History Fanfic / ParisBurning

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: [[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/67886920798/im-intensely-curious-about-the-science-fiction-and Discussed here.]] It has also been established that ''Disney/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' [[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/74117579662/prior-to-atlantis-revealing-himself-and-making-war-in was never made]] in this universe, which is probably for the best.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Aberdeen, in her capacity as an MI6 contractor. Her apparent inability to speak a recognizable language leads people to talk carelessly in her presence; she also has a City's awareness of what goes on within her boundaries and considerable breaking-and-entering skills. This makes her a worthy hire despite her [[TheUnintelligible unintelligibility]] and [[CloudCuckooLander general eccentricity]].

''Paris Burning'' is a ''LesMiserables'' fanfic written by thecitysmith. It imagines a universe in which all cities with a sufficient population and sense of group identity have near-immortal anthropomorphic personifications. Grantaire is the personification of Paris, driven by the accumulated trauma and bitterness of his long life to flee from his role as City and distract himself with drink. The fanfic became the seed for an expansive worldbuilding project by thecitysmith and fans of the story, involving headcanons about numerous Cities throughout the world and a plot dealing with the intense politics amongst Cities, the increasingly fraught relationship between the Cities and humankind, an uprising of vengeful Lost Cities, and an EldritchAbomination or five.

** Washington DC's incomprehension of [[EurovisionSongContest Eurovision]] and the related traditions of the European Cities.

* ScrewDestiny: Atlantis and Destiny don't seem to get along very well. He was the first City to reject the basic rules that govern the species' existence, and he remains the ''only'' person ever to refuse to serve as a Thing Dreaming's Herald.

* SeeingThroughAnothersEyes: Cities can see through their peoples’ eyes if they concentrate.

* BigBad: Atlantis, and possibly (probably) the Thing Under The Ice.
** BigBadEnsemble

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Upon dying, if a City meets their fate with more love in their heart than hate, they may “Transcend” rather than becoming Lost. It has been implied that Transcended Cities may have an important role to play in defending the world both from Lost Cities and encroaching eldritch abominations.

* DifferentWorldDifferentMovies: [[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/67886920798/im-intensely-curious-about-the-science-fiction-and Discussed here.]] It has also been established that ''AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' [[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/74117579662/prior-to-atlantis-revealing-himself-and-making-war-in was never made]] in this universe, which is probably for the best.

* DropTheHammer: York starts off carrying a normal hammer that he uses in his work as a blacksmith; by the time he's killed several other Cities during a Silent War, it's grown into a warhammer that's nearly 1.5m long with a particularly vicious spike out the back of the head.

* BloodbathVillainOrigin: Atlantis, the victims of the bloodbath being his own humans.

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Ocean's Eleven must :force their humans to believe they have abandoned them, meaning that they cannot return to them.

* SilkHidingSteel: "[[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/62359869729/bath-ask Bath]] learnt politeness very early; the [[PolitenessJudo mannered joust over tea]], the sweet words that could cut a person down when they had no choice but to smile."

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Ocean's Eleven must [[spoiler:force their humans to believe they have abandoned them, meaning that they cannot return to them]].

* SilkHidingSteel "[[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/62359869729/bath-ask Bath]] learnt politeness very early; the [[PolitenessJudo mannered joust over tea]], the sweet words that could cut a person down when they had no choice but to smile."

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Aberdeen, in her capacity as an MI6 contractor. Her apparent inability to speak a recognizable language leads people to talk carelessly in her presence; she also has a City's awareness of what goes on within her boundaries and considerable breaking-and-entering skills. This makes her a worthy hire despite her unintelligibility and general eccentricity (and her Cityhood, which would normally bar her from most employments not related to her own government).

* [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Nice Job Breaking It, Well Intentioned Extremist]]: Atlantis is responsible for the [[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/86539151671/hold-up-atlantis-woke-the-ice-is-the-ice-aware-of awakening]] of ''several'' eldritch abominations. How exactly he managed this is not yet known, but it's inevitably going to bite him and the rest of the world in the backside.

* TreacheryCoverUp: After Atlantis' first war on humanity ended, the Cities who defeated him destroyed all records of the war and forbade any information about it from being shared with humans.

** Cities generally have very little power in human politics and society, both because their minds and wills are influenced by the will of the people, and because it's a long-standing rule of City society that Cities should avoid interfering with human business to minimize conflict between the species.
** The Things Dreaming have been asleep for most of human history.

* LandmarkOfLore: A couple of these (Uluru, the Grand Canyon) have been identified as the locations of [[EldritchAbomination Things Dreaming]]. Stonehenge has also been [[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/90978807446/did-you-hear-about-the-local-graffiti-ing-of-the implied]] to have some significance. A few famous mythological or real-but-mythologized cities have appeared or are listed as Lost or Transcended Cities.

* TheCorrupter: Atlantis.

** The polar vortex that affected the Midwestern US and Canada in January of 2014 prompted many jokes and comments from readers attributing the cold to Antarctica’s EldritchAbomination. ([[http://thecitysmith.tumblr.com/post/86628026701/are-the-praise-him-being-the-broken-giant-aberdeens Turns out]] it was "actually" the result of a confrontation between Antarctica and another eldritch abomination who resides at the North Pole.)

** Washington DC's incomprehension of Eurovision.