Line #55 Literature/TheDescendants


1	->''"They are heroes. They are people. This is their story. A comic book universe in prose."''
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3	[[http://www.descendantsserial.com The Descendants]] is a WebSerialNovel, written by Landon Porter. It can best be described as an all text [[ComicBookTropes comic book]], as it is presented in the form of issues, annuals, one shots and mini series just as if it was any other comic book universe.
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5	The main series follows a group of [[{{Mutants}} superhumans]] [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual called descendants]] on the run from a the group behind a villainous SuperheroSchool called the Academy. Events conspire from there to turn them from basically a SecretProjectRefugeeFamily into a SuperTeam.
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7	Miniseries on the site also follow characters in other corners of the [[TheVerse Descendants Universe]] such as the heroes who live in New York, or the students in a non-evil SuperheroSchool.
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9	The entire series revels in playing with ComicBookTropes and rejecting MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks. WordOfGod even states that early versions were a blatant TakeThat at Marvel's ''ComicBook/{{Civil War\|2006}}'' and that as a whole, it strives to find the sweet spot between MediaNotes/{{the Silver Age\|of Comic Books}} and MediaNotes/{{the Bronze Age\|OfComicBooks}}.
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11	Mostly, it sticks to [[KidHero Teen Hero]] books and family themes.
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13	An ebook was recently released: ''[[http://amzn.to/mMJvbC Welcome to Freeland House]]'', which edits and collects the first eight issues.
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15	Not to be confused with the novel which was the basis of [[Film/TheDescendants the 2011 film]]. Or the unrelated Disney Channel franchise ''Film/{{Descendants}}.''
16	----
17	!!This series provides examples of:
18	* NinetiesAntiHero: Deconstructed, any character that has the motivation and personality of one is a straight up villain here. See Samael: His [[TakeThat defining characteristic]]? [[Creator/RobLiefeld Pouches]], lots of pouches.
19	** His fandom seems to share his views, in the [[TabletopGames PbP RPG]] they're playing on the website's forums one of the characters comments on a hulking man with tiny feet and, of course, pouches.
20	** Even [[AliceAllusion Vorpal]], who is the most woobish of the villains, gets a ShutUpHannibal by the ''KnightInSourArmour'' Hope, of all people.
21	* AffablyEvil: Most villains. Even the demons are polite. That does not mean they're ''nice'' however.
22	* AliceAllusion: Vorpal. Besides her CodeName, her friend Mr. Voice calls her Alice for lack of a real name to call her by.
23	* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Subverted. One issue actually riffs on the idea in its name, but in the end, the girl decides that she likes the quiet guy.
24	* AllThereInTheManual: Zig zags a bit. Reading only the main series is fine, and you get 99% of the stuff. However for all the small trivia about the future world, the prelates, faerie and everything else you need to not only read all the side stories, but the Q&A thread on the forums has stuff in it not answered anywhere. The [[TabletopGames RPG]] played on the forums (and set in the same universe) has some additional information too, but it's already more than [[ArchivePanic 3,000 posts long]].
25	* AlphaBitch: Lily Goldenmeyer and with the new school comes Betty [[PrehensileHair "Rapunzel"]] Sinclair
26	* AntiVillain: Vorpal, clearly. Liedecker to a lesser degree.
27	* BadassNormal: Liedecker manages to fight a [[spoiler:freaking demon]] to a standstill. But the cake goes to [[spoiler:George]], who single handedly stops Rehenimaru's plan, and ''without'' any kind of weapon or battle training.
28	* BigBad: Simon Talbot and Project TOME
29	** Morganna might yet turn out to be an even Bigger Bad.
30	* TheChessmaster: Brother Wright
31	** Simon Talbot is starting to show signs of this too.
32	** And Thunderhead.
33	* CityOfAdventure: The fictional city of Mayfield, VA.
34	* CodeName: Academy students had a tradition of giving themselves these. It's also implied that British descendants working for the government also have them following the pattern of Verbing Noun.
35	* CrypticBackgroundReference: The characters often reference villains who haven't appeared in the series.
36	* CuteMonsterGirl: Freaque, Rehenimaru, and Joy Duvall. If it's female and non-human, it will be one of these.
37	** Phineas (Xylem) actually thinks it might be a part of descendent powers.
38	* DeadpanSnarker: Whitecoat and Sneak Thief.
39	* DeathByOriginStory: Whitecoat's favorite professor
40	* DifferentlyPoweredIndividual: The superheroes are called "prelates" by the media, but many of the heroes (as per the page quote) [[GenreSavvy know exactly what they are]]. At one point, a character asks when it will be okay to call bad guys supervillains.
41	* {{Eagleland}}: Starts out looking like a Type 1 largely because the series is very US-centric until Volume 5. But FridgeLogic sets in when you realize that none of the core conflict would even exist without massive corruption and/or incompetence in the US government.
42	* EnemyCivilWar: Most apparent with the Brother Wright/Project TOME split, but [[spoiler:Morganna/demons and demons/demon baboons, too]]. This seems to be a way of life in [[AnotherDimension Faerie]].
43	* EnemyMine: Even demons intent on hunting down and consuming the emotions of humans don't like Morganna.
44	* EscapedFromHell: While she wasn't in "Hell", Morganna, the mystical BigBad, managed after falling into [[AnotherDimension Faerie]]. She mustered an army by defeating and cowing various creatures until she had a big enough army to challenge the local demons -- who decided to cut a deal with her.
45	* {{Expy}}: Liedecker is essentially [[Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse Diniverse Luthor played sane]] and much, much more dangerous.
46	** Batman has two: Barn Owl who is a MillionairePlayboy who [[CrimeFightingWithCash Crime Fights With Cash]] and even has a [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute Older Guardian]] in New York.
47	** And Umbrage/Shadow in Chicago, who is a [[{{Antihero}} Antiheroic]] cop on disability after being tortured. He goes after criminals at night and while he uses his powers to torture mobsters who got away with their crimes, he doesn't kill and has a [[KidSidekick sidekick]] who he admits is helping him to pull back from the edge.
48	* FeatherFlechettes: Samael launches these with his Magitek wings. Also Barn Owl (in the Whitecoat and the Second Stringers mini-series).
49	** And for a Music/GreenDay [[WaxingLyrical reference]].
50	* ForWantOfANail: Apparently according to [[spoiler:George]] if Alexis didn't see the memo and breakout the descendants in stasis the world becomes a [[CrapsackWorld crapsack one]] within six months or so. Since she did, it looks like the world is instead heading to a Golden Age.
51	* FutureSlang: Shiny is used probably as a ShoutOut to Firefly.
52	* GadgeteerGenius: Laurel and Tink, Warrick's [[spoiler: formerly]] non-powered girlfriend.
53	* GenerationXerox: Played with, a lot. Cyn and Warrick more or less are Alexis and Ian as kids, and thanks to [[HumanPopsicle stasis]] they even have the ''same'' roommate. In the "possible future" issue they even get their own super-group in the future. However it looks like they're not going to end up together, and the more CharacterDevelopment there is, the more what looked like a GenerationXerox at first gets less and less xeroxy.
54	** WordOfGod says that originally, Cyn and Warrick ''were'' supposed to get together, but then the author ended up developing Tink, who was originally supposed to be a RomanticFalseLead (along with Liz Von Stoker and presumably a few others, but they were cut when Tink became a permanent fixture).
55	* GenreSavvy: Warrick swings between this and WrongGenreSavvy from issue to issue.
56	* {{Golem}}: In the issue Emet.
57	* GreatBigBookOfEverything: The Book of Reason (and presumably the rest of the 4 books) spontaneously spawns new material. Even in digital copies.
58	* InstantRunes: Occult uses these. Notable in that she has to prepare them ahead of time to get the 'instant' effect.
59	** They take 2 hours to create, but the non-instant runes take half an hour. In battle the two hours ahead of time makes them much faster in the moment.
60	* InTheHood: Occult wears one. It casts magical darkness over her face.
61	* IWasJustPassingThrough: Odd heroic sample with Hope 'helping' Vorpal with some smugglers when she just wanted to get to a transceiver.
62	* KidSidekick: strangely enough, for all the gold and silver age feeling, deconstructed. The Whitecoat doesn't really want Damascus (Warrick's old prelate name) around, and finally has a chat with his parents to stop him [[spoiler: after he accidentally slags key evidence]]. This leads them to enroll him at the Academy to train.
63	** Even more deconstructed with Kay and Occult, since they're both kids.
64	* LaserGuidedKarma: usually done in a positive way. All the people misguided or forced into villainy manage to get an happy end of one sort or another. It does help that most of the antagonists are overall positive characters.
65	* MagicalGirl: Occult is a MagicWarrior.
66	* ManicPixieDreamGirl: WordofGod describes Cyn as this.
67	* MetaOrigin: Most heroes and a good number of the villains are [[{{Mutants}} descendants]].
68	* MindControl: Both Avatar and Thunderhead's [=MOs=]. Morganna doesn't hesitate to apply it when needed.
69	* {{Mutants}}: Called 'descendants' here. An interesting case in that while descendants are born with their powers, those powers are the result of [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke experimentation]] during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, hence the name- because they are the descendants of the people experimented on.
70	* MysteriousWatcher: We had to wait for 49 issues before discovering who 'George' was.
71	* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: Juniper has moments of this, casually commenting one things like how easily she could simply be shot and killed ''immediately'' after Cyn had a hallucination about all of her friends being killed horribly.
72	* {{Orichalcum}}: The nearly indestructible metal orihalcite and its refined form, orihalcon.
73	* OurMonstersAreDifferent: Trolls and Demons especially.
74	* ParentalAbandonment: Mostly averted. We've met almost all the main characters' parents and know why they're allowed to stay at Freeland House.
75	** Played straight in Cyn's case. Her family drove her out with their abuse over her BigEater tendencies 'costing too much'.
76	* PsychicNosebleed: Discussed by Alloy and Facsimile in issue #67. Alloy transmutes more metal than ever before, the effort does make him weak for a moment but he doesn't get a nosebleed.
77	-->'''Facsimile''': That’s a lot of metal. You’ve never done this much at once.
78	---> '''Alloy''': I never tried to push it at all before.”
79	---> '''Alloy''': But hey, if I get a nosebleed and faint or something, you’re right here, right?
80	* PublicDomainCharacter: Morganna. Only not really.
81	* RougeAnglesOfSatin: Rare, but all the more grating for it.
82	** The author has gone back and done a lot of editing.
83	* SecretIdentity: Played with. The BigBad knew their identities from the start, their families mostly find out early on, but they still maintain their secret identities because of all the ''new'' enemies they've made.
84	* ShoutOut:
85	** The names of Alloy's sentient, metal tentacles, Isp and Osp are a reference to ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'', who had two talking snakes attached to a demon's head with the same name.
86	** UsefulNotes/TheBechdelTest is referenced in one conversation that has been 100% about dating and boys, ended by a character mentioning that she's probably going to fail the test she's studying for, administered by a Professor Bechdel.
87	* ShowWithinAShow: ''Malady Place''. Many of the characters are fans and the pilot is in the extras area.
88	* SixthRanger: Primarily Juniper, but also Lisa, to an extent. [[spoiler: Also Tink, and sort-of with Callie, because even though she's now officially part of the team, whether or not she'll actually become a main character is debatable.]]
89	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Firmly on the idealism side and consciously taking a stand against cynicism.
90	* SomeOfMyBestFriendsAreX: In Rust Buckets, Juniper points out that it wouldn't make sense for her to be racist against non-descendants because she's only ever dated non-descendants.
91	* StartOfDarkness: The ''Liedecker: Life and Times'' miniseries is this for Liedecker and ''Rise of Morganna'' shows this for Morganna in flashback.
92	* SuperHero
93	* SuperHeroSchool: And how! The Academy, the Brunswick School, Voice's School, the Liedecker Institute
94	* SuperpowerLottery: Some people control universal forces, some people... are prematurely bald.
95	* TakeThat: The briefly seen villain Wartorn more or less is Mark Millar and paraphrases Millar as a justification of his villainy.
96	** His real name is 'Mark Miller' in French.
97	* ThouShaltNotKill: Constantly. It's rare to even have a ''villain'' kill someone. Not for lack of trying on their parts, though. Morganna seems to be immune to this rule.
98	* TomeOfEldritchLore: The 4, each of which contain the source code for the universe's local magical laws. All have their own force of will, are extremely dangerous, and perhaps most worryingly, can be photocopied or digitized with both copies retaining those attributes. One of them is called [[OhCrap the Book Of Madness]].
99	** The Book of Passions in seems to think it's perfectly okay to sic monsters on its ChosenOne.
100	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Liedecker. He's managed to get the heroes to name a school after him!
101	** Not him, his father.
102	%%* WaxingLyrical: At least once per volume.

Context Literature / TheDescendants