TV Tropes Monday: Must Have Caffeine

Tweet of the Day: Six Sentence Sunday – Vexx

——-

Okay, after last week hyperactivity this post comes oh so very late, yet here it is. First of it was between Lampshade Hanging or this, so I went with Must Have Caffeine. To quote the first (short) paragraph of the Trope page:

Ah, caffeine! Truly one of the greatest gifts of God. It allows us humans to surpass the limits of our endurance when we need it most, and it has become a sort of lifestyle for a lot of us.

And for us coffee lovers it most certainly is.  It is a character quirk trope, where in the character enjoys caffeinated drinks, perhaps to the point of not being able to function until they had at least one or three servings of the beverage of their choice. Or the location or paraphernalia around said drinks can serve as a setting for the story (or one of several). It also tends to distinguish characters from different ages: children and teens will drink anything from your average soda to high powered energy drinks while adults will enjoy one of a variety of coffees.

For example, college students may frequent the local coffee shop (be it franchise, dark basement hipster place or long standing college town establishment) and drink stuff with overwrought faux Italian names. A  middle age middle manager will probably hit the instant hard, he has no time to waste getting out of the house and a blue collar worker will have his black straight from a thermos.

But that’s not all, I’ve used it to separate my coffee loving Puerto Rican MC from the other tea sipping Englishmen and women around him.  Not much of a difference, but one that says, “He ain’t from around here!”. Then you have caffeine as a G-Rated Drug (it is a drug that is very much legal around the world, even in places where alcohol is not tolerated) with all the accompanying addiction tropes, mostly played for laughs.

So have a hot cup of java, and relax….

——-