| 1 | Welcome to the sandbox! You can use this page to test out the wiki's formatting, or just play around. |
| 2 | %% Please don't remove the lines above and below this. Or this line itself, for that matter. |
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| 4 | |
| 5 | * ''VideoGame/{{OMORI}}:'' quotes? it was apostrophes |
| 6 | |
| 7 | * "VideoGame/{{OMORI}}" sksjdmdhjd |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Website/TVTropes |
| 10 | |
| 11 | You life is forever ruined thanks to This Very Wiki! Hip, hip, hooray! |
| 12 | |
| 13 | SAVE THE INTERNET |
| 14 | |
| 15 | <b>YOU'RE TOO F**ING NICE!</b> |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Wait, hot cocoa?! |
| 18 | |
| 19 | * Covers Always Lie: 'Nuff said! |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Sandbox/BigBadShadow25Drafts because I keep losing it. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | ----- |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Creator/JoshuaHaleFialkov |
| 26 | |
| 27 | Literature/TheChristmasCrocodile |
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| 29 | [[quoteright:465:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e72ae1442fcf8560bcd4b05dc6b41885_1.png]] |
| 30 | [[caption-width-right:465:some caption text]] |
| 31 | |
| 32 | [[https://youtu.be/cUaDq9EieIQ?t=331 "Hoaleng"]] might not be a bad name for like a fantasy setting or something. I'm gonna try to keep this in mind. |
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| 35 | StockForeignName/AfricanToEstonian |
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| 37 | StockForeignName/FilipinoToLithuanian |
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| 39 | StockForeignName/MalteseToTurkish |
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| 41 | StockForeignName/UnitedStatesToWelsh |
| 42 | |
| 43 | # Test Confirm Changes Button |
| 44 | |
| 45 | OneMarioLimit/RealLife |
| 46 | [[norealife]] |
| 47 | [[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1000002270.png]] |
| 48 | VideoGame/ArzetteTheJewelOfFaramore. Oh cool, it already has a page. Anyway this game's concept is fucking amazing, of all the things to have a copyright-friendly spiritual successor I did not ever expect the ''Zelda'' CD-i games to have one. Which just begs the question more, when will a brave hero make a successor to ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsHitAndRun''? |
| 49 | |
| 50 | ''sandbox'' '''edit''' (gotta make sure you know what you're doing ([[PotHole test pot hole]])) |
| 51 | |
| 52 | [[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spit_shake.jpg]] |
| 53 | [-[[caption-width-right:225:[[https://www.facebook.com/doodledroid/photos/a.705302089536676/3656350627765126 Image]] by [[https://www.facebook.com/doodledroid The Doodledroid]]]]-] |
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| 55 | VideoGame/{{Cabernet}} |
| 56 | |
| 57 | Sandbox/Borderlands2024 |
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| 59 | WebOriginal/HabitualLineCrosser |
| 60 | |
| 61 | [[Main/BigBad Redundant namespace test]] -- [[BigBad Redundant namespace test]] |
| 62 | |
| 63 | [[center:'''THERE IS NO FUTURE''']] |
| 64 | [[center:[-(tense)-]]] |
| 65 | [[center:[--(In English)--]]] |
| 66 | |
| 67 | [[Main/MSTing MST]] |
| 68 | |
| 69 | [[Main/AvertedTrope Averted]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:testing format]] |
| 72 | |
| 73 | * Main/LampshadeHanging |
| 74 | |
| 75 | [[red:Red Text]] |
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| 79 | [[spoiler:This text shouldn’t be seen]]. |
| 80 | |
| 81 | [[strike:blahblah yadda yadda]] |
| 82 | |
| 83 | 🐾 |
| 84 | * Testing adding to a folder. |
| 85 | [[/folder]] |
| 86 | |
| 87 | [[WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eat_your_mattress.png]] |
| 88 | |
| 89 | [[WebVideo/RosssGameDungeon https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scale.png]] |
| 90 | |
| 91 | [[AlphaBitch "Alpha Bitch"]] |
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| 93 | ---- |
| 94 | |
| 95 | [[folder:Just Quick Spitballing General List Stuff; Gonna Try to Have Focus Away From the Blossom Kingdom for Now, Since That is Meant to Just Take a Minority of the Story's Overall Pagetime]] |
| 96 | |
| 97 | Edit: God''dammit'' I said I would move away from the BK and then a number of entries about Zelpea/Mansia/Neon/Eansy/Dragon (little with Anis though, but honestly I keep forgetting about her) crept in. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | -->''Long ago, we were all one race. But an impact caused by a strange meteor rendered most of the surface of our world uninhabitable -- the Cataclysm. To preserve society, most of us hid in a thousand bunkers engineered with magic of a special jungle. Some stayed out in the world, plagued with toxic gas for generations. During our hiding, those in the bunkers turned in to a different race, based on the environment of that bunker world. Those who remained outside eventually mutated to the Humans and the Saypants, who spent the apocalypse forming the horrible Core Empire.''\ |
| 100 | \ |
| 101 | ''The day the air cleared and the thousand bunkers all opened was Year 1 After Emergence. While each of the thousand superbiome races[??? Some term that's not "Nymph," I was thinking a corruption of the word "petal"] had to contend with the Core Empire attempting to take the surface, and many bloody wars followed as we adjusted to the new world, we began a path of recovery. Now, the year is 1010 AE. Over the first millennium once our planet, Dualite, became fully inhabitable, a system was set up to attempt to help recover the world after the Cataclysm and the Core Empire broke it. Bridging gaps, aiding the less fortunate, protecting innocents from disaster or harmful others. Taking to this task, with the world as our canvas, we are... Biome Artists.'' |
| 102 | |
| 103 | ["Lara" and "Lana" by the way have no relation. These are placeholder names, and they were taken from an older draft where they were more direct expies of "the twins" of ''[=Run: .GIFocalypse=]'', but that's being reworked by a lot. |
| 104 | |
| 105 | [[Characters/WikiSandbox Dream game adaptation.]] You'll know it when you see it, the folder literally says something like Dream Game thing, and the game goes by the exact same title. This folder right here will basically pretend it doesn't exist. Because it doesn't. The story, however, ''will'' exist as it is Very Close to Completion(TM), but yeah, since the dream game thing is unlikely, this just won't mention it since I want ''this'' folder to be about stuff much closer in the realm of possibility.] |
| 106 | |
| 107 | ''Biome Artists'' is a {{polyamory}}-centric/[[HaremGenre "harem"]] action adventure webnovel by Great Pikmin Fan/[=NeedsMoreDeepWater=]. It was published to both Fictionpress and Archive of Our Own on [Month day] 2024 [I'm not ''making this a due date'' or anything but at the rate I'm working on it... this is pretty likely]. |
| 108 | |
| 109 | In the UrbanFantasy setting of Dualite, one thousand and two races |
| 110 | |
| 111 | The first five chapters were all posted at once on the same day. According to Water, this is both a "special" as he considers this one of his largest projects (so much that he shrunk the scope of several of his other works just to keep this as "the big one") and to try to soften any feelings of SlowPacedBeginning. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | * AFatherToHisMen: |
| 114 | ** All of the Big Four leaders are this with their teams, getting legitimately angry should someone even fight back against their mooks and even getting protective when some are in danger. Kat and Enery's first appearances are even them saving a respective lieutenant once Platinum Champion uses her "Around the World Punch" on them. [[spoiler:The showdown with Kat happens in the first place once the other three Big Four gangs take her mooks, and the Elements decide to strike her while she's "alone" ]] |
| 115 | * AchievementsInIgnorance: |
| 116 | ** When banishing Zoap from the Blossom Kingdom, Zelpea infects him with an agent that lets her see through his point of view and stalk his dreams. During one particular dream where Zelpea turns up her power, Zoap manages to successfully knock her own and get rid of the agent. The thing is, Zoap had no idea Zelpea was literally in his head at the time (because outside of the Blossom Kingdom, nobody knew this sort of magic even ''existed''); he just thought he was having a guilt-made dream of Zelpea begging him to come back to her, |
| 117 | * AllDeathsFinal: While this setting allows for regrowing lost limbs and healing cancer, ''death'' is one known thing Biome Arts cannot reverse. The story gives the possibility that resurrection magic is ''possible,'' but nobody has figured out how to do it, not helped by research in to that being legally questionable for several reasons. As far as the story in concerned, dead characters are ''dead,'' and not coming back. NeverFoundTheBody scenarios are not really a thing that happen either (Water generally hates death fakeouts, so he wants to make it clear that if the story seems to be killing someone, it's a permanent death). [[spoiler:The closest exception is Zelpea's One-Winged Angel form, where Water clarified that she actually did die shortly after impaling herself with the Sword of the Center, but the Relic energy somehow kickstarted her brain back to life and made her the world's first "zombie." The how and why of this are unknown, ]] |
| 118 | * AlmightyJanitor: |
| 119 | ** The Elements, while not overwhelmingly powerful, are still stated to be stronger than most Biome Artists in the world, and had gone through every part of the Licensing Exam that tested physical skill flawlessly (except the fight with Atbash, one of the few who outranked them in spades). Once the initial quintet passes and gets their licenses, they're considered lower in ranking compared to people with less powerful skills, partially because they just didn't really take the time to take further tests and get higher licenses for a bulk of the story, and partially because Alexia's essay was ''so'' bad that it pretty much single-handedly brought down the team's reputation, meaning they were out the gate considered less credible than most people who get licenses. In fact, the gang acing most of the Exam just ''barely'' let them pass because Alexia's essay dragged her scores down that much, and if one teammate failed the Licensing Exam, none of the people in that registered team get their licenses. |
| 120 | * ArmorIsUseless: The setting has a form of magic simply called "defense magic," where anyone can simply create a "shield" of magic energy around their bodies that make them durable. This is really easy to use and can let a person withstand things that no real life armor could protect against, such as being thrown through skyscrapers or being crushed by mountains, so it's fairly evident why almost nobody in the setting uses actual armor. This also makes Biome Arts a case of ItTakesOneToKillOne; while there ''are'' some extreme forces that can pierce the "average" levels of defense magic (some are stronger, Iris in particular has strengthened her defense magic use to the point where she can become virtually invincible), generally only the raw power of offensive Biome Arts can cut through it, and Biome Arts in question can cut through "ordinary" matter like a hot knife through butter as a result. This is lampshaded on Platinum Champion's introduction: She wears a full, bulky suit of platinum armor, but it gets shattered to pieces when someone tries to attack her, leaving her skeletal-scrawny self [like [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} Undyne,]] she has a huge frame when armored but turns out to be really thin] out in the open... and completely unharmed from the attack. |
| 121 | * AstralFinale: [[spoiler:After all of the prior story is at least set within Dualite's atmosphere, the finale sees Zelpea launching the Neo Blossom Castle in to space, specifically to obtain the Sword of the Center placed within the core of the sun. The subsequent battle spans the entire star system, although it ends on Dualite itself for Zelpea's One-Winged Angel final showdown.]] |
| 122 | * BaitAndSwitch: |
| 123 | ** The first line in Zoap's introduction scene is a vet flatly saying "Your dog has lung cancer." Just a few lines later, Zoap -- the vet's assistant -- tells the young girl of the dog's family in calm terms what cancer is, and explains that Biome Art-magic is capable of treating/curing it, albeit with some difficulty. It turns what sounds like something tragic and makes it clear that thanks to advancements in magic-science, even cancer is nowhere near as lethal in this world as it is in current RealLife. |
| 124 | ** The first five chapters build up Zoap's [[NotQuiteFlight Glide]] Biome Art-skill as some sort of special power, perhaps exclusive to him, that tends to put him at an advantage when he uses it. Flying around with it (while on a lunch break) is one of the first things he is seen doing, Arime-as-Head-Janitor remarks having trouble hitting him when he uses it, and many characters being in awe when they see it. So, it's built up as a "unique protagonist power." Then comes Chapter 5 when [[WakeUpCallBoss Atbash]] sees it in action. She's mildly impressed, and then she follows it up by taking off in the sky at blinding speed, using ''true'' Flight. Not only does this highlight that Gliding has stronger forms that Zoap cannot use at the moment, it's an early way of clueing the reader in that this is not going to be the sort of story where the main characters are significantly stronger than their peers. |
| 125 | ** When Iris is first talked about in Chapter 2, the conversation mostly talks about how she holds the record of becoming a Biome Artist at the youngest age, passing the Licensing Exam when she was nine. The wording heavily suggests that she's not much older now, and that she's primmed to be the TokenMiniMoe of the Elements. Turns out this isn't the case; while Iris ''passed the Exam'' while she was nine, that was also back several years ago, and she is revealed to be the same age as the majority of the Elements (25 initially) when she appears later in the same chapter. |
| 126 | * BaitAndSwitchCharacterIntro: |
| 127 | ** Alexia is first presented as some kind of wise and mature forest fairy-like figure before she breaks in to a ClusterFBomb when she's called to a work meeting that announces that she's among the layoffs. Turns out that Alexia puts on a guise of the former, but she's really more like the latter, at least at first. |
| 128 | ** Aside from the InMediasRes beginning, Arime's first scene starts by describing a cardboard prop of a pleasant-looking PrincessClassic-looking figure, followed by Arime herself bursting that in to flames. Her punk/biker gang-like appearance is then described, especially having her pull her shades down to do a text version of revealing her black sclera. All of this paints her as a threatening villain. Turns out that the "princess cutout" is of Zelpea, who later in the chapter is revealed to be an asshole at best, and at the end of the chapter a genocidal wannabe conqueror. Out of context, it looks like this is some cruel ObviouslyEvil punk destroying a cute image of a princess; in context, the "punk" is the hero, and her apparent dislike towards the princess is ''fully'' justified. |
| 129 | * BodyHorror: |
| 130 | ** [[spoiler:Dragon's main ability is that she has phenominal cell growth, and can effectively grow any type of cell in her body to any ''other'' type of cell, with brain cells being the one type she struggles with. She, at first, is also not very good at keeping the form perfectly stable or reflecting a "regular" Human being, resulting in her "melting" often and her features stretching and deforming (she ends up controlling this better after she breaks off from Zelpea). In effect, she appears as a shifting flesh monster with eyes and mouths growing out of her willy-nilly, even in her hair. She can also replicate other matter both organic and inorganic, as she effectively makes clothes out of her cells as well -- resulting in her outfits growing eyes and mouths too -- and she can even simulate a whole "fake outdoors setting" that deforms and melts as the fight goes on. Part of why Dragon freaks out Arime so much is because Dragon fooled Arime in to fighting Dragon inside of herself, and throws ]] |
| 131 | * BreatherEpisode: |
| 132 | ** The Quinary Crew chapters are effectively a breather arc. After the rather emotional and heavy arc dealing with Lara finally forgiving Lara/Jasmine's whole bullying culture dissection; and before the Bright Chartreuse Arc that drastically changes the course of the story and sets up the endgame of Part I; this mostly deals with shenanigans involving a copycat team that |
| 133 | * CastHerd, I think I actually got this idea from the trailer of ''Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes''. And yeah said trailer really did put in perspective how fucking huge a hundred is, and how this story is currently planning to ''decuple that'': While the Elements eventually grow in number until there are a thousand and two of them, they are split up in to a multitude of groups. Outside of the designated "main" gang, most of them are in teams that are practically joined at the hip: The teams were already formed before the beginning of the story/before their debut, they partner up with the Element squad of a given mission, and they are defined by traits of a group with a couple distinctions amongst their members. |
| 134 | ** '''The Main Characters''' are an eventual team of twenty-six. Zoap, [...]. These characters can also be further divided based on the order of their introduction/joining, with Zoap, Alexia, Cassandra, Lana, Bethany, and to a degree Frida being the "first" of them (and among ''them'' is the "Roommate Trio" of Cassandra, Bethany, and Lana), then Hilda, Dottie, Gratia, and Elfriede as the "Four Tertiaries;" Lara, Jasmine, and Kristen as the "last Brights," and the Grime Crime and [??? the last Dark Tertiaries] rounding them off; however, once they become established members of the Elements, they cease getting split and are regularly grouped in all sorts of combinations. |
| 135 | ** Many of the characters outside of the Elements are grouped together as well: |
| 136 | *** The '''Big Four''' |
| 137 | * CensoredForComedy: When Bethany and Zoap have an escalating flirt-off in Chapter [4????], Zoap "wins" by going on something ''so'' graphic that his speech is peppered with multiple instances of "'''(bleep)'''" written out in the text. This is the only instance in the story of any text being censored like this, and given what ''is'' said elsewhere (including the parts of Zoap's speech that ''aren't'' "bleeped," which get explicit), it just leads one to wonder exactly what was it he said that even got ''[[LoveableSexManiac Bethany]]'' hot and bothered and left the other Elements who heard it speechless. |
| 138 | * CentralTheme: |
| 139 | ** Know the difference between healthy sex-positivity and a mindless indulgent perverse fantasy; the Elements generally represent the former, Zelpea and her cronies representing the latter. Zelpea is a DeconstructedCharacterArchetype of the "harem overlord"-esque |
| 140 | ** Relationships and people won't be perfect, and that's okay. Tied to the above but more focused on the romantic side rather than the sexual side, the Elements were intentionally written to not be appealing in the traditional, ideal love story scene. |
| 141 | * Like with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, I know CharacterizationMarchesOn is almost impossible to "predict," but I'll give some things a shot: |
| 142 | ** During Neon's introduction scene, Alexia walks over to a dangerous crime-ridden alley with connections to the cannibal black market, and openly tells Neon that she is doing as such so that if he follows her, [[TooDumbToLive he'll only have himself to blame.]] She then uses vines to swing out of the area and just abandons him there, which she warns about in advance if he kept following her. When Neon shows up at the Blossom Kingdom later in the same chapter, Alexia's response is a flat "Okay, so you did escape," implying that she genuinely thought he would have his organs sold and she wouldn't have cared. While being something of a BitchInSheepsClothing is a major character element of Alexia and her CharacterDevelopment is shedding the mean-ness, she ''never'' does anything to ''that'' degree of callousness again, not even to someone like [[AssholeVictim Neon.]] |
| 143 | ** Chapter 1 heavily implied that Zoap and Arime got genuinely flustered around each other, and ''only'' each other. That Zoap is uncharacterisically enthusiastic about purchasing Arime's charity nudes, and the two had awkward talk once they found out that they both like ''Collector''. They IgnoreTheFanservice as usual otherwise. It's a stark contrast with everything else given that one of the purposes of writing this to begin with is to have a "harem series" where the characters are calm and reasonable around nudity (their own and/or being around other naked characters) rather than freaking out. Later on, while they ''do'' find each other attractive, it never reaches the level of "improptu voice cracks and getting sweaty and nervous over spicy pinups," and they generally treat each other on the same level they treat their other lovers. |
| 144 | * ChekhovsGun: |
| 145 | ** In the first chapter, Arime-as-Head-Janitor severs Zoap's arm, which goes flying off in to the distance and lands somewhere in the Castle Town (as the fight takes place high in the air). Zoap goes looking for it for reattaching in-between the Janitors' departure and the meeting Zelpea would hold, but doesn't find it. [[spoiler:It turns out the arm landed by some guards, who were told to seize something like it ("a large amount of his DNA") without question and bring it to the Lab immediatley. Zelpea uses the large amount of cells within to have a stable source of magic/DNA to make a "clone," Dragon. Before Dragon's proper reveal, the arm-severing is used as the main symbol of Zoap and Arime's troubled relationship -- even though Zoap gets a new one regrown later, ]] |
| 146 | * ClassicalElementsEnsemble: The story largely eschews the classical elements by themselves for a much larger and more complex system that includes several "secondary" and BizarroElements, but the classical four pop up on occasion, usually thematically. |
| 147 | ** Zoap's initial four [Not-Nymph] companions, and his team that he takes the Licensing Exam with. Lana and Cassandra directly take the roles of fire and water, respectively. While the "main" earth and wind users are Dottie and Jasmine respectively, introduced later on, [[ShockAndAwe Bethany]] has a strong air motif with her lightning powers and love of flighty, fast combat; and [[GreenThumb Alexia's]] association with the forest and greenery makes her a stand-in for earth at the time. This dynamic is best shown when they need to reach a port and each of them comes up with a different type of vehicle to make; Cassandra suggests a boat (sea/water), Bethany suggests an aircraft (air), Alexia suggests a car (land/earth), and Lana's suggestion is to go underground, which as later revealed is [I know it ''could'' work the other way around too, with under''ground'' being earth-ish and "surface land..." I dunno, like, sunlight or flammable brush or some thing like that (although there's "brush" in the air, under the sea, and underground in this world too) but I want Alexia to be the most "ordinary" of these four, so she'd pick the "boring" ground one] more strongly associated with fire due to the magma lakes and planetary mantle below ground. Zoap himself is a "fifth" in the sense of being a JackOfAllStats, or an ElementNumberFive with his "pure energy" special moves. |
| 148 | ** The Big Four, a competing group of gang leaders, each have a more specific "secondary" element, but they are confirmed to be loosely tied with a classical element. Scraps is earth, he specializes in commanding metal, making huge, hulking mechas and being the biggest and beefiest of the Big Four by a long shot. Kat is water, specifically commanding blood and blood-like liquids in mass amounts and being very fond of the ocean, even having the second half of her main battle being set on a platform in the sea. Enery is fire, with plasma and other energy beams being his main forms of combat, preferring to work at the top of Dualite's mantle, and having extensively studied forms of powering technology. Pearl is air, specializing with ''dust'' as the "subelement," her showdown being set in the sky, |
| 149 | * CrapsaccharineWorld: Dualite at first glance looks like a fairytale-like utopia, a place filled with hundreds of fantastic environments where DarkIsNotEvil and LightIsGood are both in play, magic and science are used together to make ways to improve daily life further, and it is an accepting world currently at peace where beautiful people go about nearly naked most of the time. Except the economy absolutely sucks, job searching for non-Biome Artists (who make up about 99.9% of the population at least) is hellishly difficult and said jobs aren't very secure, starvation is a real danger (though clean water at least is not an issue), there is a giant black market of cannibals that is run through the whole world [[spoiler:and the government of one of the largest and most powerful nations is deeply involved with running it]], many world leaders and high-ranking "heroes" are corrupt, supervillain crime gangs are very close to actually taking over the world, and to say nothing of the abusive genocidal cannibal princess capable of crushing everyone under her heel. And be thankful it's easy to ignore the Overgrowth and the Abyss, two spots of the world filled with dangerous giant monsters. Downplayed as Dualite is still a decent place to ''live'' in, with the benefits outweighing the costs and generally still being portrayed as "better than Earth overall," but the story likes to focus that living there for the underprivileged is still difficult. |
| 150 | * CreepyChild: |
| 151 | ** Alexia ends up babysitting a girl who turns out to be this as a low-ranking mission she is briefly seen doing. The girl turns out to be a big fan of Zelpea ''after'' Zelpea had fully announced to the public that she is genocidal, and said kid's idea of a "fun make believe game" is imagining Zelpea burning the regions to the ground with rather excessive detail of which ones she will target first, and how many families will die. It speaks volumes that even ''Alexia,'' who is generally unphased by the way Zelpea defenders are and doesn't react much to villains besides annoyance, is gaping in horrified shock |
| 152 | ** Neon used to be a creepy teenager from what was seen of him in one flashback to his highschool days. He is shown being called in to the principal's office after trying to bite another student. And he himself is seen shivering in a chair with a big grin on his face, talking about how he likes the taste of blood, with his parents oblivious to this behavior. This is meant to show that despite how creepy Neon is in the present, he apparently used to be ''worse,'' and his "I like young and vulnerable partners" is what he's like after either trying to improve himself or when he's holding back. |
| 153 | * CurbStompBattle: |
| 154 | ** The starting Blossom Kingdom Invasion has Neon trying to "save" Alexia from Naytileek. The moment he approaches [[GravityMaster Naytileek,]] she simply taps him, reverses his gravity, and sends him "falling" upwards as he screams helplessly. Later in the chapter it is revealed that she used a magic spell to basically negate the fall from the gravity flip wearing off from hurting him, making it very clear that she could have killed him very easily if she actually wanted to. The main reason why ''Alexia'' wasn't instantly flipped was because she knows how to use a specific Biome Art that wound counteract with Naytileek's move, as does Zoap. |
| 155 | ** The Janitors/Grime Crime versus "The Elements," well before the latter even gets three of their starting five members. The heroes are outnumbered eleven against two, |
| 156 | * DifficultButAwesome: |
| 157 | ** Biome Arts in general are a subset of magic that requires years of training and advanced knowledge of biology, chemistry, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs and biochemistry]] (and physics for more advanced skills that don't involve plant connections); while nearly anyone could potentially use magic, ''using the Biome Arts'' is considered a different feat altogether. Only a tenth of a percent of the world's population have the most basic-level Biome Artist license |
| 158 | ** Alchemy is considered one of the hardest types of magic/Biome Arts to use, converting matter of some type in to another, ''especially'' living/plant matter. Learning it takes a great degree of practice, knowing chemical makeup structures, and even being able to manipulate magic at the atomical level, something that wasn't even thought to be possible until just about two centuries before the present. There are exactly two known Alchemists in the setting, "Old Man" Hedge and Iris, and both of them are among the most powerful characters in the entire story. Hedge, putting this skill to use, can change wholesale environments from one biome to another, or turn objects in to other things; since Biome Arts largely revolves around needing to be familiar with manipulating a type of matter/energy, this can ''royally'' screw over just about anyone by effectively turning all of their weapons useless unless they can quickly adapt to whatever he changes them in to. Iris does not convert, but she has studied a very extensive list of chemicals and poisons, |
| 159 | * DiscOneFinalBoss: |
| 160 | ** [[spoiler:Kat is built up as a major recurring threat in the early chapters. Even when it's revealed that she is one of four powerful gang/conqueror leaders that are considered in-universe to be about equal in power with each other, she is suggested to be a bigger threat than any of her competition. Then her gang is taken down faster than the other three, and she has her showdown when the first saga is only about 3/4ths of the way done. Meaning that she's not even the final villain of the Yellow Moon Saga -- Mansia is the primary antagonist for the endgame, with Zoap Vs Arime 4 (the fight that the opening of the story previews) being the final actual fight.]] |
| 161 | ** [[spoiler:Mansia, with Eansy functioning as something of a Disc One Dragon. In Zelpea's second chapter where she's the central villain (not counting the first chapter, which frames Arime/Head Janitor as more of the villain), she winds up getting arrested and Mansia attempts to upstage her as the central antagonist. For a while, the story frames this as working, with Mansia being ''much'' more effective as a leader and getting more accomplished than Zelpea had, even breaking her record of gathered Relics. However, during the Metropolis Invasion where this reaches its peak, Eansy is seriously injured and later killed by Zelpea from a plan by the latter to free herself. Mansia dies soon after, and she's not even the final antagonist of that arc -- Arime is. Arime is the one who kills Mansia, after explicitely telling Zoap she won't, and the resulting fight culminates in Zoap and Arime's final battle, and the end of the Yellow Moon Saga. While Mansia is the most effective Blossom Kingdomer in the Yellow Moon Saga and Eansy the most ruthless and dreaded minion, they still ultimately die early on in the grand scheme of things and Zelpea takes the center stage as the true villain after all, with Anis, Dragon, and the surviving Neon being her main group of sidekicks that last for far longer than the deceased duo.]] |
| 162 | * DoubleMeaningTitle: |
| 163 | ** [I actually just came up with this one very recently; for a good long while this chapter was untitled. Hell, 1, 2, and 4 all still use placeholder names I'm thinking of, though Chapter 5 being titled "Pass or Fail" is set in stone:] Chapter 3 is titled "Some Time to Think." It can refer to how the future-Elements end up completing Test 8 of the Licensing Exam, intended to last ten days, on the first day, giving them the extra rest of the days as time to casually hang around and talk to each other, which is how they deepen their bond. (As all tests start at the same time, they cannot simply move on to Test 9 while the other teams are still on the ten day time limit.) It can also refer to Arime's B-plot, [haven't decided]. The meaning that actually gets a TitleDrop is Zoap being asked to join the polycule and then saying that he'd rather go to bed first and come up with an answer in the morning, where he outright says he'd need some time to think. The latter is a pivotal moment as the reason ''why'' his mind was troubled was because Zelpea infected him with a mental agent; during his sleeping, he not only thinks it over and picks the future-Elements over Zelpea, he also unknowingly |
| 164 | * DramaticIrony: |
| 165 | ** The first chapter reveals that Arime is Head Janitor, and by extention the Grime Crime are her Janitor sidekicks, just before the story even says who the Janitors ''are,'' let alone far before the future-Elements know. Zoap ends up highly suspecting Arime by the midpoint of the same chapter, and even with Arime trying to gaslight him |
| 166 | * EarlyBirdCameo: Several Elements are teased before they join the group, or in some cases before they even appear in the present/proper story and ''meet'' the group. |
| 167 | ** Chapter 1 has ten of Arime's eleven companions, with one ([??? unsure, whoever this would be, I haven't thought much of them except Naytileek]) being conspicuously absent. Turns out this absent one is LockedOutOfTheLoop regarding the Grime Crime's alter egoes as the Janitors. Of them, however, only Naytileek is named during this chapter, with the others being named in groups of three in Chapters 2-4, and the "outsider" being introduced in the middle of Chapter 5. |
| 168 | ** Iris is one of the many Biome Artists who volunteers to oversee the Licensing Exam, and is mostly just a passive observer. Chapter 2 places emphasis on her holding the record at having past the test at the youngest age, and hints at her fighting skills when she manages to solo a bunch of thugs in Chapter 3, but she otherwise has a fairly minor role and won't join the Elements until much later. During the Licensing Exam Arc, she barely even speaks with the Elements. |
| 169 | ** Frida and Lara are both first "seen" through a flashback Lana tells late in Chapter 2 about her bullying days; with both of them being among the last people Lana has on her makeup list to atone for, one of her first and her last pre-HeelFaceTurn victims respectively. The flashback shows Lana trying to rope Lara in to a fight over Lana burning Lara's Biome Artist Licensing Exam applications, before [[BullyHunter Frida]] ends up punching her lights out and turns her in. Frida herself would appear two chapters later and would "join the Elements" in Chapter 6 (bunking with them at the end of Chapter 5, but not officially merging with them until near the end of the next chapter), while Lara mostly goes by unseen until much later in the saga. |
| 170 | ** Chapter 5 ends with quick sequences showing five out of six of the "Bright Tertiary" future members of the Elements, [This is the current order that the draft of Chapter 5 shows them in, I might switch them around but I don't want it to be the same order that they'll join the group (currently, that order is planned to be Hilda -> Dottie -> Gratia -> Elfriede -> Jasmine much later, I want it to be different from the order of their ''Run: [=.GIFocalypse=]'' prototypes (which would correspond to Dottie -> Elfriede -> Gratia -> Hilda -> Jasmine))] covering Gratia, Dottie, Hilda, Elfriede, and Jasmine. They all do something that alludes to their character, environment, and powers. Jasmine gets the longest scene of her returning to her home temple just to tell them off and then fly away; appropriately, rather than have a single chapter where the group meets her and she joins with them, she takes the role of a recurring antagonistic figure that spans several chapters. As with the Grime Crime, this tellingly leaves out one member to readers paying attention to the story's recurring twelve-color motif. |
| 171 | * I know EarlyInstallmentWeirdness is almost impossible to predict but I'll still take a crack at this: The first five chapters were all roughly finalized around the same time in quick succession, after a lengthy period [that's still ongoing by the way] where Water worked on the drafts of all five of them at once, before a really solid outline for following chapters was planned. The beginning ends up feeling different from Chapters 6 onwards, and especially after the Four Tertiaries Arc was completed. |
| 172 | ** The introduction and Licensing Exam Arc overall, and to a lesser extent the Four Tertiaries Arc, leaned heavier on drama, taking itself more seriously by then and focusing on the "grittier" aspects of Dualite. It portrayed the world as more of a CrapsaccharineWorld, where the only reason why Zoap went to his abusive former-FalseFriend to work as her bodyguard was because the economy was ''that'' bad, and the cannibal black market is a throwaway joke mostly established just to show how much Alexia hates Neon. Then there is how the Top Ten are treated, detailed below. In following arcs, while it's still emphasized that Dualite is not a utopia, it's portrayal is LighterAndSofter for the most part |
| 173 | ** Platinum Champion's EstablishingCharacterMoment has her ''blatantly'' taking a KillSteal from Alexia and Frida by going up to a pair of villains they clearly defeat in public and simply placing a hand on their shoulder, getting all the credit. This also suggests that the townspeople are either a bunch of idiots for believing that Platinum Champion did all the work, they worship her ''that'' much to not care, or some combination of both. Later appearances of Platinum Champion would tone down the "I can do whatever I want because I'm a celebrity" angle, where Platinum Champion and the others would have to actually put effort in to |
| 174 | ** [??? There currently ''is'' a flashforward in what I've written for the story but I'm still flip-flopping a little about it] The very first scene is a FlashForward to Zoap and Arime's final battle in the Saypant Metropolis, alternated with Alexia's narration of the Core Empire that turns out to be a history lecture to kids on a field trip, before the story goes back to one year in the past and sets up all of the Yellow Moon Saga as one big HowWeGotThere. After the Yellow Moon Saga, the following sagas do not have flashforwards of any sort, and almost all of the story follows a more conventional, chronological narrative. On a related note, the narrative openly tells the reader at the end of the first chapter that Alexia's claim that she and Zoap will save the world turns out to be true and that this is the story of how that happens is the only such time the narrator "spoils" a later moment |
| 175 | ** The Licensing Exam plays out somewhat like a typical chapter -- the previously-established main characters go on a "mission" where they are teamed up with others, and said others will eventually end up joining the group and working with them from then on out -- with one noteworthy exception that it takes multiple chapters instead of everything being wrapped up in one chapter. While the reason why makes sense, given that the back half of the Exam is fairly long and the arc also introduced the Grime Crime in the B-plot, it's still noteworthy in that most other chapters (including the ''first'' one before) would have involved storylines play out and be wrapped up within the span of a single chapter. "Arcs" as in a singular storyline on one "mission" that take multiple chapters are very rare, and usually are major turning points in the story that involve main locations, such as the Metropolis Invasion. While the Licensing Exam technically fits both of those descriptors (it's how the main characters attain the titular occupation and it involves going through four of the largest and most influential Regions of the world, also introducing them to the reader), on paper there isn't really anything in the Licensing Exam that couldn't all be covered in one chapter like a more typical VillainOfTheWeek romp. |
| 176 | ** [[LemonyNarrator The narration was much more snarky and from a neutral POV regardless of who the scene was "centered" on,]] comparable to most of [=NeedsMoreDeepWater=]'s other works, especially ''Roy: Succubus Summoner''. After the Licensing Exam, Water decided one of the ways to help make this stand out from his other stories was by trying out a different narration style, hence one where the narrator comes off sounding closer to the focal character in question, and over time the narrator came across as a third person extention of the character's thoughts (the narration would be more dry and clinical in a Cassandra-centric scene, relaxed and unfocused in a Dottie-centric scene, [[spoiler:using much simpler language and overall sounding more childish in a Dragon-centric scene, etc]]). This was also meant to emphasize the "never have a scene from Zelpea's perspective" rule, making it clear that the reader sees the thoughts of everyone else ''but'' her, and Zelpea is only relayed in third-person. The narration ''does'' have a "neutral" style for scenes that involve large groups of characters, but these are not common, the prose doesn't fit that of the early chapters, and they happen less often as the story goes on. Moments such as the narrator openly saying that Zoap and Alexia would end up saving the world feel like they clash with the overall writing style of the story in retrospect. |
| 177 | * Ah screw it, maybe this can fall under a subversion of EldritchAbomination: Subverted with the Growths, the mysterious creatures that lurk in the Overgrowth. The first impression of them is that they're totally alien and do not fit with the consistent rules set up in the world -- they're mysterious beings that reside in a bizarre, twisted, impossibly huge, red "jungle" that can drain the life energy of "normal" living beings (something that is possible in the setting with standard magic, but Growths can do it with ease), |
| 178 | * EnsembleCast: Downplayed, Zoap is still considered the "main" character and Arime his secondary. These are loose terms, more of an "if the story ''has'' to pick someone out of the main group to be numbers one and two, it's Zoap and Arime, respectively" pair of titles. The intended actual main characters are those two plus the twenty-four bright and dark primary, secondary, and tertiary-Regionals that eventually join the Elements. Even in the beginning, Chapter 1 and the Licensing Exam Arc are really more about Alexia than they are about Zoap, and centered on her POV far more often -- in fact, Alexia is introduced first aside from the InMediasRes opening. |
| 179 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: |
| 180 | ** Alexia is introduced giving students of a class taking a field trip an abridged history lesson regarding the Core Empire. She doesn't sugarcoat them at all, already implying that whoever the Core Empire is, she finds them nothing short of evil. Throughout this, she portrays herself as a calm, wise leader, and the story at first frames her as some sort of natural forest fairy/dryad or something along those lines. Immediately after this, however, she is called in to a meeting. The story cuts to her reacting to being laid off, where she goes on a swear-filled rant and yells at her (now former) boss, also putting herself above her co-workers. |
| 181 | ** Naytileek is introduced sinisterly hanging upside down from the ceiling of the training area Arime is in, watching her phone conversation with Zoap and Alexia. As the conversation goes on, she "sneaks up" on Arime -- except Arime knows she's there, and in a somewhat annoyed tone, tells Zoap that she's listening behind her. Naytileek immediately cheers "''HIIIII!''" and brings up that the Grime Crime will be heading to a place very close to where Zoap lives and works, so they'll have a chance to be together in person for a while. Naytileek establishes herself as a major ShipperOnDeck for Zoap and Arime with |
| 182 | ** Frida is first introduced in a flashback punching out an intimidating, bully Lana's lights out. She comforts Lara |
| 183 | ** A mook of Kat's and a mook of Enery's get in to a fight when they both try to rob a bank at the same time, before the Elements take on both. Just as they're about to be apprehended, however, Platinum Champion swoops in, ties them up with a Biome Arts vine, and then places a hand on one's shoulder, acting like she "tagged" them. ''Immediately,'' everyone witnessing [[KillSteal acts like Platinum Champion did most of the work]] and she ends up getting the fame and glory, while the Elements (Alexia and Frida on that mission) barely get any attention. Later, the two mooks escape her binds and one launches a powerful beam at her, which shatters her bulky suit of armor -- but leaves Platinum Champion herself unharmed. Platinum Champion, effortlessly, gives both of them her Around the World Punch, which ''literally'' sends them flying so hard that they would make a full lap around Dualite[[note]]Or would, but Kat and Enery come by and bail them out of this[[/note]], showing that despite being a GloryHound, she is also legitimately powerful and that she ''did'' earn her spot as the #1 Biome Artist/Warrior for a reason. |
| 184 | * EstablishingSeriesMoment: Alexia's EstablishingCharacterMoment is supposed to also double as this for the entire webnovel, namely by being an early hint that this is ''not'' going to be like a typical harem story. Even if it becomes apparent that her "forest guardian" image is an act, one might expect Alexia's real personality to be more reserved, easily flustered -- anything but her delivering the story's first swear (of many) and blowing the hell up at her now-former boss and coworkers at being laid off. The fact that she's laid off in the first place also paints this in a more "relatable" light than other fantasy works; these aren't RPG archetypes and the fantasy world doesn't run on "video game logic," they're people with jobs and the like, and have to deal with a relatively realistic economy, also setting up that Biome Artistry is an ''occupation.'' |
| 185 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: |
| 186 | ** The Big Four leaders are all nasty crime bosses effectively building up an army of mega-villains so that they could take over the world. Even ''they'' have nothing but scorn towards Zelpea, all of them standing against her bigotry and wanting her out of power just as much as the good guys do. |
| 187 | ** None of the Big Four gangs are willing to harm children (in fact, all of them reject potential recruits on sight if they show willingness to hurt preteens), and they're very hesitant to harm animals even in what would be self-defense. |
| 188 | ** Neon is a stalker creep who is very open about how his ideal partner is more like something of a kidnapping victim of his, [[JerkWithAHeartOfJerk beneath that he's a selfish asshole,]] and he later willingly sides with the Blossom Kingdom, but even he draws lines. This trope is PlayedForLaughs regarding him, as he acts like this standards are some signs of hidden inner goodness within him, when in reality he's just bragging about the bare minimum for basic decency. |
| 189 | *** [[MistakenForPedophile Despite occasionally sounding like otherwise,]] Neon apparently ''won't'' try to sleep with anyone under 18, the planet-wide age of consent on Dualite. It's not clear if it's for his personal morals or just for legal reasons/what he believes is socially acceptable, as he ''really'' likes pushing the boundary by openly saying that he likes potential partners who had just turned 18. Regardless, the fact that Eansy going after teenagers legitimately disturbs him gives this ''some'' merit and that he's not just saying that to cover his own ass. |
| 190 | *** |
| 191 | *** For a more serious example with him, Eansy eventually starts creeping him out when they work together. As it turns out, Eansy has few to no standards when it comes to willingness or age of a person, and had been grooming teenagers in the shadows for years. This reaches the point where when Frida encounters Neon [[spoiler:after Eansy's death, and Frida brags to him how she indirectly lead to Eansy's death by getting her hit by a train and having Zelpea feel that she outlived her usefulness, Neon's response is to sincerely '''thank her.''']] |
| 192 | * EveryoneIsBi: As per the norm of an original fiction by [=NeedsMoreDeepWater=], it is easier to count the monosexual characters. All Elements are bi, the women by account of them dating each other and all being open to Zoap, while Zoap himself has expressed attraction to men on multiple occasions and slept with some outside of the Elements [yes, the Elements do sleep around with others on occasion outside of their gang]. Secondary characters [...] Olivia is one of the few confirmed straight characters, with a RunningGag of her having her own "background harem" consisting of multiple muscular men |
| 193 | * EvilVersusEvil: A recurring theme behind the story is that there are multiple villainous factions that are all at each others' throats, with the closest exceptions being the Metropolis Council and Zelpea's staff ([[spoiler:and even that doesn't last past the first saga]]). All of the Big Four factions are against one-another, |
| 194 | * FantasyCounterpartCulture: The story tries to downplay this by attempting to make the locations be surreal and "original"/have no clear one real world counterpart, but there are some cases where a region takes from a real-world location. Often, the inspiration is based on something geographical -- a holdover from ''Run: [=.GIFocalypse=]'', where in the old ''Prototype'' version, the domains were mostly in real-world locations based on how that area tied with the biome/"element" of the given professor/dean. |
| 195 | ** Bright Green is effectively the setting's equivalent of the United States of America in general. |
| 196 | * FireIceDuo: Lana and Frida, respectively. They were bitter enemies growing up, with the former having bullied the latter and unintentionally turning her in to a jaded, violent, vengeful person that ends up paying her back in their late teen years. Lana comes from the volcanic Bright Red Region and, while she uses other elements (namely by her first appearance starting with electricity and ''water,'' learning those arts from Bethany and Cassandra respectively), her primary element is [[PlayingWithFire fire.]] Frida by contrast comes from the frigid Bright Cyan Region and, while her ''primary'' power is drawing heat away from a source and "freezing" things through a lack of heat (and Frida herself is no stranger to fire powers even before she takes Biome Arts lessons from the Elements), she functionally has "ice powers" and can also manipulate solid -- or liquid, or gas -- [=H2O=] should she want. Their bitter rivalry is patched up in Chapter 4 when Frida functions as Lana's "proctor" in the Custom Individual Test, and comes to an end once Lana offers Frida and her team to bunk with the Elements. [[spoiler:When Lana becomes the first to stick up for Frida being harassed by Eansy, they become even closer friends after that.]] |
| 197 | * FireIsMasculine: Inverted, as part of the story's attempt to intentionally invert or avoid many gendered tropes. (And elemental stereotypes, to a lesser extent.) Red Regions, usually associated with heat, feiry things, and lava/magma, are often very matriarchal, and even other Fire Artists outside of the Red Regions tend to be women. While the usual associations of fire with power, high emotions (usually ''not'' anger though, ), and pride are still present, it's often played out that way through women. |
| 198 | * FirstEpisodeTwist: |
| 199 | ** [Blah blah blah Zelpea being EvilAllAlong; again though, currently what I have written does ''not'' suggest she's "part of the main gang" and already frames her as an antagonist, I'm not sure if I want to go that angle. But even if I do, there's still a twist in that she's even eviller than the beginning suggests her as, where she just seems like a royal {{jerkass}} doing a princess and "knight" version of that "bullying schoolgirl turned love interest to her victim" thing] |
| 200 | ** The Grime Crime are also the Janitors, and Arime is Head Janitor. The first half of the first chapter gradually builds this up, introducing Arime, vaugely alluding to the Janitors a couple times, before describing Arime putting on the Head Janitor costume |
| 201 | * ForegoneConclusion: |
| 202 | ** The very first scene reveals that Zoap, at one point, gets a massive "colorful" army by his side. It doesn't go over the details of anyone except for Alexia, but [...] This also confirms that Alexia will be alive up until this point. He will also confront Arime in the tallest building of a giant city ''and'' he'll start openly badmouthing Zelpea, though the "why" and "how" are left vauge. Respectively, Zoap and Arime were good friends at the beginning of the first chapter, and while his relationship with Zelpea was a lot rockier, he ''at first'' regards her pretty well. So it's pretty evident that something will happen and both of those relationships will go to shit. |
| 203 | ** The first chapter ends with Alexia making a half-hearted promise that she and Zoap would be capable of saving the world once they become Biome Artists, followed by the narrative outright saying that they ''will,'' and this is the story of how they do that. Meaning it's confirmed at the end of Chapter 1 that, unless the narrative is referring to the abstract team and not Zoap and Alexia ''specifically,'' that the two of them will survive to the end and that at some point a world-class threat will show up and their team will fend it off. This is supported by the recaps being narrated by Alexia in-universe, after the events of the main story have concluded ([[spoiler:and done in a way that explicitely describes her "in the future," so this is ''not'' a case of the narrator being dead the whole time]]), so it's known that she will make it to the end and relay the story. |
| 204 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 205 | ** The InMediasRes opening has a few, despite intentionally keeping most details (such as the exact makeup of Zoap's team) vauge: |
| 206 | *** Zoap's group is said to be made of actual people, while Arime is described as having a team of robots with her. At the proper beginning, Arime has her team of ten/eleven ''people'' that are primmed to be set against Zoap's eventual group. This is hinting that Arime's not going to ''have'' those ten people make up her own army. Sure enough, before the opening scene in question, they end up defecting at some point or another and join the Elements instead, while Arime's "army" is really just [[spoiler:Responder making a large amount of robotic bodies for herself]]. |
| 207 | ** If the reader can figure out that the Grime Crime parallel to the "main" twelve Elements (the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Brights) opposite of their hues in the color wheel, they can reverse-engineer this when Grime Crime members with no corresponding Elements are introduced starting in Chapter 3. [...] Even ''Kristen'' can be figured out to some extent by applying the pattern to [the Dark Violet one], despite her not being seen until a good ways in to the story, as the theme is about complimentary hues yet both Arime and the "main" Elements for a long time are missing their Chartreuse member. |
| 208 | ** The "missing Chartreuse member" itself is hinting that the Chartreuse Regions, or at least the Bright one, will hold something special, as the story places heavy emphasis on its color theme and specifically listing the RGB dynamic. The more the rainbow is filled in, the more it becomes apparent that the story is leaving out this one particular yellow-green hue. As it turns out, Bright Chartreuse is not only filled with a team of scientists trying to invent portals and teleportation, but the arc where the group ''finally'' go there and meet the representative future-Element marks a major WhamEpisode [...]. A meta reason for the delay of both the Dark and especially Bright Chartreuse fighters was because they, particularly the latter, carry major {{Story Breaker Power}}s that would have them outclass most of the early threats in the webnovel had they signed on early. |
| 209 | ** Alexia's worries about no longer being a big fish in a small pond hint to the storyline once she and the rest of her group become Biome Artists. They regularly deal with far more powerful |
| 210 | ** In Neon's introduction, Alexia insults him a lot, but the one thing she "takes back" is her saying that she hopes he and Zelpea would get along. The fact that she ''didn't'' take back making fun of his parents having died in a fire in the past yet considered ''that'' crossing the line already sets up how terrible Zelpea is before her introduction. It also hints that Neon and Zelpea actually will team up -- Neon ends up seeking out Zelpea by the end of the chapter and accidentally stumbles in to her lab (or so it seems -- Mansia deliberately led him ), |
| 211 | ** A handful of comments in Chapter 1 when Alexia first moves in with Zoap in attempt to freeload off of him hint that her parents weren't the best. [...] By Chapter 5, when the friends and family of the to-be Elements all show up in preparation for the licensing ceremony and Alexia is the ''only'' one to not have a relative appear at all, it's brought to the forefront. |
| 212 | ** Platinum Champion's, and the Top Ten to a lesser degree, nature is hinted at before her proper debut in Chapter 6: |
| 213 | *** |
| 214 | *** The most blatant is that when Atbash expresses her displeasure with how the to-be Elements have been treating Biome Artistry at the time, she says that she just sees "five Platinum Champions in the making." That they may be ''powerful'' with the Biome Arts, but that doesn't automatically make them ''good hero material,'' as most of them are arrogant and the least-egotistical (Zoap) is still the "enabler" to them. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment As soon as Platinum Champion appears,]] Atbash's comment makes perfect sense. |
| 215 | * GenreDeconstruction: |
| 216 | ** Of romantic comedies as a whole. The Blossom Kingdom's main players all represent some trope or another that carries bad implications[[labelnote:Mild spoilers]]Neon being the DoggedNiceGuy archetype as a legitimate creep, Eansy being a "female sexual harasser" treated seriously, Zelpea is a combination of a FetishizedAbuser and an "edgy" harem story lead that desires a group of slaves, Mansia is a subversion of an obediant and "naive" moeblob who uses that as a mask for a far more sinister personality, and Dragon symbolizes stories that push a fixation on having children (and was very loosely inspired by "breeding"-focused fantasy works in general). Anis is the exception to this, she more or less represents those who try to discredit all criticism of those tropes[[/labelnote]]. The Elements are far from perfect, which is the point of them -- none of them worship another particular member of the group (not the protagonist nor any of their other lovers) [...] Scenes in the Blossom Kingdom focused around the main group play out like a twisted version of a romcom of some sort -- |
| 217 | * GoldenSnitch??? Inverted, in regards to the Licensing Exam the initial five members of the team take (the one that gets the most pagetime). The Licensing Exam scores do not weigh the ten tests evenly; rather, the Written Test almost always has more value since in-universe recent times, and in many tests (including the one the quintet take), it's the first. This also means that the Exams have score calculators that make it clear if a person scores low enough so that passing would be impossible even if they ace later tests, they will be dropped, resulting in many applicants dropping during Exams as they go on test by test instead of everyone sticking around until the final scores are announced. And several Exams take advantage of ''that'' to usually make the later tests more "fun," having free trips to other Regions in areas such as vacation hotspots, |
| 218 | * HandsomeLech: |
| 219 | ** Neon. Tall, fit, clean-shaven, and all-around described as having a movie star-like appearance. Yet he is ''so'' repulsive that he cannot get an actual partner to save his life. [[spoiler:He genuinely gets Mansia to sleep with him when he starts working for the Blossom Kingdom, but Mansia makes it very clear that she's just using him and has zero attraction to him]]. He is a massive creep that repeatedly talks about how his ideal partner is someone barely at the legal age and weak, and his social skills are so bad that his "pickup lines" sound like borderline rape threats. Once in Dualite's Blue Moon, a background character manages to get past this and sees him for who he is underneath his lack of social skills... and then dumps him anyway because his ''actual'' personality is bad too, he turns out to be an entitled {{jerkass}} who [[AllTakeAndNoGive wants his partner to do everything for him yet ask for nothing in return from him.]] |
| 220 | ** Eansy has a conventionally attractive appearance, |
| 221 | * Another shot at HateSink: There is usually one per major story stretch, and usually only one at a time. |
| 222 | ** |
| 223 | ** Of the Blossom Kingdom, Zelpea does not get that much focus during the Yellow Moon Saga, so the reader by then did not have ''so'' much to judge her by nor enough pagetime to really loathe her, [[spoiler:especially as around a quarter in she is arrested/put in to rehab and stays there for the rest of the saga]]. Mansia may be ruthless and have a high vile crime list, but she intelligent and [[FauxAffablyEvil charming]] enough to keep her out of hateable territory. Neon has a good deal of BlackComedy keeping him entertaining, [[spoiler:and Dragon is forced in to villainy and ''far'' too sympathetic to hate]]. And then there's Eansy, the main target of ire for most of the first saga. She's a toxic, manipulative, pushy creep of a FalseFriend to Frida and [probably the "Desert one" of the group, the Bright Gold Regional], an all-around pushy asshole, and she's later revealed to be [[PaedoHunt a teen predator.]] She's a woman sexual harasser who is very much '''not''' played for laughs or fanservice -- in fact, the whole reason why she even exists was because Water ''hated'' that type of character, [[spoiler:and he wanted to kill her off in one of the webnovel's most brutal deaths]]. She's also a DirtyCoward when push comes to shove, running away from fights she knows she won't easily have an advantage in and resorting to bribing and begging when losing a fight. Her displays of strength and skill to the point of being established even prior to joining the Blossom Kingdom and becoming a cyborg are about the only "cool" factors to her character (she gets exactly one impressive fight scene of her taking out a number of Kat's mooks), but even that is offset with her general repulsive behavior. It speaks volumes that even '''Neon''' eventually becomes creeped out by her. |
| 224 | * HatedByAll: |
| 225 | ** Everyone with a passing familiarity with Princess Zelpea Blossom -- which is most people, as she is famous for being the princess of the planet's only remaining monarchy and the holder of a major power source -- completely hates her guts. They are well aware that she's abusive, controlling, and does a poor job at hiding that she's [[FantasticRacism racist]] and [[FemaleMisogynist sexist.]] Zoap at first ''tries'' to defend her by insisting that she isn't as bad as her various opponents make her out to be and to try to examine her side of the story, but even he turns against her from the end of the first chapter. Mansia is planning to backstab her, Anis is just using her controversy to gain popularity, and almost everybody else who works under her is only doing so by force. About the only characters who give her an iota of respect are Neon, a creeper that downplays her actions as [[WrongGenreSavvy he eventually assumes the two are just leads of a goofy romcom where her horrible actions are supposed to be played for laughs;]] and Eansy, because she likes Zelpea's goal of overthrowing all other leadership and turning the world in to one where sexual assault is completely legal. |
| 226 | ** Neon is this even before his full FaceHeelTurn to working with the Blossom Kingdom. He is ''widely'' seen as a creepy asshole who treats personal boundaries like ignorable suggestions and his pickup lines amount to him telling his partners that he likes the thought of them being victims hypothetically unable to fight back against him. Thanks to what he inherited from his parents, he no longer has to work and so he's pretty much free to roam about and do whatever whenever; this also adds "stuck-up rich asshole" to the list of reasons why others hate him. |
| 227 | * HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Justified in that, for the most part, what type of magic someone uses is by ''choice'' rather than a birth-given power, so if someone is proficient in a seemingly "useless" power, it's because they actively picked it out and thus ''knew'' that there was something cool to it. |
| 228 | ** Biome Arts in general stemmed from this. In acient times, GreenThumb powers were mocked for |
| 229 | ** [[LightEmUp Light magic]] was generally thought of as almost useless. It's ''not'' "holy magic" (which, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist in this setting) -- it involves control over literal light. Light/photons are difficult to control, and using Biome Arts with light-based plants basically just boils down to making things glow or shooting low-level light beams, functioning as flashlights. "Flashlights" of which are one of the most basic spells that almost anyone, even ordinary citizens or ''children,'' are capable of doing. However, extensive studies in to it have found ways to utilize this, namely by changing light wavelegnth of something, or altering its color. "Changing color" means effective camoflauge |
| 230 | * HeroicFantasy: ''Biome Artists'' avoids BlackAndWhiteMorality in favor of BlackAndGrayMorality [[TheGoodTheBadAndTheEvil (with various shades of gray, the Elements and their allies being the lightest)]], and there are no confirmed deities nor predetermination, so it's not a HighFantasy. At the same time, its plot winds up dealing with large-scope incidents involving the fate of the world, and fighting against the strongest gangs on the planet -- a little too fantastic for LowFantasy. It's mostly about the characters and their struggles with a world that tries to aim for realism even in its outlandish idea of there being over one thousand races, but through SerialEscalation the action and story become close''r'' to a higher fantasy, without ever quite reaching that point. Zelpea might be irrideemably evil, but she's portrayed as less of a recurring embodiment of darkness, and more along the lines of a realistic entitled asshole in power. |
| 231 | * HomeNudist: Everybody. It is common practice almost worldwide in Dualite to not wear clothes in a home, even in hotel rooms or when staying over at someone else's place, even in relatively "prudish" areas like Bright Green. In the first chapter, when Alexia goes to Zoap's home to stay over while in-between jobs, he greets her nude. Neither bat an eye at this, and she hangs up her pseudo-Biome Artist uniform skirt at a clothing rack before coming in. |
| 232 | * HomosexualReproduction: Technology has allowed for artificial people-making that comes from mixing DNA of two (or, hypothetically, more) people together and growing a baby from that, including with same sex couples, so long as they are of the same race. This sort of artificial creation is so widespread and common by 1010 AE that nobody really bats an eye at it; Bethany and Maria are two characters confirmed to have been born this way, both with same-sex parents, |
| 233 | * HourglassPlot: Typically, mostly before Arime joins the group, her B-plot will parallel the A-plot with Zoap in some sense, |
| 234 | ** Zoap and Arime's team dynamics in general throughout the Yellow Moon Saga. At first, Zoap is companionless [...] Even the formatting of the first and last chapters of the Saga features this. The Yellow Moon Saga starts with Zoap and his team going through a whole "arc" where they are stuck in the Licensing Exam, while Arime has more episodic adventures that effectively serve as a preview of how Zoap and co. will be once they become Biome Artists. Towards the end, it's Arime that's in a serial arc |
| 235 | ** Zoap/Arime and Zelpea undergo this in a broad term over the Yellow Moon Saga, with Zoap being an "average joe" by the setting's standards and Arime initially being a lower-class theif by necessity who fights to be an average-ranking Biome Artist, while Zelpea begins the story as powerful royalty. The Yellow Moon Saga then sees Zelpea's kingdom crumble as her actions force her to leave it with a small army, |
| 236 | * HufflepuffHouse: |
| 237 | ** The "chromatic" Regions are grouped by color and shade of that color, with 768 of them based around different shades of the RGB color spectrum divided evenly. Meaning primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, and quinary colors; fourteen various light/dark values of each, and two "transparent" values (of the bright and "half-way dark" shades). Of these, the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Regions of the Bright and Dark shades get the most focus. Their representatives are the designated "main" Elements (at least until Part III, which has a heavier focus on Regions outside the RGB spectrum), the Primary and Secondary Brights and Darks are the largest and most influential of the Regions (Bright Green is out-and-out ''the'' superpower of the world, while Bright Blue, Red, and Yellow are pretty damn close; all four's [Not-Nymphs] even outnumber Saypants and Humans) |
| 238 | ** The Blossom Kingdom has seven towns, the Castle Town/Capital in the middle, and six villages that are each in a "normal" biome. Of these, only the Castle Town is at all important to the story; the Elements spend little time in the Blossom Kingdom due to being banished from it early on, so they don't go to these different environments |
| 239 | ** The Core Empire Royal Families were made up of five "clans" per each of the two races (Humans and Saypants). Out of these clans, only a handful get focus. The Blossom clan is where the BigBad hails from, the Wintry clan is [...] The Bloodblade clan is noteworthy in that the main character is descended from it, but due to how his family line went, neither he nor his parents have "enough" of the Core Empire genes to use Relics at all, a major mistake Zelpea makes. |
| 240 | * HumansAreTheRealMonsters? Defied. The webnovel tries to make it crystal clear that Humans are neither better nor worse than Saypants or the 1,000 Superbiome races. While the central antagonist is a Human attempting to burn most of the world to the ground and eat the races she will "spare" because she finds them tasty, the majority of Humans with actual names are perfectly decent people who get along just fine with everyone else. TheHero is also a Human, and is one of the nicest characters in the entire story, in contrast with the antagonist. Most of the other villains are [Not-Nymphs], including supporters of the antagonist such as Neon and Eansy, and all of the Big Four leaders. Ultimately despite having a standard story of a human antagonistic faction terrorizing nonhumans, it doesn't frame every nonhuman as wholly innocent |
| 241 | * InMediasRes: [I'm ''still'' not sure about this] The story opens up with a flash-forward to the leadup of Zoap and Arime's final battle in the Metropolis, with the Elements going up the Central Tower elevator. Very little context is given to this, all that is explained is Zoap having a large colorful army, and Arime similarly surrounding herself with robots. All the while, Alexia gives exposition about the Core Empire -- which is "happening in the present" -- after the flashforward ends, it is revealed that Alexia's exposition is a lecture that she is giving school students, [...] While the story teases the flash-forward as being some event at the end of the whole story, it turns out it's just by the end of the first Saga, |
| 242 | * JerkassHasAPoint: |
| 243 | ** Atbash isn't ''normally'' a jerk to others, but she has a special distain to the Elements (at the time the nameless quintet team; they don't name their group until just after passing the Licensing Exam) because she thinks they were unworthy of the title of "Biome Artist" and shouldn't have gone as far as they did in the Exam. The intent of this is, despite her both trolling the five through the test and being blunt about disliking them, she makes sense -- all of them except Zoap have pretty poor track records in general, with Lana being a former physical bully (that ''has'' shown progress in making ammends with her past victims, ), Bethany and Cassandra both having egos the size of the sun, and Alexia generally showing poor cooperation and a habit of wanting to take control of others. Even Zoap is considered an "enabler," |
| 244 | * LogicalWeakness?: |
| 245 | ** Mansia's genetically engineered beings were specifically made to counteract the most common Biome Arts in the home areas she sics them in. |
| 246 | *** [Haven't thought of a name] can easily move through solid material, even and especially earth and metal, "swimming" through them like they're gel. [Basically picture Irridescent from ''VideoGame/Bayonetta3'', just smaller in size.] They're used to counteract the Orange Regions, which generally specialize in using [[DishingOutDirt earth powers]] and really like to hold up stone, metal, crystal etc walls to guard themselves. |
| 247 | *** The Azure range generally specializes in sound-based Biome Arts. For these, she sics Silencers on them, which can not only mute all sound around them, but they also can eliminate ''most'' forms of vibrations, . [They do this "scream" thing similar to the [[VideoGame/HollowKnight Pure Vessel.]] Like, no noise/actively removing noise.] |
| 248 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 249 | ** Mansia is out-universe derived from "brugmansia," a flower also called "angel's trumpets." Given that Mansia is Zelpea's [[DragonWithAnAgenda "adviser,"]] unofficial messanger, |
| 250 | ** Eansy is a corruption of "handsy," which describes her behavior [[spoiler:that leads to her getting kicked out of the Elements and siding with the Blossom Kingdom out of spite]] to a T. |
| 251 | * MostWritersAreHuman?: Downplayed. The main protagonist and antagonist are both Human and Humanity is considered one of two "special" races on account of ''not'' having a "tied" biome (which, in practice, means virtually nothing), but the story tried to otherwise avoid the usual habit of making the most human-looking race the "main" one. Humans are ''not'' the most common of the 1,002 races; their population is the sixth-highest, with Bright Green, Bright Blue, Bright Yellow, Bright Red, and Saypants being higher in number (in that order from highest to lowest). While Humans ''have'' scattered through the world somewhat compared to most of the other races, Human migrants do get less common the further one goes from the Bright Green Region (which also has the Human majority, on account of the ''actual'' "human area" being a shitty place to live in). Almost all of the other races however can be described as just humans with some kind of element/biome theme applied on to them, |
| 252 | * Zoap isn't exactly a MuggleBornOfMages because he ''can'' use magic, although he is the son of two "giants" that isn't one, there's some kind of odd genetic stuff going on about that where usually giantism |
| 253 | * MundaneFantastic: Humans share a planet with 1,001 other races, the "most similar to them" looking somewhat like photonegative humans ["Somewhat" because, like, lighting/shading and stuff isn't changed, I think that would be taking the "inverted color" theme too far and may just look ugly. EDIT: Damn, I apparently don't know what "photonegative" means. I assumed it meant inverting colors on like a computer program because of that one FNAF fangame with a "Photo-negative Mickey" that's a color-invert of Mickey Mouse.] who had established a city nation far bigger than any city in real life. The other one thousand come from a mix of magic-enhanced environments, and are for the most part elemental/environmental races such as "fire people" who live by volcanos and massive lava lakes, "water people" who live in mass complexes formed by lakes, and with some of the less-prominant ones being more out-there and surreal designs. Almost everyone has the capability to use magic, although only the elite who trained and studied for years can use it in any practical way. This is all largely understood and considered "normal" by the setting. In fact, Humans mostly "share" an area with a group of bright green people tied to a "deep forest," living in mass wooded complexes and being integrated so well that a general crowd group of that spot is about a 50-50 mix of Humans and Bright Green [Not-Nymphs]. |
| 254 | * NiceMeanAndInBetween: |
| 255 | ** Zoap's Human friends. |
| 256 | ** The trio that Zoap and Alexia team up with to take the Licensing Exam. Lana is the Nice, a reformed bully and delinquent trying to make up for her past misgivings and being the closest of them to following Zoap's pacifism mindset. Cassandra is the Mean, as despite her general idealistic mindset, she's pretty harsh when it comes to people she thinks could potentially "ruin" a project or do not have what it takes to be in a serious job, and she generally has a dry and confrontational personality. Bethany is the In-between, far more outgoing and nicer than Cassandra, but she's not above throwing a mean quip or two and she can get antagonistic herself. This dynamic already comes to play with how they treat Alexia and Zoap in early chapters, with Cassandra being fast to butt heads with Alexia, Lana trying to mediate the two, and Bethany just ignoring them all and doing her own thing, usually forming an OddFriendship with Zoap. |
| 257 | * NonIndicativeName... or IronicName?: |
| 258 | ** [[spoiler:"Dragon" is more like a humanoid flesh monster shapeshifter. While ''one of'' her forms is ''vaguely'' dragon-esque in that she grows wings and breathes fire within it, she isn't in that form very often, and it's also very centipede-like in nature. This was deliberate out-universe; Zelpea named her after a mythological creature ''expecting'' her to ]] |
| 259 | * NotHyperbole: |
| 260 | ** Platinum Champion's Around the World punch literally sends her target flying on a path where they fly across the planet. Even assuming they don't crash in to something -- which is likely given that floating landmasses pepper Dualite's sky -- they would be floating over the land for hours |
| 261 | * Is it OhMyGods if the religion is monotheistic -- well I mean, technically there are multiple gods in the Krystal thing, one of each planet probably, but still: Characters in the setting will occasionally swear out Krystal's name in vain. "God" or "god" ''is'' said on rarer occasions, but it's explained to mean a general concept of a god, rather than any one singular capital-G "God" (''that's'' where the Krystal substitutions come in). "Void" is consistently used in place of "hell," meaning space. The general ideas of "Heaven above" and "Hell below" are flipped -- in Dualite, ''space'' is generally considered ominous and associated with an afterlife of punishing the bad, while the warm safety of the planet's core is considered the good fate. [[spoiler:Zelpea is the only character in the setting who ''actually'' uses "hell" instead of "void,"]] |
| 262 | * OneLastJob: The story begins like this with Arime, with her gang's alter ego in the Janitors trying to attack the Blossom Kingdom and steal the Relics. This was supposed to be their final and, appropriately, biggest and most dangerous mission; after that, Arime would ''definitely'' retire the "Head Janitor" position (and she heavily tells the rest of the Grime Crime to do the same; [[spoiler:they don't listen to her]]) and spend the rest of her life doing straight hero work as the Biome Artist she was already licensed as for years. This ''almost'' works, except that Zoap blows off her disguising suit and sees half of her face. Because Zoap is very observant, he figures out from this half-face glimpse and comparing what he knew of Arime over the years with the one experience with fighting Head Janitor that they're the same person, although for the longest while he has no way of definitively proving this. (He requests an investigation, only to be told that Arime was ''already'' suspected of being up to ''something,'' but expert detectives turned up nothing since she and her group are phenominal at covering their tracks). For the next months, Arime "gets away with this" with the only punishment being that Zoap tries to pressure her in to behaving suspiciously so that authorities could have more evidence to go by. |
| 263 | * OurGiantsAreBigger? "Giants" are not a race in the same way the Human/Saypant/[Not-Nymphs]/[Whatever the "cell people" would be called] distinctions are; anyone of any of those races (including the [cell people]) can be a giant, though this popping up is pretty rare except for giants descended from others. (And even that's not ''guaranteed,'' as the story's main character demonstrates.) Giants are about 1.5-2 times the size of an average person, [[MundaneFantastic not at all considered unusual (although they are uncommon enough so that no Element is one, unless Zoap is counted),]] and they typically have far larger quantities of magic and strength even when not factoring in their size. The two most noteworthy and recurring giants seen are Zoap's parents, who are also both incredibly muscular, but this is a Bloodblade family thing rather than a giant thing. Henna is another noteworthy giant, one of Kat's mooks |
| 264 | * PersonalityPowers: Justified in that magic in this setting is something actively learned, and barring rare circumstances of people who have "magic-generating" disabilities, anyone can use any type of spell, despite what the general nature of the superbiomes may imply. |
| 265 | ** |
| 266 | ** |
| 267 | ** Zelpea is a manipulative ControlFreak, so it's fitting that she can puppet people and manipulate minds through various means such as dream entry, altering emotions, or brainwashing. She also has the power to directly use Relics without any intermediate machine, and the most noteworthy skill of ''that'' is causing instant death of life that doesn't carry certain DNA. Zelpea fittingly has zero regard for life other than her own and is a boastful supremacist asshole, so being able to easily kill people who do not fall under her extremely narrow view of "superior beings" fits her. |
| 268 | ** Hedge used to be a very close-minded and reserved individual who stuck with tradition, but he had gone on a journey of self-discovery and, while he still prefers his simple traditional ways, he has greatly learned to adapt and respect alternative lifestyles. He's a Biome Alchemist, meaning that he can easily change things from one type of matter to another, even wholesale regions to different environments. |
| 269 | * PowerStereotypeFlip: |
| 270 | ** Alexia specializes with [[GreenThumb wood powers,]] moreso than the others as plant mass is considered a "default" ability of source. She also prides herself in being a "forest guardian" figure, and on the surface acts like an almost motherly guide, but she's actually rude and somewhat controlling. |
| 271 | ** Lana is the "main" [[PlayingWithFire fire user]] of the Elements, and while her excitable nature and occasional {{Hot Blooded}}ness fits the stereotype of that, she's otherwise a calm, rational mediator and an atoner for some of her past wrong-doings. She is, in fact, the ''nice'' one of [[NiceMeanAndInBetween her initial trio with Cassandra (mean) and Bethany (in-between).]] Her past self as a hot-tempered bully fits the bill more closely; the contrast is to show how much she has changed. |
| 272 | ** Frida is the main [[AnIcePerson coldness-user]][[note]]This is considered distinct from "using ice" in that Frida specificially specializes in transferring heat from one location to another, "freezing things" by effectively sucking their heat dry (er, cold). "Ice powers," which ''are'' common to her home of the Bright Cyan Region, are more around manipulating literal solid [=H2O=], and are considered the same thing as water powers since they have the exact same chemical makeup. Functionally, though, she's an ice-user, and does on occasion manipulate ice[[/note]] of the Elements. She is very HotBlooded, vengeful, cocky, and one of the most violent of the gang (which is an achievement). Her EstablishingCharacterMoment in Chapter 4 sees her dramatically spinning around in a chair and pointing a gun at Lana, revealing that a battle with her was Lana's Custom Individual Test in the Licensing Exam. |
| 273 | ** [[MakeSomeNoise Sound Artist]] Hilda is generally very quiet and hesitates showing off any of her music unless she feels she has perfected it. She ''can'' get pretty energetic at times when she feels more confident in her creations, but she's otherwise not much for chatter and less hammy than most of the Elements. |
| 274 | ** Maria specializes in [[HavingABlast explosives.]] While her [[SirSwearsALot foul mouth]] and hot temper ''do'' fit this, she is also analytical, inventive (her debut sees her attacking the Elements on a highly advanced super-tank ''of her creation from scratch''), and [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness very eloquent]] (in a SophisticatedAsHell sort of way). Her using explosives is also a flip of the stereotype associated with the Bright Cerise Region in-universe, which generally focuses more on gentle [[MindOverMatter "pushes and pulls"]] and energy "pulses." Bright Cerise is generally considered one of the more peaceful and passive of the regions. |
| 275 | ** Iris is a PoisonousPerson with even greater-than-average-Biome-Artist SuperSpeed, but her personality fits neither of these things. She's incredibly laid back and calm most of the time, and likes to sleep a bit, constrast to the stereotypical speedster; and she's one of the nicest characters in the setting and an ExtremeDoormat, contast to the stereotypical poison user. |
| 276 | * RagsToRiches: |
| 277 | ** The Elements start out somewhere around the middle to low end of the economy -- Zoap and Alexia ''had'' modest jobs at the start (assistant to a vet and museum aide who uses her magic [[MundaneUtility to add spectacle to her tours/explanations]] respectively), but they both get laid off[[note]]Zoap from manipulations pulled by Mansia, but the economy was genuinely so bad that Alexia getting laid off was just a consequence of that, ''not'' planned by Mansia or anyone else[[/note]], but Lana, Cassandra, and Bethany were struggling a lot more. When they become Biome Artists, a number of circumstances mean that they can afford a large amount of land to build a home... and not much else. The Elements slowly rise in number, reputation, and earn more as a result as the story goes on, |
| 278 | * RedHerring: |
| 279 | ** Unlike a bulk of HaremGenre stories, there are a few "fake members" of the Elements who ''seem'' like they will be mainstays, but are not, as the Elements are by no means above kicking people out who piss them off, nor in turn are the "members" always people who are willing to put up with some of the odder parts of the gang. |
| 280 | * RunningGag: |
| 281 | ** In whatever ways the Elements upgrade their home, they keep talking about making sure that it (and later on, all buildings) have a pretty good amount of bathrooms -- never enough to outnumber the people living there, but still in an unusually high count. The reason ''why'' they are in vehement agreement of this is kept a mystery as part of the gag, with a NoodleIncident being alluded to that one of the initial five (later implied to be Cassandra) witnessed something ''awful'' happen first-hand that resulted from a building that didn't have enough bathrooms, but the ''exact'' details are never divulged onpage. |
| 282 | ** If [[AbhorrentAdmirer Neon]] is involved in a chapter ''at all,'' expect him to say something that makes him sound rapey thanks to his NoSocialSkills, if not paedophillic. Another related joke is that the "traits he looks for in a partner" are things that the Elements as a whole are ''not'' ("vulnerable," "coddle-able," "naive," "innocent," etc), yet for whatever reason he pins after the Elements more than anyone else even though he all-but says that what they're ''actually'' like are not his type. |
| 283 | ** Almost every child the Elements run across that gets named (and even a couple who are unnamed) turns out to be an EnfantTerrible. First Alexia takes a quick babysitting mission for a kid whose idea of playing a game is roleplaying a genocide Zelpea would do, |
| 284 | ** If two or more of the Big Four leaders are in the same room together, or even remotely near each other in the same space, expect one of them to attempt to launch a surprise attack on the other, and ''maybe'' said other trying to return the favor, despite them initially being calm and rational towards one-another. [[spoiler:This dies off in more serious Enemy Mine situations, ]] |
| 285 | ** After Elfriede joins the group, awkward group pauses where all the Elements are left silent at something (usually something stupid that just happened) tend to have Elfriede start sniffing around |
| 286 | ** The Elements almost all being collective [[GiverOfLameNames Givers of Lame Names.]] The initial team of Zoap, Alexia, Cassandra, Lana, and Bethany have ''never'' actually given their specific quintet a team name -- they call their group "The Elements" (after passing the Exam, when most groups have already settled on a team name as they apply), ''but'' it's cleared up soon after that this refers to all of them as a whole, even as they start merging with other teams. Frida, Lana, the Tertiaries, and the Grime Crime are all considered part of this "group" as they get added, meaning it is no longer the five... but they still go nameless in terms of that specific squad out of the overall team. In contrast, the other teams that merge with the Elements still keep their original squad names, and are referred to as that. At most, the Primary/Secondary/Tertiary and Neutral crew are called "The Main Ones" (their official name on their website), which is said to be a placeholder that they don't change. Few if any of the Elements can even apply a name to something else to save their lives, |
| 287 | * SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Chapter 2 introduces Cassandra, Lana, and Bethany, the third-to-fifth members of the Elements team, all of whom become main characters from then on out. It also introduces farther-future Element Iris, future-Elements Lara and Frida [[EarlyBirdCameo through flashback,]] and it elaborates upon and names [three of the Grime Crime] during their B-plot. Many other characters who would become important are introduced here as well, such as "Neon's teammates" and some of the proctors, but this is par for the course of the story as ''many'' chapters introduce [[ChekhovsGunman Chekhov's Gunmen]]. |
| 288 | * SecretTestOfCharacter: |
| 289 | ** The Biome Artist Licensing Exam in general ''openly'' says that its scores are weighed heavily in favor of the Written Test (usually but not always the first, and ''all'' Exams globally for the past several hundred years have included a Written Test), but it does not elaborate ''how.'' Specifically, the modern ones are weighted on the essay -- which is usually a question that tries to get the taker's ethics judged. As Atbash explains in her final custom test, the Global Region Union [Ah I just barely came up with this name. I dunno. But yeah, the regions are generally really interconnected, to the point where in a sense they're basically one huge nation. The Metropolis is close by them, but for several reasons the Blossom Kingdom is way more of its own thing. The typical fantasy "walled kingdom" border around the Blossom Kingdom is even called "''the'' border" because it's the only real national border on the entire planet] are trying to tweak the Exam practices to weed out assholes who get licenses just because they're good with magic and memorized science facts. |
| 290 | ** Atbash's test itself. She ''doesn't'' think the future-Elements are worthy of getting a license, believing that they'll just become five more assholes abusing undeserving power granted to them, but she can't just fail them on the spot. Instead, she gives them a "last chance" in a sense, if they can puzzle out what she wants out of them, she'll (begrudgingly at first, but she warms up to them) give them licenses. The intent was that they work on their social skills by managing to recruit an army of civilians and/or talking with any potential Biome Artists they know/run across to get them to help, eventually overwhelming her in a ZergRush. The Elements never actually do this during the test; instead, they brute force and use a teamwork plan with just the five of them, and she considers their actions pass-worthy in the end. |
| 291 | * SlidingScaleOfGenderInequality: [Hang on, does this count for intentional in-universe worldbuilding? because the examples mostly seem to be about how the characters and their roles in the narrative are written, like, independant of the actual society in-story. Because like, this is trying to be something more than just "Oh, in this a lot of the women are relevant, male characters are just side-roles," like, it's an actual theme here that there's matriarchal societies, because I want a racy poly/harem fantasy to have one that's like actually treating the idea seriously instead of just being some female domination fetish content] The gender equality of Dualite varies based on the exact area, but the world as a whole generally hovers between Levels 4-6. It's ''fairly'' equal on the surface, yet there are several societies that have a gender preference that can be various degrees of obviousness |
| 292 | ** The Blossom Kingdom, despite being ruled by a woman in the present, is exceptionally misogynistic by Dualite standards. Their military is largely male and gets high pay despite there being little to no need for military in the peaceful world setting (at first; things go to shit later, because of Zelpea's fault). The |
| 293 | ** Bright Green has a schism between rather equal towns, generally in the larger forests/deep woods and plains, and heavily matriarchal "more regular forests" that also tend to have a higher Bright Green Regional/Human divide. The Elements live in one of the relatively egalitarian towns, a very deliberate choice on their part; such towns are also where Zoap and Alexia originally worked prior to their layoffs and the events of Chapter 1. So men are more evenly paired with women in various positions of power there. Noteably, Neon (and Alexia) were from exceptionally misandristic towns |
| 294 | ** Problematically, the Biome Artist profession -- which is global aside from the Blossom Kingdom -- is woman-dominated, meaning that even in patriarchal regions/cultures, stepping in to the realm of that sees a shift to being [...] While most people don't bat an eye at Zoap applying and becoming a Biome Artist, it's explicitely pointed out that men ''are'' in the minority in the Licensing Exam, |
| 295 | * SocialCircleFiller: Played with in all cases. |
| 296 | ** Zoap has a trio of Human friends, Dave, Olivia, and Eoflitt, that are introduced in the first chapter and rarely show up on occasion. They don't ''disappear'' once Zoap takes up the mantle of being a Biome Artist -- but Zoap does move away from the town they're in to have a better place for the Elements to opperate from (Zoap sells his house so that his parents could have somewhere to live after Mansia pulls some strings with the Metropolis Council and manages to tank the economy in the area), so he does not talk with them as often. As most of the story's pagetime focuses on the characters while they're on missions or specifically at their homes, there also is not much room to have Zoap's Human friend trio around, and they are simply not interesting enough to carry many stories on account of all three of them only knowing basic magic spells and thus not being fit to fight against the primary antagonists. It's also explained that none of the trio are that likely to pass the Licensing Exam |
| 297 | * StrictlyFormula: Once the initial five become Biome Artists, several VillainOfTheWeek chapters across multiple arcs follow a general formula: There is an A-plot about the Elements going on a mission with one or more Biome Artist teams, and they often divide themselves with a given group (often involving "main" members who [[TheFriendsWhoNeverHang either barely interacted by that point or hadn't directly interacted in a while;]] during the Four Tertiaries Arc this ''always'' included at least the most recent "main" addition), while the rest of the Elements take on lower-ranking missions individually or in pairs or trios. Prior to Arime joining the group, she would be the subject of a B-plot, at first involving her and the Grime Crime going on some mission, [[spoiler:then later her more serial journey after being exposed as Head Janitor and trying to evade the wrath of the Metropolis]]. A ''C-plot'' would involve one or more of the groups either taking smaller missions or just lounging about, and this typically involves the Elements' home town. The A-plot sees the focus Element group getting in some conflict involving their teamup gang, and running in to some sort of villain. Most often, the villain is a mook of one of the Big Four gangs, but independant ones or the very rare Blossom Kingdom antagonist show up. If the villain is tied to the Blossom Kingdom at all, the chapter is considerably darker. Once the A-plot mission is over, at least one of the teamup groups will decide to join the Elements, although this is shaken up by not all of the team joining them for some reason or another despite displaying "haremish traits" up until the end of the mission. (Such as either being monoamorous, disliking a particular Element too much, or something else -- characters are rarely ''rejected'' or kicked out, Eansy was a noteworthy exception.) The Four Tertiaries Arc in particular devoted chapters to the titular tertiary-colored characters, where each one simply joined the Elements on her own without a team (the closest exception was Frida, a Secondary, having two other people, and one of them was the traitorous Eansy), and following that was a portion where they got a good number of interactions with all other prior main characters to help them settle in their role as part of the "core" group. Even the Licensing Exam Arc falls under the general formula, except "the Elements" only consist of Zoap and Alexia, and "the team they partner up with" is made of Lana, Cassandra, and Bethany, who will all go on to become main characters instead of being put in the background. |
| 298 | * ThreePlusTwo: Inverted. In Chapter 1, "The Elements" at the time is just a duo, Zoap and Alexia. For the Licensing Exam, they team up with a trio of roommates -- Bethany, Lana, and Cassandra -- and they become a team of five from then on out. Chapter 2 firmly splits them by Zoap/Alexia and Cassandra/Lana/Bethany, as during this chapter Alexia is wary of all three of them to various extents, but as she warms up to them (and visa versa), they start getting mixed in with each other much more often. |
| 299 | * WaterIsWomanly: Inverted, as with FireIsMasculine and other "gendered elements" (wind is more often associated with men and earth with women for example, when the opposite is more common in general fiction). The Blue Regions are overall the "water ones," [...] They are comparatively patriarchal by Dualite standards, and despite the ImprobablyFemaleCast, the majority of people who use Water Arts as their main form of Biome Arts are men. Cassandra is actually an exception to that. |
| 300 | * WhamEpisode: |
| 301 | ** "Canyon [something]" sees the gang running in to Zelpea for the first time since the first chapter, as well as their first encounter with a Relic since the beginning, |
| 302 | ** "The New Invention" marks the end of the episodic side of the Yellow Moon Saga (episodic adventures won't return until a good way in to the Blue Moon Saga), ''finally'' setting up the very long teased yet delayed Bright Chartreuse Region (the sixth and final Bright Tertiary, with the early chapters putting a lot of emphasis on the other five and making a point in leaving this one out) |
| 303 | * WrongGenreSavvy: |
| 304 | ** Neon is dead convinced that he is in a lighthearted harem-fantasy romcom, or something akin to a harem fanfiction, of the sort where sexual harassment is at worst treated with a slap on the wrist, with him being the self-insert protagonist. He's blissfully unaware that he is in a deconstructive, relatively "realistic" take on the genre, and can't see that his forward "likeable pervert" behavior has made him a social pariah. The only reason why he hasn't been arrested is because Alexia doesn't think it's worth pressing charges against him (as he only bugs her every few months until the start of the story), his bar-creepouts are infrequent and one-time things, and later on he gets the aide of the Blossom Kingdom to bail him out. He thinks the Licensing Exam is going to play out like similar "tests" in battle shonens and involve a tournament where he is dead set to fight Zoap as his rival [[UnknownRival (Zoap does not consider him a rival),]] only to be told that there ''is'' no tournament, and he flunks the first test anyway. Finally, while he ''is'' right about the story being a racy one with a lot of fanservice, he also seems to think that a good deal of it involves the characters being forced in to unwilling situations or made to wear costumes they don't want to wear, when in reality ''Biome Artists'' is written by someone ''sick of that,'' |
| 305 | * Is it XMakesAnythingCool if it's the shape moreso than the letter?: One of the very few things the Growths have in common with each other is that all known "species" of them have at least one "X" shape somewhere on their beings. Out-universe, it was inspired by the "mouths" of [[VideoGame/BugFables Dead Lander Betas]] and because Water just thought it would make them look neater/freakier if they had some loose identifying "mark" but still played fast and loose rules with how that "mark" appeared; and it's a reminder that despite their eldritch and distinct appearances, they still all have some connection to the Overgrowth. |
| 306 | |
| 307 | ---- |
| 308 | |
| 309 | -->''I know I'm not the strongest or the smartest,''\ |
| 310 | ''That was on my mind when I signed up to be a Biome Artist.''\ |
| 311 | \ |
| 312 | ''Wake up every morning making sure nobody's dead.'' |
| 313 | |
| 314 | [That's the ending of the "Biome Artist anthem," this recurring song/set of lyrics that actually started as me envisioning what the opening theme of, like, a Netflix animated adaptation or whatever would sound like. The opening being "Wake up every morning planning life ten steps ahead" but I haven't settled on anything concrete after that.] |
| 315 | |
| 316 | ---- |
| 317 | |
| 318 | House: |
| 319 | * By the beginning, it's a really simple and small shack |
| 320 | * |
| 321 | * |
| 322 | * The way the Elements grow as a gang is that they're definitely '''''NOT''''' "Zoap in the middle and his BattleHarem made of hundreds." They're more like a "team of teams," or a team of polycules. Due to how the early chapters play out when the Elements are first started, they have this habit of working with other Biome Artist teams, and then those teams decide to merge with the Elements group by group and work over with them. There's just a small handful of "individuals" who join -- namely, all six Bright Tertiaries (all but the green two, Jasmine and Kristen, will have a single chapter in the first arc after the Licensing Exam), and usually these individuals are with the "main team." Zoap for example is actually only "''close'' close" to the other main characters, who just so happen to be the Bright and Dark Primaries, Secondaries, and Tertiaries. (Also, Arime.) |
| 323 | |
| 324 | In Dream Game: |
| 325 | * "Level 1" is just the one-story house, just the bedroom, three bathrooms, and "main space" that functions as a living area, kitchen, and office. |
| 326 | * You get "Level 2" at... 20? teammates, two-stories |
| 327 | * "Level 3" at... 50? 60? |
| 328 | * "Level 4" at, say, 200, and that's the big one with the four buildings, |
| 329 | |
| 330 | [[/folder]] |
| 331 | |
| 332 | [[folder:"Ideally" Again]] |
| 333 | |
| 334 | * AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: |
| 335 | ** What ''is'' Naytileek's exact oppinion on Zoap and Arime's relationship, particularly prior to Naytileek's HeelFaceTurn? She seems supportive of the two getting together even though she is already seeing Arime, with the main reason why being so that Arime could finally have a ''Collector'' partner since none of the Grime Crime have interest in playing that game with her. But the main question is whether or not Naytileek sees a positive relationship outside of that, supporting Zoap as being a potential member of the Grime Crime and being let in on even their secret as the Janitors, or if she just sees Zoap as a dorky distraction so that Arime could have someone to channel the more emotional aspects of her relationship to. |
| 336 | ** Nobody is calling Neon an out-and-out ''good guy,'' but exactly how much of his unpleasant behavior is from [[BlueAndOrangeMorality genuinely seeing the world with a bizarre perspective]] and how much of it is entitlement is not left clear. Noteably, a flashback to his high school years heavily implies that he was even worse, where he was called in for biting another student and he is seen with a SlasherSmile talking about how he enjoys the taste of blood. ''Somewhere'' along his life, Neon actually steps towards being a more sociable person -- ''or'' he got better at masking his true behavior. On a related note, he slowly becomes worse after spending time with Eansy, and [[VillainousBreakdown he pretty much reverts to "his high school self" during his final battle with Alexia and company;]] is this just his facade falling as his working with the Blossom Kingdom boosted his ego and gave him more confidence to "be himself," or is legitimately being driven mad over the slow discovery that his life is not a harmless romcom? Finally, he seems to have some modicum of care for Alexia, genuinely trying to save her in the first chapter (and help out ''Zoap,'' who he at the time considered a romantic rival), at least at first; whether it's purely out of possessiveness or he has his own twisted way of caring for her is another unknown. |
| 337 | * Bad Person: Of all the foes the Elements face, these three who serve the Blossom Kingdom are by far the worst: |
| 338 | ** [[TheWrongfulHeirToTheThrone Carol Smithson,]] after discovering her Core Empire bloodline, takes the throne of the Human Kingdom as the merciless rechristened [[VillainousPrincess Princess Zelpea Blossom.]] Locking her parents in her dungeon to be tortured so that she could take the throne under a cover story, Zelpea gathers the Relics so that she could become a force strong enough to make the world submit to her will, [[FinalSolution planning to annihilate most of the Regions upon collecting all one hundred.]] During her formal rule, Zelpea becomes a tyrant who locks up citizens in her dungeon to be tortured for the slightest offenses in secret. When her plan is derailed by Arime stealing all but one of the Relics, Zelpea sets out on a hunt with an army to attempt to get the Relics by any means necessary, killing thousands of innocent civilians who stand in her way. At the apex of her plan, Zelpea uses the power of the Relics and the Sword of the Center to incinerate the Bright Green Capital, killing millions who had not evacuated in time, and planned to do the same with most of Dualite to transform it in to her world of slavery and cannibalism where she reigns with an immortal iron fist. A horrible abuser of [[DomesticAbuse both her childhood "friend" Zoap Bloodblade]] and [[AbusiveParents her artificially-created "daughter" figure Dragon,]] Zelpea has a higher kill count than any other named character combined and becomes the one figure reviled and feared by everyone. |
| 339 | ** [[EvilChancellor Mansia [surname] ]] is Zelpea's adviser, personal planner, and DragonWithAnAgenda underneath her [[BitchInSheepsClothing seemingly upbeat and cheerful demeanor.]] A FalseFriend to Zoap Bloodblade, Mansia assists Zelpea in manipulating him to try to serve the Blossom Kingdom, all while secretly working on lab projects to provide Zelpea means of world domination. Painfully turning test subjects in to cyborg soldiers and genetically engineering monsters that would counteract certain Biome Arts, Mansia unleashes her creations to run amuck in the Regions and cause untold thousands of deaths. After backstabbing Zelpea and getting her arrested, Mansia plays the role of a benevolent leader while planning to take over the Saypant Metropolis and use it as her newfound base of operations. Once she feels she haas enough to begin invading the Metropolis, Mansia unleashes a cybernetic army of killers and rapists to the city without a care in the world, claiming a staff harnessing the power of the Relics so that she could take over all of Dualite and instantly fry anybody who stands against her. |
| 340 | ** [[RivalTurnedEvil Eansy [surname] ]] was a former friend and teammate of Frida's who had managed to get away with secretly preying on teenagers online, before getting kicked out of the Elements for her unapologetic sexual harassment. ["Why wasn't she kicked out for the preying on teenagers" because the Elements didn't know about this at the time, in case the wording wasn't very clear.] After refusing to apologize and attacking the Elements unprovoked, Eansy escapes the fight and willingly throws her hat in the ring with Zelpea out of spite. Eansy volunteers to have Mansia turn her in to a cyborg to enhance her combat abilities, making her in to one of the most ruthless soldiers in the entire Kingdom. As Mansia's plans come to fruition, Eansy decides to roam in the Metropolis in celebration of the takeover, killing whoever she can and taking people as young as teenagers as her personal grope-trophies. Hijacking a train full of innocent civilians and turning it in to a makeshift missile aimed at a heavily populated city, Eansy openly declares that her only goal is to help the Blossom Kingdom turn Dualite in to a world where she can molest whoever she wants with no consequences. Once confronting Frida, one of her many former victims, [[{{Sadist}} Eansy]] boasts about tormenting her while attempting to kill her teammates and lovers before her eyes. As soon as Frida gains the upper hand in their final battle, [[DirtyCoward Eansy attempts to weasel out of the situation]] by bribing Frida with power and "loaned" people she could sexually assault. |
| 341 | * CatharsisFactor: ''Biome Artists'' stresses that it is not a pure wish fulfillment fantasy, nor especailly a revenge one, and typically has characters acting in brash anger carry consequences rather than rewaring. (Water dislikes it when a RoaringRampageOfRevenge is portrayed as a positive/badass moment.) There are exceptions: |
| 342 | ** While most of the Top Ten are glory-hogging assholes, Platinum Champion is by far the worst of them, with her EstablishingCharacterMoment being her [[KillSteal taking the credit]] for Alexia and Frida stopping a minion of Kat's and a minion of Enery's [Fun fact, Platinum Champion is inspired by what little I had seen of Number One from a stream of ''VideoGame/BornOfBread'' so far. Not sure if she can be considered an {{expy}} of her.] |
| 343 | ** Frida smashing Eansy along the Supertrain's engine room, throwing her out the front window, and letting her get grinded against the tracks. It may be one of the most violent moments of the story, but after several chapters of Eansy managing to get away with uncomfortable advances, grooming teenagers online, and beating the snot out of the Elements when they fight; Frida (who, mind, was also a frequent target of Eansy's groping) delivering the beatdown is ''immensely'' satisfying. Even if Frida's recklessness and not checking if Eansy survived or not ends up biting her back in the ass when [[spoiler:Zelpea possesses Eansy and uses her to free herself from rehab]]. |
| 344 | --->'''Frida:''' How do ''YOU'' like it when someone touches ''YOU'' in a way you hate?! Huh?! How do ''YOU'' |
| 345 | * CrossesTheLineTwice: |
| 346 | ** The main reason why [[AbhorrentAdmirer Neon's]] creepy behavior is (at first) played for laughs while Eansy's is not is because, in addition to Neon only ''saying'' creepy things rather than ''acting'' on them (again, at first), he is ''so'' blunt about his stalking and almost comes off as deliberately trying to be as revealing as possible that [[TooDumbToLive he practically confesses to people then and there.]] It's telling that one of his earlier scenes is complimenting a stranger in a bar for looking "worried" because he likes his partners "young and vulnerable," which scares off the entire table. |
| 347 | ** One of the D-rank missions Alexia is seen doing over a brief montage is babysitting a kid whose idea of a game is called "Zelpea Kills People." It's one thing that this girl is fascinated by the BigBad's racist attitude and makes a game out of it where ''she'' takes on the role of Zelpea. The story then throws away any sublety by having her scenario specifically be Zelpea burning the ''Black'' Region to the ground, followed by her saying a line that wound be horrendous in and out of context, and is also verbatim taken from ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog''. The immediate next scene, after a JawDrop from the Element, is Alexia complaining to her parents |
| 348 | * JustHereForGodzilla: Water's stance is that the main "focus" of the story is on the Elements themselves; the Main 26[[note]][[/note]] having long, fleshed out arcs and dynamics, and everyone else having the gimmick of being a team of over 900 that, even if many come off as repetitive with one-another and they're comparatively flatter, they still have ''something'' to them that makes them stand out. This is in contrast to its fanfic predecessor ''Zenith Nymph'', which was mainly about its main trio while the Nymph Variants (the prototypes to the 1,000 Superbiome Elements) were mainly background fodder limited to AllThereInTheManual. Despite that, other reasons to read it |
| 349 | ** Reading just for Zelpea. She is actually in less than 10% of the chapters, and even counting chapters focusing on a Blossom Kingdom mook (such as Neon, Eansy, or the arc near the end of Part I with Mansia) as the VillainOfTheWeek there isn't that much of her, but she stands out for her VileVillainSaccharineShow status |
| 350 | * MoralEventHorizon: |
| 351 | ** The intent with Zelpea was that her possessing a whole field of farmer civilians who had done nothing wrong and try to force them to mutilate and kill each other and/or themselves to try to scare Zoap in to working for her again was supposed to be the moment where she ceases to be "a {{jerkass}} leader that may or may not have a valid FreudianExcuse and might have a HiddenHeartOfGold depending on if you follow [[AllLovingHero Zoap's]] word" and instead is cemented as "a genuinely vile sack of shit." Everything she does prior doesn't come off as that much worse than typical romcom "angry girlfriend" shenanigans or has what seems like a FreudianExcuse, of the sort of character that would undergo some kind of redemption. This act of pointless cruelty cements that Zelpea really does have no positive qualities and is not looking to better herself. It's also seen as this in-universe; in the first chapter, Zoap himself went from trying to reason with her to taking an "If she really wants to change, she'll apologize to me" stance that gets firmer as the first chapters go on. But the possession incident is what makes him realize that Zelpea really will live up to her statement that she never apologizes. |
| 352 | |
| 353 | ---- |
| 354 | |
| 355 | Dream video game adaptation thing (again detailed under Characters/ Sandbox) |
| 356 | -->Bruh if you're gonna criticize creepy/problematic stuff out of "sexy games" ''Biome Artists'' should be, like, near the bottom of that list. Not to say that it's above criticism at all (there is a ''lot'' of genuine discussion to be had, the whole Arime-beef-with-the-Metro-Council/Zelpea being kinda tone deaf and poorly-researched in terms of economic and political structures, [...] even though the "main" Elements are pretty rounded and three-dimensional there's still hundreds of rather one-note roster fodder characters that you do end up gathering like Pokemon, moreso in the ''Zenith Nymph'' "prototypes"), but like, it's not something that's very easy to pick apart in good faith. '''Out of games with a big theme of fanservice and sexy content''' it's one of the most progressive and un-creepy ones I've seen. Note the emphasis -- of course there's tons that are leagues better, but they avoid fanservice entirely, or if they do, it's something a lot tamer.\ |
| 357 | \ |
| 358 | But like, BA is so far away from creepy tropes and stuff for the most part. |
| 359 | |
| 360 | -->I think it's hilarious that the only "full" shirts in the game the Elements have the option to wear (and canonically, it's because it's what they ''want'' to wear) have swear words on them or are transparent so no matter what you can't make the Elements 100% "family friendly" design-wise. |
| 361 | |
| 362 | ---- |
| 363 | |
| 364 | * Unsure if this would be {{irony}}, IronicDeath, or whatever: The "Main Blossom Kingdomers," except [[TokenGoodTeammate Dragon,]] all suffer karmic/ironic deaths that run opposite to their goals and desires: |
| 365 | ** Mansia put on a guise of being nice and gentle (unlike Zelpea's more openly assholeish behavior), her thing involves manipulation through contact with the Saypant Metropolis (and she is indirectly responsible for a lot of the Metropolis being bled dry), and her role by the beginning was trying to pacify Zoap (and Alexia to an extent) to try to get him to put up with Zelpea for longer; she also betrays Zelpea by getting her arrested and taking over her plan to get the Relics to rule the planet. Mansia is killed by Arime -- who was one of the ''many'' people screwed over by the corruption behind the Metropolis, although this started well before Mansia had any power -- [...] Also, Mansia being a clever strategist ultimately doesn't save her, as since Eansy survives the train attack and doesn't die until the whole Mansia incident, technically Mansia is the first of the five characters to die despite seeing herself as the "true puppetmaster." |
| 366 | ** The irony behind Eansy's fate is practically spelled out: She's a predator, and meets her end by the hands of Frida, one of the most frequent former victims of her sexual harassment. Eansy likes groping people, Frida ''deliberately'' "grabs" her by the jaw, but to slam her around, before throwing her out. She then spends her final moments being puppeted by Zelpea -- the sexual assaulter meets her end with no control over her own body. |
| 367 | ** Neon is a clingy stalker creep who desires someone weaker than him that he can assert himself over, and mistakenly thinks/wishes (it's not made 100% clear which one it is) the [[BadassArmy Elements]] to be easily embarrassed damsels in distress. [[WrongGenreSavvy He also thinks of himself as the protagonist of a loose screwball romcom where sexual assault happens on the regular played for laughs and that he's going to eventually win over Alexia by repeatedly advancing on her.]] He meets his end when his cyborg parts are stuck to a sinking ship, |
| 368 | ** Anis has her followers turn against her the moment Zelpea dismisses them |
| 369 | ** Zelpea has heapings of them. |
| 370 | |
| 371 | [[/folder]] |
| 372 | |
| 373 | [[folder:Not Ideally (Though I Would Consider Fandom Infighting an Achievement Because it Would Mean Getting a Fandom Big Enough for That to Happen)]] |
| 374 | |
| 375 | * ArcFatigue: |
| 376 | ** The big myth stall is the plot of defeating Zelpea. Zelpea is set up as the primary antagonist since the first chapter, but she rarely appears at all in the story after that. When she ''does,'' the group usually only advances in taking her down in small incriments. What's worse is that the pacing on taking down Zelpea actively ''slows down'' as the story goes on, with "the Zelpea chapters" originally both being closer together and having more significant developments (her losing the Kingdom, ) |
| 377 | ** Arime's HeelFaceTurn and joining the Elements. She is introduced in the first chapter as a friend of Zoap's, before the same chapter has TheReveal that she masks as a |
| 378 | * Break Base: |
| 379 | ** The Blossom Kingdom storyline versus the relatively SliceOfLife, MonsterOfTheWeek |
| 380 | * FanPreferredCutContent: |
| 381 | ** When Water posted a concept of ''Depict Quest'', a heavily planned out potential "spinoff"/alternate universe game that the Lawson family were originally created to be in, several said they preferred that over the dating |
| 382 | * MisaimedFandom: |
| 383 | * SeasonalRot: Part III/The Sun Saga [Dualite Saga, seeing as now I'm thinking of changing the endgame to involve the actual sun?] is thought to be the weakest part of the story. With [[spoiler:three of the Big Four effectively being "defeated and powerless" with Pearl having the grand reign over a good chunk of the world]], the shift in focus to areas of the world that were previously barely seen, and the Blossom Kingdom/Zelpea army being the most OutOfFocus out of any of the sagas; it's thought of to almost feel like a completely different story, and not in a good way. Most of it feels like {{filler}} despite the plot still progressing in some front and still following up with the gimmick of having more people join the Elements. While the ''settings'' of the "Nonchromatic Regions" came off as different and even more exotic than the ones in the story's standard biome rainbows, this ended up feeling like a point ''against'' the storyline -- it added to the disconnect between it and the rest of the story and it felt harder to relate to the characters with the bizarre areas they were temporarily living in for a bulk of the entire Saga. Major lore reveals, such as the Overgrowth, felt disappointing. Even tone and ArcFatigue aside, the plotlines are not considered as interesting as those in the Yellow Moon or Blue Moon Sagas. Part IV/The Dualite Saga is regarded to be a step up ''especially'' in regards to , but whether or not it's good enough to be a nice sendoff overall is a point of contention. Tellingly, the video game just about reworks this entirely, with the Overgrowth story being moved to a postgame-only quest, and the Recruitment Quests here playing out moreso like a chapter in the first two sagas as opposed to the altered formula of this one. |
| 384 | * SlowPacedBeginning: While the first chapter has a lot of story advancements and directly involves both the main antagonist and the rival, it is also very ''long,'' having a lot of buildup of a peek of "typical" life for Zoap and Alexia before either one of them even steps foot in the Blossom Kingdom. Once that chapter is over, Zelpea almost disappears and Mansia completely disappears, while the story spends four chapters with the Elements-to-be doing the Licensing Exam, a comparatively slow and uneventful arc considering what happens later. Chapters 3-5 also have the honor of being some of the few chapters in the entire story where nobody new "joins Zoap's team" (instead, what "takes the place" is introducing Arime's teammates, revealing their names three at a time along with Chapter 2), making it feel slow on the front of anyone reading it for the gimmick of the massive BattleHarem. Once the quintet pass the Licensing Exam, buy their land, and build their home, then the story really begins with Chapter 6 introducing the mission format that becomes common through most of the rest of the webnovel. The story is aware of this in that Chapter 5 paints itself as the "real beginning" -- unlike most of Water's stories, the title is not written in bold and centered at the start of each chapter until after they get their licenses (where, for Chapter 5, it's written at that point instead of the top), and it becomes written up top from then on out. |
| 385 | |
| 386 | [[/folder]] |
| 387 | |
| 388 | "What I'm doing" for each chapter. I have loose skeletons of all of the five-part premiere done: |
| 389 | # I just finished this thing with Arime meeting Alexia in-person for the first time in Zoap's home. I'm at a scene in Zoap's about-to-be-former workplace where everyone at his job is huddled around the news regarding new bills being passed that would fuck their jobs over; Zoap would freak out because he knows his parents would be affected too, and this is what leads to him taking up a job at the Blossom Kingdom, to his regret. This scene is also probably the last one with Dr. Felie, the person Zoap was the assistant to, in it for a while. |
| 390 | # Lana explaining her backstory of her bullying days on it. I'm wrapping it up, Frida punched her out. |
| 391 | # I just finished looking over/editting the part where the proctor goes over Test 8 to the gang. I'll be editting the original version of the test starting. The test itself may be shorted drastically, to both make room for the Grime Crime B-plot and to help the joke that the to-be Elements finish the test super early land better. |
| 392 | # I finished writing up a new scene of them making it to the university area that the Custom Individual Test would take place. So for context, no, this is not some school setting thing. The test itself is using a university center while classes aren't in session, borrowing their rooms and equipment to hold the individual tests. I just rewrote a bit, originally Zoap and Bethany would have their custom tests in the same building unlike every other pair of the quintet, but I changed that to Zoap and Cassandra since they were leaning on being TheFriendsWhoNeverHang out of the five and I wanted to give them at least one more conversation/scene together. |
| 393 | # I'm adding a bit where the group meets with their parents and friends at the very beginning, even though this chapter's "skeleton" is pretty close to done. (I'm especially fond of how I wrote the part of them taking the test Atbash offers and then the start of the test.) 1/4 of these are done; Bethany's group, and I'm moving on to Lana's loved ones greeting her. It's out of four because nobody from Alexia's past shows up. Her parents were shit (they ''wanted'' to go to taunt her but Alexia explicitely suggested to the Comittee to not invite them maybe) and she didn't have a lot of friends. |
| 394 | # Chapters 6 onwards I decided to not write at all, beyond working on a file that loosely outlines the story as a whole, until I'm "pretty close" to being done with the first five chapters, although I haven't set a guide for that. I don't want to risk distracting myself with future content and just slacking on the beginning. Maybe when I'm on my ''final'' final lookover, having all the major scenes written out and in order, no more drastic scene rewrites or definitely not adding new stuff. And I wanna throw on a Grime Crime B-plot in Chapters 2, 3, and 4; I hadn't started on any of those, so there's still a long way. |
| 395 | |
| 396 | I'd say the chapter closest to completion is probably 5, ironically. 2-4 I'll likely give Grime Crime B-plots to and I haven't even decided on those, and 1 is a jumbled mess of various ideas. (I might actually have the Janitor attack be pretty brief all things considered, I think originally it was meant to make up like roughly half the chapter and have this big battle go on, but all this introduction and buildup leading to Zoap and Alexia working for the BK is making this quite long as-is.) |
| 397 | |
| 398 | ---- |
| 399 | |
| 400 | [[folder: Fazbear Frights testing]] |
| 401 | |
| 402 | Recap/FazbearFrightsIntoThePit |
| 403 | |
| 404 | [[/folder]] |
| 405 | ->''"I'm homicidal, and I've got a taste.\ |
| 406 | I want to wipe out the Monster race.\ |
| 407 | I've got to patience, I've got to resolve.\ |
| 408 | I will slaughter, screw the dialogue."'' |
| 409 | -->-- '''Frisk''', ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MobkO51msMI ♪ UNDERTALE THE MUSICAL - Animation Song Parody]]" |
| 410 | [[https://www.youtube.com/@lhugueny Logan Malloryianan Hugueny-Clark]], better known as LHUGUENY (also known as Movie Musicals), is a [[Website/YouTube YouTube]] animator who does [[SongParody musical parodies]] of various video games and films. He started in 2011 with "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clPcFp14I_M ♪ TITANIC THE MUSICAL - Animation Parody]]", a parody of the 1997 film ''{{Film/Titanic|1997}}''. |
| 411 | ---- |
| 412 | !! ♪ TROPES THE MUSICAL - Animation Song Parody |
| 413 | [[AC:In general]] |
| 414 | * AutoTune: Most of the voices are Auto-Tuned. |
| 415 | * Parody: Nearly every video is a parody of a film or video game. |
| 416 | * SoBadItsGood: Despite the terrible animation and overly Auto-Tuned voices, the videos have a bit of a cult following (especially "♪ UNDERTALE THE MUSICAL - Animation Song Parody"). |
| 417 | * SongParody: Self explanatory. |
| 418 | [[AC:Movie/Video Game Musicals]] |
| 419 | [[/folder]] |
| 420 | [[folder:"♪ TITANIC THE MUSICAL - Animation Parody"]] |
| 421 | * Parody: {{Film/Titanic|1997}} (1997) |
| 422 | [[/folder]] |
| 423 | [[AC:Other videos]] |
| 424 | |
| 425 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: When Chiori made an EarlyBirdCameo in the ''Roses and Muskets'' event, she was first seen sharing intelligence in SpySpeak. This is an odd introduction for a fashion designer, [[spoiler: [[{{Foreshadowing}} but is absolutely perfect for a former member of the Shuumatsuban.]]]] |
| 426 | |
| 427 | LetsPlay/Vinewrestle |
| 428 | |
| 429 | ''LiveAction/BreakingBad'' |
| 430 | ''Series/BreakingBad'' |
| 431 | Series/BreakingBad |
| 432 | |
| 433 | ---- |
| 434 | [[quoteright:578:[[WesternAnimation/YogiBear https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yogisneaky.png]]]] |
| 435 | [[caption-width-right:578:He's not only smarter, but sneakier than the average bear.]] |
| 436 | When becoming a cat burglar, you have to earn rules before you become one. Some include, come out of the dark because that is when people don’t really come outside, wear black cloth to camouflage through the dark, and don’t make any sounds, which is the exact reason walking on tip toes were created. |
| 437 | |
| 438 | This trope is where a character [[Main/ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin tries to move quietly and sneakily by walking on the tip of their toes,]] often accompanied by exaggerated gestures and expressions. This is usually done for comedic effect, as the character is either oblivious to the noise they are making or overestimates their [[Main/StealthExpert stealth skills.]] Sometimes, the character may be caught by someone [[Main/BeingWatched who was watching them all along,]] or they may [[Main/AgonyOfTheFeet accidentally step on something that makes a loud sound and alerts everyone.]] |
| 439 | |
| 440 | Sneaky tip toes are a common way of moving around when someone wants to be stealthy or playful. They involve lifting the heels off the ground and balancing on the toes of the feet, making as little noise as possible. Sometimes, sneaky tip toes are used to sneak up on someone and surprise them, or to avoid being detected by someone who might be angry or annoyed. Other times, sneaky tip toes are used to reach something that is too high or far away, or to pretend to be a dancer or a spy. Sneaky tip toes can be fun and exciting, but they can also backfire if the person is not careful enough. |
| 441 | |
| 442 | Tip toes aren’t always used for sneakiness though. They are also used for ballet, which is a common dance for ballet dancers. You can find the trope [[Main/StraightToThePointe here.]] |
| 443 | |
| 444 | This trope is commonly associated with Main/ClassyCatBurglar. Sometimes can be used with Main/TheSneakyGuy. |
| 445 | !!Examples: |
| 446 | [[folder: Films-Animated]] |
| 447 | * [[WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon2010 How to Train Your Dragon]]: Hiccup uses this trope to approach a wounded dragon in the forest. He is curious by the creature, but he also fears its reaction. |
| 448 | [[/folder]] |
| 449 | [[folder: Films – Live-Action]] |
| 450 | * Film/TheReturnOfThePinkPanther: Inspector Clouseau tip toes to a hotel room where he thinks the Pink Panther diamond is hiding, but he accidentally causes a big mess. |
| 451 | [[/folder]] |
| 452 | [[folder: Video Games]] |
| 453 | * [[VideoGame/TombRaiderI Tomb Raider]]: There is a trophy called “On Tiptoes” that you can earn if you don’t alert ay enemies. |
| 454 | * VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild: There is a mechanic called “Stealth” that allows the player to tip toe and reduce the noise they make. |
| 455 | [[/folder]] |
| 456 | [[folder: Western Animation]] |
| 457 | * Used pretty much in WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes. An example includes Sylvester sneaking up to eat Tweety. |
| 458 | * Bart Simpson occasionaly uses this trope when being a sneaky little brat in WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons. |
| 459 | * Used in sneaky scenes in WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants. |
| 460 | * Used in the WesternAnimation/YogiBear cartoons when the eponymous character sneaks for picnic baskets. |
| 461 | [[/folder]] |
| 462 | |
| 463 | ---- |
| 464 | |
| 465 | [[DancingBear Nothing/Nonexistent,]] may bring back the folder thing of the "series" and merge/update info: |
| 466 | * ''Above Paradise'' is otherwise seen as just an average survival sandbox game with some dating elements aside from the fact that it has a whopping ''2,000'' potential love interests/party members to find and date, all of them manually created (not made randomly or by AI) using the character creation tool as a template, and all having at least their own short dialogue blurbs. Double the amount of love interests as the ''Biome Artists'' video game mentioned above that was released years later. This also tends to overshadow most other things about the game, including the intended main twist that it leans more on surreal/existential horror than it initially presents itself as. |
| 467 | |
| 468 | [[folder:Related to ^ (Fake YMMV Page or Something)]] |
| 469 | |
| 470 | Can't decide on "full-fledged kingdom" or "survival on island that may or may not be Edenlike/mixed in with an EldritchLocation." Leaning former for this for now; the previous iteration would have been latter. |
| 471 | |
| 472 | * TokenHuman: |
| 473 | ** Adam/the PlayerCharacter is the only human of a kingdom of various monster-people, and the only human party member. |
| 474 | ** Emperor |
| 475 | * WoundThatWillNotHeal: At the beginning, Adam is hit with a dark pulse from the Emperor, leaving a nasty purple scar on his chest. This is later tampered with to enable the use of |
| 476 | |
| 477 | * BaseBreakingCharacter: |
| 478 | ** Eve is by far the most polarizing of the Survivors/party members, main or counting the numerous side characters. Detractors claim that she is mainly a poorly-written submissive fantasy that the rest of the game had largely avoided, some going as far as to say that she skirts the line between a "healthy" portrayal of such a thing all for the sake of appealing to a group that was not even necessarily the game's target audience. Her RunningGag of |
| 479 | ** |
| 480 | * DancingBear: It would mostly be dismissed as an okay survival/action-adventure game that uses fanservice as a major selling point (a key distinction being that the party members could be men or women, toggled by the player), except that as the updates went on, |
| 481 | |
| 482 | ---- |
| 483 | |
| 484 | -->''You begin the game with customizing your character, though the default is a man named Adam, so I'll be calling him that. This isn't quite ''Saints Row'' levels of customization... well, [...] I obviously made my Adam look as much like Homer Simpson as the character maker could allow, which as it turns out was by a surprising degree, and I named him Home-J.''\ |
| 485 | \ |
| 486 | ''Thinking back I find it surprising that Lilith and Eve are even from the same game. Lilith has a lot of depth and almost every scene with it pre-adding to the group in the postgame has a surprising amount of maturity for what is otherwise a self-aware cheesy fantasy game with fourth wall jokes. Like I said before, I knew there was going to be a "third option" where neither Adam nor her dies, but the game still caught me by a pleasant surprise with how it was handled, that even in the "better ending" there's no true one gold solution. Her backstory is tragic yet she still proves to be invaluable in helping you out, goes through development as one of your main guides, and her boss fight is challenging in a fun, non-bullshitty way. Her dialogue is amusing, and she has great chemistry with both Adam and the Commanders of each dungeon, bouncing off of them naturally.''\ |
| 487 | \ |
| 488 | ''And then there's Eve. Who, to be blunt, had barely anything to her but some really cringe-y servant roleplay. Now, there were some party members I didn't feel too comfortable with, but since most of the 2,000 are these joke characters without much to them, I could let that slide, [...] I actively tried to pick any dialogue option I could to keep her apart from '' |
| 489 | |
| 490 | ---- |
| 491 | |
| 492 | -->I think it's very telling that even though Lilith's been sealed, constantly drained to create monsters, been badly beaten, even torn up in some spots, and infected with the same dark magic chest injury thing Adam gets at the beginning of the game but worse (based on how the "dark sword shard" thing is larger), ''and'' she actively ''wants'' you to win the fight and is holding back... she's ''still'' one of the strongest enemies in the whole game. I'd say it would make you dread what she at her prime would be like, but it's heavily implied that this is Shadow Lilith. |
| 493 | |
| 494 | [[/folder]] |
| 495 | ---- |
| 496 | * test test test test |
| 497 | * test test test test |
| 498 | |
| 499 | [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hour_(photography) Golden hour]] |
| 500 | |
| 501 | * test test test |
| 502 | |
| 503 | * test hi |
| 504 | |
| 505 | -another test |
| 506 | - another test |
| 507 | |
| 508 | - another |
| 509 | |
| 510 | - another |
| 511 | |
| 512 | * another |
| 513 | * another |
| 514 | |
| 515 | * Test to wiki page Film/DazedAndConfused. Test to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxKWTzr-k6s external link.]] |
| 516 | |
| 517 | This is a picture of Noah Wyle |
| 518 | [[quoteright:240:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/noah_wyle_9367.jpg]] |
| 519 | ---- |
| 520 | !! Playground |
| 521 | [[folder: Playground]] |
| 522 | * Chekhov'sGun: Multiple examples of this. |
| 523 | ** After Lacey's death, the button on her collar is mostly forgotten about. So, who ends up using it at the beginning of the final act? Rock, taking control of the games and letting the children know they will be freed soon. |
| 524 | ** In the first playground, the children are provided with a knife to solve the puzzle. Bobby secretly stashes it, and uses it to kill Sadie and Isaac later on. |
| 525 | [[/folder]] |
| 526 | |
| 527 | !!PalmtreePanic |
| 528 | * ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' has several real-life island settings the player can explore in 3 games |
| 529 | : ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'', VideoGame/AssassinsCreed4'', and AssassinsCreedRogue |
| 530 | |
| 531 | [[folder: Test]] |
| 532 | * EasternAnimation/38Parrots |
| 533 | * [[WesternAnimation/TheOctonauts The Octonauts]] |
| 534 | [[/folder]] |
| 535 | --- |
| 536 | [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MIJCZeRzVw Link Test]] |
| 537 | |
| 538 | WebAnimation/MurderDrones |
| 539 | |
| 540 | Dog Logan recalls his troubled childhood alongside his only friend, James Howlett. Discovering they are half-brothers, James kills Dog's abusive father and flees. In the present, Dog attacks Wolverine with futuristic weapons and reveals his possession of time diamonds. Dog opens portals, summoning cavemen, cowboys, and robots to the Savage Land, proclaiming his reign as a new teacher for the students. |
| 541 |
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