A webcomic by BT Isaac, about the adventures of some misfit high school kids. Also includes the Sheyleron Saga, a side-comic that is so far independent from the main story. The comic was launched on the 23rd of July 2007, and is currently running its fourth episode. The FAN is hosted at Shastrix.com, and can be found on the other side of this link
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Most characters are more or less based off people the author has known personally during his time in high school. Important characters include the following:
- Tom: A less than glamorous character and so far, the closest the comic has to a protagonist.
- Simon: Tom's snarky best friend, who's never seen without his guitar.
- Adelheid: A... not too slender girl, who nevertheless seems to be quite strong physically. She can also heal people due to an unlikely incident.
- Yuki: A transfer student who somehow ended up living in Tom's home. Yeah... who writes this anyway?
- Marsha: This girl is somewhat a seriously self-loathing fundamentalist.
- Keysha: Marsha's frequent companion. She's cute, and has a large hammer. Also, she's apparently a Catgirl
- The Juniors' League: a team assembled by the school's Intrepid Reporter wannabe, Bobby. It includes Buck, a card collector, Keysha's boyfriend Pete, Bobby's friend, Dot, and the above mentioned Keysha.
- Hajime: mysterious Man In Black working for a somewhat Jidaigeki themed organization that is somehow connected to Yuki.
- The Agents: A trio of Men In Black working for a different organization called Meta Net Corporation.
- Ginger the Cat: A very oddly colored and apparently sentient two tailed cat that followed Tom to school, and is currently Keysha's pet. She spends most of her screentime sleeping.
- Mrs Duckins: Tom's homeroom teacher and a part time witch.
- The Hermit: A mysterious old woman aiming for the role of The Watcher. Not much else is known of her, except that she thought Mrs Duckins magic, and somehow gave the juniors' league their super powers.
- Darren Blake: Xenophobic Jerkass, who may or may not have a heart of gold. Also implied to be behind a series of vigilante killings.
No relation to Tony Scott's film starring Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes.
The FAN contains examples of the following tropes:
- Alternate History: Brought up a few times, but so far, it's left untouched.
- Art Evolution: Very noticeable. Both the quality and the style have gone through major changes.
- Art Shift: More action packed scenes are completely Black and White, and utilize crosshatching.
- Author Avatar: A guy in a red bath-robe. Tom was originally intended to be an in-universe one, but that changed.
- Cool Spaceship: The Sheyleron saga has a single appearance from the Pathfinder. The Mikaboshi, while Obviously Evil, may also be seen as cool, in it's own way.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: Galion, Dragon of Light.
- Curtains Match the Window: Blake has both golden hair and gold eyes.
- Einstein Hair: Professor Zweistein, obviously.
- Elemental Powers: Two characters have them at the moment.
- Blow You Away: Dot
- Dishing Out Dirt: Pete
- Even the Guys Want Him: It looks like Tom's been fantasizing about being strangled by Blake.
- Expy: Maelstrom was roughly modeled after Eddie the Head, Iron Maiden's mascot. Professor Zweistein is ... uh, you can figure this one out.
- Evil Is Not Well-Lit: It seems like the only lights inside the Mikaboshi are either dark red, or dim sickly yellow.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: It has been implied that there are several of them, but as of yet, the strongly European Callista is the only one featured.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: The Sheyleron Saga has little to no relation to the main story. Or the world it takes place in for that matter.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Blake's wardrobe consists of leather pants and a west.
- Hot-Blooded Sideburns: Three characters have them so far. Two high-schoolers and one adult, though only the last one comes anywhere near to having the associated personality.
- Idiot Hair: Keysha has one. It seems to be magical.
- Improbable Weapon User: The titular FAN Yuki uses. Of course it's a war fan so that's justified.
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Japan is now called Yamato. China's name is Shenzhou.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Apparently, watching anime can turn you into an anime character. Or maybe not. But at least people will believe it.
- Mundane Utility: Averted. Dot finds out the hard way, that being able to control wind, won't make dusting easier.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Xeletor from the Sheyleron Saga strips is quite a literal example. Robot? Check. Ninja? Check. Zombie? Well, skeleton so it's pretty close. Pirate? Well, no. But he does look like a gangster. And he's always smoking.
- Our Demons Are Different: a form of psychic parasites that are born out of negative emotions, and drain their host of magical and psychic energy, which allows them to grow more powerful, and eventually self-aware, then proceed to completely take over the host's body.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons are god like beings. they are never described or shown on-panel, but the one statue of Galion depicts him as rather intimidating humanoid.
- Painting the Medium: Speech bubbles are actually just the text with a very thick white stroke and a black outline. the stroke gets a different color when the character uses telepathy, becomes more transparent when the character is talking in the background, or disappears completely and is replaced with a white glow, when the character is on the other end of a phone line or some other communication device, and on one instance, it turns into a red splatter whith a different font when a character gets really pissed off. Some characters also have custom speech bubbles: SK-49 has red text with a black stroke and red outline (along with an Arial font), General Zarro had white lines with black stroke and white outline, Captain Nil uses a distinct, edgyer font with a grainy black cloud, and the Mastermind uses green lines in a transparent black box with magenta outline.
- Photographic Background: Done in the latest episode with photos of the actual real life locations the scene is taking place at.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Pete's hair grows ridiculously long when his powers are activated and falls out when they are deactivated.
- Shout-Out:
- The Administrator's entry is taken almost directly from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.
- The Vengador shares it's gimmick with a "monster from Tom's favorite anime show". That show is Bleach, the monster is called Allon, and the gimmick consists of their deceptive facial features.
- Super-Empowering: Implied to be done by Daemons. Empowered people are referred to as 'gifted'.
- Touched by Vorlons: The Gifted. This is how the Juniors' League have gotten their powers.
- Voice of the Legion: Xul'kgmarhin aliens have two voices that speak in tandem.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Demons are banished when you take their picture with a digital camera. This being a Troper Work, the trope is mentioned by name.
- This is later revealed to be the result of Bob getting empowered by the Hermit
- Webcomic Time: Lampshaded here.
- World of Weirdness: That doppelganger that assumed Tom's appearance seems nothing out of the ordinary. The fact that he's a mercenary hired by a shady organization is much more unnerving. Telepathy is also a mundane trait.
