Webcomic / Trixie Slaughteraxe for President

Trixie: What is wrong?
Lyndon: Is it not blindingly obvious? You said, in front of a large audience, that you wished your fiancé's uncle would get killed.
Trixie: Yes. I am really embarrassed about that.
Lyndon: I don't think embarrassment is quite the right emotion here. Might I suggest panic?

— Page 134

Trixie Slaughteraxe For President is a webcomic by Øyvind Thorsby. The titular Trixie Slaugheraxe is running to be president of the democratic nation of Diabolica. Just one problem: the Traditionalists have won every election so far, thanks to their massive funding. Since the rich will not finance the Democratic Socialists, Trixie needs a way of raising money herself. So, she and pacifist wizard Lyndon Painatorium set out to find treasure to sell, helped by hired mercenary Audrey Gravescreams and her sister Klara, animal expert. Will they find what it takes to defeat the Traditionalists and win the election?

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Tropes:

• Aerith and Bob: Each character is a self-contained example of this trope, with a generally ordinary first name (Trixie, Audrey, Hank) coupled with a very violent last name. (Slaughteraxe, Gravescreams, Genocide)
• And I Must Scream: Being turned into a tree would certainly extend Lyndon's life, and therefore the simulation, by thousands of years... at the cost of possibly being entirely conscious throughout.
• Asshole Victim: It's hard to argue Julius Saunamassacre didn't deserve his fate, considering his bigoted views towards Trixie and his niece's marriage.
• Ax-Crazy: Audrey tends to be very eager to swing her scimitar around, or use it to dismember bodies, or stuff those dismembered bodies into briefcases to dump off in the woods.
• Badass Pacifist: Lyndon ends up very noticeably ripped in the simulation, with at least thirty-two different spells that he can cast at will.
• Berserk Button: The one thing that sets Trixie off into a swearing rage? A closed-minded Heteronormative Crusader.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Diabolica is filled with all sorts of strange races and creatures, no doubt with complicated evolutionary backstories. Jousters in particular are an entire race of Two Beings, One Body - consisting of a deaf, highly intelligent upper half, and a much simpler, doglike lower half. The Impossible Ones take this to the extreme, with incredibly surreal bodies that can never exist within reason.
• Bury Your Gays: Inverted. Barbara refuses to assassinate Trixie specifically because she is a lesbian, though not out of the goodness of her heart. She believes a non-lesbian replacement candidate will be more popular, and thus will have a better chance at winning the presidency.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The comic takes a sharp nosedive once president Zoozo is assassinated, Trixie goes missing, and Klara dies of malachite fever. Thankfully, it's all just a Bad Future inside a Nested Story Reveal.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Skyggemyrian wine is illegal, though the prison sentence for possessing it is only a single day. Since a candidate in prison cannot run for president, Barbara uses it to arrest every other political opponent just before the election results are declared. This allows Zoozo Zlen (who wasn't drinking any) to become president.
  • After finding out that Trixie's Berserk Button is homophobia, Barbara hires three people to ask Trixie blatantly homophobic questions during the inquisition, hoping to send her into a rage and harpoon her image with the voters. Trixie manages to keep her cool through all three questions. However, she loses it when Julius Saunamassacre, her fiancée's uncle, launches into a completely unscripted tirade, insulting her for being a lesbian and threatening to disinherit his niece unless she breaks up with Trixie.
• The Chessmaster: Ivar Mowinckel, whose desire to thwart a democratic revolution in Skyggemyr drives his attempts to manipulate the Traditionalists and destabilize Diabolica.
• Corrupt Politician: Barbara Everdark, though the rest of her cabinet isn't much better.
• Crazy-Prepared: Lumskhund Castle inside the simulation is built with snakes hanging from the ceiling, doors rigged to kill trapped animals, and impossible ones chained to the walls to counter Lyndon's pacifist magic.
• Cut and Paste Comic: A staple of Thorsby's work.
• Deathbringer the Adorable: All the human characters have over-the-top evil-sounding last names, despite being more or less decent people. Even the bad guys (Barbara Everdark, Marlon Corpseparade and Hank Genocide) are Corrupt Politicians and not quite as bad as their names suggest.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Lyndon has a lot of trouble keeping his illusion magic presentable whenever Audrey is around.
• The Dragon: Marlon Corpseparade to Barbara Everdark. Marlon manages the campaign trail and presents Barbara with most of her schemes.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Klara can name just about every plant and animal she sees, as well as give specific facts about their habits, biology, toxicity, and more.
• Evil Chancellor: Lilith Megascythe to Zoozo Zlen, who isn't smart enough to realize he's being manipulated. At least, not at first.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: After the Time Skip in the simulation, Audrey has longish hair and Lyndon has lost most of his hair. This helps distinguishing them from their main timeline selves.
• Face–Heel Turn: Audrey takes a comfy position in the Traditionalist cabinet in exchange for destroying the last Organgrinder cupcakes, sabotaging Trixie's campaign. When Lyndon finds out, she offers to marry him if he helps her cover it up. He does.
• Gag Nose: Snoutelves have such big noses, they're often just as long as their bodies. It also gives them their uncanny sense of smell.
• Gilded Cage: Lumskund Castle, which entertains Lyndon, makes sure he is in top physical shape, and tells him nothing but good news about Diabolica. They don't want him getting depressed or committing suicide, as his death would end the universe as they know it.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: After Audrey points out that Princess Helverdeev is pretty hot in her wedding dress, Lyndon's illusion of the princess changes into her and Audrey making out, naked. Since they are surrounded by Helverdeev's courtiers at the time, this becomes a problem.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: A lot of Lyndon's spells, in addition to not being for offensive purposes, seem fairly weak, but he tends to come up with clever ways to use them:
  • The spell that turns anything into candy? Perfect for breaking through a locked strongbox to get the artifact inside.
  • Another spell turns his body (and clothes) elastic. Not so that he can stretch to grab something far off, he can only be stretched if something pulls him. However, it turns out that the spell makes him invulnerable to impact from any blunt object. And if his team members have been wrapped around him at some point, the spell covers them as well, on account of them having been his "clothes".
  • The spell that makes a person or thing fall in a different direction is already pretty useful, making it possible to walk on walls, but it shows its true usefulness when Lyndon is able to fly by holding on to an object and constantly changing the direction it's falling, to take him where he wants to go.
  • Outside of Lyndon, Ivar Mowinckel repeatedly uses the Sceptre of Death to gain vital knowledge of the future by a scenario where he commits suicide right after telling himself the salient information, so that it will be picked up in the vision by his present-day self. Towards the end of the story, this makes him nigh omniscient about the moves of his enemies.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The witch working for the Skyggemyr embassy has a signature spell to bring the closest weapon to her instantly - usually by pulling it right out of her adversary's hand. Her untimely demise comes when Trixie tricks her into teleporting an entire trebuchet right on top of herself.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place:
  • Subverted with the protagonists' homeland of Diabolica, which isn't a particularly bad place, though it is run by a rather nasty political party, and the countryside is home to various dangerous monsters. It does seem to suit the human population's evil-sounding surnames.
  • Played straight with Hopeless Asylum, which turns out to have been overrun by Eldritch Abominations and their mortal henchmen, with plans of World Domination.
• Instant Sedation: The venom from a yellow snirl can knock a person out with a single bite.
• Invisible to Normals: A variant. The Impossible Ones quite literally live and die by the rule of Plausible Deniability. Since they cannot logically exist, being perceived by a conscious individual kills them. They can only be safely observed by those who are either insane or on drugs; in both cases, their presence can be explained as a hallucination.
• Lethal Harmless Powers: Discussed and defied with Lyndon's pacifist magic. It actively rebels against being used offensively; if a spell harms a creature (other than microbes), the wizard will permanently forget that spell and be unable to learn it again. However, events usually force Lyndon to use his spells to kill enemies (and promptly forget them) anyway.
• Love Confession: Lyndon to Audrey, when he asks for her to marry him. On a smaller scale, when Trixie directly asks Klara if she's in love with her.
• MacGuffin: Pretty much every magical artifact that Trixie's group targets is meant to be sold off as a curio. The Scepter of Death is an exception.
• Money Fetish: Audrey's main motivation in life is to make loads and loads of money. She's not immune to bribery, either.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Pacifist magic can safely harm small creatures, such as germs. As Lyndon points out, these spells would be impossible to use otherwise
• Plausible Deniability: The aptly-named school of magic exploits this trope. A spell only works as long as it can be "plausibly" explained with non-magical origins, such as a band of ninjas suddenly tying someone up in the dark. If this is ever definitively disproven, the spell instantly dissipates.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Barbara has no qualms against using Trixie's sexuality as a political weapon - see Chekhov's Gun above.
• Power Perversion Potential: One of Lyndon's spells allows him to create illusions. Audrey's immediate assumption is that he's going to use it for "hot naked ladies". Guess what he does once he's left alone?
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Audrey is a wildly passionate Blood Knight with immense combat prowess, while Klara is The Stoic who uses her Encyclopaedic Knowledge to assess danger from afar. They're even color-coded in their clothes and chat bubbles!
• Red Shirt: Being a vice president under Barbara doesn't come with a very high survival rate, to the point of being a Running Gag.
• Scenery Censor: Lyndon's illusory version of Audrey has her chest and crotch covered by either conveniently-placed clutter, or strangely-shaped statues.
• Serial Escalation: Barbara's plan to disrupt the Democratic Socialists is to split the vote by running a puppet candidate with very similar views. If this doesn't work, she simply installs another one... then two... then four more. In total, forty-six new candidates end up running for president, just because they can!
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Barbara is quite fond of dropping a few Cluster F-Bombs whenever the Traditionalist party falls behind in ratings.
  Barbara: This is fucking bullshit! Fucking stupid fucking voters! Fucking socialists! Fucking fuck fuck!
• Sleazy Politician: Hank Genocide, resident Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit, isn't afraid to strongarm his candidate into exactly the position to split the socialist vote.
• The Stars Are Going Out: Five years and 318 days after using the scepter of death, every star in the sky suddenly vanishes, as the ambassador of Skyggemyr notes in his journals. This is because the simulation can only replicate a small section of the known universe. Once the world has existed for that long, the last light from surrounding stars will no longer reach the planet.
• Stupid Good: Zoozo isn't exactly the brightest star in the sky, but his heart's in the right place. Once Trixie confronts him about the Traditionalist legislation he's been blindly signing into law, he's horrified, and he resolves to learn more about the government.
• Technical Pacifist: Averted in the case of Lyndon's pacifist magic. If it ever causes harm to a living creature, the effects end, and he permanently forgets how to cast every spell he knows.
• Thanatos Gambit: The entire purpose of the Scepter of Death. When used, it will show the user a vision of the final moments of their life, providing information to help change or prevent their own Bad Future. It does so by creating a branching simulation of the universe, which is destroyed as soon as the user dies. This also kills every sentient, conscious being in the simulation at once. Because of this, Lyndon founds an entire secret order dedicated to looking after the scepter and limiting its use.
• Think of the Children!: Zoozo's entire platform is built upon ensuring the sickly children of Diabolica will have access to medicine - which is how Lilith initially convinces him to run.
• Token Evil Teammate: Audrey is a greedy Blood Knight and sabotages Trixie's campaign after the Traditionalists offer to make her Minister of Foreign Affairs. She comes back to save Trixie in the end, though.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Despite their regressive economic policies and rampant corruption, the Traditionalists consistently secure a sizable portion of the public vote. It helps that Barbara is a good public speaker.
• The Virus: As the Scepter of Death foretells, a disease known as the "malachite fever" is set to ravage Diabolica's human population. Whether or not it's contained depends on if the president has socialist policies in place, so that free healthcare will prevent its spread.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Said almost verbatim by Ivar before Michelle is turned into a tree.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Ivar's constant usage of the Scepter of Death allows him to predict any plan Audrey and Lyndon try to come up by learning their tactics, then repeatedly committing suicide. The only way they can defeat him is with an unpredictable Gambit Roulette of their own.

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