YMMV / Harry and the Shipgirls

• Adorkable: Nemo who trips over her own feet while sailing to the shore, and is still very confused about some human customs we take for granted. This hits near-diabetes-inducing when she hides behind Takumi, who's a highly squishy ordinary human, when some shipgirls spot them.
• Archive Panic: Just the content designated official threadmarks alone is millions of words long. Adding in sidestories and apocrypha of varying degrees of canonicity, as well as informational posts, gets you over a million more. As of May 2023, the story runs to 12.6 million words in the archive threads (just canonical story posts) on QQ.
• Base-Breaking Character: US Battleships Kentucky, Illinois, and Washington (BB-47) deliberately choosing to ignore opportunities to be summoned. And When they do (the first two by accident in the wake of Halifax's summoning, the latter when Draco Malfoy does a generic summoning ritual for "anyone willing"), they then reject the US Navy for the Coast Guard for the former two, and become the Malfoy Valet for the latter. Is this refusal to join justifiable reactions to the trauma of being being mistreated during their steel hull days, during times when either the concept of a navy at all is in the balance (Kentucky and Illinois spent almost 20 years rusting away after launch while the US Navy made proposal after proposal for conversations, only to scrap them once they had ICBM submarines, all the while the Air Force was making the argument that the Navy was obsolete), or to adhere to international treaties (after essentially a coin flip over Washington and West Virginia, Washington was subjected to weapons testing and sunk)? Or mean-spirited, selfish, and childish myopia where they deliberately choose to let innocent people die so that they can flip the US Navy the bird, punishing people that had nothing to do with the above mistreatment? The debate got so hot that the authors are hesitant to use them, and are irritated over criticism.
• Crack Ship: This is probably the only work ever to have a relationship between Amaterasu and Fenrir.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Ofuda made by Natsumi and Haru, which are painted by a brush that has unicorn hair on it are very effective against anything evil or created by evil are called by people in the threads Nuke-fuda due to how bright the light they produce is.
  • Each country's Submarine contingent gets a specific nickname: the Japanese are the Lewdmarines, the Americans are the Subthieves, the British are the Ham & Cheese Subs (or less often the LOUDmarines).
• Ham and Cheese: Ladies, gentlemen, and shipgirls of all ages, we present to you, the KNIGHTS OF THE UNDERSEA! Also known as the Royal Navy Submarines.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Hermione and her sisters are based on the Dido-Class from Azur Lane. Then Azur Lane revealed their own HMS Hermione.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Let's just say that both Norimune and Colombe have been forced to endure some seriously difficult lives.
  • It runs in that family with both Colombe's oldest daughter Estelle and the youngest daughter Ehren haunted by their pasts and their failures.
• Memetic Badass: Captain Tanaka, AKA He Who Clanks As He Walks.
• Memetic Mutation: "Harry/Ron/Draco/Haruto is digging his grave nice and deep!" ^note Let's just say that those four are so nice to their Fleets that people are certain that when they finally get married, their hips will never be the same again. Especially Harry.
  • I lost another pancreas! ^note Any time — any time at all! — something nice, cute, or otherwise wholesome happens, something to this effect crops up from multiple users. Especially if it involves Kensho or Chikako being adorable.
  • What do I get if I find the Mizuchi? ^note Kyoshu believes, for some reason, that if she finds a Mizuchi, she gets a prize.
  • Time to feed the Duckies! ^note Akizuki, Teruzuki, and Hatsuzuki, due to how strict rationing was when they were steel hulls, have a Running Gag of insisting that more important ships get food first, and they'll have whatever's left over. This, in spite of the fact that they clearly want said food. Naturally, Harry Potter makes it a point to make sure that they have their fill.
  • Another boggle for Yae to collect! ^note Yae Kokonoe, being a pure Muggle had a Running Gag of constantly boggling when she visited the Potter Estate, to the point where people joked that she was trying to collect the whole set. The joke...kind of stuck.
  • Political Nundu! ^note A corrupt member of the Magical Diet in the Lonely Street side story had an immature Nundu guarding his house. Memes ensued, to the point it got referenced in an omake.
  • Sports Nundu! ^note During the Quidditch World Cup, an African who was attending had his own Nundu guarding his tent. Memes ensued, and it was actually referenced in a canonical snippet.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • One omake speculates on the reaction Wanko and Revina might have to Death Eaters hurting Harry and/or Hoppou, complete with the tune Revina would sing as she sauntered through Knockturn Alley.
  • Another Revina snippet presents a hypothetical scenario where she goes full on Humanoid Abomination and warns Lucius Malfoy that, if he does anything to harm Harry, she will destroy everything he has and send him after it.
  • Louisiana's awakening. A grateful wizard used the Elixir of Life and his own magic and life force to bring shipgirls who were based on ships that only existed on paper to repay what he thought of as a debt he owed the shipgirls for saving his grandson's life. Well intentioned, and the man sacrificed his own life, but Louisiana awakened while still in the place where the others came into being, but after the man who brought her about had died. She spent months trapped in the sarcophagus that created her. In complete darkness. Alone. And aware the entire time before being rescued. And we gets to see it via the nightmares she sent others as a distress signal.
  • A (fortunately noncanon) snip shows what would have happened if Helmar von und zu Wolff had gotten his hands on Morgana's scrolls and Ehren had awakened as his Nazi Tochter. Seeing what happens in the future to some beloved characters such as Ehren, Claire, and Colombe is heart-rending as result.
• Shocking Moments: Let's just say upon finding that Harry, his classmates, and Fudo were trapped in a Sub-Unit-942 bunker that was full of ancient monsters that 942 had been trying to resurrect, pretty nearly all of the heavy hitters were called in, from the Potter Armory, to the shipgirls, to most of the Masamunes, to the First Oni Guard, to the JGSDF, to the relatives of the Yokai heirs. They refused to take any chances on letting these monsters survive.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: The various authors who contribute to the story come from all around the world, bringing knowledge of their native cultures into their contributions, and do massive amounts of research to fill in any gaps they have. Everything from Japanese to Native American mythology to ship technology of the World War and Interwar periods to obscure cultural traditions can be found in either the story snippets or related Word of God posts. As one reader put it: "Come for the characters, stay for the lore."

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