Web Video / The Guild

From left to right: Bladezz, Vork, Zaboo, Codex, Clara and Tinkerballa.

The Guild is an online Vlog Series-style sitcom created and written by Felicia Day of Dr. Horrible fame (and credited by Joss Whedon as a large inspiration) after a two-year addiction to World of Warcraft. Each episode, ranging from 3-12 minutes in length, centers on "The Knights of Good", an online guild in an MMORPG similar to World of Warcraft.

The Guild premiered on July 27, 2007 and ran for six seasons until January 8, 2013. For its first season, episodes were uploaded to the show's YouTube channel and official website. Afterwards, the show entered a partnership with Microsoft, and seasons 2-5 premiered on Xbox Live Marketplace, Zune Marketplace and MSN Video before later being released on the show's YouTube channel and website in addition to iTunes. After season 5, Microsoft's business model reportedly changed and Day wanted to keep ownership of the show, so the episodes moved to the channel of her company Geek & Sundry. The show is also available on DVD and through streaming on Apple TV.

After the show finished, it was announced that it was spinning off into a Dark Horse Comics series. A three-issue limited comic series was released individually from March to May 2010, and collectively in November of that year; all of the issues were written by Day. A second five-issue series was released in 2011 (collectively in June 2012), with each issue focusing on a single character (Vork, Zaboo, Clara, Tinkerballa, and Bladezz) and being illustrated by a different artist. An additional single issue, The Guild: Fawkes, was released in May 2012 and takes place after season 4 of the show.

The show's accolades include six Streamy Awards, four IAWTV Awards, the 2007 YouTube Video Award and the 2008 Yahoo Video Award.

The show's cast also appeared as their characters in three music videos for original songs to promote the series. A music video for "(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" (the Trope Namer for Date My Avatar) was released to promote the third season. Without trying to top it, they went Bollywood with "Game On" to promote the fourth season, as seen here; it took the top #3 spot in the US iTunes chart and the #1 in the UK on the day of its release. For the fifth season's launch on YouTube, they released the Proud to Be a Geek anthem "I'm the One That's Cool". (Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" and "I'm the One That's Cool" are available on the Rock Band Network.

---

Tropes include:

• A-Cup Angst: Codex is the butt of these jokes quite often.
  Bladezz: She's my cousin.
  Ollie: The one who had the boob surgery?
  Bladezz: She made them smaller.
  Ollie: Went too far.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Zaboo toward Codex, but it has nothing to do with looks and everything to do with his lack of emotional maturity and over-the-top stalkery behavior. Subverted in season 4 when Codex starts developing a crush on him instead.
• Abusive Parents: Clara is neglectful and is shown on several occasions to be bad at parenting, but the end of "Rather be Raiding" takes the cake:
  Tinkerbella: My boyfriend's totally laughing at us right now.
  Codex: Where is he?
  Tinkerbella: In the car. I told him to wait.
  Clara: Oh, can you have him check on my kids for me? It's a green SUV.
  Codex: You left your kids in the car?!
  Clara: What? I cracked the windows.

• Achievements in Ignorance: Wiggly takes down Kwan with spells so unoptimal he hadn't thought to defend against them. Lampshaded when Wiggly says "Sheer idiocy is my gaming specialty".

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Played with but ultimately subverted. Season four is all about Codex trying to deal with her one night stand with Fawkes. Despite her misgivings about Fawkes, Codex decides to pursue a relationship with him to save face with the Guild. Since Fawkes isn't interested in actually dating her, he goes along with pretending to date her for the fun and chaos. But when he realizes he really does like Codex, she rejects him for his poor treatment of her and discovers she has a crush on Dogged Nice Guy Zaboo.

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Though a two-example version: "You guild leader started a riot! And your other guild member did excellent IT work for free, no complaint there."
• Ascended Meme: the Game On! music video features Vork flipping his coat off and on like in "Kaaluri Vaanil", accompanied by "buffalaxed" Hindi lyrics.

• Bedmate Reveal: The Season 3 finale: Codex and Fawkes.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Inverted with Codex and Fawkes. After Codex beats him in-game, Fawkes "agrees" to drinks later that night.
• Beneath the Mask / Bodyguard Babes: Zaboo's Master Chiefs are revealed at the end of season 5 to be hot girls.
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't ever presume that you're Fawkes' equal. Bruiser seems to share this: when Bladezz claims to be his equal, he responds "Your dick could fit in my ear canal!" And back in Episode 10, Codex decides that the Guild should take on Zaboo's mom on the grounds that "she called me homely."
  • And don't ever call Tink a taint behind her back. Calling her a taint to her face seems to be okay, though.
  • Vork also has a few, including tampering with his network connection and reconfiguring his hotkeys.

• Bilingual Bonus: In the "Game On" Bollywood music video, Vork (master of all languages) sings a bridge in Hindi that is given joke captions, but has an actual translation:
  Internet sabhi desh ko jodataa hai (The internet connects all nations)
  Frustration nikalanekaa raastaa hai (Provides an outlet for all frustrations)
  Online gaming may kuchh buraa nahi Hai (Nothing wrong with online gaming)
  Us Vichhar Control-Alt-Delete” (Control-Alt-Delete that feeling)
• Bland-Name Product: Parodied. The MMO they all play is called "The Game". This was done to avoid the copyright issues that would ensue if the series had used a real life MMO, like World of Warcraft or Age of Conan, and to appeal to a wide fanbase of MMO games.

• Book Ends: Codex introduces her very first and last webcam segment in mostly the same way. Season 1, ep 1: —>"So, it's Friday night and...still jobless, yay!" season 6, ep 12: —>"So, it's Friday night and...no longer jobless, yay!"
• Brain Bleach:
  • Tink, when Bladezz jokingly suggests he's going to release a sex tape.
  • Bladezz in season 3, about the idea of Bruiser banging his mother.
• Break the Haughty: What happens to Tinkerballa at the end of Season 2, and to Bladezz in Season 3 courtesy of the Axis of Anarchy.
• Call-Back: In season 2, Codex threatens to hang herself with an Ethernet cord to stop her therapist from hanging up on her. Zaboo actually attempted this method in season 1.

• Cast Incest: In-Universe, at the start of season four when the Knights of Good's healer (Codex) is involved with Axis of Anarchy's leader (Fawkes) while Axis' healer is dating Bladezz's mom, he calls it Guild incest.
• Character Blog: Codex's video blog serves as a framing device for each episode. Additionally, Vork has a Twitter. It's hilarious.
• Character Development: All of the main characters, because of their friendships with one another, grow into better, more successful people by the finale:
  • Zaboo's determination to "level up" as a person has actually resulted in his maturing from a Psychopathic Manchild into a relatively well-adjusted man who, seemingly, finds his true love from the game.
  • Codex grows from a shy, mousey loner into a confident and strong woman with a successful career.
  • Bladezz, originally a jerky trickster whose M.O. was screwing with people, becomes a semi-famous meme-level celebrity and forms genuine friendships with his Guildmates.
  • Vork ends up mellowing to a certain degree and falling in love with a celebrity.
  • Clara becomes famous for her blogging, eventually securing herself a paying job doing exactly that.
  • Even Tink mellows considerably and, alongside caring for her Guildmates, she ends up dating a programmer of The Game named Donovan who has fallen for her.
  • Even other characters including Fawkes and Zaboo's mother go through lesser degrees of development over the series.

• Code Name: All the characters seem to prefer their online aliases, at least with each other. Tinkerballa doesn't even give her real name when asked. It takes until Season 5 for her name to be revealed, it's April-Lou.
• Continuity Nod: A minor one, but the picture of Codex Zaboo photoshopped in Series 1 decorates his laptop in subsequent series and in the Game On music video. It's actually something of a Running Gag, her part of the picture is covered by a shot of Riley in season three, and in season four Riley is covered by a sticker.
• Cringe Comedy: Most of the funnies come from the incredibly rude, inappropriate, or shocking things that the guildies say.

• A Darker Me: Online, Bladezz is an obnoxious troll who likes to make perverted comments and act like he's cool and edgy. In person, he's still in high school, can't drive, and gets beat up by his little sister. Though, in a departure from the stereotype you'd expect, he's young and attractive (in a pretty, Hanson-esque way), so much that his mother made him do some embarrassing modeling photos to pay for college. Also Valkyrie, an Axis member, who tries to act tough in an online chat with the Knights of Good only to be interrupted by his boss. Valkyrie tries to defuse his boss's suspicions he was internet surfing, which quickly degenerates into a conversation about how a client's damask came back coral instead of lavender as she'd requested.

• Deathbringer the Adorable: Bruiser is a giant musclebound man. In the game, he's the Axis of Anarchy's healer.
• Defeat Means Drinks: After his defeat, Fawkes tells Codex "You. Me. Drinks. 8 pm. Renata's. I'll see you there."
• Department of Redundancy Department: Vork falls into this on occasions. Zaboo does as well in Season 4, Episode 10:
  Zaboo: Welcome to the Festival Under the Sea Festival!
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Vork rigidly follows guild rules to give an orb that changes the avatar's hair color to Tink over Clara. Clara in turn begins a reign of destruction which nearly destroys the guild.
  • invoked Season 3 revolves around this happening to Bladezz. Over a feud that began from a video game, the Axis of Anarchy digs up his Old Shame as a model, plants weapons in his locker at school, and has someone sleep with his mom. It was bad enough that it reached the point where he was going to run away from home.
    • Disproportionate Retribution over video games is sadly Truth in Television.
• The Don:
  • In season 5 Zaboo's seat saving scheme gives him a lot of power at the convention and by episode 7 he is seen stroking a toy cat while Neil Gaiman is asking him for a favour. Later he is seen having his goons beat up Kevin Sorbo in order to get front row seats at his panel.
  • Vork also becomes this when, with the help of Zaboo's mother, he creates an investment scheme to amass huge amounts of in-game wealth.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Zaboo, a conflict-avoidant and socially awkward guy who is very inexperienced with women, enters a relationship with Riley, a controlling and violent BDSM fetishist who steamrolls his boundaries and pays no attention to his feelings at best and outright tortures him at worst. This is played for comedy despite their relationship being highly abusive and clearly traumatizing to Zaboo, even incorporating Black Comedy Rape.

• Draco in Leather Pants: Wade "Stunt guy" "Guns" Wei happens to be both an in-universe and out-of-universe example. In-universe, despite being a self-obsessed jerk, he manages to come off looking awesome to the Guildies because he's also a real-life badass. After beating the crap out of Zaboo and publicly humiliating Codex, all Zaboo can say is "he's nice" because the guy did motion capture for his favorite game, and was an extra in a B-movie he loved. Then Clara, Codex's friend, makes out with Wade. Out-of-universe, his "leather pants" status has caused a few fans to think he should end up with Codex, despite how nonchalantly he comments that "she's not worth it" with a wink and a smile.
• Dramatic Wind: Lampshaded by Codex at the end of episode 7 of season 4 after Fawkes kisses her.
  Is there a breeze in here?

• Even Beggars Won't Choose It: A homeless person tries Vork's "found object stew" and rejects it in disgust.
• Expy: The in-show sci-fi series Time Rings, with the main character known only as "the Professor", featuring former co-star Madeline as "Charity", herself a loose Expy of (and dead ringer for) Sarah Jane Smith. Actress Erin Gray played Col. Wilma Deering in the 1981 series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
• Extreme Omnivore: Vork: Found Object Stew. There's also the "breakfast" he finds in season 5, made up of the discards of other people at the hotel. For some reason, though, he won't eat tofu.

• Fake-Out Make-Out: Tink asks a drunk Codex to pretend to kiss her to obscure her face from her sisters at the Con.
  Tink: I said "pretend to kiss me" you perv!

• Fight Scene Failure: In-Universe example when Wade fights Zaboo. Because Wade is a stuntman, he avoids hitting Zaboo out of habit. This stops once he "recalibrates."
• Foreign Queasine: Tink's adoptive parents keep trying to give her tastes of her own culture by making disgusting fusion food. Teriyaki candy canes, anyone?

• Funny Background Event:
  • During the drama between Tink and Bladezz, Vork can be seen in the background stealing everything on the snack table including an entire sheetcake.
  • In "Newbtastic", when the Guild members are gaming, behind Zaboo you can see Riley, in the distance, doing pull-ups.
  • In "The Return", Zaboo's game "Sir Loopalot" makes noises corresponding to the dialogue.
  • The cleaning lady walking in during Codex' vlog post.
    My vagina was practically in my hand! (Beat) Can we have some more towels, please?

• Girl on Girl Is Hot:
  • Bladezz reaction to Codex and Tink's Fake-Out Make-Out.
  • Zaboo's reaction to Riley and Venom in the season 3 finale. "Subscribed!"
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Season 3 episode 9, Codex and Zaboo's interrogation of Valkyrie takes on this aspect when Zaboo starts venting some of his repressed anger and Codex admits that he's starting to scare her.

• Her Boyfriend's Jacket: In the fourth season, after Codex and Fawkes sleep together and he accidentally leaves his jacket at her place, she assumes they're totally dating and wears said jacket on what she thinks is a date... and he sends someone else to pick it up.
• Heroic BSoD: Bearing down fast in Season 3 Episode 11, and described in the Captain's Log of Season 3 Episode 12.

• I Banged Your Mom: This trope is repeated verbatim and played with when Resident Scary Black Man Cop of the Axis of Anarchy bangs Bladezz's Mom as part of the attacks on the guild. It turns out he actually liked her, and is dating her at the start of Season 4.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": Mr. Wiggly. "They won't know that's my name for it... unless I hold open the mic like that." Actually referenced as early as season 1 in an outtake: Zaboo mentions his penis's name, and Clara mentions that her husband's has a name as well.

• Idiosyncratic Wipes: Season 3 episode 7 has a Batman homage using the head of "Finn Smulders".
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Zaboo weakly suggests this trope might apply when he challenges Wade Wei to a fight, only to find out that Wade is a professional stuntman. Vork immediately shoots him down, pointing out that Zaboo's game character is a Squishy Wizard, and so his game experience doesn't apply to the real world, where casting spells is impossible.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": After four seasons of only referring to the MMORPG the main characters play as "the game", season five finally reveals its title: The Game.
• Interrogation by Vandalism: Zaboo and Codex interrogate one of the Axis of Anarchy by holding him down and gradually deleting his Rainbow Pimp Gear.

• Insistent Terminology: Vork's birds are not pigeons. They're squab.

• Just Friends: Zig-zagged between Codex and Zaboo. They each develop crushes on the other at different points in the show, but always end up staying just friends.
• Kick the Dog: The Axis' campaign of terror on Bladezz, who after all is just a high school kid. Made worse by the fact that Venom is a teacher and Bruiser is a cop, people who are supposed to stop this sort of thing.
• Kitschy Local Commercial: Season 4 sees Bladezz star in a local commercial for Cheesybeard's, which launched him into a Memetic Mutation status for its So Bad, It's Good quality.

• Only Sane Employee: Codex's role as the Only Sane Man in the Guild, and later virtually her explicit job description at the game company.

• Loving Details: In season 1, Zaboo shows up on Codex's doorstep announcing that he wants to move their online "relationship" to real life. He casually rattles off all the things he has learned about her, including her cell phone record, medication dosage, and "every floor plan of every place you have ever lived." Codex is flustered, but it's Played for Laughs.

• Man Hug: Averted in the season three finale when Bladezz and Bruiser make up.
  Bruiser: "In your fucking dreams."
• Man in a Kilt: Fawkes.
  Clara: Um, who says you're number one? And be honest, are you naked under there?
  Fawkes: Server stats. Axis of Anarchy rules. And yes, I am.

• Meaningful Background Event: Due to the quick cuts at the end of Season 1, Episode 7, it's easy to miss Zaboo tying a noose out of an Ethernet cable behind Codex.

• Memetic Mutation: In-Universe, Bladezz tries to exploit his popularity as an internet meme.
• Metaphorgotten: Codex isn't quite Michael Scott, but she sure manages to pull a good number of these...
• Missing Mom: Clara manages this despite still being (technically) a member of her family and a 'stay at home mom'.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Vork was pretty much asking for this when he stopped by an elementary school in his van. Later, when Vork says that if the Knights of Good lose and are disbanded he'll go back to playing Chinese Checkers with the neighborhood kids, Codex shoots him a WTF look.

• Most Gamers Are Male: Subverted; the guild is evenly split between men and women. Felicia Day has said she did this on purpose to prove a point that there are more girl gamers out there than guys think there are.
• Moving the Goalposts: From Vork's point of view, anyway—Codex tells Vork he can help himself to anything in her kitchen, but then decides that doesn't include her frozen yogurt maker.

• Mundane Made Awesome: The end of the season 2 pilot has Clara's children messing up her computer cords set to Ominous Latin Chanting in slow-motion, while Zaboo seduces Codex with the promise of buying her a faster internet connection.

• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The actress that Vork fanboys over at the convention is an Expy of Elisabeth Sladen.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Fawkes ends up on the receiving end of one in Season 4. He is dismissive and rude to a waitress he slept with when she interrupts him trying to get back together with Codex, and she immediately tosses him down some stairs and kicks his ass.
  Codex: (watching) Jeanette must be a boxer.
  Jeanette: (from off-screen, still beating up Fawkes) Mixed martial arts!
• Noodle Incident: Vork doesn't think of himself as a bad man... well, there was that night he spent at a Hitler Youth Camp by accident...
• No Periods, Period: Averted; early in Season 2 Zaboo chalks up Codex's annoyance with him to the fact that she must be ovulating. Then he whips out a miniature calender to prove it. Which, of course, only increases Codex's annoyance.
  Codex: You laminated my cycle?
  Zaboo: (innocently) Kinko'ed.
• Oblivious to Love: Zaboo in Season 5.
• Omniglot: Vork is surprisingly able to speak Korean and Hindi. When Zaboo asks how many languages he speaks, he replies "All of them". (Though season 3 shows that he can apparently only speak Spanish haltingly and with the aid of a phrasebook.)

• Pet the Dog:
  • Bladezz is prone to this, as he has a Big Damn Heroes moment in season 1 and seems to be genuinely trying to bond with the guys in season 2.
  • Tink seems to have a very small soft spot for Codex, such as when she defends her from Zaboo's mom with "Lay off our healer, she's squishy". She also tried to help Codex land a man in season 2, and even though she claimed it was for her own amusement, she did cancel a date and put a lot of effort into it. Also, her Heel–Face Turn at the end of Season 3. By the end of Season 5, Tink seems to firmly consider Codex a friend (at least by her own standards) after Codex helps Tink (mostly) resolve her issues with her family.
• Please Put Some Clothes On: Vork to Codex, Played for Laughs since she's actually "decent" at the time.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Zaboo makes one for Codex and Fawkes: invoked
  "I'm in support. Put me on team Codex/Fawkes. Team Cawkes! I'm thinking about making T-shirts."

• Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Tink's adoptive white family look pretty silly when they try to imitate Tink's native Japanese culture.

• Punch-Clock Villain: While most of the Axis of Anarchy happily take their villainous personas outside the game with them as they torture the Knights of Good, a few of them are implied to be not so bad outside their feud. Valkyrie in particular seems harmless, and the Scary Black Man "Bruiser"'s demeanor changes into a soft-spoken nice guy as soon as the conflict is resolved.

• Questionable Consent: Zaboo clearly does not share Riley's extreme BDSM tastes, but goes along with it anyway, ineffectually attempting to romance her into respecting his sexual preferences. This is played for laughs.
• Rearrange the Song: In the first season, the theme song is entirely played on synthesizers. By season five there's some additional instruments in there, most noticeably a distorted electric guitar playing the lead melody along with the synths. To aid the Book Ends effect, the simpler season one version of the theme song is heard one last time at the end of the last episode.
• Rewatch Bonus: In Season 4, Codex asks Fawkes if he's a furry.
• Right in Front of Me: Though technically he was right behind her, Codex's conversation counts as this when while she is playing a demo of a new expansion for The Game. Codex complains to a staffer who tries to talk to her, complaining about how the the new mechanics have Nerfed her player class and how all the new things in the update suck. Turns out that's the creator and he is so upset by this that he decides to sell the rights to another company.
• The Rival: How Codex seems to view Riley, although Riley mostly just ignores her up until "Newbtastic".
• Robosexual: Zaboo develops a crush on an NPC in Season 6.
• Running Gag: Vork knocking over trash cans whenever he starts driving in Season 3. It culminates with his arrival at the convention, and the attendant destruction.

• Serious Business: How all the characters, especially Vork, treat the guild.
  Vork: I have my policies. Thirty seconds! I mean this is...you know...this is...serious...guys.
• Sex Sells:
  • Tink dresses as Slave Leia and Sailor Moon to sell her T-Shirts.
  • Plus Tink and Clara's earlier attempts to raise guildhall money via special "chat sessions".

• Shipper on Deck: Notably averted in Season 5, when basically the entire guild thinks Codex trying to get with Zaboo is a bad idea (much to her chagrin).
• Ship Tease: "Game On" is a big one for Codex/Zaboo, but it's followed by Ship Sinking in season 5.
• Shout-Out:
  • In season three, episode four:
    Codex: Without the two hammers (holds up her fists) of the guild, Tink and Vork there... (Looking at her hands) What are these?
  • Also:
    Riley: You left the stable? Bad Horse!
  • Season three, episode seven: Zaboo says he's friends on MyFace with Bladezz's sister. Castle's mother calls a social networking site MyFace in Castle. (Whether this is intentional and if so, which is shouting out to which is hard to tell.)
  • This quote:
    Codex: I just looked at my wrist, and I'm not wearing a watch. So dumb.
  • In season 3 episode 10, Reservoir Dogs, with the music, slow-mo walking and spitting.
  • In Season 5, Ep 7, Zaboo says he is off to attend a panel called "Fable: Tickle your way to the Monarchy."
• Shower of Angst: Vork soon after discovering Clara's betrayal. So soon that he doesn't even have time to go to his own shower. Or take off his suit.
• Slut-Shaming:
  • In the second season, Vork shows up out of the blue and asks Codex "Why are you dressed like a harlot?" Then he invades her home and peruses her belongings before randomly turning to her and saying "Cover yourself, woman."
  • At the end of the third season, Codex and Fawkes have sex and she discusses it with the guild at the opening of the fourth. In addition to yelling at her for sleeping with the enemy, they call her a slut and attack her for doing so after one date, although she seems to feel that the shaming is more or less justified.

• Social Services Does Not Exist:
  • Stay-at-home mom Clara generally ignores her children, didn't even notice when her babysitter quit, and at one point hands them off to Tinkerballa who locks them in a pet carrier. Nobody apart from Codex seems particularly horrified by any of this.
  • invoked Also: "Tomorrow, mommy's going to teach you to use the microwave." And "Oh, um, I guess they've been feeding themselves....I guess?" And...honestly, the stuff she does goes above and beyond criminally negligent and into the starkly hilarious.
• Spinoff Babies: See for yourself.

• Stalker with a Crush: Zaboo. He tracked down where Codex lived, Photoshopped himself with her DMV photo, and found her house's floor plan, among many other things. He later tones it down to Dogged Nice Guy, then eventually to Just Friends.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Vork pulls this on Codex in the episode "Blow Out". Not only did he appear after a split second cut away, he was suddenly at Codex's apartment a minute after talking to her from his home across town.

• Straw Loser:
  • They all would be if there was anyone cool to compare them to, but they kind of work this way for each other. Zaboo and Vork are so completely off their rockers it makes the rest of the guild look saner. Tink and Bladezz are so mean it makes the others look nicer. Meanwhile, Codex looks pretty good in comparison, and it's less obvious that Clara is an insane Jerkass. Also, the Knights of Good work as this somewhat in relation to the Axis of Anarchy. Kwan makes millions in pro gaming, Bruiser, Venom and Valkyrie all have jobs, and the Axis still has a higher ranking than the Knights, who, with the exception of Tink and Bladezz (who have school), don't have anything else going on in their lives and play the game full time.
  • Starting to change as of Season Five, Vork finds a romantic interest, Codex gets a job, Tink's family appears, Zaboo shows a LOT of emotional maturity, and Bladezz develops a fandom. Clara, however, is still insane.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Valkyrie
  Codex: Artemis? You play two girl characters?
  Valkyrie: Yes, is there something wrong with that? I play two girl characters because I like girls. I like looking at girls, I'm a girl-loving guy. ...I like your shoes.
  • Zaboo as well, when Fawkes kisses Codex: "This does not nauseate me at all!"
• Take That!: The show is a satire of Online Gaming Culture. Vork's subplot in season 5 is mocking people who take their Fandom of a show too seriously.

• There Are No Therapists: Codex's therapist dumps her. And later, blocks her calls. Considering just how relentlessly Codex resists any attempt to make her face the world and deal with her problems, it's hard to blame her therapist for Knowing When To Fold'Em. Therapists need to protect their own sanity too, after all.
• Three Minutes of Writhing: "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar", though it's pretty obviously a parody of this type of thing. That doesn't stop it from being really freaking hot. Felicia Day does a cute, awkward little smile in the very last second of the video that suggests she wasn't quite comfortable with being Ms. Fanservice.
• Twofer Token Minority: Several.
  Zaboo: real name Sujan Goldberg. "I'm a Hinjew."
  Bruiser: Black Latino
  Valkyrie: mixed-race and Ambiguously Gay
  Venom: Handicapped, The Axis's only female, and Ambiguously Gay or bisexual
• Understatement: Vork about Zaboo's obsession with Codex:
  "I don't know if you're aware of this, but he has a slight...fixation."

• Unperson At the end of season 2 Bladezz deletes Tinks character Tinkerballa, removing permanently from existence her gold, reputation and "two years of [her] life". She even phrases it as "I don't exist anymore"
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo:
  • Near the end of season 4, Fawkes, who has spent the entire season telling Codex he doesn't do "dating," approaches Codex for a second chance, which she doesn't give him.
  • Also comes up in Season 5 between Codex and Zaboo, as she's spent four seasons rebuffing his interest in her but suddenly started crushing on him when he made a genuine effort to be her friend.

• What the Hell, Hero?: Unless you count sleeping with Fawkes, Codex is the only member of the Knights of Good who hasn't done anything completely morally reprehensible over the course of the series.
• Will They or Won't They?:
  • Codex and Fawkes, who after a bit of back-and-forth ultimately don't. ^note It's left somewhat open-ended by the end of the show, though, given that Fawkes seems to have become a nicer person after being rejected by Codex and her main problem with him was that he was a jerk to her.
  • Codex and Zaboo, who also don't, because Zaboo wants to stay friends.
• You Got Guts: Wade Wei praises Zaboo for this after Zaboo challenges him to a fight and holds up respectably well, considering Wade is a professional stuntman and Zaboo is probably the loosest possible definition of 'in shape'.
• You Need to Get Laid: The female guildies spend season 2 trying to help Codex get laid. In season 3 it initially appears that Zaboo getting laid might actually have helped him calm down somewhat, though this is ultimately not the case because Riley's abuse ends up giving him serious anger issues (though they're Played for Laughs).

---