Shadownova

Shadownova is a Web Comic, written and drawn by troper Mark Alda. It can be found here.

Shadownova tells the story of Iris Kolrick, an antisocial teenager who finds herself drawn into an ongoing war between the Everto and a ragtag human resistance group. There is a fair ammount of action but the main focus is on the characters and their growth, particularly that of the three lead characters Iris Kolrick, Jacob Freeman and Nikki Fawkner.

It all begins with Iris innocently walking to school one morning. However just before she arrives a fighter plane swoops overhead and shoots several missiles at the school, destroying it. Iris quickly discovers that no one besides herself can see what happened, including a schoolmate who was half killed in the blast. Soon after a man called Cameron Hunter arrives and, after introducing himself as a member of a group called the Everto, tries to kill her. Iris is injured but manages to escape.

While hiding from Cam and the Everto in a shopping centre Iris is approached by Jacob, who is unaware of her situation and tries to flirt with her but she coldly brushes him off. The everto attack again, interrupting the one-sided would-be romance. Iris goes against character saves the still-ignorant Jacob's life but finds herself cornered as a result. Right when Iris is about to be shot the Everto soldiers and almost everyone else in the area are wiped out by a massive firestorm which Iris stands at the centre of.

The artwork has a distinctly manga influenced style reminiscent of David Gonterman and the comic updates three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays infrequently.

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Shadownova contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Iris and Nikki. Anne Caver is implied to have been one before she injured her leg.
• Animesque: Oh so much.
• Alt Text: Provides commentary, anecdotes and referential jokes.
• Author Appeal: Just about all of the female cast.
• Awesome McCoolname: Colonel Lance Fury
• Badass Longcoat: All of the Everto military except Cam. Fury has a particuarly over the top one.
• Bandage Babe: Iris on this page.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted pretty hard.
• Blood From the Mouth: All of the survivors of the attack on East High have this for the few pages they remain alive. Cross also has this after he's been shot.
• Book Dumb: Jacob
• Break the Cutie: Iris
• Bright Slap: Nikki delivers one to Iris.
• Broken Bird: Iris again
• Child Soldiers: The resistance are not picky about who fights for them.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Jacob blinds Fury with a flashbang and tries to punch him. Fury uses the punch to work out where Jacob is and stabs him.
• Does Not Like Guns: Iris, on account of Thou Shalt Not Kill.
• Mr. Fanservice: Fury, just Fury.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Fury is genuinely disgusted at Iris's Super-Powered Evil Side while she slaughters dozens of innocent civilians who can't even see the fight happening.
  • Though this sounds quite hypocritical from someone whose side just bombed a school... itself containing dozens of innocent civilians who didn't see it coming.
• Everyone Meets Everyone: When Iris and Jacob meet up with Nikki's team.
• Fan Service: Iris's changing scene in chapter 2 and Jacob's Shirtless Scene in chapter 3.
• Foot Focus: This page.
• Freak-Out: Iris has had two so far, one right after her Super-Powered Evil Side went on a rampage in chapter 2 and another when the gravity of her situation fully sinks in in chapter 3.
• General Ripper: Major Gereral West
• Genre Savvy: Jacob. His logic in protecting Iris would not work anywhere outside the kind of story he's in.

Jacob: I've seen enough movies to know I'm safer siding with the mystery girl with the crazy powers than the army of dudes trying to kill her.

• • Of course, this logic is quite sound even in Real Life - Siding with "the mystery girl with the crazy powers" is a good way to get a Magical Girlfriend at best, and will keep her from killing you at the very worst. Siding with "the army of dudes trying to kill her" will get you locked up and harangued at best, and Killed to Uphold the Masquerade at the very worst. Sorry pigs, you're all just too damned mean.
    • The Alt Text even Lampshades a different opinion. Link please!
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Iris is slapped by Nikki during her Freak-Out in chapter 3.
• Handsome Lech: Jacob
• Hollywood Healing: Subverted. Iris seems to be completely fine immediately after applying bandages to her knife wounds but collapses as soon as she tries to anything more strenuous than sitting around angsting.
• I Call It Vera: Implied for Cam via the alt text
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Cam stabbing the janitor in the throat, cutting short his last words.
• Info Dump: When Nikki explains to Iris and Jacob what's happening in chapter 3.
• Invisible to Normals: The Everto
• Jerkass: The way Iris acts towards other people.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: The Everto do this to many people. It pretty much kicks the plot in motion.
• La Résistance: A particlarly well organised one with a base in the mountains.
• Male Gaze: We get Jacob's view of Iris at the top of this page.

• Moe Stare: Iris is doing this on the site's donate page.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Iris does this after she sees what happened while her Super-Powered Evil Side was in control.
• Mysterious Waif: Iris. Played with in that she's the main character and we're exlicitly shown at the start why she can't go home. Jacob doesn't know what we know and definetly sees her as one, mistaking himself for the hero in the process, and heavily Lampshades her use of the trope.
• Knife Nut: Cam
• Ordinary High School Student: Iris and Jacob.
• Perky Female Minion: Lieutenant Zakiko.
• Precision F-Strike: Iris during her My God, What Have I Done? moment.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Played with. Fury is appauled when Iris's Super-Powered Evil Side kills a lot of people, including a large nuber of civilains but Jacob, using a Genre Savvy interpertation of her role in the grand scheme of things, decides to forgive her.
• Psychic Powers: Espers, though not all of their powers are traditionally "psychic."
• Scarf of Asskicking: Nikki.
• Scenery Gorn: A little after East High is destroyed and after Iris's Super-Powered Evil Side is done rampaging.
• Shirtless Scene: Jacob gets one in chapter 3.
• Shout-Out: The Alt Text frequently quotes and compares the comic to other works and memes. In the actual story Nikki references The Matrix while explaining things to Iris and Jacob.
• Shown Their Work: The effects of mixing loaded guns and extremely high temperatures.
• Strip Buffer: The artist tries to have this and fails miserably most of the time.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Iris has one with pyrokinesis.
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo: Iris wants to be this but tends to fail it when something unexpected happens.
• The Coats Are Off: Fury before he confronts Iris's Super-Powered Evil Side.
• The Masquerade: Maintained by the Everto
• Schedule Slip: Frequently. The artist is a highschool student who overestimated himself trying to do three pages a week.
• The Stoic: Nikki tries to be this to deal with her emotional pain. She still lets some emotion slip through at first but gets better at hiding it as the sory goes on. Cross does not think this is a good thing.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Fury's reaction to Iris's massacre.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill
• Toplessness From the Back: Iris, while she's getting changed.
• Unflinching Walk: Fury does this after jumping from his helicopter after Iris attacks it. He whips his coat off and swears vengeance on Iris while his chopper crashes and explodes in the background.
• Viral Marketing: This Page
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Fury swears vengeance on Iris for killing his subordinates and many civilains who, to the reader, are nameless and faceless. Iris also takes it pretty hard when her Super-Powered Evil Side goes away and she sees the carniage and death she caused, even though all the victims were either trying to kill her or people she claimed to hate.
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Cam
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Colonel Fury. Justified in that strange hair and eye colours like that are an ethnic trait of the Everto.