Line #1 Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault


1	''[[http://www.gpf-comics.com/ General Protection Fault]]'' is a [[WebcomicsLongRunners long-running webcomic]] by Jeffery T. Darlington. At its core it's about the workplace hijinks of the staff of GPF Software as they deal with clients, internal strife, would-be world conquerors, alternate dimensions, mad science, and spies.
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3	And that's not including the internal conflicts between the main characters:
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5	* Nick Wellington: The strip's main character. Lead Programmer, Geek's Geek, MadScientist
6	* Ki Oshiro-Wellington: Chief DBA, ActionGirl, GamerChick, Nick's long-time girlfriend and wife.
7	* Jason "Fooker" Barker: Systems Administrator. Slacker, not-so-secretly a government agent
8	* Sharon Murphy: Fooker's girlfriend and co-sys admin
9	* Trudy Trueheart: Marketing Director, StepfordSmiler, former would-be world conqueror, TheAtoner
10	* Dwayne Duncan: The Boss, software engineer, StraightMan
11	* Dexter Smith: Coder, TheBigGuy
12	* Fred & Persephone: [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman Sapient slime molds]] spawned from Fooker's garbage. For a long time, GPF's customer service operators.
13
14	The strip mixes geek humor with sci-fi elements (and occasional dips into the CerebusSyndrome pool). A by-the-storyline index is available [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/stories.php here]].
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16	----
17	!!This comic provides examples of:
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19	* AcquaintedInRealLife: Both Nick and Ki find not only friends, but soulmates in an online chat. They can talk to them about everything, especially about their unknowingly mutual crush. Both their friends even live in their hometown. What they never even suspect, though: Ki's friend [[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 Gort]] is Nick, and Nick's friend Pookel is Ki (who has named herself after her childhood teddy bear). Even when they want to watch ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' with their chat friends, and they meet in front of the cinema and wait for Gort and Pookel in vain, they don't take into consideration that both Gort and Pookel may in fact already be there. That is, if they did, it would make things a whole lot easier for them because they'd realize that they've actually confessed their mutual crush to each other but a whole lot less interesting for the reader.
20	* ActuallyPrettyFunny: An early comic has Nick warning Fooker about telling racy jokes in the workplace in case someone takes offense. Fooker goes to check with Ki.
21	-->'''Ki:''' I'd sue you for sexual harassment if I hadn't laughed.
22	* TheAllegedComputer: The secret organization of the Brotherhood of the Twisted Pair seek a geek "like none other, whose skills are without equal. He (or she) will initiate a golden age of geekdom, and lead a revolution of ideas that will revolutionize the computerized world." One of the tests is averting this trope with out-of-date machinery.
23	** Fooker passed by building a server out of computer equipment made in the late 1980s, when said components were at least a decade out of date.
24	** Sharon passed by writing down what you'd have to do in order to pull off a similar feat, using 20-year-old equipment.
25	** Yoshi passed by having the computer equipment a college kid could buy on a budget confiscated by the FBI, because of what he did with it.
26	* AlternateUniverse: One ruled by Nick's EvilCounterpart
27	* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Ki's brother, Yoshi. It's implied that this is true of Lori, but she and Nick are never shown interacting.
28	* ArbitrarySkepticism: The greys believe alternate universes are impossible, even when the cast says point blank they've been to one.
29	* BaldOfEvil: F*kr, much to the annoyance of his prime counterpart.
30	* BeardOfEvil: The nega-verse counterparts of Nick and Dwayne, based on the facial hair they wore in the Surreptitious Machinations arc before they were persuaded to shave it at the end.
31	* BigEater: Fooker, who has gotten banned from a few all-you-can-eat pizza places.
32	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Trudy is exceptionally polite and good natured around most people besides Ki and Fooker.
33	** Trish, [[spoiler:or rather, Nega-Trish.]]
34	* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Grey culture is based on the power of the collective. Individual drones are not only not valued, but are routinely "revised" and mind-wiped. This gets Nick and Ki into major trouble as they try to retrieve an [[spoiler: old version of Plank, [[HonorBeforeReason potentially souring their relationship with the Grey High Command, whom humanity is completely reliant on for survival at the moment]]]].
35	* BrickJoke: [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2016/01/01 This strip]] contains a throwaway joke about Planck being vice-president of Fred's fan club. More than [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2019/02/11 three years later]], we meet the other members of the club.
36	* BrilliantButLazy: Fooker is able to do all his work for the day in only a fraction of the time, and spends the rest goofing off.
37	* ButNotTooForeign: Ki and Yoshi, who have a Chinese mother and Japanese father. Ki's mother won a bet and got to give her a Chinese name, but Ki's father still commonly calls her "Kyoko-san".
38	* CatFight: Ki and Trudy during the battle of New York. Also, Ki and Sharon when they're arguing about a project they're both working on.
39	* CerebusSyndrome: The comic has more serious storylines in the third year, and Surreptitious Machinations was the first with a truly dark tone [[spoiler:GPF burns down and goes out of business, Fooker gets framed for murder, Nick takes a job away from Ki, and in the alternate future, Trudy takes over the world and the rest of the cast gets killed]].
40	** This can be to an extent credited as the trope namer, as it was in a post about GPF that Burns coined the term. Of course, this post was about how GPF was an example of this trope gone horribly ''wrong''.
41	* ChekhovsArmoury: Quite a lot of ChekhovsGun.
42	** The Skaboola's love for porn displayed very early on, which caused him to backup the whole Internet on data cubes.
43	** The very same data cubes which might be instrumental in [[spoiler: giving the [=MuTEX=] data it needs, and more recently reviving Planck's memories.]]
44	** The "Friend Field" application, and its "blorp" notification sound. This ends up saving the day when the separated GPF cast can reach each other through their cell phones.
45	* ContinuityPorn: Oh so much.
46	** The best example that even drags in very early events : Trent dropping a safe on Dwayne, and getting convicted for murder for it ends up biting him in the ass very hard, when trying to sue Fred for libel over claims that he is a murderer. Too bad, since he got convicted, this gets to stick.
47	** Even poor Chuck does NOT get chucked away, 15 years down the road, Trudy still remembers him.
48	* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: Patty confessing to the unconscious Dexter why she was leaving GPF. [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=20100913 He turns out to have been awake for at least some of it.]]
49	* CPRCleanPrettyReliable: Nick nearly drowns in a flood arc in 2001, and Ki gives him CPR. Although "just fine" initially, he does end up sick, slightly subverting the trope.
50	* CrossOver: Most notably with ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell''
51	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Fooker.
52	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Chuck.
53	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Hinted at for Trudy and Sharon.
54	* DeepImmersionGaming: One of the Mutex's capabilities.
55	* DevilInPlainSight: Trudy.
56	* DysfunctionalFamily: Trudy's family.
57	* EinsteinHair: Uncle Otto.
58	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: After putting up a sickeningly sweet facade around Dwayne, Trudy shakes hands with Ki, who is not one of the people Trudy wants to fool. Ki asks if she just shook hands with the devil and Trudy responds that she has that effect on "inferior life forms." Shortly thereafter, she has a ''literal'' KickTheDog moment.
59	** Nega-Nick executes [[spoiler:Nega-Trish]] [[YouHaveFailedMe for her failure]].
60	* FanConvention: There's a sci-fi convention which Fooker uses in a Fooker-esquely weird and elaborate attempt to [[ShipperOnDeck get Nick and Ki together]].
61	* FisherKingdom: The characters change appearance when changing universes. Lampshaded [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2005/04/11 here]].
62	* {{Foreshadowing}}: This comic is very good at it. Dropping hints of plot lines that will be acted upon years down the road.
63	** Socrates' presence in the BadFuture, hinting at the existence of more slime molds than just Fred and Persephone.
64	** Fred's mind control ability, hinting at something far bigger.
65	** The Negaverse's war between the Greys and the Physarics foreshadows what could go down in the main universe, and also re-introduces Planck and Pi.
66	* FourFingeredHands: Lampshaded in [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2005/04/11 this strip]].
67	** Ironically, [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2016/02/10 this strip]] has an alien stating that humans use a base-10 numbering system because of their "manual digits", while clearly showing that Fooker has only four fingers to a hand.
68	* FunWithAcronyms: C.R.U.D.E.
69	** Nicole belongs to a law firm whose partners' first initials spell "S.U.E. E.M." During his attempts to find a lawyer to sue Fred for libel, Trent visits two firms whose names spell "S.U.C.K.E.R." and "D.E.A.D."
70	---> '''Nicole (to her husband)''': But after Mr. Minsk retired and Mr. and Mrs. Edwards divorced and she left the firm, I've picked up their slack.
71	---> '''Dwayne Duncan''': Wait a minute. Your firm's acronym changed from "SUE 'EM" to "SUED"?
72	---> '''Nicole''': [[LampshadeHanging It does have a sort of ominous feel to it, doesn't it?]]
73	* FutureMeScaresMe: Trudy, after meeting Surreptitious Machinations' Empress Trudy.
74	* GeniusDitz: Fooker.
75	* GigglingVillain: Trudy.
76	* GoingCommando: Ki stopped wearing skirts or dresses in her college days. She greatly embarrassed herself when she tripped and fell in a short summer dress, but that was mostly because she didn't wear panties.
77	* HappilyMarried: Dwayne and his wife. Ki and Nick (so far).
78	* HateSink:
79	** Victor Brown is slowly but certainly evolving in this, losing any whatsoever redeeming qualities. [[spoiler: First, it would be easy to empathize with his plight of being dragged screaming into an intergalactic war with his family as hostages, and made into a puppet, then forced to watch as the whole planet is seemingly destroyed and the human race down to a hundred specimens, and regard his irrational hatred of Nick as a coping mechanism. But then it becomes harder to forgive the escalation in his behavior: first he refuses to take part in the search effort, then he outright sabotages the [=MuTEX=] because he is convinced that it's all fake and they're doomed anyways, running the risk of stranding a crew in another dimension, and it all comes to a climax as he tries to make good on his initial threat and shove Nick out of an airlock, and when called upon it by Trudy, his best answer is to use the B-word and say it's none of her business.]]
80	** Nega-Nick all the way. No redeeming qualities, and he keeps on making things harder for his alter-ego and our heroes out of sheer spite.
81	* HiddenDepths: Dexter.
82	* HonorBeforeReason: At a point where the last vestiges of humanity were completely reliant on the Greys, Nick actively supports individualism in the Greys,[[spoiler: un-revising Plank and quietly supporting a mutiny on their ship]]. It arguably even crossed into StupidGood, as Nick risked the fate of the entire planet on the Grey's patience and that they would not withdraw their support despite supporting serious crimes.
83	* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Nick trusts Trudy when most of the rest of the cast does not, but after realizing her true nature, decides to be less blindly trusting. Mr. Jones, one of GPF's clients, thinks that Fooker would be a good choice of a motivational speaker despite his BunnyEarsLawyer traits, thinks that Trudy was a good person who "fell in with the wrong crowd," and has a favorable impression of Trent.
84	* HypocriticalHumor: Fooker tells Sharon to ignore her rival system administrators, but after they insult him, he tosses snowballs at them.
85	* IfICantHaveYou: Trudy to Nick, word for word, at the climax of Surreptitious Machinations arc. [[spoiler:Also the whole point of Surreptitious Machinations, as Empress Trudy killed Nick in the alternate future.]]
86	* ImprobablyHighIQ: Yoshi has an IQ of over 200. Fred is an aversion, since his IQ is quite high at 139, he had hoped for 70 more points.
87	* InsatiableNewlyweds: Nick and Ki.
88	* {{Irony}}: In [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2004/07/16 this strip]], Nick, regretting [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter having trusted Trudy]] in addition to noticing a few flaws in Trish's story, decides not to trust Trish. At the same time, Ki, wondering if Nick's trusting nature might not be a bad thing and if she is too untrusting, decides to trust Trish.
89	* ItCameFromTheFridge: Fred came about as a result of Fooker's horrible "housekeeping", and later produced Persephone.
90	* KickTheDog: [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=19990101 One of our earliest hints that Trudy is more than just a StepfordSmiler ditz]].
91	* KidFromTheFuture: Todd (Nick and Ki's kid from an alternate timeline)
92	* LeetLingo: Yoshi's OnlineAlias [=B0R0M1R=].
93	* LetsWaitAwhile: Nick and Ki deciding to put off sex until marriage.
94	* LockAndLoad: Nick and Ki are visiting the former's family. Nick's father turns out to be a cop and when he shows off his new service sidearm to his son, Nick --who is otherwise a stereotypical nerd-- goes through this routine before checking the sights and commenting "Nice...". Ki is somewhat intimidated. Apparently, growing up in a house with guns taught even Nick how to handle them.
95	* {{Long Lost Sibling}}s: Trudy and [[spoiler:Sharon]].
96	* LookBothWays: [[spoiler:"Misty" doesn't.]]
97	* MadScientist: Nick, his uncle Otto Wisebottom.
98	* MissedTheCall: The spy agency Fooker works for was originally looking to recruit his brother (said brother does eventually land a spot in said agency).
99	* MirrorSelf: The negaverse plotline has the main characters interact with their opposite selves. Trudy is an exception as she redeemed herself while the counterpart remained good (but almost sliding to the dark side.) There was also an arrangement to have Trudy switch places. ([[spoiler:The swap was negated by the other Trudy sending the original back home by swapping a pin.]])
100	* MonochromaticEyes: Done universally among the characters except when it's EyesAlwaysShut for the character.
101	* NoAccountingForTaste: Sharon dating both Fooker and Dexter.
102	* NoConservationOfEnergy: Played with. Everyone, including Nick himself, has a firm grasp on physics, and understand that Nick's device can't possibly be such a thing as a "free energy device", while accepting at face value that it does things that should otherwise be impossible. [[spoiler:Ultimately revealed to be averted when the Gamester explains it all to Nick.]]
103	* NonHumanSidekick: Fred and Persephone.
104	* NoodleIncident: In [[https://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2022/05/23 this strip]], one of the characters refers to the "noodle cube incident". [[note]](They are currently living on a grey spaceship, and all their meals come in the form of variously-flavored cubes.)[[/note]]
105	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Trudy's supposed hippie father is an FBI agent investigating her mother's criminal activities.
106	* OddFriendship: Ki and Fooker.
107	* OnlineAlias:
108	** Nick and Ki find chat partners named Pookel and [[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill1951 Gort]], respectively, whom they both discover to be soulmates. [[spoiler:It turns out much later that Nick has been Gort, and Ki has been Pookel all along.]]
109	** Yoshi goes by the online handle [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings B0R0]][[LeetLingo M1R]].
110	* OnlySaneMan: Dwayne.
111	* OrWasItADream: The arc in which Nick and Ki first see Fooker as a secret agent.
112	* ParentalAbandonment: Fooker and Justin's mother is dead, and their father left them years ago.
113	* PlugNPlayTechnology: While the Grays say their system is largely incompatible with Earth computers and that a software interface would be incredibly complex (with their programming language and architectures in Base 3 because it accounts for quantum calculations), Fooker is tasked with setting one up. [[BeyondTheImpossible He succeeds.]]
114	* PuppeteerParasite: Fred & Persephone.
115	* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The Year Eight mega-arc, "To Thine Own Self...", received major interruptions due to health issues with Darlington's then-newborn son. The arc drew out nearly two years, and even then was greatly curtailed.
116	** It was probably because of this that there was no Year 12 mega-arc, though Year 12 did get two multi-month-long arcs.
117	* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Chuck]], [[spoiler:Nega-Ki]]. Averted with Trudy.
118	* RevengeBeforeReason: Victor Brown is turning into this, because of his inability to handle the whole situation and what Nick did, leaving him only with the result of being stranded in space, with the Earth impossible to find. It culminates with him acting on his threat of getting Nick ThrownOutTheAirlock.
119	* RippleEffectIndicator: Todd uses [[spoiler:himself]].
120	* RousingSpeech: Planck does one to the Grays in the Nega-verse, largely as a ShoutOut to ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''.
121	* RunningGag: Early on, whenever Fooker and Ki bring up the idea that Trudy is evil, Nick doesn't believe them, noting "She gave ''me'' a nice card."
122	* TheAtoner: Trudy.
123	* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: The password to the computers at a chocolate center is "Creamy Center."
124	* TheShortGuyWithGlasses: Nick.
125	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The objective of Surreptitious Machinations appears to be this, but Todd points out in his confrontation with the Empress that the BadFuture was never meant to happen, and could only have happened with the interference of Future Trudy, who would not have existed otherwise.
126	* ShipperOnDeck: Fooker for Nick and Ki, being the only one who knows first-hand that they're in love with each other. When a [[FanConvention sci-fi convention]] comes to town, he drives them there in his car that's reduced to only two seats so that Ki has to sit on Nick's lap. It's also heavily implied that the events that land the two in a single-bed motel room later the same day were arranged by Fooker, too.
127	* ShoutOut:
128	** In the climactic battle of Surreptitious Machinations, the [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2002/07/28 news team]] reporting is WPET, with humans who are analogous to the dogs of KPET in ''Webcomic/{{Newshounds}}''.
129	** As mentioned above, [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2006/06/23 Planck's]] RousingSpeech in To Thine Own Self is a ShoutOut to ''Film/{{Braveheart}}''.
130	** The "[[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2014/01/20 old abandoned junkyard]]" has a sign saying "[[Series/DoctorWho Foreman's]] Junk and Salvage".
131	** The [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2017/02/03 first universe they visit]] when [[spoiler: searching for Earth]] is based on ''ComicStrip/KrazyKat'', with Nick becoming Ignatz, Trish Krazy, Fooker Officer Bull Pupp and Patty the ''brick''.
132	** They [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2017/05/31 later visit]] a universe based on ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', with Trish as Zelda, Patty as Navi, Dexter as Goron and newbie Chris as Link.
133	** The queue at [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/1999/09/13 Nerdvana]] has characters from several other webcomics, including ''Webcomic/UserFriendly'' and ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance''.
134	** On Nick's [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2002/04/14 first day at JCN]], he finds himself turning into ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}.
135	** At [[spoiler: Fooker and Sharon]]'s wedding, the Grand Skaboola uses the "[[https://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2015/09/18 Since the days of the first wooden vessels]]" wedding ceremony from multiple episodes of ''Franchise/StarTrek''.
136	* SinisterSilhouettes: A popular choice to mask the bad guy for a few strips. Compare a [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2012/02/24 mismatched]] silhouette, with a rather [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2012/02/27 obvious]] one.
137	* SmugSnake: Trent.
138	* SnowballFight: One breaks out when a few system administrators attack Sharon.
139	* StableTimeLoop: Stopping one was Todd's ultimate objective in Surreptitious Machinations.
140	* StalkerWithATestTube: The Brotherhood Of The Twisted Pair want Fooker and Sharon to get busy conceiving [[TheChosenOne "The One"]].
141	* StepfordSmiler: Trudy.
142	* StoryArc: Initially, Jeffrey Darlington wanted to do major story arcs every four years. Of course, the second one ended up dragging because of health issues with his first child, so the timing of story arcs is looser.
143	** The first one, ''Surreptitious Machinations'', was a year-long arc in November 2001-October 2002
144	** The second one, ''To Thine Own Self'', ended up taking ''two and a half years'', November 2005-March 2008.
145	** The third one, ''Scylla and Charybdis'', took place in November 2013-October 2015.
146	* StrongFamilyResemblance: Nick and his father have very similar hair.
147	* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Nick, regarding his offer for JCN. He's so shaken up he even denies it when he isn't even being directly asked about it.
148	* TeamDad: Dwayne.
149	* TrustBuildingBlunder: Dwayne's decision to take several computer nerds on a team-building hike. He, being more of a businessman than a nerd, underestimates how badly suited his employees would be to it.
150	* VirtualRealityInterrogation: Nick is subject to one, which, helped by sleep deprivation, is intended to convince him to divulge how to make Project Velociraptor. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:Ki's counterpart]] makes a few mistakes and he sees through it.
151	* WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong: Asked in last panel of [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2005/04/07 this]] strip.
152	** Makes a comeback in [[https://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2017/08/30 this strip]].
153	* WhamEpisode: The "Infinity Nick" arc.
154	** [[https://www.gpf-comics.com/archive/2019/12/18 This comic]] has Gamester finally clue in Nick as to what he has been doing this whole time. It hurts.
155	* WideEyedIdealist: Nick.
156	* WouldntHitAGirl: Fooker complains that "It's not fair. Guys should be allowed to hit girls in self defense," after recalling when Ki beat him up in their first meeting for making sexist remarks.
157	* YamatoNadeshiko: Ki's mother, up to and including [[ExiledToTheCouch making her husband sleep on the couch]].
158	* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: [[spoiler:After the GPF/UGA/resistance team captures Emperor Nicholas and his inner circle and frees Nick, the Grays' enemies attack]].

Context Webcomic / GeneralProtectionFault