It seems really awkward that my first contribution to TV Tropes is my contributor page, but I figured that something like this would be an easier introduction to me than the Serious Business of actually editing (or even creating) a "real" page.
At any rate: The Trope Namer - er, Username Namer rather, is Pokemon: "Bulbaquil" is a portmanteau of Bulbasaur and Cyndaquil. Which I suppose makes me a Grass/Fire-type, which is... an interesting combination to say the least, if slightly illogical. I originate from the DFW Metroplex and am 147 years old... well, in dog years. Actually right now I'm closer to 150.
I tend to gravitate towards video gaming and used to be (well, technically, I still am) a member of Game FA Qs... until they changed it so much it became hardly recognizable.
Tropes about me or my life
- Actual Pacifist. Even if my Berserk Button is pressed, the most that will happen is that I will go into rant mode.
- Lurker. Well, how else do you expect me to know the forum's unwritten rules?
- Deadpan Snarker and proud of it.
- Ninja Editor. Generally to fix typos, or add a response to someone who made a relevant comment while I was writing my post and which I failed to reply to.
- Sarcasm Mode. What are you talking about? This is totally subverted. I never use sarcasm. </sarcasm>
- Spell My Name with an S. I have a rather common first name, and it's spelled in the traditional way. Nevertheless, many people seem to have trouble spelling it.
- Cuteness Proximity. Specifically Cat Proximity, as in the relevant xkcd strip. But not puppies. Definitely not puppies. See below.
- Darn You Muscle Memory. So many examples, it gets its own section.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?. Several different examples here: The Trope Namer snakes is one of them, but I am arguably more afraid of dogs (even the small yappy ones), fire (to the point where I am squeamish if I get within three feet of a candle), clowns, needles, nudity (fortunately this fear doesn't seem to apply to viewing myself au naturel, so I can still shower properly), being involved in a crime (either as the victim or perpetrator, or even as a witness), and being late for anything (to the point of sometimes arriving more than half an hour early).
- Eye Scream, Extra Eyes, Eyes Do Not Belong There, and similar tropes. Perhaps one of my biggest Squicks is simply eyes that don't... look right. A black eye or a twitching eye is okay; most anime-style eyes are okay, but huge googly Powerpuff Girls style eyes, missing/gouged eyes, multiple eyes, eyes that are substantially out of alignment... these are not. This seems however to only be the case with either humanoid characters or characters that are clearly in the shape of animals I am afraid of (most notably snakes (Hydra/Medusa) and dogs (Cerberus)).
- Game of Nerds. I consider myself a nerd, and am a baseball fan. (Though, to be fair, I appreciate Big 12 college (American) football, and will watch basketball but not with the same intensity with which I watch baseball).
- Nerd Glasses - averted. Don't need 'em.
- Please Put Some Clothes On. See above about nudity fear.
- Intelligence Equals Isolation amplified by natural shyness. Somewhat subverted in that I took advanced classes in high school where possible, and I do have some more "mundane" interests as well, which helped me relate to my classmates, but this did not assist in the mind-numbingly dull "mandatory electives".
- Repeat What You Just Said. Most of the time, though, it's a case of my short term memory imploding on me.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness. Sometimes used unintentionally: when there's a word that I know and that exactly fits the thought I'm trying to express, it sometimes doesn't dawn on me that the word is something that might be concered "big".
- Lawful Neutral to Lawful Good.
- Symbol Swearing. I feel squeamish even doing so much as typing profanity, so if I need to discuss it I generally will either refer to the word as "the s-word" or, in typed text, "s***". Oddly, though, hearing or reading profanity doesn't perturb me as much.
- Another Dimension. One of my pastimes is developing aspects of an imaginary planet in an imaginary universe. Why a different universe? So I can circumvent all those pesky things like the laws of logic and physics, effectively allowing all those "You Fail Subject Forever" tropes to be Handwaved away. MwahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (But arguably in this case it would be an example of Screw the Rules, I Make Them!.)
- Complacent Gaming Syndrome in Super Smash Bros Melee/Brawl. We don't play "no items, Fox only, Final Destination"... but we do tend to play with a specific set of items, on a specific set of courses, with a specific set of characters. And almost always 7-stock free-for-alls.
- Has become somewhat subverted recently, however; there has been a gravitation towards occasionally using random characters and, more recently, random stages.
- Captain Obvious. Sometimes lampshaded.
- Third-Person Person until I was in first grade. For some reason I simply disliked using the first-person pronoun.
- Note to Self. I frequently make notes to myself all the time.
- Americans Hate Tingle. I'm an American, and I hate Tingle.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. Particularly in regards to the Harry Potter films. Beauxbatons is NOT an all-girls' school. Durmstrang is NOT an all-boys' school. Harry and Hermione traveled back to 8:55 that evening, NOT 7:30. Sirius did NOT die from Avada Kedavra... and so much more. I do not care that it makes the movie shorter; I have no problem with sitting in the theater for 18 hours straight. I do not care that portraying every scene would make the movie cost $180 trillion to make. The book says it so the movie should too.
- Shipping. Most of my ships tend to be the canon ones though, and I tend to read fanfiction that doesn't fall under my OTP.
- Trope Overdose - Possibly, but I've been intentionally finding sxamples?
- And of course, TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.
Pages begun
Substantial contributions
- Several tropes in Super Mario 64 (particularly level tropes)
Examples added
- Final Fantasy XII sub-example for Suspicious Videogame Generosity
- Mewtwo as an example of a Bragging Rights Reward in Pokemon RBY
- Minor sub-example of post-OotP sixth-year fics having Dumbledore as a Ron the Death Eater character
- Gravity Screw in Super Mario Galaxy
- Example of the Final Fantasy XII mini-map's usage of Color-Coded for Your Convenience
- Added sports games with modifiable sliders/difficulty levels in Catharsis Factor
Miscellaneous edits
- Have answered a few Just Bugs Me questions.
- Have made a few spelling/coding/math/factoid corrections, but those are just minor clerical things, aren't they?
Video Games I have beaten
"Beaten" means that I've accomplished the primary goal of the game (defeating the Final Boss in most cases). Unless otherwise mentioned, these are normal playthroughs without cheats or challenges involved.
- Super Mario 64 (beaten both normally and with only 31 stars using Good Bad Bugs)
- Banjo Kazooie
- Banjo Tooie (but with cheats)
- Pokemon Snap
- Pokemon Blue, Yellow, Silver
- The Legend Of Zelda Ocarina Of Time (both N64 and GameCube versions)
- The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess
- Luigi's Mansion
- Pikmin (shortest amount of time to complete: 15 game days)
- Pikmin 2
- Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean (it's worse: I'm having the insane notion of trying to do a speedrun of it, and the game is very poorly suited for speedrunning.)
- Final Fantasy X (beaten normally, and I started a Tidus-only run, but I couldn't get past Seymour Flux.)
- Final Fantasy XII (beaten normally and in a Basch-only run)
- Portal
- Civilization III (up to Regent level)
- Super Mario Bros 3 (in its Game Boy Advance remake version)
Video Games I have played but not beaten
Refers to games that do have an objective/Final Boss that I simply have yet to finish/defeat, as well as games for which I find the objective unclear/ambiguous/absent.
- Super Smash Bros
- Super Smash Bros Melee
- Super Smash Bros Brawl
- Glover
- Pokemon Stadium
- Pokemon Stadium 2
- Pokemon Sapphire
- Mario Party 2, 3, and 4
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy IX
- The Sims
- The Sims 2
- The Sims 3
- Super Mario Galaxy
- New Super Mario Bros Wii
- Various sports games
- The first video game I played that had an analog-stick camera control was Final Fantasy XII - all previous games either had zero camera control, automatic camera, or were N64 games that mapped camera control to the C Buttons (e.g. Super Mario 64). Needless to say, this caused difficulty when playing Portal, where the controls are opposite FFXII's.
- Similarly, I never got past the first town in Final Fantasy VII, having been too ingrained with the "X (or A) confirms, O (or B) cancels" that just about all American games post-'97 use.
- I play NCAA Football (year) on a PS 3, but I have a friend who plays it on the Xbox 360, and I sometimes go over and play head-to-head there. When doing a passing play, I will sometimes, attempting to throw to the X-button receiver, throw to the A-button receiver by mistake since I'm thinking PS 3's X not Xbox 360's X.
- Using a different computer keyboard than my own laptop. Switching to my new laptop from my old one took a while too.