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Real Life/Tropes O-Z: Difference between revisions
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** Any modeling of the Earth's surface from billions of years ago when it was still [[Lethal Lava Land]] will look like this.
* [[Obvious Rule Patch]]: Whatever happened to the dinosaurs was probably a result of this. Other than that, pretty much averted. When a new rule is discovered (generally as a result of poking an old rule until it breaks) it's also discovered that the new rule applied even before it was discovered.
* [[Official Couple]]: A system has been devised to cement a couple as being, in their own opinion, the author's [[One True Pairing]]. A lot of these are eventually [[Jossed]], but many others remain plausible for the duration of the characters' tenure.
* [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]: The human race is extremely fragile and can easily be killed with a [[Chunky Salsa Rule|single attack]]. Also subverted because humans are tougher than they look - time, though, eats up HP something fierce. Also, modern weaponry have made humans [[Instant Death Bullet|one-hit kills]], and it would take a much longer time to bring one down with just the hands.
* [[One-Way Visor]]: Spacesuit helmets, welding goggles, Hazmat Suits, and mirrored, wraparound shades.
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** Which leads to a subversion as some people think they are the only insane person surrounded by sane people.
* [[One Steve Limit]]: [[Averted Trope|Averted massively]].
* [[Only Smart People May Pass]]: You're repeatedly tested on your knowledge in the "School" phase as well as the optional "College/University" phase. Depending on the character class you choose, you'll also have to do this kind of thing frequently during your job.
* [[Ontological Mystery]]: Characters enter the world naked and crying with no idea whatsoever of their purpose for existence. Might all be a giant [[Shaggy Dog Story]].
* [[Our Presidents Are Different]]: Even more so starting with the [[Turn of the Millennium]] arc.
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** And of course there's other forms of nonviolent [[PvP]], known as "games".
* [[Planet of Hats]]: Averted six billion ways to Sunday, although this doesn't stop a lot of authors from trying to play it straight. Declining in popularity these days.
* [[Platform Hell]]: If you want to see other people experience it, ''[[Ninja Warrior]]''. If you want to experience it yourself, go for a tough hike or try to climb a mountain. Be careful, though; this minigame gives you only one life, and no continues unless you're lucky enough for a Mountain Rescue player to be in the area.
** However, if you have a distress beacon item, you get a generally high chance (depending on local conditions) of getting an additional continue, but you have to restart the entire minigame.
* [[Plot Armor]]: Averted. The plot follows character development, rather than the other way around.
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* [[The Power of Friendship]]: Players will never get far into the game without making some kind of connection with other players of the same species, which opens unlimited paths, some that were previously not considered! With any luck, those connections will pay off.
* [[The Power of Rock]]: Played straight. Usually used by the "[[Emo Teen|Angsty Teen]]" class to get back at their Parents. Rock music was also played to get Manuel Noriega to surrender during Operation Just Cause.
* [[Power Perversion Potential]]: My, my, my. Where do we ''begin?'' This trope was the founder of one of Real Life's first job classes.
** At some point, humans must have realized they didn't need a partner to orgasm and could literally [[A Date with Rosie Palms|take matters into their own hands]]. Things have never been the same since.
* [[Present Day]], [[Serial Experiments Lain|Present Time]]: Always.
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* [[The Promised Land]]: Users on third-world country servers view first-world servers as such, and try to do anything to switch over. For some, switching over brings them better gameplay, but for others, life doesn't improve that much. In the late 19th century edition of Real Life, many players tried to switch over to the United States server. How well it worked out for them varied from player to player.
* [[Punk Punk]]: Constantly averted. Every time it looks like a Punk genre is going to [[Genre Shift|take over]], fate pulls a fast one and stops work on that tech tree. [[Steampunk]] / [[Clock Punk]] never got going, though they're good fun for hobbying. The only part of the world that took [[Ocean Punk]] seriously was the Carribean area, [[Diesel Punk]] was going great at the start of the 1900s but [[Incredibly Lame Pun|kinda ran out of gas]] (although the Internal Combustion Engine was such a popular element it was [[Canon Immigrant|adopted by other genres]]), and [[Atom Punk]] was considered but dropped after the Three Mile island and Chernobyl / Pripyat disasters, and Fukushima was the final nail in its coffin. The newest Punk genres slated for [[Tech Tree]] expansion are [[Bio Punk]] and [[Cyberpunk]], but we'll have to wait and see.
* [[Purely Aesthetic Gender]]: Averted in the extreme. For instance, male characters have a [[Groin Attack|weak point]] while female characters suffer a nasty debuff once a month. Female characters also tend to have lower starting STR scores, and on some servers, penalties (sometimes ''massive'' penalties) to Respect ratings. Some players claim these disadvantages are offset by increased WIS and CHA scores, but there is still controversy on this point.
** Perhaps also subverted in the form of transsexual people in that they lack most of the above characteristics but often face severe penalties for having a [[Purely Aesthetic Gender]].
== R ==
* [[Ragdoll Physics]]: Actually done right. Especially with ragdolls.
* [[Random Encounters]]: Too many to count. Cockroaches (can be found ''everywhere''), stray dogs and Mugger players in street levels and [[Boss in Mook Clothing|great white sharks]] in aquatic levels are just some examples.
* [[Randomly Drops]]: The Archaeologist, Beggar, Garbage Picker, and Thief classes are almost entirely dependent on these turning up something good. The Police prestige class Drug Enforcement is too, to a degree. The Street Vendor class depends on being seen as a unique enough provider of these compared to others in his or her class. Also happens, obviously, to players searching thrift shops, junk shops, street vends, and low-price shops.
* [[Random Number God]]:
** Character generation, which is especially weird thanks to requiring two players to generate a new one, each from a distinct half of the player base. Stats are based on the stats of several related characters, not just to two that instigated the generation of a new character, and has some mediocrely-coded randomization in choosing stats to use for the new character (and there are a LOT of stats!). Some other tiny random changes are also implemented, giving unique new values for stats, but a lot of the time these either have no effect on gameplay or actually hinder the new character.
*** According to some, "Gender" is listed twice, once under "Mental Stats" and once under "Physical Stats". This normally wouldn't be a problem, but can really be aggravating when a [[Transsexualism|system glitch sets one instance incorrectly]].
** A good number of new characters are also deleted before gameplay really begins due to [[Honest Rolls Character|a poor stat roll]] or problems during the later stages of character generation. All in all, Real Life character generation is really fun at first, but becomes highly inconvenient later on, and downright painful at the end.
** The character changes after generation, and can change based on interactions within the game, as well as self-modification which occures semi-randomly. Whew... it's complicated.
* [[Rasputinian Death]]: Trope namer. The PC Rasputin, a nasty Cleric, was poisoned, emasculated, shot, stabbed, and dumped in a river. Cause of death? Drowning. [[Alan Moore|Probably.]] And, according to legend, he sat up while being incinerated.
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* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: Oh, so many, many examples...
* [[Regenerating Health]]: Played with. Characters do, in fact, have a [[Healing Factor]], but it can take days to ''years'' to restore them to full health, and they may permanently lose several abilities. However, certain items can drastically increase the rate of regeneration, and in addition, many players devote their time in-game to healing others. Despite this, taking major damage is a very, ''very'' bad thing in [[Real Life]].
* [[Retcon]]:
** Amnesia and the blocking out of memories (usually of traumatic experiences), though it's handled quite differently here than in most other series.
** Common during totalitarian regimes when "purging" a character to the extent that they simply never existed according to the players ruling at that time.
** "The jury will disregard that and the statement will be stricken from the record."
** "History is [[Written by the Winners]]."
* [[Retro Gaming]]: There are tribes that live as their ancient ancestors did. Others occasionally indulge in [[Retro Gaming]] to temporarily escape their otherwise contemporary lifestyles by attending Renaissance Fairs or partaking in Civil War re-enactments.
* [[The Reveal]]: The Earth is round! Hitler was building death camps!
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* [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them]]: Common enough to be represented by an entire job class -- they're called Dictators. Politicians beside dictators may attempt this. The US Congress exempts themselves from a number of laws, for example. US Presidents have been known to exempt themselves and their staff from laws.
{{quote|"Well, when the President does it that means that it is not illegal." - [[Richard Nixon]]}}
* [[Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right]]: Used occasionally, but frequently subverted when the character who attempts this is punished for their actions.
** Non-violent protesters believe this, and are something of a [[Trope Codifier]] here.
* [[Sea Monster]]: Many different examples.
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* [[Sequel]]: The Afterlife (maybe).
* [[Serial Killer]]: A few characters seem to be this. It's the job of the Police class (an in-game moderator of sorts) to track down and imprison (perma-ban) them.
* [[Series Fauxnale]]: The fans seem intent to believe the finale is nigh every few seasons:
** The Great War arc (later known as World War I) was advertised as "the war to end all wars". Ninety seasons later, and war episodes are as common as ever.
** Some of the "Crazy Street Person" class [[The End Is Nigh|advertise it rather more frequently]].
** The Y2K story line also served up some [[Red Herring|red herrings]].
** The date 6/6/06. There were people who actually bet on [[The End of the World as We Know It|whether we would survive]]. Does anyone else wonder how the believers [[Fridge Logic|were supposed to collect their money]]?
** The upcoming 2012 season seems destined to fit into here.
* [[Serious Business]]: And ''how.'' In fact, you are ''expected'' to treat it as the most important thing ever, or you'll be considered a freak.
** Nevertheless, there are still some who hold to the tempting view that [[Prince|life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last]].
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* [[The Slow Path]]
* [[Smart Guy]]: Loads. Archimedes (Classical); DaVinci (Renaissance); Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Leibniz (1600's); Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Werner Von Braun ('20s, '30s, '40s and '50s); Bill Gates ('80s, early '90s); Stephen Hawking (1970s-early 2000s).
* [[Somewhere a Herpetologist Is Crying]]: There is an [[Urban Legend]] wherein a woman keeps waking up to discover her husband's pet python is stretching itself out alongside her in bed. She calls a herpetologist to ask about the behavior, and he tells her "[[Don't Ask, Just Run|Get out of the house now!]]" (is that a [[Stock Phrase]]?): The python, he tells her, was measuring her up in preparation to eat her.
** Sadly, most wildlife-rehabilitation facilities have had to treat turtles with cracked shells, whom some idiot tried to remove from their "little house" in ignorance of the fact that the shell is part of the animal's skeleton. A case of [[Television Is Trying to Kill Us|Television Is Trying To Kill Turtles]] in action.
** Horned lizards are often called "horned toad," "horny toad", "horned frog" etc etc etc due to their similarity to the given amphibians but they are actually lizards. To make things more confusing, their scientific name, Phrynosoma, evidently means "toad-bodied" so...
** One ''[[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]'' tidbit had a man in a petshop try to have a [http://notalwaysright.com/hiss-terical-contest/6199 staring contest] with one of the pythons for ten minutes before the owner had to remind him that snakes can't blink.
** The idea that snakes somehow possess a hypnotic gaze probably stems from a few things. The first is that snakes lack eyelids, so their unblinking stares can be kind of creepy to humans. The second comes from stories of people who witness small animals sitting very still when snakes are nearby. This is standard prey behavior with just about any possible threat, freezing up so that predators who aren't already aware of them might not notice (if that doesn't work, ''run''). This sort of behavior may be partly responsible for the myth of [[Taken for Granite|the Gorgon Medusa]]. And while we're on the subject, snake charmers don't really charm snakes with music (since snakes don't hear things the same way we do), the snake is just following the motion of the charmer's flute and hands.
* [[Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying]]: Pretty much every paleontologist makes at least one other paleontologist cry. Debates still rage about results, methods and data used, validity of the science, pet theories... and honestly, that helps keep research going. So, in a way, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|this trope isn't all bad]].
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* [[Spikes of Doom]]: Averted in everyday life, though they have been used as booby traps in wars, and there are a number of plants that have thick thorns on them. There's also a creature called the Porcupine which took this and ran with it - rather literally.
* [[Spin-Off]]: ''[[Second Life]]''. Widely considered to suffer from severe [[Adaptation Decay]], although its fans will argue that it's merely [[Pragmatic Adaptation|pragmatic]].
* [[Spock Speak]]: A required skill for the Scientist, Engineer, and Economist classes.
* [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad]]: What other reason could there be for the number of tropes here pertaining specifically to humans?
* [[Standard Status Effects]]: Humans are rather vulnerable to poison, paralysis, stun, sloth, sleep, blindness, freeze, burn, berserk, confusion, lust, charm, fear, deafness, and instant death status effects. Some would say cursing can happen as well. Petrification is rare but known; see Pompeii. [[Pun|The silence status is almost unheard of]] (though speech impediments are common). Fatigue sets in after exercise and saps strength, agility and motivation, and this status can advance to Exhaustion, which almost completely destroys the stats. Tiredness occurs after going without sleep and advances. Tiredness 1 occurs normally after going on past evening and reduces concentration and motivation. (Note: It's possible to be stuck with Tiredness 1 if a character is [[Must Have Caffeine|addicted to caffeine.]]) Tiredness 2 occurs upon completely missing a nights sleep, and results in further stat hits and temper also taking a hit. Sleep Deprivation, however, is when things get nasty. SD 1 inflicts Paranoia, and SD 2 finally causes hallucinations. Any further progression results in Instant Death. Depression is caused by various factors, both natural and due to outside stimuli (it's also one of the nastier debuffs caused by substance abuse), and causes huge penalties to motivation. Temper can also be affected, and PCs who get too depressed may end up [[Driven to Suicide|suicidal.]]
* [[Status Buff]]: these do occur as well though. Hyper leads to increased energy and drive, though this comes at an increasing cost of concentration, and can be bestowed through energy drinks, caffeine, and other stimuli, or it can occur naturally. Some characters also get it temporarily when nearing the end of the day. Euphoria increases the morale, concentration and motivation stats and the condition occurs after a big success. "Afterglow" increases relationships and skilled PCs will use this to chain together big chains of successes and level up quickly.
** Though those with the "ADD" and/or "ADHD" character trait garner severe penalties to Concentration checks, there is a chance to cause the opposite effect, "[[wikipedia:Hyperfocus|Hyperfocus]]", on themselves, allowing them to shut out all other influences in favor of one goal. ADD, by its very scatter-brained nature, also grants the ability of "Brainstorming", allowing the caster to come up with as many ideas as a small group of people, though many of them may be just as scatter-brained.
** Also there is the infamous Strength Buff. It is considered illegal in many countries and has some really bad side-effects. There are some other buffs for your base physical stats, and they are equally damaging. Buffs for mental stats exist only in theory.
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* [[Theory of Narrative Causality]]: [[Averted Trope|Usually averted]]. But occasionally played straight.
* [[They Would Cut You Up]]: They ''used'' to, but now vivisection (autopsy on a living body, as opposed to ''di''ssection, where they kill you first) is usually punished quite severely.
* [[Third-Person Shooter]]: Very much averted - the entire thing is one continuous first-person experience.
* [[This Is Reality]]: [[Trope Namer|Justified]] [[Justified Trope|in this case]].
** [[Epileptic Trees|That's what everyone says, real or not.]]
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== U-V ==
* [[Ultimate Evil]]: Many characters believe [[Satan]] is this.
** Sometimes this changes amongst players in relation to other humans. During [[World War II]], Hitler was ''[[Subverted Trope|supposed]]'' to be this. Then he killed himself, [[Foregone Victory|and...]]
* [[Uncanceled]]: The Cuban Missile Crisis was one notable example.
* [[Universe Concordance]]: History textbooks and Wikipedia.
* [[Unobtainium]]: Oil, uranium, gold, diamond, and lots more (depending on what you want, where you are, and what you can give for it). An extreme case would be antimatter, which is extremely difficult to create and annihilates anything it touches into pure energy (and hence must be stored in electromagnetic fields). Nicely subverted with pure aluminum, which used to be more valuable than gold and is now used to store cheap beverages. In fact, [[Real Life]] is the [[Trope Namer]]. "Unobtainium" was first used as an alternate name for titanium by the U.S. during the [[Cold War]] arc, the largest deposits being in the Soviet Union.
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: To many, the mass media.
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* [[Video Game Caring Potential]]: Oh so much...
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: So many ways...
* [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]]: In many locations you will get non-standard game over mentioned above if you start killing people in broad daylight. There are many notable subversions of it.
* [[Video Game Tutorial]]: Although most [[PCs]] don't have conscious memory, these are the first few years of play. Depending on what your character's homeland is, the School levels will be this as well.
* [[Violation of Common Sense]]: Laws don't stop people from doing bad or completely stupid things. In fact, the Darwin Awards exist to reward blatant violations. Also most of Quantum Physics and Relativity -- evidently, the Universe doesn't bother about complying to the common sense of those insignificant little humans on their tiny pale blue bit of dust called Earth.
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* [[We ARE Struggling Together!]]: [[Subverted]] in the Libyan portion of the Arab Spring arc. The rebels started out unable to agree on the simplest things, but quickly worked out that they needed to pull together to get anything done, put their differences aside, and kicked Gadaffi out.
* [[Welcome to Corneria]]: Many people-oriented jobs, such as serving fast food or selling tickets at movies, involve several [[Stock Phrases]].
* [[Wham! Episode]]:
** Many, but the most recent one would be the infamous 9/11 episode.
** The World War II arc was one wham after another, ranging from the Holocaust to the Hiroshima bombings, ''nobody'' was left unaffected.
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* [[What Does This Button Do?]]: Depending on the button, anything from "nothing" to "nuclear Armageddon, God help us all." The number of safeguards on a button is a rough (but inexact) guide to how big a thing would happen if you pushed it.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]]: Cultural example: In most European countries rats are considered to be pests and unclean. In India there is a 600-year-old temple of clean rats, with every generation free of disease, that are friendly with people. Anthropomorphic faced animal vs. non-anthropomorphic/fuzzy animal example: Pandas have billions of dollars spent on their survival and they don't contribute greatly as a species, while other very important insects and other critically endangered species are ignored massively in comparison, even though it will actually cause big problems to see them go.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: Many humans' attitudes towards animals, though generally less so with animals frequently kept as pets.
* [[What Now? Ending]]: Pretty much every ending in [[Real Life]] that doesn't involve you actually dying is of this nature.
* [[What the Fu Are You Doing?]]: Some players have a rather inflated view of their own "martial arts skills." Some end up featured in [[YouTube]] videos where they manage to nunchuk themselves in the [[Groin Attack|groin]] or the face, or otherwise end up looking like jackasses.
* [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?]]: You bet your ass someone would. (It's rumored that while the series population is continually growing, [[Conservation of Competence|the sum of their total intelligence remains fixed]].)
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* [[Womb Level]]: The character design stage.
* [[Word of God]]: Too many to count. For the abrahamaic religions, the Bible (in whole or part, the Torah). For Catholics, also the Pope (under certain circumstances) and the Orthodox church has its own less well known equivalent to the Pope. For Muslims, the Qur'an and Hadith. For still others, the voices inside their head. The difficulty of proving one knows the author(s) means that for all we know this is [[Word of Dante]] or even Fanon.
* [[Word of Dante]]: Due to above argument over official [[Word of God]], Science has filled this position.
* [[World Half Empty]]/[[A World Half Full]]
* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: The number of divorces testifies to the amount of people who truly believe they are in a romantic comedy.
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* [[You Suck]]: Inverted. [http://iamawesome.com You rock!]
* [[Zerg Rush]]: See [[Zerg Rush/Real Life|here]].
* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: Averted so far, although there has been plenty of demand for an arc about one of these. Main reasons for not writing one is trying to write in an explanation for it and having to kill off millions of extras in the process.
** [http://files.sharenator.com/capt_973bc9c198ad455496f74daf552fdfa5_correction_zombies_ahead_ny136_Danger_Zombies_Ahead-s399x328-11545-580.jpg Are you SURE it's been averted?]
* [[Zettai Ryouiki]]: Japan sure love this one.
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