Nature of Nature's Art/Characters

Currently a work-in-progress. There will be spoilers here. Be ye warned!

10%+ (Ten Percent Plus)

Meander (Maned Wolf)

The protagonist of 10% and a student of Rule.

• Canis Major: It's mentioned on one page that Meander is big for a maned wolf, which is how he ended up as Rule's student.
• Deadly Upgrade: Noetic Chiasm's Meristogenous Transgression.
• Disappeared Dad
• Heroic RROD: Subverted. Yes, his metanoia severely damaged his halo brain, but it turns out that Rule destroyed it.
• Idiot Hero
• It's Personal: Meander's father was wild. Rule and Polarizing are exploiting wild coyotes. You do the mathematics.
• Loss of Identity: When Meander's halo brain is destroyed by Rule, the construct that was Meander dies, even if his body and its base animal instincts survive him. The court case that follows factors this heavily.
• Meaningful Name: "It means to worm around kind of leisurely." Turns out Meander chose that because his mind is constantly wandering.

Quintet (Cat)

Meander's friend and a fellow student.

• Action Girl
• Cats Are Mean: Subverted.
• Eyepatch of Power
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sure, she isn't the nicest animal around, what with beating up and yelling at other people more than once. However, when it counts, she's willing to stick up for her loved ones. Yes, even those accused of murder.
• Meaningful Name: Subverted! "Quintet" refers to the "main cat" and the cats created by her metanoia... but in fact, those cats are four different reflections of herself. So she's actually a "Quartet".

Rule (Wolf)

Meander's teacher. Works with Polarizing to exploit "wild" animals for things like slave labor and meat, an extreme taboo in their society.

• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: For no apparent reason, Rule is purple.
• Badass Grandpa: The guy gets an entire monologue about how he's old, but something like age isn't going to slow him down.

I have a goal, and I have no need of a body when I stand on my principles!

• • Badass Teacher
• Big Badass Wolf
• Big Ol' Eyebrows
• Determinator
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold
• Meaningful Name: And not necessarily the meaning you'd think of. Apparently it refers to "partitions of scale".
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: To Polarizing's blue.
• Sadist Teacher: Threatens (possibly in jest) to kill Meander over an assignment, among other things.
• Taking You with Me
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Not only was Rule a teacher, he was also a father figure to Meander.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist

Polarizing (Tamandua)

A former doctor, and another of Meander's teachers.

• Badass Teacher
• Blue Oni: To Rule's red.
• Deadly Doctor: Polarizing's metanoia grants him thorough knowledge of a patient (or enemy's) anatomy, which he uses to paralyze Quintet.
• Meaningful Name: And this time, it's extremely obvious.
• Precision F-Strike: In the first posting of the webcomic, this was how he responded to his head being smashed against the fucking wall.
• Stern Teacher: He's a lot more reasonable than Rule in general, but he switches to full-on Sadist when Quintet pushes him.
• Super-Powered Evil Side: Sort of. He seems to be more willing to go all out with his "mask", a pair of leaves that cover his eyes, on. At first.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist

Syncope (Kinkajou)

A law clerk and good friend of Meander.

• Blue Oni to Fiat's Red Oni. This is very clearly illustrated on page 189, which shows how they use the same fighting style differently.
• Love At First Sight: He fell for Fiat right away. This was amusingly lampshaded in the exact same panel.

Fiat (Kinkajou)

• Action Girl
• Hero of Another Story: On page 183, Fiat mentions that she was born with dextrocardia. When asked about why she mentioned this detail, Braun said that it's actually important to her own story (if it ever does get told). And by story, he means, well... this:

Fiat's story would be a full-blown NofNA storyline, since it would have its own plot. She just happened to be enough of a character to have a foot in this story.

• Red Oni, Blue Oni to Syncope's Blue Oni.

Keratin Junior (Rabbit)

He's the one on Rule's head.

One of the many children of the crime lord Keratin. He (alongside a long tract of land) was sold to Rule and Polarizing in exchange for wild coyote slaves. A major source of comic relief for much of this arc's conflict.

• Abusive Parents: His father has so many kids, he didn't think twice about offering one in exchange for valuable servants.
• Break the Cutie: the pile of coyote pup corpses and the death of Rule will likely haunt his dreams forever.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Ultimately subverted. His testimony doesn't swing the ruling in the case of Rule's murder one way or another.
• Head Pet: Technically, Keratin did sell him to Rule....
• The Mafia: His father is more or less a bunny don.
• Plucky Comic Relief: At first.
• Royal Brat: he constantly refers to Meander and the coyotes as "bugs", due in part to the way he was raised. his father asks him not to say anything to Rule's detriment, but it's clear he'd no intention of doing so, anyway.

Secretary

SV / Marigold / Malice (Degu)

The protagonist of Secretary. An ambitious and impatient student out to prove he has something of worth to add to the world.

• Break the Haughty
• Deadly Upgrade
• Feed Me: SV gets some very hammy lines after gaining the power of malice. None of which can out-ham the page where he names himself.

Tell them to come... to the new teacher! A teacher that is also themselves! That is also everyone! From behind.. from within!! MALICE!

• Heroic BSOD: He suffers a couple over the course of the story: the first follows a major defeat after his first serious sparring match; The second, suffered when XZ informs him that she is quitting the college in order to raise a family, is dramatic enough to shift a character's art style and lighten up the website's background.
• Hoist by His Own Petard
• Knight Templar: Of his malice style.
• Parental Favoritism
• Red Right Hand: Abnormally long incisors that curve outside of the mouth in a very unnatural manner, and a strange right eye.
• Unreliable Narrator: He is at least a biased narrator. Exactly how unreliable is left up to interpretation.
• Villain Protagonist

XZ / Nutsedge (Long-Eared Jerboa)

Fellow student and sparring partner of SV. They jointly develop the Dust Bath fighting style.

• Buffy-Speak: "You! Come at me! With the most best! The most serious! The most ultimate dust bath style!" Possibly doubles as a parody of shounen animé/manga.
• Curb Stomp Battle: She curb stomps SV in their first fight. A few deadly upgrades and a change in ideals later let SV do the same to her.
• Extremity Extremist: Albeit not by choice.
• Genki Girl
• Hidden Depths: She proves to be far more accomplished a combatant than SV in their first sparring match.
  • Cute Bruiser
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Not so ridiculously so after page 248, but she's still pretty cute even than.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Why she ultimately chooses to quit the college. SV doesn't take it well.

NT / Umbra (Degu)

Older brother of SV, goes to college at the same time as SV, but in the advanced class instead of beginner.

• Aloof Big Brother
• I Just Want to Be Badass
• Named by the Adaptation: His nickname only appears in the book ending, where it takes on particular significance.

Lycosa

Lycosa gulosa (Wolf spider)

She's the big one. And she's hungry.

The protagonist of Lycosa. At the start of the arc, she's searching for her lost eggsack. When she finds out that Venom 8 have taken it, she goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. And that's the basic plot of the arc... but it wouldn't be NofNA without a twist at the end, now would it?

• Badass
• Deadpan Snarker
• Determinator: So much so that losing most of her limbs didn't slow her down. Much.
• Dull Surprise: She channels Keanu Reeves after impaling the 8th and possibly final member of Venom 8.
• Healing Factor: Gulosa molts so that she can regrow her lost limbs, and, for a small while, at least, has to deal with stubby little appendages in place of her full-size ones.
• Hot-Blooded
• Mama Spider: Gulosa is not happy to learn that her eggsack has been stolen.

GIVE ME - MY - CHILDREN BACK!!

• One Spider Army: She takes on the entire Pisaurina clan by herself. And wins.
• Talking to Themself: What we're initially led to believe Gulosa is doing at one point, albeit with her unusually argumentative inner doubts instead of another personality. The reality of the situation is quite different....
• Tomato in the Mirror: So apparently she's not quite a real spider, but was created from the 'I's that the members of Venom 8 tried to discard... or something.

Venom 8

The non-spoilery version.

The antagonists of Lycosa. The Venom 8 team is a group of eight (actually nine) spiders who aim to create a spider equivalent to the internet that all spiders are always connected to. This requires egg sacs from every spider species, which kicks off the arc. One by one, we meet them, and one by one, Lycosa kills them off.

The members of Venom 8 are, in order of appearance: Deinopis spinosa, Antrodiaetus unicolor, Argiope aurantia, Scytodes thoracica, Mastophora cornigera, Patu digua, Theraphosa blondi, and Nephila clavipes... with the ninth being Gladicosa gulosa.

• The Beast Master: two of their number are adept at controlling praying mantises and hornets, respectively.
• Dark Action Girl: All of them except for the ninth, Gladicosa gulosa. They are spiders, after all.
• Giant Spider: Theraphosa blondi. That species is called the Goliath Birdeater for a reason.
• Hive Mind: Such is theirs and any spider that agrees with their ideology's unity that they use "we" as a first-person singular pronoun almost exclusively - and when they die, they revert to using "I".
• Master of Illusion: Argiope Aurantia, AKA the Black and Yellow Garden Spider.
• Names to Run Away From Really Fast
• Non-Indicative Name: If Ornithodoros is to be believed, Venom 8 may actually have nine members. They do. They say it's because there is no I.
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: In their first appearance. Then each one appears individually, only to be killed by Lycosa.
• The One Guy: Gladicosa gulosa is the one male spider in the group.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Patu digua, a species of spider believed to be the smallest in the world.
• The Stoic: Argiope Aurantia, again.

Pisaurina mira (Nursery web spider)

Not actually a member of Venom 8, but "an appendage". Repeatedly fights Lycosa.

• Let's Get Dangerous
• Worthy Opponent: Over the course of their battles, she comes to understand (and respect) Lycosa, perhaps better than anyone else.

Solar System

Yuri Sergiev (Mankind)

• Ambiguously Brown: Deliberately; Word of God has stated that he's supposed to look a little bit like every race. That said, judging by the name, he's probably Russian (or of Russian descent).
• Big Ol' Eyebrows
• Perpetual Poverty: Apparently he's seriously in debt and constantly broke.

Evander Oneir (Mankind?)

Yuri's friend and a consciousness specialist. He works with Acheff and Hector.

• Ambiguously Human: He's got pointy ears, but otherwise appears completely human.

Diana (Mankind?)

• Ambiguously Human: She's got pointy ears and purple hair, but otherwise appears completely human.
• You Gotta Have Purple Hair

Strelka (Dog)

• Amazing Technicolour Wildlife: Ever seen a green dog before? (Even her nose is green!) Given that this arc is set so far into the future, it's possible that genetic engineering had a hand in this.
• Hot-Blooded
• Wrench Wench: Albeit of the non-Fan Service kind.

Able "Abe" (Chimpanzee?)

• Badass Bookworm: An engineer, a gamer, and a martial artist.
• Bunny Ears Lawyer
• Challenge Gamer: This is a guy who goes for world-record high scores (in Bullet Hell games, no less!) and flips out if he's disturbed while playing.
• Cool Shades: He gains an insanely cool pair of shades in a game within the comic. Turns out he's got neat shades in real life as well.

Acheff (Guinea Pig)

Part of the development team that Yuri's company contracts to work on their spacecraft. Acheff is the software engineer and Hector's adoptive father.

Hector (Mouse)

Part of the development team that Yuri's company contracts to work on their spacecraft. Hector is a secretary and the art director, and is a firm believer in the power and relevance of art.

• Abusive Parents: It's implied that Hector's birth father was one of these. Removing your son's tail because he "didn't deserve a 'tale'" is harsh.
• Happily Adopted: At least, Acheff seems to be a better father than Hector's biological father.
• Inexplicably Tailless: Type I. Specifically of the "formerly tailed" variety.