Mass Vexations: Difference between revisions

=== The following tropes apply to all three parts of the Mass Vexations trilogy, in addition to the tropes found in the source material: ===

 

* [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]]: Averted by Art, who had never been in a long-term relationship until he met Tali.

* [[A Wizard Did It]]: Mystical elements start to show up at the end of Part 1 in a series that has always been strictly science-fiction. [[Word of God]] has stated he intends to stick mainly to divination and other spiritual ideas, though.

* [[Actor Allusion]]: To Aria being voiced by [[The Matrix|Trinity]].

** This goes to the point where Wrex {{spoiler|introduces The Game to ''all of Clan Urdnot''.}}

** Also occurs with Thane in the sequel, when it's revealed he's fond of Baroque and Romantic music.

* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Used on Conrad Verner when Art runs into him on Illium.

* [[Came Back Wrong]]: Shepard goes from Paragon to Paragade after she comes back.

* [[Catapult Nightmare]]: From Art's [[Dream Sequence]] in the sequel.

* [[Catch Phrase]]: "Jesus Christ on a pikestaff."

* [[Cultured Warrior]]: Art, even if all of his cultured qualities are about a hundred and seventy years behind everyone else. {{spoiler|And especially since some of the things don't exist in the Mass Effect universe...}}

* [[Curse Cut Short]]: After the last time Wrex makes Art lose {{spoiler|[[Schmuck Bait|The Game]]}}, Art starts a swear line; it cuts to the next scene before he can even get in the first word.

* [[Dance Party Ending]]: The sequel.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Ethan Sunderland.

** It's played a lot more extensively in MV2; {{spoiler|Garrus' squad survived with only three casualties, and Sidonis doublecrossed the mercs that would have killed Garrus' squad to save them. All because Sidonis fell in love with an ardat-yakshi-- the very same one that would have committed suicide during the prologue [[Butterfly of Doom|had Art not talked her out of it]].}} As you'd predict, it completely changes the tone and objective of {{spoiler|Garrus'}} loyalty mission. And then Art's presence is enough to do a couple of other things; for one, {{spoiler|Kal'Reegar is no longer the only survivor of Tali's recruitment mission}}. And for another, {{spoiler|Tali's father survives her loyalty mission.}}

*** Perhaps most interestingly, however, is that he eventually finds himself in a situation that could lead to a loyalty mission. {{spoiler|The thought terrifies him, however, and it's when he first finds this out that he tells Tali of his fears.}}

* [[Freudian Excuse]]: Art's impostor says that he was having a rough life on Earth, and felt that Art took away any chance he could've had to feed his family and give them a better life when he came into the picture. Art doesn't bite into it.

{{quote| '''[impostor]Art''': You'd understand, right?<br />

* [[Mock Millionaire]]: {{spoiler|Art's impostor.}}

* [[More Dakka]]: Whatever you do, steer clear from an airship if Art is manning the guns. If the bullets don't get you, the missiles can get you. And if those don't get you, ''the warehouse itself'' most certainly will as it collapses on you.

* [[Mushroom Samba]]: Played with. Art doesn't really take anything, but at the same time he gets insane hallucinations while playing ''Vexations''. His cover story ends up involving elements of drug use as a result.

* [[My Fist Forgives You]]: When Art goes to Wrex {{spoiler|to mend their friendship after the 'stupid fucking krogan' insult after Virmire}}, the krogan doesn't listen to him. So [[Hit Me Dammit|Art tells him to headbutt him]]. Wrex eventually does so after a brief back and forth, and then things are good between them.

* [[Pensieve Flashback]]: {{spoiler|Orange pulls Art into one of these so he can witness his death in his home universe.}}

* [[Pinch Me]]: Art speculates that he is in a dream upon showing up at the Citadel. He promptly slaps himself, realizing that he is, in fact, in a real world.

{{quote| '''Art''': I don't know about you guys, but it seems to me that whenever some group with tons of money studies a biological life form and its possibly adverse effects on humans it ''never'' ends well for anybody involved.}}

* [[Plot Induced Stupidity]]: Whoever built the warehouse that Art snipes {{spoiler|Tarak}} at in part 2 forgot to install a window pane in one of the windows. It's mercilessly lampshaded when Art finds this out:

* [[Random Teleportation]]: It's assumed that this is how the fic begins.

* [[Rant-Inducing Slight]]: {{spoiler|Art's [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] during his loyalty mission is triggered by his impostor casually commenting on how neither of them could have expected things to turn out the way they did.}}

* [[Recurring Dreams]]: Art reveals that he's been having the same recurring dream for two years towards the start of the sequel: he wakes up in a strange hallway, walks down it, finds a door, and then promptly gets attacked by a mob. {{spoiler|It may have some significance with Orange and the All-Spark; the All-Spark makes this dream more lucid, and he's able to get past the door before the mob can kill him.}}

** In Chapter 27, the dream ends up very similar to a deleted scene from {{spoiler|[[Heavy Rain]], complete with drowned child. And then it ends up serving the exact same function it did, as well as tipping off Art that Scott Shelby is once again the Origami Killer.}}

{{quote| -- And now, the countdown to ''Mass Effect 2'' begins.}}

* [[Ship Tease]]: Quite a bit for some of the less important characters. Of particular note is Al and Jack, as well as Sturge and Chakwas.

** Art outdoes this in part two with shipping Thane and Shepard. He's even more enthusiastic about it than he ever was with Kaidan and Shepard.

* [[Shout-Out]]: [[Reference Overdosed|Oh, boy.]] There are so many packed in here that your brain would start to hurt if you tried to find them all. Here is a list of the more obvious ones:

** The music shop Tali goes to on the Citadel is named Paul Shar's Music Shop. This is a reference to [http://www.sharmusic.com/ the Shar music catalogue], which is noteable for being a top resource for players of string instruments.

** When Art pilots the Mako on Ilos, the entire sequence is portrayed as a very large [[Back to The Future]] reference, complete with the use of Doc Brown's catchphrase. It's promptly lampshaded when the Mako crashes on the Citadel.

*** And he makes another [[Back to The Future]] reference during Garrus' recruitment mission, when he introduces himself to the Blue Suns mercs as Marty McFly. To sweeten the deal, he gives Jenny McKansa the name of Marty's girlfriend, Jennifer Parker.

** What is Art's first weapon in the story? [[Half Life|A crowbar]].

*** Brought [[Up to Eleven]] when Jacob reveals that he'd rather be a vampire than a werewolf. See the Take That entry below.

** ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' is mentioned (and referenced) a couple of times during Garrus' loyalty mission.

** [[CSI: Miami]] is referenced when Art makes a really bad pun while putting on fake sunglasses.

** {{spoiler|Art finds a second [[MacGuffin]] on the Collector ship.}} Owing to it's cube shape, he affectionately dubs it the [[Transformers|All-Spark]].

** Whenever a Brotherhood meeting is called, they do it in code based on references to something. These are the codes they have used so far:

*** Another four-sentence structure laced with references to the three main ballets of Stravinsky's Russian period (''The Firebird'', ''Petrushka'', and ''The Rite of Spring''.)

*** A meeting is called with [[Star Wars]] references about how Darth Vader could be considered the hero of the story. It becomes hilarious when you realize that it's called during the AFD chapter and you realize that "Art" didn't actually know he was calling a meeting.

** During his speech to the admiralty board, he calls them all Muppets a lá [[Mean Brit|Gordon Ramsay]].

** Art references [[Super Smash Brothers|Captain Falcon]] twice: the first comes during Tali's loyalty mission when he commands Kasumi to use her punch move on a geth, and the second time comes when he headbutts Uvenk.

* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: At one point when taking control of a Collector, Harbinger is interrupted in the middle of his memetic 'assuming direct control' speech... by Grunt ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|ramming into the Collector in question]]''.

** Happens again during Lair of the Shadow Broker, during {{spoiler|Tela Vasir's death scene.}}

* [[Socially Awkward Hero]]: Art, when it comes to romance. Sure, he can give big speeches and take down bad guys without breaking a sweat. But any situation referring to romance (and especially Tali)? Gets incredibly nervous. Justified in that he had never been in a long-term relationship before coming to the Mass Effect universe.

* [[Something They Would Never Say]]: According to anyone in the Mass Effect universe, at least: when Tali comes to convince Art out of his catatonic sadness {{spoiler|after Virmire}}, they get into a brief argument, during which Art [[Wham! Line|accidentally lets slip]] that {{spoiler|he knew Ash was going to die before he ever met anyone on the Mass Effect crew}}.

* [[Spin-Off]]: [http://nordronnoc.deviantart.com/gallery/36491128 Mass Vexations: Redemption] is a mix of type 1 and type 11.

* [[Spotting the Thread]]: Kaidan doesn't buy into Art's made-up backstory all that much after Feros, and he gets good at this. Fortunately for Art, Kaidan sees that he means well regardless of how much of the truth he's omitting and thus doesn't [[Pull the Thread]] on Art [[Subverted Trope|as is usual for the trope]].

* [[Suspiciously Apropos Music]]: Art and Tali go to a karaoke bar on their first date. And on this first date, Art ends up singing [[South Pacific|Some Enchanted Evening]] and Tali gets to sing [[My Fair Lady|I Could Have Danced All Night]].

* [[Take That]]: Given the [[Author Filibuster]] nature of some of Art's ramblings, there are a few of these scattered throughout. The two most prominent are a long internal monologue decrying a troll that attacked most of the [[Kung Fu Panda]] fandom and [[Bias Steamroller|Armond White]] being compared to a Reaper during Art's second [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].

{{quote| '''Jacob''': I wonder if animal blood would cut it. Or maybe I could even be a vegan vampire. It would be interesting to see what would-<br />

'''Art''': Uh, no, it would not. Vegan vampires are idiotic. I hear that if you're a vegan vampire, you sparkle.<br />

* [[Took a Level In Badass]]: Art takes several by the time he gets to Virmire.

** The cincher comes even before he leads the salarians when Art stands up to a krogan who is aiming a shotgun in his face. ''After having cast his weapons to the ground''. {{spoiler|Granted, said krogan is Wrex, but still, it's incredibly brave and pretty awesome, especially when you consider that it helps to save Wrex from his [[Final Death]] before Virmire.}}

** Also, {{spoiler|[[Heavy Rain|Madison Paige and Scott Shelby]].}}

* [[Training Montage]]: Not really given the medium, but Art does more or less lampshade a possible scenario for a montage.

{{quote| --And I cue the ''Rocky''-style montage!}}

* [[Use Your Head]]: Art headbutts Uvenk instead of Shepard.

* [[Weirdness Magnet]]: Ethan Sunderland, full stop. {{spoiler|Justified in that he's not really from the Mass Effect universe.}}

* [[Wham! Episode]]: Art's loyalty mission. {{spoiler|All goes reasonably well until they get to the end. They find the impostor looks almost exactly like Art, and after enough provocation he finally flies into a rant in which he spills the beans about the truth of his origins... in front of Shepard, who had been out of the loop until that time. She doesn't take it well.}}

** Chapter 39: We learn the exact circumstances that brought Art to the Mass Effect Universe, and they're ''much'' worse than Art thought.