Nightmare Fuel / Twisted Wonderland

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Stone. Mine. Won't give. Won't give. Won't give itttt!

Main Story

tHIs StOnE... iS mInEEeEeE!!!

• The Hopeless Boss Fight at the beginning sets the tone: you're facing some eldritch chimera, your attacks aren't working and then it kills you.
• The introduction can be this. What sounds like Headmaster Crowley is complimenting the mirror in a strange fashion and proceeds to ask it something before being cut off.

  Voice/Crowley?: Ah, my dear beloved. A lovely and noble flower of evil. Truly, you are the most beautiful of all.

  • After that, Crowley (or whoever the voice belongs to) implies something very ominous is coming and that time is running out for everyone. It then instructs someone to never let go of the hand in the mirror.
• Let's not forget the Overblotted!Dwarf, shall we? First off, there are just enough implications that it's one of the original Seven Dwarfs and not a twisted counterpart; second, Dwarfs' Mine where it's fought is filled with ghosts! The dwarf itself is terrifying with its voice being heavily distorted, and it's also been completely and totally consumed by the blot. No memories, no quirks, just an unending protectiveness of that magic stone.
• Overblot itself is horrific. Think of it like magical exhaust. It slowly builds up over time until it reaches critical mass, at which point you go completely nuts and summon a MASSIVE Guardian Entity. If you're lucky someone will knock some sense into you because at that point your ability to rationalize or respond to more peaceful methods is just gone. If not, you'll end up like the dwarf, completely consumed by the entity with no way to go back.
  • During each overblot the victim was pretty much a hair away from killing either an individual target or a group of people. Riddle nearly killed Ace, Leona nearly killed Ruggie and countless others in the area, Jamil intended for Kalim/the Octavinelle trio/Yuu and Grim to not survive getting flung far into the desert, Vil nearly killed his bandmates as well as himself, Idia and Ortho tried to actively destroy humanity, and Malleus unwittingly endangered the entirety of Twisted Wonderland. And while they do ultimately face some form of retribution for these actions, the overblotters never face severe consequences such as expulsion and many of the cases have been covered up in different degrees. Worse is that Crowley has yet to makes any meaningful attempts to better prevent future cases, especially as these victims are the very leaders (and vice president in Jamil's case) of the dorms. And if his words in the final moments of Pomefiore mean anything, it's heavily implied that Crowley might have let them all overblot on purpose.
• Just the mere fact the whole premise kicks off with Yuu, a (presumably) young teenager, waking up inside a coffin in a world entirely different from their own with no (current) recollection of how they got there and no way to escape or contact anyone who could help. It also doesn't help that in this world the inhabitants are capable of very powerful magic... and Yuu is completely defenseless.
  • It also does not help that, for whatever reason, Crowley does not have returning Yuu to their home world anywhere near the top of his priorities as he claims to. He is also not above threatening Yuu with things like starvation, withholding of allowance, and being thrown out and left to their own devices if they do not comply to his requests or even complain too much.
• Mixes in with Funny, the first thing that Yuu encounters when waking up from their casket is Grim attacking them with his flames in an attempt to take their ceremonial robe, leading to a chase around the campus that would have ended in Grim burning Yuu to a crisp had Headmaster Crowley not stepped in.
• While it is not particularly surprising that Rook Hunt "hunts" other students out of pure fascination and desire to find beauty in everything and everyone (and apparently non-human students in particular), his room further reveals that he hides photos (heavily implied to be of students he's targeted) behind the wallpaper, which begs the question of just how far he takes his "hunts" (This was later mitigated when the ending of chapter 5 reveals that Rook is a huge fan of Neige, meaning that that the photos behind the wallpaper are actually his collection of Neige's photos and bromides that he collected over the years, but still jarring to see.)
  • An example of how sharp his skills in stalking must be? In his Birthday Story voiced lines Malleus revealed he received some clothing from Rook with the exact measurements without ever giving Rook that information, nor does it seem that Malleus ever detected Rook attempting to do so.
• Right before Riddle overblots he turns the atmosphere of the whole dorm literally grimdark, and then he traps Ace in levitating rose bushes then summons a flurry of rose petals with full intent of murdering Ace. And Riddle would have actually done it had Trey not used "Doodle Suit" / "Paint The Roses" to overwrite his magic in time.
• Leona and Ruggie's plan in Chapter 2 is as simple as it is damn creepy since it involves Ruggie turning strong Magift players into People Puppets and causing them to get seriously injured. And then there is the issue of Leona using "King's Roar" in his overblotted state and attempting to pull what could be described as a mini-Thanos to not just Ruggie but the surrounding students.
  • Ruggie's skin was beginning to crack on top of struggling to breathe and gasping in pain. Leona was really going for a slow and painful death here...
  • During the Magift opening ceremony Ruggie drinks a power-boosting potion that allows him to control entire crowds at once and forces many audience members to stampede the Diasomnia team who are actually Cater's clones in disguise. Had Malleus and the rest not been alerted beforehand it could have been bad for them but possibly even worse for the audience members.
• Overall, Savanaclaw students in particular have a penchant to take the Jerk Jock trope up to eleven and gang up on outside students when barely provoked or simply if they see it fit. Leona even admits to Yuu (who accidentally stepped on his tail) that he's cool with hurting students that he knows can't fight him back and was about to attack Yuu before being interrupted.
• Minor compared to other examples, but the implications from some of their personal stories that the Leech twins were born into a mafia/yakuza family and are being raised to continue the business or are already active members in said business. It doesn't help that Jade and Floyd have indeed garnered a reputation as The Dreaded among Night Raven students and faculty and very well enjoy swindling and harming others, not to mention Octavinelle itself gives off quite the mobster aesthetic.
  • Hell, they and Azul managed to get Crowley swindled into one of their contracts that even allows them to operate Monstro Lounge and have masterfully used loopholes to get away with a lot of hazardous deals while staying within legal limits. And, yet again, Crowley is most likely aware of the dangers the trio are posing on the student body (legal limits or no) and yet refuses to take any action.
  • Floyd's...expressions...whenever he feels particularly violent or threatening. Sometimes he looks straight out of his mind, and sometimes he has this unsettling, stunned-like appearance that almost looks like he's being threatened. And Jade is no slouch either given how he's not above dishing out threats with the most serene smile on his face or pulling a Slasher Smile at whim.
• The Octavinelle trio get started pretty early in Chapter 3 when Azul has Jade force a student who made a contract to fess up that he was trying to run away from them, followed by allowing Floyd to beat the student up. Things only escalate when they trap 225 contracted students into total obedience, complete with taking away their magic and placing sea anemones that force the students to report when called. And by a lot of their demeaning dialogue and demands to these students, along with the constant threats and beatdowns, it's clear the trio don't see their victims as people but instead slaves with no say in the matter that they can overwork to exhaustion.
• The lead up to Azul's overblot. When Azul realizes Leona just destroyed his contracts he loses his calm and collective composure, screaming and lashing out on how he doesn't want to be that "dumb, chubby octopus". He then appears to cool down... only for him to lash out again, this time getting a hold of any student he can get his hands on and completely drain them of their magic until they lose conciousness. All the while the lounge becomes engulfed in black mist, and then Floyd notices the black goo dripping out of Azul...
• The Scarabia chapter begins with Jamil using his unique magic "Snake Whisper" to hypnotize Yuu into joining him for Scarabia's training regiment and then keeps both Yuu and Grim imprisoned under the guise that it was an increasingly unstable Kalim's orders who acts like everyone's best friend one minute and then a cruel Drill Sergeant Nasty the next. And the cause of Kalim's extreme mood swings? None other than Jamil hypnotizing Kalim to force the dorm into grueling exercises that nearly causes its members to collapse from exhaustion, all so Jamil could paint Kalim as a ruthless monster and make himself look better in comparison.
  • Usually Jamil retains a cool and near-humble composure, but once he gets ousted and later overblots he doesn't break down and/or cry like the others. Instead, Jamil becomes maniacally gleeful as he chews out Kalim and tosses him, the Octavinelle trio, and the Ramshackle duo across the desert to what he had hoped to be their deaths. And when that doesn't work Jamil uses his powers to mind control the entire dorm in an attempt to finish the job.
  • Mixes with Tearjerker is the situation from Kalim's perspective: all throughout his life he has been the target of multiple kidnappings and assassination attempts, and then the one person that he has come to trust decides to backstab him in one of the worst ways. It's truly astonishing that Kalim has it in him to not only keep Jamil at his side but by all accounts forgive him completely, as many, many in his shoes would become at the very least paranoid.
• Jade has a nice moment where, when he and his dorm mates try snapping Kalim out of his post-backstabbing pity party, he goes into detail on how if anyone ever did to him what Jamil did to Kalim he'd break them down in every way imaginable until they became nothing. All with a smile on his face.

  Jade: I'd lash out with a torrent of unmitigated verbal abuse to break them down mentally, then bind them and drag them beneath the waves.

• Jade also gets a more subtle moment when he attempts to use "Shock The Heart" on Kalim, coming to him as someone seemingly concerned for his well being but then using that moment of vulnerability to cast his spell. While Kalim was able to pull off a No-Sell, it definitely reminds the player how downright slimy Jade can be with people who don't have enough willpower to counter him.
• Vil's unique magic, "Fairest of Them All", allows him to curse a victim through any object and the only way for the curse to be lifted is if the Curse Escape Clause is met (even he can't prematurely lift it or remove it completely). Vil is not an evil person and usually uses this ability pragmatically, but it still has plenty of wicked potential and Vil does decide to use it to it's logical extreme when trying to poison Neige and later his bandmates and himself.
  • Evil or not, Vil paralyzing Ace and Deuce for sneaking a few snacks after adhering to an extremely strict diet and then threatening Yuu, someone who has absolutely no means of being able to defend themselves from Vil or any magician for the matter, was pretty unsettling.
• On a lesser note, while the situation between Vil and Epel was a bit more complex Deuce, an outsider, saw Vil's treatment of Epel as abusive and outright told Vil word for word that he can't force Epel into doing stuff he doesn't really want to. Instead of trying to at least explain the full situation, Vil simply writes off that reasoning as nothing more than "an excuse" and later treats Deuce and the rest of the VDC team similarly until Epel snaps.
• Mixed with Tear Jerker is Vil's overblot which includes him being Driven to Suicide and trying to poison himself as he believes he's going to be viewed as a villain forever. It becomes downright grisly in that Vil also tried to poison his bandmates as well as the Ramshackle pair because he was that out of his mind and (possibly) because he was making an effort to silence those who knew about his intentions for Neige.
• Pomefiore ends with the scene of Yuu finding Grim digging through the colosseum floor and eating onto the black rock left from Vil's overblot. Looking absolutely manic complete with Glowing Eyes of Doom. When he sensed Yuu, he instead attacked Yuu instead of greeting them, believing that Yuu is here to steal the stone, echoing the words that the overblotted monster back in the Dwarf Mines had said.

  Grim: tHIs StOnE... iS mInEEeEeE!!!

  • Before Yuu went to find Grim, they see a statical vision of the sound of the clopping of horses when they were brought to Night Raven College... followed by the scene of the Hopeless Boss Fight during the start of the prologue. The sight of this vision prompted Yuu to search for Grim outside Ramshackle. Only to be met with the scene of Grim eating the black stone and getting attacked by him.
• Chapter 6 reveals that there is, in fact, a special force meant to deal with cases where overblot victims are completely incapable of being able to be cured and go back to normal: The Charon op force ran by the organization S.T.Y.X., which is headed by the Shroud family. They send out massive, unstoppable robots (or agents) with anti-magic armor to track down the "specimens", by brute force if need be, then take them back to headquarters to most likely be experimented on. And even though everyone who had overblotted thus far had recovered fully they are still hunted down and captured along with Grim and Crowley.
  • What makes this even more terrifying is that Leona mentions how magicians that were brought to S.T.Y.X. will never come back, and he's not sure if he's going to be walking out of this one and makes sure to tell Ruggie not to try anything stupid when handing himself over.
  • Even better is that S.T.Y.X. is not associated with any particular government or country and is at absolute liberty to conduct these abductions without being officially summoned and by whatever means it decides. One really has to wonder what kind of devastating power this organization must have that absolutely no one is willing to go up against it as well as its overall intentions.
  • When the kidnapped students finally land in the Isle of Lamentation they are greeted by none other than Idia and Ortho, the former now the acting captain as his parents are currently away. And given Idia's expression at the very end of part 16 it's pretty clear he has no intention of playing hero...
• Jamil and Vil getting abducted in front of Kalim—someone who has experienced the worst of abductions and assassination attempts all throughout his life. One can only imagine what went through the poor guy's mind after that...
• Riddle's abduction in Chapter 6 is technically the second time he got abducted in front of Sebek, if you count the shenanigans that occurred in Vargas Camp...and Sebek failed to save him twice...
  • Riddle also took the "ferryman's'" blast at full charge. If he wasn't such a powerful magician he probably wouldn't have been just unconscious...
• We Learn that the Isle of Lamentation has at least 1,000 Phantoms frozen in storage! It's made even creepier by the fact S.T.Y.X. sometimes lets them wander the halls of their facility!
• How the chapter segment ends. Ortho hears a voice telling him to follow, except there are two things wrong with that: First, it's his voice (or to be more accurate, the boy he was based on), second it lures him to Tartarus, where most of the Phantoms are kept. While there have been hints that something's not normal about Ortho, this is well and truly terrifying.
  • The fact that Phantom!Ortho seems sentient to a degree. The other two Phantoms known were raving lunatics consumed by their greed for magic stones (The Phantom in the Dwarf mines, Grim) Phantom!Ortho, on the other hand? Still unhinged, but it's wrapped up in a calm, calculating matter.
  • Wait! It gets better! Going by what Cater said in chapter 5, the Ortho we know has been with Idia since he enrolled. That was at least 3 years ago. Imagine being trapped in what was essentially a basement for three years!
• Phantom Ortho’s main goal is to reset the world by destroying Tartarus and covering the entire world in blot. He believes by doing so, Phantoms can co-exist with everyone and the Shroud family will be hailed as heroes, but in reality, it would be the end of humanity. And those who are born magicless also have a high chance of turning into Phantoms.
  • Not only do Phantoms and rogue Charon units escape the facility and begin attacking nearby civilians, Phantom Ortho also has no qualms about injuring and capturing defenseless S.T.Y.X. personnel so that he can use them as npcs for his "game" with the captured Night Raven students.
• Minor compared to the above, but the fact that S.T.Y.X. has a mind-wiping program called the Lethe River that's used to erase the organization's more unsavory deeds. Idia had all intentions to use this on the overblotters until it got severely wrecked during the fallout.
• Chapter 7 Part 2. Dear lord. Unlike previous chapters where the overblot process is gradual and occurs late, Malleus overblots early and he envelops the entirety of Sage Island in thorns and puts everyone to sleep so he can ensure that everyone stays happy in the dream world he'll weave for them. Chapter 7 part 2 ends with Malleus humming to a tune reminiscent of "Once Upon a Dream" as the title screen fades in. And unlike the sweet, dreamlike tone of the original, the context makes this version of the song creepy.
  • Right before that the player is treated to yet another Hopeless Boss Fight against Malleus right before he casts "Fae of Maleficence". His HP? 300,000. For reference, the chimera from the prologue was 99,999 HP. And this is before overblotting!
  • On a more subtle note is how Malleus announces what his "blessing" to everyone will be, saying things like they will "be reborn" and will no longer know of any sorrow. As seen in numerous cases these are phrases that wouldn't be surprising from the mouths of cult leaders, further not helped in how Malleus specifically kept the details of what exactly his gift was withheld.
  • After he overblots Malleus does not have the echo effect to his voice that the other victims have had thus far. Sanity Slippage aside, Malleus is still fully in control of himself somehow, and this has three equally unnerving possible explanations for such — he's so powerful he can avoid the negative effects of overblotting for longer than anyone else, he knew overblotting was a possibility if he went through with his plan and did it anyway, or he intentionally overblotted in order to ensure no one could stop him.
  • It's actually even worse since Malleus has access to what is called "Domain Magic", meaning that he can alter anything and everything to his will as long as it's within his magic's scope. And given that he's trying to make that scope move beyond Sage's Island...
  • And even worse? Ortho brings up the possibility of a popular Fridge Horror regarding the Sleeping Beauty curse, namely that it possible that those under Malleus's spell will eventually die if their bodies run out of nutrition.
• When Mickey woke up from his dream, Yuu and Grim were still trapped in Mickey's dream room and nearly got consumed by the eroding darkness after Grim used up all his energy trying to fight it off. Luckily for them, Silver got there at the nick of time.
• Malleus's attempt to engulf Silver, Sebek, Grim, and Yuu in a darkness that is described as "cold, sad, and dark". Like the above, they only make it out because Silver was able to move them into Lilia's dream before being completely sealed.
• Lilia, who is still trapped under the spell dreaming of when he was serving in the Briar Valley's army, capturing the group and threatening to execute them if they lie about who they are.
• Sebek attracting more darkness to himself and the others when he begins to cry over wanting to stay in the dream so Malleus can be with his parents. Thankfully, Silver's able to stop it.
• When the group arrives at the Silver Owl's fortress, Lilia is seriously injured due to Taking the Bullet for Silver. They then receive word that the fortress was nothing but a ploy, and that Henrik, the Dawn Knight, and all of the Silver Owls are sieging the castle where Mellenoar and the unborn Malleus are in...

Comic

Chapter 4: Unintentional Troubles!

• Unlike in the game, the Faceless Monster barely survives Ace, Grim, and Deuce's attack, but the attack wasn't enough to destroy it. The Faceless Monster's body starts to fall apart into ink as it continues to crawl after Ace and Deuce. It holds them down to the ground so they are unable to escape. Ace and Deuce express absolute fear towards the Faceless Monster as it would have killed them if Riddle hadn't arrived to save them.
  • Not as bad as the above, but being rescued from what could have been your death only for your "rescuer" to have only done it so he could punish you for supposedly breaking a nonsensical rule is not exactly pleasant. Thankfully, the next chapter revealed Riddle let the two of them go after singing the required song.

Chapter 15: Reasonable Resistance!

• Unlike in the game, it reveals more about the side effects of overblots as the victim starts leaking unknown black substance from their heads. As Riddle keeps overusing his magic further, he undergoes a painful transformation as he is engulfed in a pool of blot while screaming in anguish.
• It plays much worse in the comic as Riddle is more vicious and crazed than his game counterpart. Instead of Riddle just using his magic to hurt everyone who betrays him, Riddle wants to murder Ace by commanding every rose tree in the garden to tear him into shreds. If Trey wasn’t able to save Ace, he would be killed.

Events

• The first "Scary Monsters" event has the dorm leaders opting to use lethal force on the more troublesome guests before having to be stopped by their peers. Special mention goes to Malleus, infuriated by the "Draconia Challenge" as well as being viewed as an object, raining down fire and lightning onto the guests.
• The second "Scary Monsters" event revolves around time freezing at 11:59 PM on the same night because an unknown entity doesn't want Halloween to end yet, followed by many students getting attacked and possessed by ghosts then kidnapped to a mirror dimension.
  • While the situation ends up being a massive case of Poor Communication Kills, it doesn't help that some of the students genuinely tried to reason with the ghosts peacefully but still got attacked anyway.
  • Even if he had good intentions, Malleus decided to outright freeze time for the sole reason of throwing a party and apparently saw no issue with the methods the ghosts used to gather the students. Not only does this once again show Malleus' status as The Dreaded is no joke, it kind of makes one wonder what extremes Malleus might be willing to take either out of ignorance or because of Blue-and-Orange Morality due to being a member of The Fair Folk.
    • This is now way more nightmarish as of Main Story Chapter 7. The entire event might have been subtle Foreshadowing for Malleus' intentions and the desperate measures he would go to so no one would leave him or be sad.
• While overall it's filled with levity, the "Ghost Bride" event revolves around Idia being kidnapped by and forced into an unwanted marriage to a ghost princess who constantly ignores his protests and paralyzes everyone who fails to woo her. And had the marriage gone through Idia would have been turned into a ghost.
  • Mixes with dark humor is the paralyzed students later coaxing Idia to just go through with it, not giving a damn about what was going to happen to him (though to be fair, Idia being a jerkass to them shortly beforehand didn't help his case).