From Bad to Worse/Fan Works

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • See also Dark Fic.
  • Being an Evangelion fic that tries to avoid the usual Fix Fic route automatically qualifies Aeon Natum Engel as this. And then there is a carnival of It Got Worse after It Got Worse that is Operation CATO.
  • Another Evangelion fanfiction, Oedipus Ikari plays this trope painfully straight. When it looks like that Shinji and Rei are finally on course for a happy ending, Gendo orders Rei to break up the relationship which she does, albeit tearfully. Shinji reacts by stealing a gun and shooting Gendo in the head several times. Rei is pissed but manages to forgive him. It seems for a moment that a happy end is ahead once again, then the author screws us over again by having Rei confess her genetic origins to Shinji[1]. Cue Shinji becoming so squicked for a while that he can't even look at or touch her without retching. He eventually decides to apologize and make up with her... only to discover that she gave herself a lethal dose of anaesthetic so that her next clone can hook up with Shinji without prejudice... only for Ritsuko to confess that she destroyed all of the Rei clones an hour ago! True, the Evangelion verse is prime darkfic material but this is just plain ridiculous.
  • Both Syllables. Over the course of the series several main characters die, some planets are blown up, a main character is almost dissected, another character nearly burned an island to the ground, a lot of people die, and usually resolving one crisis results in several more popping up. Betrayals happen, horrific backstories get unveiled, and it just keeps getting worse with each update. That's not to say it's a depressing series and it's certainly not bad, but the whole thing pretty much runs on It Got Worse.
  • Fairly English Story: After chapter 79, where Junpei's Persona starts burning him alive as long as he's concious and has to be put on life support and placed in an induced coma, It couldn't possible get worse, right? Right?
  • Based on the way things seem to be going in the Gears of War fanfic, Phalanx, it's probably about to get a hell of a lot worse, as if being shot down in enemy territory and having Dizzy Wallin for rescue wasn't bad enough.

Take control over Gekkoukan High School, secure the surrender of Minato Arisoto through use of hostages. Kill hostages if target fails to comply. Do not engage the target directly, nor attempt to subdue him or take him by force, he is a lethal and ruthless leader of the terrorist organisation known as Strega, going by the handle of 'Jin'.

    • The real Jin being the current Minister of Defence.
  • The Wretling fic TWE: The Next Generation it gets worse all the time. The two members of heel group Gen Now are eliminated in the Chamber meaning the Faces wins right wrong the new world champion joins them meaning they know have almost all the titles.
  • The Hetalia fanfic Family Ties. The small act of Scotland and N. Ireland leaving England and Wales escalates to WWIII. Many bad things happen, but then America and Russia start bringing out the nukes...
  • This looked like it was going to happen in Kyon: Big Damn Hero, Kyon had just been shot three times, and Haruhi was seconds away from crushing several people to death... then it was Averted.
  • This trope is practically Forward's tagline. Especially in the later "episodes".
  • Just when you think life for the heroes of The Unity Saga can't get any worse, it does.
  • Son of Apophis. The cast is trapped in their house. If they leave the army will assume they're guilty of treason and arrest them. If they stay they'll be assassinated. Whilst they're busy worrying over this, one of them is kidnapped. When they do to fix that the house gets burned down. Whether they were still inside or not is not yet known.
  • Even though some parts of it are less dark than others, and there is even some fluff here and there, Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns is afflicted with this to a moderate extent. The Guile Hero dwarven noble protagonist even lampshades it, multiple times, like when talking to Trian and another time in one of the most recent chapters, after the psychic clash between the prince and the Archdemon made the latter smarter and more-selfaware. On the bright side, nothing seems too hopeless yet, and the fact that six full Origin wardens made it into the main cast should help fix things... probably.
  • In the Tamers Forever Series, this coincides with Growing the Beard. As the quality of the story improves, the agony that the characters are subjected to gets much MUCH worse.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is one work defied this trope, but some fics have this as an important point. See, The Rise and Fall of Captain Starlock makes this the entire point. It's kind of a novelization of how Simon became Captain Starlock, after Kamina's death (he dies in the first chapter, thanks to how Simon didn't know how to operate Lagann) and things just get downhill from there, Simon is nothing but a wreck of a man and still manages to be a competent antihero.
  • In the soul-crushing Hunting the Unicorn, Blaine's entire life is an exercise in this. First, he has an estranged father--depressing, but logical. Then we realize how unbelievably naive he is. And finally, we find out that despite everyone's assumptions from his diabetes-inducing and chaste nature, Blaine's not a virgin.
    • It turns out he was implied to think that Sex Equals Love, so he lost his virginity at sixteen and kept the guy's number for weeks after they broke up. And the guy was never even serious about him. His siblings think he's pretending it never happened (a mistake he refuses to correct), and he's now left with a Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality and extreme Love Martyr tendencies. No wonder he acted like he did in "Sexy."
    • And then we find out that it wasn't just a naive mistake--he was trying to invoke it.
    • That's not even getting to the actual plot involving Alex, Blaine's deluded stalker. He's first mentioned out of the blue by David, and we realize that this makes a lot of sense. It's not until the nineteenth chapter that he actually does something--namely, kidnapping Blaine, Wes, and David and locking them in his basement. Did we mention that Blaine got concussed it's treated realistically--which means that he isn't knocked out, but he was rambling incoherently for half an hour and now has no idea what happened or where he is.
    • The police (and a couple of the Warblers) eventually find Wes and David tied to chairs--but Blaine is conspicuously absent, having panicked and ran off two hours earlier. Luckily, Kurt and Finn find him--unluckily, so does Alex, who locks Finn in the Navigator's trunk (spurring Carole and Burt to go help him). Blaine's Parental Substitute Greg is now the only one with any clue where Blaine is, since he, Dalton's dean, and another Dalton student are secret agents and Blaine's actual dad was too busy throwing a bitch-fit that he didn't find out earlier.
  • During The Emiya Clan Christmas Special, the entire story is about the somewhat misnamed "Fellowship of the Sane" attempting to escape the madness that Altrouge has unleashed in the name of winning a bet with her sister for candy. Things start with them just trying to escape, but when that fails, they have to survive a Christmas Party that takes some of the craziest characters in anime, mashes them together with the clan, puts them in a house, supplies alcohol and sugar, and sits back to enjoy the chaos.
    • The author of that particular story even admits he was trying to find the absolute brink of insanity he could push the story to before finally wrapping it up.
  • The aptly-named Young Justice fanfic Worst Case Scenario features the main characters being shot down, picked off one by one, escaping, and getting picked off again. While suffering from Reveal after Reveal.
  • Comedic version in this fan comic (be warned, slightly NSFW) Mario, Peach, and Bowser decide all the trouble caused by the Super Crown has gone too far, and throw it into lava. Unfortunately, this causes the Czar Dragon (presumably) to get it, and well...
  1. if the fanfic's title wasn't already self-evident: Rei was cloned from Shinji's mother and by Shinji having sex with her thrice, Unfortunate Implications arise