Addictive Science

Addictive Science is an adventure/comedy/drama/science fiction webcomic written and drawn by Cervelet. Previously hosted by The Katbox, it is now part of the Kemono Café webcomic community.

Hosting
As a means of streamlining the comic application process, The Katbox spelled out its application process sometime in 2014. Cervelet was one of the first artists to be accepted under the new application process.

Prior to his entry into The Katbox, Cervelet provided filler comics for Anthronauts during a small Hiatus Nixie took. Cervelet’s comic was first posted on his Deviant Art page starting on April 26th, 2009. Cervelet then created a Smackjeeves account and started to upload the comic on 02/07/13. Since his migration to The Katbox, Cervelet only updates Addictive Science on The Katbox and on his DeviantArt page.

A new strip is published daily on The Katbox. Addictive Science has been around since April 26, 2009; however, it was accepted into The Katbox after submitting its application on February 21, 2015. The story line follows a group of roommates getting constantly changed into anthropomorphic creatures as a result of mad science.

While the comic has been hosted on SmackJeeves and DeviantArt, all comics have since migrated to The Katbox as of July 26, 2015. After The Katbox decided to no longer host webcomics in mid-2019, it eventually moved over to Kemono Café.

Plot


During the first couple of arcs, Addictive Science didn’t appear to have any true plot or inherent story point. It was more along the lines of a series of misadventures of Celia, the mad scientist that specializes in animal genetic mutations in humans, constantly experimenting on herself and Lukas, her roommate that is majoring in art, and her countless failed attempts to take over the world. Celia did discover the magic through Geenie, a magical and mystical creature from another world.

In the next few arcs, we are then introduced to the next door neighbor, Mark, a highly skilled roboticist’s expert and anime fanatic. Claiming to be on the side of good and justice, he often challenged Celia with the aid of his robotic cat assistant, Robbie I. Celia takes Mark on a drive to meet Dr. Schmitt, her friend and science mentor. Dr. Schmitt is also an evil scientist that lives in a dark and scary castle in the woods. Surprisingly, whenever he does or says something evil, it starts to thunder and rain. It’s later revealed that they first met in Berlin in a Phantom of the Opera parody. It’s also revealed that human Dr. Schmitt has cute chibi eyes which he hides behind those goggles to avoid having women jump on him for his cuteness. To counter this, he transforms himself into a fennec fox and remains in that state throughout the rest of Addictive Science.

Once that arc is over with, the group returns to their apartment/house to see Geenie trying to summon a demon. She summons two demons. The first one is a male demon that kind of looks like a cat/rabbit hybrid. The second demon summoning is a female demon; however, something goes horrible wrong. Unknown at the time, Catherine, the female demon, is fused with Celia. Celia does manage to fix this through the power of science. Catherine then flees.

After that arc, it would appear that a new cast member joins the brawl. Vivian, a human that’s already a cat anthropomorphic creature, becomes Mark’s new roommate. Determined to change Vivivan to a human, Celia enlists the help of Dr. Schmitt. During their time away, he manages to successfully clone himself. His new goes by the name Eegor. It takes a few weeks, but Dr. Schmitt and Celia discover that Vivian’s cells are already radioactive and are thus unable to help her. While all this is going on, Celia tricks Mark into becoming a mad scientist. While this initially upsets him as he views mad scientists as bad guys, Mark changes his mind when he learns that he could be mad yet a good.

After absorbing so much magic and now stuck in a feral fox form, Celia begins to question her evil ways. Lukas takes care of her, offering some stellar advice and promising to help her out.

After regaining her human form, Celia follows through to be good, which she fails miserably at in the Dinosaur arcs. She wanted to expand the world’s understanding of dinosaurs and thought that transforming her community would be the best way to do so.

Fortunately, the Men in Black, a group of agents that belong to a secret governmental organization and serve to protect the world from mad scientist, are there to observe everything going on in the city.

Celia’s past actions have actually inspired Flore, a resident of the magic world, to become evil and take over the real world. Celia protects the world from her nemesis on multiple occasions; however, Vivian stops the last fight as she believes that Flore may be Celia’s lost sister. The group enlists the Dr. Schmitt’s scientific research to determine if Celia and Flore are in fact sisters. During this time, Geenie came up with the idea that Catherine, the demon from way back then, could be Celia’s sister. She told Lukas that it is very possible as Catherine and Celia fused together during that demon summoning. Dr. Schmitt confirms this to be true.

During the Halloween arc after this discovery, Catherine and Celia work together to form a pumpkin that could turn anyone that smashed it into a random anthropomorphic creature. Catherine realized this was wrong and tried to convince Celia of their error. Celia didn’t believe that this was evil as she intended this to be nothing more than free costumes to the people.

Celia sided with Flore to transform everyone into sharks unless she became the ruler of the world. The Men in Black finally caved into her demands; however, she turned it down after Catherine contacted her.

When it was all said and done, Celia agrees to halt her plans for world domination after listening to two other scientists complain about her glory. During her time off, she asks Nicholas, a finance major that keeps transforming into a Bishonen cat guy, out on a date. Their date is cut short as those same two scientists copy Celia’s plan. Sadly, they are transformed too.

There is a small arc where a random scientist enlists Celia’s help to take over Mars by shrinking him down to fit in a smaller space ship. Geenie warns him of the laws of conservation of mass would be dire and tricked Mark to take his excess weight. Celia transformed random scientist into a female mouse. Singing crabs took him into the mouse hole. He/she became Konstantin, leader of the crab folks.

The group now heads out to the sea with Antonio Guarrigues Marc Phillip De La Castenade, commonly known as The Captain, in his submarine that’s shaped like Moby Dick. During their undersea adventures, Celia inadvertently unleashes the vampire cow disease onto the world again.

After fixing that mishap, Celia takes Lukas to a water tower that she plans to refurbish as a house. She asks Lukas to stay with her as her assistant. After weighing all his options, he agrees to stay with her.

Celia caused a mana tree to appear in her world after taking/stealing her equipment back from the Men in Black.

Celia met her new evil nemesis, Mary and Andorra. Mary and Andorra were human mad scientists that were part of the exchange program with the magical world. They now plot on turning everyone in the real world into foxes.

Lukas took a two week vacation away from it all and was transformed into a cat woman as a result of Celia randomly firing a laser on Earth. Don’t worry folks; he does change back into a man. Unfortunately, he does change back into a cat girl or man when exposed to magic. He now has long hair it seems.

During the Underwater Science Convention arcs, Celia receives an award for her advancement in mad science. For her latest demonstration, she plans on showing off her new underwater transformations. The award show goes quite well and surprisingly without a hitch. Nicholas tags along and saves the day from Mary and Andorra using the power of finance.

In the next couple of arcs, the mad science institution is hosting a community wide project in which groups of scientist must contribute a special component in a huge mecha robot that will be presented later on that week. Dr. Schmitt is teamed up with The Captain. Dr. Schmitt is not fond of The Captain as he is rather annoying. Meanwhile, Geenie summons the male demon once again. Celia notices how similar their mannerisms are and enlists Dr. Schmitt to see if they are in fact long lost brothers. While these two are not brothers, they are in fact distant cousins. Seeing as he’s now part of the group, the male dragon introduces himself as Mortiz. Returning to the mecha-robot, it goes haywire during its grand debut, changing anyone zapped into taurs. Robbie II destroyed it in order to save Easter.

Mark determined that an old arcade console from the 1980s ran on magic, which is the first year that the magical exchange program started. They had to steal it back after the Men in Black took it, which was pretty easy quite honestly. After that, Mark trains Vivian in the way of the nerd so that she can go with him to an anime convention. The others eventually go, or rather tricked into going, as The Captain takes them to reclaim his technology that was stolen. A huge air battle ensures between the convention goers and The Captain. Turns out that only nerds and cat girls can attend this convention. The fighting eventually stopped once Celia became a giant dragon.

Mary and Andorra return with the Fox Virus they swiped while helping Dr. Schmitt out. Sadly, with everything going on over and over again, Lukas finally snapped. The group recovered him from the woods two days later. Apparently, the Fox Virus will just have to run its course; therefore, the infected will change back eventually. The Men in Black received the blame.

Flore returns to take over the world yet again with the raining pumpkin plan from before. It was actually successful until Celia infiltrated the wooden spacecraft and decided to take over the world herself. Lukas, in his dragon form, finally ended up destroying the wooden spacecraft. It is now a floating island. Konstantin and his crab people lay claim to the floating island.

The Men in Black reclaim the Polybus that Mark took a while back.

The Captain comes back for Christmas to catch a yeti, which turns out to be a common bear that goes by the name of Dominique.

Vivian has her own Christmas dinner with Mark, Dr. Schmitt, Mary, and Andorra while the others visit their families.

During a trip to the aquarium with Dr. Schmitt, Celia comes across a transformed shark anthropomorphic creature that escapes through a portal. Celia follows this guy into the magical world. To make him feel comfortable, she turns everyone into a shark-taur

To celebrate the end of the year of the horse, Celia tries to transform everyone into horses. Mark is super excited about this as he wants to turn everyone into ponies from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Mark activates the Mana Tree in the middle of the forest while Celia activates the one in the middle of town. The Men in Black rant on about liking the show and what not.

Celia creates a spider that can turn people into spider anthropomorphic creatures. She has Dr. Schmitt take care of it for her. Celia starts her plans of building and underground liar and magic missile silo. Her dig revealed The Captain and his various collections of Mayan artifacts, one of which was an old video game. Mark grabbed the video game and became an ubernerd. Celia decides to build a library instead of an underground science lab for Catherine.

Two random scientists try to turn Mary and Andorra into humans instead of foxes while they continue their efforts to transform others into foxes with a bite from a manipulated spider. It turns out that someone else manipulated their spider and foiled their plans. An enraged Lukas goes after the two scientists and convinces them to fix Mary and Andorra. Although those two scientists promised to fix Lukas, they did not. He is still cursed in changing into a cat girl. The effects are still short.

Celia does some interviews with various characters to see how transformations have affected their lives and personality. Dr. Schmitt sums it up best that the real effect is on how people view you as a transformation.

During a friendly cook-off to build friendship and unity between the worlds, a giant crab kidnaps Lukas and takes him to the top of the news tower. The floating island appears above them. The crab takes him on board before the island itself disappears into the other realm. It turns out that Konstantin sent the crab out to find a suitable wife. Lukas declined the invitation but agreed to help Konstantin. Everything would have ended well if Celia didn’t enlist the help of The Captain. An epic battle ensues between all the characters introduced thus far. Despite having the other dames there, Konstantin still holds a spot for Lukas in her heart.

Cast

 * Celia Pichon - Celia Pichon is the mad scientist extraordinaire that specializes in transforming random people into anthropomorphic animals. Constantly fiddling with the newest laser design, there is no end to her messing around with her roommate Lukas and dreams of taking over her world and the magical world. Unlike most humans, she has pointy ears as a result of her wish with Geenie. Unlike most scientists, she doesn’t really care much to research prior to conducting her experiments. She could see the irony if she knew what irony and sarcasm meant. She has a fondness for Bishonen cat boys. She also maintains the tradition of capturing Santa Claus. While she has long since halted her progress for total world domination, that doesn’t stop her from wreaking havoc on the world with her experiments. She finally defeats gravity, her oldest nemesis, while teaching Catherine how to ride a bicycle. Her favorite and preferred transformation is a red fox.
 * Lukas - Lukas is the normal one of the dynamic duo. Serving as Celia’s minion (Or “assistant” if you prefer to not insult him), Lukas endures the Celia’s daily changing of him into various anthropomorphic animals while going to college as an art major. Unbeknownst to some of his dark past of watching way too many Naruto episodes, he has trained as a ninja. Whenever he’s not biting the end of his many paint brushes, he’s helping save the world from Celia’s madness. While he does favor the dragon transformation overall, he is often transformed into a fennel fox. This has changed due to the magic curse and is now often seen as a female cat. Celia named the cat girl form Lucy.
 * Geenie - Geenie is magical naga that lived in one of Celia’s lamp, Geenie now lives in the real world thanks to the magical exchange program with the mad scientist institution. An expert in portal magic, she aids Celia in her research. She is deadly afraid of stairs. She grants three wishes to each roommate. She is afraid of stairs. She likes Lukas in snake form. Her catchphrase is “Humans are weird.” She has feelings for Lukas. She does not like to change as she prefers to slither rather than walk and hates the feel of fur on her body.
 * Mark - Celia, Geenie, and Lukas’s next door neighbor, Mark is an incredibly fanatic nerd and robotics expert. A lover of all things anime, World of Warcraft, and Mountain Dew, he is seen passing out with huge sums of blood pouring out his noses as a result of female nudity around him or any female talking to him for that matter. He’s grown out of the latter trait. A defender of good, he often challenges Celia to random battles to thwart her plans. He doesn’t seem to like human contact. His favorite transformation is anything as long as it’s a female version as he takes nude pictures of himself in female anthropomorphic form for his Deviant Art account. Incidentally, when cold water is dumped on him, he becomes a female red fox
 * Robbie I - Robbie I was Mark’s first AI robot that he created with a combination of technology and magic. While she herself is in a lion form, she can’t transform into any other animal. She loves to play World of Warcraft. She doesn’t love dressing up as Mark’s sidekick, which so happens to be a school girl uniform.
 * Robbie II - Robbie II was Mark’s second AI robot that he created with a combination of technology and magic. Mark originally intended for it to be a robotic dishwasher; however, after a little mishap, it is now the Easter bunny that spreads Easter joy across the world.
 * Dr. Schmitt - Celia’s mentor and friend, Dr. Schmitt is also a mad scientist that lives in a castle outside the city. Because of his mad scientist status, he often causes thunderstorms and rain to follow whenever he plots something science related. He discovers an explanation as to why men turn into women more so than women turn into men that involves curves and boobs. He was originally a human that hid his eyes behind goggles as he had lovely chibi eyes. Thanks to Celia, he is now a fennel fox.
 * Eegor - Dr. Schmitt cloned Eegor from his own DNA. He aids Dr. Schmitt with guests and tea. It is unclear as to whether he is happy or not as he has not said a single word throughout the comic.
 * Catherine - A demon summoned from the magical world, Catherine is Celia’s long lost sister. As sisters, one would suspect that they would share similar characteristics; however, this isn’t true as she is in fact the polar opposite of Celia. She is quite, shy, sensitive, and is deadly afraid of loud noises. She loves to play the harp. If she does share anything with Celia, it would be her love of Bishonen cat boys. She hates being naked.
 * Vivian - Mark’s newest and non-robotic roommate, Vivian is in fact a human that has the face and skin of a cat. She is completely impervious to magic as her cells are in fact radioactive. She displays some cat characteristics
 * We Are the Men in Black for We Are Many - Commonly known as the Men in Black, they are a secret governmental agency sworn to protect the world by covering up anything science related. They are experts in a wide arrange of tasks, such as resistance to anvils, welding, and biology, thanks to their institute. They feel rather naked without their glasses. They all seem to be named Smith.
 * Flore - Hailing from the magical world, Flore has aspired to take over the real world after hearing tales of Celia and her efforts to take over the magical world.
 * Director - He’s the director of the Mad Scientist University.
 * Adam - A new anchorman, Adam takes freedom of the press extremely seriously, especially when he deals with the Men in Black.
 * Nicholas - Nicholas is a finance major that has changed and maintains his Bishonen cat boy form. He seems to have an interest in Celia.
 * Professor Wuselkopp - Professor Wuselkopp is the scientist responsible for the mecha suit collaboration. He often praises for peace and unity between the real world and magical world.
 * Antonie Guarrigues Marc Phillip De La Castenade - More commonly known as The Captain, he is a very energetic mad scientist that has a huge thirst for adventure. He was the main guy to go to for all transportation needs.
 * Konstantin - Once a human mad scientist bent on taking over Mars in a small spacecraft, Konstantin is now a female mouse queen and the leader of the crab people. He has found his new home on the floating pumpkin island and has fortified it with heavy defenses. He shows an interest in in Lucy, Lukas’s female counterpart.
 * Mary and Andorra - Former human mad scientists themselves, both Mary and Andorra are now foxes that plan on turning the rest of the world into foxes for their own twisted revenge.
 * Mike and Joel - Two deertaur mad scientists whose schemes involve turning others into deertaurs such as themselves. Like Mary and Andorra, they are former humans and as their goals of transforming the populace are in direct conflict with each other, both groups are bitter rivals.