Tropes commonly used among The Abridged Series. While other media use these tropes, abridged series often have specific forms, due to the community nature of the sites these series appear on.
Tropes:
- The Abridged Series (main topic)
The vital tropes. You need the first two, and one of the latter two, to count as a true abridged series.
Other common tropes:
- Acting for Two: Most series have several characters voiced by the same voice actor because they tend to be made by only a handful of people.
- Adaptation Distillation: While exaggerating or parodying the characters and tropes in the original series, the plot can become much more simplified.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: for those who didn't get Character Exaggeration.
- Ascended Extra: By editing a small part into other scenes.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Practically as important as the Vital Three. Characters are not only aware that they are in a work of fiction, but who produces them, that they're also in an abridged series, who produces the abridged series, and of other abridged series.
- Butt-Monkey: Most abridged series will have several of these. If they were a Butt-Monkey in the original series, then expect things to get much worse for them.
- Character Catchphrase: Nearly every major character will end up getting one.
- Character Exaggeration: for those who didn't get Alternative Character Interpretation.
- Cluster F-Bomb: In some abridged series, all of the swearing is left uncensored.
- Comedic Sociopathy
- Contractual Genre Blindness: Often characters will acknowledge that what they're doing is stupid, but it's in character for them to do so.
- Deadpan Snarker: When the characters are being Genre Savvy or in-character for characters who already were snarkers in the source material.
- Defied Trope
- Discussed Trope
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The comment specials.
- Fridge Logic
- Ho Yay: Particularly with series abridging shows with a Cast Full of Pretty Boys or Improbably Female Cast.
- Homage
- Hong Kong Dub: This applied for the early days of Abridged shows, since editing quality wasn't up to date, meaning some lip flaps were off. This still applies for live action abridged series, though.
- Just a Stupid Accent: Since most series only have one or two voice actors, they sometimes use silly accents for the minor characters.
- Lampshade Hanging: The whole point of some Abridged Series.
- Larynx Dissonance: Some series have one to two voice actors and even the ones with more rarely have any female cast members. Nowadays there are plenty of abridged series where female characters are voiced by actual girls.
- Macekre: If the English dub of the original series was poor quality, expect it to be the butt of many jokes.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Almost a requirement, even if a series has many voice actors.
- Medium Awareness: To varying degrees.
- Memetic Badass
- Memetic Loser
- Memetic Molester
- Memetic Mutation: Either repeating memes or making their own.
- Memetic Personality Change
- Memetic Psychopath
- Memetic Troll
- Non-Indicative Name: Many of them aren't any shorter than the original.note
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: For when the original series (or, in some cases, the English dub) said something so ridiculous or so strange, that the abridger just can't top it.
- Off-Model: If the artists or animators messed up, expect it to be mocked. Mercilessly.
- Oh God, with the Verbing!
- Postmodernism
- Reference Overdosed
- Running Gag: Some gags are even shared among series.
- Sampling
- Shout-Out
- Sound-Effect Bleep: Some series add quite a lot of swearing, and bleep it out either to meet Youtube's standards of decency, for comedy's sake, or both. Some use creative bleeps and some don't use them at all.
- The Stinger: Has reached the point where many abridgers throw out two stingers instead of one.
- Take That!
- They Copied It, So It Sucks!: Usually joking about every time something in a show is unoriginal. Plus many Abridgers eventually throw in a joke attacking Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series fan boys for claiming that all Abridged series steal their jokes from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. LittleKuriboh jokingly supports this claim.
- Vulgar Humor: In some series.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Often in the form of verbatim repeating bad dialog from dubs, otherwise mocking the abriger's talent or their release schedule.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: You will frequently find at least one character who thinks they're in a different kind of show.
