Shadownov is a now defunct Webcomic, written and drawn by troper Mark Alda.
Shadownova tells the story of Iris Kolrick, an antisocial teenager who finds herself drawn into an ongoing war between the Everto and a ragtag human resistance group. There is a fair amount of action, but the main focus is on the characters and their growth, particularly that of the three lead characters Iris Kolrick, Jacob,Freeman and Nikki Fawkner.
It all begins with Iris innocently walking to school one morning. However, just before she arrives, a fighter plane swoops overhead and shoots several missiles at the school, destroying it. Iris quickly discovers that no one besides herself can see what happened, including a schoolmate who was half killed in the blast. Soon after, a man called Cameron Hunter arrives and, after introducing himself as a member of a group called the Everto, tries to kill her. Iris is injured but manages to escape.
While hiding from Cam and the Everto in a shopping centre Iris is approached by Jacob, who is unaware of her situation and tries to flirt with her but she coldly brushes him off. The Everto attack again, interrupting the one-sided would-be romance. Iris goes against her character and saves the still-ignorant Jacob's life, but finds herself cornered as a result. Right when Iris is about to be shot the Everto soldiers (and almost everyone else in the area) are wiped out by a massive firestorm which Iris stands at the centre of.
The artwork has a distinctly manga influenced style reminiscent of David Gonterman. If you want to find the comic, you can try copying the url from this
link and putting it on the Wayback Machine, but even then you'll only be able to wiew a few pages at best.
Also, if anyone (more specifically the troper who drew the thing in the first place) would happen to have a file with the comic, we would greatly appreciate if a link to said file were to be suddenly added to this page. It would also be great if said file wad posted on archive.org and not on Mediafire.
Shadownova contains examples of:
- Blood from the Mouth: All of the survivors of the attack on East High have this for the few pages they remain alive. Cross also has this after he's been shot.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Jacob blinds Fury with a flashbang and tries to punch him. Fury uses the punch to work out where Jacob is and stabs him.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Fury is genuinely disgusted at Iris's Superpowered Evil Side while she slaughters dozens of innocent civilians who can't even see the fight happening.
- Though this sounds quite hypocritical from someone whose side just bombed a school... itself containing dozens of innocent civilians who didn't see it coming.
- Freak Out: Iris has had two so far, one right after her Superpowered Evil Side went on a rampage in chapter 2 and another when the gravity of her situation fully sinks in in chapter 3.
- Genre Savvy: Jacob. His logic in protecting Iris would not work anywhere outside the kind of story he's in.
- Of course, this logic is quite sound even in Real Life - Siding with "the mystery girl with the crazy powers" is a good way to get a Magical Girlfriend at best, and will keep her from killing you at the very worst. Siding with "the army of dudes trying to kill her" will get you locked up and harangued at best, and Killed to Uphold the Masquerade at the very worst. The Alt Text even Lampshades a different opinion.
- Hollywood Healing: Subverted. Iris seems to be completely fine immediately after applying bandages to her knife wounds but collapses as soon as she tries to anything more strenuous than sitting around angsting.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Cam stabbing the janitor in the throat, cutting short his last words.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: The Everto do this to many people. It pretty much kicks the plot in motion.
- Male Gaze: We get Jacob's view of Iris at the top of this page.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Iris does this after she sees what happened while her Superpowered Evil Side was in control.
- Mysterious Waif: Iris. Played with in that she's the main character and we're explicitly shown at the start why she can't go home. Jacob doesn't know what we know and definitely sees her as one, mistaking himself for the hero in the process, and heavily Lampshades her use of the trope.
- Ordinary High-School Student:
Iris andJacob.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Played with. Fury is appauled when Iris's Superpowered Evil Side kills a lot of people, including a large nuber of civilains but Jacob, using a Genre Savvy interpertation of her role in the grand scheme of things, decides to forgive her.
- Scenery Gorn: A little after East High is destroyed and after Iris's Superpowered Evil Side is done rampaging.
- Shout-Out: The Alt Text frequently quotes and compares the comic to other works and memes. In the actual story, Nikki references The Matrix while explaining things to Iris and Jacob.
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Schedule Slip: Frequently. The artist is a highschool student who overestimated himself trying to do three pages a week. - The Stoic: Nikki tries to be this to deal with her emotional pain. She still lets some emotion slip through at first but gets better at hiding it as the sory goes on. Cross does not think this is a good thing.
- Unflinching Walk: Fury does this after jumping from his helicopter after Iris attacks it. He whips his coat off and swears vengeance on Iris while his chopper crashes and explodes in the background.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Fury swears vengeance on Iris for killing his subordinates and many civilains who, to the reader, are nameless and faceless. Iris also takes it pretty hard when her Superpowered Evil Side goes away and she sees the carniage and death she caused, even though all the victims were either trying to kill her or people she claimed to hate.
