Twokinds/YMMV

• Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: Flora and Kathrin tring to bully Mike and Evals in finding Trace and Eric right after being freed (meaning Eric would most likly reenslave them) is played for laughs, fans were not laughing, this was quickly corrected.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Eric pretty much embodies all of the contradictions inherent in institutionalized slavery.- A slave trader who appears to be an otherwise decent man who genuinely cares for his slaves even while he exploits their labor and even uses them for sex. He's a hypocrite but he can claim (with some justification) that by keeping them he's protecting them from others far worse. In short, he's a bundle of contradictions, rather like real world people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
• Broken Aesop: The comic is supposed to decry racism and promote equal treatment of others, but both Aesops are undermined somewhat. None of the slaves seem to mind being slaves, and one of the most popular characters is a (sex) slave trader who forces his slaves to obey with magic. And one of the slaves doesn't mind being a slave, at best the rest are not-dissatisfied because they know it could be worse. And the characters regularly point out that the trader is both a bit of a dick and a complete wacko, even if they get along with him most of the time.
  • Recent comics indicate that it's getting back on track. It turns out the slaves were under mind control.
  • The mind control stuff is templar law (who are either chaotic or lawful evil it seems to vary) and said trader seemingly doesn't like doing it, the cast page also notes that he treats his slaves very well and most are devoted to him as a result his brother on the other hand shows what other slaver are probably like.
  • This does however stand in contradiction with his depiction in Chapter 14 - it's revealed (so far) he's a Hypocrite.
    • Alternate Character Interpretation runs rampant. Like in whether it's actually right for said slave trader to release his slaves because they did what they were supposed to, or in the fact that he hasn't yet placed them back under Mind Control. He even went out of his way to make Kat, his friend and the only non-Mind Controlled slave on the ship, promise to take herself and all the other slaves out to sea and safety if he and the others failed to save the day in the previous arc. He's breaking the law already leaving one not under the spell which could cause trouble for all involved, slaves included. Releasing all his slaves at once would be even worse if they were found out. And to top it all off, to release all his slaves, including Kat would force him to permanently dock his ship, grounding him without a crew. In other words, giving up his entire life. For them doing exactly what they were told. At best, it's actually showing multiple sides to the concept and aesop, putting this under the comic's general Grey and Gray Morality about everything not directly protagonist-related.
    • It has more recently been revealed that Eric had no idea that the Mind Control spell had been broken...
      • ...Which causes everything up to this point, including Eric's supposed What the Hell, Hero? moment to make perfect, objective sense. Especially his comment on "Slaves doing what they're supposed to do." In his mind, Mike and Evals were still under the control spell, which would defer command to Kat since she's the only crewmember on board without the Mind Control spell, and thus any free will besides Flora. He specifically told Kat to wait for him and everyone else if they managed to destroy the tower, which they did. So he really did think Mike and Evals never even had a choice... They were just following orders the entire time, and wouldn't deserve to be rewarded for the act of following orders they had no control over. This whole thing may have been avoided had anyone bothered to mention to Eric that Mike and Evals actually were sticking out their necks of their free will, even if they were being forced into it by Kat and Flora. ...Unfortunately this all leads into Fridge Horror as Evals trying to start a coup may justify every single fear Eric has in his mind of letting all the slaves free, and break any chance this has of ending peacefully.
• Complete Monster: Trace used to be one of these until his amnesia. See High Octane Nightmare Fuel below for the definitive example.
  • General Alabaster was pretty much single-handedly responsible for everything that's gone wrong in Keith's life, all the while being a selfish, unrepentant Jerkass.
• Crowning Moment of Funny: Flora getting a nosebleed at the thought of a full-contact massage from Kathrin.
  • In a meta example, Tom promised a new comic for every $100 donated. He quickly owed everyone twenty extra comics.
  • In which everyone finds Trace and Flora's room. Everyone.
• Fridge Horror: Eric keeps all of his slaves under a spell (except for Kathrin) that compels them to obey him. Coupled with the fact that he admitted that he slept with some of the female slaves, we can only conclude that Eric is a rapist. ...Unless they were all released temporarily to choose for themselves like Kathrin, or it was just Kathrin he actually slept with.
  • Eric specifies that he is not having sex with Kathrin because he considers her more a little sister than love interest (bummer for her, since she's one Keidran actually in love with him), but also that he is active with his other female slaves. Considering how terrified Mike was about Eric finding out his apparent Gender Bender situation, the implications are unfortunate.
  • Trace considers Flora to be an animal. Doesn't stop him from giving her the hot pork injection (and considering marriage to her).
    • Somewhat justified, as that was one of various times Templar Trace leaked out a bit. He has showed his actual beliefs earlier.
• Growing the Beard: From Chapter 7 onwards the comic shows a vast deal of improvement from previous chapters, especially the one directly preceding it.
• High Octane Nightmare Fuel: I let the image speak for itself.
  • Double mention goes to later, when a partial merger of Trace and Templar Trace wakes up, slaughters a bunch of acolytes by liquefying their brains, and then speaks in Black Speech crossed with Many Spirits Inside of One complete with Eye Awaken and Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises.

Trace!Templar!Trace: STOP HURTING FLORA!

• Ho Yay: Keith and Nickolai; Mike and Evals. The latter pair can somewhat be overlooked, considering Mike is cursed to look like a hot girl. Everyone in the comic seems to think that Keith and Natani are like this, the readers know better.
  • About Keith and Natani, Natani is only starting to not think of herself as male. Partially-destroyed soul and all that.
• Les Yay: Flora and Kathrin's relationship on the ship and right after was somewhat uncomfortable.
• The Woobie: Poor, poor Keith.
  • Iron Woobie: Literally. Tough species is tough.