Strays
Strays is a joint webcomic project by Samantha Whitten and Stacey Pefferkorn, who both share responsibilities in writing and drawing the comic. Meela is a young, orphaned lupian (a race of people with wolf-like features) who is struggling to survive on her own. A chance encounter on less than pleasant terms teams her up with Feral, another lupian who happens to be a mute as well as one of the best mercenaries in the land, and who is not quite so welcoming of her forced company as she would like to believe.
Tropes used in Strays include:
- Affectionate Pickpocket: Piper is very... friendly.
- Bandage Mummy: Not quite full-on Mummy, but still quite a lot there.
- Beneath Suspicion
- Big Badass Bird of Prey: Liohnel Mithrennon, a Lyrian, presumably turns into one.
- Big Badass Wolf: Feral in his wolf form
- Blow Gun: Feral starts putting one together, before the Tag Along Kid botches his assassination job.
- Blow You Away: Piper shows us how it's done.
- Blue Eyes: Holland.
- Bounty Hunter: Feral.
- Bullet Holes and Revelations: Here.
- Cinderella Circumstances
- Constantly Curious: Meela towards Feral especially.
- Covered with Scars: Feral. Lots of 'em.
- Cunning Like a Fox: Piper. Holland, too.
- Dances and Balls: Sets the scene for Dressing as the Enemy, below.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Meela's dreams about Yuen and Mal.
- Disappeared Dad: Meela's father was killed before the story begins.
- Dreaming of Times Gone By: Meela does this a lot.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Starting here.
- Due to the Dead: Meela burned the house of one of Feral's hits in effigy.
- Fantastic Racism: Against lupians.
- Femme Fatale: Piper
- Final Speech
- Flash Back: Complete with Monochrome Past, sepia-tone in this case.
- A Friend in Need
- Functional Magic: Feral was able to cause phantom pain by stabbing someone's shadow (#77), and of course see the entry for Blow You Away.
- Gray Rain of Depression
- Heartwarming Orphan: Meela, see Morality Pet.
- Hidden Depths
- Home, Sweet Home: Meela, in the back story, really wanted to go home.
- I Just Want to Be Normal
- Important Haircut
- Instant Messenger Pigeon: Kosher's preferred form long-distance communication.
- King Incognito: Prince Holland!
- Klingon Promotion: Played with. Korin takes leadership of Yuen's clan by killing the former leader, he had tried a number of times before, but didn't win until he had outside help.
- Little Bit Beastly: Varying degrees, dependent on... species? Meela and Feral both have tails, for example, compared to Piper's ears-and-tail.
- Mismatched Eyes: Feral right and left eyes are red and green, respectively.
- Missing Mom
- Morality Pet: Meela's definitely this for Feral, who is a hardened bounty hunter.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Korin went a little too far...
- Never My Fault: Korin.
- New First Comics
- Oh Crap: Holland here. There are plenty of other brilliant Oh Crap moments all throughout the webcomic, though.
- Odd-Shaped Panel
- Our Werewolves Are Different: They can change at will with a flash of light, are gigantic, and keep distinguishing features such as eye color and scars.
- Overly Long Name: That's Prince Holland Perdicus Lathalinethetul to you!
- Overprotective Dad: That's what promotion to parent gets you, sometimes
- Pink Is for Sissies: Meela is not a fan of Holland's taste in dresses.
- Please Wake Up
- Poisoned Weapons
- Power Glows: Transformations from between animal and human forms.
- Promotion to Parent: Feral.
- Royal Blood: Holland.
- The Runaway: Holland was at some point in his childhood, and Yuen was unfortunately driven to this.
- Scars Are Forever: Feral has many scars, most visibly over his right eye; the rest, including the severe scarring on his throat, are usually covered by his clothes.
- Schizo-Tech / Anachronism Stew: It may seem to be around The Middle Ages, but the clothing styles and materials are fairly modern(ish), plus the existence of firearms and varying degrees of magic.
- Security Blanket: Meela clutches her bear in one flashback.
- Shapeshifting: All of the 'animal' races seem capable of changing between two forms with some practice or being taught. So far, we've seen Feral as a wolf, Piper as a fox, and Holland as a swan.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Meela.
- Silent Snarker: Feral. He has to be to put up with Meela's antics.
- The Speechless: Feral, thanks to a lovely set of scars over his throat as mentioned above.
- Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Holland pulls a bow and arrow pretty much out of thin air and readies it in one smooth motion.
- Stalker with a Crush
- Standard Female Grab Area: Splendidly averted by Avela, who punches Korin in the face for even trying this on her. Doesn't save her in the end, though
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Meela's brother insists that she do this.
- Tagalong Kid: Meela.
- Tomato Surprise: Despite what Meela has assumed by dreaming herself as Yuen, Yuen actually looks a lot more like a certain bounty hunter than he does like her.
- Traumatic Haircut: Meela's brother inflicted one on her in the backstory.
- Trickster: Piper. Holland shows some traces of it too... he certainly knows more than he lets on, and isn't afraid to bend the truth or lie a little sometimes.
- Unsound Effect: Several, usually involving Feral, along with hand gestures.
- Visible Silence
- White-Haired Pretty Boy: Holland.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises
- Would Hurt a Child: The so-far-nameless feline guard. Then quickly averted seeing how the next page he's about to hack her head off. Piper so far is the only one who seemingly wouldn't hurt a child, which is shocking to say the least.