What are you afraid of?
"There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment."
—Hunter S. Thompson, Kidutus's first page.
Kidutus is a horror MS Paint Fanventure Web Comic by InkedScraps, created on February 18, 2015. The story follows Abby and Lucas—two ordinary people—who find themselves in a facility known as Kidutus, not knowing how or why they're here, quickly realizing they're not alone. They come face-to-face with the facility's less fortunate test subjects, all of which are now mutated and transformed into a grotesque embodiment of their worst fear - all of which are conspiring to rebel, break the others out, and escape. And perhaps the scariest part of the whole facility is not the fear-mutants themselves, but the building's staff that orchestrated their repeated torture, causing them to warp for the benefit of the Fear Factory. Many questions linger in the subjects' minds - Why are they here, what is Kidutus's purpose, and how will they get out of the facility alive?
- The comic's MSPFA host can be found here. [1]
- The webcomic has an official Tumblr that accepts commands and character submissions, which can be found here.
- The author also has a Toyhouse page for most of the characters, which can be found here. (contains out-of-comic spoilers!)
This page contains marked spoilers, including things stated outside of the comic. You have been warned!
This webcomic contains the following tropes:
- Afraid of Blood: Jenny's fear is hemophobia - her room and folder are covered in the stuff, and Abby is shown a tape of her testing.
- All There in the Manual: The Kidutus Tumblr contains a bit of out-of-comic information and discussion with the creator, including a guide to creating characters for Kidutus and an in-character Q&A that elaborates on some parts of the comic's current cast.
- Ambiguous Gender: 005 is canonically gender-neutral and described with they/them pronouns.
- An Ice Person: Jace is shown to be cold and hostile towards strangers, the irony of which sinks in with the fact that his worst fear is cryophobia, or extreme cold.
- Arc Symbol: The K and inverted K stuck together, which forms the company logo.
- Art Evolution: The comic's art has improved greatly over the years - one can clearly tell a difference between pages spaced even a year apart.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Trevor's fear, parasitophobia, manifests worm-like parasites that inhabit his body. He calls the largest one Trevor Jr.
- Body Horror:
- The subjects are all mutated with the characteristics of their worst fears, meaning that, naturally, some of them are a little unsettling.
- The "basement" of Kidutus is the final home for most of the failed subjects of the facility, having tested "wrong" and ended up useless to Kidutus's research. The only living failed subject shown is even more mutilated and arguably disturbing than the turned ones, and to top it all off it's implied that it eats the other basement inhabitants to survive.
- Color-Coded Characters: All characters in the comic are assigned a color shown in their dialogue and usually some part of their appearance. In the case of the employees, all of them are associated with a dark red.
- Dark and Troubled Past: 005; this is explained to be the cause of their Electrophobia.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The comic is done in this style, the only color shown being the associated colors of the characters, the blood they find in the facility, and certain important small details.
- Exotic Eye Designs: Everyone Kidutus tests gets black eyes with white slits.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: Iris has Extra Eyes pretty much all over her body.
- Faux Affably Evil: When the employees of Kidutus are finally introduced, they're shown to be generally incredibly casual and friendly with each other. Especially when it comes to Veri, who slacks off to talk to her coworkers and flirts with her boss. Even despite the almost family-like atmosphere of the employees' interactions, it all happens while showing how openly remorseless they can be, even laughing over the death of one of their own coworkers.
- Flashback Nightmare: Gwen, whose fear is sleeping (somnophobia), constantly has dreams about the past happenings in Kidutus, including her testing and transformation, as well as others' testing and actions.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Liam is the first actual member of Kidutus the reader sees, and the members that follow after his appearance (and subsequent demise) don't think too highly of him. Even the subjects spit on the dude.Disappointing, but not surprising.
You never really liked Liam - he was always so hot-headed.
IRIS: Even his name sucks ass. What kind of name is Liam? - Identity Amnesia: The subjects of Kidutus initially have no memory of their names or backstory, and all of the ones that do know found out about their name by looking at their folder, exceptions being 005, Abby, and Lucas.
- Apparently, Abby is not actually her real name. It was a name Lucas made up after forgetting her real name, even after Kidutus told him directly.
- Interactive Comic:
- The comic is entirely suggestion driven, and the entire plot can change based on the readers' actions.
- A majority of Kidutus's characters are also fan-submitted, and a guide to submitting characters is found on the blog's Tumblr page.
- Mood-Swinger: Veri is a big example of this, emphasized by her excitement in contrast to Koska's usual mellow attitude.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Fraey's fear transformation (odontophobia) was pushed forward with surgery, and her entire body (and half of her entire face) is covered in protruding, sharp teeth.
- Pungeon Master: Trevor's sense of humor is fairly punny, and he has interjected before to crack one.JACE: Say uh, y-you’re…
JACE: …really nice, c-considering all of this.
TREVOR: (smooth as ice)
GWEN: Oh, haha, thank you. - Red Eyes, Take Warning:
- All of Kidutus's staff have red eyes and text - apparently, this is the sole side effect of the medication that the members receive as opposed to the subjects.
- Jenny's and Gwen's pupils are shown to turn red when provoked.
- Stick-Figure Comic/Noodle People: Part of the comic's style - the art is simplified to make drawing panels easier. Her actual style can be found on her main blog.
- Super Window Jump: Justified, when Lucas panics and jumps through the window between his and Abby's room to escape the water flooding his own. He ends up getting a nasty cut as a result, though.
- Theme Naming: The facility's staff, at least the ones created by the author (or her best friend), tend to have Finnish-based names—fitting, because the name of the facility itself, Kidutus, is the Finnish word for "torture".
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Seems to be a recurring motif. Everyone in Kidutus has an irrational fear of something, and especially in Lucas's case, panophobia, the group is constantly thrown into situations that test them.
- You Are Number 6: All subjects of Kidutus are assigned a three-digit number, with the exception of Abby (subject A) and Lucas (subject B), which the members of Kidutus address them by. A notable case is 005, who is named after their subject code since their name is unknown.
