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Trope was cut/disambiguated due to cleanup
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%%* CanadaEh
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Anything That Moves is a disambiguation
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* AnythingThatMoves: He allowed Xavier to give him a handjob once, and claimed that he was "gay for fifteen minutes", but that those fifteen minutes had since passed.
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* AnythingThatMoves: Daniel shows interest in just about anyone who'll give him attention, regardless of gender or sexuality.
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Teens Are Short has been renamed to Short Teens Tall Adults. Removing "teen is unusually short" usage.
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* TeensAreShort: Jac is about the same height as Tiffany, at roughly five feet.
to:
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* TeensAreShort: Tiffany is easily the shortest character in the entirety of the in-game university at a hair over five feet tall. She was also previously involved with the ''second-tallest'' character in the game.
to:
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Renamed per TRS
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* BuxomIsBetter: While Rissa isn't overly fond of her curves, both Jason and [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer Zara]] seem to like them a lot.
to:
* BuxomIsBetter: BuxomBeautyStandard: While Rissa isn't overly fond of her curves, both Jason and [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer Zara]] seem to like them a lot.
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Names The Same is no longer a trope
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The game itself initially took place in the fictional community of Palm Beach (Not to be confused with the [[NamesTheSame real Palm Beach, Florida]]), but would eventually expand to include other small towns and cities, including both New York and Los Angeles.
to:
The game itself initially took place in the fictional community of Palm Beach (Not to be confused with the [[NamesTheSame real Palm Beach, Florida]]), Florida), but would eventually expand to include other small towns and cities, including both New York and Los Angeles.
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Shes Got Legs is currently a disambiguation
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%%* ShesGotLegs: Jason says this, almost word for word, the first time he sees her in jeans.
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Trope has been merged into Badass Biker, ZCE.
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%%* BikerBabe
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Tastes Like Diabetes is now a disambig between Sweetness Aversion and Sickingly Sweet. Zero Context Example entries and entries that do not fit anywhere else will be deleted.
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* NarmCharm: [[TastesLikeDiabetes Boone and Ruby's entire relationship]]. They basically fell in love at first sight. Boone was constantly going overboard in his gift-giving, while delivering flowery and lengthy monologues about his feelings for her. Ruby very clearly thought the sun shone out of Boone's backside, and would say as much to just about anyone within earshot. They're almost aggressively happy and idealistic about their relationship. But somehow, it just ''worked'', and was one of the more heartwarming and popular relationships on the board.
to:
* NarmCharm: [[TastesLikeDiabetes NarmCharm:
** Boone and Ruby's entirerelationship]].relationship. They basically fell in love at first sight. Boone was constantly going overboard in his gift-giving, while delivering flowery and lengthy monologues about his feelings for her. Ruby very clearly thought the sun shone out of Boone's backside, and would say as much to just about anyone within earshot. They're almost aggressively happy and idealistic about their relationship. But somehow, it just ''worked'', and was one of the more heartwarming and popular relationships on the board.
** Boone and Ruby's entire
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Moved from main wiki
Added DiffLines:
The Annobyn Universe refers to a series of [[PlayByPostGame Roleplaying Sites]]. It progressed in real time, though the universe's timeline was always exactly five months ahead of the current date, though various [[TimeSkip time skips]] eventually led to the game timeline overtaking real time, going as far ahead as 2020.
The game itself initially took place in the fictional community of Palm Beach (Not to be confused with the [[NamesTheSame real Palm Beach, Florida]]), but would eventually expand to include other small towns and cities, including both New York and Los Angeles.
Though it usually lacked any one overarching plot and was mostly character-driven, time skips and reboots actually allowed most of the prominent characters to not only finish High School, but advance well into college and eventual adulthood.
----
!!Characters
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Continuity 1 Characters]]
%%!!Adam Donovan
%%
%%A coffee-addicted, guitar-loving high school senior, with feelings for his lifelong best friend.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Both Tiffany and Lanie were cheerleaders.
%%* InnocentlyInsensitive: Specifically when he gave Lanie a vending machine ring as a promise ring, considering what Lanie had previously gotten him. He more than made up for it later on.
%%* MustHaveCaffeine
%%* TheQuietOne: Compared to the more.... vocal Boone, Lanie or Ren, anyway.
%%* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Lanie.
%%----
!!Adrian Jamison
Lanie's step-father, a conservative career politician who ultimately becomes the short-term mayor of Palm Beach.
!! Tropes:
* BigBad: Once Jamison succeeds in becoming mayor of Palm Beach, he pretty much becomes this for just about every character who isn't straight or over the age of twenty-one. He's also probably the most successful villain the site ever had.
%%* HeteronormativeCrusader
%%* PutOnABus
%%* StrawmanPolitical
!!Alfred "Jerry" Coogan
A bullying senior jock who plays linebacker on the Palm Beach High School football team.
!! Tropes:
* AnythingThatMoves: He allowed Xavier to give him a handjob once, and claimed that he was "gay for fifteen minutes", but that those fifteen minutes had since passed.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: Jerry was about as much of a direct antagonist as EWO had, when he was alive. However, the scope of his misdeeds were limited to the context of High School and he died early on enough that Jamison tends to get remembered more as the "bad guy" than he does.
* JerkJock: A very good football player and wrestler, but universally recognized as a massive jerk, even to his closest friends.
%%* KavorkaMan
* PetTheDog: A very small one from just before he died- When Travis allowed him to stay in his guest room, the two came about as close as they would really get to verbalizing how much they valued each other's friendship.
%%* KilledOffForReal
%%* VitriolicBestBuds: With Travis and, to a lesser extent, Freddie.
!!Anastasia Leroy
Zara's mother, a professional party planner.
!! Tropes:
%%* {{Expy}}: To Julie Cooper, of Series/TheOC fame.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Ana often raises pretty legitimate points about Zara's behavior, and treatment of the people around her, that tend to go unnoticed because they're framed as coming from an abusive bitch instad of a parent at the end of her rope.
%%* RichBitch
!!Arthur Leroy
Zara's father, a successful lawyer.
!! Tropes:
* BunnyEarsLawyer: While he's certainly a tad.... eccentric at times, he's also very clearly one of if not the best lawyers in Palm Beach.
%%* TheCharmer: He's very capable of being charming when he wants to be.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: One of the few in Palm Beach. Whatever else can be said about him, he's generally a reasonable guy who usually makes a point of acting logically instead of emotionally.
%%* SilverFox
!!Bulgarin Rossovich
A 19-year-old Russian-American from New York, Bulgarin initially moved to Palm Beach and began working as quite possibly the town's most notorious drug dealer.
!! Tropes:
%%* AllGirlsWantBadBoys
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: He used to go to football games just to watch Zara.
%%* BattleCouple: with Zara, eventually.
%%* BloodKnight
%%* BromanticFoil: To Jason.
%%* ByronicHero
* GeniusBruiser: While he might just look like DumbMuscle and it's certainly joked about, Bully is clearly very adept at math and science, to the point of being able to tutor [[TheAce Zara]] in math and being able to figure out how to produce his own drugs without much in the way of formal training.
* HiddenDepths: He's definitely got a nicer, more caring side to him than one might initially think, and he's far more intelligent. Not that he hides it, it's just occasionally easy to lose sight of.
%%* IcyBlueEyes
%%* PoliticallyIncorrectHero
%%* ReallyGetsAround: Early on, although he's alright with the idea of committing to Zara once the two get together.
%%* TallDarkAndHandsome
!!Cassandra Cuoco
Jason and Matt's mother. She had the both of them as a High School senior, and splits her time between being a sporadically-employed hairdresser and the town drunk.
!! Tropes:
%%* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother
* MaternallyChallenged: She tries, but Cassie simply isn't suited to being a parent.
%%* TheNotLoveInterest: To Jason.
%%* WomanChild: She's thirty-six going on sixteen.
!!Clarissa Vanderbilt
A shy, submissive 16-year-old girl, born on Staten Island. Reasonably new to Palm Beach and raised in a stuffy, sexually-repressed Victorian environment.
!! Tropes:
* BuxomIsBetter: While Rissa isn't overly fond of her curves, both Jason and [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer Zara]] seem to like them a lot.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Jason is the poor, unrefined son of the town drunk, the complete opposite of the kind of guy Virginia wants Rissa associating with.
%%* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold
%%* InnocentBlueEyes
%%* OnlySaneMan: In her circle of friends.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: She's initially described as being very mousey and plain. As time has went on, it's fairly clear that nobody ever really thought of her as being remotely unattractive, just strange and oddly dressed. This is especially clear in Grapevine Fires, where she's considered one of the most attractive girls in town upon arrival, even being compared to a Disney princess.
* PuppyDogEyes: She's got a particularly lethal pair of large blue eyes, which she's very much weaponized.
* PutOnABus: Grapevine Fires ends with her finding out that she's moving back to New York to be closer to her extended family and new fiance, and the last thing to happen is her telling Jason, after having put it off for a month.
%%* SadClown
%%* ShesGotLegs: Jason says this, almost word for word, the first time he sees her in jeans.
%%* SilkHidingSteel
* SpockSpeak: As a result of her upbringing, she speaks in a very proper manner and is literally incapable of using contractions.
!!Daniel Ridge
A meek, reserved 17-year-old High School junior who's extremely close to his mother.
!! Tropes:
* AnythingThatMoves: Daniel shows interest in just about anyone who'll give him attention, regardless of gender or sexuality.
* NerdsAreVirgins: Initially played straight, then defied. He's arguably more of a CluelessChickMagnet than Jason is, and he's had plenty of love interests (and sexual partners) of both genders as time went on, oftentimes even ''because'' of his [[EndearinglyDorky dorkiness]]. To date, he's even actually been part of two love triangles and the center of a LoveDoDecahedron involving Xavier, Peyton and Teddy.
%%* NiceGuy
%%* PutOnABus
!!Darian Peterson
A 19-year-old from Chicago, a star player on the Palm Beach High football team and a man with plenty of interesting connections.
!! Tropes:
* CartwrightCurse: An inordinate amount of Darian's love interests have been killed off, or disappeared without a trace.
* GlassCannon: Although he's an excellent fighter, Darian is also very likely to be nicked up or injured a lot of the time.
* HandsomeLech: Darian is somewhere between this and CasanovaWannabe. While he's certainly not ''unsuccessful'' with the opposite sex, he tends to try much harder than [[TheCharmer Bully]] or [[CluelessChickMagnet Jason]] and, while he's rarely unsuccessful, seems to have a lot more trouble holding down long-term relationships.
%%* {{Hunk}}
%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Although he's bisexual, Darian has been known to pepper his speech with the occasional homophobic slur.
%%* PutOnABus
%%* TheStoner: The only one, between him, Jason and Bully, who has no real desire to drink. Now smoking pot, on the other hand...
!!Farlane Kirkpatrick
The captain of the Palm Beach High School cheerleading squad and a talented gymnast, Lanie's main struggle is with his feelings for his best friend and his abusive, politician step-father.
!! Tropes:
* BoomerangBigot: Lanie is about as homophobic a gay person as you're likely to find, although it's not always obvious.
%%* CompetitionFreak
%%* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Adam, most obviously, and Daniel.
%%* LovableJock
%%* PrettyBoy
* StraightGay: Less stereotypically "gay" than Boone as a product of Jamison trying to force him into being "straight".
%%* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Adam.
!!Frederick Vanderbilt
Clarissa's closeted older brother, who hangs out most commonly with Jerry and Travis.
!! Tropes:
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: While he's capable of being just as much of a dick as Jerry or Travis, he's very obviously got a soft spot for his younger sister.
%%* PrettyBoy
%%* StraightGay
%%
%%!!Hendrix Boone
%%
%%A drama-loving member of the fab four along with Lanie, Adam and Ren.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* CampStraight
%%* LadykillerInLove: With Ruby
%%* LargeHam
%%* PrettyBoy
%%* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness
%%* TallDarkAndHandsome
!!Jacqueline Lambert
A 15 (later 16)-year-old High School sophomore, and cheerleader.
!! Tropes:
%%* BrainlessBeauty
* BrokenPedestal: Jac is absolutely convinced that Jason is 100% completely perfect, no matter how abrasive or irritated he would get with her for thinking so until she finds out about Fight Club, and the ensuing fallout causes their relationship to end on a horrible note.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Clingy, absolutely. And unfailingly suspicious of Jason and Rissa's friendship, though [[EveryoneCanSeeIt perhaps not without good reason]].
%%* FirstLove: Jason was her's. Unfortunately, she wasn't his.
%%* ItsAllAboutMe
%%* LonelyRichKid
%%* MeetCute: She and Jason had one.
* TeensAreShort: Jac is about the same height as Tiffany, at roughly five feet.
!!Jason Cuoco
A 17-year-old Palm Beach native, whose mother is the town drunk. Jason himself is a recovering alcoholic, and attempting to use sports as a way up in the world.
!! Tropes:
* BookDumb: Jason is a poor student, with several glaring gaps in his education due to spotty attendance, who needs lots of tutoring just to be able to stay academically afloat.
* {{Determinator}}: One of his defining traits. He's a big-time workaholic, which is suggested to be a displacement for his addiction issues, and very good at shaking off illnesses and injuries when he doesn't want to waste time recoving.
* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Although Cassie's verbal abuse and emotional manipulation are usually played as being fairly serious, his stories about his early childhood do tend to veer into this territory from time to time. For instance, while changing his fake rubber baby, he suggests just running it under very cold water when he can't find any baby wipes. Rissa thinks he's just being funny, but the ensuing post hints that it actually was something Cassie did when he was a baby.
%%* InstantExpert: At just about anything athletic, but specifically football. More obvious once he begins seriously training.
* LightningBruiser: He's built like a brick shithouse, but able to cover ground like a sprinter.
%%* MeetCute: Had one with both Jac and Rissa.
%%* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "The Giant Slayer"
%%* TheSnarkKnight
* TallDarkAndSnarky: Well over six feet tall, dark-haired, noted by most people he comes across as being [[{{Hunk}} rather hunky]], and entirely too sarcastic for his own good.
* TroubledButCute: Considering he's fairly oblivious, he definitely attracts a lot of female and male attention. He gets arrested and thrown in the drunk tank at one point, and judging by Cassie's reaction to bailing him out, it's not the first time.
!!Mathena Cuoco
Jason's manipulative twin sister, and a disaffected party girl with no real aspirations for her own future.
!! Tropes:
%%* BrilliantButLazy
* CantLiveWithThemCantLiveWithoutThem: Although she often snarks at her brother, and acts rather coldly toward him, she takes the idea that he might leave her behind to go to college rather hard.
%%* StepfordSnarker
!!Mason Prince
A well-off junior who's interested in Zara.
!! Tropes:
* ButtMonkey: He "loses" Zara to Bully, loses the Homecoming Prince election to Jason -- who not only didn't campaign ''at all'', but had no idea that he was even entered to begin with until his name was called -- gets groped by Slenderman, and the plane tickets he bought for himself and Zara wound up being used to send Bully and Zara to France, instead.
* InformedFlaw: Zara routinely complains about his insufferable arrogance, but he's not particularly confident to begin with and tends to fade into the background in her interactions with Bully.
%%* InnocentlyInsensitive
%%* NiceGuy
%%* RomanticFalseLead: Pretty much Eyes Wide Open's poster child for the trope.
%%* SatelliteLoveInterest: To Zara.
%%
%%!!Raquel Morales
%%
%%A periodically-homeless girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and a founding member of Fight Club.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BikerBabe
%%* ClingyJealousGirl: To Ren and also has shades of this toward Whitney when the latter seems to be attracted to Jason.
%%* PutOnABus
%%
%%!!Ruby Mason
%%
%%An artistic Canadian girl who moves to Palm Beach prior to the start of her senior year of High School.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BirdsOfAFeather: With Boone
%%* CanadaEh
%%* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]]
%%* ThePollyanna
%%* SatelliteLoveInterest
%%
%%!!Serenity Collins
%%
%%A genius high school senior with an ego to match her intellect.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BrainyBrunette
%%* InsufferableGenius
!!Tiffany Baxter
An extremely short cheerleader with a lot of interest in sports.
!! Tropes:
%%* IfItsYouItsOkay: Paige is this for Tiff, though she ultimately begins to suspect that it's possible that she might be legitimately bisexual.
%%* PutOnABus
* TeensAreShort: Tiffany is easily the shortest character in the entirety of the in-game university at a hair over five feet tall. She was also previously involved with the ''second-tallest'' character in the game.
!!Travis Huntington
An apparently meatheaded senior jock at Palm Beach High School who thinks the only things that matter are him and his car.
!! Tropes:
%%* BelligerentSexualTension: With Tiffany, his ex. Although the belligerence does seem to fade over time.
%%* ByronicHero
* TheCharmer: He can surprisingly charming when he's not busy being a massive {{Jerkass}}, and even sometimes ''while'' he's being a massive jerkass. Generally just when he wants something from someone, though.
%%* IcyBlueEyes
%%* JerkJock
%%* TallDarkAndHandsome
%%* VillainousBSOD: Has a huge one when he sees Jerry's corpse hanging from the ceiling of the Masquerade dance.
!!Virginia Vanderbilt
Clarissa's mother.
!! Tropes:
%%* TheBaroness
* CondescendingCompassion: Although she's not consciously discriminatory, Virginia is often rather unintentionally xenophobic- She assumes that Bully's english is poor, for example, because he happens to speak with a mild Russian accent.
%%* MyBelovedSmother: It's a combination of doing so out of love, and in order to mould Risa into someone desirable for an arranged marriage in order to save her family's financial situation.
%%* RichBitch
* StatuesqueStunner: Even well past the age of seventy, Virginia is rather striking -- Most notable by the fact that, at five-foot-ten, she is canonically the tallest female character in the entire EWO universe. It also puts her head and shoulders above her 5'3" daughter, and just about on eye-level with her 6'2" son.
!!Xavier Alexander
The least popular student at Palm Beach High School, and the former president of the Gay-Straight Alliance.
!! Tropes:
%%* AbhorrentAdmirer: To Jason, Leo, and Daniel... at least, initially...
%%* ClosetKey: Xavier winds up being Daniel's.
%%* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold
* HiddenDepths: Despite his rather simple nature, Xavier is a surprisingly adept photographer, and actually shows a good amount of promise as a filmmaker. He's also an accomplished liar and a surprisingly capable schemer when the need arises.
%%* TinySchoolboy
!!Zara Leroy
The Queen of Palm Beach High School, she starts out as a co-captain on the cheerleading squad and an active member of more clubs than one could probably count.
!! Tropes:
%%* AlphaBitch: At first, anyway. Time and experience seems to have turned her into much more of a LovableAlphaBitch.
* BrokenAce: She's popular, well-liked by the student body, intelligent and highly involved in just about everything, but she's got more than her share of crippling family and self-esteem issues.
%%* ItsAllAboutMe: She's been known to have her moments from time to time.
* PutOnABus: Between Grapevine Fires and Our Next Chapter, she moves away to go to boarding school in Connecticut. Although she and Rissa continue to maintain contact, they never wind up returning to what their friendship used to be.
%%* RavenHairIvorySkin
%%* SecondLove: Bully is this for her.
* WellDoneSonGuy: A lot of her motivation is to prove her worth to her very difficult-to-please mother.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Continuity 1.5 Characters]]
These are characters who appear in version two of Eyes Wide Open, but not the original.
%%!!Blaise Zephyr
%%
%%A new student to Palm Beach High, from out-of-state. She's intelligent, but reckless.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BadassDriver
%%** BadassBookworm
%%
%%!!Giovanni Cristaldi
%%
%%A junior who's been held back twice, and looks to be in danger of repeating his junior year for a ''third'' time. He might come off as a bit of an idiot, but he's more dangerous than he lets on...
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* TheBully
%%* ClusterFBomb: He's pretty much a walking example of this trope.
%%* {{Delinquents}}
%%* HandsomeLech
%%* {{Jerkass}}
%%* UpperClassTwit
%%
%%!!Marley Coulson
%%
%%A seventeen-year-old Palm Beach High native, in her junior year. She's turned to dealing and shoplifting in order to provide for her family.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BruiserWithASoftCenter
%%* {{Delinquents}}
%%* RememberTheNewGuy: Her father formerly dated Jason's mother, and the two have canonically known each other since ''at least'' elementary school.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Continuity 2 Characters]]
!!Aedan Brightman
The youngest Brightman brother.
!! Tropes:
* LoveMakesYouDumb: Aedan continually takes Teddy back in spite of the fact that the older boy is openly manipulating him, regularly cheats on him, and is very obviously an emotionally abusive, suicidal heroin addict. He does grow out of it later, however.
* EmoTeen: Although he's not exactly prone to dressing darkly, he entered an RP that already had it's fair share of {{Wangst}} and quickly established his claim to the Wangst Throne with his near-constant complaining about his life and how misunderstood he is by his siblings and father.
* InformedAbility: The Brightmans are touted (mostly by themselves) as excellent musicians with a legion of adoring fans but Aedan in particular is rarely shown to practice or devote any real attention to music, at all.
* ProneToTears: Seldom does an appearance where he's involved end ''without'' him crying over something or other.
!!Brayden Brightman
The oldest of the three Brightman brothers, and the arguable leader of the band.
!! Tropes:
* ChickMagnet: Once he and Ben broke up, he was suddenly ''very'' popular with the guys and literally held mass "sleepovers" at his house almost nightly just to take advantage of his newfound popularity.
%%* LadykillerInLove
* NiceGuy: The guy gets the crap smacked out of him by Bully, and then nearly body-checked off a boat by Jason, but he forgives all of this fairly readily with a smile and laugh when Jason attempts to apologize purely because the two are track teammates.
* TookALevelInBadass: After a CurbStompBattle with Bully in which he was just barely saved by Jason, Brayden suddenly gained an excess of martial arts know-how- Which led to a case of FanonDiscontinuity when later discussions between the characters attempted to retcon it into Brayden having reluctantly beaten Bully up to save Peyton.
!! Ellington "Elle" Pierce
The middle Pierce sibling, who was held back a grade and is best known around school for her tendency to sleep around a ''lot''.
!! Tropes:
%%* ReallyGetsAround
* RetargetedLust: The personality-based similarities between Travis and her ex-boyfriend Tony make is seem like her FriendsWithBenefits relationship with the former is essentially just using him as a replacement for the latter. Travis is entirely aware of this, and doesn't mind exploiting it.
%%* AThreesomeIsHot: Firmly believes this.
!!Kaine Brightman
The middle Brightman Brother.
!! Tropes:
* DullSurprise: His trademark being that in contrast to his younger brother's emotional nature, he's been referred to as a zen master; Completely impossible to phase. He found out that his girlfriend (who, up to then, had only been with him as far as he'd known) recorded a sex tape with another guy in the time that they'd been together. His reaction? A mildly curious "is it hot?"
* TookALevelInJerkass: After having convinced his girlfriend to keep their baby, and then proposed marriage to legitimize it, the two of them go to meet her parents. Moments after they disown her and Kaine himself is nearly strangled by her father, while she's openly weeping a couple feet away, he wonders aloud if they wouldn't be better off broken up ''so that he could potentially hang out with his brothers and play the field more''.
%%* TooDumbToLive
!!Teddy Bellerose
A melodramatic senior who returns to Palm Beach High School after having been institutionalized for much of the previous year.
!! Tropes:
* AttemptedRape: On several occasions, he attempted to ''intimidate'' people into having sex with him, often physically. Just about every time, it backfired on him.
%%* BigBadWannabe
%%* ButtMonkey
* FauxAffablyEvil: He's generally very kind and overly-friendly toward guys he's attempting to seduce, but the affability ends as soon as he catches even the slightest hint of rejection, revealing his more [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] leanings.
* InformedAbility:
* He's supposedly a talented dancer who's headed to a prestigious performing arts school on a full-ride scholarship in spite of the fact that he's a heroin addict who attempts suicide once a week and is constantly in and out of the hospital with no apparent time to ever practice, or think about, dancing.
** He's routinely outsmarted by characters both highly intelligent (Travis and Bully) and average-to-slightly-dim (Lanie and Daniel) due to his transparent attempts at scheming, and easily outfought at one point by the equally-untrained, much smaller and less muscular Rockie.
** He claims that he can make any guy, regardless of sexuality, fall for him. This is repeatedly proven ''not'' to be the case.
* RememberTheNewGuy
[[/folder]]
[[folder:NPCs]]
!!Algernon "Dinky" Dinkleberg
A birthday clown by trade, with a rather violent grudge against a certain Russian.
!! Tropes:
* AbortedArc: His revenge plot against Bully was cut short because of a storm rendering his RPer's internet connection faulty and never picked back up.
%%* AxeCrazy
* AlmightyJanitor: Although he ultimately becomes [[spoiler: the head of an international terrorist brotherhood of just about anything in facepaint]], it's easy to forget that his day job is still being a clown that does children's birthday parties.
* BiggerOnTheInside: His clown car fits a dozen clowns inside, with room for two more normal-sized people.
%%* RevengeBeforeReason
%%* VillainousBreakdown: Seemingly had his when Bully refused to give him a hug at Rissa's birthday party.
!!Slenderman
The owner and manager of Slendy's, a local diner back in Palm Beach.
!! Tropes:
* CommutingOnABus: He makes occasional appearances in Grapevine Fires, but they're much rarer than they were on Eyes Wide Open.
* NiceGuy: Although he's certainly creepy and lurky, he's never outright malicious and even more than occasionally exceptionally nice, just socially awkward.
%%* StalkingIsLove: And he ''really'' loves Mason.
%%
%%!!The Darkness
%%
%%A serial killer that plagued Palm Beach, picking off victims seemingly at random.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* EldritchAbomination
%%* TheFaceless
[[/folder]]
----
!!YMMV
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Travis very much fits the profile of a sociopath; Glib and superficially charming. Manipulative pathological liar with a sense of entitlement. No real sense of shame or guilt (a fact which he's very proud of). Callous. Promiscuous. Might or might not be capable of genuine love or affection. Needs constant stimulation and lives a parasitic lifestyle. His [=RP=]er has even theorized as much out of character, though it isn't considered to be canon.
** Lincoln: Sweet, well-meaning but sheltered kid who is rarely intentionally hurtful, or self-centred JerkJock who coasted through life on his athletic ability and charm and didn't seem to think much, or care, about who he hurt in the process?
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Depending on what camp you're in, Noah King was either one of the best things about Down These Halls or a [[FlatCharacter poorly written]] {{Jerkass}} who was inexplicably never taken to task for being a terrible friend.
* BrokenBase: The question of who would win in a ''serious'' fight between Bully and Jason- Which WordOfGod has stated is unlikely to ever actually come to fruition.
* CrazyIsCool: Darian once "bought" Bully a yacht as a birthday present.
** Bully's pet Komodo Dragon, Ozzy, [[spoiler: who was implied to have ''eaten'' [[TheScrappy Teddy]] between Eyes Wide Open and Grapevine Fires]].
** The Clown Mafia, which grew out of a minor NPC who'd been hired to entertain at Clarissa's birthday party.
** The Darkness, the universe's resident ambiguously undead serial murderer who quickly became an EnsembleDarkhorse among the members.
** It's left ambiguous whether or not the person who owns the local diner, which Jason and Lanie both worked at, was actually Slenderman or just an overly-involved but kind-hearted middle-aged recluse.
* FanPreferredCouple: Bully/Zara was a huge one, early on, due to the fact that she and Bully had fantastic chemistry- Bully's natural charisma being even more glaring when compared to her alternative love interest being [[RidiculouslyAverageGuy Mason]].
** WordOfGod is that in and out of character, pretty much everyone saw UnresolvedSexualTension between Jason and Rissa long before Alex or Robyn did. They actually got some minor ShipTease early, but didn't actually get together until midway through the first game. The previous consensus between the characters' [=RP=]ers had actually been that they were LikeBrotherAndSister.
** Mason/Slenderman is more positively remembered than any of his actual canon relationships.
** Linc/Chas was ''far'' more popular than Linc/Cotton or Noah/Chas.
* FreudianTrio: The three site admins themselves could arguably have fallen into this- Although all three tend to swap hats from time to time, Robyn is usually TheKirk to Anna's [[TheMcCoy McCoy]] and Alex's [[TheSpock Spock]].
* GrowingTheBeard: While there were early flashes of promise, it was the Homecoming Event when the site itself really started to grow the beard, and the storylines became more unified and interesting.
** [[spoiler: Zara's miscarriage]] and [[spoiler: Jerry's murder]] could both makes claims for being emotional high points. Both are ''massive'' [[TearJerker tearjerkers]] that even members who weren't in any way involved admitted to bawling while reading through.
* HollywoodHomely: Xavier is often compared to gnomes and troll dolls, in terms of appearance, but he's rather good looking by any reasonable standard and not really any uglier than any of his male classmates.
* HoYay: Jason and Bully, if the tumblr confessions page was anything to go by, had their fair share of shippers.
** Bully's frequent comments about Jason's muscles, Jason's fanatically blind loyalty to Bully, and their tendency toward deep emotional talks while driving home from the cabin certainly didn't hurt the argument any.
** Bully and Mason arguably had more chemistry together than ''Zara'' and Mason did.
** Zara and Rissa also have their fair share of LesYay over the course of the games, though it's more on Zara's end than Rissa's- Zara seems every bit as fond of Rissa's breasts as Jason is. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Bully during Grapevine Fires in his theory that Rissa's behaviour around him comes from being a closeted lesbian in love with Zara.
** It was a running joke that the (ostensibly and very loudly heterosexual) Travis and Jerry came off as gayer (for each other) than Freddie (who was actually canonically gay, but closeted) did in general. Although considering that he was an ArmouredClosetGay, that does make sense.
* LauncherOfAThousandShips:
** Xavier, when he's not busy trying to make Jason and himself happen, vocally shipped Jason and [[RomanticFalseLead Jac]]. Naturally, [[DieForOurShip he doesn't take well to Rissa]], who also initially wavered between supporting Jason/Jac and thinking that they weren't a particularly good match at all.
** Bully was the original captain of the Jason/Rissa ship, which also had a lot of out of character support.
** People also apparently ''really'' shipped Jason and Bully, if the confessions page and bathroom wall areas were any indicator.
** And at least one person has interpreted Jason and Darian's [[VitriolicBestBuds friendship]] as being intense BelligerentSexualTension. Jason, Darian and Bully as an [[OneTrueThreesome OT3]] seems just short of canon at times. Their actual OOC nickname was "the [=BROT3=]".
** During Grapevine Fires, Jason and [[TransparentCloset Whitney]] get a fair amount of ShipTease and arguably had more chemistry than Whitney and Lucy (Whitney's canon girlfriend) did. Particularly notable, because Whitney describes herself as otherwise being "200% gay" at multiple points.
** Lincoln Bauer was pretty much the site bicycle on Down These Halls, primarily due to the fact that he had chemistry with 'everyone'. He was frequently shipped with every other member of the Bro Circle (particularly Atty and Noah), Courtney, Chastity, Cotton, Rory, Hailey, Vega and even had at least one serious ship tease moment with Issy.
** Noah had a [[MemeticMolester similar reputation]], out of character, although it was more {{Fanon}} than anything else.
* {{Narm}}: Jason storming off to the hospital to confront Rissa over dumping him over text elicited more than a few laughs, out of character.
** Teddy's attempted suicides were often melodramatic and overwrought to the point of unintentional hilarity in their execution.
** Papa Brightman's HotBlooded PapaWolf tendencies were very clearly meant to be very serious, but the nonplussed reactions of the characters on the receiving end often made them hilarious.
** Noah attempting to express anger was usually a goldmine of unintentional hilarity, due to a set of repetitive character tics used to indicate that the character was upset (alternately hitting lockers and shouting, every time he spoke).
* NarmCharm: [[TastesLikeDiabetes Boone and Ruby's entire relationship]]. They basically fell in love at first sight. Boone was constantly going overboard in his gift-giving, while delivering flowery and lengthy monologues about his feelings for her. Ruby very clearly thought the sun shone out of Boone's backside, and would say as much to just about anyone within earshot. They're almost aggressively happy and idealistic about their relationship. But somehow, it just ''worked'', and was one of the more heartwarming and popular relationships on the board.
** Court's behavior could get rather narmy and childish when she was upset, rendering even her more heartfelt dialogue rather unintentionally funny, but she was just so earnest that one was never really taken out of the moment.
* NeverLiveItDown: Darian "sharting" in Jason's car. It happened early on in Eyes Wide Open, and was still being referenced throughout.
** Out of character, Rissa referring to Jason as her "big, grumpy bear" has stuck as an apt description of his character for years after the fact.
** Bully taking a bite out of someone's forehead while high on shrooms at a house party.
** Rockie was constantly teased about her irrational fear of trees.
* PortmanteauCoupleName: Pretty abundant in every incarnation; Adanie (Adam/Lanie), Red (Ren/Ed), Renquel (Ren/Rockie), Tiffvis (Travis/Tiffany), Travules (Travis/Jules), Trelle (Travis/Elle), Jervis (Travis/Jerry), Jervedie (Travis/Jerry/Freddie), Zarullaissa (Zara/Bully/Jason/Rissa), Zarully (Zara/Bully), Zason (Zara/Mason), Bulson (Jason/Bully), Bullissa (Bully/Rissa), Javier (Jason/Xavier), Jaissa (Jason/Rissa), Jara (Jason/Zara), Zarissa (Zara/Rissa), Davier (Daniel/Xavier), Willic (Will/Eric), Booby (Boone/Ruby), Edoone (Ed/Boone), Loone (Lanie/Boone), Adoone (Adam/Boone), Lanison (Lanie/Jason), Svetson (Svet/Jason) and that wasn't even all of them!
* TheScrappy: Jules was the original one. A CreatorsPet who had the habit of trying to derail any plots she would get involved in so that they were about her and her relationship drama of the week, and whose behavior was apparently always justified and in the right, no matter how insane or destructive.
** Jules, however, pales in comparison to ''Teddy''. He would actually have been a particularly good, if not over-the-top villain if he weren't so blatantly an AuthorAvatar for the person playing him. He was about equally reviled in and out of universe on a level that even Jules never achieved and even prompted [[NiceGuy Daniel]] to deliver a surprisingly brutal [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech reason you suck speech]].
** And of course, the Brightman Brothers. A BoyBand made up entirely of people that were magically good at absolutely everything they tried, even if it flew in the face of their previous characterization or even the laws of reality itself. They were so hated that they inspired a rule change on Grapevine Fires just to prevent a repeat.
----
!!Awesome
[[folder: Awesome]]
* Homecoming weekend. Jason scoring his first touchdown, then having his [[TheBigDamnKiss first kiss]] with Jac immediately after the game. Jason and Adam both having an AwesomeMomentOfCrowning when they won their respective awards. Bully managing to get the entire gym completely wasted all at once. Even Darian managed to get hurt in the most epic way he possibly could have done so.
** Plus, the aftermath at the hospital also has to double as a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}}, and the first real EstablishingCharacterMoment for the three of them as genuinely close friends.
* Fight Club, pre-BadassDecay. Special mention has to go out to Rockie's "Basic Bitch hunt", and Jason's brutal knockouts of Big and Bigger Tom.
* Punchdrunk. Every round of it, and the way it escalated to the point of Jason climbing through Bully's fire escape just to punch him at one point.
* The Vice Presidential Campaign between Bully and Jerry. All of it, culminating in a massive brawl. From Travis's campaigning to Jerry and Bully's first brawl.
* Travis dumping [[TheScrappy Jules]], while needlessly cruel, was still just over-the-top enough to qualify. Any time a person writes a DearJohnLetter with a skywriter just to let the entire county know that person's been ditched, it literally can't be ignored.
* Rissa's birthday party was ''made'' of awesome. Between the GreekChorus of clowns, Bully launching through a clown car window to save his friends and the ensuing brawl, the entire night was one long one.
** The brawl in itself also doubles as a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} when you consider that Bully is terrified of clowns, but jumped into the car anyway to save his friends. Or that Jason only went in after Rissa in the first place because he was worried about her, and proceeded to beat one of them into a bloody pulp for putting [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Xavier]] in harm's way.
* New Years, and the massive paint balloon fight.
* Bully attacking Travis with a steel chair during a wrestling meet, complete with entrance music and a fleshed-out pro wrestler's gimmick.
* Lanie blackmailing his abusive step-father, Jamison, into leaving the country for good and ultimately becoming an emancipated minor.
[[/folder]]
----
!!Funny
[[folder: Funny]]
* Zara's first big house part of the 2013 school year. It also doubles as an introduction to drunk!Ren, and gives us Bully and Jason high on shrooms. Particularly notable being Bully seeing Rissa as a giant mushroom, and biting her on the forehead, causing her to run screaming to the bathroom and lock herself in there for the rest of the night.
* Jason calling Bully to let him know to meet he and Darian at the hospital, right after the latter had fractured his leg attempting to superman off a flight of stairs. Bully asks Jason to give Penny his number, mid-conversation, and Jason actually stops what he's doing to give it to her, to Jac's obvious consternation.
* Rissa going slowly insane over the course of the camping trip event, as it seems like nature itself is out to get her.
* Although it was more cringe comedy than anything else, Jason and Jac's one-month anniversary was full of unintentional humor, from Jason's disproportionate level of panic and immediate denial to Jac [[ComicallyMissingThePoint taking his example at face value]] when he attempts to explain why he thinks "I love you" is such a loaded term.
->'''Jac:''' ''[completely serious]'' Jason, I'm not going to end up pregnant at sixteen just because I said 'I love you'.
* Jules approaching Travis and calmly carrying on a conversation with him, without her player realizing he'd been [[UnusualEuphemism "writing his name on a tree"]] at the time until he zipped up his pants, and said player's ensuing disgusted reaction.
* When Jerry is running for Student Body Vice President, the entire campaign Travis designs for him is based around slinging groundless accusations at Bully and taking advantage of his already larger-than-life reputation. Claims include that he'll turn the school into a communist dictatorship, secede it from the United States, and invoke jus primae noctis to forcibly recruit every woman in school into his personal harem... Including his younger sister.
* During Grapevine Fires, Bully dead-seriously explaining to Jason that he suspects Rissa is secretly in love with Zara, followed by [[DeadpanSnarker Jason's]] stunned silence.
** During the same conversation, Jason sarcastically asking Bully if he thinks Rissa plans to "turn" Zara at a sleepover via naked pillow fight... and then both trailing off to stare wistfully off into the distance, visualizing just that.
* Rockie's initial opponent in fight club being a sweet, Betty White-like old lady... [[RefugeInAudacity who turns out to have been a retired hitwoman]], [[CrazyPrepared and carries a purse full of rocks around for just such an occasion]].
* Ren stating, matter-of-factly, that she's as smart as every other person in the circle combined during the cabin group's getting-to-know-you circle, coupled with Lanie and Zara's visible annoyance and Boone just shrugging in tacit agreement.
* The VP election brawl in general was pretty funny, but the teachers passing around a sign-in sheet to keep track of who'd been involved, and almost every student there signing as "Xavier Alexander" makes it even better.
* During the Disney World event, Lanie and Adam having a wand fight while dressed in full Harry Potter gear.
** Jason walking into his and Adam's hotel room right as Lanie's about to [[UnusualEuphemism get Adam's wand]]. He essentially walks in, turns around, and wordlessly walks out, looking like he's seen a ghost.
* The wing-eating contest. [[{{Squick}} Lanie over-eating and throwing up all over the wings]], [[VomitChainReaction Bully throwing up on Zara in response]], Jason trying to get to the bathroom, bowling over a waiter and then accidentally puking on him. [[FromBadToWorse The night only goes downhill from there]].
* Boone and Ruby having a very serious conversation about their respective futures, and confirming that they're absolutely in each other's future plans? Heartwarming. Rockie repeating Boone's exact points, almost word-for-word, to Ren, only about twelve feet away, moments after he said them? Hysterical.
* Jason and Bully finding a taxidermy cougar in the basement, then positioning him in front of the cabin as a "guard dog".
** Additionally, Jason and Rissa playfully arguing about what to name it, between Fluffy (Rissa's idea of a good name for a pet) and ''Hitler'' (Jason's idea of a good name for a guard dog that was supposed to be offputting)- As well as his eventually shot-down compromise idea, "Fluffy Hitler".
* Rissa's entire collection of knock-knock jokes are usually considered to be SoBadItsGood
* Travis' confusion upon finding out that Jerry let Xavier give him a handjob, and Jerry's ensuing explanation that he was "only gay for fifteen minutes."
* Bully's text to Jason the day after the latter first consummated his relationship with Rissa
->'''Bully:''' YOU GAVE HER THE D!
* Ana's and Virginia's utter conviction that they're currently dealing with a pair of gold-digging expert lotharios in [[CluelessChickMagnet Jason]] and [[ChivalrousPervert Bully]], and discussing how they're going to go about getting their respective daughters away from them.
[[/folder]]
----
!!Heartwarming
[[folder: Heartwarming]]
* Jason taking secret dance lessons just to impress Jac at Homecoming, early on.
* At the beginning of the "Curfew" arc, Rissa's discovery that Jason knows about her bulimia leads to an oddly heartwarming moment where he hugs her and says, completely earnestly, that he'd want her just as much whether she weighed sixty pounds or six hundred; He just wants to see her happy.
* Zara's mother offered Bully a rather large sum of money to stop seeing her daughter. Bully took this money... and then promptly used it to take Zara out on a fancy date.
** There's also something very cute about Bully giving Zara rides places on his wheelchair, while his leg was broken, and how happy they both seem to be.
* Adam's proposal to Lanie. Lanie continually asking him if he actually means it, and Adam patiently insisting that he does, every time, until Lanie's gotten his head around it enough to accept.
** Adam and Lanie are made of these. It's also hard not to include the song Lanie wrote for Adam.
* Jerry comes over to Travis' house, freaked out over the way The Darkness had been stalking him for several days prior. With minimal vitriol, Travis readily lets Jerry stay in his guest room and we even get to see Jerry genuinely thank him. Also a bit of a tearjerker, [[KilledOffForReal considering what would happen about four days later]]...
* The Cabin Group, and the way that the two originally very separate groups of friends came together, not only to rebuild the cabin in the first place, but becoming as close as they all did in the process.
** The circle game, which really drove home how shitty most of their respective home lives were and how their friends were, in many cases, the first genuinely healthy support system they'd ever had.
* Daniel and Xavier getting together for the first time was a massively heartwarming moment, even for people who were annoyed by Xavier more often than not.
* Travis aggressively campaigning so Tiffany would win Prom Queen. He didn't even really have anything to gain from it, she'd be leaving for college before they'd ever have gotten the chance to give their relationship one last go, but it's implied that he just wanted to pay her back for comforting him after Jerry's death.
** What Tiffany did to prompt this is also worth mentioning: She drove Travis home, then stayed with him for the rest of the night and ''well into Christmas day'', just to make sure he was okay. AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther.
* The comic that Ruby made for Boone on Valentine's Day.
* Any time Zara goes out of her way to do something for Rissa, like organizing her birthday party, that shows she doesn't view Rissa as her "pet rock" (as the latter suspects she does) and does genuinely value her friendship.
* Rissa's determination that Jason have a good eighteenth birthday, combined with his surprised appreciation of the fact that a record ''four'' people remembered.
* After running away, Lanie coming home. On top of Adam's joy at seeing him again, there's an exchange between Lanie and Boone in which Lanie gets frustrated when Boone lists of what sort of hypothetical adventures he suspects Lanie might have had on the run (one of which involves pirates), and accuses him of having thought it was all a big joke. Boone responds, in a moment of rare seriousness, that it hurt less to think of fantastic but unlikely scenarios than it is to worry himself to death over their harsher, but more realistic, alternatives and that he's just glad they're both home safe.
[[/folder]]
----
!!Tearjerker
[[folder: Tearjerker]]
* Jerry's death serves as the biggest tearjerker, possibly in the entire game. Being the first victim of The Darkness, he's killed in particularly brutal fashion and left to hang from the rafters in the middle of a Christmas masquerade ball. Freddie goes into shock, and Travis is reduced to a sobbing wreck. Even out of character, everybody around at the time admitted to tearing up a little.
** Particularly impressive on his writer's part because Jerry had been intentionally written as completely unsympathetic prior to this happening.
* Zara's miscarriage is amazing for the sheer number of horribly depressing things going on all at once. Over the course of that one day, Svet attempts to come onto Jason right as Rissa finally admits to liking him in another conversation (after having had a painfully awkward CannotSpitItOut moment the previous night, standing in the doorway). Bully finds out, walks in on his sister attempting to get with his best friend, flies into a rage, and hits her. As she's running off, Rissa calls him to let him know Zara's in the hospital, where she's miscarried her child with Bully, who she's about four months pregnant with at this point. Her parents are called to the hospital, and this is the first either of them find out about her pregnancy. The Leroys fight about what caused the situation, and Ana storms out of the hospital. Watching Bully try to comfort Zara while she's convinced that everything going wrong that day was completely her fault and she's failed is ''heartbreaking''.
* Lanie and Adam running away from home, and their goodbyes to Ren and Boone.
* Jason and Rissa finally coming clean about their feelings for each other, because it's immediately followed by the depressing realization that there's nothing they can do to act on those feelings without ultimately winding up devastated once she's set back up in an arranged engagement again. The conversation then goes from a TearJerker to a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}} to a completely adorable SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} in a matter of about three minutes, as (after a brief headbutt-related misstep) they decide to say "screw it" and go for it anyway.
[[/folder]]
----
! '''This Game provides examples of:'''
* AbortedArc: Many, but of particular note is the girl Darian got pregnant in late 2013. Although the reveal led to a rather touching FriendshipMoment between Darian, Bully, and Jason, the girl in question disappears without a trace after that, and Darian is back to his usual skirt-chasing ways without any indicator that she ever existed.
** Darian's love interests are often notoriously short-lived, in general, due to their players often leaving suddenly and without warning. His two most enduring romances are [[AnchoredShip Anchored Ships]] with Betsy and Matt, both heavy on flirting but never actually acted upon.
** Rissa goes through almost as many suddenly-disappearing [[RomanticFalseLead Romantic False Leads]] as Darian. However, they're usually [[{{HandWave}} handwaved]] in-universe as the engagement falling apart, as opposed to simply swept under the rug.
** Dinky and Bully's blood-feud is never really resolved.
** Arthur and Ana's martial problems are mostly forgotten about, once Zara and Arthur move out of Ana's house.
** Betsy's older brother is introduced as Jac's new love interest, and then both characters seem to fade out of existence.
* AlternateUniverse: After a large number of long time members left Eyes Wide Open, the decision to reset a large chunk of the timeline created an alternate continuity between there and Grapevine Fires. Even Eyes Wide Open began as an alternate continuity to another site.
** Eyes Wide Open V2 was slated to be an alternate continuity from Grapevine Fires/Our Next Chapter, due to dissatisfaction with the last few months of the school year.
* ArmouredClosetGay: Remy is one, early on. [[spoiler: Until being forcefully outed by Jerry.]]
* BashBrothers: Jason, Bully and Darian.
* BeastAndBeauty: Both invoked and played straight with Zara and Bully.
* BettyAndVeronica: Seems to come up a lot.
** [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend Lanie]] was the Betty to [[AllGuysWantCheerleaders Tiffany's]] Veronica early on, in regards to Adam.
** Early on, Mason was the Betty to Zara's Archie and Bully's Veronica.
** Jules tries to force this trope as well early on, with Aleks as the Betty to Travis's Veronica, but it's mostly averted as Travis is openly only interested in her for sex, while Aleks is just generally apathetic.
*** Though, interestingly enough, Jules was the Veronica to Travis's Archie and Tiff's Betty, as well as Bully's Archie and Zara's Veronica.
** [[AbortedArc Dava]] and [[UnluckyChildhoodFriend Gary]] are both Veronicas to Rissa's Archie and Jason's Betty, while Rissa is the Betty to Jac's Veronica where Jason is concerned. It can all be very confusing.
** Speaking of Svet, Jason is also unknowingly the Veronica to her Archie and Daniel's Betty.
** Rockie being the Betty to Aubrey's Archie and Mel's Veronica.
** Noah, in a very short time, managed to be the "Betty" to almost all of his friends in rapid succession. Linc was overwhelmingly the Veronica to Chastity's Archie, both Seb and Att were the "Veronica" for Ava, and Matty was Rory's.
* BoisterousBruiser: Bully, Darian, Jerry, Travis and Gunnar.
** The entire Somersville Bro Circle could qualify as this, when they're in the right mood.
* BreakTheCutie: Rissa is a walking bad luck magnet. Pretty much everything that's happened in her life up to this point seems to have been the universe just kicking her. Repeatedly. In the head.
* CampStraight: Boone. Just... Boone.
** James Phillips also qualifies. In spite of captaining the football team, his speech patterns and mannerisms all have a distinctly ValleyGirl flavor to them.
** Blake in particular had a bit of a reputation for playing [[InformedAttribute allegedly hyper-masculine]] male characters who would then speak and act in very campy, traditionally effeminate fashion.
** Mathias Cooper ''definitely'' had his moments of camp.
* CharacterDevelopment: Bound to happen with a lot of the longer-running characters.
** Clarissa developing from a wise ExtremeDoormat who'd resigned herself to a fairly joyless pre-planned life to a girl plenty capable of [[SilkHidingSteel standing up for herself]] when it matters and her fair share of badass moments.
** Daniel steadily growing a backbone and embracing his sexuality.
** Jason going from a friendless teenage drunk to a very well-liked BrokenAce, and then eventually settling into a career as a badass FairCop alongside Darian.
** Travis slowly realizing how important the people in his life are to him, and becoming steadily slightly less of a JerkJock who could even have been considered something of a ByronicHero by the end of his run.
** Zara's development from an AlphaBitch with plenty of HiddenDepths to an out-and-out badass LovableAlphaBitch. [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor And then continuing to eternally toe that line well into adulthood.]]
** Even Bully evolves into more of a clear-cut JerkWithAHeartOfGold as time goes on, with his more honorable and generous character traits coming to the forefront, as opposed to the promiscuous and impulsive hedonist he'd been at the beginning of the game.
* TheCharmer: Lincoln Bauer is incredibly charismatic, flirts with just about everyone, endlessly self-confident and easily the most popular student at Somersville High.
* ChaseScene: A pretty memorable one occurs when Bully, Jason, and several other characters escape detention and get chased by the police in Bully's car, where it's revealed partway through that Bully has no idea what he's doing and is flying by the seat of his pants. Made funnier by the fact that everyone just unanimously assumed he'd been in several car chases before.
** While it was his first, [[{{Foreshadowing}} it definitely wouldn't be his last]].
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Jason and Rissa both have a nasty case of this, and even tend to bring it out more in each other. Jason in particular eventually makes an actual career of indulging this impulse, by becoming a police officer.
* CluelessChickMagnet: Jason in particular manages to be a Clueless '''''EVERYTHING''''' Magnet. He attracted the attentions of straight women, gay women, gay men and arguably, at least one heterosexual guy over the course of the game and was perpetually confused as to why.
* ContinuityNod: There are at least two references to the original characters in Down These Halls' companion blog, with the Somersville football team playing Palm Beach High during a preseason scrimmage, and Jason mentioned as having graduated recently.
* CooldownHug: Rissa is fond of doing this to Jason when she (usually correctly) suspects that he's about to hit someone. The first time she does this, she muses that he's like a [[MemeticMutation big, grumpy teddy bear]].
* CrapsackWorld: Played painfully straight. You can't turn around without bumping into someone who's had a downright horrible life, and the chances are that things only got worse for them with time.
** Palm Beach qualifies as a CrapsaccharineWorld because while the town itself is exceptionally scenic prior to the storm and just about everyone has a great deal of money, the tone is still often very dark.
* CurbStompBattle:
** Jason versus Big Tom, an appropriately-named giant. Jason's later fight against his even-larger brother, who bears a resemblance to the wrestler The Big Show, is a lot more even.
** Rockie versus one of Bully's Basic Bitches.
** Bully versus Travis.
** Travis versus Tristan.
** Jason & Bully versus a group of frat boys at a strip club.
** Daniel and Svet versus Nasty Nikki, a hulking female stripper at that same club.
** Bully versus Dinky, a birthday party clown.
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Nasty Nikki very graphically raping Daniel]] is very unfortunately played for laughs at one point. If that had been, for example, a very large and hulking male stripper forcing himself on Svet then it's a safe bet that it would have been played ''much'' differently.
** It's also hard to believe that, had the genders been reversed, Jac drunkenly attempting to push Jason into having sex after Homecoming and refusing to take no for an answer would have gone over as well. Bonus points for the fact that he apologized after, and attempted to comfort her by saying it had been "kind of hot."
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Boone certainly thinks that this applies to Lanie- His so-called "Clooney Effect". [[SmallNameBigEgo Teddy]] also claimed this, though that's much more dubious. Jason and Daniel also fit more genuinely.
* EasilyForgiven: Rockie and Bully have both very literally attempted to drown Rissa, and she still considers both to be good friends of hers'.
** Linc is often quickly forgiven for acting selfishly by just about everyone around him, no matter what it is that he actually did.
* EggSitting: In Eyes Wide Open V2, one of the first subplots is randomly selected students being forced to look after baby dolls.
* FerrisWheelDateMoment: Jason and Rissa got a textbook one during the Orlando trip.
* FightClubbing: Bully, Darian, Jason and Rockie all formed a Fight Club back in September of 2013.
* FirstGirlWins: Played with repeatedly, but rarely ever played straight due to most of the players' aversion to the concept of "finals".
** Subverted with the Jac/Jason/Rissa triangle. Jason meets Jac first, she's the first character he interacts with, and his first serious girlfriend. But Rissa, who he doesn't develop a romantic interest in until months after breaking up with Jac, is easily his most notable romantic relationship.
** Downplayed with Bully, Jules and Zara. She technically interacts with him before Jules does, but he's canonically known Jules for longer. [[spoiler: He still winds up with Zara, and isn't all that interested in Jules to begin with.]]
** Played entirely straight with both [[spoiler: Adam/Lanie]] and [[spoiler: Travis/Tiffany]].
* HeadbuttOfLove: Jason does this frequently to Rissa. Played with immediately before their first kiss when [[UseYourHead Rissa manages to thump him one]] [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments by accident]], due to nerves.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: This trope pops up a surprising amount in-game.
** Travis (who's 6'4) and Tiffany (who's a hair over five feet) are the most prominent example, with about sixteen inches of height difference between them and several in-universe jokes made about the subject.
** Bully is a full foot taller than Zara. Maverick and Daisy also have a similar height disparity on Grapevine Fires.
** Jason is roughly a foot taller than almost all his potential romantic interests to date, with the exception of (5'8") Jayme. Rissa in particular is about eleven inches shorter than him. The fact that Rissa is noted to be very slight and sickly-looking while Jason is described at one point as "a brick wall with eyes" makes the contrast even funnier.
* InJoke: The "Barclay" and "Foot Villain" voices are particularly long-running examples. Jason and Rissa both seem to find them very amusing. Everyone else? Not so much.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Although it was well-intentioned, Boone very obviously setting up Lanie and Xavier on a date because they were the only two gay guys he knew, and because Xavier's sex obsession was a quality that Boone, himself, considered ideal in a partner did far more harm than good.
** One of Atticus Andrews's defining character traits.
* KnightKnaveAndSquire: Played with in terms of Bully, Jason and Darian- [[BloodKnight Bully]] being the Knight, [[GlassCannon Darian]] being the Knave and [[UnskilledButStrong Jason]] being the Squire.
* LoveDodecahedron: Almost all the Donovan sisters are at the center of perhaps the most notorious one. Chastity and Lincoln dated for a year, but then they broke up after Lincoln cheated with Aaryn. Linc then began dating Cotton (Donovan), who Morgan was also interested in, while Chas took Noah to Homecoming and both Chas and Linc struggled to choose between their respective current partners and lingering feelings for each other (not to mention Kashton Day and Aiden Bell both also crushing on Chastity). Eleanor Rickett also, on and off, held a candle for Linc. Meanwhile, Noah also pursued, at various points, Harper (Atty's ex-girlfriend), Ava (Seb's ex, who was also flirting with Atty) and Rory (Matty's girlfriend) before settling into a relationship with Ava. This doesn't even factor in Rebekah (Donovan)'s unrequited crush on Linc, or being caught in a love square(?) of her own involving Teddy Bauer, Florence Rickett, and Maureen King.
* MemeticBadass: Bully definitely qualified, both in-universe and out.
* RealMenHateAffection: Most of the guys on-site play this completely straight, but Bully and Jason in particular ''will not'' hug each other. Leaning on each other while exhausted, however...
* StalkerWithACrush: It's the only way that Xavier knows how to love.
* StarCrossedLovers: Jason and Rissa. She was the repressed only daughter in an old money family that's went broke, and she needed to be married off to someone rich enough to get them back to the lifestyle they're accustomed to. He was a poor recovering alcoholic from the wrong side of the tracks who her mother openly hated and viewed as a criminal. They both knew it could only end badly, but neither one was willing to let the other go.
* StraightGay: Lanie was often described as the kind of person you'd never know was gay unless he directly told you. He's probably the only character just as aggressively annoyed as Bully with Xavier's campier behavior.
* TheFriendsWhoNeverHang: Jason and Zara. Although each is dating the other's best friend, the two of them rarely interact one-on-one, due to simply not having much in common, although they generally got on fairly well when they did.
* WeightWoe: PlayedForDrama with Rissa, who is deeply uncomfortable with her body image, and perpetually made by her mother to feel either over or underweight.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: Bully and Zara, especially early on in EWO's run.
** Adam and Lanie as well, though WordOfGod is that they're more of a SuperCouple and that their getting together is inevitable regardless of continuity.
* WorkoutFanservice: While, strictly speaking, it's not an actual workout, the cabin-repairing event absolutely seems to qualify as far as Zara, Ren and Rissa are concerned. Jason, Lanie, Adam, Bully and Boone were all explicitly stated to either be shirtless or wearing particularly well-fitted clothing, while moving heavy furniture around and fixing things.
* WorldOfSnark
* WorthyOpponent: Bully with Jerry and, to a lesser extent, Travis.
The game itself initially took place in the fictional community of Palm Beach (Not to be confused with the [[NamesTheSame real Palm Beach, Florida]]), but would eventually expand to include other small towns and cities, including both New York and Los Angeles.
Though it usually lacked any one overarching plot and was mostly character-driven, time skips and reboots actually allowed most of the prominent characters to not only finish High School, but advance well into college and eventual adulthood.
----
!!Characters
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Continuity 1 Characters]]
%%!!Adam Donovan
%%
%%A coffee-addicted, guitar-loving high school senior, with feelings for his lifelong best friend.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: Both Tiffany and Lanie were cheerleaders.
%%* InnocentlyInsensitive: Specifically when he gave Lanie a vending machine ring as a promise ring, considering what Lanie had previously gotten him. He more than made up for it later on.
%%* MustHaveCaffeine
%%* TheQuietOne: Compared to the more.... vocal Boone, Lanie or Ren, anyway.
%%* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Lanie.
%%----
!!Adrian Jamison
Lanie's step-father, a conservative career politician who ultimately becomes the short-term mayor of Palm Beach.
!! Tropes:
* BigBad: Once Jamison succeeds in becoming mayor of Palm Beach, he pretty much becomes this for just about every character who isn't straight or over the age of twenty-one. He's also probably the most successful villain the site ever had.
%%* HeteronormativeCrusader
%%* PutOnABus
%%* StrawmanPolitical
!!Alfred "Jerry" Coogan
A bullying senior jock who plays linebacker on the Palm Beach High School football team.
!! Tropes:
* AnythingThatMoves: He allowed Xavier to give him a handjob once, and claimed that he was "gay for fifteen minutes", but that those fifteen minutes had since passed.
* DiscOneFinalBoss: Jerry was about as much of a direct antagonist as EWO had, when he was alive. However, the scope of his misdeeds were limited to the context of High School and he died early on enough that Jamison tends to get remembered more as the "bad guy" than he does.
* JerkJock: A very good football player and wrestler, but universally recognized as a massive jerk, even to his closest friends.
%%* KavorkaMan
* PetTheDog: A very small one from just before he died- When Travis allowed him to stay in his guest room, the two came about as close as they would really get to verbalizing how much they valued each other's friendship.
%%* KilledOffForReal
%%* VitriolicBestBuds: With Travis and, to a lesser extent, Freddie.
!!Anastasia Leroy
Zara's mother, a professional party planner.
!! Tropes:
%%* {{Expy}}: To Julie Cooper, of Series/TheOC fame.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Ana often raises pretty legitimate points about Zara's behavior, and treatment of the people around her, that tend to go unnoticed because they're framed as coming from an abusive bitch instad of a parent at the end of her rope.
%%* RichBitch
!!Arthur Leroy
Zara's father, a successful lawyer.
!! Tropes:
* BunnyEarsLawyer: While he's certainly a tad.... eccentric at times, he's also very clearly one of if not the best lawyers in Palm Beach.
%%* TheCharmer: He's very capable of being charming when he wants to be.
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: One of the few in Palm Beach. Whatever else can be said about him, he's generally a reasonable guy who usually makes a point of acting logically instead of emotionally.
%%* SilverFox
!!Bulgarin Rossovich
A 19-year-old Russian-American from New York, Bulgarin initially moved to Palm Beach and began working as quite possibly the town's most notorious drug dealer.
!! Tropes:
%%* AllGirlsWantBadBoys
* AllGuysWantCheerleaders: He used to go to football games just to watch Zara.
%%* BattleCouple: with Zara, eventually.
%%* BloodKnight
%%* BromanticFoil: To Jason.
%%* ByronicHero
* GeniusBruiser: While he might just look like DumbMuscle and it's certainly joked about, Bully is clearly very adept at math and science, to the point of being able to tutor [[TheAce Zara]] in math and being able to figure out how to produce his own drugs without much in the way of formal training.
* HiddenDepths: He's definitely got a nicer, more caring side to him than one might initially think, and he's far more intelligent. Not that he hides it, it's just occasionally easy to lose sight of.
%%* IcyBlueEyes
%%* PoliticallyIncorrectHero
%%* ReallyGetsAround: Early on, although he's alright with the idea of committing to Zara once the two get together.
%%* TallDarkAndHandsome
!!Cassandra Cuoco
Jason and Matt's mother. She had the both of them as a High School senior, and splits her time between being a sporadically-employed hairdresser and the town drunk.
!! Tropes:
%%* AbsurdlyYouthfulMother
* MaternallyChallenged: She tries, but Cassie simply isn't suited to being a parent.
%%* TheNotLoveInterest: To Jason.
%%* WomanChild: She's thirty-six going on sixteen.
!!Clarissa Vanderbilt
A shy, submissive 16-year-old girl, born on Staten Island. Reasonably new to Palm Beach and raised in a stuffy, sexually-repressed Victorian environment.
!! Tropes:
* BuxomIsBetter: While Rissa isn't overly fond of her curves, both Jason and [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer Zara]] seem to like them a lot.
* DatingWhatDaddyHates: Jason is the poor, unrefined son of the town drunk, the complete opposite of the kind of guy Virginia wants Rissa associating with.
%%* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold
%%* InnocentBlueEyes
%%* OnlySaneMan: In her circle of friends.
* ProgressivelyPrettier: She's initially described as being very mousey and plain. As time has went on, it's fairly clear that nobody ever really thought of her as being remotely unattractive, just strange and oddly dressed. This is especially clear in Grapevine Fires, where she's considered one of the most attractive girls in town upon arrival, even being compared to a Disney princess.
* PuppyDogEyes: She's got a particularly lethal pair of large blue eyes, which she's very much weaponized.
* PutOnABus: Grapevine Fires ends with her finding out that she's moving back to New York to be closer to her extended family and new fiance, and the last thing to happen is her telling Jason, after having put it off for a month.
%%* SadClown
%%* ShesGotLegs: Jason says this, almost word for word, the first time he sees her in jeans.
%%* SilkHidingSteel
* SpockSpeak: As a result of her upbringing, she speaks in a very proper manner and is literally incapable of using contractions.
!!Daniel Ridge
A meek, reserved 17-year-old High School junior who's extremely close to his mother.
!! Tropes:
* AnythingThatMoves: Daniel shows interest in just about anyone who'll give him attention, regardless of gender or sexuality.
* NerdsAreVirgins: Initially played straight, then defied. He's arguably more of a CluelessChickMagnet than Jason is, and he's had plenty of love interests (and sexual partners) of both genders as time went on, oftentimes even ''because'' of his [[EndearinglyDorky dorkiness]]. To date, he's even actually been part of two love triangles and the center of a LoveDoDecahedron involving Xavier, Peyton and Teddy.
%%* NiceGuy
%%* PutOnABus
!!Darian Peterson
A 19-year-old from Chicago, a star player on the Palm Beach High football team and a man with plenty of interesting connections.
!! Tropes:
* CartwrightCurse: An inordinate amount of Darian's love interests have been killed off, or disappeared without a trace.
* GlassCannon: Although he's an excellent fighter, Darian is also very likely to be nicked up or injured a lot of the time.
* HandsomeLech: Darian is somewhere between this and CasanovaWannabe. While he's certainly not ''unsuccessful'' with the opposite sex, he tends to try much harder than [[TheCharmer Bully]] or [[CluelessChickMagnet Jason]] and, while he's rarely unsuccessful, seems to have a lot more trouble holding down long-term relationships.
%%* {{Hunk}}
%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Although he's bisexual, Darian has been known to pepper his speech with the occasional homophobic slur.
%%* PutOnABus
%%* TheStoner: The only one, between him, Jason and Bully, who has no real desire to drink. Now smoking pot, on the other hand...
!!Farlane Kirkpatrick
The captain of the Palm Beach High School cheerleading squad and a talented gymnast, Lanie's main struggle is with his feelings for his best friend and his abusive, politician step-father.
!! Tropes:
* BoomerangBigot: Lanie is about as homophobic a gay person as you're likely to find, although it's not always obvious.
%%* CompetitionFreak
%%* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Adam, most obviously, and Daniel.
%%* LovableJock
%%* PrettyBoy
* StraightGay: Less stereotypically "gay" than Boone as a product of Jamison trying to force him into being "straight".
%%* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Adam.
!!Frederick Vanderbilt
Clarissa's closeted older brother, who hangs out most commonly with Jerry and Travis.
!! Tropes:
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: While he's capable of being just as much of a dick as Jerry or Travis, he's very obviously got a soft spot for his younger sister.
%%* PrettyBoy
%%* StraightGay
%%
%%!!Hendrix Boone
%%
%%A drama-loving member of the fab four along with Lanie, Adam and Ren.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* CampStraight
%%* LadykillerInLove: With Ruby
%%* LargeHam
%%* PrettyBoy
%%* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness
%%* TallDarkAndHandsome
!!Jacqueline Lambert
A 15 (later 16)-year-old High School sophomore, and cheerleader.
!! Tropes:
%%* BrainlessBeauty
* BrokenPedestal: Jac is absolutely convinced that Jason is 100% completely perfect, no matter how abrasive or irritated he would get with her for thinking so until she finds out about Fight Club, and the ensuing fallout causes their relationship to end on a horrible note.
* ClingyJealousGirl: Clingy, absolutely. And unfailingly suspicious of Jason and Rissa's friendship, though [[EveryoneCanSeeIt perhaps not without good reason]].
%%* FirstLove: Jason was her's. Unfortunately, she wasn't his.
%%* ItsAllAboutMe
%%* LonelyRichKid
%%* MeetCute: She and Jason had one.
* TeensAreShort: Jac is about the same height as Tiffany, at roughly five feet.
!!Jason Cuoco
A 17-year-old Palm Beach native, whose mother is the town drunk. Jason himself is a recovering alcoholic, and attempting to use sports as a way up in the world.
!! Tropes:
* BookDumb: Jason is a poor student, with several glaring gaps in his education due to spotty attendance, who needs lots of tutoring just to be able to stay academically afloat.
* {{Determinator}}: One of his defining traits. He's a big-time workaholic, which is suggested to be a displacement for his addiction issues, and very good at shaking off illnesses and injuries when he doesn't want to waste time recoving.
* HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood: Although Cassie's verbal abuse and emotional manipulation are usually played as being fairly serious, his stories about his early childhood do tend to veer into this territory from time to time. For instance, while changing his fake rubber baby, he suggests just running it under very cold water when he can't find any baby wipes. Rissa thinks he's just being funny, but the ensuing post hints that it actually was something Cassie did when he was a baby.
%%* InstantExpert: At just about anything athletic, but specifically football. More obvious once he begins seriously training.
* LightningBruiser: He's built like a brick shithouse, but able to cover ground like a sprinter.
%%* MeetCute: Had one with both Jac and Rissa.
%%* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: "The Giant Slayer"
%%* TheSnarkKnight
* TallDarkAndSnarky: Well over six feet tall, dark-haired, noted by most people he comes across as being [[{{Hunk}} rather hunky]], and entirely too sarcastic for his own good.
* TroubledButCute: Considering he's fairly oblivious, he definitely attracts a lot of female and male attention. He gets arrested and thrown in the drunk tank at one point, and judging by Cassie's reaction to bailing him out, it's not the first time.
!!Mathena Cuoco
Jason's manipulative twin sister, and a disaffected party girl with no real aspirations for her own future.
!! Tropes:
%%* BrilliantButLazy
* CantLiveWithThemCantLiveWithoutThem: Although she often snarks at her brother, and acts rather coldly toward him, she takes the idea that he might leave her behind to go to college rather hard.
%%* StepfordSnarker
!!Mason Prince
A well-off junior who's interested in Zara.
!! Tropes:
* ButtMonkey: He "loses" Zara to Bully, loses the Homecoming Prince election to Jason -- who not only didn't campaign ''at all'', but had no idea that he was even entered to begin with until his name was called -- gets groped by Slenderman, and the plane tickets he bought for himself and Zara wound up being used to send Bully and Zara to France, instead.
* InformedFlaw: Zara routinely complains about his insufferable arrogance, but he's not particularly confident to begin with and tends to fade into the background in her interactions with Bully.
%%* InnocentlyInsensitive
%%* NiceGuy
%%* RomanticFalseLead: Pretty much Eyes Wide Open's poster child for the trope.
%%* SatelliteLoveInterest: To Zara.
%%
%%!!Raquel Morales
%%
%%A periodically-homeless girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and a founding member of Fight Club.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BikerBabe
%%* ClingyJealousGirl: To Ren and also has shades of this toward Whitney when the latter seems to be attracted to Jason.
%%* PutOnABus
%%
%%!!Ruby Mason
%%
%%An artistic Canadian girl who moves to Palm Beach prior to the start of her senior year of High School.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BirdsOfAFeather: With Boone
%%* CanadaEh
%%* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]]
%%* ThePollyanna
%%* SatelliteLoveInterest
%%
%%!!Serenity Collins
%%
%%A genius high school senior with an ego to match her intellect.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BrainyBrunette
%%* InsufferableGenius
!!Tiffany Baxter
An extremely short cheerleader with a lot of interest in sports.
!! Tropes:
%%* IfItsYouItsOkay: Paige is this for Tiff, though she ultimately begins to suspect that it's possible that she might be legitimately bisexual.
%%* PutOnABus
* TeensAreShort: Tiffany is easily the shortest character in the entirety of the in-game university at a hair over five feet tall. She was also previously involved with the ''second-tallest'' character in the game.
!!Travis Huntington
An apparently meatheaded senior jock at Palm Beach High School who thinks the only things that matter are him and his car.
!! Tropes:
%%* BelligerentSexualTension: With Tiffany, his ex. Although the belligerence does seem to fade over time.
%%* ByronicHero
* TheCharmer: He can surprisingly charming when he's not busy being a massive {{Jerkass}}, and even sometimes ''while'' he's being a massive jerkass. Generally just when he wants something from someone, though.
%%* IcyBlueEyes
%%* JerkJock
%%* TallDarkAndHandsome
%%* VillainousBSOD: Has a huge one when he sees Jerry's corpse hanging from the ceiling of the Masquerade dance.
!!Virginia Vanderbilt
Clarissa's mother.
!! Tropes:
%%* TheBaroness
* CondescendingCompassion: Although she's not consciously discriminatory, Virginia is often rather unintentionally xenophobic- She assumes that Bully's english is poor, for example, because he happens to speak with a mild Russian accent.
%%* MyBelovedSmother: It's a combination of doing so out of love, and in order to mould Risa into someone desirable for an arranged marriage in order to save her family's financial situation.
%%* RichBitch
* StatuesqueStunner: Even well past the age of seventy, Virginia is rather striking -- Most notable by the fact that, at five-foot-ten, she is canonically the tallest female character in the entire EWO universe. It also puts her head and shoulders above her 5'3" daughter, and just about on eye-level with her 6'2" son.
!!Xavier Alexander
The least popular student at Palm Beach High School, and the former president of the Gay-Straight Alliance.
!! Tropes:
%%* AbhorrentAdmirer: To Jason, Leo, and Daniel... at least, initially...
%%* ClosetKey: Xavier winds up being Daniel's.
%%* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold
* HiddenDepths: Despite his rather simple nature, Xavier is a surprisingly adept photographer, and actually shows a good amount of promise as a filmmaker. He's also an accomplished liar and a surprisingly capable schemer when the need arises.
%%* TinySchoolboy
!!Zara Leroy
The Queen of Palm Beach High School, she starts out as a co-captain on the cheerleading squad and an active member of more clubs than one could probably count.
!! Tropes:
%%* AlphaBitch: At first, anyway. Time and experience seems to have turned her into much more of a LovableAlphaBitch.
* BrokenAce: She's popular, well-liked by the student body, intelligent and highly involved in just about everything, but she's got more than her share of crippling family and self-esteem issues.
%%* ItsAllAboutMe: She's been known to have her moments from time to time.
* PutOnABus: Between Grapevine Fires and Our Next Chapter, she moves away to go to boarding school in Connecticut. Although she and Rissa continue to maintain contact, they never wind up returning to what their friendship used to be.
%%* RavenHairIvorySkin
%%* SecondLove: Bully is this for her.
* WellDoneSonGuy: A lot of her motivation is to prove her worth to her very difficult-to-please mother.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Continuity 1.5 Characters]]
These are characters who appear in version two of Eyes Wide Open, but not the original.
%%!!Blaise Zephyr
%%
%%A new student to Palm Beach High, from out-of-state. She's intelligent, but reckless.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BadassDriver
%%** BadassBookworm
%%
%%!!Giovanni Cristaldi
%%
%%A junior who's been held back twice, and looks to be in danger of repeating his junior year for a ''third'' time. He might come off as a bit of an idiot, but he's more dangerous than he lets on...
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* TheBully
%%* ClusterFBomb: He's pretty much a walking example of this trope.
%%* {{Delinquents}}
%%* HandsomeLech
%%* {{Jerkass}}
%%* UpperClassTwit
%%
%%!!Marley Coulson
%%
%%A seventeen-year-old Palm Beach High native, in her junior year. She's turned to dealing and shoplifting in order to provide for her family.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* BruiserWithASoftCenter
%%* {{Delinquents}}
%%* RememberTheNewGuy: Her father formerly dated Jason's mother, and the two have canonically known each other since ''at least'' elementary school.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Continuity 2 Characters]]
!!Aedan Brightman
The youngest Brightman brother.
!! Tropes:
* LoveMakesYouDumb: Aedan continually takes Teddy back in spite of the fact that the older boy is openly manipulating him, regularly cheats on him, and is very obviously an emotionally abusive, suicidal heroin addict. He does grow out of it later, however.
* EmoTeen: Although he's not exactly prone to dressing darkly, he entered an RP that already had it's fair share of {{Wangst}} and quickly established his claim to the Wangst Throne with his near-constant complaining about his life and how misunderstood he is by his siblings and father.
* InformedAbility: The Brightmans are touted (mostly by themselves) as excellent musicians with a legion of adoring fans but Aedan in particular is rarely shown to practice or devote any real attention to music, at all.
* ProneToTears: Seldom does an appearance where he's involved end ''without'' him crying over something or other.
!!Brayden Brightman
The oldest of the three Brightman brothers, and the arguable leader of the band.
!! Tropes:
* ChickMagnet: Once he and Ben broke up, he was suddenly ''very'' popular with the guys and literally held mass "sleepovers" at his house almost nightly just to take advantage of his newfound popularity.
%%* LadykillerInLove
* NiceGuy: The guy gets the crap smacked out of him by Bully, and then nearly body-checked off a boat by Jason, but he forgives all of this fairly readily with a smile and laugh when Jason attempts to apologize purely because the two are track teammates.
* TookALevelInBadass: After a CurbStompBattle with Bully in which he was just barely saved by Jason, Brayden suddenly gained an excess of martial arts know-how- Which led to a case of FanonDiscontinuity when later discussions between the characters attempted to retcon it into Brayden having reluctantly beaten Bully up to save Peyton.
!! Ellington "Elle" Pierce
The middle Pierce sibling, who was held back a grade and is best known around school for her tendency to sleep around a ''lot''.
!! Tropes:
%%* ReallyGetsAround
* RetargetedLust: The personality-based similarities between Travis and her ex-boyfriend Tony make is seem like her FriendsWithBenefits relationship with the former is essentially just using him as a replacement for the latter. Travis is entirely aware of this, and doesn't mind exploiting it.
%%* AThreesomeIsHot: Firmly believes this.
!!Kaine Brightman
The middle Brightman Brother.
!! Tropes:
* DullSurprise: His trademark being that in contrast to his younger brother's emotional nature, he's been referred to as a zen master; Completely impossible to phase. He found out that his girlfriend (who, up to then, had only been with him as far as he'd known) recorded a sex tape with another guy in the time that they'd been together. His reaction? A mildly curious "is it hot?"
* TookALevelInJerkass: After having convinced his girlfriend to keep their baby, and then proposed marriage to legitimize it, the two of them go to meet her parents. Moments after they disown her and Kaine himself is nearly strangled by her father, while she's openly weeping a couple feet away, he wonders aloud if they wouldn't be better off broken up ''so that he could potentially hang out with his brothers and play the field more''.
%%* TooDumbToLive
!!Teddy Bellerose
A melodramatic senior who returns to Palm Beach High School after having been institutionalized for much of the previous year.
!! Tropes:
* AttemptedRape: On several occasions, he attempted to ''intimidate'' people into having sex with him, often physically. Just about every time, it backfired on him.
%%* BigBadWannabe
%%* ButtMonkey
* FauxAffablyEvil: He's generally very kind and overly-friendly toward guys he's attempting to seduce, but the affability ends as soon as he catches even the slightest hint of rejection, revealing his more [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] leanings.
* InformedAbility:
* He's supposedly a talented dancer who's headed to a prestigious performing arts school on a full-ride scholarship in spite of the fact that he's a heroin addict who attempts suicide once a week and is constantly in and out of the hospital with no apparent time to ever practice, or think about, dancing.
** He's routinely outsmarted by characters both highly intelligent (Travis and Bully) and average-to-slightly-dim (Lanie and Daniel) due to his transparent attempts at scheming, and easily outfought at one point by the equally-untrained, much smaller and less muscular Rockie.
** He claims that he can make any guy, regardless of sexuality, fall for him. This is repeatedly proven ''not'' to be the case.
* RememberTheNewGuy
[[/folder]]
[[folder:NPCs]]
!!Algernon "Dinky" Dinkleberg
A birthday clown by trade, with a rather violent grudge against a certain Russian.
!! Tropes:
* AbortedArc: His revenge plot against Bully was cut short because of a storm rendering his RPer's internet connection faulty and never picked back up.
%%* AxeCrazy
* AlmightyJanitor: Although he ultimately becomes [[spoiler: the head of an international terrorist brotherhood of just about anything in facepaint]], it's easy to forget that his day job is still being a clown that does children's birthday parties.
* BiggerOnTheInside: His clown car fits a dozen clowns inside, with room for two more normal-sized people.
%%* RevengeBeforeReason
%%* VillainousBreakdown: Seemingly had his when Bully refused to give him a hug at Rissa's birthday party.
!!Slenderman
The owner and manager of Slendy's, a local diner back in Palm Beach.
!! Tropes:
* CommutingOnABus: He makes occasional appearances in Grapevine Fires, but they're much rarer than they were on Eyes Wide Open.
* NiceGuy: Although he's certainly creepy and lurky, he's never outright malicious and even more than occasionally exceptionally nice, just socially awkward.
%%* StalkingIsLove: And he ''really'' loves Mason.
%%
%%!!The Darkness
%%
%%A serial killer that plagued Palm Beach, picking off victims seemingly at random.
%%
%%!! Tropes:
%%* EldritchAbomination
%%* TheFaceless
[[/folder]]
----
!!YMMV
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: Travis very much fits the profile of a sociopath; Glib and superficially charming. Manipulative pathological liar with a sense of entitlement. No real sense of shame or guilt (a fact which he's very proud of). Callous. Promiscuous. Might or might not be capable of genuine love or affection. Needs constant stimulation and lives a parasitic lifestyle. His [=RP=]er has even theorized as much out of character, though it isn't considered to be canon.
** Lincoln: Sweet, well-meaning but sheltered kid who is rarely intentionally hurtful, or self-centred JerkJock who coasted through life on his athletic ability and charm and didn't seem to think much, or care, about who he hurt in the process?
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Depending on what camp you're in, Noah King was either one of the best things about Down These Halls or a [[FlatCharacter poorly written]] {{Jerkass}} who was inexplicably never taken to task for being a terrible friend.
* BrokenBase: The question of who would win in a ''serious'' fight between Bully and Jason- Which WordOfGod has stated is unlikely to ever actually come to fruition.
* CrazyIsCool: Darian once "bought" Bully a yacht as a birthday present.
** Bully's pet Komodo Dragon, Ozzy, [[spoiler: who was implied to have ''eaten'' [[TheScrappy Teddy]] between Eyes Wide Open and Grapevine Fires]].
** The Clown Mafia, which grew out of a minor NPC who'd been hired to entertain at Clarissa's birthday party.
** The Darkness, the universe's resident ambiguously undead serial murderer who quickly became an EnsembleDarkhorse among the members.
** It's left ambiguous whether or not the person who owns the local diner, which Jason and Lanie both worked at, was actually Slenderman or just an overly-involved but kind-hearted middle-aged recluse.
* FanPreferredCouple: Bully/Zara was a huge one, early on, due to the fact that she and Bully had fantastic chemistry- Bully's natural charisma being even more glaring when compared to her alternative love interest being [[RidiculouslyAverageGuy Mason]].
** WordOfGod is that in and out of character, pretty much everyone saw UnresolvedSexualTension between Jason and Rissa long before Alex or Robyn did. They actually got some minor ShipTease early, but didn't actually get together until midway through the first game. The previous consensus between the characters' [=RP=]ers had actually been that they were LikeBrotherAndSister.
** Mason/Slenderman is more positively remembered than any of his actual canon relationships.
** Linc/Chas was ''far'' more popular than Linc/Cotton or Noah/Chas.
* FreudianTrio: The three site admins themselves could arguably have fallen into this- Although all three tend to swap hats from time to time, Robyn is usually TheKirk to Anna's [[TheMcCoy McCoy]] and Alex's [[TheSpock Spock]].
* GrowingTheBeard: While there were early flashes of promise, it was the Homecoming Event when the site itself really started to grow the beard, and the storylines became more unified and interesting.
** [[spoiler: Zara's miscarriage]] and [[spoiler: Jerry's murder]] could both makes claims for being emotional high points. Both are ''massive'' [[TearJerker tearjerkers]] that even members who weren't in any way involved admitted to bawling while reading through.
* HollywoodHomely: Xavier is often compared to gnomes and troll dolls, in terms of appearance, but he's rather good looking by any reasonable standard and not really any uglier than any of his male classmates.
* HoYay: Jason and Bully, if the tumblr confessions page was anything to go by, had their fair share of shippers.
** Bully's frequent comments about Jason's muscles, Jason's fanatically blind loyalty to Bully, and their tendency toward deep emotional talks while driving home from the cabin certainly didn't hurt the argument any.
** Bully and Mason arguably had more chemistry together than ''Zara'' and Mason did.
** Zara and Rissa also have their fair share of LesYay over the course of the games, though it's more on Zara's end than Rissa's- Zara seems every bit as fond of Rissa's breasts as Jason is. This is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by Bully during Grapevine Fires in his theory that Rissa's behaviour around him comes from being a closeted lesbian in love with Zara.
** It was a running joke that the (ostensibly and very loudly heterosexual) Travis and Jerry came off as gayer (for each other) than Freddie (who was actually canonically gay, but closeted) did in general. Although considering that he was an ArmouredClosetGay, that does make sense.
* LauncherOfAThousandShips:
** Xavier, when he's not busy trying to make Jason and himself happen, vocally shipped Jason and [[RomanticFalseLead Jac]]. Naturally, [[DieForOurShip he doesn't take well to Rissa]], who also initially wavered between supporting Jason/Jac and thinking that they weren't a particularly good match at all.
** Bully was the original captain of the Jason/Rissa ship, which also had a lot of out of character support.
** People also apparently ''really'' shipped Jason and Bully, if the confessions page and bathroom wall areas were any indicator.
** And at least one person has interpreted Jason and Darian's [[VitriolicBestBuds friendship]] as being intense BelligerentSexualTension. Jason, Darian and Bully as an [[OneTrueThreesome OT3]] seems just short of canon at times. Their actual OOC nickname was "the [=BROT3=]".
** During Grapevine Fires, Jason and [[TransparentCloset Whitney]] get a fair amount of ShipTease and arguably had more chemistry than Whitney and Lucy (Whitney's canon girlfriend) did. Particularly notable, because Whitney describes herself as otherwise being "200% gay" at multiple points.
** Lincoln Bauer was pretty much the site bicycle on Down These Halls, primarily due to the fact that he had chemistry with 'everyone'. He was frequently shipped with every other member of the Bro Circle (particularly Atty and Noah), Courtney, Chastity, Cotton, Rory, Hailey, Vega and even had at least one serious ship tease moment with Issy.
** Noah had a [[MemeticMolester similar reputation]], out of character, although it was more {{Fanon}} than anything else.
* {{Narm}}: Jason storming off to the hospital to confront Rissa over dumping him over text elicited more than a few laughs, out of character.
** Teddy's attempted suicides were often melodramatic and overwrought to the point of unintentional hilarity in their execution.
** Papa Brightman's HotBlooded PapaWolf tendencies were very clearly meant to be very serious, but the nonplussed reactions of the characters on the receiving end often made them hilarious.
** Noah attempting to express anger was usually a goldmine of unintentional hilarity, due to a set of repetitive character tics used to indicate that the character was upset (alternately hitting lockers and shouting, every time he spoke).
* NarmCharm: [[TastesLikeDiabetes Boone and Ruby's entire relationship]]. They basically fell in love at first sight. Boone was constantly going overboard in his gift-giving, while delivering flowery and lengthy monologues about his feelings for her. Ruby very clearly thought the sun shone out of Boone's backside, and would say as much to just about anyone within earshot. They're almost aggressively happy and idealistic about their relationship. But somehow, it just ''worked'', and was one of the more heartwarming and popular relationships on the board.
** Court's behavior could get rather narmy and childish when she was upset, rendering even her more heartfelt dialogue rather unintentionally funny, but she was just so earnest that one was never really taken out of the moment.
* NeverLiveItDown: Darian "sharting" in Jason's car. It happened early on in Eyes Wide Open, and was still being referenced throughout.
** Out of character, Rissa referring to Jason as her "big, grumpy bear" has stuck as an apt description of his character for years after the fact.
** Bully taking a bite out of someone's forehead while high on shrooms at a house party.
** Rockie was constantly teased about her irrational fear of trees.
* PortmanteauCoupleName: Pretty abundant in every incarnation; Adanie (Adam/Lanie), Red (Ren/Ed), Renquel (Ren/Rockie), Tiffvis (Travis/Tiffany), Travules (Travis/Jules), Trelle (Travis/Elle), Jervis (Travis/Jerry), Jervedie (Travis/Jerry/Freddie), Zarullaissa (Zara/Bully/Jason/Rissa), Zarully (Zara/Bully), Zason (Zara/Mason), Bulson (Jason/Bully), Bullissa (Bully/Rissa), Javier (Jason/Xavier), Jaissa (Jason/Rissa), Jara (Jason/Zara), Zarissa (Zara/Rissa), Davier (Daniel/Xavier), Willic (Will/Eric), Booby (Boone/Ruby), Edoone (Ed/Boone), Loone (Lanie/Boone), Adoone (Adam/Boone), Lanison (Lanie/Jason), Svetson (Svet/Jason) and that wasn't even all of them!
* TheScrappy: Jules was the original one. A CreatorsPet who had the habit of trying to derail any plots she would get involved in so that they were about her and her relationship drama of the week, and whose behavior was apparently always justified and in the right, no matter how insane or destructive.
** Jules, however, pales in comparison to ''Teddy''. He would actually have been a particularly good, if not over-the-top villain if he weren't so blatantly an AuthorAvatar for the person playing him. He was about equally reviled in and out of universe on a level that even Jules never achieved and even prompted [[NiceGuy Daniel]] to deliver a surprisingly brutal [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech reason you suck speech]].
** And of course, the Brightman Brothers. A BoyBand made up entirely of people that were magically good at absolutely everything they tried, even if it flew in the face of their previous characterization or even the laws of reality itself. They were so hated that they inspired a rule change on Grapevine Fires just to prevent a repeat.
----
!!Awesome
[[folder: Awesome]]
* Homecoming weekend. Jason scoring his first touchdown, then having his [[TheBigDamnKiss first kiss]] with Jac immediately after the game. Jason and Adam both having an AwesomeMomentOfCrowning when they won their respective awards. Bully managing to get the entire gym completely wasted all at once. Even Darian managed to get hurt in the most epic way he possibly could have done so.
** Plus, the aftermath at the hospital also has to double as a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}}, and the first real EstablishingCharacterMoment for the three of them as genuinely close friends.
* Fight Club, pre-BadassDecay. Special mention has to go out to Rockie's "Basic Bitch hunt", and Jason's brutal knockouts of Big and Bigger Tom.
* Punchdrunk. Every round of it, and the way it escalated to the point of Jason climbing through Bully's fire escape just to punch him at one point.
* The Vice Presidential Campaign between Bully and Jerry. All of it, culminating in a massive brawl. From Travis's campaigning to Jerry and Bully's first brawl.
* Travis dumping [[TheScrappy Jules]], while needlessly cruel, was still just over-the-top enough to qualify. Any time a person writes a DearJohnLetter with a skywriter just to let the entire county know that person's been ditched, it literally can't be ignored.
* Rissa's birthday party was ''made'' of awesome. Between the GreekChorus of clowns, Bully launching through a clown car window to save his friends and the ensuing brawl, the entire night was one long one.
** The brawl in itself also doubles as a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} when you consider that Bully is terrified of clowns, but jumped into the car anyway to save his friends. Or that Jason only went in after Rissa in the first place because he was worried about her, and proceeded to beat one of them into a bloody pulp for putting [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Xavier]] in harm's way.
* New Years, and the massive paint balloon fight.
* Bully attacking Travis with a steel chair during a wrestling meet, complete with entrance music and a fleshed-out pro wrestler's gimmick.
* Lanie blackmailing his abusive step-father, Jamison, into leaving the country for good and ultimately becoming an emancipated minor.
[[/folder]]
----
!!Funny
[[folder: Funny]]
* Zara's first big house part of the 2013 school year. It also doubles as an introduction to drunk!Ren, and gives us Bully and Jason high on shrooms. Particularly notable being Bully seeing Rissa as a giant mushroom, and biting her on the forehead, causing her to run screaming to the bathroom and lock herself in there for the rest of the night.
* Jason calling Bully to let him know to meet he and Darian at the hospital, right after the latter had fractured his leg attempting to superman off a flight of stairs. Bully asks Jason to give Penny his number, mid-conversation, and Jason actually stops what he's doing to give it to her, to Jac's obvious consternation.
* Rissa going slowly insane over the course of the camping trip event, as it seems like nature itself is out to get her.
* Although it was more cringe comedy than anything else, Jason and Jac's one-month anniversary was full of unintentional humor, from Jason's disproportionate level of panic and immediate denial to Jac [[ComicallyMissingThePoint taking his example at face value]] when he attempts to explain why he thinks "I love you" is such a loaded term.
->'''Jac:''' ''[completely serious]'' Jason, I'm not going to end up pregnant at sixteen just because I said 'I love you'.
* Jules approaching Travis and calmly carrying on a conversation with him, without her player realizing he'd been [[UnusualEuphemism "writing his name on a tree"]] at the time until he zipped up his pants, and said player's ensuing disgusted reaction.
* When Jerry is running for Student Body Vice President, the entire campaign Travis designs for him is based around slinging groundless accusations at Bully and taking advantage of his already larger-than-life reputation. Claims include that he'll turn the school into a communist dictatorship, secede it from the United States, and invoke jus primae noctis to forcibly recruit every woman in school into his personal harem... Including his younger sister.
* During Grapevine Fires, Bully dead-seriously explaining to Jason that he suspects Rissa is secretly in love with Zara, followed by [[DeadpanSnarker Jason's]] stunned silence.
** During the same conversation, Jason sarcastically asking Bully if he thinks Rissa plans to "turn" Zara at a sleepover via naked pillow fight... and then both trailing off to stare wistfully off into the distance, visualizing just that.
* Rockie's initial opponent in fight club being a sweet, Betty White-like old lady... [[RefugeInAudacity who turns out to have been a retired hitwoman]], [[CrazyPrepared and carries a purse full of rocks around for just such an occasion]].
* Ren stating, matter-of-factly, that she's as smart as every other person in the circle combined during the cabin group's getting-to-know-you circle, coupled with Lanie and Zara's visible annoyance and Boone just shrugging in tacit agreement.
* The VP election brawl in general was pretty funny, but the teachers passing around a sign-in sheet to keep track of who'd been involved, and almost every student there signing as "Xavier Alexander" makes it even better.
* During the Disney World event, Lanie and Adam having a wand fight while dressed in full Harry Potter gear.
** Jason walking into his and Adam's hotel room right as Lanie's about to [[UnusualEuphemism get Adam's wand]]. He essentially walks in, turns around, and wordlessly walks out, looking like he's seen a ghost.
* The wing-eating contest. [[{{Squick}} Lanie over-eating and throwing up all over the wings]], [[VomitChainReaction Bully throwing up on Zara in response]], Jason trying to get to the bathroom, bowling over a waiter and then accidentally puking on him. [[FromBadToWorse The night only goes downhill from there]].
* Boone and Ruby having a very serious conversation about their respective futures, and confirming that they're absolutely in each other's future plans? Heartwarming. Rockie repeating Boone's exact points, almost word-for-word, to Ren, only about twelve feet away, moments after he said them? Hysterical.
* Jason and Bully finding a taxidermy cougar in the basement, then positioning him in front of the cabin as a "guard dog".
** Additionally, Jason and Rissa playfully arguing about what to name it, between Fluffy (Rissa's idea of a good name for a pet) and ''Hitler'' (Jason's idea of a good name for a guard dog that was supposed to be offputting)- As well as his eventually shot-down compromise idea, "Fluffy Hitler".
* Rissa's entire collection of knock-knock jokes are usually considered to be SoBadItsGood
* Travis' confusion upon finding out that Jerry let Xavier give him a handjob, and Jerry's ensuing explanation that he was "only gay for fifteen minutes."
* Bully's text to Jason the day after the latter first consummated his relationship with Rissa
->'''Bully:''' YOU GAVE HER THE D!
* Ana's and Virginia's utter conviction that they're currently dealing with a pair of gold-digging expert lotharios in [[CluelessChickMagnet Jason]] and [[ChivalrousPervert Bully]], and discussing how they're going to go about getting their respective daughters away from them.
[[/folder]]
----
!!Heartwarming
[[folder: Heartwarming]]
* Jason taking secret dance lessons just to impress Jac at Homecoming, early on.
* At the beginning of the "Curfew" arc, Rissa's discovery that Jason knows about her bulimia leads to an oddly heartwarming moment where he hugs her and says, completely earnestly, that he'd want her just as much whether she weighed sixty pounds or six hundred; He just wants to see her happy.
* Zara's mother offered Bully a rather large sum of money to stop seeing her daughter. Bully took this money... and then promptly used it to take Zara out on a fancy date.
** There's also something very cute about Bully giving Zara rides places on his wheelchair, while his leg was broken, and how happy they both seem to be.
* Adam's proposal to Lanie. Lanie continually asking him if he actually means it, and Adam patiently insisting that he does, every time, until Lanie's gotten his head around it enough to accept.
** Adam and Lanie are made of these. It's also hard not to include the song Lanie wrote for Adam.
* Jerry comes over to Travis' house, freaked out over the way The Darkness had been stalking him for several days prior. With minimal vitriol, Travis readily lets Jerry stay in his guest room and we even get to see Jerry genuinely thank him. Also a bit of a tearjerker, [[KilledOffForReal considering what would happen about four days later]]...
* The Cabin Group, and the way that the two originally very separate groups of friends came together, not only to rebuild the cabin in the first place, but becoming as close as they all did in the process.
** The circle game, which really drove home how shitty most of their respective home lives were and how their friends were, in many cases, the first genuinely healthy support system they'd ever had.
* Daniel and Xavier getting together for the first time was a massively heartwarming moment, even for people who were annoyed by Xavier more often than not.
* Travis aggressively campaigning so Tiffany would win Prom Queen. He didn't even really have anything to gain from it, she'd be leaving for college before they'd ever have gotten the chance to give their relationship one last go, but it's implied that he just wanted to pay her back for comforting him after Jerry's death.
** What Tiffany did to prompt this is also worth mentioning: She drove Travis home, then stayed with him for the rest of the night and ''well into Christmas day'', just to make sure he was okay. AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther.
* The comic that Ruby made for Boone on Valentine's Day.
* Any time Zara goes out of her way to do something for Rissa, like organizing her birthday party, that shows she doesn't view Rissa as her "pet rock" (as the latter suspects she does) and does genuinely value her friendship.
* Rissa's determination that Jason have a good eighteenth birthday, combined with his surprised appreciation of the fact that a record ''four'' people remembered.
* After running away, Lanie coming home. On top of Adam's joy at seeing him again, there's an exchange between Lanie and Boone in which Lanie gets frustrated when Boone lists of what sort of hypothetical adventures he suspects Lanie might have had on the run (one of which involves pirates), and accuses him of having thought it was all a big joke. Boone responds, in a moment of rare seriousness, that it hurt less to think of fantastic but unlikely scenarios than it is to worry himself to death over their harsher, but more realistic, alternatives and that he's just glad they're both home safe.
[[/folder]]
----
!!Tearjerker
[[folder: Tearjerker]]
* Jerry's death serves as the biggest tearjerker, possibly in the entire game. Being the first victim of The Darkness, he's killed in particularly brutal fashion and left to hang from the rafters in the middle of a Christmas masquerade ball. Freddie goes into shock, and Travis is reduced to a sobbing wreck. Even out of character, everybody around at the time admitted to tearing up a little.
** Particularly impressive on his writer's part because Jerry had been intentionally written as completely unsympathetic prior to this happening.
* Zara's miscarriage is amazing for the sheer number of horribly depressing things going on all at once. Over the course of that one day, Svet attempts to come onto Jason right as Rissa finally admits to liking him in another conversation (after having had a painfully awkward CannotSpitItOut moment the previous night, standing in the doorway). Bully finds out, walks in on his sister attempting to get with his best friend, flies into a rage, and hits her. As she's running off, Rissa calls him to let him know Zara's in the hospital, where she's miscarried her child with Bully, who she's about four months pregnant with at this point. Her parents are called to the hospital, and this is the first either of them find out about her pregnancy. The Leroys fight about what caused the situation, and Ana storms out of the hospital. Watching Bully try to comfort Zara while she's convinced that everything going wrong that day was completely her fault and she's failed is ''heartbreaking''.
* Lanie and Adam running away from home, and their goodbyes to Ren and Boone.
* Jason and Rissa finally coming clean about their feelings for each other, because it's immediately followed by the depressing realization that there's nothing they can do to act on those feelings without ultimately winding up devastated once she's set back up in an arranged engagement again. The conversation then goes from a TearJerker to a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}} to a completely adorable SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} in a matter of about three minutes, as (after a brief headbutt-related misstep) they decide to say "screw it" and go for it anyway.
[[/folder]]
----
! '''This Game provides examples of:'''
* AbortedArc: Many, but of particular note is the girl Darian got pregnant in late 2013. Although the reveal led to a rather touching FriendshipMoment between Darian, Bully, and Jason, the girl in question disappears without a trace after that, and Darian is back to his usual skirt-chasing ways without any indicator that she ever existed.
** Darian's love interests are often notoriously short-lived, in general, due to their players often leaving suddenly and without warning. His two most enduring romances are [[AnchoredShip Anchored Ships]] with Betsy and Matt, both heavy on flirting but never actually acted upon.
** Rissa goes through almost as many suddenly-disappearing [[RomanticFalseLead Romantic False Leads]] as Darian. However, they're usually [[{{HandWave}} handwaved]] in-universe as the engagement falling apart, as opposed to simply swept under the rug.
** Dinky and Bully's blood-feud is never really resolved.
** Arthur and Ana's martial problems are mostly forgotten about, once Zara and Arthur move out of Ana's house.
** Betsy's older brother is introduced as Jac's new love interest, and then both characters seem to fade out of existence.
* AlternateUniverse: After a large number of long time members left Eyes Wide Open, the decision to reset a large chunk of the timeline created an alternate continuity between there and Grapevine Fires. Even Eyes Wide Open began as an alternate continuity to another site.
** Eyes Wide Open V2 was slated to be an alternate continuity from Grapevine Fires/Our Next Chapter, due to dissatisfaction with the last few months of the school year.
* ArmouredClosetGay: Remy is one, early on. [[spoiler: Until being forcefully outed by Jerry.]]
* BashBrothers: Jason, Bully and Darian.
* BeastAndBeauty: Both invoked and played straight with Zara and Bully.
* BettyAndVeronica: Seems to come up a lot.
** [[VictoriousChildhoodFriend Lanie]] was the Betty to [[AllGuysWantCheerleaders Tiffany's]] Veronica early on, in regards to Adam.
** Early on, Mason was the Betty to Zara's Archie and Bully's Veronica.
** Jules tries to force this trope as well early on, with Aleks as the Betty to Travis's Veronica, but it's mostly averted as Travis is openly only interested in her for sex, while Aleks is just generally apathetic.
*** Though, interestingly enough, Jules was the Veronica to Travis's Archie and Tiff's Betty, as well as Bully's Archie and Zara's Veronica.
** [[AbortedArc Dava]] and [[UnluckyChildhoodFriend Gary]] are both Veronicas to Rissa's Archie and Jason's Betty, while Rissa is the Betty to Jac's Veronica where Jason is concerned. It can all be very confusing.
** Speaking of Svet, Jason is also unknowingly the Veronica to her Archie and Daniel's Betty.
** Rockie being the Betty to Aubrey's Archie and Mel's Veronica.
** Noah, in a very short time, managed to be the "Betty" to almost all of his friends in rapid succession. Linc was overwhelmingly the Veronica to Chastity's Archie, both Seb and Att were the "Veronica" for Ava, and Matty was Rory's.
* BoisterousBruiser: Bully, Darian, Jerry, Travis and Gunnar.
** The entire Somersville Bro Circle could qualify as this, when they're in the right mood.
* BreakTheCutie: Rissa is a walking bad luck magnet. Pretty much everything that's happened in her life up to this point seems to have been the universe just kicking her. Repeatedly. In the head.
* CampStraight: Boone. Just... Boone.
** James Phillips also qualifies. In spite of captaining the football team, his speech patterns and mannerisms all have a distinctly ValleyGirl flavor to them.
** Blake in particular had a bit of a reputation for playing [[InformedAttribute allegedly hyper-masculine]] male characters who would then speak and act in very campy, traditionally effeminate fashion.
** Mathias Cooper ''definitely'' had his moments of camp.
* CharacterDevelopment: Bound to happen with a lot of the longer-running characters.
** Clarissa developing from a wise ExtremeDoormat who'd resigned herself to a fairly joyless pre-planned life to a girl plenty capable of [[SilkHidingSteel standing up for herself]] when it matters and her fair share of badass moments.
** Daniel steadily growing a backbone and embracing his sexuality.
** Jason going from a friendless teenage drunk to a very well-liked BrokenAce, and then eventually settling into a career as a badass FairCop alongside Darian.
** Travis slowly realizing how important the people in his life are to him, and becoming steadily slightly less of a JerkJock who could even have been considered something of a ByronicHero by the end of his run.
** Zara's development from an AlphaBitch with plenty of HiddenDepths to an out-and-out badass LovableAlphaBitch. [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor And then continuing to eternally toe that line well into adulthood.]]
** Even Bully evolves into more of a clear-cut JerkWithAHeartOfGold as time goes on, with his more honorable and generous character traits coming to the forefront, as opposed to the promiscuous and impulsive hedonist he'd been at the beginning of the game.
* TheCharmer: Lincoln Bauer is incredibly charismatic, flirts with just about everyone, endlessly self-confident and easily the most popular student at Somersville High.
* ChaseScene: A pretty memorable one occurs when Bully, Jason, and several other characters escape detention and get chased by the police in Bully's car, where it's revealed partway through that Bully has no idea what he's doing and is flying by the seat of his pants. Made funnier by the fact that everyone just unanimously assumed he'd been in several car chases before.
** While it was his first, [[{{Foreshadowing}} it definitely wouldn't be his last]].
* ChronicHeroSyndrome: Jason and Rissa both have a nasty case of this, and even tend to bring it out more in each other. Jason in particular eventually makes an actual career of indulging this impulse, by becoming a police officer.
* CluelessChickMagnet: Jason in particular manages to be a Clueless '''''EVERYTHING''''' Magnet. He attracted the attentions of straight women, gay women, gay men and arguably, at least one heterosexual guy over the course of the game and was perpetually confused as to why.
* ContinuityNod: There are at least two references to the original characters in Down These Halls' companion blog, with the Somersville football team playing Palm Beach High during a preseason scrimmage, and Jason mentioned as having graduated recently.
* CooldownHug: Rissa is fond of doing this to Jason when she (usually correctly) suspects that he's about to hit someone. The first time she does this, she muses that he's like a [[MemeticMutation big, grumpy teddy bear]].
* CrapsackWorld: Played painfully straight. You can't turn around without bumping into someone who's had a downright horrible life, and the chances are that things only got worse for them with time.
** Palm Beach qualifies as a CrapsaccharineWorld because while the town itself is exceptionally scenic prior to the storm and just about everyone has a great deal of money, the tone is still often very dark.
* CurbStompBattle:
** Jason versus Big Tom, an appropriately-named giant. Jason's later fight against his even-larger brother, who bears a resemblance to the wrestler The Big Show, is a lot more even.
** Rockie versus one of Bully's Basic Bitches.
** Bully versus Travis.
** Travis versus Tristan.
** Jason & Bully versus a group of frat boys at a strip club.
** Daniel and Svet versus Nasty Nikki, a hulking female stripper at that same club.
** Bully versus Dinky, a birthday party clown.
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Nasty Nikki very graphically raping Daniel]] is very unfortunately played for laughs at one point. If that had been, for example, a very large and hulking male stripper forcing himself on Svet then it's a safe bet that it would have been played ''much'' differently.
** It's also hard to believe that, had the genders been reversed, Jac drunkenly attempting to push Jason into having sex after Homecoming and refusing to take no for an answer would have gone over as well. Bonus points for the fact that he apologized after, and attempted to comfort her by saying it had been "kind of hot."
* EvenTheGuysWantHim: Boone certainly thinks that this applies to Lanie- His so-called "Clooney Effect". [[SmallNameBigEgo Teddy]] also claimed this, though that's much more dubious. Jason and Daniel also fit more genuinely.
* EasilyForgiven: Rockie and Bully have both very literally attempted to drown Rissa, and she still considers both to be good friends of hers'.
** Linc is often quickly forgiven for acting selfishly by just about everyone around him, no matter what it is that he actually did.
* EggSitting: In Eyes Wide Open V2, one of the first subplots is randomly selected students being forced to look after baby dolls.
* FerrisWheelDateMoment: Jason and Rissa got a textbook one during the Orlando trip.
* FightClubbing: Bully, Darian, Jason and Rockie all formed a Fight Club back in September of 2013.
* FirstGirlWins: Played with repeatedly, but rarely ever played straight due to most of the players' aversion to the concept of "finals".
** Subverted with the Jac/Jason/Rissa triangle. Jason meets Jac first, she's the first character he interacts with, and his first serious girlfriend. But Rissa, who he doesn't develop a romantic interest in until months after breaking up with Jac, is easily his most notable romantic relationship.
** Downplayed with Bully, Jules and Zara. She technically interacts with him before Jules does, but he's canonically known Jules for longer. [[spoiler: He still winds up with Zara, and isn't all that interested in Jules to begin with.]]
** Played entirely straight with both [[spoiler: Adam/Lanie]] and [[spoiler: Travis/Tiffany]].
* HeadbuttOfLove: Jason does this frequently to Rissa. Played with immediately before their first kiss when [[UseYourHead Rissa manages to thump him one]] [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments by accident]], due to nerves.
* HugeGuyTinyGirl: This trope pops up a surprising amount in-game.
** Travis (who's 6'4) and Tiffany (who's a hair over five feet) are the most prominent example, with about sixteen inches of height difference between them and several in-universe jokes made about the subject.
** Bully is a full foot taller than Zara. Maverick and Daisy also have a similar height disparity on Grapevine Fires.
** Jason is roughly a foot taller than almost all his potential romantic interests to date, with the exception of (5'8") Jayme. Rissa in particular is about eleven inches shorter than him. The fact that Rissa is noted to be very slight and sickly-looking while Jason is described at one point as "a brick wall with eyes" makes the contrast even funnier.
* InJoke: The "Barclay" and "Foot Villain" voices are particularly long-running examples. Jason and Rissa both seem to find them very amusing. Everyone else? Not so much.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Although it was well-intentioned, Boone very obviously setting up Lanie and Xavier on a date because they were the only two gay guys he knew, and because Xavier's sex obsession was a quality that Boone, himself, considered ideal in a partner did far more harm than good.
** One of Atticus Andrews's defining character traits.
* KnightKnaveAndSquire: Played with in terms of Bully, Jason and Darian- [[BloodKnight Bully]] being the Knight, [[GlassCannon Darian]] being the Knave and [[UnskilledButStrong Jason]] being the Squire.
* LoveDodecahedron: Almost all the Donovan sisters are at the center of perhaps the most notorious one. Chastity and Lincoln dated for a year, but then they broke up after Lincoln cheated with Aaryn. Linc then began dating Cotton (Donovan), who Morgan was also interested in, while Chas took Noah to Homecoming and both Chas and Linc struggled to choose between their respective current partners and lingering feelings for each other (not to mention Kashton Day and Aiden Bell both also crushing on Chastity). Eleanor Rickett also, on and off, held a candle for Linc. Meanwhile, Noah also pursued, at various points, Harper (Atty's ex-girlfriend), Ava (Seb's ex, who was also flirting with Atty) and Rory (Matty's girlfriend) before settling into a relationship with Ava. This doesn't even factor in Rebekah (Donovan)'s unrequited crush on Linc, or being caught in a love square(?) of her own involving Teddy Bauer, Florence Rickett, and Maureen King.
* MemeticBadass: Bully definitely qualified, both in-universe and out.
* RealMenHateAffection: Most of the guys on-site play this completely straight, but Bully and Jason in particular ''will not'' hug each other. Leaning on each other while exhausted, however...
* StalkerWithACrush: It's the only way that Xavier knows how to love.
* StarCrossedLovers: Jason and Rissa. She was the repressed only daughter in an old money family that's went broke, and she needed to be married off to someone rich enough to get them back to the lifestyle they're accustomed to. He was a poor recovering alcoholic from the wrong side of the tracks who her mother openly hated and viewed as a criminal. They both knew it could only end badly, but neither one was willing to let the other go.
* StraightGay: Lanie was often described as the kind of person you'd never know was gay unless he directly told you. He's probably the only character just as aggressively annoyed as Bully with Xavier's campier behavior.
* TheFriendsWhoNeverHang: Jason and Zara. Although each is dating the other's best friend, the two of them rarely interact one-on-one, due to simply not having much in common, although they generally got on fairly well when they did.
* WeightWoe: PlayedForDrama with Rissa, who is deeply uncomfortable with her body image, and perpetually made by her mother to feel either over or underweight.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: Bully and Zara, especially early on in EWO's run.
** Adam and Lanie as well, though WordOfGod is that they're more of a SuperCouple and that their getting together is inevitable regardless of continuity.
* WorkoutFanservice: While, strictly speaking, it's not an actual workout, the cabin-repairing event absolutely seems to qualify as far as Zara, Ren and Rissa are concerned. Jason, Lanie, Adam, Bully and Boone were all explicitly stated to either be shirtless or wearing particularly well-fitted clothing, while moving heavy furniture around and fixing things.
* WorldOfSnark
* WorthyOpponent: Bully with Jerry and, to a lesser extent, Travis.
