Footloose (webcomic)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Footloose asks "What happens to the children of former adventurers?". If you're Keti Jones, you try to cope with the excesses of your mental half-fey mother and excitable half-werewolf father in the real world, then get forced sent off to train in the world of Fey, where you discover that a lot of things that occurred before you were born, a secret identity or two, and the nature of Fey are going to make your life complicated.

The first few chapters deal with Keti settling in at the dojo, making friends (and enemies) among her classmates. Then the plot threads begin to weave, intrigue and theft creep in, some of the Backstory is acknowledged and her Primary Protagonist Syndrome starts to make itself felt...

There is an update-for-donations side comic called Cherry that follows the origin of Steve, the crossdressing magical 'girl'.

Not to be confused with the movie Footloose.

Tropes used in Footloose (webcomic) include:

Keti: "Where did they get a photo of me from?"

Daniel: I seek refuge in ennui and sarcasm. Jin just goes to the happy place in her head.

Daniel:That's simple, my mother is a violent, touchy, manipulative bitch who would rather eat ground glass than show any sign of affection.
Keti: Mine too! And I bet your dad is passive, hen-pecked, and spends most of his time apologizing for her?

  • Honorary Uncle
  • Humiliation Conga: Sparkle after the "Falium" incident, beginning with Jin tying her up in the dragon pen and going downhill from there.
  • Hypocritical Heartwarming: Keti's mom Beansprout has a rather odd way of expressing maternal love.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Daniel and Jin, for Keti. Explained in that Daniel and Jin have been going to the Dojo for four years, while Keti is new and was a sheltered child.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter of Cherry - not counting the prologue - is a reference to a song David Bowie has performed.
  • Instant Runes
  • If It's You It's Okay: Keti regarding An, after she is revealed to be female. Although it could be argued that Keti's sexuality hasn't been established either way - and indeed, at the end of the Emerald City arc, Iordan seems to have the idea that she's the rule and he's the exception - her anguish over liking a now FEMALE An at least indicates that she is not comfortable with the idea of being attracted to another female. She seems to at one point [dead link] reach a sense of acceptance, just in time to witness the growing attraction between An and Daniel. Possibly related to Even the Girls Want Her.
  • In Vino Veritas: The half-were twins Jin and Daniel flip-flop their personalities when they get drunk. Cue Daniel launching glomps on Keti and Jin being sarcastic.
  • Journey to the Center of the Mind: Keti's occasional conversations between her human, fae, and wolf aspects.
  • Jumping the Gender Barrier: An and Daniel.
  • Kick Chick: "Kung Shoe" seems to be comprised mostly of thrown shoes and kicks to the head (or groin).
  • Kick the Son of a Bitch: Captain Kitty is constantly tormenting Sparkle the Alpha Bitch, despite having no idea who she is.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence: An AI (a literal Plot Device) is shorted out by Fey!Keti just before it's about to reveal the solution to their latest predicament.
  • The Klutz: Keti, though she's slowly getting better.
  • Lady Land: A very mild case, but it's repeatedly stressed that men do not and should not have equal social standing in Faerie. Even the weakness of men's magic is artificially induced as social policy, not inherent.
  • Lecture as Exposition: Fails nearly every time Flibbage tries it - non-fae tend to have Laser-Guided Amnesia when it comes to Genrerics, the physical laws of the Faerie Realm, comparable to how physics rule the human world.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Keti and Dan. Keti is blatantly lying when she actually says so [dead link], but they really do interact like bickersome siblings, and quite sexlessly.
  • Locked Into Strangeness: Keti, after her experience with the Sword of Slayskull, now possesses dark stripes in her blond hair.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Keti likes An, even after finding out "he" is a girl, and Sparkle wants to seduce An due to taking it as an affront Keti should have a boy she can't control, having also had a relationship with Daniel in the past, who's developing a crush on An but concerned following through on it will hurt Keti, while Iordan definitely has strong feelings for Keti.
  • Love Makes You Crazy
  • Luminescent Blush
  • Magical Girl: The School of Marketable Magic. A subversion of normal magical girl tropes in that all of the students except the male crossdresser are despicable.
    • Cherry/Steve, in particular, loves to subvert normal magical girl tropes.

Cherry: You know how the magical girls never use their best attack first when you fight them, they just flutter around doing nothing much to build up dramatic tension?
Keti: Yeah?
Cherry: (Glowing with power) I think that's stupid.

Keti: THERE'S A- A WALL HERE!
Iordan: Yeah, that's the fourth wall. Come away before you break it.

  • Passing the Torch: Subverted: Keti's mother raised her in the mortal realm as a (somewhat) normal child hoping that Keti would avoid all the trauma adventures she had to endure. Once in Faerie Keti's aunt packed her off to the dojo to learn some skills sharpish in order to avoid the classic fate of non-combatant children in stories.
  • Pirates: Really more terrestrial fences and bootleggers (at least until banished to a more piratical alternate universe), but they certainly act like pirates. Arr, Cap'n!
  • Red Shirt: Jimmy is determined not to be the team red shirt even though Princess Flibbage practically states that's the major reason he's being sent on the quest.
  • Relax-O-Vision
  • Robot Buddy: Played with - all the Powered Armor AIs are a bit flaky, but M3H-13 takes every opportunity to rip his owner's self-esteem to shreds.

M3H-13: ha ha, you're a Red Shirt.

Daniel: Is it me or is she-
An: Scary as all hell? It's not just you.

Iordan: Oh great. Well while we're all talking in subtext, I hope Keti's OK because "she's my friend"

Fey Keti: This is the pirate woman... First of all, she's a pirate! She has a sword AND a gun!

Iordan: But now you guys are here too, what could possibly go wr- (is promptly knocked down, bound, and gagged)
An: ARE YOU INSANE!? Don't say that kind of thing!

    • Later...

Kitty: Oh, please. I've got the sword! No power in the multiverse could stop me.
An: I was hoping you'd say something like that...

  • That Came Out Wrong: After their attack on Kitty and the pirates fails, Iordan, Sylphie, Daniel and An are thrown in the brig. An is attending to Daniel's wound from Kitty slashing him across the face with the Sword of Slayskull and responds to distracting questions from Iordan by saying:

An: Right now all I care about is Daniel! ...Umm... ... because he's my rival. (No one is convinced, not even Daniel, who points out that actually, she's *HIS* rival, and Iordan mocks this attempt.)

    • Another example, from Keti's early crush on An:

Keti: ...I'm always open to offers -- suggestions! I meant suggestions!

  • The Nose Knows: Weres and half-weres like Jin and Daniel have an exceptional sense of smell (as well as good hearing); Jin used hers to find a missing party member [dead link].
  • The Reveal: Dun Dun DUN [dead link] An is female!
  • The Rival: An, at least to Daniel. An's arrival at the Dojo upset Daniel's place as first in his class, not to mention the fact that all the girls (including Keti) swoon over An's good looks.
  • Theory of Narrative Causality: A physical law in the world of Faerie; the world is a story, and anyone living there is caught up in the Plot, especially children of former adventurers. Anyone who knows the laws of "generics" can manipulate the Plot, if they dare - because the Plot eats people.
    • For extra added meta, Fairy Godmother Flibbage tried to invoke a romantic comedy setup... by setting up a play.
  • Thicker Than Water
  • Transformation Sequence: Lampshaded when Cherry doesn't quite complete the incantation in time to stop himself falling.

Keti: I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often.