Lost and Found (original character tournament)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

I have taken something from you. If you want it, come and find me.

Lost and Found is an Original Character Tournament on Deviantart. It is set in a remote mountain hotel, the home to a legendary shapeshifter known only as The Thief. He is said to be able to steal anything, be it a physical object, a person, or even something intangible like a memory. This enigma has taken something from each of the competitors, and challenged them to try and get their possessions back by winning a fighting tournament against his other victims. How far will they go?

Tropes used in Lost and Found (original character tournament) include:

General tropes

  • Affably Evil: Mama is a serial killer, and has offed innumerable people in the two years since she initially started her spree. But she's too gosh darned cute and friendly to hate!
  • Artificial Limbs: Aureus has a mechanical left hand.
  • The Blank: Car, thanks the the Thief.
  • Blood From the Mouth: B, and on his very first page no less!
  • Beware My Stinger Tail: Mama's tail has a clump of poison quills on the end of it, just like the ones on her back.
  • Big Badass Wolf: Aphari, Kex, Balthazar, and arguably Fox.
  • Blessed with Suck: Alistair has the ability to breath a mist that freezes anyone who breathes it in from the inside out, but thanks to the Thief he can be killed by breathing in his own venom.
    • B also has this issue; his species can breathe fire, but in old age the organ that allows them to produce this flame eventually malfunctions and corrodes their bodies from the inside out. Thanks to the Thief this process was brought on early in B.
    • You could make an argument for Lola. The Thief stole her deafness, which sounds great in theory until you realize she has never been able to hear and her brain doesn't know how to process sound. It can be a bit traumatizing suffice it to say.
  • Brought Down to Normal: When Spirit's godliness/immortality is stolen, it is forced to learn what it's like to have a working body, which it finds both fascinating and highly uncomfortable.
  • Cheshire Cat Grin: The Thief has a permanent, spiral tipped on no matter what form he shapeshifts into.
  • Child Soldiers: Adam as one of these before his miraculous escape, and subsequent age up by the Thief.
  • Compelling Voice: In a manner of speaking everyone has this power over Nelly since the Thief stole her ability to refuse a command.
  • Cradling Your Kill: Mama was seen doing this on the very first page of her audition.
  • Demonic Possession: Both Levia and Xolani had their original bodies stolen and enter the tournament possessing the bodies of others.
    • Pilot is this to some degree as well.
  • Disappeared Dad: Although in Azula's case it's his brother. However this trope fits, as his brother was the one who raised him instead of his parents.
  • Dramatic Irony: Gar is fighting in the tournament because he believes the thief has stolen his master. In reality, what was stolen was his memory of the fact that his master is dead.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Professor R.
  • Fantastic Racism: It is something of a plot point in Nelly's entries that quadrupedal creatures are discriminated against by bipeds for supposedly being lower on the evolutionary chain. This is why Nelly walks upright, despite the damage it does to her back given that her physiology is more suited to walking on all fours.
  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: Aeja and Aureus are both from the past; the former a medieval setting, and the later from the 1800s. Although it is somewhat unclear exactly what time period the story takes place it, the general consensus is that it is sometime close to the present day.
  • Glasgow Grin: Dorian sports half of one on the left side of his face.
  • Hand Signals: Lola, having been deaf for most of her life, is fluent in American Sign Language.
  • Hell Hotel: The setting for the tournament.
    • Rather amusingly lampshaded in Gar's audition, where the "HOTEL" sign has it's "O" and "T" blacked out so that the sign reads "H__EL"
  • Hell Hound: Fox is literally the canine son of Satan.
  • Heroic Willpower: Averted with Nelly; the Thief stole her ability to refuse a command. So she no longer has heroic willpower.
  • Impossible Thief: The Thief can steal anything, from anyone. Memories, items abstract concepts like will power and motivation, literally anything.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Motthew uses a lamp as his weapon. There is nothing special about it at all. It is simply a lamp with its shade taken off.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Nelly goes right into the heart of the Thief's lair to get her scoop on him.
    • And also to get back her ability to refuse a command. Because Ella Enchanted syndrome kind of sucks.
  • It Amused Me: Why the Thief takes things, at least according to some competitors.
  • I Will Find You: Several of the competitors are trying to reclaim stolen loved ones.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: A whole heck of a lot, courtesy of the Thief. Some of the contenders have lost specific memories, others have lost all memory of their personal identity.
  • Last-Name Basis: Mullan Rivers prefers to go by his surname only.
  • Living Shadow: Melancholia is one, born from an even bigger one.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters
    • Understatement.
  • Mind Probe: In some interpretations the Thief does this to steal the emotions and memories from his victims.
  • Mismatched Eyes: Balthazar.
  • Mood Swinger: Pilot, thanks to the spirits that randomly eat his emotions. Jo as well, after the Thief steals her self control. Gimlet also has this to some extent.
  • Mortality Ensues: Spirit and Alistair.
  • Motor Mouth: Balloon does not know the meaning of "concise."
  • Neat Freak: Otter, who even tried to wash off his own tattoos when he lost his memory and didn't know if they were permanent or not.
  • No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: How exactly did Aureus not plan for someone stealing his "major technological breakthrough?"
    • Perhaps the Thief stole all of his notes as well?
  • No Social Skills: Having spent her entire life as a slave, Rhelta is unsurprisingly not the best at the whole interacting with other people thing. Luckily she has a mind controlling spider to take over her body and socialize for her when necessary.
  • One-Letter Name: B, the domrdomr.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Fizz, who is an intergalactic immigrant and prefers for people not to know his real name. Candle has long since forgotten his real name, and goes by a moniker he assigned himself.
  • Our Gargoyles Rock: Or in Gar's case, our Gargoyles are adorable.
  • Pirate: Roberts is one.
  • Playing with Fire: Fox and Salvatore both have fire powers.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: Paul is one to Rhelta, although she isn't an entirely unwilling host.
  • Ravens and Crows: Corvids in general are something of a motif for the overall storyline. The Thief regularly transforms into magpie, crow, and raven forms, and he also keeps a number of corvidae as pets and messengers.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Thief gives one to Candledog during the audition, berating him for running away from a home where he was well cared for and blaming the world around him for the fact that he's a starving stray.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: The joke that the Thief speaks in rhyme is gaining popularity.
  • Shapeshifting
    • The Thief. Most likely others.
  • The Speechless: Aphari's voice was stolen by the Thief, as was Car's face. Naturally neither of them does much talking.
  • Symbiotic Possession: Paul seems to be this for Rhelta.
  • Tomboyish Name: Reese, who is a very brutish and masculine female polar bear. Codie also counts.
    • The lesbian lioness has the full name of Josephine, but she shortens it to the more masculine Jo.
  • Tournament Arc
  • Tragic Hero: Gar is faithfully going to save his master, unknowing that it was the memory of his master's death that was stolen instead.
  • The Unintelligible: Kai does not speak in any known language, instead utilizing a series of grunts, shrieks, and purrs. Wick is also unable to produce anything but garbled gibberish, thanks to the Thief stealing his ability to form coherent words.
  • Wandering Minstrel: Haydn and Cozzolani were performing musicians until the Thief stole Haydn's singing voice.
  • Wings Do Nothing: Fox is too heavy for his wings to get him off the ground. Desdemona, as a juvenile of her species, is similarly unable to fly.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Not especially natural hair/fur colors come up way, way too often to list.
  • Your Normal Is Our Taboo: Lola's society does not have a taboo on nudity, but they do keep clothing on hand for occasions when they interact with species that do. Desdemona is less considerate of the conventions of human modesty.
    • Although some artists do cover her up, with permission from her creator.

The Characters

  • These characters have been stolen by the thief.