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
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~Fireball246 keeps readding stuff to the Mario Movie NF whenever we cut it, including a little bit just now, though fortunately not even most of what got cut this time.
Edit: they have barely done any edits not related to the Mario movie or games (maybe like 3 Transformers edits and 1 Sonic Movie edit and that's it) and almost all their edits as of the past few days have been on the nightmare fuel subpage for the movie specifically, so I'm suspecting single issue wonk.
Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on Apr 29th 2023 at 5:20:58 AM
She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqkAaaaand Francis got readded by someone separate who said in the edit reason that they have a dog phobia and it scared them. We need to concretely figure out just what exactly is staying and what is leaving on NightmareFuel.The Super Mario Bros Movie, because at this point it is just a big pile of edit wars.
Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on Apr 30th 2023 at 5:17:26 AM
She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqkHonestly at this point I'm wondering if examples should even be allowed at all on Nightmare Fuel/we even want to have this item around. The misuse is staggering, we routinely get mocked offsite for the kind of items that end up here, and there are constant battles and Edit Wars over what is and isn't allowed. This is a valid concept (as I attested to over on the meta thread in Yack Fest), and I don't actually want to gut it all yet, but I kind of wonder if this site just flat out can't handle having it around. We gutted Troper Tales and Fetish Fuel, after all, and those (while much worse) were also leading to offsite drama and problems despite being popular. I know I'm not alone either—I remember Willbyr at one point expressing similar feelings about NF.
Is anything I'm saying valid, or am I overreacting and we can handle having this?
EDIT: Retracted
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on May 2nd 2023 at 2:39:51 PM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallI fixed it. I got rid of the Francis, Fridge Horror, and Played for Laughs examples. We don’t need to resort to locking the page at least not permanently.
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I think you're overreacting. Most misuse is obvious enough to be cut if you don't use the pages as a personal dumping ground, which can be said for most Moments and YMMV pages. Troper Tales wasn't even about the content of media so little of value was lost by cutting it, and Fetish Fuel was way too TMI. It's not comparable to Moments misuse in terms of severity.
People will make fun of TV Tropes for everything. Are we gonna appeal to them, or are we gonna appeal to our own standards?
Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 30th 2023 at 6:25:07 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Yeah you’re right. Admittedly I haven’t been in the best mood today so I wasn’t in a good place when I wrote that. Apologies.
I mean to be fair, as you yourself said it is a legit concept. I honestly feel like "unintentionally scary" and "intentionally scary" should be separated though to be honest. Like the 5 AM theme in Animal Crossing New Leaf? Unintentionally scary. That jumpscare in Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies involving 11 year old Athena covered in blood? Intentionally scary.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
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That's how it used to be (with Accidental Nightmare Fuel and High Octane Nightmare Fuel), but both were merged a while ago. I think it's because to some extent, it's hard to define what is and isn't intentional. What about, for example, a villain in a children's show who's meant to be mildly threatening, sometimes Played for Laughs but still treated as dangerous? Is that accidental because they're only meant to be a little scary, or is it intentional because it's meant to be scary at all?
Edited by Zuxtron on May 1st 2023 at 11:14:45 AM
I'm also in favor of deleting Nightmare Fuel. It's caused us nothing but trouble. EDIT: Or at the very least, make it like Magnificent Bastard and Complete Monster so that we have to have threads discussing what counts as NF.
Edited by sudrictoon on May 2nd 2023 at 10:41:55 AM
Sinners are TRASH / And they are A**HOLESI'd be for more regulation for nightmare fuel rather than a cut. The concept isn't bad, just users continuing to make bad entries. Something like Complete Monster. Nightmare Fuel is a pretty big draw to the site so I'd rather it not be completely cut.
Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on May 2nd 2023 at 11:58:47 AM
She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqkI also favor regulation. As I said, I wasn't in a good mood when I wrote my original comment.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper WallComplete Monster is more about narrative intent than Nightmare Fuel so I don't think effort posting would be fair. Too many people would be like "well that shouldn't count because it doesn't scare me" regardless of how many people it's been reported to scare offsite.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.For clarification, when I said "regulation" I didn't mean like CM or MB regulation. I meant like "continue the cleanup thread" regulation.
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall
To not take drastic action like I had originally proposed?
I’m not wording myself well. I already retracted my original position, I’m not advocating for anything right now. I’m sorry if I’m confusing everyone.
Edited by themayorofsimpleton on May 2nd 2023 at 3:12:54 PM
Works That Require Cleanup of Complaining | Troper Wall

Looking at the rest of the examples on the The Super Mario Bros. Movie page, and I feel most of the examples with Bowser seem to be over-exaggerating how scary the scenes actually are.
Also worth noting, there is a problem with the example indentation as there are a few stray third bullet examples here as well as most of the bullets being written as to refer to the previous examples, reading like one big example, which isn't really approved of on TV Tropes.