W*I*G...Troped!

[The Hardcore Disciple]

*Stands up*

Hi, everyone, I'm Hardcore, and I'm addicted to TVTropes.

No, seriously. Stop snickering. You can burn five hours solid on there and not even blink about it. In one such trot, I had an idea.

If you are so inclined, have a quick go-about the site and find 6 tropes that your character(s) fit nicely into. It would have been 5, but that's far too normal. A small explanation is good, too, especially if it's something that'll come up later. Also, find one trope your character subverts.

I'll start with Chaz, to show you what I'm talking about.

1) Boisterous Bruiser (with all the Hot Blooded and Large Ham that goes with it): A rare big guy with charisma, Chaz can be quite a braggart (usually when he's drinking, but hey). Gung-ho could be his middle name for the Hot Blooded part. As for Large Ham? He took a three week acting course as part of his preparation for pro wrestling. The course was taught by BRIAN BLESSED. Enough said.

2) Warrior Poet: Were Chaz not blessed with a large body, he'd have been a career musician.

3) Fiery Redhead: No explanation needed.

4) Chivalrous Pervert: Chaz is a hell of a skirt-chaser, and his little black book is bigger than most church directories (he has a ranking system, too!), but having had it happen to him, he's NEVER going to break someone's heart--only give them a good time. I really need to do a pub promo at some point to show off some of these traits.

5) Badass Biker: Too big for most cars he could afford, Chaz instead drives a motorcycle place to place after consultation from an uncle with similar dimensions.

6) Beginner's Luck: A mild case, but it goes back to when I had him statted as a superhero for an RPG. Beginner's Luck was a trait one could purchase for the character, giving them a +5 to any untrained skill check the first time they used it for something. It's been with Chaz ever since.

Subversion: Dumb Muscle: Despite utterly looking and somewhat acting the part, Chaz is actually pretty smart. He had a tendency on the force to put together all the pieces to a case in one big stream of logic, connecting everything together at once in a way no one else could think to do.

[The Hardcore Disciple]

Now then, let's open the floor...

[Jason Hereford]

Jason Hereford

1. Impoverished Patrician: This one is obvious. Jason's from an extremely wealthy family that has financially boomed in the entertainment and club industry. But then he decided to use a Ponzi scheme on an investor...who turned out to be his own father. And he got kicked out to the streets as a direct result, with no money.

2. Rags to Riches: Also obvious. Jason's objective is to cease to be poor and re-enter into the SoCal aristocracy. And wrestling for a paycheck is an obvious way to do it.

3. Redemption Quest: Whether or not he can make money, Jason has been told that he must make a hundred thousand dollars and have it in his possession in order to get back into his family. He'll be welcomed with open arms, but until he does so...he's on his own. Not formulated by his father, who wouldn't be arsed to punish Jason, but instead by Terina, Jason's former manager, for his own good.

4. Ambition is Evil: While the idea of "He's poor and is working hard to get back up on his feet" might sound like a benign plight, Jason goes about it in exactly the wrong way. He has no problem with cheating, he picks fights with anyone he deems to be in his way, and acts like an all-around douchebag. But instead of being an angry, foul-mouthed and bombastic alcoholic, he's become rational, eloquent and sober--and has become more dangerous for it.

5. Smug Snake: Whether or not he's more dangerous, Jason fits the role of the Smug Snake by being the highly vocal and arrogant prick who aspires to be the most powerful and the most feared...despite obviously not being it. That doesn't mean he can't fight toe-to-toe with anyone else, but as he's demonstrated, whenever he gets close...he screws up and ends up not quite getting the win when it matters most.

6. Above Good and Evil: Doesn't think they exist, and even if they did, they don't concern him. At all. Moral pretexts only get in the way of anything that he hopes to achieve; and he thinks that anyone who follows them is making a mistake.



Jack Jupiter

1. Evil Frog who Wants to be an Ox: Jack, being the cousin of the overall-more successful Jason Hereford, wishes that he too could be looked upon as being great (whether or not Jason himself actually is worthy of that title). Only problem is...he thinks far more highly of himself than he should, and constantly overestimates every little thing about him. At this point, nobody has fallen for his facade.

2. Harmless Villain: A weirdo with ambition, but very little else. Most of the time, his overconfidence is his downfall as he blunders into defeat or inferiority to someone else. Especially true before he joined W*I*G.

3. Youth is Wasted on the Dumb: He's young, wealthy and healthy, but he's incompetent to the point where it screws him over on many an occasion.

4. Villain Decay: Originally, Jack looked like he might be a credible threat--indeed, despite being naiive when he debuted, he defeated a major player (and their career was inadvertently ended). And then months and months later...he became so unthreatening to the point where he wrestled against Gigantor Maximus in a comedy match. To offset this, he's trained again and picked up a bodyguard, but whether this makes the total difference or not has yet to be seen...

5. Not so Harmless After All: While he's usually not a big threat, Jack does occasionally put up a serious fight. This has happened repeatedly; usually he'll come out in a losing effort but he'll have given the other person a serious run for their money.

6. Dethroning Moment of Suck: In the "Five Contenders" promo in EWT, where Jack is "revealed" to have been the #1 Contender for the Ox-Division title. At first, he looks better than ever and his confidence is at a maximum. Then it's revealed he's not actually the #1 Contender, and he never was, causing him to quickly turn into a despondent wreck.



Ykaterina Milosanova

1. Secret Identity: This one is extremely obvious. Milosanova is, of course, not who she seems to be, but uses the mask and the name to be someone who she otherwise would be prohibited from being. At least, it allows her to not have to interact with someone who'd be very angry with her if he knew who she was...

2. Masquerade: Managed a tag team of two friends and took advantage of their interest in her, by placing herself on a pedestal and putting on a facade of absolute purity (not that she's "dirty," but she's not nearly as content with her "situation" as she acts). By keeping herself neutral between them but telling them that they were each in competition to be the first to "get" to her, they'd be prevented from ever going complacent. Too bad for them that neither of them ever reached their goal, though the image held up.

3. Friendly Enemy: Benign to at least a handful of people who she faced (and either defeated or lost to) in EWT, despite being a heel at the time. Otherwise, she acted like a full-blown heel.

4. As Long as it Sounds Foreign: All of this is represented by Ykaterina's signature move names; they're all either Russian, or include Russian words as a part of them. This is, of course, the only actual example of Russian in anything that Ykaterina does. Otherwise, she speaks perfect English. Perhaps a bit too perfect?

5. But Not too Foreign: Obvious, since Ykaterina isn't actually Russian, but wants to give off the impression that she is. There's not a whole lot else that needs to be said to explain that one.

6. Subversion: Evil Foreigner: Ykaterina is very much the antithesis of the "Evil Foreigner," especially the motif of the "Evil Russian." Indeed, she despises those who use their power or numbers to bully others, and fights for honor. That and she knows that the Cold War ended almost 20 years ago.

[The Maxx]

I have no idea what's going on.
Where am I to look? Just under the Pro-Wrestling category or... everywhere?
I really don't understand. Realistically speaking, this could take me weeks...

[Jason Hereford]

Jun 12, 2009 16:21:55 GMT -5 The Maxx said:

I have no idea what's going on.
Where am I to look? Just under the Pro-Wrestling category or... everywhere?
I really don't understand. Realistically speaking, this could take me weeks...

Basically, you just randomly look things up and see what matches or doesn't match. Believe me, it really does take a long time if you don't already know a lot of the categories and types of tropes and whatnot...and you can only really know if you look, since they've all got very specific (and possibly misleading) titles.

[Highland Diamonds]

I don't fully get the hang of it yet either. I was looking through the site though and suffice to say it's frighteningly addictive, in a bizarre way.

[ragnal]

I discovered TV Tropes back in January...and god, do I know it's addictive...

TV TROPES WILL RUIN YOUR LIIIIIIIIFE!

[The Hardcore Disciple]

Pro Wrestling is a good place to start, yes, but there's nothing limiting you to that. Also, do one character at a time--having too many in mind can make things very confusing very fast. To help your searching, do a body search through the archives about a particular trait, to see how it's represented, then investigate from there.

Also--I learned something about Ykaterina, then, but it makes sense...

[Lana de la Croix]

I'm going to make you help me with Lana, since you're the Trope addict. :/

(Seriously, he'll just sit there and read it for hours.)

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Yay, TV Tropes! Here's a list for Mysth:

Berserk Button - While usually calm and master of his emotions, he can suddenly snap when he is pushed too far and cause wrath and destruction.

Chivalrous Pervert - You don't wanna know the kind of stuff he does with Ivy when no-one' around. Also, during the times he was single, he often had one night stands. However, he is very respectful of women and always made sure they too didn't want to get more emotionally involved, in order to avoid breaking their heart.

Evil Foreigner - Subverted. Mysth has always been a babyface AND a proud Frenchman. To be fair, he doesn't put too much emphasis on his origins so it doesn't feel like he's rubbing it in people's face.

Fragile Speedster - Well, sort of. He is very fast but his moves don't actually cause a lot of damage, so he hopes to wear them down with a quick succession of moves. However, he doesn't fit that trope completely since he can take a surprisingly big amount of beating.

Mask Power - He wears a mask. And he's powerful.

Moral Dissonance - Back in EWT, he beat up his first major rival, Liam O'Neall so bad he actually became insane. Granted, he did it in state of legitimate defense (at first anyway), but still, he definitely let the Berserk Button take him over.

Shout Out - During his feud against Liam O'Neall, he cut a promo in the Ultimate Warrior's style (since O'Neall believed he was Hulk Hogan at the time. Don't ask, it made sense back then.)

[Highland Diamonds]

Figured I'd give this a shot at last.

Angus MacAngus:

1) The Pesci- he's got an extremely short temper and it's set off quite easily and frequently. Could easily be classed as Violent Glaswegian ,except he's from Aberdeen.

2) The Unfettered/Combat Pragmatist (the latter's listed as the fighting version of the former)- Angus doesn't really enjoy cheating/manipulating, but he's willing to do whatever is needed to look after his own interests and is implacable when he does so- if he thinks it's neccessary he's doing it, whatever else. He's a passive asshole rather than a deliberate asshole.

3) Extremity Extremist. Angus' brief boxing background makes him quite adept and fond of using his fists, however he only tends to utilise a grand total of 2 kicks outisde ordinary scrappy boots.

4) Neccessary Evil. Again- He only breaks the rules cause he has to, not cause he wants to. Injuring/retiring people to keep a championship? Sure. Injuring/retiring for the hell of it? No.

5) Man In A Kilt (semi subverted). He wears a kilt regularly to the ring, and while a few of the ladies have an eye for him, he doesn't have much of an eye for them, he sees seeing his career as more important.

6)Obfuscating Stupidity. Angus had a decent education, studying part time at Dundee university while wrestling and obtaining a degree in business (low grade degree, but a degree nonetheless). He rarely if ever lets onto this though,and doesn't often have much use for it besides being sharp witted enough to spot openings. This can however, be overcome by his rage.

Subverts: Funny Foreigner. He doesn't laugh much, he jokes even less, and there's very little comical about him, even if he IS a whisky-loving kilt wearing bearded rowdy Scotsman. He's a stereotype with a hard edge.




Emerald Warrior:

1) Neutral Evil verging on Chaotic. He doesn't care who gets in his way. While he won't go out of his way to bring chaos, he does try to enjoy screwing with people in the process of getting what he wants. Not quite Chaotic Evil simply because he has a purpose to it, but he does have the elements of satisfaction.

2)Smug Snake. Collosal ego, and loves to talk about it. Often his downfall due to overconfidence, and can easily provoke people due to running his mouth to much.

3) Dirty Coward- as talented as he can be he's got very little backbone and is always going to take the quickest and easiest way out. He'll pick fights with people tougher than him then slip and slime his way into either escaping or getting 1 over. By no means strong enough to back it up as a Magnificent Bastard, but when he bends the rules he can just squeeze by.

4) Kick The Dog- in many ways a contrast to Angus. Warrior enjoys getting people fired, retired, or otherwise taken down. While Angus cares neither way about the fans the Warrior loves to antagnoise them by screwing their favourite stars and rubbing it in their faces.

5)As Long As It Sounds Foreign- The Emerald Warrior started his career in Mexico, but where he's from isn't known. He claims to be from Peru, and that either he or his family own a jewel mine in the country, but there's been no records found and in all truth he just picked there cause it's South American and all a bit the same to him, regardless of his time in Mexico. In many ways Did Not Do The Research.


Subverts: Above Good & Evil. It isn't that he doesn't believe in good or evil or feels above them, he just doesn't care about them. Warrior figures that somebody's going to try to give him his comeuppance but until then he's just going to do anything to anyone to get what he's after, and try to enjoy it.