story

STORY

Basic Plotline

After unsuccessfully attempting to commit suicide by driving off the edge of a cliff

and straight into a mud lake, Frankie becomes stuck and unable to leave, which results in

her sinking and falling all the way down to the hidden underground town of Valerie.

Since all vehicles crash on the outer edges of the town, she starts at the edge, next to

piles and piles of other crashed vehicles. Even though she fell from such a great height,

she is fairly unharmed, but extremely bewildered.

After looking around a bit, she notices a light flickering in the distance, where the town resides. (the light flickering is Sue flickering a lantern to get Frankie’s attention). She goes into town and gets shot by Thomas.

This STILL does not kill her (he’s blind what did you expect tbh), only narrowly missing her throat and impacting the outer edge of her neck. This causes her to pass

out and get kidnapped by Thomas.

Frankie is brought to the barn where most interactions with the main three take place.

I have very little idea as to what will go on after the beginning and end. The middle is

always the hardest part to write for ANY story.

There are some things I am sure about though.

Abby will not be present for the first meeting, and eventually Frankie will have to seek her out, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Frankie will use her cell phone and reach the center of the mall where the garden is.

This is where the biggest hole in the mud ceiling is, which is where there could

potentially be service. Abby and Sue will wait besides her.

Thomas is kept at bay from killing Frankie and eating her by a three day timer. Because the three had fallen before cell phones were advanced (story takes place in 2004, the three went down together in 1994 by a field trip bus crash), her cellphone was her only saving grace as it could potentially help them all escape. Thomas gives her three days to contact help.

Some of this time is spent prodding and poking at everyone’s brains. We learn more about everyone down here, and subsequently learn everyone is incredibly suicidal.

The main element of TWW’s Valerie is that it is INCREDIBLY radioactive. The mutations that everyone has are caused by a nuclear factory that went under and Chernobyl’ed all over the place. Luckily since the impact was mostly underground, all that was needed was to just get rid of the town above. But all that radiation affects the underground residents, who can’t do a thing about the immense

pain it causes.

The radiation gave all residents a cancerous healing factor. They are completely unable to die. Every time they get hurt, the wound is replaced by thick and moist skin cells, similar to the consistency of skin on the bottom of your feet.

And you may or may not ask, well what the fuck is the problem with that?? They’re

immortal, just find a hobby or something. That’s partially true.

Then there was the Starving.

All the food underground has since been depleted by past residents or became

inedible. Because of this, the residents most often starved. Damaging or eating each

other or themselves was dangerous because the more someone damages their less

cancerous parts, they become replaced by inedible cancerous skin. The mental and

physical strain that constant starving caused combined with the inability to die

resulted in a constant state of insanity and turmoil. The residents are desperate for

any potential source of food, which includes non-residents like Frankie.

Frankie DOES leave Valerie, but it is because she climbs out. Despite her phone, she

is unable to call for help.

Themes and Symbolism

The main theme of TWW is living with mental illness. I grew up with Autism and ADHD

and it affected every aspect of my life. In certain areas it is completely disabling. I grew

up learning the hard way that the world was not made for people like me, that the world

hates people like me. In spite of this I continue to live and find prosperity in my hobbies

and creations, and with the people around me. That is what The Worst War is about. It’s

about being born fucked up and living fucked up but living and flourishing despite.

The main three represent the different aspects of my mental illness. Abby is social

isolation, Thomas is anger and resentment towards others, and Sue is depression

and hopelessness. I should state that these are based on the more exaggerated symptoms

I had when I was in sophomore year of high school when I was at my mentally worst

(otherwise this would be an awkward presentation)

The main appearing symbolism throughout is the association of eyes with the soul.

There’s the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. I interpret this as eyes

working as worldly understanding and innocence (allowing the soul to see and interpret

the world around us). Thomas is blind because he refuses to see beyond his resentment.

Sue wears rose-tinted glasses that physically cloud her eyes because she can’t see

beyond the past and glorifies it, constantly thinking about her friend and the moments

they shared. Abby is ONLY an eye because she sees the truth and is unable to say

anything. A consistent fear and vision Frankie has is her mother clawing her eyes out

(representing the taking of her innocence by abusing her).

The other main symbolism is the depiction of Frankie’s mother as a warped and snarling

golden retriever. This is to represent abuse cases caused by mothers. When media

depicts an abusive parent, it’s usually an abusive father. Women are often interpreted as

not being capable of abuse, so oftentimes abuse cases where women are the abusers

are not taken seriously or joked about. The main inspiration behind this was the game

Among The Sleep, where you play as a baby escaping from a shadowy monster only to

reveal that the monster was your abusive alcoholic mother, which is why it ends up being

so impactful, turning a common trope on its head.

I related this to golden retrievers. People know them as very social and happy dogs, but

at the end of the day, they are still DOGS. They are just as capable as hurting and maiming

and killing as any other dog. People overlook bad behaviors from goldens just because

they are goldens. It’s similar to when people refuse to train bad behaviors out of small

dogs just because they are small dogs.

Image drawn by BubbleBaath that

inspired the design of Mother.

Style and Inspirations

The main style of the game will be something similar to the original Fallout games/Doom 64. I am making dolls that I will 3D scan and animate in blender. The backgrounds will also be in blender, and will mostly be inspired by games like

Cry of Fear.

Originally I was going to just use polymer clay but at the time of writing this I managed to snag a HELLA quality 3D Printer, so I will just model some of the parts

and paint them.

I’ve always had a fascination with mixed media. I love grunge and analog but I also love digital and glitch. Both have aesthetics only achievable by their respective mediums. So I like to just mix the two together, creating an aesthetical compromise.

The main thing that inspired the creation of TWW was a small piece of media called

Help_Tale.

Help_Tale is an Undertale Alternate Universe. I was around and fully indulgent in the Undertale fandom during the AU craze of 2016. I LOVED that shit and I still do.

To explain it simply, Undertale is a game that deals with the concepts of Timelines. Undertale is also a fairly short game. People put 2 and 2 together and were like, what if we literally just made our own Undertales? and that was the catalyst that broke all hell.

The most popular ones were Underfell (what if all the monsters were killers) and Underswap (monsters swapped personalities with other characters), as well as some individual AU characters like Error and Ink who directly impact the creation of

said AUs in universe.

I believe this was around 2017? I was browsing Undertale AU videos and was watching a video where various AU versions of Omega Flowey were singing Bad Apple (classy, I know). But this horrifying image came up and caught me off guard:

This would have been post or late Creepypasta obsession era, so of course when I saw

this thing I was IMMEDIATELY intrigued. I began researching about Help_Tale and

what it was.

To explain it simply (again), Help_Tale is what happens when all of the Universes and

Timelines collapse in on themselves. All minds and bodies combine in one place at one

time, creating intrinsically eldritch abominations. It’s SUCH an interesting concept

because even OUTSIDE of the Undertale AU community had I never heard of an idea

so profoundly horrifying. To this day I still haven’t. It’s just THAT interesting.

To provide context, I am a maladaptive daydreamer (though because I’m a creative I

would say that it’s more adaptive). I daydream constantly, and imagine animated

movies in my mind. I have done this since I was born. It’s completely natural and it’s

actually difficult for me to imagine not doing it. How do people NOT do this anyway???

While I was researching, I stumbled across this playlist of music made for Help_Tale.

I had already been in a small bout of listening to ambient music, but this was different.

It was both ambient AND harsh noise. It was late at night and while I listened to this,

I dreamt of a man based on the imagery from the video, and made from this music.

The day after, I drew that man.

This is the origin of Thomas. Before TWW, before Frankie, before Sue and Abby, before

EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING, there was Thomas. From that point forward, I built

everything else.

The game’s stark edginess is directly inspired by Cry of Fear, one of my favorite games

of all time and also just so happens to have a schizophrenic MC. It’s also free!!!!!!!!

The old CGI look I also wanted to achieve is inspired by Garage: Bad Dream Adventure,

a game from 1999 that I played last year during a winter storm, when the power was on

but the internet was gone. It was the only game I had installed with the intention to

eventually play it that was also an offline game. It was… really beautiful. The graphics

were also REALLY impressive for 1999. The fishing mechanic was so god damn boring

though so I just used Cheat Engine to give myself unlimited money so I could progress

the story oops.