Line #36 Webcomic/Metacarpolis


1	Poor Max. Doom Corps has gone bankrupt and there isn't a big market for his skills as a lifelong minion. Unless he takes the job offer from Bureaucrats Unlimited ("Where all your dreams are filed under D"), it looks like he's homeless and unemployed. Things seem bleak until he meets Emi, a cleaning service maid with a love for old-school shoujou anime and a suspiciously large apartment. She sees something in Max that isn't apparent to anyone else or even himself, especially after he demonstrates a very un-minion like affinity for advanced technology. Unfortunately, Max's past isn't willing to leave him alone.
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3	She's a maid with a secret, he's an unemployed minion. [[WunzaPlot Together, they... well, they're not quite sure what they're going to do.]] In the meantime, they clean houses in [[http://www.metacarpolis.com/ Metacarpolis]].
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5	Can two young people with cloudy pasts find their future in a mysterious city filled with magic, oddball technologies and corporatized supervillainy?
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9	* ActionSurvivor: Max received Mook training but is neither large nor aggressive by nature and has "the sprint of a man who has faced many perils...and has run from every one."
10	* AncientConspiracy: The Handymen's mission to restore Metacarpolis' founding vision of order has shades of this, though in practice appears more like vigilantism.
11	* BodyMotifs: The comic is filled with hand references, like the names of Metacarpolis, the Digits, and the Handymen. Possibly due to how the 'Master' who built the city seems to be an expy of the Master from Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate.
12	* BondageIsBad: Cecily carries a riding crop everywhere. She does not appear to own a horse. Max implies that not all of the pain she caused him was unwelcome.
13	* BrainUploading: Racha the AI was created this way from a cockroach. That's why she has those RobotAntennae.
14	* ButNotTooForeign: Emi was raised in a bilingual home and apparently speaks accentless English, since Max thought she was a local until she told him otherwise. A filler page later reveals Emi's father is Japanese and her mother is Korean.
15	* CityOfAdventure: Metacarpolis, which has apparently had high tech for centuries.
16	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Cecily Crane.
17	* CorporateSamurai: Marcus. Becca is more of a corporate ninja.
18	* CorporateWarfare
19	--> '''Emi:''' Do office workers typically carry around small arsenals in their trenchcoats?
20	--> '''Becca:''' You people clearly aren't familiar with the corporate environment in Metacarpolis.
21	* CuteBruiser: Emi. She was TheBigGuy on her team, despite her size.
22	* CuteMachines: The digits.
23	* CuteWitch: Definitely Emi's magical-girl aesthetic, with a frilly pink dress and a broomstick.
24	* DisappearedDad: Arthur [=MacCallister=], Max's father. [[spoiler:At least until he comes back; wonder if Max was better off with him gone?]]
25	* EvilInc: Doomcorps, Max's former employer.
26	* FriendsRentControl: Lampshaded when Emiko admits that she can't afford her apartment solely on her income as a cleaning service maid. It's just one of many hints that she is more than she appears.
27	* KlingonPromotion: Cecily's own little spin on the concept of "hostile corporate takeover."
28	* KickTheDog: Cecily Crane had no trouble ignoring the pleas of the digit she smashed against the ground.
29	** Max's Dad apparently had no trouble implanting sketchy Doomcorps tech in Max's brain.
30	* KidHeroAllGrownUp: Emi was a MagicalGirlWarrior since she was a kid. But after her team defeated the final villain and became pop idols she decided to move away and live a normal life, hiding her previous identity (though the residuals do help pay for her apartment.)
31	* MagicalGirlWarrior / MagicIdolSinger: Emi's backstory makes her look like a FormerChildStar with PTSD.
32	* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Max was one until he got laid off. Now he's wondering what to do with his life.
33	** Bartleby has trouble executing orders against cute robots, though he supposedly has killed people, so he's more of a D plus or C minus.
34	** The Handymen are led by Bartleby's brother Ethan. They get along pretty well considering they are key players in diametrically opposed factions.
35	* MundaneUtility: Emi [[spoiler:transforms her magical rod into whatever cleaning tool she happens to need at the moment.]]
36	* MrFixit: Max develops a bit of a reputation as a digit repairman as the comic goes on.
37	* {{Nepotism}}: Cecily Crane inherited the leadership of Doomcorps from her father. [[KlingonPromotion It wasn't entirely voluntary on his part.]]
38	* ObfuscatingDisability: Becca wears a fake sling on her arm to make Emi think she's hurt worse than she is when she accompanies Marcus to Emi's apartment after their back alley encounter. Not only is it on the wrong arm (to camouflage the one Emi actually hit with her baton) she conceals a pistol in it.
39	* Really700YearsOld : Susan and some of the other digits have been there since the creation of Metacarpolis, which happened about 400 years ago.
40	* RobotGirl: Racha's recovered body appears to be this, with insect-inspired RobotAntennae.
41	* SoProudOfYou: Arthur's reaction to Cecilly's corporate coup is... idiosyncratic, to say the least.
42	* UnnecessaryCombatRoll Max uses a "minion roll" to catch the flowers he was carrying for Emi after he trips over a garbage can, then lampshades it by musing that he'd always thought the day his training finally paid off would be more exciting... [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong right before he is accosted by the Handymen]].
43	* VastBureaucracy: Subverted with Bureaucrats Unlimited, which has a vast office space, but consists of 2 employees.
44	** Double Subverted later when BU is revealed to be a staffing service; all of their employees are infiltrated into other companies.
45	* WeirdnessCensor: A lot of odd stuff goes on in Metacarpolis, like the digits, but no one comments or notices. [[spoiler: Emiko moved there specifically because no one knew who she was, despite her fame in the rest of the world.]]
46	* WhipOfDominance: Cecily Crane is the haughty and domineering [[CorruptCorporateExecutive CEO]] of [[EvilInc Doomcorps]] and she's often seen carrying a riding crop or an actual whip, as a visual illustration of her personality. Her ex-Max also heavily implies she was a {{Dominatrix}} to him when they were together.

Context Webcomic / Metacarpolis