What Is This Black Magic You Call Science?



"With only one orange eye, she had the power to change history."

"What Is This Black Magic You Call Science?" is a story of ambiguous morality; it's an episodic Web Original fiction written by the troper Threnody. Sadly a Dead Fic. Was recently updated.

You can find it here.

Heroes:

 * Chryseis: Action Girl and a self-admitted chivalrous hero. Has a bad habit involving an ability to not notice she's injured, and has prosthetic legs as well as a missing eye. Oh, and she vomits frogs, locusts and other Egyptian plagues.
 * Salem: A Mad Scientist who acts as Mission Control, a pretty harsh fitness coach, and The Voice [though he appears in full early on].
 * Aggie: A Jerkass wannabe playboy who prides himself that he's 'not a rapist, but a voyeur'.
 * Joppolo: A black mime who can see through illusions, and some other secret abilities. The most popular character.
 * Sam: A cop who uses antimatter guns; is very girly, and.

Villains:

 * Mocha: A Court Magistrate who wishes the death of her sister, Chryseis, since she promotes liberalism . Is a Fascist blood-mage.
 * Jack: The unsettlingly morbid god of nightmares [he's fit for the job]. Often acts as both a wonky prophet of things to happen and a villain.
 * Polly: A nymphomaniac candy-controlling witch who eats children and virgin girls.
 * Jin: A creepy, implicit pedophile who hates Chryseis' family.

Side Characters:
[under heavy construction]
 * Moriah Rune: The Morality Pet of Chryseis' soul, Moriah is a little girl with distant parents who lives with the subject of Case 1, Boris Rune.  Chryseis wears her treasured hair-flower as a brooch.
 * Azrael: Lycoris' husband/the father of Chryseis and her siblings. Though he eats people, he's a demon, so he couldn't really be called a cannibal. Breaking the Fourth Wall is one of his hobbies.
 * Lycoris: Azrael's wife/the mother of Chryseis and her siblings. Is a cannibal who eats anyone who finds her attractive... which sucks, since she's unavoidably beautiful.

This work provides examples of:
"Unlike must heroines in this situationâ€” where the dashing, rich, and studly hero saves her, has them fall in love over the span of five seconds, and they get married or somethingâ€”, Chryseis was not going to be rescued, and she knew this."
 * A God Am I (Most of the main characters on both sides are gods. The heroine, for example, comes from a line of gods.)
 * Beauty Equals Goodness (Averted, gutted out and flipped upside down; Chryseis, the heroine, is of average beauty [and has a ton of injuries]; Mocha and Polly are beautiful. Lycoris is also head-turningly beautiful... but she's a cannibal. Also, Azrael, Chryseis' somewhat questionable father, is depicted as being very attractive by some people.)
 * Chivalrous Pervert
 * Covert Pervert (Salem, and, to a lesser extent, Chryseis)
 * Crossover (Albion, Case 3)
 * Crossover Cosmology
 * Cursed With Awesome (Chryseis' powers/appearance. Also.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything (So, there's this dictator, who uses charisma and power to go through the ranks, and maintains Fascism, slaughtering disobedient folks left and right, and prejudicing against people of certain religions and beliefs. Oh wait...)
 * Fantastic Racism (Chryseis is hated by the people of Nifl for her viteligo, prosthetic limbs/missing eye, orange eye color, and white hair, which are traits of the goddess of 'evil'. She and Salem are also both hated for their liberalist views.)
 * Faux Action Girl (Averted/lampshaded by Chryseis:)


 * Gas Mask Mooks (Mocha is usually seen wearing one.)
 * Genre Savvy (Most of the characters know their tropes, and Chryseis' father Azrael often recognizes his existence as a fictional character.)
 * God Mode Sue (Averted in that Jack and Chryseis need to eat untapped human fear/souls to get to full power. Chryseis, being a victim of Chronic Hero Syndrome, would sacrifice ultimate power for the fate of humanity.)
 * Grey and Grey Morality (And how!)
 * Karma Houdini ( seems this way, until  )
 * Lampshade Hanging (Many things [see Genre Savvy].)
 * Norse Mythology (Lots of references, including the World Tree, the three countries being 'Nifl'[heim], 'Muspel'[heim] and 'Vana'[heim], and the three planes being Asgard, Midgard and Hel.)
 * Power Trio (At full power, Jack, Valentine [Chryseis' conwoman cousin] and Chryseis have full domain over mind, body, and environment [respectively]. In the entire universe.)
 * Save This Person Save the World ( is implied to be this.
 * Scaled Up (Jack's true form is a huge seven-tailed snake.  can turn into a , and in the end, .)
 * The Faceless (Jack usually doesn't have one, since he's heavily inspired by the Terrible Trivium of The Phantom Tollbooth.)
 * The Four Gods (Said to be the source of harmony throughout the omniverse, and their existence is kept valid by the Three [Jack, Chryseis and Chryseis' cousin Valentine] being alive.)
 * Yum Yum (Polly pulls this a lot.)