I'm pretty sure this character is gonna remain divisive even after SV releases but given the six-month window I'm gonna keep it here until it's passed.
- Within 0.5 milliseconds after her reveal, Iono proved to be one of the most divisive Gym Leaders in the series. Some find her to be endearing and adorable, while others find her overly obnoxious and a blatant attempt to appeal to "coomers". Additionally, her detractors see her as a desperate attempt by the series to stay hip with the times, with her presence potentially causing Scarlet and Violet to become an
Unintentional Period Piece.
鹿), respectively. These characters are the two halves of the word 馬鹿 ("baka"), the Japanese word for "fool".
- Suck Out the Poison: Myouga to both Inu-papa and Ryakki when they're exposed to miasma for too long.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Inu-papa to Akagane in chapter 120 in an effort to convince him not to consider his death in the upcoming battle to be an inevitability.He favorites EVERY Nymph/Lost Girl fanart...
Not the ones where she's wearing clothes! That's how I roll, motherfucker!
I seriously want to do a Shadow the Hedgehog parody thing with the Nymph but I kinda already did that with Dove, but not really. (I just wrote a quick oneshot I don't even remember and feel too embarrassed to look at)
Finished Last Airbender Yesterday, Started Korra Today
No Dryad or Nymph is going to put on (more) clothes (than they wear in canon) in these by the way.
Sonata is still a placeholder name.
"How the fuck is this ''Avatar"-inspired" I'm uncreative I can always site a big story thing to something similar I was looking up; I rewatch the thing, my interest in that story/fanfic pops back up.
- Joy+Roy: Bayonetta.
- This: Avatar series. Because of the whole Last of His Kind thing.
This probably only exists because of one certain guy's drawing of the Nymph and my subsequent six-month obsession in silence before I finally said something about it.
- Long ago, the forces of Life and the Undead were in balance. My people, the Dryads, or as we once were called Jungle Nymphs,— Tania.
The Zenith Nymph Series is a set of Terraria fanfiction by Great Pikmin Fan/NeedsMoreDeepWater. All of them are set in the same "general world" — the vanilla game with a large heap of new, yet set-in-stone locations added, and with several recurring "bosses." However, most of them are alternate universes to one-another, having their own continuities.
The main story in this series is Romancing the Last Dryad, which also happens to be its most explicit. It's a romantic comedy adventure
I might make sections for ZNA itself, but for now it's just RTLD
- Comic Trio:Tania: ...You want me to teach you how to master the powers of the Undead?
Sonata: Yes.
Tania: You realize that there are still hundreds of millions of your kind, right? About a million of which are masters? I'm the only one of my kind, and my kind does the exact opposite of your kind.
Sonata: I know! Just teach me your kind of magic so I could do the exact opposite of it!
Tania: ...Really?
Sonata: Hey, I'm really good at doing the opposite of what you tell me to do.
No Context; Random Bullshit I Thought of, Few if Any of These are Likely to be in the Final Story, Some Might be in Joy+Roy Instead
Joy+Roy still exists and is still being written so please no complaining of "Do something original instead of using someone else's characters"
- Sonata: That was nice!
Vince: I feel like we forgot to do something, though.
(The top part of the Dungeon explodes.)
Vince: Ahhh... SHIT!Unsure, definitely not any type of Nymph because they would be wearing way too much: This is my real power! (Transforms in to a poodle with pink frilly stuff.)
This one I have context for! Here's a hint: Seinfeld, and I'm doing a King of the Hill shitpost where Dale, Bill, Boomhauer, and someone else (haven't decided who) try the same thing. Trust me the interrobangs aren't overstating.
- (Tania angrilly walks in to the room, to the middle of the table.)
Tania: (Takes out twenty gold and slams it on the table. Vince and Sonata both look at her, shocked.)
Tania: ...I'm out.
Vince: Really?!
Sonata: You mean I have a chance at winning this?!
Vince: Wait, you thought Tania was going to win?!
Sonata: You didn't?!
Vince: Why did you take the bet in the first place?!!
Sonata: ...Cuz I just wanted to beat you at something like this. (To Tania) So what did it?! It was Arborea, right? Harsahne? Seriously, why did you lose first?
Madeline: It was because of health complications, wasn't it? I warned you three idiots about that. (Sips coffee.)
Tania: (Sighs.) It's [I'll come up with something when I do. But right now I haven't.]
Out of Context Transcript
(If someone wants to draw this instead of me feel free to, you don't even need to give credit, I just want it to exist and chances are you'll draw better than me anyway.)
.GIFfany is "dressed"
- .GIFfany: If Pyronica can show her butt, so can I!
Pyronica: Hee hee hee!
Soos: (Shrugs) That sounds okay..GIFfany: If Rumble can walk around shirtless, I should be able to too!
(Rumble is kinda having a heart attack.)
Soos: (Shrugs) Makes sense to me!.GIFfany: Bill wears nothing but a hat and bow tie, so I should—
Soos: (Is obscuring her genitals.) Okay I think you're going a little too far with this.
Bill: (Laughing his literally flat ass off.)
Playable Characters — Regular
Percy
Pecival "Percy" [Name that might vaguely sound like "cent"]
- Origin: Per Cent itself/Original
Spin Man
- Origin: Originalnote
Diane
- Origin: Steve Buhvillen's Intriguing Group
A member of a race known as "Magmeletons" that hates being forced down from something by nonsense sexist traditions, she trained herself to become strong at a young age through a process that ended with her spending one month on the sun itself to absorb its energy. This process would likely kill Magmeletons unless they were hardened for it, and as it turned out, she was. Finding out that having vast amounts of power still meant that she can easily change society (without force that she would not resort to), she sank in to a frustrated inactivity, until she met five other people and teamed up with them to destroy a large evil empire. She is unlocked through the "Flaming Cave" Arcade game,
- Terse Talker: She very rarely says anything in dialogue scenes, to the point of almost being a Heroic Mime. Her 16-bit Dating Sim counterpart is far more talkative than she is.
Stella
- Origin: Blessed, Unfortunately"What, were you expecting some kind of heroic knight in shining armor? Haha, sorry! I'd rather be one too!"
Joy and Roy
Joy Reibal and Roy Geebilv
- Origin: Joy+Roy
In a pair of universes where demons and angels exist and both of them suck, Roy, a human from one universe unaware of them, and Joy, a human from the other universe where they had been known to the general public for about a century, both found themselves getting wrapped up in missions to take down the evil god of their respective dimension with the help of a lot of demons. Over time, their friends meet up with each other, leading up to they themselves meeting up and becoming a couple. After finding the "Dudeality" Arcade,
In gamepay, Joy and Roy are both played simultaneously
Taro
Taro Toestar
- Take That!: Water has serious
Creator Backlash towards the UPOIC trilogy, and as a result he made its playable representative shitty out of pure spite. In fact, he is one of the few characters whose alternate counterpart is in some ways easier than him, and that's saying a lot because Magenta-Taro isn't a cakewalk himself.
Series not gonna be represented:
- Hexadecisland (Too similar to Per Cent proper and honestly I'm not feeling too hot about it, I feel like half the ideas I already did much better on Joy+Roy and stuff, and the other half... well, because of the first half, that other half might be better off getting yet another fresh start.)
- Gore Truck (It'd be funny but I'm adamant on the whole "nine characters only" thing, not counting their dupes, )
Playable Characters — "Magentaverse"
"Fused" Percy
[Yeah I'm probably dropping whatever the "lightspeed" thing was gonna be, never gave it any thought.]
"Hallow" Spin Man
"Burnt" Diane
Diane Mohdez
Diane's alternate comes from a timeline where she took another trip to the sun in a dire time, towards a deeper part of it, one that... depending on how you look at it, was either more or less successful. Instead of coming out unscratched, she has burn scars all over her, messed up hair, and she is a lot skinnier. She starts with much less damage, but has a one-use-per-Date "Sin Flame" item that gives her a massive temporary stat boost based on the number of enemies around at once, which soon fades over time. Diane lights on fire during this and her skeleton becomes visible through her skin. She is meant to be a sort of "panic button character."
- Covered with Scars: Burn scars, from pushing herself by going deeper in to the sun than what she could withstand.
- Sanity Slippage: Downplayed. This Diane is a tad bit... unhinged at Steve and especially Hammithan's deaths. She quite literally threw herself in to the sun because of it, if in a way that makes sense in context.
- Not Sure: She effectively becomes Ghost Rider [uh specifically vague memories of seeing the movie years ago], her head is still there but the skull shines so brightly it looks like she just has the skull surrounded by flame, and she skates rather than riding on anything. Still, her transformation is based on being surrounded by evil
"Knighted" Stella
Stella Fortyyismah
Stella's counterpart had taken her studying for heroship much more seriously, and has finally earned herself a form of magic to use for herself, namely by drawing the power of sevennote planet-based "assists." This comes at the cost of her maximum health only being five hearts total.
- Blindfolded Vision: She purposefully blindfolds herself to better focus her powers, although it's only in combat — she's seen taking off her blindfold during her "rest animation," or even in certain pre-boss cutscenes, and she has her blindfold off in most of her talk portraits too.
- Empowered Badass Normal: Stella was already a skilled powerless fighter, one of the best named ones in her source story (although most powerless heroes aren't named so this isn't that much competition), but this Stella with powers is even tougher.
- Took a Level in Badass: Stella easily got the long end of the stick in the B-Sides, as while what happened to her general world was pretty bad, she wound up taking it with stride and came out unscratched or beaten compared to the other protagonists, instead becoming a holy knight with astronomy-themed powers.
"Linked" Joy and Roy
Joy and Roy's alternate selves are "linked" and have perpetual demon magic going through the both of them.
"Voided" Taro
Taro Toestar
Taro's alternate has his Green Gem ripped right out of his chest, leaving an empty black hole. This somehow makes him nearly invincible — rather than being a One-Hit-Point Wonder with a once-a-Date-shield, taking a hit as him simply turns him in to a statue for half a second. Regular enemies cannot beat him at all. However, ten seconds in to a Date, an angry, demonic, spider version of Ishiko holding both Gems will appear and start approaching him. If she touches him, she drags him off to Hell— sorry, Sheol, and the match instantly ends.
- Beyond the Impossible: Unviewable established that entering Sheol required one of a few rituals, all of which are specific and all of which are layed out before the first installment was over. Ishiko manages to be the first-ever known demon to bypass all of them,
- Body Horror: In case it wasn't enough that "Taro's heart" was technically in his father's body since he was born (and so on for other generations and their firstborns) and he has a magic gemstone in its place, but this is what happens when the Gem is ripped out before his death. Taro spends the whole game going out with a gaping, pitch-black hole in his chest, but he otherwise looks fine.
- Dragged Off to Hell: Well, Sheol, but when Ishiko catches him, she opens a portal to Sheol and drags him down there.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: B-Sides confirms that he has this mindset, and it shows here. While he's technically immortal, any strong enough "harm" immobilizes him. Annoying enough on its own, but he's also constantly being chased by a pissed off fourth wall-breaking demon, who may or may not be able to actually "kill" him but will definitely drag him off to A Fate Worse Than Death.
Bosses
Dragon Lord
Gold Lord
Oculus Lady
Rice Lord, Rick (Spoiler Character)
- Act: 4/The Lab
The True Final Boss (Spoiler Character)
Modesty, the Summoned One
- Act: The Beach
It turns out that to some degree you "de-inkifying" the CGs of the Cent Slimes is canon to a degree.
- Angelic Abomination: Her fourth form resembles a series of discs of "black light" intersperced with dove-like wings that have faces on them, and her fight in this form is accompanied by a loud heavenly choir. It's designed to be a grimmer-looking Galeem.
- Boss Bonanza: You first fight a more human-looking Modesty in the post-apocalyptic ruins of the title Beach, then she turns in to a laser beam and blasts a hole in the ground. Falling in the hole has you fight a shape-shifting mass that turns in to four different forms, each with its own versus splash screen, followed by fighting a massive One-Winged Angel Modesty as a gigantic skeleton.
- Censor Box: She is implied to be them personified. She
- Chekhov's Gun: You know that ink you've been cleaning off of the fanservice images of the Slimes? Yeah, that's somewhat caused by her, although the canonicity of the whole "clearing the fanservice images" is debatable.
- Faux Affably Evil: Don't be fooled by her general larger-than-life personality and cheery announcements; she is an eldritch horror that turns the planet in to an apocalytic wasteland just after being summoned, and her "terriffic audience" is a bunch of mind-controlled skeletons, zombies, and ghosts. She also has zero issue eating the people who summoned and worshipped her.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
- The sixth and final versus splash screen shows her looming over the player character... but her eyes — or rather, the glowing lights in her eyesockets — are looking at the player.
- The achievement for beating her as any character, "Unmodest," just has a description from her POV reading "You might be able to escape me, ignore me, fight against me, but you will never completely get rid of me." The icon is a sprite of her looking at the viewer with a confident smirk.
- Gainax Ending: Percy's ending with her is a straightforward Golden Ending, and "Magentaverse" Percy's is a straightforward Bittersweet Ending. The others... are a bit more broad. Both Taros suddenly turn in to ink and get absorbed with Modesty as she disappears,
- Godiva Hair: Her default look/first form invokes this, to a smaller extent than Witchita, with the hair just "carefully" around her breasts, over her groin, and in a rarity for DeepWater, even over her butt to an extent. Subverted as she takes damage, first her ink-hair stops covering her ass, then her breasts, and then finally on the last third of health (again, for her first form) it disappears between her legs... only to reveal a comically large amount of pubic hair obscuring her anyway.
- Greater-Scope Villain: She's implied to be this to Water Works in general, many (not all, but pretty much all of them represented in this game to different degrees) have a theme about nudity taboos; she's the personification of that taboo, done in a surreal, eldritch way that is also more powerful than most of the other villains.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: She still manages to defeat some characters in their special endings against her,even after defeating her. Both Taros in particular are implied to be absorbed in to her, as she turns him in to her ink and she disappears.
- Humanoid Abomination: The second she appears in Per Cent's reality, things go to shit real fast, with the stars in the sky being replaced with eyeballs, [...] The backstory also said that the universe's mightiest gods managed to perform a ritual-fight that reduced her to about 1% of her full power, weakening her and sealing her in a holy bath-dimension that's supposed to slowly eat at her and weaken her further, and she's also been bisected and cut up. After all of that, she's still by far the most powerful being in the entire game, and it speaks volumes that even Lesuif and Rhislaujja are both terrified of her. Even Percy at the full 100% of his power is barely on par with Modesty at 1%.
- Ironic Name: She is "named" Modesty (it's implied that her true name is unpronouncable) but isn't modest by any definition of the term. She's larger than life in both terms of personality and power, boastful, and even in her covered-up humanoid form she still wears nothing but fairly thin strips of Godiva Hair. Also, she's the only character in the game with visible "pubic hair," which is usually considered more risque than the same amount of skin being exposed, but shaved. (Most of the Slime images and some of the playable characters, Diane especially, would have had pubic hair visible if they had any.) About the most fitting term of the word that applies to her is how she is the only character in the game with a "censored" butt, as her hair obscures her ass (at first) when even in the most censored settings, rears are left untouched.
- Marathon Boss: Modesty is one of only two bosses in the game with multiple phases, Rick being the other one, and she has six rather than two. The boss fight was purposefully designed to feel "hopeless and endless," where the game does not give you any indication how many forms she has or when you've hit the last unless you assume (correctly) that her gigantic, cinematic skeletal form is at the end, and each of her phases have more HP than both phases of Rick combined.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Her final theme, Genesis 3-7,
- True Final Boss: Only fightable after clearing all 100 of the Clearing Stages, instead of fighting Rick directly, you take a "detour" and force him to quickly resort to trying to summon Modesty to keep his lab intact.
- Variable Mix: "Static Obscuring Her Vulva" has five variations based on the phase of her battle. All five have screams throughout in the in-game version, with the OST version omitting them:
- Her humanoid form fought on the beach (or what little of it could be called a "beach" after her entering reality) uses the basic version of the song, mostly monotone with several "boops."
- Her Nature Form/"flower look" goes heavy on the flutes and other wind instruments to give it a "nature-sounding" vibe. It almost sounds serene compared to the other variants, but still has a sinister undertone to it.
- Her Technological Form/"monolith look" has a dubstep background and high-pitched beep noises, and some drums to give it the vibe of a militant march. It sounds like something that would fit a high-tech science fiction evil military.
- Her Light Form/"angelic look" mixes choirs and violins, making it sound mournful and give it a holy vibe at the same time.
- Her Dark Form/"leviathan look" is full of gutteral growls and heavy metal guitar, to give the feeling of fighting a demonic beast.
The Flashknight
The game's Bonus Boss.
LOL
Pretty ironic that an eye-themed boss fight would be the likely first, but surprisingly not last, character in this game you would see without any eyes.
- The Oculus Lady provides the page image and is the likely first source of Fuel you'll see in the game. The first half of her battle seems standard, she uses cartoonish large eyes to attack and standard villain flames, with almost nothing that could be considered graphically violent. Then at half her health, she has a cut-in showing her eyes having disappeared, revealing empty black holes, and moments later her eyelids start growing teeth as she charges at you. Then she, unlike the previous male bosses before her (or after, but the guy after wears very little to begin with), suffers Clothing Damage and loses her armor — it's Fan Disservice, as it turns out most of her body is covered in eyes that likewise become mouths. Including a gigantic one on her stomach. It's like a humanoid-ized version of the Eye of Cthulhu, but handled in the most Body Horror-laden way possible.
- Modesty. On paper, nothing about her first form sounds scary — a Cute Monster Girl demon
- Once she blows open the hole in the ground, you could ignore it, but this causes several of her minions to spawn and start attacking you in what is meant to be a Zerg Rush. Continue to ignore the hole, or assume that you have to fight off the enemies, and she gets impatient and just flat-out makes a gigantic arm come out of the hole and drag you in.
- Each stage of the battle has its own Vs screen, and the first five are done in the same way as the normal bosses: Your character side-by-side, facing the boss in a confident battle-ready pose. (Or something along those lines; both Taros look a little more nervous.) For the final part? Modesty's gigantic skeletal form is looming over the player, and no matter who they are — even Diane — they look scared.
- If you've unlocked somebody else's B-Side first and are expecting Percy's to be more of the same, you'll be in for a surprise. Instead of getting Card Shard 4 where it would normally be and instantly being warped to the usual Magenta Island and seeing a glowing light that shows a brief flash of that character's Bad Future, you find a portal that warps you to a deserted version of the town, with fog blowing through, strange purple-and-black things floating about, and a psychedelic sky. It's been described as looking like the world after it had been through an apocalypse and reality itself broke down. Go to the end of a long, empty hallway, and the Card Shard is at the far end, with what looks like statues of the Slimes. Replacing the usual pickup sound is the Slimes actually saying "You did this... you killed us!" The statues come to life, form a blob of black and purple tar, and begin chasing you at alarming speeds, like a Waterwraith on crack. You have to run back to the end and use the assembled Null Card on the wall that was previously the dead end. Oh yeah, and this might not be obvious at first, and you don't have that much time before the Purses kill you. This leads you to the usual island process at least.
- Everything about the "Magenta Characters" feels much more horror-esque than the usual for the game. Eight out of nine of them (Alt Percy's process is detailed above) are unlocked by stepping on a light in a strange Eldritch Location that shows a flash of a CG depicting something... unpleasant happening. Taro's might be one of the worst, showing Junko, Hanako, and Yoko (Moeko, Margaret, and Tamiko being nowhere in sight) looking onwards horrified while Ishiko is holding up the Green Gem. This doesn't sound bad to anyone unfamiliar with UPOIC, but one of the first things you're told about Taro when unlocking him is that that Gem is his heart, so you're basically seeing the aftermath of someone having his heart ripped out. Their "unlock cards" are also distorted and have an inverted black-background-with-magenta-writing on it, and the messages are deformed. On the character select menu, you access them by going below your lowest-unlocked "regular" character, causing the screen to scroll past the usual Town and in to some Dark World version of it, similar to the place you end up when unlocking Percy's counterpart. (Minus the whole "broken reality" thing.)
- Magenta Taro already starts out bad enough with an empty hole in his chest where his heart would be and his shirt always having a hole there to show it, but his gimmick is that a pissed off spider-esque Ishiko is chasing after him. He's immortal, taking "damage" would only turn him to an immobile statue for half a second, but if Ishiko catches him, it's an immediate game over.
Scare
Main Game
- The Acceptable Target protestors. They are all fighting for absurd things, like basically arguing that the game-within-a-game that's a stand-in for Per Cent itself should have a Token Mini-Moe in it ()
- One of the games within the game's world (that we thankfully don't see much of) is called Sugoi! Ultimate Diarrhea Girls! Apparently, it was made out of spite as a joke by someone who wanted his bad idea to flop to get out of a contract deal, but it somehow became a massive hit and a huge franchise. It is on its thirty-fifth installment by the time Per Cent takes place. The creator hates this fact.
- The Running Gag of Water naming unrelated characters across his stories "Dave" comes to a head with the item known as the Dave Whistle. This game's version of Birthright,
- The simple fact that the female member of the band of four villains is the only one without Stripperiffic armor.
Per Mill Kickstarter
- The stretch goals start out "ordinary" enough, or at least what could be expected out of a game like this: more characters to get pictures of (although it's in increments of 100), language options, compatability, etc. Towards the millions, they start getting bizarre. The million dollar goal is an expansion on the Adjustable Censorship — the game needs a million funded to play a more censored version of itnote . It's odd, but it's still "reachable," so it's on the lower end. For two million, . There's a special goal for 2,485,507note
Per Mill Teasers and Trailers
- The first video opens up as a parody of the somewhat infamous Knockout City teaser — various Water Work characters, all of whom were playable in Per Cent, are interviewed and talk about their experiences from their home worlds and coming to the world of Per Cent. Then they mention talking about a "sequel" and wanting to "take things to the next level..." then Diane of all people holds up a skateboard, and the teaser — which for the week of its upload was just called "Sequel Teaser" — starts talking about Board of Destiny 2 instead. And the characters turn out to be the players of the game itself, not playable in it. A confused Taro sulks, saying that he thought for sure he was being interviewed in a teaser for UPOIC 4. Soon, a wrecking ball tears through and destroys the television the characters were using to play the game, with Percy coming in saying it was an accident. The other characters sigh in relief in they don't have to play that for the interview, because "it was that bad."
- Diane averts the semi-Magic Skirtnote rules her loincloth is usually seen having, and instead the moment her legs move, her whole loincloth region is blurred out.
- The video ends with Diane going back to the ruins of the interview room, grinning like an idiot. Daygelz walks in and tauntingly tells the viewer that you watched this just because of her, and Diane completely agrees with her. Then the very end has this exchange:Daygelz: Oh and by the way Nightfirma and I are playable now.
Diane: I'm still playable.
Daygelz: Yeah but me being playable is bigger news than you still being playable.
Diane: Not really. I don't think so.
Sam
Samwise "Sam" Givva
The leader of the Fighters of Sensitivity, a group consisting of a whopping three (four with Roy's brief stint "working" for them, which was never official and did not last very long) highly-active bloggers including himself. Roy's sudden apology spree early in Season 1 caught his attention, believing that he had happened to spot the potential rise of a "Nazi ass-kisser," and decided to dox him and go after him to investigate. He is a hot-tempered, muscular powerhouse (by human standards) that likes to carry around a giant axe and throw it as he pleases. He and the other two proper members of the Fighters of Sensitivity are briefly hired with the Order of Chaos by Hyumultahs, mostly because Hyumultahs disliked Roxy hiring the Ninja Squad in spite of his objections, but the Order ends up cutting ties with him due to a rather drastic conflict of interests. Sam is arrested near the end of Season 1, but unlike most arrested "Town Villains," he makes a vow to change for the better. This leads to him finding "enlightenment" in "Doing Nothing" and deciding to reform his ways, and by Season 4 he's out of prison very early on good behavior (and saving the lives of several cops) and decides to move to the City of the Center. He becomes a... sort of "ally" to the Kabus Legion, but not a very good one.
Oh yeah, and he's Marjorie's younger brother, but she won't tell you this because she hates him and has cut him out of her life.
- Ax-Crazy: While he's always the pinnacle of sanity compared to Insa (especially after both of them are arrested), Sam himself started off as a trigger-happy jackass who was eager to label anyone and everyone a Nazi and his "solution" to racism was to burn the entire country to the ground. His Establishing Character Moment is him throwing a literal axe on the door to a mall just because he thought (correctly, though) he encountered the man he was stalking online. Averted once he converts and mellows out — he's still a nutbag idiot, but he genuinely holds no ill-will anymore and even apologizes to Roy and understands when he won't forgive him.
- Badass Normal: Played with. He lacks any magic powers even after learning that it exists, and he mostly uses his axe for combat. And he would be pretty impressive with his physical stature and axe skills... the thing is, he's surrounded by supernatural beings who are much more powerful than he is. Daygelz, the self-proclaimed weakest member of the Kabus Legion, can No-Sell anything he throws at her and she makes him kneel over and cry with just one punch to the gut.
- Can't Catch Up: Justified: It was clear he was never any remote threat to anybody in the Kabus Legion by the time he meets them. The only reason why he came close to killing Roy was because Roy purposefully held back, didn't use his magic until it was too late and had his guns thrown out. Naturally, when he comes across Chugga [the name's a Big Chungus "reference," well— I'll get to that], who has actual magic powers and a much, much larger army, she completely annihilates him. It's not "just" because Sam was one of Season 1's townie villains while Chugga was Season 4's, the power difference between the two of them is made clear from the get-go.
- Chekhov's Gunman: He first seems like a straw activist "Roy but much much worse" character for Season 1, and when he's arrested it seems like that's the end of his story. He is not seen at all throughout Season 2 until The Stinger, where he is reading about politics while Traesop complains about having his legs broken, and it's revealed that Drygate wants to put them and Insa together to ask them about all the strange "magic attacks" that had been going on. Then he isn't seen again until the ending of Season 3, where he's released on good behavior. He finally becomes part of the main story again in Season 4, where his invitation ends up indrectly leading to the endgame of Season 4, the temple-city he's in being part of the greater setting for Season 4's last few legs, and he continues to pop up on occasion after that. It's downplayed in that Sam himself is almost useless thanks to being unable to catch up with the future villains; he's just really the "face" of the Central Temple.
- Family Theme Naming: Samwise, and his older sister [[{{Transgender was born Samwell.]]
- Foil:
- He's the most obvious foil to Insa. Sam is a heavily-policing [...] Even their fates after Season 1 are the exact opposite: Insa still clung on to her views and hardened them, decaying to insanity, while Sam did a complete 180 and calmed down to the point where he became a complete idiot with no sense of self-protection.
- Foreshadowing: Way back in Season 1, Roxy is shown performing a spell/installed chip combo on the Polygonal Meme Group that she only refers to as a "last resort" activated when needed. It is revealed during Season 4 that this spell is a delayed mind controller that, when Roxy says a trigger phrase, gives her one shot per spell installed to have complete command over a given person. She uses her try on Sam once the gang (including Sam, and Ermit being forced along) hijack a giant Order carrier, causing him to trash up the place with his axe and fight the group. This, in turn, is foreshadowing the massive showdown that Roy, Ashley, Mindy, and Evelin have with the four Ninja Squad leaders once Roxy uses their dormant mind control spells, which is naturally a much harder fight.
- Good Is Dumb: When he becomes nicer, he also becomes much dumber, giving up his self-preservation and believing that he can solve all problems by saying that an equal-but-opposite problem would also be bad. He is genuinely kinder and on the heroes' side (well, sort of, what with being painfully neutral and all), and even helps them, but he spends the rest of the story being painfull passive with a few exceptions.
- Ironic Name: "Sam" is short for Samwise; he's anything but. In Season 1, he's a brash, hot-headed asshole who thought he could solve racism by killing everybody in the United States that wasn't part of the FoS, which also just so happened to consist of only three (four counting Roy) white men. Roy is very quick and very vocal to point out how stupid the plan is. In Season 4, he mellows out considerably, but becomes an idiot who needs to be babysat by the Kabus Legion when he's in any remote danger.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Turns out to be Marjorie's younger brother in Seal 11. As long as Roy knew her and worked under her, she never told him or any employee about Sam — because she didn't feel the need to.
- Tempting Fate: To Roxy in Season 4: "There is nothing you can say that will make me try to kill any of them again!" Cue Roxy saying her mind control trigger phrase: "A human's true heart is within the womb."
- Too Dumb to Live: Both pre- and post-changing lifestyle. Pre-, he thinks it's a good idea to try challenging a demon to a one-on-one fist fight despite being told in excruciating detail from Hyumultahs how stupid of an idea that would be. Daygelz makes him kneel over and surrender with one punch. Post- he becomes even worse, where his "strategy" when in any danger is to just say that the exact opposite of that danger would also be bad and ignore it, and he has to have his life saved several times by a very annoyed Kabus Legion. The only exception is the odd chance that he is under attack by two equally terrible yet opposite things, which makes him panic.
- Joy+Roy has a series of subversions. Several characters are built up and talked about often, and are not seen for most of the given story, but they do appear in either the last legs of the individual parts or in Coy Miss. The main exceptions are minor background characters, who the reader does not expect to be involved in the plot at all.
- Mindy's butler is one of the most joked about examples. Mindy mentions having a butler touching up her mansion in her abscense (which happens a lot when she goes adventuring), but as her mansion shows up more often, he is nowhere to be seen. Especially in Season 5,
Side
Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer
- Per Cent:
- Arcade Mode is essentially a The Binding of Isaac clone where you play as various characters from other Water Works (in addition to Percy) and alternate versions of them from timelines where everything goes to shit, with more in-depth mechanics than the linear borderline Excuse Plot of "clear away the ink for a fanservice front-and-back shot picture." It naturally ends up overshadowing the main game. And it doesn't help that technically Arcade Mode already has everything within Story Mode anyway, just with a lot of randomization involved and you not being able to go on regular "dates" with the Slime Cents.
- Baths: Uniter of Elements:
- The n-Line Update added the ability to play
You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero
Why yes I like writing about teams. I think stories with a single hero run the risk of being super boring, especially if that hero is invincible.
- Bl:oo<dswap: Guess Who's Getting a Spinoff?
- Pisces Nepeta is easily the least-cooperative, most hot-tempered, and violent out of all the "main" twelve Nepetas,
- Leo [Wait I genuinely forgot why I put this here. Did I think I was putting this under Token Good Teammate instead? Shit. I think I forgot my own plot twist. Which isn't a big deal since this story is basically dead until/unless we get Limeblood confirmation.]
- The Unviewable Panties of Ishiko-Chan: The Chess Club runs a spectrum from "definitely awful" to "surprisingly heroic;" Yoko is at the latter end of that, having the strongest moral concious by far and the only one of them who doesn't just see her crime-fighting as some sort of annoying job (the other demons) or an excuse to live out their pop culture fantasies (Taro). By contrast, Hanako, Moeko, and Junko are pretty apathetic, Ishiko is downright terrible and violent, Taro is a self-centered perverted dickhead, and Margaret takes a very hands-off "Whatever the universe says to do, do it" approach. Tamiko is morally gray. Actually part of that isn't true — Moeko is the worst of them by far,
- Joy+Roy:
- The Kabus Legion is a rare case where their leader is this. Kabus Lesuif, despite being Lucifer's strongest daughter and one of two of the most powerful known non-god demons in the universe, is a genuinely nice and friendly leader whose main missions are to make sure her demon legion is happy, and to kill Etabed. (Etabed is horrible and essentially planning a genocide, so this does not contradict with Lesuif being the nice one.) She's merely acting as though she hates humanity and wants to start an uprising against them, Heaven, and even most of Hell just to boost morale in her group and so that they could learn about how humans and angels aren't that bad on their own, rather than having to be forced to by Lesuif. Lesuif knows she's overpowered and that everybody else is afraid of her; this is a Secret Test of Character to encourage the other demons to stand up to her. In fact, it's nearly impossible to even piss her off, and even Roy, Ashley, etc at their lowest still remain on her good side while she gives them advice.
- The Ninja Squad are a collective downplayed example out of the Order of Chaos, being Friendly Enemies who see the humans as Worthy Opponents and politely try to shoe away the demons from fighting with them (with machines that disable their magic powers and make them sick while around to help that "shoeing"). The downplay is that they make it very clear they were never full loyal to the Order in the first place, they simply saw them as the Lesser of Two Evils compared to the possibility of freeing Kabus Lesuif. Roxy finds this out and fires them by the end of Season 1, and they become a "third party rival group" for the next two-three seasons after that before finally having Heel–Face Turns one-by-one (and their mooks en-masse) and joining the Kabus Legion.
- Subipian is the only Sin or Virtue who is completely nice, he's a total pushover hesitant to even fight the Syulk Legion and looks for all kinds of reasons as to why he would not want to.
- Steve Buhvillen's Intriguing Group:
- There are none because fuck that shit.
This One Again
- Joy+Roy is the only series of Water's where he outright said that he does not think there is a single character who would be described as completely "normal," although he admitted he used a high standard for that:
- Ashley wonders multiple times if she might be a sociopath. She seems like a standard Deadpan Snarker at first (and was going to be one before Characterization Marched on)
- The Unviewable Panties of Ishiko-Chan:
- There is something clearly off about Taro,
- Lil Stalin only has two emotional states: No emotion whatsoever, and explosive rage.
Probably because nothing about Per Cent feels outright creepy? Well, creepy in the sense of feeling like the whole thing was just the author's bizarre quick fetish material, it is "creepy" in the sense of moments meant to be played for genuine horror which strengthens this. Every character
