Roleplay / Ink City

Ink City was a cartoon-themed Dreamwidth roleplay (originally on LiveJournal, moved as of January 17th, 2012), founded on August 17th, 2010 and concluded on September 13th, 2013. It was specifically designed for animated, drawn, and rendered characters (no live-action characters are accepted) and has quite a large focus on existential and meta themes.

The premise is initially similar to that of other Mega Crossover games; Characters from various canons suddenly find themselves in the strange and bizarre "Ink City" after crawling out of a large ink well in the center of town, and are forced to co-exist with everyone else who also happened to be brought here... peacefully or otherwise. A unique element of the City itself however is that it's made of up buildings from each of the character's worlds. When a character enters the City, they bring with them a building relating to them from the place they come from, such as their house or place of work.

The creation, and really the extensiveness, of this page was due to that many of the players are highly aware of the tropes they use, enjoy collecting them, and liked to treat the entire game as its own canon Just for Fun.

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Tropes Used:

• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Dr. Norrington stays in the form of an elderly human gentleman in order to avoid driving anyone horrifically insane.
• Aborted Declaration of Love: Cave Johnson does this towards Caroline, after he gets her a little drunk.
• Actor Allusion: When Discord arrives, Skips immediately starts calling him Q.
  • Similarly, when Rarity arrives, several of the residents notice she sounds just like Heloise.
  • A more meta example: take a Cute and Psycho pink Pokémon with the power to shapechange, and give it multiple personalities. Where's the PB for her human form come from? Why, the anime with Cute and Psycho girls with multiple personalities and pink hair!
  • Subverted/combined with No Celebrities Were Harmed in the case of when Dr. Norrington met Quasimodo. Norrington's voice sounds remarkably like that of Tony Jay, so when he contacts Quasi over only a voice message, he's mistaken for Frollo.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: GLaDOS.
• Alternate Continuity: The Transformers cast has representatives from Gen 1, the G1 Dreamwave comics, Animated, Prime, and Shattered Glass. Including four Starscreams.
• Alternate Timeline: What occurs in the crack community is completely non-canon from the rest of the game, but has somewhat its own separate (and hilarious) continuity, and is often referred to as "Labocanon". This crack canon does have less actual continuity to it to, for obvious reasons.
  • Interestingly, unlike most games, the crack-community's "canon" is actually has prominent and evolving characterization, albeit one that is aware of the goings-on in the main game. Chances are, if one of the Ink City characters shows up in Dear Mun, the version you're speaking to is "Labocanon" (due to the meta nature). Of course, for some characters (Deadpool and Ren come to mind) the difference is almost completely nonexistent.
• And I Must Scream: Mordecai, briefly while being trapped in a "black hole" beneath the Ink Well.
  • Rigby when he was under mind control.
  • Most of what happens to Thrasher throughout the entirety of the me1TD0WN Event.
  • Happens to the Doctor after going into the forest to find the TARDIS. He seems surprisingly okay with it.
  • Trevor tried to inflict this fate on Yakko and Rigby. Didn't work out the way he planned it.
• Another Dimension: While the city exists as something of a cross between a Phantom Zone and an Inn Between the Worlds with a one way door, the characters themselves are from different and unique dimensions. Obviously.
  • This was played with when the canon version of The Riddler came in, when an AU version had already come in and gotten acquainted with everyone. This was played with again with the entrance of Aki, a Mega Man Battle Network AU who knew Bass, but not the Bass already in the city (who is in of himself an AU).
  • Said AU that Bass originates from is partly a Mega Man Battle Network/Pokémon Crossover, leading to even more confusion when he and others from that 'verse met the Cute and Psycho Mew... and then their Mew showed up...
• Anti-Hero: Heloise's morality is very affected by Jimmy's presence. Before he arrived she was very much Neutral Evil or even Chaotic Evil. By the time he'd joined her in the city she'd slid back into Chaotic Neutral, and even felt a bit of remorse for what she did while he wasn't around. Needless to say, she does not have an easy time after Log #36...
• Arc Number: The different overarching plot segments that occur in the game are referred to as "seasons". "Season 1" ended with the first confrontation with Audrey II, and "Season 2" concluded with game-wide "World Split" Event. The game is currently in "Season 3".
• Arc Words: Ostensibly, "Fly away, birdie... fly away home." for the "Season 1" arc.
• Ascended Meme: "Labocabana", the title of Yakko's parody of "Copacabana", later became the name of the game's crack community.
• Author Avatar: Avatars of the players themselves are starting to appear in the game in some Fourth Wall-shattering shenanigans.
  • The Mayor's Consort may be something of a subversion, as she's been described as "numerous aspects of [her player's] personality and mental process exaggerated and personified into something of symbolic representation of [her] creativity"
• Ax-Crazy: Heloise and Ren.
• Beat Still, My Heart: At the end of Log #3, Mordecai's fate.
• Becoming the Costume: Discord crashes the City's Halloween Party by transforming everyone into their costumes.
• Berserk Button: Nearly every character has one. An especially extreme has been Lucius at the mention of Beezy's mother.
  • Do not break the Fourth Wall around Deadpool.
• Better as Friends: How Heloise feels about Dr. Chipotle Jr., despite the fact he's completely infatuated with her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ryo Bakura is nice enough. Yami no Bakura, on the other hand...
  • Don's usually a Nice Guy willing to help others and get sugar, but mess with his brother and he's perfectly willing to leave you floating in a pool of paralytic fluid.
  • When Swindle unleashes the Cosmic Rust upon Ink City as part of an ill-concieved plan to blackmail the sweet-natured Skyfire into trading his cannons for the cure, Skyfire makes it very clear he doesn't barter with his friends' lives.
• Big Brother Instinct: In the absence of the other Warner sibs, Yakko has taken Rigby on as a psuedo-sibling.
  • Don and Wakko show cases of Little Brother Instinct upon discovering just how Trevor's been treating their big bros.
• Big Damn Heroes: Audrey II, post Inky Mayor encounter.
  • Heloise gets in on it, too, when she saves Mordecai and Rigby from Johnny C.
  • Yakko, when Trevor kidnaps Rigby.
    • And that was followed shortly by Wakko and Don when Trevor nabbed both Yakko and Rigby.
  • Yakko, Rigby, and Crmsn attempt to rescue Trevor after it's been revealed what Berri did to him. Unlike the other mentions here, this one goes very, very badly.
  • After Starscream manages to get his hands on Three, the just-arrived Optimus Prime goes after him, with several of the other stitchpunks tagging along for the ride.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Trevor believes this is an acceptable method to bring about his vision of New Bregna. Other residents tend to disagree on the 'greater good' aspect.
• Break the Cutie:
  • While not fitting into the traditional 'cutie' personality, Rigby doesn't deserve half of the things that happen to him once entering the city.
  • In general, all the residents get broken pretty badly. Including , who went feral after Heloise decided to make things worse.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Trevor gets catapulted into the OOC community by Yakko during this log.
• Break the Haughty: Heloise in Log #4. Broken isn't even the half of it, but what happens to her in Event #1 is arguably even worse.
• Break Them by Talking: Trevor frequently engages in these in everyday conversation.
• Brick Joke: The ability of one player's avatar to become a Gomamon, a fact established during a No Fourth Wall meme several weeks prior, comes in handy when swimming through the fountain is necessary to recover another avatar.
  • Somewhat easily missed if you're not familiar with his canon; what Norrington receives from The Mayor's Consort. "Here are your eyes back, Doctor~"
• Broken Bird: A few characters, some more than others.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The Riddler (P.I. Version). Upon first arriving in the city, he gains no points towards people believing him sane by rambling maniacally under his breath (in actuality, he was just trying to deduce how he'd gotten there).
• Captain Oblivious: Cave Johnson.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Heloise, who literally has business cards.
• Cassandra Truth: Twilight tried to warn everyone about Discord, but most of the responders to her broadcast were more concerned with her being a talking purple unicorn. A few did take her seriously, but none of them were in any position to react when he made his move.
  • Played with. Now that people have learned to listen to her warnings... she's getting closer and closer to revealing things that the Mayor has confided in her... things that toons were not meant to know. It appears that she still has problems keeping a secret.
• Cats Are Mean: Mordecai Heller, naturally.
• Caught on Tape: The communicators have Record and Playback features.
• Character Development: Living in the City tends to change people. Some more than others.
  • Dicussed along with Character Derailment/Rerailment after Dot and Wakko learn just how much a year alone in the City has changed Yakko.
• Chekhov's Gun: Mr. Puppethead.
  • The Maxthulhu Attack, originally considered to be a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment or Noodle Incident, becomes this over a year later once The Narrator finds out about it.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Ion Spark. She's dead-set on trying to help everyone in the City, even if they don't want her to. Unless of course, they're a villain.
  • Ichigo has shades of this. Taking requests from fans and family was such an intregal part of life back in the Great Cosmos that helping others out has become an emotional crutch of sorts simply because it's familiar.
  • This could easily apply to Priscilla too.
• Combat Tentacles: Audrey II. They're vines, actually, but same thing.
  • Norrington, naturally. Though he attempts attacking The Mayor with these, it doesn't work, because Elder God or not, you can't exactly fight ink.
    • They prove to be far more effective on Him, especially when he uses thousands of them to tear him limb-from-limb.
• Continuity Nod: It's not unusual for events in the City to contain nods to events from a given character's original Canon.
• Crapsaccharine World: At first blush, things are pretty good-you're in a mostly colorful world with all sorts of people from different worlds and you don't die permanently. On the other hand, you're in a city you cannot escape with people from other worlds and you can't die permanently.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Rigby, as surprising as that is.
• Cruel Mercy: Trevor refuses to take revenge on Berri for what she did to him. He deliberately waits to inform her of this until after she's made a city-wide confession, in order to watch her suffer. The only reason she confessed in the first place was to keep him from punishing the wrong Mew, so the timing was critical.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Doctor Norrington vs. Him.
• Cute and Psycho: Berri, having been completely broken back home, has become this as a result. What she did to Trevor just proves it.
• Cycle of Revenge: Thanks to the Ink Well allowing residents to respawn, death isn't the end — but it sure does tick people off!
• Damned by Faint Praise: Some of the things the voice in Hely's head could be interpreted this way, such as "You've made this City what it is!"
• Darker and Edgier: The Benson/Mordecai/Heloise Log. You may have trouble watching Regular Show again afterward...
• Deadpan Snarker: A good majority of the characters are like this.
• Deal with the Devil: Caroline trades five ounces of energon for blueprints for the handheld portal gun. This led to her having to make a second deal with a different devil, as Starscream demands more information and loyalty in exchange for her breach of trust.
• Death Is Cheap: Whenever any character dies, no matter how horrible their death is, they simply respawn sometime later at the Ink Well where they first arrived.
• Defrosting Ice King: Mr. House is definitely starting to become this, with Priscilla as his heat source. Especially after she's able to temporarily enter his virtual reality mainframe, and becomes not only the first human being he's had physical contact with in over 200 years, but actually hugs him.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Trevor, meeting an enraged Wakko for the first time, attempts to convince him that his own brother should be paralyzed and tortured for his own good. Needless to say, Wakko doesn't buy it.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Someone fed you to a man-eating plant? Kidnap their best friend and perform a lobotomy on them - without any form of anesthesia - and insert a chip into their brain that puts them under mind control and tell them to kill said person who fed you to the plant. Granted, being eaten alive is pretty horrible, and she was especially vengeful after losing her Morality Chain, but it was still rather extreme.
• Divergent Character Evolution: As mentioned above, LaboCanon is seperate from the main game, to the point that certain characters have become vastly different in Labo compared to Ink City.
• Does Not Understand Pop Culture References: Ichigo tends to take things at face value, and doesn't always realize when someone's joking.
• The Dog Bites Back: Benson and Mordecai in Event #1.
  • Which eventually backfires on them...
• Don't Explain the Joke: This exchange (after Mordecai is Mistaken for Gay) on the OOC community which is oddly in-character.
• Don't Go in the Woods: Ever. And if you must, at least Stay on the Path.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Skips, after he discovers he isn't immortal anymore.
  • Phoenix is found suffering from a hangover. The tag description calls him a binge drinker.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Lucius consistently appeared in the crack community memes weeks before being formally introduced into the main game. Although for now dropped from the main com, he continues his presence in Labocabana.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: A distinctive feature of The Mayor's Consort. Her account name even lampshades this.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Due to a humorous misunderstanding, Heloise calls Mordecai "Ladybird", simply because it pisses him off.
  • Phoenix has two: Nick and Arizona.
• Engineered Public Confession: Rigby managed to record one of Trevor's many attempts to capture and control Yakko and him, and replays it for the entire City to try and shatter Trevor's public image.
• Cute Kitten: Cupid turned Mordecai into a kitten. And promptly forgot about it, much to Mordecai's dismay.
• Evil Genius: The City tends to attract a lot of these, many of them also Mad Scientists.
• The Evils of Free Will: Trevor wishes to eliminate this and transform Ink City into New Bregna.
• Evil Versus Evil: GLaDOS and Starscream. To make matters worse, part of the reason they're squaring off is because both are interested in exploiting the stitch-punks.
  • Trevor and GLaDOS are also set to butt heads in the near future.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Caroline justifies her decision to aid Starscream with a variation on this. Sure, betraying Optimus Prime to him will surely cause the deaths of millions of innocents upon his return home... but that's not her universe, so what does that matter to her?
• Expy: The Inky Mayor is very often compared to The Warden. His human form just adds to this.
• Eyeless Face: The Mayor's Consort.
• False Friend: Caroline proposes to Starscream that she can become one to Optimus Prime and help the Decepticon find a way to kill him.
• Fantastic Racism: Twilight seems to have a lot of vitriol towards the various Transformers in the city, despite what Hub's commercials may suggest about pony/robot togetherness. Being from a world where The Power of Friendship conquers every problem might be part of the issue, given the Transformers' Forever War...
• Felony Misdemeanor: When Cave Johnson learns Caroline took a job with Mr. House, he reacts like she's been cheating on her husband. Her husband being science.
• First Boy Wins: Ultimately, Jimmy was the only one for Heloise.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Not all residents come from worlds with lots of technology. Young Tigress, for instance, has no clue what things like 'videos' and 'robots' are, for obvious reasons.
• Flat "What": Yakko's reaction to Jimmy and Heloise's friendship.
  • Also, Yami no Bakura's reaction to seeing Batty.
• Forced Transformation: Both Wheatley and Doctor Norrington. Prior to entering the City, the former became an android while the latter obtained the ability to enter a human form.
• For Science! And The Evulz: Heloise's motivation for doing what she does.
  • GLaDOS is also motivated by this, and Caroline as well... to the point that Caroline is willing to make several deals with shady characters like Starscream, Trevor, and GLaDOS herself for the sake of furthering her research.
  • What Megatron did to Caroline was pretty much to prove to Ink City how evil he is.
• Four Is Death: Openly, blatantly referenced by Berri when her fourth post to the community involves displaying Trevor in a paralyzed but still-living And I Must Scream state.
• Fourth Wall: Located in the forest; touching it leads to bad things.
  • Caroline is poised to go through this as well, once she learns the Awful Truth.
• From Bad to Worse: The first log with Benson, Mordecai, and Heloise slowly gets more and more dark and disturbing.
  • Invoked by the name of the post where the feral Yakko makes it back to the City.
• Gentle Giant: Several among the Transformers Cast. SG Megatron and Starscream, Skyfire, and TFP Optimus Prime come to mind
• A God Am I: Trevor invokes this a lot.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Thrasher throughout the me1TD0WN event.
  • Doomed by Canon: A bit of an odd case; Thrasher's madness-inducing revelation is becoming aware of his canon's status as a cancelled show that likely won't see any sort of revival in the history of ever, and is a large part of what leads to his city-shattering me1td0wn.
  • Word of God says this is what happened to Bass after he absorbed part of the Mayor's Fourth-Wall Observer powers, leading him to hear unidentified voices. The madness made him more violent than usual. This lasted until becoming Crmsn's Living Shadow during the Halloween event forced him into close contact with people he'd otherwise been avoiding. This acted as something of a weird Sanity Ball dropped into his lap, and he's been improving ever since, albeit still dealing with stress from what had happened. Of course, with renewed contact with the wall, things got worse.
  • Seems to be one of the more severe mental side-effects of touching the fourth wall. While Berri never hit the level of physical deterioration that Thrasher did, it's brought her in contact with 'past selves' and left her in a state not entirely unlike Altogether Andrews.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Several of the characters possess scars of some kind, especially in the head/face region.
• The Government: Who is The Inky Mayor? How does the city actually run?
• Gratuitous Spanish: Doctor Chipotle Junior
• Half-Human Hybrid: Veser Hatch is a half-Selkie.
  • Legato is part Net Navi and part human via Applied Phlebotinum and Functional Magic.
• Hearing Voices: Ren starts hearing a red-tinted, purple-tinted for a while, voice during the World Split that keeps abusing the fourth wall; it hangs around afterward.
  • Heloise also starts hearing voices after the World Split is fixed; its comments don't bode well for her future...
• The Heartless: The Inky Mayor has the power to summon hoards of monstrous black Ink creatures, actually somewhat similar in appearance to the original Heartless.
• Heroic BSoD: Jimmy, of all people, after he finds out that Heloise killed Mordecai.
  • Bass has somewhat of a minor one after tagging the wall through Berri. It would have been more serious if he hadn't forcibly pushed it aside for other priorities, but a full-blown one is certainly on the horizon.
• Hidden Elf Village: One tries to run the Cathedral like this, ordering the other stitchpunks to stay inside and never use their communicators. It doesn't work.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Trevor got a taste of his own medicine — or rather, his own paralytic fluid.
  • Prior to this, Trevor managed to hurt Rigby by showing Phoenix a video of Rigby's revenge killing and damaging his friendship with the lawyer. Rigby eventually gets his revenge by broadcasting footage of what led up to Trevor's hoisting above.
  • Trevor is a magnet for these; Berri takes the first example and throws in a dash of Mad Science by pumping him full of paralytic and opening up his chest.
• Hopeless Suitor: Doctor Chipotle Junior to Heloise, though they have quite a bit of Ship Tease.
• Hot Consort: Turns out The Mayor has one, though she's not exactly "hot" in the most... traditional sense.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Mayor's Consort is essentially a mix between an attractive young lady and an Ink Monster.
  • Subverted by Doctor Norrington, who's an Elder God in disguise.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Berri and Ava feel this way.
• I Am Not Weasel: Rigby is constantly confused for a rodent. Ren has the same basic problem.
• I Choose to Stay: Not all of the residents are upset by being brought to the city, having left behind even more Crapsack Worlds or simply becoming enamored with what it has to offer.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Megatron demanded that Swindle prove his loyalty by finding a way to destroy the Ink Well and its regeneration abilities. Swindle's been trying to Take a Third Option and weasel out of it without making himself a target in the process.
• Ignored Expert: Mordecai to Benson in Log #3
• Implausible Deniability: Trevor attempting to convince Optimus Prime that despite all evidence to the contrary, he didn't kidnap Aisling.
• Innocent Innuendo: Innuendo tends to fly right over Ichigo's head, while Dot is savvy enough to recognize, lampshade and encourage it. This backfired on the Warner sister when Ichi's not understanding what Oscar Mayor could be compensating for led down a very awkward road.
• Insane Equals Violent: Deliberately invoked by Berri's player; her unstable nature has been likened to Bipolar, with her Cute and Psycho moments distinctly being referred to as "manic" states. In contrast, her mellower, 'depressive' states being the cue to contemplate her navel.
  • Trevor also likes to use this to 'justify' his behavior by claiming those who stand against him are insane, violent creatures.
• Intellectual Animal: The city has quite a few, although not all of them are standard Earth animals; the Pokémon are a good example.
• In Which a Trope Is Described: The title for a few logs.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Bass pulls this on the Mayor at one point, to get close enough to attack him. This intentionally mirrors a little-seen moment in the manga where he pulls the same stunt, and factors into the resolution of the Discord Halloween incident.
• Jake, You Are My Uncle: Priscilla (a human Courier), through a series of alternate universes, is actually technically the niece of Rattlesnake Jake. It's a bit of a Mind Screw for the both of them when they discover this, to say the least.
• Just Between You and Me: After Rigby apologizes to the City at large for what he did to Trevor, Trevor contacts him to rub salt in the wound... then alludes to possibly cloning Yakko, as well as having his own revenge plans in the works.
• Kick the Dog: Just in case it wasn't fully established that Cave Johnson is oblivious to everything that isn't him, one of the first things he does in the city is kick Six out of the way.
  • Megatron's first act upon arrival is to kick Starscream around. Yet he deals even worse damage to Caroline, despite (or because?) her professed loyalty to the Decepticons.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Averted. Characters remember everything about their respective canons, and their deaths, if they die.
  • Somewhat played straight after Heloise respawns after Rigby pushes her off a boat into the ocean to get eaten by Sea-Ink Monsters. She can't remember Jimmy's face, name, and most of the memories she had with him. Later it's revealed that it was The Mayor's Consort that took away those memories in an attempt to keep Heloise from relying too heavily on a Morality Chain. She after which returns them.
• Late to the Tragedy: Oswald shows up late to the Halloween Party because he was having trouble finishing his costume on time... and as a result, was one of the only residents who didn't get hit by Discord's costume-changing spell. References have already been made towards his luck.
  • Twilight decided to, "just this once", skip out of the Nightmare Night festivities. It turns out, in worlds that aren't Equestria, being unsocial has its perks.
• Lethal Chef: Heloise, in an amusing contrast to Supreme Chef Doctor Chipotle Junior.
  • Legato, not that it's come up much (thank goodness for small miracles).
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again: From the crack community, Heloise and Lucius having thought they slept together. Turns out nothing actually happened, much to their relief.
  • In the main game, Lynne to Fluttershy after realizing she almost told her that the reason Missile can talk is 'cause he sorta died.
• Literal Genie: Calypso, in fitting with the original canon. So far he's only granted one wish, but it resulted in Ren's death. And he seems to just be doing it for fun.
• Living Shadow: Bass does this a lot. It's taken up to eleven when he is hit with the Becoming the Costume spell during the Halloween event while in "Shadow mode" and becomes Crmsn's own personal, albeit very reluctant, Living Shadow.
• Locked Out of the Loop: The Mayor would really prefer keeping the residents in the dark about... Well, take your pick of secrets, really. One good way to set him off is to keep poking at the fourth wall, literally or metaphorically.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Bass was on this road back home, which was interrupted when he decided to put himself on a Long Bus Trip. Castmates arriving in the city have put this right back on track.
  • In fact, this trope in general could be said of a few people around.
• Mad Artist: Twice. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Six. Six also doubles as Mad Oracle, able to do things like draw GLaDOS doing to Vlad and his computer AI what she's best known for.
• Made of Indestructium: The communicators.
• Malicious Misnaming: Heloise mockingly has "nicknames" for various characters, including "Ladybird" for Mordecai, "Roadkill" for Rigby, "Gumballs" for Benson, and now it seems "Freak" for Yakko.
  • Dr. Nefarious just can't seem to get Heloise's name right in Log #8.
  • A Running Gag with Dr. Chipotle Jr., carried over from his canon.
  • The players aren't even safe from this trope; it tends to happen to people who hang out in the OOC chatroom over time.
• Man Hug: Don sure loves his sugar.
  • Yosuke and Souji share one when the latter arrives, much to Seta's surprise.
• Masquerade: The Mayor is working desperately to uphold this in regards to Ink City's many secrets.
  • Zig-zagged by the Persona 4 cast: Yosuke has been very open about his Persona and powers to certain people, but cagier around others. Souji, meanwhile, prefers to keep such things to himself, and is annoyed whenever confronted with evidence his teammates haven't been as careful.
  • For his first few months of being in the City, Dr. Norrington actively hid the fact he was an Elder God from most everyone. He finally revealed what he actually was publicly after needing to take Him down a peg.
• Master of Delusion: A number of times.
• Medium Awareness: Yakko, Wakko and Dot still have this, as do Deadpool and Petitius.
• Meta Guy: The City tends to draw in plenty of both types, along with a few Fourth Wall Observers.
• Mistaken for Gay: Another humorous misunderstanding has Heloise take Mordecai's Embarrassing Nickname to the next level.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Caroline was pretty dedicated to helping the Decepticons until Megatron showed up. How he treated her resulted in her rethinking which side of the Cybertorian war she's on.
• Mood-Swinger: The entire game switches from comedy and drama on a dime. For example, Logs #1 and #2 are rather light-hearted. Log #3 on the other hand...
  • In-universe, there's Johnny C. who goes from being friendly with Mordecai and Rigby to yelling at them all while planning on murdering them.
• Mood Whiplash: See above. It's a bit to be expected, when you're mixing characters like Heloise, Mordecai Heller and Trevor with The Warner Siblings, Regular Show cast and Pokémon. The Darker and Edgier clashes nearly constantly with the Lighter and Softer, leaving quite a bipolar, chaotic game.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Naoto sees Ink City as a chance to prove she's fully capable of handling being stuck in another world.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Benson after realizing that he killed Rigby.
  • Thrasher after he accidentally shows Misery what he's seen.
• Name Drop: The city is in fact called Ink City by its inhabitants.
• Nice Guy: Crmsn is one of these in the Troubled, but Cute way, complete with a dose of Obfuscating Stupidity and Broken Hero-ness to judge by a recent thread.
• No Ending: Happens occasionally to some threads and/or logs. Sometimes these are even referenced later as Noodle Incidents.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: When Yakko, Rigby and Crmsn tried to rescue Trevor from A Fate Worse Than Death, their reward was getting blown up by Bass.
  • Belldandy helps Trevor repair his building, unaware it was damaged by Optimus Prime breaking Aisling out. Trevor immediately starts plotting to run experiments on her instead.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Yakko, who normally forces himself into the arms of pretty ladies, finds The Mayor's Consort just a little too freaky to hit on.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After Event #1, Heloise tries to convince Yakko with this, leading to a We Can Rule Together speech.
• Not So Weak: Rigby.
• Notes Full Of Crazy: Mordecai had these towards the beginning of his stay in the City.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Watching Optimus Prime and Aisling dote on each other after he saved her caused this for Caroline, given her plans to betray him to Starscream.
  • Ichigo does this to Swindle when she tells him about the World Split, unaware that he's asking about it because Megatron wants him to break the Well.
• Odd Couple: Young, optimistic and cheerful Courier Priscilla loyally works for and is highly respectful towards the worldly, uptight and business-minded Mr. House.
  • Veser and Saft appear to be on the fast track to this, as well.
• Odd Friendship: Due to the range of canons and the characters all being brought together in one place, several of these have popped up.
  • Some examples? Flynn and Dani, Phoenix and Rigby, and Fran and Ren.
  • There's also Yuki Nagato and Knives Chau.
  • Not to mention Dr. Chipotle Jr. haven fallen in love with Heloise, who considers him just a close friend. She's also become well acquainted with Pepito, Dr. Phineastein, and Megamind.
  • Killer robot Thrasher and bad luck magnet Misery. He offers to be her bodyguard.
  • Bass and Shiro seem to be heading down this path.
  • Ichigo and Souji Seta. She's also BFFs with Dot, which the latter has noted as odd since common cliche would seemingly dicate that two Kawaiikos would immediately see each others as rivals and hate each other's guts.
  • Aisling and Optimus Prime.
  • Oddly enough, Veser and Cliffjumper — especially since Cliffjumper ran Veser over on their first meeting.
• Oh, Crap!: Benson after the aftermath of Log #3.
  • After World Split was over, the Mayor and Painted Lady went around fixing people who were still messed up by the event. One of these people was Bass, who repaid their efforts by... stealing something from them both with Get Ability. Considering World Split could have been caused by a similar event in the past and Bass being, well, Bass, this causes an Oh, Crap! moment on the part of the Mayor and the players.
  • Priscilla after discovering what Mr. House really looks like.
  • Trevor captures Aisling. Aisling gets her hands on Trevor's communciator long enough to get a message to the City, crying out for Optimus before being cut off. Optimus responds accordingly. When he announces his arrival with Bold Inflation, Trevor realizes the jig is up...
• Older Than They Look/Insistent Terminology: Heloise continually insists she's not a little kid.
  • Ava barely looks over ten years old, but, as she admits to Souji, she's 408 years old.
• Old Shame: A meta example. After Heloise left the city her mun quit playing her for an extended period of time, and after regaining the muse, became highly embarrassed over the original portrayal. Her player now considers the "Ink City incarnation" of Heloise to have been more along the lines of an AU, based on an extensive amount of headcanon at the time.
• One-Hit Kill: What happened when Trevor pushed Bass too far and was on the receiving end of an Earthbreaker at point-blank range.
  • Total Party Kill: The second time, he leveled Trevor's entire compound, pretty much instantly decimating everybody inside. Including himself, naturally.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted; in addition to the existing Mordecai and Mordecai situation, there's now two Mews in the city - one from the same confused AU that Bass comes from, and the other from a continuity much closer to the games' nature. And they couldn't be more different. Two different Optimus Primes and four Starscreams (as well as two Starscream clones) have also appeared in the city.
  • I Am Not Shazam: Prior to Kat's appearance, Berri was the only Mew in town and was referred to by her species name all around. After Kat's appearance and her own need to go incognito, she adopted an old nickname given to her by a former friend.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Heloise towards Mordecai and Rigby, after Rigby tells Jimmy that she killed Mordecai and Benson.
  • It's really the only reason that she bothered to save them from Johnny C. Of course, she outright admitted that she planned on doing something worse to them...
• Ontological Mystery
• Order Versus Chaos: The reason why Dr. Norrington and Eris aren't particularly fond of one another - he's Order while she's Chaos.
• Parasol of Prettiness: Dahlia. Ichigo also likes to use paper drink umbrellas like this.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Certain residents engage in this frequently, such as Trevor, GLaDOS, and Berri. Especially when speaking to each other.
  • Souji and Tai Lung get into a bout of this when Tai Lung answers Souji's question about weapons just to imply he's weak for wanting one instead of learning Kung Fu.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Anyone victimized by Heloise tends to come to this conclusion pretty quickly.
  • Except that Rigby was very reluctant to do it at first since he believed that it was because of this trope that he was victimized.
  • This mentality doesn't fly with everyone; Phoenix is particularly against residents killing other residents, causing a rift between him and the Regular Show cast, among others.
  • Vlad's Computer AI seems to waver between telling GLaDOS that she can go drink poison in the form of canterella tea and telling Berri to kill Trevor to end his agony. She seems mostly to be in the habit of helping people if they deserve it or not.
  • In fact, most witnesses blatantly called out Berri when she took this stance with Trevor. Of course, the rampant gore presented in gutwrenching video-feed may have helped that decision.
• Pet the Dog: When Kat arrives and Trevor initially mistakes her for the Mew who subjected him to And I Must Scream, Berri immediately contacts him to clear things up, even going so far as to offer a chance for physical revenge. Trevor, having learned nothing from his ordeal, promptly pulls a Breaking Speech on her.
• Playing Both Sides: Swindle, being a Con Artist, started trying this right away. However, the Decepticons and Autobots in Ink City are different than the ones he's used to which puts him over his head very swiftly.
• Poking The Fourth Wall: What happens when you go too far out into the forest or ocean.
  • Yakko pointing out to Mordecai that the reason he can't die is that they're all cartoon characters counts.
  • And now, Mordecai is starting to realize the bounds of reality (while Yakko smashes right through them.)
  • And then there's Deadpool, who seems to be aware that he's a character in an online RPG.
• Pointy Ears: Legato, very much so.
• Politically Incorrect Boss: Cave Johnson manages to offend just about everyone he talks to, aside from Caroline.
• Pronoun Trouble: Legion's status as a mobile platform for 1,183 Geth makes it difficult for other residents to know just how to address... him/her/it. (When Ichigo first notices how it refers to himself, she thinks it's using the Royal "We").
  • In a way, how Meredith addresses who she calls "The Creator"; the title refers to one person, but she refers to them as 'they' and 'them' when she's asked to describe 'them'.
• Put on a Bus: Happens quite often to characters who are inactive. However, there's actually a canon explanation for random people in the city disappearing... an extremely unpleasant one...
  • Jimmy at the end of Log #36.
  • The Bus Came Back: Occasionally, characters who previously appeared in the City and left wind up returning. Sometimes they're the exact same character; sometimes not.
  • A certain character's bus boarding becomes a plot-heavy Wham Episode, as she's met by an avatar of her player.
• Replacement Goldfish: After Caroline quits, Cave immediately weedles Yuko into becoming his new assistant.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Ichigo is a big believer in "Noblesse oblige", thanks to how she was raised and the role she plays back home. Someone misusing or abusing whatever power they have is a major Berserk Button for her.
• Running Gag: All the stitchpunks react poorly to a single line on the Sign: "7) There is no number 7." Leads to a Brick Joke when the twins steal the Sign so they can remove that line and Seven shows up immediately.
• Sapient Steed: Kat, being a Mew and able to shape-shift into Pokémon large enough to be ridden, has acted as one on several occasions.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Legato.
• Secret-Keeper: Several characters, as they've learned more about the nature of the City, have chosen to uphold the masquerade.
• Science Is Bad: Thanks to her experiences back home, Berri believes all scientists are evil, soulless monsters.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Doctor Norrington, in spades.
  Yakko: "Mostly Natural"? I thought that just meant "History".
  Norrington: Precisely. Not all events of historical importance occur incontrovertibly, in fact, most do not. Best to endorse honestly.
  Yakko: ... How 'bout endorsing coherency?
• The Scapegoat: Heloise blames Mordecai and Yakko for the voice in her head because she can't think of any other explanation.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Zorua lays an unintentional one on Yosuke when she takes the form of a girl she saw in some photographs around his house: Saki.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Kat and Bass appear to be spiraling awkwardly toward this, especially if Berri's method of teasing is anything to go by.
• Ship Tease: Dr. Chipotle Jr./Heloise is teased quite often. In the end though, her heart completely belongs to and always did to Jimmy.
• Shout-Out: Tons, but here's a notable few:
  • Once during a crack community meme, Phoenix managed to trick Lucius. He was rewarded with a golden fiddle.
  • An alternate universe version of Jimmy pulls off one to the Dead Parrot sketch in the crack community Bizarro Meme, which is equally hilariously lampshaded immediately by Lucius.
  • Jimmy playing and singing "Fallen Angel" on his guitar on New Year's.
  • Deadpool thinks that a good mercenary name for Rigby would be Reverend Putty.
  • Apparently, Heloise is a fan of The Cure.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: When Maya attempts to convince Optimus Prime to fire his lasers:
  Maya: Well, that's like saying 'How do I make this ice cream taste better without adding any chocolate'. Sure, I could use butterscotch, but who does that anymore? I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're butterscotch and now I want ice cream.
  Optimus: Studies from the world wide web show that approximately 23% of the population still consider butterscotch a popular condiment.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: This journal describes Rigby going from his usual nakedness to wearing a pair of white gloves given to him by Yakko, along with a coat. It shows how close he gotten to the siblings, as well as being a self-aware toon like them.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Lucius and Heloise in the crack community only, as their players enjoy them as a Crack Pairing.
• Slasher Smile: Heloise's favorite expression. Especially during Log #3 and #44.
• Sociopathic Hero: Deadpool; during a fight with the Inky Mayor, he seems more interested in just shooting randomly in the air and screaming insane nonsense.
• So Proud of You: Hely's voice repeatedly mentions how proud they are of her making the City what it is, and continues that praise once they meet face-to-face.
• Speak in Unison: Dot and Ichi have a tendency to skirt very close to this, saying almost the exact same thing at nearly the same time.
• Supreme Chef: Doctor Chipotle Junior, in a humorous contrast to Lethal Chef Heloise.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Parodied when Knock Out discovers Jetstorm has Starscream's coding and assumes he's a forbidden sparkling between Starsceam and an Autobot.^note Actually, he's a the result of the Autobots of his universe using Starsceam's coding to try and make jet-form Autobots.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Heloise's preferred form of restraint.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Explored. If somebody murdered you, does that give you the right to murder them in return and consider it a Karmic Death for an Asshole Victim? Or will that, in turn, give them the right to kill you again?
  • Shiro decided to explore this trope by asking why the people would end up murdering someone. The answers were quite...varied, to say the least.
  • Berri, on the other hand, took a different route and decided that, since Death Is Cheap, it's far better to lock someone in a fate far worse than death.
  • Cave Johnson does this, volunteering himself to be absorbed by Cabrakan in Caroline's place.
• Take Over the City: A common goal of the more evil residents, which tends to be Lampshaded by the savvier residents. Anyone publically declaring their intent to do so gets soundly mocked.
• Taking You with Me: Thrasher attempts this on the Ink Well. It works, causing the massive tremor that was likely the catalyst of World Split.
• Tautological Templar: Trevor really seems to believe he's going to make Ink City a better place, no matter what horrors he inflicts.
• Tempting Fate: Mordecai and Benson were really asking for it in the beginning of Log #3...
  • Konata accidentally does this regarding the broken Ink Well, saying "What's the worst that could happen?" Immediately realizing her mistake, she reacts accordingly.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When the Mayor first confronts him after he transforms everyone into their costumes, Discord responds by mocking how powerless and disliked the Mayor actually is.
• They Killed Kenny: Ren dies a lot.
  • Rigby dies just as much if not more.
  • Optimus Prime has died the most out of the entire Transformers cast. (Three times) This is the continuation of a proud Transformers tradition.
• Thou Shall Not Kill: Death may be cheap, but Phoenix doesn't care for the idea of going around killing others anyway, short of self-defense.
• Too Dumb to Live: Trevor attempting to justify his plans for Yakko... to Wakko.
• Took a Level in Badass: Nearly everyone in Event #1.
  Mordecai: This is for ripping my heart out, you bitch.
  Veser: FUCK YOU, CTHULHU!
  Megavolt: Alright, you inky sons of bitches... Let's Get Dangerous!.
  The above line being just before Yakko and Megavolt's last stand.
  • Benson with a chainsaw. That is all.
  • Yakko, of course, puts his own spin on this when he helps Rigby take several levels in Toon Antics.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Phoenix turns out to be a mean drunk. Being stuck in the city for over a year (and losing Edgeworth) hasn't helped, either... to the point that he's begun lashing out at his non-human friends.
• Translator Microbes: Rocket's communication device is able to translate his music speech into easier-to-understand English.
• Transparent Closet: Rigby.
• Tranquil Fury: Souji tends to slip into this when angered, along with using more words than normal.
  • When Trevor captures Aisling and she calls Optimus Prime for help, he tries to be polite to Trevor at first. Faced with Trevor's denial and all evidence to the contrary, he continues to speak calmly even while slipping into this.
• Trapped in Another World
• Trauma Conga Line: The Regular Show cast seems particularly prone to this.
• Treacherous Advisor: Tai Lung takes the Young Tigress on as his pupil. How straight he plays this remains to be seen, but considering her relationship with his estranged master, Shifu...
  • The Tengu Shredder was this to Saft, Leonardo, and Aisling.
• Ultimate Authority Mayor: The Mayor sees himself as this, while the residents tend to see him as Authority in Name Only. He tends to be 'hands-off' unless somebody hits one of his Berserk Buttons. It doesn't help that his own bosses appear to be even more 'hands-off' with him...
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: When Caroline leaves Cave's service, she takes a hard drive with her, carrying it here. This doesn't stop Cave from reaching right in to try and reclaim it.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: Yakko and Rigby's Pretty Fly (For a Toon Guy), mocking Trevor to his face.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Trevor does not consider himself a villain, and is heavily disliked by most citizens who are aware of his plans; however, new residents meeting him for the first time often come away with a good impression.
  • Rigby tried to fix this by showing off what Trevor had done to him and Yakko. It got the attention of the wrong kind of people.
• Voices Are Mental: A fairly literal example in Kat who, when speaking telepathically, will sound the same regardless of whatever form she's currently in. Played slightly more straight with her human form, as her speaking voice is also the same as her telepathic one.
• We Can Rule Together: After Event #1, Heloise tries this on Yakko.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Trevor sees himself as this. His preferred methods, however, don't exactly endear him to anyone...
• Wham Episode: Event #1, wherein a group of residents venture into the forest and discover the Fourth Wall, among other things.
  • Event #2, where a cruise on Superboat results in several disturbing implications about the exact nature of the Ink Monsters.
  • The climax of me1TD0WN: Thrasher breaks the fountain and apparently wipes himself from existance in the process.
  • Heloise leaves Ink City, and they (along with several witnesses) are informed of this by the Mayor's Consort, who looks like her player's avatar.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Pepito, Cindy, and Dr. Nefarious were scheduled to show up to Event #1, but never did.
  • In general, this is really common, see Put on a Bus above.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Discussed between Priscilla and Mr. House, after Priscilla unwillingly becomes a Securitron with a unique AI due to Discord's Halloween antics.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Berri thought she was protecting everyone by neutralizing Trevor, but her methods — and very public broadcast of the results — provoked this reaction from the City at large.
  • Yosuke manages to seriously anger Souji by repeatedly ignoring his desire to be careful. Signing him up as the main attraction of a 'Butler Fight' without bothering to ask his permission first was bad enough, but when he follows that up by making posters with their names and faces and plasters them all over town — again going against Souji's explict desire to keep a low profile — he calls him out on it.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Being in the City essentially causes indirect immortality. Not everyone is a fan of this.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: During the Victoria's Secret Compartment incident, Caroline gets Optimus Prime's attention and sympathy with this. Cave does not help his case one bit.
• Your Head Asplode: Poor Benson... It's tough when your head's made of glass and is easily shattered by things such as, say, a sledgehammer.

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