The Sky Tides

"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."

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 out of whole cloth by the mod team. Either way, the players are kept on their toes and highly entertained.

Tropes used in The Sky Tides include:
  • Abandoned Hospital: There's one in Antrim.
  • 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.
  • Above the Ruins: The Convoy overlooked the place that the Hegua Lake area used to be from the air after they arrived too late.
  • 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 / Clean Cut / Implausible Fencing Powers: 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.
  • Ace Pilot: Gearship Motors Plane Races, anyone?
  • Action Dress Rip: Every other Action Girl in the game has done it at some point.
  • Actor Allusion: Lots of jokes about this will sneak in. For example, Nena Trinity using the alias Rie Kugimiya and Sara Werec using the alias Ayako Kawasumi, Hijikata Toshirou and Date Masamune having a rivalry, Leo assisting with cooking contests...
    • Hijikata Toshirou also loses an eye at the end of the game, now joining the ranks of the other one-eyed swordsmen.
    • In the same vein, mun allusions. Joshua once mentions "ninja octopi" in jest, referencing Ten's AIM username; at the time, the game's AIM chat was still very much active.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Really inevitable for a lot of characters, though the opposite happens just as often for characters from grimdark canons.
  • Adults Are Useless: Consciously averted here.
  • Adventure Towns
  • Adventure-Friendly World
  • Aerith and Bob: A given from its panfandom nature. It happens with the NPCs as well, though the majority fall on the realistic side.
  • All Deserts Have Cacti: Played with -- the Badlands don't have too many cacti, but they do have cactuars.
  • All Gays Are Promiscuous: Inverted, actually, since most of the promiscuous characters are straight and a lot of the gay characters border on Single-Target Sexuality.
  • All Nations Are Superpowers: Averted with Erealia, Kropmork and Nahk.
  • All Work vs. All Play: The military ships especially had these contrasts all over the place.
  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Given that the ships serve as the home bases of the crew, this has happened a significant number of times.
  • Allergic to Routine: Gintoki, often to the aggravation of his crew.
  • Aloof Big Brother: Red has this covered. Poor Ness.
  • Already Done for You: Hey, Serenity, you only have to save one guy. The Convoy did the rest already! Well... most of it.
  • Already Met Everyone: With the amount of relatives, childhood friends, and former shipmates in the game (and new relations forged all the time), it often turns out like this.
  • Alternate Universe: It's an AU, yes, but it also has tons of different AUs of itself. Some of the most prominent include an After the End Crapsack World (which now has its own AU community cutting ties with the original game), a Persona 4-based AU, and numerous "what ifs" for various characters.
  • 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 still haven't -- 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.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: Multiple. (Although few of them are female, and most of them don't want to end the world anyway.)
  • 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 Asskicking 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.
  • 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.
  • The Atoner: Nena freakin' Trinity. What's more, she does it well.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Badass Crew: There's always one ship that gets nicknamed The Shonen Ship because it's a magnet for shonen heroes and other badasses. Of course, don't underestimate those other ships, either...
  • Badass Family: What, you want to count the examples? We'd be here all day.
  • 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.
  • Baka: Okay, there's no Gratuitous Japanese, but with how often "idiot" is thrown around...
  • Balance of Power: The bad guys' objective is to send it out of whack to start a war.
  • Band of Brothels: The Seamstresses' Guild, one of many elements of the setting ported from Discworld because the initial mod team liked the series.
  • Band of Brothers: Most crews end up turning into these eventually.
  • The Barnum: Low Key, naturally, and he enjoys every minute of it.
  • Barrier-Busting Blow: Milk and Jean do this to a boulder during the Tulgim cave-in.
  • Bathtub Bonding: Bound to happen more than once per trip to the Licere hot springs.
  • 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.
  • Bawdy Song: Some of the performers in Mamma's burlesque show sang these onstage.
  • Bear Hug: Isshin knows no restraint.
  • Beard of Evil: Joseph Falls, maybe. Depending on your point of view.
  • 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.
  • Belly of the Whale: The 4423 being blamed for the poisoning of Doma.
  • Better Living Through Evil: Most of the villains who aren't lab rats got their jobs this way.
  • Bi the Way: "That's why I like peanut butter cups. Makes things easier." Best statement ever, Souji.
  • 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.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: Giant mechanical spiders.
  • Big Damn Heroes: A late plot is officially named such.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: Here it is.
  • 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!"
  • Born Lucky: Beat. It's an actual power for him in TST-verse, despite only being alluded to in canon.
  • Boy Meets Ghoul: Phoenix and Susan.
  • Bratty Teenage Daughter: Huang Rong is basically this at heart.
  • 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.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Lost your arm, in some cases. Or your eye.
  • Broken Bird: Some of the characters have this going on. Anthy in particular stands as one, much like in canon.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Ichigo, before canon did it.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Bradley's mun-given title is "Captain Bunny Ears".
  • The Bus Came Back: Destined to happen whenever characters are re-apped by their previous muns.
  • But I Can't Be Pregnant: Anko had a pregnancy scare early on, though it turned out she was safe.
  • Butt Monkey: Some of these characters have nothing go right. Ever.
    • Leo deserves a special mention. During a plot with Standard 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.
  • Captain's Log
  • Captured Super Entity: Mew, briefly.
  • 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.
  • Cast Herd: Divided both by canon and by ship.
  • Cast Speciation
  • Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: L, when he was trying to keep Vash from leaving the Way.
  • The Centerpiece Spectacular: All three Lunasa events count to some degree. (The Gearship Motors Place Race is commonly counted as the 2009 Lunasa event, despite taking place before Lunasa.)
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Beginning with the Kropmork assassinations.
  • Character Blog: The journal network, naturally.
  • Character Development: This is the game where, while everyone starts as their canon selves, Joshua Kiryuu becomes a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Nena Trinity becomes The Atoner, Watanuki Kimihiro doesn't spiral into a self-hating mess, and Hijikata Toshirou learns to care for other people again without the Reset Button coming into play. Guess what? It works.
  • Chased by Angry Natives: Ocelot's cover story when he boarded the Way in Kagatau.
  • A Chat with Satan: The Evil Counterpart variety especially.
  • Chef of Iron: Jean, and, to an extent, Shinjiro.
  • 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.
  • The Chosen Many: How Ichigo discovering the Vizards was played out.
  • Christmas Episode: Every Lunasa features a big, plot-relevant meet-up of all the ships currently in the game. (2009 was the exception, as the meetup actually occurred before Lunasa.)
  • 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.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Quite a few, but considering Optimus is in it...
  • The City Narrows: Don't go anywhere alone in Kropmork.
  • 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.
  • Code Name: 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 -- 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.
  • Conspicuous Consumption: Caulcher's "precious cargo". He has a golden goose.
  • Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Half of them true.
  • 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 Lock Out: The mods avoid this by mentioning previous in-game events in mod posts: for example, every info post about Lunasa includes basic information on the holiday, and every one after the first tells new players the story of the Lunasa Bombings.
  • 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.
  • Cool Plane: Some of them.
  • Cosmic Deadline: Though it did get pushed back when the plot wasn't moving as quickly as expected.
  • Costume Copycat: Milk becomes convinced that Utena is this for her, despite evidence to the contrary. She finally finds out otherwise after confronting Utena on Amicus.
  • 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.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: Stealing the Firetruck.
  • Crossover Cosmology: "Season three" brought numerous gods and demons, not only from different pantheons but from different canons that treated such characters differently.
  • Crossover Punchline: Occasionally used with references to nonpresent canonmates.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Jean Morris, thrown into the engine.
  • Crush! Kill! Destroy!: The Prime-copy that Serenity had to transport, once it woke up prematurely.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: Luffy constantly called Ocelot by his codename rather than "Nikolai", despite not actually knowing his Secret Identity and having come up with the "nickname" by sheer coincidence. Almost the same thing happened with Isaac, except he called Kaoru "Wind Girl", not "Windy".
  • Cult Colony: The candy cultists.
  • 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 Battle: Grita VS Way, Round One.
  • Curb Stomp Cushion: But at least they got their engine fixed by the town that had been holding them hostage there.
  • Curiosity Causes Conversion: Happening to Kaoru, slowly. She likes beds.
  • Cycle of Revenge: Between the Victoria II and the 4423, back when both ships were still in the game.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The manner in which Sam killed Low Key, with the unfortunate side effect of driving Sam irreparably insane.
  • Dare to Be Badass: A number of these were given out in the game's ending plot.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Pick a character from the list. Chances are, that character most likely has some sort of tragic backstory going on behind him or her.
  • Darker and Edgier: The original incarnation of The Sky Tides. Cannibals were part of the crew.
  • 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.
  • Dead Serious: Hughes, until his death was suddenly undone.
  • Deadly Gas / Psycho Serum: 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. Actually referenced by name in one of the profile image gags.
  • Deep-Cover Agent: Many of the best villains.
  • Demihuman: The targets of Fantastic Racism, and making up a good portion of the cast.
  • Demoted To NPC: 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.
  • Desert Island: Kagatau.
  • Designated Girl Fight: Very strongly averted. In fact, it's hard to think of any event where all (or even most) of the female enemies were given to female PCs as opponents.
  • Determinator: Many characters don't have the guts to ever back down. Overlaps most frequently with those with a Dark and Troubled Past.
  • Deus Exit Machina: Look how many times Ichigo was written out and sent away from his friends.
  • Devil in Plain Sight: Ships will hire just about anyone, unless there's a really strong reason why they shouldn't or couldn't.
  • Dirty Communists: Redbeard (whose hair isn't actually red) and his followers.
  • Distant Duet: Done by Ness and Joshua over the journal network.
  • Distress Call: The lure that brought the Convoy to Antrim.
  • The Doll Episode: The Puppetmaster plot, imported from Trigun.
  • Doomed Hometown: Hope you didn't live in the southwestern corner of the continent.
  • Doting Parent: None of them are ever appreciated.
  • Double Consciousness: Usually on either national or racial lines.
  • Dragged Into Drag: Poor, poor Adachi.
  • 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.
  • Dramatic Wind: Surprising that it hasn't brought any Title Drops.
  • Dropped a Bridget On Him: Okita Souji is often mistaken for female. Revealing that he's a guy shocks people every time.
  • Dual-Wielding: Mostly ones from canon, though a few have decided to pick it up in-game.
  • 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.
  • Duet Bonding: How Ness and Joshua became friends and eventually got together.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Some of the finale deaths, though a lot of the battles happened offscreen.
  • Dysfunction Junction: Pick a ship. Any ship.
  • 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.

Despite that notice at the door that clearly read "CHECK ALL WEAPONS BEFORE ENTRY", weapons were brandished all around the gambling parlor: pistols and revolvers, swords, knives, three staves, a hammer, a chakram, a slingshot, and a violin. The bartender grabbed the heaviest bottle of wine and leapt straight over the counter. And one of the few people who actually came unarmed grabbed that same chair that Jean had just kicked over.

  • Expanded Universe: In the hypothetical alternate universe where TST is a real show (inspired by another game's Let's Play posts with the same premise), the series has tons of EU. Much of the most interesting stuff is All There in the Manual.
  • Experimental Archeology: The Way searching for (and finding) Candy Mountain.
  • Eye Scream: Again, Manfred von Karma getting shrapnel to the eye during the Lunasa bombings.
  • Eyepatch After Time Skip: Averted, which is pretty surprising considering the number of people with them; either they always had one or lost the eye onscreen.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Aside from the canon ones, there's also Manfred von Karma as of the Lunasa bombings.
  • Face Heel Turn: If you need something to do on a rainy afternoon, make a chart comparing who left their home nation and who actually stayed.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Jean Morris (thrown into the engine), Hughes (death by Razor Floss, then hung from the mast)
  • Fan Nickname: Too many to list...
    • Ships: Ammy (Amestris), AmTetris (same), Firetruck (Fiertia), Seren (Serenity), Silvy (Silvana), Vicky (Victoria II)
    • Player Characters: Moose (Beat), Rou (Hijikata Toshirou), Tsunicorn (Leo), vK (Manfred von Karma), von Karmasaurus Perfex (same), Watanoodle (Watanuki Kimihiro), Zou (Hijikata Toshizou)
    • NPCs: There's a whole series of mooks who have received names. It started with Guard-kun and moved to his compatriots: Mage-kun, Servant-kun...
    • Pairings (game-canon and not): Lungshipping (Toshizou/Souji), Proxyshipping (Neku/Roxas), Team Yuribait (Nena/Sara)
    • Places: Crapmork (Kropmork), Kinkston (one-off town Jinkston), Silent Antrim (Antrim, naturally, though it's also the official name for the plot that took place in Antrim)
  • Fan Service with a Smile: Haruhi's proposed uniform for the Gunsmoke waitresses. She manages to get it instated in a non-canon Kink Meme story.
  • Fantastic Racism: Anti-demihuman prejudice, a source of angst for about half the cast.
    • Fantastic Slurs: They exist, though we've only really heard one or two of them.
  • Fear of Thunder: Canon for Rikku, and replacing Edgeworth's fear of earthquakes in a world where they don't exist.
  • Fed to the Beast: Anyone who's ever gone under the cloud cover on an expedition to discover what's down there.
  • Fetish Fuel Station Attendant: Chat has, from time to time, named characters such as Jean and Minato as these. Then it was joked that Milk is one, despite being treated in-story as anything from unfortunately disadvantaged to (more common in memes and sex dice) completely undesirable.
  • Fictional Currency: Francs and dubloons.
  • Fictional Holiday: Though most of them are of the You Mean "Xmas" variety, smaller, rarer, or more localized ones like the Hanami festival are completely made up by the muns.
  • Fight Magnet: Ichigo even lampshades it a few times, and we know how oblivious he is.
  • Filler Villain: The Dread Pirate Magentabeard.
  • Final Battle: Broken up into multiple simultaneous battles to suit the needs of Loads and Loads of Characters.
  • Five-Man Band: Chances are that there's one forming somewhere, if they haven't existed yet.
  • Floating Continent: The mainland of Reial and the floating islands around it.
  • 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.
  • Flying Seafood Special: And pretty much every other kind of flying animal you can think of.
  • Flynning: Usually averted, though it sometimes shows up when characters are just sparring rather than trying to kill each other.
  • Fog of Doom: Aside from the canon examples ported from Persona 4, there's also Antrim.
  • For Massive Damage: The ships get beat up and in need of repairs fairly regularly. Usually, the worst damage is suffered thanks to reckless members of the crew. For example, Erza once tore off an entire deck of the Fiertia, and Hexadecimal demolished all the cabins of the Convoy...
  • 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.
  • Forceful Kiss: Linked above, 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.
  • 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.
  • Freudian 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
  • Friend to All Children: A notable number of characters. For example, there's Ukitake and, debatably, Souji.
  • Friendship Moment: Often with a side of Ho Yay.
  • 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.
  • Fundamentally Funny Fruit: Durians.
  • Funny Background Event: Watch those NPCs.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Ghost Town: Antrim... and, nowadays, Doma.
  • Gingerbread House: Mars McKuu, the mage creator of Candy Mountain, has a gingerbread castle.
  • The GM Is a Cheating Bastard: And we love you for it, mods.
  • GMPC: Used to great effect, and we don't just mean the mods' actual player characters.
  • Go Back to the Source: Happens a lot, whether characters are brought home by chance or take temporary leave from their ships. For example, Nena's My God, What Have I Done? moment leading to her Heel Face Turn came when she left the Silvana and came upon a town she and her brothers had destroyed.
  • Go for the Eye: Gaara's tactic during the Jormungandr fight.
  • Go Mad From the Isolation: Mars McKuu of Candy Mountain is either this, or he was already insane to begin with.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Dam VS Low Key, Ichigo VS Bradley.
  • 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.
  • Going to See the Elephant: The reason that half of the characters joined their initial ships.
  • Good Guy Bar: Gunsmoke, when the Way was operational.
  • Got Volunteered: A perfectly acceptable and normal way to handwave characters' presence in dangerous operations.
  • Grand Finale: Lasting three months.
  • Grand Theft Me: Optimus Prime's body is stolen in a consciousness transfer.
  • Great Escape: The crew of the Fiertia pulled one after their captain got arrested and imprisoned.
  • Green Rocks / Unobtainium: Mana crystals.
  • Grudging Thank You: Does Ichigo just collect these? He gives them out on occasion, too.
  • 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.
  • Hair Colors: Huang Rong, coming from an area where hair and eyes are always brown or black, assumes that anyone with an IRL-impossible hair colour is a demihuman. Poor Ichigo.
  • 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.
  • Harmful to Minors: Averted. Games of sex dice and memes like the Love Potion Meme usually have the players consciously keeping characters under sixteen out of them. The age-listing rule has since locked muns under eighteen out of those same things.
  • 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.
  • Heroes Gone Fishing: Nearly every plot starts out as this, and though most turn into Busman's Holidays, some don't.
  • Heroic BSOD: And how.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Constant OOC remarks were made about Optimus Prime's tendency for these ever since the mun first announced her intention to app him. These are fulfilled when he stays behind to keep Bradley busy.
  • Heroic Second Wind: Sora when he got his Keyblade, and various other characters in their own fight scenes throughout the game.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Sara and Nena, who are said to be practically married without the actual relationship.
  • Hold Your Hippogriffs: Not too many, but they pop out from time to time. Notable examples are:
    • 'When pigs rappigs fly'
    • 'For heaven's/pete's Erealia's sake'
    • ' When the world stops 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 Amazon: The female population of the Way was half this.
  • Hot Dad: More like hot old men, but you get the message.
  • Hot Springs Episode: Any time a ship is headed to Licere, you know that a Hot Springs Plot is about to start.
  • How Team Fail Stole Lunasa... and Amicus, too, just for good measure
  • Humanity Ensues: When the Convoy was stolen, Optimus Prime had his mind temporarily transferred to a human (or at least humanoid) body.
  • I Have No Son: Taking a minor character's backstory for lack of his own canon one, Hijikata Toshirou was disowned by his family.
  • I Never...: Joshua was introduced starting up a game of this in a bar. It's reoccurred since then as a meme.
  • I Want Grandkids: Isshin, just a tip: you're never going to get them if this keeps up. Although it's been suggested on and off that this is his entire plan.
  • 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...
  • If It's You It's Okay: Ichigo/Watanuki, nearly verbatim.
  • IKEA Erotica: Joshua has apparently never tried to write good porn.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Hisoka calls out the Dark Fall science team and their guards on this.
  • Impressive Pyrotechnics: Rikku's various makeshift bombs.
  • Improbable Food Budget: Averted quite a bit, especially since the chefs can only buy food supplies when the ships are docked.
  • 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!

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...
  • Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Implied with Holly.
  • Perfect Health: Either you never get so much as a cold or you're dying from TB.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Numerous underground experiments have been trying to create them, usually from abandoned children. Sometimes, this has succeeded.
  • Personal Effects Reveal: Cruelly twisted when Gin kills Jean Morris and anonymously auctions off his stuff.
  • Pettanko: 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.
  • 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.
  • Pirate Booty
  • Pirate Girl: Isako and much of her crew.
  • 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.
  • Plucky Middie: Pick any cabin boy/girl, except perhaps Kaoru.
  • 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 Crystal: Mana crystals are often used this way.
  • The Power of Acting: Surprisingly averted. Though the Way was the first Shounen Ship, it got that way because much of its crew just happened to know how to fight, this having nothing to do with their main business.
  • The Power of Friendship
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Racist Grandma: NPC Dear Lorena.
  • Random Events Plot: At first.
  • Razor Floss: The Weapon of Choice of Diego, one of Grita's followers.
  • Really Gets Around: If the character's not an incredibly awkward Chaste Hero (or a reluctant one), odds are they're this.
  • Really Seven Hundred 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.
  • Refuge in Vulgarity: Hiruma lives on this.
  • 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.
  • Resignations Not Accepted: Highly implied with Denouement, and made outright canon in the conversations Hiruma leaks to the world.
  • 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".
  • 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.
  • The Rival: Looking right at you here, Green. Of course, there are other characters who have this going on as well.
  • Romance on the Set: An inordinate amount of players are in relationships with one another.
  • Romantic Runner-Up: Poor Hana. He did finally end up with Haruhi, though.
  • 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.
  • Salvage Pirates: Magentabeard attacked the Way while they were down in the middle of the Badlands.
  • Save the Princess: Lots of quests are like this, one involving an actual prince.
  • Saving Christmas: Those Two Bad Guys 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.
    • Antrim had shades of this, too, but it's Antrim.
  • 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.
  • Shaggy Dog Story: The search for the Golden Fleece, which was set up as a decoy for the Grita plot.
  • 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 on the "Shock" side, but he really does love Ness, and he slowly comes to terms with this fact.
  • Shonen Upgrade: There are a lot of these, including a plot designed to give a whole group of characters the opportunity to do this.
  • Shotgun Wedding: Vash tried to force one between Hana and Haruhi after he heard Illya teasing the two and took it seriously. It was glorious.
  • 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.
  • Showgirl Skirt: Not as common as other wardrobe pieces, but Mamma did host a burlesque show once.
  • 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 thye're stated to have been partners. 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).
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Ness and Red, Rou and Roy, Reno and Axel to a point.
  • Signature Move/Signature Spell: Most of them are ported from canon.
  • Significant Birth Date: 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").
  • Sissy Villain: Holly, half of Team Fail.
  • The Sky Is an Ocean: The basis of the game.
  • Sky Pirate: Obviously.
  • 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: Look at Ness attaching onto Joshua in his sleep and tell me that isn't adorable. Or, for that matter, Joshua attaching onto Ness.
  • Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: The game jumps this way and that across the scale, never settling into one place.
  • Slobs Versus Snobs: Vohemar and Ivona.
  • Small Town Boredom: Yosuke's backstory.
  • Snowball Fight: In August.
  • Sole Survivor: Ichigo for the Amadeus, except...
  • 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.
  • Something Completely Different: That one plot where the Winding Way went to Candy Mountain.
  • Son of a Whore: A common backstory trait for people from Kropmork. Reno and Axel, Luffy, Shinjiro...
  • 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...
  • Space Whale: Sky Whales.
  • 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 for not caring enough about his life.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Minato. He got chewed out by Souji for even thinking of letting himself die, too.
  • 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.
  • Split Personality: Hexadecimal, so damn much, as in canon.
  • Spot the Imposter: The crew of the Way had to do this during the Puppetmaster plot.
  • Spy-Versus-Spy: It's going on between Ivona and Vohemar, but it's rarely brought into play (save for Ocelot doing what he does best).
  • Stealth Pun: The market's name? Boston.
  • Steampunk: Right in the description.
  • Stock Underwear: Panties seem to exist alongside drawers in anachronistic harmony.
  • Storming the Castle: Literally with Caer Estrella.
  • Story-Boarding the Apocalypse: Developments up to and especially including Hiruma's hacking the supercomputer.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Not the most common way that things are destroyed -- that would be "crumbling apart and falling into the abyss" -- but what happened to the Ivonian Parliament fits.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: Most notably, Jean. She's not a magic user in the strictest sense, but through training she's learned how to inflict Standard Status Effects through a type of Magic Dance, and how to use Ki Attacks like Hadouken.
  • Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Watanuki, as in canon, and you can bet that it's a very big problem for him and everyone else around him.
  • Supreme Chef: The cooks usually tend towards this. When they're not, they're Lethal Chefs.
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: Hi, Ness. Hi, Joshua.
  • 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.
  • Tangled Family Tree: When Everyone Is Related, this is what you get...
  • Taught By Radio: Milk modelled the Milky Rose persona off Steel Samurai and related shows.
  • Teasing Mod Team
  • Terrible Trio: Well, terrible duo in this case.
  • Theme Music Power-Up: Assumed and sometimes actually invoked when muns link music in logs.
  • 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.
  • There Are No Therapists: Or psych evaluations, for that matter. Just look at those crew lists.
  • They Walk Among Us
  • 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.
  • Three Amigos: Ichigo/Watanuki/Rikku.
  • 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.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Serenity has a number of them: Hiruma, their portion of the Girl Genius cast, and, to a lesser extent, the actual villains hanging around.
  • Token Good Teammate: The 4423, on the other hand, often had too many of these.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Many characters due to Character Development, but the most notable example would be Pip Bernadette, who started out as very much a mercenary-type to spy on the captain of the 4423 and ended up being the somewhat heroic (with cases of Deadpan Snarker/Only Sane Man due to the crew) First Mate to Optimus Prime himself onboard the Convoy.
  • Toyless Toyline Character: In the alternate reality explored by the "Fanwriter-tan's Anime Blog" feature, Rou, despite all his screentime, has very little merchandise.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Besides all the canon ones, Manfred von Karma seems to have a thing for BLTs. Perfect BLTs, that is.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: One of the muns wrote a season three trailer during the hiatus. It spoils the nature of Bradley's eye, which is not only a spoiler in the character's own canon but took an entire year after the trailer's writing to be brought to the front in-story.
    • Never Trust a Trailer: That obviously-evil flying monster in the trailer is most likely not going to feature in the finale, though. We got something else instead.
    • Missing Trailer Scene: Obviously, especially with the inclusion of a since-dropped character in endgame scenes.
  • Troll: Joshua, Isshin, Hiruma, and to a lesser extent, Nena all enjoy trolling the network.
  • Troubled Backstory Flashback: They're a very common log type, and some characters just seem to collect them.
  • Trust Password: Millie banks on the real Edgeworth forgetting the thing only he would know.
  • Tsundere: There are just so, so many. Also see Kuudere, Yandere, and just about all the other deres.
  • Turbine Blender: Poor, poor Jean Morris. It's threatened again in Low Key's interrogation, but he manages to get away -- though not without panicking.
  • 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.
  • Twisted Christmas: The Lunasa bombings.
  • 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.
  • Two Lines, No Waiting: At least a few lines per ship.
  • Tyke Bomb: Half the villains.
  • Under the Mistletoe: Well, in this setting, it's blackberries.
  • Underestimating Badassery: Grita really had no idea she would be up against when she had her minions kidnap members of the Winding Way.
  • Unflappable Guardian: Hughes was one to the Way, his own personal weirdness aside.
  • Unfortunate Names: Ram-Dass will never not be funny.
  • 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?
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: Quite averted. When Hex trashed the Convoy, many of its inhabitants either had only the clothes they were wearing at the time or had to salvage only a few pieces.
  • Unusual Euphemism: As told by one Seta Souji to explain the Everyone Is Bi situation - 'peanut butter cups'.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Gin had plenty, and his successors have gathered their own. Technically, the entire crew of the Ammy is composed of Bradley's.
  • 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.
  • Vacation Episode: It's never plot in Licere. Except when it is.
  • 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.
  • Vetinari Job Security: Whenever Vash was put in charge of the Way, everything went terribly and hilariously wrong.
  • Vice City: Kropmork.
  • Video Game Caring Potential/Video Game Cruelty Potential: Often, the playerbase's actions decided whether certain NPCs lived or died.
  • Viewers Are Geniuses: A lot of the worldbuilding involves obscure references from ancient cultures.
  • Violence Is the Only Option: Averted in some cases, especially in the case of the Convoy during the Sparklepire plot.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Watanuki and Ichigo.
  • Waif Fu: Half of the small, young (or young-looking) girls in the game are capable of punching out full-grown soldiers.
  • Walk the Plank: Frequently threatened by Isako.
  • Walking the Earth: Some characters ended up spending the hiatus doing this.
  • 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.
  • Weapon of Choice: So common that one of the ships now even has a "Weapon Master" position, and those who hold it divide their work up.
  • 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.
  • Wham! Episode: Too, too many.
    • The Kropmork assassinations.
    • The Lunasa bombings.
    • The poisoning of Doma, at least for the canonblind. To the canon-familiar players' credit, they all kept their mouths shut.
    • The blaming of Joseph Falls for the President's death, which rocketed Wilsborough up past Dear Lorena to Most Hated NPC.
    • The decommissioning of all five ships, though there was warning given.
    • The theft of the Convoy.
    • Probably the most shocking: HOLY CRAP ICHIWATA IS GAME CANON NOW!?.
    • The Reveal that Edgeworth was attacked and left for dead and that any time we've seen him after he was Put on a Bus was actually Envy.
    • The Hegua Lake explosion actually going off. And after that, the endgame plot was a long series of these.
  • 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."
    • "President Tolsade is dead. I repeat, the President is dead."
    • "I've got my own agenda, and you don't fit that agenda. Joseph Falls and the Badlands, however, fit that agenda juuuuust right."
  • What Could Have Been: Apparently, the currently-slated ending isn't the original one, though the mods are tight-lipped on what the original ending was.
    • Early in the hiatus, a meme went up where players discussed who they planned to app. About half of these plans were not kept. Imagine Saber, Celty, or Naveen in TST...
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The expensive vase that the Way had to drop overboard in the Badlands. Over two years later, its mysterious fate is still brought up on occasion.
    • What happened to the falling islands? (Although that's likely to have been a discarded plot thread that was going to be important after the mods changed the ending plans. That or they were eaten by Jormungandr.)
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: It's a family trait for at least two families. Some of them were born that way, others just went grey ridiculously early.
  • Who Dunnit to Me?: The motive behind Jean Morris' haunting of the Silvana.
  • 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.)
  • Whole-Episode Flashback: Lots.
  • 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 give her Nightmare Fuel, Anko thinks the appearance of Jormungandr is awesome.
  • 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.
  • Wicked Witch: NPC villain Grita.
  • The Wiki Rule: The first one was declared an overall flop, so they introduced a new one, found here. Editing is players-only.
  • 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.
  • A Wizard Did It: The justification for the Candy Mountain plot, verbatim.
  • Working with the Ex: With Hana and Ness both doctors, the infirmary of the Way became very awkward.
  • World in the Sky: And they don't know what's beneath the blanket of clouds.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: If you're like this... good luck living.
  • Wrong Guy First: Beat and Penelo, before ending up with each other. Haine and Katsu weren't particularly "wrong", just written out after being dropped from the game, but Beat and Penelo still went through the appropriate angst and moved on to the person who had been there all along.
  • You Are Number Six: Odds are that the first name a Tyke Bomb character can remember is a combination of letters and numbers; for example, Nena was 19A.
  • You Can Keep Her: Beat's plan to fake out the kidnappers of Isako.
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: Kropmork, Doma, the President's death -- and Prince Humperdinck would have likely been killed, too, considering that activity was floundering at the time and the resolution of the plot hung on an OOC time limit.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Besides all the blue- and silver-haired characters imported from various canons, a special mention must be made for the Ensemble Darkhorse NPC Magentabeard, a pirate whose hair was... yeah.
  • You Have No Chance to Survive: Count on at least one enemy saying this per plot-relevant battle-heavy event.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: That poor, poor repentant scientist.
  • 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.
  • You Shall Not Pass: In the end, Optimus dies fighting Bradley so his crew can escape.
  • Young and in Charge: Isako.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Nena and Sara have this going on in almost all their outfits, adapted for the period. One actually did wear more proper Victowardian clothing in the past and discarded it for the disguise, and the other has been forced into it in memes and fanart.
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