General Protection Fault/Characters

GPF Software

Nick Wellington

A programmer for GPF Software, hired near the start of the strip.

• Annoying Younger Sibling:Implied that Lori is one for him.
• Dude in Distress: In To Thine Own Self
• Gadgeteer Genius: With the Inventor's Gene.
• Happily Married
• Horrible Judge of Character: Toward Trudy.
• Morality Chain: To Trudy.
• Nerd Glasses
• Non-Action Guy
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Denies having a job offer from JCN, even when he's not being asked about anything related
• Unwitting Pawn: In Surreptitious Machinations
• Wide-Eyed Idealist

Dwayne Duncan

The head of GPF software

• Alliterative Name
• Horrible Judge of Character: Like Nick, he trusts Trudy.
• Only Sane Man: Is not nearly as obsessed with technology as his employees, but at the same time, not as skilled.
• Team Dad
• Unfortunate Names: Lampshaded as early as Nick's interview, when he points out the company is named after an error message.

Jason "Fooker" Barker

Systems administrator at GPF, and also Ageny #6 for the Undisclosed Government Agency.

• Brilliant but Lazy
• The Combat Pragmatist: When his counterpart advances on him as he's down, he flips him over.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
• Different As Night and Day: From Justin, his hard working, disciplined brother.
• Only Known By His Nickname: Played with when Ki, meeting Dwayne, refers to him by his nickname.

Dwayne: Jason, who's Fooker?
Ki: Who's Jason?

• Weak but Skilled: Not especially strong, but a skilled hand-to-hand fighter. Lampshaded when he fights off Sam

Ki OshiroWellington

A programmer for GPF Software

• But Not Too Foreign: The daughter of a Chinese woman and Japanese man.
• Designated Girl Fight: Faces Dr. Not and Trudy as she races up the Statue of Liberty to find Nick, but also faces Chuck.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Cuts her hair short while dating Sam (much to his displeasure) and lets it grow out for Nick.
• Love Martyr: Willing to stay with and defend Sam even when it is implied that he's cheating on her.
• Second Love: Nick is the second person she has been in love with, after Sam
• Tsundere Dere toward Nick, and tsun toward Fooker.

Trudy Trueheart

GPF Software's marketing professional.

• Alliterative Name
• The Atoner
• Big Bad: Of Surreptitious Machinations
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Puts on the clothing around Nick and Dwayne, but Ki and Fooker have seen her
• Devil in Plain Sight
• Future Me Scares Me: She's uncomfortable around her future self in the best of times, and eventually, her future self's presence in her dreams prevents her from sleeping at all.
• If I Can't Have You: To Nick after he rejects her. In the Bad Future, she kills him.
• The Insomniac: As a result of having guilt-induced nightmares.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy
• Reformed but Rejected: She gets sent back instead of her counterpart, and those who suspect her true nature don't trust her
• Saying Too Much:

Trudy:"The time-hopping brat! He somehow obtained it! I thought the old me took care of-- Heh heh... my, was I saying something incriminating? I hope not..."

• The Starscream: Of C.R.U.D.E.; in the Bad Future, she ends up killing the other members.
• Token Evil Teammate
• Villainous Breakdown: After Nick realizes the truth.

Frederick Physarum

A slime mold that gained sentience in the filth of Fooker's apartment.

• Arch Enemy: He and Trent can't stand each other, and get along worse than even Ki and Trudy did.
• It Came From the Fridge
• Kick the Son of a Bitch: Using his newfound powers to force Trent to sexually harass Sharon, go almost naked in front of a client and get himself arrested. It earns him a What the Hell, Hero?, but it's hard to sympathize with Trent.
• Puppetteer Parasite

Trent Terrell

Trudy's old boyfriend, and later her replacement as marketing director of GPF.

• Alliterative Name
• Dirty Coward
• Evil Redhead
• Ungrateful Bastard / The Farmer and the Viper: Punches Trent after he saves him from the prison bus.
• Smug Snake

Dexter Smith

A contractor for GPF who is later hired full time

• Dark Is Not Evil: In the superhero universe, Nick cast him as a villain, but by the time of their excursion into that universe through the MuTEX, he's a hero.
• Fat Bastard: Initially. He gets better over time.
• Otaku: The rest of the cast are fans of science fiction, but Dexter taxes his fandom of Star Wars and Star Trek to another level.
• No Social Skills

Sharon Murphy

Fooker's girlfriend, who becomes systems administrator of GPF after his departure.

• Blind Without'Em: Has trouble seeing without her contacts.
• Fiery Redhead: Has quite the temper.
• Formerly Fat: She ends up making some insensitive comments toward Dexter out of concern toward him.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: As a superhero.

Nega-Verse

Emperor Nicholas The Puissant

• Bad Boss: Treats all his minions as expendable.
• Beard of Evil
• Big Bad: Of To Thine Own Self
• Dirty Coward: His plan, as Nick points out, boils down to wanting an escape route to "save his own cowardly hide"
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: The latter. He has a scar that is noticeably absent on his counterpart's face.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He attempts to escape, but without the guidance chip, he's forever lost.

Duchess Ki Oshiro

Duchess of Europe for Emperor Nicholas.

• The Dog Bites Back: She's tortured to force Nick into compliance, and eventually betrays Nega-Nick
• Love Redeems: She seems to be in love with Nick Prime
• Redemption Equals Death

General Jason "F**k*r" Barker

General of Nick's armies, a former UGA agent who accepted bribes and joined Nick.

• Bald of Evil
• [DeadLittleSister: Dead Little Brother]: Tries to use it to gain sympathy from Justin, but fails. Then again, he did hesitate upon seeing Justin, so his statement may be honest.

Dwayne Duncan

Governor of Asia and formerly the corrupt head of GPF Software.

• Beard of Evil
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Smokes a cigar in Nega-Trudy's interview, as if to highlight his evil nature.
• The Mole: For the aliens, to incite conflict between the rebels and the humans

Trudy Trueheart

A resistance fighter in the Nega-verse who contacts the main cast to help them thwart Emperor Nicholas' plans.

• If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him: Nick talks her out of killing Nega-Nick this way, although he emphasizes her own counterpart more than her victim.
• Perpetual Frowner: Her default expression, much like Trudy's smile.
• Token Good Teammate: For Nega-GPF, as a natural inversion of Trudy.
• Took a Level In Kindness: Was initially selfish like her counterpart before her quest to find her sister changed her for the better.

Trent Terrell

Leader of Nega-C.R.U.D.E., an organization dedicated to overthrowing Emperor Nicholas.

• Beauty Equals Goodness: Averted. He's somewhat overweight and balding, but one of the heroes.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: In contrast to Trent's arrogance.
• Killed Off for Real
• La Résistance

Yoshi Oshiro

• Dumb Is Good: Far less of a jerk than his counterpart, but far less intelligent.

Chuck

A resistance fighter who was once friends with Nega-Fooker.

• Bald of Awesome
• Fake Defector: Pretends to be the Emperor's spy, but betrays him when the rebels are ready, reversing the situation.

Dr. Nefu

Dr. Nefarious's counterpart, a scientist for the resistance.

• Killed Off for Real: Gets a bullet in the head during the raid on C.R.U.D.E.

Alexis Nicht

Dr. Nefu's assistant

• Shrinking Violet

Outside Time And Space

The Gamester

An extra-dimensional entity charged with regulating temporal disturbances.

• Invisible to Normals: There are some exceptions, such as Ki's cat, and Trudy (who mistakes it as a sign of her declining sanity)
• Time Police

Mischief

The Ganester's assistant

• Boxed Crook: Implied to be this

Todd Wellington

Nick and Ki's son

• Kid From the Future
• Sunglasses at Night

Empress Trudy

• Arch Enemy: To Todd.
• Big Bad: Of Surreptitious Machinations
• Evil Old Folks
• If I Can't Have You: Kills Nick for this reason
• Villainous BSOD: Has been in one after killing Nick

Pandemonium

• Bigger Bad: To Empress Trudy and Emperor Nicholas.

Other Characters

Chuck

• Black Best Friend: To Fooker
• Bald of Evil: Has his head shaved when Trudy puts him under her control.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Trudy sets his pain device to maximum, throws away the remote and leaves him to die
• Shock Collar: Trudy can cause him pain with a remote control.
• Redemption Equals Death

Yoshi Oshiro

Ki's younger brother, who skipped several geades.

• Annoying Younger Sibling
• Cracker: Attempts to break into GPF Software on a few occasions, and when he's doing some last-minute work on his [MuTex, hacks into the airline to reschedule his flight.
• Improbably High IQ: 209.
• Insufferable Genius
• May-December Romance: Implied that Trudy is setting him up for one during their collaboration, but she backs off.

Persephone

• Opposite Gender Clone: Of Fred

Otto Wisebottom

Nick's uncle, and a fellow carrier of the Inventor's Gene

• Einstein Hair

Akhilesh Sehgal

A doctor who treats Trudy and suggests that there may be a way for her to find redemption.

• I Have No Son: His family disowned him for becoming a Christian
• The Messiah

Sam

Ki's former fiancee

• Attempted Rape: The reason Ki breaks up with him.
• Jerk Jock: It's not obvious at first, but the implications of him cheating on Ki and the way he mocks Fooker mark him as this before the rape attempt.
• Karma Houdini