Darth Wiki / The Ross Anthology

The Ross Anthology is a series of in-development video games, stories, and universes.

It mostly centers around many characters named Ross (usually Ross J. Blackwood) but they're far from the only major players in The Multiverse which contains all sorts of heroes, villains, and everything in between.

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Characters

Rosses

In general

• Alternate Self: Obviously.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Most are only referred to by a title, because their names are all Ross J. Blackwood with a few exceptions.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: The Rosses on the side of good tend to be loud, rude and abrasive, while the villainous (or in some cases anti-heroic) Rosses tend to be serious and quiet.
• Rousseau Was Right: Those Rosses who are evil are all Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds in some way or form.

The Real Ross

The main protagonist of the Ross Anthology. After quitting the Hate route, he immersed himself in the Truth route in order to save the world, but what he found made him want to collapse the timeline and start over instead.

• Big Good: The main force fighting against the Personification of the Order of Life.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Even when fighting on the side of good, he prefers mostly dark colors.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Character arc variant; The Real Ross started off on the Hate route, and then had an entire arc to switch to Bravery and then Truth. After fighting the Personificaiton and becoming The Red Real Ross, he switches again to The Corruption Route.
• Good Is Not Nice / Good Is Not Soft
• I Have Many Names: Many titles, rather: The Stoic Figure, Little Soldier, Answerer, The Real Ross, The Man in the Black Lake, The Red Real Ross.
• Unscrupulous Hero: If he thinks collapsing the timeline is what will save it, then he will.

Terror Rossy

A Ross who was bullied and tormented most of his life. He is now a misanthropic and sociopathic terrorist.

• Affably Evil: Polite, but absolutely brutal to anyone who gets in his way.
• Misanthrope Supreme: He hates humanity for what they did to him.
• Nominal Importance: One of the few Rosses with a last name different than 'Blackwood'.
• Shout-Out: His last name is Lawliet.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: His backstory.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Years of bullying and torment are what made him this way.

Deadhard Ross

A Ross who led a small gang called the Kimbo Road Scumbags. They had a feud with the ATF, which resulted in him being the only survivor, and traumatized into someone truly Deadhard.

• Arch-Enemy: Alton Rivers AKA Raymond Mercer.
• The One Guy: His gang had 4 girls and him.
• Rookie Red Ranger: A variant; he had plenty of experience, but was the newest member of the group.

Ross Bot

An Abberant Vessel created in Counter Space by The Real Ross to assist him in his quest. Ross Bot basically told Real Ross to shove it, declaring that he was more Ross than Real Ross could ever be. In the present day, he's the president of Rossifornia.

• Artificial Human: He's a Vessel.
• Badass Normal: One of the only major characters (besides Duplicacies) to not use a Route.
• President Evil: Evil is a stretch, but he still has the mannerisms of one.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Ross Bot turned against Real Ross once he was created.

Ross 'n The Hoe Shit

• Artificial Human: He's a Duplicacy.
• Bodyguarding a Badass: Ross Bot doesn't need a bodyguard, but he still does it well.

Fraudulent Ross

A crime boss in Rossifornia.

• Noble Demon: More emphasis on Noble than on Demon in this case; he's a crime boss, but doesn't kill or cause unnecessary harm.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: He does not kill during his heists.

Chief Pornstache

The police chief of Rossywood, Rossifornia's largest city.

• Cowboy Cop: You'd need to be to survive as Da Chief in Rossifornia.
• Da Chief: Of Rossifornia.

Courtesy Call

A Ross who survived a Murder, and cleansed his pain, becoming a Reaper.

• Pay Evil unto Evil: He targets Murderers by channeling evil.
• Serial-Killer Killer: He mainly targets Murderers.

Asmodeus Ross

• Affably Evil: He is kind until he snaps.
• Eyes Always Shut: He keeps his eyes shut.

Murderer Ross

• Rare Male Example: Murderers are usually female.

Jos

In general

• Classical Anti-Hero: Jos tend to be this, especially at the beginning of their stories. This is part of why they favor the Fear route.
• Theme Naming: In contrast to the Rosses, who are all named Ross J. Blackwood with a few exceptions, the Jos all have different first and last names, with a theme that their first names all start with 'Jo' and their last names usually start with a 'k' sound.

The Real Jo

The Jo native to the Surrogate Timeline, however he chose to leave it to found his own nation in the Astonia timeline.

• Dream Walker: The Real Jo can do this to check on his variants.
• Good Is Not Soft: He has killed almost all of his evil variants.
• The Good King: In Astonia.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Not usually, but in the case of Alchemist Jo he could not see that he was, in fact, The Sociopath.
• Purple Is Powerful: Stories power is tyrian-purple, and he uses it effectively.
• We Used to Be Friends: With The Writer Jo.

Aviator Jo

One of the commanders of Astonia, and the commander of its air force. He is the best pilot, creator of flying machines, and inventor in the multiverse.

• Ace Pilot: Obviously.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Only when it comes to flying machines, though.
• MacGyvering: He can make a flying machine out of almost anything.

Shipper Jo

One of the commanders of Astonia, and the leader of his navy. He's a shipper in both senses of the word; knowledgeable about sailing and watercraft, and obsessed with shipping characters.

• Double-Meaning Title: He is a shipper in the sense of both navies and Shipping.

Constitution Jo

One of the commanders of Astonia, and the one who writes its Constitution and runs its Senate.

• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He does, in fact, write Astonia's Constitution.
• Non-Action Guy: The one who keeps Astonia running.

Jo Bot

An Aberrant Vessel created by The Real Jo in an attempt to create someone more Jo than himself. He turned against The Real Jo, and is currently one-third of the triumvirate that rules Jolington.

• Evil Counterpart: To Ross Bot, and to Real Jo.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Despite using Stories, just like the Real Jo, he is evil.
• Turned Against Their Masters: Just like Ross Bot.

Writer Jo

One of two survivors of The Entropy Timeline. He initially was allied with The Real Jo, but was later banished when it became clear he was evil. He a Pandora, and is one third of the triumvirate that rules Jolington.

Tropes applying to Jonathan Kretz / The Writer Jo:

• Anti-Villain: He shows traits of the first three types.
• Art Initiates Life: Well, writing in his case, but this is his main ability.
• The Lost Lenore: Alice, although it was entirely self-inflicted on his part.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Along with Love Hurts.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was initially a scaredy Classical Anti-Hero in a Childhood Friend Romance. Now he's a Transhuman ruthless dictator who plays fast and loose with the laws of reality.

Tropes applying to his creations:

• Canon Immigrant: Their numbers include Lilith Scarlet, Nanami "Venus" Mizushima, Lacy Smith, Camelia Drapeau, and Aminda Gonzalez. Justified, as Created were originally fictional characters.
• Dark Action Girl: All of them, even Lilith.

• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Of a sort.
• Wrong Context Magic: They retain their powers from their original characterization. This should not be possible due to the strictness of magic in The Ross Anthology. This is because The Writer Jo is from The Entropy Timeline, and is therefore disconnected from the Order of Life in part.
• Yandere: All of them, except Lilith.

Despair Jo

One third of the triumvirate that rules Jolington. Unlike the others, he has no redeeming qualities, and likes to create sadistic killing games for nothing but fun.

• Start of Darkness: Parodied. His is watching too much Danganronpa.

Alchemist Jo

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He was able to convince The Real Jo he was good to dodge being killed.
• Expy: Of Ink!Sans.
• The Sociopath: Due to surviving a Murder, he can only feel emotions through his Liquid Routes

The Jo That Didn't Exist

• Ambiguous Situation: Everything about him, because people who encounter him quickly get Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Dream Walker: His primary method of attack.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: His specialty.

Highgale Twins

The Real Highgale Twins

A set of twins you never want to meet. They're the only Collective Calamity, which means all of their Variants come as a package deal.

Tropes applying to both:

• Creepy Twins: Obviously.
• Expy: Of The Otonokoji Twins.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Their eye colors; Carol has the purple of a Twilight Maiden, and Samantha the red of Evil.
• Love Transcends Spacetime: Granted, the love in question is far from wholesome, but their status as the only Collective Calamity allows this.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Zigzagged. Initially, Samantha seems to be the Blue, being a Shrinking Violet, and Carol being a Big Sister Bully Red Oni. But when their true colors are revealed, this switches.

Tropes applying to Samantha Highgale:

• Expy: Of Kanade Otonokoji.
• The Fake Cutie: As with most Murderers.
• Hate Sink: Samantha is cruel, insane, incestuous, and domestically abusive.
• Self-Made Orphan: Killed her parents, and she and her sister changed their last names.
• Serial Killer: She's a Murderer.
• Shrinking Violet: Appears to be, but isn't.
• Yandere: For her twin sister.

Tropes applying to Carol Highgale:

• Anti-Villain: Not evil, per se, but she is willing to do what her sister says out of fear of abuse.
• Domestic Abuse: Poor, poor Carol.
• Expy: Of Hibiki Otonokoji.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: To some degree.
• Tsundere: Type B. It's a requirement to be a Twilight Maiden.

Red Ones

The Red Real Ross (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

• Expy: Of Error!Sans.
• Fallen Hero: He was once the Real Ross.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: He is the eventual future of The Real Ross' struggle against the Personification.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He still wants to destroy the Personification, but now accomplishes that by destroying timelines.

The Red Terror Rossy

• The Lost Lenore: Losing his lover, along with becoming a Red One, made him insane.

The Red Writer Jo

• Damned by Faint Praise: He's the sanest Red One. This means he's still batshit insane...
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Played for Horror. Being taken out of his time forms part of his Red One's Insanity.
• One Curse Limit: Averted. The Red Writer Jo had both Red One's Insanity and Story Rot at the same time, but he was eventually healed of Story Rot by The Real Jo.
• Peggy Sue: Played with. Writer Jo tried to create a copy of his past self so he could be good again, but it failed and made a Red One instead.
• Yandere: For Alice.

The Red RCSF Agents

• Godzilla Threshold: They're this to the RCSF, because their instability makes them difficult to order.

Embodiments

Embodiments in general

• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Their true forms are incomprehensible, so most appear as what the user percieves their Route to be.
• Deity of Human Origin: Each was once a human, but their names and original identities have been lost to time.
• Physical God: Their power is incalculable.

The Embodiment of Evil

• Always a Bigger Fish: To Red Parade and The Red Real Ross.

The Embodiment of Hate

The Living Blood

• Hive Mind: The Living Blood is one of many Blood users.

The Embodiment of Lies

The Embodiment of Fear

The Embodiment of Love

The Embodiment of Bravery

The Personification of the Order of Life (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

• All Your Powers Combined: She can use the powers of all of the Routes.
• Arch-Enemy: To The Real Ross.
• Big Bad: The false prophet who corrupted the Order of Life.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The reason all of the world's evils exist in the first place.

Other Major Characters

Red Parade

• Always a Bigger Fish: Despite being the strongest Murderer alive and afraid of nothing, her and the Red Real Ross were utterly defeated by the Embodiment of Evil.
• Ambiguously Human: It's clear that if she was once completely human, she definitely isn't anymore.
• And Show It to You: One of her finishing moves.
• Dark Action Girl: Is she ever.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Her last name is actually "Parade".
• Humanoid Abomination: Her face deforms into something demonic while fighting.
• Leitmotif: "A Lie Temporarily Becomes the Truth"
• Ms. Fanservice: She walks around in nothing but lingerie and a cropped hoodie.
• Villainous Friendship: With The Red Real Ross.
• Yandere: A Murderer is this with anyone they Choose, in her case The Red Real Ross.

Millie

• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Has the personality of one.
• Can't Argue with Elves: She thinks Humans Are Bastards. While not proven wrong (so far) she comes to trust The Real Ross.
• Defector from Decadence: One of the Pandora who decided to oppose The Personification.
• Hikkikomori: Hid in a library for what is implied to be a very long time.
• The Lancer: To Real Ross.
• The Not-Love Interest: With Real Ross.
• Really 700 Years Old: It's implied that being a Pandora, she's much older than she appears.

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The Ross Anthology contains examples of:

Tropes A to F

• Ace Pilot: Aviator Jo, obviously.
• Adaptational Villainy: Happens In-Universe to The Created who suffer from Story Rot.
• Akashic Records: The Order of Life functions this way. The outer wheel controls life (i.e. Reincarnation), and the inner wheel controls fate.
• Alternate Self: The Rosses, obviously, as well as many other people who have many variants across the multiverse.
• Always a Bigger Fish:
  • Ross Bot is considered unbeatable in a straight fight by most beings, but he will immediately run away if he is confronted by The Real Ross.
  • Despite their overwhelming power individually, The Red Real Ross and Red Parade are easily defeated by The Embodiment of Evil.
  • Despite the great political and Route power The Real Jo wields, he is utterly terrified of The Violet Lady, the person who scared him onto his path in the first place.
• Ambiguously Human: Murderers, Twilight Maidens, Pitch Hunters, and Reapers.
• Ambiguous Gender: Auditor, as well as a large number of the Embodiments.
• Anti-Villain:
  • Type-1 (Noble Demon):
    • Terror Rossy has a kind demeanor until he is pushed.
    • The Mortifier is refined and dignified, but will do horrible things if ordered to.
    • Writer Jo has the goal of creating life and is dedicated to his craft, but otherwise is a ruthless ruler.
  • Type-2 (Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds):
    • Every Red One counts as this.
    • All of those that survived Murders become this to some degree.
  • Type-3 (Well-Intentioned Extremist):
    • The Red Real Ross is this and Type II. He does seek to fight against the corruption of The Personification, but at any cost, including whole timelines.
    • Courtesy Call targets Murderers, but channels Evil himself.
• Art Initiates Life: The Created, who were originally fictional characters, brought to life by stories.
• Bad Powers, Bad People:
  • Every Murderer is this.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • Those who channel Evil (such as Gunslinger Jo, and Reapers) are this.
  • Plenty of Pandora are decent people, despite wielding the power of the Greater-Scope Villain.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Rare non-character example: The soft drink Faygo has magical properties, and is connected to Fate and The Order of Life. Aviator Jo even uses it as rocket fuel.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: This is Astonia and The Real Jo's whole shtick. Their philosophy is summarized as "a comforting lie is better than an awful truth.
• Betty and Veronica: Exaggerated with Real Ross' two love interests. Millie is the Betty, being (after a while) a reliable friend and partner, while Red Parade is the Veronica taking advantage of Red Real Ross' single-minded drive and insanity to mark him as her Chosen.
• Beyond the Impossible: Such events are caused by mis-spins in the Order of Life's inner wheel, which contols fate.
  • It should not be possible to make a Created based upon a real person. But The Writer Jo tried anyway, and a mis-spin in the Order of Life's inner wheel made it possible. Of course, this created a Red One.
  • It should not be possible to combine two Dual Deriving Routes into another Deriving Route, only combine two Root Routes or one Root and a Single Deriving Route. But The Personification of the Order of Life managed to combine Caligyny and Mendacity anyway, creating what is now known as the Order of Life Route.
    • Following from the above example, It should not be possible to become an Embodiment in a Deriving Route, let alone one that shouldn't exist in the first place. But The Personification had already tricked the wheel, so it gave her an Embodiment class tree anyway.
  • It should not be possible to cure oneself of Red One's Insanity. The Red Real Ross managed to do just that by forcing the inner wheel still, which if done by a non-Red One makes them into a Red One (because touching the wheel is usually fatal), but for him it allowed his mind to reconnect to the order of life, regaining (some of) his sanity.
• Big Good: The Real Ross. At least until he becomes the Red Real Ross.
• Byronic Hero:
  • The Real Ross slips into this when he realizes the true nature of the corruption and his goal shifts from saving the Surrogate Timeline to collapsing it and starting over. He even has some of the stereotypical dynamics of this archetype.
  • To all outside observers, Terror Rossy is an insane criminal and terrorist. In reality, he's a broken man who was pushed to this point by brutal bullying, and is still capable of having loved ones.
  • Deadhard Ross is a caustic person and dangerous criminal, but inside hides great pain from the loss of previous loves (and eventually, everyone else he cared about, too).
  • Writer Jo is, to all appearances, the heartless dictator of Jolington. His true goal is creating life, which he accomplished, and all else is secondary. In addition, he Used to Be a Sweet Kid before he was broken by the pressure of his responsibilities.
• Character Derailment: In-Universe, Story Rot is essentially this.
• Crapsaccharine World: Central Theme. The veil of lies created by The Order of Life causes things in the multiverse to not seem as bad as they are.
  • Astonia appears to be The Good Kingdom, but just under the surface lies a totalitarian society filled with racial tensions.
  • Rossifornia is a rare inversion of this. It seems to be a completely anarchic society with a neglectful leadership and high crime rates, and it is, but it appears much worse than it actually is and real violence is very rare there.
• Dark Action Girl: Murderers (usually female) tend to be this.
• Death World: Jolington.
• Deus Angst Machina: The Genocider's backstory. He was Murdered twice^note Murdered (capital m) refers to an attack by a Murderer, including ones that the victim survive. Those that survive don't get it any better, though. in quick succession, the second time by someone he thought loved him.
• Double-Meaning Title: Shipper Jo is a shipper both in the sense of navies and of Shipping.
• Expy:
  • The Red Real Ross is one to Error!Sans. Both are Red and Black and Evil All Over, seek to destroy timelines, and both have gone mad from the revelation.
  • Alchemist Jo is one to Ink!Sans. Both are unable to feel emotions due to some past event, and so drink colorful vials (in Alchemist's case, Pure Routes) in order to feel emotions again, and both are considered In-Universe to be heroes despite being anything but.
  • Allison "Alice" Kretz is one to two characters also named Alice.
  • Samantha and Carol Highgale to Kanade and Hibiki Otonokoji, respectively.
  • In a rare non-character example, the Hate Route is this to HATE from Glitchtale.
  • An In-Universe example is Despair Jo, who deliberately chose to act like Junko Enoshima.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": A necessity when many characters share exactly the same name.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Usually averted, as alternate-timeline versions are often treated as as valid of characters as any other. However, some specific cases play this straight: Ross Bot has taken over millions of timelines, but only one (Rossifornia) is seen, and Real Jo has killed almost all of his evil alternate versions.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Rossifornia. Not just to California, but all of urban America in general.
  • Parodied with Rossico. A bunch of particularly annoying Rosses were banished south to an island where the sun shines a bit brighter, tanning their skin. They decided to act like Mexicans.
• Femme Fatale: Murderers tend to be this.
• Foil: Ingrid Carnot to The Real Ross. Both were Answerers who found out about the veil of lies that pervades the multiverse and sought to collapse their respective timelines, and both became Red Ones. Both chose their quest over love, and this came back to bite them both. The major difference is that Ingrid succeeded on her quest, if briefly, while Ross was doomed to fight forever.

Tropes G to W

• Godzilla Threshold: Using the Red One Division is this to the RSCF, because the Red Ones are insane.
• Good Powers, Bad People: Jo Bot uses Stories, just like Real Jo, but is evil.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Personification of the Order of Life, who started the entire plot by corrupting the Order of Life and therefore creating all the world's evils.
• Immune to Fate: Red Ones are a variant of this. Each survived something they weren't meant to, but a mis-spin of the Order of Life's inner wheel caused them to survive. Unfortunately, this causes them to go insane.
• Love Martyr: Seneschals tend to be this. They devote themselves to someone, despite that person's either apathy or inadequate reciprocation of their feelings. This is what puts them on the Caligyny Route, despite lacking a denial of feelings like most Caligyny classes.
• Legacy Character: Terror Annie to Terror Rossy.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Route users are limited to one route, unless they take a Deriving Route which combines two other Routes, in which case they're limited to that.
• Mary-Sue Hunter: The Rewriter class and the Editor faction (mostly made up of Rewriters) are this. They eliminate any Created judged to be too perfect, which they call Mary Sues.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Pandora are called Pandora because the corruption in the Order of Life caused all of the world's evils.
  • Aviator Jo is named Wright after the Wright Brothers, Shipper Jo is named Ontzia (Basque for 'boat'), and Constitution Jo is named Madison after James Madison.
• Nominal Importance: Zigzagged. A huge number of main characters are named Ross J. Blackwood, and are only distinguished by title. However, two Rosses are marked as being special by not being named Blackwood.
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: The Evil Rosses tend to be Affably Evil, while the heroic (or at least not specifically villainous) ones tend to be rude and foulmouthed.
• Psycho Pink:
  • The Caligyny route zig-zags this. While it continues to mean Pink Is Feminine, the psychological problems that develop the Route in the first place firmly put it here.
  • Antipathy Corp and the Antipathy Deriving Route are a straight example.
• Rank Inflation: To the point the number of S split into tiers themselves.
  • Then there's U Tier...
• Rare Male Example: The Ross Who Murders is one of the few male Murderers.
• Recruiting the Criminal: The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms did this with Raymond Mercer in Deadhard Ross' timeline. It did not end well for them.
• Rousseau Was Right: Played with. Almost every evil character has a Start of Darkness, or is a Tragic Villain in one way, shape, or form. Exceptions so far include The Personification of the Order of Life, Red Parade, and Samantha Highgale.
  • Parodied with Despair Jo, whose Start of Darkness is... Danganronpa.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of Real Ross' attacks is called And Then There Were None.
  • The catchphrase of Astonia's senate is "I am the Senate!"
• Transhuman:
  • Pandora are the result of following the Order of Life. They have their own society, but create as many new Pandora from turned humans as natural-born Pandora.
  • Demons are one result of following the Evil Route.
• Tsundere:
  • The Caligyny Route is somewhere between this and Yandere.
  • The Twilight Maidens are Type-A Tsundere personified.
• Turned Against Their Masters: This is Ross Bot's origin; Real Ross created him to aid in his quest, but Ross Bot decided to make his own path.
• Vigilante Man: The Fearless Terror.
• Yandere:
  • Murderers zig-zag this. For one, they use love and affection to lower their target's guard, but this is only a ruse to kill the opponent. However, some Murderers choose a person to follow and guide, and then they play this trope straight.
    • Exaggerated with Samantha Highgale. She's so much of a yandere she drove her twin sister onto the Caligyny Route.
  • Pitch Hunters are a straighter example. They constantly claim to want to kill the object of their caliginous affections, but never seem to actually do the deed.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Each Embodiment has a real form, but due to their power they exclusively appear in A Form You Are Comfortable With.
• Woman Scorned: This is one potential origin of a Twilight Maiden.
• The Worf Effect: The power of Reborn Real Ross is showcased when he punches Samantha Highgale so hard she decides to run away immediately.