The logo used since Season 16.
Survivor: Fan Characters is a Pixel Art Comic created by SWSU-Master, which, obviously, is inspired by the hit reality TV show Survivor. It is notable for using its own sprite template created by SWSU-Master himself, as well as going on for twenty seasons, including a few All-Star and similarly-themed seasons.
It can be found here
on DeviantArt. It used to be hosted on Smack Jeeves, but that site had since been shut down.
It follows the same formula as the TV show. An even number of contestants (with one (or maybe two) exception) are put onto two tribes (usually), who then have to compete in challenges against one another for rewards and immunities. The tribes have to go to Tribal Council where they have to vote someone out from their group every so often. It is a working formula on the TV show, and even more so in this web comic where the characters and events can be shaped by SWSU for maximum entertainment.
So far, there are twenty-one completed seasons.
This webcomic provides examples of:
- Accidental Truth: In Season 5, Maria/Mo forces Gatemaster to take part in her elaborate scheme to put Marius through a Humiliation Conga with him giving Marius a necklace he randomly found in a river and lying about it being the Hidden Immunity Idol to make Marius feel betrayed when he gets voted out. Turns out that said necklace is in fact the Hidden Immunity Idol and ends up protecting Marius from the vote while sending the person with the second-highest number of votes home...which is Maria/Mo. Whoops.
- The Ace: Several, but Hogan, Ventious and later Trella are the prime examples.
- Affectionate Parody: Of Survivor, of course.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: The jury openly celebrated the downfalls of Manipulative Bastards Vinnie ("Will the jury please stop high-fiving each other?") and Minerva ("Jury, doing "The Wave" is out of hand."). Even P. Bear, the latter's only ally left at that point, was visibly smiling at them finally getting their comeuppance.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Knuckles' final words:I feel like a fool, I was played, I was humiliated, and I threw away a free vote.
- Arc Words: From Season 14, we have "It's a game. Deal with it." which appears multiple times throughout the season and sums up the arcs of the entire Final 3.
- Season 15 has "Paranoia", which is the basis for every conflict in the season and is the superpower of the Big Bad Shaega.
- "From first to last" and "From last to first", applied specifically to Tapu Lele from Season 17. Although it does serve as Foreshadowing of the winner's character arc.
- Art Evolution: The character sprites and backgrounds have grown more complex and detailed over time; just compare the relatively simplistic sprite designs in Season 1 to the elaborate hairstyles and outfits of Ker and Krauss in Season 7. Notably, characters' poses are more complex as well, allowing for characters to face in more than just the same four directions.
- Author Appeal: Furry and otherwise nonhuman characters (though furries especially) tend to perform well in pretty much every season compared to human characters with similar or intertwined story arcs. Most of the author’s non-SFC work on DeviantArt is furry-focused, implying there’s something of a bias in this direction.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Happens remarkably rarely, as usually if there's a villainous front-runner then they're at least a Villain Protagonist. Grace from Season 21.5 is a rare example where the villain is not a Villain Protagonist, with that honor instead going to fellow villain Crab Rangoon.
- Bastard Understudy: Hope to Baxter in Season 3, Marius to Jessica in Season 5, and Sin to Vinnie in Season 6.
- Batman Gambit: Vinnie, in both of his seasons. He has escaped many attempts to have him voted out, through his manipulation skills. In All-Stars, he even comments to Bitsy about how, in spite of being known by everyone to be a snake, he can still get them to trust him more than each other.
- Gatemaster also does this (although with a lot more luck) in Season 5 to get the final four he wants.
- Skylar falls into this category too with his idol scam, although that was partly enabled by a "Sure, why not?" moment.
- Charlie from Season 1, Phil from Season 7 and Sagittaria from Season 18 tried one a la Richard Hatch. It worked in Charlie and Sagittaria's cases (although both of them didn't win in the end) but backfired spectacularly for Phil.
- Eli in Season 11 pulls a ridiculously convoluted one just for the sake of it to eliminate Juiced Up, when he could have just been idoled normally. It works without a hitch.
- Ellise's legendary idol play.
- Kasai pulls an impressive one in Season 18 to vote Ernest out. He manages to get his greatest enemy out specifically counted on him being too proud to use an idol that he thinks is fake.
- Battle of Wits: Duh.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Bitsy was a sweetheart in Season 2, but come All-Stars she managed to betray even more people than Baxter and Vinnie.
- Taro of Season 15 is a lovable guy who provides the other contestants with food but when his best friend Ky is voted out, he serves them spoiled food that gives them mild poisoning as revenge.
- Big Bad: Several, though not all, seasons have one of these:
- Big Bad Ensemble: Season 13 had a string of characters that functioned as the baddie during different parts of the season.
- Black-and-White Morality: Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 7, Season 12, Season 20.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: Season 8, Season 9, Season 10, Season 13, Season 15, Season 21.5,
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: Season 1, Season 5, Season 6, Season 11, Season 14, Season 16, Season 17, Season 18, Season 19.
- Blank White Eyes: Happens to several characters, mainly in the recent seasons.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The final three women (and contestants) on Yrsa'ka before the merge; Melanie is blonde, Oehda is brunette, and Kiara is a redhead.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Gatemaster. The guy controls his entire season, despite being... you know, a stupid goof.
- Butt-Monkey: Too many to list, notable ones are Cherman, Robert, Trent, Russell and Skippy the cameraman.
- Canon Immigrant: Seasons 4 and 12 each had ten of these. Also, the host is still Jeff Probst. Russell Hantz from Survivor: Samoa also appeared in Season 7.
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: The first six seasons got increasingly Darker and Edgier (especially 5 and 6), with 7 and 8 being a mix of seriousness and comedy, leaning towards the former in the last couple episodes. 9 and 10 managed to make the aforementioned 5 and 6 look like Disney films. The post-10 seasons are consistently mostly lighthearted with a few serious and more mature storyarcs per season, with the noticeable exception of 15, which is significantly over the cynical end of the spectrum.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: People who have extensively pushed the rules seldom win. Examples include Marty, Minerva, Violet, Wrecker, Xero, Bonnie, Eli, Enter, Amadeus and later Raiza, Lady Bit, and Shin/Kasai.
- Chekhov's Gag: In Season 11, Eli briefly worries that he might lose a Survivor trivia tiebreaker despite knowing the series so well. Two seasons later, this is exactly how the Critic gets eliminated.
- In season 14, Mac eats a live bug he finds in his food while sitting with Jojo, who says "I'm not Jeff, this isn't for a challenge!" Two episodes later, he beats Jojo to win immunity for his tribe... by eating a live tarantula.
- The Chessmaster: There's usually one or more in each season.
- Season 1 - Sky
- Brains Vs. Brawn - Vinnie, Ellise
- Season 3 - Baxter
- Fans Vs. Canons - Minerva, Lilly
- Cursed Islands - Gatemaster (not that he is even aware of it though), Marius, Miranda, Jessica.
- All-Stars - Bitsy, Vinnie, Sin... there's quite a few this season.
- Season 7 - Phil
- Season 8 - Matt (a la Russell), Oehda, Melanie.
- Season 9 - Prescilla
- Battle of the Tribes - Bonnie (kind of), Minerva, Baxter... like the first All-Stars season, there's quite a few here.
- Season 11 - Crisco, Flaithri, Eli.
- Fans Vs. Canons 2 - Enter, Kim
- Season 13 - Iyzebel, Tapioca (if you believe her Obfuscating Insanity claim), Luna
- Season 14 - Desmond, Ivan, Prussia
- Season 15 - Cordelia, Shaega.
- Season 16 - Vinnie, Bowser Jr., Thorne, Bonnie
- Season 17 - Kade, Jenny
- Season 18 - Kasai, Clarissa, Shin
- Season 19 - Beata, Micah, Okawa
- Season 20 - Hope, Sky
- Season 21.5 - Grace, Crab (though only for a few episodes)
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: A number of people, but most noticeably Vinnie, Baxter and Bitsy.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Many examples, but Craig, Kala, and Gatemaster are the most prominent.
- Colour Coded Armies: The tribes in Season 10. The contestants all wear clothing matching their tribe color. The Retro tribe wears green, the Corsona tribe wears purple, the Yrsa'Ka tribe wears orange, and the Carbo tribe wears white.
- Averted in Season 14, another time the One World twist was used, although the Go'Jonga tribe members usually wear brighter clothing.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: Bonnie returns in Season 16 disguised as "Sarah", a seemingly sweet therapist for "Bonnie" who's actually an actress hired to impersonate her. She invents a sob story as Sarah about a dead mother, which comes back to bite her in the rear end when she's unable to tell Brandi the name of her supposed dead mother.
- Cue the Rain: Kitsunie from season 18 complains about how they don't need a shelter. Turns out GLaDoS has weather systems installed.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Final immunity in season 10. After it turns out Jackie's injury was fake.
- Darker and Edgier: Season 9 pretty much revolves around the villain getting everything that they want through frankly vile means. Not to mention that said villain throws out serious curse words left and right makes it almost NSFW. Tropes Are Not Bad, as its generally considered one of the best seasons in the series.
- Season 10 takes all of those aspects of 9 and takes them up to eleven, and *then* applies them to the entire cast instead of just the main villain resulting in something that feels like a cross between Survivor and Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which is a large reason why its viewed as one of the absolute worst seasons by the fanbase and even SWSU himself.
- While Season 15 lacks the NSFW edginess of 9 and 10, it's noted for having an surprisngly quite cynical take on the viciousness of the game and a cast that often seems to genuine despise each other on a personal level, resulting in possibly the darkest season to date. Again, Tropes Are Not Bad.
- Season 18, while not as dark as others, is still more than likely the darkest of the post-15 era. A lot of the reason boils down to specific characters' arcs seeming a lot more serious and oddly grounded than the cast of oddball aliens and furries might have you believe at first, anything from one character being an implied Sex Slave, to another being a Shell-Shocked Veteran, to another basically being groomed by his future self into going down the same criminal path he did. There's a fair bit less room for silliness this time around.
- Dark Horse Victory: Marius in Season 5, Cherman in Season 9, Angel in Season 11, Lola in Season 12, Ollie in Season 17, and E. T. in Season 18.
- Death by Irony:
- Season 13: The Survivor Critic is eliminated in a Survivor trivia challenge tiebreaker.
- Season 15: Leah, a girl with rock manipulation powers, is eliminated in a rock-drawing tiebreaker.
- Decided by One Vote: Seasons 1-3, 5-7, 10-12, 14, 18, and 19 all were.
- Landslide Election: Seasons 4, 9, 13, 15, and 20 were this in contrast.
- Denser and Wackier: A very obvious example, as every modern season seems to become more surreal and fantastical than the last with more and more plots involving magic or superpowers as opposed to the early seasons, which were more or less realistic games of Survivor with sprite characters. Once again, Tropes Are Not Bad, as a large portion of the fanbase loves that the series is becoming very unique and the fantasy elements allows for greater character development and depth.
- Likewise, ever since Season 16, seasons have shifted away from the more grounded island setting and have been themed after different video game franchises, with the locations, challenges and twists being themed after said franchises. They tend to get weird, but help to differentiate each season beyond their twists.
- Diabolus ex Machina: The curses in Season 5 were typically these. Marius won using one, though.
- Disc-One Final Boss: A common trend is having major antagonist characters and otherwise solid strategists getting taken out either before the merge or simply before the endgame.
- Seasons 5 and 6 - Sin (11th)
- Season 7 - Russell (12th)
- Season 11 - Crisco (12th)
- Season 12 - Enter (9th)
- Season 15 - Cordelia (10th)
- Season 16 - Bonnie (14th), Lake (12th)
- Season 17 - Tony (13th)
- Season 18 - Kasai (9th) - though not quite
- Season 19 - Beata (10th, though she's first voted out right before the merge at the Final 11 and gets saved by Aurora)
- Season 20 - Survivor Critic (16th)
- Season 21.5 - Amika (13th)
- Distracted by the Sexy: Minerva Mink pulls this off on P. Bear. Renny, however, doesn't pull it off on Gatemaster or Victor.
- Montana also pulls this off on almost everyone on her tribe after her nemesis got voted out.
- Geena and Penny use this to win a challenge against their male competitors. Melanie also pulls this on Xero to distract him from mutinying back to his original tribe in the same season.
- Dual Boss: The Ride or Die twist from Season 19 gives the power to turn any player into one, by allowing them to bring a voted-out player immediately back into the game under the condition that they share a vote with whoever saved them, as well as being eliminated permanently the moment their partner is voted out. Four pairs were created through this twist, with one of the pairs even going on to win.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: All the winners, but especially Montana, Bitsy, Ker, Cherman, Jim and Doris.
- Eat That: Has been used as challenges several times.
- Edible Theme Naming: The two tribes in Season 9 are named "Carbo" (short for Carbonara, a pasta dish), and "Amatri" (short for Amatriciana, another pasta dish).
- Engineered Public Confession: In All-Stars, Norman maneuvers Sin into admitting that he set up Norman to look untrustworthy to his alliance members. While not knowing that Violet was hiding in a tree above them. Or that Al was hiding in the bushes close to them, and is not happy about being duped by Sin.
- In Season 9, Cherman does this with Prescilla/Bonnie at the final Tribal Council with his recorder that he gave to Barbie.
- In Season 14, Desmond assures Jojo that he and Liz were not particularly close, and in fact, he considered her a liability to her own allies. Except, he's actually talking to Liz, who pulled a Twin Switch with Jojo.
- Epic Fail: Season 7's Ho'Aku tribe appeared to follow Ulong's steps in the beginning, with only two people left in the tribe after eight episodes, but as a Ho'Aku member eventually won the game, they're more similar to Maraamu or Foa Foa. Then again, the Foa Foa comparisons were obvious from the start.
- Cherman in Season 9 managed to spectacularly lose every single challenge he competed in. Often within five seconds after the start of the challenge. Then it's magnificently subverted at the end when he wins the season.
- The Hantz tribe from Season 11 only won one immunity challenge and two reward challenges, possibly being the weakest tribe in the entire series. Unlike the two examples above, no one from the Hantz tribe ends up winning, meaning that they don't even get that distinction.
- Though it's not because of being a weak team overall like Ho'Aku, it's more because Crisco kept screwing them over from within.
- No less than two people in Season 14 confused their tribes and got voted off as a result.
- What about that one time when SWSU misspelled one of the applicant's characters for over a month. Bonus points for that character having one of the most important roles in the season. note
- Evolving Title Screen: The cover art for each season usually gets updated after certain revelations.
- Final Boss: Many seasons have a final, major obstacle for the winner or an adversary to overcome before their coronation, usually at the last regular tribal council but sometimes at Final Tribal Council itself. This sometimes, though not always overlaps with Big Bad.
- Season 1: Hogan.
- Season 2: Vinnie.
- Season 4: Lily.
- Season 5: Greg.
- Season 7: Phil.
- Season 8: Matt, Heinz.
- Season 9: Prescilla/Bonnie.
- Season 10: Bonnie.
- Season 11: Paine.
- Season 12: Kim.
- Season 13: Tapioca.
- Season 14: Desmond.
- Season 15: Shaega.
- Season 17: Jenny, Mele.
- Season 19: Okawa, Clover.
- Season 20: Hope.
- Season 21.5: Crab, Haru.
- Flanderization: Jackie, Ryuia, Bonnie, and Baxter all suffered this on their returning appearences on Season 10, either though becoming much more of a jerk (Jackie), becoming much more unintelligent (Ryuia), or going through massive Villain Decay (Bonnie and Baxter).
- Foreshadowing: There are several lines and scenes per season that hint at the eventual winner or future events:
- Season 1: Skylar's first confessional about him sliding on to the finals as a seeming non-threat.
- Season 4: Rebecca tells Trent that if she's voted off, "you'll be medivacced within a day."
- Cursed Islands: Gatemaster randomly finding a "gem necklace" in the river.
- All-Stars: Sin asking Vinnie why he's been gripping the side of his body lately.
- Season 7: Who makes multiple references to winning early on that isn't Russell? That's right: Ker. Also, Wrecker saying that nobody would know if he had an idol.
- Season 8: Melanie declaring in a confessional that she will win if she's in the finals with guys only, and Kiara's off-hand remark that she's screwed if they go to a rock-picking tiebreaker. Also, Heinz's torch not extinguishing properly, in a scene borrowed from the Pearl Islands season.
- Season 9 is especially noteworthy for several extremely-obvious-in-hindsight clues about the winner that were overlooked by almost all fans: Cherman's line in episode 4 about how he deserves to win the million if he can find a use for his recorder (many fans caught on that his recorder would become instrumental in unmasking Bonnie, but not that he would actually win until the very last episode) and Barbie actually being shown holding Cherman's recorder in the family visit scene, something that literally no one caught beforehand.
- Battle of the Tribes: Jackie's hidden mohawk. Also, his confessional caption in the first post-merge episode.
- Season 12: In an apparent total throwaway joke moment, Lola wins a staring contest against Spongebob on Day 2. Also, one of Enter's idols being "worn down".
- Season 13: Hash getting visibly nervous when Arnold suggests they do a pat-down of his body for any hidden idols.
- Season 14: Adeline saying in a confessional that she doesn't want to be in the game if Hunter is eliminated. Also, Desmond saying that the day Liz fools him will be the day he gives her the million.
- Season 15: Well before Shaega is revealed to have gained possession of Xeradonus's Paranoia spirit, he can be spotted directing it into Brandi and Daisuke in certain panels. Also, Gekkota referring to Taro as a clear winner on Day 5.
- Future Me Scares Me: Rather a lot of instances of this in the time-warped Season 18.
- I Hate Past Me: And the feeling is mutual for a few of the future counterparts.
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Enter from Season 12 is a very blatant example. Otherwise averted, with the exception of early boot Xeradonus in Season 15 being something of a parody of this.
- Graceful Loser: Surprisingly, almost all runner-ups have been this with even villains like Baxter, Wrecker, and Vinnie congratulating their opponent on their win and gameplay. The only real exceptions so far have been Matt from Season 8, Bonnie from Season 9, Tapioca from Season 13, Josh from Season 17, and Crab Rangoon from Season 21.5.
- Guile Hero: Considering the nature of the game, any hero who plays a good strategic game becomes this. Hogan, Ellise, Norman, Barney, etc.
- Heel–Face Turn: Krauss in season 7 started off as a giant asshole, but with help from Ker, he changed his ways.
- Hero with an F in Good: The Eraqus tribe on Season 21.5 stands out for having less than half the tribe exhibit any real heroic qualities early on, with the others suffering either from inflated egos, cattiness whether to their fellow tribemates or behind their backs, or some combination of the previous.
- How Much Did You Hear?: Polly votes out Max over Bitsy after hearing him making side deals, then pays for it by getting voted out by Bitsy.
- I Call It "Vera": All of Kala's "friends" (inanimate objects she talks to) probably count, but Mr. Happystick, an actual stick, is the most well-known example.
- I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Montana takes off her top to talk strategy more effectively with Baxter. Amazingly, this also appears to temporarily cure Alex's stuttering problem.
- Penny and Geena from Season 8 use this to win a challenge. Poor Malik never stood a chance... and then Johnny tries to do the same thing in the same challenge!
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Usually averted, as most Harmless Villains are egotistical Jerkasses. Diego from Season 14 is one of the few straightforward examples of this trope.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Bossy 25-year-old doctor Ellise and the devious 45-year-old mobster Vinnie.
- Joseph and Amy, who formed a father-daughter relationship with each other.
- Dominant alpha-male Krauss and the elderly female clown Ker.
- Knight of Cerebus: Bonnie from Season 9, Enter from Season 12, Alleio from Season 13, Shaega from Season 15, and Kade from Season 17 are all unusually dark and sinister villains who instantly make their seasons much more mature and less lighthearted when they take center stage.
- Knight Templar: The "Good people" in Season 2 formed as an alliance of "people who deserve to get to the end", and proceeded to make Ellise and Gus's lives hell.
- The Super Seven, five seasons later, repeated that to boot, except it is now an entire tribe.
- Alleio. Good lord. He sabotages his tribe fairly early and continues to be incredibly zealous later, all in the name of making their friendships stronger.
- Kitsunie in Season 18 tries to rally everyone against Sagittaria, Deimos, and Claire, all the while verbally shaming and slurring them.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: The Battle of the Tribes and Blood vs. Water seasons unavoidably spoiled the true identity and name of Season 9's villain whose true nature was kept hidden for several episodes.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The ratio of human characters to anthros, robots, aliens, and other strange creatures is about 5:2.
- Lighter and Softer: Season 11 compared the seasons before it, mainly due to No Antagonist and the frequent meta humor.
- Season 14, due to its lack of season-defining twists and a tamer main antagonist in Desmond, who had several genuine Pet the Dog moments with the winner and wasn't ever evil as much as just a cunning Jerkass.
- Season 16 is this both to the season before it, and the previous seasons with returning players, due to its focus on family relationships with the Blood vs Water theme and a feel-good Team Mom underdog winner in Doris.
- Loophole Abuse: Season 12 left the rules curled up in a corner and whimpering quietly to themselves. Particularly at the hands of Enter and Lola.
- Mind Screw: Adeline's quit Tribal Council in Season 14.
- Season 18 can be rather hard to deal with, due to the fact that everyone is playing as two versions of themselves from different timelines.
- Mega Crossover: There are fan characters from over a hundred different franchises, ranging from the well-known to the relatively obscure.
- Meta Twist: After two straight seasons (7 and 8) in which SWSU's readers figured out his planned winners much earlier than he had expected, he began actively working to catch his readers off-guard by going for extremely unconventional winners who would've been deemed too under the radar, over the top, or irrelevant to the plot to win by Survivor Edgic logic. Then in Season 13, he whittled the cast down to a final two of Jim, a strategic and likable contestant and Tapioca/Autumn, a contestant who spent most of the season annoying others with her Cloud Cuckoolander and Talkative Loon behavior, which caused a number of readers to believe/fear that SWSU was planning for the latter to win in a
Ass Pull to continue the "unlikeliest winners possible" trend — but instead, the finalist who had actually strategized a lot and made many friends on the jury won in a landslide and SWSU admitted in his season notes that he had deliberately played with his readers' paranoia about another Ass Pull outcome to generate suspense about the result. - Morality Pet: Two of the "negative" winners were given a genuine friendship with a much more positive character to make them more likable: Skylar with Taylor, and Marius with Gatemaster.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Invoked with the All-Star seasons.
- No Antagonist: Season 11, where the two "villains" who make it to the merge, Juiced Up and Claus, are merely a pair of Jerk Jocks and rarely do anything other than laze around in the shelter and complain. Everyone else that makes it far is a decent person who are only opposing each other because that's the nature of the game.
- Non-Gameplay Elimination: Sue quit in Season 2, as did Donovan in Season 9, Adeline in Season 14, and Deimos in Season 18. Trent in Season 4, Amadeus in Season 17 and Sally-Anne in Season 21.5 got medevaced. (It is implied that Sally-Anne did fake her leg injury to quit the game, though) Maria/Mo, Maggie and Iyzebel were ejected for physical violence in All-Stars, Season 12 and Season 16 respectively, and Kasai was ejected for cheating in Season 20.
- Suicide by Cop: Vinnie in Season 6, Phil in Season 10, Billy in Season 15, and Nayla in Season 18.
- Numbered Sequels: Notably predating even official Survivor in this regard, some seasons that are lighter on gimmicks may lack a subtitle and are simply known by their season number. Even the comic names include the season number in them (for example, a comic from season 16 would have SFC16 at the beginning of the title).
- Gets played with with the twenty-first season, which is referred to as 21.5 - Final Mix HD Remix (and even officially numbered as SFC21.5) to play into the Kingdom Hearts theming.
- Odd Couple: Vinnie and Ellise, Baxter and Alex, Iris and Hope, Marius and Gatemaster, Craig and Popper, Ker and Krauss...
- Out of Focus: It's natural that some characters won't be able to get as much screen time as others, but this was especially noticeable in Season 9 as the creator deliberately kept the screen time of the final three limited up until a certain point for plot-relevant reasons: Prescilla/Bonnie until the fifth episode, to make the reveal of her villainous nature even more shocking; Cherman until the final episode, to set him up as a surprise winner; and Tofuchao, to give Cherman another Final 3 partner he could win against.
- Denise from Season 2 is the epitome of this trope: she doesn't get a single speaking line until Episode 7 and to add insult to injury is even booted in the most anti-climactic way possible.
- This was actually the strategy invoked by Angel, the winner of Season 11, in an effort to avoid the high-visibility Eli's wrath and let their friendships with most of the Jury speak for themselves.
- Painting the Medium: The characters' speech bubbles always match their tribe colors. Furthermore, characters going through Sanity Slippage have their speech bubbles distorted in various ways.
- Power Trio:
- The minority alliance in Season 3 fit in a variety of ways, such as the Freudian Trio and the Beauty, Brains, and Brawn:
- Montana (Ego) (Beauty)
- Violet (Id) (Brawn)
- Norman (Superego) (Brains)
- The minority alliance in Season 7 also fit the Freudian Trio:
- Krauss (Id)
- Chrii (Ego)
- Ker (Superego)
- The main villain alliance of Season 8 form a Terrible Trio:
- Matt (The Big Bad)
- Xero (Henchman #1)
- Johnny (Henchman #2, although he's not all that aware he's part of a villain's alliance)
- The girl posse in Season 13 is a Terrible Trio, a Freudian Trio, and Town Girls at the same time. Tapioca's Obfuscating Insanity actually renders her the Ego, with Iyzebel being shifted to Id.:
- Iyzebel (Ego) (Butch)
- Luna (Superego) (Neither)
- Tapioca (Id) (Femme)
- The Stooge Alliance (Juiced Up, Claus, Casey) of Season 11 was a parody of this trope.
- The minority alliance in Season 3 fit in a variety of ways, such as the Freudian Trio and the Beauty, Brains, and Brawn:
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Hope from Season 3 starts out as a sweet girl on the Pambar tribe who quickly makes friends with Iris. After the tribe is assimilated, the two are separated, Hope joins the all-male Roku tribe, and Baxter shows her the ropes... and it all goes downhill from there for Hope.
- Bitsy somewhat in All-Stars, who could be somewhat justified by I Did What I Had to Do.
- While Kim Possible never becomes malicious or even uncivil towards her fellow contestants, as the game gets closer to the end she becomes more and more ruthless and determined to win by any means nessacary, backstabbing multiple members of her own "Good Guy" alliance she perceives as threats.
- Luna in Season 13, to a degree. Starts off as one of the nicest contestants in the cast and gradually becomes more and more conniving after the merge.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Jerk with a Heart of Gold and attempted day 1 quitter Montana, Roku's shy outsider Norman, and asocial brute Violet form an alliance to counter Baxter's in Season 3.
- Eli, Paine, Sunflower, and Juiced Up and Claus in Season 11. This is the alliance that ends up controlling the entire merge phase.
- Season 13 began with two of the contestants failing to notice one of the items for the challenge. It only went downhill there.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Final Tribal Council in Season 9 was basically a giant one delivered to Prescilla/Bonnie by Cherman and the jurors.
- The Final Tribal Council in Season 19 was this to Shiro, even if she did win, specifically thanks to the help of her partner Micah.
- Redemption Quest: After the first episode, Ellise spends a few episodes trying to improve her poor first impressions. It works, as she ends up winning in the end (it's even brought up at Tribal Council as a positive).
- Krauss also tries to improve his first impressions after the third episode, when he realizes what a Jerkass he originally was. He manages to perform a Heel–Face Turn, forms one of the most unbreakable alliances in SFC history with Ker, and even though he doesn't win, the change of character he's undergone is tremendous.
- In Season 16, Brandi attempts to atone for her Knight Templar actions in the previous season and show that she can play the game honorably. Like Krauss, although she doesn't win, she gets one of the biggest villains ever out of the game, repairs her relationship with her father, and succeeds at redeeming her name with almost the entire cast respecting her as a player.
- Refuge in Audacity: Jeff's ridiculous exit methods, starting from the third season. They include: a helicopter (Seasons 3 and 7), a jet ski (Season 4), a jetpack (Season 5), a Star Trek-style teleporter (Season 6), a smoke bomb (Season 8), a portal created by Cherman's stolen gun (Season 9), turning into a Boston Rob-themed superhero and flying out (Season 12), using his Rock and Roll Jeopardy! powers (Season 14 and 17), phasing out (Season 15), using a Mushroom Genie (Season 16), "blasting off again" a la Team Rocket (Season 17), and riding a Warp Star out (Season 19). He averts this in Season 10, though, where he simply forgets to take the voting urn, in Season 11, where he forgets even to return after tallying the votes, in Season 13, where he swims across the ocean offscreen, in Season 18, where he is portaled away by Cherman, and Season 20, where Knuckles abuses an infinite jump glitch to send him upward.
- Retcon: Season 20 retcons the reason why Taro managed to win unanimously on his season: According to him, Dustin (the runner-up) had done some things off-camera that didn't make it to air. The nature of those things isn't explicitly stated, but if they were willing to show Bonnie's constant use of bigoted language but not this, it was likely pretty bad.
- Reunion Show: Starting with Season 17, each season ends with all the contestants coming together to answer questions sent in by viewers and read off by Jeff Probst. These Reunion strips often feature bonus scenes that weren't in the main comic (including video of the winners' loved ones celebrating their victory) and conclude with the winner receiving their check along with a teaser for the next season.
- The Reveal:
- Season 3: Marty wrote a fake twist that should allow him to get to the final 4 unscathed.
- Season 5: Maria has a deranged split personality named Mo.
- Season 7: The Friday the 13th applicant is actually Russell Hantz.
- Season 8: Heinz is not actually from Tekken.
- Season 9: Prescilla is a massive Bitch in Sheep's Clothing behind the luxury item burning incident.
- Season 11: Bradlyn killed his own child.
- Season 12: Enter is spying on other players through the cameras. Also, he doesn't find rehidden idols, he copies the original and burns every rehidden one.
- Season 13:
- Alleio ruined Purada's food supply in the name of friendship.
- Hash is actually a girl in manly clothes, with D.O.T. taking her place as the third Nonamye male.
- Tapioca is actually a cunning, sociopathic mind behind a Cloudcuckoolander personality. How much of that is honest remains unclear.
- Season 14:
- Yukie wrote a fan season with the events mirroring those of the actual comic. She also put three pairs who know each other in real life as participants: Liz and Jojo, Prussia and Diego, and Sgt. Stagg and John Hunter. In the grand scheme of things, Jake is an unfinished character whose goal is to act as a placeholder.
- Season 15:
- Cha'Telle is a male in drag.
- Zach's power is turning into a werewolf.
- Lea is a Ditto.
- Shaega gained possession of Xeradonus' Paranoia spirit, and has been using it to destruct the other players' games.
- Season 16:
- "Sarah", Bonnie's supposed therapist, is actually Bonnie herself, with "Bonnie" being an actress hired by the real Bonnie.
- Riley is a werewolf that transforms every 7 nights due to the Mushroom Kingddom's lunar cycle.
- Several right off the bat in Season 17: Amadeus owns a battle robot, Quickscope is an avatar controlled by an eight-year-old, Derrick is Slash from Season 2, and Parmesan's doll is inhabited by a spirit.
- Jenny used Amadeus' Ex-Machina to give Raiza extra powers and animate Ollie.
- Season 18:
- Deimos is a former god of war.
- ET (or at least his parents) is an alien.
- Shin was following a script made by his future self Kasai the entire game.
- Season 19:
- Micah’s a career criminal, not a Good Ol' Boy.
- Season 20:
- Parmesan was never actually cured of his muteness, rendering the previews a lie.
- Taro closed his business and split with Koji after the poisoning incident on his season.
- Liz is actually Lea from Season 15, now going by El.
- Dwayne began taking an experimental fat burning drug that made his muscles grow as well, giving him the Hotter and Sexier appearance he has now.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Happens sometimes in the comic. A recurring typo was "definitely" as "definantly/defiantly".
- Sacrificial Lamb: Cassie asks to be voted out at the start of Season 3 after becoming sick, which ultimately changes Montana's mind about quitting herself.
- Secret Test of Character: Done by jurors at the final Tribal Councils in Seasons 2 and 8. More specifically, Bitsy tells Ellise that she won't be voting for her and then asks her if they can still be friends after the game even if her vote costs her the million, and Johnny does something similar with Matt in Season 8. Of course, it turns out that both jurors had always been planning to vote for their respective friends and just wanted to make sure that their friends didn't view them as just a jury vote. Ellise passes Bitsy's test with flying colors, but Matt bombs Johnny's test in spectacular fashion, effectively screwing himself out of the only vote he could ever have gotten.
- Shown Their Work: SWSU researches the characters' nodes well, even those that are not generally known. This also applies to the video game worlds seasons from 16 onwards take place in. He also knows a lot about Survivor and Survivor edgic.
- Sole Survivor: So far, there's been twenty (nineteen if you count Season 19's winners as one single player) of them.
- Season 1: Skylar defeated Charlie.
- Brains vs. Brawns: Ellise defeated Jasmine and Kris.
- Season 3: Montana defeated Baxter and Alex.
- Fans vs. Canons: Barney defeated Luke.
- Cursed Islands: Marius defeated Miranda and Gatemaster.
- All-Stars: Bitsy defeated Kala.
- Season 7: Ker defeated Wrecker.
- Midway Island: Melanie defeated Heinz and Matt.
- Season 9: Cherman defeated Tofuchao and Bonnie.
- Battle of the Tribes: Jackie defeated Minerva.
- Season 11: Angel defeated Eli and Sunflower.
- Season 12: Lola defeated Spongebob and Shelby.
- Season 13: Jim defeated Tapioca.
- Season 14: Liz defeated her twin Jojo.
- Season 15: Taro defeated Dustin.
- Season 16: Doris defeated Sierra and Vinnie.
- Season 17: Ollie defeated Josh and Jenny.
- Season 18: ET defeated Sagittaria and Shin.
- Season 19: Shiro and Micah defeated Fuchsia.
- Season 20: Montana defeated Taro, making her the first two-time winner in SFC history.
- Season 21.5: Grace defeated Bria and Crab Rangoon.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: It seems the rule is that the Big Bad of each season must be a bigger low-life than the previous. Thankfully this trend seems to have stopped after Season 12.
- Take That!:
- During Season 1, Rene comes across some old Atari 2600 E.T. cartridges dumped in a lake.
- In Season 7, a lot of the contestants ignore Jeff's introductions while competing in challenges. This was taken up to eleven in Season 8, with everyone throwing the first individual immunity challenge and the first three jurors dressing up in the same clothes as Jeff Probst for Tribal Council.
- Russell Hantz's entire purpose for being included as a contestant in Season 7 was to be ridiculed and mocked at every turn.
- One against Redemption Island in Season 8. Delivered by one of the most deluded people in the cast. Another potshot against it comes in the finale of the same season, with Jeff Probst's suggestion that the next season would include it being drowned out in a flood of boos from the entire audience.
- SWSU usually does not get angry about flaming, but after getting some unreasonably excessive loathing from the owner of a certain character for a span of several months, he had finally had enough
- In Season 18, Kasai mocks Lady Bit in confessional and mentions that "Characters from her series were never one for subtlety or nuance."
- As a Take That by SWSU toward himself, Sagittaria from Season 18 mentioned that the people running the show misspell things all the time.
- Yeefrey on Season 21.5's entire existence is pretty much a thinly-veiled Take That to the entire medium of NFTs, which he represents. He's foul mouthed, a slob and a bigot, and regularly talks about how he used to be a big deal.
- Theme Naming:
- Several of the tribe names qualify:
- There's also the tribe names for the first All-Stars season: Solaris and Luna.
- Season 11's tribe names are based off of "Boston" Rob Mariano and Russell Hantz. The merged tribe name is Quinn, the surname for Prescilla aka Bonnie.
- Season 12's tribe names are portmanteaus of "Fans" and "Canons" with the tribe color forcibly wedged in the middle of them (Fabluens and Canredons). The merged tribe name follows suit (Meryellowged).
- Season 17's tribe names are based off of the Guardian Deities in Pokémon's Alola region.
- Season 18's tribe names are Atlas and P-Body. The merged tribe name is Cherman, a previous contestant from Portal.
- Season 21.5's tribe names are two characters from Kingdom Hearts, Eraqus and Xehanort, with the former being the heroes' tribe and the latter being the villains'. The merged tribe namenote is so full of Kingdom Hearts-related buzzwords that it doesn't even fit on screen whenever it appears.
- The Prince of All Cosmos and Popper. Hur hur hur.
- Several of the tribe names qualify:
- Those Two Guys:
- Lola and Spongebob from Fans Vs. Canons 2 pretty much stuck together the whole season, were practically best friends, and even made the final 3 together, with Lola even winning and Spongebob only receiving one fewer vote.
- Despite being another boy-girl pair, Ker and Krauss could also count. The two were stuck together on a horrible tribe, and despite an Ulonging, they made it to the Final 6 together (with Ker even winning the season while Krauss made the Jury), as close as any two players could possibly be.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Zig-Zagged. Ellise managed to survive the annihilation of her alliance in Season 2 and win, Violet and Montana both made the final four in Season 3 while Baxter's alliance of six had the power (and Montana also wins), Ker from Season 7 managed to go on an immunity run at the Final 5 and win as well, Cherman from Season 9 made it all the way to the finals and a landslide win in spite of being a constant target at every Tribal Council and having all his allies voted out, Angel managed to pretend to be a non-factor in order to stay clear of Eli's radar, and beat him and his ally Sunflower in the finals; however, it's subverted in Season 1 when Charlie survived the Pagonging of Drazen, only to lose to Sky in the end, and in All-Stars when Norman was the only guy left after the women took control, and was voted out the one episode he needed to survive the women's alliance.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In Fans vs Canons 2, every plan to defeat Enter that is discussed onscreen fails. Justified in-universe, as Enter is actually spying on the other players through the cameras. Once they figure it out, they start planning off-camera, and manage to catch him off guard.
- Ventriloquism: Kala likes to make her coconut friend, Omay, talk.
- And Mr. Happystick, and Omay 2.0, and Kevin.
- Also Hogan with his Rainbow Afro Hand in All-Stars.
- Versus Title: So far, we've had six of these (though two share a theme).
- Season 2: Brains vs. Brawn.
- Seasons 4 and 12: Fans vs Canons.
- Season 16: Blood vs. Water.
- Season 18: Past vs. Future.
- Season 21.5: Heroes vs. Villains.
- Villainous Breakdown: Prescilla/Bonnie has an EPIC one in Season 9.
- In Season 12, Enter has such a severe one after the idol he used on Bowser is invalidated that he blue-screens.
- In Season 14, Desmond breaks down into a rage-filled rant after Liz reveals her Twin Switch with Jojo at the final 3 Tribal Council.
- Villain Protagonist: Sky, Marius, and Melanie. What set them apart from the other villains was that they had stories setting them up for the eventual win of their seasons, plus they each had good qualities.
- Hero Antagonist: Miranda, Norman (which is fitting), Heinz and Eli.
- We ARE Struggling Together:
- Season 3: Montana and N tried to convince Violet to team up with them via this logic.
- Season 6: Bitsy, Wendy, Kala, and Lucky formed an all-female alliance after the merge, but Lucky was the only one who actually liked the alliance; Bitsy hated the other girls for forcing her into a Sadistic Choice between losing her alliance or voting out her boyfriend Violet, Wendy hated having to listen to their inane girl talk, and Kala didn't get along with the others because of her Talkative Loon behavior.
- Wham Episode:
- In Season 9, the opening of the fifth episode. When SWSU mentioned one of the biggest villains in SFC history, he wasn’t lying.
- Season 13: Purada’s first tribal council. Alleio reveals he sabotaged the tribe, blows up Jim and Annabelle’s games, and the tribe quickly spirals into chaos.
- Season 16's VERY FIRST Tribal Council. It turns out that "Bonnie" is just an actress hired by the real Bonnie, who is in the game playing as "Sarah". She's back to her old tricks and learned from her mistakes.
- Season 17's final 8 episode. The whole episode was suggesting a predictable Ollie boot, but in reality, the four outsiders (Josh, Mele, Ollie, and Parmesan) planned a surprise blindside against the secret Bulu Alliance (Derek, Jeannie, Jenny, and Kade), most of which went unnoticed by the cameras.
- Season 18's final tribal council. In the INVERSE of Season 9, Shin confesses that every single move and victory he made was planned by Kasai in advance, with the exception of Final Immunity. He ends by telling everybody NOT to vote for him, all to ensure he doesn't become Kasai.
- Who's on First?: The "Nobody" alliance in All-Stars.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Victor wants Greg voted out right after he helps build his tribe's shelter in Cursed Islands. It doesn't work.
- In Season 9, Prescilla gets her boyfriend Adrian voted out after he makes it clear that Starr, her designated ally, will be the next one to be voted out and then naively gives her an immunity idol.
- Luna from Season 13 convinces Alleio to do that to himself, as to fulfill his role in the story. Of course, she just wants the super idol.
