A My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic collaboration of fanfics.
Oh, and you thought all that Discord did was terrorise one little village during his short lived release? Ha! That was just a cover for a much greater scheme. He widened an interdimensional link between our two universes and took a human, the most chaotically inclined beings to have ever existed bar himself, and plunges him into Equestria. A mere trifle, am I right? Hardly. As his one dying act before being sealed once again in stone, his voice reverberates across the multiverse, calling on all gods and goddesses brave enough to put their power where their mouths are to summon a human, a Piece, as he did and play his Chessgame of the Gods. Some do it for change. Some for reward. Some out of sheer boredom. But they all will end up with their Pieces and the Endgame...
Here is the Chessverse's Website/FimfictionDotNet group
, and here is the Chessverse wiki.
Tropes found in these various stories include:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Aoi's crafted katanas are these. To an extent with Griffin's sword Hades; his blade is sharp, but is only "absurdly sharp" when he uses "lacero" on it.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Inverted with Griffin the Griffin, who had the name Griffin while he was a human, not knowing until it was too late he'd actually BECOME a Gryphon.
- An Ice Person: Arrell becomes a Windigo upon arrival.
- Arc Words: The Endgame.
- Some stories have arc words revolving around their main character.
- Berserk Button: Let's face it. Everyone in Chessverse is ridiculously unstable, crazy, insane, loose with power, or capable of mental breakdowns. It's like the Epic Fantasy version of Alice in Wonderland. Injuring of children, loss of allies or just mere foul play is enough to get these pieces to wreck something or someone.
- Beware the Nice Ones / Beware the Silly Ones: Various pieces. Particularly Arrell; he spends quite a lot of his story just goofing around at first, approaching Cloud Cuckoo Lander status, but when he unleashes all of his power, you're in trouble.
- BFS: Griffin with Hades until his fight with Ember/Gemina
- Big Bad: Ember the Dragon is this to Griffin, though this seems to only apply to his story.
- Although, overall there is 'The Enemy'
- Break the Cutie: Gilda, Violet Melody, Celestia, and Octavia each have a moment.
- A lot of chess pieces go through this, usually after they kill or watch someone die for the first time.
- Chekhov's Skill: Played Straight with Aoi and his team mates. Keith in particular took what he learned from Aoi and crafted weapons for him.
- Cool Old Guy: Marty may not look like it, but he IS 32,126 years old, so he qualifies.
- Cosmic Chess Game: The title is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Covered with Scars: Both Aoi and Griffin's human forms are littered with scars from their past.
- Crisis Crossover: Gods of all kinds, from Greek to Norse to even completely made up, are going all in for goals ranging from faith, to aid, to power, to glory, and even ‘because they felt like it’.
- Dark and Troubled Past / Mysterious Past: One or the other, or both, is used for the various chess pieces to describe their backstory. If the former is used, it's often an excuse to keep them from angsting about wanting to go back home; if the latter is used, it's to avoid addressing that topic entirely.
- Deadpan Snarker: Everyone has their moments.
- Death by Irony: Arrell is heavily implied to have killed Bloodbath with his own axe before taking it as his own.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: There are several instances where characters directly attack other, stronger creatures. One of the biggest examples is when Arrell shows up and takes out Cinder the Cyndaquil, who is currently being controlled by a god. So Arrell basically took down a god.
- Evil Overlord List: Dan's story uses rules 46 and 80, though the former is invoked by soldiers.
- Excuse Plot: Gods and goddesses want to basically play chess in Equestria with humans? Okay, cool. Even if that explanation wasn't given, it wouldn't detract from the awesome idea of this multi-crossover of humans turning into various creatures and coming to the world of ponies.
- Fictionary: Occasionally, fake words will be presented as "old Equestrian" or something similar. For example, "Arrell" apparently is another word for a comeback and was an old battle cry; Arrell the character just came up with the name based on an alternate pronunciation of the letters "RL".
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Follow the Leader: Arguably how the universe exists in the first place, though in a rare example of this trope, it's not frowned upon to join in. It's actually encouraged. - Foreshadowing: Some stories have "Visions of the Future" chapters, which either foreshadow future events in the story or a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue. Sometimes the latter will be done, but still foreshadow events or changes.
- Katanas Are Better: Played straight with Aoi, ignored by other swordsmen like Marty, Griffin, and Dan.
- Later this is subverted by Aoi when Keith gives him a gun.
- Lighter and Softer: Quite a few stories are much less gory than the main ones; for example, To Err is Equine has had little to no detailed blood or death, even during the Dusk of Ice and Fire.
- Line-of-Sight Name: If a character doesn't use their real name, chances are they'll come up with a fake name based on this or their train of thought.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Dan, in keeping with his Stalfos form, has a shield.
- The Power of Hate: Is a changlings greatest weakness. Just as love is food to them, hatred is poisonous. Griffin has so much of it that Chrysalis is powerless against him even after feeding on enough love to take out Celestia.
- The Power of Rock: Knightmare’s main means of attack, defense, empowerment, summoning, and pretty much anything that bullets won’t handle.
- No Biological Sex: Zig-Zagged with Arrell. Windigoes have no reproductive organs and are seen as genderless, but since he was male as a human and because all Windigoes generally have male attributes, he's still referred to as...well, a "he". Played straight with Windigoes in general, though.
- Nominal Hero: Ivan's surprising lack of morals, as well as his group's lack of them, leads him to be more motivated by life trying to kill him then by any moral issue. Ivan's exploits, without guilt include drug dealing, leaving people to die, cold blood killing a friend to advance himself and other such things.
- Older Than They Look: Omnius, Martin Stuart, and Knightmare are all surprisingly old. In the case of the two former, it's because they're Dimension Jumpers; with Knightmare, he's just an old badass.
- Arguably all of the Gods and Players in the Chessgame fall into this category, if not plummeting straight into the Time Abyss.
- Pun-Based Title: From Nobody To Knightmare, in the case of the trope.
- A few chapters in To Err is Equine have this, such as "Styx and Stones May Break My Bones" note and "Have An Ice Day" note .
- Running Gag: Chess pieces cracking their necks and irritating or startling other characters in doing so. Most prominent in Griffin the Griffin.
- Rape As Back Story: In the Fic, 'The Blue Stranger, the Red Curtain' Aoi reveals to Ubi that he had been molested and raped as a child which owes to Aoi's asexuality and refusal to masturbate even when reassured by Keith that it was alright. Personality wise, it is one of the few things Aoi truly feels guilt and shame over.
- Serial Escalation: At first, writers had their characters become Equestrian creatures such as Diamond Dogs, griffins, Changelings, etc. Now we have creatures that aren't even from Equestria, like Dan the Stalfos and Omnius the Werehog.
- Smoking Is Cool: Played straight with Cole.
- Stepford Smiler: A lot of pieces, but particularly Griffin and Arrell.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Several Chesspieces have one. The most well known and infamous are Ember's darkside, Gemina, and Kngihtmare's 'Nightmare Form' The Legion
- Super-Speed: Zeta Chi, Aoi Myoujin, and G1 hero Firefly (all three of which are capable of moving fast enough to CONTROL TIME).
- Swiss-Army Appendage: Many of the characters have lost limbs or never had them to begin with resulting in some interesting new toys, EX: Griffin's Wing, Clet's arm, Half of "Mango" Jack, and Epsilon's arm cannon.
- The Dreaded: Several Chesspieces have titles that go with them. All of which have to do with some detail about them that warns you not to mess with them, such as Lord-Captain Griffin North, AKA 'The Hate Seed', or Sir Knightmare DemonBane, 'The Paladin of the Sun', or Zeta Chi, 'The Last Heir of Senmurv'.
- Troperiffic: 90+ fics, one setting and premise. 90+ pieces and players, all unique in species and personality, and each telling a different tale. That coffee earlier? You might wanna brew some more.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The main gimmick of To Forgive, Celestial (sequel to To Err is Equine). Chapters are updated in two parts; the first part is from Arrell's perspective and tells the story leading up to how he apparently "broke", and the second part is from Asylum's perspective and tells the events happening in the present as she and the others search for Arrell.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Knightmare by way of his Changeling form, Griffin with his amulet.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Arrell, being a Windigo, isn't just weak to fire - he's weak to heat, period, whatever the source. Though recently, it's been made more specific that it's only intense heat; even being in the hot Appleloosa desert doesn't do anything immediate to him except make him uncomfortable.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: So prominent, it's unwise to make this a drinking game. You'd drop dead drunk from the 10th arachnophobe. Every piece has a fear, but the most prominent are Griffin and Knightmare’s fear of spiders.
- World of Badass: You could possibly count the number of characters who are NOT a badass of some sort on one hand.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: A variation; Arrell pretends that he's being chased by Timberwolves in order to distract Risk so he can take the Fine Rock back.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Actually inverted; Griffin believes he has outlived his own usefulness and that the Griffin Pirates can continue without him, so when he needs to seek therapy, he passes the duties onto Gilda and leaves the ship.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Griffin, after killing a black dragon, uses one of its scales as a weapon.
- Arrell takes Bloodbath's axe after being heavily implied to have killed him.
- Younger Than They Look: A few pieces look and act like adults (particularly thanks to becoming something not human), but are only teenagers.
