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"Hey, it's like they always say. Every cloud has a slightly shiny, not quite silver but not quite gold either, but not really a combination of gold and silver but more gold than silver lining!" ~ Shard
Niv, also known under the name of Shard, is the type who tends to keep to herself until she really gets to know you - and then you'll wish you didn't know her. She enjoys making WebComics, mostly Sprite Comics, and does some writing here and there (you know, aside from the obligatory writing needed to actually make said comics).
Most of her work can be found on either her Smackjeeves account or DeviantART account.
She's also very indecisive and not good at finishing things.
Niv has a few comics which she runs, generally with different plotlines, but always featuring at least a few of the same cast members-
- Shard, self-proclaimed Fluffy Thief and resident Cloud Cuckoolander. Often a main protagonist, leaning toward Neutral Good, much to the dismay of those around her since she's prone to holding the Idiot Ball.
- Katty, AKA Kat, a Boring Invincible Hero who controls fire. All fire. A True Neutral who often goes to extreme lengths to protect those around her- even if they don't need protecting.
- Két, who plays No Fourth Wall to full effect, including Painting the Fourth Wall, Leaning on the Fourth Wall, and invoking Webomic Time. Often a Deadpan Snarker who Lampshades any situation she's in. The awareness, though, has taken its toll on her sanity, and she's prone to snapping when under a lot of stress.
- Kumori, a mysterious woman who passed away some time ago and antagonizes Shard. This is because she is her older sister and trying to make Shard stronger. She manipulates dreams, often making them nightmares and capitalizing on the fear of her victims. Like Két, she is a Deadpan Snarker, but also a Troll, often tormenting the people around her.
- And Niv, an Author Avatar who only ever appears in out of canon comics, such as Q&A comics and... prettymuch any Sandbox update she feels like. She often appears with Két or Kumori to comment on the nature of the world they're in.
There are several other characters who often appear, but not often enough to warrant mention (just yet). Among them are a phoenix with a god complex, a jelly kitty, and a data dragon with a drinking problem.
The main comics that Niv makes are as follows:
- {MUTE}, a comic about a mute robot who needs a soul to operate. Unfortunately, it's running on Katty's. Currently on hiatus.
- .:Sandbox:., a non-canon comic where basically anything can happen. Usually features comic concepts, random comics and general announcements. Két, Kumori, and Niv will often appear here to Lampshade other comics, whether they're Niv's own or someone else's.
- Perplexing Magnolia Disruption, a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon fancomic featuring Team SMG and Kumori being thrown into the Pokemon World. They encounter various pokemon, each with a silly, quirky personality, in their quest to save the Pokemon world. As of April 9th, 2012, the comic is complete, and as of April 16th, 2012, the sequel, Platonic Management Dilemma, has been released.
- Digimon: Crisis Core, not to be confused with the Final Fantasy game, a "command the character" type comic centered around a wolf named Beatrice.
- Fluffy Tales, a series of short stories and one shots. It is currently running The Travelling Tales of Tollana Tigris, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
She also takes part in some collaborative comics, like:
- Digimon Saviors, a Digimon fancomic featuring nine actually ten, one was still in the real world digidestined brought to save the Digital World. Features Shard partnered with Gaomon, the poor guy.
- Tales of Allora: The Crossing, a fantasy webcomic where Niv uses the Reptilian Bard, Kara.
- A Question Of Character, a comic where, once a week, a question is asked to various authors' characters. Niv currently uses Tollana, the owner of Tigris Flower Shop, and Két, the aforementioned wall-aware cat, but she changes characters pretty regularly.
Tropes featured in Niv's work:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The Travelling Tales of Tollana Tigris.
- A God Am I: Silverado, and Moltres, who is based off of him. Justified in Silverado's case, since he actually is a God, just weakened.
- All There in the Manual: Perplexing Magnolia Disruption and Platonic Management Dilemma's cast page, A Question of Character, and basically any explanatory comments that Niv has to make.
- In a strange variation, Niv does not really mind giving out information - as long as it's not a spoiler. When a question is asked that would require giving out a spoiler, she'll either avoid it entirely or use a Mathematician's Answer.
- What's even funnier is that sometimes, the information has already been revealed elsewhere, and she's just messing with her fans.
- Ambiguous Gender: Takana. Oh god, Takana. It doesn't help that he/she/it can make him/her/itself grow breasts at will.
- Most Pokemon are like this as well, since a lot of them don't have gender differences.
- Angrish: Kumori is capable of making various characters fall into this, especially when she's right.
- Mewtwo is reduced to this when Team SMG uses Never Give Up on him.
- Arc Words: Don't close your eyes for Flowers in the Spring.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Shard is quite easily distracted most of the time.
- Attention Whore: The (Not So) Adorable Random Encounter could be considered one of these. Silverado and Moltres start to become this when they get their egos stroked.
- Badass Boast: Glandor gives one on behalf of Team SMG here.
Glandor: We fight as a team! And we'll beat you as a team!
- Bad Powers, Good People: Rena, a timid, Cowardly Lion with darkness manipulation, is actually a very nice person when you get to know her. Understar, who is actually Rena, is a superhero who uses darkness manipulation as well.
- Barrier Warrior: Shard's standard method of using her powers. It's quite handy for the beams and blasts that characters normally use to fight - not so much for standard punches and kicks.
- Beat: Standard procedure in Niv's work. Often used when characters are dumbfounded, or waiting for something to happen. Usually accompanied by someone going "...".
- Big Damn Heroes: The Guild shows up to help Team SMG.
- Big Word Shout: Happens now and again. Loudred, for one, always speaks in a font that's at least one size bigger than everyone else. Also happens when a character is shocked or yelling while running away, as seen here.
- Blank White Eyes: Characters will fall into this when incredibly shocked. Question 4 here is a good example.
- Boring Invincible Hero: Katty. Katai is a sort of weird anti-hero/anti-villain version of this, probably because of Katty's soul.
- Brick Joke: 36 comics later, Shard and Matt finally get to wake up Glandor with a liberal use of water.
- Butt Monkey: Glandor at the hands of Shard and Matt, and the (Not So) Adorable Random Encounter at the hands of everyone else. He's not even on the cast page!
- Venus seems to have become one of these as well.
- Call Back: When Venus is hit by a Water Pulse attack, she uses the exact string of letters that Glandor used upon being woken up by Buizel.
- Cain and Abel: This seems to be the relationship between Shard and Kumori, though in the prior's case she is blissfully unaware of their relationship.
- Chaotic Neutral: Several of Niv's characters are this due to her tendency to use Gray and Gray Morality in her work. Két, Kumori and Katai have been explicitly stated to align themselves here.
- Chekhov's Gun: In comic 101, Kumori briefly asks if the guildmaster will look into "that place". 35 comics later, Team SMG needs to get to Darknight Relic but doesn't know where it is. Kumori then informs them that she had the guildmaster look into it, so he'll know where it is.
- Colon Cancer: .:Sandbox:.. Lampshaded, of course, in the description.
Welcome to .:Sandbox:., or just plain "Sandbox" for those of you who dislike the extra dots.
- Color Failure: Happens twice to SC- here and here.
- Crazy-Prepared: Authoric example- Comics for Digimon Saviors are often made months in advance, which is crazy since it updates twice a day.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Snowagumon vs Terriermon. It took all of one page to happen.
- Curse Cut Short: By the Fourth Wall, no less.
- Deadpan Snarker: Két and Kumori love this trope, and Niv seems to be one herself if her comments are any indication.
Zeroflare: how is Shroomish standing on the wall?
- Desperation Attack: Team SMG's final attack against Mewtwo.
- Determinator: Part of the reason for Never Give Up. The team even lampshades this when they start to use it.
Glandor: She knows that we're Team SMG. And we Never Give Up.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Mewtwo's reason for wanting to cause The End of the World as We Know It? Mew disrupted his Magnolias.
- Enemy Mine: According to Word Of God, this is the only reason that Team KHV formed in the first place.
- Evil Counterpart: Team KHV to Team SMG, as a whole- while Hatashi and Venus play this straight, Kumori is more of a subversion, being Chaotic Neutral rather than Chaotic Evil like the other two.
- Evil Laugh: Silverado, and by that extension Moltres', SQUAKAKAKAKAKAKAKA!, to the point that, upon hearing Moltres use it, Team SMG immediately assumed it was Silverado. The laugh itself apparently pisses people off.
Zmanwarrior: I swear to god if he does that squawking laugh again I'm going to shave his neck with my teeth.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Kumori, who really does care about her family (she even has a "my family is off limits" rule in regards to other villains), and is Happily Married.
- The Faceless: Kumori. She quite literally has no face.
- Fan Nickname: Mysterious Black Text Guy for the guy with mysterious black text in the epilogue of Perplexing Magnolia Disruption.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: Moltres, Articuno and Zapdos, obviously. The sequel gives us Team KHV, with Hatashi as Fire, Kumori as Ice, and Venus as Lightning.
- Flat "What.": Several characters use this as a reaction to particularly silly or stupid developments.
- Fluffy Tamer: Shard, deeming any monsters that Team SMG comes across as "adorable" and wanting to keep them.
- Foe Yay: Blue and Shard seem to have something like this going.
- Foreshadowing: In the Q&A special, Matt is asked if he wants to evolve again. He says no, since Typhlosion reminds him of Hatashi. Come Platonic Management Dilemma, his rival, Hatashi, becomes a Typhlosion.
- On their first night in the world of Pokémon, Team SMG contemplates their dilemma. Each one gets a fancy background to go along with this- Matt gets a fiery background, Glandor gets a blue glow, and Shard gets a lilac sphere. This turns out to be a direct reference to their powers and what order they figure out they can use them in- Matt utilizes his fire first, Glandor activates his telekinesis, which glows to show it's in use, second, and Shard activates her Mira, commonly in spherical or circular shapes, last.
- Fun with Acronyms: Perplexing Magnolia Disruption, which makes an acronym matching Pokémon Mystery Dungeon's. The same goes for its sequel, Platonic Management Dilemma.
- Also done with Team SMG, which stands for Shard Matt Glandor, not Sub-Machine Gun or Super Mario Galaxy, and the ARE, or the Adorable Random Encounter/Authoritative Reasoning Enforcer.
- Genre Savvy: Kumori is this, if not Dangerously Genre Savvy.
- Glass-Shattering Sound: Implied to be the reason Hex's band doesn't have a vocalist until Kumori joins them.
Svent: Last time any of us tried to sing we got kicked out of my garage. That's one of the reasons we practice here.
Kumori: I... see.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Both Matt and Beatrice play by this trope, as do several characters in Digimon Saviors.
- Hello, Insert Name Here: Due to its nature as a Command the Character comic, Digimon: Crisis Core started out with this, asking the commanders for a name... and everything else.
- Heroic Second Wind: This is basically what Team SMG's Never Give Up is.
- Hero Worshipper: Mew is one of these to Team SMG. She brings them to her world so they can save it. It turns out that she can use her psychic powers to watch their adventures like a TV show, meaning she doesn't see details like Kumori living in Shard's mind.
- Hot Wings: Moltres. Matt also has this for his Phoenix Blow attack.
- Hurricane of Puns: After a few too many handbag/tree puns on this Sandbox comic, Niv decides to take things into her own hands.
Niv: Would you kindly stop with all of the puns? I'm not sure if I can bear it anymore. I can bearly tolerate puns as it is, but now you've gone and made things beary grizzly. I would appreciate it if you paw away the puns and bear witness to your own crimes against humor. I can bearly understand why you would need to bear apart the words you use and paw them back together in this fashion. I can bearly contain the urge to hit my head against the wall. Please don't make everyone have to bear witness to that. Thank you.
- Hypocritical Humor: Niv attempts to stop a bunch of pun-comments with a comment filled with bear puns.
- The best part? It worked.
- Impossible Thief: Shard and Fluffy Tails.
- Incendiary Exponent: Part of Team SMG's Team Blast involves setting Shard on fire. Luckily, her powers protect her from being damaged by this.
- Incoming Ham: Moltres, obviously.
Moltres: Welcome to Mount Blaze, FOOLS! Awfully eager to come to your DEATHS!
- Insane Troll Logic: Kumori loves using this, especially when talking to Niv and Két.
- Is It Something You Eat?: Takana toward anything. Its standard method of solving problems is to eat them. Locked door? Eat the lock. Lost your head? Eat a coconut to get it to grow back. About half the time it's onscreen it's either eating or talking about food.
- Jerkass: Kumori and Katty both fit into this. Some of the Pokémon do as well, but they soften up as time goes on. New character, Mysterious Black Text Guy, seems to be one of these as well.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Kumori does this four times in a row to Team SMG in one comic here.
- The Mysterious Black Text Guy pulls this on Mewtwo here.
- Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: Két tends to avoid talking about wall-related mechanics, unless it's to other characters with No Fourth Wall, out of context (and thus holds no impact), or if she's snapped.
- Kill It with Fire: Katty's standard method of solving problems. Matt also employs this when he doesn't want to think too hard.
- Large Ham: Prettymuch every legendary pokemon except for Mew. Moltres really takes the cake, though. Silverado also employs this with basically anything he does.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: Seriously.
- Luckily My Powers Will Protect Me: Shard's powers do this for her. Unfortunately, up until midway through the Mt. Thunder arc in Perplexing Magnolia Disruption, she didn't realize she could actually use them, in part because of Kumori's meddling.
- Making a Splash: Water types such as Buizel, Blue, and that annoying Shellos do this. However, the Shellos tends to spend too much time talking and not enough, y'know, attacking.
- This is also one of Rupph's abilities.
- Meanwhile, Back at the...: Done repeatedly in To The Sky!, where the perspective kept changing between Matt talking to Articuno, Glandor talking to Zapdos, and Shard talking to Moltres.
- Meanwhile Scene: The entirety of Nightmares in White was this. An interesting case in that the entire thing took place in Shard's dreamscape, but she wasn't in it aside from establishing where it was.
- The Epilogue also counts, which sets up the plot for the sequel.
- Mind Over Matter: Glandor has this, as compared to psychic types' Psychic Powers.
- Mind Screw: Basically anything involving Flowers Shard, especially when it comes to Flowers in the Spring. Lampshaded here.
- Mistaken for Gay: A variation- When Yellow starts hitting on Glandor, Red expresses confusion that Yellow "Likes other men". Yellow quickly snaps, telling him that she's actually a girl.
- Motor Mouth: Articuno, and Masky, who he's based off of. In Articuno's case, the characters eventually start telling him to shut up before he can get started.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Shard deems any creatures the team comes across as adorable, no exceptions. Upon running into monsters, she immediately decides to try and tame them so she can take them home and keep them.
- Nightmare Sequence: These are Kumori's specialty. Notably, she gives them to Shard when she needs her to wake up. This is problematic when the nightmare in question relates to Shard's abilities and makes her doubt that she can use them.
- No Indoor Voice: Loudred's font is always a size or two larger than everyone else's.
- Offscreen Crash: Pulled by Shard upon entering Darknight Relic.
- Oh Crap: Flowers in the Spring 14.
Niv: Oh, crap.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Shard. Her real name varies (Regular canon has it as "Mirror" while Digimon Saviors has it as "Nikki"), but it's rare to hear her referred to with her real name at all.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: This is what the ARE claims when he shows up with a small army to save Team SMG.
- Our Ghosts Are Different / Our Spirits Are Different: Kumori takes this trope and runs with it.
- Our Souls Are Different: Katai stealing Katty's soul.
- Playing with Fire: Any fire type - Matt especially, who had fire-based abilities before becoming a pokemon. Katty also plays this to full effect, Technicolor Fire included.
- The Power of Friendship: Basically what Team SMG runs off of.
- Power Nullifier: This is essentially what Shard's mira does. It also works in barrier form to bounce attacks back at their sender.
- Power Trio: Team SMG themselves, of the "Two Guys and a Girl" or the "Three Amigos" variety.
- Powers via Possession: When Kumori possesses someone who's willing to be possessed, she can use her powers as well as their own. When it's not willing, she only gets the powers of the one she's possessing.
- Psychic Powers: Any psychic-type pokemon- most notably, Mew and Mewtwo.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kumori can give herself glowing red eyes to intimidate others. In a subversion, several pokemon have red eyes, but none really mean anything - it's just the pokemon species has that color eyes.
- Katty could be considered both a subversion and a straight instance of this trope. She's perfectly nice and friendly - if she likes you. Otherwise, steer clear.
- Removing The Earpiece: During the Rage Matt storyline of {MUTE}, Hoku communicates with Katai through an earpiece. After Katai kills Rage Matt, she blows it up and runs away.
- Scars Are Forever: Két has a few scars of unknown origin. There's one on her right elbow, and one on her left hand. This comic reveals that she may have more hidden under her clothing. She doesn't, however, really make any active attempt to hide them, but prefers not to bring them up and becomes irritated when the topic comes up.
- Schedule Slip: During the prep-time for, and about a week after, the 151 Q&A special on Perplexing Magnolia Disruption, updates were a bit slower than usual. Lampshaded by Niv, of course.
Niv: Hey, remember when I updated this comic regularly? Neither do I!
- Sentai: Team Rangers, what with them being based off of Power Rangers and all.
- Shipper on Deck: Shard ships Matt x Glandor.
- Small Annoying Creature: Even Team SMG gets tired of seeing the Adorable Random Encounter when it shows up at Mt. Thunder.
Shard: You are decidedly less adorable.
- Spider-Sense: Shard has a comedic variant of this known as her "Fluffy-Sense". She can tell when fluffy tails are nearby, apparently. This ends up being a Chekhov's Skill when she uses it to determine that Neo left the group temporarily and to track down Neroe, CD and Ankh after they were kidnapped.
- Stealth Expert: Két invokes this by hiding outside of panel borders. At one point, she actually runs away from someone who's attacking her by leaving the comic boundaries.
- Stepford Smiler: Két has shades of this going, if her answer to this question is any indication. It seems like smiling and cracking jokes, as well as abusing her powers, are some of the few things keeping her sanity in check.
- Sucking In Lines: Some of Mewtwo's attacks do this.
- Taking You with Me: Mewtwo decides to do this to Team SMG.
- Talking To Themself: Két does this by speaking across panel borders. She also talks to (and with, in some instances) narration bubbles.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Team KHV's modus operandi. Venus cites it as the reason they can't beat Team SMG.
- Tempting Fate: Done repeatedly, most often by a member of Team SMG - as seen here and here. Kumori, of course, lampshades the tendency. Shard gets in on the lampshading action here.
Glandor: If he gets up now, though, we're as good as through...
Mewtwo opens his eyes
Glandor: Oh, come on!
Shard: Sunflower, if we survive whatever he's about to do, I'm revoking your speaking privileges.
- It was a plot point in Mt. Thunder, where Zapdos took anyone saying that lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice as a challenge and would make it do just that. Several characters used this to their advantage.
- Glandor seems to have a problem with this. All of three comics into Platonic Management Dilemma, he does it again. Mew and Mewtwo have just asked the team if it's okay to bring them to the world of Pokémon, and the team says that's fine, despite them being in the middle of a battle with Team KHV. Glandor's acceptance has him say "I don't see why not." Kumori calls him out on it.
Kumori: Glandor, what are you doing? You know as well as I do that sentence tempts fate.
Cue both Team SMG and Team KHV being taken to the world of Pokémon
- Time Skip: Between Perplexing Magnolia Disruption and Platonic Management Dilemma.
- Title Drop: The aptly-named update Title Drop.
- Also done in Flowers in the Spring, here.
- Generally, most of Niv's titles have something to do with the comic. {MUTE} is about a mute robot, Digimon: Crisis Core is a digimon comic about a crisis at the core of the digital world, and Sandbox is a place where Niv can play around freely, experimenting and having fun, much like an actual sandbox.
- Took a Level in Badass: The Adorable Random Encounter became the Authorative Reasoning Enforcer over the Time Skip. Whether or not other Pokemon have or not as well is still unknown.
- Trapped in Another World: Team SMG being sent to the world of Pokémon.
- True Companions: Team SMG.
- Useless Useful Spell: Shard's Mira is very potent against powers, making her effectively immune to any type of Mind Manipulation (except Kumori's possession, but that's because she knows how to get around it). However, it also makes her immune to things like healing, teleportation, and Status Buff spells. It also can't defend against physical attacks and weapons, and if the barriers are broken by those, Shard herself takes damage because of it.
- Viewer Gender Confusion: Takana. Niv takes every opportunity she can to make it as confusing as possible, resulting in things like this.
- Villainous Rescue: Done by Team Rangers here.
- Weak, but Skilled: Glandor compared to the rest of Team SMG, Team SMG compared to Team KHV, and the ARE compared to most other Pokemon.
- Win to Exit: Since it's a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon fancomic, beating the final boss in Perplexing Magnolia Disruption will most likely result in Team SMG and Kumori being sent home.
- Confirmed by Mew in the 151 Q&A Special.
- Word Salad Title: Perplexing Magnolia Disruption started out as one of these and the author having Fun with Acronyms. Subverted when Niv finds a way to work it into the comic, resulting in the Title Drop mentioned above.
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