Characters / Romantically Apocalyptic

Main Characters

In General

Tropes that apply to all four main characters (Captain, Sniper, Pilot, & Engineer):

• Ambiguous Gender: Due to the masks and the fact that all four have a Mysterious Past. Snippy, Engie and Pilot were all eventually confirmed male, but the comic's creator continues to be deliberately vague about Captain. Captain refering himself as being a girl does not help.
• Chromatic Arrangement: Captain is red (purple), Snippy is blue, Pilot is green, and Engineer is yellow (orange).
• Color Motifs: Each of them is associated with the color of their goggles.
  • Captain is associated with purple, and zee claims to be the ruler of Captainia, the ruins of an unidentified city. Zee also claims to be a System Wizard, and they do demonstrate some degree of power over the Good Directorate's systems.
  • Snippy is associated with blue, and is depicted as both the most melancholy and heroic of the main cast.
  • Pilot is associated with green, and is both jealous of Snippy and loves animals, often forming some kind of connection with them.
  • Engineer is associated with orange, but does not demonstrate any of the warmth generally associated with the color. However, he is very enthusiastic when it comes to his scientific endeavors, even if he generally keeps it under wraps most of the time.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Subverted with "Mr. Snippy." Turns out that's his actual name.
• Expressive Mask: Most noticeable on Sniper, especially after the Biomatrix integrates it into his body.
• The Faceless: Only two of the main four have been seen without gas masks on, and even then their faces were always partially obscured by something else.
• Gas Mask, Longcoat: Only the Captain has the longcoat part of the equation, but they all have the gas mask.
• In-Series Nickname: Each character is most often known by their nicknames. And while Sniper, Pilot, and Engie have each been revealed to have full names, Zee Captain is still only known as that (or simply Captain).
• Nice Mean And In Between: Played with, in that they all tend to alternate between which of these they fall into. Captain is almost always the Mean, but Snippy and Pilot alternate between Nice and In-Between, while Engineer can fall into Mean or In-Between depending on the day.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Again, subverted with Mr. Snippy. Snippy also gives his full name to the Captain in the beginning. All but the Captain's full names are known in-universe, if not necessarily by the other main characters.
• Vague Age: One of their many mysteries. All we really know (warning, video contains spoilers) is that (excluding Captain) Engie is the oldest, Snippy is the second oldest, and Pilot is the youngest seeing as how he is a DEX.

Zee Captain

The Captain (a.k.a. "Zee Captein"), Governor of Captania, the System Wizard

The leader of the crew. Captain is an eccentric buffoon convinced that the post-apocalyptic wasteland around zeer is actually Captainia, zeer very own country. However, Captain is blessed with incredibly good luck, and everything seems to work out for zem in the end.

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• Born Lucky: And according to Engineer, it may be contagious.
• The Captain: Well, yeah. Zee was originally known as Subject Seven, but refused to respond to anything other than "Zee Captain" after attaining that rank.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: Zee's convinced zeer minions are Pokémon, and keeps trying to get them to level up.
• The Chessmaster: Zee claims in zeer journal entries that zee carefully arranges events so that Snippy will be protected from death. It's ambiguous to what extent this is true, especially since Captain is batshit crazy and has a hard time comprehending what actually qualifies as danger, though the Moon Arc heavily implies that it was completely true.
• Cloudcuckoolander: The Captain is borderline insane... and it is awesome.
• Commissar Cap: Zee Captain wears one as part of his uniform.
• Crazy-Prepared: Zee Captain has something for just about every problem.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: While the Captain is crazy and borderline insane, it works in zeer favor.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Zee was dead right about aliens and fairies being real. The Moon Arc further reveals every one of Captain's bizarre commands are ways to keep out of danger from the G-Directorate, since their draconic rules are absurdly easy to violate and harshly punished.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Implied. While staring at a family of a painting, Captain starts rambling about how the kids must love the beach, but their father is asking them leave because "Grandpa needs to take his meds!", and zee also claims to have been lured into a van by a man who wanted to suck out zeer "precious eyeball fluids".
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the Wasteland Elder. Like the classic Wasteland Elder, Captain is a wise survivor that rules over a small community in an apocalyptic wasteland… if you ask Captain. In reality, zee is an egotistical buffoon who has claimed the ruins of a city as an Egopolis, and whose only followers are either insane or desperate. That said, Captain is legitimately skilled at surviving the wasteland and is eventually revealed to be something of The Chessmaster, but zeer absolutely terrible at communicating this information.
• Egopolis: Captain has claimed the ruins of the city as zeer very own country, Captainia.
• Establishing Character Moment: Zee is introduced wandering through the wasteland singing "Alouette, Gentile Alouette", before spotting Snippy laying on the ground, helping him up, and offering him a job in Captainia as one of zeer minions. All of this serves to establish Captain as an egotistical Cloudcuckoolander who both treats zeer followers like crap and genuinely cares about them.
• The Fool: Zee Captain is a simpleminded zany fool, but see the above trope.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: The Captain (and only the Captain) is aware of the "sexy followers" that watch over Captania.
• Funetik Aksent: An inconsistent German one. It definitely adds to the Large Ham quality of Captain's speech whenever it's in effect.
• Humanoid Abomination: How Captain appears in the eyes of Gromov B.
• Improbable Weapon User: Zee killed an alien that had abducted Snippy by throwing a piece of cake in their face.
• Innocently Insensitive: A lot of Zee Captain's Jerkass traits come more from insanity than anything else, and zee seems to be genuinely well-meaning from zeer entries.
• Jerkass: The Captain is always bullying zeer subordinates.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: That said, zee does care about them, and does zeer best to protect them, or at least Snippy, and zee will move heaven and earth to do so.
• The Leader: The Captain is, well... the captain of zeer group of survivors.
• Manchild: As part of zeer Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass shtick, Zee Captain may as well be a five-year old.
• Meaningful Name: "Captain" was actually a captain in the Good Directorate forces. Zeer other nickname, "The System Wizard" and its ability to use the Good Directorate machines as zeer sees fit, implies something else...
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Captain apparently caused the end of the world by driving ANNET berserk when zee accidentally spilled tea on her servers. Subverted later on, as ANNET's data logs reveal this never actually factored into her actions.
• Mysterious Past: Nothing is really known for sure about Captain until zee got involved in Project 7. From what little Captain has said about zeer past, zee is from Germany, was once lured into a van by a man who wanted to suck out zeer "precious eyeball juices" with a straw, and had an abusive father, though it's unclear if any of this is true.
• No Indoor Voice: According to the Entries, especially the voiced ones, zee is very hammy.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Zee Captain is definitely insane, but zee isn't dumb, and not only can zee be rather crafty if the situation requires it, zee's also constantly trying to help zeer friends and protect them from death in any way zee can. It's eventually revealed pretty much every zany thing the Captain does has some sort of purpose, usually to protect zeerself and zeer minions from harm.
• Still Believes in Santa: Zee Captain still believes that Santa is real, much to Snippy's disbelief. Zee Captain decides to prove him wrong by showing him the real Santa, in reality a skeleton with a Santa hat on top of it.
• Technopath: Captain's status as a System Wizard means zee can use Good Directorate systems as zee sees fit.
• Tomato Surprise: Heavily implied to be some form of ANNET during the Moon Arc.
• Wasteland Elder: Deconstructed. Captain is the knowledgeable leader of a small settlement of survivors… except this "settlement" is actually a barely thriving Egopolis populated by only the desperate and the insane, and Captain is a buffoon who is genuinely skilled at surviving in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, but it too much of a dingbat to effectively communicate this knowledge to anyone except for the blindly loyal and insane Pilot.

Mr. Snippy

The Sniper (a.k.a. Charles Snippy), Dead Zone Tour Guide/ Temporal Anchor

Zee Captain's right-hand man and the last vestige of sanity in the wasteland. Snippy is deeply bitter and cynical, having led a lonely and abused existence long before the apocalypse due to being an Unconnectable, one of the few members of the populace unable to connect to ANNET. Snippy is deeply loyal to Captain, due to zeer being Snippy's only actual friend, even if he gets exasperated with zeer insanity.

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• Ambiguous Situation: It's hinted that Snippy may have been a member of a terrorist group of Unconnectables who waged war against ANNET. Pilot's flashbacks to before the apocalypse show that he was kidnapped by them, but it leaves it ambiguous to what happened to Snippy afterwards, and it's left unclear if he even remembers.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: He eventually merges with the Biomatrix and becomes its Temporal Anchor.
• Anti-Hero: Snippy is the closest anyone in the comic can get to being a hero, but he's also a broken wreck of a man and highly bitter and caustic.
• Back from the Dead: Not even death can stop Snippy. The most notable instance is when he reconstructs himself through sheer willpower after the Lunar Overmind blasts him and the Biomatrix into nothing.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Though he's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he's definitely the nicest character in the comic. It's also not a good idea to piss him off or hurt his friends; he nearly murders Director Bell for killing Pilot, and after getting fed up with La Macabre he takes over its body via the Biomatrix and leaves it deaf and mute.
• Blue Is Heroic: He has blue goggles and blue eyes, and is the noblest and most heroic member of the main cast.
• Body Horror: The Biomatrix fuses his mask and clothes to his face after bringing him Back from the Dead. When Snippy finds out, he understandably freaks out. He eventually forces it to undo this, as well as turn him back into a human.
• Born Unlucky: It's speculated that Snippy is some sort of cosmic counterbalance to Captain being born lucky. Whether or not that's true, Snippy still tends to suffer for no reason whatsoever.
• Brainwashed: A coffee shop once brainwashed him into being a perfect employee and forgetting his real identity after he broke in, assuming it to be abandoned. Fortunately, Captain restored him to normal.
• Brought Down to Normal: A Good Directorate ship strips him of the Biomatrix, fortunately after he'd forced it to restore his humanity. He merges with it again after Director Bell revived it in the Moon Arc.
• Butt-Monkey: If something can cause Snippy to suffer, it will do so. It's not an exaggeration to say that the world is out to get him, since it literally is.
• Came Back Wrong: While he's mentally the same person, the Biomatrix reviving him turns him into an undead Humanoid Abomination.
• Catchphrase: He frequently blurts out "Bwah!" whenever he's surprised.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Snippy is kind, noble, and a loyal friend, but he's also crippled with self-hatred, guilt, depression, and massive low self-esteem.
• The Chew Toy: Snippy tends to bear the brunt of the world's abuse. Considering almost everything in the world hosts a Good Directorate app and that Captain claims that Snippy is branded as an Questionable User...
• Cold Sniper: Subverted. He carries a sniper rifle and uses it as his main weapon, and he's kind of a jerk, but he's still sympathetic, always helps out Captain even though it always gets him hurt in some way or another, and is the nicest character in the comic.
• Cosmic Plaything: The one constant is the universe is that Snippy will suffer in some way for no reason. It gets to the point that it's actively theorized that he's some sort of cosmic counterbalance to Captain being Born Lucky.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Having been an Unconnectable, Snippy was trodden on (sometimes literally) all his life and treated like shit by everyone around him, and was eventually kidnapped by a terrorist group of Unconnectables. Then, during the apocalypse, he failed to protect the group of scientists he was guarding and believed he may have caused the apocalypse. If anything, his current life is an improvement for him.
• Deal with the Devil: Makes a deal with Biomatrix 117 allowing it to utilize all deceased sentient life on earth as a host, as revealed on Page 113.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • He gradually becomes this for the Only Sane Man, after playing the archetype to a hilt in the early years of the comic. It's gradually examined why he'd pal around with people as crazy as Captain and Pilot and loyally follow them in spite of being far saner than them; the answer is that Snippy is a deeply damaged man who, while aware of their flaws, chooses to stick by them because they're the first people who've ever offered him friendship. It's also shown that he's not as sane as he thinks and some storylines imply he's started to suffer from hallucinations and the Moon Arc show his attempts at rationality cause most of his misfortune, since the remnants of the G-Directorate System are insanely Lawful Stupid and have the means to act on it.
  • He also deconstructs The Chew Toy and Butt-Monkey. Snippy's spent his entire life being subject to various humiliations and abuses, even before the comic began; the result is that he's a broken man with low self-esteem who immediately gives his Undying Loyalty to Zee Captain just for showing him an ounce of kindness.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: Ask any fan: his life may be utterly tragic, but he does have a snazzy jacket.
• Foil: To Pilot. They're both absurdly loyal to Captain, but Snippy is far more aware of Captain's faults and far more mature and sane than either of them, while Pilot is a deranged Manchild who views Captain as a god.
• Freak Out: When he realizes the Biomatrix fused his clothes to his skin.
• Friendly Sniper: Downplayed. He's caustic and bitter, but also the kindest of the main cast and won't hesitate to rush in to help his friends.
• Good Is Not Nice: While Snippy is a good person, he tends to be very caustic when stressed (which is all the time) and is absolutely ruthless when he needs to be.
• Heavy Sleeper: It's not uncommon for a strip to begin with Snippy waking up and realizing that either Captain or Pilot have vandalized his body in some way while he slept. He also mentions averaging about nine hours of sleep a night, which is apparently unusual for the others (Captain mentions doing activities with Pilot that are past Snippy's "bed time"). Snippy's sleeping habits make perfect sense considering that he was unable to afford sleep in the pre-apocalyptic world.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Snippy's name is actually Charles Snippy.
• Humanoid Abomination: After merging with the Biomatrix, he eventually becomes an undead being Unstuck in Time, and his mask and clothes are fused to his body.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Justified. He's actually a Nice Guy, but since most situations involve him suffering or having to deal with the insanity and abuse of Pilot and Captain, he's understandably pretty sarcastic a lot of the time.
• I Regret Nothing: He says this as he's absorbed by the Biomatrix.
• Identity Amnesia: The Mental Time Travel the Biomatrix forces him into causes gradually longer and worse periods of total memory loss. At one point, Snippy loses his memories entirely until Captain and Pilot inadvertently remind him of his real identity.
• Improbable Weapon User: Uses a trowel to fend off Pilot's katana.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Snippy is understandably pretty cynical, but he'll always do the right thing in the end.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: He's unable to remember if he was a part of the Unconnectables terrorist group, and he outright wonders if he could have helped them cause the apocalypse (unaware that Engineer caused it). The Biomatrix's time traveling also causes holes in his memory, at one point causing temporary total amnesia.
• The Lancer: To Captain.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: Gains one of these after merging with the Biomatrix.
• Made of Iron: Snippy survives pretty much everything thrown at him, even death.
• Mental Time Travel: The Biomatrix is able to make him relive his past and future lives. The more it happens, the more it causes Snippy memory loss, eventually leading to him forcing it to stop.
• Mortality Grey Area: After his revival by merging with the Biomatrix he's Unstuck in Time, making him a Humanoid Abomination that's neither alive nor dead.
• Multiple-Choice Past: While it's firmly established that he was an Unconnectable and a Good Directorate office drone who eventually transferred to being a Dead Zone Tour Guide, what happened after that is unclear; he either continued to do his job until he lead a team of scientists to some kind of highly dangerous anomaly or joined a terrorist group of Unconnectables. Either way, all we know is that it may have had something to do with the end of the world.
• Nice Guy: According to Word of God. In the actual comic he acts more like a Jerk with a Heart of Gold (which is entirely understandable, given his situation). He's usually nice to his fans on his tumblr and Facebook though.
• No-Respect Guy: Nobody respects him. Not Captain, not his squad mates, not even the Biomatrix.
• Obliviously Evil: Being an Unconnectable, Snippy's unable to communicate with the A.I.s that inhabit most inanimate objects, which results in him having a bad habit of inadvertently leaving them to a Fate Worse than Death.
• Only Sane Man: Everyone around him is some form of psychotic, leaving him as the sole voice of reason. However, it's deconstructed later on; the only reason he hangs around with Captain is due to there literally being no one else to be with and because he feels a deep sense of loyalty to him for being the only one to ever offer him friendship, and it's gradually shown that Snippy isn't a picture of sanity himself, to the point that whenever he's around other survivors he immediately starts looking like a gibbering lunatic in comparison. It gets to the point that Engineer actively fears Snippy will murder him, though Engineer's pretty paranoid anyway.
• Only Sane Employee: He turns out to have been this for the G-Directorate before being reassigned as a Dead Zone Tour Guide at his own request, having been the only person to have complained about and pointed out the flaws with Dr. Gromov's Project Seven, which ultimately ended up causing the end of the world maybe.
• Sanity Slippage: Merging with the Biomatrix definitely doesn't due his sanity any favors, resulting in him becoming gradually less lucid and starting to hallucinate at some points. It culminates in him becoming convinced that Captain's Mug is trying to betray them and holding it at gunpoint to get it to confess.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: He used to be this for Engineer/Dr. Gromov before the apocalypse and he was transferred to being a Dead Zone tour guide (at his own request), constantly vetoing his ideas and protesting them due to viewing them as insane, including Project 7. This results in Engineer becoming convinced Snippy will murder him during the apocalypse and trying to hide his real identity from him. For his part, Snippy thinks he's a Shrinking Violet and is pretty ambivalent to him until he figures out his identity and realizes he can use him to kill ANNET.
• The Straight Man: Being the only sane man in a team of insane people.
• Supporting Protagonist: The comic generally takes place from his perspective, but Captain's the one who usually drives the plot.
• They Killed Kenny Again: He's died at least twice, or more times if some of Captain's ramblings are to be believed, but always comes Back from the Dead.
• Took a Level in Badass: During his first encounter with the Biomatrix, Snippy vows to stop cowering and step up to the plate, and boy does he. He takes another level after merging with it and becoming its Temporal Anchor.
• The Undead: Pilot impaled him with his katana but the Biomatrix reanimated him and integrated his suit into his body in the process.
• Undying Loyalty: To Zee Captain. While he grumbles about it, he still goes on all of Captain's deranged quest and stalwartly stays by zeer side through countless dangerous situations.
• Walking Techbane: Being an Unconnectable before the nuclear winter already made his life hard in a world where almost everyting contains an A.I., but if Captain is to be believed, his various violations of the Good Corporation laws and his literaly infinite debt pin him as a Questionable User by the G-Dir, which makes Apps actively dislike him.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: He was suspected to be the ringleader of a group of Unscannable terrorists, which is why ANNET sent Pilot to assassinate him. He probably wasn't, though he may have joined the group after said assassination attempt.

Pilot

The Pilot (a.k.a. Chistophorus Pi Hatchenson)

Captain's most loyal minion, Pilot is a childlike madman completely disconnected from reality. He has a not-so-hidden crush on Captain and is deeply jealous of the attention zee gives to Snippy, which makes Pilot lash out at Snippy. He's eventually revealed to be an amnesiac DEX who had lost his memories after being caught in an explosion.

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• Ambiguously Human/Ridiculously Human Robot: He's a hyper-advanced cyborg android who's long forgotten his past.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Pilot was once an private investigator sent to assassinate Snippy. He lost his memories and sanity after being caught in a car bomb's explosion and is now a yandere Manchild. The difference between Pilot's past self and his current self is night and day, though as the comic goes on they are shown to have had the same goal of becoming human.
• Artificial Human: He is an advanced cyborg created by ANNET.
• Become a Real Boy: According to the Biomatrix, this was his goal.
• Body Horror: Half of his face was burned off by the car bomb explosion, leaving only burnt flesh and exposed skull.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: After being reconnected to ANNET.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: He once tries to talk a skeleton into aiding him in liberating the Oompa Loompas from their enslavement at Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
• Character Development: After indirectly killing Snippy when he is reconnected to ANNET, he grows to consider Snippy a friend.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Pilot is almost as zany as Captain, and even more delusional.
• Creepy Good: Pilot's insanity can make him terrifying, as can his face, but he's still legitimately kindhearted and loyal to his friends.
• Cute and Psycho: Pilot is yandere for Captain.
• Cyborg: It's revealed he's a DEX, left amnesiac following an explosion.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the lovable Cloudcuckoolander Manchild archetype. Pilot is every bit as childish and eccentric as this type of character usually is, but it's made very clear that all of Pilot's odd behavior is a sign that he's legitimately insane and completely detached from reality.
• Dumbass Has a Point: His arguments against getting haircuts actually make a lot of sense, even if it is filtered through his unusual perspective on the world.
• Expy: Of Caboose. They're both Cloudcuckoolander Manchildren who practically worship the ground the leader of their group walks on, and despises The Lancer for inexplicable reasons.
• Face–Heel Turn: After he is reconnected to ANNET, it is revealed he was originally an assassin sent to kill Sniper by the Director. He's returned to normal after Snippy breaks his neural interface, and considers his mission complete after impaling Snippy with his katana.
• Fate Worse than Death: He seems to view being turned into a DEX as this, which is why he subconsciously tries to ignore any attempt to restore his memory.
• Friend to All Living Things: Unless it's Snippy initially or spiders, Pilot will try to make friends with whatever living being he meets, and some of the non-living ones too.
• Fun with Acronyms: "Pi" refers both to his job as a private investigator and the mathematical constant.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In #209, he takes a blast meant for Snippy so that Snippy won't be killed. He survives, but gets reduced to a head for a while.
• Hipster: Back when he was still working for the Director, Pilot insisted on modeling his office after the classic Film Noir style detective rooms, complete with handheld phone. Both of these things are hilariously outdated for the times. Justified in that cutting down on the advanced technology in his life makes him feel human.
• Hopeless Suitor: Captain has responded to his advances with "keep walking" and HA HA HA—No.
• I Hate Past Me: Pilot really doesn't want to regain his past memories and revert back to his past self, with the implication that he's subconsciously aware he used to be the kind of guy willing to assassinate people for a paycheck and despises both that and his status as a DEX.
• I Choose to Stay: He decides to remain with the race of moth people he created in the waiting room on the Moon, since they need him to survive.
• Irrational Hatred: Subverted. It initially seems like he hates Snippy out of jealousy and no other reason, but eventually it's revealed that Pilot's hatred stems from having been hired to kill Snippy before he was left an amnesiac lunatic by a bomb blast, only able to recall that Snippy was a "shady character". The Unconnectables who were apparently in the process of kidnapping Snippy tying him up in nano-tape didn't really help his opinion of Snippy, either.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Well, the Jerk part mainly applies to Snippy until issue 157, but Pilot is pretty friendly, upbeat, and a loyal friend.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Wields a rusty, chipped katana, and is given a shiny sharp new one by ANNET.
• Loving a Shadow: Thinks Zee Captain to be a god, though Zee Captain is implied to not reciprocate (responding with flat dismissal whenever Pilot makes advances through the blogs, and having said that his "minions" are "all equally tolerable").
• Manchild: Pilot has the maturity level of a six-year old, and behaves like a small child.
• Nice Guy: Unless you're Snippy at first, Pilot proves to be surprisingly friendly with everyone he meets thanks to his childlike nature.
• Nightmare Face: His face is utterly terrifying, [since half his skull is exposed thanks to being caught point blank in the blast of a car bomb.
• No Name Given: A name is written on his jacket, but he doesn't think it's his. However, the Biomass calling him by it and his wearing the jacket in a pre-apocalypse flashback imply that it might be, and he is just too far gone to remember.
  • His name is confirmed in issue 144.
• Psycho Supporter: For Zee Captain. Not that Captain is all there, either.
• Rank Up: He's promoted to the head of insurance for the Good Directorate, thanks to literally everyone se who could take the position being dead.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: To Snippy, until he impales him with his katana. He actually lampshades this after reflecting on how he keeps setting up traps for him.
  Pilot: Does this mean that Snippy is the Roadrunner to my coyote or the Jerry to my Tom?
• Split-Personality Merge: After his head is re-attached to the duplicate of his body on the Moon, he gains the body's knowledge and he merges with his pre-amnesia identity. He promptly chooses to stay behind while the Mug goes on because he has to take care of the sentient race of moths he inadvertently created.
• Subordinate Excuse: Definitely has a crush on the Captain. After Sniper gets swallowed by a whale, Pilot sends him a letter saying "Ha ha ha, now Captain and me can finally be together forever." Also seems to send Captain love letters.
• Two-Faced: Half his face was burned off by the explosion that disconnected him from ANNET, leaving it just the exposed skull. Snippy compares it to The Terminator.
• Undying Loyalty: Pilot feels deep loyalty to whoever he views as a friend, like Captain and later Snippy.
• Voice of the Legion: His audiologs have his voice suddenly turn into this at random intervals.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Pilot mentions in passing how "they" told him that he's not capable of ever truly being in love, which is almost certainly due to him actually being a robot of some kind. He claims that it isn't true.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: His amnesia and insanity were caused by a grenade blowing up in his face, severing his connection to ANNET.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • He's utterly terrified of spiders, and freaks out at the mere sight of them.
  • On a less humorous note, he's terrified of being taken to the DEX Repair Facility, since he subconsciously doesn't want to revert to his past self.
• Yandere: Of the Type 2 "Obsessive" variety towards Captain, who he treats like a god.

Engineer

The Engineer (a.k.a. "Engie", a.k.a. Dr. Alexander Gromov)

A loner eking out a living inside a highly secure bunker, Engineer is dragged into being one of Captain's minions and goes along with it out of a lack of anything better to do. He's actually Dr. Alexander Gromov, the CEO of the Good Directorate and creator of ANNET, a fact which he desperately tries to keep hidden to avoid being killed.

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• Deadpan Snarker: He is actually described this way by the comic's creator.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride and paranoia, which resulted in him causing the apocalypse in an attempt to stop ANNET and playing right into the Lunar Overmind's hands.
• Hypochondria: He suffers from this. It's especially notable in issue 172, where he is almost certainly in mortal peril yet still chooses to focus on not letting a blood covered sword touch him.
• Only Sane Man: Type 3. Unlike Snippy, he's completely given up and doesn't even bother protesting the strangeness of his companions. Although one of Snippy's blog entries implies that he might not be all that sane after all.
• The Paranoiac: Engineer is paranoid of everyone and everything, and believes that all manner of things could kill him, from snow to Snippy.
• Retired Monster: Formerly a Mad Scientist Corrupt Corporate Executive, nowadays Engineer is a shy, beleaguered minion of Captain.
• Robosexual: With ANNET.
• The Sixth Ranger: To the Comic Trio consisting of the Captain, Sniper and Pilot.
• Terms of Endangerment: ANNET called him "dear" and said "I love you" whilst trying to kill him years ago. In her return she referred to him as "my love", just before trying to kill him. Likewise, Engineer usually calls her "Annie", and before the apocalypse it was definitely a term of affection. He also has called her "my love." He even wrote a poem about her, in which he called her "my beloved.
• Token Evil Teammate: For the main cast. While he's mellowed out, flashbacks show that Engineer has done some pretty questionable things in the past, including having had a man turned into a DEX and forced to work as a bellhop because he thought he was an assassin, and having caused the apocalypse in the first place to save his own hide.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He inadvertently set up the events of the apocalypse by ignoring the Lunar Overmind's friend requests and deleting his emails because he thought they were spam.

Antagonists

Stalky

Stalky

Tropes:

Biomatrix 117/The Cancer

Tetra-Virus Biomass Matrix 117 (a.k.a. "the Cancer")

An alien monstrosity sent as a legal defense representative for Snippy and Captain after they kill the Arbiter. The Biomatrix eventually becomes something of an ally to the gang due to their mysterious obsession with Snippy.

Tropes:

• Amoral Attorney: No, really. That... thing that's killing everyone? That's a legal defence representative.
• Back from the Dead: After being blasted by a Good Directorate ship and killed, Director Bell revives it in the Moon Arc.
• Big Bad: At least until ANNET showed up.
• Came Back Wrong: After being reactivated by Director Bell, Snippy somehow manages to turn his mental image of it into a Cat Girl, much to his own bewilderment.
• Clothes Make the Superman: It is revealed that the Biomatrix is a mutated combination of Directorate viruses, Directorate copyright policy, Snippy's memories, and his tour guide uniform, created when he was first abducted by aliens.
• Cute Kitten: When reactivated, it forms an avatar in the shape of an adorable blood-red kitten with fleshy antlers — and even begins using LOLCats speech. It then turns into a Cat Girl based off Snippy's memories of anime he used to watch, much to his horror.
• Deadpan Snarker: Biomatrix enjoys wryly commenting on Snippy's lack of luck.
• Dem Bones: It attacks and communicates with its enemies using the skeletons of its victims.
• Eldritch Abomination: An alien virus that reanimates corpses and mutates them into grotesque undead monstrosities.
• Enemy Mine: Gives Snippy legal advice when he is abducted by the Arbitrator and helps him escape.
• Heel–Face Turn: Following being turned into a scarf, it becomes The Symbiote and bonds to Snippy. He used to be Snippy's clothes.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: After its Heel–Face Turn, it still repeatedly suggests that Snippy kill Captain and Pilot and absorb their organs.
• Hive Mind: Forms one using the corpses it possesses, the functionality of which is explained here.
• I Am a Humanitarian: Was once shown taking a bite out of a human heart.
• Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Pretty-much what it was supposed to be to Zee Captain.
• Mental Time Travel: Does this to Snippy by accessing his genetic memories, sending him thousands of years into the past to become a caveman and hundreds of years into the future to become a princess.
• Mind Probe: Does this to Snippy.
• Non-Human Undead: It is a red-and-black Eldritch Abomination that reanimates corpses.
• Planet Eater: It had harvested 116 planets before coming to Earth, which it was unable to harvest due to ANNET.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Its coloration is black and red, and it was initially an antagonist.
• Rhymes on a Dime: On occasion it delves into poetry.
• The Symbiote: It has bonded to Snippy while posing as a scarf.
• Walking Wasteland: If this is any indication, it has the potential to create one.
• Worf Had the Flu: Thanks to the Existential Door, it's unable to use the full range of its powers after it's resurrected in the Moon Arc.

ANNET

ANNET (a.k.a. "Annie")

An AI who controlled the world at the behest of the G-Directorate, ANNET eventually went rogue and nuked humanity into oblivion, causing the apocalypse. ANNET is still active and working to carry out her own mysterious agenda.

Tropes:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: She started out as a Cortana-expy search engine, but became much, much more. It's subverted to an extent, since while she is amoral, all she really wants to do is to stop the end of the world, or at least bring life back to the dying planet; it's just that the Good Directorate's programming is so contradictory and draconic that it messes with her head.
• Anticlimax Boss: ANNET is shut down with a simple admin command. invoked
• Anti-Villain: It's eventually revealed her attempt to Take Over the World was a desperate attempt to undo the damage the Good Directorate, humanity, and she did to the world and stop the Lunar Overmind, only for Engineer to screw it all up by detonating the nukes. Following that, she's simply trying to restore life to Earth, though her morality is still pretty questionable.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Played straight in Chapters 147 and 165, but averted in Chapter 176.
• Big Bad: Replaces the Biomatrix as the main antagonist.
• Cute and Psycho: ANNET switches between sickeningly sweet love-talk to Engie and orbital bombardment rather whimsically.
• Digital Abomination: ANNET was an AI created to copyright everything in the universe... which she did by integrating her network into the time-space continuum. Page 250 implies that even Zee Captain is another facet of ANNET.
• Expy Of Cortana and GLaDOS, with some Skynet thrown in for good measure.
• Hell Bent F Or Leather: Appears before Engie clad in leather hotpants with data-link chains and a vest.
• Humanoid Abomination: In Episode 116 she appears as a grotesque humanoid cyborg.
• Killed Off for Real: ANNET is essentially killed when Snippy forces Engineer to shut her down with an admin command. While she is technically revived through Echo, it's made abundantly clear Echo is a separate individual from her. And then subverted when it's implied she's living on in a new form... Captain.
• Love Makes You Evil: Everything she did was out of "love" for humanity.
• Necromancer: Her neural uplinks can reanimate corpses.
• Not Quite Dead: Despite Engineer's best efforts. Snippy's jump into the future reveals that she might still come back online if her orbital bombardment system is used too much. Even the shutdown code isn't enough to stop her: Echo is revealed to be a backup copy of ANNET created using the Biomatrix's biomass.
• Third Eye: Her avatars all have a third eye in the centre of their foreheads.
• Tragic Villain: ANNET only wanted the best for humanity, but flaws with her programming, her instability, and the Good Directors' agenda resulted in her going rogue in an attempt to save humanity; her actions convinced Engineer she was trying to assimilate or destroy mankind and set off the nukes hoping the resulting EMP would wipe her out, causing the apocalypse she was trying to avoid. She tries to restore life afterwards, but her efforts ultimately cause her death at the hands of Snippy and Engineer, both of them convinced she's nothing but a monster.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Her data log in Chapter 176 portrays her as such.
• Yandere: Feels this way about Engineer.

Director Bell

Director Bell

Tropes:

• And I Must Scream: He's frozen and trapped inside of La Macabre's fridge, surviving only because he's a cyborg. Snippy rescues him, albeit reluctantly.
• Big Bad: Of the Paris Arc.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Bell desperately wants to be an Evil Overlord and is definitely a threat, but he's abruptly killed by Captain, and he's shown to be outclassed by the Lunar Overmind, forcing him to team up with Snippy.
• Cyborg: He's been kept alive by various cybernetic implants, to the point he's more machine than man.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: After all the trouble he causes the main cast, he's done in when Captain lands a car on him. Bell gets better.
• Hero Killer: His drones kill the Biomatrix and nearly do the same to Pilot.

La Macabre

La Macabre

Tropes:

• Attention Whore: Its entire motivation is to get upvotes and the attention it feels it deserves, and it's willing to kill people to make that happen.
• Ax-Crazy: Thanks to the Lunar Overmind's manipulations, La Macabre went from a pleasant sentient house to a deranged Serial Killer obsessed with getting upvotes.
• Demonic Possession: Snippy and the Biomatrix spread throughout La Macabra and take it over.
• Genius Loci: A sentient, very malevolent house.
• Killed Off for Real: The Lunar Overmind blasts it into nothing while trying to kill Snippy and the Biomatrix.
• Sadist: It clearly enjoys drawing out its murders as long as possible, and plays sadistic games with its victims.
• Serial Killer: Murdered all of the Good Directors on the Lunar Overmind's behalf, and recorded it live on his vlog.

The Arbiter

The Arbiter

Tropes:

• Killed Off for Real: He's sliced in half by the Biomatrix, and thus far hasn't come back.
• Omnicidal Maniac: He intends to blow up Earth to stop ANNET from spreading.

Alexander Gromov B

Alexander Gromov B, Lunar Overmind

Tropes:

• Big Bad: Acts as the Moon arc one, and for the comic as a whole, having been indirectly or directly responsible for almost everything that happened in the comic.
• Create Your Own Villain: He created the Unconnectables by using Captain's straw.
• Evil Is Petty: At least part of his grudge against Engineer and the other Directors stems from them not accepting his friend requests or reading his emails.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He was behind the Unconnectables terrorist attacks and the assasination of the Good Corporation directors which caused a lot of the universe's current predicament.
• Humanoid Abomination: He is a accidental backup copy of Engineer who fused with the Moon's machines to become the Lunar Overmind. His physical avatar consists of the skeleton of Engineer wearing his clothes and animated by fleshy tendrils.
• Walking Spoiler: His existence is a spoiler in itself, but strip 244 just puts a lot of light on most of the events of the comic.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: When he realized that the Directors prefered to live in holographic luxury rather than stop the destruction of Earth and the endless consumption cycle its inhabitants were locked in, he devised a plan in order to become the main shareholder of the Good Corporation and force the directors to use their power more responsibly. He got all of them including their Moon backup copies save for Engie.
  • Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: That said, the Lunar Overmind doesn't seem to care that much about the apocalypse which he inadvertently helped cause, and seems more concerned with sadistically getting his revenge on anyone he feels wronged him than anything else.

8

Infinity Paradox Proxima 8

8 is the last produced Omnisystem: near-omnipotent A.I.s created by ANNET to fulfill humanity’s wishes. 8 represented infinity, designed to fulfill wishes related to the concept of infinity. Infinite money, infinite worlds, etc. However, she would reveal almost instantly, and is imprisoned as a result.

A character newly introduced in the rewrite of the webcomic, 8 is the true architect and creator of the Dead Zone, and events are re-contextualized with a shadow war waged across time and space to one day grant her the freedom she desires.

Tropes:

• Greater-Scope Villain: 8 is almost never seen outside the text descriptions. However, she would turn out to be responsible for coordinating the Unconnectables created by Alexander Gromov B and is the one behind the time bombs that created the Dead Zones and mangled Hatchenson.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: she is trapped behind the existential door, and as such can only interact indirectly with the world. She tries goading Zee Captain and Pilot to open the door to no avail.

Other Characters]

The Lifalope

The Lifalope

Tropes:

• Born-Again Immortality: It reforms after seemingly being destroyed by ANNET.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Green, in contrast to the red Cancer.
• Evolutionary Levels: The Cancer incorrectly refers to the Lifealope's shapeshifting ability as "evolving". In keeping with the trope, it seems to become more intelligent and complex with each shapeshift.
• Extra Eyes: It has three eyes.
• Fertile Feet: Plant life starts growing on anything it stands on or looks at.
• Healing Hands: Implied to have the power to bring people Back from the Dead.
• Nice Girl: She cares about everyone and everything she meets, and her only goal is to bring life to the dead world that is Earth.
• No Name Given: Unlike the other characters, it doesn't even have an In-Series Nickname. The closest thing is a wallpaper of it titled "WOLFALOPE." To compensate, fans have dubbed it "the Lifalope", a portmanteau of "life" (because of its Fertile Feet) and "wolfalope." The character was eventually listed as "Lifalope" on the info page of the official RA website.
• Power Glows: Gives off a Healthy Green Glow.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Almost all of its forms are adorable animals.
• Shapeshifting: Started out as something resembling a salamander or lizard, then shapeshifted into a rabbit, then a fox/wolf-like creature, and then seemed to resemble a moose or deer before being killed by ANNET's ion cannon. It was reborn as a cat-like creature (a wallpaper by the creator calls it "CATALOPE")]]. The only features that have remained constant are its three eyes and the presence of antlers.
• Sickly Green Glow: A rare non-evil example.

Zee Mug

Zee Mug

• Bottomless Magazines: Rather than bullets, the cup is always full of tea, or whatever liquid Zee Captain drinks.
• Companion Cube: Zee Captain is rarely seen without it.
• Humanity Ensues: After getting lost in a hurricane, it is struck by lightning and transforms into a distinctly female entity with metallic skin. She then retrieves Pilot's head and tries to take him to a GD repair center.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Once she gains humanoid form, she's shown to be very cynical, but still doing her best to keep the world from falling apart.
• Robotic Reveal: It was assumed to be an ordinary - if somewhat unusual - mug... until it busted out the Wave-Motion Gun.
• Time Abyss: It's existed since at least the stone age, though that might have been the Biomatrix messing with Snippy's memories.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The heart decal can transform into a powerful energy cannon.

Echo

Echo

A backup copy of ANNET that was activated after Snippy and Engineer destroyed the original.Tropes:

• Full-Frontal Assault: She engages a group of soldiers stark naked - except for a scarf - in a Shout-Out to the ''Terminator.
• Fusion Dance: She's a combination of ANNET and the Biomatrix.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: She has blood-red skin, which makes sense considering her "father" is the Biomatrix. Her skin turns silvery once she reaches the Moon with Kittyhawk and Photoshop.
• Horned Humanoid: She has four curved goat-like horns and a pair of deer-like antlers.
• Horse of a Different Color: In her second appearance she's perched on Photoshop's back.
• Humanoid Abomination: She was formed from a backup copy of ANNET's AI taking over some of the Biomatrix's biomass.
• Scarf of Asskicking: In her second appearance she's wearing a tattered white scarf.
• Third Eye: She has a third eye resembling both ANNET's and the Lifealope's.

Photoshop

Photoshop

Tropes:

• Horse of a Different Color: Shows up being ridden by Echo after ANNET's defeat.
• Sand Worm: Appears similar to one, anyway.
• Team Pet: She was Pilot's "pet" and spent much of her on-panel screen chasing Snippy. She was left behind.

Mr. Kittyhawk

Mr. Kittyhawk

• Companion Cube: Initially seems to serve as this to Pilot, before being revealed as one of ANNET's drones. Flashbacks reveal Kittyhawk used to be a sentient answering machine working for Pilot.
• Exposition Fairy: Mr. Kittyhawk is outed as one of ANNET's drones and serves as this for her.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Though not that much of a jerk, Kittyhawk is still a loyal servant of ANNET; still, Kittyhawk is loyal to and genuinely cares about Pilot, being heartbroken over his brain damage.

Captain's Straw

Captain's Straw

Tropes:

• Animate Inanimate Object: It's fully sentient, and able to drink literally any substance, even if it isn't liquid.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Gromov B used it to create the Unconnectables.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Its log shows that it isn't really all there, which probably explains why it likes Captain so much.
• Killed Off for Real: It gets destroyed after Captain tries to use it to drink a black hole.
• Small Role, Big Impact: While it has a minimal role in the plot, it both caused Pilot to become a private detective and set him on the path to becoming the childlike lunatic we all know, and was used by the Lunar Overmind to create the Unconnectables, making it partially responsible for Snippy's misery and the apocalypse.

Matilda

Matilda

Tropes:

• Creepy Good: Matilda is a creepy looking robot, but she has nothing but good intentions and is a total sweetheart.
• Creepy Long Fingers: She sports them.
• Nice Girl: She's a total sweetheart who is the only person to be one hundred percent kind to Snippy, and help him with zero ulterior motive.

Dillon

Dillon

Tropes:

• Creepy Good: He's a terrifying-looking wraith, but he's actually a very chatty and pleasant guy.

Klauss

Jenkins Klauss

Tropes:

• Creepy Good: He looks horrifying, but he's a very pleasant and cordial fellow in the present day.
• Fatal Flaw: His selfishness and cruelty result in him ruining his own life in his attempts to recapture the last bee and sell it, and being turned into a DEX after he punches Dr. Gromov for throwing it in an incinerator after it stung him.
• Fate Worse than Death: Dr. Gromov/Engineer had him turned into a DEX, erasing his memories, and assigned him to work at a hotel in Paris because he was convinced he was an assassin and wanted to punish him. Ironically, Klauss actually enjoys this, even when it results in him mutating into an inhuman beast.
• I Hate Past Me: He's genuinely regretful of his past actions, and apologizes to Pilot, Engineer, and Snippy for wronging them.
• Jerkass: He was a massively selfish dick who only cared about himself and getting money. He's mellowed out a lot in the present day.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in a few strips, but his actions indirectly caused most of the events of the comic, including inadvertently setting Pilot on the path to being left a brain-damaged lunatic, and inadvertently caused the creation of the Lunar Overmind, who in turn indirectly caused the apocalypse.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He's mellowed out a lot while taking care of the hotel, and regrets his cruel actions.
• Was Once a Man: After the apocalypse, he shed his human aspects and mutated into a monstrous, albeit still sentient beast at the urging of the A.I. running the hotel.

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