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Roleplay / The Sky Tides

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"I detest these events."
— Manfred von Karma, speaking the first line of the game.

Here. In the words of the profile, "a plot-heavy steampunk multifandom AU game" that ran from 2008 to 2011.

In a World… where a Floating Continent is divided between the military state of Ivona and its wilder, pirate-overrun counterpart Vohemar, technological progress is moving at an exciting pace. On the eve of Ivonian Unification Day, the flagship of the Ivonian Navy is in the capital for a parade, a famed small Vohemaro pirate ship prepares for a raid in a smaller city in its own nation, and a beautiful theatre ship is staging a play to attract Ivonian nobles while non-actor crew members sneak into their audience's empty mansions to steal from the rich and give to the poor. The three Cast Herds establish themselves and live their lives in a conflict with one another mirroring the uneasy peace held between Ivona and Vohemar, with smaller periphery nations caught in the middle.

Then? Cerebus Syndrome strikes in the form of a Nebulous Evil Organization called Denouement. Its goal? To use espionage, terrorism, and anything it can to turn that uneasy peace into all-out war. Two ships are added as the story goes on — one a dark, mysterious enemy of the evil organization, one a proud band of mercenaries — and, when an entire village on the hard-hit borderlands known as the Badlands is killed, a revolutionary named Joseph Falls rises to try and lead the Badlands into becoming its own official nation. He makes himself an enemy of expansionist Ivonians, who begin to pin further attacks on him, culminating in an official blame when the Ivonian President is murdered by one of the five player ships, misled to think that they were protecting him.

After a Time Skip, the five player ships are all decommissioned for one reason or another, and their crews scatter, most of them flocking to three new ships: a fancy experimental peace offering from Ivona that travels around promoting cultural understanding (supposedly), a group of heroes for hire led by a mysterious piece of sentient magitech, and a small band of smugglers led by a bitter ex-revolutionary. And if you think the political situation has calmed down, well...

Many of these story elements are ported directly from represented or formerly represented canons, others invented wholecloth by the mod team. Either way, the players were kept on their toes and highly entertained.

This game provides examples of:

  • Aborted Arc: Averted; even when plot-important characters drop, the things they left behind can sometimes still have an effect on the plot. In one case, the dropped character was even NPCed later on.
  • Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Joshua's running away from his problems confused Ness enough to awkwardly accept a love confession from Hana. Temporarily. Both realized that it really wasn't a smart idea and just added to their own massive heap of problems.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Justified in several cases, as many of the swordsmen in the game are also magically inclined.
  • Acceptable Breaks from Canon: The Bleach cast, disillusioned with the way the canon was going, decided to make the characters grow in a different direction towards maturity, keep the female characters competent and important, and allow the Big Bad to remain an interesting character rather than the Boring Invincible Villain he became.
  • Accidental Marriage: A discussion in chat confirmed that there is at least one old-fashioned town in the Badlands that considers tucking a flower behind one's partner's ear on Amicus to be an unbreakable engagement ritual.
  • A-Cup Angst: Mimino Kurumi. In her canon, it was a feature of the art style and never brought up. Here, it's been mentioned enough that she's developed a complex, especially in memes and non-canon games.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Really inevitable for a lot of characters, though the opposite happens just as often for characters from grimdark canons.
  • Already Done for You: Hey, Serenity, you only have to save one guy. The Convoy did the rest already! Well... most of it.
  • Always Save the Girl: Ichigo was late to the snake battle because Watanuki got lured away and knocked out for his blood.
  • Ambiguous Innocence: "You're supposed to count?" For those who missed the scene, that was a response from a kid with No Social Skills to a question of how many people she had killed.
  • Amnesiac Lover: Roxas and Neku hadn't actually gotten together when Neku forgot him — they hadn't even admitted their feelings to themselves, and they didn't for a very long time — but it still counts to an extent. Roxas does realize and admit his feelings to Neku at the end of the game, though, and although Neku is still mostly lost, he's decided to stick with Roxas still. So who knows...
  • Amplified Animal Aptitude: A number of animals, most prominently Fobbie the cat, simply seem to enjoy trolling the characters — especially Joshua, who, to be fair, deserves it. A stronger example is An-nin, though it's justified, since the deciding factor lies with Bu-ling and not him — she talks to monkeys and can therefore communicate on his level. And Chi doesn't even count.
  • Anyone Can Die: Especially in the finale. At one point, a number of muns felt the need to announce that they were not killing off any of their characters, just to make sure everyone knew.
  • Apocalypse How: We've had threatened and carried-out Class 0, Apocoverse covers Class 1, and it's hinted that anything from Class 1 to Class 5 is the Big Bad's ultimate goal here. Oops... it's Class 6.
  • Arm Cannon: Rikku offered to build one for Edgeworth after he lost his real arm. He was not amused.
  • Ascended Meme: von Karma was frequently compared to a dinosaur OOCly. Then Sam Linnfer used an illusion to make him look like one.
    • "Go to bed" was invoked repeatedly when Kurumi posted to the network drunk.
  • An Ass-Kicking Christmas: Generally averted, as Lunasa plots tend to be less action-packed; the Lunasa bombing plot subverted what might have become a Vicky-4423 grudgematch by downing all three ships without a fight, the Gearship Motors Plane Races were generally peaceful aside from the Luppi-Ichigo-Watanuki subplot, and the Hanami festival's fighting tournament was friendly and nonlethal. Long Night plots, however, which run around the time of IRL Christmas, usually are battle-oriented.
  • The Atoner: Nena freakin' Trinity. That's what happens when you're made to actually face what you did at a point in the story earlier than "too late to do anything but kill you off for retribution".
  • At the Opera Tonight: The Winding Way put on plays geared towards a high-class audience to facilitate their side business, with the exception of the street fair. When L became captain and forbade any more stealing, the Way started to widen their audience.
  • Author Appeal: You can tell which mods are running a plot by more than which ships are involved.
    Fae: ...of course it'd be (Jormungandr). Mademoiselle Norse Mythos is a mod.
  • Awesome McCoolname: Sheila de Argentine. Of course, it's a pseudonym, and her real name's Jane Baker.
  • Ax-Crazy: Some of the characters are chaos and madness incarnate, literally, much to the constant dismay of other characters. It makes you wonder who was responsible for hiring these guys.
  • Badass Crew: There's always one ship that gets nicknamed The Shōnen Ship because it's a magnet for shonen heroes and other badasses. Of course, don't underestimate those other ships, either...
  • Badass Normal: Magic, magitech and exceptional demihumans are often the ones dominating the combat in this game, but there's also a number of more shounen-inclined, non-magic-using humans who don't need any of that to kick ass.
  • Bad Guy Bar: Whenever one shows up, expect a Bar Brawl to happen. A glorious one.
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: Traditionally "monstrous" or "dangerous" demihumans get more discrimination than those who are closer to human or appear more harmless, in a vague analogue to colourism.
  • Battle Couple: Many of the pairings. Those that have only one actiony participant tend to have them train the other to defend themselves, if not be completely awesome in doing so.
  • Becoming the Mask: A decent percentage of the characters pretend to be something they're not, and some get immersed enough that it becomes a part of them. Note that this isn't just the evil characters.
  • Biblical Bad Guy: Inverted — Sam's a good guy. One of the most helpful, in fact, due to his magic and network of information, and the one with dibs on killing one of the game's major villains.
  • The Big Bad Shuffle: Delphine? Wilsborough? Bradley? Low Key? The only major storyline villains we knew the final confrontation wouldn't be with are Gin, Aizen, and Kefka, and only because they were dropped long ago! In the end, all the loose ends were cleaned up.
  • Big Brother Instinct: All over the place, but perhaps the best example is Ichigo, who spearheaded the attack to rescue the kidnapped children of the Winding Way.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Reial is saved, a whole new world is discovered underneath the clouds... but countless NPCs (Hegua Lake, anybody?) as well as PCs have died (or worse), and you can be certain that the governments on Reial will take years at least to recuperate all the losses they have incurred.
  • Blessed with Suck: Quite a few characters. One example would be Rock, whose powers are tied to his immune system. Too much use of them, and it will crash and burn.
  • Blood Magic: Near the end of the game, Watanuki is kidnapped for a ritual involving this due to his Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious nature.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Parodied with Doc and Holly. "Instead, you're going to check yourself for weapons!"
  • Breaking the Fellowship: The decommissioning of the five ships, scattering most of the cast between new ships.
  • Breather Episode: After many a serious plot, the captain will announce that the crew needs a break and head off somewhere less dangerous.
  • Broad Strokes: Nearly every character who appears in multiple media has their characterization taken in bits and pieces from each, and backstories are written as vague analogues to their canon counterparts.
  • Broke Episode: The 4423 did this a few times, as did the Way when they threw a carnival to pay off Kurt's debt.
  • The Bus Came Back: Destined to happen whenever characters are re-apped by their previous muns.
  • Butt-Monkey: Some of these characters have nothing go right. Ever.
    • Leo deserves a special mention. During a plot with Status Effects, he managed to get inflicted with just about every one in the book. And in another plot, he was entered into a plane race only to have his plane sabotaged to the point of exploding in midair. Don't worry, though, he bounces back quickly.
    • And adding to that, there's also Hijikata Toshirou, who has been the (very unwilling) butt of many jokes, both OOC and IC.
    • The entire 4423, when it was still in the game. It got to the point where the playerbase, usually happy to torture their characters, began to request that the ship have a break for a while.
  • Call-Back: One of the confrontations with the satyrs to save the dragon captives took place at Caer Estrella.
  • Career Versus Man: Ichigo hesitated to ask Watanuki to join him on the Convoy because he knew Watanuki was living his dream job on the Amestris. In the end, Watanuki went with him.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: The Fiertia. It, like the rest of the first set of PC ships, played its role and was written out of the story, given a one-off mention about having become a cheesy tourist trap in Kropmork. Then the Convoy was stolen, stranding its crew in Kropmork. Guess which ship they stole to chase down the thieves? "Considering your track records, and your obstinate mangling of the art of poetry, I would hardly shed a tear were you torn into tiny pieces by the enraged crews, but if you were captured, I would need to find a way to kill both of you before you were tortured for information." Spoken by Kefka at the beginning of 2009. Carried out by Low Key at the end of 2010. Granted, not to the same NPC, but to similar effect.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Nena's technopathy. Used first as just a way for her to hack network posts, it became instrumental in tracking her down after she stole a plane and realized just what she'd done to who-knows-how-many throwaway towns, and after that, she used it to track the stolen Convoy.
  • Christmas in July: Lunasa is in August, and thus, the players wish each other a merry Lunasa and play Christmas music all day OOCly... just confusing the non-TST people on their friend lists.
  • Clear My Name: The 4423 after they were framed for the poisoning of Doma. Partially Framing the Guilty Party, since Kefka was a member of the crew when he did it, but the others had no idea it was even going on.
  • Codename: If you work for the Nebulous Evil Organization, you've probably got one. They tend to be either an alias the character used in his or her canon — Ludwig's was Germany, for example — or just something, usually creepy, related to the character.
  • Combat Medic: Penelo acts as one when she needs to, but she's usually put solely on healer duty for the sake of convenience.
  • Coming of Age Story: Some characters have this going on for them, but perhaps the most notable one would be Hijikata Toshirou himself, who learns to put the past behind him as he grows into something much closer to his canon self through the course of the game.
  • Conflicting Loyalty: Pip, at first, was working for both Isako and the Mayor of Colvus. When he was found out, he backstabbed the Mayor and formed a contract with Isako. This came back to bite him when he moved to the Fiertia and it came into conflict with the 4423. On top of that, there was his own band of mercenaries. However, after a series of events that left all three parties gone, Pip became Optimus Prime's loyal right hand.
  • Conservation of Competence: Subverted. While it looks like it'll be this at first because the first active NPC enemies we see are Team Fail, it becomes obvious later that they're just the token idiots.
  • Conspiracy Redemption: It's noted from the beginning that the Ivonian government is somewhat corrupt, and some members of the military have begun to uncover it and tried or are trying to fix it.
  • Continuity Nod: Kaoru mentions at least three or four times that she's very hard to kill, partially because in her home canon, she just would not die. Or stay dead.
  • Convenience Store Gift Shopping: If a character's never given presents before, expect terrible ones. Nena gave her best friend a cardboard box for Lunasa and thought it was the best gift ever.
  • Conveniently an Orphan: A dark version of this is invoked when you realize that most of the tykebombs were orphans picked up off the street.
  • Cooking Duel: A few of these have happened between ships, particularly when the cooks have grudges against one another; these were dubbed "Iron Chef Reial". The Hanami Festival had a formal cooking competition.
  • Cool Airship: Pretty much all of the game's airships qualify in some way or another. If that's not enough, there's also Boston - not to be confused with the real city - an in-game floating black market town made entirely of airships attached to each other.
  • Cool Mask: Reno, when he was talked into impersonating legendary pilot Eyeshield 21.
  • Costume Porn: Any time there's a ball or any other sort of special occasion, expect plenty of this, complete with reference pictures in case the text description was not detailed enough.
  • The Cracker: Gin messed with Joshua's computer as part of his plan to blackmail Hijikata and ruin both their lives.
  • Crossover Cosmology: "Season three" brought numerous gods and demons, not only from different pantheons but from different canons that treated such characters differently.
  • Culture Chop Suey: Although there are certain fixed aspects of the different national cultures on Reial, aspects of Earth cultures are found all over the place in a chaotic mess.
  • Curb-Stomp Cushion: But at least they got their engine fixed by the town that had been holding them hostage there.
  • Darkest Hour: Many characters had individual Darkest Hours during the hiatus — Pip, Edgeworth, we're looking at you two. However, the start of the game's true Darkest Hour is the Hegua Lake explosion, which left a number of characters without their homes, families, and friends — and remember, this is just the beginning.
  • The Day of Reckoning: The endgame plot in its final stages.
  • Deadly Gas: The Fiertia was hired to transport a load of Fear Gas for NPC revolutionary Joseph Falls. Fortunately, the ship had a change of mind and disposed of it instead.
  • Death by Origin Story: Ichigo's/Utena's and Roxas' original crews, all killed in the Lunasa bombings.
  • Decade Dissonance: Erealia is a land with a distinctly Medieval style, in contrast with the Victorian Steampunk that dominates the rest of the setting.
  • Decapitated Army: Grita, who had been using varying degrees of Mind Control on her minions. The former trope name, "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead", was actually referenced by name in a profile image gag immediately after this.
  • Demoted to Extra: Kefka, after being dropped, became a mod-controlled NPC due to his importance to the plot. Ocelot, too, near the end. Other dropped characters, like Chrome, have had cameos after leaving, though they are turned into Lawyer Friendly Cameos with their names no longer mentioned in case somebody else wishes to app the character.
  • Distant Duet: Done by Ness and Joshua over the journal network.
  • Dramatic Irony: Read any backstory log, especially the more recent ones, or any thread by a character whose mun has let slip that they won't make it.
  • Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: If the resident Shounen Ship isn't in town to help others, the crew will find a local worry and fix it up anyway.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending
    Madame Red: I can't say nothing bad will happen, but nothing so bad that it changes the world for the worst will happen.
  • Elemental Powers: Most magic-users have one or two elements that they use, and though the magic system is far from streamlined, they tend to differ a little from their use in very specialized canons.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: Loki calls Lucifer "Lucy" for the sake of trolling him.
  • Empire with a Dark Secret: Many of the Tyke Bomb projects were financed in secret by the Ivonian government; so was the development of the poison that killed the town of Doma.
  • The End of the Beginning: The start of the game can be seen as this, considering the relative peace of the world until then.
  • Enemy Civil War: Implied as the story goes on, and confirmed in the finale, when the "disagreements" balloon into full-blown anarchy.
  • Enemy Mine: Ari and Deanna team up after Bradley's second disappearance to run the Amestris themselves.
  • Enemy Without: Juushirou and Souji fight evil, monstrous, lung-eating versions of themselves in Antrim.
  • Enforced Cold War: vK and Edgeworth are on the same ship again, after the AU equivalent of 1-4. This is awkward.
  • Everyone Is a Super: Not everyone, but you'd be hard-pressed to find characters who aren't during combat plots. (During political plots, though, the non-supers tended to shine instead.)
  • Everyone Is Related: There are too many cross-canon families to list. The most demonstrative example would be the completely screwed-up Hijikata family: the older cousin Toshizou, his younger cousin Toshirou, and the latter's long-lost twin brother Roy Mustang.
  • Everyone Is Single: Almost everyone, many of whom are pathetically chronically single.
  • Everything but the Girl: Gender inverted. Hijikata Toshirou grows as a person and gains people he actually cares about, but gives up on Edgeworth after having an awkward crush on him for years and years.
  • Fed to the Beast: Anyone who's ever gone under the cloud cover on an expedition to discover what's down there.
  • Florence Nightingale Effect: Penelo/Beat. Reno/Anko plays this in reverse, with the injured going to her eventual love interest to ditch the infirmary whenever she gets hurt.
  • Forceful Kiss: Ichigo and Watanuki on the deck of the Amestris — an example where the Forceful Kiss is initiated by both parties as a love confession at the same time.
  • Forging Scene: Rarely does a scene actually taking place in the forge not turn into one of these. Unless Milk's in there. Then it's a fifty-fifty chance.
  • * Forbidden Zone: Antrim. Although it's been a part of the established setting since the beginning, it was only visited once, during the last all-ship event of the game.
  • Four Is Death: Adding a fourth ship came at the same time as Cerebus Syndrome hit the plot. Also, after the end of the first five ships, taking the number down to four was debated, but in the end, the mods went with three.
  • Friend to All Children: A notable number of characters. For example, there's Ukitake and, debatably, Souji.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The abbreviated version of the Badlands Unification Movement happens to be BUM. And then there's the Dignified Ensemble of Reial's Proletariat - better known as DERP.
  • Future Imperfect: Whatever legends exist about the time before Reial, nobody knows for sure about anything that happened, despite it only being 500 years ago. The legends and the truth turn out to be deeply related to Delphine's plot.
  • The Gameofthe Book: About a year after the closure of the game, one of the former players made an actual game based on the game's self proclaimed mascots, Chance the Sky Whale and Gambit the Sky Shark. It can be found here.
  • Gay Bar Reveal: Luffy, being Luffy, didn't even know what a gay bar was when he figured out that he was in one. Of course, he only cared that they had good meatloaf there. He proceeded to ask the journal network afterward.
  • Gender-Blender Name: Doc and Holly. The former is female and the latter is male.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: The Persona 4 cast, whose glasses have the same function as in canon of clearing cloudy vision caused by the Shadows, as well as fog and other weather-related problems.
  • Got Volunteered: A perfectly acceptable and normal way to handwave characters' presence in dangerous operations.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Holly was a complete failure at guarding Isako, hitting pretty much every point on the list.
  • Hair Color Dissonance: Bu-ling is a mix of her anime and manga selves, but has her manga appearance — yellow hair and yellow eyes. However, some of her icons showcase her Adaptation Dye-Job from the anime, where she has blonde hair and brown eyes while detransformed.
  • Halloween Episode: Long Night arcs don't tend to have costumes or haunted houses, but are set apart just the same. They tend to be combat plots, taking advantage of the fact that magic users have more power at this time of year.
  • Hands-On Approach: Hey, Ichigo? Watanuki? This is why everybody's shipping you. Well, among other things.
  • Harem Seeker: Rikku, Minato, and Souji in memes and SD... actually, Souji may or may not be a Harem Seeker in-game, since it's hard to tell if he's joking about that.
  • Head-in-the-Sand Management: President Wilsborough sees no reason whatsoever to actually do anything about the terrorist group threatening the continent. Better to just pretend they don't exist and blame everything on his political enemies.
  • Hold Your Hippogriffs: Not too many, but they pop out from time to time. Notable examples are:
    • 'When rappigs fly'
    • 'For Erealia's sake'
    • 'When Reial drops from the sky'
  • Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Long Night, being Halloween, is one of the most dangerous days of the year; just ask anyone who was around when Ichigo's hollow ran loose on the Way. Oh, and also, the Lunasa bombings.
  • Hot Springs Episode: Any time a ship is headed to Licere, you know that a Hot Springs Plot is about to start.
  • Humanity Ensues: When the Convoy was stolen, Optimus Prime had his mind temporarily transferred to a human (or at least humanoid) body.
  • Identical Stranger: Re-apped and rebooted characters do not retcon out the existence of their predecessors. Rather, the previous version of the character is retconned to "someone else" and not mentioned by name, but still existed in the story. The strongest example, due to having been a long-running character, is Axel, who had two different muns playing his first incarnation and then a third who played a different Axel, forcing the first Axel to be "Reno's brother" and not specifically Axel. And now we've got a Lea...
  • I Have No Son!: Taking a minor character's backstory for lack of his own canon one, Hijikata Toshirou was disowned by his family.
  • Informed Deformity: Many characters who sustain appearance-altering injuries don't show it in their icons, simply because it would be a lot of work.
  • Instant Sedation: Mamma drugged Isako with a sedative because she wouldn't sleep otherwise; she took half the recommended dose and still fell asleep. Man, Isako was tired.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Leo and Bu-ling.
  • Internalized Categorism: Susan "Racist-tan" Ivanova was a demihuman herself. Many of the players unfamiliar with her canon weren't even aware.
  • Internal Reveal: Inevitable, really, with anything relating to player characters and things imported from their canons — the entire game knew the identities of every Mole long before the other characters suspected. That doesn't mean there's no suspense, though, and there are certainly still plenty of shocks.
  • In the Name of the Moon: Canon examples are used, and you bet they're lampshaded, too.
    Watanuki: You have an introduction speech! Who honestly and unironically actually has an introduction speech!? And why does it have to include throwing around stupid petals that leave blue stains everywhere when you step on them and wilt and leave a ridiculous mess!?
    Kurumi: Hey! All great heroes have introduction speeches!
  • In Vino Veritas: When they all got drunk at the Convoy's party, Prime became emotional and gave a Rousing Speech to his crew over the network, Milk flitted between carelessly revealing her long-held secret worries and rambling on about skyfish, and Beat was... Beat, but worse.
  • Involuntary Group Split: Beat, Greed, and Winry falling off the 4423 before the Lunasa bombings; Pip and Greed falling off the 4423 again and ending up on the Fiertia; the five ships closing and the cast splitting off into three new ships.
  • Ironic Echo: This to this, although it's cut short when Rose realizes who she's quoting and is absolutely mortified by the prospect.
  • It Never Gets Any Easier: Jean, disagreeing with Ichigo's decision to abandon the Way, cites the fact that they prevented his out-of-control hollow from killing anyone and her own painful memories as a child assassin to say that Ichigo would never have been able to allow his Superpowered Evil Side to kill his friends.
  • Killed Off for Real: There's no pop-back-to-life mechanism in this one. Averted with Hughes. The player did mean for him to be dead, but someone else picked up the character right away instead, resulting in a plot of Only Mostly Dead and shonen life-saving.
  • Kink Meme: More correctly called the Ficanon Meme, since very few pieces on it are actually porn.
  • Knight of Cerebus: The introduction of the Silvana came with a good chunk of plot also lifted from Last Exile.
  • Knowledge Broker: One of the most valuable types of character in the game. They're often called upon to research important characters or events.
  • Last-Name Basis: Rou insists upon "Hijikata" from everyone. He grows to tolerate Chii calling him by his first name, though. She's a cat, she can do what she wants.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A number of NPCs. The rest are Original Characters or, very rarely, developed and dropped canon characters. Once apps closed for endgame, the need for Lawyer-Friendly Cameos was erased, and canon characters with some important relation to those in play were allowed to be expanded upon. (One major exception: Delphine, the Big Bad of Last Exile, has never been a player character, but was used instead of a Captain Ersatz from the beginning.)
  • Left Hanging: Many, many plot threads have been abandoned simply due to drops.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Milky Rose isn't a real Magical Girl Warrior in this one; she runs off to change into her overly frilly uniform, has to hold onto her long wig in the wind, and stains the washbasins dyeing her blue rose petals. Along with her canon weakness of being forced back into mascot form after draining her energy, since she doesn't transform, she also turns back into a mascot whenever she's knocked to the floor or into a wall even as Milky Rose. Despite all this ridiculousness and the Weaksauce Weaknesses, she's nearly as strong as her canon counterpart — "nearly" because she had to be nerfed.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: For all the comic relief characters and trolls, there is plenty of this. A good example would be one of the game's best trolls, Isshin.
  • Like an Old Married Couple: Not just Watanuki and Ichigo, but Watanuki and just about everyone.
  • The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Yuuko's, of course. It figures prominently in many characters' backstories.
  • Love Confession: A good number of them across the game, in some form or another. One of the last ones would be when Pip finally conveys to Erza his feelings to her after the near end-of-the-world.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Isshin's impression of Ichigo's love life, which he proudly shares with the world. The reality, however...
  • Love Redeems: For years now, Joshua has been pulling out all the stops to prevent this from happening to him, but it seems to be happening anyway.
  • MacGuffin Escort Mission: Mew, the fear gas, Prince Humperdinck... it happens a lot. Subverted when the Convoy had to escort Caulcher and his priceless items to Kropmork; his stuff wasn't as important as players and characters had been led to believe, and was in fact a Red Herring allowing him to creep around the ship and steal Optimus Prime's body.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: It's unclear whether this is averted or played straight; there are many different systems of magic and variations upon magic, but most to all of them have a lot of things in common.
  • Magic by Any Other Name: Zig-zagged — PSI (and, for that matter, the power of destruction) is established as something separate and different from magic, but in the end still works like this.
  • Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": This game had a very good track record of enabling fellow players into watching, playing, or reading things they'd never bothered to see before.
  • Memento MacGuffin: Sara keeps her musical pendant for a great deal longer than she does in canon. For lack of an Isabella to steal it out of spite, it's instead stolen by Gin to add to his pile of dog-kicking moments — and, unlike in canon, she does eventually get it back.
  • Million to One Chance: Subverted awfully. There was no possible way that the Convoy could have stopped the Hegua Lake explosion in time, but burning shounen spirit can solve everything, right? ...right?
  • Mistaken for Terrorist: When the 4423 was framed for the poisoning of Doma, Beat was separated from his shipmates and living on the Way. He was treated with suspicion by a few crewmembers because of this, although he did have someone vouching for him.
  • Mister Muffykins: The Convoy was hired to help rescue a CEO's "little girl" named Lydia from a group of vampire kidnappers. It wasn't until they confronted the vampires directly that it was revealed... Lydia is actually his little yappy dog pet.
  • Moe Anthropomorphism: The muns have created ship-tans, and the Way once put on a play about country-tans as a parody of Hetalia: Axis Powers.
  • Moment Killer: Joshua and Ness, who have had this interrupt their private time multiple times. One involved Joshua getting suplexed by Ness's older brother, Red.
  • Multinational Team: Pretty much every ship, including the Vicky and 4423 due to the game's disproportionate number of expatriates.
  • Mythology Gag: Many references are made to the characters' own canons, including throwaway jokes about things that never actually happened in TST, composite backstories, and echoes of key lines and speeches.
  • Nebulous Evil Organization: Denouement, the game's Big Bad group. To add to the Oh, Crap! factor, they're run by Delphine Eraclea and tied inextricably with the Philosophers.
  • Near-Death Experience: Yosuke, who until now still believes that he really did die - though you really can't fault him, since he did take a knife to the heart. Good thing Inoue happened to be with him at that time....
  • Neutral No Longer: Most of the Way reacted like this when von Karma planned to destroy Isako and her crew while the 4423 was defenseless. The way things turned out, though, left all three ships far too busy to fight.
  • News Monopoly: Often, every news station and newspaper is saying the exact same thing.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Who brought Wang Li Fei out of hiding and beat him in a fight so Serenity could interrogate him? Kaoru, operating on too little knowledge and too much apathy.
  • Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Usually averted, as most injured characters are pulled out of the action and handed over to the medics. However, there have been a few instances where characters survived through pure willpower.
    • And then brought to reality by one of the muns after a case of acute appendicitis which was discovered very late by the doctors. Actor Allusions indeed.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Characters are described occasionally as having accents from their home countries (until they've been travelling so long that the accent begins to fade), but nobody has figured out how certain accents sound and, unless the character canonically has a different accent from hir canonmates, nobody types them out. During her brief stint at the game, Karen was mistaken for Ivonian due to her personality and appearance, to which she replied that her Erealian accent must have weakened after spending a year on the mainland.
  • Not in This for Your Revolution: Both the Silvana and the Convoy, the ships specifically aware of and in opposition to Denouement, have had crew members like this.
  • Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: It's commonly joked that TST is a shounen anime, and memes tend to lampshade that such series have people bleeding half their blood and surviving. Which would explain why the game went with only one PC death until the endgame plot...
  • Palette Swap: von Karma's idea of "camouflage" is... wearing the exact same thing he usually does, only in grey.
  • Passing the Torch: In a sense, the transition from the old ships to the new ships, with captains and crew changing accordingly.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Invoked, then double subverted with the Nahk team during the satyr plot. Angua deadpanned "flying swordfish" to the guard before attacking him. His response: "How did you know—!?"
  • Patrick Stewart Speech:
    Ichigo: 'Couldn't find it within yourself'? Listen, Dad. If there's one thing I've learned since I left home, it's that sometimes, you've got to let people in. It isn't easy, and a lot of times, you let them in deeper than you think you want, but in the end? It's what you need, because those people are the ones who'll be there for you when it counts. I'm not telling you to spill everything to the next guy you meet. That's not what I mean. What I'm saying is... if you've got someone you can trust... then it's okay to tell them things, because if you don't, they won't be able to support you when you need them. Handling it by yourself is all well and good. It's important that you can do that. But just because you can doesn't mean you have to.
  • Peace Conference: One occurred in Kropmork near the beginning of the game. Considering that these events marked Cerebus Syndrome and are now referred to as "the Kropmork assassinations", you should be able to figure out the result...
  • Perfect Health: Either you never get so much as a cold or you're dying from TB.
  • Personal Effects Reveal: Cruelly twisted when Gin kills Jean Morris and anonymously auctions off his stuff.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Numerous underground experiments have been trying to create them, usually from abandoned children. Sometimes, this has succeeded.
  • Physical God: Lots of them were brought in post-hiatus. They've been officially explained away as "not really gods, just long-lived and very powerful"... or something like that.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Usually averted; many events have the ships' crews do their actual jobs. A bit ironic, given how many references the game makes to the Trope Namer.
  • Pity the Kidnapper: Taking Isako along with the stolen Lunasa presents may have been the dumbest thing Doc and Holly ever did.
  • Playing with Syringes: There are a number of escaped lab rat children on the ships... as well as those let out on purpose.
  • Plot Magnet: Every ship seems to have one of these strapped to it somewhere. It doesn't matter if they were hired to deliver cargo or were just landing in town to buy supplies: before they leave port for their next destination, there will be a large plot that the crew is inevitably roped into.
  • Political Cartoon: They've been mentioned to exist in the setting, usually making fun of von Karma.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: App regulations have always dampened the powers of anyone canonically strong enough to solo a sky whale or destroy an airship.
  • Power Trio: The original three ships and the three post-hiatus ships. It carries over to the characters, too — look how much overlap there is between the sets!
    • Ego: the Winding Way, the Convoy
    • Superego: the Victoria II, the Amestris
    • Id: the 4423, Serenity
  • Pretext for War: Denouement practically manufactures these. The war hasn't happened yet, but after successful operations like the Kropmork assassinations, the Lunasa bombings, and the poisoning of Doma, it seems like it's only a matter of time. As the ending approaches, it gets worse.
  • Primal Scene: Rou walked in on both Zou and Angel multiple times as a child, to the point where he just got sick of it — only to be scarred again upon seeing them together.
  • Psycho for Hire: The unnamed substitutes for Team Fail, who actually do their job well and dream of torturing their pathetic counterparts to death.
  • Purely Aesthetic Era: While the overall style of the setting is Victorian-esque, the game is quite accepting of elements that wouldn't normally fit, even with the allowances typically made for steampunk. For example, the "difference engines" used for communication are essentially simplified laptops, running on technology too advanced to be handwaved as steam or clockwork. Weaponry from any period up to roughly WWI is fair game. And then there's modern things that snuck their way in for comedy purposes, like the Sky Love Hotel...
  • Put on a Bus: Inevitable when characters in the game drop for some reason or another. A few are removed through crueler methods, but usually only for comedy... fried squid, anyone?
  • Putting the Band Back Together: Many characters, particularly Rikku, express a wish to reunite the crew of the Way throughout the course of "season three". Once he joins the Convoy, Ichigo promises to do just that someday.
  • Race for Your Love: L had to go after Vash when the latter decided to abandon the Way for everyone's safety, and, as much as a pairing like this has to be accompanied by many disclaimers of It Makes Sense in Context, it ended up turning out something like this.
  • Really Gets Around: If the character's not an incredibly awkward Chaste Hero (or a reluctant one), odds are they're this.
  • Really 700 Years Old: In agreement with the world history, characters can only be really five hundred years old or younger, but there are a few of them out there.
  • Red Herring: Some plots start out like this; for example, the hunt for the Golden Fleece was a red herring and quickly left unsolved when the Grita plot took over. In a recent example, the mods encouraged a player theory that, due to one of the NPCs being named Jade, the related plot would be a Whole-Plot Reference to Homestuck. This was not what happened.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Some of the characters have this going on between them, be it due to canon, Character Development, developing relationships between characters in the game, or otherwise.
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Considering that the third and final part of the story introduced Physical Gods and wove them tightly into the plot, it's no surprise that the final MacGuffin is an airship called the Ymir.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Happens a lot due to backstories being altered to accommodate new characters.
  • The Ruins I Caused: The Convoy overlooked the place that the Hegua Lake area used to be from the air after they arrived too late.
  • Retcon: NPC Grita was initially called Grita de Estrella. However, the NPC section of the wiki, written later, calls her "Grita Repulsive", playing up the expy relationship between her and her PB. Her castle also went from "Caer Stella" to "Caer Estrella".
  • Resignations Not Accepted: Highly implied with Denouement, and made outright canon in the conversations Hiruma leaks to the world.
  • Rigged Contest: Used and subverted with the Gearship Motors Plane Races. As part of a convoluted plan, a good number of characters, mostly Bleach villains, rigged the bets and sabotaged planes so that Sara would win, unbeknownst to Sara herself. However, in the end, Kensei won — in a plane that was falling apart from the aforementioned sabotage, no less — and Sara got ninth.
  • Righteous Rabbit: Milk certainly seems to think this about herself, constantly going on about how she's a great hero, though she spends less and less time in her original bunny form as time goes on (as in canon).
  • Roof Hopping: How the 4423 and Way chased down Team Fail to save Mew while their pilots attacked from the air.
  • Royal Blood: The monarchs of Erealia have way too many children, a fact put into place for the benefit of canon royals.
  • Ruins for Ruins' Sake: There are some in Kagatau. Subverted when the Convoy went to save Jade's friends; one ritual was taking place in the mysterious ruins... of Caer Estrella, which had been destroyed on-screen a year and a quarter prior.
  • Rule of Cool: Recently, several players agreed that ship captains should be allowed to do weddings, even if that's not actually true in real life, because it would mean that characters could hypothetically be married by Optimus Prime. And that's only one of many instances where this trope has been deliberately invoked.
  • Rule of Funny: Generally, for all but the most serious of plots, you can bet that for any mission the captain is going to "randomly" assign teams based on which characters are most likely to drive each other insane.
  • Running Gag:
    • Isshin giving The Talk to the network.
    • Kurumi's A-Cup Angst. More to the point, other people rubbing it in.
    • Edgeworth being completely oblivious to Rou's obvious crush.
    • Silvana meatloaf.
    • What happened to the vase?
    • Imported from canon, Othar falling to certain death only to show up later completely fine. He once fell right out of a game of Truth or Dare Dice.
    • The universe is conspiring against Joshua and Ness, almost to the point of Can't Have Sex, Ever.
    • In real life, the muns still wish each other a happy Lunasa (and occasionally Long Night or Amicus) when the day rolls around, even though the game ended in 2011. Much of this is to the bewilderment of people who weren't in the game.
  • Saving Christmas: The Bumbling Henchmen Duo once tried to steal the local equivalent of Valentine's Day, failed, and then tried it again with the Christmas counterpart.
  • Say My Name: It took years for Hijikata to even use Edgeworth's last name, or anything besides "idiot" and other insults.
  • Scars Are Forever: Pick any character. Compare the TST version and the canon version. This is the number one way that you can tell the two apart.
  • Scenery Gorn: If the players failed to prevent a disaster, this is what the mods punished them with in the reaction log.
  • Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The 4423 allowing Mew to escape after handing it over, and the Fiertia getting rid of the fear gas.
  • Self-Deprecation: Occasionally invoked in the Fanwriter-tan's Anime Blog feature, where players' AU personae mock their own characters in the comments. Fanwriter-tan also occasionally badmouths the mun's own characters in the main article. ("Shut up, Kaoru, we all know you're evil.")
  • Series Hiatus: The mods put the entire game on hiatus for about two months. Pretty much everyone was in agreement that both mods and players alike needed the break.
  • Sex Sells: Near the end of the game, Hiruma gets the word out about the Denouement agents' conversations, which he's leaking from the Dark Fall guards' supercomputer, by advertising them as porn so people will look.
  • Shipper on Deck: Literally! There are some characters who will pick up on UST between their crewmates and start shipping it as much as the players do.
  • Shock Value Relationship: Joshua has attempted to convince himself and others that he's only doing this, but he really does love Ness, and he slowly comes to terms with this fact.
  • Shotgun Wedding: Vash tried to force one between Hana and Haruhi after he heard Illya teasing the two and took it seriously.
  • Showgirl Skirt: Not as common as other wardrobe pieces, but Mamma did host a burlesque show once.
  • Show Within a Show: Several, most of which are either on the radio or being performed on stage. Steel Samurai was adopted into the setting early, for example, and has remained one of the most popular ever since.
  • Shrouded in Myth: Milk keeps trying to be this, but she keeps coming across people who have never heard of her, which irritates her to no end. When she hears rumours she thought were about her and realizes they were actually about Utena, who wasn't consciously trying to gain fame, Milk immediately declares Utena a Milky Rose impersonator.
  • Sibling Team: Averted in many cases where there was one in canon; for example, Ed and Al were on different ships when they were in the game, and Kaoru is operating without Michiru, though they're stated to have been partners (even if Michiru is referred to only as "Bright" because of app openness rules). The reverse is true, though, too: Reno and Axel were twins and worked together. Then of course there is the inverted case of Hijikata and Roy, who while work on the same ship, haven't really worked together at all (and one of them would rather keep it that way; three guesses as to who it is, and the first two don't count).
  • Significant Birthdate: Though it isn't significant in the setting, Christmas is popular, especially for the characters who are at least partially Jesus metaphors in their canons (collectively referred to as "the Jesii").
  • Sky Surfing: Pretty much takes the place of skateboarding in-world. Beat is especially attached to his air-board, as is Roxas, though a few other characters have them too.
  • Sleep Cute: Ness attaching onto Joshua. Or, for that matter, Joshua attaching onto Ness.
  • Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The game jumps this way and that across the scale, never settling into one place.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The same villain organization has been around the whole time, but as their motives have slowly been revealed, their goal to create a Pretext for War has gone from "for our own amusement/because we have to" to "so we can profit from black-market weapon sales" to "so we can destroy civilization" to "so we can cause enough death and suffering to set off The End of the World as We Know It". Of course, different individual villains want different things...
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Minato's near-death experience is deliberately set up to resemble his Heroic Sacrifice in his own canon. He is then punched in the face (by Souji, no less) for not caring enough about his life.
  • Something about a Rose: Denouement's symbol is a stylized red rose. On the blue side of things, there's Milky Rose and her Petal Power, played as much for comedy as for dramatic effect. Utena, being post-canon, is pinged by both of these (and any roses used as somebody's symbol) to the point of past trauma.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Denouement is occasionally referred to as "Denouncement", usually by people who don't know that "denouement" is an actual word, and even the mod team can't agree on whether the capital of Ivona is Bellcius or Bellicus.
  • Sweet Tooth: The Winding Way was infamous for attracting these. Between that, and the fact that L was the captain, it's hardly any wonder why the ship took a trip to Candy Mountain...
  • Taking the Bullet: Watanuki throws himself in front of Ichigo during the attack before the plane races. This becomes a major turning point in both their character arcs.
  • The Talk: Isshin enjoys giving it to the entire network. Taiga and Zeetha also gave it to the younger people on the Way after the network exploded with a sex survey.
  • Taught by Television: Milk modelled the Milky Rose persona off Steel Samurai and related shows.
  • Themed Harem: It's been joked nearly since the beginning of the game that the Jesii, past and present, compose Ness' harem. Except maybe Illya, for obvious reasons.
  • This Bed of Rose's: When the Convoy was stolen, Mamma Gkika got in touch with some of her connections in Kropmork to offer the displaced places to stay... and most of those places were brothels.
  • Throwing Off the Disability: Rikku recovering from her injuries, sustained during the Lunasa bombings, and discarding her leg braces.
  • The Time of Myths: The world before there was life on Reial. Nobody even knows if there was a world before, and in 500 years of civilization, all evidence either way has been washed away, leaving only stories.
  • To Absent Friends: The Convoy had a variation for the victims of the Hegua Lake explosion.
  • Trust Password: Millie banks on the real Edgeworth forgetting the thing only he would know.
  • Turned Against Their Masters: Bradley and Ocelot do this while still remaining villains, when Denouement begins to split between those who want to destroy the continent and those who just want to start another war.
  • Two Aliases, One Character: Most villains have this to some degree, but if the villain in question is a player character belonging to one of the mods, it's guaranteed.
  • Two Guys and a Girl: Hijikata Toshirou, Adachi Tohru, and Angel Starr made a very strange version of this.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Grita really had no idea she would be up against when she had her minions kidnap members of the Winding Way.
  • The Unfought: Double subverted with Maestro Delphine. With villain duty going to Low Key and Bradley during the "third season", the players didn't hear a word from or about her the entire time, up until the very last plot of the game, when many had already thought she would be forgotten. Her return and the revelation of what exactly she wanted and why brought her back in full force as an enemy. But then? She was killed offscreen. By nameless NPCs. Need I mention that almost three years' worth of story had set her up as the final boss?
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Okita Souji is often mistaken for female. Revealing that he's a guy shocks people every time.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Gin had plenty, and his successors have gathered their own. Technically, the entire crew of the Ammy is composed of Bradley's.
  • Unusual Euphemism: As told by one Seta Souji to explain the Everyone Is Bi situation - 'peanut butter cups'.
  • Upper-Class Twit: Lots of Erealian nobles and Ivonian bureaucrats and politicians are treated this way. On the other hand, a lot of them are quite competent.
  • Useless Boyfriend: Consciously inverted. When a useless guy gets into a relationship, his partner usually ends up training him to fight, rather than having a competent guy be overshadowed and become useless.
  • Vanishing Village: Candy Mountain appears like this, though a compass exists that can lead people to it wherever and whenever it happens to be. However, you can't get stuck there — well, unless the cultists get you or something.
  • Waif-Fu: Half of the small, young (or young-looking) girls in the game are capable of punching out full-grown soldiers.
  • Weddings for Everyone: Engagements, anyway. One couple was to be married on the ship in the middle of the finale, but sadly, that did not work out.
  • Welcome Episode: The beginning of the game and the start after the timeskip both had new characters joining up with established crews to facilitate lots of introductions.
  • We Really Do Care: When Hanatarou and Haruhi had a fight, Haruhi nearly left the Way, but for the rest of the crew catching her before the ship landed and showing her that they did care.
  • Wham Line
    • "This is an official advisory from the Bellcius Intelligence Division [BID] in regards to an individual by the name of Yoshiya Kiryuu who our records indicate has previously requested passage aboard your vessel. It is our duty to inform you that this person is currently under investigation by our department in relation to his possible involvement in several crimes in the Bellcius and Melior regions, including theft, blackmail, fraud, and murder. For the safety of your crew we request that you deny passage to this individual until the duration of our investigation is complete, and the accused is either cleared of the charges or proven guilty and tried in a court of law."
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Awesomeman Sakata, Jean and Gintoki's non-canonical Kid from the Future originating from a Kink Meme story, and all of his 15... 16... 30 siblings. They adopted half an orphanage somewhere along the line. He has a companion in Bass Bitou, who originated on Plurk but got his own Kink Meme story later on. (Bass is just a nickname, though, and Penelo put her foot down and named the rest of her children normally.)
  • Why Don't You Marry It?: Jokes that Ichigo is "planesexual" have been thrown around OOCly for years. Joshua finally brought it into game canon in a failed attempt to counter-troll Isshin.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Inverted. Although she briefly associates it with her former master and quickly discards the idea before it can creep her out, Anko thinks the appearance of Jormungandr is awesome.
  • Wicked Witch: NPC villain Grita.
  • Willfully Weak: Ichigo and Watanuki are given power limiter rings in the game's third year. While Watanuki wears his to keep everything that's chasing him away, Ichigo uses his to seal his Hollow side.
  • Windmill Crusader: The new Ivonian president chose to paint Alex as one rather than listen to him, as the truth ran counter to his political agenda. Of course, the players all knew the truth.
  • Witch Hunt: The town of Jinkston goes a little overboard in searching for the thief of the Golden Fleece. Subverted later when they allow the Way to leave after Grita steals the children (and various childlike adults), leaving their entire plot thread unresolved.
  • With This Ring: Okay, the rings Ichigo and Watanuki wear are meant to keep spirits away from them, but Yuuko specifically did her best to make it look like they'd gotten engaged, just to mess with them.
  • Working with the Ex: With Hana and Ness both doctors, the infirmary of the Way became very awkward.
  • You Mean "Xmas": The counterpart holidays have different customs — decorating rocks on Christmas, for example — and they occur at different times of the year, but they are very clearly Valentine's Day, Christmas, and Halloween.

"Choose a ship, declare your loyalty, and fight alongside your crew to make your dreams a reality."

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