Roommates has some of these too.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: The four main charactersnote are not canonically all "good guys" as it were, however in here, they are seen with a more sympathetic light. Thankfully, AsheRhyder tends not to go for Draco In Leather Pantsing or Ron the Deatheatering, instead focusing on given the characters room for Character Development.
- Angst? What Angst?: With his cheerful demeanor, Jack Frost really surprised Erik when he told him what he knows about solitude and loneliness. 300 years, not seen or heard and unable to touch anybody.
- Canon Defilement: There were readers leaving the comic because they thought it simplified the characters into archetypes at the beginning and later for the Character Development changing them too much. This is just not a series for canon purists, and leave it that.
- Continuity Lockout: The series is hard to get in midway or without doing an Archive Binge first... and don't even try mid-arc. With the massive Mind Screws it throws at the readers, those are hard enough to follow with knowing characters and continuity.
- Creepy Awesome: The Erlkönig is on both the Nightmare Fuel and the Heartwarming subpage and also inspires a fair amount of Squee every time he appears. For a lesser extent also Dark!Jareth, mostly because of the almost Woobie status of his normal personality.
- Creepy Cute: The Shadow Child at the end at least where he finally displayed emotion outside of dismay. Several readers wanted to take him home with them.
- Cry for the Devil: At the end of The Wild Hunt arc, when through Javert the audience understood The Shadow Child just before he got defeated.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: The Erlkönig again. Just look at his trope list, he obviously even has fangirls here. Also according to this poll many people are for him getting A Day in the Limelight / Villain Episode.
- Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: Readers are actually encouraged to analyze the shit out of this comic as according to Ashe there is almost no way to over-think a Roommates storyline. The fans (and the editor of this page) still valiantly try. Not that they succeed. As the series builds heavily on symbolism, deliberate invoking of tropes and playing with concepts like fictionality/reality it's not that much of a surprise. For the series defense Faux Symbolism is extremely rare so everything probably means something, just can you guess it?
- The WMG page here is nothing compared to the Epileptic Forests that get planted in almost every comment section.
- And to be literal this series can be seen as a kind of Mundane Afterlife for fictional characters.
- Fan Nickname:
- The Verse is the Building-verse.
- Jareth doesn't teleport (or uses magic in general) he (Glitter) Poofs (named after the Sound Effect and most common residue).
- *Poof* is also known as the Sound Effect Of Doom (also *Snap* and *Ah-choo!* gets this name sometimes).
- The Erlkönig's full Sue Donym is Lord Errol King.
- The main cast members without Erik are the "J"s.
- Erik's Internet Science Club is Team Curiosity Etc.
- Fanon Discontinuity:
- Gateway Series: Oh, boy. More like the less popular Megacrossover Fan Webcomic equivalent of TV Tropes in its Gateway Drug properties as it doesn't lead to a specific genre but to each and every fandom it references.
- Growing the Beard: The series went through significant Continuity Creep and Art Evolution but it's generally agreed that sometime between the Second Vacation arc and the Dark!Jareth arc managed to find it's true voice... or at least this is where most readers realized that they weren't reading just a silly little fancomic anymore.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Let's just say that after the Dark!Jareth arc Jareth's well-meaning but missguided or misunderstood antics become a lot less funny... For him acting good is going against his Canon and that has a price.
- To a lesser extent, Kid!Jamie's crybaby persona makes a lot more sense when you consider his canon family life... something which the author xirself was unaware of at the time of writing.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In the Artist comment of one of the first 2007 "proto-strips" Ashe complained that (s)he finds it hard to come up with ideas for this comic. Here. 2012 and still ongoing!
- Also Word of God in the Oz arc: the Wizard is a pushover but The White Witch of Narnia could give Jareth trouble... Years later Pika made her his mother.
- An even older proto-strip has Jareth declaring in The Rant that Ashe won't get 1000 more pageviews. Yeah divination isn't his forte either.
- Ho Yay: Az and Crowley.
- Javert and Valjean. Especially in the omake. You know the one. They got their own Spin-Off Superintendent. They also became Official Couple later.
- Jareth and Erik
- Jareth and James
- Erik and Jack.
- Glinda/Ozma for some readers, for the others No Yay.
- Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Jareth tends to be shipped with most of the cast at least jokingly (even if most fans prefer the Jareth/Sarah pairing).
- James too.
- Love to Hate: The Living Words/Story almost universally.
- For some, The Shadow Child/Disbelief too.
- And Glinda, albeit she doesn't see herself as a villain.
- Mind Game Ship: Mr. King/Mrs. Norrington are a pretty evenly matched one in the manipulation department. ( The Gadfly, one manipulates for his own agenda the other For the Lulz, and because she can.)
- One-Scene Wonder: The Erlking's daughter was this for long.
- One True Threesome: Kings War gave people Éponine/James/Erik.
- Pandering to the Base: This is a fandom comic created by a fan for fans (mostly fangirls, some things are done For Science! this comic For Meta! and For SQUEE!). Thank goodness Ashe knows where (s)he can give in (like adding cameo's from Sherlock to Loki) and the fandom is a highly devoted (and analytical) one.
- Rewatch Bonus: Oh boy. It would be a miracle if you could catch all the foreshadowing, continuity nods, symbolism etc. at the first reading. (Nobody claims to ever do it either... newer comments on older pages go "OMG. How did I miss the _____, when I first read this?!" often.)
- The Scrappy: Being one is an official death sentence in this comic.
- Ugly Cute: Jareth's minions in general.
- Viewer Gender Confusion: Some people thought Socks might be a girl.
- The Woobie:
- James Norrington (Ashe even calls him this, so join the OH NO! James! club) because well he is the Token Good Teammate and as we know Being Good Sucks. As of Kings War give him enough power and kill someone he cares for and let's just say Beware the Nice Ones.
- Socks, wished away child from at least neglectful if not outright abusive family, trapped in Jareth's court... whose biggest wish is someone who cares. He would die for such a someone. And that's literal.
- Jerkass Woobie: Jareth as he tries to fit in way too hard while being blessed with nonhuman personality traits (for which you will want to punch him, a lot) and a family from hell. Word of warning: He could go Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds if pushed too far.
- Stoic Woobie: Javert at least since the Wild Hunt arc, just check out how he won.
The YMMV tropes for Lakótársak:
- Woolseyism: The translator admittedly tries to do this. How much she does Cultural Translation is debatable, she did change some general references to the local equivalents but never anything that is an actual Shout-Out to shows / movies / books / etc. (but she does try to modify it according to the localization of the source material... she routinely does Take Thats about translation inconsistencies). Some examples include:
- Changing the Media Classifications to the local ones (Original Localized).
- Adhering to the local writing custom of Avoiding Brand Names (so no Dramamine just motion-sickness medicine).
- Changing the Erlkönig's Runic Wingdinglish to a "Székely-Magyar Rovásírás" one (this to this).
- Speaking of Mr. King. He is the only one whose name got "Translated" (albeit Legolas and Frodo are also close, thanks to the original localization of their source material) so he is Király úr (T. Király Vilmos Rémusz) here. The full alias is a Shout-Out to the different translations of the original poemnote .
- She also tries to keep the subtitle alliterations / puns (or find an appropriate equivalent) not the more literal meaning.