Webcomic / Rock Paper Scissors (hiruda)

"In a near-future society, 18 year old Reilly Fay's life is spared... but on one condition: she must work for the psychopathic killer infamously known as Mr. Friday."

Rock Paper Scissors is a popular Smack Jeeves webcomic written by Smack Jeeves user "hiruda," set in fictional Radio City, U.S.A. Its main protagonist is a girl named Reilly Fay who, through her own misadventures, ends up having to work for Professional Killer Jack (AKA: Mr. Friday) only to find out that he may not be all he seems. Meanwhile, the local police force has been trying to crack down on the activities of Mr. Friday and of the Cavellos crime syndicate led by a man known only as the Doctor. Paths cross when it turns out that Mr. Friday and the Cavellos are connected and Reilly must struggle to stay safe in a world that is suddenly much more dangerous than she had ever realized.

The genre could be described as three parts criminal fiction, two parts psychological thriller, one part science fiction, and one part Slice of Life. It has a fast-paced plot, entertaining characters, and loads of visually pleasing official art. Also has a character list here.

Has sadly been discontinued, but its partial "revamp"/spiritual successor GATEKEEPER can be read here.

To avoid confusion, on this wiki page, the Doctor will not be referred to by his real name (Mr. Friday) but by his given alias. Likewise, the Professional Killer persona of Mr. Porter will be referred to as Mr. Friday.

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This comic provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Argent D'Artois, who is a capable swordswoman
• Affably Evil: As it would turn out, Argent. She's fairly nice to people in general, but willingly and knowingly works with the Doctor.
• Art Evolution: Indeed. Compare this page from Chapter 1 to this page from Chapter 8 for a good example.
• All There in the Manual: Quite a bit can be learned about the characters by reading through supplemental materials in hiruda's deviantArt account as well as her formspring.
• Anti-Hero: Andy Lee. The author has it written that his alignment is Chaotic Neutral and his main motivation for catching criminals seems to be that he wants to get paid money, so he can buy more soap operas to watch.
  • However, since he's been kicked off the Cavellos case and is still trying to stop them anyway, this seems suspect. In any case, he's still an Anti-Hero of some type as he has proven that he is prepared to execute criminals on the job.
• The Atoner: Jack Porter, after he regains control. He wants to protect Reilly and save the Doctor from his madness.
• Ax-Crazy: Mr. Friday, of course. Thanks to the Doctor, who is also this trope.
• Berserk Button: For Mr. Friday, it's being disobeyed. Specifically by Reilly.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Jack Friday again! When he starts to act silly and dorky, it's pretty easy to forget how effective he can be when it comes to killing.
• Big Bad: The Doctor.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Mr. Friday was brainwashed by the Doctor. He used to be a kind psychiatrist named Jack Porter. The Doctor's real name was Mr. Friday, and he was originally Mr. Porter's patient.
• Break the Cutie: By the time Chapter 8 hits, Reilly seems to have gone through this due to Mr. Friday's treatment and the things she's been forced to see.
  • And then there's Sonia who was broken even worse. See her entry for The Woobie. And compare how she looks on this page, before her husband and son disappeared, with her appearance and behavior on this one - after. She looks like she's about to reach her breaking point.
• Broken Pedestal: Thomas is being set up for one, considering how much he admires Argent, and the fact that the reader now knows about her true colors.
  • And the pedestal has broken. Argent has tried to kill Thomas and he now knows whose side she is on. Poor guy.
• The Casanova: Louis Lark, though it doesn't work on Argent.
• Cerebus Syndrome: And freaking how! Starts about half-way through The Gordion Knot and goes full-throttle in Memento. Not that that's a bad thing...
  • Knight of Cerebus: The Doctor. Full stop.
• Character Alignment: Hiruda provides this handy chart◊! Warning: Possible spoilers.
• Character Development: Reilly has been going through it. She is now a lot more world-weary than she was in chapter 1.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Mr. Friday, quite often.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite being, in hiruda's words, a "jolly old dork", Mr. Friday is pretty good at fighting. He also has great balance.
• Despair Event Horizon: Thomas crossed his after Argent, the person he respected most in the world, betrayed and tried to kill him. Lampshaded twice even, with the word "despair" actually used. Yikes.
• Determinator: Andy just doesn't give up when he's chasing a criminal, sometimes to a hilarious extent.
  • Also Mr. Friday counts, especially if his character sheet here◊ his anything to go by. His resolve is his strongest trait.
• Dual Wielding: Andy does this with guns. His aim is about average though.
• Enfant Terrible: As of Chapter 9, Louis is revealed to have been one of these. He ran Mr. Porter over with a car simply to help his father, and has shown other early signs of sociopathy.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: It may be too early to tell, but the Doctor seems to genuinely love his son. And, at least at a young age, Louis seemed to love him too. Then again, they both show blatant signs of being psychopaths, so this relationship is rather suspect.
  • Also subverted with the fact that, the Doctor showed few signs of actually caring about Sonia, left her, and then had her killed for cheating on him.
• Fan Disservice: The author likes this trope. She usually lampshades the Fan Disservice in her author comments. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that could be considered legitimate Fanservice in this comic. The author seems to enjoy mocking the very idea of including such a thing.
• A Father to His Men: Police Chief Strausser, who actively worries about Thomas as well as his other fellow officers. He also seems to think of Argent as a daughter, since she used to work under him.
• Faux Affably Evil: The Doctor is usually very polite, and has also shown to be very kind to his son Louis. However, his detailed and gleeful threats to torture Jack Porter show how rotten he really is.
• Fighting from the Inside: Mr. Porter tries to do this despite being brainwashed. The first time he did this was when he told Reilly a story about a "magician" named Mr. Porter because he wanted her to know his real name, even if it had to come out as some strange brainwash-fabricated story. Later, he starts to fight off the Mr. Friday persona completely. He has since come to resemble his old self, now that he is free of his brainwashing.
• Gonk: Glen.
• Guns Akimbo: Andy's preferred method of fighting.
• Happily Married: Reilly's parents.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Doctor appears to be this. In fact, the only reason is isn't placed directly into Eldritch Abomination territory is because we know he is human. Or at least, he used to be. All the same, it's hard to really tell what he is at this point. For all anyone knows, he may be an embodiment of madness.
• If I Can't Have You…: A particularly twisted example: The Doctor married Sonia, but he abandoned her and took their son, Louis, with him. Then, when Sonia cheated on him with Jack Porter, the Doctor had her killed anyway by a brainwashed Mr. Porter. Yikes!
• Jerkass: Louis likes being mean to people. Also Andy, though to a lesser extent.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Andy may be a generally bitter, rude, guy but he has been shown to care about Thomas as he put a tracking device in his jacket to keep an eye on him. Then again, this may have just been because Andy wanted to keep track of the investigation after the police tried to cut his ties with it.
• Mad Scientist: The Doctor. He's quite a genius at designing robots and used to design robots for Probotics but is absolutely insane.
• The Mole: Argent is this.
• Nice Guy: Thomas, though he has been shown to have difficulties with his brother Phil.
  • Also, Jack Porter. He's probably the nicest character in the whole comic, which makes The Reveal of his back story all the more tragic.
• Obfuscating Uselessness: Louis. Turns out that he's a lot more active about dealing with his father's enemies than it seemed early on. And he's good at it. Not that Argent approves of his methods.
• Old Shame: Long ago,Hiruda wrote a comic about characters that Mr. Friday and Reilly are now expies of. She really doesn't like her old comics and has apparently removed them from the internet.
• Opposites Attract: Played with. Andy and Argent. They got married a while back. Aside from being somewhat similar-looking, their personalities are complete opposites. A love of videogames was the only thing they really had in common. However, it didn't last long and they eventually divorced because of their personal differences. It is unknown whether or not they still have feelings for each other.
• Orphaned Series: Sadly, and with many questions left unanswered.
• Overlord Jr.: Louis is the Doctor's son and seems to work as a front man for the Cavellos at times. However, he's a bit of an odd version of this trope as he doesn't really seem diabolical, so much as apathetic towards what his father does. He seems more interested in dating hot women than any evil schemes, though he is cooperative and does what his father tells him to do along with a little extra "fun" on the side. He's a total psychopath, as it would turn out. It is unclear whether or not the Doctor plans on having Louis take over for him. In fact, it is unclear whether or not the Doctor can even die.
• Professional Killer: Mr. Friday.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Mr. Friday is extremely immature and silly. He also cheerfully kills without any remorse.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Ben and Donna. Very. Played for Laughs of course.
• Slasher Smile: Mr. Friday wears this, quite frequently. It is his signature "whale-teeth smile."
  • Andy has also showcased one or two, in his enthusiasm for the job.
• Soap Opera: Andy loves them. The cheesier the better.
• Super-Deformed: In its comedic moments, along with a few funny backgrounds added in.
• The Syndicate: The Cavellos, naturally.
• Tentacle Rope: Somewhat hilariously, Mr. Friday has used his many coat tails for this purpose once or twice - once to restrain Reilly and once to trip up Andy.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted nicely, for the most part. Jack Porter was a good psychiatrist and the Doctor (formerly Mr. Friday) seemed to confide in him freely. However, once Mr. Friday went all the way off the deep-end and became the Doctor, there was really nothing Mr. Porter could do to save him. He has since implied that he regrets not trying harder and wants to make the Doctor sane again.
  • Justified when it comes to Reilly, who is very independent and probably just doesn't want to worry her parents by seeking out psychiatry. She's been broken slightly but seems to be trying to deal with it and restore her life.
• Trigger-Happy: Andy, who does not seem to care much about aiming so long as he is firing bullets into the air. Somewhere near his target. Preferably.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Doctor starts to have one here. It resulted in him running away from a chance to kill Reilly, who knew too much.
• Walking Spoiler: Jack Porter. Even his full name is a spoiler, if you squint. You'll not find a single instance of his name anywhere on this page outside of spoiler tags.
• Wham Chapter: Chapter 7, in which it's further shown that Argent has apparently betrayed interpol and defected to the Cavellos. Reilly gets attacked by Cavellos for knowing too much. Mr. Friday saves Reilly and the Doctor comes in to try and kill her personally. It then turns out that Mr. Friday's other persona (Mr. Porter) may have been the only person who the Doctor ever feared. A Wham, indeed.
• Youngest Child Wins: Inverted. Thomas and Phil, as shown here have some issues. Apparently, Phil wanted Thomas' position as inspector. He didn't get it.
• Yandere: The Doctor went in this direction for Sonia. He had her killed for cheating on him with Jack Porter. This, even though the Doctor had just abandoned her and taken their son with him without any given reason!

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