Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 10,11 (click to see context) from:
After a well-known skeptic debunks them on live-television, things have gone downhill for their once great psychic dynasty. People stop believing them, the family's matriarch (and most powerful psychic in the world) dies tragically. Thirty years later in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990's]], the family is trying to get by as "normal" people.
to:
After a well-known skeptic debunks them on live-television, things have gone downhill for their once great psychic dynasty. People stop believing them, the family's matriarch (and most powerful psychic in the world) dies tragically. Thirty years later in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990's]], 1990s]], the family is trying to get by as "normal" people.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Spelling/grammar fix(es)
Changed line(s) 17 (click to see context) from:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that the gun doesn't do anything. [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage Psychics just think it can take away their power, and therefore, it does]].]]
to:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's Smalls's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that the gun doesn't do anything. [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage Psychics just think it can take away their power, and therefore, it does]].]]
Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Amazing Telemachus Family were a household name back in TheSixties, showing off their PsychicPowers to the public. That is until they were humiliated on live-television by a well-known skeptic. Now they're living "normal" lives on DysfunctionJunction; their matriarch Maureen dies of uterine cancer, their patriarch Teddy using his abilities to con drunks out of pocket change and pick-up lonely single-moms, Frankie taking up [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]] with MobDebt, Irene is a single mother to Matty who is forced to move back in with the rest of the family when she loses her job, and Buddy is somewhere on [[HollywoodAutism the spectrum]] and has to be looked after.
to:
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Amazing Telemachus Family were a household name back in TheSixties, showing off their PsychicPowers to the public. That is until they were humiliated on live-television by a well-known skeptic. Now they're living "normal" lives on DysfunctionJunction; their matriarch Maureen dies of uterine cancer, their patriarch Teddy using his abilities to con drunks out of pocket change and pick-up pick up lonely single-moms, single moms, Frankie taking up [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]] with MobDebt, Irene is a single mother to Matty who is forced to move back in with the rest of the family when she loses her job, and Buddy is somewhere on [[HollywoodAutism the spectrum]] and has to be looked after.
Changed line(s) 53 (click to see context) from:
* ShotgunWedding: It's right before Teddy was planning on preposing to Maureen does she tell him that she's pregnant with their first child, having psychically sensed its presence beforehand.
to:
* ShotgunWedding: It's right Right before Teddy was planning planned on preposing proposing to Maureen does she tell tells him that she's pregnant with their first child, having psychically sensed its presence beforehand.
Changed line(s) 56 (click to see context) from:
* ViolinScam: [[spoiler:It's implied that the micro-lepton gun is one, Teddy and Archibald having made what is essentially a toy gun and convinces Destin Smalls to buy and manufacture it for psychic warfare. Considering it actually can suppress psychic powers using [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage the power of suggestion]], there is a nugget of authenticity to it.]]
to:
* ViolinScam: [[spoiler:It's implied that the micro-lepton gun is one, Teddy and Archibald having made what is essentially a toy gun and convinces convinced Destin Smalls to buy and manufacture it for psychic warfare. Considering it actually can suppress psychic powers using [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage the power of suggestion]], there is a nugget of authenticity to it.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Spelling/grammar fix(es)
Changed line(s) 17 (click to see context) from:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that the gun doesn't do anything. [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage It just makes psychics think it can take away their power and therefor it does]].]]
to:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that the gun doesn't do anything. [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage It Psychics just makes psychics think it can take away their power power, and therefor therefore, it does]].]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 16 (click to see context) from:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers.
to:
* AgentScully: Destin Smalls is a government agent who believes that not only are psychic powers real, but he salivates at the thought of using them for military purposes. It also makes him very gullible to Teddy and Archibald's scams, [[spoiler:convincing him that the micro-lepton gun can actually suppress psychic powers]].
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that the gun doesn't do anything. [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage It just makes psychics think it can take away their power and therefor it does]].]]
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that the gun doesn't do anything. [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage It just makes psychics think it can take away their power and therefor it does]].]]
Added DiffLines:
* PlaceboEffect: [[spoiler:The micro-lepton gun is no more effective against psychics than a child's toy. It only works on Buddy because [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage everyone says the toy suppresses psychic powers and he believes them]].]]
Added DiffLines:
* ViolinScam: [[spoiler:It's implied that the micro-lepton gun is one, Teddy and Archibald having made what is essentially a toy gun and convinces Destin Smalls to buy and manufacture it for psychic warfare. Considering it actually can suppress psychic powers using [[PsychosomaticSuperpowerOutage the power of suggestion]], there is a nugget of authenticity to it.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 16 (click to see context) from:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. If used on a non-psychic, it can give them a stroke and induce paralysis.
to:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. If used on a non-psychic, it can give them a stroke and induce paralysis.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* AntiMagic: On top of psychic research, Destin Small's team invented a micro-lepton gun, a device that can alter a person's torsion field and neutralizes a psychic's powers. If used on a non-psychic, it can give them a stroke and induce paralysis.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* {{Motifs}}: Each member of the Telemachus Family is associated with a Zener card, chapters focusing on a specific character beginning with one of the cards and each chapter's sections separated with their corresponding shapes: Teddy is a square, Irene is the star, Matty are the three wavy lines, Frankie is the circle and Buddy is the plus-sign.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* ShaggyDogStory: [[spoiler:Frankie spends the whole book devising a way of paying off his MobDebt by robbing Mitzi's safe. Wouldn't you know it, he manages to reach the safe and finds it empty, save for an empty kid's lunchbox.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: Having died of uterine cancer years before the book starts, Maureen was TheHeart who held the family together, the Telemachus Family collapsing into {{dysfunction|junction}} once she's dead and buried. [[SuperpowerLottery She is also the only member of the family with multiple psychic abilities]], as opposed to her children and grandchildren who only inherited one each.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* EmotionalPowers: Frankie's telekinesis is dependent on his state of mind and he has little control over it even in adulthood. It seems to rely on his emotional wellbeing and is utterly powerless when he lacks confidence in himself, his constant failures not doing him any favors.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* InLoveWithTheGangstersGirl: Through sheer coincidence, Teddy winds up in a relationship with Graciella, daughter-in-law to TheDon Nick Senior, who had just separated herself from her husband after he's arrested on murder charges. Of his own volition, he enlists Irene's help so that she can become finally stable enough to leave for good and is forced to pay off Frankie's MobDebt for him in the hopes that his family won't be further involved.
* InadequateInheritor: Frankie admires his father Teddy just as much as he resents him, wanting to be a charming showman just like him. Unfortunately, he lacks the same magnetic charisma and common sense his father has, getting himself stuck in a no-win situation with the mafia when he [[MobDebt accepts a loan from them]] to try and save his failing business, every other idea he has being either getting involved in a {{Ponzi}} scheme or some other new business idea doomed to fail.
* InadequateInheritor: Frankie admires his father Teddy just as much as he resents him, wanting to be a charming showman just like him. Unfortunately, he lacks the same magnetic charisma and common sense his father has, getting himself stuck in a no-win situation with the mafia when he [[MobDebt accepts a loan from them]] to try and save his failing business, every other idea he has being either getting involved in a {{Ponzi}} scheme or some other new business idea doomed to fail.
Added DiffLines:
* ParentWithNewParamour: For all of his faults, Frankie wants to be the "dad who stuck around" for Mary Alice unlike her bio-dad, even though she seems to resent him in her life. Considering he's an incompetent confidence artist who gets the family in trouble due to his MobDebt, [[JerkassHasAPoint her resentment isn't entirely unwarranted]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 17 (click to see context) from:
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Amazing Telemachus Family were a household name back in TheSixties, showing off their PsychicPowers to the public. That is until they were humiliated on live-television by a well-known skeptic. Now they're living "normal" lives on DysfunctionJunction; their matriarch Maureen dies of uterine cancer, their patriarch Teddy using his abilities to con drunks out of pocket change and pick-up lonely single-moms, Frankie taking up [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]], Irene is a single mother to Matty who is forced to move back in with the rest of the family when she loses her job, and Buddy is somewhere on [[HollywoodAutism the spectrum]] and has to be looked after.
to:
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Amazing Telemachus Family were a household name back in TheSixties, showing off their PsychicPowers to the public. That is until they were humiliated on live-television by a well-known skeptic. Now they're living "normal" lives on DysfunctionJunction; their matriarch Maureen dies of uterine cancer, their patriarch Teddy using his abilities to con drunks out of pocket change and pick-up lonely single-moms, Frankie taking up [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]], Schemes]] with MobDebt, Irene is a single mother to Matty who is forced to move back in with the rest of the family when she loses her job, and Buddy is somewhere on [[HollywoodAutism the spectrum]] and has to be looked after.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* BeenThereShapedHistory: Teddy claims that he had met a young Creator/JohnnyCarson who would later "steal [his] act" in the form of his iconic character Carnac the Magnificent. Whether or not this is true is rather vague.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* DevilsAdvocate: [[spoiler:While Archibald was instrumental in the Telemachus Family's fall from grace, that wasn't the intention. Archibald was an associate of Teddy, Maureen and Destin Smalls, and his appearance on the show to try and debunk them on live-TV was all a part of the act. The only reason why it didn't work was because Buddy freaked out (having a vision of his mother's death at that time), leading to Maureen taking him off-stage to calm him down, Archibald coming in without her there and ruining the set-up and payoff.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 24 (click to see context) from:
* LivingLieDetector: Irene's psychic ability is that she can tell whether someone is lying. While it's most effective on simple "yes/n" questions, she's able to fish out lies on other types of lying too.
to:
* LivingLieDetector: Irene's psychic ability is that she can tell whether someone is lying. While it's most effective on simple "yes/n" "yes/no" questions, she's able to fish out lies on other types of lying too.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* KidsRaidingTheWineCabinet: When Matty was only two-years old, Teddy (who was supposed to watch him) accidentally drank a glass of his gin. Twelve years later, Irene still uses this to guilt trip Teddy when she makes him look after him. All Teddy has as a retort is that if Matty would get into his gin stash again, it would be on purpose this time.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 35 (click to see context) from:
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Buddy's ability to see the future allows him to see events that can't be averted. However, most of the time such visions [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail lack proper context]], and its Buddy's job to ensure that the "context" renders the event benign, or at least less tragic than at face value.
to:
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Buddy's ability to see the future allows him to see events that can't be averted. However, most of the time such visions [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail lack proper context]], and its it's Buddy's job to ensure that the "context" renders the event benign, or at least less tragic than at face value.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
[[quoteright:292:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9780525432418.jpeg]]
-> ''"I know people who can do magic. Real magic. And what does it get them? Nothing. If you can do a magic ''trick''... you get paid."''
-->-- '''Teddy Telemachus'''
It's TheSixties. The Amazing Telemachus Family were the talk of the town as a family of people with genuine PsychicPowers; telekinesis, telepathy, lie-detection, the works.
Or at least they were.
After a well-known skeptic debunks them on live-television, things have gone downhill for their once great psychic dynasty. People stop believing them, the family's matriarch (and most powerful psychic in the world) dies tragically. Thirty years later in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990's]], the family is trying to get by as "normal" people.
''Spoonbenders: A Novel'' is the seventh novel written by Daryl Gregory (''Literature/{{Pandemonium|2008}}''), published in 2017 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
----
!! ''Spoonbenders'' contains the following tropes:
* AgeGapRomance: It's been stated that Teddy has a thing for younger women, everyone remarking on the age-gap between him and his wife before she died. Now a widower and a grandfather, Teddy spends his free-time picking up women young enough to be his daughter.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Amazing Telemachus Family were a household name back in TheSixties, showing off their PsychicPowers to the public. That is until they were humiliated on live-television by a well-known skeptic. Now they're living "normal" lives on DysfunctionJunction; their matriarch Maureen dies of uterine cancer, their patriarch Teddy using his abilities to con drunks out of pocket change and pick-up lonely single-moms, Frankie taking up [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]], Irene is a single mother to Matty who is forced to move back in with the rest of the family when she loses her job, and Buddy is somewhere on [[HollywoodAutism the spectrum]] and has to be looked after.
* CentipedesDilemma: This is Buddy's life 24/7. He has visions of certain, dramatic events happening that can't be averted, but he ''can'' control the context of the vision and try to avert disaster, but he's so worried that every action/inaction he takes could lead to things spiraling to disaster that it has rendered him a passive observer of his own life. He tries communicating this to Frankie by giving him a book on Chaos theory, [[PoorCommunicationKills but Frankie just thinks he wants it read to him]].
* InsaneTrollLogic: On top of blaming professional skeptic Archibald on their family's fall from grace on live-television, Frankie also blames Maureen's death on him by way of chaos theory.
--> '''Frankie:''' First, the act is wrecked. We're dead as her as the public is concerned. Gigs get cancelled, fucking Johnny Carson starts making fun of us. ...Once they isolated us, we were sitting ducks. Do the math kid. Nineteen seventy-three. Height of the Cold War. The world's most famous psychics are discredited on ''The Mike Douglas Show'', and just a year later, a woman with your grandmother's immense power just ''dies? Oh'' yeah.\\
'''Matty:''' But Mom-- Mom said she died of cancer.\\
'''Frankie:''' Sure. A healthy woman, a non-smoker, dies of uterine cancer at age thirty-one.
* KissingCousins: Matty has an uncomfortable sexual attraction towards his older cousin Mary Alice, having activated his psychic abilities -- AstralProjection -- accidentally [[PubertySuperpower while spying on her and her friend from the closet]]. They aren't related by blood, but it's still pretty euwy.
* LivingLieDetector: Irene's psychic ability is that she can tell whether someone is lying. While it's most effective on simple "yes/n" questions, she's able to fish out lies on other types of lying too.
* MindOverMatter: While she had other abilities too, Maureen Telemachus was a psychokinetic and would move objects during their demonstrations, an ability her son Frankie had inherited from her.
* MobDebt: Frankie owes money to the Chicago mob after taking out a loan in an inevitably botched GetRichQuickScheme.
* MommasBoy: Buddy thought of his mother Maureen as "the World's Most Powerful Psychic", so when she gives him a medal declaring ''him'' the World's Most Powerful Psychic, he treats it as SeriousBusiness even into adulthood.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: When Irene discovered that the financial investment firm she worked at was embezzling their clients, she took it up with her bosses who proceeded to lie to her face about it while also trying to {{gaslight|ing}} her into thinking she's imagining it. She responds by slapping him in the face before she starts calling all of their robbed clients. By the end of it, Irene is fired, lawsuits are filed against her on "assault charges" and she's forced to represent herself, worried that word would get around about AdHominem attacks in association with her infamous family name. At the end, she ran out of money and was forced to move back in with her father.
* PhonyPsychic: While his wife Maureen was a genuine psychic, Teddy himself is an absolute fraud. He plays the part of being a clairvoyant, when really he's a ConMan who knows how to read people and perform slight-of-hand.
* {{Ponzi}}:
** [=UltraLife=] is the "fastest-growing multilevel marketing company in the United States". Frankie, being the most miserly of the Telemachus family, gets a job there.
---> '''Teddy:''' When you say multilevel marketing--\\
'''Irene:''' He means pyramid scheme.
** The investment firm Irene worked at was guilty of skimming money from client's accounts and keeping them and writing them off as bad investments. When Irene found out, she tried telling her boss about it under the assumption that it was nothing worse than a filing error. Being a LivingLieDetector, she quickly uncovers that they were doing it intentionally and that they were trying to {{gaslight|ing}} her into leaving it alone. She punches him for it before calling her various clients and telling them to start looking for an attorney.
* PowerIncontinence: Irene's lie-detecting ability makes it very hard for her to maintain a love-life.
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Buddy's ability to see the future allows him to see events that can't be averted. However, most of the time such visions [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail lack proper context]], and its Buddy's job to ensure that the "context" renders the event benign, or at least less tragic than at face value.
--> Say that he remembers a man in a bloodstained shirt. But does it have to be blood? Perhaps it's only a terrible ketchup stain! Armed with this gap in his knowledge, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo it's Buddy's duty to fill a bowl with ketchup and throw it at the man.]]
* TheScrooge: Having been born into poverty before finding success as a professional psychic (and the occasional scam), Teddy is a firm believer in making one's own fortune and has tried enforcing that idea onto his kids. Irene blames this for her brother Frankie's "crooked little heart".
--> '''Teddy:''' Never lend chips to someone who can't buy their way into the pot.
* {{Seers}}: Buddy's special ability is to see certain future events, described as him "remembering" things that haven't happened yet. Him having to interpret these visions with incomplete information has left its mark on him though, giving him a lot of symptoms that would imply that he's [[HollywoodAutism somewhere on the Autism Spectrum]] and has to be looked after by other members of the family.
* ShotgunWedding: It's right before Teddy was planning on preposing to Maureen does she tell him that she's pregnant with their first child, having psychically sensed its presence beforehand.
* SpoonBending: When he first met Maureen, Teddy demonstrated his abilities by bending a key to impress her.
* TeamMom: Irene was tasked with playing the part of "the responsible" member of the family, something was made so much worse once her mother died, making her the ''only'' responsible member of the family.
----
-> ''"I know people who can do magic. Real magic. And what does it get them? Nothing. If you can do a magic ''trick''... you get paid."''
-->-- '''Teddy Telemachus'''
It's TheSixties. The Amazing Telemachus Family were the talk of the town as a family of people with genuine PsychicPowers; telekinesis, telepathy, lie-detection, the works.
Or at least they were.
After a well-known skeptic debunks them on live-television, things have gone downhill for their once great psychic dynasty. People stop believing them, the family's matriarch (and most powerful psychic in the world) dies tragically. Thirty years later in the mid-[[TheNineties 1990's]], the family is trying to get by as "normal" people.
''Spoonbenders: A Novel'' is the seventh novel written by Daryl Gregory (''Literature/{{Pandemonium|2008}}''), published in 2017 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
----
!! ''Spoonbenders'' contains the following tropes:
* AgeGapRomance: It's been stated that Teddy has a thing for younger women, everyone remarking on the age-gap between him and his wife before she died. Now a widower and a grandfather, Teddy spends his free-time picking up women young enough to be his daughter.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Amazing Telemachus Family were a household name back in TheSixties, showing off their PsychicPowers to the public. That is until they were humiliated on live-television by a well-known skeptic. Now they're living "normal" lives on DysfunctionJunction; their matriarch Maureen dies of uterine cancer, their patriarch Teddy using his abilities to con drunks out of pocket change and pick-up lonely single-moms, Frankie taking up [[GetRichQuickScheme Get-Rich-Quick Schemes]], Irene is a single mother to Matty who is forced to move back in with the rest of the family when she loses her job, and Buddy is somewhere on [[HollywoodAutism the spectrum]] and has to be looked after.
* CentipedesDilemma: This is Buddy's life 24/7. He has visions of certain, dramatic events happening that can't be averted, but he ''can'' control the context of the vision and try to avert disaster, but he's so worried that every action/inaction he takes could lead to things spiraling to disaster that it has rendered him a passive observer of his own life. He tries communicating this to Frankie by giving him a book on Chaos theory, [[PoorCommunicationKills but Frankie just thinks he wants it read to him]].
* InsaneTrollLogic: On top of blaming professional skeptic Archibald on their family's fall from grace on live-television, Frankie also blames Maureen's death on him by way of chaos theory.
--> '''Frankie:''' First, the act is wrecked. We're dead as her as the public is concerned. Gigs get cancelled, fucking Johnny Carson starts making fun of us. ...Once they isolated us, we were sitting ducks. Do the math kid. Nineteen seventy-three. Height of the Cold War. The world's most famous psychics are discredited on ''The Mike Douglas Show'', and just a year later, a woman with your grandmother's immense power just ''dies? Oh'' yeah.\\
'''Matty:''' But Mom-- Mom said she died of cancer.\\
'''Frankie:''' Sure. A healthy woman, a non-smoker, dies of uterine cancer at age thirty-one.
* KissingCousins: Matty has an uncomfortable sexual attraction towards his older cousin Mary Alice, having activated his psychic abilities -- AstralProjection -- accidentally [[PubertySuperpower while spying on her and her friend from the closet]]. They aren't related by blood, but it's still pretty euwy.
* LivingLieDetector: Irene's psychic ability is that she can tell whether someone is lying. While it's most effective on simple "yes/n" questions, she's able to fish out lies on other types of lying too.
* MindOverMatter: While she had other abilities too, Maureen Telemachus was a psychokinetic and would move objects during their demonstrations, an ability her son Frankie had inherited from her.
* MobDebt: Frankie owes money to the Chicago mob after taking out a loan in an inevitably botched GetRichQuickScheme.
* MommasBoy: Buddy thought of his mother Maureen as "the World's Most Powerful Psychic", so when she gives him a medal declaring ''him'' the World's Most Powerful Psychic, he treats it as SeriousBusiness even into adulthood.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: When Irene discovered that the financial investment firm she worked at was embezzling their clients, she took it up with her bosses who proceeded to lie to her face about it while also trying to {{gaslight|ing}} her into thinking she's imagining it. She responds by slapping him in the face before she starts calling all of their robbed clients. By the end of it, Irene is fired, lawsuits are filed against her on "assault charges" and she's forced to represent herself, worried that word would get around about AdHominem attacks in association with her infamous family name. At the end, she ran out of money and was forced to move back in with her father.
* PhonyPsychic: While his wife Maureen was a genuine psychic, Teddy himself is an absolute fraud. He plays the part of being a clairvoyant, when really he's a ConMan who knows how to read people and perform slight-of-hand.
* {{Ponzi}}:
** [=UltraLife=] is the "fastest-growing multilevel marketing company in the United States". Frankie, being the most miserly of the Telemachus family, gets a job there.
---> '''Teddy:''' When you say multilevel marketing--\\
'''Irene:''' He means pyramid scheme.
** The investment firm Irene worked at was guilty of skimming money from client's accounts and keeping them and writing them off as bad investments. When Irene found out, she tried telling her boss about it under the assumption that it was nothing worse than a filing error. Being a LivingLieDetector, she quickly uncovers that they were doing it intentionally and that they were trying to {{gaslight|ing}} her into leaving it alone. She punches him for it before calling her various clients and telling them to start looking for an attorney.
* PowerIncontinence: Irene's lie-detecting ability makes it very hard for her to maintain a love-life.
* PropheciesAreAlwaysRight: Buddy's ability to see the future allows him to see events that can't be averted. However, most of the time such visions [[TheLawOfConservationOfDetail lack proper context]], and its Buddy's job to ensure that the "context" renders the event benign, or at least less tragic than at face value.
--> Say that he remembers a man in a bloodstained shirt. But does it have to be blood? Perhaps it's only a terrible ketchup stain! Armed with this gap in his knowledge, [[BecauseDestinySaysSo it's Buddy's duty to fill a bowl with ketchup and throw it at the man.]]
* TheScrooge: Having been born into poverty before finding success as a professional psychic (and the occasional scam), Teddy is a firm believer in making one's own fortune and has tried enforcing that idea onto his kids. Irene blames this for her brother Frankie's "crooked little heart".
--> '''Teddy:''' Never lend chips to someone who can't buy their way into the pot.
* {{Seers}}: Buddy's special ability is to see certain future events, described as him "remembering" things that haven't happened yet. Him having to interpret these visions with incomplete information has left its mark on him though, giving him a lot of symptoms that would imply that he's [[HollywoodAutism somewhere on the Autism Spectrum]] and has to be looked after by other members of the family.
* ShotgunWedding: It's right before Teddy was planning on preposing to Maureen does she tell him that she's pregnant with their first child, having psychically sensed its presence beforehand.
* SpoonBending: When he first met Maureen, Teddy demonstrated his abilities by bending a key to impress her.
* TeamMom: Irene was tasked with playing the part of "the responsible" member of the family, something was made so much worse once her mother died, making her the ''only'' responsible member of the family.
----
