Origin Eight is an web-original story by Lindsey Moore (alternately known as purple-tangerine or strixOwl on the internet). It is still a work in progress, but can be read here
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The story centers around a World in the Sky, consisting of many different islands. The thing is, no one on the islands knows there is a world outside, they each think their island is the only one. Some of them aren't even aware they are on a floating island at all.
That is until a lost sock blows in on the wind, into a town where everyone is barefoot and they never invented shoes. It is found by a young boy who, struck by curiosity for the first time in his life, decides to find out where it came from. He unknowingly becomes the catalyst for an adventure to show the world that, yes, there is such thing as somewhere else.
Notable for not having a proper villain, or an individual protagonist.
Origin Eight provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Paper tries to be this, but tends to fail. Played straight with Zig.
- All Monks Know Kung-Fu: Played with. All the monks are trained in a martial art, but it's not kung fu, it's a form of Aikido.
- Break the Cutie: Cerl, in his introductory chapter. He practically comes pre-broken, really.
- Cats Are Mean: Zig, who is an anthropomorphic tiger.
- Closer to Earth: Orange, mostly in relation to Paper.Paper: If you see some strangers getting chased by an angry mob, what else can you do?
Orange: Run away from the mob! - Con Women Hate Guns: Played with in Zig; she doesn't avoid guns because they're dishonorable, but because knives are more fun.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The shadow people in Ashen Town.
- Dramatic Unmask: Skullmy, when Zig hits him in the face and shatters it.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Quite a few characters, notably Skull Mask (which is his rank in his religious order), and the Oldest Woman in the World. Subverted with the Aviator, since that's actually his name.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Note, to the painful extreme.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: A female example in Paper and Orange.
- Hyperlink Story: The cast doesn't fully assemble until the thirteenth chapter. And even then, there are outside forces that the audience never properly meets.
- Iconic Item: The sock. Played around with in Orange's namesake hoodie, as she only has it for about 1/3 of the story.
- Jumped at the Call: Paper, although it's more like "Jumped at the call and then fell flat on her face", at first.
- Light Is Not Good: The monter's surrounding The City are almost completely white, including their eyes.
- Messianic Archetype: The boy from Wren Town.
- Mooks: Skull Mask is one, although he doesn't realize it. Zig likes to lampshade it quite a lot.
- Never Recycle a Building: Averted. Most of the buildings in Neosen City were abandoned, but were re-purposed by thieves.
- Not a Morning Person: Paper, who has to be dragged out of bed by her ankles.
- #1 Dime: The stick Cerl carries around, from the tree in his hometown.
- Prophet Eyes: Cerl has these, although he has no special powers because of it. The City's monsters have them as well.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Zig has them. Justified in that she's essentially a tiger.
- The Blank: The Aviator
- The Sky Is an Ocean
- The Stoic
- The Unreveal: Skull Mask offers to tell Zig his real name, but she replies she's still call him "Skullmy" anyway.
- Unusual Eyebrows: Skull Mask has no eyebrows, and Cerl's are very tiny.
- Vague Age: All the characters. Justified, in that all the islands would have different calendars, so it would be very difficult to compare ages.
- White Mask of Doom: Subverted; Skull Mask's namesake is a religious symbol, and there's nothing creepy about the character.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Or Whole Chapter Flashback...
- Cerl and the Last Tree, up until the very end.
- Also Lake of Vision.
- World in the Sky
