Line #1 Fanfic/CowardTrilogy


1	The ''Coward'' trilogy is a set of three {{Creepypasta}} stories (one of which is [[TwoPartTrilogy still to be written]]), about two kids who used [[VideoGame/GameShark Gamesharks]] to hack Franchise/{{Pokemon}} video games, and get into various paranormal troubles. The first was written by an author known only as Spiffy, the second written by an author named Daniel Ernston, and the third to be written by both of them.
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3	The first story, titled ''Coward'', can be read [[http://pastebin.com/HPsEAvEg here]].
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5	The second story, titled ''Hero'', can be read [[http://pastebin.com/LsRqXApK here]].
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7	The third story is titled ''Villain'', and is currently being written, slated to be released sometime in 2013.
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11	!!The first story, titled "Coward", contains examples of:
12	* [[AntiHero Anti-Heroine]] - Anat just wants to cheat without having to sit through a [[ScareEmStraight horror show]]. She [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone worries]] about being a murderer, but is [[ItsAllAboutMe dissuaded]] by the implication that she [[TheFettered couldn't cheat anymore]] if she wanted to [[BeingGoodSucks do the supposedly right thing]]. She does talk about making Pokemon and items for her friends, though, hinting at [[UnclePennybags Aunt Pennybags]] tendencies.
13	* CatchTheConscience - Like countless Pokémon creepypastas before it. It [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone scares Anat]] for a moment, but after contemplating the restricted life she'd have to live to get the approval of the Elites, she gets better.
14	* CondescendingCompassion - The Elites offer to put the protagonist's hacked Pokémon, who they deem unnatural, [[MercyKill "out of their misery"]].
15	* CowardlyLion - What the protagonist ends up being.
16	* {{Deconstruction}} - In many Pokémon creepypastas, the protagonist cheats, awful things happen to them, and they swear off cheating. ''Coward'' is the story of a cheater who refuses to be scared away from her [[VideoGame/GameShark Gamesharky]] pleasures.
17	* DirtyCoward - The Elites would have the protagonist think she is this.
18	* EmotionEater - Spiky says the Elites feed on fear.
19	* EvilVirtues - Inverted. Anat's {{Greed}} for Pokemon and items and would-be [[GreenEyedMonster Envy]] of those who could cheat without fear strengthen her resolve to stand her cheating ground and defy the Elites. Without these "Good Vices", she wouldn't be bad, but she wouldn't be good either - a sort of [[HeroicNeutral Cowardly Neutral]].
20	* {{Epigraph}} - The story ends with a quote from Creator/GKChesterton.
21	* FluffyTamer - The protagonist is given a pep-talk by her Gengar and protected by her Mewtwo.
22	* CloneAngst - Averted. Psycher has no angst about being a hack, a trait shared by Scar in the sequel. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Scar's owner, on the other hand...]]
23	* GenreShift - The second dream, with Spiky, starts the protagonist's quest to get the Elites off of her back, and has a distinctly children's fantasy feel. It darkens during the final battle, then lightens back up during the epilogue.
24	* IronicEcho - Psycher likes to repeat what the Elites say, like so:
25	-->Lorelei: Screeching your precious cheats won't save you now. Don't fret, it will be over soon.
26	-->Psycher: uses Thunderbolt on Lorelei's Slowbro It WILL be over soon, and we'll win.
27	* MeaningfulName - According to Website/TheOtherWiki, Anat is a common female Israeli name, but not even many of the Anats themselves know it was the name of a [[TheBerserker vicious warrior]] goddess from Myth/HebrewMythology. "Shaked" is Hebrew for "almond", but in English, shaking is something that scared people often do. Similarly, Anat can be quite fearful, but is [[CowardlyLion braver than she thinks]].
28	** In addition, the Greek word for almond, ἀμυγδαλή (amygdalē), lends its name to the amygdala, a structure in the brain that plays roles in both fear and aggression.
29	* NoFairCheating - The Elites try to enforce this trope. Ultimately, it's defied.
30	* NoNameGiven - The protagonist is only ever called a coward, cheater, and a murderer. [[WordOfGod However, her name is said to be]] [[Myth/HebrewMythology Anat]] [[InMyLanguageThatSoundsLike Shaked]].
31	* NotSoImaginaryFriend - The protagonist's Pokemon. The Elites are Not So Imaginary Enemies.
32	* ObliviouslyEvil - The Elites scare the protagonist into thinking she killed them with her cheating, making her worry that she was this.
33	* OffWithHisHead - How the Elites eventually die.
34	* PapaWolf - What Psycher acts like to the protagonist.
35	* ScareEmStraight - It doesn't work. The protagonist is scared by her nightmare and [[AbominationAccusationAttack the thought that the Elite's accusations that she's a murderer are correct]], but resolves to keep cheating. Since that was before she learned the true nature of the Elites, it might strike people as [[ItsAllAboutMe immoral]]. On the other hand, a big theme of the story is not letting fear control you, which Josiah of ''Hero'' didn't learn until after all of his Pokémon died.
36	* SelfInsertFic - Spiffy claims that the events in the story are loosely based upon things she did in real life.
37	* ShadowArchetype - The Elites in ''Coward'' are actually the dark sides of the real Elites.
38	* ShoutOut - "Was I going to end up like Sid in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'', a few [[ScareEmStraight scary experiences]] denying him a normal life because nobody told him his toys were conscious?"
39	* SpiritAdvisor - Spiky tells the protagonist about the nature of the Elites, and encourages her to be brave.
40	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech - Pretty much everything the Elites say to Anat is a reason she sucks. Predictably, she retorts and proves it.
41	* WhatMeasureIsANonCute - Inverted. While the protagonist has a Mew in her team, we only see [[FreakyIsCool her interact with her Gengar and Mewtwo]]. Her Pikachu is impersonated by one of the Elites, who tries to convince her to stop cheating with [[DeliberatelyCuteChild sympathy ploys]].
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44
45	!!The second story, titled "Hero", contains examples of:
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47	* AesopCollateralDamage - in order for Lance to teach Josiah the BrokenAesop of anti-hacking, Josiah's entire team dies, and he becomes a quadriplegic.
48	* AppliedPhlebotinum - the pasty substance known as "distortiform", which makes objects fizzle in and out of view as if they are derezzing or the result of a staticky signal. It is literally applied onto certain Pokémon.
49	* BloodFromTheMouth - Kafka starts bleeding in the mouth when he's moaning in pain.
50	* BrokenAesop - both the anti-hacking Aesop of convention and the anti-anti-hacking Aesop of ''Coward'' are intentionally broken, both in and out of story, although [[WordOfGod the author says]] that the general attitude of the story is anti-anti-hacking, just like ''Coward''.
51	* CatchTheConscience - This time, it's [[{{Pun}} super effective]].
52	* ChekhovsGun - Subverted, with the Master Ball that Josiah snatches from Professor Elm's lab. It never does get used again.
53	* ClassicalAntiHero - Josiah, of course.
54	* CowardlyLion - Josiah ''almost'' does this in the final battle like Anat, but gives out in the end and subverts it.
55	* DarkerAndEdgier - much more than the first one. In fact, one of the reasons the sequel was ever written at all was to provide a [[DarkFic darker, much creepier parallel]]. In the end, though, it's not so much creepy as it is this.
56	* {{Deconstruction}} - played much like ''Coward'' (having to do with illegitimate gameplay), but subverted at the end. Josiah eventually does get defeated, and is the prime actor in destroying Scar, the thing that had "caused" all the trouble in the first place. In a way, it could even be considered as deconstructing a deconstruction, using a person of a slightly different personality type.
57	** It is also a straight deconstruction of the tendency in Pokémon creepypastas to [[NoFairCheating punish people who use cheats]]. ''Hero'' shows that someone who wants to torture a kid for cheating doesn't have to be TheScourgeOfGod intent on restoring order to the world - they can be a {{Sadist}} picking on people who are viewed as acceptable to make fun of so that [[VillainWithGoodPublicity people will sympathize with them]] instead of [[TheScapegoat the person they are torturing]].
58	* DirtyCoward - Josiah is told by the Elite Four that he is this for avoiding playing the game for five days.
59	* DisproportionateRetribution - Compared to ''Coward'', Josiah's "offense" is trivial, and yet he is punished much more severely for it.
60	* DownerEnding - Josiah loses all of his Pokémon and so does Lance. In general it's a much less happy ending than the first one.
61	* [[AndroidsArePeopleToo Hacks Are Pokémon Too]] - Scar's argument for why he is real. Also pretty much the main theme of the story.
62	* HeelFaceTurn - Josiah, telling Scar to stand down while the Dragonite attacks it with a Thunder Punch. But depending on whose side you're looking at, it may also be a FaceHeelTurn, or if you're neither side at all, it might even be a HazyFeelTurn.
63	* MeaningfulName - Depending on whether you think the story is [[Creator/FranzKafka Kafka-esque]], Kafka can count.
64	* MoodWhiplash - from scared out to pep-rally back to horrified.
65	* MotiveMisidentification - Scene 12 reveals what Lance was ''really'' trying to do. [[spoiler: (Prevent Elm from making an elixir of life.)]]
66	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone - Happens not once, but twice. ''For the exact same thing.''
67	* NoFairCheating - The Elite Four actually succeed in enforcing this trope this time around.
68	* NominalHero - Lance declares that Josiah is a hero at the end, but Josiah doesn't think so.
69	* NoNameGiven - Not until the end of Scene 10 do we finally find out the protagonist's name, Josiah Eltavan.
70	* NonverbalMiscommunication - Kafka's moans of pain are actually attempted warnings to Josiah, but Lance tells Josiah that they are moans calling for the death of Scar. And Josiah believes him.
71	* NotQuiteDead - In Scene 12, we find that because Lance had won the battle with Josiah, he still had one Dragonite remaining...
72	* OnceMoreWithClarity - Scenes 11 and 12 are all about this, showing what happened in the meantime that was unseen in the main story. It's also where things really start getting creepy, revealing the FridgeHorror of the story before.
73	* PlayingWithSyringes - the scene where Lance peels away at [[StrappedToAnOperatingTable Kafka's]] skin using a surgical scalpel in order to apply distortiform on it.
74	* {{Reconstruction}} - Almost. While the deconstruction-of-a-deconstruction intent is there, and Josiah eventually "learns the lesson" in the end that the original Construction of an anti-cheating creepypasta does, it doesn't actually try to play the original Construction straight while modifying things to account for the deconstruction.
75	* ROMHack - Like ''Coward'' before it, more like a Game Shark hack.
76	* ScareEmStraight - Lance goes as far as to construct a whole apocalyptic scenario to make Josiah think the consequences of his actions are real and not just a scare.
77	* SelfInsertFic - while the author didn't initially intend for this, he acknowledges that it happened anyway.
78	* SequelEscalation - the sheer ''length'' of the thing. ''Hero'' is almost ''twice'' as long as the work it's a sequel of.
79	* ShadowArchetype - Unlike in ''Coward'', this time the Elites are for real, although most of them are simply doing it because Lance told them to.
80	* ShoutOut - The story contains quite a few references to ''Coward'' before it, being a sequel that happens two years afterward with a different eight-year-old kid.
81	* TheEndingChangesEverything - in the form of one [[TheReveal Reveal]] after the other at the ends of scenes 9 and 10, and the entirety of Scene 11. Even Scene 12 is this.
82	* ThePowerOfBlood - Type O, and typical of a creepypasta.
83	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech - Lance, to Josiah. It lasts the entire battle that they have together, as Lance continues taunting Josiah and Josiah eventually caves in at the end, giving Scar up. Gets [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre inverted]] afterwards after the end of the battle, when Josiah is lying in a hospital bed. Lance actually gives Josiah a "Reason You ''Don't'' Suck" speech, but by then, Josiah is facing an internal Reason He Sucks speech from within himself.
84	* TimeSkip - This story takes place 2 years after ''Coward''. The next story, ''Villain'', will take place another two years after this one.
85	* TitleDrop - in Scene 10. This is the only place the word "hero" ever appears in the story.
86	-->"Wake up, our hero," said Lance.
87	* WakingUpElsewhere - Josiah wakes up in a hospital, at first thinking it was a Pokémon Centre. But then he discovers that knocking the back of his neck really hard into his desk [[ChekhovsGun way back in scene 5]] knocked him unconscious and gave him quadriplegia, and that everything after that was [[AllJustADream his dream]].
88	* WasItReallyWorthIt - Josiah is not convinced by Lance's "you are a hero" speech, in which he says it was "worth it" to destroy Scar and the rest of his team to save the Pokémon world.
89	* [[WhamEpisode Wham Epilogue]] - Scene 11 is actually a separate part of the story, that [[TheReveal shows in detail what else was going on from Scene 5 to Scene 10]], and twists abound.
90	* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame - When Lance calls Josiah a hero, Josiah isn't convinced that he really did anything good.
91	* "You... YouMonster" said Elm. "YoureInsane" he cried. -- verbatim quote from Scene 12
92	** Coincidentally, the current image for YoureInsane also features somebody admonishing Lance for his insanity (albeit in a different generation, a different medium, and a different canon).

Context Fanfic / CowardTrilogy