Paparazzi/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Reporters who stoop disgustingly low in pursuit of a story.

  • Straight: Heather is a self-proclaimed Intrepid Reporter who's perfectly willing to invade people's privacy to get a good story.
  • Exaggerated: Heather follows her victims around, invades their privacy, and flagrantly breaks laws while trying to scrape together enough material to piece together a sleazy, slanderous smear piece.
  • Justified: Nobody's willing to answer Heather's questions, so she resorts to whatever tactics necessary to get her job done.
  • Inverted: Heather, an upstanding and respectful reporter, gets harassed by a self-proclaimed celebrity who thinks she should pay more attention to his greatness.
  • Subverted: Heather is pleasant, polite and patient, knowing that she can earn more interviews by being respectful and honest than by trying to ambush and harass her subjects.
  • Double Subverted: However, she's actually a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who merely presents herself as respectful while secretly plotting the best way to get the worst stories possible.
  • Parodied: To help her find stories, Heather becomes a ninja.
  • Deconstructed: Heather started out as an Intrepid Reporter, but crossed the line so many times while Going for the Big Scoop that people became less willing to deal with her, triggering a Vicious Cycle as she's had to stoop lower and lower in order to keep her job.
  • Reconstructed: Eventually, Heather's amoral tactics allow her to uncover a deep dark secret and very important story that couldn't have been exposed any other way.
  • Zig Zagged: Depending on the situation, Heather can be a respectful and professional interviewer, an Intrepid Reporter exposing corruption, or a shameless Glory Hound paparazzi who thinks her past victories and major scoops somehow entitle her to bend and break the rules at will.
  • Averted: Heather has the opportunity to take embarrassing photos of a celebrity, but opts not to as that would invade the celebrity's right to privacy.
  • Enforced: "Media dogs like them are Acceptable Targets, so let's write somebody like that in for our heroes to humiliate! It'll be great!"
  • Lampshaded: Bob, a celebrity undergoing a personal scandal, literally cannot open a door or look out a window without coming fact to face with Heather's camera and/or microphone.
  • Invoked: Valeria keeps an eye out for ambitious reporters like Heather that she can point towards her enemies.
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???
  • Played For Laughs: Heather is a complete Butt Monkey who hounds everyone for answers to absolutely pointless/trivial questions like what they had for breakfast or their favorite numbers, and is constantly shoved around, abused or given patently absurd answers.
  • Played For Drama: Heather's current target is Allison, who's desperately trying to uphold a Masquerade because The World Is Not Ready to learn the truth. Allison has to find some way to deal with her before she exposes the truth or gets killed.

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