The Cauldron

"God damn it, Bonesy."

"Welcome To The Cauldron! Because I couldn't come up with a better name." —Velvien, Forum Admin and Supposed First Post.

"Goddamn it Bonesy" —Velvien's Actual First Post and Forum Catchphrase

A roleplay forum made by fans of the BlazBlue series.

What happens when you take a crack pairing for a fairly well-known video game series and post a fanfic of it on the web? Normally, you get laughed out of the internet with reviews saying "That Would Never Happen." Velvien thought differently. Taking two characters from BlazBlue, he decided he liked them both so much, he was going to pair them up. Normally, this kind of thing leads to disaster, especially between Ragna, the main protagonist, and Tsubaki, a justice obsessed girl working for the opposite side. In canon, they would hate each other on sight. However, Velvien somehow made this work in his fanfic, On Strange Wings. It garnered so much praise, that he made a sequel and somehow, the Ragbaki pairing was born and embraced.

After noticing the amount of people interested, Velvien decided to try something new. A roleplay forum that was a separate universe from his On Strange Wings canon but also had an overall plot, a goal and enough freedom so that people didn't feel like they were being railroaded. It took a while to get going, but now, The Cauldron is up and running. And it's only growing faster.

Velvien's two Ragbaki Fanfics can be found here for On Strange Wings and here for its sequel, At Fate's Hands.

The forum can be found here.

Tropes used in The Cauldron include:

Sad Wings Of Destiny

• A Storm Is Coming: Pretty much said by any character who is in the know of what's going on. Everyone knows something big is coming. No one has any idea what.
• Attack of the Killer Whatever: The first Azure spike in Akitsu creates demon ostriches.
• Bee-Bee Gun: Arakune, as always. The RP allows him to use all sorts on insects now though, including giant rhino beetles to gore anything in it's way, spiders to web people up and even a praying mantis!
• City of Adventure: Subverted. The action can take place outside of Kagutsuchi for once. Which makes sense, since the canon cast of Blazblue are heading out of the city anyway.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The reason Arakune wanted to murder and eat Rust? He didn't like his rock out session
• Drunken Master: Ragna and the gang find Jubei and Jin after their training session. Jubei has had a bit too much to drink.
  • He fixes it with Jin's patented hangover cure.
• Eldritch Location: As always, the Azure. Spikes of it are appearing everywhere at random due to Relius and Terumi planning something. And something wants to come through...
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: Whilst the Spire is normally a military building, we can't imagine it looking too friendly, even without Terumi and Relius holing up inside.
• Five-Bad Band: While the bad guys aren't very well-organized (especially the OC's), they can be seen as this.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Relius Clover and Hazama/Terumi Yuuki.
  • The Dragon: Saya, in a sense
  • Evil Genius: Belioz Mutsuki
  • The Brute: Erk Urial
  • The Dark Chick: Orpheus Xenos and Phantom
  • Sixth Ranger Traitor: Litchi, Nu, and most likely Tsubaki as well.
• Five-Man Band: At the moment:
  • The Hero: Ragna
  • The Lancer: Jin
  • The Smart Guy: Tsubaki
  • The Big Guy: Taokaka
  • The Chick: Nu
• Goddamned Bats: Azure Spawn. Nowhere near tough enough to prove a threat one on one, but too many of them and even two of the Six Heroes start to have a bit of trouble.
• Healing Factor: Nu-13, just like in canon. She recovers from a solo fight with an AIRSHIP!
• Heel Face Turn: Tsubaki. It's not even a spoiler, it was established before the RP started!
  • Although to be fair, at this point her loyalty is to the Librarium, despite her misgivings about it.
• Hell Gate: What are the Azure Spikes? What's wanting to come through?
• Heroic BSOD: Ragna has two, back to back. First he realizes he's no better than Terumi by torturing Tsubaki. Then he finds out he's the Black Beast. Within the space of a few hours.
• Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: An early part in the story had Valkenhayn and Hakumen have a practice duel. The courtesy involved would make Dudley blush.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Every single member is expected to take part in this plotline. After much hype and many months of waiting, it's finally here. And The Forum Rejoiced...
• Motive Rant: Relius to Tsubaki, when explaining what Perfection means to him. Even while working for him, Tsubaki can't help but be creeped out.
• Training from Hell: Jubei, to Jin.
• What the Hell, Hero??: So determined for information, Ragna at one point basically tortures poor Tsubaki to tears. Nu gave him the appropriate reaction.

Freelance RP

• Accidental Pervert: Carl in "Sunflowers and Lollipops", multiple times towards Kokonoe, often under influence. She often forgives him because of his young age and general innocence.
• Ascended Meme: In "There For You", Ada mentions the word... lewd in response to the information Sena reveals.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: The entire point of the Freelance section. Its main use is to come up with anys plot using any character from BlazBlue, not just who you picked for the main roleplay in Sad Wings Of Destiny. It's often played for laughs, but sometimes, good drama and even grimdark roleplays take place there.
• Broken Bird: Tsubaki at the start of "Ahriman". And then It Got Worse for a bit.
• The Cameo: Balalaika is Actorverse! Terumi's agent. Naturally, everyone craps their pants when she appears
  • In "A Squirrel and her Boy", there is a delusional, pink-haired, exaggeratedly lecherous patient named "Dr. Hikepants", who pretends to be the doctor. Works as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of Dr. Hotti.
• Crapsack World: The Pointverse Ragna, Nu, Noel, Hakumen and Tsubaki are dead. Many of the big hitters are missing. Rust got cybernetiscized and was working for the N.O.L. He KILLED Desmond and Noel!
• Crossover: BlazCraft.
  • GyppyGirl2021's Azoriaverse was originally devised for Crossover Fanfic.
• Five-Man Band: For Azure Warrior:
  • • The Hero: Ragna
    • The Lancer: Tsubaki
    • The Smart Guy: Arakune
    • The Big Guy: Hakumen
    • The Chick: Nu
    • The Sixth Ranger and Token Evil Teammate: Hazama
• Flat What: Ragna in Azure Warrior.

Bonesy: "Welcome to the kingdom of Lomaria! Ragna needs 30 EXP to get to the next level! Do you wish to save your game?" Velvien:" ...What."

• Halloween Episode: Rust's repair shop was modified into a Halloween party where people of all ages would be encouraged to visit. Most of the characters thus far are in costumes, often in the form of Shout Outs.
  • Canon characters
    • Ragna-Dante
    • Noel-A Zombie Panda
    • Nu-A pirate
    • Tsubaki-Hakumen
    • Carl-Harry Potter
    • Makoto-Nirvana
  • OC's
    • Rust-Jack Skellington
    • Orpheus-Tingle
• High School AU: A surprisingly successful... well... college AU called Azure Days was created by GyppyGirl2021. Of note: Rachel is an actual young girl, Nu actually has only one eye and Ragna... still has heterochromia and white hair, for whatever reason.
• Irony: The fact that Relius Clover runs a Psychology Clinic in one topic.
• Just in Time: Rachel saving Ragna (and by extension) Lambda just before Tsubaki can slit his throat in "Lucid".
• Knight of Cerebus: Communist Mario from Azure Warrior is perhaps the only serious character in an otherwise parody RP. Then again, knowing who he is, he could also qualify for...
  • The Comically Serious
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Ragna, Nu, Noel and Tsubaki. Usually with each other.
  • Carl also qualifies, but to a slightly lesser extent than the above four. As of now, he's been paired with Platinum, Makoto, Tsubaki, Rachel and Kokonoe in different RPs. He's also a popular male to pair up in the shipping topics, second only to Ragna himself.
• Machine Empathy: Carl in most RPs he's in is written to take advantage of the offhanded canon fact that his glasses allow him to talk to machines. In "Sunflowers and Lollipops", this is especially evident as he pours coffee on the TV, due to the latter asking for it as a drink.
• Moral Event Horizon: Rust killing Noel in Breaking Point. Only time an OC killed a canon character. Topic deleted now due to both authors feeling uncomfortable with the whole idea, though the universe lived on as the Pointverse and is now fairly successful.
• Moe: Several. Noel, Nu, Carl, Actorverse Mu, and Azure Days Rachel all stand out.
• Not Good with Rejection: Nu in Shards of Ire. Cue Ax Crazy Nu.
• Puppy Love: Carl x Platinum, courtesy of 3To3dSl0th and Shuji Nonohana.
• Rescue Romance: What the Vive Memor Mortis/Alea Jacta Est RP line turns into after Ragna saves Tsubaki from Relius
• Sex Is Interesting: Average roleplay? 8 pages. Average NSFW roleplay? 20 or more pages
• Troll: Relius in "The Clover's Clinic". His role as a psychologist allows him to do this.
  • And although it should go without mentioning, Hazama in pretty much every RP he shows up in.
• Tsundere: Rachel in "Like a Dream".
• Unstoppable Rage: Black Beast Ragna in "Atrocity".
  • For a more comedic example, talking koi Codswallop in "Cape Lilies".

Members

• Adorkable: Velvien, especially according to Gyppy. Musashi and several other members may also qualify.
• Angrish: Musashi's very guilty of this.
• Apologises a Lot: Both Litchi and Smitejr speak like this.
• Berserk Button: Velvien hates netplay lag.
  • Mentioning any of the Murakumo units in an even slightly negative light around GyppyGirl2021 will result in Unstoppable Rage. Most notably, misinterpretations of their character.
  • Jin_K for pretty much the same reason, except about Litchi instead.
• Big Eater: For whatever reason, Velvien is almost always hungry.
  • Though Smitejr has been known to eat more, calling Velvien a "lightweight."
• Black Comedy: Lorn, who adores this form of comedy, often to the point of provoking repugnance in others.
• Butt Monkey: Musashi is often picked on by other members of the forum for being slow at posting and a general goofy fanboy. They all still love him, though.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Bonesy. Ironically, he and Velvien are good friends.
  • Queenofdissent, Velvien's sister, who sticks entirely to the Miscellaneous boards and knows very little of BlazBlue
• Catch Phrase: "Goddamn it Bonesy" is the forum classic.
  • "Posted" - Everyone
• Cover Identity Anomaly: When Maes Lawliet and Gleam took each others identities, Maes not only consistently forgot to properly punctuate his sentences the way Gleam normally does but also changed his display name to one that Gleam hadn't been using before the switch.
• Dysfunction Junction
• Five-Man Band: The main group of the forum.
  • The Hero: Velvien
  • The Lancer: 3To3dSl0th
  • The Smart Guy: Bonesy and Gleam, albeit in very different ways
  • The Heart / The Big Guy: Smitejr
  • The Chick: GyppyGirl2021
  • Tagalong Kid: GWA. Easily the youngest member of the forum.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Smitejr descends into this when depressed
• Hidden Depths: GyppyGirl2021 first heard about BlazBlue by means of being a troper - she stumbled upon the page for it long before she actually got into the series. And yes, she shipped Ragna x Noel back then, too.
• Incoming Ham: JoshuaVv's introduction
• Ink Suit Actor: The Litchi Faye-Ling user looks like her character, but with shorter hair, and without the Gag Boobs.
  • 3To3dSl0th has been told that he looks much like an older, real life Carl.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gleam is often... not the nicest of people, but he can be genuinely helpful and will attempt to correct himself if he knows he's screwed up.
• Large Ham: Nearly everyone has their moments, but Blue Paladin and Musashi are the most evident.
• The Leader: Velvien, type II
• Les Yay: GyppyGirl2021 is a self-proclaimed lesbian for Nu and Noel.
  • Bi the Way: However, she also likes Ragna and Hakumen.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: GyppyGirl2021, Gleam, even Velvien himself. There's a reason the NSFW forum exists and it's linked to the reason why those three posters have almost triple the amount of posts than anyone else on the entire forum.
  • Half the forumers are probably this, to an extent. Though some are much less likely to admit it.
• The Mean Brit: Completely averted by Maes Lawliet, as well as Takoto and WhiteKeaton. Ironic, since the latter two often RP the Big Bad Duumvirate of Blazblue.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: As explained above, the people who RP Hazama and Relius are very nice people IRL.
• Moe: The user Litchi Faye-Ling/Abby. Also, Hazama (Takoto), and Relius (WhiteKeaton).
• Mondegreen: Abby has a way of mishearing most character quotes in battle. For example, "Fuoco!"="Waffles!", "Aequum!"="Acorn!", etc.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Arguably Bonesy.
• Old Shame: Gyppy was once known as an extremely obsessive Tales (series) fangirl, especially about yaoi and Tales of Destiny 2, especially Judas. However, right now she's past that and is very ashamed of that one 'self'.
• Only Sane Man: Velvien, occasionally. MaesLawliet and Smitejr can qualify as well.
• OTP: A few cases, most notably Velvien's Ragna x Tsubaki.
  • OT3: Gyppy's "Ragnuel". And to a lesser extent, Velvien's "Ragnubaki".
  • Tager x Duck
• Pet the Dog: Literal example. Gyppy is often seen doting on, talking to, petting or annoying her dog Cocoa.
  • Mostly annoying, according to Gyppy herself.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Many examples. Velvien and Bonesy...hell, pretty much the entire forum can be divided as such.
• Ten-Minute Retirement: Blue Paladin vowed to leave the forum forever...until the Tuesday after.
• The Sleepless: Most members of the forum
• The Voiceless: MaesLawliet is the voice of them apparently.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Velvien sure loves his salmon. And Drumsticks.
  • He'd argue that it's Starburst jellybeans, actually.
• Troll: GLEAM.
  • Hi Gleam~!
  • To a lesser extent, Lorn, but only when he feels like it.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Gleam and Gyppy, who communicate mainly by verbal stabs and tortured confessions. Admittedly, they tend to go only one way.