Line #32 Webcomic/SpaceBoy


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ooooooooo_4.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Amy and Oliver]]
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4	Amy is from a mining colony in deep space. Born with Synesthesia, Amy has always found that people come in 'Flavors.' Her mom is minty, her dad is hot chocolate, and her best friend is pineapple. After her father loses his job, her family is cryogenically frozen for the 30 year trip to Earth. Upon arrival, she is tired, unhappy and has much to complain about the strange new world she lives in and the friends she had to leave behind. After finally attending school and coming to grips with her new situation, she starts to open up and make new friends. It seems like Amy could enjoy a relatively normal life on Earth after all. And then she meets Oliver, a person with no Flavor.
5
6	Space Boy is a webcomic created by Stephen Mccranie, which can be read on [[http://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/space-boy/list?title_no=400 Webtoons]], and paperback volumes are available to purchase. It started in March 2015 and is currently on its fifth (and possibly final) story arc. The wiki can also be found [[http://space-boy.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Boy_Wikia here]].
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8	----
9	!! ''Space Boy'' shows examples of:
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11	* AbsenceOfEvidence: Why does Amy become interested by Oliver in the first place? [[TastesLikePurple His lack of a flavor.]]
12	* ActionSurvivor: Amy is able to [[spoiler: survive on her own after Saito tries to hunt her down to kill her, and is even capable of fighting off a robot drone sent to do the job before hand.]]
13	* AdvancedTech2000: The FCP's signature blaster is called the "Ion Blaster 1100".
14	* AffablyEvil: Langely and the FCP, for the most part. They don't see themselves as bad guys and are perfectly willing to talk things out with Amy - Langely is even pretty polite about it - but they're also okay with imprisoning juveniles and sending drones to kill people. It's hinted that they'd be more Affable and less Evil if it wasn't for [[spoiler:He who Wander's influencing the FCP by tainting everyone's essence and bringing out the worst in them.]]
15	** [[spoiler:He who Wanders begins to develop a very hip and friendly attitude towards Amy to make her feel more amicable towards him in the third arc and drops most of his cryptic prophet act. This doesn't stop him from playing with her emotions and letting her succumb to a panic attack when she refuses his help during a mental episode. This is still the same guy who tried to possess Oliver, after all.]]
16	* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: [[spoiler: Oliver's secret transmission to HQ during the dance. Amy gets kidnapped, Oliver says that if she gets hurt in any way, that Langley and the others will never see the inside of the Artifact. He even says he'll go right past it into a black hole, before saying that he loves Amy.]]
17	* AlphaBitch: Downplayed and deconstructed with Cassie, a pushy but otherwise reasonable highschool girl at the center of her circle of friends who doesn't realize how hurtful she can be to others. [[spoiler:Her attitude ends up costing Cassie her relationship with her boyfriend, which forces her into some self-reflection.]]
18	* AndYourLittleDogToo: Saito needs authorization to kill people, therefore she can't threaten people with the lives of others. Pets on the other hand... like Tammie’s puppy, not so much.
19	* AnimeHair: How in the world do Amy's pigtails stand up like that?
20	* ArcSymbol: The teardrop shape of the Artifact, which is reflected on Amy's yellow shirt and the stylized orange drops that appear when Oliver shows a bit of his real personality. Amy's impossible pigtails take a loose teardrop shape, too.
21	** The bird that flies past the train window when Amy first arrives on Earth, which tends to show up at moments of transition.
22	** Jemmah and Amy's smiley face with the tongue sticking out. Amy draws it on Oliver's hand when they first meet.
23	* ArcWords: "In space, the stars don't twinkle."
24	** "I'm glad you exist,'' as well.
25	* ArtEvolution: [=McCranie=]'s artstyle is very simplistic at first. Amy's colors are muted and she has dot-eyes. It transitions into something much more {{Animesque}} partway through the first arc.
26	* ArtShift: Some of the lil’ Amy strips play around with the art style. One Christmas special was made from pictures of actual clay and paper crafts the author created to make everything look like something from a stop motion Christmas movie.
27	* AugmentedReality: The Netgear glasses that everyone wears are essentially AR smartphones that basically everyone on Earth wears.
28	* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler:Jemmah and Dylan grew up, got married and had kids in the thirty years Amy was asleep.]]
29	* BadLiar: Amy is this.
30	* BlandNameProduct: [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic “Puffy Pets: Love is Magic”]] is a saccharine tv show about a bunch of plushy animals who live together and learn life lessons. Oliver’s an avid watcher of it, apparently.
31	* BloodFromTheMouth: [[spoiler:After drinking some tea offered by Langley, Saito begins coughing. The coughs severe, she coughs up blood, she realizes exactly what she drank, but it's too late...]]
32	* BreakHerHeartToSaveHer: After Saito [[spoiler: threatens to have [[HeKnowsTooMuch Amy killed]] when she and Oliver begin to get close]], he ends their friendship immediately, with absolutely no warning and without giving a reason.
33	* BreakTheCutie: Tamara's interrogation from Saito. [[spoiler:She ends up selling Amy out under the threat of having her [[AndYourLittleDogToo dog killed]]. She feels pretty awful about it.]] [[spoiler:Later still when she's given a memory wipe of the entire incident from the FCP, she wallows about depressed and confused - she ''knows'' something's wrong, but nobody else believes what she tells them and think she's still in shock.]]
34	* BreatherEpisode: On occasion, there are Lil'Amy episodes, which feature Amy as a child on the space colony.
35	* BroodingBoyGentleGirl: Oliver is the Brooding Boy to Amy's Gentle Girl.
36	* CastOfSnowFlakes: Everyone has a distinct face, hairstyle, and body type, and yes, sometimes we’re told what their flavor is.
37	* ChekhovsClassroom: In the second episode, Amy's teacher instructs the class about The Artifact, which ends up being the driving factor in the overarching plot.
38	* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: Amy has yellow, and Oliver blue.
39	* DeathByIrony: [[spoiler:Saito, the commander with poison in her flavor, gets poisoned by her boss. Whoops.]]
40	* DeathFakedForYou: [[spoiler:After Amy is taken and recruited to the FCP, they cover it up by claiming she died in a kidnapping attempt. When Amy finds out, she is understandably not happy about it.]]
41	* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: The entire second arc of the story is devoted to [[spoiler: Oliver's family and the fellow passengers of the Arno, who all ended up dead.]]
42	* EmotionalWhiplash: Episode 264 goes from Qiana admitting that she sees Amy as a friend to Oliver accidentally making Amy cry.
43	* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Everyone can tell that Amy has a crush on Oliver.
44	* EvilSmellsBad: An interesting twist: Amy's synesthesia means that for particularly evil people like Saito and Langley, she tastes poison. [[spoiler:This is actually a sign of the Wanderer's influence over people; copper and iodine tainting someone's 'flavor' means he has some sort of hold over them. Saito had it particularly bad given how her entire flavor was overpowered.]]
45	** Subverted for [[spoiler:Mr Silber]] from the FCP. He does the FCP's dirty work and covers up incidents, and might even play a part in 'erasing' certain people... but he has no poison in his flavor. Everything he does is completely his own choice, with no outside influence.
46	* ExtremelyShortTimespan: The entire first story arc - Amy's family coming to Earth up till the incident at the School Dance- takes place within a few months. Likewise, The second story arc takes place over a couple weeks. The comic has over 200 episodes, with just around eighty for each story arc.
47	* FieryRedhead: Cassie. According to the little flavor cards the author wrote up for everyone, she's "ready to fight her her friends. Or maybe just ready to fight."
48	* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler: We already know Oliver is TheSoleSurvivor of his ship. So when we finally get his backstory, it's pretty clear everyone is going to die.]]
49	* FreudianExcuse: Cassie realizes her horrible relationship in middle school has contributed more to her combative personality than she thought. [[spoiler: It's what eventually breaks David and Cassie up.]]
50	* TheFuture: A bit over a thousand years into the future, which may or not be an AlternateUniverse given how strange the geography is: Vietnamerica, Britaly, Nihongolia, Babylogypt.
51	** Dr. Lesnik's work with ancient "Babylogyptian" implies the story takes place in an alternate universe, or an alternate history.
52	* GenerationShip: The Arno. Designed for a multi-hundred year journey into deep space in pursuit of an alien artifact. [[spoiler:It didn't make it.]]
53	* GeniusesHaveMultiplePhDs: The prosthetist Dr. Jonathan Kim reminds Oliver that he has three [=PhDs=] when he doubts his advice.
54	* GoodIsNotDumb: Due to her sweet, naive nature, Amy is underestimated often. But she's much more intuitive than she appears and gets herself out of more than a few scrapes when her life is at risk.
55	** Downplayed for that last part: [[spoiler: He Who Wanders ‘grafted’ a survival instinct into Amy to ensure she would '''not''' die until he was done with her.]]
56	* GoodParents: Amy's mom and dad; stern when they need to be but abundantly loving of their daughter. [[spoiler: They’re absolutely devastated when Amy goes missing.]]
57	** [[spoiler:Jemmah and Dylan to their girls.]]
58	** Subverted with Dr. Kim. [[spoiler:He split up with his wife after their own son died]]. He still wants to be a good mentor for Oliver, but he's not always up to the challenge.
59	* HeKnowsTooMuch:
60	** [[spoiler: The First Contact Projec regularly deposes of anyone who learns even a little bit about Oliver or what actually happened on the Arno. Commander Saito threatens to have Amy killed if Oliver tells her any more information about him. As soon as Amy sees the RFP plugged in, the FCP begins actively trying to murder her. Ironically, they assume she knows what she does because she's a highly trained counteragent of some kind - not just, you know, a friendly person who cares about Oliver.]]
61	** [[spoiler:Qiana was forced to stay at the FCP headquarters under Saito's care after she witnesses the accident that vaporized the Arno's crew.]]
62	* HopelessSuitor: Poor Zeph... Amy's pretty oblivious to his attempts at getting her to notice him, and she doesn't quite realize that him inviting her to the school dance is a romantic gesture.
63	* HumanPopsicle: Cryogenic freezing is necessary for long space voyages. [[spoiler:The FCP also holds long-term prisoners in cryosleep, including Qiana's father.]]
64	* IncurableCoughOfDeath: [[spoiler:Saito has a painful coughing fit after her tea is poisoned, followed by BloodFromTheMouth - and she literally drops dead.]]
65	* IHaveYourWife: [[spoiler:Amy's fate at the end of the first arc; she's captured by the FCP.]]
66	* InformedAttribute: Apparently Amy has a faint "off-world accent". Cassie thinks it's cute.
67	* IntergenerationalFriendship: Sixteen-year-old Amy, and Jemmah, who is around forty-six by the time they get in contact again. Jemmah is still thrilled to hear from Amy and they fall right back into their old friendship.
68	** Also, Amy and Pammy, an elderly woman from the reintegration facility.
69	* LostCommonKnowledge: Among the things Amy has no knowledge of: baseball, snails, windmills.
70	** When he was ten, Oliver had no idea what ''wood'' was. [[spoiler: His father gave him a wooden case with a compass in it as a gift. He had to tell him that the case itself wasn't the present.]]
71	* MistakenForBadass: Amy, of all people.
72	-->'''Riggs''': For this to happen tonight of all nights, when we're moving your lab and so vulnerable to espionage... It's too much of a coincidence. If you ask me this is the work of a covert ops specialist with years of field experience.\
73	'''Amy''': ''(thinking)'' ...or a scared high schooler with a bunch of dumb luck...
74	* MysticalWhiteHair: Oliver. [[spoiler: His father had it too.]]
75	* NeverBeHurtAgain: When she was just a middle schooler, Cassie was exploited and abused by a boy three years older than her. In fear of someone hurting her and the people she cared about again, she became extremely controlling in her relationships, going so far as to having problems with what her boyfriend David chose to eat in the cafeteria. [[spoiler:This results in their breakup, which made [[CharacterDevelopment Cassie realize that she was dealing with her trauma the wrong way]]]].
76	* NiceGirl: For all her flaws and confusions, Amy is above all an incredibly empathetic and sweet girl.
77	* NoNewFashionsInTheFuture: Averted. Some styles look similar to modern fashion, but other outfits look completely different.
78	* ParentsAsPeople: Amy's parents, her mom in particular, aren't afraid to scold her and show some of the typical parental tropes, but their love and care for their daughter is genuine and it's easy to tell they love their daughter very much.
79	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Dr. Kim. He stops Oliver from telling Amy the truth about himself, but it's in the interest of her own safety and he's completely right.
80	* [[spoiler:RidiculouslyHumanRobots: After a fashion. Oliver's not a robot, but he's remotely controlling a full-body prosthetic that is so convincing that Amy has taken his hand and not been able to tell it's artificial. All of Dr. Kim's creations are this.]]
81	* SceneryPorn: Wide shots almost always tend to be this. The first panel of Episode 7 is a good example.
82	* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Rather successfully averted - humans had to develop a new kind of elemental fuel to send rockets across the galaxy, and even then the trip takes decades, for which passengers must be in cryogenic stasis.
83	* ShipperOnDeck: Amy ships Tamara and Schafer. [[spoiler: It sails]].
84	* [[spoiler:SoleSurvivor]]: [[spoiler:Oliver, after everyone else on the Arno, meaning everyone he had ever known his whole life, are vaporized when the ship's shield generator failed]].
85	* ThousandYardStare: In Episode 18, Amy describes Oliver's stare by saying "I'm struck with the sense that he's not looking at me. He's looking through me, at something far away."
86	* TitleDrop: During Oliver's flashback, we learn that Space Boy is the name of a hero he would pretend to be as a kid.
87	* TooUnhappyToBeHungry: Happens numerous times to [[spoiler:Amy after she joins the FCP, particularly after sleepless nights due to panic attacks.]]
88	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: [[spoiler:On the Arno, Biggy cuts a wire in a dead fuse box which sets off a dangerous electric shockwave, which not only very likely kills him, but speeds up the blackout that ends up destroying the Arno's shield generator, which results in the death of ''every passenger on board''.]]
89	* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Saito seems to have no issue with killing Amy. In fact, the FCP in general is willing to kill anyone, child or adult, who learns too much.]]

Context Webcomic / SpaceBoy