"The year is 2121. A mysterious apocalypse has struck the Earth, leaving little left. Strangely, animals, plants, and animals remained unharmed. Buildings, houses, and structures stand with little harm done to them. The human species still exist, but only in form of children and teenagers no older than the age of twenty. In this dystopian setting, it is hard to survive and even harder to meet another one of your species. However, the apocalypse, called the Great Storm by many, left the presence of Flow. The Flow is a mysterious essence that is found in air, water, and earth. It is intangible and odorless, and can be-reused again and again. Usually, in its dormant state, it is also invisible to the human eye. A gift granted to all those left on the Earth is the ability to manipulate Flow. When being used, the Flow is usually visible in a sea-green aura, though it may change according to the user. Each user has a Flow ability specific to them, whether it be the ability to manipulate wind, change sizes, or cause plain destruction. Flow is used to hunt and fight, and is a valuable tool to those who wield it.
"Our protagonists are normal teenagers who find themselves looking at a vermilion tower appear in the distance one bleak night. Curiosity overwhelms them, and they each make a journey to the mysterious tower before them. Along the way, they meet others with similar goals: all to reach the tower. Sharing common goals, some of the teenagers group together and make their way to the tower. Eventually, they make it, apparently before anyone else. Seeing as the tower is closed, the group decides to bust in and do so by breaking a large hole in the castle. They make their way in, only to be stopped by a mysteriousadult.What's even more strange is this man has a mechanical arm and looks deceivingly like a scientist. After some conversation, the man tells them of a tournament coming soon, dubbed 'The Acer Tournament.' After a scuffle, the group is dumped out in the front of the castle again, where many more teenagers have arrived. A large drawbridge is opened, and five adults— including the mechanical armed one— introduce themselves as the hosts of the Acer Tournament. This tournament is for all participants who must endure tasks for three weeks in order to reach the ultimate prize: a promised spot in an utopia. Some protagonists jump in right away, while others are a bit more skeptical but join in eventually. The contestants are allowed to live inside the tower for the duration of the tournament, and are given bed and food. While it's definitely shady to how the adults manage to get all this (and how they even are alive at this point), the contestants are grateful and reside in the rooms with one other roommate. They are split into groups of three, and they must work together to complete the tasks."
Reaching Salvation is a Role Playing experience set After the End in a Teenage Wasteland in which the majority of adults have seemingly vanished, with a few notable exceptions in the Big Five and the mysterious Shima and his group of loyal subordinates. The RP was originally created by LastPrelude and is hosted on This is Not A Forum over on Fan Fiction.net where we are in the process of playing out the first half the second week and are currently on Part IV with lots more on the way, no doubt.
Action Girl: You'd be hard pressed to find a girl who doesn't qualify as this in RS. I think the only true notable exceptions would be Elena and Mitsu, for obvious reasons of course. Both Anya and Lillian also count, seeing as being an adult makes them very powerful by default, however they lean more towards Lady of War due to their age.
Nathan is slowly moving towards Type V in the eyes of most other contestants.
Anti-Villain: Shima has painted himself as this despite being the biggest contender for the position of Big Bad. He's outwardly stated he's out for Revenge for what the others did to him some point prior to the start of the RP, but you can't help but feel sorry for the guy when you take into account that he does want to change the world for the better - possibly could end up going as far as being the Designated Evil and becoming a Mix of Type IV and V.
Eithne is also a rather good example of what happens when you cross a Type I with a Type II - the Noble Woobie Anti-Villain. His status at this was confirmed when he signs on with Shima as he thinks it's the best way to ensure his own survival, which up until meeting some of the other contestants was his sole goal in the the whole plot.
Though given what we've seen so far, he did generate a force field by using the controls built into the arm, so having it morph into an Arm Cannon may not be so hard to believe. We'll have to wait and see.
Funnily enough, he was fighting Paul at the time when he displayed this ability - one, if not the only, other person in the RP who uses a ranged weapon as their primary offensive weapon.
With the strained relationship now going on between Nathan and Kira at the moment it's now more of a Subversion, they still seem willing to compete as teammates in the current challenge but it's unclear whether or not Nathan's little Hannibal Lecture after his fight with Eithne has seen their relationship go down in flames
Given the interaction between the entire during the Beast Tamer Challenge, I think it's safe to say that the ship has officially sunk. Majorly.
Joey and Erika may also count, however I don't actually remember them throwing down together since I joined (which was early on in Part II) so less so than Nathan and Kira.
Berserk Button: Everyone's got one - some just have bigger buttons than others.
Eithne and Nathan recently took to pushing each others buttons and ended up trying to do a No Holds Barred Beat Down on one another. Eithne came out on top, if only just.
Beware the Nice Ones: Kira. She's probably the nicest character in the whole damn RP and despite her Shrinking Violet statues we've yet to see what she can do when someone well and truly pushes her Berserk Button.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Kira of all people seems to be showing shades of this as off the Beast Tamer Challenge. It's rather frightening actually, y'know, given the prior status as a Shrinking Violet. Though I guess that just means that Beware the Nice Ones is all too true in this case.
Big Bad: Shima is setting himself up as the current Big Bad, even if he is somewhat of an Anti-Villain and is merely out for Revenge against those that turned on him aka the Big Five.
Children Are Innocent: Played with a lot. The one's referred to kids in the actual RP, Elena and Simon play this rather straight.
Everyone else? Yeah... not so much, really.
Children Forced To Kill: What it may lead to in the final week, though YMMV on some previous occurrences.
Combat Pragmatist: Not as much as one would expect, but there have been a few nasty cases of it as well, hopefully, things can't get any worse.
Clothing Damage: Played straight and subverted - differs from character to character.
Cool Big Sis: Heidi and Erika could be seen as this to Simon and Elena respectively.
Cool Sword: A few characters, including Nathan, Luke and Zackary, all carry swords with them. I'm pretty sure someone even carries a katana. Why? Simple.
Eithne gets himself a BFS that's an expy of the new Zangetsu design from the latest arc shortly before defection.
Special mention goes out to all those that actually put some though into their characters Dark and Troubled Past, at least enough to shed some light on it during the actual RP, anyway.
Defeat Means Friendship: Nathan and Eithne subvert this during their first few clashes, though no one really wins any of those.
Even after finally having a full on fight their situation is closer to Enemy Mine due to the fact both just want out of the Acer Tournament, though both want out for completely different reasons.
He's more a Dragon-in-Chief seeing as he's the one that oversees to the day-today running of Shima's base and maintaining the peace between the residents.
Fire-Forged Friends: Eithne and Nathan are planned to become a rather good example of this during their time with Shima, however at the moment their still stuck on The Rival and/or Enemy Mine stage.
Exactly who fills which position is exactly unclear for the most part, but it's clear that Thadius is the Evil Genius of the group, everyone else's position within the group is still up in the air for the time being.
Five-Man Band: Nathan's little group seems to be shaping up to be one of these.
The Band now lies in tatters with Nathan and Eithne having defected to Shima and the remain three having a butt load of their own problems to deal with.
Fore Shadowing: Lots of it from certain characters, to see some of it you gotta read between the line.
Genre Savvy: A few characters have shown symptoms of this, but the closest to being full blown Genre Savvy is, surprisingly, Percival.
Lampshaded on various occassions and a few people have tried to play this for laughs. It didn't work.
Gun Kata: I'm waiting for Paul to pull this off myself.
Eithne has started playing around with this trope as off his fight with Nathan, though he mainly averts it as all he does is shoot out the lights in the training room to help set up his No Holds Barred Beat Down on Nathan.
Guns Are Worthless: Many contestants seem to believe this, for some reason. Paul, and of recently, Eithne being the only exceptions.
Hand Signals: How the character of Silence communicates with others, because for some reason, his Flow takes away his ability to talk.
Hand Wave: Played straight during the chimera challenge when one of the contestants asked The Big Five where the chimeras had come from and they got waved off as an answer then they lampshaded the whole thing as they walked off to resume the challenge.
Hannibal Lecture: Nathan attempted to give his own little version of one of these to Kira when he found her waiting from him to wake up in the Infirmary after his fight with Eithne.
Averted in the Leeroy Jenkins department at least ever since he achieved his new level in Bad Ass, that doesn't stop him from considering his code of honor before all else at times, though.
Hot Blooded: A few characters could be classed as this.
Improbable Aiming Skills: Paul averts this, seeing as her already has plenty of experience with guns prior to the start of the RP whilst Eithne invoked this trope in his fight with Nathan, though it also counts as a subversion given he's been shown throwing and aiming things, mainly apples at various points prior and it's taught him to have reasonable aim, yet he'd never really fired a gun prior to using it in the fight.
It Got Worse: This seems to be the main premises of the entire RP at times. I mean, each day there's a new challenge which is suppose to be harder than the day before and as a result each day that passes is harder by default.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Eithne is this at times, other times he's just straight up Jerkass. Joey had a moment as one of these during the Breakout Arc during the face off with Shima.
Lampshade Hanging: On a few occasions, though only one or two are note worthy. And others are just groan inducing.
Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Surprisingly, Percival is more guilty of this than anyone thus far. Must come with the territory of being the most Genre Savvy character we have...
Leeroy Jenkins: Once again, Eithne is very guilty of this during his first confrontation with Heidi.
Averted from this point on as no one has been guilty of this since Eithne invoked said trope in the above example.
The beast Joey's team is paired up with during the Beast Tamer Challenge thinks about pulling this off, JoeyLampshades that it would be a very bad idea.
Mama Bear: Heidi and Erika to Simon and Elena, respectively. You so much look at either of these two kids wrong with Heidi and Erika around and prepare to run.
Ironically, Suvi plays both Heidi and Elena, whilst Rand is the reverse with Erika and Simon. Hmm...
See Hello Nurse above from probably one of the best examples in the RP thus far.
Nigh Invulnerability: For the time being, The Big Five and Shima have this going for them except against each other. Oliver too, presumably, seeing as he too is an adult with a few years of experience under his belt and knows everything there is to know about his own Flow.
Oh Crap: Sabina's Golem coming to life qualifies as the most recent, I think. Plenty of others, though.
No longer the case as off the survival challenge, one of the best Oh Crap moments to date in the entire RP.I'm pretty sure someone say's this trope word perfect, too.
Put on a Bus: The contestants sent to the Disqualification Room most certainly count.
Shima and Co. also went for a trip on the bus after the events of the Breakout Arc but it looks as though The Bus Came Back as of end of the first fifth of Part IV.
Fan Nickname The Big Five, originally coined by Dobi Boshi and becoming a term used in and out of the RP is used at first as a passing Shout Out to Yu-Gi-Oh! on one of the discussion threads.
Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: With his limited knowledge of electronics and desserts, along with calling his father by his first name, Simon is known to show this to Heidi without even knowing it.
Tsundere: Heidi personifies Type A of this trope to a T.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Played straight by the likes of Eithne, Luke and many more including Heidi - if her attachment to Simon is anything to go by.
Subverted by Ven (an NPC), though a vast majority of the main characters could also subvert this if it meant protecting themselves and their teammates, because technically, they all are still kids.
Big Five anyone?
They play with the trope in a most bizarre fashion. Whilst none of them have directly hurt any of the contests thus far, from what we've seen, they're hardly protecting them by making them compete in life threatening challenges for a shot at Utopia.
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