Webcomic / No Rest for the Wicked

No Rest For the Wicked is a Web Comic by Andrea L. Peterson set in a world where many Fairy Tales are true, in all their grim glory.

Some are Fractured Fairy Tales, but that does not prevent them from being as grim as the originals.

The main plot features the insomniac Princess November from "The Princess and the Pea" setting out to save the moon, buried as in the fairy tale "The Dead Moon." She gathers a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits about her from various tales, and they encounter more fairy tale characters along the way.

Other included fairy tales are "Puss in Boots," "Diamonds and Toads," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast," "Hansel and Gretel," "The Girl Without Hands," "Sleeping Beauty," "The Boy Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was," "Bearskin," "Snow-White and Rose-Red," and "The Raven."

Unfortunately, it appears to be an Orphaned Series, as it hasn't been updated since February 28, 2013.

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Characters:

• November, the princess from "The Princess and the Pea." Suffering from insomnia ever since the moon vanished. (Not that she slept well at any time.)
• Perrault the cat from "Puss in Boots" — except that he's a Funny Animal, not a Talking Animal. Still working for his master, the Marquis, until November persuades him to leave.
• Red from "Little Red Riding Hood." Has an ax. Uses it freely.
• Jack-or-maybe-Hans, The Boy from "The Boy Who Set Out To Learn What Fear Was."
• Clare, the Girl Without Hands.
• The Witch, an old woman who's lived alone in the woods. For a long time.
• Anna & Klaus, two children the witch has kidnapped.
• Prince Ricardo, AKA "Picky Dick," the prince from "The Princess and the Pea." A Prince Charmless if there ever was one.

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Provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Clare strongly implies that the village parents are like this.
• All Trolls Are Different: This one lives under a bridge.
• An Arm and a Leg: Clare's hands were lopped off.
• Angel Unaware: Perrault convinces the innkeeper that he's a fairy in disguise and if he is kind to them (by say, giving them free rooms) he'll reward him in the morning.
• Anti-Villain: The forest witch from Chapter 3, by virtue of being the reanimated shell of a woman who is clearly too insane to understand what's wrong with her actions... Which were the cooking and eating of multiple children, including her own. A Type III WellIntentionedExtremist, who only did it as a measure to keep her children safe.

• Artificial Limbs: Clare has a pair of silver gauntlets that work like mechanical hands.

• Back from the Dead: Red says that three people died in a certain bed, and she was one. Perrault wonders how she's alive:
  November: Well obviously she recovered!"
• Badass Normal: To be just, Ricardo can pull this off.
• Barehanded Blade Block: The boy's meeting with Ricardo.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: November's mother knows this.
• Bears Are Bad News: Or so the characters assume.
• Berserk Button: Perrault speaks of "beauty" to the Beast, as an abstraction; Beast assumes it's his Beauty and goes berserk.
  • Considering her back story and reaction to the Hansel and Gretel witch, it's safe to say Red hates people who hurt — or at least eat — children.
  • She also hates anyone who gets in her way.
  • Ricardo may be a prat, but he is genuinely anguished when his horses are killed.
• The Big Bad Wolf: is alluded to and a number of their skins appear in Red's cottage, although she claims they left the woods because of the moon's disappearance.

• Bilingual Bonus: November's mother is named Avril, which is French for "April" (thus fitting into the Temporal Theme Naming).
• Blackmail: Perrault accuses November of this.
• Blatant Lies: November denies stories about a witch in the woods.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Red and Clare both went through hell in their backstories; Red, especially, is a Broken Bird.
  • Clare is just as much of a Broken Bird, but expresses it in more of a Nico Robin sort of way.
• Burn the Witch!: Clare almost gets this treatment. The actual Witch does, though less publicly.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Beast and November, in his shadow.
• Catch Your Death of Cold: One danger of playing in the snow.
• Cats Are Mean: Played entirely straight with Perrault.
• Chronic Pet Killer: Ricardo is on his 13th horse named Artax.

• Curse: The beggar woman laid one on November for not being generous enough to part with all of her food. A frog pops out of her mouth whenever she says "altruistic."
• Cutting the Knot: While Perrault thought up a clever plan to get Red and November through a gate by manipulating the owners of the mansion, Red simply smashes the gate with her axe.

• Deadpan Snarker: Red gets snarky comments in every chance she gets. They pretty much make up half her dialogue.

• Deal with the Devil: Clare's parents made one with the actual devil to get riches in exchange for her. Luckily, the Moon intervened, though she still lost her hands.
• Death by Despair: Beauty thinks the Beast's condition is caused by this.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Limited Palette; Red's cloak is red, as are the roses at the Beast's castle.
• Despair Event Horizon: Clare resigns herself to be burned as a witch. She won't talk about what happened, but it involved her losing her baby somewhere along the way.
• Disappeared Dad: The Boy's threw him out. Even his foolish and cheerful nature does not entirely protect him from this; he is wistful about how November's father loves her.
• A Dog Named "Dog": The Boy. He is implied to actually have a name, but even he himself doesn't know what it is and refers to himself as "Boy."
• Dogged Nice Guy: The Beast, who asks Beauty to marry him ten times a day, although he doesn't keep her imprisoned in this version.

• The Empath: November is extraordinarily sensitive. Against her, this means that she gets hurt by things such as having leaves fall on her face. More impressively, she can sense death, tell when people have noble blood — or even if they've only married into royalty! — and is usually able to surmise the intentions of the people she brings into the group(she senses Perrault's boredom, as well as Clare's innocence). This is a Call-Back to her source story, The Princess and the Pea, where it is the Princess's sensitivity that is used to determine her royal lineage.

• Fairy Tale Free-for-All: The supporting cast draws from a wide variety of classic fairy tales.

• Forbidden Fruit: Red picks the Beast's roses and puts one behind November's ear. The Beast is furious. Of course it doesn't help that first they smashed down his gate, broke into his house and wandered around taking random objects from it.

• Foreshadowing: Chapter 3 is titled a modest proposal...
• A Friend in Need: They search for the information to save Clare, and then Clare joins to help them.
• Friend to All Children: The children, sanely, do not like her, but Red is passionate about defending children.
• Friend to All Living Things: The Boy sings a song about how Ricardo would think such a princess must have fleas.

• Frustrated Overhead Scribble: November's got an discontented scribble as a speech bubble while she listens to Perrault trick an enchanted prince.
• Ghost Story: When November was little, her sister September told her about how a queen once wished her daughter into a raven.

• Genre Savvy:
  • "Aha, I can see where this is going. Mysterious old beggar women need to be handled very, very carefully."
  • Invoked intentionally by Perrault when tricking an inn keeper to let them stay the night for free. He convinced the man that they were fairies, figuring he probably knew his fairy tales well enough that he wouldn't question strange forms of payment (like a dead bird) if they came from the Fair folk.
    Perrault: Now, if you were to bury this bird behind your inn... Should you then find, say, a golden tree with diamond fruit growing upon that very spot three days later... Well, that would be quite something, wouldn't it?
• Get Out!: Red to November, during the fight with the witch. It's for her protection.
• Guile Hero: Perrault, very much. Well, maybe Guile Anti-Hero.

• Grave Robbing: Clare is suspected of digging up a grave to steal from it on top of serial child murder by the townsfolk who plan to burn her.

• Happily Married: Clare and King Gareth, before Satan intervened.
• The Heart: November. She's fragile enough to be bruised by a leaf, but she knows people well enough to keep her group together.
• The Hedge of Thorns: Prince Ricardo tackles the one around Sleeping Beauty's castle, and is apparently the only prince to have successfully done so.
• Hell Is That Noise: THWOK. The Gory Discretion Shot may or may not be helping. Also almost said word for word and Played for Laughs for why Ricardo doesn't like Sleeping Beauty.

• Humanoid Abomination: The witch had long since become one of these by the time November's group encountered her.

• I Am Not Left-Handed: Ricardo, though the princess had to take his word for it.
• I Am X, Son of Y: The Boy: "I'd tell you 'Jack, son of...' ...But my dad made me swear never t' let on I'm his."

• In Harm's Way: Perrault joins the quest because his life is too dull.

• The Insomniac: November, which drives the comic.
• It Amused Me: Perrault's appropriately cat-like motivation. He had as plush a lifestyle as he could hope for after turning a bumpkin into a marquis by guile and complains about the dangers in November's quest, but when presented with an opportunity to escape easily... "No, not yet."

• A Light in the Distance: Gives November hope for a refuge.
• Light Liege, Dark Defender: November is a Magnetic Heroine who doesn't have many talents beyond bringing and keeping people together, while Red is a severely-traumatized Little Red Fighting Hood who was on the verge of violent insanity before meeting November, and grows extremely protective of her thereafter. As November's very first companion, Red also seems to have the closest relationship with her.
• Lightning Reveal: In the storm, the one bright panel is with lightning.

• Little Red Fighting Hood: She's got an axe.
• Loners Are Freaks: Red has lived by herself in the middle of the forest for several years and is seen as a witch by the locals who see her. Admittedly, she didn't seem to go out of her way to correct this idea. Perrault and November even conclude that Red, should she not have joined the group, might have been at risk of turning into a witch like The Witch from Hansel and Gretel.

• Magpies as Portents: November's sisters teased her for using the One for Sorrow, Two for Joy rhyme for ravens.

• Meaningful Rename: When November asks Red to give her her name, Red pretends to believe it's asking for this.
• Merciful Minion: Claire's mother-in-law, receiving a letter to execute Claire, had her flee for her life. Oops. Turns out the letter was tampered with; her husband had actually ordered her treated well and is now heartbroken.

• The Münchausen: Perrault's attitude to November's story, at first.
• My Beloved Smother: Taken to nightmarish levels with the Witch.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: November can tell there was death in that bed.
• Nice to the Waiter: November is genuinely kind, but she also deliberately invokes this; she doesn't want anyone to see the king's daughter being unkind to a beggar.

• Not What It Looks Like: Perrault is standing by November when the wind blows a leaf into her face and bruises her. Red reacts badly.

• Old Beggar Test: November meets an old beggar woman at the start of her journey. She was in too much of a rush to remember that you have to be very careful with such ladies—however, she still gave up her food because she didn't want anyone to see the king's daughter being stingy. It's when the "beggar" asks for her last piece of bread that November balks, since she wants to have at least one for her journey. So the woman gives her the aforementioned curse.

• Parental Abandonment: Clare says she suffered it, and now knows she's no better. (She used to have a baby with her. It's gone now, and she refuses to explain.)
• Parental Neglect: Why the children vanished. As it turns out, Perrault does this too — he's not even sure how many children he has. Of course, he is a cat.
• Poking Dead Things with a Stick: The Boy finds Prince Ricardo in a heap after he was knocked out by a thrown rock, so the boy pokes him with his walking stick, asking if he's dead. Ricardo jumps up, cuts the stick into pieces, and faints again.
  Boy: —Wow! You're the third-liveliest dead man I ever met!
• White Ninja Comics: The comic prominently features an image of its title character, the White Ninja, looking sad and poking a dead fish out of water with a stick.
• Princess Protagonist: Princess November is the main character, and her party adds another fallen princess when they rescue Claire.

• Primal Fear: November can't sleep because the darkness feels like it's smothering her.
• Prince Charmless: Ricardo, son of King Ricardo, who is better known as "Picky Dick" for rejecting princesses on the basis of such flaws as fat arms and whistling through their noses while they sleep.
• The Promise: The Beast got one.
• Proper Lady: Perrault describes November's upbringing as this.

• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: So far, a runaway princess, a talking cat, Little Red Riding Hood, and a woman with silver-wrought hands.

• Right in Front of Me: The Boy and "Picky Dick."

• Royal Blood: November can sense it and knows that the Marquis doesn't have a drop of it the moment she saw him. She can even sense that Clare doesn't have royal blood herself, but is married to some.
• Rule of Three: November is the youngest of three.
• Rule of Seven: The soldier has to last seven years.
• Runaway Fiancée: Played with. November runs away the night before her wedding, but not because of her fiance. She decides she can't get married until she solves her problem.
• Run or Die: Perrault's reaction to his first meeting with Red.
• Running Gag:
  • "Altruistic."
  • Youngest daughter, if you know what I mean!
• Sacred Hospitality: Or lack thereof.
• Sand In My Eyes: The Beast claims he got dust in his eye when he starts talking about Beauty.
• Satan: The devil appears in Clare's backstory convincing her parents to sell her to him and promises the soldier riches if he does not shave, bathe, or pray for seven years. Seems to be of the deception and bargaining version. Seems to work in opposition to and may be connected to the disappearance of the Moon, who stops him from taking Clare in her backstory.
• The Scapegoat: The villagers are eager to blame Clare for the disappearance of their children, rather than admit to their complicity in letting them wander too far into the woods.
• Secret Test of Character: The beggar woman. November nearly passes, but not quite.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Witch was driven from her village because the townspeople accused of being a witch after her husband abandoned her and her children. Living alone in the woods with a sick and dying son and unable to feed both children turned her into something much worse.

• Slasher Smile: And how! In an interesting subversion, the one time where Perrault actually freaks out about Red's smile is when she ''doesn't'' have it and actually looks friendly.
• So Proud of You: Colette says this of November's mother.
• Speech-Bubbles Interruption: The boy to Ricardo.
• Standard Hero Reward: The Boy got November, the youngest of three sisters, and half a kingdom.
• Stay on the Path: Perrault prefers it to following Red.
• Stick 'em Up: Clare tried this, but her prey had nothing to give.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Klaus and Anna finally get rescued from the witch and taken back to their weepy father... But they still remember how he sent them off to die alone in the woods. Clare points out that when something horrible happens, it's never really home again.
• The Strategist: Perrault. November seeks him out because of this reputation.
• Talking Animal
• Tasty Gold: Slightly non-standard use: while rummaging through a room full of gold, Perrault bites a ring to confirm that it's enchanted.
• Temporal Theme Naming: November, her sisters August and September, and their father, King January. And their mother, Avril.

• Town with a Dark Secret: The village where they find Clare. That there is a witch in the forest is well-known. But few parents try to stop their hungry children from wandering in.
• The Tragic Rose: Red is drawn to them.
• The Undead: The forest witch. She can still control bits that get hacked off her main body, and re-attach them to the whole.
• Unexplained Recovery: Red. It's lampshaded with a blatant reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
  November: Well obviously she recovered!

• Was It Really Worth It?: November charges into a forest to find two recently-vanished children and clear the name of the woman the villagers plan to burn, thinking she is a witch who has abducted and killed their children. As it turns out, there is a real witch in the forest who has indeed killed many children. Thing is, the two who went missing most recently were abandoned there by their father, because life is so hard in the village that the villagers can barely feed themselves. Not all parents can find the balls to abandon children they can't feed there- instead, they simply take no measures to stop them from doing so. November and the others take the rescued kids home, have the scapegoat freed and tell everyone that the witch is dead. Problem is, life isn't going to get any easier for the village, the rescued kids will forever remember how their father abandoned them to die, and thus will probably leave to find a new home. November ends up wondering if she really helped anyone.
• Weakened by the Light: The Moon used to keep creatures of darkness at bay.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The witch just seems to want to keep her children safe, she just has... Unfortunate... views on who exactly her children are and the nature of safety.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: When November, Red, and Perrault reach the Beast's estate gate, Perrault, having gotten on the other side by himself, lays out a detailed plan of tricking the then unknown owners of the mansion into vacating the place and letting the other two in. Red just smashes the gate in.
• Wicked Witch: Attributed to both Red and Clare. It's not true for either.
• The Worm That Walks: The witch's true form has elements of this. Her outer skin is just a shell keeping the corpses of all the children she's eaten "safe," they even pulled her back together when she got cut to pieces.

• Youngest Child Wins: The Boy chose November because she was the youngest. This is lampshaded, when The Boy and The Marquis imply that the youngest implies that she is the most attractive.

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