History WhateleyUniverse / TropesJToZ

* StrawmanPolitical: The Goodkinds. FridgeLogic raises the question why they are unassailable as well by the ''superpowered'' community. Brute force isn't going to work well because the Goodkinds are rich and famous. They believe in hiring competent help -- including security, who will be highly trained, motivated, and equipped with the best that money can buy -- and any open attacks on them are apt to result in ''major'' public backlash. Add to that that superpowered individuals in the setting are generally less than 'cosmically' powerful and their community is far from united (to the point where quite a few, upon learning of a pending attack, would do their own best to stop it), and it ''really'' starts to look like the Goodkinds are here to stay.
** It was pointed out in a recent story that [[spoiler: based on past family history this makes no sense whatsoever. The Goodkinds have been pro-life, anti-slavery, pro-revolutionary war, pro-civil rights, pro all kinds of things that would suggest they should be some of mutantkind's greatest supporters. Yet, somehow, they have become the opposite. Ayla doesn't even know how to explain it. It's implied the oddness of this had never yet been pointed out anyone in the family, either, though mention is made of secrets only 21 and old working members of the family are privy to.]] The question of why, exactly, the Goodkinds are so anti-mutant has been raised as a plot-point.
*** Another story implies that the Goodkinds have been [[VillainWithGoodPublicity Villains With Good Publicity]] all along, with the highly visible good deeds covering an ugly history of exploitation, strikebreaking, double-dealing and other similar skullduggery.
* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Chou Lee's powers are given to her by the Tao, and it gives her as much power as it sees fit. WordOfGod says ''nothing'' can stand in her way if the Tao deems it necessary. But usually it doesn't.

* SuperBreedingProgram: The Bloodline is a BreedingCult of mutants who mostly have a specific type of PsychicVampirism. They even go so far as to create a {{People Farm|s}} at one point, though in a slightly less unethical manner than is usual for that trope (they hire female Exemplars as surrogate mothers, contracting them for a single child and paying them very well for their time with the project).

* SweetPollyOliver: As per WordOfGod: [[spoiler:Mr. Magic]]'s son [[spoiler:'Artie']] is actually [[spoiler:'Gwen']]. He had an affair and she got pregnant, she broke off the affair out of concern 'about raising a child in the unstable life [he] led'. When he saw his child, "for some reason, possibly involving [[spoiler:Gwen's]] tomboyish appearance, he mistook her for a boy. Seeing how elated he was in having a son, she decided to play along and--for some reason--her mother also went with the charade, both telling [[spoiler:Mr. Magic]] that his daughter was a boy."

* KarmaHoudini: There are a few. Luckily, it appears to be averted eventually with most villains, but some {{Designated Hero}}es may qualify.

* LethalJokeCharacter: Team Wondercute is a whole team of these, founded of course by Jade. It's composed of a few young girls without any traditionally broken powers, was initially mostly intended to bug Jericho, and their mission statement is to be nauseatingly cute. And thanks to a combination of ConfusionFu, Power Synergy, and sheer CrazyIsCool, watching them in action reminds the sim operators of [[TheDreaded The Dragonslayers]].

** Dr. Diabolik's original name was Leonidas Diabliku, which he simplified to Diabolik when coming to the US; while WordOfGod states that it was not originally chosen for the ominous overtones, it turned out to be appropriate when he went rogue.

--> '''WordOfGod''': It's not dedicated US Military, or even a branch. Students can sign up for credit with all of the US service branches and international students can apply their studies back to their home militaries. The JROTC corps on campus is a panoply of uniforms, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, British, French, Etc. In fact, the only 'uniform' item is the Beret the students wear which, as the fiction of the unit is a 'multinational organization' has dispensation from both the U.N. and NATO to issue sky blue UN collation force colors.

* ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder: A sort of example: Diedrick's Syndrome causes people to mimic typical mad scientist or supervillain behaviours, such as crazed rages, ranting monologues, revenge obsessions etc. Particularly common among Devisors (cf. GadgeteerGenius, MadScientist above). WordOfGod explains that Diedrick's is a ''mental illness'', not specifically evil, and seen among heroes as well as villains. However the villainous examples (such as Diedrick himself) are much better known. Whateley students refer to an acute attack as "dricking out". Megadeath, for instance, is an incredibly nice guy when on his meds. Another, Olympia, however, is stark raving mad even when NOT having an attack.

* SomewhereAnEquestrianIsCrying: {{Averted}} or {{subverted}} in [[http://whateleyacademy.net/index.php/original-timeline/791-the-bear-the-bitch-and-everything-part-two The Bear, The Bitch and Everything (Part 2)]]. Tansy opines that "the secret to good riding is gripping with your knees", which is apparently a hotly debated topic, according to WordOfGod, [[http://whateleyacademy.net/index.php/forum/speculation-101-story-arcs/1662-the-bear-the-bitch-and-everything?start=90#32199 here]]:
--> This is one of the most hotly debated topics in equestrian circles. The answer is...yes. If you're doing certain forms of advanced riding, dressage, steeple chase or barrel, knee gripping is something you [lose] points for because it damages your posture. But for new and inexperienced riders, as I learned, it's a great aid in maintaining your saddle because most horses are trained to SLOW DOWN when you grip them with your knees. Posture in my view is something you worry about once you've mastered staying on the horse.

** She animated a stuffed cabbit doll as part of an epic chase, then later rigged that cabbit with enough weaponry to rip a man's arm off, she's obsessed with ''Franchise/HelloKitty'', and created the Radioactive Condor Girl issue. Zany Schemes are her forte.

** She also decided she needed to wear the school's 'pacifist' and 'ultra-violent' armbands, and just switch off on different days. Generator is the ''definition'' of CrazyIsCool. Emphasis on the 'crazy'.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Some mutants have a DFA ("Deadly Force pre-Authorized") put on their official ID card by the MCO, meaning that they can be killed by any law enforcement officer for the most minor crimes. There have been a few attempts by various persons to have the DFA removed, but all of them are stuck in the court systems under miles of red tape. However, when it's brought to the attention of various powerful persons that the MCO has been putting [=DFAs=] on the cards of minors with no criminal records without due process, the entire MCO offices in two cities (as well as other agents from around the US) get arrested for civil rights violations and conspiring to murder children.
** By the time of the second generation, the Knights of Purity have been taken out of existence, but not by vengeful mutants or government action. Instead, they got sued into bankruptcy after fucking with the wrong company. After all the crimes they committed, it was only a matter of time. Once the first lawsuits were won, the precedent gave every other victim what they needed to start getting their own revenge.

** As multiple characters (namely Fey, Imperious and Majestic) find out, even if you are the avatar of a god, queen or other powerful figure, that means precisely nothing in the modern world, where you are a citizen like everyone else, subject to the same rules and laws. As a result, should you try to operate on your own terms, things will not go well for you. Fey specifically finds that while defending yourself is fine, there's a limit on how far you can go before you cross the line from defense to assault, and if you cross that line, it may well have serious consequences.
** ''A Single Fold'' starts with Folder getting called over to Security because they've found out who attacked him a while ago. Most of the security personnel are happy that they've got the evidence needed to get the bully punished; Folder is not, because he knows that the bully will just come after him again later for revenge, even though Folder didn't report it or tell Security anything.
** No matter how powerful someone is, power comes at a cost, as Fey and Tennyo find out: in the former's case, her power comes from ley lines, which are powered by nature, so [[spoiler: all the fights she's got into resulted in her unknowingly pulling more Essence from the ley lines than was sustainable, killing off forests and animals in nearby areas.]] As a result, she's had to keep a close eye on what spells she uses to make sure [[spoiler: she doesn't kill anything else.]] In the latter's case, her power has severely irradiated places she's battled in without her knowing it, so she now wears a bracelet with a device attached that can detect radiation levels.
** In one of Team Kimba's simulated missions, they have to cross a room full of magma. Since everyone on the team can either fly or be carried by a flier, Tennyo suggests that they just fly over the magma to the other side. Phase then bluntly points out that even though they're high above the magma, the air is so hot that it'd kill them all, including Lancer (whose PK field would let the super-hot air in), Tennyo (who is almost invincible), and Shroud (who doesn't even have a living body). As a result, they have to use magic to safely cross.
*** During the boss fight, Tennyo accidentally blows up the villain's teleporter. The group use magic to escape, but later, when Tennyo calls herself out for destroying the teleporter, Phase points out that they needed to use magic anyway because for all they knew, the teleporter could have been set to teleport them into the magma.
** Murphy can teleport, and does it quite a lot in ''Even Murphy Has Loopholes''. Problem is, teleporting takes a lot of energy, and she does it so much in the early parts of the story that it causes her to drastically lose weight. By the end of the story, even though she starts eating more, it only takes one emergency to send her into total cellular starvation.
** While being the avatar of a Fae Queen may sound awesome, as the Kodiak explains, Fae Queens were cold, heartless and malicious, and having one in her head was slowly making Fey become arrogant, self-righteous and cruel, to the point that it takes [[spoiler: said Queen finally dying]] and a pep talk from the Kodiak for Fey to be able to realize just how bad Aunghadhail's influence was on her.
** A lot of mutants, most notably Energizers, are forced to eat more than normal because of their mutations. Not only is this not something they have any control over, there's multiple scenes when an Energizer (normally Tennyo) draws attention to themself because of how much they're eating. It's also caused problems for people who can't get enough food when they need it, or can't afford it- for example, in their backstory, while Jericho's family were happy to shelter Diamondback as she changed into her snake form, they couldn't afford to feed her as much as she needed for over a month, especially since she became unable to eat vegetables.
** In the Whateley 'verse, having a KidSidekick has been outlawed for decades. Why? Because when you send a kid into battle against super-villains, they more often than not get maimed or killed.

** Mutants who develop their powers and immediately go out to try to play superhero tend to be complete disasters: they have no idea what they're doing, and as a result sometimes end up accidentally causing considerable amounts of property damage, along with occasionally accidentally killing or maiming both the supervillains they're fighting and the innocent bystanders.
** Reach has RubberMan powers, but what he ''doesn't'' have (at least at first) is super strength- so sure, he can make his arm 15 feet long, but when he does, it's so floppy it's completely useless.
** By the time of the second generation, the Knights of Purity have been taken out of existence- but not by vengeful mutants or government action. Instead, they got sued into bankruptcy after fucking with the wrong company. After all the crimes they committed, it was only a matter of time- once the first lawsuits were won, the precedent gave every other victim what they needed to start getting their own revenge.
** Imp generally doesn't kill her enemies. Instead, she publicly humiliates them, and has caused several to lose their civilian identities, jobs, and in one case powers... so it's not really a surprise when some of them team up and come after her for revenge.

--> "Less than Three, in this match, please do not use any of your devices."\\

* SpellMyNameWithAnS:
** Reverend Englund. It doesn't help that half of the canon authors actually ''do'' spell it "England."
** Some authors tend to spell "Hippolyta" as "Hippolyte". (Never mind that it'd be pronounced differently.)

* SuperBreedingProgram: The Bloodline is a BreedingCult of mutants who mostly have a specific type of PsychicVampirism. They even go so far as to create a {{People Farm|s}} at one point, though in a slightly less unethical manner than is usual for that trope (they hire female Exemplars as surrogate mothers, contracting them for s single child and paying them very well for their time with the project).

* SuperBreedingProgram: The Bloodline is a BreedingCult of mutants who mostly have a specific type of PsychicVampirism. They even go so far as to create a PeopleFarm at one point, though in a slightly less unethical manner than is usual for that trope (they hire female Exemplars as surrogate mothers, contracting them for s single child and paying them very well for their time with the project).

* PeopleFarm: The 'Baby Farm' aboard the ''Jules Verne''. Subverted somewhat, in that the mothers are all paid surrogates who contract to bring a single child to term in exchange for a large sum of money and free healthcare, and the children are then fostered to other Bloodline members and given the best treatment and education which an AncientConspiracy can offer them.