Portal Breach

This is not the world you have left behind-what shall you choose to be?

The Collision of Worlds

It was The End of the World as We Know It - the keepers of the multiverse decided to end it all (possibly For the Evulz) - deities called Portal Alpha and Omega. Omega died under mysterious circumstances, leaving Alpha in charge and Alpha is not a nice god. Thankfully, there are other, lesser Portals who were allowed to create their own universes to save as many people as they could, each named after a letter of the alphabet.

Each dimension is a "gamma" named after their respective Portal and contains people of the same temperament, all except for Gamma-X (Portal Breach), ruled by the illustrious Portal-X the Wise. He just wants to save people, deserving or not, and have a good time. Some settle down and make names for themselves, whereas some do not and fade into anonymity.

The citizens of "The Breach" (most people live on the main planet) are of a wide variety, from Evil Emperor Zurg, to Hellboy, to Dani and Phantom, to Starscream and Swindle and... you get the idea.

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It is a play-by-post RPG forum complete with an in-character "chatbox" for realtime roleplaying and contains examples of:

• Action Girl - Tons. Some are considered Hot Amazons, others are more Lady of War types, and some are simply Bad Ass Normals, but either way you see it, the women of Portal Breach do not sit around during a fight.
• Adaptation Distillation - The only Twilight character (god forbid we ever get more) on the site is Jake, who is indeed taken from Breaking Dawn but before imprinting on Bella's daughter. After Edward loaned him the Aston Martin (which he crashed), he wound up on Portal Breach, which gave him the opportunity to put the past behind him and make a fresh, new start. He's surprisingly a very cool guy and makes for a great leg-warmer.
• Aesop Amnesia - Not every character acts in accordance to the trial they take to return to the land of the living after they're resurrected.
• Affably Evil - Evil Emperor Zurg, Dr. Drakken,Swindle, among others.
• Badass - A hell of a lot of people, actually. Most notably the girls. See Action Girl above.
• Beige Prose - On occasion, mostly when users encounter severe writer's block. Partially averted in that there are minimum word counts for posts.
  • There are some roleplayers who are notorious beige prose writers. As in, they only post a few words.
• Big Damn Heroes - Unavoidable during plots, but a rather odd example was during the war (war? what war?) on Gamma-O.
  • The weirdest example is during the Halloween Plot: Lenny the cat gave Glitch-X the finishing blow.
• Blessed with Suck - Psyche, whose empathy does not shut off.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall - Very common, especially in the chatbox (usually when people are bored out of their minds).
• Catch Phrase - Although some canon characters do have catchphrases, they don't really use them on Portal Breach. But here are some of the most memorable examples.
  • DADDAY! - Keaton
• Calling the Old Man Out - To Vlad's surprise. Oh, and let's not forget the Halloween plot when Zurg did it to his parents too.
• Crack Fic - In spades. Notable examples include the site's chatbox on a boring day, the "Dragonsmeets" thread that spawned the "demon smeets" (now known as "crack babies), and the "Oregon Trail" thread.
• Cross Player - A lot of players on Portal Breach play characters of the opposite sex (but it's when the guys have girl-exclusive characters that you should start worrying).
• Cursed with Awesome - The vampires, for one. Liz Sherman, who hates her fire powers but has learned to accept them. Hellboy, who's the Anti Christ (or the Anti-Anti-Christ, depending on how you look at it).
• Darker and Edgier - The whole world is like this for a few, though Lighter and Softer for others. Depends on how you look at it.
• Dark Is Not Evil - Hellboy, the vampires... anyone who's supposed to be evil but has a heart of gold.
• Dark Secret - The truth behind the second Dani's disappearance. Zurg hired Cailia and Barry to kill her off, with Jana's help (who just so happened to be Dani's ex). She led Dani into an ambush, let the other two beat her, then dealt the finishing blow by setting her on fire. Cailia then delivered Dani's head to Zurg, which he now uses as an animated puppet to parrot whatever he wants. If that isn't evil, this troper doesn't know what is!
• Death Is Not Permanent - When a character dies, they go through a trial in the Pool Of Souls and regain their life. However, if you do not take any trials and run out of lives, then the character is sent to Data Purgatory. No word yet on what happens there...
• Deconstruction - To the point of Deconstructor Fleet.
• Designated Villain - Both used and averted. People like Dr. Drakken and Phantom are all happily and obviously villains. In contrast, Barry and the Evil Emperor Zurg actually do things. See Dark Secret above.
• Derailing Love Interests - During the course of his relationship with Aya, Marcus went from being a Noble Demon literally to a Clingy Jealous Guy. Other examples include Dani with Jana, and T-800 with Anna.
• Did Not Do the Research - Rare with the good players.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him - Another way some people get rid of characters they're bored with instead of just dropping them, most recently with Delila, who was killed by Dr. Doom in a duel to the death after an argument they had she refused to back down from. A fight where she didn't even try to fight back and instead even chastised the leaving audience members for watching. Yeah, she wasn't a favorite.
• The Emperor - Zurg, naturally. He's also an Evil Overlord and a Big Bad (and currently the biggest Big Bad around), but has a softer side when it concerns Jo.
• Evil Laugh - Zurg, Dr. Drakken both have one.
• Evilly Affable - Dr. Doom is an example. Don't ask for a cup of sugar thinking you'll just get sugar.
• Expanded Universe - We have that too. It happens when you have Loads and Loads of Characters.
• Fake Nationality - Seen a few times. Alex and the Sniper (both from Team Fortress 2) aren't strictly true to their origins.
• Female Gaze - Somehow, it's only the WOMEN who notice the chest size of other female characters.
• Foe Yay - See Crack Pairing on the YMMV page.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend - Usually averted when a character mysteriously disappears.
• For Science! - Numerous characters, such as the Garden. Prokhor Zakharov absolutely epitomizes this trope.
• Gadgeteer Genius - Jo, Ava, and Swindle.
• Grey and Gray Morality - The Majority of Portal Breach's citizens.
• Half-Human Hybrid - A few, most visibly Rhys, who is cheery, has cute fangs and would love to eat you up literally. Other examples include Dani (who's half-human, half-ghost), Psyche (who was mostly fae and a ghost at one point),Cailia (who's half-human, half-demon) and Sepheraim (who's half-human, half-angel).
• Halfway Plot Switch - A very common occurrence when major plots happen. Common examples include the Gamma-O plot, the Halloween plot and (almost) the Hanna plot.
• Hammerspace - Swindle has transwarp space, and lets not forget the robot butler, Lawrence. And even resident vampire, OV, has a impressive one, always giving out the best meelee weapons.
• Hate Plague - The effect of Mr. Dark's influence , made the citizens of Portal Breach bring out their worst colors, more so seen in Vampires and other enities
• Horned Humanoid - Hellboy and Zurg, though the former only grew them out once.
• Ho Yay - Canon examples are Alex and Leo, and maybe Dragos and Velspar. Blade has a crush on Kev. Recently, Lawrence has developed a crush on the Evil Emperor Zurg. On the Les Yay side, Jana and Dani, even if their relationship didn't end well. For more examples, just see Crack Pairing.
• Humanoid Aliens - We have 'em!
• Interspecies Romance - Happens more often than you think. The best examples are Overcast and Swindle, Zurg and Jo, Kev and Leslie, and Hellboy and Liz. See also Opposites Attract.
• Insufferable Genius - Starscream thinks he's a genius, but who's the leader of the Decepticons? Yeah, we thought so.
• It Got Worse
  • The Hanna plot that took place over the summer. Zurg became the God inside Hanna's lackey and forced him to make puppets out of other people by draining their magic. Jo managed to band together multiple characters to take on the God... only to fail. To make things worse, the God punished Zurg for helping Jo, turning him into a coinhead and made him attack and torture Jo who managed to get away only when Zurg resisted the mind control long enough to let her escape. The rest of the characters then had to find the pages of Hanna's book that would defeat the God by finding the Augurs that guarded them. The Augurs gave the characters difficult riddles to solve, after which the characters began to finally start succeeding.
• Jerkass - Most of the Portals, especially Portal-G and Portal-O.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold - More than a few examples, the most notable of them being Zurg. Because even though he's a Big Bad, he's got a soft spot for Jo.
• Karmic Tricksters - Bonkers in a sense-he's a cartoon cop, after all. Garden in a You Make Me Sic sort of way. Garden is also Chaotic Neutral.
• Kick the Dog - Portal-G was made of this. To start this off, Portal-G struck a deal with Portal-X to make weapons, on several conditions: One, he could choose his own warriors, who were basically made to be his slaves. Two, he could come to the chatbox whenever he wanted. Whenever he was there, he proceeded to hit people with his hammer, which had the power to turn people into GOLDEN STATUES. The only way to avoid being turned to gold was to CUT OFF THE LIMB HE HAD HIT. Ouch. And if that wasn't enough, during the middle of the war with Portal-O, Portal-G was revealed to be a mole for Portal-O. Then, after Gamma-O was defeated and everyone was celebrating their victory in the chatbox, Portal-G attacked Zurg with his hammer, turning Zurg into a golden statue for several days. Even if he was apprehended and put into jail, some people feel that he didn't get what he deserved.
  • Mr. Dark killing Kev and Blade, through decomposition, without provocation from EITHER ONE.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall - As common as Breaking the Fourth Wall, usually seen in posts when the player's wit and sarcasm creeps in.
• Like a Badass Out of Hell - It's not technically hell, BUT... Everyone who died in the recent Reformat plot. They got to come back whilst riding the goddess Omega as she rose from the depths of the Pool of Souls to challenge her counterpart.
• Mind Rape - Happened to Zurg.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - Only happens on occasion.
  • A big one during the most recent Halloween Plot. Glitch-X demanded that everyone tell him their guilts and fears. They very reluctantly did. Turns out, admitting their fears and guilts freed Glitch-X from his chains and allowed him to attack everyone as he wished. Woops.
• No Fourth Wall - The Fourth Wall in the chatbox got tired of being broken, so it ran away.
• Not Using the V Word - Bloodscream, for all that he has the characteristics of one, is NOT a vampire.
• Odd Friendship - Happens a lot when you have a lot of diverse characters. The earliest examples are XR and Mushu and Zurg and Hellboy.
• One Steve Limit - Subverted, but not on the level of Planet of Steves. There are three Links.
• Only Sane Man - Portal Breach can get a bit quirky at times, as can its citizens, usually when the fourth wall suffers. Notable sane people include Kev, Leslie, Ava, Swindle, Lawrence and Jo (although they have their crack moments too) and a few others.
• Our Angels Are Different - See Sepheraim. Oh, wait, you're not supposed to know he's an angel.
• Our Demons Are Different - Hellboy, Cailia and Prixlezub who's a car demon, along with Iblis.
• Our Vampires Are Different - Even amongst themselves. Which causes some confusion.
• Pet the Dog - There are several examples available, but the most common one involves cats. No matter the Character Alignment, most of the people on Portal Breach love cats. In fact, abusing a cat is a sure-fire way to become The Scrappy, as Frankie and Father Anderson can certainly tell you.
• Physical God - Portal-X and most of the other deities, though he only pops in occasionally for shits and giggles or during plots.
• Plot Irrelevant Villain - Because there are so many people who call themselves villains when they don't really do anything evil (or if claim they do, it's always off-screen).
• The Pollyanna - A rare few, Kev, Jo (usually), Swindle.
• Put on a Bus - How else does one explain players disappearing for motnths only to reappear again afterwards?
• Random Number God - Ours is so infamously and utterly sadistic that we've given it a name just so we can curse at it properly . . . Diceor hates EVERYONE.
• Read the Freaking Manual - Not surprisingly, some roleplayers just can't seem to understand simple instructions...
• Real Life Writes the Plot - The driving force behind every instance of Halfway Plot Switch.
• Really Gets Around - Vampire Queen Lilith.
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old - Zurg (254), Ava (201), Swindle (over 4.5 billion) and Washu (20,000/old as the universe), plus many more.
• Ridiculously-Human Robots - Lawrence, Proxy and all the Cybertronians.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior - Jana swings between this and acting like any friendly teenager. The trolls also apply-Sollux being the most normal. Gamzee is peaceful as long as he's high on slime, Karkat is a self-conscious wreck who covers shyness with rage and Terezi has times where all she does is laugh or be silent and refuses to mention Vriska by name. (Incidentally, Vriska got exactly what she deserved and that was the reason it stuck.)
  • Livewire, due to several issues, is in the middle of a breakdown, Shadow Link routinely tosses bombs at people and wants to rule the world, and Ophelia is a Bean Fionn, and it is in her nature to drown people.
• You Make Me Sic - Very commonly invoked by Buta, who's your regular Grammar Nazi. Others have also started to follow this trend.
• Zombie Apocalypse - A plot that took place around Christmas. Everyone got better.