Shifting Worlds/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


It's bound to happen eventually. Some people may not agree with others about one's level of genius or power level. Or whether someone deserved a punishment or not. The fact remains that their milage may vary.


  • Non Sequitur Scene: The first appearance of Miles the friendly mimic in Alta Marea definitely fits the bill, with a ridiculous character with no backstory or reason for being where he is, complete with random singing. He is encountered again later on, at which point he receives a backstory and becomes plot-relevant.
  • Chaotic Evil: Animus (pre-Face Heel Turn), Enthropod, The Cheshire Cat, and Horus'Aman are all effectively unrepentatly this, and only their masters/interests give them any shades of Neutral or Lawful.
  • Chaotic Good: Kanako Imrah.
  • Chaotic Neutral: Kagami (she does go to Chaotic Evil more often since it's more fun to be evil), Cirno (when she's not trying to get people to like her), Shadow
  • Complete Monster: several, but notably Hellgate. Oh dear, Hellgate.
    • The General probably counts.
    • A new one, but Smooth from Crossroads 2 definitely counts. He litterally defines himself as one, and doesn't see any problem with annihilating spaceships, cities and castles full of innocent people for the sheer fun of it.
  • Crazy Awesome: Most of what happens.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: There's a plethora of examples, but one of the greatest is when SDM Megaton Punches the Black Spawn, completely crippling its invincibility.
    • It doesn't matter how much you dislike Agensuto for what he nearly did to Flandre; the fact that he was able to punch a hole in Yami's barrier and kick Yami's weapon out of the ground to stop Yami's attack was pretty darn cool.
    • FINALLY getting to beat the ever-loving daylights out of the Black Spawn in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: Not as numerous as the Crowning Moments Of Awesome, but they're there:
    • Aurion going to Arietta's burial ground to see Kanako's gift to him. Arietta forgiving Kanako for what he thinks is abandoning her would also count.
    • Finding Ami's diamond tomb intact through the thousands of years since Kanako made, with the same smile she had when she finally died.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: the members do their best to turn songs from diverse video games and other sources to their own advantage.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Ice Moon, a fairy originally introduced by SDM into I Have Become the Ruler of TMS (the "sequel" to Help Yourself Take Over TMS), got so well-recieved by both the SW mainstays and non-RPers that she became a full-fledged character in her own right. SDM is currently working on a backstory and plot for her (though, knowing who he is, you know it won't be happy, but it'll be pretty darn good).
  • Even Better Sequel: Hellgate. ESPECIALLY Hellgate. Another World in Gensokyo (known as Crossroads in Shifting Worlds) is also this
  • First Installment Wins: averted. The first installment of Hellgate was forged in randomness but turned into epicness. SDM is trying hard to surpass it with later installments, and overall is succeeding.
  • God Mode Sue: the power levels here are quite high compared to your average roleplay (then again, you have to consider the world it's set in...) In other words, a lot of characters are could be considered as God Mode Sues, but in an RP where everybody is god mode, nobody is. Unavoidable hits and one hit kills are still frowned upon, however.
    • Kanako gets occasionally accused of this, especially due to his tendency to come up with new attacks at random, often to the outrage of others.
    • Cirno also gets accusations of this on occasion. She is not overpowered compared to the rest of the cast, but she is compared to her canon self.
  • Ho Yay: Kanako and Aurion try very hard to make sure their characters don't stray into this territory with their friendship. That doesn't mean both the people and the characters joke about it sometimes.
  • Lawful Evil: Desmond, The General, Amadeus (before he defected from The General's forces). Mr. Hood MIGHT be this.
  • Lawful Good: Arachnos and Martel are the two biggest examples of this. Jonathan, Amadeus (post-defection), and Kusakabe are this as well (though Kusakabe leans more toward Chaotic than Lawful).
    • Daisuke is also this. Well, he was this before Yami turned him into a dark knight.
  • Les Yay: CirnoXLaia.
    • Subverted too, their love being purely platonic as neither of them really know anything about sex.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Hellgate, full stop.
    • Kanako says he's going to have a character who's going to be this in CR 2.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Kanako says Desmond is supposed to be this, and also dipping into Magnificent Bastard territory at times. Your Milage May Vary as to whether or not he's been able to keep the standard, though. Both he and Arachnos have said they're collaborating on a Gaiden-like story for Desmond that will most likely catapult him into this trope.
  • Memetic Mutation: "ASS THE DRAGON", "Everyone forgets about Zoruff," Shadow Ryusaki's Shadowisms, plus a couple more.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Hellgate and The General practically play jump rope or hopscotch together with this trope.
  • Neutral Good: The De-spored Hellgate (aka the current SDM), Aurion
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Essentially everything about Hellgate. He manipulated Flandre into gruesomely murdering the residents of the mansion, up to and including her own sister. He murdered Patchouli, his creator and wife, in cold blood - no, that's an understatement, he murdered her with glee. He strives for the complete obliteration of the universe and the foundation of a new one where he reigns as God. And his shade emits that damn creepy static.
    • The Black Spawn will turn your best friends against you, suck you dry of life and leave your world a lifeless wasteland. The Black Spawn is the direct responsible for the existance of Hellgate (see above). The Black Spawn's core is superconcentrated despair. The Black Spawn will trap you inside itself, reliving through the most tragic moments of your life, and everyone else's life, endlessly. And did I mention that simply wounding the Black Spawn requires the intervention of a God?
    • Everything connected in any way to Sono Ruina. The girl herself has absorbed people by the dozens, whose essences all used to helplessly languish inside her body until she was slain. Even with her dead, her legacy lives on with the Jewels inside Cirno and Laia's body. How bad is it? Bad enough to temporarily turn Cirno into a Pyramid Head expy who nearly raped Laia.
    • Anarchos to some extent.
    • Rumia and Reli are essentially the goddesses of Nightmare Fuel in-universe, though their creepiness is relatively tame compared to the Black Spawn's.
    • As of the Shipyard arc in Hellgate 2.3, this little shop of horrors has a new member: the Black Mass (not to be confused with the Black Spawn). Where do we start? The Black Mass pulls ships out of hyperdrive, ruins their engines and strands them in space, among an armada made of ghost ships - its previous victims. It proceeds to wait for the victims to try and escape, at which points it stops the escape attempt, overrides the ship's systems and proceeds to kill everyone inside in a series of gruesome "accidents". It can also use its armada of ghost ships as its personal army, again by hijacking their systems. It inflicts Interface Screw on both the characters (messing with their Mimics) and the players. Its appearance is a featureless dark form that blots out the sky. For crissakes, its battle "theme" is THIS! Oh, and did I mention that besides what is mentioned here, there's not a damn thing we know about it as of yet?!
    • SDM's stories are rife with this, apparently. As of DEPTHS Arietta gets a battlestaff (using a crystal dropped from Akuko) which transforms even the smallest attacks into unstoppable displays of dark magic, many of which are One Hit Kills. Everything it does is nightmare fuelerrific, but most notably it once transformed Arietta's Bloody Howling into a full-fledged portal into hell, releasing a horde of wraiths that pulled an unfortunate wyvern inside while devouring it alive.
  • True Neutral: The Caterpillar, though whether it's Good, Neutral, or Evil depends on who the current ruler of the castle is. As of right now, under Cirno it's more Neutral Good.
  • Neutral Evil: Hellgate
  • Parody Sue: Ken was most likely intended to be as over-the-top humorously Suetiful as possible - being friends with Yukari, having a spellcard named Pervert Sign "Rape", an abundance of powers and stunt doubles to die instead of him is just some of the ways this was attempted. Sadly he ended up as a Parody Sue that became as annoying as the real deal, due in no small part to being in a multiplayer roleplay as opposed to a single-player story - because when your character is faced with a boltgun that "fires 3200 RPM, each bullet has as much power as a nuclear ICBM, and coated with anti-immortality potion", be it in serious or in jest, you will be pissed.
  • Player Punch: constantly, in every arc by SDM. He uses this so much that they cause, in his own words, a Player Black Eye.
  • Possession Sue: the opinions on Cirno's current situation vary. Apart from her author's opinion, opinions tend to range from "meh" to "unspeakable", though.
    • Arachnos himself says that this would happen to any character he likes (like Okuu, for instance). Therefore, he has refrained from taking control of any other canon characters save for Cirno and Rumia.
  • Tear Jerker: guaranteed in any arc by SDM.
    • Notably, the death of Future Flandre and of Mia.
  • The Scrappy: Ken.
  • Unfortunate Implications: See Fridge Horror.
  • Wangst: Arachnos, quite often. Both the character AND THE PLAYER.
    • Cirno, whom Arachnos controls, does this quite a bit whenever she feels weaker than those around him.
  • World of Badass: Need I say more?