Technology for Living

One of my favorite sites is TV Tropes. When you look at what fiction is, it is the way concepts and ideas are transmitted large-scale. If you look at the Earth as a large super-organism, then fictional media such as TV, video games, books and movies would be Earth’s imagination, or perhaps a low-level way of communicating with the individuals of it’s most self-aware element.

TV Tropes takes these works and looks “under the hood” to see the components that make them work  Some shows have a page devoted to the characters, where they show what tropes and traits the character has. I figured that if my life is a story as an analogy, then my story should have a character page. So, I went through the site and compiled my character sheet. It’s assembled just as it would be on the site itself, with links leading to the wiki entries detailing the meaning, and where else that trope shows up. Bear in mind: tropes are not clichés.

Here is enough to get to know me pretty well. Be warned, though: Some say that TV Tropes will ruin your life, as you can’t un-know what you know. On the other hand, greater appreciation for the intricacies of story and form means to some that TV Tropes will enhance your life. Proceed at your own discretion.

• Absent Minded Professor with no students
• Afraid Of Needles
• Apologizes a Lot
  
• The Apprentice, see “The Force” below
• Badass Creed – see Survival Mantra below
• Bald of Awesome (give it a few years)
• Beware the Honest Ones
• Beware the Nice Ones
• Big Boned, which is good, because they have to carry some extra pounds, too.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome
• Cloudcuckoolander due to the Force training below.
• The Conscience, not that he doesn’t have his own human foibles.
• Curious as a Monkey
• Deadpan Snarker
• Is in an Enlightenment Cycle
• Evil Laugh – odd, as there are no outright villainous urges. Still, well polished just the same.
• Fatal Flaw:
  
  • Brilliant but Lazy
    • Doesn’t come into play as long as there is in sight something significant to be learned and/or a challenge that can be won. Doesn’t need to be “easy”, just needs to be reasonably “winnable”. Also negated by Undying Loyalty below.
  • Fleeting Passionate Hobbies - mild case. The world is just too interesting.
    
  • Possesses a deep and abiding respect for the ladies, while finding them irresistible.
    • Now, focused on the Missus . See Happily Married.
      
  • Sweet Tooth
• The Fettered
• Practices the ways of The Force, which imparts an odd worldview. See Cloudcuckoolander above.
  
• Fourth Wall Observer – See Genre Savvy
• Friend To All Children - see Gentle Giant below
  
• Genre Savvy, with a tendency of talking to the Fourth Wall for fun.
• Gentle Giant
• Good Is Not Nice – See Knight in Sour Armor below
• Gut Feeling – See The Force above
• Happily Married, especially happy since Opposites Attract
• Sadly, a wielder of the Incredibly Lame Pun.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation
• Jumped At The Call
• Kids Are Cruel – was on the receiving end.
  
• Turns into a Knight in Sour Armor when life issues a beat-down.
• Literal Minded
• Malaproper for fun and profit
• Tends to give the Mathematician’s Answer (See Literal Minded above)
• Minored in Asskicking
• The Movie Buff which is the source of the Genre Savvy above
  
• Mr Imagination – extensively as a child, nowadays (mostly) harnessed for thought experiments.
• Nice To The Waiter – too much experience and awareness to do otherwise.
• Not A Morning Person unless a polyphasic sleep schedule is in use.
• Lives in The Other Rainforest
• Life’s goal is to become The Paragon
• Promoted to Parent due to a large family, made moreso when Dad went on the road/Mom and Dad split up.
• Religious background:
  • Mom and Dad both had LDS leanings and background, but:
  • Mom also has a strong background in Fundementalist Christianity
  • Dad also has/had a strong background in Neo-Paganism
  • So, Yeah.
• Sacrificed Basic Skill For Awesome Training – Soaks up knowledge like a dry sponge, but possessing only basic social skills. See Intelligence Equals Isolation above.
• Sophisticated as Hell, particularly fond of the Expo Speak Gag.
• Survival Mantra – Several, most notably the Desiderata and Invictus
• Technical Pacifist, not to be confused with an Actual Pacifist
• Holds that There Are No Coincidences
• Undying Loyalty to those deemed worthy.
• Unfunny
• Walking Techfix – Less so after the age where doubt sets in, but still strong.
• Why Did It Have To Be Snakes SPIDERS
• World Of Cardboard Speech – increasingly, it seems the only limitations are self-imposed, and there’s more there than previously imagined.
  

Since you’ve made it this far, you’ll probably know what this is all about. If you think that this is a case of nerd sniping, that was not the intention, although it would work fine for that, to paraphrase Tommy Lee Jones.