Good news: The Hospital treats all kinds of patients! Bad news: It ain't exactly what you'd call Johns Hopkins quality.
This page covers everyone (who isn't Fern Green or her son) that has been admitted to The Hospital to receive medical treatment. For better or for worse.
It also covers healthy individuals who are visiting hospitalized friends and family members.
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Hospital Patients
Runny Nose (Nobody Nose)
Got a truckload of Kleenex?
- Fern: ...name a place that isn't the hospital.Nobody Nose: A pwace that's WHAT!?! ...That's WHAT!? A pwace that's WHAT!?! WHAT!?!?
This nose-monster was admitted to the hospital thanks to an infestation of kidney stones. He's loud and excitable, though not without a lot of heart. His Hospital Room is Exam Room VII.
- Animate Body Parts: An animate nose.
- City in a Bottle: And he cannot conceive that anything might exist beyond that bottle.
- Deader than Dead: Unexistified after getting skewered by the vengeful Ms. Kidney Stone, just outside his exam room.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome:Fern: Can you tell me about the staff here?Nobody Nose: Oh! They'we wondewfuw! If you go back in you'we woom I'm suwe the nuwse wiww get awound to you some day. Maybe she can even fix how gwoss you'we face wooks.
- Nose Nuggets: Wet, slimy mucus is all over his hospital room, slathered over the entirety of his bed.
- Punny Name: Pun aside, would anybody want to have 'Nobody' as a first name?
Gooey Pink Eyes (Eyeda Sorrit)
EYE am what EYE am.
- Gooey Pink Eyes: Ey, yer a doctah right? Can't ya gimme a look-see before ya run off again? EYE'm dyin here!
A pair of giant, slimy eyeballs beset by an aggressive infection of parasitic clowns who just loves infuriating puns. Her Hospital room is Exam Room IIX.
- All There in the Manual: Gooey Pink Eyes' real name is 'Eyeda Sorrit.''◊
- Animate Body Parts: EYE think we can figure this one out for ourselves...
- Born to Pun: EYE cannot even begin to tell you…
- Funetik Aksent: A Boston accent.
- Oculothorax: She's a variant, two huge eyeballs and a dangling vestigial body.
- Punny Name: Her name's a pun on "Ida", as well as the saying, "I’da saw it".
- What Happened to the Mouse?: One might tempted to initially assume that the Hospital discharged Eyeda after Fern cleared up her clown infestation. Except that Bloodstain told Fern that the Hospital had stopped discharging patients. So then where is Eyeda right now? Quarantined? Killed off…?Bloodstain: They're still lettin' patients in, but they ain't seem to be lettin nothin' back out agin 'til they've got this figger'd out. Couple patients gettin' "discharged" here n' there...but if ya ask me, they're just hidin' em someplace else in the facility, don't want nobody panickin', right?
Oozing Skull
LUDICROUS SPEED!!!
- Oozing Skull: Hee hee! HEEHEEHEE! VROOM VROOM! HEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHUEUHEUHHEUH!!!
A mess of bleeding brains tumbling out of a broken skull, with a pair of normal-sized eyes still attached who bears an uncanny resemblance to a snail. He dreams of going superfast but he's really, really, reaaaaaaally superslow. His Hospital room was originally Exam Room III, but later he moves in with the Crooked Spine in Exam Room VI.
- The Apprentice: Becomes one to the Crooked Spine.
- A Dog Named "Dog": He's an oozing skull named just that, "Oozing Skull"
- I Just Want to Be Special: Speedy in this case.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: When Fern picks up Oozing Skull and races him over to Crooked Spine… in reality, it's at a velocity you would expect of a normal human woman in a hurry. But the unbelievably slow-paced Oozing Skull perceives the experience as this. It blows his mind and he loves it.
- Noodle Incident: Incident 00/V/3948
- Solid Gold Poop: Crooked Spine first accepts blood as currency for his wares. Guess what's oozing out of Skull in vast quantities?
- The Unintelligible: As shown with the quote above, we don't know what he's saying, unless it's translated.
- We Will Not Use Stage Makeup In The Future: Oozing Skull follows the Spine's lead when The Eyeslob pays a visit.
Sickly Stomach
Compulsive capsule connoisseur.
- Sickly Stomach: Tasties! MORE TASTIES!!!
- Big Eater: Huge surprise for a stomach, we know. It eventually devours the entire room it was residing in and starts eating Abyssal monsters.
- Blob Monster: By the time Fern has returned from her first foray into the Inert Vessel, the Sickly Stomach's condition has worsened to this state.
- Grand Theft Me: The vomit gradually usurps control of the stomach, until it completely overtaken the organ, and dissolves a hole in its exam room, in search for new food.
- G-Rated Drug: To quote his medical file: Patient suffers severe addiction to gastro-intestinal medication native to a foreign zone, resulting in diminished cognitive abilities.
- No Name Given: Even his official file lists him as 'That Barf Guy.'◊
- The Symbiote: With the stomach as 'host,' and the vomit as 'guest.'
- Trademark Favorite Food: Gas pills. Consumes them like Skittles.
Depressed Spleen (Spleonard Spleenus)
Woe is he.
- Depressed Spleen: Oh, it's you again. I take it you're here so you can leave again in disgust. That seems to be the only reason anybody bothers to visit. I think they make a game of it. I don't know if they're keeping score, but I've been doing it for them, at least.
A disembodied, mopey spleen who isn't happy unless he's miserable and will talk for hours about his real or imagined problems. His greatest wish is to get a real disease so he can complain even more. His Hospital room is Exam Room IV.
- All There in the Manual: His real name, 'Spleonard Spleenus.'''◊
- Animate Body Parts: He's no less than the poster boy and page image, right here on TV Tropes!
- Annoying Patient: Pity the poor doctors who have to put up◊ with him.
- Attention Whore: Willing to give himself malaria just to have one of the nurses be forced to pay attention to him.
- Captain Ersatz: A squishy, pink version of Marvin the Paranoid Android. He even paraphrases Marv at times.
- Deadpan Snarker: Forever complaining about every little thing.
- The Eeyore: Constantly and without variation.
- Inconsistent Spelling: On Dr. Phage's file, his name is written: 'Spleonard.' On the website's official Character Page, it's spelled 'Sploenard.'
- Love Makes You Crazy: The Spleen's blog shows that he really didn't understand what 'feeling good' was until he developed a close relationship with Molly. Around this timeframe, when Molly's extracting copious amounts of his blood, his ability to intelligently articulate his thoughts takes a hard nosedive…Spleonard's Blog: It'0s g03d to feel neice for a chanje
- Love Martyr: Molly drains away his malaria-infected blood until he looks like a vampire's victim.
- Stealth Pun: a slang for complaining at length is "venting one's spleen." He is a spleen who never stops complaining.
- The Unfavorite: He's produced a slew of Biobag daughters with Molly. None of them care for him at all.Biobag: Oh, er… well, mom's alright, always pretty busy but she lets us explode at whatever chumps we think could use a good exploding-at. The old man though… we've never really seen eye-to-emblem. We all kinda just tune him out until he gets tired. At least he's been getting a lot quieter lately.
- Unperson: At some point, Dr. Phage ceased acknowledging the Spleen's existence, to the point of mentally blotting him out of his physical perception.
- Useless Spleen: Discussed by the Depressed Spleen.Depressed Spleen: All I can really hope for around here is a good solid blood disease, not that there's any even unique to a spleen. Oh no, you get a blood disease, the whole system starts to shut down, doesn't it? The last thing anybody talks about is what happens to your spleen. Even if you need a splenectomy, they don't even bother giving you a new one. They don't have to. Waste of money. You can't even really die just from a lack of spleen. Even the appendix got a better deal; at least that can explode.
Crooked Spine (Angus Cobb)
Don't delay, buy today!
- Crooked Spine: OH, the pain! THE PAIN OF IT ALL! ...The pain of sitting on all THESE INCREDIBLE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS! LORD ALMIGHTY, WILL NOBODY RELIEVE ME FROM THE BACK-BREAKING DUTY OF HOLDING ONTO ALL THESE ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME BARGAINS!? IS THERE NO RESPITE, NO BACKING OUT FROM THE TORMENT OF CARRYING SUCH A BROAD SELECTION OF BRAND-NAME QUALITY PRODUCTS AT BLOWOUT PRICES!? BUY NOW, AND YOU'LL RECEIVE NOT ONE, NOT TEN, BUT TWO COMPLIMENTARY GIFTS AT ALMOST NO EXTRA CHARGE TO YOU, THE VALUED CUSTOMER. THESE TORTUROUSLY AGONIZING DEALS HAVE TO BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED!
A twisted vertebral column salesman that's managed to smuggle his wares into the hospital. He can give you some pretty useful(?) stuff, but it comes at a price. His Hospital room is Exam Room VI.
- All There in the Manual: The Spine's real name, Angus Cobb, is only mentioned in his character file.
- Animate Body Parts: He's a talking spine.
- Blatant Lies: When Fern alludes to the fact that his room has transformed from a patient's room to an actual store, he replies that he would never expand into unauthorized zonal territory.
- Busman's Vocabulary: Inverted with The Spine. Though he's no medic, himself, he still weaves a noticeable number of medical buzzwords into his sales pitches.◊
- Honest John's Dealership: He runs one of these out of his hospital room.
- Hurricane of Puns: He's not above resorting to this for the sake of a sale.Crooked Spine: You're liable to SLIP A DISK stumbling over a clearance sale of such SPINE-CHILLING proportions! Don't be the BONELY one on your block to miss out on our grand opening BARGAIN BOOOOONE-ANZAAAAAA!!!!
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Occasionally, Spine will offer merchandise for sale that he just doesn't know the first thing about. In which case, he'll make stuff up.Crooked Spine: (pitching an ordinary cleaning iron) That's right! What we've got here is a GEN-U-INE, BONA-FIDE SKERPENDERPLER, utilized from the grey zone to the seething to DERPLE SKERPENS faster than they can SKIZAZZ! NOW PRECISELY ~250ub!
- Medium Awareness: Comments on the fact that it took the comic a long time to update at a time that the author was having hosting issues with his website.
- Motor Mouth: Fern leaves Crooked Spine's room mid-sales pitch, and he doesn't even notice. Then she dies, is brought back to life, and returns to the Spine's room just in time for him to wrap his spiel up.
- Punny Name: "Angus Cobb" is a pun on the Cobb angle, used to measure scoliosis, and a switcheroo of both words. Also, "crooked" can be used to describe both his condition and his profession.
- Studio Audience: Though we don't know whether it's live or pre-recorded or what, the Spine has some kind of audience that occasionally responds to him. Fern can't see them, but she can hear them.Crooked Spine: Good old reliable....ffffff......ffffFRANK! This layer only, ALL SIZE Franks can enjoy our "YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR" special! That's right, Franks: TWICE THE PRICE for maybe TWICE. THE. QUALITYYYY!!A collective "AHHHHH!!!!" of impressed satisfaction resonates from nowhere in particular. Somewhere in the chorus, a single voice, as though choking back tears, passionately wails "THAT'S FRANK RIGHT THERE!!!"
- The Mentor: He becomes this to the Oozing Skull.
- Weird Currency: Blood, and later used adhesive bandages.
- We Will Not Use Stage Makeup In The Future: Possibly averted. When The Eyeslob pays a visit to the Spine's room; we see that he and the Skull are suddenly red and fleshy. But the Spine's dialogue suggests this to be a disguise rather than The Corruption. It's unknown whether it is theatrical makeup... or some bit of alien technology.Crooked Spine: What a STARTLING coincidence that we would meet such a FINE unsuspecting young chap as yourself from the VERY! SAME! ZONE! That we DEFINITELY come from and is DEFINITELY eager to accept our business!!!!
The Bloodstain (Bloodstain Bloodstain)
Not as flat, dry, or lifeless as appearances might suggest.
- The Bloodstain: (to Dr. Phleboto, while Fern hides under bloodstain's bed) Land sakes, son! Ya lit'rally JUST missed her! Lil lady moves like an oiled-up slorvem on rupturin's eve! Ya better hurry, purdy thing could be chewin' on the tubes already!
An animate bloodstain; the first patient whom Fern encounters, as well as her first ally in The Hospital, quartered in Exam Room I.
- Artifact Domination: The Caterpillar storybook does this to Bloodstain's mind; forcing Bloodstain to disassociate it from danger.>BLOODSTAIN, if you can hear us, that book is about the PARLIAMENT.The Eyeslob: BEBBSTEM ISSSHERBLEK PLLLLBLLLLMMMMNMNMNMT!Bloodstain: Huh, ya don't say? Intrestin'! Guess this parliament business is bigger'n I thl']//44jjjddddddddduuust like momma used ta' make! ....Hrm. What were we talkin'bouts?
- Bizarre Alien Sexes: Within the official prose, Fern refers to The Bloodstain as
'it,' (she was very new to The Hospital at the time, and a sapient bloodstain had her flummoxed.) But the author of the comic's official blog places the Bloodstain as nonbinary, for bloodstain's extremely alien species.Bogleech: Bloodstain’s name, species, occupation, formal title, pronouns, sex and gender are all “bloodstain,” - Dating Catwoman: The X-Ray Skeleton apparently became Bloodstain's girlfriend... as in, the same skeleton who killed the very woman bloodstain, bloodstainself, saved. Ultimately subverted, however; it turns out that when Bloodstain says 'girlfriend,' bloodstain means a girl who is a FRIEND. As in 'platonic.' As in, she went and got herself a completely different guy for a husband.Bloodstain: It turns out I made it all the way to the friend zone on the first try! Talk about a home run! And they said I was gettin' too old fer the game! ...This ain't gettin' too heavy for ya, is it?Fern: Uhh, no?Bloodstain: We're meetin' up fer some parcheesi next spiralatin', and she might even bring the hubby!
- Descent Into Madness: Right after Fern gets The Eyeslob as a companion, she visits Bloodstain's room, to find that her friend's sanity is not what it was. Although still as mellow and chummy as ever, Bloodstain seems to believe bloodstain's fishing. When in reality, Bloodstain hasn't even left the bed.
- A Dog Named "Dog": A stain of blood named Bloodstain Bloodstain.
- Funetik Aksent: Bloodstain is Texan.
- He Went That Way: Saves Fern from being captured by Dr. Mizer by doing this when she's hiding under bloodstain's bed.
- Last-Second Word Swap:Bloodstain: Ssssshhhhhhhhhhhortbread, me n' my big mouth...
- Sanity Slippage: Right after Fern gets The Eyeslob as a companion, she visits Bloodstain's room, to find that her friend has changed, physically and mentally. Bloodstain's sanity is not what it was. Although still as mellow and chummy as ever, Bloodstain seems to believe bloodstainself to be fishing. When in reality, Bloodstain hasn't even left the bed. Gets worse following another visit, in which Bloodstain has become nearly incoherent.
- The Quiet One: Subverted. After tricking Dr. Mizer into moving on, Fern crawls out from under The Bloodstain's bed, expresses her gratitude, and tries to ask bloodstain questions about the hospital. Through it all, bloodstain remains completely silent and unmoving. However, Bloodstain's quietness turns out to be only a temporary thing. Bloodstain gets more talkative the next time Fern visits bloodstain in bloodstain's exam room.
- Tastes Like Friendship: When Fern places a cupcake that's on a nearby counter onto The Bloodstain, bloodstain seems to appreciate it.
- Transformation Horror: Starting when Eyeslob joins Fern's party, Bloodstain begins to "mutate", initially being stretched across all of Exam Room I like creeping vines, before seemingly filling the entire room later on.
The Open Wound (Lacey)
Might wanna get that looked at...
- Lacey: Sho where wash I? Gertrude, that'sh the fourfth kitten, and she'sh horizshontally inverted with the cutesht transhparent patchesh. Then there'sh Schleppy, a shpeckled male with detached pawsh. Kwamp ish the roundest, and I'm always finding him in the chute rack, shpooking the chutesh!
A living, sapient flesh wound; Fern first found this patient housed in Exam Room VII, Nobody Nose's old hospital room, then discovered she was simultaneously occupying Room 123, later on.
- Aerith and Bob: Some of Lacey's cats have names like Gertrude, Virginia, Loretta, and Adam. Others have names like Zermillion, Gorp'n, Number W, and "1,1,1,1."
- Bigger on the Inside: Lacey's orifice "seems to go on forever, seemingly through the hospital bed and the floor beyond." It is later revealed that Lacey is actually a living zonal breach, as a Magboil was seen crawling out of her while she was sleeping.
- Bloody Hilarious:Lacey: ...aaaaAAAGGGHHH-CHOO!!!!
- British Coppers: What Lacey's white blood cells act like. They're known as "Macrobobbies."Macrobobby: EY! Nah foreign particles allowed in me patrol zone!!!
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": You'll never find "cats" like the kind Lacey keeps in any pet store on Planet Earth!Lacey: Gosh! I thought you might've gotten a little tired lishtening to me ramble on and on about my catsh and whatnot, who are doing wonderful by the way, Tootshie jusht had her kittensh! Sheventy four and a half of them! I named the firsht one Fleckle after my ma because he'sh mottled black and purple, I named the shecond one Tibblesh, that'sh a girl and both her tailsh are red paishley...
- Chatterbox: Lacey talks in lengthy paragraphs next to Fern's noticeably shorter sentences, mainly about her cats.
- Cloning Gambit: It's possible for other people to create new Laceys on their own! Once, while cornered in her room by Dr. Phage, Fern accomplishes this by slashing a Lacey-shaped cut in a wall of flesh, then dangling a hairball from one of Lacey's cats underneath the cut.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Lacey owns dozens of cats and she always speaks of them dotingly and in great detail, even though they're the reason she's in the Hospital!
- Funetik Aksent: Lacey slurs her "S's" into "Sh's".Lacey: Jusht here for another allergy tesht, shhomethingsh making me shhneezsh at home shomething fiercshe! I'm hoping it ishn't my catssh, I mean if it ish I guessh I'll jussht have to learn to live with it.
- The Ghost: All of Lacey's cats. As obsessed as Lacey is with them, she left all of them at home, and did not show any pictures of them to Fern. Hairballs are the most Fern sees of any of these unusual cats.
- Hugh Mann: Lacey's pet, "CAT", may be a feline version of this.Lacey: CAT actually might not be one of the kittensh, but she showed up in the shame layer they were born and "CAT" is written all over her in lettersh that look way too important to be lying. She makesh good cheeshe, too, but I wish she wouldn't leave a trail of it everywhere she shlithersh.
- Lying To Protect Her Feelings: Lacey's macrobobbies know fully well why she's so ill, but they pretend there's some other root cause, so Lacey won't feel pressured to part ways with her precious felines.Fern: Sir, honestly, I'm pretty sure what's making Lacey sick is an allergic reaction to her own ca-Macrobobby: PSSSHHHHSSHSHSHSHH-SHHH-SHHHH-SSHHFFFFFSHSHSHS!!!!! FFFFSHHHHH!!!! NOT SO LOUD!!!!! ...You wanna break the lady's 'eart!?!
- No-Sell: Lacey literally laughs at the idea of being attacked by Abyss monsters.Lacey: ...What're they gonna do? Wound me? Hyuk hyuk!
- Portal Network: Lacey is a series of living, sapient openings who exist as a single-minded individual in multiple locations at once. Because of this, she can be effectively utilized by others as a Portal Network. So far, Fern has used her twice in this way, as an emergency exit to escape especially powerful doctors.
- Punny Name: Possible, if Lacey's last name turns out to be "Ration."
- Weaksauce Weakness: Sadly, diehard ailurofilia is a bad thing to have in a being with steadily escalating cat allergies. Not that Lacey would ever quit being a cat owner.
- Womb Level: People who enter Lacey find themselves in a series of fleshy caverns.
Huge Louse
Cracking eye puns would be a lousy move for you to make.
- Fern: Uh... hello?Huge Louse: Fzzzzzfzfzfzfzfzfzzz! Ffffzzz!!!
A louse as big as a large dog, which came to be housed in Exam Room III after Eyeda Sorrit was moved out.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Yep. Though it should be noted that Dr. Phage seems to regard the Huge Louse as a unique patient suffering from its own unique ailment. note
- No Name Given: If it has a name, it didn't inform Fern.
- Sizeshifter: Eventually, the Louse swells to an enormous size, thanks to its infection.
- Swapped Roles: Eyeda Sorritt was a huge gelatinous pair of pink eyeballs that was infested with lice. This patient is a huge louse which is infested with gelatinous pink eyeballs. This has led some fans to believe he is actually Gooey Pink Eyes, somehow transformed by the lice.
- The Quiet One: It isn't interested in chatting with Fern.
- Transformation Horror: The second time Fern visits the Louse, she sees it's in the middle of a cordyceps-style metamorphosis. It's changing into a set of Pink Gooey Eyes, (possibly even Eyeda Sorrit, herself.)
Verruca Patch
Nauseatingly short!
- You enter examination room III... Only to be met with the one sight you absolutely cannot handle. The one thing that makes your entire body itch just to think about. You get only a faint glimpse before recoiling, but it's enough. Your mouth goes dry as you try not to heave.Verruca Patch: Oh gosh...is it that bad?You sneak another glimpse at the awful thing, wondering if it might not be as bad as you thought. The warts pop in and out as it speaks, like bubbles on the surface of a rancid pond. Yeah, it's that bad.
A single-minded collection of sapient, self-aware verrucas on the underside of a human foot. It's given Exam Room III, once the Oozing Skull moves in with the Crooked Spine.
- Dodgy Toupee: The Verruca Patch gives himself a fleshy version of this in an effort to increase his height.Verruca Patch: Sighhh...you can tell this is an implant, can't you? I knew it. I just knew it.
- Everyone Has Standards: Bogleech practiced a bit of self-censorship on the Verruca Patch because he knew it might be crossing the line, even for his loyalest fans.Bogleech: I know from experience that trypophobic patterns are like the one thing even some of this site's hardcore readers can be permanently turned off by. I won't pretend to "get it" but I thought giving Fern the same aversion would be a cute excuse to block it out for sensitive viewers. You can, however, click the image to see the uncensored version, and actually, clusters of warts are probably the very worst medical thing to me, too.
- Height Angst: He assumes Fern is repulsed by his shortness.Verruca Patch: ...Go ahead, I've heard 'em all. "How's the weather down there?" "Hey short stuff." Half pint, fun-size...I was malnourished, okay?! Why do you think I went bald at my age?! Laugh it up, gigantor!
- Miracle-Gro Monster: After Fern sprinkles a product called "HAPPIE! WORT!!" onto him, the Verruca Patch finally achieves his dream of tallness; growing straight through the ceiling like Jack's beanstalk, with a downright ladder-like body.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Gotta give Fern credit for being able to look over 450 webpages' worth of hideous monsters square in the face before stumbling upon one she just couldn't stomach the sight of.
- Write What You Know:Bogleech: I actually had a verruca in my teens. It was horrendous. It looked like a tiny, white cork someone hammered into my foot, and it shot pain up my leg with every step. I limped for almost a year before I was able to get minor surgery to get it out, which left a perfectly round hole behind and slowly scarred over.
- And wouldn't you know it? A couple perfectly round holes can be seen in Verruca Patch, here.
Kidney Stone
All her dreams of seeing them grow even taller than herself... CRUSHED.
- Kidney: MY BABIES. MY BABIES. YOU DID THIS. MURDERER.
The massive broodmother of the kidney stones afflicting Nobody Nose. Once Nobody's infestation is "cured", she goes berserk, killing Nobody, and threatening to do the same to Fern and her son.
- Boss Battle: The very first one in Awful Hospital. Her battle music, lifted straight from Final Fantasy, ought to be a good tip-off.
- Chosen Conception Partner: Her medical file says she was brought to the Hospital to serve as a "voluntary brooding vessel".
- A Dog Named "Dog": According to her medical file◊, her forename is 'Kidney'. Her surname is 'Stone'.
- Eye Scream: Her death.
- Go for the Eye: She even acknowledges how obvious her weak spot is after Fern attacks it.
- Karmic Nod: In her dying moments, she says "Serves me right....I guess....."
- Monster Is a Mommy: And boy, is she upset that so many of her offspring were offed.
- Only Mostly Dead: Her original vessel was killed and she is no longer conscious, but she continues to persist as Fern's sword. According to Cathy, she is mostly content with her current arrangement.
- Prepare to Die: A good percentage of Ms. Stone's dialogue amounts to this, all heavy on the vitriol.Ms. Kidney Stone: I'LL STRING YOUR INTESTINES THROUGH YOUR EVERY VILE CAVITY.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Ms. Stone makes it plain she intends to enact this on Fern's son.Ms. Kidney Stone: I KNOW PRECISELY WHERE YOUR MEATLET IS, FLESHBEAST. YOU WON'T BE SEEING IT AGAIN. ...BECAUSE I AM GOING TO PLUCK OUT YOUR SIGHT-BALLS AND TWIST OFF YOUR BRANCHES BEFORE MY LITTLE ONES DRAG IT HERE AND YOU WILL LISTEN TO ITS PATHETIC LITTLE SQUEALS AS A BILLION BROODS RIP IT INSIDE OUT A BILLION TIMES BEFORE I LET IT DIE.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Cola and potato chips.
- Weaponized Offspring: Sends swarms of her kidney stone kids to attack Fern.
The Sickly Spore-Son and His Mom
These two were smart to entrust their health to this doctor.
- Dr. Phage: Sorry for the wait, Madame! How's the little one, this spiraling?
A young bedridden patient of Phage's and his mother. They used to occupy the Cat Room in the Veterinary Ward.
- Art Shift: Of the photoshopped photograph variety.
- Blatant Lies: "Discharge papers."
- Littlest Cancer Patient: The son's quite sick.
- No Name Given: Not the mother, nor the son.
- Starfish Language: We're informed they speak 'sarcastic umami long division'.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: A green-colored mother and her ill son... Hmm, why does that sound so familiar?
- We Hardly Knew Ye: These two weren't in the story all that long before Dr. Phage had Molly purge them both.
The Nameless Patient
Jay? Is this you?
- Fern: If it's for real, then we aren't the first human beings to wake up in the Hospital like that...Staph: That seems comforting to know.Fern: Yeah, but... it doesn't end well... it almost feels like a threat. Something wants me to know that this person never went home...
Dr. Phage's Hospital and its sequel were both installments in the Noisy Tenant creepypastas penned by Bogleech before his creation of Awful Hospital. It is the story of a fastidiously germophobic man who winds up in The Hospital and is horrorstruck to discover that Drs. Phage, Mizer, plus a third, as-yet-unnamed doctor are his physicians here. They are about to subject him to a horrible operation, but he succeeds in escaping by claiming to need the men's room. The first story ends with the man revealing this all took place a year ago, by his estimation. He's still ill, and has been completely unable to locate any way out of the Hospital.
His story was the first to be officially welded into ''Awful Hospital'' canon, after Professor Lexicovermus gave Fern a copy of Doctor Phage's Hospital to read (though not its sequel). It's possible that he's actually Jay.
- Bathroom Breakout: How he escaped being operated on by Dr. Phage. Because he specifically asked for the men's room, we at least know his gender.
- Body Horror: The sequel reveals that the Hospital staff keeps catching up to him, and they put him through the wringer.What will it be this time? Will I lose, or gain an arm? If they do another breast implant, is it actually going to be in my chest, for once? For a while, my brain was in some sort of plastic pouch I had to carry around, wires running back into my hollowed-out scalp. Sometimes the worst is waking up with a new row of stitches and never finding out what they did to me at all...at least until I'm sweating bleach or something tries to crawl back out the way it came.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The third physician accompanying Drs. Mizer and Phage. Never officially appeared in Awful Hospital yet:This monstrosity (Dr. Mizer) was quickly followed by a third entity... This one was by far the most unpleasant, a wet-looking, otherwise featureless glob of giant, gelatinous boils and sores, pulsating at various rhythms. One spindly, nearly skeletal little arm, its only visible appendage, controlled its ancient-looking electric wheelchair.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: For all their ignorance of human physiology, the Hospital doctors are still skilled enough to thwart all this man's efforts to kill himself.You can imagine how my suicide attempts have turned out...I wake up right back on the chopping block, patched together some new shitty way that shouldn't logically work.
- Ironic Hell: Next to everything The Hospital features, all the "everyday street trash" and their "sticky-fingered children" surely aren't looking quite so intolerable to this man in retrospect. Plus, he never got over his sickness.
- Lower-Class Lout: What this snotty elitist believed anyone of a lower income level to be. He treated them all like health hazards.Human Patient: I... avoided any contact I could with common sources of filth. Not difficult when you work a real, respectable job. The kind with your own private office. The kind where you never need to take the bus, do your own shopping or otherwise share air with Wal-Mart shoppers.
- No Name Given: Fern wasn't the first human admitted to the Hospital that was terrible at giving introductions.
- Ontological Mystery: This man remembers scheduling an appointment with "a rather high priced local clinic" over the phone before going to bed in his bedroom. From there, he was somehow teleported straight into a Hospital exam room while still sleeping.
- Terrified of Germs: By his own admission. This bestowed him with "impeccable grooming skills" in the grey zone. And dismal socialization skills. And must've surely exacerbated his horror and misery over being trapped in The Hospital by a thousandfold.
- Wandering Jew: The man's been searching the Hospital for an exit an awfully long time...
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: We can only hope Fern eventually finds out what became of this guy.
Jay
His entry can be found here.
Karen
Bootleg human or real human?
- Jay's Journal: We were divorced more than seven years, she wouldn't still be wearing her band. She never called me "Booberry" before. I don't even know why I'm "blue" to everything here. She died two years before I even got here. I was over it then, and I'm over it now. A+ idea, there, Hospital, but nobody's as stupid as you think they are, or more accurately, nobody's as stupid as you.
Jay's ex-wife. Fern first read about Karen in a journal he had left in his room. A possibly fake version of Karen showed itself to Jay in the Hospital at some point in the past, but Jay rejected her.
- All There in the Manual: In-Universe. All the information on Karen, including the drawing of her face, came from Jay's journal.
- Ambiguously Human: We have no way of telling whether Karen is a true human or merely human-looking, like Dr. Man.
- Out-of-Character Alert: She tripped several with Jay, causing him to reject her.
- Punny Name: Possibly one of the few aversions in all of Awful Hospital. As far as we know, Karen's name has nothing punny behind it.
- Replacement Goldfish: Jay suspected that the Hospital created Karen as a replacement for his dead wife. For all we know, he could be right.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Since Jay remembers his ex-wife dying two years before his abduction from Earth, he refused to believe that this Karen he met in the Hospital could be the real deal. But considering how malleable time is in the Hospital...
- Uncertain Doom: So when Jay decided Karen was a 'bootleg', did he kill her? Or did she manage to escape? We have no way of knowing.
- Unreliable Narrator: Since Jay cannot be counted on to remember things correctly... a lot of possibilities are left open with Karen.
Missing Children
Nicole's Daughter
How did she get in there?
A baby girl that is lost somewhere in the Hospital- Missing Child: She's lost somewhere in the Hospital but her mother is trapped in the Veterinary ward. It turns out she somehow got placed into one of Burgrr's employee only snack machines.
- No Name Given: Like Fern's son, we don't know her name.
- Psychic Link: Has one with her mother and Nicole does have flashes of where she is but those haven't helped in finding her
Mitchell's Son
A boy that was taken away by personnel for what we can guess was supposed to be a checkup but he never came back.
- Missing Child: He was taken just one ̶p̶a̶g̶e̶ layer before Fern arrived in the Hospital. They said they would bring him back shortly, but Mitchel hasn't seen him since. When Fern gains a Higher Understanding Through Drugs, she learns that he is in a shroom forest of a worm eaten corpse.
The Phonograph's Child
The Phonograph's missing daughter
- Missing Child: Something happened to her when the Hospital was supposed to be taking care of her. She got lost in the Library.
- No Name Given: She hasn't been named. So far, she's called the "Phonograph's Child"
- Starfish Language: We can guess she'd talk in something like this if since her mother speaks in this.
Allie
Not as harmless as she looks
Heather's daughter. Her mother came to the Hospital in search of her- Enfant Terrible: Although Heather downplays it as best she can, it's implied she's this by human standards and not intentionally.Heather: Don't worry, dear! I wouldn't purge just anybody! My Allie, on the other hand...well...she hasn't quite learned to smell who's marked just yet...not without her mama!
- Unfortunately for Fern, she got to experience it first hand when she found her.
- The Ghost: Her first appearance is mother mentioning her.
- Horrifying the Horror: The image representing the "Saving the Abyss?!" quest shows a large number of gargantuan yet terrified looking Eldritch Abominations backing away from her.
- Killer Rabbit: Although she looked small and relatively harmless, she was able to instantly kill Fern by biting half of her head off before anyone can even react.
- Missing Child: Something related to the Hospital led to her disappearing and her mother looking for her. It turns out she somehow ended up in the part of the Abyss surrounding the Hospital and has been hunting down the monsters there.
Jagged Stain and Gooey Stain's Daughters
Jagged Stain's and Staicy's kids. We don't know how many there are
- Missing Child: It's "children" in their case and we don't know how many of them are missing or, for that matter, when they went missing. They are revealed to have ended up in the Plank Maze.
- Noodle Incident: What happened to them? No one knows but it didn't seem to end well.
- No Name Given: They aren't referred to by names.
- Would Hurt a Child: Apparently, the Hospital haven't treated them well
Cheryl's Dog
Nobad is the most yes good boy!
Cheryl's pet dog without a clear name.
- A Day in the Limelight: He becomes the Commentator's host halfway through the Library arc.
- Animal Assassin: The dog has been unleashed upon the Library to kill the Library's silverfish staff, chew up the books, and generally make a mess of the place.
- Beneath Notice: He is a completely normal Earth dog. Tiny and normally unimportant in the scheme of things. Which is part of how the Parliament was able to use him to cause massive amounts of damage to The Library without any of the staff noticing.
- Eyes Out of Sight: Word of God says he considered adding visible eyes, but thought the blot of darkness with a mouth was the charm of black poof dogs.
- Fearless Fool: The Library crosses the Godzilla Threshold, complete with mass violence and destruction. Instead of panicking and hiding like you would generally expect, the dog isn't even paying attention to it, proudly and happily pondering his favorite name.
- Humanity Is Infectious: Getting possessed by Buzzers magnifies the creature's sense of pity. Normally, Nobad would only feel the slightest bit of pity for the horrific deaths of other canines, but the Commentators' influence makes it stronger and gives Nobad context for why their deaths are tragic.
- I Have Many Names: Pepperoni, Salami, Bologna... whatever the dog's real name might be, it's got something to do with meat. Cheryl has presumably long forgotten the dog's true name since she never uses it, usually cursing at the dog. The dog believes these to be his other names, and his favorite name is Nobad due to "NO. BAD." being the words Cheryl uses with him the most.
- Nearly Normal Animal: He is for most intents and purposes, a completely ordinary dog, but his thought processes are still complex enough to receive extensive narration.
- Noodle Incident: How and why he ended up tangled in the Hospital's shenanigans.
- The Pollyanna: He is so happy because he is so loved. All of Cheryl's cursing at him are treated as signs of her unending affection, because he believes these to be his extra names.
- Sadist: The only people Nobad cares about are himself and his "mother", Cheryl. If he were to witness the suffering of another dog, his normal response would be excitement.
- Uncatty Resemblance: His ears are shaped like Cheryl's pigtails, and are in a similarly low position on his head.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Parliament unleashed him to destroy The Library, and he has somehow done a stunningly good job.
Hospital Visitors
Nicole
They have a lot more in common than you'd first suspect.
- Willis: ...she says...uh... her baby got sick...Nicole: NNNNNNNNnnn Nn NNnn N N N N N nnnnnNNNNNNNNNWillis: ...And then she woked up here... Doesn't know where her baby is...Nicole: nnnnnNNNNNNNN NNNN NNNNNNNNFern: ...And the doctors don't understand her.Nicole: ...NNNN NNNn nNn NNNNN!!!!?!NNN NN!N!N!N!Willis: She can't believe you know what she means.Fern: All too well.
One of the parents in the Veterinary Ward, stuck in a situation depressingly similar to Fern's. She awaits the return of her daughter in the Veterinary Ward's Cat Room.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Nicole's physical body is very otherworldly, vaguely resembling a green-colored humanoid organ with fish gills that end in scythe-like protrusions on her top and bottom end.
- Foil: If one were to strip Nicole of all her alien features, she'd be exactly like Fern... that is, if Fern had given up searching for her child midway through her adventures, and shut herself away in her hospital room in fear and despair.Willis: ...She says she's tried to look for her...but she always gets sent back here by the staffs, and even when she sneaks past Cestine the Hospital is too weird. She says she got ate by some things, and then she smelt something real weird and hasn't gone out again.
- Informed Obscenity: Happens when the conversation turns to Fleagood.Fern: Does she know anything about this Fleagood guy?Nicole: NNN.Willis: I'm not supposeda say that word.
- Missing Child: Nicole has a sick baby daughter that is somewhere in the Hospital. Nicole's had many of the same problems trying to find her as Fern's had trying to find her son.
- Psychic Link: She sometimes experiences some kind of psychic vision of the place her daughter's currently at.Willis: She says she's gottened inpressions she don't understand, about her little girl.Nicole: nnnnnnn. nnnnn. Nnnnnn....Willis: "A small, hard place, and funny smells."
- Starfish Language: The language she speaks is a strange buzzing noise, requiring Willis to translate.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: A purse and some pantyhose.
Mitchell
Slow but patient.
- Mitchell: I'm Mitchell. ...My boy. They said they'd be right back with him...that was 896 layers ago...
One of the parents in the Veterinary Ward, who has been waiting a long time to see his son in the Veterinary Ward's Dog Room.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Once he figured out Fern was a fake, Mitchell could've exposed her to one of the real Hospital employees. However, he doesn't because of her sincere willingness to help him and his son.Mitchell: ....Thank you....I....actually do feel better...you're.........you're so nice..... good luck....Frannie.... I mean.... Good luck with.......posing as a staff and all...........that's...dangerous....
- Blob Monster: He is described as gelatinous, and the page he is introduced in is even labeled as "Blob Dad". The name of his species is either "floamzoner" or just "floam."
- Dreaming of Things to Come: There's a fair chance that when Mitchell dreams, it's of the place his son is located.Mitchell: ...When I sleep.....which is a lot......I get ideas......of a strange place....
Fern: How strange?
Mitchell: It's dark.....or it...should be dark....but it's bright instead....it glows all around...yyyawn...and....YAWWWN........everything is....bigger than it should be.... You can see the bits....that everything is made of..... - Missing Child: His son was taken just one ̶p̶a̶g̶e̶ layer before Fern arrived in the Hospital. They said they would bring him back shortly, but he hasn't seen him since.
- Sleepyhead: Mitchell keeps yawning continuously throughout his conversation with Fern, and speaks very slowly and ploddingly, with many ellipses.
- Sloth: Mitchell's entire race has a reputation for sluggishness.Mitchell: They say us floamz...... are slow...
- Smarter Than He Looks: Fern unintentionally drops many hints that she's not really a Hospital worker... which Mitchell picks up on.Mitchell: Ohhh....kay.....uh...didn't expect....to be explaining.... your tools to you......no, uh...no offense......
The Phonograph
♪
- Fern: Hi there! I'm...I'm... Hello? Willis...is, uh, someone in here, or...Phonograph: [bizarre noise]Willis: Sorry Fern...I dunno that talk. She smells pretty though.
One of the parents in the Veterinary Ward. She's found inside the Hamster Room.
- Animate Inanimate Object: Averted. According to Bogleech, the phonograph is not this character's actual body; rather, it is merely how Grey Zoners like Fern (and the audience by extension) perceive the (presumably sound-based) individual's presence.Bogleech: The phonograph isn't her body but it is how our minds interpret her being present in this room.
- Hell Is That Noise: This phonograph produces neither music nor spoken words. Instead, it emits very discordant sounds.
- Missing Child: Her daughter is one of the sick missing children.
- No Name Given: What with the communication barrier, no name has been given other than "Phonograph".
- Non-Standard Character Design: Bogleech says that she was almost a cartoon, but he ultimately went for a photograph of an actual phonograph because it was easier and funnier.
- Starfish Language: Her speech consists of audio recordings that even Willis cannot translate. In reality, it's backmasked and heavily modulated snippets of the comic's official theme song by Gooseworx.Bogleech: Oh just so nobody else wastes any effort, there's nothing hidden and no intelligible words in the sound mom's "speech" clips; gibberish noises, because she really is speaking in a totally alien way.
Heather
Heather's pretty well-behaved. Her daughter... not so much.
- Heather: That soft little doctor...I don't think he knows what he's supposed to be doing! Admittedly, I don't know where my babygirl got off to either...but I'd be more worried for your sake!Fern: ...My sake?Heather: She can take fine care of herself, but, ah, maybe a bit too much. I wouldn't want to be such a fragile little thing in your shoes! SNRK! She really is a GOOD girl when you give her a chance!
One of the parents in the Veterinary Ward, the mother of a girl named Allie. She's found inside the room of an animal Fern cannot recognize.
- Action Mom: Heather is very strong. Almost doctor level. And she still isn't strong enough to handle whatever is keeping her trapped in the Veterinary Ward and preventing her from simply rescuing her daughter herself.
- Banishing Ritual: In order to transport Allie out of the Hospital, Heather tells Fern that she should trap her in a spare egglet, which will teleport her to her home.Heather: They had her hooked to an eggly, or whatever they call them, and she got it in her head to step through the other side. An eggler is a zonal conduit, you know. A makeshift doorway, if you're half as strong as Allie-pie! Long story short, Pharge had to show me how to trap her in an empty spare and send her home.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Between her suction cup-feet, her belted-up neck, and everything else, yeah, Heather makes for a bizarre-looking being.
- Creepy Good: Heather's Bizarre Alien Biology and high power level seems to naturally induce fear in people, even tough kids like Willis, but she's just a polite and talkative mother who wants to find her daughter and go home.
- Death Amnesia: Heather's died more than once searching for Allie, but she can't seem to recall any specifics on how it's been happening.Heather: Well...it seems as though I can't make it very far from this room before I wake up here again.Fern: I see. Any guesses as to why?Heather: Hmmmmm, well, it's most likely something offed me, you know, but that would be QUITE odd. I don't usually go down so easily, and only doctors are usually that leveled...
- The Empath: She can smell fear. And she says Fern's smells succulent.
- Enfant Terrible: Not Heather, herself... but her daughter, Allie. Although Heather downplays it as best she can.Heather: Don't worry, dear! I wouldn't purge just anybody! My Allie, on the other hand...well...she hasn't quite learned to smell who's marked just yet...not without her mama!
- Humans Are Ugly: And she's proudly watched her daughter kill at least one.Heather: I was taking Allie on her first fog-stalk, and we'd just about expungified some lower-grey brute when the ugly thing - no offense! - took a swing at her with some dirty old pole off the ground! Don't worry, though; she got him gooooood. They'll be sponging him out of six different zones for a metaspiral! That's my girl!
- Hunter of Monsters: According to Heather, Allie loves to slip off into The Abyss in order to hunt the creatures that live there... and this is a hobby Allie shares with her mom.Heather: As for where she might have gone, that's a good question...she's an explorer, that one, a real drip off the old blob! She loves to climb, and it's hard to keep her out of that abyss, unfortunately. Those poor things never see her coming!
- Innocently Insensitive: Comments on how succulent Fern's fear smells, resulting in Fern telling her she would rather she not comment on that and Heather apologizing for her interzonal etiquette not being up to par.
- Missing Child: Her daughter, Allie, is one of the sick missing children.
- Shout-Out: Word of God says she was designed to resemble the creatures from Silent Hill. She also references taking her daughter on a "fog-stalk", in reference to Fog World of Silent Hill, a Dark World where the troubled have to fight monsters symbolizing their sins and traumas.
- So Proud of You: Very proud of her daughter, especially how combat capable she is.
- Starfish Language: For a moment, it looks like she is going to be setup to speak one of these, but it just turns out to be her congested sinuses and Fern can understand her just fine.
- Too Many Belts: Heather wears seven belts on her body.
- The Worf Effect: Despite being very close to a Physical God, she still gets Curb Stomped so fast that she can't even see it whenever she tries to leave the Veterinary Ward.
Jagged Stain and Staicy
You seem upset, Jagged. We'll come back never.
- Fern: Hello the-THE STAIN COUPLE ATTACKS! JAGGED STAIN USED STAIN CLAW vs. FERN!Jagged Stain: WHERE. ARE. OUR. DAUGHTERS!?!17 DAMAGE! FERN USED BLOCK! DAMAGE REDUCED TO 1!Fern: W-whoa!!! Hold on!!Gooey Stain: Oh...oh gosh...you MUST forgive her! She's not usually like this!!!Jagged Stain: Yes I am!! Don't lie to the nice lady!!!!
The parents of an unknown number of missing daughters. They're found inside the Fish Room in the Veterinary Ward.
- Ax-Crazy: The first layer Jagged lays her sights on Fern, she attacks her. It seems to be a thing for the stains in general, with the exception of Staicy.
- Beef Gate: Bogleech designed Jagged Stain as a reality check of sorts- meant to illustrate the strength of what Fern's going up against, and she refuses to tell Fern anything about their daughters until she becomes strong enough to defeat her.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Jagged Stain, furious with the Hospital's incompetence, takes it out on Fern. They have a Character Level of at least level 20 if not higher, making Fern's normal attacks useless against them. They can also unleash automatically hitting moves with enough force to kill her in one hit. Needless to say, the battle ends the instant Fern stops blocking.
- Freudian Excuse: Jagged attacks Fern out of bitterness for how the Hospital's treated her children.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: They have 88 Hit Points, can inflict as much as 26 damage in a single attack, automatically hit, and have a Character Level of at least 20, meaning Fern has at best a 1/20 chance of damaging them if not 0.
- HP to One: Jagged Stain opts not to kill Fern, but does demonstrate how much stronger she is by reducing her to one heart.
- Invisibility with Drawbacks: As with all White Stains, they need to have a blacklight shined upon them in order to be seen and interacted with.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Jagged Stain may come across as a rude jerk, but she's completely right about Fern being underleveled.
- Mama Bear: Jagged, most definitely. If Fern hadn't been so quick to block her attacks, she'd have died again.
- Missing Child: Multiple daughters. We don't know exactly how many.
- Unnamed Parents: "Gooey" and "Jagged" never formally introduced themselves, though we know "Gooey"'s name is Staicy from "Jagged" calling her.
- One-Hit Kill: Character Levels don't seem to provide any defense against Jagged Stain's attacks, and she can inflict enough damage to kill Fern with only one hit.
- "Not So Different" Remark: They're parents who're worried about their missing kids and want them back, like Fern is, however, unlike Fern, Jagged has a more hostile way of approaching the subject.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Attempted. Jagged Stain points out that Fern is incredibly weak, and if the help of someone as pathetic as her was worth anything, they would have already done her job for her. Some of the buzzers immediately started firing back at her for being unhelpful, ungrateful, and also just outright nasty to deal with.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Fern's offer to help is met with an HP to One attack, and a number of scathing insults.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Jagged Stain makes it clear that she considers Fern's help worthless because they aren't even close to the strongest dangers in the area and they are still overwhelmingly more powerful than Fern. If Fern really wants to help them, she needs to get much stronger.
- The Worf Effect: They aren't doctor level, but Jagged Stain physically demonstrates that they are much stronger than Fern and they still cannot fix their situation themselves.
Cheryl
Yeah, yeah, weirdness galore and the end of reality... just gimme my dog so I can go home to my brats.
- Cheryl: Human? All these layers and they send in a human? I thought I was paying premium here??Fern: Um...sorry? My name's Frannie, I'm the, uh, temporary help here, and-Cheryl: That's nice honey ya done with my dog or what?
One of the parents in the Veterinary Ward. She's found behind the Plank Maze door, which is implied to have originally been a Frog Room before it deteriorated.
- Abusive Parents:
- The prototype character she was based on has a sick sense of humor◊, psychologically traumatizing her son with monsters for her entertainment. She is also only annoyed◊ that he isn't there when he falls under Demonic Possession.
- The Awful Hospital version does seem awfully indifferent to how her children are doing in the middle of the apocalypse back home, though she attributes it to having Seen It All and being Fantastically Indifferent.
- The prototype character she was based on has a sick sense of humor
- Accidental Misnaming: She claims to have come to the Hospital for her dog, "Bologna". She later calls him "Salami", and when Fern later asks her to remind her whether the dog's name was "Bologna" or "Salami", she answers "Pepperoni".
- Actual Pacifist: Not out of a sense of morality, though. She just figures fighting is a waste of time, and lets someone else deal with it as she flees to a different universe.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Willis describes her scent as having smells from the most nightmarish zones in the Perception Range and "a little dash of the funk you might expect from someone who puts out a lot of cigarettes in a lot of half-finished plastic cups of gas station wine".
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: For all of her complaining, she really does care about her dog, to the point that she would rush at a high level dolphin to save him.
- Bad Liar: The running narrator says that she is a terrible liar by human standards. However, most beings throughout the Perception Range are Super Gullible and Literal-Minded, so she's still practically a master of deception in comparison.
- Black Widow: She has been in many relationships, of which she was the sole survivor. Most of these deaths weren't actually intentional on her part, though a few certainly were. As such, she's had to deal with many of their own exes, their children from previous relationships, and even their pets making attempts at vengeance.
- Brown Note: It's implied that one of her attacks involves something similar to sound most beings cannot tolerate
- Cain and Abel: Downplayed, but the running narrator says that "the last good day she had" was when she absorbed her twin in the womb and got it all to herself.
- Child Hater: The running narrator says that she is not a fan of children on a good day.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: The Library crosses the Godzilla Threshold and erupts into chaos. Anxious to escape, she follows the Blowhole Brothers to their escape route into the Plank Maze. But then the Running Narrator informs her that her dog is in the Library. She very reluctantly aborts her escape to rescue him.
- Dimensional Traveller: She's capable of shifting zones at will (which she normally abuses to avoid fights), and has been exploring the madness of the Perception Range for long enough to effectively go native.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Her prototype appeared in Bogleech's comics from before Awful Hospital. She first showed up in Awful Hospital in Fern's Dreaming of Things to Come on page 350 as a shadow that can only be seen if you view the image without the web page, and later shows up in the promotional poster for Phase two. Neither portrayal seems to paint her in a positive light. She finally shows up in person on page 906.
- Escape Battle Technique: She says that she usually zone shifts when she gets into combat.
- Evil Counterpart: The prototype character she is based on would pretty much be this to Fern. Both of them are mothers of a son. Fern loves her son, while Cheryl seems to view her son as a toy. Fern befriends monsters in spite of being repulsed by their grotesquely alien appearances because they're good people, while Cheryl befriends evil ones due to being a Nightmare Fetishist.
- Evil Is Petty: During her second appearance, she is seen stealing porn from the Library, despite the fact that the books are free to begin with.
- Fantastically Indifferent: She reacts to a supposed human staff member, Fern, with mild surprise, implying she would prefer one of the Hospital's aliens. She doesn't see the apocalypse back home as anything special, having been through all sorts of weird stuff, and figures she'll adapt just fine even if it does in fact leave behind permanent after-effects.
- Foil:
- She is one to Fern. While Fern is a hopeful, friendly patient who is new to the perception range, this mom is abrasive, blase, seemingly healthy, and appears much more experienced with other zones. She even wears red, the compliment to Fern's green.
- She is also one to Jay, in that he's a Fantastic Racist and Nervous Wreck, while she's a Nightmare Fetishist that has Seen It All, ironically enough making her extremely dangerous for the exact opposite reason that Jay is.
- Glad I Thought of It: When she checks with the Commentators for ideas, she labels the one that she chose as her own.
- Going Native: She uses terminology like "layers," and "branchinated," with a relatively casual tone that indicates she's been at this for a while.
- Horrifying the Horror: When she misinterprets a dolphin assassin's euphemisms for killing her for something dirty, her Killing Intent manages to put him in a deep sweat. Whatever she does to create a corpse of herself also freaks the dolphin assassins out. They also note that she had no fear towards an assassin strong enough to kill them, so when she asks them to make her a sandwich, they immediately comply.
- Humanoid Abomination: Her shadow suggests that her interzonal experiences have made her something not quite human anymore. She's also considerably more dangerous than any regular grayzoner, or even other experienced human zonehoppers, should be capable of becoming. It's implied that even dolphins don't pose much threat to her. The Running Narrator says that she remains fundamentally human, she just seems superficially alien to baseline humans in the same way a human used to swimming through mud might be perceived by those on land.
- Medium Awareness: She can sense Fern's buzzers watching her.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: She swears frequently. Her curse words are either split across the page or written imprecisely due to her drunken mumbling.
- Nightmare Fetishist:
- The prototype character she is based on seems to be one, befriending monsters, flirting with them, and using them to torment her son.
- She herself is described as having traces of having visited the darkest areas of the Perception Range with almost spiteful disregard for preserving her sanity.
- When Willis and Isaac encounter Cheryl in the Library, she's been collecting "inappropriate reading materials", complete with an unfolding poster. The books in her inventory are slightly blurred for mock-censorship, but it's clear that their covers depict beings from across the Perception Range posing lewdly. This leads to a short-lived panic attack when she misinterpets a dolphin's crude New York Gangster Deadly Euphemisms, as her mind was "still very much elsewhere".
- Perception Filter: Willis is barely able to perceive Cheryl, instead seeing a blurry, nondescript space. Fern theorizes this is because she doesn't want Willis to perceive her, just to be safe.
- Really Gets Around: She has been in a lot of relationships, and with more than one species.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: She first appears in one of Fern's dreams, as a shadow with glowing red eyes.
- Seen It All: Had elements of this even in her prototype appearances. She states her unconcerned behavior is because she's come out of similar things unharmed, and as such, she's grown accustomed to the multiverse's craziness.
- Self-Made Orphan: It is implied that she used her otherzonal abilities to kill her mother in a horrific way and considers that day her happiest birthday.
- The Shadow Knows: Her shadow is distinctly inhuman.
- Shout-Out: The title of the book she's reading is 500 Shades Of Gray Zone.
- Sinister Silhouettes: Her first appearance is a shadow with glowing red eyes in Fern's dreams.
- Skewed Priorities: Cheryl is used to things wanting to kill her, so when she misinterprets a dolphin's Deadly Euphemisms as something sexual, she starts producing Killing Intent until it's clarified, at which point she calms down.
- Theme Naming: Like the other humans, (Except Miss) she's named after an object the same color as her appearance. Cheryl can be shortened to Cheri, and she dresses in cherry red.
- Token Human: One of the very few in the Hospital, and unlike Fern and Jay, showing no visible signs of the Parliament's disease.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Her ultimate weakness is a self-help book lecturing about why you shouldn't smoke cigarettes and why avoiding your grayzoner problems by zonehopping is a bad thing. Word of God says that she would get itchy just glancing at it.
