’‘“Blood isn’t what makes a man!”
Defenders is a small project about an annoying, bratty teenager named Jesse Fenton who is forced to go to the park with his little sister, Katarina. After playing hide and seek with her, (and subsequently falling down a hole like the Idiot Hero he is,) he finds himself transported onto Earth’s parallel sister planet, which he originally calls “Sky.”Jesse then meets the beautiful (but annoying) Breeze, who is the Defender of Air. Shocked and surprised at his odd arrival, she instantly contacts her superior (who we later learn is named Victory) and ties him up.And later on again, we realise that he’s some kind of Chosen One who has Telekinesis. And then it all goes Bat shit crazy...
Tropes featured in this work:
- Action Girl: All of the girls, but Breeze in particular, who has been with the Defenders longer than even Victory and has learnt to levitate herself with her powers.
- Aliens Speaking English: Jesse lampshades this, but
actually, since Sky parallels Earth in every way, Skylings invented English, French, Spanish, Japanese, ect., but sometimes use the words for different things. (“Blood” is an outdated word, and “Energy” is used in its stead. For some reason.) - All Just a Dream: the first chapter was just Jesse’s life flashing before his eyes as he fell onto Sky.
- Aloof Older Brother: Jesse is this to Katarina, though he regrets it.
- Always Someone Better: Rock found that there was; in a big family, he was around low-middle in age, and even though he’s alone in his family in his dreams of becoming the Guardian... he was second choice in that, too.
- Angst Coma: Rock is in one of these for a little while after he becomes a good guy again.
- Also Jesse for two episodes when he realises he’s become Synth Jesse.
- The Atoner: Rock becomes this after Victory threatens to shoot himself when he goes crazy.
- Badass Longcoat: Victory sports one.
- Badass Normal: Rock was this until he went crazy.
- And after he returns to normal.
- Berserk Button: Jesse seeing a very young girl with a teenager...
- Telling Rock he’s second best...
- Telling Victory that he’ll lose...
- Reminding Breeze that if Lord’s plan goes through all of her village will die...
- Berserker Tears: Particularly Victory, on this one.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: the three main girls of the series, Ayu, Breeze and Dana are Brunette, Redhead and Blonde in that order.
- Blood from the Mouth: when Jesse and Victory are beaten down in a back to back Badass moment, blue and red blood drips from their mouths, which mixes on the ground into purple.
- Blow You Away: the appropriately named Breeze.
- Blue Blood: A literal example, not that Victory isn’t one of the richest people on Sky...
- Well, Rock isn’t.
- Book Dumb: Jesse is quite intelligent... yet still can’t grasp most simple things in Sky.
- The Call Has Bad Reception: Apparently, Jesse has often Screwed Destiny by pulling this off when he was much younger, and repeatedly as he grew up.
- More like Missed the Call.
- Catchphrase: Most of the characters have one; Jesse’s often-uttered “Blood isn’t what makes a man”, Victory’s “I will live up to my name!”, Breeze’s “I like the way you laugh...” and Rock’s “Ready to Rocket!”
- Cheerful Child: Rock, even though he’s Breeze’s age, looks much younger and acts this way.
- Creepy Child: So much so that he becomes this.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Synth is first seen early on, and his blood is purple, which is Fore Shadowed in Blood from the Mouth.
- As is Masquerade, and his importance isn’t shown until Lord’s late episodes.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In an odd way; Jesse is at first plain gray until he becomes Synth Jesse, when it changes into classic The Hero red, whereas his “other half” Victory takes blue, (oddly considering his Playing with Fire) Breeze takes The Smart Guy colour, green, while Dana takes brown and Rock has orange.
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Creator Backlash: Why else would Synth run wild with Jesse’s body, leaving Jesse with the still incomplete Synth Body? - Moment of Awesome: When a half-unconscious Victory shoots fire at Lord, misses, and while he’s having a Badass Boast, Jesse sends the fire at him from behind.
- Curtains Match the Window: A triple case for Victory: He has Blue Eyes, Blue Hair (Naturally) and Blue Blood! No, literal Blue Blood!
- Also Jesse after he becomes Synth Jesse.
- Cute Bruiser: Dana.
- Cute Monster Girl: The most monsterish of the main cast is the green-skinned but absolutely beautiful Dana “Dirt”.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jesse is this, bordering on Snark Knight.
- The Determinator: Victory is so determined on never losing that when Rock challenges him and gains the upper hand he seriously threatens to shoot himself in the head to show Rock that he’s gone overboard with the jealousy.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Jesse is often caught unawares by hot babes, particularly when he first meets Dirt.
- Driven to Suicide: Victory, in a sense. See Determinator for more info. In a straighter example, however, Masquerade is forced to shoot himself in the head for real when he can’t listen to Lord’s babbling any longer.
- Dysfunction Junction: Jesse is rather disturbed in Defender HQ... and not for a crazy reason, either.
- Emo Teen: Most of the main cast, particularly Jesse after the Synth Jesse incident.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Rock does this often, before and after his Angst Coma.
- Fantastic Racism: What colour your blood is matters to these guys. If it’s red you’re screwed.
- Gender-Blender Name: Not in our world, but on Sky, names ending with “E”, “I” or “Y” are generally feminine, so when Breeze learns Jesse’s name she instantly thinks he’s a girl, leading to a CMOF.
- Interestingly, Victory’s name ends in a “Y” but Breeze tells Jesse “[not to] mention it.”
- Grand Theft Me: When Synth takes Jesse’s body while Victory is doing tests.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Rock, an excitable boy from Victory’s village who dreamed of being its defender, hates Victory’s guts because of the fact that Victory got chosen to be the defender instead of him.
- He gets better, though, upon realising that he’s fine the way he is.
- Idiot Hero: Jesse can be this, on a bad day.
- Insistent Terminology: Breeze and the others won’t let Jesse call the “energies” powers.
- I Was Just Passing Through: Masquerade and at first Victory’s reasons for helping Jesse were just plain laughable.
- Jerkass: Victory and Masquerade could count, but just about anybody could...
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Surprisingly, this series layers everyone... but you can still hate Lord.
- Kick the Dog: Lord does this, often to the Handsome Lech Masquerade.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: Ari (Arikin) from Breeze’s village discovers that his little sister, Lianna has gotten close to Jesse, and threatens him with a Duel to the Death... it doesn’t help that he’s got a Missing Mom, either.
- Large Ham: Katarina and Mythrou are fine examples, though with Mythrou it’s more a ploy and with Katarina it’s just... cute.
- Light The Way: Masquerade.
- Oblivious to Love: Played With. Breeze, who has long had a crush on Victory, thinks he is this, but in reality, he is pretending not to notice her feelings, however Breeze and Jesse are straight examples; Breeze doesn’t realise Rock likes her, and Jesse feels that Breeze is happy single.
- Older Than They Look: Rock is just one year younger than Jesse and Victory, but you can’t tell.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Dana “Dirt” Underground before Jesse came along.
- No-one knows Masquerade’s real name.
- Playing with Fire: Victory and to an extent, Rock.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Definitely in Rock’s case as he goes completely off the wall batty, and later in Jesse’s when he turns into Synth Jesse and loses his temper more often.
- Refused by the Call: Rock was, and it proves to be his driving force toward losing it.
- Rich Bitch: Victory’s village is the largest, and he is the son of the richest man there. Also, he is quick to flaunt this (Intentionally or otherwise) in the rather poor Breeze’s face.
- Sanity Slippage: Rock.
- Save Both Worlds: Averted; no mention to Earth is put in apart from the occasional “you’re from Earth?” towards Jesse.
- Screw Destiny: Jesse was one badass infant to have done this at only four...
- The So-Called Coward: Masquerade is degraded for committing suicide by everyone except Jesse, who tells him in private that it took guts to pull the trigger. Of course, though, he gets better.
- She Is All Grown Up: It’s a while since both Breeze and Victory went home.
- Shout-Out: To Phineas and Ferb; “Wow... I really am a foreigner, huh?” “Yes. Yes you are.”
- So What Do We Do Now?: Jesse asks this at the end of the Lord arc (and its long) and isn’t best pleased with the answer.
- Theme Naming: Sky’s populace uses the name of the village as the last name of a person, the most jarring example being Victory and Rock Luck, who never met until Victory travelled there with Breeze and Jesse.
- Tricked-Out Shoes: Rock has rockets on his boots.
- Understatement: Rock is quite fond of this trope.‘’’Rock:’’’ Yes, as you can see, I’ve let myself go a bit...
- When She Smiles: Shrinking Violet Ayu has a killer one when she actually manages to stop pitying herself.
- Woobie: Every. One.
- You Are Not Alone: When Synth is attacked by a riot due to his blood, Synth Jesse comes to his rescue, uttering his favourite words; “Blood isn’t what makes a man!”
