History Literature / CardForceInfection

* EskimosArentReal: A running gag has various characters learning that narwhals are real.
** When it starts raining on Naota and Fletcher, they buy an umbrella with cartoon narwhals on it. Fletcher comments that narwhals are one of his favorite fantasy animals, though Naota quickly corrects him.
** During a parody of Series/TheNewlywedGame one contestant mentions that her girlfriend once had to write an essay about her favorite animal for school, and got marked down because the teacher insisted that narwhals weren't real.
** While Maxwell is exploring an aquarium, a random bystander can be heard questioning the presence of the narwhal exhibit, which has only videos and a statue, because narwhals can't be kept in captivity. Her companion explains this, not realizing that the woman's primary worry is that "children might end up thinking narwhals are real, and they'll get really confused". "Narwhals ''are'' real, dear."

* SurpriseCheckmate: Yuu and Chaud play a game of chess with a special rule, each player is allowed to come up with a special movement rule for any piece they want, and may reveal this rule at any time. Yuu uses his rule [[spoiler: move his own king into Checkmate.]] Chaud is caught completely off guard.

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[[folder:The story]]

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[[folder:The in-universe game of Card Force]]
* AliceAllusion: The Wonderland theme is an obvious reference to ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland'', containing such cards as Mad Hat, White Rabbit, Mimsy Borogove, Cheshire Cat, and of course the Queen of Hearts.
* AutoRevive:
** Shadow Chain attaches to and lets you revive your ''opponent'''s cards. The trick, of course, is to pick a card you can destroy repeatedly, draining your opponent's Energy through the unit's Bond.
** Lich Empress Disastra can revive itself on death by removing a Dead Unit from its owner's discard pile.
** General Sardine can automatically revive itself on death.
* BackFromTheDead: As expected, there are cards that can bring units back from the discard pile.
** Wonderland Roses allows the revival of any Wonderland unit.
** Cherry Blossom Rebirth has no type restriction, but is a higher Tier card and so harder to cast.
* CaptainErsatz: Thunder Mouse is [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} a yellow mouse with power over electricity]]. As the narration admits, "The inspiration was obvious but the differences were pronounced enough to keep any angry lawyers at bay."
* DeathOrGloryAttack: Wonder Mushroom is an attachment card that lets a player flip a coin as combat begins to either double the attached unit's Strength or Defense on heads, or halve both on tails.
* EquivalentExchange: Several cards allow the user to draw at the cost of allowing their opponent to draw. Greed's Shadow is the most common, allowing the user to draw three cards and their opponent(s) to draw one.
* ExactWords: "Send X to the graveyard" is not the same thing as "destroy X". The owner doesn't lose Energy equal to the unit's Bond, and it doesn't trigger any "when this is destroyed" or "when this destroys X" effects.
* EyesDoNotBelongThere: Some cards have eyes where they shouldn't be. Revel has a few such cards.
** Void Arm is a giant arm with an eye on its palm.
** Lost Wings is a card composed of five wings, each with an eye in the middle.
* FacelessEye: Glare Gazer is a giant eyeball surrounded by white tentacles made of light.
* FanCommunityNicknames: InUniverse, players of Card Force are called Enforcers.
* FourIsDeath: Cherry Blossom Rebirth is Tier 4 in reference to the association of the number 4 with death.
* LightIsNotGood: Revel uses a Strange Light deck filled with otherworldly monsters, like glowing beings, strange visitors from other dimensions, and strange glowing things from beyond the void.
* MagicalGirl: The Mahou Shoujo theme is all about magical girls, naturally. They tend to have effects reminiscent of ThePowerOfFriendship, either directly growing stronger with each Mahou Shoujo card in play, or else buffing every Mahou Shoujo card with an added effect.
* OneHitKill: Naturally, there are cards that can instantly destroy other cards without regard to Strength or Defense. Off With Her Head is a Craft card that allows its controller to destroy any Unit once per turn.
* PowerEqualsRarity: The game doesn't seem to have a formally-defined rarity system like real [=TCGs=] usually do, but certain very powerful cards are printed in incredibly low numbers. It's rumored that there are ten or less of Dark Vortex Dragon in existence.
* QuantityVsQuality: A Unit needs a Tower of a certain height (the unit's Tier) to be summoned. Since Towers are built from Crafts, and can support only one Unit each, a player has the choice between building many short Towers so they can summon many weak Units, or building fewer tall Towers so they can summon bigger Units.
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: The Adoraborb, whose name is short for "adorable bird orb", is exactly what its name makes it sound like.
* {{Synchronization}}: All summoned units have a Bond stat representing their link to their summoner. If a unit is destroyed, its summoner loses Energy equal to the unit's Bond. [[NecessaryDrawback Powerful cards tend to have a high Bond]].
* {{Trumplica}}: The "Worthless Politician" card is a "strange man with orange skin and a bad suit". In case it's not obvious, this is one of the [[TakeThat negative depictions]] of Trump.
* WormInAnApple:

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* IncompatibleOrientation: Naota assumes that their crush on Fletcher is doomed to go nowhere, since Fletcher's Facebook profile lists him as straight, and Naota is a boy half the time. [[spoiler:Fletcher, for his part, isn't sure whether that follows.]]

* NotSoDifferent: Very subtly -- when explaining why he [[spoiler:made Fletcher wager his entire deck as stakes for a duel]], Maxwell says he had to act decisively because "people like '''us''' don't just give up easily".

** Rita's Color deck is a hurricane of shoutouts, spelled out by the author in the end notes: Rouge Fox and Purple Tiger reference ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' characters, Silver Snake references ''Series/LegendsOfTheHiddenTemple'', Black Frog references ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', Pink Lion references ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', Green Owl references ''VideoGame/{{Duolingo}}'', and Pink Elephant references ''[[Literature/CordycepsTooCleverForTheirOwnGood CORDYCEPS]]''. [[note]]And for bonus points, it's defeated by a character named Arc -- the author clarified that Arc's name was not a ''CORDYCEPS'' reference in itself, but him defeating a Pink Elephant was.[[/note]] Later Color cards are also references -- Blue Hedgehog referencing ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', Pink Alpaca referencing ''WesternAnimation/{{Centaurworld}}'', and Green Cat referencing [[Memes/{{Tumblr}} gothicprep's green cat]].

* AuthorAppeal: The author notes at the top of chapter 36 that they like [[ShoutOut referencing]] the work of their friends, which is one of the reasons for the sudden uptick in WormInAnApple motifs -- a friend of the author was the trope's sponsor on TLP. For the same reason, chapter 23 made a brief reference to "rock floating in space game", an extremely unfinished IdleGame by the same person. Chapter 46 also introduces a card called Thunderbolt Octopus, a shoutout to that person's Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction.

* AuthorAppeal: The author notes at the top of chapter 36 that they like [[ShoutOut referencing]] the work of their friends, which is one of the reasons for the sudden uptick in WormInAnApple motifs -- a friend of the author was the trope's sponsor on TLP. For the same reason, chapter 23 made a brief reference to "rock floating in space game", an extremely unfinished IdleGame by the same person.