Long time lurker, recently decided to join the crew and help add stuff to pages. I was once a member of the Super Mario Wiki but I didn't like their way of doing things (Very simply, they took Mario too seriously). Lo and behold, here's a wiki that focuses on entertainment without being vulgar (ED and Uncyclopedia) or stiff about it (Wikipedia itself and the SMW). Sounds good to me.
Pages I have significantly contributed to:
Pages I have created:
I made a Fanfic back in 2004 called Choose A Random Adventure that centered on a "goofy" retelling of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. While I'm certainly not world-renowned or anything, it got some fans and I made several stories in the "series" mostly based on other Mario RPGs before stopping. As I do not wish to toot my own horn and seem like a self-centered Jerkass by making a page for my own dang fanfic I will instead use this page to pick out tropes I used in it. Because it's fun. =D
Choose A Random Adventure was a semi-interactive FanFic that ran from December 2004 to September 2007. The basic gimmick was that at the end of each segment of story - called an "update" - a "roulette" would appear with numbers from 0 to 9. The next person to post then compared the seconds digit of their post with the roulette, and the description next to the number they got was what happened next. It was a great writing exercise for me as I could not do much planning ahead and had to constantly improvise.
Due to waning interest (by both the author and readers) and continuing pressures such as school, the CARA ceased production in September 2007.
The "story arcs" are as follows.
- CARA 1: Based on Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Mario gathers a bunch of party members and they journey around to recover the Crystal Stars.
- CARA 2: Based on Paper Mario. Mario continues his adventuring to get the seven Star Spirits.
- CARA 3: Not inspired by any particular game, this story chronicles Wario's efforts to become more famous than Mario by stealing the Crystal Stars from him.
- CARA 4: Based on Mario and Luigi: Partners In Time. Luigi finally joins Mario as they search for the shards of the Cobalt Star and thwart a double-team plot by the X-Nauts and the Shroobs.
- CARA 4.5: Based on Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (specifically Chapter 3). Bow, having just won the title of main character from Mario, enters the Glitz Pit tournament to make some big bucks, unaware of the dark secrets contained within. It was called 4.5 instead of 5 because it was shorter than the other stories.
- CARA Chronicles: A series of short stories. The cast was very large by this point so a number of short stories were made about many of them to appease their fans.
- CARA 5: Based on Super Paper Mario. Count Bleck launches his plan to destroy all worlds when Mario and friends stumble onto a dimensional rift that scatters them all over the universe. Mario winds up in Flipside and must find his friends and the Pure Hearts as well.
- CARA 5.5: Aborted Arc that tried to be Darker and Edgier by killing off many of the minor characters. Involved an ancient legend of three giant evil bugs which were defeated by three giant good bugs.
- CARA Chronicles II: After a two-year (roughly) absence, I decided to start writing again. This is another series of stories about various characters of various importance.
The giant cast of this fanfic series was composed of characters from all sorts of different video games, and also included some original characters and characters from other media like television. The emphasis, however, was on Nintendo characters, especially Mario (and Pokemon to a lesser extent). Some of the characters had very similar/identical personalities to what they originally had, but others were drastically altered (such as Final Fantasy 1's White Mage and Twink from Paper Mario). Mario remained a silent hero, except for any phrases he's previously said in his games (like "Mama Mia!") and the occasional sudden burst of speech (the end of CARA 3).
The CARA provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Princess Peach, sort of. Although she still got kidnapped on occasion, an early scene in CARA 1 had her break out by getting hold of a crowbar and using it to kill numerous mooks on her way out. Due to no Snap Back she kept the crowbar to use in every single one of her later appearances.
- Affably Evil: Taj the Genie.
- Almighty Janitor: Literally. Drake the Dry Bones works as a janitor, but he was once a powerful knight, and his mop has a removable head to reveal that it's also a spear.
- Ambiguous Gender: Vivian (Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door) and Lovey-Dovey (a Love Bubble from Mario And Luigi: Partners in Time) are lovers, possibly gay, possibly straight, possibly bi. Vivian leans more towards female and Lovey-Dovey leans more towards male.
- And the Winner Is...: Mario is hit with this in the beginning of CARA 4 regarding an announcement by Professor E. Gadd on who is fit to ride in a time machine. E. Gadd actually chooses Princess Peach for the job.
- Ascended Extra: Many characters that were minor or unimportant in Paper Mario found a new lease on life in the CARA. Pa-Patch and Cleftor are two great examples.
- In an in-universe example: Buzz the Buzzy Beetle started out as an extremely minor character but eventually acquired a personality and began making regular appearances.
- Author Appeal: White Mage.
- Author Avatar: Early arcs included occasional commentary from the author, appearing as Gooper Blooper from Super Mario Sunshine. After a forum move and a similar username to another user made a name changte necessary, Kracko (from the Kirby series) began appearing as well. The two Author Avatars had completely different personalities (the former quiet and focused, the latter an overactive dim bulb). A third, studious author made an appearance in the last few arcs in the form of King Calamari (Super Mario RPG). The fact that all three "authors" were the same person is sure to leave some with Unfortunate Implications.
- Bag of Sharing: Averted: In CARA 4.5, several characters are in battle when one notices they had an item in their inventory earlier that is no longer there. It's held by another member of their team, who's not participating in the fight and is off eating it.
- Bag of Spilling: Pointedly averted: All characters retained any special moves or items they had acquired from one arc to the next. A few times, though, the characters were "de-leveled" because the battle scenes were getting beyond Paper Mario's scope (200 HP being commonplace, for example).
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: The boss of the Excess Express in CARA 1 is thought to be Smorg, but he is quickly dispatched by Jr Troopa, in a Shout-Out to his cameo in the real Paper Mario TTYD (he appears in the background of a photo taken on the Excess Express)
- Battle Royale With Cheese: The non-canon special short story Kracko Vs. Everyone featured the more ditzy of the two Author Avatars royally pissing off various characters by using his laptop to change what they say. Virtually every single character that ever appeared in the CARA in any way come together, form a massive mob, and attack him. Kracko manages to defeat almost all of them, but is finally overwhelmed when the three gods arrive late in the showdown (see Physical God).
- Big Bad: A different one every arc.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Many, including several based on Real Life bugs the author found. Unlike most instances of this trope, several are portrayed as "good", and one in particular (Megalon the shiny Pinsir) despite being a villain, is portrayed in a sympathetic light in CARA 4 when he's separated from his "owner" (Popple) and both of them think about each other until being reunited. He even saves the heroes at one point (because, like the Pokemon anime says, most Pokemon are not evil. They are just listening to their owners, who happen to be evil.)
- Big Damn Heroes: Thanks to the roulette, this one got screwed up in CARA Chronicles. Omastar attempts a Big Damn Heroes to save Princess Peach after Bowser FINALLY defeats Mario. He fails. Later, The Cavalry arrives in the form of all of Mario's partners and some of their other friends. This time they succeed.
- Big Eater: White Mage. Unlike most instances of this trope, she actually gained weight over the course of the series as her Flanderization took hold. She was frequently mocked for it in later arcs.
- Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: Unlike in Paper Mario, Mario and Luigi get other mail besides just a once-a-game letter from Peach.
- Black Magic and White Magic: Used frequently by Black Mage and White Mage. Several other characters had access to low-level spells of these types as well, such as Merlee and Kamek.
- Blob Monster: CARA Chronicles has Yee Cole Eye, a monster created by cooking "Evil Meat", hamburger meat produced in Hell.
- Blood from the Mouth: Black Mage in CARA Chronicles.
- Body Horror: Infini T. in CARA Chronicles II, a monster made of the fusion of hundreds of dead Toads.
- Bonus Level of Hell: The CARA sometime featured cuts to the afterlife where readers could see how characters who had been killed off were doing. At first it consisted of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, with characters free to travel between each "floor" as they liked. Heaven and Purgatory proved boring, however (as the vast majority of dead characters were either villains or had numerous bad qualities), so in later arcs only Hell persisted.
- Boss in Mook Clothing: Torpedo Ted, seemingly just a nameless minion of Bowser, had the ability to Superguard - and was very good at it.
- Book and Switch: Merlow is caught doing this in class in CARA Chronicles.
- Bounty Hunter: Three of them were sent to destroy Black Mage and White Mage in CARA Chronicles: Captain Falcon, Samus Aran, and Boba Fett.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Most people who ate Shroob Shrooms in CARA 4 became this.
- Burger Fool: The workers of the restaurant McRonald's: Gengar, Miss Dreavus, and Drake the Dry Bones. They aren't terribly fond of their job, but their boss is a nice guy and they all get along well.
- Channel Hop: After being moderated on Game FAQs for being "off topic" (despite the fact that the Paper Mario games did not have a social board) the CARA moved operations to a user-created forum after CARA 2. CARA 4 was successfully finished on GameFAQs (it was an effort to attract new readers) and CARA 5 was struck down about halfway through.
- The Chew Toy: Yoshi. Always the low man on the totem pole, he's constantly forced to do menial tasks for Princess Peach and other residents of her castle. It got worse when Widget the Sentinel (UFO enemy from Paper Mario) was introduced, who did all of Yoshi's jobs without complaint and did them better, and was also treated much more nicely.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Many. Sponia fits best.
- Colonel Badass: General Guy. Only a general, but military rankings don't matter much in the CARA.
- Complete Monster: King Kleft from CARA 3. He was intentionally made to be as much of a Jerkass as possible (racist towards non-Clefts, scheming to Take Over the World, defeating Mario and his friends, and trying a We Can Rule Together to the Cleft on Mario's team, Cleftor). Cleftor refuses to join him, so for his Moral Event Horizon he killed the lovably clueless and innocent Sponia while forcing Cleftor to watch. Cue Unstoppable Rage from Cleftor.
- Crazy Enough to Work
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Cleftor.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: Black Mage often used an Uzi to kill bosses that were no longer important to the story. He didn't actually use the Uzi in battle until CARA 4.
- Deadpan Snarker: Many, especially Black Mage, Gengar, and Bowser.
- Death Is Cheap: Characters that were Killed Off for Real were often brought back when a "good idea" for them was thought up.
- Defeat Means Friendship: General Guy in CARA 3 joins Mario after losing to him, saying that he is now "a prisoner of war". He eventually grows to like Mario, and becomes a vital member of the team.
- Also happened with Meta Knight that same arc.
- Defective Detective: Pennington.
- Drop the Hammer: White Mage, HammerBot, King Dedede.
- Eldritch Abomination: The final boss of CARA 5.
- Enemy Chatter: Many fights (particularly in later arcs) featured the various characters chatting with each other, usually among their own teams but sometimes talking to each other. In one example, Doopliss successfully copies Centwaur the Beedrill, then after fumbling with his Leaf Umbrella asks how Centwaur picks things up with those spike hands of his. Centwaur responds "I usually get other people to pick things up for me."
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Quite a few minor characters were very popular despite their small roles. A good example would be The Voiceless Gang, a Krabby, Metroid, Magnemite, and Fuzzy that were all unable to speak and communicated using various noises. Fuzzy, however, later proved to be capable of speaking (and singing) - he just preferred not to.
- Expy: When Sly Guy (the world's smartest Shy Guy) and Ex-Naut (an intelligent X-Naut that defected to Mario's side) were both in Mario's party, they were rivals. When Sly Guy left the team later, Ex-Naut became something of an Expy for him.
- Evilly Affable: Fighter.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: Arthropleura caused a lot of these, especially when attacking Popple and his minions in CARA 4.
- Febreze Is Better: The Leaf Umbrella, wielded by Doopliss, made its appearance when a reader (talking about Animal Crossing) complained about not being able to find a Leaf Umbrella to fill her catalog. Several readers (including the author) visited their Animal Crossing shops and found that Tom Nook was carrying the Leaf Umbrella for that day. So naturally it became a Running Gag among the readers and it later appeared in the CARA itself. The CARA version shoots lasers.
- Fighting Your Friend: In CARA 4, Mario faces several of his old partners who became separated from him. They've since eaten Shroob Shrooms, so they go nuts and attack him.
- Final Boss: An arc was not complete without an epic final battle.
- CARA 1: Popple and a squadron of rookies he had assembled
- CARA 2: Ditto
- CARA 3: Wally
- CARA 4: Elder Princess Shroob
- CARA 4.5: Fighter/Warrior/Omega Warrior
- CARA Chronicles: Ditto
- CARA 5: Dark Count Luippio
- Flanderization: Most characters started as two-dimensional and fleshed out as they appeared more often, but White Mage was the opposite.
- The author has decided he's going to try and un-Flanderize her, focusing less on her appetite and more on her discarded attributes, such as her interest in the paranormal. As for whether it works, your guess is as good as mine.
- Fun with Acronyms: Team FEH in CARA 4. FEH stands for Fools Everyone Hates. The team consisted of 3 characters regularly scorned by the people who played the games they came from: Harhall from Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, Flurrie from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and Tingle from the Legend of Zelda series. Flavio from TTYD later joins them.
- Game-Breaker: Two stand out: Spolon (see Physical God below) and Centwaur the Beedrill, who could instantly KO, instantly kill, or brainwash an enemy to join his team (the effects were sometimes permanent).
- Black Mage and White Mage on a smaller scale: they are much more durable than most Squishy Wizards and have very powerful magic attacks as well as solid non-magic attacks. The author plans to tone them down.
- Gamer Chick: Both White Mage and Princess Peach are avid gamers. White Mage was the first character to own a Nintendo Wii, having won it in a contest.
- Genius Ditz: Sponia has a chronic case of amnesia, often forgets where he is or what he's doing, and isn't even all that intelligent when he DOES recall things. But he performs admirably in battle and has a remarkably savvy business sense (he owns his own factory, which produces cereal, cookies, and hot dogs, and also provides gambling facilities).
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: CARA 3 gives us Wally.
- Glad I Thought of It: Sponia and layze have this exchange in CARA 4.5 - almost. layze lampshades it by saying "Don't do it!" after Sponia repeats his idea, then covers Sponia's mouth when Sponia tries to say it anyway. "Glad I thought of-MMPH!"
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Pa-Patch did this when a comrade was killed or seriously injured in battle. Black Mage did it whenever anyone defeated White Mage while he was still "in play".
- Hand Wave: Often, when small but niggling errors were made in the story.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": Samus laughs at a stage direction that says she fell on her butt. She's drunk, so she thinks everything's funny.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Several, including Paragoomba vs. Wario (CARA 3), Paragoomba vs. Hammer Bro (CARA 4), and Black Mage and White Mage vs. Peteysaurus Rex (CARA Chronicles).
- I Got Better: Chef Kawasaki.
- I Have No Son!: Cleftor tracks down his father in CARA 2 living on Mt. Rugged. His father at first tries the "I have no son, who are you" angle. When it doesn't work, he acknowledges that Cleftor was a mistake and he never wants to see him again. Cue Big "NO!".
- "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Happens to Princess Peach, White Mage, and Miss Dreavus in CARA Chronicles.
- Jerkass: Black Mage on occasion, Gengar in earlier arcs.
- Joker Immunity: Averted; almost every major villain was in fact killed at one point (This list includes Bowser, Popple, Wario, Wally, Ditto, Team Rocket, Lord Crump, and Grodus.)
- Kill Em All: CARA 5.5.
- Kill It with Fire: Several characters had fire-based attacks.
- King Mook: King Boo makes an appearance, and a King Mook that didn't exist in a previous media was King Kleft.
- Legion of Doom: The Shroobs and the X-Nauts form an alliance in CARA 4.
- At the end of CARA 4, a ridiculously over-the-top battle (it's not a Battle Royale With Cheese because nobody is brought back from the dead for it) is waged between ALL of the good characters and ALL of the bad characters that mattered in any capacity to the story. The bad guys won, but the two most important baddies (Bow and Bowser) immediately team up with Mario when the True Final Boss makes her appearance.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Black Mage's attack doubles if White Mage is defeated before he is.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Oh God, so many. I had to make my own Wiki to keep track of everyone (it was hosted by El Wiki and no longer exists)
- Made of Iron: Due to Cartoon Physics, basically everybody.
- Made of Plasticine: Exceptions to the above were made when Arthropleura appeared on the scene in CARA 4.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: This series included characters from Super Mario Bros, Paper Mario, Pokemon, Kirby, Metroid, Mega Man, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, F-Zero, Invader Zim, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Animal Crossing. And some other series too. Mostly the first three dominated, though.
- Memetic Badass: Gobbler. Originating from the Kirby game Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, he entered the CARA and became the first villain to ever win a battle. Later the "Gobbler Fan Club" was created as a joke due to one reader's request for a fan club of another more popular character. The Gobbler Fan Club contained a lengthy list, updated several times, of "Facts 'Bout Gobbla" that parodied Chuck Norris Facts.
- Metrosexual: Lovey-Dovey... maybe.
- Mood Whiplash: Often near the end of an arc, it's hard to decide whether the emphasis should be on comedy or epic battles.
- Mook Promotion: Hammer Bro in CARA 4, a rebellious grunt in Bowser's Army who attempted a Xanatos Gambit to become the new king and leader.
- Painful Rhyme: Merlee, who speaks entirely in rhyme, had seemingly no choice but to ALWAYS come up with a couplet, even when it made little to no sense. In her first appearance, she and her Cactaur friend Neal hit upon the idea to go on a cross-country trip in an old pickup. They shout "ROAD TRIP!" And Merlee follows it up with "Pip pip!".
- Neal: "You don't HAVE to rhyme everything, you know."
- Physical God: Three gods appeared in the series, all possessing physical form and each being a "god" of a specific food, with the ability to make unlimited quantities of said food. The first was Mangon, God of Mangos, who was added after a Sure, Why Not? when one reader (the Leaf Umbrella one) continually brought up mangos for no discernible reason near the start of the first arc. The second, Burgon (god of burgers) was added to be The Rival to Mangon. The third was Spolon, goddess of in-universe cereal Sponi-Flakes. While all three gods were very powerful, Spolon in particular was a complete Game-Breaker with the ability to fully heal herself with no penalty, and possessing a monstrous Defense stat due to her shield.
- Popularity Power: Black Mage ran on this for quite a while but eventually became disliked by most readers. He was killed off in a suitably dramatic fashion in CARA Chronicles, and aside from a brief cameo in CARA 5, never returned.
- Punny Name: Miss Dreavus the Misdreavus.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: Many, including Team Rocket, Popple and his rookies, Team FEH, and the Fighting Polygon Team.
- Random Encounter: Mostly averted. Very few fights were not boss fights.
- Red Herring Shirt: Dark Wizzerd in CARA 5 had a pretty sizable role considering he didn't have a name.
- Running Gag: Quite a few. Two that regular readers would quickly remember: Luigi having somehow eaten the "Internet Chatroom Voice Box" device (turning all his words into leet speak) at the beginning of every arc after the first except the last, and Black Mage needing his mana to do something important, but wasting it on a Hadoken when a bird flies overhead and he can't resist his urge to kill it.
- Shout-Out: Tons. There were shout outs to the readers (often by including themselves or their original characters in the story), as well as additional references to everything from The Brave Little Toaster to Robot Wars.
- Somewhere A Paleontologist Is Crying: Arthropleura was given very strong abilities in the CARA. In Real Life it was a prehistoric millipede that, while large, wasn't a meat eater and wasn't able to roll into an impenetrable ball. The author DID know about all this, but it wasn't important.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The Outsiders, a group of characters that were all booted from Mario's party for one reason or another (led by Bow, the Boo from Paper Mario). At the end of CARA 4, they actually succeed in "becoming the main characters" by defeating Mario's team in battle. This is accompanied by the symbolic gesture of Bow stealing Mario's hat, the hat changing color and switching the M for a B to reflect Bow's new status. At the end of 4.5, Bow gave Mario his hat back and Mario once again was the main focus.
- Black Mage and White Mage to a lesser extent, and the McRonald's crew in CARA Chronicles.
- Staff Chick: Nope, not here. White Mage only wielded a hammer. But you do have Staff Guys like Kamek and Magical Trevor.
- Straw Feminist: Toadette was very briefly one (insisting on joining the party in CARA 4 because the cowardly Luigi got to) but grew out of it quickly to just be a cross between Tomboy and Deadpan Snarker.
- Stoners Are Funny: Twink. In addition to marijuana, he also indulged in cigarettes and caffeine.
- Sure, Why Not?: Practiced on a regular basis. In later arcs, readers were invited to PM the author suggestions.
- Tank Goodness: General Guy, who uses his original toy tank from Paper Mario at first. In later appearances he acquires a tank that looks just like a Di Kokka flamethrower tank from the Metal Slug series, but it shoots ordinary ammunition.
- The Dragon: In an interesting case, Lord Crump was originally weaker than his boss Grodus (just like in the games). Lord Crump and later Grodus were killed off, but they were later brought back in CARA 3 and CARA 4, respectively. In these later arcs they began appearing regularly. Partly due to reviving first and partly due to Popularity Power, Lord Crump surpassed Grodus in both power and authority. Grodus's role became a Deadpan Snarker who was clearly more intelligent than his boss but lacked the authority to really challenge him.
- The Lancer: Pa-Patch.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The final bosses of CARA 2 and CARA 4.5 are both dispatched in extremely over-the-top ways.
- The Runt at the End: The straggler Shy Guy from Paper Mario makes a reappearance here.
- The Scrappy: In-universe examples: Chef Kawasaki and Omochao.
- The Starscream: Hammer Bro.
- They Killed Kenny: Chef Kawasaki dies violent deaths on a regular basis, but simply reappears a few moments later for no reason at all. A possibility for his continuous reincarnation might be his incurable optimism.
- Token Evil Teammate: Black Mage. With one exception where he was brainwashed, BM was always on the side of good despite his sadistic streak and (in the early arcs) a physical NEED to kill someone or something every so often to repress "the urge" in his psyche.
- Too Dumb to Live: Several.
- Un-Cancelled: Partly because of creating this page, partly because it was summer, and partly because he was feeling bored and nostalgic, the author decided to begin writing the CARA again on July 3, 2009, after a hiatus of about two years.
- Unpleasable Fanbase: Some people got entirely too emotional about these little stories.
- Useless Useful Spell: Averted, almost all characters are vulnerable to status effects and instant death. E-123 Omega, who automatically purified himself whenever struck by bad status, was an exception.
- Verbal Tic: Cleftor. Grack!
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The author took great delight in completely ignoring this trope. Sad or dramatic death scenes were just as likely to feature monsters, robots, or animals as they were to involve humans and humanoids. Every race was created equal in this regard.
- Xanatos Gambit: Hammer Bro in CARA 4.
- Yuppie Couple: A Running Gag that began early on was that during battle a random Boo would often toss Mario a helpful Boo's Sheet item that rendered him immune to enemy attacks for a few turns (the battles in the CARA used a similar system to Paper Mario: TTYD). Eventually the Boo got a name (Boo Sheet Boo) and began appearing outside of the audience. He even participated in a battle directly at one point.
