Currently a work-in-progress. There will be spoilers here. Be ye warned!
open/close all folders
10%+ (Ten Percent Plus)
Meander (Maned Wolf)
The protagonist of 10% and a student of Rule.
- Canis Major: It's mentioned on one page that Meander is big for a maned wolf, which is how he ended up as Rule's student.
- Deadly Upgrade: Noetic Chiasm's Meristogenous Transgression.
- Heroic RRoD: Subverted. His metanoia severely damaged his halo brain, but it turns out that Rule destroyed it.
- Idiot Hero
- It's Personal: Meander's father was wild. Rule and Polarizing are exploiting wild coyotes. You do the mathematics.
- Loss of Identity: When Meander's halo brain is destroyed by Rule, the construct that was Meander dies, even if his body and its base animal instincts survive him. The court case that follows factors this heavily.
- Meaningful Name: "It means to worm around kind of leisurely." Turns out Meander chose that because his mind is constantly wandering.
Quintet (Cat)
Meander's friend and a fellow student.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sure, she isn't the nicest animal around, what with beating up and yelling at other people more than once. However, when it counts, she's willing to stick up for her loved ones. Yes, even those accused of murder.
- Meaningful Name: Subverted! "Quintet" refers to the "main cat" and the cats created by her metanoia... but in fact, those cats are four different reflections of herself. So she's actually a "Quartet".
Rule (Wolf)
Meander's teacher. Works with Polarizing to exploit "wild" animals for things like slave labor and meat, an extreme taboo in their society.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: For no apparent reason, Rule is purple.
- Cool Old Guy: The guy gets an entire monologue about how he's old, but something like age isn't going to slow him down.I have a goal, and I have no need of a body when I stand on my principles!
- Meaningful Name: And not necessarily the meaning you'd think of. Apparently it refers to "partitions of scale".
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red Oni to Polarizing's Blue.
- Sadist Teacher: Threatens (possibly in jest) to kill Meander over an assignment, among other things.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Not only was Rule a teacher, he was also a father figure to Meander.
Polarizing (Tamandua)
A former doctor, and another of Meander's teachers.
- Deadly Doctor: Polarizing's metanoia grants him thorough knowledge of a patient (or enemy's) anatomy, which he uses to paralyze Quintet.
- Meaningful Name: And this time, it's extremely obvious.
- Precision F-Strike: In the first posting of the webcomic, this was how he responded to his head being smashed against the fucking wall.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Rule's Red.
- Stern Teacher: He's a lot more reasonable than Rule in general, but he switches to full-on Sadist when Quintet pushes him.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Sort of. He seems to be more willing to go all out with his "mask", a pair of leaves that cover his eyes, on. At first.
Syncope (Kinkajou)
A law clerk and good friend of Meander.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Fiat's Red Oni. This is very clearly illustrated on page 189, which shows how they use the same fighting style differently.
- Love at First Sight: He fell for Fiat right away. This was amusingly lampshaded in the exact same panel.
Fiat (Kinkajou)
- Hero of Another Story: On page 183, Fiat mentions that she was born with dextrocardia. When asked about why she mentioned this detail, Braun said that it's actually important to her own story (if it ever does get told). And by story, he means, well... this:Fiat's story would be a full-blown NofNA storyline, since it would have its own plot. She just happened to be enough of a character to have a foot in this story.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red Oni to Syncope's Blue Oni.
Keratin Junior (Rabbit)
He's the one on Rule's head.
One of the many children of the crime lord Keratin. He (alongside a long tract of land) was sold to Rule and Polarizing in exchange for wild coyote slaves. A major source of comic relief for much of this arc's conflict.
- Abusive Parents: His father has so many kids, he didn't think twice about offering one in exchange for valuable servants.
- Break the Cutie: the pile of coyote pup corpses and the death of Rule will likely haunt his dreams forever.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Ultimately subverted. His testimony doesn't swing the ruling in the case of Rule's murder one way or another.
- Head Pet: Technically, Keratin did sell him to Rule....
- The Mafia: His father is more or less a bunny don.
- Plucky Comic Relief: At first.
- Royal Brat: he constantly refers to Meander and the coyotes as "bugs", due in part to the way he was raised. his father asks him not to say anything to Rule's detriment, but it's clear he'd no intention of doing so, anyway.
Secretary
SV / Marigold / Malice (Degu)
The protagonist of Secretary. An ambitious and impatient student out to prove he has something of worth to add to the world.
- Break the Haughty: The entire arc is a steady feast of humble pie for the degu.
- Deadly Upgrade
- Feed Me: SV gets some very hammy lines after gaining the power of malice. None of which can out-ham the page where he names himself.Tell them to come... to the new teacher! A teacher that is also themselves! That is also everyone! From behind.. from within!! MALICE!
- Heroic BSoD: He suffers a couple over the course of the story: the first follows a major defeat after his first serious sparring match; The second, suffered when XZ informs him that she is quitting the college in order to raise a family, is dramatic enough to shift a character's art style and lighten up the website's background.
- Parental Favoritism
- Red Right Hand: Abnormally long incisors that curve outside of the mouth in a very unnatural manner, and a strange right eye.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: One possible explanation for why XZ seemingly morphs into a much less stylized design after informing him she plans to leave the college. He initially saw her as childlike and idyllic, and her bald faced pragmatism in that moment is so contrary to that perception it breaks it down. Appropriately, the color of his eyes change with the news, as well.]]
- Unreliable Narrator: He is at least a biased narrator. Exactly how unreliable is left up to interpretation.
XZ / Nutsedge (Long-Eared Jerboa)
Fellow student and sparring partner of SV. They jointly develop the Dust Bath fighting style.
- Buffy Speak: "You! Come at me! With the most best! The most serious! The most ultimate dust bath style!" Possibly doubles as a parody of shounen animé/manga.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: She curb stomps SV in their first fight. A few deadly upgrades and a change in ideals later let SV do the same to her.
- Extremity Extremist: Albeit not by choice.
- Genki Girl
- Hidden Depths: She proves to be far more accomplished a combatant than SV in their first sparring match.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Not so ridiculously so after page 248, but she's still pretty cute even than.
- Stay in the Kitchen: Why she ultimately chooses to quit the college. SV doesn't take it well.
NT / Umbra (Degu)
Older brother of SV, goes to college at the same time as SV, but in the advanced class instead of beginner.
- Aloof Big Brother
- I Just Want to Be Badass
- Named by the Adaptation: His nickname only appears in the book ending, where it takes on particular significance.
Lycosa
Lycosa gulosa (Wolf spider)
She's the big one. And she's hungry.
The protagonist of Lycosa. At the start of the arc, she's searching for her lost eggsac. When she finds out that Venom 8 have taken it, she goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. And that's the basic plot of the arc... but it wouldn't be NofNA without a twist at the end, now would it?
- Carnivore Confusion: Handled matter-of-factly. She doesn't hesitate to hunt and eat sapient insects or other spiders, chows down on her defeated foes, and is herself hunted by spider-eating wasps.
- Deadpan Snarker
- Determinator: So much so that losing most of her limbs didn't slow her down. Much.
- Dull Surprise: She channels Keanu Reeves after impaling the 8th and possibly final member of Venom 8.
- Healing Factor: Gulosa molts so that she can regrow her lost limbs, and, for a small while, at least, has to deal with stubby little appendages in place of her full-size ones.
- In Love with Your Carnage: After a velvet spider (bystander) gets crushed by a magnet, she emits a speech bubble full of hearts and later admits to trying to "adopt" it as a surrogate egg sac, despite not fully understanding how it works.
- Mama Bear: Gulosa is not happy to learn that her eggsac has been stolen.
- One-Woman Army: She takes on the entire Pisaurina clan by herself. And wins.
- Prior to that, Mastaphora forces her into provoking a colony of wasps. She uses this as a Badass Boast to Pisaurina.What can you really do to me? I took out a wasp colony!
- Prior to that, Mastaphora forces her into provoking a colony of wasps. She uses this as a Badass Boast to Pisaurina.
- Talking to Themself: What we're initially led to believe Gulosa is doing at one point, albeit with her unusually argumentative inner doubts instead of another personality. The reality of the situation is quite different....
- Tomato in the Mirror: So apparently she's not quite a real spider, but was created from the 'I's that the members of Venom 8 tried to discard... or something.
Venom 8
The non-spoilery version.
The antagonists of Lycosa. The Venom 8 team is a group of eight (actually nine) spiders who aim to create a spider equivalent to the internet that all spiders are always connected to. This requires egg sacs from every spider species, which kicks off the arc. One by one, we meet them, and one by one, Lycosa kills them off.
The members of Venom 8 are, in order of appearance: Deinopis spinosa, Antrodiaetus unicolor, Argiope aurantia, Scytodes thoracica, Mastophora cornigera, Patu digua, Theraphosa blondi, and Nephila clavipes... with the ninth being Gladicosa gulosa.
- The Beastmaster: Mastophora cornigera, the bolas spider, can use her false pheromones to attract not only the usual moths, but also wasps and hornets that prey on spiders.
- Combat Pragmatist: Everybody. If they have a dirty trick (and all of them do), they're using it.
- Dark Action Girl: All of them except for the ninth, Gladicosa gulosa. They are spiders, after all.
- Also the case for Mastophora's minion wasps.
- Didn't See That Coming: Antrodiaetus unicolor, a trapdoor spider, digs a network of tunnels instead of the traditional burrow so she can pop out at Lycosa from underground in multiple spots. It starts raining, and her tunnels flood/collapse, washing her out and drowning her.
- Giant Spider: Theraphosa blondi. That species is called the Goliath Birdeater for a reason.
- High-Voltage Death: Scytodes thoracica accidentally connects two points of a car battery with her venom-soaked webbing.
- Hive Mind: Such is theirs and any spider that agrees with their ideology's unity that they use "we" as a first-person singular pronoun almost exclusively - and when they die, they revert to using "I".
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Many of them die by their own tricks.
- Deinopis's net is stolen from her by Lycosa, who snares her with it.
- Antrodiaetus is trapped and drowned in her own tunnels by the rain.
- Argiope, who weaves decoys of herself into her webs, is decoyed by Lycosa's shed carapace, giving Lycosa a chance to attack.
- Scytodes gets electrocuted when her webbing connects with a car battery.
- Mastaphora is swarmed and stung to death by her own wasp minions.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Lycosa does this to Nephila with the prongs of a capacitor.
- Martial Arts and Crafts: Deinopsis spinosa and Nephila clavipes take their silk-spinning skills very seriously, and Lycosa belittling their craft is enough to coerce each of them to battle her.
- Master of Illusion: Argiope Aurantia, AKA the Black and Yellow Garden Spider.
- Non-Action Guy: For all that he talks a good game, we really don't see Gladicosa battle.
- Nonindicative Name: If Ornithodoros is to be believed, Venom 8 may actually have nine members. They do. They say it's because there is no I.
- Omniscient Council of Vagueness: In their first appearance. Then each one appears individually, only to be killed by Lycosa.
- The One Guy: Gladicosa gulosa is the one male spider in the group.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Patu digua, a species of spider believed to be the smallest in the world, attacks Lycosa this way.
- The Stoic: Argiope Aurantia, again.
Pisaurina mira (Nursery web spider)
Not actually a member of Venom 8, but "an appendage". Repeatedly fights Lycosa.
- Almighty Janitor: Despite lacking unique abilities and being so low-ranked that Venom 8 considers her a minion rather than a member, Pisaurina is the only spider to consistently, repeatedly, and effectively challenge Lycosa, even at the end of the storyline as Lycosa's power has grown. In their final battle, she starts using factures!
- The Beastmaster: Uses her venom to control a praying mantis, which she rides into battle. Later, she apparently forces her entire clan to simultaneously attack Lycosa (which ends badly).
- First-Name Basis: Lycosa refers to her by species name, Mira, while she addresses most other spiders by their genus names.
- Worthy Opponent: Over the course of their battles, she comes to understand (and respect) Lycosa, perhaps better than anyone else.
Solar System
Inhabitants of Earth
Yuri Sergiev (Mankind), Strelka (Dog), Abe (Chimpanzee?), Acheff (Guinea Pig), and Hector (Mouse).
- Abusive Parents: It's implied that Hector's birth father was one of these. Removing your son's tail because he "didn't deserve a 'tale'" is harsh.
- Amazing Technicolour Wildlife: Strelka - ever seen a green border collie before? (Even her nose is green!) Given that this arc is set so far into the future, it's possible that genetic engineering had a hand in this.
- Ambiguously Brown: Deliberately in the case of Yuri;
Word of God has stated that he's supposed to look a little bit like every race. That said, judging by the name, he's probably Russian (or of Russian descent). - Ambiguously Human: Evander and Diana have pointy ears, but otherwise appear completely human.
- Badass Bookworm: Abe - an engineer, a gamer, and a martial artist.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer
- Challenge Gamer: Abe goes for world-record high scores (in Bullet Hell games, no less!) and flips out if he's disturbed while playing.
- Cool Shades: Abe gains an insanely cool pair of shades in a game within the comic. Turns out he's got neat shades in real life as well.
- Happily Adopted: At least, Acheff seems to be a better father than Hector's biological father.
- Hot-Blooded
- Inexplicably Tailless: Hector is a type I. Specifically of the "formerly tailed" variety.
- Perpetual Poverty: Yuri is seriously in debt and constantly broke.
- Wrench Wench: Strelka, albeit of the non-Fanservice kind.
