Tropers / 1angelette

Hello. You've come to the page for an obscure show that happens to be directly lifted from the events taking place in This Troper's Real Life. The show has the following bizaare layout:

• The Pilot Movie, a ten-minute Lost Episode originally broadcasted during the graveyard shift. Portrayed the characters who would later become The Lancer, The Smart Guy, and The Hero, doing a video-project on A Wizard Of Earthsea, with a brief appearance by the boy who would later be The Big Guy. Very low-quality in several as it was supposed to have been scripted and filmed by the characters themselves (a sort of mockumentary within a mockumentary), but it had a few clever moments that showed the humor and personality of this premise well.
• The first season, taking place almost entirely at the main characters' school during the seventh grade, and revolving around the slow forming of a Five-Man Band (or, one might argue, a Five-Token Band) as well as several invocations of The Rival. An exception was the true Pilot of the show, taking place at a party immediately before the school year's start. This was the episode where The Hero decided she was in love with The Lancer, therefore being a bizaare form of Everyone Meets Everyone.
• The second season took place during the eighth grade; now that the Five-Man Band had been firmly established, there was more explanation of relationships and expansion of minor characters. The Smart Guy and The Chick became a Beta Couple; this was the subject of much confusion and use of Shipper on Deck, and most notably created a Will They or Won't They? situation during which The Hero became convinced that successful matchmaking would win her The Lancer's love. This was also the season where the Butt-Monkey, who was really in-universe The Scrappy, as well as the Affirmative Action Girl had their personalities developed. This created a secondary Four-Temperament Ensemble among the four main female characters; note the use of cast herd below.
• There was then a series of OVAs, released irregularly and still ongoing. This marked an Art Shift; while the show as a whole was Live-Action TV, this was done anime-style, because it was about The Hero's "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship with an Otaku Genki Girl Satellite Character, who in later installments transitioned to a more angsty Petanko Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette type.
• Technically, the show was cancelled after the second season. However, it lives on: As the characters are now high school age, The Hero, The Lancer, and The Chick have entered a high-school show that is an Expy of Degrassi. In this series, they are mere extras, but in a fan webcomic centered around the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' club, the hero has had the good luck to become a primary character.

This show employs the Cast Herd, as it is justified in the fact that often characters live far away from each other and have limited opportunities to interact. The Cast Herds are, roughly, as follows:

• The Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero, a Cloud Cuckoolander Insufferable Genius that hasn't quite finished compensating for her discovery that Loners Are Freaks. Is a Hollywood Atheist with a Televisually Transmitted Disease.
  • The Lancer, who subverts the hell out of Kuudere, Tsundere, and Defrosting Ice Queen, several times over. Un-Ambiguously Jewish.
  • The Smart Guy, who is arguably the Only Sane Man... most of the time.
  • The Chick, who has Nerd Glasses yet averts the hell out of Meganekko. Arguably a bit of The Daria, although to be honest The Hero invokes this trope far too much....
  • The Big Guy, who is more often than not on A Date With Rosie Palms.
• Three Plus Two is used in two different ways: The Hero, The Lancer, and The Smart Guy resolve to a Power Trio in certain episodes, as Id, Superego, and Ego respectively. However, there is also a second "Plus Two", that had previously a sort of status as Those Two Guys. These are:
  • The Scrappy, an Indian possibly-anorexic who is the unfortunate Butt-Monkey.
  • Affirmative Action Girl, a Twofer Token Minority and sort of Ensemble Dark Horse.
• The aforementioned Four-Temperament Ensemble is an occassional way in which the four girls are split up: Affirmative Action Girl, The Hero, The Scrappy, and The Chick are respectively sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Oddly enough, they completely avoid fitting the Four-Girl Ensemble.
• A Dysfunctional Family, consisting of Bumbling Dad, The Unfavorite Bratty Half-Pint [who became an angsty Anti-Hero by the third season], a sociopathic Mama Bear, and The Hero who here plays the roles of Daddy's Girl and Bratty Teenage Daughter.
• The High School characters. At this point the hero is a freshman, hanging out with a large science fiction and fantasy writers' club consisting mostly of juniors.
  • The Hero's role is now one of Token Mini-Moe and Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The second quality is directed at...
  • A Deadpan Snarker who turns out to be a Type A Tsundere, to the point of Oranyan.
  • Onee-sama, who is called such by the hero in a completely platonic way... probably.
  • The Beta Couple, consisting of a Yamato Nadeshiko and a Jerkass.
  • The Malevolent Bastard, who is Put on a Bus in a fashion resembling Karmic Death after a few months.
  • The other Beta Couple, which is a Will They or Won't They? consisting of an honest-to-god literal Bokukko and the poor Only Sane Man who just had to fall in love with her. It Got Worse: Then it became a Type 4 Love Triangle involving a part-time Wholesome Crossdresser Cat Boy. (Poor, poor, poor Only Sane Man...)

Overarching tropes:

• All Love Is Unrequited (a rule for a very long time, but the hero's luck is slowly beginning to change)
• Berserk Button
• Beta Couple: With the exception of the OVA,
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: The Hero and The Lancer sometimes fall into this; in the post-summer portions of the OVA, so do The Hero and Genki Girl.
• Foreshadowing: Usually, there is at least one very obvious moment for each Romance Arc.
• Hide Your Lesbians: Normally, the show is very explicit about the (usually lesbian) homosexual relationships depicted upon it. On certain networks, however, this content was considered inappropriate. The creators had way too much fun with the ensuing Dub Text, entire scenes being refilmed to be about "intense jealousy" of a Shallow Female Love Interest's good looks, dating of others, etc.
• High-School Dance: Well, duh.
• Large Ham
• Les Yay: It just gets more and more blatant as it goes along.
• Love Makes You Crazy (so very, very crazy)
• Nerds, Geeks
• No Bisexuals: Averted
• One Head Taller: The Hero starts out preferring love interests who are not One Head Taller. When she moves on to accepting ones who are, it is played much like the maturation from the class S relationship to real relationships with men. Discussed when she gets with a boy who is exactly One Head Taller.
• Rule of Three: Official Couple is "third time's the charm".
• School Play: At least once a season.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Almost every couple falls into this at some point.
• Status Quo Is God: The first two seasons averted it with relationships but played it straight with characters; later material is the other way around.
• There Are No Therapists: Oddly enough, inverted; The Hero attends several therapists of several kinds, but none of them resolve her problems and she decides to just continue being an oddball.
• Tsundere: Many characters are like this. Type A is commonest, but The Lancer can be argued as a Type B.

Tropes appearing in the first two seasons:

• The B Grade
• Granola Girl (many of the females go through a phase of this sort at some point)
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: A Defied Trope in the romance of The Hero and The Lancer. It goes through the following stages:
  • Seeming When a Jerk Loves a Tsundere.
  • The hero's Love Epiphany turns her into a Yandere.
  • This only turns The Lancer more tsundere towards her.
  • The Scrappy is a Shipper on Deck who lampshaded the entire thing.
  • Ultimately, they form an elegant deconstruction of the traditional Kid Com Official Couple.
• Strawman Political
  • The Rival
• Too Dumb to Live: The Scrappy claims to have forgotten what religion she was.

The OVAs contain examples of:

• Fangirls
  • Shipping
  • Occidental Otaku (a rare western example)
  • Yaoi Fagirl and Yuri Fangirl (they provide an amusing contrast)
• Les Yay
  • "Romantic" Two-Girl Friendship
  • Schoolgirl Lesbians (technically, schoolgirl bisexuals, but don't tell the fans that)
  • Just Friends the final circumstance, and in some ways as far as their relationship ever gets
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette
  • Pettanko
• Hollywood Homely (both of the girls are Beautiful All Along, to a certain extent; some deconstruction and Lampshade Hanging takes place when one begins to consider the other as a Bishoujo)

The third season contains examples of:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Because the series' protagonist is, between much use of Ensemble Dark Horse and A Day in the Limelight, the roles that each character actually belongs in are rather variable: Wrong Guy First, The Paolo, or even Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist; Kid Hero, Magical Girlfriend, Clingy Jealous Girl Yandere; Tsundere, Anti-Hero, Pair the Spares; these and more could be argued depending on who the protagonist is.
• First Kiss
• Gratuitous Japanese: Between two characters who study Japanese and a third who uses Fangirl Japanese, this is inevitable.
  • Sempai/Kōhai
  • Onee-sama: This title is dropped relatively early.
  • Japanese Honorifics
  • Japanese Pronouns: Allow us to repeat: This series contains an actual Bokukko.
• Lampshade Hanging: Dear god.
  The Hero: One of these days, we need to get meta about being meta all the time.
  Deadpan Snarker: You just did.
• I Am Not Shazam: When someone cosplays as Suzumiya Haruhi, the nature of her Sailor Fuku forces her to declare "I AM NOT SAILOR MOON!" at several points.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Dear god.
• Matchmaker Crush: The Hero eventually gets one on the Bokukko. She tries to get over it, but the sheer amount of Fanservice that the other girl doles out makes it hard...
• Meta Guy: The Hero and the Deadpan Snarker are practically a meta-couple.
• Meta Fiction: Played with beyond belief. The characters jokingly come to conclusions about the Designated Hero of their parent show, its relationship to Degrassi, The Rival within said show, their status as a fanmade webcomic, and The Hero's status as protagonist of this comic is justified because she's an outsider protagonist, making it easier to execute Everyone Meets Everyone. However, nobody genuinely believes they're fictional characters. Metafiction Demanded This Index, pretty much.
  • An odd combination of Conversational Troping and Lampshade Hanging occurs in a lengthy conversation between two characters, in which they discuss the gratuitious use of Beat Panels, the update schedule, and just how meta webcomics have or have not gotten lately. All of this is framed within the discussion of if they were a webcomic, much to readers' frustration. They come, much to their disappointment, to the conclusion that webcomics have not yet gotten meta about their excessively metafictional nature.
• Mind Game Ship: Any pairing involving the Bokukko ultimately falls into this; invoked by her.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: "That nice girl who didn't go to homecoming with me", often shortened to "that nice girl from homecoming", aka our beloved Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette, is alluded to almost exclusively by that name in this media. In addition our unfortunate Wholesome Crossdresser is nicknamed and very rarely referred to by his more mundane real name.
• OT3: The Hero is convinced that she, Onee-sama, and Bokukko make a good example of this. They aren't so sure.
• Secret Relationship: The Hero and Deadpan Snarker, in the "flimsy" subtype. Ultimately The Not Secret. A more serious type takes place between Bokukko and Wholesome Crossdresser, although whether it qualifies as a relationship is up for debate.
• Shipper on Deck: Several. The Ship War is arguably almost as intense in-show as in the fandom.
• Shipping Goggles: About half of the characters wear them.
  • Yuri Goggles: The Hero's main weapon. Even where her mother is concerned.
• Ship Tease: The Bokukko happily doles this out. "I'm not stripping. Not even for you."
  • Even Crack Pairings get this regularly, such as Only Sane Man's line "still overall small and cute anyway" when The Hero despairs over her clothing size when intending to cosplay as Suzumiya Haruhi.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: Not only in the fandom, but in the show itself. Just think about that for a minute.
• Slice-of-Life Webcomics
• Snow Means Love (invoked, discussed)
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: "I did not just hear my dad say 'Annoying Younger Sibling, get up here and clean up your damn room.'"
• Ted Baxter: Used quite a couple times.

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• How I Met Your Mother (even though Seasonal Rot to the max is going on)
• The Mentalist
• The Big Bang Theory
• Big Brother
• One Over Zero
• Harry Potter (but anymore I'm just there for the Fan Fic)
• Artemis Fowl
• Miss Management (it's my baby!)
• The Princess Diaries (although they degenerated after book five)
• Push
• Eight Bit Theater
• The Office
• Community
• Bob And George
• Mezzacotta (contributed~)
• The World Ends With You
• House

I love Itty Bitty Wiki Tools.

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