Sequel spinoff to Kamen Rider Hour Of The Void, set sixty years later in a slightly alternate reality. Yet another play-by-IRC on Rizon, this one using #RideAloneComplex and DM'ed by the illustriousHaken_Browning of Team Phantom Tiger and /m/erotica fame, it serves as a testbed for the uTOHpiaToku-themed e-splat for Mutants & Masterminds (itself drafted by those KRV players carrying over to RAC who mourned the loss of the system in its shift to near-pure freeform).RAC functions more as a "Good End" to the previous game (when it isn't busy reading more like a scathing in-character critique thereof); the heroes won, and some serious efforts on FangOreo's part have brought Grongi, Fangires, Orphenochs, and Wormsout into society under their own power - especially Fangires, with a FangOreo-backed Development & Pioneer engineering a Life Energy feeding substitute (and Coca-Cola Expy) known as FN-TAU.The bright future has its dark spots, however: though the kaijin races are mostly integrated into society, they bring with them a whole new grade of criminal activity against both humans and their own kind. To counter their threat, the FangOreo construct a "public security firm" (more like "privately-owned military"), "Justice Unlimited Nocturne-Kinetic Elimination Riders", or JUNKER, which is sort of a "good guy" version of ZECT, complete with various "trooper" level mooks and more elite Riders, represented by PCs and NPCs across the spectrum...to say nothing of the various foreign and domestic henshin tech rivals cropping up amid the All-Riders expo.Find it here.
As usual, tropes referring specifically to one character's assets go on the character sheet. Anyway, Ride Alone Complex provides examples of:
Age Appropriate Angst: Zig Zagged with Kenoko. Counting summers, she's 78 years old, but she's still 18 years old physically due to having an unaging body. She angsts about the fact that most of her old friends are gone with the attitude of an 18-year-old. Michelle, on the other hand, subverts it, by acting like a nineteen-year-old girl who is having too much fun.
Please note that Michelle is a 97-year-old Showaborg who looks like she's about one-third her actual age. That would give most 97-year-old women a reason to act like that.
Asskicking Equals Authority: What appears to be a primary motivation for tapping new Riders, considering how Rebecca and Haru got in and how eagerly Xander was lifted to OsuTrooper.
Authority Equals Asskicking: The OTHER motivation for tapping new Riders - namely inspiring them into this trope, considering how Kenoko got on board. May also play a factor in retention, if Pacifica's debut is any indication.
Badass Abnormal: Haru, Kenoko, Michelle, Xander, and implied with Luca.
leads to I Have Many Names when he's playing in a different game that uses "nickup" rules - "Xiaohu", "Wei_Angxian", and "Fionna" are all Axel as well.
Brick Joke: Invoked continuously and furiously by Haken and Axel regarding discarded or swerved-away elements from theirpriorgames.
Broken Bird: Kenoko's defining trope pre-Calibur, and one Haruka swerves into in places during Week 03. Then there's Henne Valkyria, whose spontaneous ejections of Raven Orphenoch feathers make it a bit too literal.
Cool Bike: This beingKamen Rider, but Kenoko's Jet Sliger really stands out, given that it can drive through the air (literally; road appears in the air in the manner of the Denliner).
Couch Gag and/or Evolving Credits: The workspace's main page often changes, having things struck out and shuffled about as the situation in-character changes.
Haken: So we got a little more in-depth about this entire mess last night, and we've come to the conclusion that it wasn't Couch that was right, but Gue. Furthermore, I have become Gue. Guys. Help me change back. Please.
Dangerously Genre Savvy (initially Wrong Genre Savvy): Akebara acts like this at times, being extremely familiar with the Rider Wars of the past. The only problem is that most of the information was imparted to her by Wyll.
Dare to Be Badass: Akebara, to Rebecca, during their first meeting. Which is ironic, because she was on her way to fulfill such a dare from Wyll at the time.
Death Is Cheap: So it appears with anyone using the uTOH template for Undead or buying up similar powers. Including Wyll, who didn't even know he BOUGHT resurrection when brought back through his contract with Leksi.
Defeat Means Friendship: Or, in Miyami's case, devotion based off of infatuation due to Kenoko's ranks of the Distracting Looks feat. This is at least the second time that this has caused a situation involving one of Axel's characters.
Distracting Looks winds up not even factoring into Henne and Kyon being "Befriended."
Face Palm: Wyll does one in-character when the Proto Driver mispronounces the ZX henshin as "Zed-Ex" - it's meant to be "Zeh-Cross". Kenoko is also occasionally fond of them.
First Name Basis: Kenoko with everybody because that's just how she is. Akebara's own habit (barring calling Kenoko Senpai) seems like a mistake (being born and raised in Japan), until you realise she was taught by Wyll, who isn't Japanese to begin with.
Fridge Brilliance: Much of Axel's writing style seems to rely on it - for example, Nigo's threats to the FangOreo are more Narm than anything... until you find out that Nigo is just everything Kenoko represses, and she was never any good at making threats.
Good People Have Good Sex: Variant explored between Haru and Akebara - Ake is normally apathetic to the idea of sex and is implied to have engaged in it lovelessly for reasons of subterfuge. When Haru kisses her, the emotional response blows Ake away.
Ho Yay: Axel and Haken, according to some members of the fanbase - mostly the people who see Axel as Mr. Fanservice.
Improbably Female Cast: There are... what, 3 male PCs and one male DMPC? And then there's so damn many female characters that it'll hurt too much to count them.
Thankfully manages to avert the girls-only Competence Zone that plagued its predecessor.
With the addition of three new male PCs (Masaki, Joe, and Adriel), this is starting along the path to being less than accurate.
Kidnapped By An Ally: This is how Haruka eventually taps Kenoko. Kenoko is not pleased.
Somewhat subverted with Tenpai later "kidnapping" Becca, in that no one (except maybe Axel) knew if he's really an ally, due to his preferences towards doing things his own way. Not to mention that she stayed with him willingly. Once again, Kenoko is not pleased.
Lampshade Hanging: The page with all the preludes lampshades how hard Kenoko got shafted in KRV proper.
Large Ham: The majority of Haken's characters. Yes, even Aelita.
The Proto Driver is this in the Pink Lemonade preludes. Word Of God is that Wyll toned it down for RAC proper.
Last Girl Wins: Used as an almost-cruel subversion of First Girl Wins - after doing a Ship Tease (and then some) with Alice and Alex for all of KRV (plus some playful flirting with Haruka and more serious attempts with Faruko)... Wyll apparently ends up with Aelita.
Played more of its own accord with Kenoko settling with Rebecca after all of her KRV relationships wind up irrevocably burnt. (Excepting maybe Haruka, but then she's already married and constantly barred from using Charm Person to set the mood.)
Though Kenoko merely points out that she doesn't have to use it to set the mood...
Kenoko and Rebecca started off as an Official Couple, but with their Tenpai-induced breakup it seems Kenoko's moved on to a more swinging-friendly setup.
The Ake-Haru-Korin-Miyuki Love Triangle discussed below.
Kyon's infatuation with Henne is played as an over-the-top deconstruction of Haruka's infatuation with Yukari.
Given that Masaki is now its owner, that's half of it settled, at least.
Let's Get Dangerous: Wyll, of all people, demonstrates this in Akebara's backstory - after doing nothing for all of the prequel, he turns up and dusts a Fangire in a heartbeat with his never-seen-in-KRV Proto-Decade Driver. There's also the part where he and Aelita completely rolled SHOCKER's Alaska facility singlehandedly, mowing through pseudo-Riders like mooks and making Nineball look like trash.
Akebara demonstrates her own during, of all places, her seduction of Haruka... where the entire thing is carefully plotted on her part. Watch that girl.
Love Triangle: Haru-Korin-Miyuki-Xander-Ake is a weird setup where:
Korin is into Haru in a big way (but totally willing to reciprocate Miyuki's crush on her), and
Ake is completely unaware that this setup exists and exhibits Single-Target Sexuality towards Haru, who is the initiator of their one intimiate moment (thus far) that is Safe, Sane and Consensual.
Motive Rant: Kenoko has one after Haruka refuses to let her turn down a "job offer", related to her time as the brainwashed SHOCKER Rider-2. Hearing her admit to enjoying herself during it is creepy, as well as her bleeped out threat concerning Yukari and Kaoru.
Despite a general "Neutral Zone" tone throughout the game wiki, Haken's own liner notes eventually spiral towards this regarding the foundation of RAC and a few loose ends in KRV that this game finds itself scrambling to gloss over/swerve away from.
The official line seems to have been refined to "Touhou Project meets Kamen Rider" by the middle of Week 04: everyone not on the "Evil" chunk of the alignment chart is friendly to one another, even when they're tearing into each other with vicious debates and/or henshin firepower that pushes M&M's limits.
No Ending: Cancelled right after the gigantic clusterfuck of a Christmas feast thanks to the new hires being insufferable to schedule around. Haken's postscript indicates the original ending plans involved making QUITE the mess of the set.
Out with a Bang: How room got cleared out for the crew's new Kuuga:
Proto Driver and Gaia Memory calls are >>LIKE THIS<<. Except when the latter get written-out [<ASCII>///]= Memories.
[Kivat] and [Kivaara] get colored text in single squarebrackets.
Now joining the pack is a talking Autovajin with +speech noted in plus signs+.
Vincent's OrgDriver seems pretty fond of being written /Like This\.
Leo, as well as Lydia and Tricia's mental communications with him and each other, are written <<like this>>.
Xander's Birth equipment calls are bordered with ()empty parentheses() to denote Cell Medals.
Going a bit further, dropping a /whois on Haken or Axel will reveal that their identities on rizon are set to kamenritt@JUNKER.DevPio.jp.rac and ascherw@Boss.RSF.au.rac respectively.
Add Raven to the list, with ALukles@mist.iwatodai.uk.rac.
Parental Abandonment: Let's see. Kenoko's parents are dead (and she had all but run away from home in KRV to begin with), Miyuki and Korin have been kicked out (well, Korin ragequit, but it was totally justified because her parents sucked), Xander doesn't have any (It Makes Sense in Context), Rebecca's are presumably in America, Ake's are both dead (see Self-Made Orphan on her page), Leksi's unseen uncle foists her off on the "Peanut Gallery" at the earliest opportunity...
And now Vincent joins the fray. as even Alex claims to not know who provided that X chromosome. He does know. He's just staying quiet at her request.
Real Life Writes the Plot: Thanks to being swamped in coursework, Raven wound up dropping playing Michelle in favour of promoting Vincent to main character. Reactions were... generally sad.
Back on the meta scale: Hakenruka's assortment of character body pillows (ostensibly for those nights when Haruka can't have the real deal), pulled out with each IRC signoff. Usually a point of contention, but Actually Pretty Funny when the right Snark Bait is laid:
Haken: *pulling out a Royce bodypillow*
Axel: You could have picked something with a little more class.
Kenoko refers to someone entering their kaijin form as "vamping out".
Wyll references Australian musical comedy trio Tripod, using the first line of their song The Lonesome/Gregarious Cowboy.
Masaki's personality is this to Lucky Star's Anime Tenchou, despite Masaki's passions having a different focus (Rider-tech) than said store manager's (getting Konata to actually buy something).
Platinum: Haruka's fighting a frenzied Ake at the time, and is herself a little loose in the head from IXA's initial no-sell being reminiscent of the LAST Fangire to wield the Mk.XI...who shares a name with PE1's Bonus Boss.
Extra Credit: All sessions save one with the development of Libera as a primary or secondary focus share a title with a theme from one of the PE games (yes, including The3rd Birthday).
Show Within a Show: Dr. Sana-chan and Nurse Zecross's "Body Communication" is back, baby. And even taking multi-dimensional calls.
Shrug of God: Particularly hilarious example: AdventFalls (who mostly writes Shoujo Ai) hadn't decided whether Rebecca was straight/gay/bi by the time he suddenly had to for Akebara's Distracting Looks feat. So he rolled dice for it.
And rightly so - if Nigo was heroic, taking on all three members of FangOreo in their strongest forms (except Haruka) and managing to completely kite their strategy until Kaoru stopped her personal timeflow would probably qualify as a Crowning Moment of Awesome in its own right.
Fortunately, ever since Kenoko obtained her Mid-Season Upgrade, she hasn't really had to worry about that.
Taking Up The Mantle: My how very Deconstructed, especially in the wake of later Week 03 Monday sessions and the debut of the new Kuuga.
Couch/Kouta Tsukamoto: Meanwhile, from my standpoint, I'm the new guy. I'm liable to jump to conclusions early on both in and out of character because I -wasn't- there for all the sources of all this bitterness, I just see the aftereffects. So this character's story arc is more about someone who knows in his heart, but can't necessarily articulate, what being a Rider means, and in some cases is likely to know that what he sees isn't it. Thus resulting in more of an externally-driven story arc - reacting to the people around him who've become jaded for one reason or another, attempting to live up to what Kuuga's legacy once was and should be again, and hopefully providing some aid for others in a position to receive it.
Throw It In: Haken's modus operandi for creating short-notice rollplay/freeform encounters. You can tell which ones are born from thus due to being lifted from various video games (Crab Yummy, Nineball and Tigrex, the Roserade Fangire, and so on).
That last one leads to a rather hilarious Does This Remind You of Anything? moment, considering she winds up captured and not killed...
Axel is guilty of requesting this, wanting to play anything he stats out (which is why he stats nothing until he's sure he can play it).
Raven's just as guilty of this too — Vincent was promoted to main character and Luca came into being entirely because he was bored waiting for a bus home a few times.
Turn In Your Badge: Invoked by Yukari following Haruka and Ake letting a revitalized Kenoko loose on THI. To say Ake considers it an insult to Haruka would be an understatement.
You Gotta Have White Hair: Oh Godit's back. Haruka and Wyll seem to be the only legacies packing it, but then the new class has Rebecca, Miyuki, maybe Xander...not to mention Akebara having a streak-dye job akin to her mother's.
City Noir: A cross between this and Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain. Despite the city itself being lit up like a Dutch brothel, it's perpetually thunderstorming overhead, and Wyll can tell it's towards evening because the sky starts letting loose bolts of green lightning. Oh, and the city's name? Neon.
Depraved Bisexual: Implied with Kenoko. Gets worse when you think about why her Elite Mook cohorts are completely used to it, and why they feel the need to stand and around and watch.
Face Heel Turn: Kenoko, showing what could have happened if her psyche had unbalanced in the other direction - she ran back to SHOCKER, because they wanted her and Tomoe didn't.
Fate Worse than Death: FangOreo end up stuck in the succubus-filled caboose of Django's Liner, with the implication that by this stage they've been broken into what amounts to mindless dolls... making Aelita's message even worse (see Tear Jerker below).
The detective agency takes on the Wyll/Aelita pairing name.
Wyll and Aelita being a devastatingly competent tagteam was brought up in KRV (and, in fact, was part of Wyll's plans before he wasPut on a Bus), and hinted at briefly in RAC, but here we get to see it at full force.
Wyll finds a clue that's in hex - a la the binary and hex messages in MusouQuest.
Private Detective: Wyll and Aelita, obviously. And the trope is played straight with a vengeance.
Private Eye Monologue: Found in the first episode and on the archive page, and implied to be the lead-in to each episode. Also used as a narrative device to allow Wyll and Aelita to do their own thing in different places while sharing screentime.
Even after a thorough polishing to remove large swaths of IC natter, the uTOHpia e-splat remains quite tropable as its proprietors take on the nuances of M&M2e along with several oddities from RAC, KRV, and even canon Kamen Rider.
Toku-themed e-splat for Mutants & Masterminds (itself drafted by those KRV players carrying over to RAC who mourned the loss of the system in its shift to near-pure freeform).RAC functions more as a "Good End" to the previous game (when it isn't busy reading more like a scathing in-character critique thereof); the heroes won, and some serious efforts on FangOreo's part have brought Grongi, Fangires, Orphenochs, and Worms out into society under their own power - especially Fangires, with a FangOreo-backed Development & Pioneer engineering a Life Energy feeding substitute (and Coca-Cola Expy) known as FN-TAU.The bright future has its dark spots, however: though the kaijin races are mostly integrated into society, they bring with them a whole new grade of criminal activity against both humans and their own kind. To counter their threat, the FangOreo construct a "public security firm" (more like "privately-owned military"), "Justice Unlimited Nocturne-Kinetic Elimination Riders", or JUNKER, which is sort of a "good guy" version of ZECT, complete with various "trooper" level mooks and more elite Riders, represented by PCs and NPCs across the spectrum...to say nothing of the various foreign and domestic henshin tech rivals cropping up amid the All-Riders expo.Find it here.
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