The Paradox RP

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

There are a couple of RP ideas that everyone tries out every now and then, one of the most common being an RP where every character is thrown into the same universe. The Paradox RP is one of those ideas. What originally started as a small group of role-players getting lost in the real world (There were references to New York City and the like) turned into a more fantastic, Shounen-like series as a band of heroes joined together to fight off the cause of a massive Temporal Paradox that could spell the end of reality. Meanwhile, other threats seek to turn the heroes against each other.

The RP is now the second most successful RP on Court-Records and its spin-off, Case Files. It began here and moved to here. It has changed GM hands several times, but has now settled on two specific gamemasters.

Tropes used in The Paradox RP include:
  • Aborted Arc: Due to changing GM hands several times, plots thought up by earlier GMs were flat-out ignored by the later GMs. Another example is how Eggman was trying to build a device to fight “Jonathon Thorkleson”, but that promptly got aborted due to the player of John having real life issues that prevented him from playing.
  • The Alcoholic: Brandin, given that he says that he "prefers drunk to sober". It's not quite made clear exactly why he's an alcoholic just yet.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: Madoka will inevitably destroy the world if she uses her magic too much without being purified by Reimu in time.
  • The Apprentice: Ganryou becomes Eggman’s apprentice in robotics, while Trucy begins to learn magic from Bowser. Where this goes, nobody knows.
  • Attack! Attack! Attack!: Anthony, early on in the RP, continues to try to fight a God, despite being told that it was someone else's job.
  • Battle Cry: The Cavalry makes numerous cries in their offensive. References are made to World of Warcraft and Warhammer 40K. It is also implied that Orks have joined in on the brawl, given that their cry was used.
  • Big Bad: Arthas is the active Big Bad, but there was a hint dropped that he’s serving someone else this time around.
  • Bigger Bad: There was one scene where Arthas was told not to do something by someone...whoever that was is never explained. None of the characters in the RP is actually aware of this.
  • Big Red Devil: The Final Boss of Arc 1 is a Bloodthirster from Warhammer 40K. 'Nuff said.
  • Black Knight: The Black Knight. Duh.
  • Blood Knight: The Bloodthirster, as all servants of Khorne are. He is also a bit of a Large Ham as well.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Trucy gets possessed by Yogg-Saron, and promptly attacks the team.
  • Break the Cutie: Trucy seems to be having it rough. First Yogg-Saron, then Arthas tries to break her facade of cuteness by showing that nobody really cares for her.
  • Brought Down to Badass: There was a scene where Anthony lost his powers. He still was able to turn into a dragon.
  • The Cavalry: During the big invasion scene of Arthas’ fortress, a giant army comes right the hell out of nowhere and gives the heroes the chance they need to enter.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: While not quite as severe as the other popular RP on CR and CF, Anything Agency vs. Lawbreakers RP, the original arc of The Paradox RP was much less serious until it changed GM hands. Then it became much more serious, particularly when Bowser arrived.
  • Chekhov's Classroom: Aqua and Terra wrote off Carlini's fighting advice as irrelevant because their teacher taught them everything they needed to know. And then Terra adopted the stance Carlini taught them, and was able to parry multiple Bloodthirster axe strikes.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Dimentio first backstabs the original team, then his boss, then the team again…it’s almost impossible to tell who’s side Dimentio is on.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Anthony swore a lot when his house was damaged early in the RP.
  • Continuity Nod: Eggman makes countless references to past Sonic games, as well as Sonic Unleashed, despite the fact that he comes from the end of Sonic ’06. Bowser, meanwhile, arrives in much the same manner that he did in Bowser’s Inside Story. Really, this RP is full of internal references and Shout Outs.
    • The entire invasion of the Black Hole Army base was chock-full of references to Sonic Adventure 2's Prison Island levels, complete with Remilia fighting Shadow, only to be interrupted by Eggman saying that if they don't get off the island, the entire island will blow up with them on it. The reference is completed when Won't Stop, Just Go! starts playing.
  • Cool Airship: Eggman has the Sonic Heroes Egg Fleet (called the “Eggman Fleet”), and Bowser has the Doomship Armada. Naturally, both fleets team up during the invasion of The Icecrown Citadel.
    • Anthony also had his own airship in the RP. There was a quick duel between the Egg Carrier and Anthony's airship, though it ended in a draw.
  • Corrupt the Cutie: Yogg-Saron and Arthas seem to have this as their goal. They seem to be succeeding.
  • Deal with the Devil: It is highly implied that Aqua made a deal with some sort of demon, judging by the fact that he asked for Aqua to give him the hearts and souls of all those that she killed in return for her guaranteed survival.
    • And then Trucy Wright makes a deal with that same Demon to save her friends, for the sake of them surviving the fight with Arthas.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: It seems to be that every defeated player automatically becomes friends with the victor. This is partially why there are so many heroes in the RP.
  • Dialogue Tree: Souji Seta uses one whenever he has to make a decission.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: Dimentio.
  • Dramatic Gun Cock: The GUN Commander cocks his pistol while giving his speech to the huge army.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Kamina randomly falls off a Doomship after getting frozen, and later on Anthony gets a lightning bolt thrown at him, with his airship crashing and his country invaded and destroyed. Similarly, Otacon randomly hangs himself.
  • Dual-Wielding: Toon Link is currently dual wielding the Master Sword and a Keyblade. (He uses his compass as a keychain, giving it an appearance that resembles the Wind Waker.)
  • Early Installment Weirdness: This is an RP that somehow managed to confuse the original GM into giving up his position. Make of it what you will.
  • Enemy Mine: Bowser is working alongside Mario and Peach, Eggman is working alongside Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge, and Omega, Ike and Soren are working alongside The Black Knight…this RP is full of this trope.
  • Evil Is One Big Happy Family: Eggman, Bowser, and Ganondorf all seem to know each other and are on good terms with each other.
  • Evil Twin: Vanitas to Sora, and he is taking full advantage of it.
  • Foreshadowing: Bowser’s name was mentioned long before he actually arrived.
  • Field Promotion: Aqua preforms a Rite of Keyblade Sucession on Toon Link when she has a clear moment and realizes that she might be Slowly Slipping Into Evil.
  • Freudian Trio: Invoced with Sora, Terra and Aqua, with Sora initially filling Ven's role, but played with as their positions quickly shift away from what they were like in the actual games and Aqua and Terra slowly pretty much swapping their places in the alignment.
  • Genius Bruiser: Bowser is shown to have skill with mechanics (though he is far exceeded by Eggman), judging by how he used a Magnus von Grappler in his initial scene.
    • Chogro as well, given that he claims to be an Engineer and seems to be smart enough to figure out what's going on quite quickly.
  • Hulk Speak: Cortex drops into this early on in the RP.
  • Idiot Ball: Anthony has this half the time.
  • Idiot Hero: Anthony comes across as this at times, though some of his actions are justified via poor communication
  • Implausible Deniability: Terra was never involved in a scene replicating the Rhythym Mini Game from Kingdom Hearts II that featured him singing and dancing shirtless, what are you talking about~?
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: Take a look at the banner. Now, Take a look at the character roster. You can see just how much this trope is in effect. It helps that there is a six-character limit, as opposed to the normal three-character limit.
  • Love Makes You Evil: The prospect of Terra being sent back to his point in time to be turned into Xehanort all over again is horrifying enough for Aqua to throw her morals and ideals over board and keep him out of the regular flow of time... making a Deal with the Devil in order to do so.
  • Made of Explodium: Sonic somehow manages to make chili and a treadmill explode. None of the characters, not even Sonic, understands how he managed to accomplish it. Eggman even points out that there was literally no way that could've happened.
  • Male Gaze: Anthony (and his parents, for some reason) make references to Vanessa and Clarie's boobs early on in the RP. Then again, this is to be expected when they're nearly as, or even bigger than, their heads.
  • Magic Music: All Vocaloids have it.
  • Mega Crossover: The entire premise of the RP exists for the sake of this trope.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Anthony randomly developed the ability to “detect evil presences”. He also gained the ability to turn into a dragon, which came to light right after he was depowered, though for the second one there were implications that he was training, and he has a lot of references to Dragon Quest with his charcter.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In a manner extremely similar to Dawn of War, it turned out that the entire planet that everyone was on was a shrine to Khorne, which allowed the Final Boss, a Bloodthirster Daemon to be summoned.
  • Odd Couple: Remilia is implied to have feelings for Shadow, but his feelings don’t seem to be reciprocated.
  • Odd Friendship: Who ever knew that Reimu and Madoka would make such great best girlfriends? Than again, it is Madoka.
  • Ominous Floating Castle: Bowser uses the same castle that he does in the original Paper Mario after he kidnaps Megan. The castle is never destroyed, and never brought up again after that scene.
  • The Paladin: Brandin, though he seems to have alcoholism problems.
  • Poor Communication Kills: It seems that it’s a requirement for every new character to get into a fight, typically by angering Bowser or by running into Eggman’s mechs.
    • This is also the cause behind a lot of issues with Anthony, mostly done by the team intentionally keeping information secret from Anthony.
  • Power Incontinence: Trucy has trouble keeping her powers under control, which only compounds with the Time Skip involved where she ends up lighting things on fire and other things randomly. It wasn't until Bowser showed up that she started to gain control again.
  • Power Limiter: Bowser gives it to Trucy. Twice. Once when she was a little girl, the other when she was a teenager.
  • Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The heroes get a vision from Arthas that was the standard, “Give up now” speech. It did nothing to deteriorate their hope.
  • Retcon: Several of the original players' RP actions (such as the original Mario, and Sailor Moon’s original actions) were retconned out of the RP, partially because of changing GM hands, mostly because it was hard to reconcile them with the new RP’s story.
    • Similarly, it was implied that the heroes are in the real world. That quickly got booted out the door when the GM rights changed hands.
  • Rock Beats Laser: Averted during Eggman's arrival into what is basically Ancient China. His mechs were practically invulnerable to the swords being used by the locals (some of the locals managed to cut through them regardless, but those were particularly powerful generals). One of them managed to figure out to use water, but even that didn't do much good in the end. They only survived because Eggman pulled back his troops after he got the land he needed.
  • Rousing Speech: Three are made before and during the offensive against Arthas. One from Carlini, one from Kyle, and one from the GUN Commander.
  • Ruins for Ruins Sake: The original group met up in some ancient ruins, that apparently lead into New York City…and those ruins are never brought up again.
  • Run the Gauntlet: The tail end of Arc 1 was this. It took far longer than expected, and the GMs have agreed not to do so again.
  • She's Not My Girlfriend: Female example, Aqua becomes horribly flustered when Deadpool calls Terra "Her Boyfriend".
  • Shout-Out: Cortex says, “Cortex SMASH!”
  • Skyward Scream

Thorkleson: POOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPCCCCCCCOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRNNNN!

  • Speak of the Devil: Bowser’s entrance was made when Megan said his name out loud, complete with a “Somebody page me?” line.
  • Tough Love: Oogie Boogie routinely and severely injures his daughter, Olivia Boogie. All of the other characters are horrified to learn this, especially when they realize that Olivia finds it needed.
  • Villain Protagonist: Eggman and Bowser are leading the heroes. That should speak volumes about this trope.
  • The Omniscient: Tzeentch seems to know everything that's happening, though his motives are difficult to guess at. The Lord of Change also counts to an extent, having a lot of information relayed to him by Tzeentch, though part of the bigger picture appears to be kept from him.
  • The Worf Effect: Aqua, despite being in the Dark World for the longest time and thus logically having the most fighting experience always seems to be the first one taken out in a fight. This does not help her mood out one bit.
  • World-Healing Wave: The defeat of the Bloodthirster caused this to happen, fixing the Paradox.
  • What Does She See in Him?: Bunshuu asks Ganryou what she sees in Eggman. Ganryou replies that Eggman is just a friend.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Anthony damages the other heroes works on occasion.