Nerf Now

Zerg rushes have never been so adorable.

Nerf NOW!! is a gaming webcomic centering on the RED and BLU Teams' endless battle in Team Fortress 2, though it also includes story arcs taking place in Left 4 Dead, Starcraft, or one-shot comics based on other games. What sets it apart from its rivals is its art, which is Animesque, dangerously cute, and somewhat inappropriate for a scenario involving two factions trying to murder each other, as well as for the fact that the comic is quite capable of telling a story without any dialogue (though more recent arcs have been using more Speech Bubbles).

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Tropes include:

• All Men Are Perverts: The Team Fortress crew? Mostly. Mario especially. Which leads to....
• All Women Are Lustful: The ladies are just as willing as the men.
• Almost Kiss: Dammit, Scout!
• And I Must Scream: Female Shepard probably shouldn't have used the Renegade option when backtalking the author.
• Animesque: Sweat Drop? Check. Cross-Popping Veins? Check. Corner of Woe? Check. Luminescent Blush? Check...
• Art Evolution or Art Shift: The November 22nd 2011 comic had much more detailed shading than previous ones (and Engie-tan dressed like an actual Engineer for a change). It remains to be seen if this is permanent.
• Author Avatar: The Engineer with short, red hair. She appears more often than the other TF2-tans and is used as Jo Pereira's avatar for Twitter and Deviant ART. Also, in this strip and various Mass Effect 2 strips.
  • And then denied here, where he is apparently a tentacle monster in the comic.
  • From time to time, he'll occasionally appear as himself.
• Badass Adorable: Mini Medic-Tan when she gets her Heavy training.
• Badass Old School Gamer: In a mini-arc, Grandpa wants to show the noob kids how it's done, but he fails... before revealing everything went exactly as he planned.}}
• Batman Gambit: "Master Plan".
• Berserker Tears: He loved that doctor.
• Bishonen: A fix suggested by Engie-tan for Heavy.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Steam-tan. Her true love is money. Of course, this is returned in kind.
• Bittersweet Ending: Drone-tan being forced to become a Hatchery, with some overlap with Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
• Blush Sticker
• Bottom of the Barrel Joke: Hat jokes. Lampshaded here.
• Brain Bleach: You've seen it, Now you can't unsee it.
• Break the Cutie: Drone-tan's first arc.
  • Sniper-tan.
• Breast Expansion: 2-up.
• Brick Joke: Harking back to Meet the Demoman, the Sniper, after ticking off Demo-tan, is being stitched back together... "In Hell!"
  • Santa didn't forget about what happened to him on Engie's home last year; but he's a forgiving fellow: He even gave her a hat!
• Butt Monkey: The Sniper. Back during the Sniper VS Spy Update, there was a string of comics with the Spy being far superior to the Sniper. He then later pissed of a RED Demogirl, and... it ended badly.
  • In contrast, Sniper-Tan has been exempt from this treatment. As of late, however, she has her own problems to deal with.
    • YMMV. Sniper-Tan has had some pretty bad luck. Pyro was only interested in her because Engie-Tan was, at the time, dating Scout. After she broke up with him, Pyro started pursuing her again, (or did he?) even though he and Sniper-Tan were still dating. Poor girl just needs a hug.
  • After exhausting all her options, the now-homeless Engie-tan still refuses to spend the night at Sniper's camper van.
• Cardiovascular Love: Heart Symbol imagery appear all the time.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Origin-tan.
  • Sniper-tan as well.
• Corner of Woe: This one. Can't really blame the Medic for it; over more or less the entire arc, things were going really, really badly for him. Good thing the enemy heavy was sympathetic.
• Creator Cameo: Here. Brain Bleach is that way.
  • Early-Bird Cameo?
• Crossover: Neon Fortress Senterion, anyone?
  • The RPG Elements Valve is adding to Team Fortress 2...
• Cultural Translation: "Localization".
• Cute Little Fangs: Zergling-tans.
• Cute Monster Girl: The Zerg. No, seriously.
  • And the Lusty Argonian Maid.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming: From kill reports, chat channels, and the fact that they occasionally change classes/games, the two teams are obviously in a video game, though their players are never shown.
• Distaff Counterpart: The Team Fortress 2 classes are joined by (hot) female couterparts.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: This short arc about a newbie video game princess' first kidnapping.
  • And this previous mini-arc featuring a casual gamer
  • Oh God yes.
• Double Standard : Of the non-gender-issues related variety.
  • When this trope meets Anything That Moves.
• Downer Ending: The Mega Man 9 arc.
• Early Installment Weirdness: It started as a story-driven Team Fortress 2 comic, but it's mostly a gag-a-day general gaming comic now.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The American Violent Gamer may be violent, but he doesn't violate women. Only Japanese gamers do.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Red haired Engie-tan.
• Expy: The most recent one is how one Engie-tan resembles Rei.
  • A more obvious version.
• Fan Service: With a huge engineered lampshade.

Fanservice? In MY Nerfnow?

• Fan Disservice: Curse you, WoW!
• Fiery Redhead: Engie-tan.
• Foe Yay/Les Yay: Based on his Deviant ART page, BLU and RED Engie-tans.
  • And Drone-tan and Probe-tan. Probably NSFW.
  • Engie-tans love has jumped from the Deviant ART pages and into the main comic.
  • Apparently made canon now. . . or at the very least an extreme Ship Tease.
• French Jerk: Guess who.
• Fridge Logic: In universe, coupled with Eureka Moment: Dr. Wily finds a strategy to exploit Mega Manning.
  • What happens if you are already dead to begin with?!
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: This comic lampshades the impossibility of the Engineer's feats in the actual game as a punchline.
• Genius Bruiser: The Heavy, apparently.
• Genre Shift: "She Was Just Level One" is a pretty grim and gritty story for a comic that normally runs on the Rule of Cute.
  • Now an Ascended Fanfic.
  • Revisited in Revengineer 2.0. Brief but satisfying.
• Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: The author does enjoy drawing lesbian make-out scenes every now and then, and again...
  • It seems Pyro and Demoman in the third comic agree. Scout probably agrees also, he's just impatient.
  • Invoked by Chun-Li and Cammy who use themselves as bait.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Considering they're being worn by Pyro, you can probably guess what they are...
  • A female example serves as an enjoyable last view for the sniper.
• Hair of Gold: Blonde Engie-tan.
• Hands Go Down: Concerning uses of the new Kinect system.
• Head Pet: Heavy Weapons Guy needs to go Scout to deliver a message, but doesn't have a helmet. Mini-Medic wants to tag along. The solution is obvious.
• Hot Amazon: Heavy Weapons Girl.
• Hikikomori / Crazy Survivalist: This strip.
• Hotter and Sexier: It's Team Fortress plus anime babes.
• Idea Bulb: This comic.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Heavy Weapons Guy and Heavy Weapons Girl compete for the Medic's affections. When Medic chooses HWGirl, HWGuy leaves so as not to come between them.
• I Warned You: When the Engies go out on a camping trip, BLU-Engie brings along her DS and extra batteries while RED brings "her spirit of adventure". When nature dumps a rainstorm on them, keeping them in their tent, BLU rubs it in when RED admits she's bored.
• Irony: Situational, noted in the News Post under Strip 297, the end of the "Nerf" arc.
• Innocent Innuendo: What were you expecting?
• In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You: In Soviet Russia, Tetris plays YOU!
• Jerkass: The Sniper.
• Kawaisa: Sleeping Zerglings. Dawwwww.
• Limited Wardrobe: Averted to hell and back with Engie-tan who has a different (and extremely fanservicey) outfit in pretty much every comic.
• Loners Are Freaks: The original TF2 Sniper is a Butt Monkey due to his exaggerated loner reputation.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Redhead Engie-tan.
• Love Hurts: Several arcs go take the major relationships to dark places.
• Love Triangle: Between a Medic and two Heavies.
  • Between a gamer, Steam-tan and Origin-tan.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Sometimes being aflame is just a chance to flirt. Or not.
• Medium Awareness: Sonic, in this comic. Too bad he was wrong about what to expect.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: Drone-tan is genki about harvesting minerals, Zerglings and Hydralisks are Cute Monster Girls, and an Overlord is a Meganekko dangling from a balloon. The Zerg have never been more precious.
  • The Protoss add their Probe-tan to the fray. And when a Probe and a Drone meet in the mineral fields, traditional harvesting isn't on their minds.
• Money, Dear Boy: Steam-tan.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Bangus the Endowed
• New Old Flame: Deus Ex, personified as Adam Jensen, to Engie-tan.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Nice job ruining Christmas, BLU Engie-tan...
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Heavy. Dammit, Heavy.
• Nostalgia Filter: Discussed in a Pokémon comic.
  • Also Cool Old Lady GOG-tan.
• NSFW: Parodied.
• Older and Wiser:
  • The Heavy after joining a team of "babies". Has shown elements of being a Papa Wolf as well.
  • The old man from the "Noob" arc.
• Peek-a-Bangs: The Demogirl has these in lieu of an Eyepatch of Power.
• Power Perversion Potential: For the Kinect.
  • And for the time manipulation on Singularity.
  • The Protoss find a new purpose for Observers.
• Puppy Dog Eyes: Only it's larva eyes for zergs.
• Rage Quit: In the Little Red Riding Hood episode.
• Reality Ensues: Here, though instead of making the story more realistic, it's Played for Laughs.
• Rebus Bubble: Used for the dialogue-free arcs.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• Rescue Romance: The very first arc. And it doesn't work out for Pyro.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Just about each of the major Team Fortress 2 updates have garnered a reaction strip or three, but other examples include: Backstab, Karma, and Lottery.
• Second Love: Sniper-tan to Pyro.
• Self-Deprecation: "I got bored of butchering the english language. Now I butcher grammar in japanese too." [1]
• Serenade Your Lover: Sniper-tan confesses her love for Pyro by singing Never Gonna Give You Up.
• Roses Are Red: Violet is BLU
• Short-Range Shotgun: Discussed.
• Shout-Out: To Plants vs. Zombies, with the Peashooter in all of the Left 4 Dead arcs.
  • To My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic and only the Sniper's not having fun
• Shout-Out / Memetic Mutation: #300
  • I'm on a pig.
• Smoke Shield: This strip, complete with Big Damn Heroes moment.
• Stealth Pun: Tonight's Jeopardy! special guest: Dracula.
  • Guess who's in the pit of snakes.
• Stripperiffic: The female Team Fortress 2 characters' outfits can be dangerous distractions.
• Stop Having Fun Guy: Apparently, the Starcraft scene is nothing but this.
  • In other strips, SHFG's are depicted as grey-brown skinned cultists in purple robes with "Mr. Yuk" on them.
• Super-Deformed: Particularly the "Entire Team Is Babies" arc.
• Take That: This comic makes a not-so-subtle jab at Twilight.
  • Also this against game reviewers and Xkcd.
• There Are No Girls on the Internet: Inverted here.
• Tsundere: Jack from Mass Effect 2.
  • A female Predator for Valentine's Day.
• Title Drop: Here.
  • And again here.
• Two Gamers on a Couch: Strips involving Jo and Engie-tan have this vibe to them.
• War Has Never Been So Much Fun: Team Fortress, now with romance!
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Mineral Scan!!!
• White-Haired Pretty Girl: Soldier-tan and Steam-tan.
• Who Wears Short Shorts?: Engie-tan.
• Woman Scorned: BLU Sniper discovers that RED Demo-tan doesn't take rejection well.
  • Hell hath no fury as an AI scorned. Master Chief really should have cleared his browser history.
  • More like Anthropomorphic Personification scorned, but...
• Worlds Smallest Violin: Requiem.
• Wrench Wench: Engie-tan, of course.
• Yandere: Everyone.
• Your Cheating Heart: Pyro and Sniper-Tan both cheat on each other and regret it.