Flipside/Characters
This is a list of the characters from the webcomic Flipside.
Be aware: the comic's nature is NSFW, so click the links to it at your own risk.
Main characters
Veranda "Maytag" Kingfisher
A nymphomaniac in a jester costume who is an expert on all things related to sex and sexuality. She's also athletic, a master of potion use, wise beyond her years and has placed all her skill points into Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate and Sense Motive. Her only weakness is that her incredible confidence comes from the jester suit that she wears, and without it she reverts to a shy, timid shadow of her former self.
- An Arm and a Leg: She allows Bloody Mary to chew her arm off from the wrist up (she'd already eaten the hand) in a play for time.
- Anything That Moves: She deconstructs this trope; she starts out the series an unabashed hedonist but gets less and less willing to take sexual risks as the consequences of her actions threaten her relationship with Bernadette.
- Bag of Holding: She has a "Dimensional Bag".
- Battle Couple: With Bernadette.
- Blithe Spirit: Before she compromises herself with Bernadette.
- Broken Bird: Her entire character is an apparent Subversion of this; despite her traumatic past, she's so much of a Blithe Spirit as to nearly be The Unfettered. There are hints of a darker side underneath, however.
- Clothes Make the Superman: Subverted. Up to Chapter 30: Blackbird, her often absurd self-confidence was directly tied to her jester outfit. In that chapter, it's revealed that she has always been self-confident and the two personalities are simply part of her performance.
- Feel No Pain: How she was able to "resist" pain.
- Good Bad Girl
- Hannibal Lecture: Delivers one to Bloody Mary after she ate her arm.
- Life or Limb Decision: She willingly sacrifices her arm to give herself time to talk Bloody Mary out of killing her.
- Lovable Rogue
- Magic Feather: Her costume.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She really enjoys playing this role, most prominently for Regina and Crest.
- Manipulative Bastard
- Marshmallow Hell: In Chapter 4: Sexual Tension, she pushed Crest's face to her chest when trying to get him to open up.
- Ms. Fanservice
- Nice Hat
- Rape as Drama: She's not above submitting to rape, if it's the only way to save the ones she loves. She states outright that her attitude to sexuality makes rape much less traumatic to her than to the average person.
- Selective Obliviousness: Her lack of, and complete inability to understand, modesty.
- Sexy Jester
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Understands the nudity taboo most people have, but doesn't believe in it. Extends it from "no nudity taboo" to "no sexuality taboo". Remains mostly tamed due to being in a relationship. Best summed up here.
- Showing Off the New Body: Her first action while possessing Regina was groping herself.
- Talking Is a Free Action: One sometimes wonders if one of her magical powers is to get people to stop fighting as long as her mouth keeps moving. This is also done a lot in the second fight scene between Bloody Mary and Bernadette.
- Talking the Monster to Death: Her MO is to be so bluntly matter of fact about her ability to defeat you that you hesitate... often fatally.
- Talking Your Way Out: After being captured by Bloody Mary.
- Too Kinky to Torture: She has learned to accept pain rather than fight it, allowing her to be virtually impervious to torture and even mutilation. One scene has her smiling gently as her arm is being eaten, much to the dismay of the person doing the eating.
- Warrior Therapist: Especially in the chapters dedicated to Bloody Mary.
Bernadette
A Lady of War and Maytag's long-time companion and friend. She is a master of the Split Rose Dual-Wielding technique, which focuses entirely on parrying and counterattacking your opponent.
- Badass Normal: She doesn't use sorcery, but that doesn't keep her from taking on sorcery-enhanced opponents.
- Battle Couple: With Maytag.
- Counter Attack: The "Split Rose" technique is based on this.
- Curb Stomp Battle: In Chapter 4: Sexual Tension. Voulger stood no chance.
- Daughter of a Whore
- Dual-Wielding
- Fighting Your Friend: Chapter 16: Man-Eating, from Book Zero, is the introduction of Clairen, an old acquaintance of Bernadette. In this chapter, and the next, Chapter 17: The Battle Of Old Friends, Bern is forced to battle against her, as part of her deal with Seraph.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: A scar on her cheek.
- Honor Before Reason: Her Refusal of the Call
- Refusal of the Call: She chooses to come out of the closet rather that join the Knights.
- Skunk Stripe
- The Worf Effect: She can't do well against spellcasters and magically-enhanced fighters despite being invincible against any normal swordsman.
Crest
A young skilled rogue, and the son of a famous knight. In an effort to raise enough money to pay for an operation to restore his mother's eyesight, he falls into the dangerous world of underground gambling. When he is caught using sleight of hand at a high stakes poker game, his life as he knew it would change...
- Calling the Old Man Out: He does this on Orransong, by telling exactly why he quit the Knights.
- Demoted to Extra: For most of the time, Crest's importance to the story was next to null. It's gotten so bad that in later chapters, other characters seem to be actively ignoring his existence.
- Overshadowed by Awesome
- Pinball Protagonist
- Stalker with a Crush: His stated goal for going with the party is to wait until Maytag and Bern have a fight and steal her away for himself. Granted, this was before he was demoted.
Allies and friends
Britannus
Self-proclaimed "toughest mercenary" of Vestige Town, and self-appointed "bodyguard" of Maytag. He only appears in Book Zero.
- Bodyguard Crush: Towards Maytag.
- Heroes Prefer Swords
- Knight in Shining Armor
- Chronic Hero Syndrome
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: The reason he rejected to fight against the Black Poison Angels. So much that Maytag has a hard time insisting until he gets to fight against them, and even then he doesn't fight with all of his will.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy
- Mistaken for Gay: In the last panel of this strip.
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Asylum local: Hi there, handsome. Would you like to make me feel like a woman? |
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- Out of Focus: A very minor character. He only appears in the first chapters of Book Zero.
- Tempting Fate:
- In the first chapters of Book Zero, Maytag wants to know if all the skills he says he has is real. So, she drags him to The Asylum first...
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Maytag: So you want to be my bodyguard, right? That's fine with me... but I'll have to take you out for a test-run first, of course, before I say yes! |
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- ...and later she makes him confront against the Black Poison Angels.
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Maytag: I would like to see how well you perform with a sword... |
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Lucient
Regina
- Virginity Makes You Stupid: In Book 0; then double subverted in Chapter 23: Silhouette.
Umber and Dirk
- Rape as Backstory: Umber, according to the Interviews.
- The Nose Knows: Umber is stated as having a sense of smell as keen as a dog's.
Sierra
Orransong
Suspiria
- Battle Couple: With Kin.
- Expressive Hair
- Insufferable Genius
- Mundane Utility: She does this a lot. The very first thing we see her doing is using a magic forcefield umbrella.
- No One Could Survive That: Suspiria falls victim to this with respect to Bloody Mary in a truly epic example of Genre Blindness. Or maybe it's because she's an Insufferable Genius. Or both...
- Too Clever by Half: More than once, her massive overconfidence in her own abilities has been painfully undercut by her corresponding lack of practical experience (specifically, a tendency to overextend herself and run out of juice before the job is done).
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Her magic hair in particular.
Kindred (Kin)
- Battle Couple: With Suspiria.
- Killed Off for Real
Glyph
- Butt Monkey
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's a pervert Butt Monkey... and also a member of the Phalanx, and he's the first to wound Moss' uncle.
- Lovable Sex Maniac
Enemies
Clairen
An old friend of Bernadette, who turned into a deadly assassin. She has a tattoo covering the right part of her body.
- Anti-Villain
- Brown Note: Her tattoo paralyzes those men who look at it.
- Fighting Your Friend
Voulger
- Defeat by Modesty: How he was able to submiss Maytag.
- The Nudifier: His sword "Thread-Reaper", which he used to submiss Maytag.
Derricks
Danzig
- Expy: Of Josuke Higashikata, or possibly of Araki characters in general. He even shouts "ORA! ORA! ORA!" when attacking.
Melter
- Faux Horrific: Melter's "disturbing" images in Intermission 19.
The Thin Man
- Big Bad: At least so far.
- The Man Behind the Man
- The Slender Man Mythos: He's known only as "The Thin Man". How closely he follows the rest of the Mythos is unknown.
- The Adjectival Man
Other
The Black Poison Angels
An Amazon Brigade of three women, Prim, Ashley and Lilia, who appear in Book Zero.
- Bare Your Midriff: The three of them.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Lilia, Ashley, Prim.
- Blood Knight: The three of them.
- I Shall Taunt You: Directed to Britannus:
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Ashley: Don't waste your breath, Maytag... I think he's afraid to lose with a woman. |
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- The Ladette: The three of them.
- Swords Are Just Better: Prim.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Prim, Type-A.
Seraph
A Level 3 wizard, who's also the master of both Regina and Lucient. He hires Bernadette in Book Zero in order to grant them protection.
- Kill It with Fire: How he killed Clairen in Chapter 18: Many Plans Come To Fruition, from Book Zero.
Noventia
Moss
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Though not actual mindreading, his talent has the same implications.
- Blessed with Suck: His curse allows him to see everyone's weaknesses has left him a bitter misanthrope.
- Hidden Eyes: Initially, this was assumed to be because he was always so horribly depressing, Emo, sarky, Goth, etc. It turns out that he had magical eyes which caused him to only see the worst in people, causing both his BAD attitude and his hiding of his very weird-looking eyes.
- Jerkass: Though not without justification.
- Scarpia Ultimatum: He pulls this on Maytag in Chapter 23: Silhouette. Subverted when he doesn't follow through.
Ash
Bloody Mary
- Barehanded Blade Block: She catches a blade with her teeth.
- Black Eyes of Evil
- Bloody Murder
- Emotion Bomb: The "Fear Demon" conjured by Bloody Mary, from her vomit.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Unwillingly.
- Healing Factor
- Horror Hunger: Bloody Mary's Bloodlust curse, which requires her to consume human flesh.
- Nigh Invulnerable: At least her vital organs, anyway. The rest of her can regenerate.