Arc Words / Fan Works

Arc Words in Fan Works.

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• A Is A: Anytime the characters notice a similarity between universes, good or bad, they will note by mentioning, "A is A."
• Always Visible: "Magistratus oportet servire populo" (The Police must serve The People), a Latin proverb that Galbraith sees before he learns of Delia's death. The inspector repeats it when he is already in London in search of the girl’s killer.
• Austraeoh: "Austraeoh" ("East Horse") refering to Rainbow Dash, "Eljunbyro" ("Endurance Reborn") refering to her companions and Urohringr ("Discordant Ring") refering to the shattered world.
• AWE Arcadia Bay (Rogue_Demon): "Nam que tempus!"^translationFor that time The phrase is engraved on the Lightning Gun Jesse finds in Chernobyl, and Ahti says it to Max, which triggers a montage of past and future events.
• Backward With Purpose has "Always and Always." It's about always cherishing and protecting those you love. As Harry notes, it always seems to end up meaning more than he thought it did.
• Between Dreams and Memories has "Partners in crime, till the end of time" throughout the first installment, symbolizing the initial friendship between Schlatt and Wilbur. This hits especially hard due to the fact that as per canon, the two end up dying on the same day.
• Between My Brother and Me: Mors Omnibus has three of them:
  • "(Re)Purpose" or anything relating to that word. This is a term used by those in Carroll City when people are resurrected and must figure out what they want to do now that they are undead.
  • "A new purpose awaits you!" usually used as Foreshadowing that someone is gonna die.
  • "Through darkness and mirrors" is probably the Carroll City version of "Through the looking glass". This represents how people of the city can enter dimensions with ease.
• Blood and Honor: "There is no death, there is the Force." Sanguis hears this phrase from rebel Sith Kel'eth Ur early in the story, then finds them repeated to her by various Jedi she encounters. She struggles to understand what it means, since, as she's lost both her mother and her mentor, death seems very real and permanent. Not until the end of the story does she realize how the Force connects all life, which helps her see the underlying meaning of the words.
• Catarina Claes MUST DIE!: "Vile woman".
  • Henrietta repeatedly calls Catarina a vile woman despite it being false.
  • Francine calls Henrietta a vile woman after she attacks her following Henrietta's declaration that she was trying to murder Catarina.
  • After hearing Henrietta declare for a second time that either he or Keith will kill Catarina when they find out "the truth" about her, Geordo calls Henrietta a vile woman.
  • Finally, Henrietta calls herself a vile woman after talking with Catarina, underscoring how wrong her actions were.
• Child of the Storm has variations on "a storm is coming" throughout Book I, alluding to the constant, steady build-up of trouble and evil, before the storm is finally unleashed in the epic 4 part finale (chapters 75-78, not counting the two chapter epilogue. An argument can be made for chapter 74 being a part of it too), when everything comes to a head. It relates to the title, with Harry being the titular 'Child of the Storm.' As the son of Thor, this is literally true, but with the way trouble tends to follow him around, and how he's at the very centre of events (by the design of Doctor Strange), it also refers to the more figurative storm.
  • Doctor Strange's catcphrase, "Check," pops up a couple of times before the finale, alluding to his nature as The Chessmaster who's been manoeuvring everyone, with his final, understated Badass Boast being "Check. Check and Mate."
  • And then there are the repeated references to how Harry can either be a bright and shining Messianic Archetype or a terrifying Dark Messiah based on his choices.
• Children of an Elder God: "The Stars Are Right", stated by characters like Gendo, Fuyutsuki, Rei... when they think or feel that a prophecy is about to come to pass.
• The Dear Sweetie Belle Continuity has "A Storm Is Coming", amid hints of a coming war and Götterdämmerung (though it literally refers to an actual storm which will lead into those events).
• Devil's Diary has "Resist the Temptation to Bend", constantly repeated by Magneto to remind himself he must be strong and ruthless enough to do whatever it takes to protect his people.
• Family of the Shield has "Game knowledge is to be acquired and used by those who learned it, not handed out to noobs" as a common saying between the Four Heroes in-regards to the RPG Mechanics 'Verse for the world they were summoned into being completely alien to their original worlds.
• Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged:
  • It has "Don't f**k up!", a phrase that started out as part of a simple Running Gag of Barret telling Cloud that, only for Cloud to do just that. Until we get Barret's backstory...
    Barret: [after taking a couple punches from his former friends and not even trying to stop them] I f**ked up.
  • These words turn out to have even greater meaning in Episode 17, where it's revealed that these were the last words Dyne told Barret while begging him to take care of his daughter, before his apparent demise.
    Past Dyne: [speaking about Marlene] You take care of her! Treat her as your own. And live by these words... Don't. Fuck. Up.
• Funeral for a Flash has Wally West repeat "Don't call me kid" every so often to stress he isn't a child anymore, and now his mentor Barry Allen is dead, he isn't Kid Flash either.
• Flowing Star has the occasional "Royal Woods is not for amateurs", this phrase means the city is more dangerous in this version.
• Halloween Unspectacular:
  • The fourth and fifth editions have "It always rains", an allusion to the cyclical nature of things, which include the fact that the Final Battles of each story in the first Myth Arc include battles in the rain.
  • The second myth arc, which runs from the sixth to eighth editions, uses a sort of inversion. In the final entry of both HU6 and HU7, someone comments on the fact that it's not raining, reflecting how this arc is more of a single ongoing story across multiple editions. When it finally does rain at the climax of HU8, it's a sign that this really is the end.
• Hard Reset (Eakin) has Spike say "Well, That Didn't Work" every time that the Time-Loop begins for Twilight. By the time Twilight managed to finally resolve the major issues of the Time-Loop, she hears "Twilight, It Worked!"
• Hellsing Abridged opens with a Take That! to The Twilight Saga, capped off with Alucard saying the line "a real fucking vampire". Later in Episode 7, Alucard uses this same line to cap off his You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech to Seras, when she's about to give up, helping her become a real fucking vampire.
• Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: "Death is never the answer." This quote is based on how Ryusei's decision to kill Gentaro caused the events in the story to rise, and how things could've been settled differently other than by killing others. Most notably, this only works for Horseshoes only, as Wheel of Fortune has Mei wanting her parents and the jerkwad people who were "posing" as her friends dead.
• Hours 'Verse:
  • "One choice can destroy, and one choice can save", or some variation. The two adaptations of Persona 5, Butterfly Cascade and Monarch's Cascade use these words in their summaries, referring to the occasions where Akira can make this kind of decision — taking or rejecting Yaldabaoth's deal in Butterfly Cascade, and the same of Maruki's deal for a utopian reality in Monarch's Cascade.
  • On the Other Side, "Sumaru City will never fall, so long as it has its Sun". Tatsuya and his Persona Apollo, whose Arcana is The Sun, are someone who the post-apocalyptic Sumaru City of the Other Side believe in immensely and this power of cognition is what allows the Persona-users to fight off the end of the world every full moon. It foreshadows the disarray Sumaru City falls into when Tatsuya and Jun get pulled back to This Side by the events of My Kingdom for My Heart; Ren and Goro at one point try to lessen the strength of this cognition to make it easier for Ren and his Shadow to cope with his father's fame.
  • The opening of Time's End Labyrinth plays with this. There's a variation on the main timeline's bookend — "It was the last day of the year, the world was ending, and all [Minato] wanted to do was sleep" — and the summary borrows some wording from other installments' summaries: "[they] find it’s much easier to face the apocalypse together than apart" from Hours at the End of the World, "one [choice] that could destroy or one that could save" from the two Cascade summaries, and "may the strongest side win" from Heir Apparent.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
  • "My life is work in progress", in the anime, Yeardley answered this when he was asked what he wanted to do in life (and as the author notes, made it feel like a Double Standard since Chloe Cerise got saddled with everyone else deciding her life choices). This is stated notable times as the only way in order to advance on the Infinity Train is to make progress (by dropping your number to 0).
  • "[X] disappeared completely, never to be found": Chloe running away to escape her life and that she has caused her family and friends to think about how their (in)actions have caused them to make Chloe's home life even worse.
  • "Monster": Chloe is mad that everyone wants her to like Pokémon (Pocket monsters) while she's into things like demons and other supernatural creatures (to the point of being called "Monster Lover"). Chloe's classmates and the likes of the Apex are described as monsters for how they attack others who are different in order to give themselves satisfaction.
  • [I'm gonna kill you] all kinds of dead: first spoken by Chloe after her bulliess' prank goes too far which represents her anger about to take over. Parker, who was also there when that happened, also states it in order to enact vengeance on those who hurt his sister.
  • "Normal": Chloe is bullied because she's not "normal" — as in, she's not into Pokémon — and feels like she's so odd because of her love of monsters and demons. One of the themes of the story is that one shouldn't be forced to be what others expect them to be and that they don't need to be into Pokémon to have a happy life.
  • "Try": Atticus's first piece of advice to Chloe is that she can't rush into things and must take the first step forward. Talia tells Mr. Pepper that Chloe was never told to try again. All Chloe wanted was someone to tell her to take a step forward and try something new. This word is about taking a step forward to doing something instead of being closed off from others.
• In the Eye of the Beholder has "Beholder", used to describe Lydia in particular, and present each time she manifests a new Social Link.
• "Speak the problem and it will be solved," in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World. In fact, the entire world seems to be swimming in Arc Words (labeled Gods Chat by George after he hears that the Pyar gods might be providing them) in graffiti, on message boards, etc, but this particular phrase comes up most frequently, and the four lampshade it on occasion. They do finally discover what the phrase is for (it's how to remove the curse on the Last Wizard) and also that every other piece of Gods Chat is actually a game clue, since they've been in a giant telepathic MMORPG all along.
• Kirby's Dream Cafe has We Stay. They represent Kirby's coffee shop desire to stay. They appear at least once every chapter except the prologue (which set up from what they were staying) and the 4th chapter, where they left at the end to get Kirby to a hospital.
• Two examples in The Lion King Adventures:
  • The Swahili phrase "Kufa inadwadia" is this in Series Three. It translates to "Death is coming", foreshadowing the arrival of Death — the Big Bad of that series — in the finale.
  • "Kill or be killed" is this for Series Five. Survival is a common theme in the final series, leading to many character deaths.
• A Man of Iron: Book 2, A Crack of Thunder, has the riddle of the king, the rich man, the priest and the sellsword. Every character has a different answer to who dies, which tells a lot about their personalities. Tony says that they're all just symbols, but those symbols have power. The Night's Queen quips that they all die, because no one thought the disregarded whore in the room with them was dangerous. Natasha states none of them truly live, because they've allowed themselves to be trapped in the game of thrones. Doom believes that you can only survive if you take on all three roles. And Magneto, naturally, says the one who lives is the one who doesn't need sellswords to kill for them... right before he slaughters the Bloody Mummers.
• "Always stick together" is a major example during the earlier chapters of Mirai SMP — it's a message that Techno, Cooper and Travis recieve on their phones, and Cooper doesn't listen to, leading to his demise. These three words nag at Techno for a long while after this.
• In the MLP:FIM fanfic Mother of Invention: "NEC DI NEC DOMINI" (translation: "neither gods nor masters"). This mysterious inscription has turned up on every structure Applejack finds.
• The title of Necessary to Win is used repeatedly, and in various contexts, including what decisions are necessary to win, whether certain people have what is necessary to win, and whether it is necessary to win, or whether victory can be sacrificed if necessary.
• In the Girls und Panzer fanfic, Off The Path, the title is repeated in a few different contexts, usually in the context of the tank falling in the river that Miho saved at the cost of losing the championship, but later in the fic, it's mentioned again when Maho ponders that the incident "should not have been enough to force Miho off the path she had walked until now". The final sentence inverts the phrase, and the latter two uses signify that the fic is not just about the incident, but how it affected Miho's changing approach to tankery.
  Miho: Whatever happens, from here on out, I will continue forward in tankery, on the path I have chosen for myself, along with those who have chosen to walk it with me.
• The The Familiar of Zero fanfic, Pilgrimage of Life has Louise repeat slight variations of the phrase "For a friend? I will do anything".
• Pipeline has this one: "Sometimes being strong isn't enough. Being brave, and good, and determined isn't enough. Sometimes things just happen." Kevin says it to Blossom and Bubbles after Buttercup dies, and Blossom repeats it back to him at the end of the fic when it looks like Ben might not pull through. Even though Kevin says it himself, he doesn't really get it until later.
• Pokémon × Nimja: Play the Game:
  • "WMYD?" ^note  "What must you do?" , of course, not to mention the other two Hypnotic Questions: "Who do you obey?" and "How much (do you obey me)?" All three come straight from the original Nimja files on which this fanfic was based.
  • The answers to the three questions, "obey," "you," and "completely," also count, and when translated into Dutch form what are arguably the true Arc Words of the series: "Ik gehoorzaam u volledig", which is Dutch for "I obey you completely."
• The Pony POV Series has a few examples:
  • Almost all the stories end with the pony in question accepting her new position, declaring "I'm free." In the Discorded Series, this is normally a bad thing, but in the Reharmonized Series, it's a good one.
  • "Pearls" for anything involving Fluttershy and Fluttercruel.
    • There's an arc SONG in the form of the three "So Many Wonders" reprises: The first is about Fluttercruel's happiness over being free from Fluttershy and able to see the world, second is a Villain Song by Princess Gaia used to hypnotise ponies into her vision of the world, and the final is a Triumphant Reprise at the finale of the arc, Fluttershy and Fluttercruel singing together about how their worldview has changed for the better.
  • "Dying is easy, living is hard" for the entire series, but especially the Dark World. While in the main series it deals with overcoming what Discord did to them, in the Dark World it's about living with what you've done and the world you live in.
  • "Forgiveness is not earned, it's given" for the Dark World. In addition to the above theme, Forgiveness is an overarching theme, both being able to give it and being able to accept it.
• The Prayer Warriors: "The attack" in Battle With The Witches, which is one case of one that's never explained, since the Prayer Warriors never find out what's being planned.
• The Royal Couple: "Princess." It's what Milady calls Haru, as well as Tsukasa's nickname for his marks. Some of the Shujin students consider Haru a "princess" to Kunikazu Okumura's king, being a spoiled princess who lives of her father's ill-gotten wealth.
• Running on Air: Several massively prevalent examples getting at the main themes of the work.
  • "Going away is easy. Coming home is hard."
  • "We could go anywhere."
  • "What's the point, sitting in a box going only where other people take you?"
  • "In incepto finis est." ("In the beginning is the end" in Latin)
  • "But this isn't you, is it, Potter?"
• In the MLP Abridged Series Scootertrix the Abridged, both Celestia and Trixie worn that "Unpleasant things stir in the south", independently of each other, which at first was thought to refer to the upcoming war with King Sombra. But it is later revealed that he is attacking from the north and it is actually foreshadowing that Chrysalis is attacking from the south, meaning Equestria will have to fight a war on two fronts.
• Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights has "It's all gone wrong..." The phrase is said repeatedly by the story's Guardian of the Multiverse, as a sign that all reality is in danger. Played with in Chapter 35, where after a catastrophic Time Crash, she can only whisper "It's all gone..."
• Steal the Truth, Reach Out For Your Heart: Contradictions. Specifically, the contradictions of the human psyche, how two apparent polar opposites can exist in harmony in someone's heart.
• Synthesis : "Caged". This refers to the fact the Vocaloids must serve the business owning their programs as their singing androids, like singing birds living in cages.
• This Bites!: What Cross first said to Smoker as part of his The Reason You Suck speech way back in Loguetown is recycled and refined in Alabasta, and afterwards used by Cross and Smoker himself multiple times to convince other Marines that the World Government is Corrupt and need to be rebuilt from scratch.
  "A good Marine follows his orders to the letter and sacrifices everything for the sake of Justice, while a decent Marine sacrifices everything for the sake of all… even Justice, if it comes down to it."
• Time to Disinfect: The phrases "It was too much." and "It was all wrong." crop up repeatedly throughout the story, seeming to represent when Mari's anxieties are at their worst.
• Truth and Consequences: "I/we can still fix this" is practically Marinette's Survival Mantra by the climax; she repeats it to herself more and more as the story goes on, trying to convince herself that she's still in control of a situation that the readers can clearly is see has gotten way, way out of her hands. It also demonstrates the similarities between her and Gabriel, who also uses the phrase in regards to this attempts to revive Emilie. The truth is, neither of them can, and neither of them can accept it.
• In the Turning Red fic The Great Red Panda Rescue, the phrase "No red panda left behind." is said repeatedly by Mei's friends to emphasize their resolve in rescuing Mei.
• Variations on "it wouldn't be so bad, being your heart" in you can only use your own. Always said by Chara to Asriel, it expresses both their self-loathing and their love for him.
• YuyaVision: "Paradise", which is from Yuya's wish to have the dimensions be in peace.

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