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aka: Nuzlocke Comics

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Here's a list of some of the known fan comics, written runs, screenshot runs, and misc runs inspired by Nuzlocke Comics.

NOTE: Please refrain from using this list for shameless self advertising.

A lot of the other fan runs not on this list can be found here, as well as other sites.


Works with their own pages:


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    Hale's Emerald / Bern's Platinum Hard Mode 

Tropes seen in Hale's Emerald / Bern's Platinum Hard Mode:

  • Creepy Twins: Tate and Liza. Even their Pokemon are scared of them.
  • Easily Forgiven: May. Even though, in the eyes of the reader, she may have received her Karmic Punishment when she gouged out her own eye, Hale doesn't know it. So, it's a little odd to see him forgiving her so quickly for Django's death, when the last time he saw her he told her to go kill herself, and even hooking up with her in the wake.
  • Grave Humor: The prologue graveyard scene has two. A (ghost type) Gengar's epitaph reads "Lolwut?", while a Mudkip's says "No one really liked him!"
  • Hypocritical Humor: The gate attendant at Amity Park refuses to let Bern take most of her Pokémon in. She proceeds to win a contest with Benzene and throw him/her/it at the attendant.
  • Orphaned Series: The last anyone had seen of the author was his update for the Platinum 'locke's 11th installment, in mid-2011. A shame, since he had planned out two more runs afterwards.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Hale and his Pokemons generally avoid unnecessary violence during their fights. But they will become far more violent, and often lethal, if one of their friends is killed.
  • Sequel Hook: One of the few multi-run comics that didn't use an obvious hook, with his Platinum run starring a different protagonist.
  • Shout-Out:
    • May's extreme expressions are reminiscent of Higurashi: When They Cry.
    • In the prologue, one of the many pokemon graves said 'Desmond' with 'See you in another life, brother.' referencing Fire Red: Hard Mode.
    • Towards the end of the first storyline comes a huge homage to Neon Genesis Evangelion.
    • One of the later chapters is called "Tears In The Rain" which is a reference to Blade Runner.
    • Hale's comic also shouts out Fate/stay night (the classic "Are you my Master?" scene) and even Kuso Miso Technique.
    • In the sequel, Bern's name may be a reference to Umineko: When They Cry, though her personality isn't the same.
    • Part 5 of Bern's Platinum run has her catching (FINALLY) a male Shellos. The next scene is a Gender Flipped parody of one from Green Lantern, where Hal Jordan greets their newest recruit (a girl).
    • If characters named Mitch and Stella plus an abuser named Stanley aren't enough, then an obvious homage to the Skyward Scream makes it pretty clear Platinum is taking a couple cues from A Streetcar Named Desire.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Upon seeing Juan for the first time, Hale becomes completely aware of why he has so many fangirls. He seems to do it again when he sees Steven.
  • Yandere: May. This is also Deconstructed over the course of the strip as it shows why she's so psychotically possessive of Hale. She gets better.

    Robotv7's Nuzlocke Challenge 

Tropes seen in Robotv 7's Nuzlocke Challenges:

  • Bittersweet Ending: His first run ends with only three Pokémon left alive, and he gets called out on the cost of his quest.
  • Downer Ending: His Sapphire run. By the way, since Robot quit Nuzlocke forums, the last chapter was drawn by This Guy.

    Freddy's Nuzlocke Adventures 

Tropes seen in Freddy's Nuzlocke Adventures:

  • Gamer Chick: Erika's all-female gym is depicted as a very snide, prideful group of these. His Pokémon defeat them by going into Sincerity Mode and paying them compliments, and the ensuing Logic Bomb makes their heads explode.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Used at the end of his first run, with the twist of making the cast out as Animated Actors. Does not appear to be canon, as seen by Brotodile's cameo in his second run. The Blue run also makes use of this trope as well, and it is every bit as hilarious and probably non-canon as the first.

    Nyachan's Nuzlocke Challenges 

Nyachan's Nuzlocke Challenges provide examples of:

  • Shout-Out: As a rule addendum in the Sapphire run, all Pokémon caught were named after Personae.
  • Theme Naming: All of the pokémon caught in the Pearl run are named after spices or other flavourings.

    Apocalypse Johto / Battlefield Kanto 

Tropes seen in Saber's Nuzlocke run:

  • Animal Motif: Team Rocket's ominous warnings about Candace compare her to a Zangoose, and the scarred side of her face roughly corresponds to a Zangoose's Facial Markings. Turns out their boss Silver has the code name "Seviper", Zangoose's biological enemy. Candace eventually adopts "Zangoose" as a nickname.
  • Apocalypse How:
    • Wild Pokémon everywhere suddenly become murderously violent and begin attacking tame Pokémon and humans. Calamity ensues. At least Regional (Johto and Kanto are definitely affected), possibly Continental depending on how widespread the change is.
    • "Hoenn's gone."
    • A section of exposition from the study journals of Doctor Fennel in Unova mentions some effects the change has had in that part of the world. Unova being on a completely different continent means that this is, in fact, a global disaster.
  • The Apunkalypse: Some well-known characters are completely unrecognizable after their post-apocalypse makeovers.
  • Art Shift: Every time Candace sees a Kimono Girl, the Girl occupies a single page drawn in a Japanese woodcut-based style. Which only enhances the creepiness.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Riptide as an adult Feraligatr. During the battle at Goldenrod Radio Tower, he's the size of a small building. When Candace as Champion and backed by the new Elite Four sets out to Kanto, he takes up an entire beach. And Candace comments that he's still growing.
  • Badass Boast: Whitney would like to give Team Rocket a little reminder...
    Let me break this down for you. I'm Whitney. I'm a Gym Leader. One of the best. And I don't remember granting ANY of you permission to set foot in my city.
  • Badass Bookworm:
    • Professor Elm faces down a swarm of mad Spearow the first day of the change to buy Candace time to escape, and lies to her that he'll be okay.
    • Whitney of all people turns out to have done her homework on Team Rocket, to the point of being able to analyze Giovanni's plans to his face, though even she was caught off-guard by Silver.
  • Badass Family: Judging by what little we saw of what happened in Hoenn, Whitney's family went down fighting.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted, Candace gets a lot of really horrible-looking scars and keeps them. (contains spoilers)
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Whitney tells Team Rocket that while she has a reputation as a flighty airheaded socialite, she wouldn't have been a Gym Leader in the first place if she weren't still one of the best in the business. Her socialite skills also serve her tremendously after the change, since she's able to make people trust her and cooperate for survival.
  • Character Development: Several characters are shown having changed drastically after the Pokémon became dangerous. Some unexpected characters have cracked, taken levels in badass, or started playing hopscotch with the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Chuck is introduced giving a flying kick to a giant Corsola. He lost all his Pokémon and his wife in the aftermath of the change and the creation of Missingno and has been defending Cianwood by hand (and foot) ever since.
  • Child Prodigy: Whitney's backstory tells that she was an incredibly precocious Trainer who earned Gym Leader status at the age of twelve, replacing her father Norman when he moved to Hoenn.
  • Colonel Badass: General Surge kept Vermillion City safe during the Change, and even took in Cerulean survivors. Due to her talent with water Pokemon, Misty became The Captain under his command.
  • Darker and Edgier: Manages to be darker than many of the other runs simply by setting it at the end of the world, then going from there.
  • Deadpan Snarker:
    Whitney: You know, in all the research I did on Team Rocket and Giovanni... I never figured out where exactly he gets geniuses like you to work for him.
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • About half of Johto if you're using the Gym Leaders and totaled cities as a baseline. Casualty count in Kanto is unknown at present.
    • A single vessel of refugees made it out of Hoenn. Whitney's family weren't on it.
  • Determinator:
    • Definitely Candace.
      I'm going to stop the end of the world. And no one is going to get in my way.
    • Silver turns out to be this as well, albeit by different means.
  • Doomed Hometown: The prologue shows the destruction of New Bark Town.
  • Due to the Dead:
    • Candace has her first ever loss, Hellacross the Heracross, tattooed on her left shoulder.
    • In Blackthorn City, we get a closeup revealing that she's similarly honored all her other dead Pokémon. (Visible tattoos, counterclockwise from top: Hellacross, Alastor the Gastly, Watchwing the Noctowl, Clutch the Exeggcute; not visible but implied: Flashpoint the Flaaffy, Crucible the Ninetales)
  • Dying Moment of Awesome:
    • Jasmine evacuated her people to the Lighthouse when Olivine City flooded, but couldn't make it in herself and was swept away and drowned outside. She was the only casualty in Olivine.
    • In the Prologue, Elm's Cyndaquil evolved twice before she eventually succumbed to the swarm.
  • Egopolis: Azalea Town is renamed to Bugsy Town, in honor of its 'defender'. It gets changed back once the tyrant falls.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Missingno definitely fits the bill, as does Lugia, which had been dormant in Candace's unconscious, and is now awakening. It also created the illusory Kimono Girls.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Giovanni is more concerned with rebuilding Johto than anything else, and is not pleased with where his son's vendetta towards Candace leads.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Saber decided to interpret each region as a fantastic version of a real-world country, explained on his Deviant Art blog. Basically, Johto and Kanto are Japan, Unova is the US, Hoenn is/was the Pacific Islands, Sinnoh is Italy, and Kalos is France.
  • Fastball Special: Before it evolved and became too large for it, Candace was fond of doing this with her Totodile. Lampshaded when Candace mentions this to Whitney and Whitney refuses to believe Riptide was ever that small (at the time they're having the discussion, he's about the size of a small office building).
  • Fed to Pigs: The fate of dissenters in Bugsy Town is to be fed to the Slowpokes.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare / Not-So-Harmless Villain: The changed Pokemon have increased power as well as viciousness, causing several low-power breeds to suddenly become very dangerous. The "Bugsy Town" arc does this for (Lord) Bugsy, Kakuna, Metapod, and Slowpoke. At Goldenrod City, we see a wild Abra Teleport a man's head off. In tender, loving detail.
    • Also, Silver/Seviper, who went from a Rival we barely saw, much less took seriously, to the HEAD OF TEAM ROCKET.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • The storyline of the comic differs tremendously from the actual gameplay of the Soul Silver game. Word of God is that cutscenes involving Ethan are awkward to play, since Ethan died with New Bark Town in the comic's storyline.
    • Word of God also says the author lost their notes on what happened in game a while back. No one would have noticed had it not been pointed out.
  • Gray-and-Gray Morality: Not only are Candace's actions getting more and more violent, but Silver has stated that his goal is to save Johto. He likely doesn't even realize this is also Candace's goal, since he thinks she's insane.
  • Heartbroken Badass: Whitney, once when she and Candace split, and again when she learns her family didn't make it out of Hoenn.
  • Heel–Face Turn: After Team Rocket is destroyed, Giovanni becomes part of Candace's Elite Four, the people she trusts most in what remains of Johto.
  • Heroic BSoD:
    • Falkner has one after his father is killed in the change, and Candace slaps him out of it. Candace herself has one after killing Morty and is comforted by Whitney.
    • Whitney has one after losing control of Crucible the Ninetales. She has another one upon learning that her family in Hoenn were all killed.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Humanoid Abomination:
    • The Kimono Girls. Eventually revealed to be a psychic projection by Lugia, channeled by Candace, which is now awakening.
    • Frostbite the Jynx is a milder example, since she's not so much hostile as just (deliberately) creepy. She looks like a doll with disconnected joints and a creepy perma-grin.
  • Human Popsicle: To what extent is unknown, but lots of things in Mahogany Town. Including the Gym Leader.
  • Hypocrite: Chuck tries to run off Candace as a threat... but he completely fails to do the same for someone who was genuinely insane and dangerous, Eusine. Justified, since Chuck's info on Candace comes from the dishonest radio broadcast, and Eusine seems to have been biding his time until she arrived.
    • The leader of Team Rocket turns out to be massively hypocritcal, claiming that Candace must be killed because she's become something monsterous, and yet going out of his way to try and make her suffer.
  • The Immune:
    • While most Trainers lose control of their Pokemon after the change, Candace never does.
    • The entire Eevee line is immune to the change.
  • In-Series Nickname: Candycane and Zangoose for Candace, Seviper for Silver.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: Flashbacks show that Whitney went from bimbo to badass in minutes when the change hit.
  • Made of Iron: Candace, with hints of Iron Woobie. Seriously, would you keep going after this?
    Five cracked ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a sprained wrist, three severe perforations causing nerve damage along my left forearm, countless lacerations, massive blood loss, and the lingering effects of a near-fatal dose of Pokémon venom.
    Three months recovery.
    • Whitney later remarks on Candace's incredible resilience and recovery. She might be covered in scars, but she has yet to be permanently incapacitated (except when she broke some of her fingers in battle with Lugia... and even those healed later.).
  • Many Spirits Inside of One: Morty, driven insane and filled with evil spirits from the destruction of Ecruteak City. Candace eventually gives him/them a Mercy Kill, though Silver apparently captured a surviving Gengar.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Missingno is this. Amongst the few recognizable parts are a Poliwrath, Machoke, Staryu, and Shuckle. It gains more parts after absorbing other Pokémon.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Chuck puts Missingno's Pokeball in a spot where anyone can just grab it and release it... which Eusine does. Much destruction ensues.]]
    • Clair evolves her Seadra into Kingdra... and it becomes too powerful for her to control.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: We only learn enough of the destruction of Hoenn to make a very loose sequence of events, which leaves very little explained.
  • One Degree of Separation: Whitney's father is Petalburg Gym Leader Norman, and Ruby (Reuben) is her little brother. They don't make it out of Hoenn.
  • Only One Name: Averted. In the latest update, several characters are introduced by first and last names.
  • Power Born of Madness:
    • The changed Pokémon are not only violently aggressive, but tremendously more dangerous. Pryce's Dewgong flash-froze all of Mahogany Town when he lost control.
    • Candace also has some of this... enough to bare-handedly strangle a Weavile.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure:
    • Most of the remaining Gym Leaders seem to be reasonable, with the obvious exception of Lord Bugsy. Surprisingly, Giovanni is also pretty reasonable once he wises up to Silver's vendetta.
    • The surviving members of the Elite Four also become this once they realize Candace isn't a sleeper agent for their enemy. Except Will, who was himself one of Sabrina's brainwashed agents.
    • Candace's first action as League Champion is to give the Elite Four veto rights over her, an action that Whitney specifically states is unprecedented since the League's authority system was established.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Whitney's "Shut Up" Kiss to Candace causes them to become an item. At the end of Volume 2, they break up.
    • As of Candace's disastrous journey to Mount Silver, she and Whitney are together again. They even have a sex scene in one of the latest updates.
  • Shout-Out: At least two to Star Wars, due to the author being a massive Star Wars geek. Candace's Forretress has the nickname Death Star, and the title of chapter 4 is A Wretched Hive Badge.
    • New Bark Town's destruction by Spearow seems oddly reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
  • "Shut Up" Kiss: Whitney delivers one to Candace during her Heroic BSoD.
  • She Who Fights Monsters:
    • Candace is arguably as wild as the changed-over Pokémon by now, including killing Seviper's Weavile with her bare hands.
    • Silver's hatred of her makes him cold, calculating and uncaring about who else gets hurt in the course of his revenge upon her.
  • Suicide by Cop: Candace offers Janine a role in the new Elite Four under the condition that Janine be the "cop" if Candace becomes uncontrollable.
  • Time Skip: Every time Candace takes an attack that seems like it should kill her, the storyline skips a couple of months while she recovers. As of Blackthorn City, three or four years have passed since the change happened.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Candace (tomboy, action-oriented) and Whitney (feminine, people-oriented).
  • Unknown Rival: As much of a Jerkass the rival is, Candace is more concerned with how his Chikorita fled from New Bark. Compared to that (and the whole Apocalypse thing), he's hardly worth her time. Until he takes over Team Rocket.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Candace gives several, but the first is chewing out Elm's Chikorita for fleeinng New Bark Town instead of trying to defend it.
    • Candace also gets a few. Her siccing of Death Star on Jasmine Tower earns her one from Preston, for example.
    • Giovanni himself gets in on this when he calls out his own son, whose personal vendetta leads to the deaths of many of their men.
  • You Will Be Assimilated: This is a major part of Missingno's schtick, as it turns out. It gains parts and abilities from eating pokemon whole- as in the case of Candace's Noctowl or Eusine's Electrode- or even just parts of them. Poor Beelzebub.

    Nessa's Emerald Nuzlocke Challenge 

Nessa's Emerald Nuzlocke Challenge:

  • Hidden Agenda Villain: Not just the villains, either. Scott seems to be leading some sort of operation requiring the cooperation of Steven Stone, all the Gym Leaders, May, and Nessa as an Unwitting Pawn.
  • Jerkass: Fenrir was not very friendly at first. He eventually mellows out... a little.
  • Magikarp Power: Fenrir was partnered with Jormundgar the Magikarp so he'd get a taste of this and learn not to bully other Pokémon. By the time Jory evolved, he'd bullied her into an Unstoppable Rage, and the lesson almost killed him.
  • Mysterious Past: Eysafjall, who is a Team Magma escapee, but the most mysterious may be Nessa herself.
    • Nessa's history as a Trainer is eventually revealed, though we're given several different perspectives on it.
  • Panthera Awesome: The Absol is depicted with a lion-like face instead of a a simple human one.

    Ken's Fire Red Kick@$$ Mode 

Tropes seen in Ken's FireRed Kick@$$ Mode:

Kenneth "Ken" Alexander

  • Fiery Redhead: Ken is easily excitable.
  • Genius Ditz: Despite his... short comings, Ken is a brilliant mathematician.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Like his coat, Ken wears goggles just to look more badass. He does actually put them on when he's in an important battle. like a Gym Battle.
  • Idiot Hero: Ken's not altogether the smartest guy around, but he's got it where it counts.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Ken is kind of a douche at the beginning of the run, giving his pokemon suggestive names and constantly making gay jokes at Gary's expense, but he gradually matures as the run progresses.
  • The Killer in Me: The source of Ken's Axe-Crazy tendencies, of the Amnesiac variation. How he became this way is still unknown, even to Ken.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Ken strangely cannot recall why Daisy and Gary treat him so coldly and has no recollection of the several months before the events of the story.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: Getting into Daisy's pants was his initial motivation for becoming champion.
  • Mysterious Past: Ken seems to have had some sort of interaction with Team Rocket and/or Mew. It seems like even Daisy has this as well.
  • Red Is Heroic: Ken has red hair and is the hero of the story.
  • Slasher Smile: Wears a very creepy one during his mood swings.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Several characters call out Ken for the actions that ended up killing Buzz, including Pecks and Ken himself.

Charlie the Charizard

  • All Animals Are Dogs: All the other Pokemon can speak just fine, but Charlie really doesn't seem to be any more intelligent than your average dog.

Pecker "Senor Pecks" the Fearow

  • Badass Spaniard: Pecks is easily the strongest member of the team alongside Charlie and he's a Spaniard.
  • Bilingual Bonus: In one of the extra comics, responding to a reader question of why he never speaks whole sentences of Spanish, Pecks responds with a rant in Spanish which the author translated as "Because I can", but which is actually Pecks telling the readers to kiss his ass.
    Pecks Si tienes algún problema, puedes besar mi marrón, emplumado trasero.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Half the stuff that comes out of his beak.
  • Fantastic Racism: Despises the Pidgey evolution line and later holds a grudge against Clefairys, too.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Hails from Pokespain, apparently.
  • Head Pet: Pecks used to roost in Ken's hair back when he was a spearow. He clearly misses it. A one-off comic has him try it again after evolving, resulting in him nearly crushing Ken.
  • The Lancer: He's Ken's right-hand man, being that Charlie is a bit slow upstairs.
  • Only Sane Man: He's far and away the most mature member of the group.
  • Sarcastic Devotee: Pecks is highly sarcastic but generally follows Ken's lead.

Buzzkill "Buzz" the Beedrill

  • Nice Girl: She's a very kind pokemon.
  • Odd Couple: With Pecks. As Buzzkill notes, birds tend to eat bugs.
  • The Lost Lenore: To Pecks, she dies just as a relationship between them begins to develop.

Puff Daddy "Puff" the Jigglypuff

  • Gender-Blender Name: Puff is named after a male rapper.
  • The Heart: She's the kindest of the team and provides moral support and cooldown hugs when and as necessary.
  • Interspecies Romance: Puff, the Jigglypuff, seems to have a crush on Bill, the Clefairy. Also, keep in mind that, unbeknownst to Puff, Bill is actually human.
  • Non-Action Girl: Her starting moves were Sing and Defense Curl. After Ken picks up Rod he registers her as a non-combatant so she can stay with the team even though there Ken has six other pokemon.

Leviathan "Levi" the Gyarados

  • The Dog Bites Back: Once he gains the teeth capable of doing the job. Tough luck for Ken.
  • Magikarp Power: Duh! He's a Gyarados!
  • Just Eat Gilligan: At one point, Ken really considered it.
  • Out of Focus: Levi hasn't made an appearance since Episode 14, and even before that his animosity with Ken made him unwilling to cooperate much at all.
  • The Unfavorite: Leviathan the Magikarp is this when Ken finds out he isn't the great monster of doom the salesman told him he was. And then he evolves...

Shiitake "Shii" the Gloom

  • Cool Sword: She learned Cut by stealing the S.S. Anne Captain's display sword.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Peppers her speech with random Japanese terms, calls Ken "Ken-sama", etc.
  • I Just Want to Be Beautiful: Shii's goal in life is to evolve into a Bellossom. Sadly, Sun Stones are scarce in Fire Red, so she settles for Vileplume.

Bill the Clefairy

  • Blatant Lies: Bill describes himself as The Casanova.
  • Cosplay: His hobby which tragically led to his Forced Transformation incident.
  • The Drag-Along: He's more or less forced into joining Ken's team until he can figure out a way to reverse his transformation.
  • Forced Transformation: The Pokémaniac is accidentally transformed into a Clefairy, as per the standard game plot, but is not transformed back into a human. He ends up pretending to be an ordinary Clefairy and joining Team Kick@$$ rather than admitting to being the man in the embarrassing photos which Ken finds on his computer.
  • Insufferable Genius: Bill is a genius and doesn't mind reminding the gang of this fact.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Bill has a lot to criticize about Ken, and a lot of it is well-founded.
  • The Smart Guy: He's the smartest member of the team and advises Ken during battle several times.
  • Smart People Wear Glasses: Equips a pair out of nowhere when he's feeling especially analytical.
  • Took a Level in Badass: As of Episode 15, Bill is now a capable battler in his own right.

Gary Oak

Daisy Oak

  • Ascended Extra: Daisy Oak goes from the nice neighbor who gives you a map to becoming a more competent trainer than Ken or even her brother Gary.
  • Girl Next Door: In the most literal sense possible.

Shade the Ninja

  • Highly-Visible Ninja: He's dressed like a stereotypical ninja, hangs about in highly visible places

    Manic's Screenshot Runs 

The first Manic saga

The second Manic saga

Non-canon runs

Tropes seen in Manic's Screenshot Runs:

  • Alas, Poor Villain: Cynthia's death in Fatal Platinum after her defeat. A short one, though. Also, Stan in the epilogue of Super Stan's Super Awesome Adventure!, though cryptic and grim.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: Manic appears noticeably less emotionally affected by his early deaths in Final Vega than he has been by previous deaths in other runs. Subverted after he is shown the reality of his situation.
  • Abusive Parents: In Derpy Emerald, Manic's mother is a prostitute and his father is an absentee; she is later redeemed. In Spirit Electrum, Peace!Manic's mother is an abusive drunk (in stark contrast to War!Manic's mother, who is loving and kind).
    • Also, Bianca's father in Paint It Black, though he comes to realize what he's become and promises to seek help when confronted by Elesa, Manic, and Bianca.
  • Alternate Timeline:
    • Brought up in Spirit Electrum, where, in one of the universes, there never was a Manic that defeated Gary Oak and Mewtwo in Infernal Red, meaning that there was no power vacuum for Genwyn to occupy and start the war against Johto. The Manics from the "War" world and the "Peace" world swap back and forth between the timelines whenever they enter a new town for the first time, or when one of their Pokemon dies.
    • Remember the Slugma that Mike knocked out in Infernal Red on the Sevii Islands? Der Gnizalb happens in a timeline where this never happened, which resulted in the Slugma's power growing exponentially, as it had no natural predators, and eventually Slugma ascended to godhood. This resulted in the events preceding Der Gnizalb.
    • The Unova presented in Sacred Spectre diverged from the Paint it Black run during the battle against N; Paintit!Ghetsis entered the timeline to replace his counterpart, and used his cane to make Zekrom go berserk, leading to the alternate Manic's death and N taking the blame.
  • Ass Kicks You: There's a scene in Infernal Red in which Gary's Blastoise taunts Creosote (Snorlax) with the classic "Are you going to sit on me?" line. Creosote does just that. And gains a level doing it.
  • Audience Participation: During The Process, readers were able to submit rules after every gym battle, and Manic would select the one that received the most votes.
  • Berserk Button: For Manic in Spirit Electrum, trying to harm or forcibly weaponize Grant, or generally separating him from Manic. In Full Circle, Delilah suggests that Manic doesn't care that his pokemon die; this triggers it as well.
  • Big Bad: Each run in the first saga has its own. Derpy Emerald has Wallace, Infernal Red has Mewtwo, My Little Pokemon: Friendship is Super-Effective has the spirit of Wallace, Fatal Platinum has Cynthia, Paint It Black has Ghetsis, and Spirit Electrum has Red/Genwyn. Only after all five runs was the Big Bad finally revealed to be Wallace and Darkrai as a team.
  • Bilingual Bonus: Gustav from Derpy Emerald, Frieda from Paint It Black, and Pierre from Full Circle all invoke this; if you happen to speak Spanish or French (or are willing to play with a translator), you'll get more out of their dialogue.
  • Big Damn Heroes: In Dark Stars, Sophie battles Maylene. Against her final Pokemon, Cyrano is about to get killed by Counter, but then a fully-evolved Manic returns to the party to block the hit. He promptly takes down the Lucario via Close Combat.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Final Vega. In the final gameplay update, Manic's team successfully defeats Darkrai's team. However, the cost is high: the shade of Alder's Volcarona scores a critical Overheat on Yuki. She dies instantly.
  • Blessed with Suck: Being an Oracle may grant you near-omniscience, but they are still cursed with an inherently high chance of being killed eventually due to being specifically targeted by the Big Bad.
  • Body Surf: Manic performs this to get to the worlds of the second saga; specifically a robot in Der Gnizalb, a Chimchar in Dark Stars, a much lazier two of spades Manic in Argent Ante, a boy named Nate in Sacred Spectre, and that world's version of him in Full Circle.
  • Break the Cutie: In Blinding Light, Max starts out as an upbeat, friendly, enthusiastic puppy. Then he is taught to kill, and forced to do so repeatedly despite his misgivings.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Found in My Little Pokemon: Friendship is Super-Effective. Rarity's special Pokemon Powernote  appears, at first glance, to be Run Away as an additional ability. Considering how rarely the actual ability is used in the games, it appears to be useless... until it saves everyone's lives when Scott ambushes them with Steven's Pokemon right before Victory Road; as Scott isn't a trainer, Rarity is able to help Manic escape him.
    • Another one that thankfully didn't have to be fired in Fatal Platinum; the last move that Franklin the Lopunny learned before asking to be retired from active duty was Healing Wish, which basically acts as a Full Restore on another party member in exchange for KOing the user. In the event that Manic ran out of time, Franklin would have used Healing Wish, sacrificing his life to give Manic one last day to finish his quest.
  • The Chosen One / The Chosen Many: Manic is known as a "scion", specifically "The Candlebearer," which is a title given to him by Cresselia and comes with the added role of "shining light into dark places" (metaphorically). It is later revealed in Argent Ante that most, if not all legendary Pokemon have a scion like this. One of them is even the villain of the run.
  • Creator Breakdown: Manic - the author - has been saddled with a number of health problems throughout the course of the first and second sagas, including but not limited to near-blindness (leading to the naming of "Slimcr" in Der Gnizalb), numbness over most of his body (including his hands), and multiple instances of the flu. This has caused more than one Schedule Slip but has yet to actually stop him from writing; it only slows him down.
  • Creepy Child: In Spirit Electrum's peace world, Joey is just another kid. In the war world, he's an allied agent and skilled sniper who is revealed to be following Manic around with orders to take him out if his behavior becomes too erratic.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Near the end of Paint It Black, Arthur enters the battle with N, having stated that it is his dream to defeat N's legendary dragon. Most major plot battles involve switching; not this one. Arthur stands there and defeats N's entire team single-handedly. Immediately afterwards, the same happens to Ghetsis' team; different Pokemon, same result. Ashley partially repeats the process in Sacred Spectre, defeating half of Ghetsis's team on her own. Not bad for an Unfezant.
    • In DONUT'S ATOMIC KITTEN SLEDGE, Underwear solos the entirety of the Elite Four and then turns to being transport and backup for the remainder of the run.
  • Dark World: Manic's take on the Gen II remakes in the first saga has him play both versions at once, switching perspectives every time he enters a town. He incorporates this into the story by building two designations for them, though it's never clear which is worse: Soul Silver, with its peaceful world and unpleasant NPCs, or Heart Gold with its war-torn environment but kinder NPCs.
  • Deader than Dead: Reflected upon when Jonas dies in Paint It Black. In a previous run, Dana had been reincarnated by Mew as repayment for services rendered. Here, Manic recalls that the local legendary Pokemon do not have that sort of power, and that any pokemon he loses is permanently gone.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Vile in the Marshall fight of the Elite Four. "Yee Haw."
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Invoked: another consistent rule of his runs is that in order for him to win, he needs to have defeated all one-time encounter Pokemon or face failure. Spirit Electrum exploits Loophole Abuse by catching Lugia, using it in his team, then having it be a casualty in the last battle of the run.
    • It's actually all legendary Pokemon, not all one-time encounter Pokemon. This is used to justify not fighting Slugma at the end of Der Gnizalb, which is a one-time encounter but not a legendary Pokemon.
  • Distaff Counterpart / Spear Counterpart: Happens in Spirit Electrum with Lana and Link the Typhlosions.
  • Double Agent: Pierre the Greninja, in Full Circle, was put onto Manic's team by Archie through the Wonder Trade system.
  • DVD Commentary: The Process has something like this , where Manic goes into detail about his creative process for a screenshot run.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: At the end of DONUT'S ATOMIC KITTEN SLEDGE, the team goes to "DIDNEYLAN".
    • The Manic saga ended with a giant event in which readers were to submit to the author what they thought was the answer to the door's question. Manic already had a bad end ready, and he would have posted it if none of the answers he received were the correct one. He didn't need it.
  • Exact Words:
    • Darkrai. Wallace made a deal with him to ensure the defeat of Manic. The deal never specified that Wallace had to stay alive.
    • Argent Ante's Whitney instates a rule that the two Pokemon Manic uses in the battle must be of different genders, thinking that it meant he'd have to have one male and one female. Cue her throwing a tantrum when Manic brings a genderless Metang.
    • In Blinding Light, the prophecy states that Zekrom awaits a hero. The hero is Max, not Vile - it never said what species the hero had to be.
  • Fantastic Racism: Exemplified by Genwyn, who is revealed in Paint It Black to despise all non-Kanto Pokemon.
  • The Final Temptation: Near the end of Sacred Spectre, Manic has his final confrontation with Ghetsis, who offers him the opportunity to receive what he wants more than anything else. All he has to do is turn his back on an Unova whose fate will never impact him in any way. Coral even confirms that Ghetsis believes that he is telling the truth. It almost works.
  • Flat "What":
    • Manic's reaction to seeing the starter Pokemon in Final Vega.
    • Also his reaction to Proton saying he's the scariest and cruelest guy in Team Rocket.
  • Forced Transformation: The trainers who previously failed to beat the game in Infernal Red turn up as wild Pokemon afterwards.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: At the end of Sacred Spectre, it's revealed that - should Manic fail to open the door home before his chances are exhausted - he will remain, ageless and alone, until Darkrai has regained enough power to free him. This will take aeons, and to quote Cresselia, "After a near-eternity of ageless, deathless isolation, you would be a frothing, gibbering lunatic, without the capacity to appreciate - or even comprehend - your restored freedom."
  • Groin Attack: In Blinding Light, Vile has Zerzan "geld" Clay as his punishment.
  • Guardian Entity: Manic's Oracles from the first saga, made to guide Manic through his quests and explain how to undo their circumstances.
  • Handicapped Badass:
    • Manic himself in Fatal Platinum, at the end of which he was literally unable to walk without help, but could still think hard enough about strategy to beat the League.
  • The Hero: Manic in the Manic saga, Max in Blinding Light, and Mary in The Process.
  • Heroic BSoD: Manic suffers one in Argent Ante after realizing he was willing to let Rocket executive Archer fall to his death off the Goldenrod radio tower.
  • Heroic Mime: Mason from Blinding Light. This is explained by Vile in the Q&A: "He has no mouth, buffoon."
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In Infernal Red, Trevor shoves Susan away from an exploding Koffing and takes the blast instead in order to prevent her from being killed in front of her daughter, Lacey. The sacrifice saves Susan and helps Randy to come to terms with his situation.
  • He's Back!: Manic returns to the team in chapter 15 of Dark Stars.
  • His Name Is...:
    • In Der Gnizalb, the last words of Matilda. "Pay attention to what's...to come...this is what...it is...to..."
    • Played for Laughs in the Donut run, in the scene where Susan returns from the dead temporarily as a ghost to tell Donut to teach Surf to Underwear. When leaving the mortal plane, she happily exclaims "Hey, there's my..." No points for guessing what it is.
  • I Choose to Stay: In Infernal Red, from Aaron the Charizard as he's gotten used to living in Kanto, and from Bela the Murkrow as he was a convicted murderer on death row back on earth.
  • Insistent Terminology: Roxanne the Bibarel is an HM specialist, thank you very much!
  • Ironic Nursery Tune: Solomon Grundy, at the end of Super Stan's Super Awesome Adventure!. In the rhyme of Solomon Grundy, only on Wednesday is Solomon an active participant in his life; otherwise, the rhyme is composed only of things happening TO him. Shortly after Solomon takes an active role, his health fails and he dies. The parallels to Stan's story are clear.
  • Jerkass: Anemoi from Spirit Electrum, Jacob from Paint It Black (Until a short while before his demise), and Iwao from Final Vega. Also Fenrir from Der Gnizalb, although he was eventually outdone by Beat.
    • Boris from Paint it Black is enough of one that it gets him removed from the team.
  • Keet: Max from Blinding Light, up until he evolves into a Stoutland.
  • Killer Rabbit: Franklin the Lopunny in Fatal Platinum, and Wally the Lopunny in Sacred Spectre, pull their own weight repeatedly in battles.
  • Language Barrier: A great big one in Final Vega. Japanese appears to be the local language. Most of the game text is in Japanese. The NPCs speak it. The Pokemon speak it. Whether we're talking about the protagonist or the player, Manic... doesn't. Being overcome, little by little. Manic eventually learns some Japanese via total immersion in the language for over a month, giving him enough knowledge to understand his pokemon but not enough to understand NPCs.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Quite a few spread throughout his runs.
    • Ace the Beautifly from Derpy Emerald, the jaded stand-up comedian.
    • Bela the Murkrow from Infernal Red, the escaped serial killer.
    • Applejack the Flareon from My Little Pokemon: Friendship is Super-Effective, the...Flareon.
    • Roxanne from Fatal Platinum, a Bibarel so utterly unstoppable that she literally pulls herself out of the PC box, rips through several doors to reach Flint, Manic, and the rest of the team, and informs the dying hero that she'll end him right then and there if Nero is dead.
    • Dawn from Paint It Black, a Cincinno who calls out her martial arts attacks.
    • Bump from Der Gnizalb, a Swalot who is very "special."
    • In the first Donut run, Donut battled Mewtwo with a Butterfree and a Wobbuffet, and the real crowner of this? Mewtwo KO'd itself with Struggle.
    • In general, any pokemon normally considered weak or mediocre has a high chance of becoming this in Manic's hands.
  • Literal Split Personality: Each run after the first in the first Manic Saga gets its own distinct Manic, fragmented off of the original one from Derpy Emerald:
    • Kanto gets Manic, Self-Aware, to embody his knowledge of self and the fourth wall.
    • Hoenn gets Manic, Innocent, to embody his naivete.
    • Sinnoh gets Manic, Courageous, to embody his fearlessness.
    • Unova gets Manic, Experienced, to embody what he has learned.
    • Johto gets Manic, Determined, to embody his refusal to give up.
    • The saga ends with Manic, Ascendant, who is the result of combining six runs' worth of experience into one mind, who goes through the aptly named Final Vega.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Sugar, from Dark Stars, is one of The Charmer variety. She gets kicked off the roster after the team gives Sophie a Sadistic Choice - box Sugar, or box the rest of the team sans Manic.
  • Mind Screw: The plot of the Manic Saga as a whole. Starts with a simple humorous Emerald run, evolves into a mission to restore multiversal balance over a span of multiple decades of fragmented incarnations. Or, depending on who you ask, a Jigsaw Puzzle Plot.
  • Musical Episode: Update 20 of Friendship is Super Effective, where Manic and the ponies sing to navigate Victory Road without flash, because otherwise they would be caught by Scott.
  • Nintendo Hard: Packed with overpowered gym battles, difficult puzzles, and even some outright cheating, Manic's run of Vega is this. By the time he finishes the run, far more pokemon have died than in any of his previous runs.
  • Nostalgia Filter: Genwyn and its followers are a reference to this, since they enforce inherent superiority in Kanto Pokemon over all others, and to hunt down and kill Manic at the same time.
  • Oh, No... Not Again!: Manic's reaction to being told he isn't real in Der Gnizalb.
  • One-Steve Limit: Utterly subverted in Spirit Electrum, where Manic notes that the rules give him the opportunity to ignore duplicate pokemon, not the obligation. He then expends time and resources gathering as many Linoones as he can to abuse Pickup. His effort is a failure, though; not a single one of the Linoones caught in this way has that ability... except for Trish.
  • The Plague: The Nuzlocke is depicted as a disease with many variants in this setting, with Manic from Fatal Platinum getting a Degenerative Necrotic variant and Alder getting an infectious variant.
  • Power Nullifier: The gym leaders/robot masters in Der Gnizalb act as these, where the move types they specialize in can't be used until Manic defeats them.
  • Playing Card Motifs: In Argent Ante, as described under the Rogues Gallery trope.
  • Recurring Boss: Ghetsis in Sacred Spectre, in more ways than one; the Ghetsis from Paint It Black and the Ghetsis from Sacred Spectre are actually the same person, with the former having world-hopped to the latter and eliminated his counterpart after escaping Cheren at the end of Paint It Black.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Argent Ante's Dell gets this treatment. Out-of-story, Dell was caught as a replacement for Simon the Ditto, the capture of whom was against the rules which author!Manic was only reminded of after the update with Simon's capture went live. Instead of bothering with a Rewrite of the previous update, Manic incorporated this into the plot.
  • Rip Van Winkle: Manic in Paint It Black. He is also genderbent into a girl as well. Subverted, in that it was just one of Manic's aspects; specifically, his Experience.
  • Rogues Gallery: Every one of the gym leaders and Manic's mother in Argent Ante is under the direction of Lance, who is under the direction of AscendantMaster. Ranging from 10 through Ace in every suit, each one gets their own power with which to bully the populace and keep them from mounting any serious challenge:
    • Falkner: 10 of Diamonds, Super Speed
    • Bugsy: Jack of Diamonds, Wings
    • Whitney: 10 of Spades, Mental Degradation
    • Morty: King of Diamonds, Pass Through Walls
    • Chuck: 10 of Clubs, Stoneskin
    • Jasmine: Jack of Clubs, Super-Strength
    • Pryce: 10 of Hearts, Inspire Depression
    • Clair: Jack of Hearts, Inspire Fear
    • Lt. Surge: Ace of Diamonds, Teleportation
    • Janine: Queen of Spades, Illusion
    • Erika: Jack of Spades, Poisons/Toxins, Immunity To Same
    • Brock: Queen of Clubs, Although he surrenders it without using it, Brock's power is later revealed to have been Rollout.
    • Misty: Queen of Hearts, Inspire Love
    • Sabrina: King of Hearts, Mind Swap
    • Blaine: King of Clubs, Seismic Stomp
    • Blue: None; his identity had been stolen, along with knowledge of who he was.
    • Will: Ace of Hearts, Inspire Bliss
    • Koga: King of Spades, Invisibility (himself and his Pokemon)
    • Bruno: Ace of Clubs, Thunderclap
    • Karen: Ace of Spades, All previously listed powers, sometimes several at a time
    • Manic's mother: Queen of Diamonds, unknown power
    • AscendantMaster /Red: Dealer
  • Rousing Speech: Manic gives one of these in Update 17 of Argent Ante, to inspire the masses because together they have more card value than those in charge.
  • Sadistic Choice:
    • Straight through the fourth wall near the end of Spirit Electrum. After Manic beats Lance in a rematch, a vortex opens that acts as a joining point between the two worlds, just like the first time. The difference is that the first victory allowed Manic to shift as many Pokemon between worlds as he chose. This time, Manic is forced to choose which world is allowed to survive and which one vanishes forever. The viewers are first shown the two possibilities where the War world is chosen and War Manic commits suicide because he lost Grant, and where the Peace world is chosen and Peace Manic becomes too preoccupied with the Champion's duties to carry on his quest. Eventually both Manics decide to Take a Third Option so that the two worlds are combined into a single world.
    • Dark Stars has one before the first gym, where Sugar the Smoochum can only stay on the team in exchange for the retirement of Gavin, Cyrano, Melita and Lewis. Of course Sugar gets the box in the end.
    • Subverted in The Process. In the epilogue, Mary and Glen visit Helios/Ho-Oh, who has the power to both cure Mary of vampirism and resurrect Starlight. Helios gives Mary a choice between the two, however Glen points out that as a Physical God Helios has no excuse to not do both.
  • Shout-Out: The first gym battle in Paint It Black is an Epic Rap Battle (though not so much 'Of History').
    • One could also consider the entirety of the My Little Pokemon: Friendship is Super-Effective run to be a Shout-Out, as it contains a crossover between the Pokemon universe and the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic universe (as alluded to in the title).
    • Final Vega has this:
    • Similarly, in Blinding Light Clay has an Excadrill named Simon, and he commands it to "pierce" Oda during the gym battle.
    • Since Donut's dialogue consists of almost entirely Non Sequiturs, some of the lines he spouts are Shout Outs. Case in point:
    • Der Gnizalb seems to be based around Mega Man. For example, his starter is named Cutman, and after defeating each gym leader, a message for obtaining a weapon is displayed on the screenshot. The champion even turns out to be Dr. Wily!
    • In Der Gnizalb, Manic doesn't want to forget Pond.
    • In Dark Stars, Manic's first usage of Close Combat is accompanied by the phrase, omae wa mo shindeiru.
    • Similarly, his first Ember and Sky Uppercut are accompanied by a "Hadouken" and "Shoryuken" respectively.
    • The second saga has included characters named for DC Comics superheroes. Specifically, Clark from Der Gnizalb, Bruce from Dark Stars, Kyle from Argent Ante, Wally from Sacred Spectre, and Arthur from Full Circle.
    • Sherry the Taillow is possibly a reference to Case Closed, considering she was caught in the Mahogany Rocket Base in place of one of the Electrode powering the machine.
    • In Argent Ante, Manic's conversations with "AscendantMaster" ( Red) are communicated through Pesterlog format.
    • In Full Circle, the changes to Granite Cave are justified by someone named Steve being called in. He's described as a bit blocky, a wizard with a pickaxe, and necrophobic.
    • Pierre in Full Circle is French. He's also a spy.
    • Full Circle's May notes that even though she can't save the world, maybe she can save something else.
    • In Full Circle, when May and Manic receive the message from Cresselia about Deoxys, May wants to tell everyone, reasoning that they're smart enough to handle it. Manic's response? "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
  • "Shut Up" Kiss: Sophie delivers one to Barry after the latter lets his Motor Mouth run for a good while in Part 34 of Dark Stars.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": The Dave from Fatal Platinum.
  • Stylistic Suck: This beautiful bit of literature.
  • Talk Like a Pirate: Cassie in Der Gnizalb. She is a pirate, anyway.
  • Through the Eyes of Madness: In Super Stan's Super Awesome Adventure!, Stan gains and loses teammates throughout his journey. Still, counter to Manic's usual habit of including a teamshot in his signature, none ever appeared throughout the duration of the run. The reason did not become clear until the very end: none of Stan's pokemon are real, but are hallucinations based on his fractured mind.
  • Trapped in TV Land: The Fire Red run, played way Darker and Edgier. Although, while this applies to Manic's pokemon, it doesn't apply to Manic himself.
  • 10-Minute Retirement: Occurs in Paint It Black, when Jonas is killed. Already in a vulnerable state after the recent death of Jacob, Manic is informed that it's within her power to stop any more of her friends from dying, that all she has to do is quit and go home. After a Heroic BSoD, she does precisely that. A Rousing Speech delivered by some old friends is required to snap her out of it, and when she does, she hits the ground running.
  • Villainous Legacy: The entire second Manic saga. Manic is forced to contend with a version of each region that has had its timeline warped by Darkrai, despite its defeat. Why? Because until he fixes the timelines, none of his friends can go home without being instantly eradicated.
  • Villainous Valour: In Blinding Light, during the battle with N, Max remarks that - among Vile, N, Ghetsis, and Alder - none of them have goals that are good for Unova. After Ghetsis is killed by Zerzan, N decides that Max is right...and transforms a supposedly innocent handshake into a last-ditch effort to help Unova.
  • We Cannot Go On Without You: A consistent rule in Manic's runs are that starters cannot leave the party, and if they are killed, he loses the run immediately.
    • In Sacred Spectre, the reason for this is revealed: if the starter dies, Manic dies with it.
  • Wham Episode His Derpy Emerald run gets a bit more serious when Flannery freaks out and has her Torkoal attack Manic directly.
    • Also part thirteen of Dark Stars, "Farewell Tour."
  • Wham Line:
    • Found in Infernal Red: "Professor Oak is dead."
    • Also found in Dark Stars: Manic has left the party.
    • And in Sacred Spectre: Cheren: Hail Ghetsis.
  • Where It All Began: The aptly titled Manic's Full Circle takes Manic back to where his adventures started, in the Hoenn region.
  • Word Salad Title: The Donut runs have these and seem to change with every update.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Wallace, after Darkrai declares that he needs more power... and then proceeds to devour the greatest power source in the area.

    Aouli's Nuzlocke Run 

Tropes seen in Aouli's Nuzlocke run:

  • Accidental Murder: Cotton hits Gary's Raticate just a little too hard on the head...

    Nonparael's Nuzlocke Runs 

Tropes seen in Nonparael's Nuzlocke runs:

  • Attractive Bent-Gender: Girl-Ara was constantly getting leered at in the Pearl run, and Cheren was even harassing him in the Black version prologue until he reverted to male.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Ara's reaction to finding a Joltik. Soleil doesn't take it well.
    EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
  • Cutting the Knot: Ara's approach to Palkia in Pearl? Use the Master Ball!
  • Demonic Possession: Glitch Ara possesses multiple people over the course of the Black run in order to kill normal Ara, including N.
  • Enemy Without: The Big Bad for the Black run, the "Glitch", is the embodiment of Ara's Survivor's Guilt over the deaths in his challenges. It usually possesses NPC Trainers (including N) and Pokemon, but it shows up for the final battle in the form of his Pearl run's female self.
  • Gender Bender: Ara, the artist insert, is a guy. Mouthing off in response to the "are you a boy/girl" question got him turned into a girl at the beginning of his Pearl run. However, when Ara turns "back" into a guy for his Black run, he looks more like a genderbent version of girl Ara than he does like actual Ara, which has confused some people into thinking the girl form is correct and the first genderbend was just a joke. note 
  • Interspecies Romance:
    • Between Soleil (Scrafty) and Nineveh (Serperior). Which was rudely interrupted by Nineveh's death.
    • Flynn (Carracosta) hits on every female, regardless of species or even age, except his Abhorrent Admirer Madotsuki (Musharna).
  • Lethal Joke Character: Alraune the Cherrim is quite capable of owning Bertha's Pokemon despite constantly looking harmless.
    • ...and deals the last blow against Cynthia's Garchomp, as well.
    • Ara likes Bug-types in the Pearl version run. Clutterbug the Trash Cloak Wormadam was beloved for her sole weakness being the rarest type in Sinnoh, and Chopin the Kricketune went to the Elite Four with the rest after Clutterbug became a casualty of Cyrus.
  • Mind Screw: There's not much sense to be made of how Ara's female form managed to gain an entity of its own and gain reality-warping powers. Nor is there much sense in how male!Ara managed to do the same near the end.
  • Mistaken for Gay: Cheren, after Ara turns "back" into a guy for the Black run. Ara loves taunting him afterwards.
  • Running Gag: Flynn's Sturdy activating.
  • Ship Tease: Ara doesn't make it a secret that he has a crush on N.
  • Shrinking Violet: Soleil the Scraggy/Scrafty, who spends most of her time hiding in her shed-skin-clothes. Ara says he was tired of the "aloof gangster" archetype. After Nineveh's death, Soleil grows out of her shyness and becomes a Heartbroken Badass.
  • Story and Gameplay Segregation / Rule of Cool: Ara's notes say that Vinnie the Staraptor participated in the fight with Cynthia's Garchomp, but not what he did. Result?
    Vinnie. He kicks Garchomps in the face.
  • Strip Poker: In the Pearl version run, Ara accidentally crashes a game in-progress in the Team Galactic HQ.
  • Survivor's Guilt: Less pronounced in Pearl version, where there were relatively fewer deaths. In Ara's Black version run, Ara's survivor's guilt creates "The Glitch".
  • Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
    • Flynn accidentally hits on Nineveh.
    • Cheren's reaction when Ara returned to male at the beginning of the Black version run.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Belle in the Black Nuzlocke, who gets quite...excited when Ara starts messing with Cheren after returning to his original gender.

    Landwalker's Nuzlocke Runs 

Tropes seen in Landwalker's Nuzlocke runs:

  • Affably Evil: Jessie and James, Team Rocket scientists who also happen to be Blue's Doting Parents.
  • After the End: The entire Pokemon world is revealed to be the result of a nuclear holocaust caused by World War III in the Yellow Run.
  • A God Am I: In his Sapphire Nuzlocke, Archie intends to use the red orb to gain the power of Kyogre and essentially become a Physical God. Complete with quoting Bible verses. And then Watchmen. May sasses back to the Bible verses with a few of her own. "You're not the only one who's ever read the Bible."
  • Cerebus Syndrome:
    • In the Sapphire run, when May wipes out the entire team except Avenger. Immediately lampshaded by the writer.
    • Things go very far south in Act II of the Yellow run, which the writer also Lampshades. In general the Yellow run is even darker than Sapphire, see After the End above.
  • Dramatic Irony: The end of his Yellow Nuzlocke has Blue completely broken by a world without Pokemon, much like our world.

    Death's Nuzlocke 

Tropes seen in Death's Nuzlocke:

  • Cancellation: The comic series sadly suffered from this when the artist lost interest in the plot.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: A trend somewhat criticized by the artist himself, and apparently part of the reason the serious was cancelled.
  • Fake Kill Scare: The author pulls one off in video form with Hamma, his starter.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Appears to be played straight with Jazz the Slowpoke, but subverted when he evolves and it is revealed that he was just supposed to keep watch on James and protect him.
  • Identity Amnesia: How Shini became James, apparently. Chuck hints that something similar happened before, when Ethan became Shini.
  • I Have Many Names: The protagonist was originally named "Shini", but this was later changed to "James". Chuck, his father in this run, calls him "Ethan" at one point of the comic.
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Wondered by Shini himself at the beginning of the comic, again after he becomes James, and yet again every time someone addresses him by it. Chuck indicates that Shini named himself that.
  • Wrap It Up: After canceling the comic, the artist decided to do a series of written summaries to explain how the plot would have progressed if he finished.

    Nuzlocke: The Gold Standard 

Tropes seen in Nuzlocke: The Gold Standard

  • Added Alliterative Appeal: Ch. 8 (Tricks, Towers and Troublemakers).
  • All-Natural Snake Oil: Cianwood Secret Potion is apparently made with all natural ingredients. But, as Mike internally notes, 'Hemlock is natural. So are bears.' The lighthouse Ampharos effectively receives a Hideous Hangover Cure.
  • Ambiguous Gender: Gamma the Unown and Solenoid the Magneton. This works out in their favour, because it means Gamma is immune to Miltank's Attract.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Mike's four main reasons for wanting to Kate to survive in Chapter 12: she's a good friend of his and he values her company, he wants as few people to die on this journey anyway, she's the last one left from after Goldenrod City and if she dies, the next longest-serving member of the team will be Colin.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Jasmine, especially after realising she was partly responsible for killing Mike's starter.
  • Author Avatar: When the author drops in to get revenge on Harry, he appears as a Butterfree with dark blue eyes.
  • Author Catchphrase: 'This team was getting more and more diverse/interesting/insert-suitable-alternative by the day'.
  • Battle Couple: Alexander and Amy, although since this is the original version of Gold they never actually get a chance to fight together.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Lisa the Jigglypuff, who knows Thunder and Fire Punch.
  • Blatant Lies:
    • Mike protests that he wasn't scared of flying on Kate's back, merely 'startled'.
      Kate: If by that you mean you clasped your arms around my chest, screamed like a girl all the way back and swore to never fly on anything more unprotected than a passenger plane, then yeah. You were pretty 'startled'.
    • When they set off after the Goldenrod City rescue, Mike comments on how nice it is to be travelling in the countryside again. Kate then dryly brings up that before then they'd had two weeks of no training whatsoever, to which Mike responds 'I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about'.
  • Big Eater: Implied Trope: According to Mike, Nikki and he 'can eat a small country's worth of confection.'
  • Bond One-Liner: Attempted, having just defeated the Lake of Rage Gyrados:
    Colin: I guess his problem was being wet behind the ears.
  • Book Ends: The first and final chapters are respectively named 'Begin At The Beginning' and 'End At The Ending'.
  • Breakout Character: A tragic example - Kate ascends from being a member of the Five-Man Band to main non-human character by dint of being the only one still alive in the end.
  • Brutal Honesty: After the Championship battle, Mike goes round each of his teammates and tells them how much he values them and their efforts. When it comes to Colin, he tells him that 'You're a dick and I can't stand you.' Colin replies that he appreciates his honesty.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Professor Elm is good-naturedly depicted in such a way. Goodness knows what he was researching at the start of the series when Mike walked in.
  • Call-Back: Just before taking on Elite Four, Mike stops to comb his hair - the way he promised his mother he would do seventeen chapters ago, at the start of the story.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Silver's Quilava Lee spends a long time dancing around the fact that he has a huge crush on Kate, getting tongue-tied and embarrassed merely from being around her. It is entirely unrequited on Kate's part.
  • Captain Oblivious: During his Day in the Limelight after rescuing Goldenrod City, Mike's Pokemon team once again spend all his money for him on all the various entertainments the city has. Mike doesn't realise in the slightest this time.
  • Catchphrase: Gamma's repeated use of the word 'fascinating'. It even describes its own death in such a way.
  • Cerebus Syndrome: Averted. The author says that he deliberately doesn't focus too much on the hardships of their journey and on recent deaths to keep the story moving and avoid it being bogged down in angst.
  • Compensating for Something: Kate's speculation in this line regarding the size of the Rocket Admin's office is mercifully cut shut by the arrival of Silver before she can finish her sentence.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Gym battles are sped up somewhat, but Falkner, Bugsy and Chuck were reportedly thrashed easily even in the actual playthrough.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Quite a bit of it, although Kate gets the most fun. Any scene with Mike and Silver tends to involve a lot.
  • Dressing as the Enemy: To save time getting into and through the Radio Tower when Team Rocket takes over, Mike sends Solenoid on ahead to get him a Team Rocket uniform. However, he wasn't specific enough, leading to...
  • Double Entendre:
    • Those of you who didn't catch the double implication of the scene where Togepi's egg hatches, treasure your innocence. Lacking context, their statements make it sound like Mike is the father.
    • Colin insists on rephrasing the boulder-pushing puzzles of Ice Path in terms of 'playing with your balls'.
  • Embarrassing First Name:
    • Mike is actually named Mick, but hates being called that. He is sort-of named after the author, whose username is Man-in-Crowd-4.
    • See Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?, below.
  • Expy: Clyde, of Dudley from Street Fighter, even quoting some of Dudley's notable catchphrases. See Gentleman and a Scholar.
  • Fan Disillusionment/ Broken Pedestal: When Mike first meets Lance at the Lake Of Rage, he idolises him as one of the strongest Trainers in all of Johto (even thought he doesn't know about his job as Champion). Then after repeated instances of him acting like a jerk during the Hideout infiltration - particularly when he 'saw how well you were doing (against all the Grunts and the Admins) that I hung back' -, he comes to realise that Lance is actually kind of a dick in reality.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: Bill refers to Colin sleeping on his keyboard while he was working "as if it was the eighth cardinal sin".
  • Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Whitney, when Mike returns to Goldenrod City. He still agrees to help her, but only after casually taunting her (complete with But for Me, It Was Tuesday) and making his opinion of her clear. It doesn't help that she gives him the Accidental Misnaming treatment even when dramatically trying to appeal to him for help.
    Mike: Sorry... Whitney, isn't it? Or am I thinking of the pretty one?
  • For Your Own Good: Before the battle against Bruno, Mike teaches Kate Attract. Kate points out sharply that she hates using it when she is told to, but Mike replies that it's for her own good to stop her being killed by Rock Slide. She still maintains that she doesn't like doing it, but does it anyway.
  • Fourth-Wall Observer: Harry the Sudowoodo. He was originally from a different series by the same author and was dragged over to this series as a punishment for breaking the Fourth Wall too much in that work, which should say everything.
  • From Bad to Worse: From getting lost in Dark Cave to getting lost in Mt. Mortar, and then getting lost in the Whirl Islands.
  • Gentleman and a Scholar: Clyde. Polite and respectful, speaks with class, acts with gentlemanly etiquette, issues full challenges even when grinding against wild Pokemon and frequently comes to conflict with more self-serving loutish types (particularly Team Rocket, and Colin).
  • Gory Discretion Shot: When Lisa dies, the chapter starts with the team grieving, the death having happened offscreen as a form of compensation.
  • Hand Wave: Every time the game Hand Waves something, the narration actually says that the character 'waved a hand' as they said it.
  • Harmless Villain: Mike regards Team Rocket as this by the end, not without justification. He at least feigns surprise at TR managed to actually be successful in the Goldenrod City takeover chapters, and Kate says that she's getting bad memories throughout the whole experience - not because of Team Rocket, but because they're in Goldenrod City.
  • Head Pet: Kate acts as one because she actually rejects Mike's offers to perch on his arm, preferring to do it her way.
  • Heroic BSoD: Some of the more tragic deaths trigger a flat-out one of these in Mike.
  • Hollywood Torches: The Champion's room in the Elite Four has several of these, on which Mike comments that 'We invented perfectly good strip lighting ages ago, y'know'.
  • Humiliation Conga:
    • Pryce's Gym, at least at first and mostly due to Mike's inability to deal with Frictionless Ice. Fortunately the Gym battle went better.
    • This continues in the Ice Path, which combined this ice with boulder-pushing puzzles.
  • If I Had a Nickel...: Said in response to Clair asking 'How could I possibly lose?!'
  • I Like Those Odds:
    • Considering the size of each side in the Goldenrod City chapters - him and his six Pokemon versus the entirety of Team Rocket's finest troops - Mike concludes 'Team Rocket didn't have a chance'.
    • Colin also says this in response to Solenoid calculating that it is confident that Clyde will be able to carry Beryl down to New Bark Town without breaking his back 'to within a 15% tolerance'.
  • Ironic Echo: When Mike heals his team member against Bruno, Bruno scowls and says that it won't change the outcome. After Bruno heals his own team member only for it to be killed in one critical by Drill Peck, Mike turns Bruno's line back on him.
  • Iron Woobie: After the events of both Goldenrod and Olivine Gyms, Mike still finds the motivation to go on. Mostly, that "I'll be damned if I let their deaths go to waste now".
  • In Which a Trope Is Described: Each chapter starts with a selection of phrases foreshadowing the events of the chapter. Apparently, they're deliberately phrased to sound as odd as possible.
  • Jerkass: Colin, of the 'insufferable' variety. Condescending and aggravating, he only gets away with not being throttled because the team, as much as they hate to admit it, need the advantages he brings.
  • Killed Mid-Attack: Sammy. Just before he launched a huge Razor Leaf volley, Jasmine's Steelix used Iron Tail and killed him instantly.
  • The Lad-ette: Kate the Spearow. She even threatens to peck Mike in the face on occasion.
  • Lady of War: Beryl the Graveler never loses her unflappable calm, even when hurling rocks at Lance's Charizard.
  • Lampshade Hanging: Lots of it. From much Fridge Logic to weird item handouts to creepily identical NPCs to the behaviour of certain characters to Mike's Kleptomaniac Hero tendencies.
    • The author even lampshades his own writing, such as when Mike comments 'For some reason, I always seem to have at least two of you guys out of your Poke Balls whenever we go anywhere'.
  • Let's Fight Like Gentlemen:
    • Clyde, an Expy of the trope's namer.
    • Beryl tells Jasmine's Magnemite that "I will fight you fair and square, and then that will put an end to this".
  • Ludicrous Precision: Solenoid can measure how long it takes Mike to catch up to it in Goldenrod City down to the second.
  • Made of Iron: Given how much Mike falls off things in the area of Ecruteak and Olivine City, and then the fiasco with the boulders in Ice Path, this can be presumed about him.
  • Martial Pacifist: Beryl, who doesn't like conflict and fighting but still remains very good at it when needs be.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • Gamma the Unown, after part of the infrared spectrum that the radio waves Unown are known to emit is also on.
    • Solenoid the Magnemite. A 'solenoid' is a tight coil of wire that exhibits a magnetic field when an electric current passes through it.
    • Whitney's Miltank is named Kira for a reason.
  • Mood Whiplash: About as severe a one as you can get - from Chapter 5.5, a cheerful Lonely Island parody about Mike's Pokemon blowing all his money in Goldenrod City, to Chapter 6 in which four named characters die.
  • Motive Decay: The protagonist gets this, unusually enough - lapping up all the media attention after rescuing Goldenrod City causes him to have to remind himself that he actually is a trainer and that his goal is to become a Pokemon Master, not just roll around on piles of publicity money.
  • Multiple Head Case: After Solenoid evolves into Magneton. Its sentences get passed around its three heads at random intervals, sometimes doing a full lap in one speech.
  • My Greatest Failure: The series' author believes that his run of Goldenrod City Gym in which four Pokemon died, three of them to the same opponent, is probably the biggest failure ever recorded in a Nuzlocke run that didn't wipe out the entire party. And then his starter, a Meganium no less, dies.
  • Named After Someone Famous: All notable Fighting types are named after characters from Fighting games, and all Gym leaders' Pokemon after Bugsy are given names to be these as well.
  • No Name Given: The Togepi baby, who was Boxed immediately. Reportedly, in the actual playthrough the Egg never actually hatched at all.
  • "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: When particularly stupid/silly lines are quoted from the game (not to mention the part where, in the game, instead of using Fly Lance literally spirals into the sky and disappears), the author tends to put in a short disclaimer to say that this is a genuine thing from the game.
  • Official Couple: Alexander and Amy.
  • One-Hit Kill: A lot of the Gym Leader's Pokemon are beaten in one attack, even up to the Elite Four. Unfortunately, some of the more important ones, like Whitney's Miltank, are not.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • The disaster in Chapter 6 was so bad that the Author apparently forgot his usual Nuzlocke recommendation in the artist's description.
    • When Colin is being quiet and no-one tells Harry to stop breaking the Fourth Wall, you know they're upset about Lisa's death.
  • Out of the Frying Pan: Karen's Murkrow uses Whilrwind to get rid of Beryl the Graveller before she thrashes him - and gets Solenoid the Magneton in return.
  • Ow, My Body Part!: When Mike falls into Ruins of Alph the first time, he tells the researcher 'I think I bruised my appendix'. The second time, it's his coccyx. When he falls through the floor of Olivine Lighthouse, he cries 'Ow, my fovea!'.
  • Painting the Medium:
    • Falling is denoted with increasingly shrinking sub-script.
    • When Colin becomes Confused, the narration from his perspective starts wandering all over the page and varying in size mid-word.
    • The tutorial woman's insistence is conveyed with caps lock and dashes combined together. She even lampshades it.
    • When sarcastically coming up with suggestions on what to title Mike's memoirs of his journeys, Kate can apparently pronounce italic font effortlessly.
  • Percussive Maintenance: On Solenoid's first appearance, its magnetism cause Mike's Poke Gear to malfunction. Mike responds by desperately pressing every button in sight and thumping it hopefully.
  • Phrase Catcher: 'Shut up, Harry'.
  • Place Worse Than Death: Mike regards Goldenrod City to be one, after his battle with Whitney.
  • Phony Psychic: Will, who actually just has a good set of identification equipment and research software to give him supposedly psychic knowledge of his challengers.
  • The Prankster: Charlotte the Gastly.
  • Punny Name:
    • The series' name, for one.
    • Beryl the Geodude/Graveler.
    • Several of the In Which a Trope Is Described lines at the start of chapters, including 'The Cold Light of Mourning', 'For Whom the Doorbell Tolls' and 'Overexposure to Gamma Radiation' (Gamma is the name of the Unown that took Bugsy's Gym down so fast it wasn't even worth showing it in the story).
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: Colin tries these on his first appearance, but they aren't very effective. Amy's are super effective.
  • Rage Against the Author: Downplayed version: Rather than being angry, Harry makes continual jokes at the author's expense.
  • Running Gag:
    • Silver's unnaturally red hair and strange dress sense.
      It was like a dye made from the exoskeleton of Scizors.
    • Mike's Poke Gears getting broken.
    • The Radio Tower takeover chapters had a Running Gag of different unfortunate people encountering Mike Disguised in Drag (the Rocket Executive, the Director, his rival, etc etc.).
  • Shutting Up Now: From the author's comment on the chapter where Lance's pedestal was broken for Mike:
    ...Then I played through this section of the game and both Mike and I realised that actually Lance is kind of a dick. No two ways about it. He's a dick. And we've already got Colin for that, so there's only room for one dick in this series, and I should stop before I say something really awkward.
  • Small Name, Big Ego:
    • Morty. Even when he tells Mike 'may the best man find the Legendary first', he still mentally adds 'which will clearly be me'.
    • Colin. It's practically his entire schtick, aside from only being helpful when he feels like it.
    • Clair also acts, if anything, slightly more like this than she actually does in the game.
  • Smart People Know Latin: Will of the Elite Four (see Bilingual Bonus).
  • Sophisticated as Hell:
    • The scene in which Charlotte was captured, where a dramatic description leads to a one-sentence anti-climax.
    • The full description of Mike coming back down Rt. 44 to New Bark Town and coming back to his origin point again, only to append onto the end that 'Later that day they flew back up to Blackthorn again and took the home road again, this time getting all the items on the opposite side of the river. Waste not want not.'
  • Spock Speak:
    • Gamma speaks almost entirely as if it's simply taking notes on the world around it.
    • Solenoid as well, although not as much. More Literal-Minded - when asked 'Anything else about yourself you'd like to say?', it answers 'Yes' and then doesn't say any of those things until specifically asked again. This goes very interestingly for Mike when he asks it to fetch him a Team Rocket uniform, 'the first one you find'll do'.
  • The Stinger: After the ending, when Mike and his team set out from Indigo Plateau to go back down home to New Bark Town again:
    Would you like to save your game?
    There is already a saved file. Would you like to overwrite it?
    Saving... Don't turn off the power...
    Save complete.
  • Stranger Behind the Mask: In-Universe - Mike is disappointed to discover that the last Rocket Executive isn't someone he knows already.
  • Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard: Kate's reaction to Mike saying that there can't be any ninjas in Mahogany Town because he can't see any.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Mike's opinion of the sign on the Mahogany Town shop Team Rocket is using. 'No denial can be that specific without knowing something particular.'
  • Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Just when it seems Mike has a huge lead over Lance and hasn't last a single team member all battle, suddenly it all goes horribly wrong.
  • Team Mom: Beryl. Calm, collected, gives out guidance and team therapy when needed and is always the one with the wise words and her head on straight.
  • Tempting Fate: On the way into Ice Path, Mike asks 'How bad exactly can it be?'. The In Which a Trope Is Described lines at the top of the chapter describes the Ice Path section as 'Frozen Hell', which answers his question.
  • Theme Naming: Most of the names of Gym Leaders' Pokemon are ShoutOuts. Karen's are named after the five rivers in the Greek underworld.
  • This Is a Drill: Kate's Drill Peck attack, which after using for the first time she declares to be her new favourite move.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Colin's opinion of the whole 'having a Trainer' thing.
  • Title Drop: Mike says that if he every makes a memoir of his journey, he's going to call it Dangerous Things I've Walked Across. Kate suggests instead Around The Region In Sixty Screw-Ups, or The Gold Standard.
    Kate: I don't think of everything, sunshine. I'm just a bird.
  • Trash Talk:
    • Dan does a lot of this, before he discovers that he doesn't have to pretend to be rowdy.
    • Colin, as part of his Small Name, Big Ego character.
  • Tonight, Someone Dies: Chapter 6 bears this warning.
  • Upper-Class Twit: The Director of the Radio Tower is portrayed as one of these, oblivious to what's actually going on around him and splashing his plummy and overly-elaborate speech all over the place. Mike considers gagging him again as soon as he rescues him.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Mike and Kate by the later stages of the run.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye:
    • Carlos and Zach, both of which die in the same chapter they are introduced.
    • Archie the Spinarak, Charlotte the Gastly and the baby Togepi are Boxed in the same chapter as they were caught, and Rachel the Nidoran never got any spoken dialogue.
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Apparently, Silver's real name was so horrifically embarrassing that Mike lied to the police to spare him the indignity. Said real name has not been confirmed as of yet.
  • You Have No Chance to Survive: The fake Director gives Mike the card key to get into the Underground because he knew Mike would fail, but he wanted to watch him try. This didn't work out for him.
  • You Put the "X" in "XY": The incredibly frustrating Blackthorn City Gym is described as 'Putting the Thorn in Blackthorn'.
  • Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: Used to compare Mike and Nikki to the red Gyrados: 'The monster that rose out like an apocalyptic god loomed over the boy on his little swimming pet.'

    Kit's Nuzlocke Adventure 

Tropes found in Kit's Nuzlocke Adventure

  • Born Lucky: Kit finds two Shinies in two successive runs - and they're both the same species.
    Kit: What are the chances of that?!
  • Call-Forward: The SoulSilver run has a few of these, what with being the first run chronologically but the fourth one written.
    • When Aero is dying, Kit pleads with him that 'If you die now, I swear I'll hate Water types forever!'
    • On his Face–Heel Turn, Silver starts using a hair dye apparently endorsed by Peroxide, Kit's goth Litwick from the Black 2 run.
  • The Chewtoy: Silver. Everyone thinks he's evil and treats him as such when he's really not. Everything's just a huge misunderstanding.
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Giggidy the Quagsire. Considerate of other team members and encourages Zero after Lithium implies that their relationship was nothing personal, but still the spotter of all entendres and eater of all the eye candy. When Kit told Zero and Lithium to go in the Day Care and produce a Riolu egg for him, Giggidy snuck in and hid behind the TV to watch.
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: Kit. He thinks his Torchic is a football, initially thought Zigzagoons were pine cones (thus naming the one he caught "Pinecone") and mishears "Rock Types" and "Jock Types" (thought he still realizes they'll be hard on Torchic because "Jocks beat footballs"). All in the first two strips.
    • The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: When Torchic evolves he assumes it's become a bowling pin. And somehow puzzles out that Fighting types beat Rock types while still thinking about bowling pins.
  • Comedic Sociopathy: Racecar the Girafarig, who casually informs people of all the disturbing thoughts her tail-brain has (particularly with regard to purging Poison-types from the Earth), but assures them that she doesn't think anything bad of them at all. Only later do Shiny and Nimbus point out to Kit that Girafarig tail-brains are primitive and run entirely on instinct, and that everything Racecar says is all her.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Played with since Kit thinks in "football types", "jock types", and "frat types" to name a few, though it usually still works out along the same lines as the normal games'.
  • Everybody Lives: Kit's goal in Platinum is to collect the Spoink Balls so he can revive everyone who died in Sapphire. It works, but he has to catch them in the Pal Park to really bring them back, and before he can he's sent into the Unova dimension. Thankfully Rayquaza's nice enough to keep their spirits hanging around until he gets back.
  • Fratbro: Brawley. One of the first thing he asks is if Kit's been to any good keggers.
  • Greek Chorus: Kit's remaining Pokemon from both his previous runs during Black and Black 2. Including the dead ones, and the ones from the Black glitched run.
  • I Lied: Rayquayza, to avert a very heavily bitter bittersweet ending for Black 2. He could revive the Unova Pokemon in the end.
  • Improbable Age: The Soul Silver run is chronologically first, and sets Kit as a fresh-faced ten-year-old. The series does, however, acknowledge that given the number of years it's stated to take place before the other runs, Kit should technically-speaking be four. This is Played for Laughs rather than worrying about it.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Felony the Liepard in Black 2 was such a badass it earned the award for Pokemon of the Year for the 2013 Nuzlocke awards. He even finished off Iris' last mon.
  • Literal Metaphor: Trendy and Nimbus are sheep. Literally, in that they're both Mareep. Figuratively, in that they both just do whatever other people tell them all the time.
  • Loophole Abuse:
    • In Platinum, Zero interperts the Great Marsh as six different areas to catch six different Pokemon.
    • Kit later does this again to justify Lyra not dying on Iron Island - at the end of the battle Riley automatically healed her, so she is therefore not dead. It's implied her horrible death by Random Number God was Laser-Guided Karma for the choice.
    • Kit can justify out-of-universe knowledge via a few things, usually a PC Pokemon or another Pokemon simply using the internet. One of his Pokemon learned Surf but he'd already done the surfer motif, so it became an expert web-surfer instead. Another Pokemon was from the future, thus having some future knowledge. Leafeon was a Terminator parody, with all the technical abilities it implied.
    • Kit caught Kyogre by making sure it was the first Pokemon he saw in the area by using a lot of Repels and then covering his eyes for good measure. He acquired Keldeo as a gift, and admitted he was unsure what the rules said about that.
  • Malaproper: Blip Blip the Deerling, ejected from the weather lab as a failed experiment. Always smiling and happy, but for the majority of the comic gets simple words mixed up without seeming to realise ('Of corpse I don't have a problem! Now, we can get out of this cave by going up to the bottom of these stairs.')
    Sobek: Personally I think this is your best personality, Blip Blip.
    Blip Blip: Well spank you very much!
  • Manipulative Bitch: Baskerville the Houndoom in Platinum, she's even called such. She uses it to help out Lyra early on, but later does it for her own amusement.
  • Mind Screw: The Black Run, on account of it being caused by Giratina's powers making a distorted Unova for Kit to traverse. Out of universe it's because Kit used a chest code to sequence break and the game went nuts.
  • No Fourth Wall: It starts wearing thin by the end of the Emerald run, but by Platinum all pretext is abandoned.
    Ultra 6: (Having just been Badly Poisoned after trying a cigar) Oh well, at least it'll give my voice a more manly tone to it.
    Kit: Ultra 6... This is a comic. There are no voices.
  • Not What It Looks Like: Invoked by Kit. Since Brawley's Pokemon all act like frat boys, the move Peck by a male Combusken throws them into confusion since they're all trying to defend their heterosexuality to each other, to the point where Brawley forfeits.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Grymloq the Rampardos is a Genius Bruiser, but likes to hide it by speaking in Hulk Speak. And because it's fun.
  • Painting the Medium: Usually whatever Pokemon is dumped in the Day Care is assigned the role of narrator. In the Platinum run this falls to the jock-like Machop, and so the narration will occasionally vary in spelling and grammar quality.
  • Pedestrian Crushes Car: Casually used to demonstrate in Black 2 how Katherine the Sandshrew is miles ahead of Kit's other options in terms of strength.
  • Precision F-Strike: At first Kat the Sandslash and Kaleidoscope the Keldeo are at odds due to Kat continually laughing at how overt and interestingly-shaped Kaleidoscope's blade is in Resolution Forme ('Secret Sword!' 'Dude, there is nothing secret about your sword.'). In a later Gym battle, though, Kat is suddenly killed by Clay's Sandslash which looks up to see...
    Kaleidoscope: Oh shit little kid. You just fucked up real bad.
  • Random Number God: Sometimes it becomes very important. Lyra missing twice in a row against a Frosslass leads to her death. As does his Leafeon missing twice against a Graveler, which then Exploded.
  • Red Baron: Felony, the One Hit Point Wonder. Also known as The World's Strongest Liepard.
  • The Rival: Lyra often asks other Pokemon on the team to be her rival, due to her ability. None of her rivals tend to live very long.
  • Running Gag:
  • Sequel Hook: All except for Black 2 end this way:
    • Sapphire ends with Kit deciding to travel to Sinnoh to collect the Spoink Balls to revive everyone he's lost.
    • Platinum ends with him breaking Giratina/Rod Serling's Pokeball, sending him into a distorted Unova.
    • Black ends with him now in the real Unova.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Team Aqua is made up of Popeye characters and the lead from Waterworld.
    • INGTBS the Grumpig clearly had a Dragon Ball on his head as a Spoink. This later becomes a plot point, as the remaining six being collected becomes the plot of the Sinnoh run.
    • Zero the Lopunny is named after Megaman Zero and has a Digimon theme.
    • Grymloq the Rampardos is a double reference (Or a reference to a reference) as per Word of God. He's named after a Carnosaur mount from Warhammer Fantasy, which was in turn named after the Dinobot Grimlock.
    • Giratina is Rod Serling.
    • Both Phoenix from Platinum and Sobek from Black 2 wear Triangle Shades, which are explicitly referred to as Kamina glasses in the epilogue.
    • Shauntal is a blatant Velma Expy, and is a fan of The Luxray King.
    • Played for Laughs in the Soul Silver run, when Kit's overuse of shout-outs almost kills him at one point.
  • Smart People Know Latin: Exaggerated Trope - Blip Blip's winter form is so smart he only speaks Latin.
  • Straight Gay: Peri Peri the Blaziken.
  • Stylistic Self-Parody: For the scene of the Rocket's Slowpoketail operation, Kit's Pidgey pops up to inform us that 'As a form of censorship, this scene will be shown in black and white'. The entire comic is in black and white.
  • Then Let Me Be Evil: Silver, who decides that if everyone is going to treat him like a villain for doing nice things then he may as well be as bad as they say.
  • Troll: Rayquaza. To the point where he outright lies about not being able to revive the fallen Unova Pokemon, just to see if Kit believed him.
  • The Un-Favourite: Brat the Wooper, due to Kit's irrational hatred of his species.
  • Villainy Discretion Shot: Played with: When level grinding to take on the Johto Elite Four again, Mewtwo tells Kit to put the Exp. Share the current training recipient. He then blows up a mountain in the distance, then justifies it that none of the damage done was visible.
    Gravity the Umbreon, looking horrified: Kit, I just went up ten levels.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Common for Nuzlockes, but Kit manage this for both his Platinum and Black 2 starters. Niether even gets to evolve.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Sapphire 35. INGBTS dies from one Hydro Pump from Kyogre, whom Kit then catches.
    • Sapphire 58: Peri Peri dies and Kit freezes up, forcing Awesome to release Kyogre to keep the battle going.
    • Sapphire 64: INGBTS' ghost reveals that if Kit collects the Spoink Balls, he can revive every he's lost.
  • Whole Episode Flashback: The Soul Silver run, apparently Kit's first journey which he forgot for some unspecified reason somehow involving Mewtwo.
  • You Answered Your Own Question: When Kit realises just how much utility is in Lithium the Lucario's moveset:
    Kit: Tarnation! This has happened three times! I'd need two Lucarios to use all these great attacks!... Two... Lucarios…

    Goddamn Critical Hits 

Tropes seen in Goddamn Critical Hits

  • Adaptational Badass: According to the artist, in their actual Nuzlocke run, Pugnus carried the Gym Battle against Norman. However, in the comic, it's Dusty who defeats his Slaking, getting revenge against the Pokémon that killed his family.
  • And I Must Scream: When Dusty was a wild Wurmple, his father and sister were brutally killed in front of him by rampaging Vigoroth. His life was saved when he evolved into a Cascoon just as he was about to be attacked, but the evolution left him completely immobile while forced to stare in horror and grief at the bodies of his family.
  • Affectionate Parody: The Mirage Tower becomes one extended Indiana Jones homage.
  • April Fools' Day: Between two perfectly normal chapters is randomly inserted an April Fool's strip, drawn like a high-school anime of the team members trying to find partners for the all-important school dance. The author even comments that he is actually his own doctor and that the author was involved in a horrifying accident.
  • Art Evolution: As the comic goes on the strips become progressively longer, and the use of colouring and lighting effects improve steadily. Notably, Dusty's body had a more bulbous shape in earlier strips before slimming down. Also, other Pokemon started to look more like characters than just little creatures.
  • Art Shift:
    • For one panel on Brawly's first appearance, the art shifts from the normal toony style to an incredibly realistic, thoroughly-shaded image of the Gym Leader.
    • Thomas and Douglas screwing around with TMs is drawn as if it was a manga scene of two samurai duelling together.
  • By page 65, the author switches to greyscale, due to not having enough time to do any colouring in anymore due to work.
  • Big Damn Heroes:
    • Thomas and his team arrive dramatically to save the Devon worker in a panel that also doubles as a team line-up for all the new members.
    • Steven does an even better one in the Slateport Museum, right before Archie was about to personally beat the crap out of Thomas.
  • Bilingual Bonus: When Thomas discovers his newfound ability to understand Pokemon, he asks Douglas if he speaks too. Douglas replies 'Je ne suis pas un pamplemousse!' (French for 'I am not a grapefruit!') before just replying in English and saying that yes, he was just messing with Thomas.
  • Bizarre Alien Senses: Not as bizarre as most, but in the second Q&A Chomp the blind Trapinch makes an attempt to describe what he thinks his teammates look like based on things like their weight, hardness of skin and weight distribution over their variant number of legs.
  • Blessed with Suck: Hermes says to Dusty that he realised that his uncatchable speed was not as great as he thought as his friends that had been captured came back, stronger, evolved and having seen the world while he had never left Petalburg Woods.
  • Blood Knight: Pugnus, as he proudly demonstrates in the second Q&A session.
    Reader: Pugnus, would you rather fight 50 Zigzagoon-sized Wailord, or one Wailord-sized Zigzagoon?
    Pugnus: (standing on a pile of the fainted Pokémon) BOTH! At the same time!
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • On more than one occasion, characters have quite literally shattered the comic panels in order to visualise this trope. At one point, the artist even depicts himself clumsily climbing into the comic from outside, to converse with his own characters.
    • Gabby and Ty's news announcement prior to their In Search Of Trainers slot is about how one of the artist's friends has finally started working on her Nuzlocke comic.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Shelly is very frustrated that Thomas doesn't remember who she is, despite her being 'the feared, undefeated admin of Team Aqua'.
    Thomas: This is kind of weird, I usually remember faces pretty well, unless they're like, really, really boring.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • The Aqua grunt who first encountered Thomas. Ever since the Beast traumatised him so much in Rusturf Tunnel, any sight of Thomas sends him desperately running away - usually into some sort of Amusing Injuries.
    • May makes her first appearance eating a jar of paste, and only shows up to get her items stolen and her butt kicked by Thomas.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Douglas, attempting to hit on Wally's Kirlia. Complete with dramatic poetic advances even as she tells him she can't and an Off-Model panel of himself as a super-attractive human-like bodybuilder.
  • Catch and Return: Dusty does this with telekinesis against Archie's Golbat.
  • Chekhov's Gag: When Douglas does a blatant about-turn on his opinion of Wally's Ralts (see Hypocritical Humor), he makes his romantic move on her telling Dusty 'Watch closely, you might learn a thing or two'. A few panels of his hilarious dating attempts later, we are treated to a shot of the team's shocked/outright horrified reactions as they look on.
    Dusty: He was not lying. This is definitely a learning experience.
  • The Chosen Zero: Apparently as the one chosen by The Beast, the fate of the region and possibly entire world rests on Thomas' shoulders. This does not stop him being an idiot.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: May. For the first battle she just sits there eating paste as her Treecko gets curb-stomped, and in the second battle she falls asleep halfway through (at which point her Grovyle just resigns).
  • Combat Pragmatist: Dusty wins a fight with Archie's Mightyena by using telekinesis to smash him in the face with a nearby coffee pot.
  • Creepy Good: Dusty. On his very first battle, he attempts to destroy his opponent's mind in his anger, and will only stop when called off three times. And how does he stop the battle? Snapping the Makuhita's neck. Sometimes he borders on Token Evil Teammate, and Thomas says in a Q&A that one of the reasons he keeps moving around, besides around the whole 'adventuring' thing, is trying to protect the public. From Dusty.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Thomas' reaction to the Weather Institute's Castform.
    Thomas: Aww, did the mean nasty Dustox scare you? Did he scare ickle-wickle ol' you? (squishes it against his face) C'mere ya mushy wushy li'l squishy ball o' puffy-wuffy fluff!
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Thomas and Archie technically battle in the Slateport Museum, but only Dusty manages to put up a real fight.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: After Brawly's Makuhita kills Hermes, Dusty evolves and nearly destroy its mind with terrifying, disturbing visions of its own trainer, along with Hermes. And then breaks its neck to end the battle. Even when Brawly tries to return it, Dusty shatters the Poke Ball so it will not be over until he is done 'enacting justice'.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Mr. Stone, who says that his nephew will be spending the evening in the Box for having failed to protect the Devon Goods with a big, cheerful smile on his face. When Thomas points out that he owns a phone company but needs him to deliver a letter for him, Mr. Stone replies "I just gave you a free phone. Unless you want to join my nephew in the Box tonight, you'll deliver the damn letter' with an equally calm expression.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Neither Dusty nor Hermes appreciate being patronised.
  • Double Entendre: Given the otherwise-lighthearted tone of the rest of the comic, it's surprising how many comments Pugnus and Sara make that sound distinctly like they're about sex.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Beast, a mostly-unseen creature who appears to have marked Thomas and is following him, as well as terrifying and nearly crushing the Aqua Grunt that fled into Rusturf Tunnel.
  • Emergency Transformation: Dusty's father and sister were killed by a rampaging troop of Vigoroth, and only his last-second evolution into a Cascoon stopped the same from happening to him. Unfortunately it also left him completely immobile and forced to stare at the bodies of his family in grief and horror.
  • Enraged by Idiocy: Shelly does not take well the fact that her Grunts can't even hold up a teenager for five minutes at the Weather Institute. And for goodness' sake, they use Numel on the frontline. This is Team Aqua!
  • Exposition Beam: When Dusty wants to remind Norman's Slaking of when they last met, he projects the memories straight into his mind.
  • Expospeak Gag:
    Thomas: You know, you keep saying 'Kyogre', but I've no idea what that means.
    Potema: It's the ichthyomorphic personification of the unbridled fury of the ocean.
    Thomas: See, why didn't you just say that?
  • Eye Beams: Dusty's got those, and they're strong enough to blast apart rocks.
  • Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Played for laughs. Thomas was not happy about how impossibly unlikely it was for Wally to catch his Ralts, and this is apparently still with him when they meet in Mauville City.
  • Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The Q&A sessions, where the readers can post questions to Thomas and his team and get a chance to have them answered.
  • Funetik Aksent: Mr. Briney's thick Scottish accent is represented accordingly in the dialogue.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Dusty's backstory of desiring revenge against the Slaking that killed his family when he was a wild Wurmple/Cascoon seems to be based on this Pokédex entry from Platinum.
    It never forgets any attack it endured while in the cocoon. After evolution, it seeks payback.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Maxie acquires them when he tries to use the scale of Groudon inside the Meteorite to control the Legendary. Literally, his eyes seem to set on fire.
  • Genocide Backfire: Downplayed Trope in terms of the 'genocide' - the only people who were killed were Dusty's family, by a rampaging Vigoroth. Not downplayed in the slightest in terms of the 'backfire'.
  • Gosh Dang It to Heck!: "Blessed faeces, why won't you stop?!"
  • Gospel Choirs Are Just Better: The house that sets trendy catchphrases in Dewford is depicted as a gospel church to the latest trend, complete with "Can I get an AMEN?"
  • Gratuitous Japanese: Wally's Ralts, Jess, refers to everyone with full honourifics.
  • Grew a Spine: At first, Sparky was the most timid Pokémon on the team. Over time, though, he become both physically strong and courageous enough to take on serious opponents himself, and even stands up to his own father - and beats him, even though it was through some trick.
  • Hurricane of Euphemisms: What is technically (and still reads to some degree as) Steven warning Thomas not to be stupid and go putting his life in danger again after he was attacked by Team Aqua while delivering to Stern in Slateport is derailed considerably by well-placed uses of the word 'package'.
  • Hurricane of Puns:
    • Wattson's Gym triggers almost a page-long one of these. It has to be seen to be believed.
    • Roxanne's also triggers the usual "Let's rock" lines.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: May's Grovyle is much smarter than his Trainer, not that it does him much good. In the first Q&A, someone asked him how he puts up with her, and his response was, "The same way ancient humans put up the Stonehenge. Some kind of miracle."
  • Hypocritical Humour: When Douglas sees Wally's Ralts in Mauville, he insults her and calls her an attention-seeker. Then she evolves into Kirlia, and he falls in love with her on the spot and immediately acts like that never happened.
  • Idiot Hero: Thomas. He may have natural talent for training and battling, but he stills fails to spot Ninja Boys' Paper-Thin Disguises and squeed constantly throughout his first use of Surf. The reason he has so few TMs is because he and Douglas used them to enact a ridiculous overblown fight scene as if they were conduits to activate super-powerful attacks like duelling ninja. This may have been Played for Laughs, though.
  • I'm Not Doing That Again: Dusty's reason for not wanting to go in his Poke Ball, even if it's so he can be healed.
    Dusty: I have spent half of my life in a dark, cramped jail. I do not intend to inflict that on myself ever again!
  • Implied Death Threat:
    Archie: Now, Arcturus here (his Mightyena) tends to get a little impatient. His claws get a little itchy if he doesn't sharpen them daily. I'd hate to see him sharpen them on you.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: After Douglas' Water Gun blasts the Aqua grunt's Poochyena out of the forest, the Devon worker tries to make light of it with 'WATER way to go, am I right?' Thomas and Douglas just look at him in distaste.
  • Insane Troll Logic: Potema (of all people) says that she can probably use TM Secret Power because she read about how it works, on the grounds that 'I mean, discs are just like books but faster, right?'
  • Instant Expert: Potema generally has an aptitude for learning new things very quickly - she apparently learned Protect by picking it up from having seen Dusty do it a lot, after having assurance from the PokeDex that it was possible for Mightyenas to learn. She's actually fairly surprised when it works.
  • Insurrectionist Inheritor: Sparky. When his father tells him that he's come to take him home as his only son, Sparky refuses and beats him in battle. He then says that his command to his father as the new Alpha of his pack is to let him stay with Thomas.
  • Intangibility: Nocturne makes use of being able to completely dissipate as Douglas attempts to weaken him, only to find out that he is in fact totally affected by thrown Poke Balls.
  • Interspecies Romance: Pugnus the Machop/Machoke and Sara the Numel/Camerupt. Also looks like Potema the Mightyena and Dusty the Dustox might be headed this way.
  • Ironic Echo: After returning Hermes to his Poke Ball, Thomas points out that yes he's faster than Roxanne's Geodude, but he's not strong enough to do any real damage to it. When the Aqua Grunt runs off with the Devon Researcher's briefcase in the next strip, Thomas tells Hermes to go after him and Hermes replies:
    Oh, so NOW you want my help? I guess I could catch up with him easily, couldn't I? I am the fastest Taillow in the world, after all. But in your own words, I suppose I'm simply not strong enough to make a difference.
  • It Can Think: Nocturne reacts very little to his circumstances and only communicates by repeating words that others say. Because of that, Dusty doesn't believe he's sentient, but Douglas treats him like a friend anyway. Turns out, although Nocturne can't really express it, he has a mind of his own and cares about Douglas just as much, enough to sacrifice himself for him during the battle at Lavaridge Gym.
  • It's Personal:
    • Why Dusty cuts Pugnus' spree off in the Gym battle with Norman - the Slaking that Norman sent out is the one that killed Dusty's family when he was young. Given how long it's been, the Slaking finds this a form of Bewildering Punishment - until Dusty reminds him.
    • When Dusty and Potema intervene in Sparky's conflict with his father who's trying to drag him back to his old pack, Sparky says this is something he to resolve himself.
  • Jumped at the Call: The third strip shows that Thomas is trying to get his starter as fast as he possibly can.
    Prof. Birch: You saved me! I was out studying in the wild grass when that tiny, harmless little thing jumped-
    Thomas: SHUT UP AND GIVE ME A MUDKIP.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Thomas apparently stole the HM Surf from Wally's father, rather than it being a gift. Also his TV. Earlier on, he snatched May's goggles.
  • Lampshade Hanging: A lot, everywhere. The very first thing the series does is lampshade how Professor Birch mysteriously gets in the same van that Thomas is riding in, followed by the author commenting "I get to ride in the back of the moving truck. What a loving mother I must have."
  • Last-Second Word Swap: Thomas changes himself from saying that he doesn't want a repeat of Dewford to a repeat of Slateport at the last instant, at the sight of Potema and Dusty's faces.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • As the team sit on Mr. Briney's pier, Thomas remarks 'It's getting late, but at least we're out of those woods. I was getting sick of drawing- I mean, being around trees.'
    • Thomas telling the Ninja Boy about how spamming Double Team makes you an ass can definitely be read as a comment on frustrating playstyles of actual players of the game in multiplayer.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Hermes launches straight into full-on attack on Roxanne's Geodude, deeming himself unstoppable, and is then frustrated that Thomas returned him to his Poke Ball.
  • Let Us Never Speak of This Again:
    • Dewford Gym, going off Thomas' Last-Second Word Swap to avoid the subject entirely.
    • There was also a moment in Lavaridge Town that has yet to be explained, where throwing a rock forwards caused it to open up a minuscule rift in the air that only Dusty had sensed, through which came a great bolt of fire right before it closed.
    • When Thomas asks Dusty if he was going to kill Norman's Slaking in revenge, Dusty replies 'Thomas, I am not in the habit of lying, and so I must request that you never ask me that question again'.
  • Living Is More than Surviving: Before Thomas caught him, Hermes was the fastest Taillow in Petalburg Woods and easily escaped from every Trainer that tried to catch him. His friends and family weren't as fast as him, and were all caught by various Trainers. When they visited, they had grown up and seen much of the Hoenn region during the grand adventures they'd had. Hermes then realized that, while he had succeeded at not getting caught, he'd also spent all his time running away and hadn't done anything else with his life. He let Thomas catch him so he could grow and evolve, too.
  • Lost at Sea: Where Mr. Briney was when he first met and was saved by The Beast, giving him the opportunity later to explain a little about it and its 'gift' to Thomas.
  • Malaproper: Pugnus has a tendency to mix up words, like using "imperial" for "impervious" and "self-defecating" for "self-deprecating".
  • Master of Illusion: Dusty, with the rest of his telepathy. Mostly used to project images into the mind of Norman's Slaking.
  • Meaningful Name: Vulcan the Slugma, from the Roman god of fire.
  • Megaton Punch: Douglas punches Wattson's Manectric across the room in his frustration at Wattson continuing his Hurricane of Puns with a joke about electricity being positive (when electrons are negatively charged), thus revealing himself to be a keen physicist on the side at the same time.
  • Mind Rape: Dusty does not make it secret that he is capable of doing this, but so far he has never done so. Even when he most wanted to.
  • Moment of Weakness: While awake, Dusty is cold, aggressive and regards showing emotion as weakness. Only when he's asleep and the torment of his bad dreams get to him does it show that he has things he struggles with too.
  • Mook Horror Show: Inside the Weather Institute, the Aqua grunt who has had so many Amusing Injuries on account of Thomas throughout the comic is telling his colleagues how certain he is that Thomas is actually out to get him and won't stop until he's more or less dead. His fellow grunts try in turn to calm him, saying that out of all the possible places in all of Hoenn for Thomas to be, the chance of him coming here in the next few hours are borderline zero. Guess who then punches a hole in the window?
  • Morality Pet: Potema, to Dusty. She's effectively the thread that somehow holds the team as a whole together, at least at first.
  • Mundane Utility: Along with the many, many other things Dusty uses his psychic powers for, he also utilises it as a forcefield to keep the rain off because it hurts his wings.
  • Must Make Amends: Given that Potema encouraged Thomas to start the battle in which Hermes dies, she feels this way for a while.
  • My Instincts Are Showing: In the second Q&A Sparky appears to break into a cold sweat trying to resist chasing a thrown ball, before giving in and leaping after it with a crackle.
  • Never Be Hurt Again: Part of why Dusty maintained his stoic distance - after the intense pain he experienced from losing his family, he didn't want to ever experience that again and so didn't get too close to the rest of the team. This is only part, though - Dusty is somewhat haughty and abrasive just by his very nature.
  • Noble Demon: Despite his sociopathic behavior, Dusty seems to have a sense of honor. He reassures Potema that Hermes' death was not her fault, and admonishes Douglas for calling Wally's Ralts a wimp, pointing out that he was also small and weak once.
    • The demon part appears to be going away somewhat, post-Petalburg Gym.
  • No Body Left Behind: When Nocturne dies, his body dissolves into black mist, leaving behind only his gemstone eyes.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
    • When Pugnus first appears and gets aggressive with Thomas and his team, Dusty uses his telekinesis to throw Pugnus into several rocks and then make him punch himself in the face.
    • Douglas delivers one of these to Flannery's Torkoal after it kills Nocturne, but stops himself right before the final blow.
      Douglas: I could have just killed you now. But I didn't. I want you to remember that forever. You're lucky to be alive.
  • Noodle Implements: The description of the April Fools' strip begins with a foreword from the author's doctor that he was in a freak accident involving "an ant farm, a barrel of plastic explosives, and seven kilogrammes of risotto rice."
  • Not a Morning Person:
    Thomas: I CAN'T SEE THE MORNING. YOU CAN'T PROVE IT EXISTS.
  • Not So Invincible After All: Doubles as an Oh, Crap! moment as Brawly's Makuhita out-waits Hermes' attack and successfully grabs him, before throwing him straight into the floor.
  • Odd Friendship:
    • Douglas tries to introduce Nocturne to the team and be friendly to him. Even though Nocturne barely speaks.
    • Dusty, the dangerous telepath, develops a relationship with Potema, the gentle intellect of the team ('Relationship' here meaning, in Dusty's words, 'the only one I do not feel constant urges to mutilate').
  • Offscreen Reality Warp: How Potema's Secret Power works - she can do all kinds of things with it, so long as no-one (including the readers) can see her. It's called Secret Power, see?
  • Only Sane Man: May's Grovyle appears to release that he is Surrounded by Idiots, and when she gives up on paying attention to the battle halfway through he just folds his arms and says' Ugh! Just take her money and get out of here!'
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Potema is strangely quiet when Douglas evolves, whereas previously she would have been full of useful trivia. This tips the team off that she still feels guilty over Dewford Gym.
  • Outliving One's Offspring: Dusty's father saw his daughter get brutally slaughtered by a rampaging Vigoroth in front of him, seconds before he himself was also killed.
  • Repeat After Me: Nocturne only communicates by repeating words said by others around him. His last word is "Maaaaate..." said to Douglas as he pushes the Potion towards him.
  • Robo Speak: Bolt the Magnemite talks like a computer with no emotion whatsoever.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Hermes the Taillow.
    Thomas: Hey, Taillow, can you get up here for a sec?
    Hermes: My name is Hermes, puny human. You will not insult me further, and I will not belittle myself by perching on your shoulder like some tame pet canary.
  • Painting the Medium:
    • When Douglas gets drunk in Mauville City, his speech bubble slops and wanders across the panel.
    • Dusty's telepathy is not in a speech bubble, and has its own font.
      • Nocturne's weird speech is in a similar pattern of smoky purple letters.
      • The Beast's speech is not in a speech bubble either, and is instead in large, vivid red letters on the page.
    • Bolt's Robo Speak also has its own font.
  • Parental Abandonment: Sparky's dad. He would leave him behind and ignore him for long periods to toughen him, but all it did was make Sparky run away.
  • Past Experience Nightmare: Dusty suffers from a very severe Flashback Nightmare that reveals his Dark and Troubled Past - the moment when his parents were killed by a wild Vigoroth. This, however, is the moment where he finally lets Potema comfort him, and lets himself be open to her.
    • The fact that he suffers Power Incontinence with bolts of psychic energy throughout means that the rest of the team can't exactly ignore what happened, even if they're not as privy to it as Potema is.
  • Power Glows: Apparently Dusty's telepathy glows brightly enough to light Thomas' way in Granite Cave.
  • Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Pugnus the Machop, right before evolving and battling Norman.
    Pugnus: Viewers allergic to ass-kicking should look away now.
  • The Quiet One: Nocturne the Sableye. Only ever speaks one word at a time, and most of those are the same words over and over again.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After Dusty attempts to apologise to Douglas for saying that Nocturne the Sableye was an Empty Shell and emphasising how heart-breaking it was for him to consider that that message would stay with Nocturne forever, Douglas tells him to shut up and chews him out for an insincere, flimsy apology (for Dusty, a sincere apology would be 'Judging by the evidence, I suppose we can come to the conclusion that he might have had emotions after all') and then goes on to tell him just how little Dusty has to try when he can just read everyone's minds and know what they want to hear. Douglas leaves, telling Dusty to learn to act like a real person.
  • Restrained Revenge: Dusty has been preparing himself for a long time to kill the Vigoroth (now a Slaking) who killed his family in front of him. However, after the influence Thomas' team had on him - especially Potema -, he stops after forcing them through a cosmic guilt tour and merely leaves them with a powerful Psychic overload that knocks them out.
    Dusty: This cannot begin to compare to the pain that you have put me through. But it is the only judgment I can deliver in good conscience. Death is too good for you. But no-one should have to go through what I have. Not even you.
  • Rule of Cool: Dusty single-handedly defeats Norman's Slaking during the Petalburg Gym Battle, something that would be incredibly hard if not impossible in the game. In the author's actual playthrough, Pugnus defeated it, but the comic shows Dusty doing it, because it's pivotal to his Character Development.
  • Running Gag: After acquired fingers with evolution, Douglas is determined to get a handshake.
  • Silent Antagonist: Archie's Mightyena only ever growls aggressively. Even though Thomas' ability to understand Pokemon-speech normally just makes their words show up as normal dialogue.
  • Single-Stroke Battle: At the Oceanic Museum, Steven demonstrates why he's the Champion by having his Skarmory cut down Archie's Mightyena with a single slashing attack.
    Steven: You know you can't defeat me, Archie. Or did you think "Champion" was just an honorary title?
  • Shaped Like Itself: When Thomas is called on repair the New Mauville generator, Chompy the Trapinch is sent in to install the part. Thomas tells him to put the part in the red slot without realising that Chompy is blind, leading to Chompy calling 'Which is the red one?'. Thomas replies 'What? The one that's coloured red!'.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Shrubly the Oddish, it seems, if his Thousand-Yard Stare is anything to go by. He talks about seeing terrible things, but won't even explain them in detail because it's knowledge that no person should ever inflict on another's ears.
  • Ship Tease: Dusty and Potema seem to be getting more as the comic goes on. Including in the extra content, such as a speechless Dusty after seeing Gijinka!Potema in a prom dress.
  • Shrinking Violet: Sparky, as an Electrike. He barely even gets a tap in battle before cowering in surrender, and goes on to cement his role as Non-Action Guy with barely a spark to attack May's Wingull.
    Douglas: Pfft, look at that little squirt (Wally's Ralts), acting all over-the-top cute. Some girls just can't get enough attention, am I right?
    Sparky: Uh, are you right?
    Douglas: Yeah.
    Sparky: Oh. Ok. You're right.
  • Shut Up, Kirk!: When Dusty relents from killing Norman's Slaking, the Slaking tries to tell him about how forgiveness isn't a weakness and how revenge is not always the right answer. Dusty blasts him with his Eye Beams and says he doesn't want a lecture on morals.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: How Sara and Pugnus flirt.
  • The Smart One: Potema is generally much more knowledgeable about a variety of things than other characters and especially her trainer, to the point where Thomas just sometimes get her to fill him in on new Pokemon he hasn't seen before.
  • Speaks Fluent Animal: Thomas acquired his ability to understand Pokemon speech somewhere in the early chapters without realising or any signification of it in the comic. His first realisation is when Potema says 'Tell me about it' after one of his remarks and he says 'Ok, so I know I must have some crazy forest disease, because I swear I just heard you talk.'
    • This is in fact foreshadowing, as the explanation of how this happens does come, only a while later.
  • Spock Speak: Dusty speaks in a very formal manner.
  • The Stoic: Dusty, at first, regards showing emotion as weakness. It takes fifty-two strips for him to smile.
  • Super Window Jump: When Thomas arrives in the Slateport Museum, the Aqua Grunt that saw the Beast in Rusturf Tunnel would rather do this than face Thomas again. Thomas is oblivious.
  • Team Mom: Potema. Especially as the only person who can get through Dusty's harsh exterior and relate to him - and make him relate to her.
  • Technicolor Magic: Dusty's telepathy, right down to his speech. When he creates a psychic shield in the battle with Norman, every panel's background is purple for the rest of the page.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Hermes says that he's only staying only to witness Thomas' inevitable crushing defeats and will only help if he decides to do so.
  • This Is Reality:
    • Thomas' description of Mauville - 'Ah, the Big Apple. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.' - prompts the reaction 'Isn't that New York?'. He replies with 'What the hell is a New York.'
    • When Dusty and Potema go missing briefly, Thomas says he's not worried and that they'll find them again, since between them Dusty and Potema have the navigating senses of a homing pigeon with a GPS.
      Douglas: What's a homing pigeon?
      Thomas: A kind of advanced war boomerang, used by primitive, tribal humans for hunting buffalo and gazelle.
      Douglas: What's a buffalo?
      Thomas: Hell if I know.
      Sara: You are both morons.
  • Title Drop: If a team member is killed by a crit, the words 'Goddamn Critical Hit' appear across the panel.
  • To the Pain: Dusty makes it perfectly clear to both Norman's Slaking and the audience just how he's planning to enact his revenge - namely, a mental, emotional form of A Taste of Their Own Medicine.
  • Touched by Vorlons: The source of Thomas' ability to understand Pokespeech - it's part of the marking of The Beast.
  • Trespassing Hero: When May gets home in the second strip, she arrives to find Thomas lying on her bed in a Ready for Lovemaking pose saying 'Draw me like one of your French girls'.
    May: Mum! Some guy's lying in my bed! Learn to lock the goddamn door!
    May's mum: DOORS HAVE LOCKS?!
  • The Un-Favourite: Fido the Poochyena, The Load who does nothing but smile vacantly, drool and once almost choked to death on his own foot. He gets boxed as fast as possible.
  • Unsound Effect:
    • The sounds made by the sandstorm in the desert apparently include 'Swwiiirllll', 'Sand' and 'Sand noises'.
    • "Fwoomph" is used for Fire-type attacks and "Bleughh" for Water-type attacks.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Dusty. He and his sister used to play hide and seek together in the woods as Wurmple, until a Vigoroth killed his family in front of him in the wild.
  • Vengeance Feels Empty: Only after he makes himself spare the life of the Slaking who killed his family does Dusty realise that doing so would have been 'a grave mistake'.
  • Villain Teleportation: Archie's Starmie allows for this.
  • Violation of Common Sense: When Thomas gets ready to board Douglas in his new Swampert form for their first Surf, his phone rings mid-leap. For no reason whatsoever, he hangs in midair for the duration of the call, and then falls straight into the water as soon as it ends.
  • The Voiceless:
    • Dusty is silent before evolution.
    • The Castform, which only makes childish squeaks and puffy cloud noises.
    • Archie's Mightyena, who only growls.
  • Warrior Therapist:
    • Potema, later on in the run. She acts as counsellor and helpful friend, but can also give a beating in battle when she needs to.
    • When Potema has her own slump early on, Dusty is actually the one who explains to her that the latest team death wasn't actually her fault.
  • Walk on Water: Sparky, who charges himself with electricity and runs so fast that his static causes him to not break the surface of the lake he crosses.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Hermes the Taillow doesn't make it past Dewford Gym, and Vulcan the Slugma dies in the very first battle after he appears.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Archie and Maxie. Each firmly claims that after what happened "on that day" they were the only one to do what was right.
  • What Is This Feeling?: Dusty tries to deny that he can feel emotions like fear. He doesn't always take it well when he becomes emotional. He even resists the urge to sleep for a long time before losing consciousness and falling down in the middle of a battle.
  • Wrong-Name Outburst: The first reveal in ages that Douglas might not be as over the loss of one of his friends as he seems - when Chompy keeps trying to interrupt him protesting the idea that Potema can just learn Protect naturally, after a few seconds of ignoring it he suddenly shouts 'CAN'T YOU SEE I'M TALKING HERE, NOC?' at him.
  • Would Rather Suffer: Sparky makes it clear to his father that he knows that if he doesn't come back with him, that makes him a traitor to the clan who has to die. And yet he would still rather stay.
  • Ye Olde Nuclear Silo: New Mauville is one of these. Pugnus is somewhat embarrassed to discover that he can't just punch the door down.
  • Yet Another Christmas Carol: Parodied Trope. Shortly after Dusty evolved, while he was still very much a brooding loner who refused to get close to anyone and didn't understand why people went through needless formalities just to express their affection to each other, he was visited by three spirits trying to change his ways. It didn't go to plan - Celebi (Christmas Past) failed because Dusty had never experienced another Christmas before this one, Spiritomb (Christmas Present) failed due to lack of actual ability to time travel and Dialga (Christmas Future) showed Dusty a future where his sudden and unexpected embracing of the Christmas spirit lulled the rest of his team into a false sense of security, allowing him to easily enslave humanity and force them to build monuments only to tear them down again for his amusement.
    Dialga: Arceus is going to kill me.

    Jet's Black Nuzlocke 

Tropes seen in Jet's Black Nuzlocke

  • Animal Talk: We get to hear mutual communication between Pokemon in this one, but the only human who can understand them is N. Interestingly, birds apparently can't talk at all either way (or if they can, it's only to each other).
  • Bifauxnen: Jet wears the male player character's attire, but she's a girl.
  • Break the Cutie: Jet slowly starts going through this over the whole run, but Lilly's death pushes her farther than anything else. Post-Driftveil city, Jet has crippling guilt about fighting wild Pokemon to level up and resolves to only fight trainers...only to instantly lose her Joltik upon trying to enforce the rule.
  • Breaking Speech:
    • N ends up being very good at these, given they pair with Jet's guilt over her deceased Pokemon to utterly wreck her. Jet would have joined Plasma if Juniper hadn't shown up and interrupted the meeting.
    • Juniper starts to give one to N upon realizing how young he is but he flees before she can really get going.
  • Brother–Sister Team: The recurring Team Plasma grunts Percy and Val. They're not very competent though.
  • Cute Mute: Major the Tranquill and later Tutu the Ducklett. According to Firedog, birds in this world can't talk, not even to other Pokemon.
  • Darkest Hour: After losing Zoie, the other Pokemon have a sit down (while Jet tries futilely to find the Joltik and make it return) to discuss if they should just stop the challenge. Jet's nearly at the point of a total breakdown and it's clear the "only fight trainers" rule might not be all that viable, which coupled with her tendency to make dumb moves means more mons might die and then she might break even more. Sir Francis isn't sure what the answer is...and then Jet goes missing.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Major evolving in the middle of Jet's gym battle with Skyla results in Skyla's Unfezant immediately getting smitten. Major uses this to his advantage, naturally, though his opponent seems too affected by this trope to care.
  • Expy:
  • Tutu the Ducklett is a mute version of Princess Tutu's title character.
  • Whether it was intentional or not, Percy and Val could be seen as Team Plasma's answer to Jessie and James from the Pokemon anime.
  • This depiction of Ghetsis has been compared to King Bradley by one commenter.
  • Harmless Villain: Percy and Val, two recurring Team Plasma grunts. Although Val's Patrat did kill Broccoli.
  • The Heart: Lilly is this throughout the run. Understandably, her death wounds the team very deeply.
  • Interspecies Romance: Firedog and Lilly (incidentally, they're in the same egg group, so they can breed). Firedog is understandably the most upset about Lilly's unfortunate death.
  • Lighter and Softer: Compared to most Nuzlockes. Word of God has stated that, with all the death going on in the story, it would probably be nice to add some levity here and there. Still, Jet does go through some serious Break the Cutie to the point of trying to join Team Plasma when she really thinks maybe it's the only way to help Pokemon. Thankfully Juniper sets her straight.
  • Master of Illusion: The King's Eyes, N's Zorua, who spends most of her time disguised as a Pidove.
  • Naïve Animal Lover: Deconstructed in a flashback to N's childhood, where he expresses anger at his Zorua friend for hunting Pokemon despite her being a carnivore and him technically being an omnivore. After he befriends some Elemental Monkeys and teaches them to fight back against a hungry Purrloin, he ends up learning the hard way that predation isn't that simple—the Monkeys become dependant on him, the Purrloin nearly dies because her prey is fighting back and she can't eat and a conversation between her and Zorua later when N takes pity on her and brings her to the cavern he's living in implies that her cubs starved to death because she couldn't feed them anymore, something N ends up feeling understandably guilty about.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: How Broccoli the Pansage dies, at the claws of Val's Patrat.
  • Official Couple: Lilly and Firedog seemed to be headed in this direction, before Lilly's death.
  • Precious Puppy: Lilly when she was a Lillipup. She graduates to Big Friendly Dog as a Herdier...and then she dies.
  • Put on a Bus: Lil' Dog and Ruby are sent to Jet's mother while Tutu flies off after seeing Clay's Excadrill.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Instead of dying, Tutu the Ducklett just bails upon seeing Clay's Excadrill. To quote the author, she's a dancer, not a fighter. While she's not officially dead, Word of God confirms that she's not coming back.
  • Take That!: A subtle one towards the original Nuzlocke's lack of updates—Jet captures a Yamask whom she names "Ruby" (the same name as that of the protagonist in the original Nuzlocke). Yamask!Ruby later obtains a mask that looks just like the original Ruby's face. Anyone who's read Yamask's Pokedex entries will be aware that the mask that Yamask carries around is supposed to be what its face looked like when it was alive...
  • Wham Episode: With how much more lighthearted this series is compared to most Nuzlockes, the first casualty (Broccoli the Pansage), is actually kind of shocking.

    Nuzrooke 

Tropes seen in Nuzrooke

  • All-Loving Hero: Rooke to an extent, but Granite much more.
    Audience Question: What do you each think of your teammates?
    Granite: Kindle is kind of mean, but still great. Scout is great! Smee is great! Donovan is great, too, and so is Lacy!
  • Children Raise You: Looking after Mystery also prompts to Scout to consider what he can do to look after Rooke, contributing to the family dynamic of the team.
  • The Cutie: Granite, which is fairly unusual for the Geodude line.
  • Cute Bruiser: At first as a Sentret Scout looks like a big adorable ball of fluff - but he also hits so hard he prevents the next two captures from happening. Apparently it's just so hard to control the deadly weapons that are his claws.
  • Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity: In this comic, Pokemon evolving also jump up in their mental age or how old they act. It's sometimes very noticeable, such as Mystery the baby Togepi becoming Mystery the cheery (mental) young teen Togetic.
  • Expressive Accessory:
    • Rooke's hat changes with her emotions.
    • Kindle's flames operate on a fairly similar basis to this.
  • Foreshadowing: The Q&As allow for occasional bits of this, such as Kindle saying that if he could any other species he'd want to be a Charmeleon.
  • Heroic BSoD: Scout has one for quite a while after the death of Mystery.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Smee, throwing himself in front of a critical hit Vine Whip to protect Mystery.
  • Heroic Willpower: Lacy literally makes herself evolve - just so she doesn't feel that she's too far behind Don for him to still like her. Don still doesn't realise it.
  • Hidden Depths: Kito the Casanova Wannabe actually has a lot to tell Donovan about how not to miss someone who genuinely loves him. Turns out he's not as casual with who he'd pull a move on as it appears.
  • Hopeless with Tech: More like hopeless with new tech - it takes Rooke a few seconds to work out that the phone she can hear ringing is in her watch (and not, say, in the PokeDex).
  • I Just Want to Be Beautiful: Miss the Machop is insecure about her looks, and avoids evolution because she doesn't want to look less like a girl than she already does.
  • Ineffectual Loner: Kindle, at the start. He refuses to spend any time with the rest of his assembling team, and makes his disdain of Rooke immediately obvious, calling her useless for not wanting him to fight Vincent's Totodile. The Freudian Excuse comes later, and Character Development after that.
  • Opt Out: Scout. In-universe, it was due to the Heroic BSoD of Mystery, his adoptive son, dying. In the game, it was because he Can't Catch Up compared to other members of the rotating party.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: Boss. He's a Butterfree who preys of Tauroses and whose Signature Move is Hyper Beam.
  • Rapid Aging: Lacy forces her evolution too early to keep up with Donovan, leaving her a Raticate with Rattata colors.
  • Recruited from the Gutter: This turns out to be why Sam is so keen to join Rooke's team. And why she is so keen to get through to Kindle - he reminds her on the Houndour who took her under his wing.
  • Scratch Damage: Prior to encountering Granite, Scout had been OHKO-ing wild Pokemon effortlessly. Against the Geodude, though, he has to deliver a million tiny scratches getting madder and madder, while Granite keeps talking paying it no thought.
  • Skilled, but Naive: Mystery really doesn't realise that his psychic powers make him just as strong as everyone else on the team, and at a fraction of their age as well.
  • Sleep Cute: Rooke and Scout, after fighting their way through the storm to get to Cianwood, fall asleep on the Pokémon Centre couch. And it is adorable.
  • Take a Third Option: Deal with all the nasty spiderwebs, or skip the Azalea Gym battle? Rooke has an alternative idea: Use Kindle to burn her way through.
    Kindle: I'd mention how offensive this is, but it'd be redundant.
  • Trapped in Another World: The adventure begins with Rooke being sucked from the real world into the Pokemon world. In the end, she chooses to go back to Johto again.
  • The Voiceless: Pan the Quagsire. As a Wooper, he also qualifies as a Cute Mute.
  • Waking Non Sequitur: The Ilex Forest Farfetch'd wander over to Rooke while she's asleep. She doesn't know they need rescuing, or that someone is looking for them until he shouts in delight about it.
    Rooke: AAAH! I swear I didn't eat it, Mr. Cosby!
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Aubrey the Nidoran (Female), introduced and unceremoniously killed off by a Rattata in the opening of Page 28. She doesn't have a bio and isn't present with Rooke and the rest of the party - dead and alive - in a photo.
    Rooke: Oh, Aubrey... I'm so, so sorry.
  • Wham Episode:
    • Chapter 4, with the first death of the comic; Smee
    • Chapter 8, definitely. In this chapter, Mystery dies, Scout goes into Heroic BSoD, Sam and Kindle evolve, Kindle reveals his backstory, and Kindle admits his feelings for Sam.

    Chiaki's Nuzlocke Comic 

Tropes seen in Chiaki's Nuzlocke (original comic was deleted/archived, can still be read here.)

  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Many of the Pokemon are drawn in a more realistic style, which results in a lot of them looking either more impressive or less "silly", for example Gyarados (looking like an Eastern Dragon), Pelipper (looking more like an actual pelican) and Snorlax (looking like a bear).
  • Adaptational Villainy: Red is the main antagonist of the story, right down to killing Flannery to Make an Example of Them. That said, he's revealed to have a sympathetic side.
  • Beastly Bloodsports: Pokemon battles as this trope is taken to its logical extreme here. Gym Battles in particular are stated to be required to end in at least one Pokemon on either side dying.
  • Big Bad: Red, who is the absolute ruler of the Pokemon Leagues.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Chiaki and her team successfully manage to overthrow Red and put a stop to the death battles for good. However, it comes at a cost, with Cheza the Swellow and Ren the Gyarados being the only survivors.
  • Death by Adaptation: Aside from the obvious, we also have human casualties in Archie and Flannery. Additionally, in this version of events, the NPC's Pokemon aren't safe from death either.
  • Deconstruction Fic: The story heavily deconstructs the Pokemon League and Gym Battles in general.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Two notable ones. There's Weraldo the Makuhita taking a lethal blow from Flannery's Torkoal in place of Ren the Gyarados, and then there's Envie the Banette depleting the rest of her health to inflict Curse on Red's Snorlax.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Ren, Chiaki's Gyarados, is drawn to look more like an actual Eastern Dragon than most Gyarados, complete with four legs.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Out of everyone in Chiaki's final team, Envie the Banette is easily the smallest. But she's powerful enough to be on par with the rest of the team. The same applies to Red's Pikachu, especially when he has the Light Ball equipped in the final battle.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Haku from Spirited Away was a major inspiration behind the way Ren the Gyarados was drawn.
    • Envie the Banette occasionally makes a Nightmare Face reminiscent of Flowey from Undertale.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Red was once a friendly, curious and adventurous boy, as well as a protective big brother to his sister Leaf. It's implied that years of boring victories drove him over the edge.
  • Wham Episode: Many notable ones, three of which featuring an animation at some point.
    • Chiaki's gym battle against Flannery. Not only does half of her team die in the process (Roora the Geodude, Weraldo the Makuhita, and Raze the Electrike), but she finds out how the entire League is rigged and corrupt. The only reason she's even able to win is Cheza the Swellow narrowly evading attacks with Double Team, along with a chance paralysis activating her Guts ability.
    • Chiaki's gym battle against Winona. Ronna the Camerupt is killed by Winona's Altaria, leading to Netane the Swampert brutalizing the Humming Pokemon in revenge.
    • The final battle against Red. While Chiaki barely manages to pull off a win, she loses two thirds of her team in the process (Draqie the Kingdra, Envie the Banette, Tiko the Rhydon, and Netane the Swampert).

    Burn Away (also known as "Snoozelocke") 

Tropes seen in Burn Away

  • Accidental Murder: Rho's death, at the hands of a Sigilyph in a Gym, is revealed to have been an accident during a practice battle.
  • Death of a Child: Rho is the Nuzlocke's second casualty.
  • Dramatic Irony: Abella stays in town while the rest of the team checks out Glittering Cave and comments that it's a good thing she stayed behind when it starts raining. Unbeknownst to her, Ulrich has been killed by a Scraggy, which has a quadruple weakness to Abella's Fairy typing.
  • Elemental Powers: Our main heroes:
  • Gray Rain of Depression: After the death of Ulrich, it begins pouring buckets.
  • Heal Thyself: Abella learns Wish after Ulrich dies.
  • The Heart: Rho, who even tries to keep the peace during the team's falling out with Roman.
  • Moe Anthropomorphism: The story is a gijinka Nuzlocke, so all the characters are humans with mild animal features.
  • Muggle Born of Mages: "Vacant" people are gijinkas without powers. Roman the Fennekin, our main protagonist, is an example, as is Ulrich.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: In a rarity for Gym deaths, the Sigilyph who killed Rho tearfully pleads with the team to understand that she wasn't trying to hurt him.
  • Team Dad: Ulrich the Farfetch'd acts as this to the team, especially Abella. His death causes everything to fall apart and tensions to run high.
  • The Stoic: Edie the Ivysaur comes off as this, probably due to her serious nature.
  • Wham Episode: Page 27 ends with a critical hit Brick Break knocking Ulrich through the railing at Glittering Cave, with him grabbing Enzo the Scraggy as he falls. Neither of them make it.

    Fedora Jack's Screenshot Runs 

Completed runs:

Canceled runs:

Tropes seen in Fedora Jack's Screenshot Runs:

  • Appeal to Force: The in-universe justification for going through the gyms in Sapphire: the gym leader is the strongest trainer in town, so by defeating them, the people will hand their goods over after such a display of force.
  • The Bus Came Back: Jack's Scorched Earth endgame team make a surprise appearance for a post-game update, narrating Jack's adventures through Castelia City on his behalf.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • The entirety of Mossdeep Gym in Sapphire. Levasseur sweeps every trainer without a scratch, and she and Bellamy cleans out the leader in a single turn.
    • White has its fair share, such as Burchell the Zebstrika one-shotting all of Skyla's pokemon. Come the postgame, even Alder gets caught on the receiving end, as every single one of his pokemon go down in one hit.
  • Cut Short: The ultimate fate of Vega. Originally put on hiatus due to Jack's frustrations with the game's difficulty and his own then-in-progress hack, as of this writing, it has still gone untouched.
  • Edutainment Show: Traces of it, at least. All of his core runs sans Vega have naming themes centered around history or biology, and Jack often provides in-depth explanations of each catch's namesake.
  • Expy:
    • Normandy the Jumpluff, with all the Four-Star Badass flavorings of George S. Patton. In his original (incomplete) Obsidian run, Jack said as much, admitting that he based many of her mannerisms off of Patton and even had her quoting him directly.
    • Gharial from White is called out on being one of Clint Eastwood's man with no name in the run's Q&A.
  • Genius Ditz: Levasseur the Pelipper from Sapphire; too inept to keep track of the team's whereabouts, clever enough to understand the riddle leading to the treasure of Hoenn that stumped everyone else.
  • Lame Pun Reaction: Pongo eventually takes it upon himself to issue dope slaps a plenty to Burchell when his pun-making gets out of hand.
  • Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: So obscure, in fact, that doing a search for the line in questionnote  will only yield the run itself.
  • Once per Episode: In every completed run's Q&A session, there'll always be a question asking Jack and friends for their tastes in fruit.
  • Running Gag:
    • From Sapphire, every gym leader handing Jack a badge upon defeat despite his insistence of not being a trainer.
    • White has the back-and-forth of Mamba calling Gharial a cowboy and Gharial telling Mamba not to call him a cowboy.
  • Ship Tease: Some light flirting is sprinkled here and there in White, but most prominently with Mamba and Gharial.
  • Talk Like a Pirate: Teach's entire speech pattern. Justified as his Sapphire was a pirate-themed run, so it makes sense to start the cast off with every pirate cliche ever rolled into a Mudkip.
  • Victory Is Boring: The catalyst for Swashbuckling Sapphire; after Jack became a champion, there weren't enough challengers worth the trouble, so up and off he went to Hoenn.
  • A Wizard Did It: The first instance of diving in Sapphire has Koxinga pointing out all the scientific impossibilities associated with the move (e.g. everyone not being affected by the lack of oxygen and crushing pressure despite their lack of protective gear). Levasseur is the one to hand wave his complaints by just saying HMs do cool things like that.
    Pokemon Yellow Nostalgialocke 

Tropes seen in Pokemon Yellow Nostalgialocke

  • Alpha Bitch: During her few early interactions with Hocus, Eve is incredibly envious of the former's better stats and learnset to the point of threatening violence, which is played for laughs. She later comes to regret her behavior towards Hocus during the comic's final Q&A Session and reforms to be more like a Spoiled Sweet.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Many of Pulse's interactions with Wheeler and/or Eve result in her taking this position.
    Wheeler: And what are the chances of 2 crits in a row?
    Mouser is killed by a critical hit while Wheeler is visually disturbed
    Pulse: About 0.6%, lucky you.
  • Glitch Entity: Eve's entire existence in the run is brought about due to Wheeler using a popular in-game glitch involving the move Teleport. The event causes, unsurprisngly, an Ominous Visual Glitch during that moment. This winds up being the horcrux of Eve losing her Universe Guardian duties and having them given to her daughter, Arcadia.
  • Ominous Visual Glitch: Occurs during the aforementioned arrival of Eve the Mew. Reality itself temporily shatters like glass once she arrives, it does not last however. There is also the change of color in the Universe during Eve's later conversation with Arceus, which is caused by such drastic changes to a universe.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Pulse and Arcadia are the more controlled and level-headed Blue Onis to Eve and Wheeler's passionate and single-minded Red Oni. Though it should be noted that Wheeler is often considered in universe to be very cautious and more aligned with the Blue Oni in regards to battles.
  • Straight Man and Wise Guy: The standard dynamic between Pulse and Wheeler, as well as Arceus and Eve.

Other fancomics include examples of:

  • A Father to His Men: Oftentimes, though not always, Nuzlocke Pokémon will be fiercely loyal to their trainers, even by Pokémon standards.
  • Age Lift: Due to most comics using an original character as the protagonist, it's very common for the author to raise the ages of the rivals and supporting characters to be around the main's. (i.e. making everyone 18 if the protagonist is, etc)
  • Ambiguous Gender: A few protagonists are this, but it is widely used in Para's Nuzlocke to the point where one of the most asked questions of the author is "What is Para's gender?"
  • Beware the Silly Ones: In ordinary runs, Wobbuffets are goofy living punching bags who are regarded with mild annoyance at worst due to their retaliatory movepool and ability that prevents escape. In a Nuzlocke, however, those very same traits make them one of the most deadly enemies you could possibly face, to the point that some make special rules specifically to avoid losing their run to them.
  • Birth-Death Juxtaposition: In a Sinnoh run, the common occurrence of losing a team member to Jupiter's Skuntank is immediately followed by Cynthia giving the player a Togepi egg.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Kai's run ends with all her Pokémon apparently alive. They leave her while she sleeps, noting that it would be too dangerous for her to follow them. It ends as a Shout-Out to Inception.
  • Blood from the Mouth: Anytime a Pokémon coughs up blood, it's not a good sign.
  • Break the Cutie: Many, many runs involve the main character beginning as optimistic children who run headfirst into battle... and realize that Anyone Can Die.
    • I Let Gwen Stacy Die is also a common reaction.
    • Notably Alterity, where Robin struts out of Littleroot Town, demands Talon use Thunderbolt, and is soon smacked upside the head by reality.
    • It's a Hard Life, with both Robin and Puck.
  • Can't Drop the Hero: Some runs enforce a role where one Pokemon has to be in the party at all times and it fainting means an automatic game over. Comics doing this (mostly "gijinka-lockes") usually cast the Pokemon in question as the protagonist.
  • Crossover: Occasionally, the authors will let each other's characters appear in the comics, sometimes going as far as shipping them with each other.
    • Also, Amastroph's and Petty's comics include 'mon cameos from Pokémon Quartz.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass / Lethal Joke Character: On a rare occasion, some Nuzlocke comics will show that some mons aren't exactly as pathetic and laughable as most would think.
    • Prime example: Butterfree. Who knew that such an early pokémon, such a delicate-looking bug, would end up able to be so awesome?
    • This trope is arguably one of the main draws of the very concept of Nuzlocke - using pokemon you wouldn't normally use and realizing just how awesome they can be.
  • Cut Short: A lot of Nuzlockes are abandoned for various reasons.
  • Deader than Dead: Ghost-types are very rarely spared from the "fainting equals death" rule, so a Ghost-type getting killed in a Nuzlocke effectively results in this trope.
  • Death by Adaptation: Almost every Nuzlocke comic has Gary's Raticate dead.
  • Deconstruction Fic: Wasserbienchen's In Black And White is this for the Pokémon franchise as a whole, tying in the cheerful Pokémon world with a creepy and realistic portrayal of Pokémon training as animal abuse through the application of Fridge Logic.
  • Depending on the Writer: What is Nuzlocke? Does the term have any meaning within the world itself? Is it a Self-Imposed Challenge, a curse, or simply an unnamed rule of the world?
    • Can trainers understand what their Pokémon are saying? If so, how? Can only some of their Pokémon communicate with them, via human speech or telepathy, or can all of them speak freely?
    • Naming is variable. Is it just a nickname, or do wild Pokemon have no name at all? Does the new name override their previous one? Are they human-like names, or, well, not? Kindle-flower's run suggested that wild Pokemon do have names, but they don't translate well into human languages so they just let their trainer give them a name they can reasonably use.
    • The scale of the region is pretty much variable. To take Johto as an example, in some stories Violet City is a day and half's walk from New Bark Town whereas in others Mr. Pokemon's house is a matter of hours away from Goldenrod City.
  • The Dreaded: So-called "Run Killers", bosses and/or specific Pokemon species who are notorious for completely sweeping teams in Nuzlockes, are understandably feared by Nuzlockers everywhere. Examples include:
    • Whitney's Miltank, naturally, being one of the most infamous examples of That One Boss. While she's a downplayed example, you are still very likely to lose at least one member to her if you're not careful.
    • Norman's Slaking; there is a reason Norman frequently gets the Adaptational Villainy treatment, as his Slaking almost always ends up killing one or more of the player's Pokemon.
    • Winona's Altaria in the original Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, spamming the attack-boosting Dragon Dance to make her moves even more powerful and packing Earthquake to take out the Electric-types you were probably hoping to take her out with. She lost a bit of her edge in the remakes due to the introduction of Fairy-types.
    • Cynthia and her entire team, especially in Platinum. If you came to her with a full team of six, prepare to lose at least half of them to her Garchomp alone.
    • Ghetsis Harmonia's Hydreigon, the bane of Gen V Nuzlockers everywhere, packing a formidable movepool and nigh perfect stats. Like Cynthia's Garchomp, if you came to Ghetsis with a full team of six, Hydreigon is certain to take a sizable chunk of them out all by itself.
    • And of course there's Ultra Necrozma, whose nickname is "The Nuzlocke Killer" for a reason. It's faster than you and all of its moves are pretty much guaranteed to counter and one-shot anything on your team.
    • Wobbuffets, with their infamously retaliatory movepools and escape-preventing ability Shadow Tag, are so feared among Nuzlockers that some even add special rules specifically to deal with them, such as making it so that a death caused by a Wobbuffet doesn't actually count.
  • Fake Kill Scare: Used often enough to be considered another unspoken tradition.
  • Green Thumb: It's common for Red/Blue/Fire Red/Leaf Green Nuzlockers to choose Bulbasaur as their starter. In the comic, it may be justified as the character thinking it's cute or favoring grass types in general, but strategically speaking, it is the best to start with when you want to make a run with as few casualties as possible, since it has a type advantage against the first two gyms. And its Poison typing gives it an immunity to poisoning.
    • Subverted in Gold/Silver/Crystal/HG/SS runs. You'll be hard-pressed to find a Nuzlocke that has a player choosing Chikorita. The poor grass type has a type disadvantage against BOTH the first two gyms. Really, if you counted, Cyndaquil is by-and-large the most popular starter for Johto with Totodile as a close second. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald nuzlockers usually prefer Torchic and Mudkip (the latter for its memetic status). However, the aversion to grass types isn't as egregious in Gen 3 as it is in Johto.
  • Hero Killer: There's always at least one random trainer in a region who's a common cause of death across Nuzlockes, most commonly trainers who use Pokemon with OHKO moves or Selfdestruct/Explosion. One of the most infamous though is Brains and Brawn Frank & Sly in X and Y, a pair most Nuzlockers are utterly terrified of. It's rare to see a Kalos Nuzlocke that doesn't have at least one death to them, in fact getting through them with only one death is considered lucky. They're technically optional, but avoiding them means they might jump you later on while you're backtracking, when you least expect it...
  • Hurricane of Puns: Any appearance of a Rock-type Gym Leader prompts as many of these as you can think of. In more modern runs it's now often played differently, with the Trainer saying 'What, aren't you going to say you're about to rock my world or something like that?'. Failing that, the comment threads should supply plenty.
    • In Petty's run, every Gym Leader got one of these.
  • Lonely at the Top: A lot of trainers end up feeling disillusioned, miserable and guilt ridden because of all the deaths that they are indirectly responsible for. Sometimes remedied with a You Are Not Alone moment from their Pokémon.
  • Love Hurts: For Arceus's sake, don't ship in a Nuzlocke comic! As it will happen very often. Through there's a few exception. Most notably Barb and Spuds.
    • This is weaponized in Wedlocke runs, where shipping your Pokémon together is the core mechanic of the variation. The two Pokémon dedicate themselves to each other, forming a Battle Couple that always fights alongside each other and nobody else. It makes the death of Pokémon even harsher, as it's a potential heartbreak for the fallen Pokémon's partner. This is often followed by the widowed mon going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, and may or may not result in them dying themself.
    • Heck, it hurts for humans as well. There's one Nuzlocke comic where Cheren is in love with Bianca... But not only is she a lesbian, but she's dating Elesa. And he didn't know these two things until a bit after he lost to Elesa. Needless to say, it hurt for both sides.
  • Not So Invincible After All: No matter what region a Nuzlocke takes place in, or what Pokémon are on the team, there's one rule — no one is safe from death.
  • One-Steve Limit: Some comics will have a "Dupe Clause" in the rules, which will allow them to catch another Pokémon on the route if they already have one from a previous route. For plot and gameplay purposes, it makes sense to not have three or four of the same Pokémon.
  • Only Sane Man: A lot of Nuzlockes that put comedic focus on the Fridge Logic and character interpretation have a habit of making the protagonist come off as this.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghost-types are rarely spared from the "fainting=death" rule. Some players might make an exception of them due to the Fridge Logic of a ghost dying, but this is very rare.
  • Perspective Flip: Blue: The Other Guy's Story flips the roles of The Hero and The Rival.
  • Playing with Fire: Fire-types tend to be popular starters outside of the first gen and remakes thereof. Especially in Sinnoh, where decent Fire-types are rare otherwise and quite handy.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: One stray crit can make someone's character arc a lot shorter than the author intended it to be.
    • Team members that would otherwise have remained distant (or no closer than to any other) may suddenly be brought together as friends if they are the only survivors of an otherwise Total Party Kill.
    • Playstyles in gameplay can be incorporated into the story as well, such as one team member always being used against a certain type or species (because only they have a type counter for it) being played as having a personal hatred of their target, hence always wanting to kill them.
  • Rocks Fall Everybody Dies: Amastroph's Platinum run ends with Dlelewhoop the Kricketune murdering everybody and becoming "Dennis" (Genesect), destroyer of worlds.
  • Running Gag: Across multiple Nuzlocke's even. For whatever reason, pretty much every Platinum run has the main character explicitly avoiding the plot dialog with Cyrus in Mt. Coronet.
    • "PCHOOOOO" seems to be a popular onomatopoeia for pokeballs.
  • Taking You with Me: Selfdestruct/Explosion, the bane of every Nuzlocker's career. Also sometimes a Heroic Sacrifice, like in Petty's Nuzlocke above. There are also times where a Pokémon will die from poison or recoil after killing off a harsh enemy, as in Wasserbienchen's In Black And White with her Herdier or Marriland's first Nuzlocke and Tentacool.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: In Colonel Darren's Time and Space Journey comes The Reveal that this version of Darren is a Gengar, created by Giratina to replace his fallen champion after Cyrus found himself in a Stable Time Loop and murdered his infant adversary.
  • True Companions: Pretty much every Nuzlocke will end with the protagonist and their Pokemon team becoming this, mixed with Fire-Forged Friends—throughout these challenges, the Pokemon and their trainer band together, fight hard in the face of adversity and form a powerful bond with one another.
  • Wham Line: From Kotone's Nuzlocke adventure " Earlier today... I died, didn't I?"
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Expect this to come up a lot, especially if the concept of the Nuzlocke is a plot point, since in most of them, the hero will get called out for allowing his Pokemon to die, often in preventable situations. Especially when it's a Black and White run and the person doing the calling out is N.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Many, many of the weaker Pokémon will come across as this. This can be Played for Laughs or for drama, depending upon how dark the Nuzlocke is.

Alternative Title(s): Nuzlocke Comics

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