Chuck: Look, there's been a lot of debate-real scientific debate-over whether or not a... creature as powerful as Ms. Rose can even be considered human at all.
Skarsdayle: Is that right?
Chuck: That's right. And y'know what? If she's not human, then the bill of rights does not apply!
Skarsdayle: I'd like to see you enforce that one, Chuckie dear.
Chuck: Well that's a—
Skarsdayle: Now listen here, my pretty little paper waver. I don't know if my friends are "human" or not, and frankly, I couldn't give two Bleeps. But what I do know is this: these "creatures" as you call them... Well they're forces of nature, Chuck. Godzillas in Tokyo. And it's not us gonna tell them what to do. Can't ask the tsunami to mind the lifeguard, now can we?
A webcomic and print comic about Serenity "Sera" Rose, "the 10th youngest, 8th shortest, 6th 'gothiest,' 22nd most powerful, 38th most respected and 5th most reclusive of the world's 50 known witches." The story is set in Crestfallen, once the home of a coven of witches, later abandoned, and now the "Spookiest Lil' Town in the U.S. of A," and follows Sera as she attempts to live her life and stay out of the public eye.
Made by Aaron Alexovich, who also worked as a character designer on Invader Zim. The complete second volume and starting soon the entirety of the first volume will be available online.
It can be found here
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Provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Gay: Something happened between Maddy and Sera. It's at the end of the second volume, where Sera finally comes out and admits it.
- Arc Number: 57, is the total number of witches in the world, and Crestfallen was abandoned by the original witch coven in 1857.
- Arc Words:
- Chapter One: Working Through the Negativity has "Dear Diaries are stupid".
- Chapter Two: Goodbye Crestfallen has "You never do anything".
- Chapter Three: Break Your Stupid Heart has "Let's make something".
- Art Evolution: Compare the first volume with the second. Wholly justifiable since there was nearly 4 years between books, plenty of time to practice.
- Ax-Crazy: Stiletta, complete with Slasher Smile. In her three main appearances so far, she has attacked Sera with an ectoplasmic monster, later slit open Sera's forehead and wrote "Reconsider" in blood after she turns down a job offer, and most recently nearly slit her throat. Aside from it being hinted she may work for the person who offered Sera the job, her motives are unclear.
- Berserk Button: Sera hates confrontation (along with social situations of almost any type). But insult her integrity or sexuality, or try to get her to do something she considers demeaning, and it takes seconds before she explodes in foul-mouthed tirades against whatever caused it, be it her best friend, a total stranger, or her mentor.
- Black and Nerdy: While Merrick is far from the standard type he definitely has a bit of a nerdgasm when he meets Sera for the first time.
- B-Side Comics:
- "Welcome to Statickland," although it looks like it isn't continuing in the second volume.
- In volume three the main cast is putting on a rock opera with puppet versions of the characters from "Welcome to Statickland".
- But Not Too Foreign: Downplayed with V; zigzagged with Crawlsie.
- Ethnically, V is half-Chinese and half-Japanese; but she was born, raised and still lives in England, speaks with a heavy "British" accent, doesn't do anything unique to East Asian cultures, and owing to being a witch, her skin is paper-white. And she uses chopsticks incorrectly. Granted, being English she's still technically foreign to the other main characters, but culturally and linguistically, British is much closer to American than either Japanese or Chinese.
- Crawlsie is ethnically Hispanic, culturally Mexican, and hails from a small town in Arizona. Her family have been living there since Arizona was part of Mexico.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Tess's first appearance in "Goodbye, Crestfallen"
- Crawl: In the interspersed news stories in "Goodbye, Crestfallen" the crawl will start off as something related to the story and then switch to stories regrading "Brittany" Spears, a clown cop reality show, the success of the "Hooters Bowl", and Miss America being caught with a "bong-like" device.
- Earthy Barefoot Character: V tends to do without shoes whilst tending her garden. Downplayed in that like all witches she can hover and fly at will and rarely actually touches the earth.
- Enchanted Forest: The Inconsolable Woods, filled with trolls and other monsters.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- The first few pages of the comic consist of Sera, utterly exhausted but unable to sleep, brooding and ruminating in the wee hours of the morning, despite the fact she has to go to college in a few hours, obsessively drawing and painting in an attempt to clear her head.
- Sera's sleep troubles are used to establish the development of her character. In the second volume, a direct juxtaposition from the first, she is desperately trying to stay awake; and in the third, she sleeps peacefully, dreaming of the progress she's made and the happy day before.
- Fan Boy:
- Tiphane Revile, Dread Mortado, and Agatha Eversong all idolize Sera a little too much. They even write songs about her.
- Best illustrated after she hears their band play, and subsequently throws up:Sera: Tiphane's prolly rubbing his nose in it right now... soaking it up in his hair.
- Foreign Cuss Word: Crawlsie speaks perfect English but tends to lapse into Spanish when she's surprised.Crawlsie: Puta madr -
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Weekly Advice From A Fictional Rock Star Witch
- Freudian Trio: Tess id, Sera ego, Vicious superego.
- Jade-Colored Glasses:
- Sera at the beginning of the series but she eventually gets over this.
- Maddy's current outlook on life appears to be this.
- Knight Templar: Victor Vogel seems to be somewhere between this and General Ripper, with (of course) an extra-large helping of Fantastic Racism.
- Must Have Caffeine: Sera is a massive caffeine addict and uses energy drinks and strong coffee to avoid sleep, both so that she can work long into the night also and to avoid her night terrors, which coupled with her Power Incontinence are a serious problem.
- Noodle Incident: The aftermath of the bus incident (itself not a Noodle Incident) is considered the 'second worst scandal in SSI history'. Makes you wonder what could top that.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Within the world of the comic, Sera is best known for an Unstoppable Rage at age 16 where she hijacked a school bus and took out the platoon of soldiers sent to apprehend her. The incident left 328 bullet holes in her house, but no one got hurt. She's still struggling with the fallout years later.
- Our Goblins Are Different: Created by witches to act as messengers, assistants, and low-rent jesters. They've since lost direction, and now are primarily a local annoyance / tourist attraction in Crestfallen.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are more animalistic than usually portrayed, and vampire blood is used as a drug. Vampires are kept sedated so their blood can be collected and sold off, and "The Curse" seems to spread mainly from drug use rather than vampire attacks.
- Parental Abandonment:
- Tess's mom basically dumped Tess on her grandfather when she was four.
- Sera's dad died when she was a teenager and her mom died when she was four.
- In Rivet Hed's back story his parents kicked him out when he was arrested for practicing witch craft on corpses, from the cemetery his family ran.
- Perky Goth: Vicious Whisper, in contrast with Sera's Gloomy Goth at the start of the comic.
- Power Incontinence:
- Witches have pretty good control over their powers, but Sera conjures things in her sleep, including a monstrous creature that tears off a hiker's arm, and later violently tears apart the soldiers sent to stop it.
- V also conjures things in her sleep, but they're typically things like flowers and butterflies.
- Precision F-Strike: Sera, who had previously been talking calmly and quietly, screams one during an argument with Tess.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: An inversion typical of Aaron A's work, in terms of the dialogue; characters interrupt each other, mumble, lose track of conversations and stumble over words.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Rivet Hed's cynicism versus Vicious Whisper's idealism.
- Leading to a inversion of Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!; Rivet Hed is portrayed as immature and pathetic, and V as wise and mature.
- Storyboard Body: Sera has her signature heart-shaped-skull tattooed, or more likely shapeshifted, on her hand when she's made peace with her past and herself.
- Strawman Political:
- Aaron A. is fond of using these. The best examples are the preacher from the "Church of Right Thinking," and, for that matter, "The Church of Right Thinking" is a strawman political for, well, the religious.
- Mr. Vogel is a caricature of an over the top Well-Intentioned Extremist, likely aimed at the right wing as well.
- Teens Are Monsters:
- The assholes that used to tease Maddy in high school.
- Stilletta. If we are to go by the time her grandmother disappeared that puts her at about seventeen. It's probably less obvious because neither she or Sera look their age.
- The Teetotaler: For most of the series, Sera doesn't drink, smoke, or take drugs stronger than caffeine (though she does consume horrendous quantities of coffee and energy drinks). Towards the end of the third volume she drinks a fairly large glass of absinthe. As Maddy points out, Sera's abilities mean she can choose whether or not she wants the absinthe to affect her - but she does apparently decide to get a little tipsy, as the booze seems to disinhibit her (very slightly).
- Trademark Favourite Food: Candy, particularly Gummi Worms, for Sera.
- With Friends Like These...: Perhaps not a full-fledged example, but Tess has done some pretty nasty things to Sera (such as pointing her out to everyone in a crowded nightclub, knowing that Sera is social-phobic and prone to panic attacks).
