Soul Symphony
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"I couldn't care less about whatever crises my classmates are going through." —Carl explains to Olivia why she was chosen.
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Soul Symphony is an Urban Fantasy Web Comic about a girl named Olivia who is chosen to help her fellow students deal with stress and anxiety, despite her hatred for other teenagers. She's chosen when a spirit named Carl suddenly appears out of her clarinet and demands that she clear her school of negative energy. She then does this by teleporting into worlds inside students' souls and defeating monsters that represent bad emotions.
She defeats them using the power of music of course.
Tropes used in Soul Symphony include:
- All Just a Dream: Orso John thinks.
- Art Evolution: It's fairly new but from the first page to the latest, it's clearly visible.
- Character Development: Arguably, most inner demons represent the negative emotions of their host. After Olivia defeats them, the host will be able to handle these emotions much better in real life.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The first thing John does when he wakes up in the Soul World is kill a jester in one punch, and then kill an additional six in a flurry of basketball moves. This is before Olivia even hurt any of them.
- Deflector Shields: One of the many spells Olivia possesses.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The real world is shown in black and white, the Soul World is shown in full-color.
- Everybody Hates Mathematics: Or atleast John does. It's his worst class because he loses his concentration thinking about basketball.
- Flight: Another one of the many magical spells Olivia possesses.
- Friendless Background: Olivia literally has zero friends, and doesn't want any.
- How We Got Here: Chapter 2 starts with a tired Olivia with an injured arm. In a flashback, we get to see what happened.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Chapters are called "Movements", like of a piece of classical music (First Movement, Second Movement, etc.)
- Idiot Hero: John, although he isn't the main protagonist.
- I Know Madden Kombat: John's first instinct of a weapon to summon is a powerful basketball. He immediately kills six enemies in quick succession using it.
- Informed Loner: Inverted with John, although not so much to actually make him a loner. Even though Charlie tells him he has a lot of friends and plenty of girls who'd want to date him, whenever we see him, he usually hangs out with either Charlie or Olivia, or just spends time by himself. Averted with Olivia, who really was lonely at the beginning of the story, although she is starting to make friends.
- Instrument of Murder: Enemies in Charlie's Soul World literally fight by swinging microphones and electric guitars around.
- Invisible to Normals: The only one who can see Carl in the normal world is Olivia.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: It's how Olivia chooses to help kids with their psychological and emotional problems, by going into their "Soul Worlds."
- Luminescent Blush: Olivia seems to be getting these a lot as the comic progresses.
- Magic Music: Playing instruments in the Soul World results in casting spells. Olivia gains flight and barrier abilities by playing scales and trills on her clarinet respectively.
- Mentor Mascot: Carl is this to Olivia. Despite his personality, he appears to be very knowledgeable on how the magic of Soul Worlds work, but doesn't tend to explain things until it's almost too late.
- Monster of the Week / Mystery of the Week: Each chapter involves Olivia helping a different client with their problem by defeating a different monster each time.
- Musical Assassin: Olivia, see above.
- John too, maybe even better than Olivia.
- Refusal of the Call: She tried to ignore it, but eventually, she just accepted it.
- Shout-Out: Eric has several familiar plushies in his room, and a poster with a certain logo on it. He also wears a shirt with a Triforce on it from time to time.
- And then Mario can be seen in Eric's memory cave.
- John pulls a "CHAOOOOOOOOOOOOOS DUUUUUUUUUUNK" in the 100 flash special.
- Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Carl to Olivia. Most of their conversations boil down to who can be the snarkiest.
- Splash of Color: See Deliberately Monochrome above.
- Teen Genius: Olivia is a musical prodigy. Eric counts too, as he can play various instruments successfully.
- The Power of Friendship: Because she helped out Eric in the real world, this literally protected Olivia from harm while she was in his Soul World.
- The Power of Rock: The monster of Charlie's Soul World summons lightning bolts by strumming power chords.