Subeta - Television Tropes & Idioms

Hello, I'm Titania McGee with Channel 5 Action News, your best source for Subetan tropes!

Subeta was created in 2004 by teenager Keith Kurson (he was 14 at the time) as a retaliation against the strict rules Viacom was imposing on Neopets and because he failed in finding a better pet site. Like Neopets, people can play games and quests, buy and sell items, and adopt pets. But unlike Neopets, which is aimed at a wider audience, Subeta strives for an older, more niche audience and focuses more on customizing your human avatar than on customizing the pets themselves.

To this day, the site has over 100,000 members, with an average of 900 online at the same time, with peaks at 2,000.

Subeta can be accessed at http://subeta.net

Subeta provides examples of:

Absolute Cleavage: Adriette Lockheart.
Allegedly Free Game: Like most pet sites, Subeta has a Cash Shop, where you can buy account upgrades and special items with real money.
Anyone Can Die: See Killed Off for Real example.
Armor of Invincibility: Blackmoons War Plate is the strongest armor on the site and can resist a ton of attacks from higher-tier battle opponents.
The Artifact: There are many items which seem to be nonsensical, even by Subeta standards- i.e, the Bomb-Disguised Surfboard. These were actually 'custom items' thought up by and named after popular Subeta users in '04/'05, which had to be quickly renamed when the user left. Some of these artifact custom items are still floating around with their original names intact, although they're hard to find.
Author Avatar: Besides King Keith (that was the King of Subeta in the beginning), Sebastian Phoenix and Calvin Blackmoon (the Chancellor of Subeta and the Governor of Atebus respectively), were based (at least partially) on Keith.
Awesome, but Impractical: So many items that can't even be counted. But then, they are going to avert this in the future with the items that already didn't escape from this trope.
Barbie Doll Anatomy: Human avatars have no underwear or censorship when naked, but there's nothing interesting drawn.
BFG: Natasha.
Body Horror:
- The zombie epidemics.
- Certain pet colors fit this, especially Experiments and Graveyard pets.
Breakable Weapons: Of course, in the battle coliseum.
Camp Cook: Pete just looks like one.
Chained by Fashion: Mori. Goddamn Mori◊.
Clockwork Creature: The Steamworks pet color, as well as a few minions.
Cosmetic Award: The Avatars, then, the Achievements, and then, the new Achievements, that subvert this by giving prizes when people reach a certain difficulty (which is, generally, really... Difficult).
Cosplay: Often done with the Human Avatars in the forums, for contests or just for fun. EPI Con, an event that took place in August 2010 had a full out public contest to go with the other activities and Fan Convention-like like feel.
Cute Monster Girl: Merana speaks for herself◊.
Cuteness Proximity: Spoofed by the many minion descriptions.
Dark Is Not Evil: Despite the white and black magic practitioners being mostly aligned where they would supposed to, the Element Mage doesn't care about studying Darkness magic, despite being an awfully kind Chai.
- You can give your pet "dark colours" like Nightmare and it's morality isn't ostensibly modified. Same with dark powers. Granted, most dark attacks sound nasty, but then again, same for light ones.
Dirty Old Man: The Wizard. He even has a book called "The Joys of Bra Collecting"!
Double Entendre: Elwood is basically a walking That's What She Said joke.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: Questgiver/NPC, Major Drills.
Early-Bird Cameo: Several of the NPCs involved in the 2010 Masquerade plot showed up in the 2009 Masquerade shop as cute little plushies.
Eccentric Millionaire: Saggitarius and Blake Steele, though none of these two are exactly nice.
Elaborate Equals Effective: As is the case with some higher-tier weapons. However, it is played straight with the legendary weapons which are the some of the strongest weapons on the site and are also some of the most beautiful.
Energy Weapons: Certain items of both the Laser Blade and Ray Gun variety.
Everything's Better with Plushies: To unimaginable, physics-challenging extents (after all, they are pixel plushies). Also, beanbags. Plushie pets, plushie food, plushie torture implements...
Evil Weapon: There are a lot of them.
Eye Scream: Darkside Eye Burrowers.
Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: The "Cranial Crustacean" avatar item.
Fanservice Pack: Natasha, the log-in screen and Blue Building desk manager, went from this◊ to this◊.
Fantastic Racism: The Living and the Unliving minority do not get on. This is what prompted the Feb '10 plot: when the Living started putting on crude Unliving masks in an attempt to celebrate the anniversary of the Great Epidemic, the Unliving thought they were being racist and attacked anyone who came to Shadowglen Graveyard wearing a mask.
Fair Play Whodunnit: March's plot (the murder of Vernon Yun) was designed as a classic whodunnit for the userbase to solve.
Final Boss: Marcel of the first Masquerade plot.
Forgets To Eat: Dr. Asmodeus. When he does remember, he's partial to cheeseburgers and key lime soda.
Gag Boobs: Poor Titania. All she wants is to be taken seriously as the best source for Subetan news, but her... unfortunate name has lead to plenty of teasing from the user base. Mature? No. Hilarious? Of course.
Gone Horribly Wrong: The Experiment pets. Could be Gone Horribly Right instead if you actually wanted your pet to look like that.
Hey, It's That Guy!: Recently-introduced NPC Jules Yun is a fairly-obvious Expy of Kit St�len.
Hustler: Quite literally.
Infinity+1 Sword: The Manifesting Weapon is the strongest weapon on the site and deals massive damage that may be considered overpowered.
Item Crafting: You can do it to with Asmodeus' Genetech Lab!
Killed Off for Real: Amy. As of the masquerade Vernon Yun. Marcel as well.
Level Locked Loot: Certain battle weapons can only be equipped if you are that weapon's tier.
Mad Scientist and Hot Scientist: Two of them, Ian and Euclid, that happen to hate each other to the guts.
Money for Nothing: While not completely worthless, sP is very easy to make. It got to the point where the staff had to create Meat Sinks to drain it out of the economy.
Mutants: Experiment pets.
Nerds Are Sexy: Played straight with Nico◊ and the two aforementioned scientists, but averted with the Computer Quests NPC. Or not.
Nitro Boost: During Masquerade events, there is a chance, when dancing with other users, that you can get effected with the "Quick Feet" buff, which reduces the wait time between dances from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
Of Corsets Sexy: Adriette Lockheart.
Our Zombies Are Different: Subetan zombies are Type P, but they're all sentient (albeit not too eloquent) and call themselves the Unliving. They live in the Shadowglen Graveyard and resent the Living.
Papa Wolf: Dr. Asmodeus apparently does this for Quentin.
Portal To The Past: The rift in time in Coda Caves during the 2013 Masquerade plot.
Promoted Fanboy: Subeta gives that chance every time they give applications. And people are paid for it, too.
Rage Against the Mentor: A lot. Subeta was created to succeed where Neopets have failed, according to Word Of God.
Random Drop: Specific items drop at random times upon a battle opponent's defeat.
- Impossible Item Drop: How did a purple alien lion get ahold of purple mittens and a time travel book?
Rich Idiot with No Day Job: Saggitarius, although he isn't much of a hero as he is someone that loves to slay dragons and draconic-like pets.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Maleria, sort of, as she can't really use her powers like she did in her glory times.
Split Personality Takeover: Mori / Nori, every single day, as soon as the sun rises or sets.
Sorry, I'm Gay: Not only Jaxon Skelly, but Keith himself.
Star-Spangled Spandex: A clothing in the Sun/Moon themed Costume Trunk is literally this.
Steampunk: The moon colony of Atebus runs entirely on Steampunk technology. Technology strong enough to make an AI so real it passes for human. Daaaamn, Vernon!
Sure, Why Not?: A couple of users tried to make up a fake holiday on April Fools' Day, and the staff picked up on it... and made it official. Happy Elwood Day, kids!
Time Travel: Involved in the Masquerade: Ziara History plot of 2013.
Video Game Settings
- Hub City: Centropolis.
- Techno Wreckage: Galaxan Wastelands.
We Help The Helpless: Sarah and her Newbie Quests. Although sometimes, it is more of a nuisance than a help.
Yaoi Fangirl: Plenty. It became a Halloween tradition to fawn over Jaxon and see which other NPC he would bang, to the staff's despair.
Zombie Apocalypse: The plot of Feb '09 involved people's avatars randomly catching viral strains and turning into horrific zombies. There was no way to reverse the change- the news played it up as a full on disaster, complete with increasingly crazed posts from Titania. A cure was released on Valentine's Day, much to the relief of dedicated avatar fashionistas, but many users chose to keep their zombie skins.