Back to Prequel.
- Arc Fatigue: Katia's introspective adventure. With the long wait between updates and arguable lack of progression, it seems to be there just to spend time and show off (admittedly amazing) effects.
- Extends to the story as a whole, as Katia was in Kvatch for about 5 years without appearing to get any closer to finishing her delivery and doing something else. The constant schedule slips have been very hard on fans of the comic.
- Awesome Art: Prequel is in general very well drawn. But the art for Infiltrate
takes the cake. - Awesome Music: Even if you aren't the puzzly type, the peg-jumping puzzle becomes enjoyable when played to "One Cold Morning" by Makkon.
- "An Astrailhad" by Beltaine, which plays when Katia defends herself from some imps.
- "Dead Man's Reel" by Suidakra, which plays when Asotil enters.
- "Hope For You Yet" by DragonXVI, a beautiful composition that plays when Katia finally regains her self-confidence.
- Anything by SiAsInSilence:
- "Impending Doom", a remix of "An Astrailhad" that plays during the Greater Impmaster Murderboss fight.
- "Weregilded" is a rhythmic piece that really suits Katia's break-in at the Kvatch Mage's Guild.
- "Impending Doom
- "An Astrailhad" by Beltaine
- Broken Base:
- Katia's constant losses and fall-backs have lead readers to stop following the series, unsatisfied with the slow progress of the story. The ones who stick around to voice their objections end up derided by more loyal and/or sadistic readers for whining that the story hasn't gone exactly the way they'd hoped and cluttering the command submission thread with unhelpful complaints.
- Katia: Infiltrate. Some people say that an easy flash game that wasn't really the stealth game promised and ends extremely abruptly as Katia is caught in a trap is not the comeback people were hoping for after two years, while some people simply choose to appreciate the amazing visuals packed in it and the fact that the comic had come out of hiatus in general.
- The flash games in general: Fun minigames worth the wait or a complete waste of time that could've been spent advancing the plot?
- Are audience suggestions absolute commands that Katia must follow unquestionably, or are they mere suggestions and encouragement that she may or may not accept? Kazerad's past use of the audience's input strongly suggests the latter. The arguments only heat up when it becomes clear that prompts are mostly only used to make her situation worse.
- Draco in Leather Pants: Rajirra, while not outright evil, is a major Jerkass at best who is consistently rude and dismissive toward Katia and ends up trapping her in the room with the Greater Impmaster Murderboss. Despite this, she has a surprising number of fans willing to ignore or defend her behaviour.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Katia's sole lockpick has become this to most fans.
- Fan Nickname:
- A Soldier Of The Imperial Legion, or Asotil.
- Nah the Squigglepire.
- In an uncharacteristic display of originality, the audience has dubbed the summoned Clannfear 'Eepy.'
- Aggie, which comes from AG, which stands for Ancestral Ghost.
- Fan-Preferred Couple: It's been stated numerous times in the story that Katia isn't into girls, and that Quill already has an interest in someone else. Doesn't stop the fanartists from shipping them together at all.
- Genius Bonus: Many of the jokes become even funnier if you've played Oblivion and get the references. For example, there really is a general goods store with the signpost "Lelles' Quality Mercandise"◊, which the owner directly addresses and apologizes for when you talk to him.
- Viewers unfamiliar with the game will think the "kitten full of blood"◊ is just another throwaway joke. It is actually an Alfiq, one of 16 possible subraces of Khajiit, which just happens to resemble a housecat in form; it may well be foreshadowing a new character.
- Viewers unfamiliar with the game will think the "kitten full of blood"
- Growing the Beard: Once it starts developing longer chains of updates and separates itself from MS Paint Adventures in style a bit, it gets noticeably better in quality.
- Memetic Mutation: Just about everything Asotil does.
- "Sometimes, criminals are dogs." "True Justice is that lighty beacon of light in a world of prejudice and disorder, where not even the innocent are safe."
- Moment of Awesome: The full list is here. Some standout cases are:
- Asotil's entrance.
- After worrying about what Katia would do after this cliffhanger update, more than one reader admitted to cheering out loud at what happened next.
- Asotil's entrance.
- Moral Event Horizon:
- Gro-Upp at first seems Affably Evil at worst, or even a sort of cheerfully amoral Punch-Clock Villain. Then he slaughters Dmitri for mentioning a Noodle Incident. As bad as that already seems (Dmitri was probably an Anti-Villain at the worst), it seems far worse from a reader perspective of denying Katia another potential friend and mentor.
- Sigrid tricking Katia, taking all of her belongings, and denying her ice cream. Later revealed to be a subversion - at the time, she's affected by her own Telvanni Bug Musk and not in her right mind.
- Popular with Furries: It's to be expected, as a webcomic starring a cat woman. At one point Kazerad even made a Prequel advertisement◊ targeted directly at furries that ran on a handful of NSFW furry websites.
- Tear Jerker: For Katia at least; just about anything.
- Perhaps most striking after the Mages Guild Incident. After Katia has been robbed blind of all her possessions, including a letter she needed to deliver to Quill-Weave, she decides to retrieve an earlier copy of the letter from a waste barrel on the other side of town. Then the rain starts. After a momentary Heroic Blue Screen of Death, she sprints across the city, pursued by hateful reader comments about her worthlessness and inability to succeed. She literally tackles the barrel in her haste and reaches inside...to draw out a damp piece of paper that falls apart in her hands.
You're not Katia Managan. You're not a budding wizard. You're not even a real person. You’re just some dumb stray animal that tries its goddamn hardest to please absolutely anyone and always fucks up anyway. - Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Some fans feel that between Katia's never ending rut, the glacial pace of the story and Kazerad more or less lying about actually listening to outside input that Prequel has become a depressing bore where nothing has gotten done in several years.
- It's been noted by fans that the sheer mundanity of Katia's errand in Kvatch doesn't help matters either. She's most likely not the Champion of Cyrodiil, so the fact that her "adventures" so far consist of failing to deliver a package and getting fucked over multiple times during such a simple errand can make it hard to maintain interest. Incompetence can only be charming for so long.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One of the people encountered during Katia's travel is a recruiter for the Dark Brotherhood, an Assassin cult. As time has gone on, more than a few fans have wondered if the story would've turned out better if she had went with the man and joined the Brotherhood instead of playing it safe with the Mages guild and carrying on with her delivery.
- The Woobie: Katia exemplifies this. The mileage probably won't vary much on this point, since she is designed to be seen as either that or a Chew Toy... (The advertising sig-banner for the story contains the tag lines "Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure" and "Everything is [...] Trying to Make You Miserable".)
- It's possible for it to vary, especially when the author seem perfectly happy to make Katia suffer in accordance with the most self-destructive of the submitted commands. In some cases this apparent philosophy of Failure Is the Only Option can turn the woobiness into Wangst.
