Tome of Tropes
Tome of Tropes | |
---|---|
Monster ID | 1043 |
Locations | CRIMBCO Cubicles |
Hit Points | 10 |
Attack | 10 |
Defense | 10 |
No-Hit | 20 |
Initiative | 100 |
Meat | None |
Phylum | Indeterminate |
Elements | None |
Resistance | None |
Monster Parts | Indeterminate |
Manuel Entry | |
refreshedit data |
You can't focus your attention on working, or on much of anything, so you turn to the nuclear solution of boredom: the Tome of Tropes. It's a giant book that explains and gives clever names to all of the recurring themes in literature, popular culture, and even real life.
There are two things about the book that make it purest evil: the first is that anyone can add to it, so it's always changing and growing larger. The second is that every entry contains several references to other cleverly-named tropes, and touching one of those names sends you to an explanation of that trope's name, complete with references to other tropes . . . and at some point you look up and see you're eight years older than when you started.
Hit Message(s):
You read an entry about the Butt Monkey, who is sometimes also a Chew Toy, but the opposite of the Golden Child. Somewhere in there, you get a papercut. Ouch! Oof!
You try to wrench your attention from the Tome, but only succeed in straining your neck muscles. Ouch! Ouch!
You read an entry about the Crowning Moment of Awesome, and how it can sometimes be an Ass Pull or an Inverted Aesop unless Handwaved or Lampshaded. Then you realize you haven't blinked in an hour. Argh! Argh!
You read the entry for the Idiot Ball, complete with all of its hundreds of examples. At some point, you pass out from hunger and bonk your head on your desk. Ow! Oof!
You start reading the category of Applied Phlebotinum, which contains an entry called The Great Big Book of Everything, at which point the Tome swallows its own tail and turns itself inside out, taking your <solar plexus> with it. Ugh! Eek!
You find an entry so choked with examples from weird Eastern animation that you can't make heads or tails of it. What a relief!
You find a single entry that is short and contains no links to other entries. Whew! Then you dive into a long, link-filled entry again.
You stop reading the entry about the MacGuffin before it spoils your enjoyment of the level 11 quest.
You wrest your eyes from the book's pages for a few seconds, before it sucks you back in.
You find the rare entry that doesn't pique your interest, so you set the book down for a couple of minutes. (FUMBLE!)
Boredom +1%
An elf on roller skates whizzes by and tosses you a five-scrip note. "Keep slackin' off, and they DOCK ya!" he sneers, before skating away.
![]() | You acquire 5 CRIMBCO scrip |
Occurs at CRIMBCO Cubicles.
Notes
- This monster cannot be copied.
References
- This is a reference to the website TV Tropes, only in book form.
- The first miss message is a reference to an ongoing discussion/debate at TV Tropes about the prevalence of anime and manga related tropes and examples, especially since (as "anime" begins with "A") that section usually appears at the top of trope pages. (This resulted in some pages having that section be listed as "Manga and Anime" instead, for those who care.)
- Tropes referred to by the hit/miss messages:
- Butt Monkey - All the bad, embarrassing or uncomfortable stuff happens to the character whether they deserve it or not.
- Chew Toy - And the audience loves them because of it.
- Golden Child - Hasn't been called that in a long time because of the Eddie Murphy movie of the same name, better known as "Karma Houdini": a character who deserves what the Butt Monkey gets and always gets out of it.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome - About what it sounds like. Controversially renamed by the admin to just "Moment Of Awesome" (and as of this writing, subject of a proposal to rename it to "Epic Moments of Awesome"), its original idea was for each work, or character in a work, to have one moment that stood out as the crowning one, but agreeing on a single one turned out to be impossible, and it ended up being used as "any moment I personally think was cool."
- Ass Pull - Pulling a plot twist out of the titular ass.
- Inverted Aesop - Not actually a trope by itself: an Inverted Trope is a situation that reverses the usual setup of a trope. Could also mean Broken Aesop. Still doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the combat message.
- Handwaved - Any flimsy explanation for why something in a story works a certain way. See also A Wizard Did It.
- Lampshaded - The writer deliberately calling attention to the use of a trope.
- Idiot Ball - Characters acting stupidly in a way that's out of character, because if they didn't, the current plot would be solved easily.
- Applied Phlebotinum - The shiny high tech or magical stuff that makes the plot work.
- The Great Big Book of Everything - A book so useful it may as well be magical, filled with every bit of information the plot may require, including the answer to how it always has just the information you need.
- And in general, see TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.
- Butt Monkey - All the bad, embarrassing or uncomfortable stuff happens to the character whether they deserve it or not.