14th 2023 at 10:05:21 AM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Any pronouns
I wanted to cut that a few months ago.
I'm reading through the PBS Kids page now. One issue is that a lot of these shows are either before of after my time, so I can't speak for all of them.
- This variant of the "P-Pals" logo which begins with the P-Pals moving about in a dark room. Then we go through an open door and then the P-Pals scream "SURPRISE!" in the voices of characters from PBS Kids' shows (like Big Bird and Ms. Frizzle) with all sorts of loud party horns and other noises going about. "Surprise", indeed.
- There's also a shorter version of that variant, which starts with the zoom into the open door.
- There is also another less-scarier version which has kids calling out "The P-Pals are coming!" which ends with a kid saying "Watch for them!". Still unsettling nonetheless, for those not expecting the "Surprise!" bit at the end.
- There is also another less-scarier version
Shows
- Between the Lions:
- Cleo getting captured by hunters in "Little Big Mouse".
- The entire cast and the library patrons getting trapped inside a storybook after having been sent there by Click, who makes the ill-timed choice of going into sleep mode while everyone is screaming to be returned to reality. And then a seafaring captain comes to check said book out for his two-year voyage across the globe. Luckily everyone is fine by the next episode, but everyone is rightly horrified at how their situation nearly played out.
- Lampshaded with the Sam Spud skits, which almost always end with a young child commenting on how strange the show about sentient food is while watching it on TV, despite their parents insistence that it's "educational".
- The "freebee" virus in "The Good Seed" for all the random chaos that happens because of it. Taken up to eleven if you're a small child who just came here from Trapped In Hyperspace.
- Many people have claimed to have been frightened by the Arty Smartypants puppet due to his strange physical appearance.
- Caillou:
- In "Caillou is Getting Older", we get a shot of a dead bird who died of old age, onscreen. note It doesn't help that the rest of the episode features Caillou being afraid of getting old and dying.
- Dragon Tales: For just how saccharine and otherwise pleasant this show is, Cyrus looks really creepy. Sure, he is supposed to be a bad guy, and he does have a few silly moments, but he's still... unsettling, to say the least. The fact that he's likely an omnivore doesn't make things any better.
- Martha Speaks:
- Martha's nightmare in "Too Much Martha" portrays her as being literally paper thin and unable to really move on her own, yet still forced on a (stricter) diet by Helen to "lose weight". While the sequence has some admittedly amusing moments, such as paper-thin Martha being flown like a kite for a "walk", Martha's panicky And I Must Scream state and Helen's obliviousness (or indifference) to Martha's condition make it all the creepier.
- The episode "The Trouble With Teddy" has some scary moments, including one of the dogs who was implied to have had a near-death experience in the past.
- In "Helen's All Thumbs", the negative effects of Helen's gaming. Particularly her forgetting to feed Martha and Skits and especially her hallucinating sprites from the game!
- Maya & Miguel: In one episode, Maya and Miguel make a bet about who can go longer without their forfeit (coming up with a plan to help solve a problem for Maya; playing video games for Miguel). While most of the episode is just weird as Maya keeps a lid on her attempts to help and Miguel's attempts at the same backfire so badly Maya's antics are stated to be preferable, late in the episode, Miguel has a nightmare where he's confronted by the villain of one of his video games and when he begs Maya for help, she leaves him to die with a cheerful statement that she's not allowed to help and a wave goodbye.
- Reading Rainbow would occasionally feature books about subjects that children might find disturbing - such as a home fire, or death.
- In the Shining Time Station episode: Mr. Conductor Gets Left Out, the kids have terrifying zombie eyes from watching too much TV, which horrifies Stacy Jones. Once she unplugs the TV set, they return to normal.
Stacy Jones: (gasps when she sees the kids with zombie eyes) HOLY COUCH POTATOES! That's it, no more TV for you! (unplugs the TV set)
- And let's not forget the immense creepiness of the battles between the pluses and minuses... A visceral testament to the simplicity of arithmetic and the futility and horrors of war.
- And let's not forget the immense creepiness of the battles between the pluses and minuses... A visceral testament
- Timothy Goes to School:
- The scene where Timothy gets himself trapped behind a door near the end of "Shy Charles".
- Zoboomafoo: "Grow, Zoboo, Grow" has a jarring scene where, when Chris and Martin return from their adventure, they find Zoboo chained to an automated rack, trying to stretch himself out to grow. The Kratt Brothers promptly release him from the rack to keep him out of danger,
I don't know if the whole index deserves deletion, because in addition to these few valid examples, a few of the pages it links to are also valid. Arthur, for example, had a few episodes that creeped me out. And while I was never scared of Sesame Street, some of the animated segments from the show's early years are trippy, and I can see little kids being freaked out by them. I was never scare of Magic School Bus, either, but I know Arnold taking his helmet off scared many (to the point it's now a meme.) Maybe we should go through each NF fuel page listed there to see what should and shouldn't warrant a page, and then decide if there's enough content for an index.
Edited by PalacePosy on Feb 15th 2023 at 9:56:17 AM
Any pronouns
Keep:
- P-Pals Surprise thingy
- Between The Lions:
- The episode where Cleo almost gets captured is here. It could be frightening to a young child, and the tone is very worrying and urgent, so I suggest we keep it
- Arty Smartypants
- The episode where Cleo almost gets captured is here
- Caillou dead bird episode
- Cyrus from Dragon Tales. Delete the omnivore bit, though.
- Reading Rainbow: the book about the home fire is A Chair for My Mother, while the one about death is Everett Anderson's Goodbye.
- Shining Time Station: The scene is here. I'm an adult, and I admit that this scene was a bit of a jump scare. Even with the cheesy 80s-90s effects, it's still very unsettling. Keep it.
- I've never seen Square One TV either, but you can keep everything except for the battles between the pluses and minuses.
Delete:
- Everything else
On the fence:
- Timothy Goes to School. Here's the episode. It might be scary to a little kid, but I'm leaning on cutting it.
Even so, we can just cut the whole page because it's pointless, and we can move the P-Pals example to the YMMV page for PBS Kids.
Edited by sudrictoon on Feb 15th 2023 at 8:35:23 AM
We are the best friends, we stand as one. Whatever life may bring, we are never alone.
So should we cutlist the page and add the valid examples to the Western Animation and Live-Action TV NF pages? Either way I'm gonna go delete the non-valid ones now.
Is everyone okay with me requesting the edit to the NightmareFuel.RWBY page?
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Now we're so young, but we're probably gonna die
x4 Agreed. The "Shy Charles" bit did kind of disturb me watching it now, since being trapped in a dark room would be scary to a kid, but the fact that everyone made it out safe made it not that scary. So I think it can be cut.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
That edit makes sense to me.
Thanks.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
KIRBY CAR
These are on YMMV.My Singing Monsters:
- Nightmare Fuel:
- Some of the inactivated Wublin statues look unsettling, to say the least. The fact that un-hatched monster eggs essentially have to be sacrificed in order to wake them up does not help.
- The rare Punkletons have to deal with their heads decomposing, and their bio implies that the same will happen to regular Punkletons, but at a much slower rate.
- Some of the designs for the Prismatic monsters in Dawn of Fire look extremely disturbing.
- Shlep's Design in Mythical island was a lot scarier since it's a fly like monster with a mouth like it's eating a worm
I don't know if these are exaggerations or not, so I posted them here if at least one of them really are. Additionally, the last one has poor grammar.
he/him
I agree with Motherboard's design counting, though I don't know about that Hacker entry.