- Destiny 2: Lightfall CMs (discussion date: March 14th for campaign content and characters without timegated arcs; raid characters tentatively dated at approx. March 24-25th)
The Blueballs Incident, also known as The Trollge Files, is a Game Mod for Friday Night Funkin' set in a Darker and Edgier Alternate Continuity of both the latter game and the "trollge incident" memes. Here, Boyfriend and Girlfriend are seasoned agents of an anomaly-hunting group called the TCF that hunts the Trollges, who are humans transformed into reality-warping beings through a mix of mental darkness and a specific viral infection known as the TP cells.
Boyfriend himself is a special case in the agency, both due to his mental fortitude born of recklessness and his singing able to suppress Trollges, eventually destroying them if the need arises.
Who is Legion? What has he done?
In the 2.0 update's revised narrative, Arthur/T_333/Legion is the main antagonist. After Boyfriend Mercy Kills the first opponent, a remorseful man referred to as Smiler, Legion manipulates Boyfriend into following several other Trollges he sets loose in an attempt to murder him. He starts with the sadistic Civilization Destroyer Stairway - whose powers empty out the city of New York before finally being secured - and moves on to the Monster Clown trapped in a serious moral crisis JJ. Legion's patience runs out quickly enough, so he soon decides to revive Smiler as a husk of his former self to try and finish the job.
When this inevitably fails, Legion decides to invade Boyfriend's mind and trap him within it. He starts by using Boyfriend's memories of joining the TCF after detaining a much friendlier and more sympathetic Trollge named Exalted as leverage to try and break him, before soon switching to an incident implied to be a Trollge mutating Boyfriend's coworker Derp into a shadowy monster designed to kill.
Of course, this is all so Legion can enact his real plan to break Boyfriend: capturing Girlfriend in the real world and transforming her into a Trollge. The resulting struggle and heartbreak made worse by the rest of Boyfriend's memories finally gives Legion the opening to truly capture Boyfriend, holding him in stasis for what is implied to be several years as he uses his powers to absorb the souls of every human on Earth.
Once Boyfriend reawakens within Legion's prison, he resorts to physical violence once more to get rid of the singer, which wears him down no matter how hard he tries until he breaks again and willingly surrenders to Legion. It is only at this point that Legion starts losing the upper hand, as this attracts the attention of the original Trollface, who seemingly allows Boyfriend to flip the script and eventually destroy Legion with a hatred-empowered Sonic Scream, saving the planet.
Mitigating factors?
Legion has a Freudian Excuse as Arthur, namely that he wanted to be big enough to make everyone smile but was forgotten by the world by the time he had attained any kind of status. However, this doesn't really excuse an Assimilation Plot, nor the repeated torment of exactly one human for his own amusement. This goes double when Exalted exists, who similarly wanted to entertain others and gave in to more inner demons than Arthur did, but could almost be considered a friend to Boyfriend if he wasn't a mutant monster with a body count.
Trollges themselves are also brainwashed somewhat into committing their crimes; however, they have enough of their original personality and conscience to either feel intense regret for their actions or be utterly convinced they are doing the right thing. Exalted, as a part of Boyfriend's Origin Story, also seems genuinely concerned that he will repeat his mistakes from back when Exalted was the pianist Jhenkins (which Boyfriend nearly does after losing Girlfriend.) Legion not only knows what he's doing is wrong, but also sees no issue with manipulating those more sympathetic Trollges into becoming his soldiers and taking away the remainder of their humanity if it poses an issue. His only show of regret is when Trollface and Boyfriend show him up in the end, and neither are willing to forgive him by that point.
Heinousness?
Legion is truly heinous even among fellow monsters. Only one other Trollge encountered is truly evil, that being Stairway, but he "merely" empties an entire city in his body count. Legion, on the other hand, uses Stairway and all the other Trollges, infects Girlfriend, and absorbs the entire planet just to fuck with one kid.
Final verdict?
For a mod for a goofy game and based on a sardonic subgenre of memes, Legion is surprisingly a solid keeper from those communities.
Funkinverse characters
Salty
Origin: Salty's Sunday Night
Replaces: Miles Morales
A rising singer from The '80s who got stuck in an arcade machine once.In this story, Salty is a normal kid in the present-day world of the original Boyfriend, until a series of events forces him to take up Boyfriend's mantle after he dies. As more of Boyfriend's Alternate Universe counterparts show up in his path, he learns what exactly that title means... for better or worse.
- Adaptational Dye-Job: His hair is not naturally white in this story, and starts out black like his older designs. Additionally, the version of his outfit with black hair is omitted entirely, replaced with a Boyfriend costume.
- Broken Faceplate: A piece of art depicting his fight with Agent Blueballs in the scenes analogous to Miles and Miguel on Nueva York's Space Elevator has his visor cracked, presumably from Blueballs smashing it in.
- Costume Evolution: His Art Evolution from his original mod is represented in-universe by his outfit changing in the same manner as Miles's Spider-suit.
Boyfriend
Origin: Friday Night Funkin'
Replaces: Peter Parker
The original blue-haired singer himself. He ends up dying for good in the beginning, kickstarting the rest of the story.- The Hero Dies: A given, unfortunately.
- Plot-Triggering Death: His untimely death causes the rest of the story, like Peter's.
- Take That!: His "bully Maguire" equivalent was battling Brightside.
- Canon Foreigner: Does not actually appear in either version of HoloFunk's universe, due to their continuities only going up to August 2021 (Koyori and the rest of HoloX debuted in November.)
- The Ghost: Doesn't appear outside of the explanation for how Aloe of all people wields the power of NEO for her SP//DR counterpart.
- Smart People Build Robots: Her claim to have built Roboco comes back into play when she's entrusted to reforge NEO into its current state and reprogram its AI component.
Earth-13166 Aloe Mano
Origin: HoloFunk - Pre-6.0
Replaces: N/A
A jaded, depressed counterpart of Aloe who has time and time again lost everything to the yakuza, due to her existence being an unintended loose end of a Forever War in the criminal underworld. Friends with Kenji.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: Subverted. She has some magical abilities that would give an edge over her Earth-16063 counterpart without NEO to back her up, but they've never been of help when it actually mattered.
- Ascended Fridge Horror: Her story being Cut Short also makes sure she will never find closure for any of her traumas. Kenji being in the Society and not her implicitly makes this clear.
- Fallen Princess: Zig-zagged. She's secretly the daughter of the true Dearest family of Earth-13166, which is a powerful crime family that fronts in entertainment. However, they were killed by the Kurayami family when she was a baby... so the leader of their biggest rivals got stuck with custody of her. He tried to give her as best of a normal life as possible, and for the most part it would have worked — had he and his subordinates not been wiped out themselves in Aloe's teenage years. Then she slowly starts being reduced to a regular civilian, but it's through there she learns to become a Reluctant Hero even as Kenji and Hana inadvertently subsume the positions meant for her and Nene.
- The Ghost: Only inferred through Kenji's backstory. There's a lot to be gleaned from that, unfortunately.
- Hikikomori: Her world's Nene (not that one) has to drag her out of her house, and she's basically the "nobody" to the main Aloe's Mettaton.
- Kick the Dog: Kenji was picked over her for Society recruitment, as her own personal tragedies are far too-removed from canon to properly inherit his mantle. However, it's unclear what point in the timeline Kenji was pulled from, or if Blueballs intentionally abandoned Aloe to her fate despite knowing that she's supposed to be Earth-13166's new Boyfriend.
- Small Role, Big Impact: While only implied, her very existence is evidence the canon event theory is a load of bullshit, since even though her canon was disrupted, Earth-13166 self-corrected by reassigning the role of Boyfriend and Girlfriend to Kenji and Hana.
- The Unchosen One: She should have been Earth-13166's Girlfriend, as her biological parents were the true Dearests of the universe (the ones resembling the originals are frauds who killed them and stole the title, also dragging Hana into their mess.) But with her canon disrupted, Hana wound up taking the role and molding Kenji into the Boyfriend; regardless, she soldiers on first as an escapee, then as a Reluctant Hero, even as her world falls apart again and again.
Nene Momosuzu, Botan Shishiro, Lamy Yukihana, Polka Omaru, Kanata Amane, and Koyori Hakui
Origin: HoloFunk
Replaces: Peni's classmates
Aloe's old company, from which she met her current friend group through the cohort she was meant to work beside. Even as they remain busy entertaining the world and working on their own side ventures, they've still done what they could to help Aloe's indie career as more of them learn of her resurgence.- Alternate Self: They all have counterparts in Kenji's world, to varying degrees of deviance. While Lamy, Polka, and Koyori don't change much, Nene and Botan become Reformed Criminals, while Kanata leans much harder into her position of power in the Kiryu Clan to get Kenji's plot moving.
- Butch Lesbian: Dream on, Nene. At least her childish interests are somewhat boyish.
- Cloudcuckoolander: All of them.
- Nene is an alien with genetics analogous to ursine and pinniped DNA and a Manchild that hates vegetables and still watches Kid Coms. She also fantasizes about being a gangster.
- Botan can be fierce if she wants to, but usually slinks back into the mindset of a childish housecat. Some of this is because of a Hidden Heart of Gold, but it's mostly just for fun.
- Lamy is an alcoholic that's willing to get blackout drunk no matter the situation.
- Polka is a literal clown who has engaged in appropriate amounts of daredevilry despite complaining about the shopping cart.
- Koyori is a workaholic who snitches on the weird antics of her new coworkers, blurs the lines between real research and "research" daily, and loves letting her genius and the rest of her personality mix.
- The Ghost: Kanata comes up as the reason for Cyan and Kenji's relevancy, but despite her leadership role in the Kiryu Clan, the story doesn't give her a reason to get involved during its events.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Koyori is actually a researcher for an N.G.O. Superpower led by an embodiment of Laplace's Demon, but between her boss being a lashed-up Bratty Half-Pint trapped in a human body younger than Aloe and the whole group having a Hidden Heart of Gold that would put Heinz Doofenshmirtz to shame, they find it much more fun to play with the heroes and even be ones themselves. Hence why Koyori herself agrees to fix up NEO for Aloe once she finds the schematics.
- Invincible Hero: They're all capable heroes in their own right and currently rank very low on the likelihood that any of Aloe's canon events will end in their death, as it's considered poor form in fanfiction to let them die for shock value.
- Smart People Build Robots: Koyori is a one-woman R&D department, and primarily shows this off by building robots. In Funkinverse, she's called in to make the NEO schematics a reality, venturing into the realm of Powered Armor by doing so.
Kanata Amane and Gura Gawr
Origin: HoloFunk - Pre-6.0
Replaces: N/A
Two counterparts of Hololive's talents from Kenji's world, responsible for setting him on his current path. Unlike their counterparts in Aloe's world, they are both mobsters and take their jobs frighteningly seriously for their reputations.- Alternate Self: Both exist in Aloe's world, of course, but with their involvement in the story diminished significantly.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Set off the Disaster Dominoes that lead to Kenji's role in the story by deciding to open a pizza store made entirely out of Nepotism and cronyism hires.
Aloe's world
Cyan
Origin: HoloFunk
Replaces: Addy Brock(?)
A dimwitted, non-protagonist Alternate Self of Kenji Tensei who is hopelessly and financially addicted to watching his favorite stars in Aloe's old company.- Ascended Extra: Unlike Kenji, his original portrayal has no lore besides liking Virtual YouTubers and being unbelievably stupid. Now, he has a proper story role for Aloe... albeit one that ends in his demise.
- Ascended Fanboy: In the darkest way possible. As a stereotypical Virtual YouTuber fan, he's finally able to achieve their dream of meaning something to the Hololive girls... by dying and deeply traumatizing one of their best friends.
- Composite Character: Takes on aspects of Gwen's Peter Parker (being a dead "swapped" Boyfriend) and Addy Brock (dying in the counterpart of Peni's universe.)
- The Fool: He's a complete idiot that was once described as not even thinking, but he still had an okay life and did something that mattered to Aloe. Unfortunately, that also got him targeted by a canon event.
- Foregone Conclusion: Replacing Addy Brock means that one way or another, he's going to die.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: It's quite telling that between the two HoloFunk worlds, the Boyfriend counterpart who's isn't carrying dirty laundry or actively degrading the reputation of their home universe is the one that's also dead.
Other pending edits
Links to their artists on social media.
Links to their official media.
Language proficiency.
Any biographical information or statistics their official bio or website feels like mentioning.
Quote from an original song.
A brief summary of the VTuber's in-character background and lore. Most tropes will not actually have anything to do with this due to flagrant violations of Real Life Troping.
- Trope about this person's real life, arguing that them using an avatar with a bio makes it "lore" even though we have clauses explicitly forbidding this excuse until we can confirm whatever they're talking about really isn't real. May use Word Cruft to push the envelope. Specific examples may include:
- Use of Dark and Troubled Past to bring up their actual upbringing.
- Misuse of bus tropes to talk about being put out of action for various IRL reasons.
- If the VTuber is sufficiently popular enough, a misused Breakout Character example that refers only to their statistics and growth.
- Shipping tropes based on their actual interactions with other people, rather than a clear narrative.
- Trope that come up in streaming without being an intentional narrative, even though this is also not allowed and is part of why the Let's Play namespace was deprecated.
- Trope about the person's family in real life, even though this really isn't allowed. Bonus points if they have their own folders.
- An extremely unsubtle hint about any previous identities they might have assumed.
- An edit notice accompanying any of the above that is just the troper appealing to the person this folder is about, even though this is editing with an agenda.
- Fridge Horror:
- Overlapping with Fridge Brilliance in the echoing of Peni's Evangelion inspirations, Aloe may be in for a world of hurt that (unlike her counterpart in Kenji's world) has nothing to do with the initial angst of leaving Hololive.
- If Aloe's role as Peni is to be taken at face value, Addie Brock, VEN#M, and their subsequent deaths have counterparts. Who from Cover Corporation will be unlucky enough to die in their place? And if Koyori built NEO's first form, does that make her Peni's father for the purpose of fulfilling the corresponding body count?
- As dropping out of education or income is a canon event, the fact that the Society can freely apply this label to being chased out of one of the most prestigious entertainment positions in terms of worldwide influence exposes a flaw in the Society that's possibly worse than how the Spider-Society handles it — namely, that forfeiting opportunity and growth is always a good thing if it doesn't align with the group's personal narrative.
- Kenji has been demonstrated to be violently overprotective of Aloe's image in his world, which is justified by them actually being friends in a context that isn't music. This Aloe, however, undoubtedly sees his counterpart Kanji/Cyan as a complete stranger that spends all his money on compromising superchats
. Depending on the degree of power imbalance, that in combination with Kenji's Character Exaggeration has the potential to turn things extremely toxic. - Regardless of what happens to Aloe's friends, a huge part of the story of her counterpart in Kenji's world was that she never told anyone about her plight (even if they could have resolved it in under 24 hours) so that they wouldn't be hurt or killed fighting a war they had nothing to do with. By enforcing the canon, Blueballs validates her fears in the name of Misery Builds Character.
- On the topic of Kenji himself, it's worth noting that, despite being unlikable for reasons even neurotypical people can fall into, his original script takes his autism and ADHD seriously, causing him to act at least 10 years below his age whenever he spaces out or gets emotional. Another symptom of autism is the desire for patterns and strict routine no matter how unorthodox — meaning that by putting him on a big enough pedestal and drilling the Society's teachings into him, Blueballs (whether unknowingly or not) is taking advantage of someone with a learning disability in a way Miguel could not have possibly done with Ben Reilly.
- Cyborg Spider-Woman's counterpart is a Drone from Copper 9, of ambiguous type. Given what happens in the source media this Boyfriend's mod is derived from, Blueballs is also enacting the will of the Disassembly Drones and by extension the Absolute Solver by using him to help enforce negative canon events — something that doubles as a form of hypocrisy given the Solver's eldritch nature.
- Overlapping with Fridge Brilliance in the echoing of Peni's Evangelion inspirations, Aloe may be in for a world of hurt that (unlike her counterpart in Kenji's world) has nothing to do with the initial angst of leaving Hololive.
- Fridge Brilliance: Besides what Spider-Verse already established, the Funkin' Gang openly defies the canon event theory and Blueballs's way of leadership in their own ways:
- SNS Girlfriend didn't make a career out of music — part of what defines someone as "the Boyfriend" — until Blueballs found her; up until then, it was just a hobby to appease Boyfriend's parents and Girlfriend's relatives. That alone shows he may be going too far in the pursuit of justice.
- Toon Boyfriend's entire character is based on the fact that he was willing to literally go to Hell and sacrifice his happiness to save others. He doesn't care in the slightest about what fate says will happen; he will try anyways, no matter the cost.
- Aloe's world has a Boyfriend who is also a dropout with a unique microphone, yet nothing special happens to him while everything he should have experienced happens to Aloe. Unless you're willing to talk about wave function collapse and whether or not that applies here, Cyan's very existence is anathema to the idea of canon events. And on top of this, her own character arc is also about learning to do your own thing instead of just following others.
- The world of D-Sides is itself one giant blend of subverted canons, as shown with William Afton never turning to evil because of several pivotal events in his life changing. By extension, D-Sides Boyfriend should not be beholden to the concept, period.
Instead of any one loss in her universe, it is more likely that the deaths from canon events in other universes (which Aloe can not reverse, since they don't have a Calli, Rushia, or Fuma) and her perceived inability to save them in spite of NEO being built to be a hero is what does her psyche in by the time of Across's events.
- Funkinverse, a Film Fic of Spider-Man: Spider-Verse with Friday Night Funkin' fan works, ends up invoking this with HoloFunk to address the conspicuous lack of fan works that have robot partners when handling Peni Parker's role. To that end, it canonizes the events of "BIG SHOT" and, taking the original backstory of the NEO body into account, gives a refurbished and hollowed-out, shrunken-down NEO to protagonist Aloe Mano. The story itself implies that while the spirit of Aloe's route (which is about learning how to succeed as an indie musician) is still there, NEO's presence has snowballed for what becomes several years and completely derails the actual presentation into something akin to a battle manga.
