Rosenkreuzstilette at 4 O'Clock

Rosenkreuzstilette at 4 O'Clock (also known under the German title Rosenkreuzstilette um 4 Uhr!) is a fan comic of [erka:es]'s doujin platformer Rosenkreuzstilette by Joseph Staleknight. Set in the sixteenth century (which to the author's best knowledge is canon), it follows the adventures of Spiritia Rosenberg and her friends in the RKS army as they live through all manners of craziness. It's Better Than It Sounds, of course.

It is available on Smack Jeeves here. Or, if you want better quality, try the deviantArt version here. Currently on hiatus due to a number of reasons, mostly the thin Strip Buffer, but will resume sometime in the future.


 * Actual Pacifist: Liebea, so much that Freu thinks she's a pansy.
 * Alt Text
 * April Fools' Day: The first Filler strip was specifically devoted to having Keine Cameo unwillingly as a cow, and Schwer-Muta with a milking device.
 * Bad Liar: Auttenberg.
 * Beat Panels: Most blatantly used here.
 * Berserk Button:   Lampshaded in the strip's title.
 * Burn, Baby, Burn: The Fairy Forest.
 * Casual Danger Dialogue: Here.
 * Color Failure: Tia is utterly surprised at this turn of events.
 * Cut and Paste Comic: Averted. The author may reuse pieces of the underlying sketchwork, but each panel is still drawn independently of the others.
 * Did Not Do the Research: Yes, even the author screws up the canon sometimes. For example, Lilli shouldn't even be in this comic (or the following ones until #26), since in the actual game she went off chasing the dragon.
 * Expressive Hair: Tia's, Freu's, and Lilli's Idiot Hair tends to react according to the situation at hand. For example, mentioning the Noodle Incident below causes Freu's ahoge to stick out accusingly at the one who mentioned it.
 * Finagle's Law: Tia tries to defy it, but it happens anyway.
 * Foreign Cuss Word: Zorne, oh so much. Since this is taking place in a foreign country, it only makes sense to turn off the Translation Convention whenever she starts swearing like a sailor.
 * Genre Savvy: Lilli has elements of this, most notably when she shoots down Tia's idea to escape through an exit guarded only by portcullis.
 * Goddamned Bats: Living Crosses, although not so much in the actual game.
 * Gonk: This strip, if this review is any indication.
 * Gratuitous German: The titles of each comic, although the gratuity isn't much.
 * Gushing About Writing You Like: In-Universe subversion: Freu appears to praise the romance novel from the literary session, only to admit she doesn't even like the genre.
 * Human Popsicle: Tia becomes one, but thankfully gets out of it okay.
 * #3 - Einsamkeit ist Schwer
 * #F1 - Ein schlechtgeplanter Aprilscherz
 * Imagine Spot: What Freu thinks of Liebea.
 * Lethal Chef: Zorne. Granted, it's what her Canon "skills" are, but here they're Played Up to Eleven For Laughs.
 * Magitek: The horn-phone codec that Tia uses in Strip 9. This trope was also used as an attempt to justify Zorne's robots in the original game.
 * My Friends and Zoidberg: The author uses this to differentiate Claud from the other Spear Knights---the former doesn't care about archery so much as the others do.
 * Needs More Love
 * Noodle Incident: The time where Tia accidentally blew up the village well.
 * Orphaned Punchline: How the series starts.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: Minor demons (like Spear Knights) use a different font from everyone else when speaking. Also, everyone's speech bubbles are rendered in different colors, usually their hair color.
 * Pretty Little Headshots: Thwa-CHIK!
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: Freu has an issue with the Count.
 * Rule of Funny: This is why the Spear Knights show up in the Opening Stage ~Der Anfang vom Ende~, when they don't in canon.
 * Schedule Slip: Minor, but still present; the comic will take a week at most to update. Any longer and there's something seriously wrong with the author.
 * Serious Business: Archery is this to the Spear Knights. Except Claud.
 * Surrounded by Idiots: Claud often feels this way with the Spear Knights, though he is in no way an Evil Overlord.
 * Tempting Fate: Lilli manages to do this via Finagle's Law.
 * Webcomic of the Game: The current arc is dealing with the first entry in the series.
 * Wingdinglish: The "language" of the fantastic creatures. Actually, it's English rendered phonetically into a different, invented script.