It all started with a letter...
El Club de Hopewell
(Spanish for "The Hopewell Club") is a web original comedy by Anthony Tesla (Anthony_H on this wiki) about the lives of three high school students: Allyson (a smart, cynical yet romantic girl), Jake (a criminal often involved in things that he doesn't even seem to be able to keep track of) and Sarah (a cute but mentally unstable gothic girl)
In essence, it's a Slice of Life kind of work, with some cartoonish and surrealist elements thrown into the mix; the series doesn't take itself too seriously, subverting and lampshading all kinds of tropes and conventions about teen stories, but always in an affectionated way...
...when is not being...almost anything else. Due to the constant parodies, homages and Out-of-Genre Experience scenarios, the book series is well known for not being that much of a teen comedy and more like a excuse for satirizing pop culture, both current and some other more "classical".
The story is available for reading in Spanish, but the author is looking for some help to translate it into other languages.
This series provides examples of:
- All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Discused and played with Sarah: She comes from a white family, and her surname sounds Northern European (Greenberg), however, she is stated to have darker skin than her relatives. It's implied that she could have Sephardim blood, but since Sarah's mother Really Gets Around, it's theorized that Sarah could have either Mediterranean, Latin American or Middle Eastern heritage
- Aborted Arc: The idea about the Principal La Fontaine and his backstory is abandoned early in the series when it was originally planned as a more explored theme. Fixed to a little degree in the Wattpad version, where is implied that he might be Sarah's real father.
- Adaptation Expansion: The Wattpad version includes new episodes and tries to close some holes from the original fictionpress version, and there are even new chapters for older stages of the series.
- All There in the Manual: The blog of the author releaseas details about the characters from time to time.
- Affectionate Parody: To Teen films and series in general, BUT specially the Degrassi franchise and the John Hughes's movies.
- Ambiguously Bi: Sarah seems to be more like "whinesexual" and while she clearly has a preference for men, there are a couple of times when she doesn't seem to mind the gender of a person she's atracted to.
- Ambiguously Brown: more like "ambiguosly tanned", Sarah is declared as such, when the group is confronted as racist because all of them are white (It Makes Sense in Context).
- Brainless Beauty: Subverted with Allyson's older sister, Jessica. Allyson wants to believe she's the smart one and Jessica is a pretty-but-dumb kind of girl, but the truth is that Jessica is actually a good student and she always had better grades than Allyson
- Bilingual Bonus: From time to time. Russian, Armenian, French and Japanese have been used with no translation provided.
- Break the Cutie: A mild example: in the Holiday's Special, Sarah is very excited to see her father for Hannukah he doesn't arrive, she gets better tough
- Brilliant, but Lazy: If these kids put half the effort into school that he puts in getting high and avoiding school...
- Cerebus Syndrome: Zig-Zagged: The earliest and latest episodes of the seasons always seem a little more serious that the big bunch in the middle
- Characterization Marches On: Slighty, but the earlier episodes of the series show us small differences in two characters of the main cast.
- Allyson used to be more shy and silent; while she's still an introverted person, she's not afraid to make her voice be heard when in need.
- Sarah was always crazy and random, but her behavior wasn't always as "riskeé" as in latter episode.
- Christmas Special: More like "Holiday" Special (Sarah being Jewish and Jake...part of the "Seinfeld Church"). Two, so far.
- Crossover: Josh and Mel from another Tesla's series, "Conozcan a Josh" (Meet Josh).
- Damsel in Distress: Discussed at one point, in words of Allyson: "Jake is the strong one, and Sarah is the trickster, and I am...the one who always would be kidnapped..."
- Darker and Edgier: Sorta. At least respect other teen books: The author once made clear than he actually loves teen comedies, but the ones that usually dominate websites like Wattpad and Fictionpress are very tame, corny or bland and he wanted to do something different and a edgier.
- To some degree, the second book from the series. The first was mostly silly and comedy oriented: The second includes relationships ending, mental breakdowns and death.
- Disappeared Dad: Allyson and Sarah; Jake is more ambiguous about his situation with his mother
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Happens from time to time; favorite topics include politics and the electoral process and homages and parodies to different time periods.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The series always relied on surreal humor, but the very first saga sometimes seems more a relatively straight "teen crush" plot than the Genre Roulette work of fiction the book eventually became. The second saga was also more "childish" and no different than what you might find in, let's say, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. Both arcs are now seen as more disperse, random and slow paced than the rest of the series. It wasn't until "Zapping", a one-shot chapter, when "El Club de Hopewell" really started to gain its characteristic traits.
- Erudite Stoner: Averted: if anything, they are even dumber when high
- Even the Girls Want Her: It has been made implicit that the Arts Teacher (a female) has a crush on Sarah
- Fiery Redhead: Inverted: If anything, Allyson is the shyest and less self-confident member of the group
- Genre Roulette: The author has even admited that the whole "teen comedy" aspect of the series is more a Excuse Plot, and that Hopewell really got its edge when it stopped trying to be a ordinary teen comedy and focused more in spoofing as many genres as it can
- Guilty Pleasures: Each one of these kids has one especially embarrasing that is revealed late in the series
- Allyson Her favorite film is Beauty and the Beast, and she's actually a big Disney Princess fangirl
- Jake He likes Josh Groban music because it reminds him his mother It Makes Sense in Context
- Sarah She turned out to be a Yaoi Fangirl. Then again, she doesn't exactly feel guilt
- Guy on Guy Is Hot: One of Sarah's fetiches, but Allyson shows some aspects of being a Yaoi Fangirl too from time to time
- And now, Sarah's too.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: After Will's death, Allyson and Jake did one to Sarah's mind in order to get her out of her mental breakdown.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Sarah could be considered as such. But then again, she hasn't been involved in the life of a male character in order to "spicy up" his life. In fact, it could be say that she's more of a odd variation, since if anything, the one she tries to make her life more colorful is Allyson.
- Meaningful Name: To some degree. "Sarah" means "Princess" in Hebrew it's revealed later in the series that her grandmother is a very rich woman and she wants to make Sarah her hereiss
- Ms. Fanservice: Sarah; she's described as a lot more atractive than Allyson, and as wearing more revealing clothes than her
- Only Sane Woman: Allyson, but then again, while she is not exactly free of her own issues, she's pretty much normal compared to Jake and Sarah.
- Parental Bonus: While hardly a reader's parent would read this, it explains "la rasson d'etré" of some of the references: some are to stuff that most teens would be familiar with (The Hunger Games, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Total Drama) but hardly a teen will understand some of the more obscure ones...
- Putting on the Reich: The chapters where the PE teacher takes control of the school and instaurates a very harsh regime, including mandatory uniforms, the creation of a secret police spying on their schoolmates nicknamed "Silent Security" and over emphasis on his speech of the need to crush the "outter and inner enemies" to justify his new policies. Cue to irony because the teacher is actually Jewish.
- Pun-Based Title: Several episodes, some in Spanish, other in English, some including "For A Fist Of Canadian Dollars", "Born This Nerd", "I Kissed A Friend (And I Like It)" , "The Kids Are All High", "Cinema Infernisso" and "How The Pest Was Born".
- Take That Me: Not in the series, but as much as the author loves his own creation, he often bashes the series for all his flaws.
- Retired Badass: Ruth, Sarah's grandmother; while it's never truly stated what she did in orden to accumulate her fortune, it's implied that she used to be an international spy.
- Sadist Teacher: Parodied with the PE teacher, who is actually a former member of the Israeli Army that escaped to Canada in order to avoid presocution for crimes against humanity
- Shout-Out: Where do we even start? Cinema Paradiso, Anastasia, Network, An American Tail, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The Dark Knight, Pretty in Pink...
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Surprisingly, very idealistic. It even tries to rebuild the ol' The Power of Friendship trope, indeed, in its own way ("We're alone in this stupid crappy place, at least we can try to hold on together and beat the shit out of them!")
- Stalker with a Crush: Toto, introduced in the second season, develops a crush on Allyson. Sarah to a degree with Josh Horwitz, a character from another series, "Meet Josh"
- Stepford Smiler: It's made unclear if Sarah's really that crazy or if it's the way she deals with her reality.
- Story Arc: Probably one of the defining traits of the series: unlike others Internet novels, that usually follow a single long narrative from begining to end, Hopewell is divided in arcs of about 3-4 episodes each, in order to give it a more "TV-like" sensation to the reader.
- Surreal Humor: Break the Fourth Wall or make meat rain from the sky, among other things
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: While Allyson is not that masculine, Sarah is a little more feminine in her clothing and her attitudes.
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What Could Have Been: The series had a lot of changes before it became what it is now: two of the biggest changes were that originally it took place in London, and that the main cast were 5, not just 3 kids. - When You Coming Home, Dad?: Colleen, Allyson's mother, is by far the best parent of any of the main protagonist, and yet she's barely seen in the series because she's such a workaholic. Sarah's mother, Jordan is a subversion since she's supposely to be always traveling out of the city because of her work...that usually means spend time in Music Festivals selling crafts and (MOSTLY) taking lots of drugs.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Including Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 12 Angry Men and The Hunger Games parodies
- Zombie Apocalypse: More like a parody to the genre, but it still counts somehow
