Webcomic / Sailor Sun

"See the Backstage of the Webcomic World!"

— Sailorsun.org

SailorSun.org is a web comic about the misadventures of two former "Fan Fiction Actresses" written and drawn by CD Rudd and loosely based on Rudd's own Sailor Moon fan fiction series of the same name. As the tagline implies, Sailor Sun is depicting the "real lives" of actors and actresses who portray Fan Fiction and Web Comic characters. In keeping with the backstage theme the comic frequently features cameos by "actors" from other webcomics such as Cheer! and The Wotch, mostly from within the 910 Webcomics community (which also includes his other comic, I Dream of a Jeanie Bottle).

The Sailor Sun fanfiction series that inspired the comic can be found at SailorSun.com.

The comic is is currently scheduled to end at Chapter 10, the current chapter. Though this chapter has been rather longer than all the others, as the author is working to wrap up all the loose plot threads.

Not to be confused with the fanfic trope Sailor Earth (though it is based on an example) and not at all likely to be confused with the much Darker and Edgier Web Original novel Sailor Nothing.

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This series provides examples of:

• All There in the Manual: Some aspects of the comic reference obscure bits of the predecessor fanfiction. Like Honey's origin and Bay's long-lost twin sister.
• Always Identical Twins: Bay and Heather look identical, despite Bay being born as a boy

• Applied Phlebotinum: Too many examples to list, but the whole "Helices" thing takes the cake.

• Author Appeal: Gender benders, wacky hijinx, cheerfully irresponsible idiots who never get called to account for their actions.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Honey, Bay and Crystal respectively (though Crystal's hair is more pink than red). While all three are very buxom and beautiful, Honey doesn't seem to think she is.
• But Liquor Is Quicker: Honey's origin, when finally revealed, turned out to be that Bay got drunk or worse, roofied at a bar and woke up pregnant.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Bay. Poor Bay. Although it was implied that the drink was spiked with something, every time Bay has drunk alcohol things have not gone well for her.

• Citizenship Marriage: Bay has to get married to avoid being deported back to Canada but she really does love Auction Guy, the deportation threat just forced her to make up her mind and advance the timetable.
• Continuity Lockout: Most elements of the Fan Fic are clearly fictional in the webcomic but others just as clearly are not. Figuring out what's what can lead to some head-scratching.
• Disappeared Dad: Played with. No one has any idea who Honey's father may be, as Bay conceived her during a drunken one night stand with a random stranger. That doesn't stop Honey from longing for a father on occasion.
  • Ethan's older Brother Matt is believed to be Honey and Brady's father, according to both Ethan and Matt himself.
• The Ditz: Bay, verging on Idiot Hero sometimes. Though she doesn't seem to be dumb so much as buffaloed by the constant weirdness that makes up her life.
• Dumb Blonde: While Honey is normally a subversion, she sometimes stumbles nonetheless, most notably when trying to get a job.
  • Honey's apparent ditziness is not helped by her poor eyesight or her stubborn refusal to wear her glasses because she doesn't like the "nerd girl" stereotype they represent.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Turt, Steve the narrator.
• Enforced Method Acting: [invoked] The studio, using TG guns and time portals.
• Failure Is the Only Option: No matter what happens, Bay will never be turned back into Brad. Given the nature of the comic, it shouldn't come as a surprise. Also see Status Quo Is God below.
• Filler Strips: marking holidays and making announcements, mostly.
• First Law of Gender Bending: the existence of not one, but two versions of Bay's Kid from the Future implies that Bay will never go back to being Brad. Bay is reduced to tears contemplating the inevitability at one point.
  • Chapter 8, with Honey automatically assuming that a boy has possessed her mom's body (instead of, after seeing years worth of odd behavior and other hints, thinking that there could be another reason), paints a pretty clear picture that Honey has never suspected anything at all about her mother's identity.
• Flash Back: Teri and Brady in the Cat & Butterfly arc. Recently, Bay's early days at the SailorSun.com studio.

• Gender Bender: Bay, who was once a man and is now stuck as a woman after a "TG Gun accident" allegedly due to Enforced Method Acting on the part of the studio. Some other examples, notably the Butt-Monkey Tom◊.
  • However, a few comics and her feelings in general hint that she really is a girl inside (or became one over time) and is very comfortable in being so. Is this a case of The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body, or something much more than that? Bay also shows a strong maternal instinct towards Honey.
• Going Native: It's becoming increasingly more obvious as the comic progresses that this is happening to Bay, to the point where she's starting to not mind and is accepting it. Also see Love Epiphany below.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Seen here◊. Played with again later when Bay's bad angel has to fill as Honey's good angel.
• Guest Strip: several examples from like-minded fans
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Steve the narrator, who hangs out above the comic panels.
• Hot Librarian: Research assistant Honey. Who will probably get another Unnecessary Makeover.
• Idiot Ball: Bay fails to recognize a lot of things that seem glaringly obvious to the readership, like Berry, though part if it seems to be due to some kind of internal Weirdness Censor. For instance, she kept Honey and Brady secret from each other because she was afraid of losing them to a time paradox, despite having a living example that wouldn't happen in Teri and Ams.
• Informed Ability: Honey is supposed to be a genius, but she doesn't even pick up on Ams speaking Pig Latin (though she was waking up after undergoing what was essentially massive genetic manipulation at the time). Essentially, other than really barely-above-average booksmarts, she never shows the kind of quick or deep thinking her given IQ should entail.
• Karma Houdini: any number of cheerfully irresponsible idiots, but Chris from the studio really takes the cake.
• Kid from the Future: Honey. Recent events have revealed that Brady, who looks like a younger version of Honey and also calls Bay "Mom" was snatched from an alternate future as well.
• Long-Lost Relative: Subverted twice
  • Honey receives a map and directions from a kindly lady at the Ottawa airport, not realizing it's her own grandmother.
  • Ethan discovers that he shares too many genes with Honey for them not to be related and promptly goes haring off in the wrong direction, despite several hints that his brother Mathew is probably Honey's father.
• Love Bubbles: Bay's daydream, in this comic◊.
• Love Epiphany: By the looks of it, Bay has finally admitted it to herself, going as far to kiss him◊ later on. She also admits to Shaura that she liked it and that it is 'like a crush that won't go away'.
  • The Auction Guy seems to also love Bay back, but Bay is torn over who she was, is, and will be and doesn't know what to do.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Bay, whenever she's so much as near the (as of now, still unnamed) guy she was sold to at a Bachelorette Auction. Even more so when she's drunk.
  • For a brief time she did not, as Bay thought that he took advantage of her after she had too much to drink. He didn't, of course.
  • Bay has fallen hard, after she decided to go see him again to turn him down. Love Makes Bay Crazy, indeed.
• Man, I Feel Like a Woman: After Bay's amnesia-inducing head injury, much to Honey's distress
  Honey: "Stop groping Mom's body!"
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Not exactly. While characters from several other series do appear at times, in this reality they are all actors from the comics they represent. The Fanfic included crossovers with Ranma ½ (Of course) and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • One comic◊ crosses over with Doctor Who of all things. However, since it's clearly marked as a filler it's most likely meant to be regarded as non-canon.
• Ms. Fanservice: Bay (and anyone disguised as her). Also Crystal.
• Mundane Fantastic: Among other things, switching genders and Time Travel don't seem to be rare occurrences and are quite easily accomplished (making Honey's obliviousness about her mother even more counterlogical). There's also the HRC, which is in effect a computer system that can edit anyone in the world, also with little effort. Our Earth this definitely ain't.
• No Name Given: Auction Guy. Even on the cast page he's just "Auction Guy".
  • His full name is revealed during Bay's wedding vows in comic 1220.
• Omniscient Morality License: While nowhere near omniscient, the producers seem to have this act down pat: Need an actress? Turn your actor into one using illegal future-tech that may or may not be a felony! Need action? Grab some green slime that is used in more 'illicit' films with various undefined properties and some-such. Need a sidekick for your TG'd main? Just steal her unborn daughter from the future, not like they'll care. More amazing is that before they randomly decided to go bankrupt, no one questioned this ever: at the very least their accountant should have taken notice. Why? So we can produce a televised adaptation of a Sailor Moon fanfic. Internet IS serious business.
• Off-Model: Some comics clearly have much more work put into them than the rest, while others seem to be obviously rushed.
• Pet the Dog: Despite being The Rival to Bay who's not above cheating to win at stuff, Morgan still is quite kind to Teri when she finds him lost and scared in the streets. She brings him home, cleans him up, and feeds him caviar, as well as planning to get him pancakes if he behaves while she goes out.
• Poor Communication Kills: Bay in a nutshell. Her apparent fear of revealing her Gender Bender to anyone alienated her from her family and caused her to miss the last two years of her Grandfather's life. She never told Honey about Brady. She doesn't even know her fiance's name because she's apparently too embarrassed to ask. Her alternate history counterpart Berry won't identify herself either, apparently because she's miffed that Bay hasn't recognized her.
• Rouge Angles of Satin / Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: To the point where the comic absolutely needs a beta reader and / or Grammar Nazi. Believe it or not the fanfics are even worse.
• Running Gag: Bay still hasn't learned Auction Guy's name, despite accepting his proposal and setting a wedding date. It almost gets her deported because she can't convince the inspector it isn't a citizenship marriage.
• Sailor Earth: Ok, so Rudd used a star instead of a planet: the trope still fits.
• Second Law of Gender-Bending: Immediately followed by an amnesia-induced Snap Back.
  • Implied in the Helix chapter to stem (like Bay's weakness for muscular men) from the repairs HRC had to do to Bay's helix to stave off the decay caused by the malfunctioning TF gun.
  • Bay is reduced to tears when she realizes that going through with her Citizenship Marriage with Auction Guy means that she can never go back to being Brad.
  • Late in Chapter 10 it's shown that Bay's attraction to muscular men came about when Tom, the perpetual Spanner in the Works at HRC, thoroughly screwed up their first restoration attempt, implying the subsequent mucking about with her Helix was as much to fix the damage Tom did as the damage from the gun.
• Shipper on Deck: Honey, pretending to be Bay, set the Auction Guy up on a date with her mother because she wants "a real daddy◊".
• Ship Tease: Bay and the Auction Guy, as mentioned several times above. Also Honey and David to some extent.
• Shirtless Scene: This◊.
• Shout-Out: The TG gun appears to be a reference to El Goonish Shive.
  • Chapter Nine is titled "Timey Wimey".
    • And the timeline changing whenever Bay mentions that someone's been messing with it brings a certain quote from the beginning of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe to mind...:
  "There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states this has already happened."
  • The girl who talks to Bay at the guys-turned-girls support group in the second prequel strip is Jo Starr from Cheer! and The Wotch.
• Spanner in the Works: Tom. Things go badly any time he gets involved.
• Stable Time Loop: Chris the producer created several by passing notes between his present and future selves through the time portal. Berry (an alternate future version of Bay), underwent several of the loops exploring The Multiverse until she nightsided herself by passing Chris a note that convinced him to destroy the portal in the past, saving our Bay but stranding herself in our present.
• Status Quo Is God: It will be a long time before Bay either accepts her fate or returns to being Brad. Given that the comic would effectively end or drastically change by either all events that seem to be leading up to them are always aborted or sidelined at the last minute.]]
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Bay is only two years older than Honey. Later revealed to be the case because Honey was kidnapped from an alternate future by the producers of the fanfiction Bay worked in.
• Talking Animal: Bay and Honey's cats. Of the two, Teri is usually much more talkative (and active) than Ams. They are also the same cat from different times, Ams being Teri's grown-up form from the future.
  • And Turt, a 76-year old turtle who Bay sometimes visits to try and help her find acting jobs.
  • And lately, a white female cat named Cleo, who Ams has a thing for.
• The Rival: Morgan Fayet◊.
• Third Law of Gender-Bending: Enforced by Bay's acting job. Played straight later when Love Makes Her Crazy.
  • Made explicit when it's revealed that someone can only be safely changed back by the same TF gun used to transform them in the first place, and as the gun used on Bay was malfunctioning it would be too dangerous to use it on her again.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: from all of the mucking about in the timestream. Chapter 9 is even named "Timey Wimey"

• Too Dumb to Fool: Brady instantly spots Berry as "a time travelling mommy from the future." She's still at an age when keeping track of your mother is a very important skill.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: In chapter 8 Bay lost several years of her memories after being hit in the head by a collapsing roof and forgot her Gender Bender as a result. Her reaction, and those of several other characters, allows the author to answer many questions without resorting to exposition.

• Women Prefer Strong Men: After a Gender Bender transformation Bay is rather disturbed to discover she is now apparently really attracted to muscular guys. Later shown to be a result of the repair work done to stabilize her helix after the change instead of the change itself.

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