Thursday Tropes: Week 50
This is it! The last tropes for 2021! Thanks, H and K for letting me do (almost) a full year of tropes. And I only managed to miss 2 times. I feel like that's great for me considering I thought I'd miss more weeks.
Descriptions will be pulled from TV Tropes and a link provided if you want more information.
The rules? They're simple. Write at least 250 words or create 2 icons/1 banner. Anything from suggestive to outright porn is allowed.
Two tropes to end 2021!
Tyrannical Town Tycoon: He owns the waterworks, the railroad and the hotel on Baltic Avenue. If you cross him he'll not only burn down your house, but throw your mother out of work and send your best friend to the morgue. Forget about going to the police because he owns them too. Your only hope is to somehow recruit that stranger with the mysterious past, or, if you can find them, some mercenaries.
The Tyrannical Town Tycoon is the capitalist successor to the previous class of landed gentry that used to fill the same role. Naturally there are numerous examples that helped inspired the trope and made such fingers highly salient to everyday people. Often portrayed as a Patriarch (or Matriarch) of an extended family that can serve as their muscle, he often succeed in completely cowing the entire town into accepting their villainy, even in societies where one wouldn't expect it.
The Tyrannical Town Tycoon is always a Big Fish in a Small Pond, content to dominate their little fiefdom without much greater ambition. Often times they are able to get away with their crimes because nobody in the big city or state capitol notices what's going on out in the countryside. If a hero is unable to defeat Potter and his family by kicking, most times just getting word out will be enough to summon The Cavalry.
While once popular in all forms of media, The Tyrannical Town Tycoon is on its way to becoming a Discredited Trope, at least in the developed world. Corrupt executives working for large corporations have stepped in to take their place as the Real Life local businesses that once influenced small town life have been bought up by larger and larger players whose wealthy owners don't even bother to live near the communities they are destroying.
More modern works usually need to handwave away the growing unlikelihood of a major business person being confided to one town, by claiming the person really has a massive business empire outside the town (which probably remains completely offscreen), but in particular they cares about this town for some reason i.e. it being their hometown, etc.
Usually a modern implementation of Aristocrats Are Evil or the Feudal Overlord. Almost certainly a Corrupt Corporate Executive, just one with enough power and influence to run a whole town. Sub-trope of I Own This Town, where someone basically owns the town but out of a variety of reasons like organized crime or political connections. If the Corrupt Hick is wealthy enough they often fit this trope, but the Tyrannical Town Tycoon can apply to any region.
New Year Has Come: As sure as the taxes, it comes at the end of every year: the New Year. Time for looking back, looking forward, and just going crazy. Time to celebrate and do all the things that for obvious reasons you couldn't do in the Christmas Episode.
Manga and anime love the New Year; in Japan, it's essentially the biggest holiday of the year (Christmas, which is the biggest holiday of the year in North America, is celebrated a bit differently there). This is where you can show all the girls and some of the boys looking good in kimono while making the traditional visit to the local shrine. Of course you can also dress some of them up as Miko (yes, some of the boys, too!) to manage the crowds and sell charms and fortunes to visitors. Or you can just let them stay up late to see the first sunrise of the new year-if they can stay awake, of course!
In Western media, often a source of date anxiety (and a New Year's Kiss!). Common things include big fireworks, lots of champagne, and the making (and inevitable breaking) of New Year's resolutions. And of course, a toast and the singing of "Auld Lang Syne" When the Clock Strikes Twelve. That's provided you can agree on whether it's the first or the last stroke which marks the change (it's the first). And that the characters can stay awake. In fact both young and old characters may fall asleep before midnight, indicating immaturity for the former, and fatigue for the latter. In action-adventure shows, the plot will often involve a bomb set to go off exactly at midnight local time (often at the ball-drop in New York City's Times Square or the show's equivalent).
Some works use the new year as a natural starting and/or ending point for their stories. In series it may be used as an excuse for a Clip Show.
Since the whole point of New Year's is the date turnover, it can be weird when this trope meets a work where the year is never given. If that's the case, expect the words "old year"/"last year" and "new year" to appear where the actual years would normally be mentioned.
Descriptions will be pulled from TV Tropes and a link provided if you want more information.
The rules? They're simple. Write at least 250 words or create 2 icons/1 banner. Anything from suggestive to outright porn is allowed.
Two tropes to end 2021!
Tyrannical Town Tycoon: He owns the waterworks, the railroad and the hotel on Baltic Avenue. If you cross him he'll not only burn down your house, but throw your mother out of work and send your best friend to the morgue. Forget about going to the police because he owns them too. Your only hope is to somehow recruit that stranger with the mysterious past, or, if you can find them, some mercenaries.
The Tyrannical Town Tycoon is the capitalist successor to the previous class of landed gentry that used to fill the same role. Naturally there are numerous examples that helped inspired the trope and made such fingers highly salient to everyday people. Often portrayed as a Patriarch (or Matriarch) of an extended family that can serve as their muscle, he often succeed in completely cowing the entire town into accepting their villainy, even in societies where one wouldn't expect it.
The Tyrannical Town Tycoon is always a Big Fish in a Small Pond, content to dominate their little fiefdom without much greater ambition. Often times they are able to get away with their crimes because nobody in the big city or state capitol notices what's going on out in the countryside. If a hero is unable to defeat Potter and his family by kicking, most times just getting word out will be enough to summon The Cavalry.
While once popular in all forms of media, The Tyrannical Town Tycoon is on its way to becoming a Discredited Trope, at least in the developed world. Corrupt executives working for large corporations have stepped in to take their place as the Real Life local businesses that once influenced small town life have been bought up by larger and larger players whose wealthy owners don't even bother to live near the communities they are destroying.
More modern works usually need to handwave away the growing unlikelihood of a major business person being confided to one town, by claiming the person really has a massive business empire outside the town (which probably remains completely offscreen), but in particular they cares about this town for some reason i.e. it being their hometown, etc.
Usually a modern implementation of Aristocrats Are Evil or the Feudal Overlord. Almost certainly a Corrupt Corporate Executive, just one with enough power and influence to run a whole town. Sub-trope of I Own This Town, where someone basically owns the town but out of a variety of reasons like organized crime or political connections. If the Corrupt Hick is wealthy enough they often fit this trope, but the Tyrannical Town Tycoon can apply to any region.
New Year Has Come: As sure as the taxes, it comes at the end of every year: the New Year. Time for looking back, looking forward, and just going crazy. Time to celebrate and do all the things that for obvious reasons you couldn't do in the Christmas Episode.
Manga and anime love the New Year; in Japan, it's essentially the biggest holiday of the year (Christmas, which is the biggest holiday of the year in North America, is celebrated a bit differently there). This is where you can show all the girls and some of the boys looking good in kimono while making the traditional visit to the local shrine. Of course you can also dress some of them up as Miko (yes, some of the boys, too!) to manage the crowds and sell charms and fortunes to visitors. Or you can just let them stay up late to see the first sunrise of the new year-if they can stay awake, of course!
In Western media, often a source of date anxiety (and a New Year's Kiss!). Common things include big fireworks, lots of champagne, and the making (and inevitable breaking) of New Year's resolutions. And of course, a toast and the singing of "Auld Lang Syne" When the Clock Strikes Twelve. That's provided you can agree on whether it's the first or the last stroke which marks the change (it's the first). And that the characters can stay awake. In fact both young and old characters may fall asleep before midnight, indicating immaturity for the former, and fatigue for the latter. In action-adventure shows, the plot will often involve a bomb set to go off exactly at midnight local time (often at the ball-drop in New York City's Times Square or the show's equivalent).
Some works use the new year as a natural starting and/or ending point for their stories. In series it may be used as an excuse for a Clip Show.
Since the whole point of New Year's is the date turnover, it can be weird when this trope meets a work where the year is never given. If that's the case, expect the words "old year"/"last year" and "new year" to appear where the actual years would normally be mentioned.