Schlock Mercenary/YMMV

• Acceptable Targets: Lawyers, politicians, show business, and TV news.
  • "As early as the 21st century spammers were already less popular than defense attorneys, door-to-door fragrance salesmen, and the French. By the late 31st century they were held in the same regard as pedophiles and telemarketers."
• Arc Fatigue: As always, very subjective.
• Archive Binge: Ever since June of 2000, a 3- or 4-panel strip Monday through Saturday and a 6- to 10-panel strip on Sundays, never missed a day. If you set out to archive binge the whole thing, expect it to take days, if not weeks.
  • Never missed a day. Not even when the server the comic was hosted on exploded.
• Complete Monster: Kathryn calls Max Haluska one. Given that this is coming from a Femme Fatale who stands out even among a cast full of Heroic Sociopaths, it says something.
  • And considering his latest ploy is to set off an AI's annie plant that may very well kill all of Haven hive, just because he was arrested for several crimes he admitted to committing, and with no actual gain intended... Well, there's not really much doubt anymore.
  • General Xinchub is an interesting example. He's done things that would push just about anyone over the line (Betraying a combined fleet consisting of millions of people for his own gain, killing indiscriminately, seemingly betraying all of humanity, authorizing torture, etcetera.), but might be saved by it by the fact that he is actually trying to push a project that would grant humankind immortality, and generally make the galaxy better. This would still be well beyond the scope of Well-Intentioned Extremist, but Petey seems to be dragging him back to the right side of this line.
• Fan Nickname: Before the name of the dark matter entities ("Pa'anuri") was revealed, the fans tended to contract their description into "DaME."
  • The red bar used to indicate the passage of time between panels was nicknamed "The Red Bar of EVIL" on the forums. In some subsequent strips, it's even labeled "TRBoE."
• Funny Aneurysm Moment: Since Elf invoked what everyone else saw as her Cartwright Curse to get her squad to shut up, Pronto and Brad have been Killed Off for Real.
• Growing the Beard: It's hard to say exactly when the strip starts to click towards the end of book 1, but the strip has definitely fully hit its stride by the beginning of book 2.
• Protagonist Title Fallacy: Schlock is a major character, but if any one Tough is the star of the show it's Captain Tagon.
• The Scrappy: Tayler used to get emails calling for Para Ventura's death on a regular basis. She hasn't had much Character Development since then.
  • The fact that she is spying on the Toughs for the UNS may help with this, or make it even worse...
• Tear Jerker: The deaths of the microbes here is strangely sad. Their utter incomprehension of their imminent demise...though obviously the googly eyes are mere poetic license.
  • "Nope. Not done crying."
• Villain Decay: The Partnership Collective went from manipulating planetary governments to nothing more than comic relief once the Toughs got the contract on them. The fact that the Gatekeepers stopped using them as proxies probably didn't help.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The UNS military do some horrific things, and quite a few of them are at least as sociopathic as Schlock but without being heroic or humorous about it. Some, though, still seem to be trying to work for a greater good. Ruthless Admiral Emm tells a subordinate to "Take solace in the fact that you've saved more lives than you've lost."
• The Woobie: Mister Aliss, and Tailor is quickly earning this title for himself too.
  • Although Tailor has become a lot more Badass, especially when he teamed up with General Tagon. Para Ventura may count though: she seems to be the only character who gets distressed by killing.