A series written by RebukeX7
and 117Jorn. A shared cast of Reality Warpers try to save worlds by empowering characters with video game powers. There is no free saving or loading, no resurrection of KO'd protagonists (other than controlled bouts in Marvel vs. Capcom) and all reality resets come at a great cost. That said, it gets pretty over the top. PCs unlocking harems is also a recurring theme.
Notable Works:
- Spidey's Life is a Game has a Reality Warper bring a large number of Capcom fighters into the Marvel universe for a game-based tourney complete with the Street Fighter announcer and instant healing after every match. Spiderman, Chun-Li, and X-23 are Team Amazing and together they take on heroes and villains, until they're ready to face down gods.
- Mass Effect: Life is a Game and its sequel have a Reality Warper offer Male!Paragon!Shepard a one-way trip from Mass Effect 3's endgame to the beginning of the series. Upon arriving in his past, Shepard realizes that a Female!Renegade!Shepard has accidentally fallen into his world as well, so he introduces her as his wife.
For Life Is A Game stories by authors who write outside this cosmology, please see "The Video Game Plot" community, Groundhog Peggy Sue and Sudden Game Interface.
The Life Is A Game Multiverse as a whole provide examples of:
- Achievement System: Among other things, it explicitly awards characters for being Genre Savvy.
Spidey's Life is a Game provides examples of:
- After-Combat Recovery: All injuries and deaths suffered during matches are instantly undone when the battle's over.
- Continuity Porn: Rebuke freely acknowledges several convoluted and controversial events that occurred throughout the history of Earth-616, namely having with Anansi the Spider-God resurrect Peter following his death at Magik's hand, Red Sonja's possession of Mary Jane Watson, in addition to reincorporating characters not acknowledged, like Kida from Comic Book/NYX.
- Divine Intervention: Many godly characters actually engage in divine intervention to help the heroes.
- May–December Romance: Multiple. Laura is mentioned as barely turning eighteen when she and Peter first began their relationship, well Peter is in his late twenties at the start. Laura also thanks to her healing factor retains her youth for far longer then a normal person. Peter also gets with multiple immortal goddesses.
- Polyamory: Basically all the main characters are in different poly relationships with multiple different people. Just to name a few, Peter and Laura are dating each other for most of the series. But Laura is also seeing Jubilee, Kiden, and even Galacta. Peter for most of the series is also married to Black Widow, Silver Sable, Venus, and Hela, also dating multiple other woman like Carol Danvers and Black Cat.
- Trickster Mentor: While as deranged and bombastic as Rebuff is, her actions throughout the story, namely the tournament and other multiversal shenanigans are to improve the heroes involved, namely Spidey and X-23.
Mass Effect: Life is a Game and its sequel provide examples of:
- In Spite of a Nail:
- To John's shock, Jane has killed Wrex, Mordin and Legion in her first playthrough. Except, despite her joking about it, there is absolutely no way she'd promote Uldina to the council over Anderson, something she and John are in complete agreement about.
- The fact that the divergent Paragon and Renegade paths both inevitably led to them facing down the Star Child in the same way at the same time really ticks her off.
