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
Suspense and horror are indeed two entirely different things. Cut.
SiIvaGunner has a lot of spoiler tags and it focuses on the Nightmare Retardant a lot. Most of the entries are scary enough (some even I don't want to think about at night), but a select few are questionable, and the E.G.G.M.A.N one doesn't seem scary to me
"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"I've gone ahead and cleaned up the following three episodes for NightmareFuel.RWBY as per previous posts:
- The Lost Fable. See posts here
and here
.
- So That's How It Is. See posts here
.
- The Coming Storm. See posts here
and here
.
The following examples that I removed from the page can be added back if rewritten to fit the trope:
The Lost Fable
Both examples below are just scene summaries, but can be added back if rewritten to explain the impact on the audience.
- Salem originally became cursed with immortality for meddling with both the Gods. She is shown to try stabbing herself to no avail, much to Ruby's shock. She then leads an army of humans to attack the gods ... only for the Dark God to strip humanity of its magic, and fire back. This results in all of humanity dying in one horrible instant, the depiction of which is sudden and brutal (a flash of purple light engulfs the entire world and annihilates all human life in its way, accompanied by the soundtrack's frightful wails and ashes in the air after the deed is done). Just to drive the genocide's impact home, the God of Darkness cuts Salem's vow of revenge short with the harsh truth:
Dark God: You do not understand. There is no one left. You are all that remains of humanity.
- After the departure of the Gods, Salem rationalized that since the pool of the Light God cursed her with immortality, the pool of the Dark God would release her curse. Instead, she dives into a pool of pure malevolence that relentlessly assaults her until she crawls out in her present-day form; a being of infinite life with a desire for pure destruction.
The new episode that's been released this weekend to the general public is troped as follows. My response to each entry is at the end of each entry in bold text.
Alone In The Woods
- This entire episode is nothing but Nightmare Fuel:
- The behaviour of the heroes after spending the night at the farm is downright chilling. It rapidly becomes clear that something is wrong when everyone starts getting sluggish, grouchy and lethargic. And then they start coming up with excuses to quit the fight against Salem. Even Ruby is eventually ready to abandon the Relic and quit. Nothing here explains why it's on the Nightmare Fuel page. It's practically a wordy Zero Context Example. Remove
- Here's a little animation tidbit you might not pick up on the first time round: the girls' eyes literally change when they're under the effect. The highlights in them disappear, leaving them flat circles of color that really underscores their dead-inside expressions. It's especially noticeable when it happens to Ruby... Analysing animation techniques and making assumptions about whether or not people spotted the tricks of the trade has nothing to do with the trope. Remove.
- Ruby then drops The Relic of Knowledge into the well by accident when she sees a pair of red eyes. She goes down with her team into the water tunnels, and spots it around a corner. Once she rounds the corner, we finally see what's responsible for the fall of Brunswick Farms and the strange behaviour: The Apathy Grimm. Rather than slaughtering you with sheer numbers (like most Grimm) or through cold, deliberate brutality (like the Nuckleavee), this species of Grimm drains your will to live until you collapse and wait to die. You'll either get a quick death at their hands, or they'll leave you to slowly and painfully starve to death if they can't reach you. And what do they look like? A horde of skeletal zombies with spindly long arms, that shamble and move as one enormous, writhing mass. Is it me or is this written as gushing? It feels like it's a misplaced Awesome example. There might be an example here somewhere, but it needs a rewrite to salvage. Remove or Rewrite.
- The Apathy might look emaciated and move slowly, but they quickly are shown to be relentless. Ruby shoots one with Crescent Rose, and it doesn't even flinch. Later, Weiss sets the horde ablaze, and they just keep coming. No wonder Qrow got spooked sober when he saw them wreathed in flames. I feel there's an example here, but it needs to be rewritten.
- It's a blink and you'll miss it moment, but as Team RWBY and Maria are running from the Apathy in the tunnels, they run right past the skeleton of the Huntsmen seen in the group picture. Freeze-Frame Bonus by definition means you've actually got to be analysing the scene (and stopping the playback to go through it slowly) just to spot it in the first place. That seems to be the antithesis of Nightmare Fuel, which requires the scene to hit you hard as it plays out. Remove.
- And there's the fact the tuneels were a bit of a maze. While someone who knows the place would manage easy, RWBY weren't familiar with the place and had to hope they weren't running towards a dead-end with every turn. Imagine being in a maze of underground tunnels you don't know filled with monsters. Fridge Horror. Remove.
- The way Blake simply lies down when The Apathy screams overpower her by the cellar doors. Her eyes are wide and unblinking and she doesn't move a muscle. It honestly looks like she's already dead. Is there a potential example here? It's just a scene summary as written. Rewrite or Remove.
- The Reveal about how The Apathy got into Brunswick Farms in the first place gets in. As Maria recounts to the others after their escape, the farm's owner wanted to cut the cost of Huntsman protection, so he captured a pair of Apathy and locked them under his house, hoping their powers would calm everyone down enough that no Grimm would be drawn to them. Little did he know that the rest of the pack was following him home. This is a scene summary as written. Remove.
- The behaviour of the heroes after spending the night at the farm is downright chilling. It rapidly becomes clear that something is wrong when everyone starts getting sluggish, grouchy and lethargic. And then they start coming up with excuses to quit the fight against Salem. Even Ruby is eventually ready to abandon the Relic and quit. Nothing here explains why it's on the Nightmare Fuel page. It's practically a wordy Zero Context Example. Remove
Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 9th 2018 at 10:26:06 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.- Salem originally became cursed with immortality for meddling with both the Gods. She is shown to try stabbing herself to no avail, much to Ruby's shock. She then leads an army of humans to attack the gods ... only for the Dark God to strip humanity of its magic, and fire back. This results in all of humanity dying in one horrible instant, the depiction of which is sudden and brutal (a flash of purple light engulfs the entire world and annihilates all human life in its way, accompanied by the soundtrack's frightful wails and ashes in the air after the deed is done). Just to drive the genocide's impact home, the God of Darkness cuts Salem's vow of revenge short with the harsh truth:
Dark God: You do not understand. There is no one left. You are all that remains of humanity.
To change that from a mere scene summary into an actual Nightmare Fuel entry, I can rephrase it.
- When Salem tries to rally humanity against the Brothers, the God of Darkness demonstrates exactly why you shouldn't take your creator's gifts for granted, least divine retribution punish you and even those uninvolved: he deprives Salem's army of their magic, then unleashes a wave of destruction across the entire planet. This results in all of humanity dying in one horrible instant, the depiction of which is sudden and brutal (a flash of purple light engulfs the entire world and annihilates all human life in its way, accompanied by the soundtrack's frightful wails and ashes in the air after the deed is done). Just to drive the genocide's impact home, the God of Darkness cuts Salem's vow of revenge short with the harsh truth:
God of Darkness: You do not understand. There is no one left. You are all that remains of humanity.
Edited by AnoBakaDesu on Dec 9th 2018 at 6:50:28 AM
"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom PainCan anyone help with the Half-Life Franchise?
It's too long now that I fear it may be filled with nothing but examples being potholed into Nightmare Fuel but are actually Paranoia Fuel or Fridge Horror. Here are some notable examples that IMO, are erroneous (with opinions inside parenthesis and highlighted in bold font):
- All headcrabs count as a form of unleaded Paranoia Fuel, due to their tendency to show up absolutely anywhere. Hiding in alleyways, skulking in storerooms, lurking in air vents, clinging to the underside of your chair as you surf the Internet... (That last sentence doesn't even involve the game itself)
- It's the pauses. "Rise and... shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise... and-shine." *shiver* (Why do people always add "shiver" in NF subpages?)
- Gordon Freeman to his enemies. It doesn't matter what species you are, it doesn't matter how well armed you are, if you see Freeman, you're already dead, as he has an entire arsenal to completely obliterate you and your entire platoon, and quite possibly your entire army. (I think this is already mentioned in the Mook Horror Show entry of HL 2)
- Imagine yourself in Gordon's shoes, or even that of a normal Black Mesa employee, as you're hunted down by horrific alien monstrosities or by merciless Marines. It makes the game a little more unsettling when you think about that. (Fridge Horror perhaps?)
- The trees. Good God, the TREES. (Zero-Context?)
- However, you could treat it as Nightmare Retardant if you pretend it's just the cover to a metal album. (What's the context behind this? The "metal album" is even potholed to the Freeman's Mind Machinima)
- "They're waiting for you Gordon... In the Test Chamber..." (Same as the G-Man's iconic Rise and Shine quote. I mean, do people really get scared by unusual pronunciations or long pauses between words?)
- Imagine this: You're a scientist working at Black Mesa, during which the resonance cascade happens during your shift and you're stuck in an isolated area with a small team of scientists. You wait for the military to arrive, but they don't come for a long time. Then, the door opens, and a man in an armored suit is standing in the doorway. Your hopes soar, thinking that you might make it out and live to see another day... before the man turns his gun on your fellow scientists and kills everyone without hesitation. But it wasn't a military soldier that killed you, it was Gordon Freeman. explanation (Notice how this entry even has an explanation labelnote? IMO, this is just Video Game Cruelty Potential)
- The worst part is that those with an unpatched version of the game cannot save it at all during the chapter, as for some reason, the save file will corrupt and trying to load it will simply crash the game at every attempt. That's right, the whole long segment must be done in one go, without saving at all. (Although I admit I encountered this bug way back when I played the game as a kid. But is a Game-Breaking Bug counted as a Nightmare Fuel?)
- Picking up a baby doll in a decrepit playground at the very beginning of the game will produce the sound of what is either children happily screaming or terrified children screaming. (This is actually an Easter Egg. But being an easter egg where players may not actually discover it the first time around, is it worth listing in Nightmare Fuel?)
- The creepiness gets rapidly sucked out if you watched Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and quickly regonize the "Howie scream", used for the Black Headcrab and the Fast Headcrab Zombies. Also, the Black Headcrab Zombie's pain sound is actually a Horse noise from Ed, Edd n Eddy. (A sentence here gets potholed to Nightmare Retardant)
- When you finally escape Ravenholm, exiting the tunnel, breathing that fresh, City 17 air, recovering that ammo from the crate - OHSHITPOISONHEADCRABDIEDIEDIE (Is it really okay to write stuff like these?)
- Doctor Freeeemannnnnn... (It's also the caption for the page image. Problem is, there's Zero Context provided)
I bet there are plenty of other non-NF stuff that I might have missed.
With Great Power, Comes Great Motivation
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
Any sentence that attempts to make the example not sound scary should either be deleted or moved to the YMMV page under Nightmare Retardant if it isn't already there. Same goes for anything that's labeled Fridge Horror or "a little" scary.
Okay, I've removed the entries you mentioned and combined the rest into the following two examples, which I'm adding back to the page:
Alone in the Woods
- The behaviour of the heroes after spending the night on the farm is chilling. Somthing is clearly wrong; everyone is grouchy and lethargic, seeking excuses to abandon the quest to Atlas to get the Relic of Knowledge to safety. Everyone else's become dull, flat and lifeless, with over-sized pupils that make them seem somehow wrong. It eerily mimicks the descent into depression and hopelessness that can aflict people in real life.
- The Apathy Grimm are physically weak. Even their overwhelming numbers don't provide a physical threat the way most Grimm do. Instead, they are relentless in slowly pursuing the victims they target. They drain a person's will to live until the victim lies down where they are and simply waits to die. When it happens to Blake, she simply lies in front of the oncoming Grimm with wide, unblinking eyes, as if she's already dead. Even if they aren't physically close to their victims, the victim will die a slow death from starvation, as even the will to eat is destroyed. When the heroes do finally try to fight back, there's nothing they can do to actually stop the Apathy from following them. When even Ruby's silver eyes don't work for long, the Apathy continuing to walk after them while burning alive from the fire that Weiss has attacked them with. Watching the heroes slowly being driven towards suicide, as they fight to find just enough strength to run away, makes this one of the most unsettling episodes of the show.
I'm also bringing over this addition to the Argus Limited episode:
- The sound of Dudley's arm smacking into the train tunnel, and his ensuing scream. When this episode aired in theaters, audiences audibly groaned at the impact.
I'm willing to bet most people cringed at the sound of the impact and crushing bones, but the reaction isn't caused by Nightmare Fuel. Is this an entry?
Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 15th 2018 at 4:03:55 PM
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.- If you have claustrophobia (to say nothing of a fear of drowning), you will have trouble watching Penny crawling into the grotto.
- Let's see, Penny gets adopted by a Captain Ersatz of Cruella De Vil who proceeds to force her to crawl into a regularly flooded cavern to search for a jewel, and preps her for it by depriving her of contact with the outside world and calling her ugly. If you look past the funny talking animals, The Rescuers is basically a movie about child exploitation. Yes Disney, and Dark Age Disney of all things, went there.
- Evinrude nearly getting eaten by a flock of bats as he tries to make his way back to Elle Mae's house. He comes inches to a hungry bat's mouth several times before eventually taking cover in a bottle just across from the house, while the bats watch him in a nearby tree. Later, just as he makes a break for Ellie Mae's house, the bats chase Evinrude again, before he barely manages to escape through Ellie Mae's chimney, panting from extreme trauma.
The first two are Adult Fear, with the first being a "someone might find this scary", the third is more suspenseful than scary ("panting from extreme trauma"? He's out of breath).
The page image is one of Madame Medusa's pet alligators, who don't eat anyone or really attack anyone, and who Penny treats as more of an annoying nuisance than a threat. They even get a goofy side character leitmotif.
There were two Zero Context Examples that I've already deleted.
- Madame Medusa's theme music.
- Her pets, Brutus and Nero, certainly qualify.
Medusa's theme
, if you're wondering.
I think the whole page should just be chainsawed.
In fact, most of NightmareFuel.Disney and NightmareFuel.Disney Animated Canon should be looked at.
A new episode of RWBY has been released and some of these examples need to be looked at:
The Grimm Reaper
- Maria losing her eyes via a sword to the face is gruesome, and leaves nothing to the imagination. Her prolonged screams as Tock stands over her and gloats make it so much worse.
- How she defeats Tock is something else too. Her twin kama are imbued with Gravity Dust, and lie on either side of Tock. With the flick of a switch, the kama behind Tock lodges into her back and draws her closer to Maria, who slices her head off with the other one. No wonder she was called The Grimm Reaper.
- Something of a Freeze-Frame Bonus, but the kama that gets Tock in the back buries itself deep into her back; it's likely she was dead before Maria even swung the other one.
- Tock herself gets in, by virtue of being a violent crocodile faunus with a bear trap for jaws, who's incredibly skilled and even outright sadistic in how she treats her targets. And her Semblance? For a full minute, she's completely invulnerable. Imagine being up against a vicious murderer who takes no damage from anything for a straight minute, which as her fight with Maria shows, is more than enough time for her to cripple or outright kill you. It's a damn good thing Maria killed her, and she only managed that because Tock took the time to offer her mercy.
- How she defeats Tock is something else too. Her twin kama are imbued with Gravity Dust, and lie on either side of Tock. With the flick of a switch, the kama behind Tock lodges into her back and draws her closer to Maria, who slices her head off with the other one. No wonder she was called The Grimm Reaper.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
How about taking a look at NightmareFuel.Zombie Land Saga?
The page opens with a "General" section which is pretty much all Fridge Horror. I don't think anything in there is salvageable.
Then there are these examples:
- The audience at their first concert is in awe of they are able to head bang to such an extreme. One commenting that it's like their necks are all broken. Cue a side shot of Sakura's head to show thats exactly the case. Complete with the slightest sound of bones breaking.
By this point, we already know that the characters are zombies and that a broken neck doesn't harm them in any way (later episodes show them getting completely decapitated with no real consequences). This might elicit a squick reaction, but I don't think it's haunting enough to count as true Nightmare Fuel.
Episode 4
- Sakura, Saki and Junko sneak out during their trip to hit the hot spring, and it quickly turns into this for their sponsor. First Sakura loses her head trying to sneak back in, only for it and her body to float to the sponsor. Then Saki and Junko jump out, scaring her more and sending her running. The screaming wakes up the rest of the girls, who come out to investigate, with the sponsor running into each of them as she's trying to escape. It scares her so bad she completely forgets about everything that happened the day before.
- Among the zombie girls the sponsor bumps into, Lily's scene is easily the most terrifying and the one that makes use of numerous Horror tropes. Dark, flickering hallway with someone getting close as soon as the lights black out? Check. A view from the first-person perspective of the "victim"? Check. Someone's face instantly taking up the entire screen as soon as she reveals her eyes? Check. Contortionist-like bending of limbs and jerky movements? (That part was Tae though) Check. And the background music during this scene? Eerie sounds of a crying baby.
This is scary In-Universe for the character. We, the audience, already know that these zombies are friendly, so there's nothing to be afraid of.
- Among the zombie girls the sponsor bumps into, Lily's scene is easily the most terrifying and the one that makes use of numerous Horror tropes. Dark, flickering hallway with someone getting close as soon as the lights black out? Check. A view from the first-person perspective of the "victim"? Check. Someone's face instantly taking up the entire screen as soon as she reveals her eyes? Check. Contortionist-like bending of limbs and jerky movements? (That part was Tae though) Check. And the background music during this scene? Eerie sounds of a crying baby.
Episode 6
- We now learn about the events surrounding Ai and Junko's deaths:
- Junko was heading to Saga until the plane she was riding on crashed. Can't imagine what it was like having to witness yourself falling from an extreme height, trapped inside a death trap while hundreds of people screamed for their lives before they died. Its impact on Junko's Shrinking Violet nature is understandable.
- Ai was struck by lightning during a performance and burned into charcoal where she stood, in front of thousands of people and likely on live television. Ai's friends and the audience were so completely devastated that even after ten years, they are still reeling from that traumatic event. Ai herself is now terrified of both thunderstorms and performing outdoors.
- Given their current states, it's implied the immediate aftermaths of their deaths were gruesome affairs that left the poor idols' remains mangled, with Ai being charred to a point her body was irreparably scarred and disfigured beyond recognition, except the eye area and seemingly hair, requiring her to be bandaged up when she was resurrected, while the plane crash most likely reduced Junko to pieces upon impact, hence why she appears stitched up.
- Both of them also shows signs of PTSD when they are confronted with things related to their death, Junko is afraid of heights, while Ai is afraid of storms and freezes up when she hears lightning and thunder, implying that they didn't die instantly
Junko's death is mostly off-screen (we see smoke coming out of the engines and the plane start to lose altitude), so all of this is pretty much Fridge Horror. Ai's death is show on-screen, but it's not very gruesome: we see her body charred black, but in a cartoony Ash Face kind of way, and it's all shown from a good distance so there's no close-up of the burning skin or anything. The rest is explicitly Fridge Horror and speculation.
Episode 7
- Ai works herself so hard that she starts hallucinating about lightning. Bad enough for an ordinary girl, but as a zombie she's been shown to be able to endure all-nighters. Even Saki is disturbed, trying to get her to relax a little—but, no, Ai cannot focus on anything else.
This kinda reads like it's about Ai and Saki's fear, not the audience's. I'm not sure whether people found that the depiction of PTSD hits close enough to home to be scary.
Episode 9
- The whole episode is rife with Adult Fear for Reiko. First her daughter keeps trying to keep her old biker gang going, despite only having two other members and being HIGHLY unqualified for the role. Then she has to run out on bike to stop her daughter from performing the same stunt that killed her best friend. Finally, she has to witness somebody who looks like (and is) said best friend performing that stunt and getting the exact same result—a deadly crash and burn.
This is just describing Adult Fear, not necessarily Nightmare Fuel, and is focusing mostly on in-universe fear. The last point in particular is not scary for us since we know that Saki is a zombie and can't die.
Episode 10
- Sakura gets hit by a truck again, in the exact same manner as episode 1. The thing that makes it terrifying is that she doesn't move right afterwards. She just lies there on the ground with Romero freaking out over her corpse, and the chilling implication that she's died for real this time. She does get back up and her memories of her old life have returned, but she's completely forgotten everything about being a zombie.
As this says, she gets back up right after. Her amnesia is not really scary.
Episode 11
- While it's offset by the comedic reactions of Saki and Lily, Sakura once again wakes in a house full of monsters without the knowledge that she herself is one of them. Made even worse this time as all of the others have glowing red eyes and the soft cracks of their limbs moving permeate the air as Sakura stares in horror, barely able to contain a scream.
Unlike the first episode, this time we already know that all of these zombies are friendly, so there's nothing to be scared of.
Edited by Zuxtron on Dec 15th 2018 at 8:34:24 AM
Markiplier can probably be cut. Most of it is Mark's reaction to scary games, and a lot is Jump Scares that might scare someone, and there is an entire section of thumbnails, most of which are just Mark looking at the camera (seariously? This
◊ scares you?) or are nothing you wouldn't see on a horror movie poster.
NightmareFuel.Game Grumps can probably be cut, too. It's almost entirely their reactions, stories about things that scared them, Zero Context Examples, weblinks as examples, jump scares or creepy stuff in games they played. I don't think it's worth saving.
In fact, we should look at Nightmare Fuel pages for all Lets Players. I have a feeling none of them qualify as Nightmare Fuel.
Edited by maxwellsilver on Dec 17th 2018 at 9:25:13 AM
NightmareFuel.Frozen is pretty bad. Most is not scary, some are speculative.
Frozen is one emotionally grueling film.
- Elsa's powers are triggered by her showing emotion, and much of the film's plot revolves around her not knowing how to turn them off. She's seen using them to attack at some points.
- The scene when Elsa tells her father to back off because she is scared of icing him is mostly tearjerking...but takes a really creepy vibe in the Cantonese dub, where it is rather eerily similar to a certain Hong Kong government child molestation ad from the '90s (except with the harm reversed) that is probably still the scariest thing in the minds of many 90s HK kids.
- As soon as Anna informs Elsa of the winter she's caused, Elsa begins to have a panic attack. It's scary enough to see Elsa in that condition, but what makes it more so is her panic attack is frighteningly realistic. It really doesn't help that Anna genuinely is making it worse.
- Marshmallow growing icepick fangs and claws to fight off Hans and the guards, as pictured above. It's scary enough the first time he shows up, given how close he comes to actually killing Anna and Kristoff, when he didn't have them, and what he screams in Anna and Kristoff's face:
"DON'T COME BAAAAACK!!!"
- The Duke's men were simply merciless and had absolutely no hesitation trying to kill Elsa. They just stormed past Marshmallow, chased Elsa through the castle and even after Elsa pleads them to leave her alone, they still aim and shoot at her. Even Hans is telling them not to kill her!
- Elsa nearly killing the Duke's men with her ice powers. The two may be villains, but they are after all only acting on the Duke's orders, and their potential horrible deaths would have made Elsa a killer for real, even if she was doing it out of self-defense.
- After The Reveal, Anna nearly freezes to death, after the only person she thought loved her revealed he never cared and declared no one did, completely alone and not just alone, but weakly pleading for someone to help her. No one hears or even bothers to go back to the room she's locked into, thanks to Hans lying to everyone that she was already dead.
- Even worse, Hans' case would technically be right. Anna's freezing because Elsa accidentally struck her heart. If he had won, Elsa would really have killed her own sister!
I say chainsaw it.
I honestly never found anything in Frozen to be NF material
As for the Let's Play stuff, yeah, the reactions shouldn't be there as they are technically the game itself rather than the Let's Play
Edited by KingofNightmares on Dec 17th 2018 at 9:49:39 AM
"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"
Some Let's Players like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye do have original, horror-themed sketches, so those might be worth keeping.
This was just added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:
Nintendogs are among the spirits you can encounter and collect. Galeem literally killed puppies.
Seems weak to me.

In NightmareFuel.RalphBreaksTheInternet, there is this one, which I think does not apply.
I think this does not apply because it admits it's not scary, but suspenseful. And Nightmare Fuel is about scary things, not suspenseful things.