There are a couple of RP ideas that everyone tries out every now and then, one of the most common being an RP where every character is thrown into the same universe. The Paradox RP is one of those ideas. What originally started as a small group of role-players getting lost in the real world (There were references to New York City and the like) turned into a more fantastic, Shounen-like series as a band of heroes joined together to fight off the cause of a massive Temporal Paradox that could spell the end of reality. Meanwhile, other threats seek to turn the heroes against each other.
The RP is now the second most successful RP on Court-Records and its spin-off, Case Files. It began here
and moved to here. It has changed GM hands several times, but has now settled on two specific gamemasters.
This RP contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Due to changing GM hands several times, plots thought up by earlier GMs were flat-out ignored by the later GMs. Another example is how Eggman was trying to build a device to fight “Jonathon Thorkleson”, but that promptly got aborted due to the player of John having real life issues that prevented him from playing.
- Action Girl: Plenty.
- The Alcoholic: Brandin, given that he says that he "prefers drunk to sober". It's not quite made clear exactly why he's an alcoholic just yet.
- Ayami temporarily becomes this during a rousing King's Game 3.0. You can thank Aigis for that.
- Alternate Timeline: Madoka comes from one of these.
- Ret-Gone: Said timeline was erased, which means this Madoka was never meant to exist.
- Alternate Universe: Ayami obviously comes from Persona 3 Portable's female route, so when she finds Aigis, who comes from the male route, she's in for a depressing suprise.
- Morgan also comes from the female route in Fire Emblem: Awakening, in a continuity where fem!Avatar is married to Henry.
- And the Adventure Continues: The first arc is over and the second one is under way.
- Apocalypse Maiden: Madoka will inevitably destroy the world if she uses her magic too much without being purified by Reimu in time.
- The Apprentice: Ganryou becomes Eggman’s apprentice in robotics, while Trucy begins to learn magic from Bowser. Where this goes, nobody knows.
- Artifact of Doom: Majora's Mask.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Anthony, early on in the RP, continues to try to fight a God, despite being told that it was someone else's job.
- Axe-Crazy: Clover. She also carries an axe with her.
- Back from the Dead: Medusa prior to Chapter 8 in Kid Icarus: Uprising. She teams up with the cultists and wreaks havoc on Angel Land.
- Battle Cry: The Cavalry makes numerous cries in their offensive. References are made to World of Warcraft and Warhammer 40,000. It is also implied that Orks have joined in on the brawl, given that their cry was used.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: When Atlus tries to fight off Majora. Fortunately for him, Elizabeth appeared.
- Big Bad: Arthas is the active Big Bad, but there was a hint dropped that he’s serving someone else this time around.
- Eliphas the Inheritor took this role as of Arc II.
- Big Red Devil: The Final Boss of Arc 1 is a Bloodthirster from Warhammer 40K.
- Black Knight: The Black Knight. Duh.
- The Blacksmith: Brandin, who also gets a magic forge in order to help out with his blacksmithing.
- Blood Knight: The Bloodthirster, as all servants of Khorne are. He is also a bit of a Large Ham as well.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Trucy gets possessed by Yogg-Saron, and promptly attacks the team.
- Break the Cutie: Trucy seems to be having it rough. First Yogg-Saron, then Arthas tries to break her facade of cuteness by showing that nobody really cares for her.
- Brought Down to Badass: There was a scene where Anthony lost his powers. He still was able to turn into a dragon.
- Butt-Monkey: Atlus. Strapped to a table by a lunatic Clover, had his nads punched...
- The Cavalry: During the big invasion scene of Arthas’ fortress, a giant army comes right the hell out of nowhere and gives the heroes the chance they need to enter.
- Celeb Crush: Sanae fell for Vanitas, who was a fictional character in her world.
- Cerebus Syndrome: While not quite as severe as the other popular RP on CR and CF, Anything Agency Vs Lawbreakers RP, the original arc of The Paradox RP was much less serious until it changed GM hands. Then it became much more serious, particularly when Bowser arrived.
- Chainsaw Good: The team manages to get their hands on Warhammer 40K Chainswords. Chogro intends to reverse-engineer this weapon and craft Chainaxes as well.
- Chekhov's Classroom: Aqua and Terra wrote off Carlini's fighting advice as irrelevant because their teacher taught them everything they needed to know. And then Terra adopted the stance Carlini taught them, and was able to parry multiple Bloodthirster axe strikes.
- Child Mage: Morgan utilizes tomes as part of being a tactician.
- Played even straighter with Nino, who actually is both a child AND a mage.
- Child Prodigy: Conan, Artemis Fowl, Morgan, Nino, and one other.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Teddie.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Dimentio first backstabs the original team, then his boss, then the team again... it's almost impossible to tell who's side Dimentio is on.
- Classified Information: Ayami cannot tell anyone what she heard in the meeting as part of being a liason.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Some of the cast members are this.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Anthony swore a lot when his house was damaged early in the RP.
- Comically Missing the Point: Scott frequently does this.
- Continuity Nod: Eggman makes countless references to past Sonic games, as well as Sonic Unleashed, despite the fact that he comes from the end of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Bowser, meanwhile, arrives in much the same manner that he did in Bowser’s Inside Story. Really, this RP is full of internal references and Shout Outs.
- The entire invasion of the Black Hole Army base was chock-full of references to Sonic Adventure 2's Prison Island levels, complete with Remilia fighting Shadow, only to be interrupted by Eggman saying that if they don't get off the island, the entire island will blow up with them on it. The reference is completed when Won't Stop, Just Go! starts playing.
- The entire invasion of the Black Hole Army base was chock-full of references to Sonic Adventure 2's Prison Island levels, complete with Remilia fighting Shadow, only to be interrupted by Eggman saying that if they don't get off the island, the entire island will blow up with them on it. The reference is completed when Won't Stop, Just Go!
- Cool Airship: Eggman has the Sonic Heroes Egg Fleet (called the "Eggman Fleet"), and Bowser has the Doomship Armada. Naturally, both fleets team up during the invasion of Icecrown Citadel.
- Anthony also had his own airship in the RP. There was a quick duel between the Egg Carrier and Anthony's airship, though it ended in a draw.
- Corrupt the Cutie: Yogg-Saron and Arthas seem to have this as their goal. They seem to be succeeding.
- Crisis Crossover: The roleplay in a nutshell.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Puella Magi, Links, Souji and Naoto get their butts handed to them by the Faceless Ones. They had to pull back into the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS.
- Damsel in Distress: Palutena, who became stone by Medusa. Also Zelda and Sanae in the Keyblade Graveyard.
- Dark Is Evil: Joining the Chaos faction results in total corruption and total erasure of your morals.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Herald. Half his dialogue is snark. The other half is exposition.
- Souji also exhibits shades of this, much to Labrys's annoyance.
- Deal with the Devil: It is highly implied that Aqua made a deal with some sort of demon, judging by the fact that he asked for Aqua to give him the hearts and souls of all those that she killed in return for her guaranteed survival.
- And then Trucy Wright makes a deal with that same Demon to save her friends, for the sake of them surviving the fight with Arthas.
- Artemis makes a deal with Yogg-Saron to remain in control. The result? A Saronite-infused sorceress more durable than a Puella Magi and Trucy is shut up tighter than the strongest prison.
- Gideon makes one in The Warp, and his only excuse to do so is to look for a way out of that hell hole.
- Death Is Cheap: Thanks to Brandin's resurrection powers, the team is at least capable of minimizing their casualties, not like Brandin enjoys that fact.
- Defeat Means Friendship: It seems to be that every defeated player automatically becomes friends with the victor. This is partially why there are so many heroes in the RP.
- Demonic Possession: Clover briefly donned Majora's Mask for a time.
- Detect Evil: Brandin possesses this power, which he lovingly nicknames his "Slaydar".
- Dialogue Tree: Souji Seta uses one whenever he has to make a decision. Also applies to Atlus and Ayami
- Distressed Dude: Pit and Aang when they were held hostage in the Keyblade Graveyard.
- Divided We Fall: Part of Johan's speech and war stratagems.
- Doom Troops: The Traitor Guardsmen and the Chaos Space Marines.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Dimentio.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: The GUN Commander cocks his pistol while giving his speech to the huge army.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Commissar Johan serves as this during the ten-week boot camp. Brandin also acts like one during this time.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Kamina randomly falls off a Doomship after getting frozen, and later on Anthony gets a lightning bolt thrown at him, with his airship crashing and his country invaded and destroyed. Similarly, Otacon randomly hangs himself.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Chogro mentions that this is Brandin's reasons for drinking so much.
- Dual Wielding: Toon Link is currently dual wielding the Master Sword and a Keyblade. (He uses his compass as a keychain, giving it an appearance that resembles the Wind Waker.)
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This is an RP that somehow managed to confuse the original GM into giving up his position. Make of it what you will.
- Easy Amnesia: Morgan cannot remember anything except his mother and his skills as a tactician.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Faceless Ones and Yogg-Saron, who serves as the final boss of Arc II.
- Eldritch Location: The Warp, which is essentially Hell with screeching monsters and changing scenery.
- Enemy Mine: Bowser is working alongside Mario and Peach, Eggman is working alongside Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge, and Omega, Ike and Soren are working alongside The Black Knight…this RP is full of this trope.
- Enemy Without: Atlus and his Shadow.
- Even Evil Has Standards: During the invasion of Equestria, led by Eliphas Gideon comes right up to say that just slaughtering ponies is plain wrong, but mostly because "there's no fun in that".
- Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Eggman, Bowser, and Ganondorf all seem to know each other and are on good terms with each other.
- Evil Twin: Vanitas to Sora, and he is taking full advantage of it.
- Excuse Plot: The entirety of Paradox, just to have fun.
- Field of Blades: The Keyblade Graveyard. Overlaps with Gorn.
- Field Promotion: Aqua preforms a Rite of Keyblade Succession on Toon Link when she has a clear moment and realizes that she might be Slowly Slipping Into Evil.
- Flashback Nightmare: Raffaello is prone to these. Quote explains it as a vision of his past life. He's partially right.
- Foreshadowing: Bowser’s name was mentioned long before he actually arrived.
- Freudian Trio: Invoked with Sora, Terra and Aqua, with Sora initially filling Ven's role, but played with as their positions quickly shift away from what they were like in the actual games and Aqua and Terra slowly pretty much swapping their places in the alignment.
- Genius Bruiser: Bowser is shown to have skill with mechanics (though he is far exceeded by Eggman), judging by how he used a Magnus von Grappler in his initial scene.
- Chogro as well, given that he claims to be an engineer and seems to be smart enough to figure out what's going on quite quickly.
- Groin Attack: Atlus gets punched in the nuts by a drunk Sigma.
- Hallucinations: Ayami is the only one who sees Pharos, and believes she is having these.
- Hammerspace: Where Homura keeps her ammo. The TARDIS is a definite hammerspace.
- He's Not My Boyfriend: Aqua becomes horribly flustered when Deadpool calls Terra "Her Boyfriend".
- Hulk Speak: Cortex drops into this early on in the RP.
- Idiot Ball: Anthony has this half the time.
- And then there's the actual idiot ball, Wheatley.
- Idiot Hero: Anthony comes across as this at times, though some of his actions are justified via poor communication
- Also Jaden Yuuki. He was apparently SO dumb that he compared card games to war, and didn't even understand why Brandin was yelling at him.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Labrys, who inflicted amnesia on herself to live the life of a normal schoolgirl.
- I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough!: Brandin tries to say this, but collapses before he can finish the sentence.
- Implausible Deniability: Terra was never involved in a scene replicating the Rhythm Mini Game from Kingdom Hearts II that featured him singing and dancing shirtless, what are you talking about~?
- Innocent Prodigy: Raffaello appears to be capable of driving a deathship and yet has no idea what being drunk is. Then again, he's not exactly human.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Philemon decides to intervene in the mortal world and recruit new and potential Persona users in response to the Paradox threat, the first being Clover.
- Literal Split Personality: Atlus's Shadow.
- Love Makes You Evil: The prospect of Terra being sent back to his point in time to be turned into Xehanort all over again is horrifying enough for Aqua to throw her morals and ideals over board and keep him out of the regular flow of time... making a Deal with the Devil in order to do so.
- Made of Explodium: Sonic somehow manages to make chili and a treadmill explode. None of the characters, not even Sonic, understands how he managed to accomplish it. Eggman even points out that there was literally no way that could've happened.
- Male Gaze: Anthony (and his parents, for some reason) make references to Vanessa and Clarie's boobs early on in the RP. Then again, this is to be expected when they're nearly as, or even bigger than, their heads.
- Magic Music: All Vocaloids have it.
- Master of Illusion: Part of Labrys's primary functions.
- The Medic: Brandin, being a paladin, can revive fallen teammates.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The entire premise of the RP exists for the sake of this trope.
- Memory Gambit: Raffaello can make people remember memories that they may have forgotten. Naturally, this triggered a violent reaction in Xion.
- Me's a Crowd: The Rainbow Links.
- Mind Rape: The Herald gives a brief one to Labrys, filling her head with visions of the future.
- Mission Control: Palutena for Pit. Viridi takes over for Dark Pit and Alice when both are incapacitated.
- The Mole: Dio tried this on Eggman's base. Brandin detected him via Slaydar.
- More Dakka: With the arrival of Homura Akemi, this is expected.
- Mr. Exposition: The Herald. Almost all of his appearances involve him explaining something.
- Mysterious Backer: The Herald's master, who has elected to remain anonymous in the group's affairs. The Herald is perfectly fine with Mind Raping individuals on the team, and his master may or may not be Tzeentch.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Anthony randomly developed the ability to "detect evil presences". He also gained the ability to turn into a dragon, which came to light right after he was depowered, though for the second one there were implications that he was training, and he has a lot of references to Dragon Quest with his character.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In a manner extremely similar to Dawn of War, it turned out that the entire planet that everyone was on was a shrine to Khorne, which allowed the Final Boss, a Bloodthirster Daemon to be summoned.
- No-Sell: Brandin is capable of negating mind control spells via Heroic Willpower.
- Not Himself: Atlus starts acting oddly during King's Game 3.0. He lost control of his Persona and it became a Shadow.
- Odd Couple: Remilia is implied to have feelings for Shadow, but her feelings don’t seem to be reciprocated.
- Odd Friendship: Who ever knew that Reimu and Madoka would make such great best girlfriends? Than again, it is Madoka.
- Oh, Crap!: Philemon has one when he realizes just how bad the situation is. Also one for Vespus when he realizes that Eliphas can easily manipulate everyone.
- Ominous Floating Castle: Bowser uses the same castle that he does in the original Paper Mario after he kidnaps Megan. The castle is never destroyed, and never brought up again after that scene.
- The Omniscient: Tzeentch seems to know everything that's happening, though his motives are difficult to guess at. The Lord of Change also counts to an extent, having a lot of information relayed to him by Tzeentch, though part of the bigger picture appears to be kept from him.
- The Herald as well, who may or may not be the Lord of Change.
- One-Man Army: Artemis defeats a horde of Mongols on her own, though it cost her some energy.
- Only One Name: Several characters including Labrys (who was temporarily named Snowy) and Artemis.
- Overnight Conquest: The invasions of the Mushroom Kingdom and Equestria.
- The Paladin: Brandin, though he seems to have alcoholism problems.
- Poor Communication Kills: It seems that it's a requirement for every new character to get into a fight, typically by angering Bowser or by running into Eggman's mechs.
- This is also the cause behind a lot of issues with Anthony, mostly done by the team intentionally keeping information secret from Anthony.
- Power Incontinence: Trucy has trouble keeping her powers under control, which only compounds with the Time Skip involved where she ends up lighting things on fire and other things randomly. It wasn't until Bowser showed up that she started to gain control again.
- Power Limiter: Bowser gives it to Trucy. Twice. Once when she was a little girl, the other when she was a teenager.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The heroes get a vision from Arthas that was the standard, “Give up now” speech. It did nothing to deteriorate their hope.
- Pungeon Master: Teddie, bear-y much so!
- Really Was Born Yesterday: Raffaello was a baby a few days prior to being teleported at Eggman's base. He's been given weird looks from a few people.
- Retcon: Several of the original players' RP actions (such as the original Mario, and Sailor Moon’s original actions) were retconned out of the RP, partially because of changing GM hands, mostly because it was hard to reconcile them with the new RP’s story.
- Similarly, it was implied that the heroes are in the real world. That quickly got booted out the door when the GM rights changed hands.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Aigis, Labrys, and Quote.
- Rock Beats Laser: Averted during Eggman's arrival into what is basically Ancient China. His mechs were practically invulnerable to the swords being used by the locals (some of the locals managed to cut through them regardless, but those were particularly powerful generals). One of them managed to figure out to use water, but even that didn't do much good in the end. They only survived because Eggman pulled back his troops after he got the land he needed.
- Rousing Speech: Three are made before and during the offensive against Arthas. One from Carlini, one from Kyle, and one from the GUN Commander.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The original group met up in some ancient ruins, that apparently lead into New York City…and those ruins are never brought up again.
- Running Gag: Dr. Robotnik's introduction to each new Paradox participant he meets.
- "I am Dr. Ivo Robotnik, also known as Dr. Eggman, the world's greatest scientific genius!"
- Despite the maps on the walls of the Egg Fortress, Ayami (among others) has gotten lost on multiple occassions...
- Run the Gauntlet: The tail end of Arc 1 was this. It took far longer than expected, and the GMs have agreed not to do so again.
- Scenery Gorn: The Chaos Shrine-infested Keyblade Graveyard is a prime example.
- Sealed Good in a Can: Trucy, who's bound by Yogg-Saron's fortified defense.
- Ship Tease: With Atlus and Clover, which is... questionable at best.
- Shout-Out: Cortex says, “Cortex SMASH!”
- Skyward ScreamThorkleson: POOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPCCCCCCCOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRNNNN!
- Smite Evil: Brandin again, though his powers seem more specifically designed to smite The Undead and The Legions of Hell. It's because of this, in combination with his healing and resurrection powers, that has some of the team claim him to be their greatest asset.
- Space Marine: Vespus Linneaus and Raynor's Raiders play this role, the former even having the Super-Soldier components.
- Speak of the Devil: Bowser’s entrance was made when Megan said his name out loud, complete with a “Somebody page me?” line.
- Squishy Wizard: Nino.
- The Strategist: Johan and Vespus due to their experiences battling with heretics, and Chogro, the highest-ranking military officer on the team.
- Student Council President: Labrys believes herself to be one.
- Sugar Apocalypse: Eliphas's campaign on Equestria. Pony heads were on pikes.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Artemis plays this role post Arc 1.
- Super-Soldier: Vespus Linneaus, as is typical for a 40K Space Marine.
- Sword and Gun: While it appears that training will consist of learning this, Vespus Linneaus and Commissar Johan already know this, the former being an Assault Marine (which means that he has a Jump Pack) and the latter using a Power Fist.
- Taken for Granite: Palutena turns into stone. Again. Fortunately, she gets better.
- Telepathy: More like telepathy chatroom. Pit converses with Palutena, who converses with Homura, Viridi butts in, Madoka checks the chat, Yogg-Saron is partially ignored, and the Herald is snarking it up. Homura was smart enough to leave the chat before things got too hectic. Pit on the other hand...
- Time Stands Still: Homura's specialty. And Young Master Xehanort's.
- Time Travel: Averted. The nature of Paradox makes it impossible to time travel properly, which poses problems for the Doctors who travel in their TARDIS and Homura, the latter especially being so fond of resetting the timeline.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Averted, because timelines are abolished in Paradox.
- Too Dumb to Live: Jaden attempts to play cards with Johan. It doesn't end well.
- Tough Love: Oogie Boogie routinely and severely injures his daughter, Olivia Boogie. All of the other characters are horrified to learn this, especially when they realize that Olivia finds it needed.
- Troll: The Herald is known to be this kind of person.
- Unsuspectingly Soused: Aigis unknowingly puts alcohol in the drinks for the kitchen party. Intoxication Ensues.
- Villain Protagonist: Eggman and Bowser are leading the heroes. That should speak volumes about this trope.
- What Does She See in Him?: Bunshuu asks Ganryou what she sees in Eggman. Ganryou replies that Eggman is just a friend.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Anthony damages the other heroes works on occasion.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons and Quote.
- The Worf Effect: Aqua, despite being in the Dark World for the longest time and thus logically having the most fighting experience always seems to be the first one taken out in a fight. This does not help her mood out one bit.
- World of Action Girls: Gensokyo and Ganryou's Ancient China.
- Your Head Asplode: What Johan will do if anyone disrespects him.
