Line #21 FanFic/TheRaggedEdges


1	''The Ragged Edges'' is a long-running ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' fan project created by Mr. Culexus (also known as the creator of Cultist-chan), born out of various /tg/ discussions. Initially created to provide a mentor for Commissar Fuklaw, it took on a life of its own, with its creator diligently working to encompass fanfiction, fanart, a Quest, and a CharacterBlog - even [[AscendedFanon canonizing stories]] written by other people.
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3	The series centers around the titular group, a group of Ordo Xenos soldiers [[MultinationalTeam created primarily from the remnants of various Imperial Guard regiments.]] The primary characters are Conrad Raege, a disgraced commissar, and Alice Boone, a low-grade psyker, with many others assuming the spotlight at points. It follows the adventures and interactions of the group, over the course of a lengthy run of service.
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5	The main materials are [[https://mr-culexus.deviantart.com/gallery/12423256/Ragged-Edges Culexus's own artwork]], [[http://mozai.com/BooneQuest/ Boone Quest]], [[https://asktheraggededges.tumblr.com/ the askblog]], and [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6247881/1/The-Ragged-Edges a take written by fellow 40k fan Staffen]].
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8	!! The overall project provides examples of:
9	* AnachronicOrder: The story is basically told through small snippets of a campaign that lasted a few decades, which come out in basically any order.
10	* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: Downplayed; while all the Edges are actual Imperial Guardsmen, a lot of them have decidedly shady pasts.
11	* ArtEvolution: Compare the flat colors and weird anatomy of the original pinups to the more detailed shading and clearer style of the modern stuff.
12	* BadassCrew: Pretty much any one of the Edges would have been one of the best soldiers in their old regiments. As a unit, they can take on stuff far more dangerous than you'd expect a few dozen Guardsmen to be able to.
13	* BetaCouple: Though "Conralice" is the main relationship of the story, smaller, considerably less-dysfunctional pairups have occurred since then, including Myers/Wesk, Cuddles/Redding, and Minhelm/Yaroslava.
14	* BreakoutCharacter: The original intent of Raege's character was to proved a mentor for /tg/ meme character Commissar Fuklaw. The connection between the two remains, despite the Edges mythos having evolved in a considerably different direction.
15	* BroadStrokes: The Elite-Pirate stories are stated to be mostly accurate, but it's implied that elements of them didn't happen (for instance, Angela and Branz didn't get together).
16	* CanonDiscontinuity: The early story "Boone's First Time" was removed from Deviantart, due to just about everyone involved being OutOfCharacter and the whole thing overall being poorly-written. It's been referenced in BroadStrokes since then, though. Some of the earlier artwork involving the team was also dismissed as being an InUniverse [[SelfDeprecation bad drawing]].
17	* CastFullOfGay: At this point, it'd probably be easier to name the characters who aren't somewhere on the Kinsey scale.
18	* CharacterBlog: [[https://asktheraggededges.tumblr.com/ Ask The Ragged Edges]].
19	* DysfunctionJunction: As one might expect from the team's origin, nearly every character has some variety of personal or psychological issue.
20	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The earliest artwork was considerably goofier and more comedic, and most of the characters had different personalities from what they ended up with.
21	** [[https://www.deviantart.com/mr-culexus/art/Disconought-100509825 The first comic featuring the Ragged Edges (or what would become them) is Raege, Boone and (at least the character who would later become) Zune at a disco watching a Dreadnought get served by a Eversor Assassin that Raege swoons over.]] The dialogue consists almost entirely of {{VideoGame/Dawn of War}} memes.
22	* {{Fanservice}}: Plenty of the characters were originally created as part of a pinup project, and the story still often dives into that.
23	* FourTemperamentEnsemble: The main quartet of the series - Conrad is melancholic, Alice is sanguine, Zune is phlegmatic, and Cuddles is choleric.
24	* HypotheticalCasting: A [[https://asktheraggededges.tumblr.com/post/169651762824/one-for-you-lexy-i-think-youve-touched-on fairly extensive one]] on the askblog - for both English and Japanese, even.
25	* ImprobablyFemaleCast: Probably the only Imperial Guard story you're likely to find where the girls outnumber the guys. It's been implied a few times that the organizer of the team, being a womanizer, did this deliberately.
26	* LighterAndSofter: Considerably more optimistic and humorous than typical 40k stories, though it still very much takes place in that universe. The writer has said that a theme of the story is finding the loving and humanistic parts of living, even in a CrapsackWorld.
27	* MildlyMilitary: Everyone in the Edges has their old regiment's uniforms, and the overall attitude in the group is a lot looser. Zune has claimed that they'd rather buy better food than a group uniform.
28	* MisfitMobilizationMoment: The original reason for the Edges existing.
29	* MultinationalTeam: Well, the Imperial equivalent, anyway.
30	* OnlySixFaces: A common source of SelfDeprecation, though it's improving. In particular, it's often joked that Boone and Cultist are basically the same character but with different clothes.
31	* ShipTease: There's a ''lot'' for Boone and Raege, with WillTheyOrWontThey being a major question.
32	* RememberTheNewGuy: Has happened on occasion, with new characters (including Boddicker, Magpie, and Colton) being introduced with a fairly simple "they were part of the unit before and we just never really met them."
33	* RougeAnglesOfSatin: The creator of the series is dyslexic, which means that typos show up with unfortunate frequency.
34	* ShoutOut: Extremely common, with the biggest targets being ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' and ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''.
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36	!! Boone Quest provides examples of:
37	* AchievementSystem: There's a mock one in place that apparently triggers for plot-relevant or bizarre actions.
38	* AnachronismStew: It may be the 41st Millennium, but it seems a lot of old pop culture has survived to there.
39	* AndYourRewardIsClothes: Parodied; a set of artworks released after the Quest was done detailed all the "alternate outfits" that the players unlocked over the run of the game.
40	* CutAndPasteComic: An unusual one; every character has a "sprite sheet" drawn up, and their actions are created from those sprites, allowing the images to created fairly quickly. Closeup shots are generally original art.
41	* ADayInTheLimelight: Boone was always pretty central, but this is the story to most focus on her, as well as providing a lot of other fairly minor characters with a chance to shine.
42	* LordBritishPostulate: Inverted. Nel was specifically intended to die as a SacrificialLamb; instead, the playerbase ended up using various means provided to them to cure her.
43	* LotusEaterMachine: Boone briefly gets stuck in one, but figures it out when the illusion turns out to be ''too'' nice (as well as having a number of errors).
44	* MoonLogicPuzzle: Some of the more ShoutOut-heavy puzzles really fell into this, requiring some heavy hints to deal with. One of the biggest was a random-looking set of words designed to be connected to each other; as it turned out, they were a mixture of the G1 Dinobots and various characters in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' that shared their voice actors.
45	* MultipleEndings: Despite being a Quest and therefore non-replayable, it's suggested that there were multiple different epilogues planned, which would vary depending on a major conversation in the last portion of the game.
46	* ShoutOut: Probably the most ShoutOut-laden portion of the story. Understanding them was pretty much required for some puzzles.
47	* StoryBreakerPower: Cuddles and Nada, the two strongest members of the crew, spend most of the story away from the action or out of commission, and neither are ever usable companions, likely because if they were usable, their powers would amount to "I win." (In fairness, Nada is out for other reasons as well.)

Context FanFic / TheRaggedEdges