This is a character sheet for the cast of the webcomic PepsiaPhobia.
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Protagonists
Phobia
Our dashing heroine. Exiled from the Amazons for keeping a male child, Phobia currently acts as a warrior-for-hire. Stubborn, challenge-seeking, and always itching for a fight.
- Action Mom: Phobia can kick all sorts of ass no matter who the opponent is, and she tries her best to be a decent parent for Pepsia.
- Age Insecurity: At times she's shown to fear being unwed past 30. When her age is revealed to be 26 instead of the 22 she claims to be, she freaks out because she's closer to her "spinster" date than initially thought.
- Badass and Child Duo: Forms this with Pepsia.
- Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Pepsia receives a few spankings from her mother when she's too much of a brat.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: The early comics depicted Phobia with a high ponytail, and while she keeps her Minidress of Power, she also wore different boots and bore an animal tooth necklace. Her design from the sixth comic onwards depicts her with a sleeveless dress, a studded belt, and much shorter hair.
- The Exile: Phobia was banished from the all-female Amazon village due to wanting to raise her 'son' herself.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: Lampshaded here
, but ultimately averted. Although while her hips are rather big, her chest is more realistically portioned. - Lethal Chef: She's apparently managed to keep herself and Pepsia from dying for the last seven years, but Pepsia has no idea that the squirrel her mother is using is out of place, and the best the judges can say for Phobia's dish in "The Heat Is On!" is that she was "generous with the salt".
- Munchkin: Phobia once won a cooking duel not because she's any good at cooking—she just exploited a loophole that prevents slaves from being considered the same as a free man. When called out for it, she states word for word that she didn't want the satisfaction of being the better cook; she just wanted the satisfaction of winning their competition.
- Never Learned to Read: Phobia, multiple times in the story, reveals that she's illiterate. She's not too beat up about it, since she thinks that reading isn't warriors' work.
- Official Couple: With Klepto initially, but with Krphxyzwlps as of Volume 4. "Maraud a Trois" later clarifies that both are canon, and they are living as a "throuple" come the timeskip.
- Pragmatic Hero: Phobia doesn't actually want to win things fair and square—she simply wants to win, and damned be the people who get in the way of that. She's used people as bait to deal the finishing blow, used rule loopholes in order to be declared the winner in contests, and uses plain ol' tricks to weaken opponents.
- Proud Warrior Race Girl: Phobia, naturally. Even if she got exiled, she'll mostly stay true to her roots, even if she uses them as excuses. "A warrior does not wash dishes", indeed.
- Really Gets Around: Phobia claims that she doesn't know who Pepsia's real father is because there's too many candidates. She's at least lying about not knowing who the father is.
- Unreliable Narrator: Any story about her past needs to be taken with a grain of salt. She never tells Pepsia the real story of how she conceived her, instead either replacing the real father with Zeus in an animal form or outright claiming she doesn't know.
Pepsia
Pepsia/Gastro
Our other heroine. While she is the daughter of Phobia, Pepsia shares very little of her mother's love of fighting, preferring to be a musician instead. Incredibly smart for her age, but is just as susceptible to tomfoolery.- Brainy Baby: Pepsia rarely cried when she was a baby. Phobia claims that one of the few times she did, she expressed a philosophical problem, namely the dream argument, in which you can never be sure all you experience is real, which terrified her. However, Phobia is an Unreliable Expositor and Pepsia doesn't buy it.
- Crush Blush: Done in the Season 4 opening and a few times afterwards with Metro. Even when he's bowling through the streets and pushing people out of his way, Pepsia carries a puppy crush on him.
- Dreadful Musician: As much as this poor child dreams of becoming a musician, Pepsia starts the story with no talent for it. Her horn playing (and later lute playing) was so abhorrent that it put animals and people alike to sleep, and annoys the daylights out of her mother.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Apparently Pepsia is feminine enough that Sophia always assumed she was a girl, and Phobia implies that Sophia isn't the only one to assume that. This turns out to be correct come Season 4, as the "Dude" comes out as a Lady.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the first few strips, Pepsia had no accessories in her hair and she went around in a simple toga. From "Ready, Waiting, and A Bull" onwards (particularly in the opening sequence), she'd have more accessories including her ever-present bandana.
- Girliness Upgrade: By the time she's 13, she's wearing her hair down with accessories and wearing a proper peplo contrast to the togas she wore as a child.
- Has a Type: Horses, apparently. While one timeline has her fall in love with Princess Starbutt, Pepsia's infatuation with Metro also includes his hairstyle, which reminds her of a horse's mane.
- Meaningful Rename: For Seasons 1-3 (and the decanonized Season 4), Pepsia went by her birth name Gastro. She changed it to Pepsia in the revised Season 4 after determining that she wants to live as a girl. Notably, the suffix that serves as the basis of her name refers to the digestive system just like her birth name (however, Pepsia refers to the digestive tract while Gastro deals with the stomach specifically).
- She Is All Grown Up: The year Pepsia turned 13 is the year she started getting way more attention from her peers. Sophia, who was neutral on Pepsia when they were children, is absolutely smitten with her when she starts presenting feminine. Metro falls in love with her at first glance.
- Queer Establishing Moment: Volume 4's opening chapter, "Pepsia", puts her gender questioning on full display. Apparently this was set up as early as Volume 3, where Pepsia exclaims no less than five times that she'd love to be able to turn into a girl.
Klepto
A slave formerly owned by the shapeshifting monster Krphxyzwlps, now in the services of Phobia after the latter's defeat. Always ready with a sarcastic quip. Surprisingly good cook.
- Non-Action Guy: Klepto, made even worse due to his being around Phobia.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Klepto, sometimes.
- Servile Snarker: Klepto, with far more emphasis on the "snark" than the "serve".
- Supreme Chef: His culinary skills are top notch, at least, compared to his companions. He's talented enough to roast decent boar for decades, and his baking so advanced that he invented apple pie way before it's supposed to be made.
- Too Kinky to Torture: He never gets the opportunity to find out, but he'd be welcome to it if given the chance:Phobia: You know, some people whip their slaves for less than that.
Klepto: Phobia, it has been my goal to be whipped by an Amazon since I was thirteen.
Philia
An Amazon that Phobia used to know, and something of a rival. Always loud, always angry.
- Kid from the Future: Philia claims to be the child of Phobia and Klepto from the future.
- Luke, You Are My Father: She is a time paradox child made from the sperm of Klepto and the egg of Philia.
- No Indoor Voice: Philia. "I AM WHISPERING!" *
- Paradox Person: Philia is worried about being this.
- Time Police: Philia. First foreshadowed on two pages, then shown in the dubiously canonical "badder comics" interlude, before finally showing up in the comic proper.
People of Inconsequentia
Helen and Sophia
Metro
A hooligan and political tagger. He is initially hostile to Pepsia, but soon falls in love with her and starts dating her.
Antagonists
Lord Nightsorrow
Originally a time travel obsessed man named Kevin, Nightsorrow was thrown back from the 21st century into Ancient Greece nine years prior to the start of the main story. He seeks to get back to his home time by extracting the Chronologium in Phobia's belt, and has an odd fixation with her. In the meantime, he's become an insane wizard.
- Evil Sorcerer: Lord Nightsorrow's name, fixation on dark magic, and general behavior seem to aim at this trope. However, he's not very villainous and mostly wants to get back to his own era or hook up with Phobia.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Back in his home time, Kevin was the weak link of his college buddies both because of his lack of accolades compared to them but also because his personality was too stuck up and self-righteous for their tastes. Even Filby, who stayed by him, is more annoyed by his antics.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Eight and some years ago, he was the one who conceived Pepsia with Phobia.
- Stalker with a Crush: Nightsorrow to Phobia. "But have you seen her ass?"
Krphxyzwlps
- Animal Eyes: When in human form as "Mania", she has slit eyes.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Krphxyzwlps's true form is a giant centipede that can dig holes in the ground and shoot beams from her eyes. She'd be terrifying if she weren't so ineffectual.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: "Boared to Death", up to that point, was like the rest of the comic's comedic fantasy series, but in comes an insect monster straight out of a Ray Gun Gothic.
- Literal Split Personality: The original Krphxywlps decided to create a backup brain and accidentally created an evil clone instead. The original decided on a new name, while the evil clone kept Krphxyzwlps.
- The Slow Path: Her appearance in "For Heifer in My Heart" has her explain that she waited millennia for Phobia and child to reincarnate, and even followed them to The Wild West to get her revenge.
- The Unpronounceable: How anyone in-universe can say it no problem if a mystery. A whole comic is solely about Phobia's efforts to pronounce it.Phobia: Buy some vowels!
- The about page now addresses this. It says it's pronounced as Ker-fixy-whelps. The z is silent.
Cloud Cuckoo Land
The Cuckoo King
Ornitho
- Older Than He Looks: In his first appearance, he appears to be the same age as Phobia, who's stated to be in her late 20s. McGuire later clarified that he was intended to be 18-19 years old.
Others
Trivia
A tiny sphinx woman who tries to stump travelers with her riddles. Unfortunately, she only knows one.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: She bears more than a passing resemblance to Princess Knight's Princess Sapphire. At least, her head does.
- Riddle of the Sphinx: Parodied oh so very much. Unfortunately for her, this is the only riddle she knows. Even worse? Everyone else knows it too.
Pneuma
The deceased aunt of Phobia. An infamous dine-and-dasher who cannot pass onto the afterlife until one of her debts is cleared.
- Barred from the Afterlife: Because she's accumulated too many dine-and-dash incidents, Pneuma is unable to go to any realm of the afterlife until they are cleared. Phobia and crew manage to do one, but the rest are deliberately left unaccounted for.
- Bedsheet Ghost: It's anyone's guess whether or not it's a consequence of being locked to Earth, but either way in her few appearances she's always looked like a transparent white blob.
Alcides
Phobia's younger brother. Yes, he's that Alcides.
- Ascended Extra: In the original volume 4 arc. Since it centers around Ares and Athena ensuring that at least one of his trials isn't completed, we get to see more of him.
Filby
A friend of Lord Nightsorrow's from the 21st century. He is the reason why both he and Nightsorrow were stranded in Ancient Greece.
