History Literature / Jam

Travis, an unemployed {{everyman}} from Brisbane, wakes up one morning to discover that the city has been covered in a thick layer of a red, sticky substance that smells distinctly of strawberry, not too much unlike jam. The problem, however, is that the substance has one major characteristic that it doesn't share with jam: It likes to eat any organic thing it touches, and that unfortunately includes humans.

* LockedInAFreezer: Parodied when Travis and X get locked in a ''kitchen fridge''. There's only just enough room for them both. [[FoeYay And they're semi-naked at the time]]. And there's only enough air for a few minutes.

* AscendedExtra: Don, one of the human characters in Croshaw's book ''Literature/{{Mogworld}}'', is a main character.

* NotSoDifferent: Tim and Lord Awesomeo, due to both being maladjusted losers before the Jam who want to make themselves the heroes of the apocalypse. And, of course, failing spectacularly whenever their efforts meeting reality.

* HeroicWannabe: When the titular jam starts attacking Australia, Tim assumes the role of the hero who will unite the people and save the world from the apocalypse. [[spoiler: When he discovers that the Jam broke out because of an ''accident'' and the event has only affected Australia. He quickly loses his sanity and immediately decides to spread the jam across the rest of the world so he can still be the hero and rebuild society.]]

** "You think I'm saying that idly, I'm not! I'm going to use forceps and lubricant!

* {{Everyman}}: Travis.

* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: Tim.]]

* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Surprisingly, everybody retains their sanity pretty well in the face of the jampocalypse, acclimatising well. [[spoiler: Too well in Tim's case. He goes mad at the revelation that it ''isn't'' the real apocalypse.]]

** Also, the jam was released as a direct result of [[spoiler: HEPL trying to work out how they would save the day if ever the jam was released]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: Don and Tim aren't exactly nice people and Angela isn't far behind, but they juggle the SanityBall between them on a regular basis. [[spoiler: By the end, Don ends up winning gold on both counts - crazy as his obsession with his Build may be, his assessment about [[ItsAllAboutMe Tim]] is entirely accurate.]]

* KillTheCutie: Poor, poor [[spoiler: Angela]] dies while trying to save [[spoiler: her previously-Arch-Enemy X]].

* ManChild: Travis.
* MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds: X and Y [[spoiler: accidentally release the jam by leaving it on the roof of their car]].

* OhCrap: Too many times to count.
* OnlySaneMan: Don believes himself to be this, and he might actually be right if he wasn't pathologically obsessed with his video game.
** Tim also thinks of himself this way. [[spoiler: He is very wrong.]]

* PinballProtagonist: Lampshaded and deconstructed. Travis has almost no will of his own, going along with the group's ever-shifting leadership and is routinely ignored, pushed around, verbally abused and/or exploited. Travis likewise tends to go along with plans he knows are bad ideas, fail to share [[PoorCommunicationKills vital information]] at key points and caves easily when faced with more forceful authority figures. He lacks the drive to either stand up for himself ''or'' leave, and his need to believe ''someone'' respects him leads him to invent [[GiantSpider Mary]]'s role as TeamPet.
* ReligionOfEvil: The ironic cult of Crazy Bob.

* SanitySlippage: Oh yes. None of the main characters are the most socially adjusted people alive and things just get worse as the pressure mounts. [[spoiler: Tim gets the worst of it though.]]

** Possibly unintentional, but still: a female character who remains OnlyKnownByTheirNickname throughout the majority of the story is revealed to be named [[spoiler:[[Film/PulpFiction Yolanda]]]]

* TeamPet: Mary. Deconstructed as she's more of a burden than she lets on and [[spoiler: all her Team Pet-ish behavior is in [[UnreliableNarrator Travis' head]]]].
* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler: Kathy]] reaches out to touch the jam coming through the window.

* TheUnreveal: [[spoiler:Who created the jam]], [[spoiler:Y's name (though it begins with an "S")]], and [[spoiler:Deirdre's fate]].
* WeJustNeedToWaitForRescue: Don insists that this is not the end of civilization as we know it and that the best course of action is to be saved. Interestingly this mentality actually spurs him into action: sticking with the Americans as he believes they will be rescued first and attempting to retrieve his build as it would be needed in a non-post-apocalyptic world.

* MistakenForMurderer: [[spoiler: HEPL ''did'' cause the xenocide of Australia, but it was through negligence rather than intention.]]

* HeroicWannabe: Tim is the type of person who watches too many movies and he sees the event as the ultimate power fantasy. [[spoiler: When he discovers that the titular Jam broke out because of an ''accident'' and the event has only affected Australia. He quickly loses his sanity and immediately decides to spread the jam across the rest of the world so he can rebuild society in his image.]]

* YouKeepUsingThatWord: As Tim points out, the cultists don't really know what irony is.
** To make things stupidly simple; they confuse "sarcasm" with "irony"; very common with hipsters.
** They also love the "we're doing it literally but rolling our eyes while we do it" variant, also a sterotype of hipsters. Like being "ironically" evil by "ironically" executing people for petty reasons.

* AmbiguousDisorder: There's ''something'' going on with Travis, but it's never really spelled out.

* SupportingProtagonist: Travis is the one character that rarely if ever does anything proactive. Angela [[LampshadeHanging notes that]] if this was a film, the main character would be either Tim or Don, depending on whether this was a [[ApocalypseHow world-wide apocalypse of just a localized one]].

* JerkassHasAPoint: Don and Tim aren't exactly nice people and Alice isn't far behind, but they juggle the SanityBall between them on a regular basis. [[spoiler: By the end, Don ends up winning gold on both counts - crazy as his obsession with his Build may be, his assessment about [[ItsAllAboutMe Tim]] is entirely accurate.]]

* RunningGag: On a Meta level, Yatzee's habit of giving ''ThunderCats'' a ShoutOut.

* CreatorProvincialism: Yahtzee lives in Brisbane.

''Jam'' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] novel by [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]], with a twist, and even a couple of [[{{Satire}} satirical]] jabs at some of the apocalypse genre's recurring tropes.

* XMeetsY: This is basically post-apocalyptic fiction meets the children's game known as 'The Floor is Made of Lava'.

** Naming the spider that Travis is talking to (and not getting a response from) Mary may have been a been a joke about ''VideoGame/SilentHill''.

'''''Jam''''' is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] novel by [[Creator/BenCroshaw Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]], with a twist, and even a couple of [[{{Satire}} satirical]] jabs at some of the apocalypse genre's recurring tropes.

* ImprovisedWeapon: Y makes himself a bow-and-arrow out of some sticks and a pair of underpants. The Hipster Cult makes spears out of broomsticks and kitchen knives, and later a stun-gun out of a nerfgun with darts soaked in pepper spray, finally and an [[AerosolFlamethrower a flamethrower out of a barbecue starter, two peices of wood, and three cans of hairspray]].