History Webcomic / TheBikiniBottomHorror

* ShipTease: Between Sandy and Squidward, as they are the main two heroes fighting against the Tortured One, and throughout the story, they share several heartfelt moments, such as Squidward (when all hope seems lost) trapping Sandy in a bubble that sends her to the surface, sullenly telling her that he can't bear to lose another friend, and when Sandy returns, they have a very intimate reunion that causes Mrs. Puff to snidely call them "love boats". [[spoiler: At the end, when Squidward reveals that he's going to continue fighting evil, he asks Sandy to become his partner and is very distraught to learn that she's leaving for Texas, and he gets cut off when he's about to say that he ''needs her''.]]

* TheEndingChangesEverything: The ending reveals that [[spoiler:[=SpongeBob=], far from being the brave hero he was presented as after his return, may have actually orchestrated the entire conflict to begin with — he ''purposely'' undercooked the Krabby Patty Patrick ate as part of a grand scheme to get rid of Krabs and Plankton and take over as the main Bikini Bottom restauranteur.]]

* GambitRoulette: As pointed out by [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBikiniBottomHorror/comments/nnolyk/epilogue_page_9_1010/h01phs7/?context=8&depth=9 this fan]] in question 6, [[spoiler:[=SpongeBob=]'s plan comes off as this, relying on the convoluted outcome of having Mr. Krabs and Plankton eliminated which also comes with killing would-be customers.]]

* TheEndingChangesEverything: The ending reveals that [[spoiler:[=SpongeBob=], far from being the brave hero he was presented as after his return, was actually the one who orchestrated the entire conflict to begin with — he ''purposely'' undercooked the Krabby Patty Patrick ate as part of a grand scheme to get rid of Krabs and Plankton and take over as the main Bikini Bottom restauranteur.]]

* IgnoranceIsBliss: [[spoiler:After discovering [=SpongeBob’s=] role as the mastermind behind the events of the story, she considers telling Squidward before she leaves Bikini Bottom. She ultimately decides against it, believing Squidward deserves to be happy after everything he went through.]]

* AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler:Zigzagged with ]]Patrick Star, who goes from an empty-headed, childish, yet lovable BigFun seastar to a monstrous, calculating, and sadistic killer who will use his cloning abilities to target and hunt down everyone in Bikini Bottom as food for himself, not even sparing his lifelong friends. [[spoiler:The subversion comes late into the comic, though, as the original Patrick founds out that his reasons for his rampage were not what lied into believing by the Tortured One, causing him to defect and help his surviving friends stop his evil clones.]]

** [[spoiler: Mrs. Puff's bullets are tipped with neurotoxin from her own body. Real pufferfish are extremely poisonous, to the point that people have actually died from eating them.]]

* HumongousMecha: [[spoiler:Fight-o-Plankton]], powered by [[spoiler:Karen]], which [[spoiler:Plankton]] uses to fight the Tortured One, succeeding in cutting off a limb and searing the stump in order to prevent it from regnerating. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, a mini-Patrick had snuck into the machine beforehand, so it eats Plankton. Unable to move the mech on her own, Karen convinces Squidward and Sandy to move it onto the severed limb so she can activate self-destruction and obliterate it before it becomes a whole new monster.]]

* DarkReprise: [[spoiler:[=SpongeBob=]]]'s new version of the F.U.N. Song makes Plankton's sound like a sweet lullaby.

* IAteWhat: [[spoiler:Patrick is completely mortified that the meat in the patties came from a version of ''him''. Sandy and Squidward also have similar reactions upon learning the truth as well.]]

* IAteWhat: [[spoiler:Patrick is horrified to learn that there is starfish meat in Krabby Patties and that it was harvested from his own tortured clone. Squidward has a similar reaction when he learns of the fact.]]

* {{Pun}}: We see a Plankton invention called the Fight-O-Plankton, which is a reference to phytoplankton, a kind of plankton that photosynthesize.

* AssimilationPlot: [[spoiler: This is The Tortured One's endgame; after devouring all of Bikini Bottom, it plans to divide and multiply itself, consuming all sea life as ironic payback for its own horrible treatment.]]

** [[spoiler: As it turns out, the reason why Mr. Krabs chopped off Patrick's arm is because he knew it would eventually grow into a new source of meat that no one would be any the wiser of since it was from a clone. Too bad he never considered the possibility of the original gaining the memories of his tortured clone and going on a frenzied rampage after taking a bite of some rare patty meat.]]

** Many of the Patrick clones do hesitate to jump into harms way, this is because thanks to their regenerative properties, they can simply duplicate themselves and increase their numbers.

* EarAche: The Patrick that Sandy and Squidward face in the Krusty Krab rips off both his ears when Squidward tries putting him to sleep with music, then the injuries on his head regenerate.

* BittersweetEnding: As implied by the title of the final chapter before the epilogue, "Bittersweet Victory". [[spoiler:The Tortured One is gone for good, and [=SpongeBob=], Guilty Patrick, Sandy, Gary, and Squidward are all alive. But the rebuilt Bikini Bottom is now practically under the control of [=SpongeBob=], who is revealed to have masterminded everything to take over the city, and Sandy, unable to oppose him, returns to Texas.]]

*** [[spoiler:And that's all ''before'' he was killed by Patrick in the first page. [=SpongeBob=] eventually comes back, revealed to have ''faked his death'', and helps defeat the Tortured One, but this was all a scheme to rule over what was left of Bikini Bottom as its sole restaurant owner. And to drive it all home, when Sandy finds out about all this and confronts him, he implicitly threatens her with death and the murder of the city's survivors to keep her quiet. With all that, [=SpongeBob=], in this comic, is a TheChestmaster level sociopath who is hungry for power and will go to horrifying extremes, including betrayal, indirect mass murder and genocide, and death threats, to get it. In short, a '''''massively''''' far cry from what showgoers are used to.]]

* HiveMind: All the Patricks seem to share a single consciousness, apparently due to the way a starfish's nervous system functions. [[spoiler:In fact, this is how Patrick first gained The Tortured One's memories -- by way of consuming an undercooked Krabby Patty, made from The Tortured One's flesh -- which kickstarted his rampage.]]

* OurClonesAreDifferent: It's revealed that starfish like Patrick can regenerate a severed appendage -- and the severed appendage in turn can regenerate an entire body, [[spoiler:which is something [[AdaptationalVillainy Mr. Krabs]] took advantage of via growing a Patrick clone which he constantly harvests for an endless supply of Krabby Patty meat. When the original Patrick, who initially had no awareness of his clone, eats an undercooked Krabby Patty, he assimilates his tortured clone's memories through its uncooked flesh,]] setting off the plot of the comic and leading an army of Patrick clones connected by a HiveMind to go on a murderous rampage.

* CloningBlues: [[spoiler:Patrick has a clone that grew from a severed arm of his, a long time ago. Mr. Krabs imprisoned and tortured it as an endless source of meat for Krabby Patties. Eating an undercooked patty causes Patrick to gain the clone's memories and be consumed by vengeful hatred.]]

-->'''[[spoiler:[=SpongeBob=]]]:''' Now is the the time for healing, Sandy. Not for reopening old wounds. [[red:Because when you pick at a scab, all you get is bloody.]]

-->'''[[spoiler:[=SpongeBob=]]]:''' Now is the the[sic] time for healing, Sandy. Not for reopening old wounds. [[red:Because when you pick at a scab, all you get is bloody.]]

** [[spoiler:He's not even the only character to get hit with a dose of this trope, as seen not too long into the comic.]] [[spoiler: [=Mr. Krabs=] was always a shifty, cantakerous person with a greedy streak several miles long in the SpongeBob series, but here, his lust for money pushes him to near-sociopathy, and it is played deadly serious. Eugene is the one who set up the circumstances of this story's conflict, with his beloved secret Krabby Patty formula, for all this time, being starfish meat harvested from a Patrick clone, which was grown from a severed arm Krabs hungrily stole from the original Patrick in order to start his business. Krabs intentionally kept that clone Patrick imprisoned and concious, endlessly tearing flesh from him to make his critically acclaimed patties, all while the crustacean soaked up in the riches he gained from this infinite torture. Sure enough, that clone became the Tortured One, and bloody vengeance was to be had.]]
** [[spoiler:And all that's to say nothing of SpongeBob SquarePants himself. Yeah, that happy-go-lucky, hyper-friendly, lovable frycook who was always soaked full of smiles in the original show? Yeah, he somehow knew about what Eugene was doing behind the scenes with the tortured Patrick clone, and selected one of the patties(filled with starfish flesh) and fed that Krabby Patty to Patrick--''without cooking it''. This set up a psychic link between Patrick Star and The Tortured One, allowed the latter to possess the former, and the rest is history-all according to the sponge's design.]]
*** [[spoiler:And that's all ''before'' he was killed by Patrick in the first page. SpongeBob eventually comes back from the dead, revealing himself to have ''faked his death'', and helps defeat the Tortured One, but this was all a scheme to rule over what was left of Bikini Bottom as it's sole restaurant owner. And to drive it all home, when Sandy finds out about all this and confronts him, he implicitly threatens her with death and the murder of the city's survivors to keep her quiet. With all that, SpongeBob, in this comic, is a TheChestmaster level sociopath who is hungry for power and will go to horrifying extremes, including betrayal, indirect mass murder and genocide, and death threats, to get it. In short, a '''''massively''''' far cry from what showgoers are used to.]]

* AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler:Zigzagged]] with Patrick Star, who goes from an empty-headed, childish, yet lovable BigFun seastar to a monstrous, calculating, and sadistic killer who will use his cloning abilities to target and hunt down everyone in Bikini Bottom as food for himself, not even sparing his lifelong friends. [[spoiler:The subversion comes late into the comic, though, as the original Patrick founds out that his reasons for his rampage were not what lied into believing by the Tortured One, causing him to defect and help his surviving friends stop his evil clones.]]

* AdaptationalVillainy: Zigzagged with Patrick Star, who goes from an empty-headed, childish, yet lovable BigFun seastar to a monstrous, calculating, and sadistic killer who will use his cloning abilities to target and hunt down everyone in Bikini Bottom as food for himself, not even sparing his lifelong friends. [[spoiler:The subversion comes late into the comic, though, as the original Patrick founds out that his reasons for his rampage were not what lied into believing by the Tortured One, causing him to defect and help his surviving friends stop his evil clones.]]
* AcidAttack: The starfish attack by externally digesting their living prey. Meanwhile, the Tortured One flipping his stomach inside out is treated as basically his LimitBreak move.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Patrick Star, obviously. He goes from an empty-headed, childish, yet lovable [[BigFun]] seastar to a monstrous, calculating, and sadistic [[BigBad]] killer who will use his cloning abilities to target and hunt down everyone in Bikini Bottom as food for himself, not even sparing his lifelong friends. [[spoiler:This does get subverted late into the comic, though, as the original Patrick founds out that his reasons for his rampage were not what lied into believing by the Tortured One, causing him to defect back onto the side of good and help his surviving friends stop his evil clones.]]
** [[spoiler:By the end of the comic, it turns out that Patrick Star, despite being the apparent display of this trope, is only one out of ''three'' cases.]]

After it received a positive reception, u/stillinthesimulation chose to continue the story with Sandy Cheeks and [=SpongeBob=]'s other friends seeking to avenge the fallen fry cook, learning of the existence of the [[BigBad Tortured One]] -- a Patrick clone who possessed the original, is the one who killed [=SpongeBob=], and desires the destruction of all Bikini Bottom -- and figuring out how to stop his rampage while discovering his grisly origins. The comic has since exploded in popularity. The comic has since been finished, and in addition to [=r/ImSorryJon=], the story can be found on [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBikiniBottomHorror/ its dedicated subreddit]], [[https://www.patreon.com/stillinthesimulation/posts Patreon]] and even [[https://stillinthesimulation.com/ website]]. It also has an AnimatedAdaptation https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLARth4jsAoOVuZFKMKAWoe_CVHXg066xV&si=nmTkcuA-deElVD-G here]].

After it received a positive reception, u/stillinthesimulation chose to continue the story with Sandy Cheeks and [=SpongeBob=]'s other friends seeking to avenge the fallen fry cook, learning of the existence of the [[BigBad Tortured One]] -- a Patrick clone who possessed the original, is the one who killed [=SpongeBob=], and desires the destruction of all Bikini Bottom -- and figuring out how to stop his rampage while discovering his grisly origins. The comic has since exploded in popularity. The comic has since been finished, and in addition to [=r/ImSorryJon=], the story can be found on [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBikiniBottomHorror/ its dedicated subreddit]], [[https://www.patreon.com/stillinthesimulation/posts Patreon]] and even [[https://stillinthesimulation.com/ website]]. It also has an AnimatedAdaptation, beginning [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2haPq0hdnw here]].