uh... hey there. if by some off chance you found this page then you probably witnessed one of the rare moments where i'm not lurking on this site (l̶i̶k̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶u̶m̶s̶ GAME OVER YEAH ^what).

shameless plug: here's my YouTube channel. for the most part i mash buttons like an asian, pretending to make music. or, at least i used to. i also have a half-baked Neocities website about games i play: Yet Another Free Website (yes, i am that bad at naming shit)

currently hopelessly addicted to Dungeon Fighter Online, trading in being subjected to aspiring tourney-goer elitism for raid elitism.

grinding to satisfy elitist pricks is extremely fucking boring sometimes, so if you can feed me funny videos to watch and/or listen to that'd be great. just don't put anything literally illegal in the cue, for god's sake. https://w2g.tv/jqbwo5bee2vit203mi

if you want to s̶l̶a̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶r̶u̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶r̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶e̶d̶r̶u̶n̶s̶ comment on me for any reason click here.

coincidentally, the second time i edited this very page was a day after a catastrophic hard drive failure on TV Tropes's end on July 7, 2020.

Pages I started

hololive (March 20, 2020)^notefor those curious, my original draft for this page was stuffed in the Wiki Sandbox here
- Legend of Polka (September 2, 2022)
Vigor (September 29, 2020)
Heroism (MINMAXIA) (July 15, 2021)
echochrome (September 14, 2022)

Tropes that live in my head rent-free

Josh Strife Hayes's "box of abusive monetization practices" (a.k.a. a laundry list of psychological tricks to prey on your social inferiority, of which i have practically nil): ^noteTV Tropes has a more in-depth list of the bullshit live service games do right here, have fun
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: of the paid variety. probably the only form of abusive monetization that's swayed me, but for unconventional reasons — i like looking as repulsive as possible, budget permitting. (if anyone reading this garbage wants to spin a self-deprecative "fashion" sense as "social inferiority", go right ahead)
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: i don't partake in it myself (party because i have standards, but mostly just because i'm broke). i do find the psychological and sociological phenomena driving people who perpetuate the trope really fascinating though (perhaps unsurprisingly, i'm a semi-regular visitor of /r/truegaming as a result).
- The Gambling Addict: oddly, as someone who's spent roughly half my life playing Allegedly Free Games, i miraculously have a healthly lack of this trope.
  - Loot Boxes don't do anything for me, i guess i just don't get any dopamine hits from rare shiny yellow things popping out of gaudy metal boxes.
  - gearing in Dungeon Fighter Online is essentially a gacha. never felt any joy from getting a full set of epics, or a usable mythic (which reportedly has a 0.05% drop rate). instead, when i get to that point, i'm usually filled with a vague sense of dread that i'm still not good enough for elitists gatekeeping raid because i quite obviously don't have extremely amped gear.
  - was once humorously described by a friend as "that one weirdo who doesn't play gacha games for the gacha" (in the context of Girls' Frontline, whose story is more gripping than i expected it to be).
  - was once asked by a friend "if you had enough money to look like a whale in DFO^note what would you do with it?". my immediate answer was that since you didn't specify that i needed to use it on ''DFO'', it's going immediately to my student loan debt (and the leftovers to immediate family who needs it for financial hardship). i sure as shit don't care about keeping up with the Joneses.
- Rewards Pass: free shit's always nice. and if i'm too casual to even get all the free shit, oh well. not like i suffer from FOMO anyway.

Bile Fascination: there's no other explanation for why i made this reddit thread searching for a Spiritual Successor to ZT Online in 2022 (which TV Tropes argues is the inventor of Loot Boxes, by the way).
/u/Pug__Jesus: This is an entirely new kind of masochism, and I support you completely.
/u/FalseTautology: I have nothing to offer this thread except my total support in your quest for pain. I imagine you as a postmodern Pinhead from Hellraiser, exploring the further reaches of experience. That you would claim Diablo Immortal 'not exploitative enough' makes you my hero for the day. Goodluck, erstwhile cenobite. May you find the darkness at the end of Leviathans beam.

: that being said, no matter when you're reading this page, i'm probably still looking for the pinnacle of toxicity in online video gaming, so if you got any suggestions, feel free to DM me.

Fan Hater: people who hate fans of Allegedly Free Games (particularly on Reddit) that thrive for reasons other than exploitative monetization are equal parts fascinating and annoying to me.
Some Dexterity Required: if it wasn't obvious from the opening part of this page, i love games that fit this trope. i grew up playing things like the crappy US version of beatmania and Guilty Gear (from The Missing Link up to most of the X2 series), so i suppose it's not too surprising.
"Stop Having Fun" Guys: have been dealing with them for most of my life. as the opening states, i used to play fighting games a lot and have transitioned to pay to win MMOs that i don't personally pay to win in, which generally puts me at odds with people who fit under this trope. apparently i'm not allowed to be good at games without letting them become too Serious Business-y.
- i have, at one point, gotten death threats for teaching someone how to get good at their chosen main in Soulcalibur V.
- i personally like Dungeon Fighter Online for the mere fact it's a Beat 'em Up MMO, and unironically like doing endgame and raids. this has resulted in me becoming a "meme" in the DFO community for the most part, since the very idea of playing DFO seems to be heresy to most endgame players (aside from a handful of people who are about as """""masochistic""""" as i am)
- i have been DDoS'd at least three times over The New '10s merely for being able to take my losses on the nose instead of being salty about it (mostly Grand Theft Auto Online-related incidents, but the Metal Gear Online community was also problematic back before its closure).
Virtual YouTuber: if it wasn't obvious from the fact that i started the hololive page.

Miscellany

Tropers pages probably not meant to see the light of day

Involvement in non-trope pages

Tropes Needing TRS: was probably the one that indirectly got Memetic Mutation an entry over there (quoted posts were started by me out of sheer confusion for the trope's definition)

The w̶e̶i̶r̶d̶ idiotic side of TV Tropes

There used to be "lemme get my popcorn" drama here. Now there isn't.

Never My Fault rule breakers + uncensored names = witch hunting. And That's Terrible.

cool

things about DFO nobody should care about

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dfog_if_youre_not_a_seller_youre_a_customer.PNG

a Forced Meme someone made back in like 2019 after something i said on global chat (1920x1080 version)

◊

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/halalpriest_ragequitting.PNG

the average DFO player having an average reaction to actually having to play DFO instead of sleeping through it

a new player's rant

about DFO's new player experience

u/Fansy3303: Making a new character seems to me like it's impossible now, and the non-existence of peer players worsens it. Almost nobody is around to tag along even at prime US hours, and I'm always forced to hire others and resign myself to being functionally extorted by a dwindling playerbase that's largely taken on the role of mercenaries. The irony of this is that new characters are more important than ever, and if I hadn't spent time years ago, I'd never be able to do any of the Squad mode content... or much of anything, really.

Korean DFO director's notes

, which contains this glorious (and still true) translated quote (emphasis mine):

Improving recognition/reputation for DFO (in Korea, the dfo is viewed as The Game For Mentally-ill, Weeb, and Losers).

stupid youtube videos (in no particular order)