Web Original / Spaghetti Ice

Spaghetti Ice is a Science Fantasy work of fiction written and illustrated by an Anonymous Author.

Their work consists of three installments:

• Spaghetti Ice (~2013 – 2018): A long-running, non-thematic text roleplay campaign on a now-defunct IRC server. The events of this roleplay were retroactively granted the title Spaghetti Ice. Due to the ephemeral nature of IRC, the original contents of this roleplay are now considered lost media.
• Shaved Ice (2022): A modern, abbreviated literary retelling of the key aspects of Spaghetti Ice. This story eventually evolved into its own Alternate Universe. Can be read here.
• Cherry Ice (2022 – ): A series of blog posts containing short- and medium-form media. This is the continuation of both Spaghetti Ice and Shaved Ice and acts as the current ongoing narrative. Can be read here.

As this work spans multiple names and mediums, here is a table explaining the relationship between works.

Theme Name	Medium(s)
Spaghetti Ice	Text Roleplay
Shaved Ice	Web Original Fiction
Cherry Ice	Blog/Web Serial Novel

In addition, Spaghetti Ice also acts as the name of the work's blog.

---

Tropes:

Spaghetti Ice

• Amnesiac Villain Joins the Heroes: After undergoing Laser-Guided Amnesia and a Loss of Identity in the Dream World, Vicerre joins Ishiro in his adventures. The fact that he was originally Armin is unbeknownst to all until his Past-Life Memories start leaking.
• Anatomy of the Soul: Living beings in Spaghetti Ice consist of a body, soul, and memories, each of which can be manipulated. Souls can be splintered into fragments, and each fragment represents one aspect of the original soul's personality. The Gamemaster is able to instill Armin with a fragment of <redacted's> soul in creating Vicerre, which acts as a Living Emotional Crutch. Later, after he stabilizes, Vicerre returns this soul fragment to its owner. Then his Past-Life Memories start leaking in...
• Assimilation Backfire: Adding Ishiro to the virus's collective is what lets him destabilize Armin's influence on his friends. This ultimately leads to Armin severing Ishiro from the collective entirely.
• Assimilation Plot: The Mind Virus Armin synthesizes allows him to manipulate everyone it comes into contact with, with the ultimate goal being Armin ascending as a god over humanity.
• Befriending the Enemy: Ishiro is a firm believer of this trope; he prefers to reason with his enemies instead of defeating them directly. Armin, initially, can’t comprehend why Ishiro would offer him a shred of sympathy instead of hating him outright.
• Break the Haughty: The Gamemaster gives Armin a big dose of this in the Dream World, showing him what it’s actually like to play god around an actual all-powerful being. Noting his hubris, she De-Powers him and erases all of the previous work he made within the Dream World. Downplayed in that Armin ends up retaining much of his pride, but it humbles him just enough to further his Character Development.
• Broad Strokes: The original roleplay was quite unorganized in parts. Cherry Ice takes a broad strokes approach to what parts of the rolelay are relevant to its canon.
• Bus Crash: Armin ends up Out of Focus at the start of the Dream World arc as the protagonists are learning about the new world. He is later discovered to have been erased by The Gamemaster. …Sort of.
• City with No Name: The events of Spaghetti Ice take place in an unnamed city that acts roughly as the Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Big Applesauce. The city is eventually Named in the Sequel.
• Conducting the Carnage: To Let the Past Burn, Armin undertakes a “symphony of destruction” on his old home, using portals to launch what amounts to a Meteor-Summoning Attack.
• The Corruption: During the first Adventure arc, The Exogeny turns Armin's morally-ambiguous nature into that of full-blown malice. Ishiro resorts to Supernatural Sealing to keep him at bay, although Armin still (if ineffectively) acts as The Corrupter to him.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Implied. Armin is described as severely embittered from past trauma, which drove him to the extreme measures in first arc of Spaghetti Ice.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Armin's abilities become this for Vicerre after the latter reawakens them, in fear of accelerating the former as a Superpowered Evil Side.
• Deader than Dead: This is a constant in this universe; for all of the things magic and science can do, any and all attempts at bringing someone back from the dead fail. This is a sore point for Armin, as he can’t undo Vesta’s death.
• Death of Personality: Armin’s Laser-Guided Amnesia is eventually revealed to be a self-inflicted one of these. The Gamemaster reveals, in his heart of hearts, Armin believed himself as irredeemable and sincerely desired erasure.
• Eye Colour Change: People under the virus's effects gain Supernatural Gold Eyes. Later on, the Mark of the Beast takes on the form of Supernatural Gold Eyes.
• Floating Continent: The Lady of Dreams and her baku servants live in a city on a cloud that never drifts to the same place twice.
• For Science!: Interpreted positively. Armin's science is governed by self-interest. In contrast, Vicerre's science is driven by what he thinks would be fun to research.
• Godzilla Threshold: Armin's very existence becomes one for the protagonists. In a life-or-death situation, Vicerre tags out with Armin to let him resolve things. He then has to get him to tag back to prevent him from becoming a bigger problem.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Downplayed. The character with the greatest Healing Factor, Zada, isn't exempt from death. However, she does undergo Born-Again Immortality.
• He's Back!: Coupled with Heel–Face Return. Post-reconciliation, Vicerre can tag in and out with Armin freely without danger. To see an Armin who is well-adjusted and working alongside the protagonists is an awesome experience for the reader.
• Hidden Elf Village: Zada's grove. It's located in a nondescript region of the forest, and its entrance is protected by magic.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Given the Sufficiently Analyzed Magic mechanics of this work's 'verse, you might be forgiven thinking Magical Gestures are necessary to using supernatural abilities. Vicerre takes advantage of this trope when fighting; under friendly conditions, said gestures are honest signals, while under adversarial conditions, those signals will be misdirection.
• Identity Amnesia: During the Dream World arc, Vicerre refers to Armin in the third person. It later turns out Armin is actually Vicerre's past self post-Laser-Guided Amnesia.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Armin's favorite way to get rid of his enemies. Most significantly, he breaks Ishiro by driving an icicle through Zada, killing her.
• Interspecies Friendship: As Spaghetti Ice is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink with mythical creatures of human-level sentience, this trope abounds in Ishiro's team.
• It Amused Me: Armin finds it entertaining to break Ishiro physically and mentally. Eventually, this is explained as Armin's own twisted way of learning how Ishiro is able to persist despite all of the strife inflicted upon him.
• It's All Junk: In a moment of catharsis, Armin personally demolishes his residence from before his Heel–Face Turn, symbolizing leaving his past behind.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Played with. Armin, "Hyde" personality, is the original, while Vicerre, the "Jekyll" personality was manufactured by The Gamemaster. As Vicerre acts as the dominant personality and Armin his Superpowered Evil Side, this trope is typically acted out straight.
• Mad Scientist Laboratory:
  • Initially, Armin set up his lab in his own residence, replete with specialized bioengineering equipment.
  • During the Time Skip between the Dream World and Second Adventure arcs, Vicerre relocates his lab and expands upon it with a supercomputer and the Dream Machine.
  • In Cherry Ice, the lab is further expanded upon to include amenities for other characters who are now working with him.
• Magic by Any Other Name: Per this 'verse's use of Fantastic Science, magic is universally referred to as "supernatural abilities". For example, fire, ice, and psychic abilities are referred to as pyrokinetic, cryokinetic, and psionic abilities, respectively.
• Mind-Control Eyes: People under the effects of the virus have Supernatural Gold Eyes.
• Mind Virus: The Synthetic Plague Armin designs hijacks infected people’s minds and allows them to be manipulated by the virus’s controller.
• Morality Chain: Armin constantly needs one.
  • After the Virus arc, Vesta acts as one for him. Unfortunately, given her unstable biology, she perishes quickly.
  • During the Adventure arc, Ishiro acts as the Kid with the Leash to Armin.
  • After the Dream World Arc, Vicerre acts as one when Armin is in control.
• Mundane Utility: Vicerre get a lot of mileage out of his supernatural abilities:
  • The ability to create slabs of ice from the ground can be used for Not Quite Flight or to create temporary walls.
  • He often treats his access to portals as a near-infinite Bag of Holding, pulling whatever reference or gadget he needs from his home as-needed.
  • And of course, having ice on tap makes it all the more convenient to make a quick flask of iced tea.
• Named After First Installment: Future installments in the series play with Edible Theme Naming, but the series as a whole tends to be referred to as "Spaghetti Ice".
• Non-Residential Residence: Inverted. A home office is not unusual enough to count as a trope on its own. The fact that said "home office" includes specialized biochemistry equipment, which has spread to every corner of the living space, is.
• Portal Cut: Discussed and actively defied. The Gamemaster, knowing Armin would actively abuse his ability to Think Up Portals in the Dream World, makes portals "soft" instead of sharp. Consequently, Armin uses his portals to hold others captive.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Having reverse-engineered the mechanics behind Dream Smoke, Vicerre allows users to experience a Shared Dream through a machine that replicates the effect of the Dream World. However, he keeps all research on the subject private, due to the other effect the Dream Machine has—occasionally extracting the contents of the user’s dream into reality. After all, Reality Warping Is Not a Toy, and The World Is Not Ready.
• Red Right Hand:
  • When Armin employs the use of the Mind Virus, his left hand becomes an unnatural shade of white.
  • Those under the effects of the virus or corrupted by The Exogeny gain Supernatural Gold Eyes.
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: Armin realizes the kindness Ishiro offers him comes with no ulterior motives, which drives his Character Development.
• Science at the Speed of Plot: Vicerre always seems to come up with devices right when the plot finds it convenient:
  • After a Time Skip between the Second Adventure arc and Multiverse arc, Vicerre had apparently invented and perfected a Dream Machine.
  • When Ishiro calls on Vicerre to design devices, Vicerre gives him an accurate time estimate... which is usually followed by a Time Skip.
  • The author calls Vicerre's workplace a Schrödinger's Box where inventions simultaneously exist and don't exist until they are plot-relevant.
• Shared Dream: The Dream World acts as one of these.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: After being forced to use Armin's portals in order to save Ishiro from an otherwise deadly fall, Vicerre becomes more morally-ambiguous and liberal with his use of Armin's abilities. This continues until Armin manifests once more, at which point he is treated as a Superpowered Evil Side. Downplayed, though, in that, even at his worst, Armin never fully crosses the boundary into evil hereafter.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic:
  • Throughout this installment, Armin takes this trope to its logical conclusion. Any supernatural phenomena that can be studied will be dissected, documented, and abused.
  • The mechanics of how cryokinesis and portal conjuration work are described in excruciating detail in the manual.
• Taken from a Dream: It's possible to manifest elements from the Dream World into reality, as long as those elements obey a certain set of nebulous principles. Vicerre ends up exploiting this phenomenon for personal gain.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: During the first Adventure arc, Armin only helps Ishiro because he has no other choice, and because if anything, it might amuse him.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: Discussed. After he regains Armin’s memories, Vicerre wonders whether he should be considered Armin or whether he is someone else with Armin’s memories. Eventually, he decides that it doesn’t matter, since he takes responsibility anyway.
• Thinking Up Portals: Armin receives this ability from The Exogeny, which he later passes to Vicerre. Eventually, Vicerre invents a mechanical portal that allows Ishiro to do the same.
• Tomato in the Mirror: As Vicerre slowly recollect Armin’s memories, it slowly dawns upon him that he was the person responsible for several heinous events. He is deeply disturbed by this revelation and actively rejects those associations, which only cause those aspects to lash out further.
• Transformation Discretion Shot: Switching between human and kitsune forms are preceded by a quick, obscuring swirl of Dream Smoke. Vicerre later identifies this less as "transformation" and more "matter substitution" after noticing injuries inflicted on one form do not persist on the other.
• Trivial Title: Spaghetti Ice ostensibly refers to the following:
  • The story's Kudzu Plot.
  • One character's Trademark Favorite Food.
  • One of the story's Elemental Motifs.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Vicerre is Armin. Eventually confirmed to be his last and first name, respectively, after introducing himself to Zada as Armin Vicerre.
• Utility Magic: Armin gets a lot of mileage out of being An Ice Person. As an example, he uses the refractive index of ice to bewilder Zada in a Hall of Mirrors.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The Vector Reversers, a pair of small, opalescent spheres that could rewind time like a tape reel, with the strength of the effect depending on proximity. This device seems like it would be helpful to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, but it never gets brought up again past its original introduction. The author states that the mechanic didn’t lead to fun storytelling, so it was quietly stowed away.
  • In the Dream World, Ishiro produces a magical filament which traces back where his companions are across space. This filament is forgotten for the rest of the arc. When it’s mentioned one arc later as a solution to a problem, Ishiro's author admits that they forgot about it entirely, and it winds up going unused anyway.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ishiro calls out The Gamemaster for erasing someone from existence who he believed could be redeemed. It later turns out, however, that this was a Suicide by Cop Memory Gambit.

Shaved Ice

• Adaptation Distillation: Shaved Ice is one for Spaghetti Ice. Per The Law of Conservation of Detail, anything that didn’t set the scene or directly advance the plot was cut.
• Adaptational Name Change:
  • Clementine's and Solana's roles get flipped between Spaghetti Ice and this installation.
  • Armin's and Vicerre's roles get flipped.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In Spaghetti Ice, the antagonist has the ability to conjure ice and portals. In Shaved Ice, a different character has these abilities, while the antagonist has Psychic Powers instead.
• Adaptation Title Change: From Spaghetti Ice to Shaved Ice. The author describes the “Shaved” part of “Shaved Ice” as Adaptation Distillation.
• All There in the Manual: Many aspects of Shaved Ice get expounded in the author's personal blog.
• Anger Born of Worry: Clementine calls Armin out for resetting himself right before Vicerre appears in the Mental Plane. (To be fair, Armin didn't know this would happen, and he is quick to comfort Clementine about it.)
• Artifact Title: Shaved Ice follows the same naming convention as Spaghetti Ice, but since Vicerre’s Sweet Tooth was Adapted Out, the Edible Theme Naming convention has no in-universe explanation.
• Author Appeal: The chapters that take place in Vicerre’s Headscape show the author’s love of clever puzzles and puzzle solving.
• Bizarre Dream Rationalization: Clementine's initial reaction upon landing in her Headscape (which looks abstract and contains multicolored clouds) is to pinch herself awake.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Even when Clementine has a knife against Vicerre's throat, Vicerre is nonchalant about trading verbal blows with her.
• Connected All Along: The moment Armin encounters Clementine in the Mental Plane appears to be the first time they've met. Not. It's later revealed Armin is composed of Vicerre’s memories all along.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Neko accurately guesses Armin is actually an Amnesiac God in the Mental Plane because… his name is one letter away from “admin”.
• Cynicism Catalyst: The chapter “Revelations” reveals Vicerre was much more optimistic about his research on the Mental Plane at one point. However, Armin’s death, coupled with some Sanity Slippage from his research, lead to the events of Shaved Ice.
• Demoted Memories: Played with. Vicerre initially declares the events Armin experiences in the Mental Plane a dream. As Clementine pries into Vicerre more, though, he’s forced to admit that these memories had a profound effect on his psyche.
• Dissonant Serenity: What is Vicerre’s reaction after Clementine escapes from the Mental Plane? A dissonant, calm “You managed to leave Oneiros.” He remains unfettered even when he threatens to drive an icicle through Clementine's skull.
• Door Jam: When Clementine reawakens in the Physical Plane, she finds herself in a room with only herself and Vicerre in it, and Solana and Neko nowhere to be seen. This acts as her climactic Facing Your Fears moment.
• Eerie Arctic Research Station: Vicerre’s Headscape has the hallmarks of one. Freezing cold? Check. Science? Check. Ominous Malevolent Architecture? Check.
• Emotion Suppression: It's implied Vicerre Taking a Level in Cynic resulted in him suppressing the more optimistic, idealistic aspects of himself. In the Mental Plane, these aspects surface in Armin.
• Evil Is Deathly Cold: Vicerre's Headscape is cold enough that ice doesn't melt while in it. This proves key to solving one of the puzzles, as it lets Armin use the ice he conjures as a Trail of Bread Crumbs.
• Eye Colour Change: People under the effects of Oneiros gain gold irises. The fact that Vicerre's irises become blue after Clementine returns from the Mental Plane serves as an indicator Vicerre is acting as himself again.
• Fantastic Foxes: The kitsune in Shaved Ice all share the common ability to Dream Walk and act as The Navigator in the Mental Plane. Additionally, individual species specialize in their own elemental affinities. Solana, for instance, can conjure Fireballs.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Firenze is a mishmash of Florence (like its namesake) and Big Applesauce.
• Fictional Greetings and Farewells: Kitsune fan their tails out and bow as a way of greeting each other.
• Foil: Clementine and Vicerre serve as foils:
  • Clementine loves being with her companions, while Vicerre is hermetic and dispassionate.
  • Clementine loves exploring the natural world, while Vicerre dedicates his time to the sciences.
  • Clementine's kitsune companion can manipulate fire, while Vicerre's kitsune companion can manipulate ice.
• Foreshadowing: There are several clues leading up to the revelation Armin is connected to Vicerre:
  • Those under the effect of Oneiros gain yellow eyes and are trapped in the Mental Plane. When we first meet him, Vicerre has gold eyes, but his Mental Plane counterpart, oddly, seems amiss.
  • It’s mentioned Clementine receives a different outfit when she enters the Mental Plane, but no mention is given to non-human creatures like Armin, Swey, Clementine, or Neko. It turns out that Armin was given a different appearance as well—but no one thought of it out of the ordinary.
  • When Armin catches up with Solana and Neko over ice cream, he sits at a table the same way a human would, in contrast to fellow kitsune Solana, who sits on the ground like an actual animal.
  • It’s established that you need to have a connection with someone in order to travel to their Headscape. This raises the question of how Armin was able to reach Clementine’s Headscape to begin with when he has no prior connection to Clementine. The reader may be forgiven for dismissing this point as a side-effect of Oneiros when there’s another explanation.
  • Under the conditions of That's What I Would Do, Armin is often more correct than not about what to expect from Vicerre.
  • While the team traverses through Vicerre’s Headscape, Armin ends up carrying them through each puzzle. The reader may suspect that Vicerre’s Headscape is written such that it is a Plot Tailored to the Party… and it is, but for very deliberate reasons.
  • Armin is able to decipher Vicerre’s arcane scientific writing despite being a mythical creature that should have little, if any experience of this topic.
• Hands Looking Wrong: One of the first things Armin does upon discovering he changed to a human form is to inspect his digits.
• Highly Visible Password: Played straight per Rule of Perception. All of Clementine's guesses are displayed plainly on the terminal in Vicerre's Neuro-Vault.
• Humanity Ensues: After triggering Resurrection Teleportation, Armin finds he changed to a human form. Vicerre's form. Clementine is just as freaked out and confused about the transformation as he is.
• Interspecies Friendship: The 'Verse being a Fantasy Kitchen Sink, Clementine’s closest companions are a Fantastic Fox and a Carbuncle Creature. Additionally, she ends up befriending another kitsune at the start of the story.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Subverted. Vicerre threatens Clementine with what amounts to an impromptu lobotomy unless she agrees to return to the Mental Plane. Clementine is able to convince him to change his mind.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Almost nothing but. The reader is drip-fed plot points over the course of multiple chapters, until everything comes together in The Reveal.
• The Joy of First Flight: The gryphon ride Clementine shares with Armin acts as one for him, and marks the point where Clementine and Armin consider each other friends.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: It’s an open secret that Armin and Vicerre are connected. Downplayed, however, since Adaptation Name Changes make the exact nature of their connection more ambiguous.
• Layman's Terms: Armin has to act as a "translator" for Vicerre's scientific writing after they stumble upon a paper authored by him.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Oneiros works this way by creating a Shared Dream in the Mental Plane.
• The Maze: The path to the center of Vicerre's Headscape is one of these, with the added bonus of being an Unnaturally Looping Location as well. This turns out to be less of an issue as originally presented, as the team is well-versed in pathing through mazes. The team eventually wonders whether the maze is a Red Herring altogether. It's not.
• Meaningful Name: The name of Vicerre's Lotus-Eater Machine, Oneiros, is named after the Greek personification of dreams.
• Mental World: The Mental Plane, natch. In particular, Headscapes are locations in the Mental Plane that reflect people:
  • Clementine's is soft, fluffy, and, for lack of a better description, dream-like.
  • Swey's is an alpine forest.
  • From what we could see of Solana's and Neko's Headscapes, they have Japanese and Italian inspirations, respectively.
  • Vicerre's is freezing-cold, mechanical, perplexing, and laden with traps.
• Mind-Control Eyes: People under the effects of Oneiros have Supernatural Gold Eyes.
• Minimalist Cast: There are six named characters in the story. One of them (Swey) only shows up for a single chapter, bringing the total number of recurring characters down to five.
• Morphic Resonance: In the epilogue, Clementine notices Vicerre’s eyes had turned icy blue after he stopped using Oneiros—just like Armin's.
• Mundane Utility: Armin get a lot of mileage out of his ability to grow ice:
  • He uses ice as a substitute for a person’s hand in order to activate a switch and set off a trap without hurting himself.
  • After resetting himself and finding his appearance changed, the first thing he does is to extrude a slab of ice to check his reflection.
• Mythology Gag: The head-mounted device Vicerre uses to monitor Clementine under the effects of Oneiros has an identical description as the head-mounted device used to reverse the effects of the nameless virus in Spaghetti Ice.
• Neuro-Vault: Vicerre's Headscape acts as one for the inner workings of Oneiros.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Eventually revealed to be the reason behind Oneiros. After losing a close friend of his and having his life's work pulled out from under him, Vicerre fabricates a Lotus-Eater Machine where everyone can live their lives in peace. It takes convincing from Clementine to get him to back down.
• Non-Residential Residence: Inverted. A home office is not unusual enough to count as a trope on its own. The fact that said "home office" includes specialized neuroscience equipment, which has spread to every corner of the living space, is.
• Ominous Adversarial Amusement: Vicerre's reaction to Clementine pressing the spine of her knife against her throat is a disquieting Psychotic Smirk.
• Only One Name: Non-human characters only have one given name (Solana, Neko, Armin, Swey).
• Ontological Mystery: The driving factor of Shaved Ice. The protagonists quickly identify where they end up (the Mental Plane), but it's a mystery why they're trapped here and how they can get out.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
  • The password to Vicerre's Neuro-Vault is the surprisingly mundane default password "admin". However, this password just unlocks the area beyond the entrance. The important part—the center of the vault—is gated behind The Maze and another, more cryptic password.
  • The password to the center of Vicerre's Neuro-Vault is "armin". In a twist on this trope, the difficulty of the password is not what's important but rather what it is in the first place.
• People Puppets: One of the abilities associated with Oneiros is the ability to "enthrall" others. When Clementine is under the effects of Oneiros, Vicerre is able to stop her from moving under her own accord.
• Plot Device All Along: The log files found in Vicerre’s Headscape turn out to be more than just Narrative Filigree. As Clementine discovers, Vicerre’s Dark and Troubled Past is documented on them.
• Plot-Triggering Death: Armin’s death is responsible for the original Project Oneiros being shut down and Vicerre Taking A Level In Cynic. Shaved Ice picks up from here.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: The pronunciation of Vicerre’s name is revealed in-universe when Clementine tries typing his name in as a password using a phonetic spelling.
• Punny Name: The name of the setting, Firenze, is a pun on the real-life city of Florence and the word "fire".
• Puzzle Thriller: The protagonists find their way out of Oneiros by unraveling Vicerre's puzzles. More literally, the last puzzle in the story is left as an exercise for the reader to solve.
• Resurrection Teleportation: Exploited. To verify Vicerre's Headscape is also his Headscape, Armin skewers himself with his own ice abilities to force himself to respawn.
• Rule of Personification Conservation: The author states the only reason why the characters in Shaved Ice aren’t just humans with magical abilities is because it would require too much effort to adapt from Spaghetti Ice.
• Self-Made Superpowers: Oneiros is Applied Phlebotinum which grants its wielder a range of Psychic Powers. Vicerre acts as both its creator and its wielder.
• Shared Dream: Oneiros extends Dream Walker abilities to all under its effects.
• Shattering the Illusion: Armin's appearance turns out to be one of these. In a twist on this trope, the character shattering the illusion is the same one the illusion is placed on.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Neko, the resident Plucky Comic Relief character, is nowhere to be seen in the final confrontation between Clementine and Vicerre.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The idea of finding a backdoor to breach a virtual environment from the inside out comes from a real hacking technique called a virtual machine escape.
  • The strategy that Clementine and Armin use to solve The Maze is called Trémaux's Algorithm, and it is a legitimate strategy for solving a maze that is not simply connected, as depicted in the story.
• Significant Name Shift: Throughout the story, Vicerre always refers to Clementine as "Miss Clementine". After his Heel–Face Turn, he drops the "Miss" part of his address.
• Solid Clouds: The clouds in Clementine's Headscape are solid enough for her to stand on. Justified as Headscapes are part of the Mental Plane and aren't bound by physics.
• Somber Backstory Revelation: Vicerre's Dark and Troubled Past is revealed in, fittingly enough, the chapter "Revelations". After realizing Clementine understands and sympathizes with his loss, Vicerre decides to spare her.
• Stumbled Into the Plot: The only reason why Clementine got caught up in the plot of Shaved Ice was her proximity to ground zero.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Within the universe of Shaved Ice, neuroscience apparently also involves the study of supernatural phenomena such as the Mental Plane, which Vicerre studies.
• Title Drop: The last line of the epilogue. This also acts as the final puzzle of the story.
• Tomato in the Mirror: After solving the last puzzle in Vicerre’s Headscape, Armin is treated to an enigmatic message implying that he has a past with Vicerre. After a brief Freak Out, he finds out the truth. In contrast to his Spaghetti Ice incarnation, he reacts to the reveal more comfortably, as he recognizes that he won’t have much longer to work anyway if he is to stop Oneiros.
• Tomato Surprise: The reader is usually made known of Clementine's thoughts, so it comes as a surprise when it's revealed she secretly read through the other log files in Vicerre's Headscape.
• Trapped in Another World: The onset of the plot comes from Clementine being thrust into the Mental Plane and unable to return to the Physical Plane.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Spaghetti Ice and in-universe material implies that Armin is Vicerre’s first name. The truth turns out to be more complicated.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Vicerre’s stated goal for Oneiros is to bring humanity into a Lotus-Eater Machine where no one would suffer. Clementine argues against this philosophy, pointing out he's just using "utopia" as a means to overcome his own unresolved grief.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • Towards the beginning of the story, Vicerre, at knifepoint, questions whether Clementine is the sort of person who would resort to killing a stranger to rescue her companions.
  • Echoed towards the end of the story. When Clementine returns from the Mental Plane, Vicerre willingly returns her knife and he doesn't hold her back. This time, Clementine lets go of the knife and works things out with him.
• Ultimate Universe: Shaved Ice acts as one for Spaghetti Ice. Whereas Spaghetti Ice was improvisational in nature, Shaved Ice reinterprets and distills the plot and characters to only what is essential to the narrative.
• Win to Exit: Enforced. Oneiros traps anyone it inducts in the Mental Plane. The only way out, the protagonists find, is to find a vulnerability in Oneiros's design, which just so happens to be at the end of some Malevolent Architecture.
• Word Salad Title: This work's title, Awkwardly Step Around Him for a Fresh Herb, is written as a cryptic Crossword Puzzle clue.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Oneiros unknowingly grants The Administrator a slight degree of this. Within the context of the story, it is used to bring Vicerre’s An Ice Person abilities into the Physical Plane.

Cherry Ice

Warning: All spoilers for previous installments are unmarked!

• 555: Email addresses in Cherry Ice end with .domain, a reserved top-level domain, rather than a real domain such as .com, .org, etc.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Being an Animal Lover, Solana is fond of these. Not only does she offer headpats to the Intellectual Animals of the cast, but she also gives one to Vic in Icebreaker 021 as a means of cheering him up.
• Alternative-Self Name-Change: As there would be two Clementines and two Vicerres otherwise, the Spaghetti Ice variants of these characters are referred to by their "other" name (first name for Alis, last name for Monaghan).
• Alternate Self Shipping: Discussed In-Universe. Solana teasingly calls Vic a narcissist for using the interdimensional portal to find an alternate universe version of himself. When Vic claims he is not since the other version is not biologically identical to him, Solana asks if she can ship the two of them.
• A Bloody Mess: This trope is described as one reason Vic enjoys red fluids:
  • In one comic, Vic gripes when a beaker of hibiscus tea doesn't remind Solana of blood or some other Technicolor chemical.
  • Conversed in Vignette 015. As Vic is making holiday dinner preparations, he ends up honing a kitchen knife while his hands are stained red with cranberry sauce. Solana comments how those two elements make Vic look like a Psycho Knife Nut. Vic plays into it, with dreadful results.
• Canon Welding: Vic's invention of the interdimensional portal lets him access alternative universes—namely, the universe of Shaved Ice. The characters from this universe become recurring characters in Cherry Ice.
• Cassandra Gambit: Being The Gadfly he is, Vic gleefully admits he's something of a Mad Scientist himself, much to others' disbelief.
• Chocolate of Romance: Parodied in Vignette 021. Around what would be Valentine's Day, Vic shares some leftover chocolate with Solana. As Vic a Genius Sweet Tooth and is (mostly) Oblivious to Love, the gesture comes across as absent-minded rather than romantic.
• Chromatic Arrangement: Solana, Alis, and Vic invoke the colors red, green, and blue in their character designs, respectively, and are depicted through those colors in supporting art. Furthermore, the Storyteller is associated with the color black, symbolizing their role as their progenitor.
• Cool Gate: As depicted in Illustration 041, the interdimensional portal is one of these. It appears as large, elaborate fixture of Vicerre's lab through which recurring characters use to, well, travel across dimensions.
• Do Wrong, Right: In Icebreaker 087, Vic is less concerned about the possibility of someone requesting his bioengineering services for unsavory reasons than he is for his services being used ineffectively. For instance, he questions why someone would use his services to kill when you can use your targets as Human Resources instead?
• Feghoot: A backbone of many a Vignette. A good number of passages are written for the purpose of fulfilling a pun or joke, courtesy of local Pungeon Master Vic.
• Footnote Fever: In the footnotes of Icebreaker 038, the author debates whether plants are considered essential for life and how zombies fit into this view.
• Friendly Address Privileges:
  • Vic had been on a Last-Name Basis ever since the Dream World arc of Spaghetti Ice. It's only when he starts considering Solana a friend does he feel comfortable being referred to by his first name.
  • Initially, the only person who had the privilege of addressing Alis as Alis was Vic. Due to Alternative-Self Name-Changes, however, other characters from the Spaghetti Ice universe have addressed him by his given name, much to his disdain.
• Given Name Reveal: In Shaved Ice, Vicerre is spoken of on a Last-Name Basis, with the only hint coming from a research paper that lists his first initial as “A”. Come Cherry Ice, it's revealed his first name is Alistair (or “Alis” for short).
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Vic insists he works in bioengineering, not Mad Science.
  • Alis would very much prefer people refer to his work as oneirology, not neuroscience.
• Lighter and Softer: In contrast to previous installments in the series, Cherry Ice focuses on the Slice of Life shenanigans of the cast.
• Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves: The male characters in the cast (Alis, Vic) are drawn with angular shapes, whereas the female characters in the cast (Monaghan, Solana) are drawn with round shapes.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Arclight virus is named for its Light Is Not Good theme. It is also a pun on actual arc lighting.
  • Arklight is named after "Arclight", but with the K replacing the C. This doubles as a reference to The Ark trope and as well as a nod to business trademarks.
• Medium Awareness: The Spaghetti Ice veterans are somewhat aware of what lies beyond the Fourth Wall. Solana occasionally references pop culture, and Vic occasionally talks directly to the author.
• Mundane Utility:
  • In Icebreaker 006, Vic uses the interdimensional portal as an Extradimensional Shortcut for Solana's holiday.
  • In Icebreaker 009, Vic uses his ability to conjure portals to block out the sun while at the beach.
  • In Icebreaker 011, Vic uses his portals to sneak Solana some iced tea in a food venue with no outside food/drinks allowed.
  • In Illustration 041, Vic uses his portals to take a selfie of Team Arklight. In Illustration 080, Alis does the same.
  • Alis uses his Manipulative Bastard tendencies and peerless psionic abilities to… get Solana and Vic to talk to each other about their feelings.
• My Future Self and Me: Despite not being from the same timeline, Alis and Vic have this sort of relationship. Alis’s timeline is nine years behind Vic’s technologically, and he lacks nine years of Character Development.
• Named in the Sequel:
  • The primary setting of the story is given the name "New Quendon".
  • The Mind Virus introduced in Spaghetti Ice is given the moniker "The Arclight Virus" (or simply "Arclight") in Cherry Ice.
  • The Nekorei is given the name "Nia".
• Noodle Incident: Events from Spaghetti Ice are treated as Noodle Incidents in Cherry Ice. In Icebreaker 038, the author describes the time Vic "kill[ing] a plant" as an event comparable to him instigating a zombie apocalypse. This is eventually revealed to refer to the time where Vic had killed a mythical Planimal with the ability to manipulate nature.
• One-Hour Work Week: Ostensibly, the main cast members founded and work full-time at Arklight Limited, a business dedicated to creating custom fantastic creatures. In practice, it's rare for their day jobs to come up in a passage unless the story asks for it.
• Other Me Annoys Me: When Vic first met Alis, he only expected the visit to be a friendly introduction. From Alis’s perspective, however, Vic appeared out of nowhere and acts as a haunting reminder of someone he lost. Alis harbors reservations against Vic for being Innocently Insensitive, but he stays patient with him.
• Painting the Medium: Alis has the ability to communicate telepathically with others. When doing so, telepathic dialogue is rendered through monospaced font.
• Person as Verb: Icebreaker 080:
  To pull a Vic: To do something ostensibly beneficial for someone while simultaneously violating their privacy.
• Portal Crossroad World: Thanks to Vic's interdimensional portal, the primary universe of Cherry Ice acts as one.
• Portal Network: Vic's interdimensional portal allows people to travel between universes.
• Present Tense Narrative: Having its roots in text roleplays, Cherry Ice is written in the present tense.
• Psychic Link: It's revealed in Cherry Ice Oneiros allows for telepathic communication between its controller and others in its controller's range.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: In Vignette 001, Solana and Vicerre fondly recall the time from Spaghetti Ice Vicerre launched an Assimilation Plot on humanity.
• Safely Secluded Science Center: Vic's lab. As the only way in or out is via portal, no one truly knows where it is besides Vic himself. Icebreaker 067 suggests it can be repurposed as a Sealed Room in the Middle of Nowhere.
• Sekaikei Genre: The non-canonical Vignette 011 dabbles in this genre. In this episode, Vic's home universe and Solana are at the brink of collapse, and the protagonists can only save one of the two. Both outcomes lead to a Bittersweet Ending, as only one of Solana and Vic can ultimately survive.
• Soft Reboot: Cherry Ice is one to Spaghetti Ice.
  • Spaghetti Ice was a collaborative roleplay, while Cherry Ice is written by a single author, so many elements that were written by other authors were edited out.
  • The dimensional fracture acts as an in-universe justification for the myriad of changes made to the 'verse's continuity.
  • In addition, due to the Lighter and Softer tone of this installation, the author has no problems using their Author Powers to make changes to the 'verse. For example, in Icebreaker 029, they clean up some leftover plot devices from Spaghetti Ice.
• Switching P.O.V.: Depending on the episode, any of the recurring characters may act as the perspective character. This is often done to give insight into one character while adding intrigue through the eyes of another.
• Stargazing Scene: Vignette 005, literally titled "Stargazing". In this passage, Solana and Vic spend an evening outside an observatory nerding out over the stars and spending some quiet moments with each other.
• Teleporter's Visualization Clause: Vic's portals can only take him to places he already knows and are physically connected to his current location. Icebreaker 098 sees him use this ability to escape a broken elevator by shimming a portal through the gap between the elevator doors.
• Unexplained Recovery: Vic's original apartment is not only rebuilt but inexplicably enhanced. The only explanation given for this is the narrator's Author Powers.
• Word Salad Title: This work's title, It's Cardinal He's In the Common Era, is written as a cryptic Crossword Puzzle clue.

---