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This page is for the collaborative writing forum. If you thought this page was about the slogan used to summarise the theory of evolution, you're looking for The Social Darwinist.

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The game takes all kinds.note 

"As you can see, the game changes people. ... I'd like you all to look to your right. The person sitting there may very well kill you in the next twenty-four hours. Now, look to your left. There's a decent chance you'll have to kill that person to survive. Everyone next to you—each of your classmates in this room—must die before you can go home."
Tracen Danya, V5 Prologue.

Survival of the Fittest is a collaborative play-by-post writing forum that began on June 19th, 2005. It draws inspiration from Kōshun Takami's seminal 1999 novel Battle Royale; however, it takes place in an original world, based heavily on our own, and differs slightly in its mechanics. Even with nearly two decades of history and continuity under its belt and thousands of characters written, the site is still going strong.

The premise is simple. In each version, a class of high-school students, often seniors, are abducted en route to the destination of their class trip. The students are rigged with explosive collars, receive randomly-assigned weapons, and awaken on an unknown island. Their purpose? To fight and die until only one remains. In the process, they play witness to drama, action, comedy, and—of course—tragedy, all rolled into one story.

Each successive iteration of the story, primarily focused on the unfortunate fates of—most of the time—one class of high school students, is called a version. As time goes on, each subsequent version unveils more and more secrets about the Arthro Taskforce—the same shadowy and enigmatic terrorist organization that has managed to keep this twisted act in operation for eighteen years.

Survival of the Fittest is open for anyone to join at any time. It is free and easy to register as a member—or, in site terminology, "handler"—on the forum. Nevertheless, due to the nature of the game, applications are only available before a version has started. However, don't fret! A system for character "adoptions" allows new handlers, returning handlers, and handlers without characters to pick up existing ones and drop in.

The eighth version of Survival of the Fittest (V8), set at the fictitious John Endecott Memorial Academy in Salem, Massachusetts, opened Pregame—the tale of the students before their abduction—on April 2nd, 2021. The game launched in earnest on October 14th, 2022, and saw the students awaken on a frigid island. Currently, the version is ongoing.

The site is available at this location. On April 13th, 2010, a sister site, Survival of the Fittest Mini, launched—geared towards faster games and versions run by individual handlers who want to try out different ideas and concepts.

This roleplay provides examples of the following:

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    General 
  • Art Evolution: Newer readers are regularly amazed when they see the writing... er, quality... back in V1, considering where the game is now.
  • Big Bad: Victor Danya, head of the terrorist group behind SOTF. At least until v4's Day Ten...
  • Bloodstained Glass Windows: In each version there is always a church of some kind on the island.
  • Bulletproof Vest: Subverted for the most part - in SOTF, these tend to be treated very realistically. However, this is also played straight in the case of Shannon McLocke, who takes a close range shotgun blast to the chest and gets up with barely a scratch.
  • Chekhov's Skill: This sometimes happens with the profiles of the characters, and is in fact the entire point of the "Advantages/Disadvantages" section of character profiles.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Mitch Gunther, Anna Kateridge, Cisco Vasquez, Lily Ainsworth, Maria Graham, and Annaliese Hanson are definitely this. There's also Henry Spencer and Irene Djezari in V6.
    • Mitch:
      Mitch: Dog eat dog. Dogs don't eat dogs, they eat birds and cats and Kibblebits if they have a family. Those words are silly. But I would have gotten that right if that silly glasses boy hadn't answered before me. Yes, I would have gotten it right.
    • Anna:
      Anna: Oh dear... I regret to say this, but I feel as though I'm in the uncanny valley right now... oh my, did that inside joke come out alright? I hope I did...
    • Cisco:
      Cisco: Are...are you going to kill me?
      George Leidman: What? No, no. Not at all! Why would I?
      Cisco: Oh...that's...a bit disappointing.
    • Lily:
      Lily: Blimey! I love watching the figure skaters twirl on the ice, they look so nice. Did you know that the figure skating dates back to prehistoric times? The first actual account of it was written by a monk in cantebury...
    • Maria:
    • Annaliese:
      Annaliese: Ray, there's a zombie in our yard.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Adam Dodd in V1, Dorian Sanders in V3 and Kris Hartmann in V4, the lattermost in three different languages. Jimmy Brennan, on the other hand, should get points for sheer density.
  • Co-Dragons: Steven Wilson, Jim Greynolds, Melvin Carter and Sonia Ngyuen, collectively known as the Big Four. As of Day 8 in v4, it's more like the Big Three.
  • Deserted Island: The main stage of Survival of the Fittest.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Players or villains who are killed off either before the halfway mark or before the story really kicks into high gear fall into this category - Jacob Starr in v1, Blood Boy in v3, Clio Gabriella in v4, Theodore Fletcher in V5, Nancy Kyle, Alvaro Vacanti, and Isabel Ramirez in V6, Quinn Abert in V7, and Cristo Ruiz in SOTF: Evolution.
  • Downer Ending: All the versions by default - when the game has only one survivor, there's going to be precious little to smile about.
  • Explosive Leash: Following the story of Battle Royale, collars are fitted to every character. They go off if they are in a dangerzone, if attempts are made to remove them, if the character attempts to escape, if they piss off Danya...
  • Expy: Some of the characters are blatant clones of either past SOTF characters (such as Gabriel Theobaldt for Garry Dodd) or characters from Battle Royale (such as Mariavel Varela for Mitsuko Souma).
  • Flashbacks: Loads of them.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Take an entire senior class of normal high school students, trap them in a last man standing fight to the death with (supposedly) no chance of escape, and see how many psychos and mass murderers you get.
  • Genre-Busting: In many ways; on one hand, like the inspiration, it is pretty difficult to define what kind of genre it is. On the other, with so many different writing styles across so many characters in one place, the final product of Survival of the Fittest is downright impossible to define as a single genre.
  • Handguns: A common weapon.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Handlers can do this, using their 'Hero Card' to have their own character killed off in order to save someone else's.
    • It can easily stray into Senseless Sacrifice territory however if the character who is saved then goes and dies soon after, e.g. through inactivity or being rolled again right away.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: The concept of player-killers is based in this. They're targeting people who are playing the game, but in doing so are becoming players themselves.
    • The scope of their player targeting can help this along, too. Sure, that girl who killed 6 people probably deserves it, but how do they know that guy who killed 1 didn't do it in self-defense?
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: After more than a decade, the AT's motivations and overall agenda are still unknown both in and out of character.
  • High School: Since the involved characters are high school students, the pregames for V2 on (as V1 had none), as well as spinoff seasons The Program, SOTF-TV and Second Chances, took place in the schools the characters attended and the cities they lived in.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Due to Danya's rather sick sense of humour, bobble-head dolls and plastic hammers have been known to come into play as assigned weapons.
  • Killed Off for Real: Subverted in the case of the v3 escapees and Burton Harris (the first time each of them were 'killed', that is). As of V4, Big Bad Victor Danya. And as of V6, much of vigilante group STAR's members, including their leader Zach Valentino.
  • Kill the Cutie: Hey! Is there a character you like in Survival of the Fittest? It's almost definite they won't make it to the end, thanks to the premise.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Has proven to be quite common. For example:
    Melina Frost: Go on then... show him why we're called the Poison Angles [sic].
    Jeff Marontate: Poison Angles, huh? Oh, I'll give you a whole new set of angles in a minute, my darling.
  • Made of Explodium: Cars and heads (the collars, so justified) are included in Survival of the Fittest. In the case of the exploding car, (in particular one in v1 with Jeremy Torres at the wheel) this causes an entire building to go up in a huge fireball too.
  • The Mole: Steven Wilson, aka. Principal Wilson, for Bathurst in v2, Sparky, aka Brynn Lovell for the terrorists in v4. Possibly Lucas Grossi for STAR in V6, but that plot is still ongoing.
  • Mutual Kill: Kiyoko Asakawa vs. Cassandra Roivas in v1, Sera Wingfield vs. Gail Smith in v2, Jaclyn Kusche vs. Charlotte Cave and Alex White vs. Jimmy Brennan in v4, Cody and Eliza Patton in V5, Hansel Williams and Zubin Wadia in V5's endgame, and Will McKinley vs. Alex Tarquin in V6. Multiple examples occur in v7, with Mikki Swift vs. Terra Johnson, Claudeson Bademosi vs Tyrell Lahti, and Aurelien Valter vs Blaise d'Aramitz, although the last is more drawn-out.
  • Out with a Bang: Happens to a few characters in V1 and in V2. As Mr. Danya put it during his announcement of Matt Drew's death at the hands of Sera Wingfeld:
    Danya: "Let's just say that Sera Wingfield took him to heaven before she sent him to hell. Hey, she was good to the man."
  • The Power of Friendship: Subverted to hell in many, many instances. Sydney Morvran, winner of V0 (the final 'test run') is the most prominent example of this. He ends up being the sole survivor of his first game by using his best friend as a human shield after all the rest of his friends started attacking one another in a paranoid fit. Then Syd was put into the next game as punishment for not killing anybody.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: The Big Four are the most dangerous of the terrorists, and Tracen Danya himself is a military veteran.
  • Realism: The ultimate direction SOTF has been trying to take from the latter half of V3 on, to encourage more realistic characters be submitted as opposed to the Mary Sues and serial killers of old versions. This is where Willing Suspension of Disbelief also has to come in, where the setting itself is concerned.
  • Remember the New Guy?: The extended timeframe of the pregame phase often leads to this, with characters joining near or at the end of pregame and being treated as if they were there the whole time. This was much more pronounced in earlier versions, where new characters could join midway through the game and as a result, would appear on the island on Day 6 with the narrative brushing it off with a 'they were hiding'.
  • La Résistance: STAR, a militia comprised of escapees of past SOTF incarnations, who are dedicated to rescuing victims of the game and destroying the group behind it, the Arthro Taskforce. In V4, they launched an assault on the AT's headquarters and rescued 29 students from the island, causing heavy casualties among the AT and killing Danya himself. While they were absent in V5, the V6 prologue shows that they know about the newest abductions, and seem to be planning some kind of intervention. It's not going so well for them this time around, though.
  • Sinister Surveillance: The cameras all around the Island, along with the collars track everything the students are doing.
  • Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: Leans more towards the character side. While the plot is there and provides the setting, it functions more as a backdrop to the characters' arcs than driving the story after the game begins.
  • Web Original: The RP is based on Koshun Takami's Battle Royale, but it has entirely original characters and a very different setting and plot; it started out being set in the Battle Royale universe, but was eventually retconned into an original world.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Some of the players do qualify, either because the stress of the game got to them, some kind of Freudian Excuse, or both.
  • Your Head Asplode: Collar detonation. Stay in a danger zone too long, try to remove the collar, suffer an unfortunate impact (though from post-V4 on, the collars are no longer as impact-sensitive), get used as an example by Danya to try to scare off SADD or Liz Polanski...

    Version 1 
  • A Boy and His X: Cody Jenson, the villain of V1, has this with him and his motorcyle, Loretta. However, instead of starting him down the path to manhood, it starts him down the path to insanity.
  • Aerith and Bob: The main American high school from this version had students with regular names such as Andrew, Cleo, Duncan and Mallory. It also had students named Venka, Shoar, Umi, Rais and Nevera.
  • Attempted Rape: Johnny Lamika ambushes and tries to rape Adam Dodd. However, before things can get too far, Adam manages to bring out his taser and fend Lamika off, before proceeding to beat him to death.
  • Car Fu: Stevan Hyde is run over by Lucinda Garnett. Repeatedly.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Jeremy Torres can't pass by anyone who needs help, even if it inconveniences him in the process.
  • Consummate Liar: Cody Jenson (at least pre-psychotic) was a devilish liar, stringing along Adam Dodd for quite some considerable time before the latter even started to get suspicious. (Jenson pretended he was another kid, leading to Adam talking to him about how much he wanted to kill... well, him). When he finds out later who Jenson really is, Adam is needless to say, not pleased.
  • Dangerous 16th Birthday: The day of the school trip (when the abductions took place) is that of Jacob Starr's sixteenth birthday.
  • Disposable Woman: This occurs with the death of Adam Dodd's girlfriend, Amanda Jones, at the hands of Cody Jenson. Arguably, it was overshadowed by the simultaneous death (and rape) of Madelaine Shirohara.
  • Dream Team: According to David Jackson, Barry Coleson's baseball team was so extraordinarily skilled they went undefeated for three consecutive seasons prior to version 1.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Happens to Amber Phillips; a helicopter that's shot down crashes on top of her.
  • Dual Wielding: Done briefly, where after the machete-wielding Andrew Klock is wounded with a corkscrew in his fight with Cole Hudson he pulls it out of himself and attacks Cole with both weapons, eventually lodging the corkscrew in an artery.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Survival of the Fittest started out... oddly, to say the least. Many handlers are surprised when they read all the way back to version 1, which was more lenient about realism and good writing than the current version. This results in seeing character concepts that wouldn't work nowadays but made it through in a previous version, or seeing deaths that would be laughed off if you tried them now, and a more random numbering system (with students receiving numerical designations B313, G333, B341, and B892 in spite of there being only 123 total participants).
  • Eye Scream: Poor, poor Callum Hadley gets fishhooks in both of his eyes, courtesy of Johnny Lamika.
  • The Generic Guy: Ken Mendel is described in his profile as a completely average and uninteresting person with nothing outstanding about him at all.
  • Gollum Made Me Do It: Cillian Crowe is more or less completely under control of a malevolent alter ego he calls "Haddy" which forces him to kill people and overall act like an extremely dangerous psychopath.
  • Grid Puzzle: The conclusion in Anton Wykowsku's file has been replaced by a Sudoku puzzle by an unknown party. It's not clear whether solving it would reveal key information about the aforementioned student.
  • Grievous Bottley Harm: Jayne Brown gets assigned a bottle of vodka, and Jason Andrews later kills her by breaking it over her head, then stabbing the edge through the back of her skull.
  • Guns Akimbo: Two examples came from v1, during the same gun battle. Peri Barclay wielded two revolvers, but this proved completely ineffective as he failed to hit anyone. Jacob Starr later did the same with his gun and one that an ally dropped, but he alternated fire between the two guns and it wasn't really to hit anyone as much as it was to force Peri and his ally Steven to keep their heads down, covering the other group's retreat.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Both Eljiah Rice and Elsie Darroch are killed by bisection at the hands of Adam Dodd and Cody Jenson respectively.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: Adam Dodd in turns into one of these for a good while during his tenure on the v1 island. His obsession with getting revenge on Cody Jenson leads him to mow down a good six or seven of his fellow students, despite his supposedly heroic motives. In something of a subversion however, he lives to come to realise his actions have been misguided and returns to a more conventional Anti-Hero mold.
  • Hearing Voices: Turns out to be the case with Callum Hadley, who suffered from schizophrenia and constantly heard voices coming from a non-existent girl named "Beth".
  • Heroic BSoD: Adam Dodd, after the deaths of Madeleine Shirohara and Amanda Jones and a few other characters.
  • Ironic Nursery Tune: Cillian Crowe singing 'happy birthday' to himself, while not exactly a nursery rhyme, embodies this trope perfectly. That is, if you consider that he was currently thinking about killing the person he was talking to at the time - insisting on showing him his 'present' (a meat cleaver).
  • Is This Thing Still On?: Terrorists McLocke, Kaige and Rice accidentally activate the PA system in their headquarters, treating the students to a charming rendition of a Slash Fic (involving two of the students) they found on the web. Danya is not pleased, particularly when they go from reading the fic to insulting him and the entire organisation.
  • Made of Iron: While there were other examples, Jacob Starr was a notable enough offender that the SOTF community's term for this trope - the Jacob Treatment - was named after him. Heather Pendergast also deserves credit for getting shot multiple times very early on, yet still managing to survive for a long time afterward.
  • Man Bites Man: Cody Jenson kills Madelaine Shirohara by ripping out her throat with his teeth.
  • My Greatest Failure: Adam Dodd doesn't only have one of these, but two. The first of these is allowing himself to become separated from the other members of his group - among them his girlfriend and other close buddies of his. They all proceed to be killed, and in one case, raped. Adam, of course, blames himself for this. His second stems from an incident where his (mentally unstable) brother attacked him. Adam regrets throughout version 1 his failure to forgive his older brother until one of the very last scenes of the V1 endgame.
  • My Nayme Is: Gabrielle Minase, where a normally female name has been given to a male student. There's also Cillian Crowe (pronounced kill-yan, not sill-yan), Peri Barclay, Stevan Hyde, Cyndi Pullman and Angharad Davies (pronounced ann-harrud)
  • Naked First Impression: Marie Zaid walks in on a showering Adam Dodd. It's... awkward.
  • Off with His Head!: Happens a few times, a notable example being when Naoji Hideyoshi gets decapitated when somebody kicks a door closed on his neck. Yeesh...
  • Parasol of Prettiness: Clemence Ceillet de Rousseau owned one such parasol. She quickly abandons it, though, considering "She had no time to bother with petty things".
  • Psychopathic Man Child: Cillian Crowe, who does the bidding of his evil imaginary friend while maintaining the demeanor of a five-year-old.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Adam Dodd swears vengeance against Cody Jensen after Cody's definitive crossing of the Moral Event Horizon, raping and murdering his friend Madelaine Shirohara and accidentally killing his love interest, Amanda Jones, in the middle of trying to kill Sidney Crosby. After drifting for a while in a Heroic BSoD, Adam takes down everyone who tries to kill him one by one, and when Adam and Cody finally face off, Adam fulfills his vow of vengeance by putting a sword through Cody and then carving the word "rapist" into his chest.
  • Self-Made Orphan: Cillian Crowe and Daphne Rudko both murdered their own parents, though Cillian was confined to an insane asylum due to his actions while Daphne got off scot free.
  • Shoot the Dog: Adam Dodd was forced to euthanise his friend Marcus Roddy, as he had fallen into a coma. Most of the rest of his group didn't agree with the action, but Adam pointed out that had they left him catatonic, somebody else would have just come along and done the same, or he would have just been eaten by animals or some equally gruesome fate.
  • Stout Strength: Ian Hargrave, though relegated to an Informed Ability because he never gets to use it.
  • Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Sydney Morvran, the winner of Version 0 (the prequel to Version 1), is put into the following game as punishment for not actively killing anyone. He becomes one of the first fatalities.
  • Ten Paces and Turn: Happens in the climax. Interestingly, both combatants cheat, but because of a slope Dodd failed to take into account, it's moot either way.
  • Tongue Trauma: One of Cillian Crowe's kills in Survival of the Fittest v1 has him rip out a guy's tongue, and then slice open his skull.
  • Turbine Blender: A variant. Ken Mendel tried to swim away from the island, but winds up being shot by the patrol boats and then sucked into the propellers. While he's still alive as well.
  • *Twang* Hello: The duel between Jacob Starr and David Jackson starts with Jacob throwing his knife at David, only for it to miss and hit the tree David was standing in front of.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Adam Dodd receives a horrified reaction from his friends after he shoots a comatose member of his group in the head. Needless to say, just about everybody there called him out on it.
    • Not to mention that during the final two, the other finalist Jack O'Connor brutally called him out on all of his murders throughout the game.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Barry Coleson High School was not given a canonical location (Ithaca, New York) until several years after v1 ended.

    Version 2 
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: A sanitary sewer like this appears on the island used for version 2, spanning the entire island underground, but from the vague descriptions it's implied that people can only just barely move across the walkways on the sides, and that otherwise it's fairly cramped.
  • Artistic License – Medicine: Garry Dodd's shattered leg is fully healed after a shock from his juiced-up taser-equipped cane. Simply put, there is no way this would actually work.
  • Big Damn Heroes: A notable example is that of Seth Mattlock rescuing Bryan Calvert and Tori Johnson from a player - pulling it off in the true spirit of the trope: just in the nick of time. Amusingly, this is because he waited before pulling off the save, although he was, admittedly, trying to get the best possible shot on the bad guy. It also turns into an unintentional Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Cain and Abel: Deliah Dollop gets killed by her twin sister Debrah
  • Car Fu: Subverted with Andrew Ponikarovsky: he nearly runs over Penelope Withers after getting hold of a car, but manages to swerve out of the way in time. He crashes the car and is killed himself.
  • Creepy Child: Brandon Cuthbert, a 12 year old genius who skipped a few grades and is in highschool. Before getting sent to the island, he had a fascination with dissecting woodland creatures. And while on the island, he killed at least 3 different characters, including slicing one open after suffocating him to unconsciousness with an X-Box controller.
  • Cue the Sun: The last night of version two doesn't end until Bryan Calvert has finally won and is being airlifted off the island. Only then does the sun finally start to rise, as if confirming that his fight for survival is over.
  • Driven to Suicide: Right near the very end, Ricky Callahan kills himself after Whitney Acosta, who he'd been trying to protect throughout the entire game, is killed.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Lavender Heart gives one to Mariavel Varella.
  • Evil Teacher: Steven Wilson, the principal of Bathurst High School, is actually one of Danya's terrorists and is responsible for abducting his own students. According to the wiki, he'd been sent to infiltrate Bathurst as a scout the whole time, so as to choose a class for abduction; "Steven Wilson" isn't even his real name, although it seems to be what he answers to among the terrorists, as his actual name is redacted in his file.
  • Flat "What": Danya, in Caitlin Evans's post-game evaluation.
  • Four Is Death: The "Big Four", who answer only to Danya, debut in this version. They are Steven Wilson, Melvin Carter, Sonia Nguyen, and Jim Greynolds and are responsible for the high school students' abductions.
  • Hell Hotel: One of these cropped up in this version. It became one of the bloodiest places in the game - no fewer than fifteen students met their ends somewhere within it. Escapades taking places there included (and were not limited to): murder, castration, evisceration and necrophilia.
  • I Love the Dead: Sam Sorenson.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Shae Arnav thought it would be a good idea to cut up and eat one of the corpses. Bryan Calvert thought otherwise and killed him.
  • Kill the Ones You Love: Bryan Calvert has to Mercy Kill his best friend, Seth Mattlock, en route to to fighting Mariavel Varella, a former friend turned psycho.
  • Laser Sight: One of the guns had a laser sight, though it went unused.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Caitlin Evans spontaneously explodes due to a violent chemical reaction inside her stomach.
  • Murder by Mistake: Bryan Calvert shoots at who he believes to be principal murderess Mariavel Varella. He shoots and kills Whitney Acosta by mistake instead.
  • My Nayme Is: Andi Ayala, Derrin Istoli and Greggory Archer.
  • Nice Guy: Huy Tran was nothing but polite and kind, especially with Anna Dibendetti. He even felt deeply guilty about killing an obviously deranged classmate who was actively attacking him.
  • No Ending: V2 ends with Bryan Calvert receiving a Hannibal Lecture by Danya. Bryan attacks Danya, and... well, nothing. As of v5, people still don't know what happened after that. There was supposed to be a part two, but at this rate we'll never know other than Danya and Wilson got out of the situation alive. A final end may or may not be upcoming, however. Much later, it is stated by Tracen Danya that Calvert survived and went home to live a quiet life.
  • Street Urchin: Cathalie Meguro and Mitch Gunther, though they lived in an orphanage instead of on the streets.
  • Teen Genius: Brandon Cuthbert, who is in the 11th grade at the age of 12.
  • Wretched Hive: The students' hometown of Denton, New Jersey. Criminal gangs are everywhere in the city, which is practically run by the most powerful of them instead of by the Mayor himself. Like any other gangs, they've divided the city up between themselves, and they maintain a tense peace between them, as the bloodshed brought by a gang war is bad for business. Even then, though, shootouts and gang brawls are common, while anyone who sticks their nose in the wrong place turns up dead. This is considered highly unusual in SOTF's world, though, and no other city that has been seen is quite as bad as Denton. This came about as an attempt to justify all the gang members in Pregame, and the city apparently disintegrated into full-scale warfare after v2.

    Version 3 
  • Air-Vent Passageway: Used to escape a dead-end by John Sheppard, Vera Lang and Kyrie Joseph, as killer Harry Tsai was hot on their heels and it was the only way out of the building they had run inside.
  • Alas, Poor Yorick: Alice takes the severed head of Guy Rapide and starts talking to it as if Guy were still alive. She then stuffs the head in her daypack.
  • Aloof Ally: Dominica Shapiro's part in SADD was very much one of these, although she was slowly becoming more and more of a part of the team.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Bobby Jacks apologizes to Ivan Roeghmills before cutting his throat.
  • The Bad Guy Wins:J. R. Rizzolo is the winner of V3.
  • Bee Afraid: Katherine Blanco dies after a severe allergic reaction from a bee sting. Mr. Danya is less than sympathetic.
    Danya: Sometimes, kiddos, you don't have to wait around for the competition to kill you. Some of you are so imperfect that Mother Nature decides to do it herself.
  • Becoming the Mask: this happened to Dominica Shapiro, who initially joined the group SADD on the off chance their plan would work, with the intent on a double cross if not, but gradually became more and more part of the group properly.
  • Bifauxnen: Dacey Ashcroft is described as being very ambiguous in gender - especially since she is very tall for a girl and in general, just doesn't act 'girly'. That she deliberately perpetrates this charade doesn't help matters for the confused.
  • Big Man on Campus: Arguably Steve Digaetano, probably the most popular guy at Southridge. He isn't perhaps a Jerkass of the highest order, but he certainly has his moments.
  • Born Unlucky: Karl Van Buren, a Survival of the Fittest v3 character, seems to have this problem, as he's notorious for having extremely bad luck. Some of the things noted in his backstory include, in no particular order, almost drowning, the plane he was on sucking in two people, an ax falling down and hurting people while he was reading about an ax murder, and a transvestite commiting suicide and landing on his car, among other things. He doesn't last very long in-game, having had his neck snapped by Gabriel Theobaldt. He even gets posthumous bad luck, as Victor Kurchatov comes across his corpse and... you don't want to know.
  • Calling Card: Blood Boy does this at one point: carving a smiley face into one of his victims. (Blood Boy wore a smiley face mask).
  • Casualty in the Ring: Part of Bobby Jacks' backstory is that he accidentally killed an opponent in a boxing match.
  • Cute Mute: Dawn Beckworth. Mute and most certainly cute. Although not particularly supernatural.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Melina Frost. She lead the all woman group named the Poison Angels in an attempt to kill all the men on the island. She was about as Ax-Crazy as it got.
  • Don't Explain the Joke: Carson Baye was a particularly unpopular character in V3 due to his habit of referencing anime, then immediately explaining the references. Although, there were a number of other (mostly out of character) reasons for this too.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Mods are often forced to do this to inactive characters. A massive wave of inactivity in V3 forced the admins to (allegedly) kill off a large number of characters off screen en masse, including major characters such as Neil Sinclair, Julie Mikan, Darnell Butler, and even Adam Dodd.
    • As it turned out, the thirteenth announcement revealed that Danya had been an Unreliable Narrator in his announcements - certain characters who, according to the official record, died offscreen were actually alive and attempting escape. The inactivity was faked, and those characters had been actively being posted with the entire time, just hidden from view.
  • Duality Motif: Dominica Shapiro , who was dual in nature (displaying both a thoroughly villainous and surprisingly heroic side), has mismatched eyes.
  • Dying Curse: Anna Vaan to Lenny Priestly:
    Anna: My mother's dead, and so's my sister, just like yours is gonna be at the end of this god damn GAME!
  • Expy" Melina Frost and Gabriel Theobaldt are extremely similar to v2 characters Mariavel Varella and Garry Dodd, respectively.
  • Extremity Extremist: Bobby Jacks almost invariably resorts to his fists in combat. He is, however, a boxer, so that isn't a huge surprise. He doesn't seem to have many compunctions about using his head either. It's mostly a case of sticking to what he's good at. (In fact, the one time he tried to kick somebody he immediately got his ass kicked).
  • Famous-Named Foreigner: Adonis Zorba.
  • Genius Bruiser: professional boxer Bobby Jacks stands at 190-1 cm and weighs in at 93 kg. He's also shown to be very intelligent, capable of trickery, fighting very tactically, and being able to quote William Shakespeare (relevantly) purely from memory.
  • Genius Ditz: Keiji Tanaka is firmly established to be an utter moron within moments of his entry into V3. However, he has an almost unparalleled skill handling a sword (due to years of practice), to the point where he comes close to defeating an axe-wielding opponent with a broken sabre whilst bleeding to death.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Alice Jones for most of the game carries around a plush rabbit, and is mentioned as having a collection of stuffed animals back home. Later on, she starts to hallucinate said rabbit talking to her, and eventually replaces it with Guy Rapide's head
  • Hate Sink: Adam Reeves was specifically designed to be as repulsive and unlikable as possible.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Happens with Julie Mikan. She undergoes a Face–Heel Turn at the very start whilst deciding to play, killing Owen Fontaine gives her a Heel–Face Turn and a Heroic BSoD, before a few days later, she once again decides to play, becoming a 'heel' for the second time.
  • He's Back!: A villainous variation occurs with Julie Mikan. After killing a fellow classmate she goes into a Heroic BSoD, before somewhat reforming. However, a couple of days later, Julie finally breaks down due to the heat and sleep deprivation, signifying a return for her villainous self.
  • Hit Me, Dammit!: In a more lethal instance, Wade Wilson of tells Edward Sullivan to shoot him. Edward, seeking vengeance against Wade for killing a girl he had a crush on, is all too happy to oblige.
  • Honor Before Reason: Neil Sinclair fits this trope to the letter. The primary example of such behaviour is trusting Dominica Sharpiro by offering her a place in his Pro escape group, despite knowing, for certain that she earlier killed another group member who became separated from the others.
  • Hope Spot: Laeil Burbank is tortured by Riz, who cuts her eye out and leaves her to bleed out in a burning hanger, only for her to be rescued and patched up. At which point she dies of a heart attack due to massive blood loss. Also counts as a Real Life Hope Spot, as she wasn't rolled until immediately after she was patched up.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Bobby Jacks, was carrying about his person and in a smallish daypack at one point, the following: An English Claymore, an Armalon Carbine, a SIG Sauer, a scalpel, a syringe (and the pot of insulin that came with it), a pipewrench, ammo for the carbine (implied to be a lot), supplies five or six time the normal amount, an extensive medical kit, and a lock of hair.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Bobby Jacks's justification of becoming a player in v3: he wanted to survive by any means necessary.
  • Ignored Epiphany: Bobby Jacks. He quickly comes to the realisation that he's one of the bad guys, but immediately after he decides that he's gone too far to try and repent. He even supplements this with a quote from Macbeth (the exact same one which Macbeth himself uses in this selfsame situation).
  • Ironic Echo: in a scene that's an homage to the Joker, Blood Boy says "Why so serious?" as part of his intimidating speech to Matthew Wittany. He then attacks Matt, viciously beating him with his gun, as well as killing Matt's friend, Corbin. The tides eventually turn, though, and Matt gets out his own gun and shoots Blood Boy with it. What does he say while shooting? "Why so serious?"
  • I Shall Taunt You: Happens on two separate occasions with the same characters: Tyson Neills and Bobby Jacks. The first time around, Tyson taunts Bobby in an attempt to provoke a fight with Troy McCann (to raise his 'street credit'). The second time is on the island itself, in an attempt to make him lose his cool and do something stupid. It backfires, Bobby does lose his temper, but in the midst of his rage kills Tyson.
  • Instant Death Bullet: Usually averted, but played straight in the v3 Endgame when Rizzolo shoots Lulu in the gut, and she falls dead instantly.
  • Knight Templar Big Brother: Lenny Priestly will do anything to make sure his twin sister Elizabeth is safe. Literally anything, as he kills people for this reason. Though possibly a subversion, as it has been implied that he used her as an excuse to kill, especially since he went Ax-Crazy and stopped being an Anti-Villain.
  • Locked in a Freezer: Alex Steele gets locked in the freezer by Guy Rapide. He tries to escape by shooting the lock out, but instead has a bullet ricochet into his chest.
  • Smite Me, O Mighty Smiter: Sean O'Cann has a 'word' with God. Over the course of V3 up to that point, his best friend, cousin, and boyfriend had all been killed, as well as it being very likely he would go the same way.
  • Meta Guy: Quincy Archer is the resident Meta Guy, writing a blog about the fake SOTF and the tropes it shows, and then commenting through out the stories on the actions of the various villains and heroes. He commits suicide, but if he hadn't, one of his personal favorite villains, JR Rizzolo, would have left him to burn.
  • Morality Chain: Elizabeth Priestly is this to twin brother Lenny. When she's not around him, he acts even more of a complete bastard to get her back/find her. The only thing that really changes once she dies is that he has no excuse for his kills now.
  • Motive Rant: Melina Frost does this before attacking Dacey Ashcroft and Herman Johnson. Ironically, Dacey isn't a guy.
    Melina: You know? I never really liked men. Do you know why? It's because they always WANT something. Did you know that? Well, obviously you do. Men constantly WANT. They want to hold you, touch you, kiss you. They want to make you THEIRS. But? I never really liked that you know. That's why, instead of letting them TAKE whatever they want? I decided to WANT and TAKE from them first!
  • Mushroom Samba: James Brown accidentally ends up with acid pills when he wakes up, under the impression that they were aspirin.
  • My Nayme Is: Ivye Dewley and Khrysta Lawrence.
  • Near-Rape Experience: J.R. Rizzolo's torture of Laeil Burbank ALMOST starts out with a rape scene, but then Riz decides it'd be a better idea to cut out her eye instead. This was due to Riz' writer planning a rape scene, but deciding at the last minute that he wasn't up for it.
  • Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight: Subverted when Ric Chee and Bobby Jacks fight with Good Old Fisticuffs. When Bobby realises that, conversely to his expectations, he is getting beaten down mercilessly (by a guy with no combat expertise whatsoever) he pulls out a scalpel and immediately fatally stabs Ric.
  • "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Adam Reeves attempts to justify his rape of Maxie Dasai by asserting that her body's arousal meant that she was into it. It's left ambiguous, but strongly implied that he brought her to orgasm (Reeves himself certainly thought so). He is the only one that thought it was okay.
  • Offhand Backhand: Bobby Jacks pulls off the firearm based version with Andy McCann. Bobby hears the latter cry out behind him and shoots him in the head with a pistol without even turning around.
  • Paper Cutting: Maxie Dasai gets hit in the face by an arrow and comes away with a minor wound across her cheek, somehow managing to avoid any serious harm.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Well-Intentioned Extremist Lenny Priestly kills Viki Valentine and runs off into the woods, leaving Gabe McCallum and Steve Digaetano to mourn her. Next time they meet, Gabe shoots down Lenny's sister, Elizabeth Priestly in a fit of rage, despite Steve's best efforts.
  • Poisoned Weapons: Blood Boy's assigned weapons were an Ida (an African sword) and a vial of poison meant to be applied to the blade.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Simon Wood mistakes Darnell Butler for a player of the game (not altogether unreasonable, as he is holding a bloodied sword) and attacks to buy his girlfriend time to escape. Before Darnell can get the chance to explain, he has accidentally killed Simon.
  • Precision F-Strike: Used spectacularly. Yes, while most characters swear like sailors, cute, Bespectacled Cutie, sugary sweet Louise "Lulu" Altaire manages to pull this off. When she meets Lenny for the third time, after he has just killed her friends the previous times, this time she's prepared. She's killed people, she has a gun and isn't afraid to use it.
    Lulu: See this thing, Lenny? Now you take your fucking hands off your handgun or I'll blow a hole through your head.
  • Psycho Lesbian: Lyn "Laeil" Burbank of Survival of the Fittest's third version. After confessing her love to a female friend, she gets bullied by her classmates for being a "dyke". Once she gets on the island, she kills her cousin (who was one of her major bullies) by stabbing him in the groin repeatedly. Afterwards, she decides that she was going to die anyways, and that she was going to get revenge on everyone who ever bullied her. The last thing she sees before she dies is a hallucination of forementioned female friend forgiving her.
  • Quicksand Sucks: Shows up in v3.
  • Revenge by Proxy: Lenny Priestly kills Gabe McCallum's love interest Viki Valentine. Later on, Gabe gets his revenge on Lenny by shooting dead his twin sister Elizabeth, who'd had nothing to do with the death.
  • Rope Bridge: There's a rope bridge over a ravine, but subverts the collapsing part by having it be about as durable as you'd expect from a bridge on a military base. Gabe McCallum lampshades this while crossing it and wondering if it'll fall, reminding himself that the military wouldn't risk men and equipment by making a bridge that wasn't sturdy.
  • Sad Clown: Sean O'Cann, to which the page quote applies almost perfectly. Prior to the point in the game (Day 3) that he found out his best friend, boy friend, and cousin died (three different people, before anyone says anything) he still cracked a joke every now and then. Afterward though, Sean begins making all sorts of remarks, not all of which are in the best taste, and sometimes are just plain offensive.
  • Satellite Character: Elizabeth Priestly, who plays the satellite to her twin brother, Lenny. Most of what she does consists of following Lenny around and angsting about his psychotic behavior.
  • Sedgwick Speech: Josh Goodman.
    Goodman: "It's ove-"
    • Kathleen Martin too.
      Kathleen: "Oh Adam, there's no way you could shoot me with that gun. You see, people like you aren't fit for these kinds of situations. Sure, you're basically a big load of muscle with more than enough attitude to compensate, but compared to people like me, you're nothing. Ultimately, it's the smart, the beautiful, and the well-prepared that are going to make it far in this game, and when it comes to you-"
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Adam Dodd, the only survivor of version one.
  • Stalker with a Crush: An odd variation (a non-villain example), from Survival of the Fittest is Matthew Wittany, V3's resident Woobie. A fan of photography, he carried around an album filled with pictures of boys he found attractive. Anderson Walker, the subject of most of these pictures, was not best pleased when he discovered this. Neither was his boyfriend, Sean O'Cann.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Huge Schoolgirl Dacey "Dawson" Ashcroft pretends to be a guy due to the negative attention she received in her previous school, feeling it easier to get through highschool if everyone believes her to be a man. Luckily, she doesn't look all that feminine, and unlike some of the other female Southridge students lacks large breasts.
  • The Fatalist: Adam Reeves in Survival of the Fittest. Also a Social Darwinist.
  • The Load: Cara Scholte. Maxie Dasai has to literally pull Cara around for a good half a day and was prevented from fleeing from a dangerous encounter with Adam Reeves in concern for her companion's well-being. Sure, Cara was catatonic at the time, but given the outcome of the fight...
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: In a fight between Laeil Burbank and Melina Frost, Madison Conner suddenly appears and attacks Laeil to keep her from killing Melina before she can. Laeil also swears to be the only one to kill Melina, as well as kill anyone who tries to beat her to it. She fails on both accounts as Melina and her killer kill each other. She doesn't take it well.
  • The Stoic: Bobby Jacks very much embodied this trope, at least in pregrame. During version 3, he has, however, shown emotion a couple of times. On the other hand, most of these occurrences happened either when he was alone or internally - so other characters wouldn't be privy to the same knowledge as readers. The three occasions where Bobby shows real emotion are justified however. Once because he had just been shot, the other two times because his Berserk Button was pushed.
  • The Un Favourite: Lyn "Laeil" Burbank. While actually a niece rather than a daughter, her uncle and aunt still give her the same unfavorite treatment, treating her like something that just has to be tolerated, while lavishing all their attention on her Jerk Jock cousin, Anthony, who regularily makes her life hell. Once she's on the island, though, it isn't long before she gets bloody revenge on him.
  • The Unpronounceable: Vilhjalmur Sigurbjornsson. Though his first name is often shortened down to Will, his last name still causes problems for Danya.
  • Two-Person Pool Party: Implied to have happened between Guy Rapide and Kallie Majors
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Maxie Dasai does this with a gun.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: During the big stand-off between SADD and Bobby Jacks, Arty Williams stumbled onto the scene with a password-locked cell phone, upon which he tossed SADD the cell phone (telling them the password,) telling them it might be their ticket to getting off the island before running off to get himself killed in a (failed) attempt to save Ivan Roeghmills from a hostage situation. SADD decides to honor his noble sacrifice by never mentioning him or the phone ever again.
  • While Rome Burns: A particularly notable version occurs, where Carson Baye plays on his DS while a gunfight is starting around him.
  • Worthy Opponent: Riz refers to Eddie Sullivan as this at the end of v3.
  • Wrench Wench: Katherine Blanco was the best mechanic in her school until she was killed by a hornet's sting on the island.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: JR Rizzolo manages to return home after (ostensibly) being the Sole Survivor, only to find that his family has disowned him and completely moved out.

    Version 4 
  • Accidental Murder: A couple of deaths have occured this way; Jackson Ockley (shot by Ilario Fiametta with a lipstick gun) and Jake Crimson (pushed over by Garry Villette and cracking his head on a cinderblock), Craig Hoyle (shot by Nik Kronwall), Mia Kuiper (impaled on a tree branch by Bridget Connolly), and Steven Hunt (shot by Brendan Wallace in the leg and bled out).
  • Adam and/or Eve: Eve Walker-Luther and Eva Lancaster.
  • Afraid of Blood: Liam "Brook" Brooks and Rena Peters suffers from this. Sadly, they're also on a deserted island and forced to kill their classmates... although after the girl he loves dies, Liam's not the least bit scared of it anymore...
  • All Drummers Are Animals: Maria "Animal" Graham, certified Cloud Cuckoolander, plays the drums for Blank Nation.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Rosa Fiametta's attraction to JJ Sturn, despite the fact he's pretty much a Jerkass (whilst they're dating, at least). This backfires on her in a major way.
  • Axe-Crazy: Jimmy Brennan, Liam "Brook" Brooks, and Cisco Vasquez.
  • Battle Amongst the Flames: The fight between Maria Graham and Maxwell Lombardi takes place inside a burning bunker.
    • Part of the endgame takes place inside a burning house, although no-one actually dies inside it.
  • Bear Trap: Lucy Ashmore's designated weapon in is one of these.
  • Bears Are Bad News: There is a common joke among handlers that inactive characters are killed and eaten by an "Inactivity Bear". Also, in her first post, version 4 character Maria Graham has a dream where she was actually "Robo-Bear 5000", which was, of course, a robotic bear disguised as a student and was going to avenge its kidnapping.
    • Of course, when Version 4's Megan Nelson was due to die...
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted in the case of Celeste Beaumont. After days of wandering the swamps, she looks horrible.
  • Big Damn Heroes: STAR, who took Danya hostage and boating a portion of the students out, who all manage to make it back to America.
    • On a smaller scale, Joe Rios interrupts a shootout between Aston Bennett and Quincy Jones by sneaking up on Quincy, kneecapping him with a borrowed pistol, and clocking him in the jaw with his own gun.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Fiametta triplets. One (Rosa) is pretty much the poster girl for Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, and has been known to hit on anything that moves, another (Frankie) regularly uses drugs, and the last, and the one male out of the three (Ilario), not only is heavily pressured by his father, but has to look after the other two in spite of actually being the youngest (albeit by a matter of minutes), and is somewhat neurotic as a result. Add to that mix a clueless stepmother with no emotional connection to the children whatsoever and a father who only really cares about his son, showing it by... insisting that he must perform well at school and more or less ignoring his daughters, and you get this trope.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Sure, a lot of the students die, but unlike previous versions many of the students were rescued and made it back to America, Danya is seemingly dead, and the terrorists have been dealt an almost crippling blow.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Melvin Carter is the first of the terrorist leaders to die.
  • Blind Without 'Em: Craig Hoyle and Marco Stonecastle both suffer from terrible vision. Marco loses his glasses during a scuffle with Maxwell Lombardi, his sight becomes blurred and he can no longer fight back. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for him...
  • Book Ends: Both Allen Birkman and Brendan Wallace in their final threads before they're rescued remark that they're standing in the same place where they first woke up on the island.
    • When she first wakes up, Tiffany Baker discards her gun into a puddle in the swamp. Some time later she returns to the exact same area and fishes out the gun. She then gets shot and killed by Jason Harris, who thinks she's trying to attack with said gun.
  • Bring My Brown Pants: The very first thing that Jimmy Brennan does once he wakes up on the island is... wet himself. Then he starts crying and running around screaming throughout the forest, eventually shouting out that "Craig Hoyle will rape you and wear your skin as a coat!"
    • Tabi Gweneth similarly wets herself (and passes out) soon after waking up on the island...notably, she still doesn't realize that she is in fact on Survival of the Fittest. Possibly a natural reaction to being threatened with an umbrella, but it still makes you wonder about her every-day life.
  • Cain and Abel: Staffan Kronwall kills his brother Nik.
  • Canon Immigrant: Yelizaveta 'Bounce' Volkova started off as a character in the 'In-Universe Chat' (a chatroom where SOTF members could RP being members of the show's audience). After some time, she was brought into the version four pregame as a fully-fledged character.
  • The Casanova: Dustin Royal. Also may come off as a Handsome Lech.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Sarah Atwell goes mad and cruelly tortures Eve Walker-Luther. While filming it.
  • Companion Cube: Jake Crimson and his cinderblock.
  • Crash-Into Hello: Reiko Ishida and Sarah Xu meet this way.
  • Cute Clumsy Girl: Lucy Ashmore has her moments, such as spilling school supplies all over the place when opening her pencil case, or accidentally pouring water on someone's leg. However, this is more out of nervousness, due to being picked on.
  • "Darkness von Gothick" Name: Meredith Hemmings, or as she prefers to be called, Pandora Black. According to her it's her "soul name".
  • Dead Person Conversation: Albert Lions comes across the body of his friend Augustus MacDougal, and then right away he sees his ghost.Augustus follows Albert around, the pair conversing like normal (Dougal even has to remind Albert that only he can see him). Whether Dougal's ghost is real or just a figment of Albert's imagination is unknown.
    • Later, Simon Telamon falls asleep, after which he manages to remove his collar, only to engage in conversation with his girlfriend Clio Gabriella, who had died two days previously. She herself reveals that the entire thing is a dream.
    • Janet Claymont also has a dream conversation with her dead boyfriend, Chadd Crossen, after she almost tries to kill herself by drinking chlorine where he snaps her out of it.
  • Death by Falling Over: Happens a fair bit. Edward Belmont hits his head on a rock after being whacked with a stick by Rachel Gettys. Jake Crimson suffers a slow death, having struck his head on a cinderblock when pushed over by Garry Villette, and Timothy Skula dies when he hits his head on a rock after being shot by Ilario Fiametta.
    • The unusual number of "Death by falling over and hitting your head on a rock" deaths (both in v4 and v3) have led to a few humorous Epileptic Trees.
  • Developing Doomed Characters: "Pre-Game" for v4 existed to establish character relationships, romances, etc, and took up about eighteen months before anything remotely game-related happened.
  • Disney Villain Death: Happens to Maxwell Lombardi when he falls backwards over a sheer drop after being shot repeatedly by Raidon Naoko.
  • Dramatic Drop: Reiko Ishida does something like this with a piece of bread she had been eating when she finds out that her twin sister Reika has been killed. This quickly reached Memetic Mutation.
  • Driven to Suicide: Dawne Jiang, Violetta Lindsberg, Hermione Miller, Brock Mason, Lily Ainsworth, Sofia Martelli and Courtney Bradley all kill themselves over the course of the game. Simon Fletcher, Jackie Maxwell, Hilary Strand, Nick Reid, and Tyler Franklin also commit suicide, but through having someone else kill them. Harun Kemal also does this in post-game, but several decades after the game ends.
    • In a game finishing move, Ilario Fiametta.
  • Dying Declaration of Love: Tiffany Baker admits her feelings for Peter Siu as she's dying. Unfortunately, Liam Brooks had feelings for her as well, so for him it was a Dying Declaration of Unrequited Love, and partly what causes him to go down the Axe-Crazy route.
  • Evil Brit: Maxwell Lombardi fast became one of these after killing Augustus MacDougal, Harold Fisher and Vera Osborne. At the time of his death, he had more than quadrupled his body count. Without provocation.
  • Evil Cripple: Jackie Broughten in a nutshell, who had a permanently damaged leg from getting hit by a car. Her first action on the island? Slicing Maria Santiago's throat open with a saw. And that's not even going into her Hearing Voices...
  • Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Jimmy Brennan got revenge on school bully Phillip Ward by beating him to death with a piece of driftwood, and continued to pummel his head in long after he'd died.
  • Eye Scream: There's Charlotte Cave's eye being sliced apart with a cat claw wielded by Phillip Ward, then Rekka Saionji having his popped by R.J. Lowe's elbow and penetrated again by his molar, then Vivien Morin being stabbed in the eye with a pencil courtesy of Liam Brooks. Nick Reid thrust a sword hilt right into William Sear's eye, and then later on was a victim himself, being stabbed there by Maf Tuigamala.
  • Face Palm: Aileen Borden seems to do this pretty often. To be fair, it fits her normal personality.
  • Face Your Fears: Allen Birkman, an aquaphobe, does this during the rescue attempt by STAR. When Andrea Raymer is badly injured and lying face-down in the water, he jumps in to pull her to safety.
  • "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: when Eve Walker-Luther is about to be killed by Sarah Atwell:
    Eve Walker-Luther: "Come on! I deserve better than this! Kill me properly!"
  • Fanservice: Invoked by Andrea Raymer when Danya begins randomly detonating students' collars in retaliation to Liz Polanksi.
    Andrea: "And uh, Danya, if you want to see more crazy shirtless Andrea, don't blow my collar!"
  • Flare Gun: Maria Graham recieved a flare gun as an assigned weapon. Later, she shot somebody with it, and while it ends up bouncing off his chest, it ricocheted into the girl next to him and got caught in her shirt, burning a hole right through her before igniting and vaporizing her torso, and then burning down everything in a 20 yard radius.
  • French Jerk: Alice Boucher is an example of this trope: one of her biggest regrets about being in America is that she doesn't know any insults in English. Due to Character Development after being put on the island (as well as a change in writer), she grows out of this very quickly though.
  • Genki Girl: Maria Graham, who's an odd mix of Genki Girl, Cloudcuckoolander, and Stepford Smiler.
  • Genre Savvy: Bounce had been a massive fan of the series prior to her own involvement in it and as such references things like The Power of Friendship never working in SOTF and the fact that, as an unfit, unpopular nerd, there's no point in her making plans because people like her never stand a chance.
  • Gorn: Averted for the most part, as v4 has been focused more on realism rather than gore and horror. However, the death of Francine Moreau was a very... over the top depiction of death by flare gun. To put it simply, liquefied, charred, vaporized, and immolated.
  • Griefer: Alex White holds the equivalent of a temper tantrum when he finds out rescue boats have arrived, and because he's been playing and killed about four people, he's not allowed to be rescued. He decides he's going to blow up the boats just so no one can get off if he can't. Thankfully, Andrea Raymer puts a stop to that.
  • Groin Attack: Raidon Naoko gets stabby on Maxwell Lombardi's crotch whilst taking him down.
  • Gun Twirling: Harold Fisher tries this before killing Maxwell Lombardi. Naturally, he drops the gun, which Maxwell puts to much better use.
    • Joe Rios does it too out of sheer boredom, with much more success.
  • Hates Being Touched: Isabel Guerra seems to have problems with this. Flashbacks show her recoiling from touch and she screams and falls into a bush after brushing hands with Dave Morrison. It even has been shown to extend to other people being intimate, such as her pretty much having a panic attack when trapped in the restroom with Rosa Fiametta and Felicia Carmichael making out during prom.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Zach Jamis hates everyone and everything in the world as much as the next thing he hates...except for his best friend Sammy Franklin.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Jacob Charles and Ben Powell, or as they're more affectionately known, "BROMIES!".
  • High-School Dance: The lead up to and eventual event of the High-School Dance in v4 is ultimately what takes up most of Pre-Game.
  • High-School Sweethearts: Janet Claymont and Chadd Crossen. Turns out it was somewhat one sided though, as Chadd spent his dying moments forgiving Janet for cheating on him, whilst Janet spent hers regretting that she couldn't think of something more worthwhile than him.
  • Huge Schoolgirl: Raina Morales is the standout example at 6'6".
  • Human Shield: Occurs early on, where Gracie Wainright attempts to rob Anna Chase (who is not wearing her glasses) and Kitty Gittschall. After being threatened by Kitty and hit by Kyle Portman, Gracie is just distracted enough for Anna to attempt to run away. However, she is quickly caught and held by the hair by Gracie, taking her hostage in an attempt to hold off Kitty and Kyle, so she can rob Anna in peace.
  • I Call It "Vera": Appears often. Hayley Kelly actually calls her gun Vera.
  • Informed Loner: Brendan Wallace is introduced as a somewhat cynical Australian New Transfer Student with social anxiety. However, by the end of pre-game he is a member of an activist club, previously had a Secret Relationship with one character, is currently in a relationship with another, has a Manic Pixie Dream Girl best friend, and is a tech guy for a band. However, this can be justified by Character Development / Characterization Marches On very easily.
  • Ironic Nickname: Meredith Hemmings is occasionally referred to as "Merry". She isn't.
  • Instant Fan Club: Reiko Ishida got one of these due to her success in ice skating, often referred to as her "entourage". Bit of a subversion, though, as, unlike most characters that have found themselves in this trope, she's actually quite close friends with them.
  • I'm Standing Right Here: Happens constantly between Isabel Guerra and Dave Morrison, mostly involving racist remarks towards Isabel:
    Dave: "Listen, me and the Help, we're pretty fucking tired to be honest."
    Isabel: "I can hear you still."
  • Instrument of Murder: Isabel Guerra making a shiv out of a trumpet and broken piece of glass. It's called Partario.
  • I Want My Mommy!: Amber Whimsy cries for her mummy whilst bleeding to death after being shot in the stomach by Kris Hartmann.
  • Killed Off for Real: As of Day 10, apparently Danya.
  • Land Down Under: Three Australian students, Jason Harris, Brendan Wallace, and Ben Powell, attended Bayview.
  • Lesbian Jock: Reiko Ishida, of Survival of the Fittest, is a rare example of one of these that does ice skating. Despite the fact that, as noted above, it tends to be seen as "girly", she is masculine enough (and, well, the obvious) to count as being played straight.
    • From the same version is Charlotte Cave, a more traditional example.
    • Another possible example is Alice Blake. She belongs both to a fencing and gymnastics club, though her involvement in gymnastics is more of an Informed Ability considering it hasn't really been mentioned outside her profile.
  • Little Dead Riding Hood: Carol Burke is usually seen wearing a red hoodie. Said character is a Wide-Eyed Idealist in a type story. This trope has actually been confirmed by her handler.
  • Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Rosa Fiametta. She managed to wise up a bit, but that just made future searches for Mr/Miss Right even worse.
  • Love Freak: Örn "Dutchy" Ayers. At one point, he makes a speech to the cameras that he and his friends will prevail over Danya and the game due to The Power of Friendship, saying that friendship will always win over evil. Worth noting, though, is during this speech he is showing the camera (which is broadcasting to live television) the island's map, in an attempt to help any rescuers find where they are. He's also portrayed a lot more sympathetically than most.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Omar Burton quickly swings this way, deciding to kill the rest of the students so that his love Sierra Manning can get off the island alive. Naturally, he puts a target on himself very quickly and Julian Avery takes great pleasure in taking him out.
  • Madness Mantra: Kris Hartmann has, with variation, "Voice. Jump. Spin. Squeeze. Bang. Dead." She never actually says it, but it comes up in her thoughts frequently, starting from her Accidental Murder of Reika Ishida.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Hughes. This is a guy who, instead of killing an attacker, lets his ally get killed by said attacker, and goes back to his other allies portraying the poor victim as dying in a Heroic Sacrifice in an attempt to encourage them to get revenge on the murderer. Yikes.
  • Meaningful Rename: Spoofed with Meredith Hemmings, who, after identifying herself as a "goth" (she isn't; she's just a poser who is acting out what she thinks goths act like) renames herself "Pandora Black" and repeatedly insists that it's her soul name whenever anyone questions it. Jake Crimson also renamed himself from "Gomez", apparently after his parents' divorce (that, and Rule of Cool). Remy Kim is another character who has gone through this, originally having the last name "Trembley" before his parents separated and having it changed to his mother's maiden name sometime after. This serves to symbolize just how different he is from his sister, Josée Trembley.
  • Miles Gloriosus: Jimmy Brennan is built almost entirely on this trope, pissing his pants and losing his shit in one thread, and bragging about all the ass he's already kicked in the next.
  • My Nayme Is: Chadd Crossen, Neill Robertson, Remi Pierce, Micheal Raynor and Ema Ryan, the last of which gets lampshaded.
    Ema: I'm Ema, Ema Ryan. Sounds like the normal but only one 'm'. My parents were hipsters, I guess.
  • Nice Guy: It happens. For example, Reika Ishida, in contrast to her sister. One of her defining traits was that she was nice and friendly, always trying to help out. However, true to the stereotype, she literally gets killed within almost two minutes once she gets to the island. Danya in the following announcement then called her "the less interesting of the Ishida sisters" for this reason.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Anna Chase. She seems particularly fond of psychological horror and slasher movies, and can be described as a bit obsessed over them at times. It has been shown that on a couple of occasions, if something reminds her of a horror movie she could easily have a "Cool!" type reaction, though not always. Occasionally, this, combined with her normal personality, sides into Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant tendencies, as you might expect.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Luke Templeton talks Clio Gabriella out of commiting suicide and generally helps her out. How does she repay him? By shooting him in the chest and head.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Rose Codreanu's death. She goes to sleep in a danger zone during the announcements but before it's announced as one, and has a calm, happy, introspective dream... with a constant beeping increasing in frequency throughout. Then, in the middle of a sentence, it cuts off with the notice that she's deceased. Very much a break from the usual Gorn deaths.
  • Not Quite Dead: Clio Gabriella knocks Garry Villette off a cliff and watches him plunge into the water below. She doesn't bother checking to see if he surfaces again and believes him to be dead (more than likely because she's exhausted, him almost having killed her). He survives the fall though, and Clio is furious when she finds that out.
    • Likewise, Maxwell Lombardi traps Maria Graham in a burning building, only for her smash open a window and get out after he's left. He's not happy to find that her name isn't on the morning announcements.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Jimmy Brennan, who started out as a Miles Gloriosus type who ran around the forest screaming and pissing his pants in the first thread he appeared in, and bragging about being a badass in the next. For the most part, his antics are fun in a Crosses the Line Twice sort of way, up until he beats resident Jerk Jock Philip Ward to death with a branch.
  • Not the Fall That Kills You…: Played for Laughs / Rule of Funny with Richard Han's death. He falls off a mountain, and screams as he falls... only for him to enter another thread as he falls, apparently screaming the entire time and only stopping when he hits the ground and dies. It's actually pretty funny as hell.
  • Obfuscating Insanity: When she first appears on the island, Liz Polanski's first actions are to make herself appear as Ax-Crazy as possible to ward off potential attackers. How does she do this? By, among other things, smearing her face with make-up and severing the head off one of her classmates' corpse and carrying it around for a while. It works, for the most part. Except on Milo Taylor. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Offscreen Breakup: Jonathan Jarocki and Anna Chase broke up before they got on the bus, as revealed in their respective opening posts, mainly due to the fact that the pairing was almost unanimously hated among the writers. In universe, it's implied that something went on between Chase and Dawne Jiang during a drunken evening, leading to the former breaking up with him out of guilt. This leads to major Survivor Guilt from her when both Dawne's and Jon's deaths are announced, on the same day no less.
  • Off with His Head!: Hayley Kelly is particularly keen on this method early on, decapitating Steve Barnes and James Mulzet with a sword. Some collar explosions are also powerful enough to rip a person's head off.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Reiko Ishida is 4'9, which has been noted to technically make her a midget. However, she was an athlete before the island, and eventually racks up a high kill count.
  • Please Wake Up: This is Albert Lions' reaction to finding Augustus "Dougal" MacDougal's corpse.
    Albert: DUDE! CUT IT OUT NOW! WAKE! THE HELL! UP!
  • Pointless Band-Aid: Örn "Dutchy" Ayers is mentioned as wearing a Band-Aid over the bridge of his nose. His profile confirms that this is more of a personality quirk/casual accessory than the result of an injury.
  • Really Gets Around:
    • Rosa Fiametta is an excellent example. This has been explained as emotional issues, partly due to seeing herself as The Unfavorite among her siblings.
    • Clio Gabriella; the character's creator explained it was also because of abandonment issues; she was once tricked into believing she was in love, and ever since, she has been purposely sabotaging her relationships or picking the worst possible boyfriends to hook up with in order to stop herself from being hurt again.
  • Refuge in Audacity: The only thing keeping Milo Taylor from being ventilated by any of the assorted known killers he's antagonized. Particularly obvious in the case of Jackie Broughten, who ignores him because he's clearly mentally retarded.
  • Ruptured Appendix: R.J. Lowe succumbs to this after several days of escalating symptoms. Helen Wilson suffers a similar fate, only she manages to perform an appendectomy on herself just before it gets worse. Unfortunately, she dies of blood loss right before she makes it to the escape boats.
  • Sanity Slippage: Aston Bennett, after her only remaining friend is killed, starts to lose it a little, as evident by the text.
  • Self-Sacrifice Scheme: Ethan Kent manages this by rigging up a power system that would activate the island's only computer, but upon realising he could do it, he also realised that doing so would alert Danya. What he does is insult Feo Smith, his only travelling companion, into leaving him, writes down the instructions on how to turn on the computer, and smashes all the cameras in the location, thus provoking Danya into blowing his collar. It ultimately pays off - a group of students manages to follow the instructions and broadcasts the location of the island, which in combination with Liz Polanski's own attempts to screw with Danya, allows for STAR to rescue a good number of the students.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Alice Blake. Before V4 started, she was in a car accident that killed her parents, as well as leaving her scarred. From that point on, she's more or less the quiet type around everyone except her few close friends.
  • Shout-Out: Damn near everything Micheal Raynor says is a reference to some video game or movie. One character near the start even explodes at him because of the constant shout outs.
  • Shrinking Violet: Gloria Benson. She's always whispering, stuttering, and blushing when she speaks. Even when she talks to her friends, she's painfully shy/quiet, and keeps apologizing for what she says. Lucy Ashmore, also from v4, qualifies as well. She's just as shy, due to bullying. Not to mention sometimes this slides into Cute Clumsy Girl territory as well, due to her nervousness.
  • Sibling Rivalry: Remy Kim and Josee Trembley, who both see themselves as The Unfavorite to their mother, and have been known to attempt to "regain" her love from the other twin.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Jimmy Brennan is a mixture of this and Miles Gloriosus. He's definitely the most badass, manly, and awesome character on the island who can kick ANY ass!
  • So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Charlene Norris's first thoughts upon realizing she is on SOTF is that "people like her, the popular girls with bodies to die for, were rape targets".
  • Spock Speak: 'Bounce' speaks with excessive formality, which is possibly because English wasn't her parents' first language, although intelligence plays a part.
  • Storming the Castle: STAR assaults the terrorist headquarters and actually captures Danya, as part of a rescue attempt. This almost cripples the terrorists once Danya dies.
  • Sword Cane: Jeremy Franco was given this as his assigned weapon, and provides the page quote.
  • Sword Fight: The first SOTF swordfight happens in this version, between Nick Reid and Maf Tuigamala.
  • Teen Genius: Peter McCue and Jason Clarke, who are seniors at the age of 16.
  • Tender Tears: Örn "Dutchy" Ayers frequently cries when he reads about the plight of the less-fortunate countries.
  • The Atoner: JJ Sturn, although he wasn't quite as extreme as many examples listed here: He was a giant asshole especially towards women, although he did have his own share of more unpleasant actions.
  • The Dog Bites Back: Dorian Pello, having been manipulated into working for and constantly abused by Danya is the one who finally shoots and presumably kills him during Day 10.
  • The Loins Sleep Tonight: Dustin Royal suffers this embarrassment when attempting to have sex with Maria Graham. Comedic, but also a relief, given he was taking advantage of Maria's highly distressed state at the time to make a move on her.
  • Theme Twin Naming: The Ishida twins, Reiko and Reika.
  • 13 Is Unlucky: Reiko Ishida is Female Student no. 13. She's also a Psycho Lesbian and multi-murderer.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Along with the students who refuse to defend themselves from deranged killers on principle, we have Remi Pierce, who tried to cut off his own collar. Seems a reasonable reaction...until you look at the thought process behind that:
    He lifted it up to his collar, he knew he was told not to mess with them, but if he was going to survive and win, he would need the damn thing off, let him travel through the danger zones.
  • Too Kinky to Torture: A non-sexual variant, where Rein Bumgarner is well-known for enjoying pain, enjoying the adrenaline rush that it gives him. As a result, he actually attempts dangerous stunts partly for this reason.
  • Unreliable Narrator: In the profile for Clio Gabriella, it explains several parts of her personality, yet her actions in the game contradict this. Reason? Clio spent nearly all of her teenage life lying to her parents, her therapist, and nearly everyone she knew so that she could put on a demeanor of a normal, well-adjusted teenage girl, when secretly she was a basket case very close to breaking point.
  • Use Your Head: The death of David Anderson via a well-placed headbutt to the face, breaking his nose and sending bits of bone into his brain.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Pre-game has a bizarre example, where a character puts around 6 to 8 jello shots down her bra. Needless to say, this reached Memetic Mutation very quickly.
  • Visible Silence: Ivan Kuznetsov is quite fond of these.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Carol Burke, Allen Birkman, and Sierra Manning of all suffer from aquaphobia, while Liam "Brook" Brooks and Rena Peters suffer from hemophobia.
  • World of Technicolor Hair: It's very egregious this version: Violet Druce has purple hair, Maria "Animal" Graham has blue streaks in her hair, her friend Cassidy Wakemore dyed her hair completely blue, as has Stacy Hart. Katelyn Wescott and Cisco Vasquez both have green hair, Violetta Lindsberg has red, yellow and brown streaks, Dawne Jiang has "christmas" hair, red green and white, and Fiona Sparki has red, green and the aformentioned blue.

    Version 5 
  • Accidental Pun: The thread "We're Above It" takes place in the peak clearing, the island's highest location.
  • Afraid of Blood: Joe Carrasco, who also wants to be a doctor.
  • Alliterative Name: V5 gives us the notable example of Aileen Aurora Abdallah. Her handler stated that being an alliteration was the major point of her name.
  • And Your Reward Is Edible: A darker variation occurs as of v5, in which the winner of the daily Best Kill Award receives food along with a weapon from the terrorists.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: A good number of the assigned weapons including Garrett Cobbler's twelve-foot long punt gun.
  • Ax-Crazy: Summer Simms, Travis Webster.
    • Cute and Psycho: Mirabella Strong seems to be going in this direction after witnessing her boyfriend kill and then be murdered himself.
  • Battle of Wits: Joachim Lovelace and Rosemary Michaels engage in a riddle contest to determine who gets the prize when they tie for BKA.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. The girls in V5 have taken their share of punishment so far.
    • This turns out to be the Berserk Button for Amaranta Montalvo, who beats Ray Gilbert to death after he cuts her face.
  • Better to Die than Be Killed: How Brandon Baxter chooses to go out, killing himself by setting off grenades instead of letting his collar detonate.
    • Similarly, Maddie Wilcox commits suicide after being mortally wounded.
  • BFG: Several of the weapons in this version, such as a twelve foot long punt gun and the Stinger, which is basically a WW2 fighter plane's machine gun with a rifle stock attached.
  • Boom, Headshot!: How Jason Meyers is dispatched, at the hands of Joe Carrasco. Also a Mercy Kill.
  • Bully Hunter: Alex Ripley is canonically referred to such by other characters. While in pre-game it's mostly played straight, in v5 proper this trait becomes a Deconstructed Trope; trying something like this on Hansel Williams after he kills Daniel Whitten only nets her a shot in the ankle. By the time Day 3 rolls around she develops certain player-hunter tendencies and attacks Kam So'oialo after suspecting she might kill someone. This gets both her and Carlon Wheeler, who had been traveling with her, shot to death.
  • Cain and Abel: Eliza and Cody Patton to an extent. Both have a small body count, but Eliza chooses to actively play while Cody decides to put a stop to her. They end up killing each other.
  • Closet Geek: Miranda Millers tries to play up her Alpha Bitch tendencies, but has a hidden love of anime and video games. The trait mentioned down in I Call It "Vera" came about after a moment of Character Development in which after being directly responsible for the death of one person and indirectly for another she realized that she didn't have to worry about her social image anymore.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Katarina Konipaski's style is to keep it as efficient and strategic as possible, utilizing ambushes and attacking unarmed classmates. Maximilian Sawyer employed a similarly ruthless style in his fights, such as throwing an exploding cigar at somebody who held him at gunpoint so as to distract them, or allowing someone who was punching him to break their hand on his skull before biting a chunk of their nose off. Harry Hanley eventually turned it around on him, blinding him with a floodlight and then having someone shoot him with a shotgun.
  • Death by Falling Over: Natali Greer dies of brain damage a few days after falling and hitting her head. Something similar happens to Yukiko Sakurai.
  • Doesn't Like Guns: Matt Masters is utterly terrified of guns. Naturally, he's assigned a gun.
  • Domestic Abuser: Maximilian Sawyer is definitely one to Zoe Leverett. Even more so when he murders two of his ex-girlfriends and four other innocents.
  • Dramatic Irony: Michael Mitchellson is deaf, and cannot hear the announcements. He spends most of the game looking for a friend who was killed on the first day, which the readers are aware of but he isn't.
  • Driven to Suicide: Dave Russell opted out of the game and jumped off a cliff in his first and last post. Yasmin Carrol also hangs herself after realizing just how alone she is. Brianna Battaglia kills herself by overdose. Gwen O'Connor jumps from the same cliff Dave did after watching her friend die.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Paulo Abbate to Becca Everett's butt.
  • Epic Fail: Gavin Hunter and his allies try to remove their collars... by shooting them off.
  • Everything is Big in Texas: Hansel Williams, a student who immigrated to Seattle from Texas. He has somewhat of a more fundamentalist view.
    Conclusion: Wow. Just wow. Is the cowboy here for real? I like a good ol' Duke VHS as much as the next moderate western movie enthusiast, but I feel bad if parents are actually raising their kids on nothing but. Kinda reminds me why this organization exists. Whoops, I'm rambling... aaaaaanywho, I'm pretty sure John Wayne didn't have a gun like THIS. Ride 'em, cowboy. - Dennis Lourvey
  • Food Fight: One occurs in pregame, as Gray Emerson's attempt to distract from a fist fight breaking out.
  • Genre Savvy: A large part of the reason why Miranda Millers heel-turns almost immediately is because she recognizes that, because of her reputation at school, she is more likely to be picked off by potential killers.
  • Gentle Giant: Matt Masters qualifies, being a huge wrestler that volunteers at a shelter for abuse victims.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Jesse Jennings
  • Groin Attack: Amaranta Montalvo kicks Zubin Wadia in the balls when he interrupts her while she is bathing.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: Adonis Alba
  • Huge Schoolgirl: Gabriella Parker, at 6'2".
  • I Call It "Vera": Miranda Millers names her war spear "Kyoko" after a character from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Joey Caputo also has his kukri knife, Kiki. Katarina Konipaski jokingly calls her scythe "Steve".
  • I Just Want to Be Loved: Summer Simms wants to be loved and is terrified of her friends abandoning her, to the point where she eventually tries to force them to stay with her.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Summer Simms, after killing Naomi Bell, does this in hopes of gaining favor from the terrorists.
  • Important Haircut: Miranda Millers cuts all her hair off after killing Kaitlyn Williamson and deciding to play the game more seriously.
    • Summer Simms also does the same, resultant of her increasing mental decay after an attempted rape at the hands of Brandon Baxter, and her subsequent killing of Naomi Bell.
  • Impromptu Tracheotomy: How Travis Webster kills Matt Masters.
  • Jerk Jock: Seems to be somewhat trendy this particular version; Cody Patton and Adonis Alba are two such examples. However...
    • Lovable Jock: ...There are also some examples on the flip side, such as Owen Kay and Michael Whaley.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: Daniel Whitten meets his demise this way.
    • Lana Torres death is a variant, as she is killed mid-thought.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Tyler Lucas spends a lot of time charging wildly at his classmates, including known killers.
  • Man Bites Man: How do you win a fight against an enraged member of the wrestling team trying to beat your head into paste? If you're Maximilian Sawyer you bite the tip of his nose off.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Paris Ardennes, who tricks Katy Warren into attacking him so that his traveling companion will kill her.
  • Meanwhile Scene: V5 was the debut of the RP's "Meanwhile" section, meant for stories and RPed threads taking place in the world off the island.
  • Overlord Jr.: Victor Danya's successor, Tracen Danya.
  • Perky Goth: Gwen O'Connor is an example.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Hansel Williams, who essentially just wants to go home. But for that to happen, everyone else has to die, so he responds accordingly.
  • Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Claire Monaghan and Joseph Chaplin both sport a pair of these.
  • Revenge: Mara Montalvo decides to personally hunt down Stacy Ramsey, after Stacy killed Miranda and Kat in a fight who happened to be Mara's two best friends. Mara ends her search a few days later by shooting Stacy in the head.
    • Michael Mitchellson and Joe Carrasco teamed up to attempt revenge on Hansel Williams, who had killed Michael's best friend, Daniel Whitten, and Joe's friend and crush, Marcus Leung. Unlike with Mara, this results in both their deaths.
  • Russian Roulette: A variation occurs between Ami Flynn and Joachim Lovelace, where they take turns passing a gun with one bullet back and forth and aiming it at each other. Joachim loses.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: Takeshi Yoshikawa wears a school uniform just for aesthetic purposes.
  • Shrinking Violet: Rachael Langdon. She's so timid and unsure that she just tries to distract someone who is trying to kill her ally rather than shooting them herself.
  • "Take That!" Kiss: Amaranta Montalvo gives one to terrorist Cecily Lacoste when the latter insults her after coming to retrieve her from the island.
  • Talk Like a Pirate: Sean Mulcahy, a sailing enthusiast and fan of classical pirates, does this. It eventually becomes a coping mechanism.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: Paulo Abbate cultivates this kind of persona, projecting himself as an alpha male and picking fights. It ends up getting him killed.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Alex King announcing her escape plan out loud to the terrorists right as she was about to do it, just so she could gloat about winning. The result is predictable.
  • Troll: This happens in the third announcement. Right before kills are announced, Shamino tells the students that since no one killed the previous day that the collars are to be detonated as a joke. While this is an in-universe Take That! towards an idea certain students had, it's still plenty cruel. It's also revealed in the same post that he's the one responsible whenever a character wakes up in a particularly strange position on the island.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Abby Soto, a newly-introduced member of the Taskforce, just wants to provide for her siblings in the aftermath of her parents' death. She does this by designing the explosive collars that the kidnapped students are forced to wear.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: At one point, Matt Masters busts out a half-nelson slam on Travis Webster in a fight.

    Version 6 
  • Abandoned Hospital: While present in every version, V6 is notable in that the entire island is largely built around an abandoned mental asylum, complete with rooms of old, long outdated equipment such as a lobotomy lab.
  • Accidental Murder: The cause of Mia Rose's death; Kaitlyn Greene tranquilized her with the intent to knock her out and rob her, but inadvertently killed her with an overdose.
  • Affectionate Parody: To a degree, Jerry Fury is this to SOTF's less-than-realistic older versions.
  • Alas, Poor Yorick: Dorothy Shelley cuts off Isabel Ramirez's head after killing them and carries it around for a day or so. She even uses it as an Improvised Weapon.
  • Aliens in Cardiff: Let's face it, Kingman, AZ is the last place you'd expect a terrorist group to kidnap teenagers en masse and force them to kill each other after previous students were abducted from places like the Twin Cities or Seattle. Might or might not be exactly why Cochise was targeted to begin with.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: A frequent occurrence this version. There's Alessio Rigano's feelings for Vanessa Stone, Hazel Jung for Min-jae Parker, Johnny McKay for Raina Rose, Brendan Harte for Alba Reyes (and for Maxim Kehlenbrink, in pregame), Serena Waters for Jeremy Frasier, and Caleb Diamond for Kimiko Kao, just to name a few. See Love Dodecahedron below.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: As of the second announcement, the terrorists have located STAR's headquarters and launched an assault on it, personally led by Big Four member Steven Wilson.
  • Alpha Bitch: Isabel Ramirez is one for the senior class. Jasmine King is somewhat of this for the junior class.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: Penelope Fitzgerald holds very nihilistic views when it comes to the world and everything in it. Nonetheless, she is an All-Loving Hero. Asha Sur is the same way, acknowledging that most of the students have about a week to live at the longest and trying to get them to enjoy the time they have left.
  • Auto Erotica: During the main game, Hazel Jung and Min-jae Parker sleep together in the back of a truck in the vehicle depot. During pregame, Nadia Riva and Roderick Kanuho hook up in Roderick's car out in the desert. The former scene is on screen, the latter off.
  • Ax-Crazy: Nancy Kyle. Bonus points for using an actual ax. Isabel Ramirez as well.
  • Batter Up!: Junko Kurosawa was assigned a baseball bat. She introduces it to Darius Van Dyke's knees.
  • Big Fun: Rene Wolfe, a girl on the larger side who aspires to be a comedienne.
  • Big Beautiful Woman: Nadia Riva is a plus-sized model back home.
  • Blood Knight: Junko Kurosawa was an adrenaline junkie prior to the game. It's heavily implied (and confirmed) that being in danger and fighting people in SOTF gives her a pretty good buzz for this reason. Her aggressive nature gets her killed when she mistakes a friend's belief that Living Is More than Surviving as just plain giving up, causing her to go berserk and forcing him to shoot her.
  • Boom, Headshot!: What happens to Darius van Dyke.
  • Brick Joke: Way back in pregame, Fiyori Senay stole Darius Van Dyke's Nintendo DS. Seven days into the game, she realizes that she never returned it when she finds his dead body and addresses the cameras to ask her mom to return it to Darius's family.
  • Bring My Brown Pants: Caedyn Miller wakes up on the island to find that she has soiled herself.
  • Bully Hunter: Ben Fields, though he soon realizes that his usual approach doesn't translate well to the island.
  • Car Fu: Serena Waters kills Jerry Fury by plowing into them with a jeep.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Isabel Ramirez mutilates a few of her victims while killing them. She finds she rather enjoys doing it.
  • Conspiracy Theorist: Tessa Cole believes that SOTF is a False Flag Operation by the US Government to encourage compliance and military support. This version of Kingman, Arizona, also has a notable population of preppers, including several students' families.
  • Deal with the Devil: Lily Caldwell partners up with player Isabel Ramirez at Isabel's behest. Isabel wants to frame Lily as her Morality Pet so that people watching won't think of her as badly for her kills, while Lily goes along with it so Isabel won't kill her and in hopes of getting an opportunity to kill Isabel herself.
  • Death by Falling Over: Bernadette Thomas fatally hits her head after being shoved during an argument with a friend.
  • Defiant to the End: Steve Dobson while Isabel Ramirez is killing him.
    "Unoriginal." - Steve's last words as Isabel threatens to torture him.
  • Delicate and Sickly:
    • Blair Moore has cystic fibrosis, a lung condition which makes it unlikely that she will live past middle age under normal circumstances. She lampshades the irony of her life potentially being cut even shorter.
    • Emma Luz has narcolepsy with cataplexy. As the game goes on, it's clear that stress from the game has impacted her physical (and likely mental) health. Aside from the most famous symptom, she also experiences Hallucinations and cataplectic episodes.
    • Bernadette Thomas suffers from endometriosis, a condition involving misplaced menstrual tissue which causes her severe pain. Unfortunately, yes, she does has a flare-up in the game that leaves her out of commission for a while.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Mia Rose after being rejected by her friend because she and Candice Banks have guns. This leads to her splitting with Candice and her death at the hands of Kaitlyn Greene.
  • Desecrating the Dead: Caedyn Miller steals most of Jane Madison's clothes to replace her own ruined ones, leaving only Jane's bra. Possibly a deliberate humiliation on top of pragmatism, as Caedyn and Jane hated each other.
    • Will McKinley ends up walking around with his girlfriend's corpse in his arms for a day and a half for fear of this. He abandons this after talking with Nadia Riva and realizing he's doing more harm than good to her memory.
    • Both Isabel Ramirez and Alessio Rigano end up decapitated after death by people who helped to kill them.
  • Drag Queen: Noah Whitley is one back in Kingman, performing as a character named Pina Bucket.
  • Dramatic Irony: Brendan Harte kills one of the boys who bullied him when he finds a pair of them threatening to kill a girl. Unfortunately, that girl was three-time killer Nancy Kyle. Brendan doesn't find out her real identity until much later and doesn't take it well.
  • Driven to Suicide: Subverted with Jennifer Su, who has decided against killing herself when she is startled and falls from the bridge she was standing on anyway. Played straight with Abby Floyd after she witnesses the death of her best friend, Wayne Cox becoming ashamed of his actions over the course of the game and for Jasmine King, who does it to spite her killer. Tara Behzad also decides to simultaneously burn and blow herself up after an episode where she harms herself while attempting to remove her collar.
    • Meanwhile establishes that several family members of past and current kidnapped students have ended their lives or plan to do so as a result of losing their loved ones, including the fathers of Henry Spencer, Maria Cucinotta, and V5's Maddie Wilcox.
  • Enemy Rising Behind: Michael Crowe invokes this trope to surprise and warn the man he's stalking and intending to kill, Alex Tarquin for being a prior murderer and having mutilated Michael earlier.
  • Evil Gloating: Killer Isabel Ramirez's specialty. She loves to explain herself to those she takes down in detail, blaming others for their own deaths without second thought.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Astrid Tate wears an eyepatch over her right eye ever since an injury in grade school damaged it.
  • Eye Scream: Sandy Bricks gets a screwdriver through the eye in his fight with Nancy Kyle. A similar thing happens to Astrid Tate during an ambush, which is particularly cruel as they already have only one good eye. Jonathan Gulley gets his eye shot out in a confrontation, though the injury is not fatal.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Coleen Reagen after an encounter with Alessio Rigano results in her travel partner Arthur Bernstein dying, decides to roll back her hair into a ponytail, fully showing her face and the burn scar she's had since she was a toddler.
  • Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Isabel's last fight with a group of people who all bear grudges against her for her actions up to that point.
    • Matt Moradi ends his fight with Serena Waters by beating her to death with his bare hands.
  • Failure Hero: Brendan Harte, for his almost unquestionable good intentions and pleasant demeanor, lacks the control and intelligence to be an effective or reliable hero to his friends. He in fact kills two of them due to misunderstandings and rash decisions.
  • Foreign Cuss Word: Jasmine Reed has a habit of swearing in Japanese, despite not being so, because most people can't understand what she's saying.
  • Formerly Fat: Nadia Riva was fairly heavyset as a child, and while she's still curvy she's slimmed down to a more healthy weight through diet and exercise.
  • Garage Band: Cochise High gives us Peyote Coyote, which specializes in stoner rock.
  • Go Out with a Smile:
    • After getting shot, Junko Kurosawa spends her last seconds smiling and giving her killer a thumbs-up. The experience gave her an extreme rush of endorphins and adrenaline, making her incredibly giddy as she bleeds out.
    • Brendan Harte also. It's implied he's just relieved the ordeal is over.
  • Goth: Min-jae Parker and Nadia Riva are examples.
    • Perky Goth: Henry Spencer and Asha Sur. Penelope Fitzgerald is a perky scenester.
  • Grievous Bottley Harm: Jane Madison has a bottle of expensive whisky for her weapon. It eventually gets used (though not by Jane) to messily kill Bridgette Sommerfeld.
    • Jasmine King gets an unlit Molotov cocktail to the face for her troubles, right before she offs herself to spite Sandy Bricks, her attacker.
  • Groin Attack: Michael Crowe jabs Will McKinley in the crotch with a shock knife.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Min-jae Parker, Jane Madison, Jasmine King, and Tyler Yazzie are all known by their classmates for having explosive tempers. It comes back to bite all of them. Min-jae ends up murdering someone in a fit of rage, while Jane's refusal to back down from a confrontation gets her shot. Jasmine tried to force Sanford Bricks to be her ally against his own wishes, and he in turn attacked her. Ty ends up breaking Conrad Harrod's arm after the latter attacked Ty's friend, earning him the ire of Conrad's girlfriend and his wrestling teammate, Clarice Halwood.
  • Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Maria Cucinotta and Jane Madison are both examples. Jane even receives a bottle of whiskey as her weapon, amusingly enough.
  • Hates Being Touched: Vanessa Stone, though she's plenty outgoing otherwise.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Maxim Kehlenbrink, to the point that he often seems to dislike even people he considers friends.
  • Hearing Voices: Somewhat ambiguous; Jasmine Reed begins conversing with her childhood imaginary friend in order to deal with the stress of the situation, though it's unclear if Jasmine is actually hearing things or just using it as a cover for her darker thoughts. As of Day 4, she's begun to have visual hallucinations as well.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Caleb Diamond, motivated to an Act of True Love, elects to provoke Kimiko Kao and let her kill him so she can have his supplies and a chance at winning more by BKA.
    • Jennifer Wallace tries the Draw Aggro variant when she and her group encounter Nancy Kyle, one of the game's major killers. While she doesn't survive, everyone else is able to escape safely.
  • Heroic Wannabe: Michael Crowe sees himself as a player hunter out to stop the killers from doing whatever they want. From many others perspective Michael's seen as a loudmouth bully who's attitude rubs many people the wrong way, leading to confrontations and the death of his partner Jeremiah Larkin.
  • The Hyena: Fiyori Senay does tend to laugh a lot, and in places where it's not quite appropriate.
  • Hypocrite: Alessio Rigano mentally calls Amanda Tan a psycho for pulling a gun to defend herself in a confrontation, when he himself had killed four people unprovoked at that point.
  • I Call It "Vera": Noah Whitley named his sawblade slinger Sawlaska Thunderfuck 5000. Irene Djezari also named her shotgun Johnny Three.
  • Improbable Hairstyle : Michael "Flock of Seagulls" Crowe.
  • The Insomniac: Raina Rose, Bradley Floyd, Caleb Diamond and Rea Adams.
  • Ivy League for Everyone: Conrad Harrod applied to Cambridge University and got an interview with them, although he had yet to receive a reply when the game happened. Alvaro Vacanti has applied to Harvard.
  • Japanese Honorifics: Nancy Kyle uses these regularly, as does Jasmine Reed.
  • Jerkass: Caedyn Miller and Bradley Floyd are thought of as such, enough so that several of their classmates assume from the start they'll play the game. Will McKinley also has a reputation for such.
  • Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: This is part of Hazel Jung's backstory, but she has been trying to change her actions where relationships are concerned after an incident of Slut-Shaming by people she considers friends. Unfortunately, her latest romantic endeavor is a case of Incompatible Orientation.
  • Lovable Jock: Cristo Morales, although some think his people-watching and anxiety are creepy instead of endearing.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Oh yes. There's even a chart this time.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Alessio Rigano tried to confess his love and want to protect Vanessa Stone to her but failed. The loss of self-esteem and anger from the rejection he perceived grew out of control until he killed Vanessa's best friend, Cameron Herrig, and that was just for starters.
  • Man on Fire:
    • Tara Behzad sets her arm on fire as part of a personal test after hearing the first announcement.
    • Coleen Reagan and Alessio Rigano stumble through a campfire during a brawl and are both burned during the fight.
  • Massive Numbered Siblings: Nate Turner and Tyler Yazzie both qualify, each the youngest of a plethora of boys. Nate has four older brothers, whilst Ty has six.
  • Medical Horror: Certainly implied with parts of the setting, such as the lobotomy lab in the basement.
  • Mercy Kill: Blair Moore kills Rene Wolfe after the latter falls into a coma.
  • Message in a Bottle: Suggested by Darius Van Dyke as a way to get help for the abducted students. Junko Kurosawa hates this idea.
  • Morality Chain: Alba Reyes considers that she could be this for Brendan Harte and stays with him to ensure he doesn't do anything reckless.
  • Murder by Inaction: Lily Caldwell comes across her cousin Tina Luz in a fight with Isabel Ramirez. Initially intending to help, she remembers that there can only be one winner and does nothing as Tina becomes the first murder victim.
  • Nervous Wreck: Alvaro Vacanti is very much unable to weather the mental stress of the dangers of the island. His fear makes him accidentally kill a friend, Barry Banks, and he ultimately reaches the point of a Freak Out where he decides he needs to kill more simply because he's afraid now that others know he's a killer.
  • Nice Guy: Barry Banks is described as one. Unfortunately, Alvaro Vacanti shows to him how niceness can be an issue in SOTF. Same goes for Harold Porter. Both boys also fall into Gentle Giant territory.
    • Brendan Harte is also seen as one, but is considered a pushover because of it. thus it surprises everyone when he kills Jeremiah Larkin to save Nancy Kyle's life.
  • Occidental Otaku: Cochise High School has a sizable anime club, several members of which end up on the island.
  • The Pig-Pen: Bart Cappotelli is a variation. Although he isn't particularly slovenly, he has a medical condition that causes him to exude constant, strong body odor.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Rene Wolfe intentionally tries to play this role in order to cope with the island. She has difficulty keeping it up as the time goes on, though.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Alvaro Vacanti winds up killing Barry Banks when he mistakes Barry's concern for aggression.
  • Rasputinian Death:
    • Isabel Ramirez gets stabbed, tased, shot, and mutilated by a group of people out for revenge, until she begs for mercy. To be fair, it wasn't like she didn't deserve it.
    • Jonathan Gulley gets shot, then thrown off the bell tower, then stabbed with a machete, then hit with a pistol butt and tased. He only dies when he falls into knee-high water and drowns, unable to get out due to his injuries.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Penelope Fitzgerald's attempt to stop her friend Astrid Tate from killing others is mostly a takedown of her 'it doesn't matter if I kill as long as I survive' mentality and philosophy.
  • Reformed, but Rejected: After Alessio Rigano mortally injures Kiziah Saraki, one of her final requests is that Alessio join her group's cause of encouraging pacifism. Alessio, not wanting to kill anymore, actually agrees. However, it causes in-fighting among the rest of the group once they find out about it. This leads to the group splitting, thus denying Kiziah's last wishes.
  • Relationship Revolving Door: Raina Rose is in an on-and-off relationship with Crisanto Luz. They went "on" again shortly before the game started.
  • Sanity Slippage: Nancy Kyle undergoes this pretty fast. Alvaro Vacanti does as well, but not nearly to the same extent.
  • Sadist: Isabel Ramirez started out as an Alpha Bitch, before realizing that Cold-Blooded Torture gives her even more of a thrill than bullying.
  • Scars are Forever: Coleen Reagan has a large burn scar covering half her face, stemming from an accident with boiling water as a child. She has a bit of a complex about it.
  • Selective Obliviousness: For the first day or so, Aiden Slattery, Irene Djezari and Henry Spencer spend it in denial of what's happening around them. Alice Baker forces Aiden to realise what's going on while Henry and Irene both slowly break down on their own, unable to keep up the delusion.
  • Shout-Out: Nancy Kyle's profile conclusion references the When They Cry series, due to the fact that she is an otaku and was assigned a hatchet. Guess how quickly Nancy goes literally Ax-Crazy.
  • Shrinking Violet: Best friends Bryony Adams and Alice Baker both fall into this category, as does Coleen Reagan. Cristo Morales and Bart Cappotelli are male examples. Serena Waters is one when she's not with her friends.
  • The Speechless: Kimiko Kao, who has been completely mute since an accident shortly after birth.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Darius Van Dyke acts generally self-centered and pompous, putting down both strangers and allies with insults and baseless assumptions. Jerry Fury is pretty much a textbook example of this too.
  • Small Town Boredom: Several characters felt this way about Kingman - a city of nearly 30,000 people, but still a rather small, obscure place in the middle of the Mojave Desert - before the game.
  • Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Alex Tarquin decides to deliberately paint himself as a villain as a way to cope with his fear and anxiety from the game, and his Accidental Murder of Rea Adams.
  • Sports Hero Backstory: Cochise High School's baseball team won the state championship in 2014, one year before v6 proper, with star pitcher Crisanto Luz having been part of the team for that accomplishment.
  • Stepford Smiler: Alba Reyes is this at times, generally smiling and acting cheery to calm those around her, with varying success.
  • Stress Vomit: Many students have vomited at the beginning of this game. A notable example is Blair Moore, who vomited after witnessing the death of Jennifer Su.
  • "Take That!" Kiss: Fiyori Senay gives one to Min-jae Parker during their final fight in endgame.
  • Taking You with Me: Alba Reyes pulls this on both Kimiko Kao and Min-jae Parker with a land mine. She succeeds in regards to the former.
  • Talking to Themself: Benjamin Lichter in this version, though it's ambiguous if it's really another personality or an aspect of himself he can't admit he has.
  • The Teetotaler: Clarice Halwood, Michael Crowe and Nancy Kyle, who claims that "idols don't do drugs".
  • Third-Person Person: Nancy Kyle refers to herself as Nancy-chan when she speaks to the cameras.
  • Tiny Schoolboy: Nate Turner at 4'6", due to a pituitary gland disorder. This puts him as the shortest boy in any version of SOTF.
  • Together in Death: Occurs several times this version.
    • After Jeremiah Larkin is stabbed dead, Michael Crowe places his body next to Scarlett McAfee, a girl he had feelings for.
    • In a familial variant, Clarice Halwood commits suicide, with only the body of her step-sister, Scout Pfeiffer, as company. Because Clarice destroys a camera doing so, not even the terrorists see it.
    • Similarly, this turns out to be the ultimate fate of Emma and Sabrina Luz. Emma is shot dead over a misunderstanding caused by her own paranoia, while trying to transport her sister's dead body. Afterwards, the covered bodies are placed inside the Art Therapy room with their names marked on the wall, along with others in the area.
  • Token Good Teammate: Boris Petrikov, a terrorist introduced in V6, qualifies. He's been established as more of a Punch-Clock Villain who only works for the Artho Taskforce to help with his family's financial issues. In addition, while most profile and wiki comments have the terrorists either poke fun at the kids or express interest in them killing others, Boris' generally have him say something positive about them. He's still a terrorist who sends children to their deaths, but at least he's nice about it.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Bradley Floyd encounters Kimiko Kao, a known murderer who has previous bad blood with him. What does he do? Go out of his way to piss her off when she's leaving. She immediately turns around and kills him for it.
    • Bradley's cousin Darius Van Dyke gets in a similar situation when he tries to steal from Will McKinley, and then taunts him for the loss of his girlfriend, even when being threatened at gunpoint.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend: Gender inverted with both Will McKinley and Jonathan Gulley, who set out for revenge after their respective significant others are killed (both towards the same killer, no less).
  • Web Video: Several students in this game have an in-universe web series. Noah Whitley hosts a scripted comedy series, while Maria Cucinotta hosts a cooking series. Caedyn Miller and Jasper Bustamante are also Vloggers. Vincenzo/a Gatti is also a relatively popular video game streamer.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Penelope Fitzgerald is an optimistic Actual Pacifist with a blood phobia, who tends to sees the best in others and tries to keep them on the right path.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Vigilante organization STAR features in the V6 prologue and are mobilizing for a rescue attempt, as shown during the first announcement. They end up on a different island full of decoys, possibly due to a Mole in their midst, leading directly to the organization being wiped out by the AT.
  • You See, I'm Dying: Blaire Moore brings up mid-conversation that, because of her living with cystic fibrosis, that her days were numbered to begin with. It's a surprise for Rene Wolfe and Noah Whitley, the people she's talking to.

    Version 7 
  • Accidental Murder: Darlene Silva ends up effectively doing this twice. First by mortally wounding Beryl Malehona due to an accidental discharge, and then later on directly killing Arizona Butler after firing shots in a panic.
  • Alpha Bitch: Madison Springer and Ivy Langley serve this role for the class of George Hunter High School, both of them vying for the position of the cheer squad captain and prom queen.
  • Angsty Surviving Twin: Wyatt Carter becomes an understated version of this after the death of his twin Brett Carter. Yuka Hayashibara ends up becoming an Angsty Surviving Triplet after the deaths of her sisters Yuki and Yuko, contributing to the Sanity Slippage she would fall into.
  • The Apunkalypse: Marco Volker has both the aesthetic and the attitude, even if he isn't actually living in an Apunkalypse setting.
  • Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Triplets Yuka, Yuki and Yuko respectively.
  • The Big Bad Wolf: Ace Ortega builds himself up as being akin to this in the late game, as part of a strategy to psyche himself up to go for the win.
  • Boom, Headshot!: Desiree Beck ends up being the victim of this, courtesy of a long range shot from Erika Stieglitz. Amber Yates later on suffers the same fate, courtesy of the same killer, but ends up surviving with severe brain damage for a few minutes before being Double Tapped.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: When attacked by Garnet Barnes for killing Shauna Cooke, what does Justin Greene offer up as his defense?
    Justin Greene: "IN MY DEFENSE I KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE!"
    • This is something of a subversion, as Justin remembers killing Shauna. His protests are due to the fact that of all his victims, Shauna is the only one Garnet actually cares about.
  • The Corruptible: Marceline Carlson begins her story condemning those that would fall prey to the island's influence and choose to play the game and kill their classmates. She ends up playing the game herself much later on, even realizing how thoroughly she was corrupted in the process.
  • Et Tu, Brute??: Amelia Fischer ends up meeting up with Marceline Carlson, her only friend that was still alive at that point, and entrusts her safety to her, only to be abruptly betrayed and killed for her weapon.
  • Cult: There are various signs around the island that indicated that the community that lived on it previously were some kind of cult.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Marceline Carlson quickly crosses it after the death of her girlfriend and Living Emotional Crutch, Dolly Upton.
  • Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Anna "Roxanne" Herbert and Marceline Carlson both find themselves looking for one once they find themselves in the death game, having both lived their lives without considering what they really wanted to do beforehand, thinking they would always have time for later.
  • Determinator: Kelly Nyugen winds up being a villainous example of one, surviving multiple injuries that should have killed her, including amputating her own arm, out of nothing but sheer determination to stay alive.
  • Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu?: Juliette Sargent does this multiple times with the various high profile killers in her class, most prominently with Quinn Abert, who at the point they met had already murdered eight of her classmates.
  • Dream Team: George Hunter's women's basketball team is obscenely good for a high school team, including not one but two players who are good enough to have professional ambitions and several others who are aiming to play college ball. Even their worst player, perennial benchwarmer Shauna Cooke, would start for an ordinary high school (and would probably perform much better, given the opportunity to develop her confidence). It's no surprise that they're said to have dominated the league since coming together.
  • Elegant Gothic Lolita: Dolores "Dolly" Upton has this as her primary style.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There: Camila Cañizares' charmingly disconcerting weapon assignment, the teddy bear with too many eyes. She gives up counting them after a bit.
  • The Farmer and the Viper: Anna "Roxanne" Herbert promises to protect her friend Marceline Carlson as they both try to figure out what to do with what little time they have left. In return, Marceline almost ends up stealing her shotgun and leaving her defenseless, and later kills her in a very one-sided fight.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Katelynne Kirkpatrick is fond of modified and customized Furbies, keeping quite a few of them that she modified herself and posting about them on her blog.
  • Gorn: Quinn Abert is a source of this, mostly prominently with her disturbing mutilation of Stepney Cruz's corpse after she killed him.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Diego Larrosa briefly falls into this after finding out that Lorenzo Tavares, someone that he had spent quite a bit of time with and developed a crush on, had raped one of his classmates.
  • The Hedonist: Teresa Rojas has this mindset, being entirely focused on doing whatever she thinks would be fun in the moment.
  • Hostage Situation: Adonis Cohen finds himself embroiled in one, as Brandon Murphy grabs his travel partner, Myles Roux by the hair and demands Tristan O'Hara's bag from him in return.
  • Implausible Deniability: Marco Hart tends to use denial to cope with stress, and begins his time on the island consistently denying that he was really in a death game, eventually culminating in him murdering Kayla Harris to prove it, only to finally realize just how real it all was. This had the side effect of causing everything else he was denying to fall apart as well, including the fact that he was up to that point a closeted transgender man.
  • Jerkass: Richard Smith is incredibly rude and standoffish, and never lets any opportunity to insult someone pass him by. Blaise d'Aramitz, meanwhile, is an incredibly selfish person with an ego so big it might as well be visible from orbit, ready to use and subsequently discard anyone and everyone around them to further their own ends.
  • Jerk Jock: The Carter twins, Wyatt and Bret, are both this for the class of George Hunter High School.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his surly demeanor and lack of tact, Richard Smith ultimately proves himself to be this, willingly giving away some of his own supplies to Nathan Coleman when the latter needed the help.
  • Karmic Death: Abraham Watanabe suffers this fate near the end of the game, being killed by Marco Hart, someone he robbed at the very beginning of the game. Marceline Carlson suffers a similar fate, also being killed by Marco not long after killing his lover, after spending much of her time on the island hunting down her own girlfriend's killer.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Dolores "Dolly" Upton serves as this for Marceline Carlson, being the latter's sole source of emotional stability. After the former's death, Marceline ends up temporarily replacing her with Anna "Roxanne" Herbert.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Especially this time around, though it can be somewhat simplified with Cast Herds.
  • Love Makes You Crazy: Michael Froese begins his Sanity Slippage not long after the death of Beryl Malehona, someone he had an unrequited crush on.
  • Love Makes You Evil: Marceline Carlson ultimately ends up killing several of her classmates while trying to keep true to the Last Request of her girlfriend, Dolores "Dolly" Upton, who made her promise to live if anything were to happen to her.
  • Mercy Kill: Madison Springer ends up attempting this with Nathan Coleman, but ultimately messes it up, and ends up having to brutally beat the latter to death with a rock. Nick Ogilvie ends up having to do a more straightforward version of this trope with Beryl Malehona, in the aftermath of Darlene Silva mortally wounding her.
  • Morality Pet: Nathan Coleman served as this for Madison Springer, giving her someone to take care of instead of giving into her darker impulses, at least until she ended up killing him.
  • Mushroom Samba: Lori Martin received quite a bit of LSD as her weapon draw from the terrorists, and proceeded to inflict this trope on double digits worth of people before the end of the game, including herself.
  • Misplaced Wildlife: Justified trope. The Menagerie on the island was home to many exotic animals, including monkeys and parrots. After the departure of the island's community many of the animals that were in the menagerie escaped and went on to populate the island.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Quinn Abert continued from One Final Embrace.
  • Odd Friendship: Alexander Brooke is blind, and Nia Karahalios is mute. Despite the obvious communication difficulties this creates, the two are quite close, with Nia "talking" to Alex primarily by tracing letters on the palm of his hand.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Way back in pregame, Lucas Brady made an inflammatory Facebook post after losing the student council president election to Nathan Coleman, a student with Downs Syndrome. Good luck finding a single thread Lucas has been in since where the other characters don't reference it with derision, or even a mention of the elections at all where it doesn't come up in passing. The damage the incident did to his reputation (along with his poor attempts at damage control) continue to haunt him in the game proper.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Parker Green's gameplan on the island was defined by raw tactics and pure pragmatism. He avoided killing his classmates not because he felt particularly troubled by the idea of doing so, but instead simply to avoid the attention he would draw on the announcements. Robbing them blind while they slept was fair game, however.
  • Rasputinian Death: Kelly Nyugen suffers a few knife wounds, a shotgun blast to the leg, and the loss of her arm, but only ends up finally dying after taking full magazines from the guns of both Diego Larrosa and Erika Stieglitz, and she still manages to survive for an indeterminate amount of time in the aftermath.
  • Regretful Traitor: Marceline Carlson ends up struggling heavily with guilt in the aftermath of betraying and killing her friends Amelia Fischer and Anna "Roxanne" Herbert, most prominently right before her death.
  • Sanity Slippage: Amelia Fischer ends up suffering this as a result of days worth of sleep deprivation combined with the stress of all of her friends being picked off one by one.
  • Sadist: Quinn Abert is one of the psychopathic variety, leading to her brutally murdering several of her classmates for nothing but the thrill.
  • Sad Clown: Amber Yates has a tendency to cope with stress by making (bad) jokes, regardless of situation, which comes to the forefront once she winds up on the island.
  • Self-Deprecation: Abraham Watanabe does this constantly, with his stream-of-conscious narrative being rife with jokes at his own expense, such as referring to himself as the "rat king" as he begins to amass a hoard of stolen supplies.
  • Stress Vomit: Myles Roux ends up doing this after pulling a shard of glass out of Ivy Langley's eye. Marceline Carlson similarly does so after murdering her friend Amelia Fischer. Sean Leibowitz ends up doing the same once he sees the damage done to Desiree Beck after she gets shot.
  • Tulpa: Amber Yates has one in the form of an imaginary friend, whom she consistently speaks to and treats as if it were a separate entity from herself throughout her story.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Multiple students fill this role, due to a combination of personal biases, drug-induced hallucinations, and the stress and trauma they've experienced.
  • Unsafe Haven: Katelynne Kirkpatrick and Liberty Wren hole up in a house, securing the only simple point of entry by locking up. They both reflect on how safe they now are, only for Katelynne to accidentally leave the door unlocked after a last minute check of the perimeter, with lethal results.
  • Wham Thread: Children of Cain. One errant plank of wood sparks off a chaotic confrontation that leaves four students dead and a single survivor. It's especially shocking because only one of the characters in question was rolled to die ahead of time so the bloodbath comes out of nowhere. The scene is also a Homage to Battle Royale's own lighthouse massacre.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend: Aurelien Valter is a gender flipped version of this for his boyfriend Dante Luciano Valerio. He spends most of his time on the island hunting down his boyfriend's killer, Blaise d'Aramitz, in order to get revenge, and succeeds... at the cost of his own life.

    Version 8 
  • Abandoned Mine: While the mine has been closed, the structure around it is still open for the students.
  • Cain and Abel: Two examples:
    • Ashlyn Graves and Katelyn “Kitty” Graves had a tense relationship since well before the game started. Neither one is really worse than the other, though Kitty ultimately kills Ashlyn in a fit of rage after an argument, and then goes on to kill a lot more.
    • California and Salem Fox have a more amicable relationship than the above, but Salem is quite clearly the Cain in this equation when the game starts. He also ends up outliving his sister, but she dies for reasons unrelated to him.
  • Cold Snap: After every previous version took place during summer, this time the terrorists target a senior class heading to a ski resort for the annual winter ski trip. As a result, the island is covered in snow and the students have to worry about freezing to death. The rules are also slightly modified in that students are allowed to start fires (something that was forbidden under the pain of death after a student in V6 tried to signal for help by setting a big fire) and each student is issued a windbreaker.
  • Company Town: The island used to house a town with the entire economy centered around one mine. After a big part of the mine collapsed in an accident, the mine closed and the town quickly became a Ghost Town.
  • Danger — Thin Ice: The island has a frozen lake. The area description makes it clear that while most of the lake is frozen enough to walk over it, some parts have thinner ice, resulting in the danger of falling in.
  • Eerie Arctic Research Station: The island features one of these. It was created in a joint effort by the US and Norwegian governments back in 1982, comprising of five different building used by the staff stationed there. Naturally it is abandoned by the start of the game due to cuts in funding, but it is still in good condition despite languishing in the elements for years.
  • Halloween Episode: As pregame was set during the fall and early winter, several threads were set during Halloween, specifically a costume party at Dani Bird's house.
  • Hormone-Addled Teenager: Played for Horror with the antics of Josh James, who starts committing sexual assault and murder with worrying quickness even for this series.
  • Russian Roulette: Between Shu Hawthorne & Salem Fox. Shu loses.
  • Salem Is Witch Country: The town from which the students of V8 are from is none other than Salem, Massachusetts. Like its real life counterpart, there are no witches or anything supernatural but the pregame description of Downtown Salem mentions that the bulk of the town's tourism has to do with "witchcraft, the occult, and all things spooky in relation to the infamous Salem Witch Trials."

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