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Hey, look! It's an obligatory Troper page!
At any rate, I'm a long-time reader, short-time "editor" of T Vtropes.
I can be incredibly dense... especially when it comes to editing pages. I forget the formats and screw them up and make them look all weird.
You might find me in some of the Troper Tales if you look hard enough.
Tropes I've contributed to:
I think I'm going to be using this page as a "trope collection" for the various works I'm planning/am involved with.
By the way, I'm affiliated with a little Axis Powers Hetalia RP called Permaneo Spes. Click the trope link to see what's up.
The Tensakuto Tales
I have a series of stories that I'm working on. There's a LOT that goes on, making it incredibly difficult to summarize, but this is the simplest and most consistent plot thread: the series follows Sasha Fyer, a girl with the ability to travel between "worlds," as she collects information on various events occurring around the multiverse. That summary pretty much fails to collect even half of the plot, but... ugh, I can't summarize right now. Maybe I'll make a better one later. ...Or maybe I'll just add in facts as I decide I want to. Read ahead and prepare to be very, very confused! Be warned that it contains spoilers that aren't really spoilers.
- Important one: Sasha is a being called a Tensakutan. They look like normal humans, but tend to be quite a bit shorter than average (females average 4' 10", males can be anywhere from 5' flat to 5' 4") and can have "unnatural" hair and eye colors (example: Sasha has brown hair, but red eyes). Most importantly, they can use magic- a quality that, according to the "rules" of Tensakuto and its "sister world" Anon, humans don't have.
- Sasha's world-hopping powers are "not terribly common, but not terribly rare, either." In fact, the organization she works for (its original name was The World Seal, but the reason for the name was lost in very, very outdated drafts, which means it needs a new name) consists almost entirely of Tensakutans with this ability. People capable of going from world to world like this are called Travelers.
- The Arbitrarium is a bizarre inn that supposedly exists within a strange "floating" dimensional rift, allowing it to effortlessly slide in between worlds and sometimes even exist in multiple worlds at once (or even in multiple places in the same world). Sometimes, this produces some odd glitches: a person may enter the Arbitrarium in one world and come out in another, but the being running the Arbitrarium takes careful measures to ensure that that doesn't happen. Naturally, the visitors are incredibly varied. However, the Arbitrarium tends to run on some rather odd rules. For example (and this is an example that comes into play very frequently), a dead person may come back to life if a person in the Arbitrarium has a powerful enough desire to see them (and especially if they want to wrap up any loose ends), but they're only alive in the Arbitrarium. Likewise, if a ghost happens to be following someone around, that ghost gains a physical form upon entry to the Arbitrarium. If multiple souls happen to be in one body, the soul that wasn't originally in the body (or something like that) is separated and gets a body of its own that is identical to the first body but with some sort of Red Right Hand to identify the split-off personality. That tends to have some interesting results.
- The Arbitrarium was created by a being that really just wanted to make a place where everyone can hang out, relax, and generally just have a good time. Visitors capable of sensing such things claim the place exudes a large amount of positive energy. Giving people peace of mind was a pretty big factor in making the Arbitrarium as well; that's one reason for the Back from the Dead hijinks up there.
The series contains these tropes (mostly just a reference for me):
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl - Several times. Inevitable when most Tensakutan girls average 4' 10", as stated above. Case in point: Sasha is 4' 7" and Zell Ingrams, the (very much human) man she ends up with, is 6' 2".
- Hidden Elf Village - Elves (who are, at this point, only found in Anon) have pretty much shoved themselves into these little, very well hidden towns, probably out of a powerful disdain for the other races. I mean, they'll be polite if you accidentally stumble upon their villages, but then they'll try and show you the way out as quickly as possible. The implication is supposed to be that Anon was originally populated by Elves, but Tensakuto- the goddess of the world that shares her name and is the birthplace of the Tensakutans- "took over" from the previous deity and flooded the elves out with humans and Tensakutans. As Sasha puts it, "The humans care about the Tensakutans, the Tensakutans are starting to care more about humans, and just about no one gives a damn about the Elves." However, some do get out, leading to the inevitable...
- Half-Human Hybrid - Half-Tensakutans (increasingly common), Half-Elves (not very common, but definitely still there), the usual... They're collectively referred to as Halfbloods, although that's mostly for Half-Tensakutans. They have surprisingly little angst compared to other examples of the trope (mostly only applies to human/Tensakutan mixes for their abilities; see below). However, then you have the problem of what happens when no one asks what the other half actually is... (The funny thing is that all three of the main characters in one story all have some amount of Tensakutan blood. It was unintentional, but it was sure interesting when I actually noticed it.) The three leads are the children of characters from previous books, one of which was reported as never being seen again in his home world. Why? He was goofing around in Tensakuto! How he got there without world-jumping powers is another story in itself. Okay, this isn't very much of a spoiler, but so what?
- Sit down, this is a long explanation. Half-Tensakutans are valued for their unique ability to use non-elemental magic, an ability that only they possess. They also are the "only" ones that can use healing magic (but their descendants can also use healing magic as long as they don't go below a certain percentage of human "blood"). From there, if the bloodline leans more toward humans, the offspring loses all offensive magic starting with quarter-Tensakutans and their healing abilities gradually weaken starting with the generation after that. If the bloodline becomes more Tensakutan, the children regain elemental magic and keep healing magic, but the elemental magic grows stronger and the healing magic weaker with every generation of mixes after quarter-humans. Elven blood seems to substitute/have the same effect as Tensakutan blood, as shown by the "quarter-human" Rhianna/whatever her name will end up being. And by "quarter-human," I mean "one quarter human, half-Tensakutan, and ONE QUARTER ELF." ...Are the fractions even right on that thing? Yeesh. And yes, I like pretending things are spoilers when they actually aren't.
- Mr. Exposition - Sasha? I don't know if she's really an example, since she does less exposition to the characters in-story than she does to the audience. It's more of an Info Dump, really.
- Mons - The Pactions are expies of certain famous Mons. Shameless, I know, but the system is different, I swear! Speaking of which...
- Expy - The stories have quite a few characters originally intended to be expies that are actually significantly different from their source character. Raymond, for example, started out as an expy of Richter from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Boy oh boy his he different from his source. If anything, he's closer to Emil than Richter. Kind of funny, I think.
- Author Appeal - Shameless, shameless Author Appeal. I get the feeling I'll draw a lot of flak for this...
- The Quiet One - Sheldon (one of the Mons mentioned earlier) is a very straight example of this trope. Raymond may also qualify. He might also be a rare male example of Shrinking Violet, but that might be taking it too far. Even so, he's only The Quiet One because his main defense mechanism is to go completely silent when he's scared, nervous, or otherwise upset. He gets more talkative once he's comfortable.
- Boisterous Bruiser - Various characters, including Asceron when around other Pactions and Zell.
- Ship Tease - Hey, look! A gratuitous spoiler tag! Anyway... Raymond is having a phenomenally bad day for legitimately spoileriffic reasons/reasons I can't be bothered to put down right now. Sasha goes to his room and comforts him. (Obligatory "mind out of the gutter!" warning.) He winds up with a crush on her. That's it. I even explicitly stated that she doesn't end up with him in the very first trope example. To be fair, they did date for a little bit, though.
- You All Meet in an Inn - A possible purpose of the Arbitrarium, but I haven't actually used it for this purpose.
- Magic A is Magic A - Oh GOD, the Magic A is Magic A. I think I'd need a new page to cover all the rules and
game balancing balances and quirks and exceptions and this-that-and-the-other-things...
I recently came up with the idea for a kind of "origin story" of the Arbitrarium, written from the perspective of the Arbitrarium's creator (as of this draft, she is known only as "The Creator") It's a fairly new idea, so many plot kernels are lacking and many characters don't even have names (but they be left unnamed as a stylistic choice).
So, here's the plot so far: The Creator tells the story of the White-Haired Man- or rather, the three versions of him that enter from different dimensions/versions of their world. They're all actually rather different from each other. Since I can't be bothered to describe them, I'll let the tropes do the talking for me:
- Boisterous Bruiser - The "happy" version of the White-Haired Man. He's almost endlessly energetic and loud, and kind of an ass at times. He has gone through the same fall from grace as the "main" version, but he's actually adjusted to his new life rather well. The main version was one, too, before he had the boisterousness bruised out of him. The evil version may be one, except, well... you'll see.
- Broken Bird - ...Eh. I want to say that the "main" version of the WHM is a male example of this, since he's not so much Troubled, but Cute as he is kind of traumatized by his own fall from grace. He may or may not be clinically depressed (...as I type that out, I realize it sounds like a load of hooey). He's really just rather sad and quiet (as the happy version says to him, "Wow, if you're me, then you ARE depressed."), sitting around thinking about now not awesome his life is anymore, and wanting some way to reclaim even an ounce of his dignity, even if he can't ever return to his full power. He fled home to get away from his abusive little brother (see below) and probably all the other nasty little realities of his situation. He wanted to be free, you can say.
- Blood Knight - All three versions of the White-Haired Man were this at one point in their lives and were quite respected for their fighting prowess before being removed from power, except in the case of the "evil" version of the White-Haired Man, who is very much still one and has yet to undergo the "downfall" that the other versions have. The "happy" version has found his way to be happy in a time of peace, while the "main" version pines for the days when he actually had something to do. The loss of his Blood Knight status is one reason for his current depressive episode.
- Rape as Drama - The "evil" version is responsible for quite a lot of this in his own world. He nearly causes this aboard the Arbitrarium, and to the Creator, no less. Thankfully, she gets out of it.
- Complete Monster - The "evil" version. As the "happy" version puts it, "Compared to him, we're f##king gentlemen." The main version refuses to refer to him as anything more than an animal.
- That ends up netting him a Take That to the face when the evil version replies, "Hey, didn't you come here just so you could eat, drink, and f##k as you pleased? That sounds pretty animalistic to me."
- Hngh. I can't figure out which trope this would be, but here's the other (and more significant) reason the main version is the way he is. After his "fall," he ended up living in his little brother's basement (the happy version has this condition in his version of the world, too). Said little brother is pretty much the opposite of his older brother in that he's orderly and insists that everything follow the rules. Prior to the main version's breakdown, his rule had become a bit on the draconian side, with arbitrary rules thrown in that seemed to be just an excuse to start a fight with his brother. He also dishes out his share of verbal abuse, routinely calling his brother useless, messy, chaotic, a glutton, useless, unnecessarily noisy, and did I say useless? I guess that makes him a Drill Sergeant Nasty. Did I mention that the WHM (all three versions, but so far only the little brothers of the happy and main versions are really explored) raised his little brother? (Yeah, yeah, long story involving people that don't age normally. Too bad.)
- To sum up the reason for the main version's breakdown: He went from being incredibly prestigious, powerful, and respected (or so the happy version says; there's a bit of an egomania problem with all three of them) to being a freeloader in the basement of the little brother he raised who pretty much abuses him constantly. The sheer contrast caused his mind to snap. (I don't think the happy version has such a poor relationship with his brother.)
And now, tropes concerning plot kernels and other bits and pieces:
- Kuudere - The main version's girlfriend (who is actually exclusive to that version), Ilsa, started out as one in early drafts, but now she has some distinctively not-Kuudere aspects (she was a kind of Blood Knight in her time as well, along with being the main WHM's mentor). Fritz/Friedrich/The guy who plays the piano in the Arbitrarium may be one, too.
- Back from the Dead - Same Arbitrarium, same revival rules. Ilsa has actually been dead (or at least missing- her body was never found, and as far as most people know she just left and never came back) for 200-300 years in her world.
- Cluster F-Bomb - When all three versions of the very sailor-mouthed WHM get together, the F bombs go everywhere. I think that one medium-small section actually has about ten instances of the F-Bomb and its variants.
- Precision F-Strike - From the Creator, a precision S strike: "Words cannot adequately describe the sentiment of 'Oh, s##t' going through my head right now." There's also chapters called "Oh, S##t Part One/Two/Three/????." The evil version of the WHM is responsible for all of her precision S strikes in some way so far.
- Screw Yourself - The evil version talks about this when he's locked his other two versions in a room with him, even saying the legendary "If you f##k another version of yourself, is it masturbation or incest?"
- Reality Warper - The Creator. Her powers are what allowed her to create the Arbitrarium from her own home world. While she does control mostly everything about the Arbitrarium, including its appearance, surroundings, what worlds have access to it, so on and so forth, she's not really a god of the realm, so to speak. She can't directly manipulate the people from other worlds, although she can try and influence them a bit. She feels that lack of power big-time when the evil version barges into her room and starts trying to cause trouble, as mentioned above. She can't order/force him to go away, so all she can do is "write" him a half-decent rationale for leaving her alone (a task significantly complicated by the fact that it has to be done on the fly and while a very hostile and predatory man is grabbing at her and talking dirty to her). Even so, there's no guarantee that he'll accept the trains of thought she "programs" into him. In fact, the first several tries, he doesn't. Fortunately, she manages to get him to believe that it's not worth the trouble.
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