Lawof Talos - Television Tropes & Idioms

Law Of Talos was an Original Character Tournament held by deviantART's Sins-of-Angels

. Started in 2008 and taking place in an abandoned steampunk city with a machine that can grant one person's wish. Unlike most OCTs, Law of Talos bypassed the audition process and only invited artists who had made a name for themselves in previous tournaments. As a result, it became one of the most popular OCTs on deviantART and is the Trope Codifier for many tournament conventions. The prompt story and process can be found here

The winner was BlackLillian

with Annie and the Professor (her story starts here

), second place going to Unknown-Person

with Karl (starts here

) however, to get the whole picture, reading the other entries is recommended.

A full guide of the rounds can be found in the trivia page.

This OCT contains examples of the following tropes:

Adorable Evil Minions - Lilith's army is made of creepy dolls... but when you get to see them interact on mission it's hard pressed not to like them.
Animate Inanimate Object - Karl and Arma are type III, in keeping with many of the other characters borrowed from Unknown-Person's personal project, 'Castle of Nations'. In this case, they're actually concrete statues.
- Spoiler's sword, Rip, which contains what's left of his brother.
Artificial Limbs - Steffi's left leg.
Author Avatar - Del, Rellik's Artist ends up in a sticky situation when she gets dragged into the contest.
Ax Crazy - Karl. Just... Karl.
Babies Ever After - The epilogue, for Annie and the Professor anyway.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Go die in New Jersey!
- Exact Words: "Okay, you won't die here..."
Berserk Button - Do NOT mess with Karl's ability to play the violin!
Bifauxnen - Kit Bates. See how Rellick found out she was a girl [1].
Bonus Material - Several artists were known for putting important plot material in their between-round entries.
- also... Lincolo should have won.
Breakout Character - Karl and Arma are possibly the biggest examples. The fangirls are everywhere.
- You could also count the Chimbley Sweep.
- Don't forget Mizuno.
British Accents - Chimbley Sweep and Kit bates. The later even has a 'translation' reference sheet so people can understand how to write her dialog.
Cat Girl - Del.
Cloud Cuckoolander - Murphy definitely qualifies.
Consummate Liar - Karl. His friendly demeanor throws off most of his opponents, at least in the earlier matches. The stress of the tournament chips away at his cool head over time, but to be fair it's hard to look innocent when you're covered in blood.
Chimbley: ...and wot the 'ell 'appened to your eye?
Karl: Oh, this? I just fell down a bunch of stairs...
Cultured Badass - The Professor, with some shades of Wicked Cultured.
Cyborg - Spoiler
Everybody Lives - The result of the winning wish.
Deus ex Machina : Literaly
Fuel Meter Of Power - Karl. It's implied that the living constructs from the Castle of Nations suffer from this when they leave the park.
"Hey, You!" Haymaker - A variation: Murphy, thanks to his encounter with the contestant whose spot he took, thinks this is the proper way to say hello in Taitle. The open-minded robot is perfectly happy to bow to local custom, which causes him some difficulty in the beginning.
Hooker with a Heart of Gold - "Josh has led a shit life, and he wants to do one good thing to make up for it."
Humanity Ensues - Having died over the course of the tournament, Karl and Murphy are turned into humans when the Professor wishes for everyone to come back to life.
Instant Sedation - On of Rellik's more... interesting powers. Using the mild sedative in his saliva he subdued Kit Bates for his victory.
Karmic Transformation - After winning the tournament, the Professor wished to restore the lives everyone who lost one in the battles. However, the Wish Machine interprets this as restoring all lives to human bodies, turning Murphy and Karl into humans in the process. Mind you, Karl despises humans.
Literal-Minded - Murphy, very much so.
Living Statue - Karl and Arma, though that aren't the colossus variety.
Living Weapon - Rip and Arma, The former being of the talking variety and the latter being of the morphing kind with a default bird form.
- Also The Brave's sword(?)
Love Makes You Evil - All-but-confirmed theory on Karl's backstory. For a violently sociopathic misanthropist, he's relatively civil to the red-haired gal in his hallucinations (later named Rachel), though little is certain about their relationship save for the fact that she taught him how to play the violin.
- An alternate theory is that Karl is actually looking for her (perhaps intending to use his wish to bring her to him) and that, conversely, he's just evil in general and she's the only person to whom he's at all decent.
Madness Mantra - "I killed your wife."
Manic Pixie Dream Girl - Del seems like this towards Rellik, whom she is constantly acting childish towards and gives nicknames.
Morph Weapon - Arma
Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot - Greg and Renfield the Vampwolves... Yes, Vampire Werewolves!
Our Dragons Are Different - Very different in the case of Ayshia. She resembles a satyr far more, but she can apparently breathe fire.
Our Vampires Are Different - Rellik and Faust. They don't really see eye to eye.
Outlaw Couple - Annie and the Professor, to a tee.
Power Source - Karl's reason for entering the tournament.
Ridiculously Fast Construction - Erik Pockets
Rule of Funny - ConcentrationMoon rarely portrayed Chimbley's opponents in-character, but rather parodied them, and it is glorious.
Running Gag - Chimbley's not much of a fighter (more of a 'flighter', really) so most of his opponents tend to get disqualified somehow. That is, until Karl hacked the security to pieces.
Scary Shiny Glasses - The Professor, especially in the finale, in which they're red.
She Is Not My Girlfriend - Steffi and Ben.
Shell-Shocked Veteran - Todd. It appears that his partner, Ayshia, intended to wish away his PTSD.
Slasher Smile - Karl
Small Name, Big Ego - Zeurel (Spoiler) famously threw two temper tantrums over the course of the tournament. The second is the more well known, after he lost to ConcentrationMoon (Chimbley) in the second round; he ranted that inviting him had been a farce since the tournament was clearly rigged, or else he wouldn't have lost to such an "inferior artist". This was a Moral Event Horizon for some people; the stakes in an OCT are so low that to react that badly to losing at any stage of the game is like beating up a six-year-old because they won a popsicle playing Guess The Number. (Though to be fair, the contest has been accepted as having been rigged by many of the followers and fans, and several contestants have confirmed this fact.)
Steampunk - Played pretty straight with the city of Taitle. It's got clockworks and everything.
Street Urchin - Chimbley Sweep
- Kit Bates
Super-Powered Evil Side - Spoiler's counterpart, Black Ace.
Talking Appliance Sidekick - The Intelligent Bombs of the Vampwolves. Since nether Greg or Renfield can talk it's up to the bombs to supply all their dialog.
Talking to Themself - Mizuno, much the confusion of those around him.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech - Delivered to Karl by Rellik on the emptiness of Karl's life.
Tournament Arc - Every character in the tournament is competing for a free wish.
Twitchy Eye - Karl has this tic, though it gets gradually more frequent as the tournament goes on.
Villain Protagonist - Karl, Lilith, The Vampwolves dominated the early parts of the contest but in the end only Karl was able to make it.
We Can Rebuild Him - In Spoiler's backstory: He was in a car accident which caused him to lose most of his body, and his brother to lose his completely.
What Could Have Been - Due to the nature of OCTs to adopt only the canon of winning entries, a lot of potentially intriguing content will naturally be lost. For example, Murphy naively pursing the wish to turn everyone into robots so no one would have to die.
Wrench Wench - Steffi is this, even at the age of fourteen.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair - Several of he contestants have technicolor hair. Teal/green and pink appear to be popular.

Contestants:

Auryn with Joshua Bell, Intro: [2]
BlackLillian with Annie and The Professor, Intro: [3]
CailenCrow with Erik Pockets, Intro: [4]
Cirihtt with Mizuno, Intro: [5] [Though it has been put in storage since.]
ClairVoire with The Brave, Intro: [6]
Conartist18 with Morrow Stone, Intro: [7]
ConcentrationMoon with the Chimbley Sweep, Intro: [8]
CyrilTheWizard with Murphy, Intro: [9]
DevilChicka with Femke and Marion, Intro: [10]
Endling with Lilith, Intro: [11]
ExiledDelusion with Rellik, Intro: [12]
GottsChalk with Saph, Intro: [13]
HaveConquest with Faust, Intro: no longer online
IrisZeible with Dembe and Yan Qian, Intro: [14]
Izuma with Lucia Albatross, Intro: [15]
TheJohnsonDesign with Lester Mole, Intro: [16]
Kilojara16 with Ayshia and Todd, Intro: [17]
LanHao with Mikah and Ramy, Intro: [18]
Lan-Kun with Greg and Renfield, Intro: [19]
Lunacat-Chan with Nerida Hayle, Intro: no longer online
Manic-Pixie with Kit Bates, Intro: [20]
Marcks with Euria, Intro: No longer online
ProminenceFlare & Garagos with Antonius, Eli and Keith, Intro: [21]
Rave8259 with Kato Kuromizu, Intro: [22]
Rikyo with Thomberry Gange, Intro: [23]
Rocker-Artist with Jinam Vinalli, Intro: [24]
Shikakusuika with Steffi, Intro: [25] (Steffi now stars in her own comic, Kiwi Blitz.)
Unknown-Person with Karl, Intro: [26]
Zen-Dragon-Pyro with [Unknown character], Intro: no longer online
Zeurel with Spoiler, Intro: [27]
ZombieBunnyPro with Moth, Intro: no longer online
ZombieSmile with Ko-omote, Intro: [28]