Broken Plot Device
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Narrator: You are a comic artist now! The path is before you. Now you just have to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next... On a schedule. On time. With you eager readers hungry to digest and dissect every word, every pen stroke. |
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Broken Plot Device is a Mundane Fantastic Furry Comic created by Lis Boriss. It takes place mostly within Byron Factory apartments, which is in turn located in an unnamed east-coast city. The comic takes place on a parallel version of Earth. As is evidenced by the fact that ninjas and giant fighting robots exist in "normal" society.
The comic mainly centers around the lives of Lizardbeth, an easily distracted webcomic artist with a massive coffee addiction; Maxine, a rather blunt and overly sarcastic woman who nevertheless seems to have Lizardbeth's best interests at heart; and Sid, the lionhearted friend of the previous two. Other characters that often appear include Zig, the slightly withdrawn robotics engineer; and Sylver, a man who considers himself god's gift to the ladies (the ladies, however, tend to find his company a bit unpleasant).
Broken Plot Device often parodies various popular video games and other things generally associated with nerds, sometimes through use of the games "Realm of Warquest" and Warmillenium 40k. It can be found here.
Tropes used in Broken Plot Device include:
- Adorkable: Poor Zig. He's quite the geek, spends most of his time in his apartment, and about 80% of the time he's on screen, he's either terrified or nervous.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Zig attempts to create a robot dinosaur toy that'll be the Next Big Thing. He ends up with... a robot dinosaur toy that thinks with the penis it doesn't actually have. Most of Zig's time is spent trying to debug Rex, with mixed results.
- Apologizes a Lot: Oh, Zig.
- Art Evolution: Character designs have become more refined over the length of the strip.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animals: Lizardbeth and some of the other characters.
- Boisterous Bruiser: When Sid isn't in Papa Wolf mode, he tends to respond enthusiastically to a fight, deliberately setting up a Ninja Trap out of boredom. When Scissors reports to his boss, Sid is visible in the background having the time of his life against Rock.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Dr. Washe created a Death Trap that looked like a game of Trouble (Yes, really.). Not only was he busily explaining how it would work, he left the victims unsupervised when a minion called for his attention.
- Brand X: "Realm of Warquest". Warmillenium 40k.
- Brutal Honesty: Max is full of this.
- The Cameo: Jay Naylor (drawn as his Better Days character Fisk) in this strip (as Nay Jaylor). Boriss insists that it's not a Take That towards Jay.
- Casanova Wannabe: Sylver.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Lizardbeth, all the way.
- Coming Out Story: Zig was in the Transparent Closet to begin with, so it wasn't much of a surprise. Even so... Poor guy.
- Damsel in Distress: Not so much. Max escaped with no trouble, and freed the villain's main target while she was at it. Offscreen.
- Deadpan Snarker: Max.
- Death Trap: Of the Gas Chamber sort. As per the trope, easily escapable.
- Dramatic Wind: Inix seems to summon one up in panel 4.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Zig wasn't exactly in the best state of mind when he got his.
- Extreme Melee Revenge: Sid, in his El Rey persona, gives a mugger a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown... while the guy is begging for mercy.
- Female Gaze: Er... More like "Homosexual Male Gaze". Sid repeatedly caught Zig staring at his butt. Zig was clueless.
- Foreshadowing: Well, Rex's Single-Target Sexuality now makes a lot more sense, considering who built him. And, uh, this.
- Friendship Moment: Averted. Sylver apparently is too wrapped up in posturing and ego to realize what Sid's trying to tell him.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Zig makes robots, a combat-ready suit of technologically advanced armor, and a nuclear-powered, self regulated hoodie. And those are just the things we've seen.
- As of now, he also completed a working Portalgun.
- The Glomp: D'awwwwwwwww...
- Highly-Visible Ninja: Phil, mostly because he is a very, very bad ninja.
- Hollywood Pudgy: Sunny is described by the other characters as being "chubby" and "shaped like a football." While she may be a bit heavy for her (below-average) height, it's all in her bust and hips.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Several.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Dr. Washe kidnaps Max to get back at Zig who beat him in a Pokémon competition. Zig was there because he's a bit of a dork. Dr. Washe was there to get back at kids for destroying the arcades of the doctor's youth. As Max puts it, "oh my god, you're the lamest villain ever!" After his plan is thwarted and he's in tears, he's placated by an offer of a game of Skee-ball.
- Jerkass: Sylver. He's in a relationship with a girl he doesn't seem to care about because he was threatened with physical harm if he didn't date her. Plus he thinks cheating on her (if he could actually get another date) to "not count"... because she's a fat chick.
- Last-Second Word Swap: My Gods! I haven't seen one of these in cennnnnnn... decades?
- Ley Line: The Byron Factory apartment complex is built on top of one.
- Must Have Caffeine: Lizardbeth.
- Must Have Nicotine: Max.
- Noodle Incident: Bagel Incident -- "... I don't think I'll ever be able to eat bagels again."
- The Not-Secret: It was made fairly clear that Sid and Max knew Zig was in the closet. Apparently, they thought it was cute, or were at least waiting for him to talk about it.
- Older Than They Look: Inix is stated in her bio to be hundreds of years old.
- Omniscient Morality License: Inix seems to think this justifies what she does to the other people in the apartments. Her higherups have an even more widespread license, which they used to revoke hers. We have yet to see if any of it is actually justified, though Inix at least is doing something to help the people around her.
- Papa Wolf: Don't tick off Sid. Really, don't.
- Pet the Dog: Scissors makes an attempt to cheer up his boss.
- Powered Armor: Zig made some once, for a project that got cancelled. Of course, he still has it lying around, which comes in handy when Max gets kidnappped.
- Psycho for Hire: Scissors apparently takes "alotta pride in my work". Dr. Washe apparently "still [has] stains on the walls". And this is the guy who described Sid as "a total psycho... He's like a flying murder machine!" Dr. Washe is disturbed.
- Punny Name: Doctor Gaiman Washe.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: Dr. Washe has a trio of minions. In order...
- Rock, The Brute. An armadillo, has not yet vocalzised more than grunts or screams. Easily outsmarted by "El Rey" and a Hall of Mirrors.
- Paper, The Evil Genius. A gazelle, or possibly antelope. Attempts to assault Zig with a replica sword, and is out-trivia'd by him. This resulted in a Skyward Scream as Zig snuck past him.
- Scissors, the one who does Cold-Blooded Torture, enthusiastically. A rather snarky ferret. Is freaked out by Sid's enthusiasm for combat. This, in turn, freaks out his boss.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Subverted so very hard by this comic, with Liz (who's cute), Zig, and Inix. Rowr.
- Robot Buddy: Rex the cyber-apatosaurus was supposed to be one. He's still a bit buggy, starting from "massive egotism", to "hitting on every girl on sight", "cringing in terror at being touched", and currently "hitting on Sid and drawing him naked". He's getting a bit better as Zig recodes him again and again.
- Ship Tease: Sid's just being pragmatic in a dangerous situation, but still...
- Shout-Out: Zig's powered armor, according to Paper, looks more like Mega Man than a Cylon.
- Shrinking Violet: Zig, yet again.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Sylver. He's a jerk who thinks he's God's gift to everything. And so far shows little to no actual competence. When things go sour - often by his own actions - he typically responds by slouching off and angrily demanding "why can't everything be cool?"
- Stripperiffic: Take a good look at the outfit Inix wears in earlier strips.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Max plays a game of 'Angry Chickens'.
- The Snark Knight: Max...at least so far.
- Theme Naming: Dr. Washe's minions are named Rock, Paper, and Scissors.
- Those Two Bad Guys: Grot and Zel. Though they had a nasty plot brewing when they first appeared, they've been downgraded significantly in threat, turning them into Those Two Guys.
- Now they're planning something big concerning Torgie the frog totem.
- Unknown Rival: Dr. Washe to Zig. Later becomes known. Still isn't that dangerous.
- Unstoppable Rage: For your own sake, do not fight dirty with Sid. It only serves to anger him, and he's really scary when he's really angry.
- For that matter, don't take Max's cigarettes, either.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Rex recently had a Wi-Fi chip installed. The horny little robot now has full access to the web.