Lovesyck
is an ongoing webcomic by Alexis Flower that serves as a prequel to Lovelyss. Most of the webcomic takes place aboard Carrier 9, a rundown clubship inhabited by party-goers, criminals and undercover police caught up in political intrigues and gang warfare. And things are only getting more complicated.
Legendary assassin Carver Stucco returns from exile, Nurse Baby and Doctor Man - organ-snatching terrorists and mass murderers - are on the loose again and the infamous war-hero Gaskar the Guts has plans for Carrier 9. Manager Sassy Lockhart has her hands full keeping the club running with the help of ex-pirate captain Klass and Anaconda Bridges, a three year old android while Detective Bolivia Enzon is sent to track down Baby and Man.
The comic has not updated since April 2016 though Flower is still actively creating other content.
Lovesyck contains examples of:
- Artificial Limbs: Bolivia has a robotic right arm which adds to her gaunt, skeletal appearance.
- Badass Boast: Gaskar delivers one about both him and Carver.Gaskar: Do you not know who you're talking to. Are you that dense? Do you know how many wars I've won, how many people I've killed? Carver Stucco is the finest killer I have ever known. Can you dig the implications here? Can you imagine how many killers I've known? Everything you've heard about her is true. She's cut down legions. I saw her do it. She's infiltrated Corner Prison and the Holy Royal Sanctum and every impregnable vault from Hubble Palace to Lovelyss Core. She could slice your tits off with a bowling ball and cut you so deep you wouldn't know whether to call for Gawd or come in your pants. She could shit darkness in your soul and make you dream a thousand years of hell in a single second. You can't even picture that shit. She deserted Hubble. She brought down the Inquisition. And she survived me.
- Clean Cut: Carver cuts a gang-member's hand clean off and then proceeds to slice his arm into neat segments with an assortment of small knives. Subverted when it is revealed that the cutting in question was a psychically induced vision to scare the gang-member
- Code Name: The Hubble Wraiths seem to have these. Bolivia and Carver are referred to as Heartlyss and Soullyss respectively.
- Coolest Club Ever: Carrier 9
- Cyberpunk: Carrier 9's gritty, neon-soaked atmosphere.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Bolivia Enzon gets this in spades. The daughter of her mother's rapist, and consequently never truly loved, she was also overshadowed by her genius sister who later turned serial killer. She then joined Hubble Police Force where her warnings of threats were ignored due to her reputation for paranoia, resulting in innocent deaths. At some point she also lost her unborn child while it was still in the womb. Naturally this makes her something of an Anti-Hero.
- Friendly Enemy: Carver and Gaskar seem to have this relationship despite their duel that left Carver blind and Gaskar scarred. Gaskar brings Carver out of exile to assist him in rooting out undercover cops and their conversation is very civil, to the point where Carver jokes about how exile has left her enlightened. How authentic this is on the other hand, is debatable.
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: Carver wears dark goggles over her missing eyes that are implied to provide some form of virtual reality, although the degree of vision they provide is unspecified.
- Hardboiled Detective: Bolivia Enzon plays this trope straight, even wearing a trench coat when she arrives on Carrier 9.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: Attributed In-Universe to Carver after her exile by many characters, although not all agree with this assessment.
- I Have Many Names: While many characters have alternate monikers, Carver Stucco stands out the most for being known as: The Knife, Red Shark, Dead Lady C, Our Lady of the Inquisition and Soullyss. Since she lost her eyes she's also occasionally called Dollface in mockery, though rarely in person.
- Living Legend: Carver Stucco is widely known as one of the greatest killers alive.
- Mad Doctor: Nurse Baby and Doctor Man, the 'Squishy Bandits' are both serial killers with a habit of harvesting organs, but they still think of themselves as medical professionals.
- Morality Kitchen Sink: It's hard to place most of the characters in terms of morality, in part because it's hard to say who's actually fighting who, but many of them seem to fall into a grey area. On the more heroic side Anaconda stands out for being innocently optimistic about pretty much everything and Sassy Lockhart is a hard-working manager who just wants Carrier 9 to run smoothly. On the villainous end we have Gaskar and his gangs of mercenaries.
- Neck Lift: Gaskar performs one on Doreen when she insults Carver. Somewhat more believable in that Doreen is a good head and a half shorter than Gaskar and far slimmer.
- Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: A gang member finds this out the hard way when he pulls a gun on Carver. Possibly subverted as it is revealed shortly afterwards that Carver had been psychically manipulating his perception of the fight.
- The Paranoiac: Detective Enzon was seen as this in-universe by the Hubble Police Department who nicknamed her "Paranoia Enzon" behind her back. When it turned out she was right they took her off active duty on account of being 'Post-traumatic'.
- Police Are Useless: How Bolivia sees the rest of Hubble Police Force due to their dismissal of her warnings leading to innocents dying.
- Serial Killer: Baby and Man.
- Sinister Scythe: Those who have read Lovelyss will recognise Gaskar by his scythe in a flashback scene.
- Space Pirates: Security Chief Klass was an infamous space pirate before he found God.
- Tattoo as Character Type: Apart from her face, Carver is covered from at least the waist up with overlapping tattoos. She even has one on the inside of her lower lip.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: One of the club security guards pulls this when explaining to Anaconda why he has to hide from Carver. Anaconda then points out that revealing this to a person he barely knows is probably not the best police procedure.
- Unproblematic Prostitution: This is Anaconda's view on her previous job as a prostitute working in military camps. Justified in that she is an android who doesn't need to eat or sleep, is supposedly immune to all diseases and was working there because she chose to. Her enthusiasm for the job surprises several other characters.
- Villainous Gold Tooth: For Carver, an assassin of of Living Legend proportions, her entire top row of front teeth is silver and the bottom row gold.
- "X" Marks the Hero: Inverted with Gaskar who sports a deep X-shaped scar on his bald forehead. Although the extent to which he is a villain is ambiguous, he's certainly no hero.
