"The people in this town sure have strange fetishes."
—Strange Girl
V The Vampire Vigilante is a webcomic series written and illustrated by tipzemason. It chronicles the misadventures of V, a self-styled vigilante who aims to make her town Fetishville a safe place from criminals.
The whole series can be found on this website here
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V The Vampire Vigilante provides examples of the following tropes:
- Ambiguous Syntax: When V first met Athena and she introduced herself as a Vampire Hunter, V thought she was a fellow vampire who is just a hunter.
- Antagonist Title: Most of chapters are titled after the chapter's antagonist.
- Arc Villainess: Each story centers around V facing off against a female antagonist:
- K, the leader of a clan known for robbing banks in quick succession to become wealthy.
- L, the CEO of a company that specializes in providing illicit services through hired thugs.
- Ivy Quinn, also known as IQ, is a scientist who seeks revenge on the intelligentsia of Fetishville for standing in the way of scientific progress.
- Athena The Vampire Hunter, who as her title suggests, seeks to eliminate any vampire she finds, no matter what.
- The Golden Samurai, a mysterious figure who wishes to avenge the innocent victims of the Serial Killer.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When IQ, L and K demand that Laura lets them go:IQ: I demand you release me! I'm a scientist!L: And I'm an entrepreneur!K: And I'm too pretty for prison!
- Bank Robbery: The story opens up with one of these being carried out by the Kinky Kunoichi Klan, which V tries to stop.
- Big Bad: The overarching antagonist of the story is the Vampire of Fetishville, a Serial Killer vampire who terrorizes the city. The final chapter reveals the identity of the killer as Coolgirl, who was posing as a superheroine to hide her true nature as a vampire.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Upon the APB announcement in the fifth chapter, two characters are set up as the antagonists coming after V: Name Princess and Golden Samurai. Name Princess does manage to get to V first, but Golden Samurai defeats her and takes V to the police, and becomes the sole Big Bad of the arc.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Name Princess is set up as one of the two heroic antagonists of the fifth arc, the other being Golden Samurai, but she's easily defeated by the latter and taken out of the narrative.
- Big Good: Laura Strad serves as this, being a high ranking detective working to stop the serial killings.
- Big "NO!": Coolgirl lets one out moments before pummeling to her death.
- V herself had one not long before it when Golden Samurai is about to kill Strange Girl.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead:
- Strange Girl, L and Golden Samurai are the blondes.
- Athena, Ivy Quinn, Laura Strad and Name Princess are the brunettes.
- V (pinkish hair), Coolgirl (purplish hair) and K are the redheads.
- Blunt "Yes": When V wanted to stop the Generic Thugs broad daylight robbery:Strange Girl: Yes.
- Bound and Gagged: It's a Damsel in Distress webcomic, so it's bound to happen to many characters.
- The Bus Came Back: K, L and Ivy Quinn reappear during Athena's chapter being questioned by Laura about the vampire vigilante.
- Athena herself reappears during Golden Samurai's chapter being questioned by Laura about the vampire vigilante as well.
- Capitalism Is Bad: L, one of the antagonists, is Corrupt Corporate Executive who hates socialists.
- Chekhov's Gun: The heart button that Strange Girl made for V's online shop helps to reveal the Serial Killer later.
- Comically Missing the Point: Looking at the map of Fetishville, V and Strange Girl notice it has a unique shapenote but they both agree that it looks like an arrow head pointing down.
- Cops Need the Vigilante: By Laura's own admission, the town has too many vigilantes to deal with, so the police force simply settled on recruiting them when they need them.
- Cute Little Fangs: V's fangs are often mentioned by characters who think they're cute.
- Dark Action Girl: K and Coolgirl once The Reveal that she's evil happens.
- Deadpan Snarker: Strange Girl likes to poke fun at V a lot.
- Does This Make Me Look Fat?: In "V vs Generic Goons", one MAL employee asks her coworker if a shirt saying "Big Boned" makes her look fat, but she's interrupted by V breaking in. After they found her restrained by herself, the girl bluntly tells her friend that the shirt does make her fat.
- Evil All Along: Coolgirl was the Vampire Killer all along. And she's actually a vampire too.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: V makes one of these in the first Story Arc, where she reassures K's goons that she won't drain their blood completely.V: I'm a bloodsucking monster, not a lawyer.
- Eye Awaken: The very ending strip of the comic is an animation of Coolgirl doing this in the morgue...
- Fangs Are Evil: In contrast to V's Cute Little Fangs, Coolgirl's vampire fangs give her a more monstrous appearance.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Golden Samurai is about to apologize to V and Strange Girl, you can already see the latter displeased. She ends up rejecting the apology.
- Foreshadowing: The second time Coolgirl rescues V from Athena, V wonders how Coolgirl found, and she responds that she can fly. Coolgirl seems surprised when V reveals she can't. Sure enough, Coolgirl was a vampire this whole time, and the serial killer as well.
- Frame-Up: Coolgirl framed Strange Girl for her murders by planting the heart button she made for V's online shop in the crime scene.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: V is a vampire who desires to help protect the city from criminals, and never sucks the blood of innocents, only the aforementioned criminals.
- Gag Echo: Upon capturing V, Athena tells her the same thing that L told her when she captured her before.Athena: I'd ask if you're comfortable...But frankly, I don't actually care.
- Get Out!: Strange Girl responds to Golden Samurai's apology with this.
- The Good, the Bad, and the Evil:
- V, Strange Girl and Laura Strad are the good people who work to stop criminals to bring justice and peace.
- Athena, Golden Samurai and Name Princess have heroic motivations but they either utilize methods seen as unsavory by other character or have a desire for something else other than heroism (Accolades in Name Princess' case).
- K, L, Ivy Quinn and Coolgirl are the evil who commit crimes for their personal gain and don't care about the lives of other people.
- Good Versus Good: Sometimes even the heroic characters can clash with each other.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Vampire of Fetishville is sporadically mentioned throughout the chapters up until near the end where his identity is revealed and he comes face-to-face with the heroes.
- Heartfelt Apology: After defeating Coolgirl, Golden Samurai feels guilt for all she put V and Strange Girl through so she goes up to them and apologize. Her apology gets rejected, however.
- Hero Antagonist:
- Athena has good intentions with her desire to kill vampires, but that forces her to oppose the protagonist V.
- Laura Strad is a well-meaning detective seeking to put an end to the vampire murders.
- Name Princess is one of the superheroines of the city, and she sets out to take down V once the police identify her as the Vampire Murderer.
- "Hey, You!" Haymaker: V tries this on one of the Generic Thugs in the second chapter, but it doesn't work.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: If it weren't for Strange Girl's guidance and assistance, V would be a lot worse for wear.
- I'll Kill You!: V utters those words to Golden Samurai as she's about to kill Strange Girl.
- Improbably Female Cast: Bizarrely, no male characters make an appearance from beginning to end.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: V figures out the identity of the Vampire Killer by realizing that Coolgirl somehow knew the button that supposedly incriminates Strange Girl is a heart button, even though they didn't sell one and nobody mentioned that it had a heart on it. Coolgirl planted it to frame Strange Girl and save herself.
- Insistent Terminology: V's hair is not red, it's vampiric pink!
- I Work Alone: V originally had this mindset, but after reluctantly agreeing to let Strange Girl help her, she grew to like having a close companion.
- Non-Protagonist Resolver: The one who gets to deliver the final blow to the Vampire of Fetishville is Golden Samurai, because V has already been incapacitated by Coolgirl.
- Not Quite Dead: Coolgirl didn't die in the end, she woke up in the morgue. Uh oh...
- "Not So Different" Remark: Laura uses this to convince Athena to tell her about V:Laura: Like, we're both treated as criminals in this jail. We both have names ending in 'a'. And we're both interested in vampires.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: Athena's reaction to seeing Coolgirl attempting to rescue V from her a second time.
- One-Letter Name: We have the titular heroine V, L the CEO of MalCo and creator of the Generic Thug brand and K, the leader of the Kinky Kunoichi Klan.
- Plea Bargain: Laura offers one of those to IQ, L and K in exchange for information about V. It's not shown exactly what their benefit from it was, though.
- Red Herring: Strange Girl is set up as being the serial killer all along, but later it turns out that she was framed by Coolgirl, who is the true culprit.
- Rejected Apology: Golden Samurai's Heartfelt Apology described above ends up as this.
- Running Gag:
- V getting tied up and gagged.
- Laura can't mention vampires without anyone asking if that's a fetish of hers.
- V taking inspiration from Batman in her heroic endeavors.
- Sarcasm Mode: The first time V and Strange Girl met.Strange Girl: So are you in distress or what?"V: No, I like being tied up in an abandoned warehouse somewhere.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Invoked by V saying she doesn't need her powers or gadgets to stop a broad daylight robbery, just some cheesy sound effects like Batman. She's quickly proven wrong.
- Self-Deprecation: While listing off her victims, Coolgirl lists webcomic artists as one of the people who deserve to die.
- Sequel Hook: The story ended with Coolgirl being looked at in the morgue before opening her eyes.
- Shout-Out:
- Batman is mentioned often.
- In her introduction, Laura is questioned by the police chief if she's a fan of the "Twighlight" books, to which Laura responds with by correcting her that it's "Twighlight Zone".
- When V breaks into the library in Athena's chapter, there's a panel showing two book sections of Harry Potter and below it is one called Hairy Potter.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: Dr. IQ is a talented scientist and inventor.
- Spider Tank: IQ uses one of these in her rampage.
- Spoiler Title: The series has a trend of naming chapters after the chapter's antagonist, so seeing Name Princess trying to capture V in the chapter titled 'V vs The Golden Samurai " gives away that she's not going to be the focus of that Story Arc.
- Springtime for Hitler: One villainess in V vs... had an Evil Plan that relies on V escaping her bonds, but because she's not exactly an Escape Artist, that doesn't happen.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Laura says in her first appearance that her weird fetish has nothing to do with vampires. She's lying.
- There Is Another: Coolgirl is secretly a vampire like V. She's not as heroic as she is, unfortunately.
- This Cannot Be!: Coolgirl's reaction to getting tied up by Golden Samurai via Strange Girl's invention.
- This Is Reality: Golden Samurai shuts down V's idea of being like a comic superhero to justify trying to kill Strange Girl, whom she suspects is the killer.Golden Samurai: In comics they have their "codes" and Black-and-White Morality and ridiculous outfits...But we live in the real world! And we have to do what's right! Even when what's right is difficult.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The intelligentsia of Fetishville University cutting down Ivy Quinn's funding results in her going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge in a giant mechanical spider.
- V-Sign: V likes to pull one over her head whenever she introduces herself to criminals.
- Vampire Hunter: Athena allegedly comes from a long line of vampire hunters.
- Versus Title: All the installments are titled this way:
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs The Kinky Kunoichi Klan.
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs Generic Goons.
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs IQ.
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs The Vampire Hunter.
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs The Golden Samurai.
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs The Vampire of Fetishville.
- V The Vampire Vigilante vs The Broken Heart.
- Vigilante Man: V takes matters into her own hands when it comes to enforcing the law. There are some other vigilantes as well.
- Weakened by the Light: Vampires are weakened by sunlight, which is why V fights crime at night. She later exploits this to help Golden Samurai dispose of Coolgirl.
- Wham Episode: The last three chapters.
- "V vs The Golden Samurai" hints that the true identity of the serial killer is Strange Girl herself, and Golden Samurai decides to hunt her down and kill her.
- "V vs The Vampire of Fetishville" continues the previous storyline by having Golden Samurai turn V to the police, capture Strange Girl and attempt to kill her. Thankfully, Laura Strad has already realized that V can't be the killer, so she lets her go and V sets out to save Strange Girl.
- "V vs The Broken Heart" drops the ultimate bombshell by revealing that Coolgirl was a vampire and the killer all along, and battle ensues that ends with her death...Until we see the ending strip.
- Wham Line: From V to Coolgirl: How did you know it was a heart button?
- Wham Shot: Golden Samurai showing V a picture from last murder crime scene of a heart button that Strange Girl made for V's online shop, making it look like Strange Girl is the killer.
- What Are You in For?: K asks L and IQ this question shortly before they are interrogated by Laura.
- We Meet Again: Athena exclaims this when she encounters V the second time.
- World of Action Girls: Most of the characters are vigilantes and criminals who regularly engage in fights with each other. The few exceptions to this are Strange Girl, Laura Strad, L and Ivy Quinn.
