Roleplay / Shifting Worlds

"Sometimes, you get the good end, sometimes you get the normal end, and sometimes... you get the SDM end."

Shifting Worlds is a roleplaying club originally based in Doujinstyle. The roleplays here are mainly based around Touhou Project, with occasional references to other games and a lot of original characters and worlds as well.

Shifting Worlds roleplays tend to happen in Gensokyo, though a diversity of other worlds are involved as well. The club has, over the course of its diverse roleplays, established its own continuity and the Gensokyo of SW has come to be fairly different from the Gensokyo of canon.

Has its own Character page.

Sadly Doujinstyle seems to have keeled over. Due to this hundreds of posts worth of roleplaying continuity have been lost. However Shifting Worlds has reestablished in a new forum, Zetaboards.

For the sake of organization, SDM's "Anathemus Mythos" now has its own page. Please place any tropes relating to the Hellgate Saga or the Xat Roleplay specifically on this page.

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This roleplay provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Most girls here are action-y.
• Aerith and Bob: some characters have Japanese names. Some characters have more standard fantasy names. Some others have punny or meaningful names. And some others just have... normal names. (see Desmond for an example of that last case).
• Affably Evil: Desmond, though some may disagree.
• Agony Beam: One of Purge's attacks, also the function of the punishment button on the scepter of the Queen of Hearts.
• Aliens Speaking English: Anyone, no matter where they're from, speaks Japanese in Gensokyo.
  • Justified again during the war in Crossroads 2, as Jenny gives Cirno, Laia, Kanako Imrah, Ratatosk, Jonathan, and Yuro translators.
• An Ice Person: Ryoma Nakurei. Also Nobuharu, to an extent.
• Anti-Hero: Kanako Imrah is a Type III
• All There in the Manual: Want to know how Desmond got his grudge against the village and sought to release EX-Rumia? Want to know about Laia's dark side? Want to know how Hellgate himself came to be? The answers to these questions (and more) are all in the Gaiden Thread, and not in any of the RPs.
  • The club itself can be this if you happen to stumble on this page without being a SW regular, since Doujinstyle is closed off to those without a username, the club itself requires a password to get into, and SDM himself largely wants to keep things under wraps for now. SDM has been working on making an site to archive the RPs so that those not in the club itself can view the RPs. Sadly, not a whole lot of progress has been made, so if you want to see everything, you have to get into DS and ask SDM for the password.
    • Right now, Shifting Worlds has moved to Zetaboards, and no longer requires a password to access. SDM is currently working on moving the RPs in DoujinStyle to here, as a means to archive them and make them available to the public. Considering how much there is to transfer over, it will be a while before everything it available to be seen by everyone, but it's a start.
• Apocalypse How:
  • Anarchos was aiming for an X-5.
  • EX-Rumia's release would cause a Class 1 among the humans.
• Apocalyptic Log: Desmond's diary in the Gaiden thread.
• Armor-Piercing Question: when Cirno tells Desmond she would gladly give her life to Laia's Superpowered Evil Side if her death made Laia happy, Desmond retorts with, "And what if, by chance, your death doesn't make her happy?"
  • And subverted when Cirno completely ignores the question, preoccupied as she is with Laia's current state.
• Author Appeal: occasionally. For instance, the very idea of Queen Cirno.
• Ax-Crazy: too many villains to count.
• Badass Bookworm: Yeshaida, especially since he, as an elf from Filia, is able to wield two swords at once (Filian elves normally aren't able to dual wield).
• Badass Normal: Nicholas Stroud.
  • Even though he's been overshadowed by the massive power of both his enemies and allies, Stroud earned himself a position as a Badass by being the one who, through intense pain, managed to slay Purge.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: Elegia del Nulla, who uses emptiness and void powers. Rumia as a whole, as well (including both normal and EX-Rumia).
  • Desmond, of course.
  • More debatable for normal Rumia, but very straight in EX-Rumia's case.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Cena Brand's ash causes intense pain, corruption and disintegration, but she's overall good.
  • Also, Varuki is a noble, loving entity with a very sinister-looking EX form.
• Bash Brothers: Aurion and Kanako Imrah, at times.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Kanako Imrah, though it's Justified by the use of his magic rather than just him being able to do it (granted, it USED to be that way, but that was before there was any sort of cap on powers and such).
• Beam Spam: Nearly everyone who can make beams can do this, and has done this.
  • Averted in Alta Marea by the six heroes. While they're capable of firing non-elemental lasers, they take time to charge, and only one can be fired at a time.
• Berserk Button: Flandre's death to Arachnos.
  • Do not mess with Patchouli, lest the Scarlet Devil Mansion will show you to a world of hurt.
  • Same applies with Reimu and Jonathan.
  • Do not mention doing anything bad to Arietta in front of Aurion or Kanako Imrah. Do not mention doing anything bad to Flandre in front of Aurion, Kanako Imrah, Jonathan or Arachnos. Do not mention doing anything bad to Laylasa in front of Kanako Yasagawa. All scenarios will end very badly for you.
    • Unless you're SDM, in which case you have a get-out-jail-free card.
  • Calling Cirno an idiot, obviously.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Yuro, Martel, Jonathan to an extent, but DEFINITELY the first two. Laia also fits as well
• Big Bad: During the later pages of Another World in Gensokyo, Cichol and the Dark Lord Morgant served as this when they first tried to destroy their world with a summoned Chalad Gaibolg, and again when Cichol came back to avenge Chalad's death.
  • Sono Ruina for the Jewels of Existance arc of Crossroads.
  • in Crossroads, EX-Rumia can be seen either as the Big Bad, either a living Plot Device of mass destruction with Desmond being the true Big Bad. In either case, her dark shadow has been permeating Shifting Worlds for several roleplays now.
  • Abicion in Alta Marea.
  • Yami in Aurion's Guardians of Light arc that's spanned two RPs so far.
  • Cichol once again takes up the role of the Big Bad in DEPTHS.
• Big Damn Heroes: Kanako Imrah does this for Lloyd and Yeshaida, when they're about to be overrun by the Dorca Faedhain.
  • Happens again, with Kanako Imrah seemingly doing this for Aurion and Erle against Yami and Sinafay. However, it's subverted when he gets quickly shut down by Yami, then subverted again when the REAL moment is from Flandre, who proceeds to kick Yami's ass and completely render that form of Yami to nothingness by making EVERYTHING (even the explosions) explode.
• Big Fancy Castle: Cirno and Laia's castle of Hearts qualifies... but it's nothing compared to the grandiose floating gothic castle Alt. Gensokyo Mystia owns.
• Blood Knight: Masophet and Anthony.
• Blood Magic: Desmond.
• Blow You Away: Venti in Alta Marea. Nobuharu can also use air, and Zephia's main element is air.
• Body Horror: the Queen of Hearts' creations. Full stop.
• Book Ends: Aurion's story prior to the beginning of Hellgate 1 and Another World in Gensokyo 1 begins with him marrying Arietta, and ends at the end of Another World in Gensokyo 1 with him Marrying Flandre.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Ian was like this in Crossroads, thanks to Desmond infusing him with evil shades under Rumia's command.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: "took a walk, saw a castle, stopped a madman from trying to summon EX-Rumia even though he was working to release the ribbon and not my seal." Yeah.
• Breakout Character: Cirno is a great example, starting off as a one-shot cameo and, through a combination of factors (mainly her meeting Shadow's Laia and the player's own fondness for her) became a main character.
• Break the Cutie: Desmond's "Reason You Suck" Speech attempts exactly this against Cirno and Laia, and succeeds in temporarily breaking Laia down completely.
• Broad Strokes / Canon Discontinuity: If you look hard enough in some of the earlier stories, you should be able to find a major event that took place, or a sentence or two that's been said, that would normally have a huge effect on the overall story but has been completely ignored for whatever reason.
• Cain and Abel: Saturos and Howaito in Alta Marea, with Saturos being evil and Howaito being good.
• Calling Your Attacks: Seeing as how Touhou Project and the Tales of series is involved, there's a fair amount of attack-calling.
• The Cameo: Cirno's appearance was originally supposed to be simply a one-post cameo. It went wrong. The cameo stretched out into A Day in the Limelight, the day stretched out into more days, plot happened, and now Cirno is one of the main characters of Shirting Worlds, possesses a lover, a castle and an army.
  • ShadowAurion introduced two Tales Series characters into SHC: Jade Curtiss, and Richter Abend. Subverted for the latter in that his appearance gives a bit of information behind Ratatosk's origin.
• Cat Girl: The Nameless One, AKA Eclair.
• Cerebus Retcon: Kanako Imrah, in SHC: "One of these days, when I can catch him (Ratatosk) outside of you being in the thrall of extreme emotion, I'm gonna ask him myself," in regards to Ratarosk making Aurion hastily retreat from a certain man. The trope comes into play when, roughly 2 years after this, Ratatosk is forcibly made to be the dominant soul in Aurion's body thanks to Yami's meddling.
• The Chessmaster: Most notably Kagami Sakashima. The Hooded Man, Desmond, and the Jabberwock have all shown shades of this, but for various reasons haven't been able to really embrace the trope.
• Clingy Macguffin: The Jewels implanted in Cirno and Laia by Sono. Zephita, as well.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Mia Starlight.
• Combination Attack: Aurion and Kanako Imrah have used at least two.
  • Cirno and Laia have a signature attack which involves Cirno creating an ice prism in front of Laia, which serves to dramatically magnify the latter's light beam.
  • Ixis and Horus'aman pulled this against Kanako, way back when.
  • Aurion has one with the Sanae, Suwako and Kanako, which he uses against the Spawn.
• Combo Platter Powers: Some of the Gods and Goddesses of Infinite Grounds are like this, though some do actually go together quite well if you think about them.
  • Many of the characters suffer from this, actually - mainly the older and more high-tier ones. Many of Kanako's characters simultaneously have high strength, speed, combat skills, flight, and proficient spellcasting in tons of unrelated elements simultaneously. Arachnos has a wide plethora of powers that relate, more or less, to his spidery nature (weaving webs from diverse elements, spitting venom and acid, Spider-Sense, summoning of large spider minions and small spiderlings) but his status as guardian of Gensokyo also affords him limited reality warping (mostly gravity), plus some other even more ridiculous powers like telepathy and eye beams.
  • Tezcatlipoca seems to have a diversity of unrelated powers apart from his main control of obsidian, but only because the Aztec God he's named after and based on has the same arsenal of powers.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Though Queen Cirno loves to show off her wealth, there's usually not much for her to buy in Gensokyo and her servants end up creating mostly everything for her. Alternate Mystia on the other hand...
• Cool Airship: The Siren's Song, Alternate(!)Mystia's private zeppelin, which bears her likeness on both the balloon and the gondola (said gondola alone is the size of a house). She also owns multiple more equivalently awesome zeppelins, though those did not make an appearance.
• Cool House: Scarlet Devil Mansion is sentient, and a Humongous Mecha to boot.
• Cosmic Keystone: Kanako Imrah, Aurion, and Daisuke serve this purpose for a dark force held at bay due to them being Guardians of Light. A dead fourth Guardian was mentioned, but at the moment there was little clue as to whom it was. Near the end of ''CR1'', however, it's revealed that the fourth Guardian is the deceased Arietta.
  • In Alta Marea, a key is all that separates the titular world from the apocalypse.
• Costume Porn: Occurs occasionally. Notably, Arachnos often describes Queen Cirno's elaborate royal dresses in much detail.
• Crossover: Here, Touhou oftentimes meets Mabinogi and World of Warcraft and The Black Heart...
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: Arachna is not one, since she doesn't really have a religion at all.
  • In Shadow's Alternate Gensokyo, Rumia makes Filena, the Savior, into one of those. Her worship of Filena is similar to Christianism, complete with churches and crosses. Rumia justifies this by saying that Chistians themselves worship Filena as well, they're just not aware of it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Desmond completely dominates and neutralizes Cirno and Laia when they attempt to stop him from releasing EX-Rumia.
  • Cirno herself has administered a few of those. For instance, to the Jabberwock, after it killed Laia.
  • The final "battle" in the Book of Ice in Sweetheart Cafe ended up as one of those. In truth Numb-Whisper was the very definitely final boss of the book, and the wisp of Rumia was obliterated within seconds with much satisfaction.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Kanako Imrah alludes to this in Sweetheart Cafe/Mansion when he meets the Earth's Arachnos as being the reason why he ever came to Gensokyo in the first place.
  • Laia, the sweetest youkai girl you've ever seen, used to be a mass murdering religious fanatic.
• Dark Messiah: EX-Rumia sees herself as a Messianic Archetype of youkai, hence the religious symbolism around her that even slightly overflows into Sealed Rumia. Since EX-Rumia sees humans as only food and her practices include such delightful things as devouring humans slowly and agonizingly while they're still alive to taste their fear, creating an eternal night for youkai to thrive in, establishing human farms for youkai to eat, and brutally executing any youkai who actually dares dissagree with her brutality as a traitor, she is darker than dark, almost bordering on The Antichrist.
  • Ironically, the Alternate Gensokyo Rumia is actually the Messianic Archetype to Goddess Filena, and although she can and does kick some ass she is usually a kind, gentle person, who sees eating humans as an aberration... however, take note this is the sealed Rumia. EX-Rumia is still as uncivilized as ever, and yes, the seal is also leaking in this world. Which means that Messiah Rumia shares a head with Antichrist Rumia, constantly trying to hold her back. She has a few issues because of that.
• Deal with the Devil: Animus with Desmond, in a way.
• Death Is Cheap: To Arachnos, who is always respawned by Arachna. However, there has been an occasion where he was almost Killed Off for Real - when his death followed his Unstoppable Rage as Anarchos.
• Demonic Possession: What happens to Ian by Rumia's shades prior to Desmond attempting to unseal her.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Animus, when he is introduced. He does so by slaughtering everything that gets in his way (and in Desmond's way).

• Deus ex Machina: Sometimes a situation will get so out of hand, regardless of whether or not it was intentional, that a Deus Ex Machina is needed just so that the protagonists can survive. This can come from either the dungeon master, or one of the players itself.
• Didn't See That Coming: Type 5. Desmond had been working to break Rumia's seal... too bad she was actually under the power of a completely different seal.
• Dirty Coward: Ian is typically an asshole outside of combat, and usually shaking with fear while in combat.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Erden
• Disproportionate Retribution: Desmond wants nothing more than to ruin Cirno's life, even though she did basically nothing to foil his plans - if anything, Jonathan was the real Spanner in the Works.
• Dreaming of Things to Come: The Dreamcasters can evoke this, or bring forth these things from one's consciousness or subconsciousness.
• Dream Weaver: Dreamcasters.
• Driven to Suicide: The intense pain Agensuto inflicts on Cirno causes her to impale herself on Zephita.
• Dual Boss: Rumia and Reli in Sweetheart Cafe.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The roleplay has its roots in the Mental Shift, the randomness and stupidity section of Doujinstyle. Unsurprizingly, the first few roleplays are rather... special.
  • The Hellgate saga is a good example of this evolution.
• Eldritch Abomination: Chalad Gaibolg is this.
  • The Illusionary Beast applies here, a creature whom Eclair gets some of her power from and whom she refers to in multiple occasions.
  • Outside of the RPs themselves, the members of the group have created some abominations of their own in their chatroom, two of the most noticable being Jim the Beast of a Thousand Boobs and Snoic the Trippple Goota.
• Elemental Absorption: Most elemental users can do this, though that's often based on their power levels and master over the element in question.
• Elemental Barrier: Also used quite frequently.
• Elemental Powers: a lot of people use elements. A couple of KanakoVoWG's characters in particular are specialized and proficient in all of them.
  • In Alta Marea, the six heroes each have their own elements.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Desmond, when the Queen of Hearts mutilates Animus.
  • SDM, upon realizing that OC Heaven's SHC was actually 18+, and then realizing how Ken acted before at that time, and THEN realizing that he put Ice Moon in there, has this moment. To quote, "Nobody will touch Ice Moon like that. I'm the only one allowed to torture her because not even I would do that to her."
• Evil Diva: Though not outright evil (though she is rather morally ambiguous), Alternate Gensokyo Mystia has shades of this, and she did use her near-hypnotic, addictive voice to get filthy rich.
• Evil Weapon: Zephita.
• Executive Meddling: Why Another World in Gensokyo II got interrupted and cancelled (then turned into Crossroads in SW proper) thanks to Mikirin, and one reason that led to Shifting Worlds being created in the first place.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Tyl in Alta Marea. The Steel Mage in Vocus's cult.
• Face–Heel Turn: From Aurion to Saphir, only to make a Heel–Face Turn a while after.
• Failure Knight: Animus turns into something like this when he decides that, having failed (or rather refused) to protect the world he was destined to protect, he must make up for it by safeguarding Gensokyo.
• Fairest of Them All: subverted when Cirno asks this of the Magic Mirror of the castle, is told that she's the most beautiful of them all in every way, and scolds the Mirror because it failed to mention her lover Laia.
• Fallen Princess: Amelia Lorelei is the daughter of the Alternate Gensokyo Mystia Lorelei, a magical diva and the richest person of that world. While she didn't lose her fortune per se (in the sense that it still exists and is waiting for her), she has been teleported (with no money of course) to a dimension where nobody knows her nor her mother.
• Fantasy Pantheon: and how.
• Fiction 500: Thanks to her ability to essentially hypnotize millions of people into attending her concerts, alternate Mystia Lorelei's wealth is absolutely absurd.
  • Mr. Hood has been stated to own an empire on a universal scale, though (as his nickname implies) he doesn't exactly show it off much.
  • Embodiment of time Kizeki Auf Thanatos. One day, bored with having unlimited godlike power, he/she/it? somehow gave this power a physical embodiment as a futuristic, absurd MegaCorp spanning many universes and named, unoriginally enough, Kizeki Corp. Notable for upgrading the Scarlet Devil Mansion into a Humongous Mecha.
  • In This Curse, And Shadows Of A Blessing the Destello family was already Old Money before the Dragon War and made even more money during and after it since they managed to get their hands on quite a lot of dragon bodyparts. They own at least one fully staffed Big Fancy House, and the heiress Fulmi can easily afford luxury cars and designer-made fancy dress uniforms (with a cape specially made to wave dramatically in response to her electric powers even in the absense of wind). Word of God says that they are very far from Alt. Mystia's reality-warping level of wealth, though.
• Flies Equals Evil: Enthropod.
• Flight: Tomara has actual wings to produce this. Nearly everyone in Gensokyo can do this as what seems like a nominal rule. Those outside of it usually require some external object or element to do so (Tomara, as mentioned, and Ryoma and Nobuharu through ice and air, respectively)
• Foreshadowing: In Crossroads, Cirno boasts to Martel that she and Laia could defeat a dragon. Later, in Sweetheart Cafe/Mansion, she does just that with Laia to a fire Dragon.
• Forgotten Phlebotinum: Laia tends to forget about her Eye of the Storm jewel given to her by the Windseeker. She does remember it sometimes, though.

• Freudian Excuse: In the Bloodward gaiden, Desmond became who he is because he tried to appease EX-Rumia before she was sealed by the ribbon on regular Rumia's head, by feeding her humans he considered useless. He was later executed by Arachnos once the seal was in place, and grew to hate both Arachnos and the humans who sided against him for denouncing his plan to keep the village safe.
  • Also kind of a subversion of this trope, since it shows that he was more than prepared to do acts that are at best highly morally ambiguous and at worst outright evil in order to protect himself and his family.
• Gambit Pileup: The war in Crossroads 2 hasn't even started, and already at least 5 plans have been put into motion from at least 3 sides in the conflict. At least 3 of these plans revolve around Cirno and her castle, for better or worse.
• Genki Girl: Mia Starlight. Not on the most extreme side, but she's had her moments.
  • Laylasa in Alta Marea at the beginning.
• Genre Savvy: nearly everybody gets their moments. Primarily the self-inserts.
• Gem-Encrusted: essentially everything Queens Cirno and Laia own.
• Genius Loci: SDM.
• Giant Flyer: the Jubjub Bird, which serves as both guardian and mount to Cirno and Laia.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Sinistra, the meteor who attacked SDM while he was in space.
• Giant Spider: Arachnos plays with the concept. While he is a huge spider, he also happens to be one of the main keepers of order in Gensokyo.
  • The undead counterparts of him, however...
  • SiNafay, once she regains her human form, has a stone that allows her to control spiders. She chooses to control The Weeping Queen, a Giant Spider boss from Vindictus.
  • DEPTHS has a few of these appear in the first battle that Aurion controls, but they're rather weak compared to the previous examples.
• Glass Cannon: Tomara's Dark Angel side.
• Glitch Entity: Data Corrupted, able to warp the fabric of reality to obtain some really strange shit, is a deliberate Shout-Out to video game glitches, especially the Trope Namer and his kin. She fits this even better in the video game arc of Sweetheart Cafe.
• God: Giant spider Arachna, Weaver of Worlds.
• God and Satan Are Both Jerks: Arachna and Enthropod, full stop.
• God Is Flawed: Arachna, very much.
• Grapes of Luxury: Once, Cirno was fed grapes by her servants while simultaneously being massaged.
• Gravity Master: Arachnos. Kanako Imrah as well, as he effectively learned how by watching and learning from Arachnos.
• Green Thumb: Shaula in Alta Marea. Cirlavicia as well.
• Guardian Angel: Cirno's ascension to royalty invokes fairy tales on purpose. Since Cirno agreed to house her in the palace, Goddess Martel has been something like this to Cirno and Laia. Due to her immense power, she tends to be conveniently absent when something important happens, but she usually shows up occasionally to improve something, dispense some wisdom, repair some damage, and just sometimes even graces the Queens with a full-blown miraculous intervention.
• Hand Wave: Plenty.
• Hannibal Lecture: Desmond gives one of epic porportions to Cirno before he attempts to unseal Rumia.
  • And way before that, the Jabberwock did the same. Twice.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Desmond pulled this on Cirno once.
• Healing Factor: Desmond has a limited form of this, given that he controls blood. Barring anything that would normally be fatal (with exceptions), he can effectively heal himself back to full health.
• Healing Hands: Laia.
• Heel–Face Turn: Saphir back to Aurion, with help from Kanako Imrah, Arietta, and the goddess Morrighan.
  • Animus, from a mad sadomasochist to a peaceful defender of Cirno and her castle/place of residence.
• Hot-Blooded: Laia, recently, in CR2.
• Humongous Mecha: SDM is one.
  • A recently introduced character named Sally (Azazella Baal-Abaddonia is her full name), who for now has only been used in The Arena, has her mecha as her main form of fighting.
• I Am a Humanitarian: given that this is a land of youkai, this naturally arises:
  • Rumia, both EX and Child-forms.
  • Tezcatlipoca and the participants to his Youkai Games.
  • Desmond.
  • The trolls in the video game Sweetheart Cafe arc.
  • Alternate Mystia occasionally indulges in maneating, though she doesn't hunt down anybody herself. Instead, she invites people to sign a contract allowing Mystia to eat their body post-mortem in return for significant monetary compensations to their relatives. Kinda like donating one's body to research. Alt. Rumia, on the other hand, frowns on this.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Jonathan vs. Saphir, followed shortly by Sanae vs. Saphir in Another World in Gensokyo.
• I'll Do What I Have To Do: Jonathan and Kanako Imrah have both frequently stated and/or implied that they are not above killing members of the cast if the need arises, but both do try to look for less violent solutions first.
• Immortality: Aurion, Daisuke, and Yeshaida are unique in that they have three different types of Immortality, all of which are subverted. When either of the three would normally die, they are instead knocked unconscious, whereupon they can choose to wake up at any time in a number of ways. Moreover, while the body can be destroyed, it takes power beyond what even many deities are capable of, and will never perish from old age as it can only age up to 25 years. On the off-chance that the body is destroyed, the soul of the Milletian will be sent to the Soul Stream where they can be reborn into a brand new body.
  • Age Without Youth: Jonathan.
  • Resurrective Immortality: Arachnos.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: Cirno and Laia's royal Pimped Out Dresses avert this. They are made of youkai spidersilk, which makes them resistant to damage like an armor, while also being light and comfortable to wear.
• Inept Mage: Rosethorn, in Crossroads 3. She's not as bad as it gets, but she takes ages to charge up anything more powerful than a feeble wind attack and is easily the weakest character in the group out of those who do fight.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Cirno suffers from something like this in her Shifting Worlds version. Like in canon, she's a braggart who likes to tell and show everyone and their mother that she's the strongest, however she can also get very depressed when confronted with irrefutable evidence that she is not in fact the strongest.
• Insufficiently Advanced Alien: in Endless Ether, the alternate Cirno is a member of a very primitive race given technology she barely understands by a much more advanced alien race.
• In the Hood: Mr. Hood, Solomon, and Desmond pre-reveal are the most notable in Crossroads 2. Cichari, as well.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Aurion and Ratatosk.
• Jerkass: SDM as of Crossroads. Also Ice Moon and Akuko.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ryoma and Kanako Imrah.
• Kick the Dog: Desmond killing Flandre is either this or a Moral Event Horizon, depending on who you ask.
• Killed Off for Real: Kanako has also stated very definitively that nearly every single character he has (with the exceptions of Jonathan, Laylasa, and Takane) are going to be dead by the end of CR2 (or the arc that Shadow currently has planned, whichever works).
  • Zig-zagged with Cirno's suicide induced by Agensuto. Cirno impales herself on Zephita. But Cirno being a fairy, she can't die. Except that Zephita feeds on souls, so her soul will be trapped inside the sword forever! Except not, because soon enough a powerful attack on the new wielder of Zephita causes the blade to cough up some souls, including Cirno's, allowing the fairy to regenerate.

• Knight Templar: Arachnos has a version of himself that's between his usual self and his Anarchos form.
• Large Ham: Kanako, at times. Arachnos, whenever he's talking to evildoers.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Kanako (not the goddess) at times. Noticably less in the chronologically recent RPs like Crossroads 2

• Lovable Coward: the new Scarlet Devil Mansion has been kinda Flanderized into this, with his tendency of fleeing into space at any sign of trouble.
• Mad Scientist: Shadow Ryusaki, despite being a protagonist, has shades of this... or more like, this in spades.
  • Also, the now defunct Queen of Hearts.
• Magic Genetics: Shadow Ryusaki and Queen of Hearts, again.
• Magic Mirror: A sentient mirror youkai guards the vault of Cirno and Laia's castle and is extremely powerful, albeit immobile. Renders unauthorized access to the Vault almost impossible.
• Magic Music: Alternate Mystia, and one of Shadow's lesser known characters Melody.
• Magma Man: Brandon Persus.
• The Magnificent/Red Baron: Many characters, and even some players, have nicknames of the sort.
  • In a humorous manner, Kanako-player is known as "Captain Oblivious", while Kanako-character is occasionally known as "Wizard On Crack".

• Marathon Boss: The Enhanced Jabberwock battle was probably one of the longest battles on this forum.

• Mega Manning: In Alta Marea, Erden gets his alternate power, tar, from defeating a tar blob monster. It is likely tha the other heroes will get their alternate powers in a similar fashion.
• Mind Rape: Desmond did this to the Queen of Hearts in his Even Evil Has Standards moment.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Sono Ruina. Interestingly, even with a name like this she manages to fool Cirno and Laia into thinking she's good. (Not that fooling them is hard.)
• Not Quite Flight: Nobuharu can't actually fly, but he can walk on air.
• Ominous Floating Castle: Mystia's castle in the sky.
• One-Winged Angel: Cirno and Laia have received the ability to pull this off in not one but two ways: the Super Catalyser which offers a short and massive power boost at the expense of a massive Super-Power Meltdown as it wears off, and the Jewels within their bodies.
  • Yami does this in CR after Agensuto pulls off his entry.
  • Unsealed Rumia enjoys beginning battles in her child form, before turning into her full power adult form.
  • Lots of bosses pull this off in one way or another.
• People Puppets: what a very pissed off Arachnos did to Cirno, prompting quite a few What the Hells? from those fighting with him.
• Person of Mass Destruction: A lot. It's easier to name those that AREN'T this trope.
• Pimped-Out Car: Not exactly a car, but Cirno and Laia's royal carriage is definitely this.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Cirno and Laia post-"coronation".
  • Alternate Mystia has a number of those. One of her favorites is decorated with albino peacock feathers, in a shout-out to Lord Shen.
  • Mystia's daughter Amelia Lorelei enters Crossroads 3 wearing one. Unfortunately, given that Crossroads 3 takes place in a whole different universe from Alternate Gensokyo and that therefore she is a nobody there, she hasn't had a chance to even change her clothes since she arrived there, so the dress is probably in a poor state and will only go from bad to worse.
• Planet of Hats: In Endless Ether, an alternate Cirno hails from planet Noth 9, which is a essentially a planet of Cirnos.
• Played for Laughs: Most Ho Yay pairings, either from DS friendships to Memetic Mutation pairings.
• Plot Tumor: Cirno, who originally was not supposed to be a character AT ALL and through certain circumstances became Arachnos' main from Crossroads on.
• Poor Communication Kills: Seriously, Rumia? Would it have killed you to actually tell Desmond that your seal was now on a person instead of a ribbon? Odds are, if you had, Gensokyo would be a dark place right now.

• Punny Name: Enthropod is a play on entropy and anthropod.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Desmond delivers one of epic proportions against Cirno.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Aurion/Ratatosk. You can tell when he's in Ratatosk Mode when his lines have red-colored font.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Aurion and Kanako, respectively, both in-universe and Meta. Occasionally the roles get reversed, though.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: Cirno and Laia, after having become "queens".
• Rich Bitch: Cirno tends to avert it, but she does act like this occasionally towards people who piss her off. Reimu, notably, as well as Remilia.
  • Alternate Mystia is borderline. While she's generally a very pleasant person to be around, she a) shows off her wealth a lot and b) is not above cheating to get her way, though that's more due to her hypnotic voice than her wealth per se.
  • Amelia Lorelei is also borderline. While she tries to be nice (at least when separated from her fame and fortune), she does occasionally get haughty or make rather insensitive comments about her and her mother's wealth.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: While Cirno and Laia usually leave their so-called kingdom to run itself, saying that they are inactive would be doing them a disservice.
• Rule of Cool: While Aurion's letting Flynn (Shadow Aurion's self-insert) ride on the former's back while shooting the former's revolver at the youkai in Hellgate 2 Part III may not be as effective as just letting Aurion do all the work, the awesomeness cannot be denied.
  • Why don't we just say the whole damn forum runs on this and be done with it.
• Sarcasm Mode: Nearly everyone has entered this at one point, except for Mia Starlight and some of Shadow's characters.
• Sadistic Choice: Desmond offers Cirno and Laia a choice as EX-Rumia is about to be unsealed: Fight him where they stand and die, flee to their castle as the apocalypse arrives and eventually get killed later, or live as his servants under the shadow of Rumia. (But his attempts would have a bit more weight if Cirno actually realized the gravity of the situation. As it goes, she gladly takes the first option, certain that she'll kick his ass.)
• Satan: Humongous fly Enthropod
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: subverted with alternate Mystia, who, although she DOES have money (oh boy does she ever!), usually prefers using her hypnotic voice when she wants to screw the rules (that's fairly often).
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Jonathan carries the seal of EX Rumia up to the end of Crossroads.
  • Also, Shadow carries at least three Goddesses inside him.
• Self-Insert Fic: Notably KanakoVoWG, whose self-insert, roleplayed from the first person, is one of his main characters. Arachnos also possesses a self-insert, but he lives on Earth as opposed to Gensokyo, and therefore was not seen at all until Sweetheart Cafe and played no significant role until the Videogame arc. Aurion's self-insert has so far only appeared in Hellgate 2 Part III.
• Sharp Dressed Woman: This is Author Appeal for Arachnos, who had Alternate Universe Rumia dress this way. Same author's Alternate Wriggle also wears a tailed tuxedo, and Alternate Mystia wore a formal white military uniform at one point.
• Shock and Awe: One of Kanako's two elements.
• Shout-Out: Agensuto uses attacks from Sonic The Hedgehog. And Aurion with his Artes and Spy equipment. There's too many Shout-Out attacks (and enemies) to list.
  • Kanako in particular is (in)famous for straight out using attacks of other characters (mostly from Touhou Project, Bleach, One Piece and Naruto). His characters must have stolen more attacks than Marisa. With Zorochi being removed from use to be re-tooled, the most blatant use of this is fixed.
  • Arachnos' electric web whips, now a signature move of his, were first introduced the day after the player watched Iron Man 2.
  • Falcon Punch copies have been used by too many people, too many times to count.
  • During one of his attempts to find some peace and quiet in space, Scarlet Devil Mansion has once been attacked by a meteor monster who was an obvious shout-out to Sinistar. Piling Shout-Out on Shout-Out, he then proceeded to use a Shoop da Whoop to destroy it.
  • Muska Nikolaus is a Shout-Out to Colonel Muska in both name and design, although they aren't necessarily the same character.
  • Cirno is known to have a recurring nightmare which is essentially the chorus scene from IOSYS' "Cirno's Perfect Math Class". BAKA, BAKA! BAKA, BAKA! BAKA,BAKA!
  • Achi Cirno was canon... for a few posts, while Cirno was wielding Zephita.
  • Desmond gives an accidental shoutout to Doujinstyle member BNelsey, who sometimes likes to say RumiAAAAAAAAaaaa when he talks about her or posts pictures of her.
  • Ely's transformation is clearly heavily influenced by Sayaka's transformation into a witch.
    • On that note, Alternate Rumia's sword (now in Laia's possession) is named Decretum.
  • Albeit not a villain, alternate Mystia heavily references Lord Shen. She has a dress decorated with white and red peacock feathers, she uses throwing knives exactly like his, and she's not very fair in battle.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Desmond goes too far in his Evil Gloating and hurts Laia's emotions, Cirno decides she's had just about enough of his crap.
• Sinister Scythe: a age-long favorite here, wielded by many, including Kanako, Laia, and even Cirno.
• Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness: Still quite varied here despite the wide selection, from Noble Demon Desmond to Psycho for Hire Animus (pre-Heel–Face Turn) to complete monsters like Smooth, for instance. Though, with the possible exception of Agensuto, no one qualifies under Hero Antagonist.
• Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness: There are no villains that fit into the None category, barring someone making such a villain for the lolz. In any case, most villains fare from Credible to High.
• Sliding Scale of Villain Threat: Villains run almost the entire gauntlet here, and are much more spread out. Due to the power level of the forum, though, they tend to gravitate toward Planetary and above.
  • personal: Desmond to Cirno and Laia
  • City: Desmond at the height of his power (but strives to release EX-Rumia, below)
  • State/province: Sono?
  • National: Hellgate, usually
  • Global: EX-Rumia
  • Multi-planetary: Bergle
  • Universal: Mr. Hood
• Smart People Play Chess: Kanako (both roleplayer and character), and Shadow.
  • Oddly enough, not SDM (the roleplayer).
• Soul Power: Nobuharu is supposed to have this, though it's not really used that much (partially because Kanako doesn't know how exactly he wants to use it).
• Spanner in the Works: Jonathan to Desmond.
• Spider-Sense: while lots of characters can sometimes display an impressive ability to get away from anger they could not have seen coming, Arachnos, fittingly enough, explicitely has spider sense. Explained away by his status as protector of Gensokyo and link to the entire realm which allows him to see coming things he normally shouldn't.
• Stalker with a Crush: Ex-Queen of Hearts on Ken.
• Status Quo Is God: To an extent. Things CAN and DO change in Gensokyo. However, there are two firm rules. No canon Gensokyan characters can be killed, and no canon Gensokyan places can be destroyed.
• Storming the Castle: The Invasion of Icecrown.
  • Before that, Cirno and Laia's invasion of the castle of the Queen of Hearts.
• Superpowered Evil Side: EX Rumia is part of Shifting Worlds' lore. And she is powerful.
  • Also, Omnicidal Maniac Anarchos to Arachnos.
  • Speaking of Arachnos, he's also got a side that is not exactly evil, but more of a Knight Templar (such as attempting to slaughter possessed youkai instead of purging them, and cruelly punishing Cirno and turning her into his puppet for unadvertantly helping an evildoer. And then there's insane(?) Arachnos, which is what happens when Arachnos meets up with an Eldritch Abomination, and who is less evil and more of a Troll.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: The Clockwork Tailor, whose function is ostensibly to sew dresses and cut gems for the Queen of Hearts (and now for Cirno and Laia), comes equipped with an arsenal of bullets, rockets, lasers, poison needles, and that's not even getting into his symbiotic hat youkai that belches blasts of pure energy. The Eye Beams are justified as jewel-cutting lasers that also happen to be useful in battle, the rest... not so much. Then again, it was created by the Queen of Hearts...
• Super Serum: Super Catalyser
• Take That!: Patchouli calling Kanako Imrah a "resident freeloader," though it's kinda stretching it.
  • At some point Flandre beats a certain sparkly vampire in a contest.
• Taking You with Me: Happens occasionally, like with Desmond's suicidal blood explosion.
  • Sono Ruina's Overguard in the battle against Ian.
  • If Shadow Ryusaki loses all of his lives, a ritual is started which, if left uninterrupted, takes both his own world and the world he died on down with him (by summoning an apparition in the skies that cleaves the planet in halves).
• Telescoping Robot: probably more robots than not. The Mad Tailor is particularly notable.
• The Beastmaster: Desmond is Type II and TECHNICALLY type IV, though he can create monsters that are straight examples of Type IV.
• The Cake Is a Lie: In a rare heroic example with a subversion on top of it, Ken suggests to Cirno (via a message written in the sky) that "the key to ultimate power is freeing the immortal Animus from the Queen of Hearts' castle". The message is more of a joke than anything, Ken does not really expect Cirno to topple the Queen of Hearts (though he might have been hoping for her help upon coming to raid the castle himself) and obviously, he has absolutely no intention nor ability to offer Cirno ultimate power. Of course, Cirno and Laia take it at face value. The subversion comes from the fact that there IS a reward for Cirno and Laia at the end of the endeavor, albeit one entirely unintended by Ken. Albeit not quite ultimate power, it comes fairly close: the fairy and the youkai seize the territory after the Queen's death, ending up in control of a small army of youkai and machines, incredibly advanced technology and riches beyond their wildest dreams.
  • Sono Ruina plays this absolutely straight, though, when she suggests Cirno and Laia that creating the powerful Jewels of Existance would turn all three of them into Goddesses. Technically she's not lying, but only if you consider getting absorbed into the body a wicked Goddess and being doomed to eternal suffering as achieving godhood. The only one who DOES achieve godhood from the ritual is, you guessed it, Ruina herself.
• The Dragon: Here's a list:
  • Solomon to the Hooded Man.
  • Jonathan to Kanako Imrah.
  • Animus to Desmond before the latter's death. The Jabberwock seems to be replacing Animus now that he's been revived.
• The Man Behind the Man: Mr. Hood/The Hooded Man.
• The Professor: Shadow Ryusaki.
• The Unpronouncable: Miles, the talking, dancing transportation mimic in Alta Marea has a real name that is so hard to pronounce that the RP master didn't even bother trying to write it down.
• The Voiceless: Martel, though she chooses to be mute. Kanako also has a truly mute character, complete with missing tongue.
• There Is No Kill L Ike Overkill: Flandre unleashes hell on Yami in her Big Damn Heroes Moment in Crossroads 2, saving Aurion, Yami, Erle, AND Kanako from Yami, as well as rendering Yami's form to nothing but explosions, and then exploding the explosions.
• Time Master: Kizeki, Martel, and Mia Starlight to a lesser degree.
  • Thebis'ra, now cleansed of the Lich King's influence and tentatively renamed Achronos.
• Time Stands Still: Kizeki, as Goddess of Time, can use it but usually doesn't. She's powerful enough without it, though. Thebis'Ra, zombie Arachnos, had this as main power, along with more dodgy tricks like rewinding time or forwarding it (in a zone or for one person), distorting time, distorting one's PERCEPTION of time and so on.
  • Mia Starlight shows a lesser version of this. While she can't actually make people literally stop or move at a crawl, she can noticably slow down someone's movement or speed it up.
  • Aurion's actually capable of doing this, but only for a short while, and rarely even does so.
• Took a Level in Badass (or several): Cirno and Laia after taking the Queen of Hearts' Super Serum.
  • They have since then taken yet MORE levels in badass by learning to use level 3 of their respective elements and obtaining a pair of powerful artifacts.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: after having become Queen, Cirno makes up a rather long series of grandiose titles for herself. It should be noted that Cirno is usually relatively casual as far as Queens go, so the only occasions she uses those are when she is very deliberately hammering her overwhelming superiority into someone's face (always someone she doesn't like).

• Turns Red: Piss Arachnos off enough, and you won't live to ever do it again◊.
• Unexplained Recovery: Desmond, primarily because there hasn't been any explanation as to WHY or HOW he was revived.

• Villainous Breakdown: Desmond at the end of his arc.
• Voluntary Shapeshifter: Shadow Ryusaki (from human to fox and cat forms), Arachnos (human and spider forms), the Echo.
  • Eclair can transform into a large, panther-like black cat. Tezcatlipoca can shapeshift into a jaguar.
  • Desmond can take the shape of a wolf.
• What Could Have Been: Kanako Imrah and Jonathan's power levels if they weren't artificially raised because of Hellgate. And for that matter, Kizeki if (s)he had not been forced to resort to his/her full power by Arachnos.
  • For an RP example, what the "Help Yourself Take Over tMS Victory Thread" could have been.
  • For an example in Another World in Gensokyo, Kanako claims that Desmond would've pulled off being a pretty good manipulator in the Aborted Makai arc had he had the time to pull it off.
  • Another example is SDM's Vessel arcs.
• What the Hell, Hero?: happens occasionally, especially when Arachnos snaps.
• Who's Laughing Now?: Cirno loves to pull this on everyone who called her an idiot.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: During the first moments of Dark Knight Saphir's life, he got beat up by foxes. Foxes, in Mabinogi, are one of the weakest monsters you can find, at least in the Uladh continent. In fact, the only species of monsters weaker than the fox is the raccoon. Anyway, this event traumatized DK Saphir, leading to his fear of foxes. And then he enters Foxz Guild. You can guess how well that trip went.... Of course, he overcame it eventually.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Not exactly a Wide Open Sandbox, but The Arena has no plot whatsoever, and Foxz Guild has some but is not part of the Shifting Worlds canon. Both of those are intended mainly to test things out without worrying about repercussions on canon.
  • Tower of Tribulations fits even better.
• Winter Royal Lady: Cirno, post-"coronation".
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Ian (or anyone, really) upon receiving Zephita.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: how Cirno and Laia take over the kingdom of Hearts, even though technically it's Desmond and Animus who killed the Queen. With her dead, none of the youkai seem to object to having new rulers who don't abuse them unnecessarily.

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