Introduction[]
Getting to 3,000 edits took a little longer than the first or second thousand, partly because I didn’t have Total Drama Island, by Gilbert and Sullivan to ramp up my stats, and partly because I have recently had more competing demands on my time. Whereas I averaged 200-250 edits per month for most of my first year on the wiki, I currently average about half that.
As with the previous milestone edits, I wanted to do something special. For #1000 it was my Featured User acceptance speech and sneak previews of two new stories I had started (one of which has since been completed and went on to win Featured Story honors.) For #2000 it was, among other things, photos of real-life TDI girls from my sports photography.
A lot of users on this wiki are fans of the TV Tropes wiki, so I decided to work up tropes listing for my standalone stories. (My Fake Souls vignettes don’t have listings here. Maybe another time.)
My stories undoubtedly have more tropes than I have currently identified—especially LTDI, which is a work in process—but you work with what you’ve got. Who knows, maybe this will start a fad, like my Writer’s Workshop did about a year ago.
Because some of the trope names are pretty cryptic, I have included links to the relevant pages on the TV Tropes website.
On an unrelated note, for those who missed it (which seems to be just about everybody) I posted another LTDI preview last week.
Tropes Listings[]
Legacy[]
Because this is a long-finished story, I am including specific examples of how the various tropes apply. For any of you who haven’t read the story, some of these examples will contain spoilers. For such people, if such be here, I strongly recommend reading the story before reading this listing.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: While not actually an epilogue, the reminiscence portion of the story ends this way
- Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder: Most of the couples are no longer together
- All There In The Manual: The story includes hyperlinks to supplemental information on ancillary topics and a music video for the basis of Trent's grief song
- As You Know: Heather reminds Duncan that Muskoka is a major summer colony
- Bittersweet Ending: Heather's gesture of remembrance gives the story this quality
- Blue And Orange Morality: Izzy isn't sad & doesn't grieve for Gwen because her brilliant but diseased mind can't comprehend grief or sadness
- But We Used A Condom: Lindsay's unexpected pregnancy
- Chekhov's Gun: Heather's pregnancy is mentioned early and often, but doesn't become important until near the end
- Dark Fic: An emotional tale of violent death, from comedic source material
- Dead Guy Junior: Heather plans to name her baby after the late Gwen
- Death By Genre Savviness: Gwen is convinced that the killer is just an actor hired for the challenge, so she doesn't try to defend herself
- Death Fic: The story is all about the repercussions of Gwen's death
- Due To The Dead: The black-draped seat at the bonfire,Trent & Cody's tribute, and the enactment of “Gwen's Law"
- Epigraph: The Shakespeare quote at start of chapter 2
- Flashback: Chapter 2 and most of chapter 3
- For Want Of A Nail: A delay of a few seconds has consequences that reverberate for years
- Foreshadowing: The flowers on the table, and the reference to 19 (instead of 20) spectators in the Peanut Gallery
- Grief Song: Trent's tribute song
- Nested Story: Within the main story is Heather's story of how she came to choose her expected daughter's name
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Chris and his entourage come into the lodge at exactly the wrong moment
- Said Bookism: A facet of the story's faintly antiquated style. A mild case in that (a) other common dialogue tags, such as “asked” and “replied”, do appear; and (b) the story doesn't have much dialogue in the first place
- Shout Out: Chapter 4 includes references to the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, Utopia, Limited
- Shout Out To Shakespeare: Chapter 2 starts with a quote from Richard II
- Slice Of Life: The story begins and ends this way
- Stay With Me Until I Die: Inverted - Gwen is unconscious, and so can't ask, but Hatchet stays with her of his own accord
- Stunned Silence: The other campers (but not Chris or Hatchet) react this way when Gwen is struck down
- The Stations Of The Canon: chapter 3 includes brief descriptions of how the remaining challenges played out after Gwen's death
- To Absent Friends: The final chapter has this mood
- What If: Gwen's encounter with the chainsaw psycho turns out differently than the canon version
- Worthy Opponent: After ten years, Heather is ready to admit that Gwen was this
Courtney and the Violin of Despair[]
Because this is a long-finished story, I am including specific examples of how the various tropes apply. For any of you who haven’t read the story, some of these examples will contain spoilers. For such people, if such be here, I strongly recommend reading the story before reading this listing.
- All There In The Manual: Includes hyperlinks to supplemental information on ancillary topics and music videos for some of the compositions mentioned
- Antiquated Linguistics: most notably, the rendering of dates, e.g. "the Year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred ninety-eight"
- Artifact Of Death: The titular violin carries a curse that tends to bring its owners to untimely ends
- Book Ends: The first and last chapters of the story proper (I.e. excluding the prologue) are very similar
- Break The Cutie: The Violin spirit is trying to do this at first, but decides that’s not enough after Courtney becomes a public figure
- Bring My Brown Pants: Courtney's premonition of death on the diving cliff leaves her in danger of soiling herself
- Butt Monkey: Courtney becomes this under the influence of the curse
- Character Name And The Noun Phrase: A type of story title
- Curse: The reason for Courtney's string of misfortunes
- Dramatization: Several incidents are based on true stories
- Epigraph: The Gilbert & Sullivan verse at start of chapter 1
- Here We Go Again: Courtney acquires the Violin of Doom at the end of the story
- Kill The Cutie: The Violin spirit eventually tries to serve Courtney thusly. It narrowly fails, thus subverting the trope.
- Never Live It Down: in-universe, Brittany Reid won't let Courtney forget her miscue at the school orchestra's concert
- Prepositional Phrase Equals Coolness: "a story title trope--in this case, "Violin of Despair"
- Revenge fic, aka "bashing fic": subverting this trope is the whole point of the story
- Sequel Hook: subverted in that the story’s closing note of uncertainty is actually a nod to the sci-fi classics of the 1950s. These films tended to leave room for a sequel when there were no plans for a sequel.
- Shown Their Work: The Notes (aka trivia) section is substantial in relation to the story length
- Soul Jar: The titular violin houses the spirit of a former owner
- The Woobie: Depicting Courtney in this light subverts the "revenge fic" trope
- Trauma Conga Line: Result A
- Xanatos Gambit: In the cliff diving challenge, the only two possible outcomes are for Courtney to (a) jump and die; or (b) not jump, and be publicly humiliated. Both outcomes serve the interests of the Violin spirit
Total Drama Island, by Gilbert and Sullivan[]
Because TDI-G&S effectively remakes the canon TDI story arc into a comic opera, instead of telling an original story, it has few tropes that don’t also appear in the canon TDI. The unique tropes I have identified are:
- All There In The Manual: Includes an extensive glossary and many hyperlink to music files and supplemental information on ancillary topics
- Alternative Character Interpretation: Cody’s verses, with their emphasis on unrequited love, collectively depict a far more tragic and pitiable character than the canon version
- Epigraph: Every episode plot summary starts with a verse or verse fragment that fits the episode's tone or major story arc developments
- Fanfic Chop Suey: The whole point of the work is to introduce people familiar with TDI to G&S, and vice versa
- Flanderization: Chef Hatchet’s verses focus mainly on his military background, and the verses for Bridgette, Geoff and Tyler focus mainly on their love lives
- Public Domain Soundtrack: the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas have been in the public domain since the 1950s
- Song Fic: but instead of a single song, a whole series of comic operas
- Up To Eleven: how else would you describe a song fic with over 8,000 lines of verse?
- X Meets Y: as stated in the work’s premise: ""What if Gilbert & Sullivan had written Total Drama Island?”
The Legend of Total Drama Island[]
For reasons that I trust are obvious, the following listing does not include tropes that “come with the territory” in competition stories or elimination games generally, nor does it include tropes pertaining to canon characterizations.
Likewise, this listing omits tropes applying to similar incidents in the canon TDI. Canon TDI tropes that appear in different (or additional) incidents in LTDI, however, are fair game. An example of this is the canon Heather’s Traumatic Haircut. I include that trope in this listing because LTDI will have an incident where something of similar nature happens (or seems likely to happen) in a different setting, and not necessarily to Heather.
Note: Because of the spoiler potential, I obviously can’t give you specific examples for most of these tropes. Indeed, in most cases I can’t even tell you which of the following tropes I will play straight and which I will play with via subversion, discussion, lampshading, etc. The tropes in this list that do have examples are generally those pertaining to the story’s structure, the prologue, or scenes that I have previewed.
Because LTDI is a work in process, it is possible that a few of these tropes won’t make it into the finished product, but you can expect the vast majority to be present.
- A Friend In Need
- A Real Man Is A Killer
- A Worldwide Punomenon: the Storyteller occasionally indulges in this
- Above The Influence
- Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder
- Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male
- Action Girl:
- Ain't Got Time To Bleed
- All For Nothing
- All Is Well That Ends Well
- All Men Are Perverts
- Altum Videtur
- And That's Terrible: The main antagonist is described in neutral terms most of the time, but in negative terms when planning/doing something underhanded
- Androcles Lion
- Animal Wrongs Group
- Antiquated Linguistics: a mild form of this is my natural writing style
- As The Good Book Says
- Attention Deficit… Ooh, Shiny!: Lindsay. Did you really have to ask? Katie/Sadie also get some of this in comic relief scenes
- Back For The Dead
- Baddie Flattery
- Batman Gambit
- Beautiful All Along:
- Bedmate Reveal: I have previewed a scene featuring this
- Berserk Button
- Beware The Nice Ones
- BFS: actually BFK, but there isn’t a separate trope for that
- Bittersweet Ending
- Brain Bleach
- Bring My Brown Pants
- But We Used A Condom
- Celebrity Is Overrated
- Chainsaw Good
- Chariot Race
- Chekhov's Gun
- Chekhov's Hobby
- Chekhov's Skill
- Cliffhanger: in every chapter except the last and the epilogue, and includes that rare type of cliffhanger that comes back just to watch the hanger fall
- Cry For The Devil
- Curb Stomp Battle
- Darker and Edgier: as you could probably guess from this listing
- Darkest Hour
- Dead Guy Junior
- Deal With The Devil
- Death By Genre Savviness
- Denouement Episode: there will be a reunion chapter
- Dirty Business
- Disney Villain Death
- Distracted By The Sexy
- Double Entendre
- Driven To Suicide
- Due To The Dead
- Duel To The Death
- Exact Words
- Exactly What It Says On The Tin: episode names such as “The Tale of the First Challenge”, “The Tale of the Talent Show”, and so on
- Executive Meddling
- Face Palm
- Fake-Out Make-Out
- Fanfic Chop Suey
- Figure It Out Yourself
- Forceful Kiss
- Foreshadowing
- Framing Device: the Storyteller and her son
- Funbag Airbag
- Give Him A Normal Life
- Give Me A Sword
- Gladiator Games
- Going Native
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion
- Green-Eyed Epiphany
- Green-Eyed Monster: the power of jealousy is a recurring theme
- Grief Song
- Hand Wave
- He Knows Too Much
- Heroic Bystander
- Heroic Resolve
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Homage: LTDI’s structure is based on The 1,001 Nights
- Hope Spot
- How The Mighty Have Fallen
- Humiliation Conga
- I Did What I Had To Do
- I Gave My Word
- I Have This Friend
- I Was Never Here
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Episode titles take the form, “The Tale of _______”. Chapter titles, except for the prologue and epilogue, take the form, “nth Night”, e.g. “Twenty-third Night”
- If I Can't Have You
- Ignore The Fanservice
- Innocent Fanservice Girl
- IKEA Erotica
- Imaginary Friend
- Info Dump: in-universe, Harold does this. (Who else would it be?)
- Informed Conversation
- Instant Sedation
- It's A Long Story
- Jaw Drop
- Just In Time
- Kiss Of Death
- Lampshade Hanging
- Leave The Two Lovebirds Alone
- Like A Fish Takes To Water
- Little No
- Loud Gulp
- Love At First Sight
- Love Makes You Evil
- Love Redeems
- Meaningful Funeral
- Memento MacGuffin
- Mood Whiplash
- Morality Kitchen Sink
- More Dakka
- More Expendable Than You
- Mortal Wound Reveal
- Murder The Hypotenuse
- My God, What Have I Done?
- Nailed To The Wagon
- Narrative Profanity Filter
- Naughty Tentacles
- Nerds Are Sexy
- Nested Story: three story levels on at least one occasion
- Never Found The Body
- Never Live It Down: there is an in-universe example
- Never Say Die
- No Guy Wants An Amazon
- No One Gets Left Behind
- No Place For Me There
- Not Himself
- Not What It Looks Like
- Now Or Never Kiss
- Nudge
- Of Corset Hurts
- Offhand Backhand
- OOC Is Serious Business
- Pair The Spares: The Playa de Losers episode has a little of this
- Pet the Dog
- Pieta Plagiarism
- Pinky Swear
- Prepositional Phrase Equals Coolness: a story title trope; in this case, “Legend of”
- Pygmalion Plot
- Red Shirt: the interns wear red shirts similar to Captain Kirk’s security personnel, and have similar life expectancies
- Reference Overdosed: many references to everything from pop culture to classical mythology
- Rescue Romance
- Revenge Before Reason
- Romantic False Lead
- Running Gag
- Sacrificial Lamb
- Sacrificial Lion
- Sadistic Choice
- Scars Are Forever
- Second Hand Storytelling
- Second Love
- Sequel Hook: the Storyteller’s son is to be a contestant in the revived series
- Sexual Karma
- She Is Not My Girlfriend
- Ship Tease
- Shoot The Dog
- Shout-Out: to several wikians and/or their works, most notably Sunshine
- Shown Their Work: the Notes (aka trivia) section will be extensive
- Simple Staff
- Smooch of Victory: an incident unrelated to the Rescue Romance
- Someone To Remember Him By
- Sorry To Interrupt
- Standard Bleeding Spots
- Standard Female Grab Area
- Stealth Insult
- Stealth Pun: until one of the characters figures it out. Then it becomes an Incredibly Lame Pun
- Stunned Silence
- Swallowed Whole
- Take Me Instead
- Take That Kiss: I previewed a scene featuring one of these
- Taking The Bullet
- Teen Pregnancy: my latest LTDI preview included a scene alluding to this. The prologue also alludes to it, albeit more subtly
- Tell Me About My Father
- The Dog Bites Back
- The Glomp
- The Lady's Favour
- The Makeover
- The Reveal: several, including the Storyteller’s identity and the identity of Brett’s father
- The Storyteller
- The Watson: Katie and Lindsay occasionally fill this role in the interior story, as does Brett in the frame story
- Think Nothing Of It
- This Is For Emphasis, Bitch!
- This Is Reality
- This! Is! SPARTA!
- To Absent Friends
- Too Much Information
- Took A Level In Badass
- Trash Talk
- Traumatic Haircut: no, it’s not what you think
- Turn Coat
- Twofer Token Minority: in addition to being black, LeShawna is the show's token Francophone (i.e. a person whose first language is French)
- Unreliable Narrator: the Storyteller may be embellishing certain details, filling in gaps with informed guesswork, and allowing her biases to color the portrayals of some characters. That last may provide clues as to the Storyteller’s identity.
- We All Live In America: averted to the best of my ability. For example, the Storyteller uses metric units of measure.
- Wham Line
- What A Senseless Waste Of Human Life
- What Did I Do Last Night?: I previewed a scene involving this
- What the Hell, Hero?
- What You Are In The Dark
- Win One For The Gipper
- You Watch Too Much X
- Your Approval Fills Me With Shame
.