Survival of the Fittest

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The game takes all kinds

"Look around. Look at your classmates. How many of them do you truly know? How many would you trust with your life?" —Danya, V4 Prologue

Survival of the Fittest is a roleplaying board based on Battle Royale, which began in June 2005.

The premise is simple: a class of high-school students are abducted on the way to their end-of-year trip, fitted with collars, given randomly distributed weapons and are dropped onto an unknown island to fight their former peers until one remains alive. What ensues is drama, action, comedy, and most important, tragedy all rolled into a single RP. Gradually, over each "season", more and more secrets are revealed behind Danya and the terrorist organization which has managed to keep this twisted act running for over three years.

The roleplay is geared primarily towards intermediate-advanced level writers. SOTF is open for anyone to join - although there is a member approval process in place, as well as a rigorous character acceptance system.

Version 4 of SOTF has reached its conclusion, and the Pre-Game for Version 5 is now in progress.

SOTF can be found here. The wiki can be found here. Unfortunately, this recently suffered an error which cost it significant amounts of data, including a large number of student profiles. Board members are currently concentrating on wiki updates for version 4.

As of March 2010, SOTF also has a spin off site, known as SOTF Mini, geared towards faster games and newer writers, as well as being the site for 'official' larger-scale Alternate Universe RPs. All three of the games, The Program, SOTF-TV, and Virtua-SOTF, are nearing their conclusions. Meanwhile, a "Second Chances" edition has started up, exclusive to characters from previous games who have died before.

For reference, those RPing characters are called 'handlers' on the board, so if you see SotF examples using the word, this is what is meant by it.

If you thought this page was about the slogan used to summarise the theory of evolution and later appropriated by people who consider themselves fit, you're looking for The Social Darwinist.

General

• Abandoned Hospital: Every island used in the four seasons have had an abandoned clinic, usually small buildings. The location name on the forum is usually some variation of "Abandoned Hospital".
• Aborted Arc: Considering the nature of the game, it's to be expected that a lot of storylines will be left hanging or unfinished.
• Abusive Parents: This occurs very often, although most of the more obvious examples can be found within the first two games. For some, such as Mariavel Varella, this is a defining part of their Backstory.
• All There in the Manual: A lot of extra information about the students, including their background and even appearance, is included in their profiles.
• Anti Hero: Many, the most notable being Bryan Calvert, Hawley Faust, and as of V3, Adam Dodd.
• Anti Villain: Just as many. Bobby Jacks and Aaron Hughes are examples of this trope:
  • For Bobby, whilst he does play the game, he is constantly plagued by his guilty conscience, being painfully aware of everything he is doing.
  • Aaron Hughes, on the other hand, is a plain Manipulative Bastard, given the perfect opportunity to kill Nick Reid, a known killer, but leaves him alive to kill one of his former friends and use his death to turn him into a martyr. And just so he can eliminate the competition.
• Anyone Can Die
• Art Evolution: Newer readers are regularly amazed when they see the writing... er, quality... back in V1, considering where the game is now.
• Big Bad: Victor Danya, head of the terrorist group behind SOTF. At least until v4's Day Ten...
• Bloodstained Glass Windows: In each version there is always a church of some kind on the island.
• Break the Cutie/Haughty: This happens a lot... Though given the nature of the story and the game, is that really so surprising?
• Bulletproof Vest: Subverted for the most part - in SOTF, these tend to be treated very realistically. However, this is also played straight in the case of Shannon McLocke, who takes a close range shotgun blast to the chest and gets up with barely a scratch.
• Chekhov's Skill: This sometimes happens with the profiles of the characters. Newbies often try to cram in as many potentially useful skills as possible (such as survival training, firearm proficiency and martial arts. Made ridiculous when you consider that the characters are supposed to be Ordinary High School Students.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Mitch Gunther, Anna Kateridge, Cisco Vasquez, Lily Ainsworth, Maria Graham, and Annaliese Hanson are definitely this:
  • Mitch:

Mitch: Dog eat dog. Dogs don't eat dogs, they eat birds and cats and Kibblebits if they have a family. Those words are silly. But I would have gotten that right if that silly glasses boy hadn't answered before me. Yes, I would have gotten it right.

• • Anna:

Anna: Oh dear... I regret to say this, but I feel as though I'm in the uncanny valley right now... oh my, did that inside joke come out alright? I hope I did...

• • Cisco:

Cisco: Are...are you going to kill me? George Leidman: What? No, no. Not at all! Why would I? Cisco: Oh...that's...a bit disappointing.

• • Lily:

Lily: Blimey! I love watching the figure skaters twirl on the ice, they look so nice. Did you know that the figure skating dates back to prehistoric times? The first actual account of it was written by a monk in cantebury...

• • Maria:

Maria: (thinking) I wonder what happened? I'll have to ask him about it later...what, why am I still thinking in blue? Oh, there we go.

• • Annaliese:

Annaliese: Ray, there’s a zombie in our yard.

• Cluster F Bomb: Adam Dodd in V1, Dorian Sanders in V3 and Kris Hartmann in V4, the lattermost in three different languages. Jimmy Brennan, on the other hand, should get points for sheer density.
• Co Dragons: Steven Wilson, Jim Greynolds, Melvin Carter and Sonia Ngyuen, collectively known as the Big Four. As of Day 8 in v4, it's more like the Big Three.
• Deserted Island: The main stage of Survival of the Fittest.
• Disc One Final Boss: Players or villains who are killed off either before the halfway mark or before the story really kicks into high gear fall into this category - Jacob Starr in v1, Blood Boy in v3, Clio Gabriella in v4, and Cristo Ruiz in SOTF: Evolution.
• Downer Ending: All the versions by default - when the game has only one survivor, there's going to be precious little to smile about.
• Explosive Leash: Following the story of Battle Royale, collars are fitted to every character. They go off if they are in a dangerzone, if attempts are made to remove them, if the character attempts to escape, if they piss off Danya...
• Expy: Some of the characters are blatant clones of either past SOTF characters (such as Gabriel Theobaldt for Oliver Dodd) or characters from Battle Royale (such as Mariavel Varela for Mitsuko Souma).
• Flashbacks: Loads of them.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Take an entire senior class of normal high school students, trap them in a last man standing fight to the death with (supposedly) no chance of escape, and see how many psychos and mass murderers you get.
• Genre Busting: In many ways; on one hand, like the source material, it is pretty difficult to define what kind of genre it is. On the other, with so many different writing styles across so many characters in one place, the final product of Survival of the Fittest is downright impossible to define as a single genre.
• Handguns: A common weapon.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Notably, handlers can do this, using their 'Hero Card' to have their own character killed off in order to save someone else's.
  • It can easily stray into Senseless Sacrifice territory however if the character who is saved then goes and dies soon after, e.g. through inactivity or being rolled again right away.
• He Who Fights Monsters: The entire concept of player-killers is based in this. They're targeting people who are playing the game, but in doing so are becoming players themselves.
  • The scope of their player targeting can help this along, too. Sure, that girl who killed 6 people probably deserves it, but how do they know that guy who killed 1 didn't do it in self-defense?
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Danya's agenda is so well hidden that even most of the handlers don't know what it is, let alone the characters. This is a bigger deal than it sounds when you take into account that the handlers are the ones who write the plot. After six years and four versions of the game, with a fifth on the way, only a few hints have been shown.
• High School: Since the involved characters are high school students, the pregames versions two, three, four, and five, as well as spinoff seasons The Program, SOTF-TV and Second Chances, took place in the schools the characters attended (Bathurst, Hobbsborough, Franklyn Senior, and PJ Gilroy Academy in v2, Southridge in v3, Bayview Secondary in v4, Aurora High for v5, General’s Pride in The Program v1, Detroit Central High and Silver Dragon Academy in SOTF-TV v1, and Colehurst for Second Chances) and the cities they lived in (Denton for v2, Highland Beach for v3 and Second Chances, St. Paul for v4, Seattle for v5, Pittsburgh for The Program v1, and Detroit and Bryan, Texas, for SOTF-TV v1).
• Improbable Weapon User: Due to the sick sense of humour of Danya in Survival of the Fittest, bobble-head dolls and plastic hammers have been known to come into play as assigned weapons.
• Killed Off for Real: Subverted in the case of the v3 escapees and Burton Harris (the first time each of them were 'killed', that is)
• Kill Em All: The whole point of the game, being based on Battle Royale, is to force the involved students to kill each other off until there is only one survivor.
• Kill the Cutie: Hey! Is there a character you like in Survival of the Fittest? It's almost definite they won't make it to the end, thanks to the premise.
• Lampshade Hanging: Has proven to be quite common. For example:

Melina Frost: Go on then... show him why we're called the Poison Angles [sic]. Jeff Marontate: Poison Angles, huh? Oh, I'll give you a whole new set of angles in a minute, my darling.

• Loads and Loads of Characters: Each game has over one hundred students, and one of the test runs had two hundred, as did v3. V4 had 276 characters altogether. These character counts aren't including the terrorists themselves, adults, or side characters who don't make it into the games.
• Made of Explodium: Cars and heads (the collars, so justified) are included in Survival of the Fittest. In the case of the exploding car, (in particular one in v1 with Jeremy Torres at the wheel) this causes an entire building to go up in a huge fireball too.
• The Mole: Steven Wilson, aka. Principal Wilson, for Bathurst in v2, Sparky, aka Brynn Lovell for the terrorists in v4.
• Mutual Kill: Kiyoko Asakawa vs. Cassandra Roivas in v1, Sera Wingfield vs. Gail Smith in v2, Melina Frost vs. Beth Vandelinder in v3, Jaclyn Kusche vs. Charlotte Cave and Alex White vs. Jimmy Brennan in v4.
• One of Us: Many of the members of the site, and even one of the admins, frequent TV Tropes and can consider themselves avid tropers. Even without TV Tropes as a criteria, you'd be hard pressed to find a member or handler who doesn't have some sort of interest that puts them square in this category.
• The Power of Friendship: Subverted to hell in many, many instances. Sydney Morvran, winner of V0 (the final 'test run') is the most prominent example of this. He ends up being the sole survivor of his first game by using his best friend as a human shield after all the rest of his friends started attacking one another in a paranoid fit. Then Syd was put into the next game as punishment for not killing anybody.
• Out With a Bang: Happens to a few characters in V1 and in V2. As Mr. Danya put it during his announcement of Matt Drew's death at the hands of Sera Wingfeld:

Danya: "Let's just say that Sera Wingfield took him to heaven before she sent him to hell. Hey, she was good to the man."

• Rare Guns: The SPAS-12, Auto-Mag, Desert Eagle, and even the two-of-a-kind full-auto Pancor Jackhammer, all make multiple appearances.
• Realism: The ultimate direction SOTF has been trying to take as of late. It serves as a double-edged sword a lot of the time, though; realism for the characters is the biggest focus, as it eliminates common Mary Sue traits and focuses more on the concept that any normal high-schooler, rather than the kid with an explicably good reason, can start killing their friends, but when it's applied to the setting and possible storylines, the whole thing starts to fall apart...
• Schedule Slip: Every version has had the occasional slip in schedule, but this is most prevalent in v3, where there was a 5-month hiatus in between Eddie Sullivan's death (7th place), and James Brown and Alexis Machina's death (6th and 5th place), then a seven-month hiatus between then and endgame being released. This extended period of time allowed for one-and-a-half-years of pre-game.
• Sinister Surveillance: The cameras all around the Island, along with the collars track everything the students are doing.
• Sure Why Not: A staff member once joked that one of the terrorist programmers Dennis Lourvey paid his way through MIT by being a male stripper. This was quickly accepted as canon. Similar 'throw it in' moments happen at a startling rate.
• Web Original: The RP is based on Koshun Takami's Battle Royale, but it has entirely original characters and a very different setting and plot; it started out being set in the Battle Royale universe, but was eventually retconned into an original world.
• Write Who You Know: There are a large number of self insert characters or characters who are basically people each handler knows in real life. These characters are typically portrayed realistically, however.
• Your Head Asplode: Collar detonation. Stay in a danger zone too long, try to remove the collar, suffer an unfortunate impact, get used as an example by Danya to try to scare off SADD or Liz Polanski...

Version 4

• Accidental Murder: A couple of deaths have occured this way; Jackson Ockley (shot by Ilario Fiametta with a lipstick gun) and Jake Crimson (pushed over by Garry Villette and cracking his head on a cinderblock), Craig Hoyle (shot by Nik Kronwall), Mia Kuiper (impaled on a tree branch by Bridget Connolly), and Steven Hunt (shot by Brendan Wallace in the leg and bled out).
• Adam and Or Eve: Eve Walker-Luther and Eva Lancaster.
• Afraid of Blood: Liam "Brook" Brooks and Rena Peters suffers from this. Sadly, they're also on a deserted island and forced to kill their classmates... although after the girl he loves dies, Liam's not the least bit scared of it anymore...
• All Drummers Are Animals: Maria "Animal" Graham, certified Cloudcuckoolander, plays the drums for Blank Nation.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Rosa Fiametta's attraction to JJ Sturn, despite the fact he's pretty much a Jerkass (whilst they're dating, at least). This backfires on her in a major way.
• Amusement Park of Doom: One of the locations in v4 is an abandoned fairground, with a ferris wheel and carousel, and a Hall of Mirrors nearby.
• Axe Crazy: Jimmy Brennan, Liam "Brook" Brooks, and Cisco Vasquez.
• Badass: Aston Bennett starts out relatively unassuming, but when she gets revenge on Quincy Jones for an earlier misfortune, she gets scary.

Aston: "And who better to null my own pain than the only person I truly hate on this island? You disgust me that much." (shoots Quincy in the elbow) Aston: "Hand slipped. The next one won't miss."

• Battle Amongst the Flames: The fight between Maria Graham and Maxwell Lombardi takes place inside a burning bunker.
  • Part of the endgame takes place inside a burning house, although no-one actually dies inside it.
• Bear Trap: Lucy Ashmore's designated weapon in is one of these.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted in the case of Celeste Beaumont. After days of wandering the swamps, she looks horrible.
• Big Damn Heroes: STAR, who took Danya hostage and boating a portion of the students out, who all manage to make it back to America.
  • On a smaller scale, Joe Rios interrupts a shootout between Aston Bennett and Quincy Jones by sneaking up on Quincy, kneecapping him with a borrowed pistol, and clocking him in the jaw with his own gun.
• Big Screwed Up Family: The Fiametta triplets. One (Rosa) is pretty much the poster girl for Looking for Love In All The Wrong Places, and has been known to hit on Anything That Moves, another (Frankie) regularly uses drugs, and the last, and the one male out of the three (Ilario), not only is heavily pressured by his father, but has to look after the other two in spite of actually being the youngest (albeit by a matter of minutes), and is somewhat neurotic as a result. Add to that mix a clueless stepmother with no emotional connection to the children whatsoever and a father who only really cares about his son, showing it by... insisting that he must perform well at school and more or less ignoring his daughters, and you get this trope.
• Bi the Way: There's a lot more fluid sexuality in the class of v4 this time around. Mainly, compared to v2's 1 bisexual, v3's 1 bisexual, there are heaps more bisexual students than thought possible. Peter Siu, Brendan Wallace, Madelyn Prowers, Felicia Carmichael, Orn "Dutchy" Ayers, Charlene Norris, Megan Nelson, Dawne Jiang, Colin Falcone, Hayley Kelly, William Hearst...to say this is an overabundant trope says the least about its prevalence.
• Bittersweet Ending: Sure, a lot of the students die, but unlike previous versions many of the students were rescued and made it back to America, Danya is seemingly dead, and the terrorists have been dealt an almost crippling blow.
• Black Dude Dies First: Melvin Carter is the first of the terrorist leaders to die.
• Blind Without Em: Craig Hoyle and Marco Stonecastle both suffer from terrible vision. Marco loses his glasses during a scuffle with Maxwell Lombardi, his sight becomes blurred and he can no longer fight back. Needless to say, it doesn't end well for him...
• Book Ends: Both Allen Birkman and Brendan Wallace in their final threads before they're rescued remark that they're standing in the same place where they first woke up on the island.
  • When she first wakes up, Tiffany Baker discards her gun into a puddle in the swamp. Some time later she returns to the exact same area and fishes out the gun. She then gets shot and killed by Jason Harris, who thinks she's trying to attack with said gun.
• Bring My Brown Pants: The very first thing that Jimmy Brennan does once he wakes up on the island is... wet himself. Then he starts crying and running around screaming throughout the forest, eventually shouting out that "Craig Hoyle will rape you and wear your skin as a coat!"
  • Tabi Gweneth similarly wets herself (and passes out) soon after waking up on the island...notably, she still doesn't realize that she is in fact on Survival of the Fittest. Possibly a natural reaction to being threatened with an umbrella, but it still makes you wonder about her every-day life.
• Cain and Abel: Staffan Kronwall kills his brother Nik.
• Canon Immigrant: Yelizaveta 'Bounce' Volkova started off as a character in the 'In-Universe Chat' (a chatroom where SOTF members could RP being members of the show's audience). After some time, she was brought into the version four pregame as a fully-fledged character.
• Casanova: Dustin Royal. Also may come off as a Handsome Lech.
• Cold Blooded Torture: Sarah Atwell goes mad and cruelly tortures Eve Walker-Luther. While filming it.
• Companion Cube: Jake Crimson and his cinderblock.
• Crash Into Hello: Reiko Ishida and Sarah Xu meet this way.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Lucy Ashmore has her moments, such as spilling school supplies all over the place when opening her pencil case, or accidentally pouring water on someone's leg. However, this is more out of nervousness, due to being picked on.
• Darkness Von Gothickname: Meredith Hemmings, or as she prefers to be called, Pandora Black. According to her it's her "soul name".
• Dead Person Conversation: Albert Lions comes across the body of his friend Augustus MacDougal, and then right away he sees his ghost. Augustus follows Albert around, the pair conversing like normal (Dougal even has to remind Albert that only he can see him). Whether Dougal's ghost is real or just a figment of Albert's imagination is unknown.
  • Later, Simon Telamon falls asleep, after which he manages to remove his collar, only to engage in conversation with his girlfriend Clio Gabriella, who had died two days previously. She herself reveals that the entire thing is a dream.
  • Janet Claymont also has a dream conversation with her dead boyfriend, Chadd Crossen, after she almost tries to kill herself by drinking chlorine where he snaps her out of it.
• Death By Falling Over: Happens a fair bit. Edward Belmont hits his head on a rock after being whacked with a stick by Rachel Gettys. Jake Crimson suffers a slow death, having struck his head on a cinderblock when pushed over by Garry Villette, and Timothy Skula dies when he hits his head on a rock after being shot by Ilario Fiametta.
  • The unusual number of "Death by falling over and hitting your head on a rock" deaths (both in v4 and v3) have led to a few humorous Epileptic Trees.
• Developing Doomed Characters: "Pre-Game" for v4 existed to establish character relationships, romances, etc, and took up about eighteen months before anything remotely game-related happened.
• Disney Villain Death: Happens to Maxwell Lombardi when he falls backwards over a sheer drop after being shot repeatedly by Raidon Naoko.
• Driven to Suicide: Dawne Jiang, Violetta Lindsberg, Hermione Miller, Brock Mason, Lily Ainsworth, Sofia Martelli and Courtney Bradley all kill themselves over the course of the game. Simon Fletcher, Jackie Maxwell, Hilary Strand, and Tyler Franklin also commit suicide, but through having someone else kill them.
  • In a game finishing move, Ilario Fiametta.
• Drop What You Are Doing: Reiko Ishida does something like this with a piece of bread she had been eating when she finds out that her twin sister Reika has been killed. This quickly reached Memetic Mutation.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Tiffany Baker admits her feelings for Peter Siu as she's dying. Unfortunately, Liam Brooks had feelings for her as well, so for him it was a Dying Declaration of Unrequited Love, and partly what causes him to go down the Axe Crazy route.
• Everythings Worse With Bears: There is a common joke among handlers that inactive characters are killed and eaten by an "Inactivity Bear". Also, in her first post, version 4 character Maria Graham has a dream where she was actually "Robo-Bear 5000", which was, of course, a robotic bear disguised as a student and was going to avenge its kidnapping.
  • Of course, when Version 4's Megan Nelson was due to die...
• Evil Brit: Maxwell Lombardi fast became one of these after killing Augustus MacDougal, Harold Fisher and Vera Osborne. At the time of his death, he had more than quadrupled his body count. Without provocation.
• Evil Cripple: Jackie Broughten in a nutshell, who had a permanently damaged leg from getting hit by a car. Her first action on the island? Slicing Maria Santiago's throat open with a saw. And that's not even going into her Hearing Voices...
• Extreme Melee Revenge: Jimmy Brennan got revenge on school bully Phillip Ward by beating him to death with a piece of driftwood, and continued to pummel his head in long after he'd died.
• Eye Scream: There's Charlotte Cave's eye being sliced apart with a cat claw wielded by Phillip Ward, then Rekka Saionji having his popped by Template:R.J. Lowe's elbow and penetrated again by his molar, then Vivien Morin being stabbed in the eye with a pencil courtesy of Liam Brooks. Nick Reid thrust a sword hilt right into William Sear's eye, and then later on was a victim himself, being stabbed there by Maf Tuigamala.
• Face Palm: Aileen Borden seems to do this pretty often. To be fair, it fits her normal personality.
• Face Your Fears: Allen Birkman, an aquaphobe, does this during the rescue attempt by STAR. When Andrea Raymer is badly injured and lying face-down in the water, he jumps in to pull her to safety.
• Facing the Bullets One Liner: when Eve Walker-Luther is about to be killed by Sarah Atwell:

Eve Walker-Luther: "Come on! I deserve better than this! Kill me properly!"

• Fan Service: Invoked by Andrea Raymer when Danya begins randomly detonating students' collars in retaliation to Liz Polanksi.

Andrea: "And uh, Danya, if you want to see more crazy shirtless Andrea, don't blow my collar!"

• Flare Gun: Maria Graham recieved a flare gun as an assigned weapon. Later, she shot somebody with it, and while it ends up bouncing off his chest, it ricocheted into the girl next to him and got caught in her shirt, burning a hole right through her before igniting and vaporizing her torso, and then burning down everything in a 20 yard radius.
• French Jerk: Alice Boucher is an example of this Trope: one of her biggest regrets about being in America is that she doesn't know any insults in English. Due to Character Development after being put on the island (as well as a change in writer), she grows out of this very quickly though.
• Genki Girl: Maria Graham, who's an odd mix of Genki Girl, Cloudcuckoolander, and Stepford Smiler.
• Genre Savvy: Bounce had been a massive fan of the series prior to her own involvement in it and as such references things like The Power of Friendship never working in SOTF and the fact that, as an unfit, unpopular nerd, there's no point in her making plans because people like her never stand a chance.
• Gorn: Averted for the most part, as v4 has been focused more on realism rather than gore and horror. However, the death of Francine Moreau was a very... over the top depiction of death by flare gun. To put it simply, liquefied, charred, vaporized, and immolated.
• Griefer: Alex White holds the equivalent of a temper tantrum when he finds out rescue boats have arrived, and because he's been playing and killed about four people, he's not allowed to be rescued. He decides he's going to blow up the boats just so no one can get off if he can't. Thankfully, Andrea Raymer puts a stop to that.
• Groin Attack: Raidon Naoko gets stabby on Maxwell Lombardi's crotch whilst taking him down.
• Gun Twirling: Harold Fisher tries this before killing Maxwell Lombardi. Naturally, he drops the gun, which Maxwell puts to much better use.
  • Joe Rios does it too out of sheer boredom, with much more success.
• Hates Being Touched: Isabel Guerra seems to have problems with this. Flashbacks show her recoiling from touch and she screams and falls into a bush after brushing hands with Dave Morrison. It even has been shown to extend to other people being intimate, such as her pretty much having a panic attack when trapped in the restroom with Rosa Fiametta and Felicia Carmichael making out during prom.
• Hates Everyone Equally: Zach Jamis hates everyone and everything in the world as much as the next thing he hates...except for his best friend Sammy Franklin.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Jacob Charles and Ben Powell, or as they're more affectionately known, "BROMIES!".
• High School Dance: The lead up to and eventual event of the High School Dance in v4 is ultimately what takes up most of Pre-Game.
• High School Sweethearts: Janet Claymont and Chadd Crossen. Turns out it was somewhat one sided though, as Chadd spent his dying moments forgiving Janet for cheating on him, whilst Janet spent hers regretting that she couldn't think of something more worthwhile than him.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Raina Morales is the standout example at 6'6".
• Human Shield: Occurs early on, where Gracie Wainright attempts to rob Anna Chase (who is not wearing her glasses) and Kitty Gittschall. After being threatened by Kitty and hit by Kyle Portman, Gracie is just distracted enough for Anna to attempt to run away. However, she is quickly caught and held by the hair by Gracie, taking her hostage in an attempt to hold off Kitty and Kyle, so she can rob Anna in peace.
• I Call It Vera: Appears often. Hayley Kelly actually calls her gun Vera.
• Informed Loner: Brendan Wallace is introduced as a somewhat cynical Australian New Transfer Student with social anxiety. However, by the end of pre-game he is a member of an activist club, previously had a Secret Relationship with one character, is currently in a relationship with another, has a Manic Pixie Dream Girl best friend, and is a tech guy for a band. However, this can be justified by Character Development / Characterization Marches On very easily.
• Instant Awesome Just Add Ninja: Richard Han, while not actually a ninja, goofs off and pretends to be one for most of his time on the island. Which makes his first appearance on the island (being stuck in a tree) and his death by misstepping and falling off a mountain that much more funnier.
• Ironic Nickname: Meredith Hemmings is occasionally referred to as "Merry". She isn't.
• Instant Fanclub: Reiko Ishida got one of these due to her success in ice skating, often referred to as her "entourage". Bit of a subversion, though, as, unlike most characters that have found themselves in this trope, she's actually quite close friends with them.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Happens constantly between Isabel Guerra and Dave Morrison, mostly involving racist remarks towards Isabel:

Dave: "Listen, me and the Help, we're pretty fucking tired to be honest." Isabel: "I can hear you still."

• Instrument of Murder: Isabel Guerra making a shiv out of a trumpet and broken piece of glass. It's called Partario.
• I Want My Mommy: Amber Whimsy cries for her mummy whilst bleeding to death after being shot in the stomach by Kris Hartmann.
• Killed Off for Real: As of Day 10, apparently Danya.
• Land Down Under: Three Australian students, Jason Harris, Brendan Wallace, and Ben Powell, attended Bayview.
• Lesbian Jock: Reiko Ishida, of Survival of the Fittest, is a rare example of one of these that does ice skating. Despite the fact that, as noted above, it tends to be seen as "girly", she is masculine enough (and, well, the obvious) to count as being played straight.
  • From the same version is Charlotte Cave, a more traditional example.
  • Another possible example is Alice Blake. She belongs both to a fencing and gymnastics club, though her involvement in gymnastics is more of an informed ability considering it hasn't really been mentioned outside her profile.
• Little Dead Riding Hood: Carol Burke is usually seen wearing a red hoodie. Said character is a Wide Eyed Idealist in a Kill Em All type story. This trope has actually been confirmed by her handler.
• Looking for Love In All The Wrong Places: Rosa Fiametta. She managed to wise up a bit, but that just made future searches for Mr/Miss Right even worse.
• Love Freak: Orn "Dutchy" Ayers. At one point, he makes a speech to the cameras that he and his friends will prevail over Danya and the game due to The Power of Friendship, saying that friendship will always win over evil. Worth noting, though, is during this speech he is showing the camera (which is broadcasting to live television) the island's map, in an attempt to help any rescuers find where they are. He's also portrayed a lot more sympathetically than most.
• Love Makes You Evil: Omar Burton quickly swings this way, deciding to kill the rest of the students so that his love Sierra Manning can get off the island alive. Naturally, he puts a target on himself very quickly and Julian Avery takes great pleasure in taking him out.
• Madness Mantra: Kris Hartmann has, with variation, "Voice. Jump. Spin. Squeeze. Bang. Dead." She never actually says it, but it comes up in her thoughts frequently, starting from her Accidental Murder of Reika Ishida.
• Manipulative Bastard: Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Hughes. This is a guy who, instead of killing an attacker, lets his ally get killed by said attacker, and goes back to his other allies portraying the poor victim as dying in a Heroic Sacrifice in an attempt to encourage them to get revenge on the murderer. Yikes.
• Meaningful Rename: Spoofed with Meredith Hemmings, who, after identifying herself as a "goth" (she isn't; she's just a poser who is acting out what she thinks goths act like) renames herself "Pandora Black" and repeatedly insists that it's her soul name whenever anyone questions it. Jake Crimson also renamed himself from "Gomez", apparently after his parents' divorce (that, and Rule of Cool). Remy Kim is another character who has gone through this, originally having the last name "Trembley" before his parents separated and having it changed to his mother's maiden name sometime after. This serves to symbolize just how different he is from his sister, Josée Trembley.
• Miles Gloriosus: Jimmy Brennan is built almost entirely on this trope, pissing his pants and losing his shit in one thread, and bragging about all the ass he's already kicked in the next.
• Mismatched Eyes: A fair amount of students have heterochromia: Dave Morrison, Charlene Norris, Clio Gabriella and Rose Codreanu. According to his handler, Allen Birkman was also originally planned on having different colored eyes, though this was changed due to the number of students already having the condition.
• My Nayme Is: Chadd Crossen, Neill Robertson, Remi Pierce, Micheal Raynor and Ema Ryan, the last of which gets lampshaded.

Ema: I'm Ema, Ema Ryan. Sounds like the normal but only one 'm'. My parents were hipsters, I guess.

• Nice Guy: It happens. For example, Reika Ishida, in contrast to her sister. One of her defining traits was that she was nice and friendly, always trying to help out. However, true to the stereotype, she literally gets killed within almost two minutes once she gets to the island. Danya in the following announcement then called her "the less interesting of the Ishida sisters" for this reason.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Anna Chase. She is a complete and utter aversion of Girls Are Really Scared of Horror Movies. She seems particularly fond of psychological horror and slasher movies, and can be described as a bit obsessed over them at times. It has been shown that on a couple of occasions, if something reminds her of a horror movie she could easily have a "Cool!" type reaction, though not always. Occasionally, this, combined with her normal personality, sides into Nightmare Fuel Stationattendant tendencies, as you might expect.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Luke Templeton talks Clio Gabriella out of commiting suicide and generally helps her out. How does she repay him? By shooting him in the chest and head.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Rose Codreanu's death. She goes to sleep in a danger zone during the announcements but before it's announced as one, and has a calm, happy, introspective dream... with a constant beeping increasing in frequency throughout. Then, in the middle of a sentence, it cuts off with the notice that she's deceased. Very much a break from the usual Gorn deaths.
• Not Quite Dead: Clio Gabriella knocks Garry Villette off a cliff and watches him plunge into the water below. She doesn't bother checking to see if he surfaces again and believes him to be dead (more than likely because she's exhausted, him almost having killed her). He survives the fall though, and Clio is furious when she finds that out.
  • Likewise, Maxwell Lombardi traps Maria Graham in a burning building, only for her smash open a window and get out after he's left. He's not happy to find that her name isn't on the morning announcements.
• Not So Harmless: Jimmy Brennan, who started out as a Miles Gloriosus type who ran around the forest screaming and pissing his pants in the first thread he appeared in, and bragging about being a Badass in the next. For the most part, his antics are fun in a Crosses the Line Twice sort of way, up until he beats resident Jerk Jock Philip Ward to death with a branch.
• Not the Fall That Kills You: Played for Laughs / Rule of Funny with Richard Han's death. He falls off a mountain, and screams as he falls... only for him to enter another thread as he falls, apparently screaming the entire time and only stopping when he hits the ground and dies. It's actually pretty funny as hell.
• Obfuscating Insanity: When she first appears on the island, Liz Polanski's first actions are to make herself appear as Ax Crazy as possible to ward off potential attackers. How does she do this? By, among other things, smearing her face with make-up and severing the head off one of her classmates' corpse and carrying it around for a while. It works, for the most part. Except on Milo Taylor. Hilarity Ensues.
• Off Screen Breakup: Jonathan Jarocki and Anna Chase broke up before they got on the bus, as revealed in Anna's opening post, mainly due to the fact that the pairing was almost unanomously hated among the writers.
• Off With His Head: Hayley Kelly is particularly keen on this method early on, decapitating Steve Barnes and James Mulzet with a sword. Some collar explosions are also powerful enough to rip a person's head off.
• Pint Sized Powerhouse: Reiko Ishida is 4'9, which has been noted to technically make her a midget. However, she was an athlete before the island, and eventually racks up a high kill count.
• Please Wake Up: This is Albert Lions' reaction to finding Augustus "Dougal" MacDougal's corpse.

Albert: DUDE! CUT IT OUT NOW! WAKE! THE HELL! UP!

• Pointless Band Aid: Orn "Dutchy" Ayers is mentioned as wearing a Band-Aid over the bridge of his nose. His profile confirms that this is more of a personality quirk/casual accessory than the result of an injury.
• Rapunzel Hair: Bridget Connolly, who is well-known for having knee-length red hair, though usually tied back. This was until she cut it while on the island, after hearing about the death of her best friend, Raina Morales.
• Really Gets Around: Rosa Fiametta is an excellent example, and even comes complete with Anything That Moves tendencies. This has been explained as emotional issues, partly due to seeing herself as The Unfavorite among her siblings.
  • Clio Gabriella; the character's creator explained it was also because of abandonment issues; she was once tricked into believing she was in love, and ever since, she has been purposely sabotaging her relationships or picking the worst possible boyfriends to hook up with in order to stop herself from being hurt again.
• Refuge in Audacity: The only thing keeping Milo Taylor from being ventilated by any of the assorted known killers he's antagonized. Particularly obvious in the case of Jackie Broughten, who ignores him because he's clearly mentally retarded.
• Ruptured Appendix: R.J. Lowe succumbs to this after several days of escalating symptoms. Helen Wilson suffers a similar fate, only she manages to perform an appendectomy on herself just before it gets worse. Unfortunately, she dies of blood loss right before she makes it to the escape boats.
• Sanity Slippage: Aston Bennett, after her only remaining friend is killed, starts to lose it a little, as evident by the text.
• Self Sacrifice Scheme: Ethan Kent manages this by rigging up a power system that would activate the island's only computer, but upon realising he could do it, he also realised that doing so would alert Danya. What he does is insult Feo Smith, his only travelling companion, into leaving him, writes down the instructions on how to turn on the computer, and smashes all the cameras in the location, thus provoking Danya into blowing his collar. It ultimately pays off - a group of students manages to follow the instructions and broadcasts the location of the island, which in combination with Liz Polanski's own attempts to screw with Danya, allows for STAR to rescue a good number of the students.
• Shell Shocked Veteran: Alice Blake. Before V4 started, she was in a car accident that killed her parents, as well as leaving her scarred. From that point on, she’s more or less the quiet type around everyone except her few close friends.
• Shout Out: Damn near everything Micheal Raynor says is a reference to some video game or movie. One character near the start even explodes at him because of the constant shout outs.
• Shrinking Violet: Gloria Benson. She's always whispering, stuttering, and blushing when she speaks. Even when she talks to her friends, she's painfully shy/quiet, and keeps apologizing for what she says. Lucy Ashmore, also from v4, qualifies as well. She's just as shy, due to bullying. Not to mention sometimes this slides into Cute Clumsy Girl territory as well, due to her nervousness.
• Sibling Rivalry: Remy Kim and Josee Trembley, who both see themselves as The Unfavorite to their mother, and have been known to attempt to "regain" her love from the other twin.
• Storming the Castle: STAR assaults the terrorist headquarters and actually captures Danya, as part of a rescue attempt. This almost cripples the terrorists once Danya dies.
• Spock Speak: 'Bounce' speaks with excessive formality, which is possibly because English wasn't her parents' first language, although intelligence plays a part.
• So Beautiful Its a Curse: Charlene Norris's first thoughts upon realizing she is on SOTF is that "people like her, the popular girls with bodies to die for, were rape targets".
• Strange Girl: Version 4's Anna Chase is... a little off. To get an idea, she is an Eerie Pale Skinned Brunette with some level of Perky Goth to her, that is obsessed with horror movies, and is a massive Cloudcuckoolander. At one point (in her introductory thread in pre-game) she tells her best friend not to eat her brains (It Makes Sense in Context... sort of). And that's not even going into some of her other personality traits. Overall, she is generally seen as somewhat eccentric by other characters.
  • And then there's Lily Ainsworth, also from v4. She's even more of a Cloudcuckoolander. Her father was a historian, which caused her to grow up in a British castle most of her life due to his work, and she herself has a tendency to ramble off certain facts as an attempt at conversation, while generally having No Social Skills. Add in her odd dress sense and her perky nature, and most characters also see her as a little odd.
• Sword Cane: Jeremy Franco was given this as his assigned weapon, and provides the page quote.
• Sword Fight: The first SOTF swordfight happens in this version, between Nick Reid and Maf Tuigamala.
• Ted Baxter: Jimmy Brennan is a mixture of this and Miles Gloriosus. He's definitely the most Badass, manly, and awesome character on the island who can kick ANY ass!
• Teen Genius: Peter McCue and Jason Clarke, who are seniors at the age of 16.
• Tender Tears: Orn "Dutchy" Ayers frequently cries when he reads about the plight of the less-fortunate countries.
• The Atoner: JJ Sturn, although he wasn't quite as extreme as many examples listed here: He was a giant asshole especially towards women, although he did have his own share of more unpleasant actions.
• The Dog Bites Back: Dorian Pello, having been manipulated into working for and constantly abused by Danya is the one who finally shoots and presumably kills him during Day 10.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Dustin Royal suffers this embarrassment when attempting to have sex with Maria Graham. Comedic, but also a relief, given he was taking advantage of Maria's highly distressed state at the time to make a move on her.
• Theme Twin Naming: The Ishida twins, Reiko and Reika.
• Thirteen Is Unlucky: Reiko Ishida is Female Student no. 13. She's also a Psycho Lesbian and multi-murderer.
• Too Dumb to Live: Along with the students who refuse to defend themselves from deranged killers on principle, we have Remi Pierce, who tried to cut off his own collar. Seems a reasonable reaction...until you look at the thought process behind that:

He lifted it up to his collar, he knew he was told not to mess with them, but if he was going to survive and win, he would need the damn thing off, let him travel through the danger zones.

• Too Kinky to Torture: A non-sexual variant, where Rein Bumgarner is well-known for enjoying pain, enjoying the adrenaline rush that it gives him. As a result, he actually attempts dangerous stunts partly for this reason.
• Unreliable Narrator: In the profile for Clio Gabriella, it explains several parts of her personality, yet her actions in the game contradict this. Reason? Clio spent nearly all of her teenage life lying to her parents, her therapist, and nearly everyone she knew so that she could put on a demeanor of a normal, well-adjusted teenage girl, when secretly she was a basket case very close to breaking point.
• Use Your Head: The death of David Anderson via a well-placed headbutt to the face, breaking his nose and sending bits of bone into his brain.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: Pre-game has a bizarre example, where a character puts around 6 to 8 jello shots down her bra. Needless to say, this reached Memetic Mutation very quickly.
• Visible Silence: Ivan Kuznetsov is quite fond of these.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes: Carol Burke, Allen Birkman, and Sierra Manning of all suffer from aquaphobia, while Liam "Brook" Brooks and Rena Peters suffer from hemophobia.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: It's very egregious this version: Violet Druce has purple hair, Maria "Animal" Graham has blue streaks in her hair, her friend Cassidy Wakemore dyed her hair completely blue, as has Stacy Hart. Katelyn Wescott and Cisco Vasquez both have green hair, Violetta Lindsberg has red, yellow and brown streaks, Dawne Jiang has "christmas" hair, red green and white, and Fiona Sparki has red, green and the aformentioned blue.