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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
Angry babby
I think an insect infestation sounds like a sufficiently scary thing for that target demographic, as long as you can describe what about the framing makes it scary (which you already seem to be doing).
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
With Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, from what I've seen online the chocolate pipe and blueberry scenes scared a lot of people as kids. Before they were disabled a fair amount of the comments on You Tube clips of those scenes talked about how they were traumatised as kids by them. It's also worth mentioning that the original book, as well as the 2005 movie and 2013 stage adaptation, played these scenes more as straight horror with some jokes to keep it from being too scary, and were played more for Black Comedy in the 1971 movie as part of the Lighter and Softer direction that adaptation took.
The Wonkamobile scene also had a lot of people saying it scared them as kids, but I'm not sure if it's scary enough for adults to warrant an entry.
I'd call the '71 film slightly darker and edgier than the book and succeeding movie if only for the tunnel scene, which r/horror noted. The book plays Augustus and Violet's karmic punishments for Black Comedy while the 2005 movie goes for more Body Horror since they had better special effects.
As for the Wonkamobile I got nothin'.
The Protomen enhanced my life.
This entry on NightmareFuel.Video Game Systems is off:
- The control stick from Nintendo 64 controller had an infamy thanks to Mario Party minigames in where rotating the control stick is mandatory due to how awkward is using the stick with the fingers, the efficient method to win is using the palm of the hand which this causes severe friction leaving bloody blisters and injuries in their hands. Tug'O'War is easily the infamous among all of the games that uses that gimmick.
This violates No Real Life Examples, Please!, does it not? Since the scary part is about people being hurt in real life.
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Rookie Trope Repairer
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah, I wondered what that was doing there. It's more relevant to a single game than the console it's on, and since the "scary" part is a real-life injury, that's an easy RL Troping cut.
Edited by Riolugirl on Feb 19th 2024 at 8:24:07 PM
"As long as I have my comrades with me, I can do anything!" (She/Her)
Not only that, but it's very poorly written as well.
I feel a lot of the entries on that page are dubious, like these ones:
- The Xbox 360's Red Ring Of Death. Imagine coming home to your console after a long and hard day of work and seeing the accursed rings for the first time just as you're getting ready to hop into a game of Halo 3.
I don't think the Red Ring would scare someone, instead it would annoy them since now their expensive console is unplayable.
- If the Nintendo DS runs low on battery, the power light will turn from green to red, then flashing red. Ditto with the Nintendo 3DS, but the notification lamp (which normally glows amber for online friends, blue for a SpotPass notification, or green for a StreetPass notification) will also blink menacingly bright red. In addition to potentially making the player panic into saving their game or plug their 3DS in to charge, it's rather reminiscent of a time bomb about to go off.
I can't imagine a blinking red light scaring anyone (Sorry Buzz Lightyear), it doesn't make any loud or scary sounds, and there are tons of electronic devices that blink red when their battery is low.
- The PlayStation 3's yellow light of death (or the red blinking light of death). Definitely something you don't want to experience while in the heat of a Tekken tournament.
Again it's another blinking light with no noise, it's not scary, just angering since it means your console isn't working.
Rookie Trope Repairer
As someone who owned a 3DS in my teen years, I can recall at least one situation where the critical battery light took me out of immersion. Cue me scrambling to find the charger. On reflection, though, the light itself was less scary than its implications (losing unsaved data). Leaning towards cut.
Angry babby
Those entries are conflating the real-life anxiety that comes with a broken/dying system with the actual warning itself being scary as some sort of psychological association effect. It'd give you anxiety even if the low battery warning was a picture of a smiling unicorn.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
As mentioned further up the page, Nightmare Fuel is NRLEP, so I'm not sure that we should have these at all for that reason regardless of whether people find them scary or not.
Edit: This could possibly apply to the whole NightmareFuel.Video Game Systems page.
I noticed the original Xbox Dashboard is on there, and while that is something people legitimately think is scary (something I've seen mentioned on other websites in the past), the quote listed is a Mondegreen and thus Fridge Horror. The audio Microsoft used is public domain NASA audio that was heavily distorted to sound robotic/alien (the result of which is unsettling, but doesn't actually feature anything a Killer Robot would say).
Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 21st 2024 at 7:00:11 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I agree with the previous points about the system warnings that are just a light with no sound. As for the Xbox dashboard, I have seen plenty of people saying they were scared of it, but the entry fixating entirely on mishearings of the audio is probably the wrong way to go.
That said, I wouldn't say the whole page is troping real life, as entries about actual audio/visuals the consoles bring can count. The PS 2 error screen, while it didn't scare me as a kid, is infamous for terrifying people, and I find the Sega CD disc player warning disturbing myself for the sound effects.
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Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Fair enough about not all of the page troping real life.
I’m shocked that no one else has brought this up but the Nightmare Fuel page for the Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comics is ridiculously padded and long. The comic book isn’t even that scary yet it has a longer NF page than most horror works on this site. It makes the comic seem far scarier than it actually is.
The page is right here NightmareFuel.Sonic The Hedgehog IDW
Edited by Fireball246 on Feb 24th 2024 at 10:04:24 AM
Sounds like badge of honor mentality may be involved. But, since I'm not familiar with the comic's actual events, do you have any bad entries in question? The Metal Virus stuff I can see being scary for younger readers. Some of the Imposter Syndrome cover entries seem a bit weak though, I saw much scarier covers for works even when I was young.
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I don’t know where to start really but the Year Six folder in particular is filled with unnecessary filler, but such stand out examples of “not scary and just filler” would be:
- A Restoration scouting mission to the doctor's new Eggperial City discovers that the city is actively growing, producing new structures out of nothing and "healing" damage done to it like a living organism. After Lanolin questions where the resources to build it all come from, the heroes punch a hole through an underground tunnel to find a hollowed void stretching too far down to see the bottom. The city strip-mines the earth beneath itself, parasitically using the minerals and nutrients to expand. Sonic guesses that Eggman designed it to do so until it's paved over the entire planet.
- One of Whisper's flashbacks in Issue #58 shows her confined to a hospital ward after her fight with Surge. Although heartwarming, this also highlights how close Whisper came to losing her life back then. She knows it, too, given her reaction when Tangle (who was tied up elsewhere during Surge and Kit's rampage) cited the incident earlier in their mission.
- Whisper shoots at Eggman the moment he reveals the improved portal traps. Her shot misses since she's intangible, but once again, we see that if given the chance and not held back, she will kill him.
- When Eggman discovers the Neo Diamond Cutters in his midst, darkness abruptly shrouds his face as one creepy Slasher Smile crosses it. Since the girls almost returned to normal when Shadow overloaded the power grid , Eggman proceeds to reveal his latest and greatest portal traps: small swarms of drones which dissolve Whisper and Lanolin alive and seal their atomized remains in dodecahedral canisters with their consciousnesses still intact. To top it off, he makes Tangle watch all this happen while taunting the crap out of her.
- Tangle barely (as in, by milliseconds) avoids her teammates' fate, but Metal Sonic and the portal trap drones chase after her, and the adorkable badass who regularly faces danger with a smile...can only flee for her life, screaming in panic all the way.
- Tails turns off the city's power limiter. Problem solved, right? Wrong. All this does is cause the giant fake Chaos Emerald crystals to grow uncontrollably, with Shadow's Crystal Prison nearly entombing him as a result before Silver breaks him out. As if to punctuate this, an Extreme Close-Up panel shows Shadow's eyes snapping open in alarm as the fake Emeralds start to go wild.
- While shutting down the city's network releases Whisper and Lanolin off-screen, both sides are initially unaware of this. As such, Tails and Amy can only watch, screaming in horror, as Sonic himself becomes the next victim of Eggman's traps, after which he sics Metal Sonic on them. This being enough to make Tangle snap out of desperation shows how dire the heroes' position is here.
- Eggman's Villainous Breakdown upon losing all his ace cards and realizing he's finally pushed Sonic too far. He becomes so frantic that he makes an anxious Plea of Personal Necessity in controlling the overloading emeralds. Sonic seems to know this but, in Tranquil Fury mode after all that's happened between him and the doctor, coldly tells him that grovelling won't work this time. In the end, Eggman, Metal Sonic, Orbot, and Cubot seemingly die with Eggperial City, as they're nowhere to be seen after Shadow Chaos-Controls the whole complex into space and it blows up; the quartet's franchise-wide Joker Immunity is the only reliable indicator of their survival. Issue 65 reveals that Eggman's still alive but he hasn't done anything to the heroes because the destruction of Eggperial City means that he hasn't had time to come up with a new scheme.
A lot of examples here are just straight up bordering on not even telling scary examples from the comic and are just recounting story events in the comic without stating anything scary or are just exaggerating events to make them out to be scarier than they actually are. Also, a lot of Eggman wank off (seriously this page makes Eggman out to be far scarier than he actually is).
Edited by Fireball246 on Feb 24th 2024 at 11:44:36 AM
Ok, yeah, the "hospital ward" one is especially bad, since it admits it is a heartwarming moment, links to Fridge Horror and is terrified that a heroic character almost died, even though it would be jarringly out of place if someone like Whisper actually died in a comic made for kids. (yes, the general folder describes characters dying, but Starline is a villain and the Diamond Cutters were backstory deaths).
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Konstruktor
Nation States could use some help. There are a lot of dead links, and most of the examples don't really explain what makes them scary. (Also not too keen on the bulletpoints declaring something Nightmare Retardant because the link is dead.)
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
It looks to me like the game is just players making their nations, and they can write whatever they want about it. That would mean the page is troping the players, rather than the actual game's content, so I'd cut the whole thing.
Well, I guess that would be cut-worthy. It's like how NightmareFuel.Minecraft had the entries about mods removed.
Going back to the NightmareFuel.Video Game Systems page, I would like to contest this entry:
- If you power on the GBA without a valid cartridge inserted, it just hangs on the Game Boy logo indefinitely and ominously, without the Nintendo logo present, remininscent of a face with No Mouth. Granted, this is part of the procedure for playing a multiplayer game in single-cartridge mode — the host has the cartridge in their unit, links up the other players' units, and then activates a special transmit mode, while the other 1-3 players power up their GBAs with no cartridge inserted; the still Game Boy logo means the GBA is waiting for game data to be transmitted from the host (and the GBA will move on from that once there is game data ready to run). It's when you try to play with a cartridge inserted but the GBA cannot read the cartridge correctly, or when you forget to insert a cartridge to begin with, that the indefinite Game Boy logo gets quite spooky.
I saw this as a kid, and I wasn't scared of it in the slightest. It just annoyed me instead. And this is coming from someone who used to try to avoid turned-off TVs.
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Sounds good on paper (he/him)
Yeah, that's not scary. Plus, if you do have a valid cartridge inserted and it still looks like that, it's annoying at worst.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 28th 2024 at 5:45:44 AM
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Logic Girl
Here's a dubious-seeming example from NightmareFuel.Minecraft
- The setting of Minecraft in general has more than a few potentially unsettling or disturbing elements to it. There are a lot of abandoned and ruined structures around such as temples, mansions, and mineshafts, hinting that there was once some kind of advanced civilization(s)... but besides the villagers and their more humble dwellings, there are no other signs of civilized beings (except for the hostile Illagers). Add in the presence of all kinds of strange and scary creatures such as zombies, skeletons, Endermen and so forth, and one can't help but wonder... what happened to this world? This seems like Fridge Horror.
- The simple fact that the only human creatures are either aggressive and Ax-Crazy or incommunicable is terrifying by itself. Aren't (v)illagers Ambiguously Human?
- Really, the entire world of Minecraft is scary in a subtle way. While it's not completely abandoned, the Villages only take up a tiny fraction of it and so most of the game is spent with the player in the wilderness or mining deep underground with no one around. And since the game is procedurally generated, players spend a ton of time running off into the unknown without having any idea what they'll find. This combined with how mobs can attack at any time can make even walking through a sunny field or torchlit tunnel creepy. While Minecraft is cute and fun as well, the entire game has a strange Nothing Is Scarier quality to it. There is a reason Minecraft inspired so many creepypastas. More Fridge Horror.
Konstruktor
I think some examples in the Websites folder for Web Original might be too real-life adjacent. The ones for Plane Crash Info, Skyway Bridge, The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and Rotten.com seem like clear candidates for cutting, but there are some others I feel rather iffy about.
- The WTF Subreddit on Reddit is a growing library full of these.
- Another Reddit example: if you miss the old High Octane Nightmare Fuel Real Life page, r/MorbidReality is happy to provide.
- This trope is the entire reason r/NoSleep exists.
- Another Reddit example: if you miss the old High Octane Nightmare Fuel Real Life page, r/MorbidReality
- This interactive website about the Salem Witch Trials. Which is also part of at least one school's canon.
Very Spooky
First three violate Examples Are Not General, and the last is a dead link (and ZCE). All three can be cut.
back lol
But I have a problem of my own: I'm considering adding the Martha Speaks episode "Patrol Dog Martha" to Nightmare Fuel, but I'm worried that someone down the line is gonna go "LOLZ! That's not scary! You're probably just a wangsty edgelord!".
It gives me a sense of unease that no other Martha Speaks episode does, because of the whole premise being Martha barely saving Wagstaff City from a perilous bug infestation, the happy ending being totally dependent on blind luck, and the fact that Martha was reassured multiple times that the infestation wasn't an issue only for it to later be revealed that it was.
I do remember talking about it on Yack Fest, and another troper saying it made him jump as a kid, but yeah, I don't want to be accused of exaggerating or being an edgelord.
For every low there is a high.