Nightmare Fuel cleanup and maintenance

Most of the fridge stuff seems accurate. Unsure about the last one though, I don't think it's fridge as the movie literally depicted a child bringing a gun to school, that's just what he does so I don't see it as Fridge Horror at all. Now he didn't do anything with the gun and the example does go off on a tangent about school shootings but the actual imagery itself of a child bringing a gun to school exists in the work proper. Whether it's scary on it's own is another question.

To be clear, I feel like pretty much none of these things actually do count as Nightmare Fuel especially not with the vague and whiney way they're written. My issue was more with the inaccurate arguments.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 29th 2023 at 3:35:05 PM

I remember there was a Cool Cat NF page (I used to read the site a lot even before I made my account), but they deleted it. now someone brought it back??

Here is the sun and moon; I think the sun might qualify as Unintentional Uncanny Valley because it's unnecessarily detailed for a cartoon sun, which looks a bit creepy. Not sure if it's Nightmare Fuel levels but if people think it's scary, so it goes.

All the molester stuff is just Memetic Molester and Accidental Innuendo, and the Derek / Momma Cat stuff is just your standard jokes about Interspecies Romance, not particularly scary except for the RL note, which can't be NF due to being real life.

Edited by mightymewtron on Aug 29th 2023 at 8:41:31 AM

How is the following from NightmareFuel.hololive scary?

• Takanashi Kiara's BSOD during her first HoloCure stream was disturbing and scary. For context, Kiara's been trying to complete a run as herself, but she keeps losing. On one particular run (her fourth attempt), she got two collabs, and it seemed like she would win; she even started to play upbeat music; unfortunately, Kiara died again. Afterward, Kiara screamed in despair and went silent before resuming the game, only this time, Kiara didn't put the music back on, and her mood took a turn for the worst. She started talking cryptically and enjoyed killing the fans, including her own. If you're wondering if she ever got better and beat a run with herself, she didn't. Kiara ragequit and went straight to reading the super chats. Meaning, she suffered for over an hour for nothing.

That's not NF, that's just frustration boiling over. I know the VTuber and that behavior is definitely OOC for her, but still...

Edited by Willbyr on Aug 30th 2023 at 9:55:29 AM

Dumb question, but when it comes to the PSA and PIF entries listed on their respective page about smoking, is an ad that doesn't show gore or real people with wrecked lives from tobacco like the other entries on the page still heinous enough? I am saying this because I just found something horrifying, but it doesn't use the usual "don't smoke" tricks (as an allegory for what smoking does to the lungs, we see a lady playing tennis with a plastic bag tied over her head struggling to breathe, with her breaths sounding outright painful).

I would say they do count. Scary anti-smoking PSA lists rank "Inside Out" and "Natural Born Smoker" very high up, even though the former shows a tar zombie jump scare and the latter shows a mutant man from a cyberpunk world. Neither of them are gory, nor do they show real ruined lives.

Yeah, there's always the thought of Nothing Is Scarier, things necessarily don't have to have gore in order to qualify (though I'd consider your example of a woman being choked by a bag to still be kinda violent)

This is less Nightmare Fuel proper and more about the Nightmare Retardant page. I think there needs to be a reminder to tropers editing it to say something like "Do not add examples of things you are not personally scared by. Others my find them scary."

Like I find the basement scene in It (2017) funny because the George illusion starts sounding like its saying "Yolo two" instead of "You'll float too" to me, but I won't add such.

Edited by generation81 on Sep 6th 2023 at 11:36:46 AM

NightmareFuel.Xploshi has this valid example, from the very creepy "Arthur Ruins Everything" video, but I think the last bullet point (which I've bolded) is unnecessary:

• Arthur Ruins Everything:
  • Buster's mangled corpse: For context, Arthur is reading a book, where he accidently bumps into the library ladder that Buster's on, causing him to fall over backwards. While Arthur's horrified expression is pretty standard for a Xploshi video, what he's reacting to is anything but. The image of Buster on the ground isn't pretty to say the least, where even the goofy music^note A cartoony version of "The Entertainer" slows down to halt. Buster's body is shown splayed on the ground, with his torso split open (with blood all over the floor), his arms broken in different angles (with his right hand being perfectly cut from his arm), his eyeballs dangling out of his sockets, and his mouth is left gaping open with his tongue dangling out in a perfect spiral next to him. It doesn't help that Buster's apperance is drawned in a semi realistic matter. It actually gives Arthur a good reason to abruptly cry again.^note Though this whole scene can count as Nightmare Retardant, since it comes right out of nowhere.
    Arthur: Oh no. Buster! (Cries hysterically)
    • This moment comes off as surprisingly graphic, to the point it can be considered to be the closest we'll get to the climax of the "Arthur: Lost Episode" creepypasta, where Buster was found dead with his eyes missing in graphic detail.

Unless Xploshi was inspired by the creepypasta, I don't see why this is relevant. I feel like the editor is trying to shoehorn in a reference to something unrelated. Does anyone else agree, or am I overeacting?

Edited by Willbyr on Sep 6th 2023 at 10:57:55 AM

That's Natter with bad Example Indentation, on top of being a shoehorned reference. You can cut it.

I honestly don't see why this is in NightmareFuel.Fire Emblem Heroes. The banner art looks normal to me; is the example exaggerating?

• While this is unintentional, a lot of players were scared shitless of this image used for the 52nd weekly revival banner. For starters, it looks as if Camilla, Eliwood, and Male Byleth are just staring at you with their cold, lifeless eyes. While the latter two are at least looking from the side, Male Byleth, of all people somehow made the whole image even more uncomfortable to look at. Worse, the fact that it uses the default pose for all three characters featured instead of other poses just makes it terrifying. When it was brought back again on March 2023, the banner image was left unaltered, therefore scaring players once again.

[EDIT: Huh. I see that ANF examples are permitted in NF pages. So, I guess it's a keep?]

Edited by Berrenta on Sep 7th 2023 at 10:22:26 AM

Better image link since yours is a tiny thumbnail

Accidental Nightmare Fuel is allowed, but this doesn't look even remotely scary to me. There's nothing "cold" or "lifeless" about those eyes, and I have no clue why using the default pose is "terrifying".

This feels like a huge overexaggeration, if not outright trolling.

EDIT: This Reddit post does seem to have some people saying it makes them uncomfortable... still feels like an overreaction.

Edited by Zuxtron on Sep 7th 2023 at 3:28:29 PM

I wonder if that's a sort of "fridge uncomfortable" — they already know the work, so they know about the characters roles and abilities... some of those "uncomfortable" posts come across more as an in-joke about already knowing what the character is like, whereas the rest are just ZCE.

I don't know. I don't know the work, so it just comes across as an overreaction or an in-joke to me.

In that case, pulled as a shoehorn.

From Baby Einstein

• The rather infamous “Bard the Dragon” scene in Baby Mozart. The entire scene is very unnerving, with Bard’s singing walking into the scene, the black background, the creepy music as he looks around, the out of place bird noises, and it's capped off with Bard yelling "Blaaaaaaaah!!" It all culminates to what is best described as “Baby’s First Jump Scare”.

Umm, the "Blaah" aside, I don't find it scary at all, maybe at best Accidental Nightmare Fuel.

Yeah, I highly doubt that the makers of a video series aimed at actual infants and meant to stimulate their brain development were going to intentionally scare babies.

Same goes for what's beneath it:

• The music in the 1999 Korean localization of Baby Einstein/Language Nursery (which uses some scenes from Baby Bach) is very unnerving during some scenes that appear in neither video (or any other videos from Baby Einstein in that matter).

I meam, what!?

Gonna delete this and modify the above, if you don't mind.

I was scared of Bart the Dragon as a kid, for what it's worth. Even then, while most things I was scared of made me run out the room, I don't think I ever did so here.

This example from the Computers folder on NightmareFuel.OtherMedia feels over-exaggerated to me:

• Mobile apps that translate words in real-time through the phone's video camera. Not so bad if a bubble pops up with the translated text, but some creepily try to go the extra mile by trying to replace the actual words being captured, attempting to mimic the font, size, angle, and color scheme of the original. It always fails. The idea is so misguided, that if it were used in a movie to clue in the protagonist that they're in a simulator, it could make for some good horror.

I've used Google Translate's camera function for quick translations of fanart; I have never once been freaked out by this. I find it helpful to see the translated text in context, regardless of it looking a bit wonky. Considering cutting but a second opinion might help.

lol wut? Cut it.

Not only is that silly, it's a speculative example and those aren't permitted.

Got it. I'm out of town right now but, as soon as I have a moment when I'm back, I'll cut this and cite this thread in the edit reason.

x4 I changed the entry on the page to Accidental Nightmare Fuel, for what it is worth.

From Super Mario 64, people are saying the music for the castle hub, Bob-Omb Battlefield, and the slide music are scary. There's other stuff too about the "liminal space" feeling but I honestly thought that was more of a meme than an actual thing people thought about the game... (except maybe Wet-Dry World which felt kinda lonely [and annoying cause of the Heave-Hos].)

"Like the game overall, "Inside the Castle Walls", the sparse, meandering string music that plays in the hub world, is soothingly nostalgic to some players but eerie to others. The first time you set foot in the castle, a hostile message from Bowser "seems to come from everywhere" (as phrased in the instruction booklet), accompanied by a Scare Chord and his distorted Evil Laugh. Afterwards, this regal yet empty theme starts playing while you learn about the spells Bowser has placed on the castle, as if the soundtrack is pretending nothing is wrong. It makes Peach's Castle feel far more ominous. The melody itself imparts a sinking feeling: after repeating the main leitmotif the first three times, going down a step each time, it starts descending aimlessly before pulling itself together. The grainy instrument samples and the reverb effect also make the music sound fake and muddy, especially when any of the parts dip into the bass register, adding to the dreamlike liminality.

The main theme, used in Bob-omb Battlefield, Whomp's Fortress, and a few later courses, feels disjointed due to the guitar and some other instruments not being locked in. Although these rhythmic imperfections may have been added to make the theme sound more organic, the samples themselves are far from convincing, so it comes together to sound like something is subtly off with the playback.

While this seems to be a minority opinion, the athletic theme, "Slider", is frightening in the opposite way—less liminal, more frenzied to the point of overstimulation. Every arrangement in later games is perfectly harmonious and pleasant, so it's something specific to the original version. The pitch-bent melody, and whistling that ranges from quavering to earsplitting, makes the theme sound like it's straining to sound cheery and bouncy, instead coming off as mockingnote or panicked. Although "Slider" is bluegrass, it manages to tap into much of the same rationale behind the Creepy Circus Music trope. Mario's scream when he falls into a pit fits right in with this music."