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Main Characters
Max Owen
The Hero of the story. Born Áine Owen, Max has struggled with his gender identity his whole life until he finally decides to come out to his family on his sixteenth birthday. Unfortunately, he learns that he's the latest in the line of "Goddesses" descended from the goddess Aurora to fight evil on the same day, forcing him to become a magical boy to fight the demonic creatures from beyond the veil of reality.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Max finally gains complete control over his powers at the very end of the comic after learning that Aurora and Devoid were genderless entities who chose to be considered female, with Aurora validating Max's gender identity and restoring his confidence. He gains the abiltiy to fly, share his powers with others, and an enormous power boost that lets him completely overpower Devoid.
- Aura Vision: Max has the ability to see people's auras, which reflects how they're feeling. He calls them "light farts".
- Book Dumb: Considers the Book about Aurora way too long to bother with reading it, even if most of it is pictures (as Pyper states, who admittedly has read The Bible in its entirety).
- Buffy Speak: He calls the auras emitted by people which can he can only see as "Light Farts" and struggles to describe his magical powers in any kind of technical terminology.
- Family Theme Naming: Max's birth name, Áine, is an Irish name meaning "radiance" and is the name of a Celtic goddess of summer. This matches his mother Hikari's and his ancestor Aurora's theme of having names strongly associated with light.
- Fan Disservice: Max is horrified when his first Magical "Girl" Transformation Sequence destroys his binder, though it comes back later, and forces him into a frilly dress and high heels, ties his hair in a ribbon (and turns it silver), and gives him make-up, jeweled earrings, and a necklace. The whole thing would look incredibly gaudy even if Max was a cis woman. The chapter begins with a well-deserved Content Warning saying it may induce gender dysphoria. Tellingly, it's the only time we see the transformation in full, with subsequent versions being a simple flash.
- Gender Nonconforming Equals Gay: Before Max came out as trans, his dad Kai thought that he liked girls because of how he hated anything girly.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: After his staff breaks in the middle of a fight, Max realizes it's largely just for show and that he can change it as he's been doing with the rest of his uniform, turning it into a sword that is both a Magic Wand and a useful melee weapon.
- I Always Wanted to Say That: When purifying Devoid's remaining monsters in episode 38, Max says "May the power of gay compel you!" and then that he always wanted to say that.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Max doesn't want anything to do with his Goddess powers or his destiny to save the world. He just wants to be a normal boy accepted for who he is. But between his mother trying to browbeat him into acting like a "proper lady" and Devoid's constant attacks on Chicago, Max has no choice but to intervene. Despite it all, Max admits that he'll miss his powers after Devoid's final defeat, as who wouldn't want to be able to fly?
- Important Haircut: Max gets his hair cut into a masculine look when he finally tries to come out to his family and classmates. Similarly, as he makes the role of Goddess his own, his dolled-up bun gets turned into spiky Shonen Hair after transforming.
- Insistent Terminology: His frilly Goddess outfit and magic wand repeatedly get him called a "magical girl", which he's quick to correct to a "magical boy".
- Ironic Name: Max's birth name, Áine, is Irish for "brilliant" or "happiness". But the exotic and extremely feminine name causes him nothing but grief. He changes his name to Max because it's short, simple, and manly.
- It Is Not Your Time: Right after being seemingly crushed by the grasp of Devoid, Max ends up in his subconscious, where Aurora states this to him when he asks if he's dead.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: The role of Goddess was forced onto Max on his sixteenth birthday, specifically the day he decided to come out to his parents as trans. Because the Goddess is an exclusively feminine role to take, he is forced to have his hair up, his face covered in make-up, and wear a frilly dress whenever he has to take on his duty (which he has no real say in whether he wants to fulfill it or not). If he does not fulfill his destiny, then the world will be overrun with emotion-eating monsters, leading to The End of the World as We Know It. When he is not powered up, his zealous-to-the-point-of-obnoxious mother tries reminding him of his destiny every chance she gets, ignoring his coming out and trying to enforce his assigned gender onto him so that he may be a "proper lady."
- Light 'em Up: As befitting the descendant of Aurora. Demons don't technically die from being blasted by this Light, however, but are instead purified, stripped of their ill-gained toxic powers, and forced back into the other realm.
- Limited Wardrobe: Max spends most of the early chapters wearing the same hoodie, as it's the only piece of clothing he has that can hide his curves and help him pass for a man. Jen later takes Max out to go shopping for clothes and gives him a binder to help him comfortably wear t-shirts, but he still picks out mostly hoodies.
- Magic Pants: When he first transforms, his binder is destroyed but it comes back when he returns to normal.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Even without his powers, Max can dropkick someone larger than him to the floor with ease despite being only 5'3''.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: As part of his Transformation Sequence, his Goddess powers dye his hair silver.
- Power Gives You Wings: At the end of the comic, Max learns how to use his powers to grow wings of light and fly with them.
- Psychoactive Powers: Devoid's stronger minions repeatedly mock Max for having diminished power compared to his predecessors. As Max later learns, this is because he's constantly plagued with self-doubt because of his struggles with being accepted for who he is. This tampers with his ability to harness powers based on compassion, hope, and other positive emotions. At the very end of the comic, Max's self-confidence blossoms after Aurora validates his gender identity and reveals the truth of her conflict with Devoid. After this, Max not only gains the ability to share his powers with others temporarily but handily overpowers Devoid where even Aurora failed.
- Semi-Divine: Max's many-greats grandmother was the child of Aurora, the goddess of light, making Max at least partially divine.
- Socially Awkward Hero: Max's gender dysphoria makes it a struggle for him to socialize much of the time. He has to deal with the awkwardness of being referred to by his birth name because he hasn't officially come out yet. Not to mention his one-sided crush on Tobi, who Max Cannot Spit It Out to. But despite Max's reluctance to take on the role of goddess, he proves to be a fairly quick learner and capable of finding his own ways to make his powers work above Hikari's and Walnut's protests.
- Star-Spangled Spandex: When transformed, Max's hair and clothes take on the patterns of a starry night.
- Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Inverted. Max, when he transforms, is forced into an extremely feminine and sparkly persona, despite being a trans guy. This slowly works its way to being played straight, however, as his outfit gradually becomes more masculine. Over the course of a few transformations, his dress becomes shorter and less sparkly; then becomes a skirt, with sneakers instead of high heels; and finally in later strips becomes a tunic and pants, along with short, masculine hair. Also, when his Magical Girl staff is broken, it transforms into a sword instead. Even before the costume starts shifting to something more masculine, it has the same color scheme as the Trans Pride Flag.
- Trans Relationship Troubles: After Max says that Tobi is straight, Jen says that maybe he'll make an exception for Max, who isn't keen on the idea since he doesn't want Tobi to see him as a woman.
- Trans Tribulations: After coming out as trans, Max has to deal with his mother's constant deadnaming and misgendering. It's more frustrating since Hikari firmly believes that adhering to feminine gender roles makes a Goddess more powerful.
- Twofer Token Minority: He's a gay trans man. This makes his struggle to get his mother to accept him for who he is even more difficult.
Jennifer "Jen" Jaiprasert
- Alliterative Name: Jen Jaiprassert.
- Butch Lesbian: To the point of being mistaken for a guy from behind.
- Gay Best Friend: Jen, Max's Butch Lesbian friend, is the first one to know Max's gender identity, and supports him absolutely, even buying him a binder and some new clothes. Eventually, she and Pyper enter into a relationship.
- Gender Nonconforming Equals Gay: Jen is an open Butch Lesbian who dresses boyishly, visits the arcade to play shooter games, and is often mistaken for a man on account of her wardrobe and Boyish Short Hair.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: We only know her full first name in the Character Profiles special.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Jen is the first person Max comes out to, both about being trans and his new powers, and her birthday gift to him is a proper chest binder, a haircut, and new masculine clothing.
- We Used to Be Friends: Before the story, she and Pyper were this before the latter became anti-LGBT through her father's teachings. They eventually reconcile and start dating.
- Twofer Token Minority: Is both lesbian and Indian-American.
Pyper Ryland
- Aerosol Flamethrower: She uses one in "Within the Forest" out of a can of bug spray, and does this again during the attack at the mall in "Determination".
- Alpha Bitch: She's first introduced as a Heteronormative Crusader, constantly shaming Max (a trans boy) and Jen (a lesbian) for how they identify. But it turns out that Pyper herself is a lesbian and once she accepts her own identity, she ditches her Girl Posse and becomes friends with Max.
- Armoured Closet Gay: The reason why Pyper is so abrasive towards Jen and Max is that she harbored attraction towards other women (most likely Jen) and is fully aware of how her pastor father would think about it, internalizing these feelings and taking out her frustration on them. She gets much better later on, joining Max on his Magical boy adventures and might secretly be in a relationship with Jenna.
- As the Good Book Says...: As one might expect from a pastor's daughter. She quotes scripture during her introduction when she's bullying Max and Jen, then later when she tells her former Girl Posse to buzz off and when she's fending off Devoid's forces.
- Bully Turned Buddy: Pyper is initially introduced as an Alpha Bitch Heteronormative Crusader towards Max and Jen but after she comes out to them, she joins in on Max's magical boy adventures.
- Calling the Old Man Out: She calls her father out two times during the attack at the church. The first ends with him disowning her (and giving enough negative energy to open the gates for Devoid to go through). The second is after she repels Devoid's forces with her love for God (represented by the pink aura exuding from her), where she still affirms their family connection, but intends to live her life her own way.
- Forced Out of the Closet: She gets outed as a lesbian to her pastor father by members of his congregation.
- Heel–Face Turn: Pyper initially comes off as a Heteronormative Crusader Alpha Bitch and is intolerant of Max's gender identity, but when she comes to terms with her own sexuality, she breaks up with her Girl Posse and starts supporting Max and his friends.
- Heteronormative Crusader: She bullies Max and Jenna, believing the two to be gay and, thus, spawns of the Devil. She's deeply insulted when Jenna throws this back in her face, possibly because she herself is in the closet.
- Lipstick Lesbian: While she's initially in denial about it, Pyper is a lesbian, and she's got a very feminine sense of style, what with cute backpacks and hair decorations.
- The Pastor's Queer Kid: Pyper is reluctant to come out to her pastor father to the point where she becomes an Armoured Closet Gay. So when she gets Forced Out of the Closet by members of his congregation, he's livid.
Sean Moore
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: Sean is a delinquent known for getting into fights with people and can even hold back some of Devoid's monsters with his bare hands. He's also a huge fan of the Sunshine Girl Magical Girl show.
- Didn't Think This Through: Sean posts a video about one of the group's more public battles without censoring their faces. This results in him, Pyper, and Jen getting dragged to the principal's office to explain themselves, Sean's father lecturing him and dragging him to the police station for interrogation, Pyper getting outed as a lesbian in front of her father's congregation, and Max getting yet another transphobic lecture from his mother. Max is almost as guilty, however, as he gave Sean permission to upload said video to the internet.
- Face of a Thug: Sean is introduced with the image of a standoffish delinquent but he's actually an adorable sweetheart who loves magical girls.
- Gender Nonconforming Equals Gay: Sean is a delinquent who happens to be In Touch with His Feminine Side. He collects cute, pink things and is an enormous fan of the Magical Girl show Sunshine Girls. At the very end of the comic, he's revealed to be gay when he asks out Max, who'd just been turned down by Tobi on account of Incompatible Orientation.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Because of his carelessness in posting one of the group's more public battles to the internet without censoring their faces, he, Pyper, and Jen were dragged to the principal's office to explain themselves which was made worse when their parents came. Sean's father lectures him and drags him to the police station for interrogation, Pyper getting outed as a lesbian in front of her father's congregation, and Max gets yet another transphobic lecture from his mother. Whoops.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Sean has the Face of a Thug, and, at first glance, would be the last guy one expects to get chummy with anyone. In reality, he loves magical girls and collecting cute things, fanboys over Max's magical transformation and fights, and wants to make his own magical girl movie.
- Straight Gay: At the end of the story, Sean is revealed to be gay when he asks Max out after Max was turned down by Tobi on account of Incompatible Orientation.
Secondary Cast
Relatives of the Main Cast
Hikari Owen
Max's mother and predecessor as the Descendant of Aurora. She constantly tries to force him into the role of Goddess the only way she knows how.
- Anti-Mentor: For all her talk of instructing Max how to use his powers "properly", Hikari does a poor job of showing him how to do anything. For instance, when he asks for help in finding and sealing gates, she simply shoves him out the door with Walnut and tells them to go find it. She also refuses to accommodate Max's gender identity and constantly tells him to be a proper lady no matter how uncomfortable it makes him. Hikari then doubles down on her ideas of what a Goddess should be even when it becomes clear that Max is defeating Devoid despite her teachings rather than because of them.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Hikari accuses her husband of giving into Max's "delusions" of being male and that doing so is why his mission as the goddess has been slacking. He retorts that the whole point of the goddess is to be compassionate and loving and understanding and she herself has not been living up to those very standards. This gives her a Heel Realization in that she thinks that Max is trans because she made him hate feminine things.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: She has a rather narrow view of things when it comes to her family's role as the descendants of Aurora to the point of being insufferable. She tries enforcing strict gender roles onto Max while completely overlooking him coming out as trans, does everything she can to make him fulfill his role as the current goddess without considering how he feels about any of it. It is even (albeit jokingly) implied that the only reason why she married her husband was so that her intended name for her daughter would match with his surname as "Áine Owen", a name that has symbolic significance with the Creation Myth and the Legacy of the Chosen.note
- History Repeats: Walnut compares Hikari fighting with Max over his more masculine goddess form is just like Hikari's mother shaming her for having a short skirt in her goddess form.
- Hot-Blooded: She's deeply passionate about her role as one of Aurora's descendants and makes sure that Max instills the same devotion to defeating Devoid. It gets Played for Laughs in the finale when she chews out a shop clerk for bringing out a dress instead of a suit for Max, and Kai explains it away that she's always been like that.
- Meaningful Name: It translates to "light", fitting for the holder of a God of Light's legacy.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Goes through this when she finally realizes her transphobic behavior is why Max is having difficulty fending off Devoid.
- Parents as People: Hikari loves Max dearly. However, the pressure and weight of her family's traditions and legacy make it difficult for her to accept Max's gender identity. She constantly tries to force him into the role of his assigned gender because she believes it's the only way for him to use his Goddess powers properly. The idea that the Goddess must be a woman because it's always been that way drives a wedge between them and makes her reluctant to treat him as anything other than a feminine girl.
- Semi-Divine: Like Max, Hikari is descended directly from the goddess Aurora, making her partly divine.
- Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Hikari has really been wanting Max to take up his intended role of a Goddess, even since before he was born. She flat-out balks at the possibility of having a son when she's pregnant with Max. Of course, she doesn't react well when he comes out as trans and is still having trouble accepting it. In the epilogue after she realises how badly she'd been treating Max this does a complete 180 and Hikari starts chewing out people who misgender Max.
Kai Owen
- Badass Normal: Was not afraid to get between a demon attacking an emotionally vulnerable Hikari during her tenure as Descendant of Aurora, and reminded her of his support of who she is, even if her mother doesn't. Remembering this is what finally breaks Hikari out of her transphobic prejudice.
- Open-Minded Parent: He accepts Max's gender identity and preferred name immediately, and promises to support him despite his wife's unsupportive attitude. A later chapter shows him reading books on being supportive of his trans child.
- Parental Obliviousness: Downplayed; while he clearly picked up that his child disliked acting or presenting in the "feminine" manner that Hikari attempted to encourage, he was still taken by surprise when Max came out to them. According to a Q&A response, Kai had actually been completely ignorant up to that point that trans men were a thing, and had always just assumed his "daughter" was a tomboy. He notes that in hindsight there were a lot of signs he missed (up to and including Max literally saying "I wish I was a boy" as a birthday wish).
Mrs. Jaiprasert
- Open-Minded Parent: Not only is she supportive of her daughter's sexuality, she calls out Pastor Ryland as well as the school for mistreating her daughter.
Pastor Ryland
Pyper's fundamentalist father and the priest at the local church. He believes that homosexuality is a sin and shames non-heteronormative people.
- Heel–Face Turn: Is getting to become more accepting of the LGBT in the finale. It sort of helps when a literal demon thanked him for his ultra-conservative old ways.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Is appropriately mortified when he realizes rejecting his lesbian daughter may very well have caused The End of the World as We Know It.Lord Odium: Just what I needed! A dose of pure, concentrated hopelessness and hatred! All thanks to you, Pastor. Your petty wickedness made it so much easier to draw out the darkness!
- Sinister Minister: Pyper's father is an ultra-conservative Fire and Brimstone preacher who holds a very narrow view of right and wrong. When earthquakes start happening and the monsters become public knowledge, he claims that they are demons sent by God to punish a morally unrighteous society. When his daughter is caught helping fend off the monsters in a viral video, he drags her out of school and shames her in front of the whole congregation for consorting with riff-raff, her old friends only making it worse by outing her as gay in front of everyone. The anger and distrust he stirs in his flock are so potent that when one of Devoid's monsters gets there, he is already at full size and conjures a portal on the spot. When she fully admits to being gay and tells them that their hate and fear-mongering is what brought the monsters there, him disowning her on the spot fills her with enough hopelessness for Lord Odium to finish opening the gate for Devoid to escape through.
North Luna High School
Tobi Lynn
Max's crush and one of the nicest kids at school.
- Nice Guy: It's not hard to see why Max is crushing on him. Along with his general polite and friendly demeanor, he switches to using Max's preferred name and pronouns without any issue pretty much from the first time he was told, easily accepts Max as "one of the guys", and is perfectly understanding and non-judgemental when Max breaks down over Tobi seeing him wearing a dress, even going out of his way to help him sneak into the locker room to borrow his spare pants. He's also extremely apologetic when he has to turn down Max for a date.
- If It's You, It's Okay: Discussed: After Max says that the nice and cute Student Council President Tobi is straight, Jen says that maybe he'll make an exception for Max. Max isn't keen on the idea since he doesn't want Tobi to see him as a woman.
- Incompatible Orientation: He turns down a dinner date at Max's house because he's straight and Max is gay. They still remain friends afterward.
- Satellite Love Interest: Aside from being Max's crush, Tobi does not get a lot of focus in the story. Much of his role in the story is relegated to Max being motivated by his presence, whether it's saving Tobi from Devoid's monsters or working up the courage to ask him out.
Deities and Monsters
Aurora
- Celestial Body: Her skin is colored in a way that resembles the night sky.
- Colour-Coded Emotions: According to the book, Aurora emits the following colours for these emotions:
- Red for Passion
- Pink for Love
- Orange for Courage
- Yellow for Joy
- Green for Hope
- Blue for Gratitude
- Violet for Faith and Serenity
- Light Is Good: In the Creation Myth, Aurora, Goddess of Light bestowed light upon the world and banished Devoid from his role as dark lord over the planet before bestowing light onto the creatures that lived there. After her being was sacrificed in her efforts to banish Devoid from our dimension, her descendants take up the role of Magical Girl to keep Devoid and his minions from escaping.
- Mama Bear: Unleashes her full power, sacrificing herself and sealing away Devoid all to protect her child.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: Aurora is a Goddess, and as such describes herself as "technically genderless", but identifies as feminine as she envied female creatures being able to procreate.
- Samus Is a Girl: Inverted. Aurora is technically genderless but identified more with female creatures due to their ability to create life and thus began thinking of herself as female accordingly.
- True Blue Femininity: Aurora's color scheme consists of mostly blue and its shades, fitting for a Goddess of hope, love, and compassion who also admires the female organisms on earth at how they are able to produce life on their own.
Walnut
- Ascended Demon: In "Wrath of Devoid
", it is revealed that Walnut was originally one of Devoid's monsters, Lord Animosus, before he eventually defected and sided with Aurora, acting as Guardian to her descendants. - Nature Spirit: He used to be a noble forest guardian and was being hunted down by humans in medieval times before Devoid drove them away and took him in.
- Talking Animal: He's a talking cat, though only the current wielder of Aurora's power can hear him. However, when three gates have been opened, energy sealed from Devoid's realm has been pouring back to the human realm, he and the dark creatures become more powerful and apparent to human senses, allowing him to be understood by everyone else.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Following Aurora's sacrifice, Walnut tore the goddess's amulet from the sky to keep it under his protection as the last vestige of her power, unaware that it was actually sealing Devoid's prison and that removing it allowed for the cracks to form that would allow Devoid's minions to slip through and try to free him, thus accidentally creating the need for Aurora's descendants to take up her power in the first place.
Devoid's Army
In General
- Emotion Eater: After Aurora introduced light (and with it, the emotional spectrum) onto the world, Devoid discovered a dark-based by-product of this light born from negative emotions and that feeding on this darkness made him stronger. His minions are also able to feed on this darkness as well, growing bigger and stronger the more they feed off of humans. What better place for Lord Timor to build up their strength than at the high school?
Devoid
- Dark Is Evil: Devoid, God of Darkness, is portrayed as the Greater-Scope Villain in the story and the story's Creation Myth, the Goddess' job done expressly to keep Devoid and his armies out of the mortal world.
- The Grim Reaper: It is revealed that Devoid's original purpose was to lead the dead to their eternal rest and to recycle their light for the living.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: Devoid is a former-goddess-turned-demon, who, as described by Aurora, is "technically genderless". As noted under Samus Is a Girl, Devoid has no connection to any particular gender identity; for example, she refers to herself as a "king" despite having an ostensibly feminine appearance, and doesn't seem to have any qualms with being referred to with either he/him or she/her pronouns.
- Samus Is a Girl: Zigzagged. Devoid seems male at first but in the past, they were apparently Aurora's "sister" goddess. Even then, Aurora notes that "she" had no preference as to her gender identity and is arguably non-binary.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: The reason why Devoid looks so monstrous is because she chose that look, deciding to play the "devil" against Aurora when she has grown to conform to humanity's vision of her.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Devoid was not always a monster. She was originally a goddess who attempted to form a revolt against her sister Aurora because she believed that the magical creatures of the world were being persecuted and driven to extinction by humanity. It is not until she goes over the Despair Event Horizon and destroys the forest that she swore to protect trying to kill Aurora, this being why Walnut defected in the first place.
