Real Life/Tropes T-Z

T

• Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: An extremely complex web, constantly changing with technology. Factors for any military unit include firepower, mobility, survivability and dozens of niche roles. Most units are able to counter their counters as well, and are highly versatile.
• Teaser Equipment: Expensive cars, houses, jewelry, and the like will not be within your price range when you first start out. Particularly Egregious examples require that you take several levels in certain Prestige Classes to be able to afford them. Thankfully, much of these items fall into Bragging Rights Reward
• Tech Tree: Gigantic, intricate, messy, and the structure of it isn't fully understood.
• Termites: Eusocial insects known especially for their wood chewing and their huge termite mounds.
• Theory of Narrative Causality: 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 dissection, 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: Justified in this case.
  • That's what everyone says, real or not.
• Throw It In: The series is an ambitious project, in that none of the actors are given scripts to memorize, and almost all of the dialogue is ad-libbed.
  • Averted, oh so strongly, with the 'Call Centre Worker' character class.
• This Means War: Played straight quite often. Occasionally averted.
• Timed Mission: Each human has, on average, 66.12 years to live. This time limit can be extended if you're healthy enough. Unfortunately, it's also luck based, as your time limit can be drastically reduced depending on where your character lives; for example, a character based in Africa is likely to have a lower time limit than one in Europe. Sometimes your characters time limit is unexpectedly ended by just plain unfair things, like being hit by a car.
• Time for Plan B: Because Plan A doesn't always go off without a hitch, having a decent backup plan in reserve is a good idea.
• Toilet Humour: One of the first styles of humor many players encounter as well as being the oldest known type of comedy.
• Too Awesome to Use: Money, especially amongst the upper classes.
• Took a Level In Badass: Played straight by countless individuals, but can also happen on a larger scale, up to and including an entire species. Fan favorite moments include the Agricultural, Industrial, and Digital Revolutions. Rumor has it that North American Cockroaches are in the middle of doing this, by developing poison glands.
  • So that's what archy meant in "archy declares war".
• Tragic Hero: Many characters suffer from their flaws or choices. Whether it's drug or alcohol addictions, anger management issues, pride, greed, ambition...
• Travel Cool: A lot of the human race's engineering efforts yield cool machines to suit their Badass Normal style. The higher-level examples of the Cool Starship, however, have not yet been unlocked as nobody has the cash for that expansion pack yet.
  • We're working on that.
  • We haven't quite finished with the undersea exploration expansion, either.
• Trope Maker: While it is under recognized as a source of tropes, the fact remains that this series is, quite literally, the baseline for most any work you can name.
• Truth in Television: Is this too meta for you?
• Try to Fit That on A Business Card: Monarchs since the dawn of history and accomplished British citizens, among others.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Slave rebellions.

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 supposed to be this. Then he killed himself, 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.
  • Subverted with two particularly famous comedic news programs, in that, thanks to their comedic nature, you'd think they weren't serious but, and perhaps somewhat depressingly they tend to be about they only truly realiable news outlet in America.
• The Un-Reveal: We never learned the identity of Jack The Ripper.
  • Or the Zodiac Killer, or D.B. Cooper.
• Unstable Equilibrium: Criticized as a huge balance problem. Some servers try to fight it by increasing taxes on the rich and giving it directly to the poor in theory, but in practice, the rich can easily transfer to a server of their choice using in-game money, and even when they are taxed, the money tends to trickle back into clans that they're a part of instead of the needy. The degree of Rules Lawyering in this area needs to be seen to be believed.
• Unstoppable Rage: Brutally subverted, time and time again. Giving in to your primal rage in a modern day society always, always, makes things worse.
  • On the other hand, back in the Viking arc, there existed warriors who were well-known for using this trope to devastating effect, as well as wearing serks (a type of garment) made of bear skin. They were so notorious for this that their name lives on to this day in the word "berserk".
• Unwinnable: Go ahead. Just try it.
  • Since all achievements are open to interpretation, winning is possible by some definitions and impossible by others.
  • Since you only get one life and no saves, you may only acquire one ending out x, x being the amount of living creatures that did, do, and will exist in Real Life.
  • As for in-game examples, the grand prize of any lottery, and doing anything politically that is both beneficial to the public and doesn't involve lining someone's pockets.
  • YMMV, but Charlie Sheen seems to be the only one winning.
• Upperclass Twit: Paris Hilton is a notable example.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: Dungeons and Dragons takes over your life and drives you insane (no more addictive than any other hobby). Yukon Territory of Canada and Siberia are Grim Up North (rather pleasant in spring/summer, and polar bears hang around way farther north). Also, Urban Legends, natch.
• Useless Useful Spell: Nukes. Everyone is so afraid of automatic counterattacks for using just one that they remain stuck in the inventory.
  • Also, since they tend make the area they nuke unlivable, not to mention that counterattacks could end all life on the planet makes them even more useless.
• Vaporware: Fusion reactors, flying cars, nanobots, etc. The slower-than-expected development of some things, though, is counterbalanced by surprise inventions like cheese, nuclear bombs, the internet and lasers. Flying cars have been completed, but they turn out to be nothing more than Awesome but Impractical gimmicks. They're still being worked on, alongside Orbital Tourism.
  • The Interstellar space expansion pack has been in development since the 1950s, funding and development issues have meant the only avaliable content is the earth orbit, the moon and whatever shuttles and probes we can afford to send. The shuttle equipment is being removed from the game pending updates, although the Mars mission pack has been put off untill the 2020s at least.
  • The 2012 event is assumed to be this, lots of speculation but no concrete evidence about details apart from it being a Kill'Em All scenario. Which is precisley why most people hope it remains Vaporware.
• Vapour Wear: Lingerie, anything made out of Gauze. That brief fad of paper clothing back in The Sixties. And many people just don't wear anything underneath.
• The Verse: The Universe, Trope Namer.
• 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.
• The Virus: Way too many to count; some of them are also Nightmare Fuel. Some of these tend to be Game Breaking Bugs that lead to many a Downer Ending.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The UK and Australia have a relationship characterised by years of "hatred". But if you were to declare war on either of them, the other would respond with overwhelming force.

W

• Wacky Wayside Tribe: You'll run across more than a few of these during the game, although they'll seem more important at the time than they really turn out to be.
• Wake Up Call Boss: Elementary (or "primary") school.
  • SAT tests for English PCs.
  • Adolescence.
  • First dates, for many.
• Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Averted, sadly.
  • Deconstructed with child soldiers.
• Wakeup Makeup: Ha! You wish!
  • It's possible to get eyeliner, lipliner and full lipstick tattooed on. Initially painful, and reduces makeup options later, but more and more military women find it to be worthwhile.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Allergies.
  • It's surprising how many dictators had strange phobias. For example, Adolf Hitler was afraid of cats. This was never Exploited, though.
• 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.
  • On a less dramatic scale, everyone has had life throw them a curveball at some point.
  • One huge Wham! Episode happened 65 million years ago when an asteroid collided with Earth, effectively ending the whole dinosaur story arc.
• What Could Have Been: Just ask anyone.
• 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 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, the sum of their total intelligence remains fixed.)
• Wide Open Sandbox: The effective playing area is a single small planet that requires immense resources even to leave for a few days, so almost no one does. Thanks to the planet's transparent atmosphere, you can see immense distances into the Wide Open Sandbox; you just can't get there. May be a Broken Bridge, or the content just hasn't been added yet. Well, technically you can get there if you're willing to wait for ages. And if warp drives are ever invented, the Sandbox is effectively opened.
  • Life itself is a Wide Open Sandbox... at least after you clear the Tutorial Stage.
  • The planet is not small from the perspective of the player. It can take days, even weeks, just to circle the map and wind up where you began — and that's only if you've maxed out your running/swimming/climbing/jumping stats.
• The Wiki Rule: One of the more fleshed out examples.
• Wiki Walk: Many of the more interesting conversations in life, not all of them held on controlled substances.
• Wild Teen Party: Can you say, spring break?

Spring break.

• • Not to mention many that occur outside of spring break. Doing this without permission can have unpleasant results for the one responsible. (For example, it may result in receiving the "grounded" status effect.) This does not stop some people.
• With This Herring: Everyone starts off naked, with no equipment and no skills. If you're lucky, your parents may provide you with a few items to get started, but YPMV.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly: Although players can go weeks (it varies) without consuming food, hunger kicks in after only a few hours (it varies also).
• 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.
• Wutai: Three, actually. Thailand, China, and Japan are the Trope Codifiers. Also: many large cities in the North America region (and London) have a "Chinatown".
  • Korea and Vietnam have been getting more prominence since their war arcs ended (or put on hiatus in Korea's case). And India's becoming extremely popular these days.
    • Lima, Peru has a Chinatown of its own called the "barrio chino" or, in English, "Chinese neighbourhood".

Y-Z

• A Year and a Day: Used in various legal situations.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: "I swear I was thirteen just twenty minutes ago — wait, it was twenty years? Wow. I knew The Nineties were in there somewhere but... Wow."
• Yellow Brick Road: Depending on your beliefs, this may be played straight or subverted/averted as far as life is concerned. That being said, there are literal walkways in the world that are designed with yellow bricks, but those are just for decorative purposes as opposed to serving as roadways to special destinations.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Subverted; you don't need to know how something works to use it, but if you want to research your bodily functions, go ahead. Played straight in the Science Class, Metal Shop, and Small-Engine Repair Shop levels and Firearms/ Driver's Licence minigames, on the ground that you may hurt yourself or others if you don't know what you're doing.
  • Well, in the Infant stage, you have to research such skills as Walking or Using Tools. There are also the Epileptic Trees that one of the first skills to be achieved is Vision.
• You Killed My Father: Played straight with Genghis Khan, who decided to kill everyone in the Tatar clan to get his revenge after his father was killed by them. He didn't stop there. It actually became a very large story arc which affected millions and is still looked back on by many of the fanbase.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: The implied purpose of every war in history. If those in charge claim they're fighting for something else, they're either lying or misinformed.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: While most structures do involve certain amounts of special materials, Oil is such an important source of both Energy and Raw Materials that players have gone to ridiculous extremes to access it or deny others access to it.
• You Suck: Inverted. You rock!
• Zerg Rush: See 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.
  • Are you SURE it's been averted?
• Zettai Ryouiki: Japan sure love this one.