Webcomic / Seeker

Seeker is an audience-directed webcomic which can be found here. It deals with the quest of an anthropomorphic bunny who is assigned the name/title of "Seeker" by a cat-like masked animal, who directs her to find out what happened to this world, and the ensuing journey. The readers can direct Seeker with commands and queries through the Tumblr askbox.

You can read it from the beginning here.

Seeker provides examples of:

• Ambiguous Gender: Downplayed with Seeker- she's female, but comes off as androgynous to many readers and says in one OOC post that her gender is "whatever you want."
• Ambiguous Species: The Family's species falls under this, as their specific species aren't clearly distinguishable save for the most vague classifications (End is a bird, Fen is a lizard, etc.), and with Pax and the Impostor, it's even less clear (though the creator has referred to the latter as a cat). The reason for this is that, the older their species gets, they either take on a more mythological, metaphorical appearance or acquire more traits of different animals than just the ones they're mainly physically based off of (as well as more colors and patterns and more complex forms, and they can also get bigger).
• Ambiguously Bi: Seeker arguably hits on several characters of different genders, as well as the voices in her head (whom she has no way of knowing the genders of), and the author acknowledges that they've implied her to be bi here and has responded well to fans of the comic who headcanon her as bi.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Used multiple times, a fan favorite being:
  Seeker: So who are you? What are you? Why did you put me up there? And what’s with your ears?
• Art Evolution: Some of the art started out pretty rough and the proportions weren't always quite right, but these problems became generally absent as the comic continued.
• Audience Participation: The readers can direct Seeker to take actions, although some of them waste this privilege as seen here.
  • Deconstructed with the reveal that the "voices in Seeker's head" are actually the psychologically-mutilated last remnants of Pax's dead creations in-universe.
• Author Avatar: Arcaii, depicted as a gray, hairless humanoid with no nose and sharp teeth, appears in a few OOC posts to directly respond to asks or interact with the characters (usually mockingly).
• Big Brother Worship: Fen appears to have a downplayed case of this towards Pax.
• Big Damn Heroes: Rul saving Fen and Seeker from the Impostor.
• Bigger on the Inside: The Family's worlds are roughly the size of a football field on the outside, but vary drastically on the inside- Word of God says Rul's world is the smallest and Pax's world is the largest, with Rul's being only slightly larger than on the outside, Pax's over twice as large, and the rest of the Family's worlds being somewhere in between.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: Inverted with Fen and End, both of which have black sclerae but are perfectly sane, and zig-zagged with Rul and Pax, albeit in different ways: Rul has black sclerae and yellow eyes, but chooses to hide her eyes most of the time, making them look black, and is portrayed as sane both before and after the reveal and Pax has black sclerae and was initially as sane as his siblings, but later lost his mind after pulling out his emotions and memories.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Inverted with Rul, who is unambiguously good and has completely-black eyes, then subverted with the reveal that she in fact has yellow eyes but chooses to hide them most of the time, thinking they're creepy and preferring to save showing them for special occasions, resulting in her appearing to have black eyes.
• Broken Pedestal: Fen does not take it well when he finds out Pax is the Impostor.
• Came Back Wrong: Downplayed with Pax, whose expulsion of his memories and subsequent erasure of his self may or may not have actually counted as death (it's currently ambiguous), but he certainly came back from it wrong.
• Cats Are Mean: Downplayed and Justified with Architect, given the stress she's under and the increasing threat to her and her friends' lives from their own creator. Inverted with Teller and Cosmologist, both of whom are only ever victims and are generally kind.
• Chaotic Stupid: Seeker does a lot of stupid, life-threatening things, either just for the hell of it or out of humorous spite towards an authority figure (almost always Fen). Justified in that her personality seems to be influenced by the askers to a degree, who send in a lot of dumb/chaotic suggestions, many of her more stupid actions have been prompted by them, and it's been heavily implied that it's extremely difficult for her to disobey a direct order from one of the askers to the point that she would literally explode if given a command she couldn't obey.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder:
  • Fen is this to Seeker throughout most of their time after they meet. Downplayed in that Seeker leans more Chaotic Stupid than cloudcuckoolander.
  • Seeker is this to some of the voices in her head when they get too crazy. It's even funnier when you remember that the voices in her head are the readers of the comic out-of-universe.
• Creating Life: The Family's species has the ability to do this, resulting in "creations" such as Seeker and the Architect, but this comes at the cost of them being forced to sacrifice parts of their bodies or masks to make creations. The story is based around exploring this trope- Mim nearly killed herself from making too many creations, as she used too much of her body and mask in the process and was left visibly and permanently physically damaged afterwards, which drove Pax to attempt to "cheat the system" by using more intangible parts of himself, such as emotions, concepts, or memories, to create life, only for it to backfire as he stripped away everything that made him himself and ended up becoming increasingly violent towards, and eventually massacring, his creations.
• Crossover:
  • A few people have inquired as to the possibility of a crossover with OFF, with Seeker as the Batter, the Impostor (note: this was before the reveal that the Impostor "wasn't" Pax) as the Judge, Fen as Valerie, and the Architect as Dedan, which the creator drew art for. (End also seemed to feature as Japhet, though her character hadn't been introduced yet at this point in the story.)
  • The creator also drew art for a Star Wars prequels crossover here, with Seeker as Anakin, Fen as Obi-Wan, the Impostor as Palpatine, and Mim as Yoda. Hilariously, Seeker betrays the Jedi after she's told that the Dark Side will give her the power to create sand.
  • The creator drew Seeker and Fen playing Undertale here.
• Deadpan Snarker: Seeker is snarky towards just about everyone, but especially Fen and Pax/the Impostor.
  The Impostor: You are in a hole.
  Seeker: Flabbergasting. Tell me more.
  • Rul also shows signs of this.
  Seeker: You know what? I think I like you.
  Rul: Well, how about that. You have good taste after all.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Seeker is noticeably snarky and irreverent towards the Impostor, and to a lesser extent the Family (particularly Fen), all of which are much, much more powerful than she is, and in the case of the Impostor, it's even more stupid given that he's her creator. Justified by Seeker being Chaotic Stupid alignment.
• Dishing Out Dirt: The Family all have this power, in that they're capable of manipulating material within worlds. Architect also appears to have been able to do this, and Seeker later gains this ability as well as she absorbs more and more memories.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The early usage of swearing which was then quietly dropped and the more malleable nature of the first memory orbs comes to mind.
• Eldritch Location: The worlds which creators control allow creators to harness and refine their abilities in ways they can't in the void outside and appear to have some degree of self-awareness, if not necessarily minds of their own.
• Funny Animal: Most creations on the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism.
• Genre-Busting: It's difficult to fit the comic into a specific genre, but it'd probably be best described as a fantasy/science-fantasy-adjacent mystery furry webcomic with horror and comedy elements.
• Giver of Lame Names: Seeker builds a sandcastle, proceeds to destroy it, and after several of the voices in her head accuse her of being a monster and tell her to apologize, Seeker replies:
  Seeker: LET THEM SUFFER! [I] REIGN SUPREME OVER THE HAPLESS PEONS OF SAND... LAND… place. The name’s a work in progress.
  • Also Pax (naming his creations things such as "Practitioner" and "Technician"), to the point that even Fen calls him out on it.
  Fen: Ha. He's always been terrible at names.
• Good All Along: Zig-zagged with Pax/the Impostor, who initially appears to be a more neutral-to-vaguely antagonistic force, then is portrayed in a better light by Fen, who thinks the Impostor is Pax (as does the audience at this point). However, the Impostor doesn't actually change his behavior during this time and if anything gets progressively more vaguely antagonistic, seemingly becomes more openly antagonistic after Fen's appearance and the subsequent revelation that he "isn't Pax," and is presented as the main antagonist for a decent chunk of the story afterwards. It's then revealed that he actually is Pax, sans his emotions and memories, and is just trying to figure out what's going on here as much as everyone else is. Then Architect tells Seeker that Pax killed all of his creations of his own volition before he became what he is currently, but by this point he had stripped away much of what made him himself and as a result wasn't exactly in his right mind. Ultimately, however, during the epilogue in the dreamscape/void, Pax is clearly remorseful for his actions and it is clear that he wants to make amends for what he's done.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The case with Seeker.
  The Impostor: The Seeker. That is you.
  Seeker: Is that my name, or my job?
  The Impostor: I will wait up there. Return if you find the truth.
  • Also the case with most of Pax's creations due to his aforementioned Giver of Lame Names trait.
• Identity Amnesia: Seeker awakes not remembering anything about her past, who she is, or why she's even there. As it turns out, the reason for this is that there isn't anything to recall.
  • Also, surprisingly, the Impostor.
• Idiot Ball: In-universe, with the revelation that they're what's left of Pax's dead creations, the voices in Seeker's head have definitely been exhibiting this trope. Instead of attempting to tell Seeker about what happened to them or impart information about the setting, they just encourage her stupid antics, and when one of them manages to reappear for a short amount of time, they just call the Architect names before fading away again instead of saying something useful. Justified in that they're the readers of the comic out-of-universe, who know as little about the plot as Seeker does, and they were also all killed in a fairly traumatic manner and are incapable of holding themselves together for too long, so they genuinely don't have any better idea of what to tell Seeker to do. May also be a case of Skewed Priorities.
• Improbably Female Cast: Downplayed, but the only named male characters in the entire story are Fen, Pax, the Impostor, Teller, the Cosmologist, and the Technician, while there are over double the amount of female characters, and Fen and Pax, and to a lesser extent Cosmologist, are the only major male characters.
• Insufferable Genius: Downplayed with Fen, though Seeker seems to at least jokingly see him as this trope played straight.
• Ironic Name: An unintentional example: Setim's name backwards is "Mites."
• It Makes Sense in Context: Several of Seeker's lines, such as:
  Seeker: I just fell off a cliff, what danger could I possibly be in?
• Jerkass Realization: Fen spends several minutes verbally tearing into Seeker and calling her useless after finding out that Pax is the Impostor and realizing that she's made from his recall ability, but after Rul reveals her eyes and says "That's enough", he realizes he's gone too far and silently retreats to his world. He doesn't return until later and does his best to make amends then.
• Jerk Justifications: Architect has a downplayed case of this, as she's mainly a jerk towards Pax and his supporters among his creations due to his progressive Sanity Slippage and ultimately killing all of her friends, as well as her.
• The Leader: Pax was this for the Family, with End stepping up to take this role in his absence.
• Moment Killer: Fen sees Seeker interrupting their banter to ask why he hates creations as this and refuses to go back to excitedly infodumping about the Family's worlds afterwards. (This, of course, just results in more banter.)
• Mr. Exposition:
  • Both downplayed and subverted with the Impostor, since he's very cryptic and unhelpful.
  • Played straight with Fen, as he has explained several parts of the setting's physics. Downplayed in that the explanations are usually directly prompted by Seeker/the askers.
• Nice Girl: Mim is constantly cheerful and nice to everyone, even people she's only just met like Seeker.
• No Fourth Wall: Seeker openly reacts to a lot of the askers' suggestions and commands, denouncing many as stupid and even wondering once if she can vote out whoever's coming up with these dumb ideas.
  • As it turns out, the askers exist in-universe as the remnants of Pax's dead creations. The fact that they spent most of their time in Seeker's head telling her to bite/lick things and being snarky instead of imparting relevant information about the world says a lot about them.
• No Social Skills:
  • Played straight (and occasionally for laughs) with the Impostor, who's known for walking away in the middle of conversations and (probably unintentionally) scaring Seeker just by being creepy and understanding personal space even less than her. Justified in that he has no emotions or memories and hasn't existed in his current state for very long.
  • Downplayed with Seeker, as she's often rude and sarcastic and doesn't have much of a filter but still has some basic social skills. Justified in that she hasn't existed for longer than a few hours for most of the story and hasn't had any time to learn this kind of thing yet.
• Not a Mask: The skull-like overlays on Fen's, his siblings', and the Impostor's faces are not only their faces, but the only part of them that's fully "them"- the rest of their bodies are just the material attached to their faces, which they generally mold into their preferred form.
• Ominous Fog: There's a lot of it in Pax's world. Where it came from still hasn't been answered.
• Pet the Dog: Seeker giving her vest to Setim. Downplayed in that Seeker hadn't been particularly unsympathetic before, just sarcastic, snarky, and a bit of a jerk to Fen.
• Precision F-Strike: To emphasize how infuriated the Architect is, she refers to Pax as "His Royal Assholery." This is one of the very few examples where swearing is used in the comic outside of reader commands.
• Properly Paranoid: Likely the case with the Practitioner, as it's heavily implied that Pax is responsible for her missing arm.
• Proud to Be a Geek: Fen doesn't bother trying to hide his knowledge and takes pride in everything he knows about the setting's physics.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Mim's creations, particularly Setim. It was to the point that the post where they first appeared currently has over fifty times the amount of notes as story posts on the blog usually get.
  • Depending on who you ask, Mim herself falls under this category as well.
• Running Gag:
  • Seeker's useless ears. At least, up until her mid-story transformation when they start floating.
  Seeker, tugging on her ears: THESE THINGS ARE USELESS
  • Seeker flicking Fen's nose as a parting gesture.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the askers references Alice in Wonderland:
  Asker: Oh and one more thing, don't pull off an Alice. As a rabbit you yourself should know getting too close to a hole you would fall in...
  Seeker: Sure, sure, whatever. Beat Who's Alice?
  • There is a reference to Undertale here (granted, this was in response to an asker making an Undertale reference themself):
  Narration: When you wake up, you feel like you had a great sleep. Which is incredible, because you were only in there for about two minutes.
• The Scream: Seeker, after taking a memory from the first memory orb.
  Asker: Scream. Just scream.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Fen and Seeker, having a lot of banter, get quite a bit of this, though Seeker usually does more of the outright snarking.
• The Stoic: Downplayed with Rul- while she doesn't tend to show much in the way of emotion, she does have moments here and there (generally of smugness or anger).
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Exaggerated with Pax, Mim, End, and Fen, who all have yellow eyes and are literal gods, inverted with several characters (including Cosmologist, Practitioner, and Ophila) who are completely mundane creations, double subverted with Architect and Seeker, both of which appear to be ordinary creations but end up having pieces of Pax's body in her, allowing her to persist after death to an extent (more so than Pax's other creations, anyway), and being made from Pax's "recall ability," respectively, and zig-zagged with Rul, who is a god like her siblings and initially appears to have no eyes or completely-black eyes, but turns out to have yellow eyes that she usually keeps hidden.
• Transferable Memory: Upon absorbing a memory orb, Seeker is placed inside a set of memories from unspecified people, giving her no control over what's happening.
• Vague Age:
  • Physically speaking, Seeker's less than two days old by the end of the comic, but mentally she's somewhere between an older teenager and a young adult.
  • The Family themselves don't know how long they've existed for (it doesn't help that time passes weirdly for their species), but they're young by their species' standards and they know they've had their worlds for around a year to a year and a half. Fen's the only one who even vaguely has a grasp on keeping track of the passage of time.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Seeker and Fen become this fairly soon after meeting.
• Walking Spoiler: The Impostor, as well as Pax, as his actions set up almost all of the background of the story.
• Wham Line:
  Fen: You're not Pax.
  • Also:
  Architect: No kidding he lost his memories! What did you expect? If he was going to keep ripping them out like he did, what else was going to happen?
  • Additionally:
  Seeker: That guy in there? That's your brother. That's Pax.
  • And, of course:
  Fen: I see. You ARE his recall ability.
• What Does This Button Do?: Subverted, as when Seeker presses multiple random buttons on a device of an unknown function nothing happens, much to her disappointment.
  Narration: In accordance with the Laws of Adventuring, you push both buttons as much and as fast as possible, without a single regard to their possible effects. Luckily, it doesn’t matter, since the screen is unresponsive.