Creator / Captain Grim

Captain Grim is a comedic YouTube content Creator specializing in World of Warcraft Machinima. His work tends to take typical World of Warcraft stereotypes and expectations of how the game works (and all of the hijinks and stupidity that comes with it) and exaggerates it considerably with a dose of custom 3-D animations to boot. However, after the Blizzard scandals of 2021, he's been making a jump to Final Fantasy XIV content.

Tropes applying to Captain Grim or his works:

• All for Nothing: In "Raiding! Classic vs BfA", the Classic Orc Warrior goes through hours of preparation for a Molten Core raid. He loads up on Mighty Rage Potions, Elixirs of the Mongoose and Major Heal Potions from the Auction House. He's stocked up on Heavy Runecloth Bandages, makes Smoked Desert Dumplings, and picks up some Blessed Sunfruit for being Revered with the Argent Dawn. He completes the Dire Maul Tribute Run, gaining buffs to stamina, attack power and spell critical strike. They get the Songflower Serenade buff, then go to the Darkmoon Faire to get Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage. The final step is the Rallying Cry of the Dragonslayer and Warchief's Blessing, which buffs all Horde players after someone completes the Onyxia quest. With every buff, he's ready to go and waits at Molten Core... only for an Alliance group to attack him and their Priest to Mind Control him into the lava, wiping out all of his buffs.
• Berserk Button: In "WoW Players Experience FFXIV," a lalafell sprout (new player) skips a plot-relevant cutscene during "A Realm Reborn." An elezen warrior grabs him by the throat and demands he never skip a cutscene ever again. After the lalafell agrees to do so on pain of death, the elezen calms down and suggests the lalafell check out the Hildibrand story.
• Cardboard Prison In "Torghast in a Nutshell," the jail of the damned suffers daily break-ins by Maw Walkers who casually slaughter Zovaal's forces left and right, and all for little reward. His forces can't keep the Maw Walkers in or out.
• Complexity Addiction: In "Raiding! Classic VS BfA", the Retail side shows how modern raid bosses in World of Warcraft are so complicated. The raid leader explains to the newbie in the group the mechanics of the boss they're facing: Occasionally, the boss will mark players and make them take 45-50% of their max HP as damage unless they run into pools of dark energy to dispel the debuff, but gives a new one that kills the player in three minutes. At 70% HP, the boss begins to charge his Total Party Kill attack. At that point, the player has to write a 250 word essay on why they like him and where they'll take him out on their date, making the boss feel better and cancel the attack. The next stage has different tasks. DPS players have to do three cartwheels and cook a medium rare steak. Afterwards, they have to calculate 459 x 0.43 and divide by the number of dead players in the group. The answer will indicate the amount of time needed to perform the /dance animation. If they get it wrong, five random members of the group die in real life and the player's spine breaks. When the raid leader asks if the newbie got it, the newbie says it's one of the easiest bosses.
• Corpsing: Captain Grim has trouble narrating some of the moments of the episode Twitch chat "wrote," such as when a random gnome shows up with a bag full of soul ash just when Bolvar needs some, or Magni Bronzebeard expressing his unhealthy interest in Azeroth.
• Cutscene Incompetence: "The Struggles of Healers During Cutscenes" has the Warrior of Light as a White Mage whose partner trips on a rock and hits his head on the ground. While he's hoping for a healer, she's trying to tell him she could heal him, even revive him, but her words don't sink in before he dies.
• Death Seeker: "Goodbye BfA" has Saurfang trying any way he can to kill himself to get out of "Battle for Azeroth," only for Zekhan to keep stopping him at every turn. He tries running into an open field, but gets stopped. While chopping vegetables, he considers putting the knife to his throat, only to get a Dope Slap. He tries jumping off the lookout of Orgrimmar, only for a mattress to cushion his fall. It's only when he outright insults Sylvanas that she immediately kills him. As he falls to his death, he flips the double deuce to Zekhan before dying.
• Demoted to Extra: "The Shadowlands Story in a Nutshell" has this happen to Baine Bloodhoof. After the Maw Walker saved him from the Jailer, he promises to help them in their fight against the Jailer's forces... and just sits in the lobby, even to the very end.
• Easily Forgiven: "The Shadowlands Story in a Nutshell" has Jaina Proudmoore easily call bullshit on Sylvanas Windrunner's Heel–Face Turn. Uther convinces Jaina by looking at the game's script and saying she was manipulated and for Jaina to believe in him.
• Final Death Mode: "Classic Hardcore in a Nutshell" is about the Hardcore Challenge in World of Warcraft Classic where players delete their characters if they die for any reason. Dun Morogh, the Dwarf/Gnome starting zone, has players regularly saying "Go again."
• Fire-Forged Friends: In "Getting Help From Others! Classic VS Retail", the first half starts with an Undead Priest getting his ass constantly handed to him by a group of Quillboars in The Barrens until an Orc Warrior shows up and defeats the Quillboars to save the Undead Priest. Cut to several days later, that same Orc Warrior is surrounded by a pack of Raptors in Un'Goro Crater and low on health; until the Undead Priest shows up to help heal the Warrior and tries leaping into the fray to repay the Warrior for helping him days ago... only for the Raptors to kill both of them. Afterwards, the Warrior asks the Priest if he wants to group up and the Priest agrees as they both Hi-Five.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "The Current State of WoW," a very brief line of text blips between the Jailer and Sylvanas.
  "Why do they keep putting his fcking [sic] nipple right into the camera every cinematic he's in???!?"
• Future Me Scares Me: In Addiction - A Touching Story of Love, Betrayal and Redemtpion [sic], after Bolvar gets curb-stomped by Sylvanas (again), he has a vision of his past self before the Wrath Gate incident, who tells him... "Your set is trash."
• Gambit Pileup: "The Current State of WoW" has everyone's plans in "Shadowlands" become so convoluted not even the game's writers understand them.
• Heel Realization: In "WoW Players Experience FFXIV" video, the ex-WoW player flies into cursing rant after his party experiences a full party wipe and attempts to leave, but the group leader, a veteran FFXIV player, instead just encourages him to try again in a most friendly manner and if they waste time, then they waste time together. The ex-WoW player is humbled and touched, after being so used to a toxic environment that he was being unnecessarily harsh to genuinely wholesome players in a wholesome environment.
• Heroic BSoD: "The Shadowlands Story in a Nutshell" has the Maw Walker reduced to utter depression when the shattered Helm of Domination is purified and reforged, considering it to look like a Burger King crown.
• High Turnover Rate: Implied to be the case for Torghast Guards with how much of a Cardboard Prison the place is when it comes to Maw Walkers.
  OH MY GOD! He's eating Benji! He's been a guard here for just one week!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In a berserk rage, the greedy warrior in "Greedy Players in a Nutshell" starts attacking every single ogre within the area to prevent the paladin from getting any kills and finishing his quest...only for the ogres to overwhelm him and collectively kick his ass, while the paladin and the target ogre that started this antagonism sit on the sidelines to watch as he pleads for help.
• Hypocritical Humor: In "WoW Players Experience FFXIV" video, diehard, loyal World of Warcraft players insult Final Fantasy XIV players to be weird with full on Stripperiffic fandom and felt like catering to the Furry Fandom. Meanwhile, WoW itself... is very full of furry characters (the Vulperas and Taurens are big examples for this), and one can opt to go Stripperific too there.
• Hypocrite: In "Greedy Players in a Nutshell", the aforementioned greedy warrior goes on a berserk rant when a paladin player tags an ogre he had barely failed to reach in time and refuses to party up with him for the quest. The hypocrisy comes from the fact that the paladin player had earlier been asking him to team up on the quest they were both on to avoid this scenario, and the greedy warrior had either ignored him or rudely blown him off completely. As a result, the paladin decided it wasn't worth trying to work with the warrior, and tried to find his own ogre...only for the warrior to have the gall to actively attack any targets that the paladin was trying to go for, including the ogre that the paladin was able to tag, just to intentionally ensure that the paladin would get nothing. When the paladin doesn't respond to the ranting, the warrior's behavior only worsens, leading to the Hoist by His Own Petard moment above.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: "The Shadowlands Launch Experience" has the Jailer say "Nothing escapes the Maw," only to see several players just casually walking into the portal clearly marked "free exit lol."
• Leeroy Jenkins: Fitting for the game that spawned the Trope Namer, it's shown Leeroy was not the only party member who'd rush into a fight before everyone was ready and get the party wiped.
  • In "The Struggles of a Healer", the Healer explicitly tells everyone to take a break so he can replenish his Mana for the upcoming fight. They do...until the Tank gets too angsty with waiting and charges in to everyone's horror, including the Healer's Spit Take on a mana potion. Predictably, the Tank gets swarmed, overwhelmed, and dies, quickly followed by the rest of the party as the vastly superior enemy numbers charge and massacre them. And yet the Tank has the nerve to blame the Healer for not doing his job to heal him despite, you know, them taking a break explicitly so the Healer could recover enough to do just that.
  • In "The Struggles of a Tank", it's the Tank's turn to be the Only Sane Man when he asks the Hunter to aggro one monster at a time. The Hunter proceeds to unleash a hail of bullets into the enemy that attracts a whole bunch of them, and while the Tank is stuck trying to deal with them, the rest either don't contribute at all or contribute in ways that end up aggroing more monsters. Again, it ends with a Total Party Kill and the rest of the group blaming and kicking the Tank when he was the only one who actually tried to properly salvage the situation.
  • In "The Struggles of a DPS", a full raid party is handling the boss pretty well, until the titular DPS, wanting to rise on the damage board, rushes in and destroys the whole set-up as the boss starts prioritizing him instead of the tanks, and in the party's haste to try and react and compensate a chain reaction is set off that triggers the boss's enemy minions to join in and turning everything into a chaotic free-for-all. It ends with the raid a failure, but the DPS shows no remorse because he got to the top of the board.
• Meaningful Name: In "Wrath of the Lich King in a Nutshell," an Undead Mage named Bobby has spent months farming for a Time-Lost Proto-Drake in Storm Peaks, even to the point of attacking random Alliance players who are minding their own business. A random Tauren Druid kills it when it spawns under him.
  Bobby: I guess now I know why they call it "Time-Lost" Proto-Drake. Get it?
• Mook Horror Show: Player characters are portrayed as mass swarm of people that murder enemy mooks in mere seconds, in Torghast in a Nutshell, they rip through the guards in a flash with one running and hiding with the Jailer to get away from them.
• My God, You Are Serious!: "Struggles of a Barber" has the night elf druid first tell the Barber to give him a burn scar, then transforms into his whale form and tells him to skin him to turn him into a dolphin. The two of them laugh, with the barber thinking he's joking. Then the druid wants to be a woman, still wanting the previous changes as well while holding a pair of scissors.
  "Snip, snip."
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: In "The Wrath Classic Launch Experience," Arthas, aka the Lich King, finds out the hard way that the current crop of players are rather insane when an Undead player starts licking the floor because Sylvanas stood in the same spot in the "Shadowlands" cinematic. He lets out a Rapid-Fire "No!", runs back to the Frozen Throne and mashes the "REFREEZE" button, hoping not to fight the crazed horde of players.
• Not What I Signed on For: "Struggles of a Barber" has the Barber's last words as the episode ends.
  "I didn't sign up for this!"
• Oh, No... Not Again!: "The Shadowlands Launch Experience" has the Barber react with abject horror when the players follow him into the Maw.
  "It's them! Please, not again!"
• Random Events Plot: Downplayed with "So I Let my Viewers Write the Script for this Video." While Captain Grim assembled the story by glancing at random Twitch chat messages and writing down the first thing he saw, and the plot has some bizarre swerves and non sequiturs, it's still a mostly-coherent story about overcoming soul ash addiction.
• The Roleplayer: "Struggles of Raid Bosses" and "The Shadowlands Launch Experience" feature a roleplayer who declares his sword to be the Demon Obliterator 5 Million. When he starts monologuing in Oribos like he's come back home, two First Ones wonder who he is.
  First One 1: So, uh, you ever heard of this guy?
  First One 2: Nope.
  First One 1: Yeah, I thought as much.
• Running Gag: Anytime someone is shown with a "lights on but nobody home" look to show they're not too bright, a dial-up modem sound is heard.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • "Struggles of a Barber" has the gnome barber telling his human replacement he's taking a long-overdue vacation as he's packing up and leaving Stormwind. It was one thing when he was just cutting hair, but then came facial reconstruction.
  • "The Current State of WoW" perfectly encapsulated many players' feeling after the Shadowlands 9.1 patch and the Blizzard controversies afterwards that after the announcement of an unwanted yacht prize, a player exclaimed "I'm going to FFXIV!" And sure enough, the next video is "WoW Players Experience FFXIV," and it starts with a (different) player going over to Eorzia and kicking the Activision Blizzard PR guy from his feet, Fantasia-ing from an orc to a roegadyn, and sobs to the welcoming FFXIV player that his old game has gone to hell and he couldn't take it anymore.
• Something We Forgot: In "The Current State of Classic WoW," the Blizzard employees are celebrating the launch of Dragonflight. A younger employee says that he feels like he forgot something. The older employee tells him to relax and that if he can't remember, it wasn't important. The younger employee agrees, before revealing the thing he forgot was maintaining the status of Classic WoW, with players having to wait 40-50+ days for ticket responses.
• Take That!: Captain Grim is not above calling out Blizzard Entertainment when they screwed up big time, though the straw that broke the camel's back was the workplace controversy at 2021 and Shadowlands 9.1's underdelivering patch, which caused him to release videos like The Current State of WoW and WoW Players Experience FFXIV and he has officially jumped ship to Final Fantasy XIV. In both videos, the PR staff of Activision-Blizzard and the desperate sheep defender of World of Warcraft (the Night Elf on copium) are portrayed as very pathetic. And he even inserts a subtle Take That! to the diehard WoW defenders over something else: It doesn't take a Blizzard controversy to spot how they insulted FFXIV fans to be furries when they are doing the same thing with the various full-on bipedal animal races available in Azeroth.
• Too Dumb to Live: Derek is not the sharpest pickaxe in the mine.
  • In "Raiding! Classic vs BfA", the Classic side is raiding Molten Core and Magmadar shoots a fireball at Derek, which lays down a patch of fire under him. His party, and even the boss, plead with him to get out of the fire. Just as Derek walks out of the fire, Magmadar roars to have the raid go into Panic, making everyone run around in random directions. Derek ends up back in the fire, killing him.
  • In "Classic Hardcore in a Nutshell," Derek ignores his partner's advice and picks a fight with a Defias thug with only a staff, only for more mobs to spawn on him. His partner panics and tries his best to heal him since they're going to fail the Hardcore Challenge.
  • In "Battlegrounds in a Nutshell", during an Eye of the Storm match, after a night elf rogue uses Distract on a shaman to make him walk off the cliff where the flag is, the rogue gets Mind Controlled off the cliff while screaming "I'm on your team you idiot!" Derek then jumps off the pit by being stupid.
• Tyop on the Cover: The episode "written" by Twitch chat is titled Addiction - A Touching Story of Love, Betrayal and Redemtpion.

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