Coloring Medium

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

What happens when characters take control of their own stories?

Coloring Medium is an Original Character Tournament on Deviantart. It takes place in the realm of Medium, a land that exists between the worlds of fiction. Normally home to forgotten or abandoned characters, it has recently been overrun by ordinary characters who have broken out of their own fictional works. These characters, in possession of artistic tools known as manipulators, can bend the realms of fiction to their will. With the fictional reality breaking down under the strain, a tournament is held, offering the interlopers a prize beyond their wildest dreams. The catch; the losers must surrender their manipulators.

Tropes used in Coloring Medium include:

General tropes

  • Aliens Speaking English: Marty, Renda, Perry, Crayon, Amadeus, and Reznor all fall under this classification directly as literal aliens. Of course there is also the more general question of how so many characters from different universes all speak English.
  • Alternate Timeline: Most of the characters inadvertently created one by using their manipulators, changing the plot their creators originally intended.
  • Another Dimension: All of Medium, but each of the doors leads to a self-contained world of its own.
  • Anyone Can Die: Played with. It is within the rules to kill your opponents, however since it is not really possible to kill and idea, the exact effects of “murdering” a character aren’t entirely clear.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: The manipulators, which contain all the power of an author or artist with the simple flick of a paintbrush or tip of a hat. In a realm that is the physical manifestation of the fictional reality, the "power of an author or artist" directly translates to total control of the world around them.
  • Art Shift: Happens naturally given that multiple artists are contributing to the story, but often an individual artist will intentionally invoke this trope as a way of lampshading that something within the story has changed.
  • The Cameo
  • Creator Cameo: Not as common as you might expect, but it does happen once in a while. Noteworthy cases include Portia's audition and Theraidra's SE.
  • Intellectual Animal
  • Lampshade Hanging: So many ways.
  • Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: To say the population of Medium is a motley assortment of races would be the understatement of the century.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters
  • Losing Your Head: Happens to Daiquiri at the end of the first round.
  • MacGuffin: Just what is the prize for winning the tournament?
  • The Pen Is Mightier: Fairly self-explanatory; it is a world of fiction where art and writing utensils have reality warping powers.
  • Pocket Dimension: The archetypes, which have their own doors but aren't true stories, might count.
  • Population Control: Or rather, population elimination. Omer just wants the whole characters out of Medium, by whatever means necessary.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The theme of round four, where the characters have to go back in time to stop their opponents for the round from ever getting their manipulators and messing up their stories to begin with. Might be Make Wrong What Once Went Right for a few characters who's manipulators are actually a part of their canon.
  • Talking Animal: Lots of these. Given the setting, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
  • There Can Be Only One
  • Playing with a Trope: The theme of round two, where the contestants had to enter various clichés and archetypes.
  • Weak-Willed: Half ideas are more susceptible than fully developed characters to being puppets of the plot completely dominated by the creators.
  • The Wonderland: Medium in SPADES.

Character Tropes

  • Amazing Technicolor Population: Since most of the characters are deliberately intended to make little logical sense, it's actually more uncommon for the characters to be normal.
  • Amusing Alien: Renda and Perry seldom take any situation seriously. Renda prefers to crack jokes, and Perry lampshades the hell out of it.
  • Attention Whore: Marty enjoys making a spectacle of himself, even if it entails pissing other people off to get them to notice him.
  • Author Avatar: Directly in the case of Portia, who's author manifested in person during the audition and introduced herself by her actual online handle. Somewhat indirectly in the case of Arbitrary and Amadeus, who's owners have stated that the "creators" who talk to the characters aren't necessarily meant to be their real world authors.
  • A Wizard Did It: Or rather, a manipulator/creator did it. In a story that deconstructs the very nature of fiction, ass pull plot contrivances are both commonplace, and explicitly called out by the characters for comedic effect.
  • Badass Normal: A good few of the characters have no real abilities of their own. You could argue that the manipulators moot this, but it’s somewhat evened out by the fact that more or less all of the characters have them.
  • Beware of Vicious Dog: Clarisse, who wields a massive ax.
  • Black Cloak: Darius, one of the NPC judges. Theraidra's raven stalker also qualifies.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: The premise of the entire OCT. Really, for the most part it has No Fourth Wall.
  • Break the Cutie: Adam, in spades. He went into the tournament a bright, optimistic child despite having a terminal disease. By the advent of round four he has become a cynical depressive.
  • Broken Bird: Arguably Theraidra. She is bitter and vindictive over having been abandoned by her creator, but shows flashes of her original good nature and seems to feel a level of empathy for other abandoned characters. (Although she becomes extremely snide if they express an optimistic hope for restoring their story.)
  • Cats Are Mean: Portia, in spades. You could make a case for Saiph as well, although he is actually a human with the ears and tail of a cat.
  • Caustic Critic: In-Universe example with Testobject who is doing this for his artist. More or less.
  • Corner of Woe - Arbitrary is content in his corner.
  • Cosmic Plaything: All of the characters on one level or another, but especially evident in cases like Arbitrary and Amadeus/Reznor.
  • The Dead Have Names: Although neither of Theraidra's opponents actually died, the cloaked figure made sure to tell the dragon their names after the fights to compound her sense of guilt.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Created by, of all people, Amadeus. When he tries to manually override the Humanity Ensues trope and turn the humans back into anthros with his manipulator, instead their bodies violently and graphically tear themselves apart under the strain of the transformation. The pile of blood, guts, and organs left behind mutated into a giant red blob that nearly kills both Adam and Reznor.
  • The End of the World as We Know It: Things seem to be headed that way if the manipulators aren't got under control.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Hylan is not the character’s name, but her professional title. She was never given a name by her creator before her story was forgotten.
  • Fingore: Clarisse looses two of the fingers off of her front paw during round one.
  • From a Single Cell: When it seems that Helena is about to die, the Hylan slices her open and pulls out her "core word" from which it is indicated Helena can eventually respawn.
  • Genre Savvy: This applies to many characters, to the point where Genre Blindness could almost be considered a legitimate weakness.
  • Gratuitous Italian: Silenzio.
  • Heroic BSOD: Amadeus has this reaction in round two after accidentally turning an entire hospital staff into a throbbing pile of pain wracked organs and blood. To say he was traumatized would be a massive understatement.
  • Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Despite the fact that all of the characters possess reality warping manipulators, the fights tend to be carried out by more mundane means. When you consider the damage that even casual use of manipulators does to the fictional reality, this practice makes perfect sense.
    • So far the only character to actually abuse their manipulator has been Marty. In his native canon he created an entire planet with it. In Medium he doesn't realize that such actions come with massive negative implications (not that he cares when he does find out). So he goes about blatantly over-utilizing his manipulator and utterly destroys a famous painting.
      • Darius temporarily confiscates his manipulator afterwards to get the message across that he needs to cut that crap out.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Several of the characters are not very practiced with using their manipulators, and the effectiveness of the devices suffers as result. Theraidra and Testobject in particular are examples of this.
  • Humanity Ensues: The theme of Amadeus and Reznor's round two.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Helena has good intentions, and doesn't like the idea of fighting in a tournament where she could potentially hurt innocents, but does so anyway because she is desperate to save her people. It is implied that she also has this attitude towards the less pleasant aspects of her work as a spy.
  • Improbable Weapon User: The manipulators are generally things that would make sense having an influence over the world of fiction, such as markers or keyboards. On occasion, however, they are objects that are just plain odd... Norbert's hat anyone? Silenzio's finger?
  • Involuntary Shapeshifter: Circuit randomly bounces back and forth betwen a quad and anthro form.
    • Amadeus and Reznor's round two entry is chock full of involuntary shapeshifting.
  • It Got Worse: You killed hundreds, watched their bodies self destruct into a bloody monster of red jello, and almost got killed yourself. But congratulations Amadeus, you won. Now we'll be taking this living, breathing human you brought us and brutally slaughtering him. Thanks!
  • Jerkass: Portia, who dislocated a small boy's finger and showed no remorse for the action.
    • Also Marty, who thinks he is better than everyone else and isn't afraid to insult people he's just met to stroke his own ego.
  • Jerkass Gods: Deconstructed with the Creators. Since this is set in the word of fiction, their "gods" are essentially authors and artists. The Creators are trying to make an interesting story, so it follows that there has to be a conflict. Of course, this means putting the characters through several kinds of hell over the course of the plot. And there is nothing they can do about it.
    • Let's not forget that, while this is usually done as a way to Earn Your Happy Ending, it isn't uncommon for the story to end tragically for everyone involved, making all of that suffering meaningless. Jerk ass gods indeed.
    • Alternatively, if the Creators get bored of a story or character they will simply abandon it. The story falls apart and the characters end up as purposeless half-ideas trapped in Medium.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Saiph was revealed to be this when he returned the Hylan's manipulator to her at the end of his and Helena's second round entry. He, of course, tried to claim he just wanted to annoy Omer, but neither the Hylan nor Helena were fooled.
  • Kids Are Cruel: A few of the half-idea characters are victims of this in a way; their creators were children who simply grew out of the rather cliche, Mary-Sueish character and abandoned it.
  • Kill All Humans: Amadeus accidentally does this by turning the Humanity Ensues trope on it's head.
  • Literal Genie: Helena's pen manipulator is a very good example. She managed to reduce Daiquiri to a talking head with it simply because she forgot his name.
  • Littlest Cancer Patient: Adam is this in his home canon.
  • Lotus Eater Machine: The theme of Clarisse's round two.
  • Meaningful Name: Silenzio's name means "silent" in Italian. He is a mute Italian.
    • Also Testobject, who is the test character for his creator's design ideas.
    • Avon was named after a river, and it is living water.
    • Lakansyèl's name means "rainbow" in Haitian Creole, which is ironic as she is blind and always searching for colors.
    • Amadeus Cristobel has his first and last names borrowed from the first and middle of his creator.
  • Medium Awareness: Fairly common, but especially noteworthy in the case of Kyuzin. Ironic considering that he claims not to believe in the idea of creators.
    • Kyuzin: Mr Exposition Ghost Man said "tournament" in bold. That means it's important!
  • Metafictional Device: Arbitrary is a pretty good example, as he directly comments on the dialogue of the narrator.
  • Mind Rape: Exposition does this to Saiph, subjecting him to immense mental torment taking advantage of his poorly developed status as a half idea to shatter his mind and completely override his will.
  • Narcissist: Marty definitely qualifies since he goes about blatantly blowing up the various works and expecting to be congratulated for it. Kyuzin and Portia are also quite self-centered.
  • National Stereotypes: Silenzio is Italian. He speaks Gratuitous Italian. He likes pasta. And dancing. And tomatoes. And wears the Italian flag as his clothing. Yeah, even if his ref didn't say he was Italian it would still be pretty obvious.
  • Nice Hat: Several characters have hats they are rather attached to, but Norbert’s is particularly noteworthy as it is actually his manipulator.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Happens a lot. However Amadeus accidentally creating an Eldritch Abomination from the pain of an entire hospital's population stands out.
  • Non-Action Snarker: Very seldom will Saiph take an active role in the fighting, given that he has the physic of an emaciated seven year old. However, he is not at all averse to letting Helena know when he thinks she screwed up or did something particularly Genre Blind.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Spirit to Kyuzin and Eggplant to Nysa. You could make a case for some of the others depending on your perspective.
    • Ink to Testobject might count as well.
  • Older Sidekick: Dr. Reznor is much older than Amadeus, yet it is the child who has the magic powers and the manipulator.
  • Papa Wolf: Reznor, normally a calm pacifist, finally snaps and brutally attacks Arson when he's watched Amadeus take too much abuse from the man. Unfortunately Reznor is still a very old man, so his explosion does little good except to provide a temporary distraction.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Thanks to the manipulators, any of the characters are potentially capable of this. So far it has only been utilized by Marty, who completely obliterated Van Gogh's Starry Night.
  • Plot Armor: Any given character in their own entries, since the writer sort of needs them alive to progress through each round. However, Nysa is a particularly noteworthy example; she actually dies in round two, but the fact that she is the protagonist causes the story itself to ressurect her.
  • The Problem with Fighting Death: Becomes a theme for Helena and Saiph's arc of the storyline.
  • Psychopomp: One exist in Medium who describes himself as the amalgamation of literally every existing manifestatin of Death.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: The characters who are played as abandoned Half Ideas rather than Wholes who fell into Medium by accident tend to have this attitude towards the creators.
  • Reality Warper: Pretty much everyone in the tournament, thanks to the manipulators. Understandably, having thirty-two characters with godlike powers in one place has made the fictional plane a tad unstable, hence the tournament's penalty of taking the loser's manipulators.
  • Rewriting Reality - Helena with her pen manipulator, and Adam with his keyboard.
  • Sapient Steed: Horse, predictably, serves this function for Scarecrow.
  • Scars Are Forever: Helena has a large, rather nasty scar on her back.
  • Screw Destiny: Many of the characters develop this attitude towards their Creator's intended canon. One noteworthy example is Marty, who uses his manipulator to magic up a typewriter and writes the climax of his round one himself.
    • Also Arbitrary, in a clever lampshade of the way characters in any story tend to develop on their own and defy the intention of the creator's plot. When the creator states that there is no way he can possibly win and prepares to write his loss, he flatly refuses to cooperate and lets Kyuzin rip his arm off as a symbolic gesture of breaking free of the story planned for him.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: It is revealed that Helena is fated to die attempting to convey the war-ending message to her country in her home canon. Her body is recovered by the enemy and the message never gets to her people.
  • Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness: The various characters have different levels of genre awareness depending upon their nature and the plot the author is trying to set up. For example characters like Kydo and Testobject are fully aware that the tournament is an OCT and they are under the control of their creators. Characters like Amadeus and Arbitrary know they are in a fighting tournament and that there is a voice directing them, but that voice isn’t necessarily an avatar of the actual artist, but rather a character in the story. Theraidra and Saiph are among those who know they are drawn characters, but don’t realize that Medium itself is a construct of their creators and believe the canon that they are abandoned. Then there are those like Helena who have no fourth wall awareness at all and don’t realize they are fictional characters. It can be a bit confusing to keep track of at times.
  • Smug Smiler: Saiph has never been shown with a genuine smile on his face; he is either scowling or wearing a condescending smirk.
  • The Speechless: Avon is incapable of speech, usually communicating with his notepad. Silenzio is similarly mute.
  • So Much for Stealth: Happens during Helena and Saiph's first round against Daiquiri. Saiph almost succeeds in stealing Daiquiri's manipulator without the anthro catching on, when an unexpected guest at the masquerade turns the plan on it's head...
  • Sound-Only Death: We do not actually see Helena die, but the CRACK of what we can only assume to be her spine makes what happened off panel quite clear.
  • Street Urchin: Saiph, before he lost his story. He's not much better off in Medium.
  • Talking Weapon:
    • Amanomurakumo is Arson's sharp witted sword.
    • Ink might also be a case of this, depending if you count the manipulators as weapon or not.
  • Thinking Out Loud: Testobject prominently in round 1 or his general rants.
  • Trapped in Another World: Point to any given character. There is a 50% chance the one you chose is motivated by this trope.
  • The Voice: Amadeus and Renzor's telephone stalker ("Mr. Exposition"), and Arbitrary's "creator" and "narrator."
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Avon is capable of this, since his body is basically water and therefore has no real form of its own.
  • War Is Hell: Helena's motivation for needing to get home so badly. She says she found information that could potentially end a war going on in her home story.
  • Who Writes This Crap?: Stated by just about every character at some point or another.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Justified with Saiph. As a character in-canon he is seven years old. As a being who has existed in Medium, he is actually significantly older. Word of God describes him as being a young child physically and emotionally, but the psychological development of a person much older.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Or pink in Teabaggy's case.
  • Your Days Are Numbered: Helena finds out from Death himself that if she succeeds in getting home to her story, she is scripted to die.

The Characters

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