Before you click... is a webcomic drawn by Phillip M. Jackson (a.k.a. Jolly Jack) about a group of unlikely housemates. Art is a chronically frustrated graphic designer (and the only human living in the house); Kat, a cat girl, is a fun-loving photographer; Pip, a penguin, is a stereotypical video-game geek who makes a living buying and selling items online, and Scarlet is a naïve and energetic squirrel girl whose erratic behaviour and short attention span mask her true intellect. Over time the household is expanded with Kat's adoption of a non-anthropomorphic platypus named Leonard, a mysterious infestation of Denizens, and the rescue of Scarlet's sisters(?) Amber, Jade and Violet.Sequential Art veers between cozy Slice of Life moments and Art's role as a Cosmic Plaything. Sometimes life is fairly ordinary — Christmas shopping, computer problems, and things like that. Sometimes life is a little surreal... Art may end up playing the Realm of Lorecraft boardgame against a squirrel hivemind. And surprisingly frequently, life gets extremely surreal, such as the housemates' brief involvement in the secret global struggle between retardium-harvesting aliens and the merman who engineered the terrible secret behind 3D movies. No, really. Also features occasional appearances by the small, wisecracking hamster who apparently draws the strip.
Sequential Art provides examples of:
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Tropes A to B
- 0% Approval Rating: Miss Strinpit is an extremely unpleasant person, capable of antagonizing anyone she meets, not just her students. She's so despised that upon her demise due to heart attack, the students merrily sing "Ding-Dong, the witch is dead". Kat summarizes her faults (which leads to Strinpit's fatal heart attack):Kat: You're a short, bad-tempered, condescending, evil, unfair and hateful Bully!
- A-Cup Angst: Surprisingly, Kat. She's not exactly an A-cup though. If this strip or this drawing of her are anything to go by she's far from it.
- Adorable Fluffy Tail: While Christmas shopping with Kat Vance, Scarlet the squirrel girl feels something gripping her tail. It's a little girl, utterly charmed by the luxurious fluffiness of Scarlet's tail. Both the girl and Scarlet proclaim simultaneously: "I know what I want for Christmas!"
- Adventures in Comaland: One story arc is based on Fallout, and is revealed at the end to be the result of Pip suffering from asphyxiation from locking himself in a fridge because he'd been playing Fallout 4 to excess and thought a power outage was the end of the world.
- Aerosol Spray Backfire: Pip goes to kill a spider in the bathroom using aerosol deodorant and a cigarette lighter. He succeeds in torching the entire bathroom and singeing himself as well in strip #9. However, Pip only supplied the ignition source; moments before, Scarlet had used an aerosol can to drive that same spider out of the attic and into the bathroom in strip #462.
- Aesop Amnesia: It would appear that Pip failed to learn his lesson from last time when he Lets Hilary stay at their place and hooks up with her again, only to find out in the next strip that he's only doing that because she's basically blackmailing him into letting her stay with them or else she'll have them arrested for destroying her house, and he is clearly not as clueless about the situation as he was the first time.
- Aerosol Flamethrower: Pip's attempt to kill the shower spider.
- The Aesthetics of Technology: Pip makes the mistake of stealing tech from the Denizens based on appearance.
- Aliens Steal Cattle: The Eldak designated "Gary" was assigned to harvest cow lips."Gary": I am always assigned this task. I deem this: unfair.
- All There in the Manual: While 99% of what you need to know is in the comic, you'd never know that JJ's secretary and valet, Helga, is actually a valkyrie unless you visit his DeviantArt page.
- All Up to You: Twice. Art even lampshades it.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: The general reaction when Kat accidentally gives her old Sadist Teacher a fatal heart attack. Nearly everyone was singing Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: For some reason, whenever Art tries to tell people what goes on in his house, describing the inhabitants makes people think that he's crazy... despite catgirls and other anthropomorphic creatures existing with no problem alongside humanity, as shown whenever Kat and Pip go outside and do things.
- Art Evolution: Subtly Lampshaded.
Word of God is, the artist didn't bother to create permanent references for characters and uses the latest strips instead, causing a drift over the years. - Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Once the Eldak realize their weapons can't kill Art, the next logical step is to run away. In their defense, they were trying to kill him because they thought he was a Walking Techbane, and... well, they're tech. Finding out that he's immune to their weapons and is coming right at them is grounds to run.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Scarlet exhibits this behaviour, she's really a good scientist, but lacks any concentration capacity.
- Attention Whore: Hilary. It's revealed that the reason why Hilary and Kat are having their feud is because, when they were kids, Kat had the same lunchbox as Hilary, and Hilary thought that would take attention away from her. Every fight they've had since then developed from that initial act of jealousy.
- Aura Vision: Vanity Thorn can see auras as well as ghosts."Good call, Stoker."
- Author Avatar: Mr. Jackson appears as a hamster. Usually.◊
- Pip approves of the reason why.
- Author Tract: A few minor barbs, rather than rants. (The author has other comic strips for his full-fledged rants.)
- Awesome, but Impractical: Pip grabs a rather large gun because it looked dangerous. It actually is powerful as it was shown to blast off a door, but it's actually just a popcorn popper, and as such has a range measured in only a few centimeters.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Inverted in two ways by Hilary: For starters, she's an Alpha Bitch who frequently uses Sleeping Their Way to the Top, while the "good" or at least guilty part of her looks like half a zombie abortion.
- Big Eater: Scarlet, with at least one strip mentioning she's managed to eat her body weight in Christmas goodies while waiting to see Santa Claus.
- Big Red Button: Admittedly, we can't tell what color it is, but it grabs Scarlet's attention in the same matter and thus Kat has to intervene to prevent potential disaster. Given it's an Emergency button, we can probably assume it's red.
- Big "SHUT UP!": Well, at least a medium-sized one.
- Bilingual Bonus: From a very foul-mouthed Roman legionnaire. Panel 2 translation
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: After Hilary's house is destroyed due to the sheaningans with Ms. B, she forces her way into staying with the main cast by making it clear she can have them arrested for arson and destruction of property whenever she wants.
- Bland-Name Product: Far Trek, EBuy (eBay), The Metrix, Temple Raider, Realm of Lorecraft, Nightlight, and the list goes on.
- Hello Pages deserves a mention.
- Strip 735 has four: Arkham Lockdown, Contemporary Warfare 3, Skyroam, and Saints Boulevard 3.
- The comic store the guys visit is Forsaken Planet, (after the Forbidden Planet chain).
- Body Horror: Scarlet and her sisters do not react kindly to the pandemic restrictions requiring social distancing. Their response is to put themselves into a machine which combines them into one, resulting in a walking, faceless blob with multiple arms and legs.
- Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Kat had these when she was in primary school. Art describes an old yearbook photo as looking like "a bear trap with whiskers."Hilary: Doesn't that oil-derrick in her mouth make her look adorable?!
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Charcoal, dust, dusty charcoal...
- Break the Haughty: Hilary, Kat's arch-nemesis from grade school, downgraded from high-powered advertising executive to sitting in the unemployment office. Next to Pip, who wants to talk about her previous "career". One has to ask, how much further down can she go? Pretty damn far. And then brutally subverted.
- Aside Glance: In strip 1271 Pip and Art plan to convert their DVD collection to digital files, though the UK's law is leggaly dubious, leading to this exchange:Pip: As long as we don't do anything stupid like broadcast what we're doing, we'll be fine.Both glance at the audience.
- Breast Expansion: The squirrels advise Kat against eating the giant apples they've grown since they're full of muto juice, and the last time they had it tested on them caused Amber to experience severe swelling for a while. This warning has the opposite effect from the one that they wanted, but the growth Kat undergoes is not the effect she was hoping for.
- Brick Joke:
- Strip 398 went from Noodle Incident to Brick Joke 9 years later.
- After the Denizens storyline, Pip scavenges some of their technology from the basement of the house and sells it on eBuy, and as a result, on strip 344, a couple of collectors get transported to the Gobi desert due to one of the pieces of technology being still functional. On strip 765, Pip gets his eBuy account cancelled on account of an outlandish claiming about those very memorabilia collectors being stranded in the desert and supposedly one having to eat the other.
- Art using Crtl+Z.
- Pip sells his liver to cover the bills, so he can't do the same thing 17 years later.
- Strip 398
- Butterface: Dot, a mutant in a Fallout world Pip ends up in, is a super curvy woman.... with only one eye, hideously oversized brain, lipless mouth that can't close, and multiple prehensile tongues.
- Buxom Beauty Standard:Kat: [looks at the picture Art is drawing] Are those her boobs, or did a couple of zepplins land on her chest?
Art: IT'S JUST A COMMISSION!
Tropes C to D
- Call-Back:
- The very first strip and this strip over five hundred strips later. And then another almost five hundred strips later still...
- And for a more literal Call-Back, there's Crazy Boris, who may or may not also be Crazy Sven. And possibly the guy on the box of crackers.
- The spider from all the way back in strip 7 makes a re-appearance during Scarlet's flashback, as well as somewhat justifying how Pip managed to blow up the bathroom with a deodorant flamethrower.
- Another call back is in strip #765 regarding the Denizens' technology that Pip sold to the two nerds in strip #344. It teleported them to the middle of the Gobi desert in Mongolia, and one apparently had to eat the other.
- The very first strip
- Cassandra Truth:
- The intruder's female, she's a five foot tall squirrel-thing...
- Once more when Kat gets kidnapped.
- Collecting insurance when a penguin with a homemade flamethrower blows up the bathroom trying to kill spiders.
- Emergency services outright disconnect the phone call when they learn that it's yet another insane story from the gang's house.
- The intruder's female, she's a five foot tall squirrel-thing...
- Casual Danger Dialogue: In addition to the usual banter, sometimes somebody just can't work up the energy for panic anymore.Pip (face down on the floor in despair): I was going to stop Scarlet and company from inadvertently building another doomsday device[...] Could you go and talk the squirrels down before they wipe us all from existence?
- Catch-22 Dilemma:
- When Pip first starts playing Legends of Lorecraft in panel 136, he starts as a Level 1 serf, and needs armor and a sword to go on treasure quests. However, armor and swords cost money, which is earned by obtaining treasures. Pip lampshades his dilemma nicely.
- And the reason he's even in this mess? When he tried to join a Pick-Up Group upon first spawning, he made the mistake of partying with a Griefer, a thief who stole all the gear that he originally spawned with. Real MMORPGs do not let characters go without weapons or armor, nor allow other players to take their only equipment for precisely this reason.
- Cerebus Syndrome:
- Downplayed. Several times the artist has taken a few months to do long arc stories involving the plucky characters combating dangerously powerful adversaries like the Denizens or Oz, only to have the conflict resolved and go right back to the "Gag-a-Day" format.
- Played with in the case of the "retardium" arc: increasingly breathless revelations of a secret power struggle led the cast toward what seemed to be a moment of dramatic choice. Instead, Art realized both sides were idiots. So the gang went home and got back to the gag-a-day format.
- Cheek Copy: It's implied that Pip did this with Art's scanner.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The chip in the back of Art's neck, which he only thinks is there. Probably.
- Chekhov's Pez Dispenser Gun!!
- And then there's Chekhov's Ghoul. Thought it was just a throw-away Take That! at Uwe Boll? Think again.
- Clothing Damage: It takes a little over 350 strips for Scarlet's only shirt to disintegrate after being caught on a doorknob.
- Colourful Theme Naming: The Squirrel Girls: Ambernote , Scarletnote , Jadenote and Violetnote . Which were derived from their Subject Numbers — 4M83R, 5C4RL37, J4D3 and V10L37.
- Comically Missing the Point: in 1223, Scarlet, while looking at a bag of mixed nuts, is told by "the internet" that she can't have nuts in November. Kat takes a beat to consider whether or not to correct her, and realises it's best left unsaid.
- Contempt Crossfire: Art is told to redo a drawing by both the marketing and censorship departments: one wanting more cleavage or the ad won't sell, one wanting less cleavage or the ad won't air.
- Cool and Unusual PunishmentJack: Dance, tubby! Dance or ISSUE ONE GETS CREASED!
- Cooldown Hug: Art gets one from Kat, when's he's understandably upset with Scarlet after she THREW HIM IN FRONT OF A DEATH RAY!
- Cosmic Plaything: Art's skill of collecting troubles and dangerous adventures is only outmatched by the Universe's eagerness to provide them.
- Covert Pervert:
- Kat. This particular example is made extra funny by the fact that she wanted Art to draw a high fantasy version of her. Meaning she wanted to see how he was fantasizing about her. Another instance in which she goads Art into drawing a sexy elf for his Christmas cards. She gets REALLY into it.
- Scarlet and possibly her sisters seem to really enjoy the view here. He's still there, cleaning, for three years In-Universe. And sporting a French Maid Outfit for good measure.
- Kat
- Cower Power: Kat takes cover behind Scarlet when she realizes that the lab is truly haunted and freaky ectoplasmic arms are coming out of every screen around when the power is turned on.
- Crossover: Leonard gets zapped◊ into sibling Dada Comics strip Spider and Scorpion during the Jack and the Denizens arc.
- Curse Cut Short: "YOU UTTER B--" BING-BONG!
- Cutting the Knot: Pip once inherited a puzzle box from a dead relative who had been a jewel thief. The box contained a priceless diamond, but to get it, he had to solve the puzzle. Pip just dropped the box on the floor, smashing it open.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Denizens are pretty sinister looking things but they're pretty much harmless... except for Jack
- Dark Secret: While in strip 398, it looks like Art and Pip may have killed someone, it's later revealed that they instead buried a dressmaker's dummy. To be fair, this was covering up the fact that when they took the dummy, it accidentally kicked off a series of feminist riots that burned their college to the ground.
- Deep-Immersion Gaming: Often when the gang plays games (digital or otherwise), the strips show them being dressed in whatever gears their characters would have been wearing. How they appear during the short arc of Realm of Lorecraft tabletop session is one example, including Scarlet who imagines herself as the "battle cube".Pip: You can't play as the dice, you dink!
- Defiant Strip: Pip has promised to sell a squirrel girl (namely Scarlet) to an online buyer named Eyurin for four thousand British pounds. When Pip can't locate Scarlet, and can't refund the money, Eyurin protests by stripping naked on the front lawn in strip #165. Even Pip's flatmates, Art and Kat, are horrified and squicked at this sight.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Hilary, as of this strip, which also marks the first time she's seen with a smile of contentment rather than out of pleasure at someone's suffering. Subverted later. HARD
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Prepare for deadly laser death time... with LASERS!"
- Deus Ax Machina: During the They Live! arc, the aliens capture Art, Kat and Pip. The three are taken to a penthouse suite, where other people are gathered. There, everyone is on camera, being televised as a live-feed soap opera. Art wonders if there's a fire box on the premises in strip #850. Pip presumes Art is thinking of John McClane's fire hose acrobatics as seen in Die Hard. Art corrects Pip by explaining that he's seeking a fire ax with which to smash through a wall into the stairwell. Alas, there's no ax, no hoses, just extinguishers.
- Disaster Dominoes: From a drunken prank to feminist protests to riots and fires. So far so good.
- Disembodied Eyebrows: Pretty much everyone who has eyebrows has had them floating off their head at one point or another.
- Distanced from Current Events: Invoked in comic 1209 as Art and Pip want to play a game to take their minds off of the news (specifically the 2022 invasion of Russia into Ukraine). The board game they pick up is called Supremacy, all about nuking countries to win, and both agree, in clear discomfort, to find another game.
- Distracted by the Sexy:
- A drugged Kat trying on a borrowed swimsuit that's way too big for her: it's threatening to fall off if she doesn't keep holding onto the garment. This distracts Art from thinking about how to escape a Reality Show also serving as a prison for those threatening to reveal a covert Alien Invasion.Art: Yeah. That's helping my focus.
- Very surprising, but it would seem even Scarlet can be affected by this. However it's more likely that she wants the Handsome Prince to stay longer, and to do so she increases the chores which he must do before leaving.
- A drugged Kat trying on a borrowed swimsuit that's way too big for her: it's threatening to fall off if she doesn't keep holding onto the garment. This distracts Art from thinking about how to escape a Reality Show also serving as a prison for those threatening to reveal a covert Alien Invasion.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The root cause of the 20+ year grudge between Kat and Hilary seems to have come from Hilary feeling less special because Kat also had a "Pink Pony" lunchbox.
- Door Dumb: Art tries to unjam a door to rescue Scarlet, only to find out Scarlet herself is accidentally jamming the door by pushing instead of pulling.
- Double-Edged Answer: A psychotic AI gasses all personnel in a government facility. As Art, Pip, and Scarlet are sneaking in, Pip uses a small mirror to see around a corner.Art: Well? Any security guards?
Pip: Uh, yes and no. - Double Entendre: Kat claims that there's pee in her bag in this strip. Turns out to be the Wintendo Pee.
- The Dreaded: Several, and they are quite understandable.
- Jack is one for the entire cast; diminutive he may be, but his control over the denizens and the fact that he's taken out a country with them certainly makes him a force to be reckoned with. Despite his small stature, he can wield a chainsaw very menacingly.
- Mrs. Strinpit for Kat; she was Kat's old bullying teacher from Middleschool, who'd give Kat detention for everything and continued to speak down to her even as an adult.
- Rebecca Mace for Pip and Art; Rebecca is a mentally disturbed woman that Art and Pip pulled a prank on, she then found out who pranked her, found where they lived and hammered on their door and screamed for an entire night.
- Pickles for Pip; an Animalistic Abomination in the shape of a chihuahua from the game World of Lorecraft, which turns its own insides out on a whim. It is specifically stated to be a "Hellhound".
- Droste Image: Pip meets the Author Avatar hamster in the strip itself. He gives Pip a copy of his latest strip (which at the time was that very strip). Pip looks at the strip, which is about Pip looking at the strip, looking at the strip, looking at the strip and so on.Pip: Woah. Trippy.
- Dynamic Entry: Kat slams Hilary with a flying kick to the face for the above-mentioned lies she spread about Kat.
Tropes E to F
- Eldritch Abomination:
- Four live in the town's requisite Haunted House.
- Also: the Denizens, creatures that evolved from the shadow of a condemned criminal. Although the Denizens actually become rather cute after their leader was incapacitated, leaving them to mill around the house aimlessly, watching soap operas and assist with random chores.
- Epic Fail: The only way to describe Art's attempt at wrapping a present.
- Epunymous Title: It's a work of Sequential Art featuring a guy called Art.
- Everyone Can See It: Say "yes, Ms. Thorn"... Valentines sequence — pleasant surprise, blush, awkwardness, facepalm.
- Exploding Closet: Art gets buried by one in this strip.
- Of course, it includes the kitchen sink.
- Expy: Many, usually Bland-Name Product-type expys, but special mention should go to the Eldaks, who are fairly obviously inspired by Doctor Whos Daleks. They even use the same Catchphrase: "EXTERMINATE!'", and their name is an anagram of "Daleks".
- Eye Scream:
- "There's a Shift key in my eye."
- Scarlet doesn't like candy canes.
- Which leads to a Brick Joke
- Which leads to a Brick Joke
- "There's a Shift key in my eye."
- Fate Worse than Death: When Art, Kat, and Pip get captured by the "aliens", they beg not to be killed. Instead, they get put in a cast for a reality TV expy of Big Brother. The trio immediately wished they had been killed instead.
- Faux Affably Evil: Jack and Oz are both extremely evil, but they're just so funny at the same time.
- Flashback Twist: Twice. Art asks Scarlet if the washing machine broke. Kat asks Scarlet if anyone messed with the Christmas lights.
- Flash Step: Kat intervenes.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Pickles the Dragon. Looks like a cute puppy/dragon hybrid right? It unleashes its "beast" side by
TURNING ITSELF INSIDE OUT! - Foreshadowing: Most major arcs are derived from events in earlier strips. Sometimes this double-dips with Brick Joke, such as Pip getting his eBuy account suspended (leading to the Pip-Hilary arc) when buyers report his item got them stranded in the Mongolian desert.
- For Inconvenience, Press "1": Art, trying to call an ear surgery clinic, soon enough find out the automated response would rather have him take an appointment online.IVR: Your grandkids should be able to instruct you on how the internet works. If you wish to maintain the futile hope that you will ever talk to an actual human, please hold the line.
- Funetik Aksent: Part of the writer's signature style is spelling random things phonetically.
- Furry Confusion:
- Leonard, a non-anthropormophic platypus kept as a pet by an anthropomorphic cat.
- Scarlet makes a bird-targeting turret to get rid of the wild birds scaring her sisters. It immediately targets Pip (fortunately it was unloaded).
- Furry Reminder:
- Kat deals with some birds that were annoying her and Art in a rather species-characteristic manner.
- After Art buys a laser pointer, she feels insulted that he'd think she'd do that. Scarlet, on the other hand...
- Kat deals with some birds that were annoying her and Art in a rather species-characteristic manner
Tropes G to H
- Gadgeteer Genius: Scarlet. Managed to use household tools to build a working Wave-Motion Gun. Also her sisters managed to make a lawnmower escape the earth's atmosphere.
- Its been argued that Scarlet might be a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass.
- They've turned a Slanky into perpetual motion engine.
- Genius Ditz: Scarlet and her sisters. Scarlet can be inventing an actual laser gun in one comic, and be completely hypnotized by a spinning washing machine in another.
- Getting Them to Smile: Kat Vance is a professional photographer, and often has to photograph small children in shopping malls and department stores, as in strip #84. This particular tot hasn't smiled for the camera in four hours at least, leaving Kat to go home and eviscerate That One Boss in frustration.
- G.I.R.L.: Invoked and averted here.
- Girl-on-Girl is Hot: Pip certainly seems to think so.
- Then there's this non-canon fanservice-y accident. There was plenty of times it could've happened during DeCerto storyline. A pity it didn't.
- Then there's this
- Glasgow Grin: A variation. It's stated in Jack's official bio that his "mouth" is actually a crack in his face, meaning he's broken. This pretty much explains why he was the only Denizen who turned out to be evil.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Art and Pip steal a dressmaker's dummy (one belonging to an objectophile who thought of it as a sentient being), sending photos of postcards as if the dummy were on vacation, culminating in sticking breasts on it. This infuriates the local Straw Feminist to the point of causing riots on campus, and then the dummy's owner recognizes them...
- Groin Attack: Pip receives one here due to a significant difference in size.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Kat stays sober all year... until New Year's Eve, when she gets totally smashed. Her "New Year's Resolution" for several years now has been to "stop drinking so much alcohol during the holiday season".
- Hive Mind:
- Again, Scarlet and her sisters. The reason they're such ditzes most of the time is that each is one part out of a 4-part superintelligence. As seen when everyone plays the board version of Land of Lorecraft: everyone against Pip, the squirrel sisters manage to pull off a spectacular plan on Pip to allow Kat and Art to beat him unhindered. Which just goes to show, never challenge a bio-supercomputer to a strategy game.Scarlet & her sisters: ...we are legion!
- The Denizens also seem to need a truly evil member of their species — such as Jack — to behave in any way malevolent.
- Again, Scarlet and her sisters. The reason they're such ditzes most of the time is that each is one part out of a 4-part superintelligence. As seen when everyone plays the board version of Land of Lorecraft: everyone against Pip, the squirrel sisters manage to pull off a spectacular plan on Pip to allow Kat and Art to beat him unhindered. Which just goes to show, never challenge a bio-supercomputer to a strategy game.
- Human Resources: It turns out that the aliens are on earth to harvest Retardium, an ambient energy naturally given off by the 'willfully ignorant'.note .
- James Cameron wants to stop them... because they are hogging all the people dumb enough to pay to see his movies.
- Hurl It into the Sun: This is how the Eldak wants to kill Art, whom they believe is a Man of Kryptonite for them, after all their other methods fail to crack the Think Tank's safety bubble which is encasing Art at the time.
- Hypocritical Humor: Art of all people cannot take characters with crazy eyebrows seriously.
- Also, Kat gets her hands on the Attacknoid's remote here.
- Scarlet may be one of fiction's quintessential Genki Girls, but she can't stand it when a drugged up Kat starts talking a million words a minute.
- Also, Kat gets her hands on the Attacknoid's remote here
- Hypothetical Fight Debate: Captured by aliens, Art and Pip seek to avoid being sedated into mindlessness. Art begins a debate with Pip about who would win in a duel: Batman or Superman. This is the type of geekiness that sedated people conduct, so the aliens are fooled into believing that Art and Pip have been dosed. Pip, however, doesn't at first realize that Art's statement is a ruse, and begins an earnest counterpoint.
Tropes I to J
- I Am Legion: Scarlet and the rest of the Think Tank quartet. Partially subverted in that they are not willfully malevolent, but they are dangerously intelligent when in close proximity (they can weaponize practically anything they get their paws on), and it seems that they can only function as adults when they are in the same room. If any of the girls are even as far apart as being in different levels of the house, they devolve into spastic, ditzy Genki Girls with random bouts of super-genius.
- I Call It "Vera": While Art and Pip were in college, they chose to prank the fashion students by absconding one of their dressmaker dummies. Their victim was Rebecca Mace, who has a bizarre obsession with her dummy, to the point of conversing with it. When she discovers it gone, Rebecca goes unhinged, telling a classmate in strip #1015 "That dummy has a name. It's Vanessa."
- Idea Bulb: Kat Vance has an incandescent bulb appear above her head in strip #649.
- Improbable Weapon User: Scarlet threatens Jack with Grievous Harm with a Body using Leonard
- I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: A reciprocal example: while shopping for Christmas, Scarlet gets the attention of a little girl fascinated by her fluffy tail, and they BOTH want to take the other one home.
- Incendiary Exponent: Ezekiel Pretz doesn't stop trying to stab Kat and Vanity after he gets set on fire. At least until his arm falls off.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Scarlet and her sisters again. Even after the artist makes the comic tamer, the most they ever wear are T-shirts (and shorts in public), and they have no qualms about removing them.
- Innocent Innuendo:
- Ironic Echo Cut: Seen here.
- It Makes Sense in Context: Art sucking up a spider crawling up his leg, only for Kat to walk in and see him placing the handheld vacuum somewhere very delicate.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: The Infiltrators aren't actually evil; they came to Earth to harvest a type of energy emitted by humans in greater quantities than any other species in the universe. It's called retardium and is generated by willful ignorance.
- It's Been Done: Scarlet's latest invention (which, for once, doesn't explode) is a piece of garment keeping your arms free while being warmer than a T-shirt. She calls it "The Mono-Portal Torso Warmer".Kat: That's a poncho.
Scarlet: That... is such a good name!
Tropes K to L
- Karma Houdini: A number of the more dangerous situations that the protagonists find themselves in can be traced back to Scarlet in one way or another, as well as more destructive actions such as when she activates a Kill Sat. These are typically never brought up again, presumably due to a combination of her cuteness and her essentially being socially and developmentally retarded.
- Kids Are Cruel: To Art at least. Timmy talks to Kat nicely and normally while, at the same time, barraging the poor sod with snowballs.
- Leet Lingo: Scarlet's lab number is #5C4RL37, whiler her sisters also have the same naming convention; #4M83R (Amber), J4D3 (Jade) and V10L37 (Violet)
- Let's Get Dangerous!: When the Villains come out to play: You got to get dangerous. PIP DANGEROUS!
- Limited Wardrobe:
- Pip is by far the guiltiest, wearing his trademark sweater on the hottest day of summer; he cools down with frozen food taped around him.
- At first, Scarlet is naked, only being covered by objects and such in the panel. When she finally gets a (singular) shirt, she never changes it. Lampshaded in strip 102 when Art suggests she wash it, so she does — without taking it off. Pip immediately senses the lewdness, but Art looks away in annoyance.
- Pip is by far the guiltiest, wearing his trademark sweater on the hottest day of summer; he cools down with frozen food taped around him
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!Art: [as the shower backs up and floods] Damnit, which one of you drain-clogging furballs was in here last?
- Literal Split Personality: During the Covid arc, the Squirrels use a MergingMachine due to misunderstanding the ban on gatherings of two or more people. Splitting them apart also divides Hilary into multiple personas- a spiteful Hilary, a shameless Hilary, a malformed apologetic Hilary, and a tiny joyful Hilary.
- Living Crashpad: Art "landed on something soft."
Tropes M to N
- MacGyvering: Scarlet and her "sisters" worked in R&D. Thus, they used to build all sorts of crazy stuff they invent as Think Tank. One request stated too vaguely, one souvenir blaster, a handful of scavenged random parts — and Hilarity Ensues.
- Mad Scientist: Think Tank.Scarlet: Me and the girls can fix eet!
Art: D'you mean "fix" or "weaponise"? - Meat Puppet: OZBASIC does this briefly to convince Kat that the guards he's just gassed to death have become zombies in order to get her to flee the room so her friends don't find her. In the next strip, he is shown manipulating two dead scientists into having a pretend tea party, as a little girl would with dolls.
- Medium Awareness: Scarlet changes the comic to Widescreen.
- Merging Machine: In strip #1151, British Prime Minister Johnson announces contagion restrictions that include a ban on gatherings of more than two people. The four squirrel girls panic at the thought of being separated, so they create the "Huddle-On Collider" to fuse themselves into a single entity. The result of this daffy device is the multi-limbed abomination that pursues Kat through the basement tunnels in strip #1157.
- Merging Mistake: When responses to the COVID-19 pandemic forbid gatherings of four or more people, the squirrels are terrified at the prospect of being separated, and design a machine to merge them into a single entity. The resulting combination of four, fanservicing furry girls is... less appealing than one would expect.
- Mirror Reveal: When Art was passed out during holiday merriment, his two flatmates shaved his head in strip #122. A contrite Kat shows him the results in a mirror. Art is shocked at first, then displeased. Strangely, Art's huge eyebrows were left intact.
- Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: OZBASIC, as stated above, is an homage to GlaDOS and is to Kat what GlaDOS is to Chell.
- Mundane Utility:
- Scarlet throwing up into the Denizens' wormhole.Pip: As a Far Trek fan, I have to say; I think that's a serious misuse of a worm-hole.
- Pip uses a TIE Interceptor to go grocery shopping.
- The Denizens using a short-range raygun to cook popcorn.
- Scarlet throwing up into the Denizens' wormhole.
- My God, You Are Serious!: When Pip and Hilary were working in a retail store, Hilary tells Pip to separate the summerwear and winterwear. He tells her he can't tell the difference, prompting Hilary to angrily ask if he seriously can't tell apart winter clothes from summer clothes. Pip simply gestures to his normal attire of pants and turtleneck sweater, which he wears everyday. Hilary Facepalms, realizing he's serious.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Spoofed; Pip and Art can both feel from far away when their favorite comics & games store is on fire. Cue Big "NO!" from Pip.
- Nemesis as Customer: Achieved by proxy when Alpha Bitch Hilary Locke visits ad studio Wiquid for a women's wear campaign. Once she discovers that Art works there, Hilary immediately goes into Jerkass mode. It's not because she bears Art ill will; instead, she's aiming for her nemesis, Kat Vance, with whom Art shares a flat.
- Nerd Hoard: Art goes to a Comics Convention in #196 and buys a movie prop Steampunk Death Ray gun. He holds it aloft, and the other geeky conventioneers Kneel Before Zod. Five strips later, Genius Ditz Scarlet converts it into a working model.
- Nightmare Sequence: Kat has an extended one after she gets knocked out in the catacombs beneath Decerto, in which we're treated to several strips of her and Vanity attending a concert where Hilary Locke gives them nothing but grief. Kat wakes up screaming in horror after the nightmare ends in her fighting Hilary... and then kissing her.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Demon-summoning zombie pirate Ezekiel Pretz.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mr. Funk Chonote , Jimmy Dapp, Sean Connolly.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: Kat stands up for herself against her old teacher Mrs Strinpit after the woman tries treating her as she did when she was a little girl The shock of someone standing up to her kills the woman.
- Not So Above It All: Hilary always acts like the perfect, dominating businesswoman. Well, almost always:Hilary (peering into the thrift store's bargain toy bin): Is that a 'Pink Pony' lunchbox?!
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: In his initial appearances, Jack was a complete joke of a villain. Then he almost nukes the world. Yikes.
- Not-So-Innocent Whistle: Scarlet whistles after she accidentally gives Jack the technology for a powerful ray gun.
- Number of the Beast: Lampshaded, or something, by the Author Avatar himself in the 666th strip. It even has a ZALGO reference.
Tropes O to P
- Oblivious to Love: Art and Kat to each other. Even being pincushioned with Cupid's arrows leaves no reaction.
- Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Art and Pip in Comic 1204, where they both make a Double Entendre about breasts and legs, with the final panel showing a confused kid who doesn't get the joke, and their mother phoning the "internet police", clearly to complain about the joke.
- Oddly Visible Eyebrows: Art's eyebrows can be seen through his mage bandanna in these strips.
- Lampshaded by the artist.
- Lampshaded
- Oh, Crap!:
- Jack gets a spectacular one at the end of his story arc.
- Kat after her and Vanity's ordeal with the Eldritch Horrors, when she realized that through it all, she forgot to take pictures of the whole thing.
- Pip when Kat showed him that Hilary had been lying to him the whole time and never cared about him in the slightest.
- Art says this verbatim during the Quinten story arc when he realizes that OZBASIC is trying to up-link to Jack's Kill Sat.
- Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?: Art and Kat trapped in a closet. BROOM HANDLE! And in the next comic: "Well, then stop rubbing your arse against me!"
- Our Dragons Are Different: Ms. B transforms Hilary into a dragon mount. To combat them Liam transforms Kat into a dragon as well.
- Parental Substitute: Kat and Art could very well be this to the Think Tank. Also, Pip plays the part of being the resident Aloof Big Brother with a side of Jerkass.
- Perpetual Expression: Pip's face rarely changes thanks to his Opaque Lenses and unnoticeably small mouth. That definitely doesn't mean he doesn't emote.
- Perky Goth: Vanity Thorn, an old friend of Kat's. It's the coffee. "From introvert to extrovert in one cup!"
- Petty Childhood Grudge: The reason Hilary hates Kat and seeks to bully and demean her at every opportunity, is that Kat too had a Pink Pony lunchbox as a child.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: During Kat's Nightmare Sequence, Hilary scares off a potential date by telling the guy that Kat used to be "Kevin" six months prior.
- Playboy Bunny: Pip, doing a speech aimed at fellow gamers, is seconded by Hilary in a Playboy Bunny costume. Note she's already a bunny girl, so the ears aren't fake.
- Porn Creator Going Mainstream:
- Art draws explicit material for a commission in one strip.
- Also, Hilary, a former porn star.
- Porn Stash:Art: Have you been using my laptop again?
Kat: I like the way that folder is marked "reference material". - Powered Armor:
- Scarlet and her sisters make a suit in this strip to fight a giant bug. Or rather were intending to make a Humongous Mecha, made a scaling error, then liked it and made more "Soopa Soots".
- ...but later built one Mini-Mecha anyway — as a carrier for them. Aerospace carrier.
- Scarlet and her sisters make a suit in this strip
- Power Glows: "Why do these mystical tomes have to be so bright?!"
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: "Technical difficulties will continue." And then subverted, as no asskicking occurs, with the foes being too shaken by this display of badassery.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: She. Is. Bad. For. You.
- Pure Is Not Good: The personification of Hilary's happiness loves everything due to its nature as a being of pure happiness. Art proves that it is an always-cheerful sociopath by asking if it likes to set fires and it replies that fire is awesome.
Tropes Q to S
- Rapid Hair Growth: Art was shaved bald as an Easter prank. He pours a bottle of hair restorer on his dome in strip #132 and waits. No further hair appears on his head, but he does almost instantly push out a Russian czar beard. Next, in strip #133, Scarlet the squirrel-girl lost all her head fur to bubblegum. She drinks Art's bottle of hair restorer. The result is she gets her head fur back, plus triples her body fur.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: After the faux Narnia arc and the destruction of Hilary's house, she ends up living with Art and Kat with the plan of having the denizens rebuild.... Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and suddenly Hilary is cooped up with the gang much longer than anyone anticipated, much to Kat's dismay.
- Revenge by Proxy: Hilary takes a lot of joy in tormenting Art when her company Ann Winters becomes a client for his studio, and she makes it very clear she's doing it because he's friends with Kat.
- Revenge Porn Blackmail: Hilary Locke visits Art's workplace as a client, seeking an ad campaign for ladies' lingerie. When she discovers that Art is flatmates with Kat Vance, Hilary goes maximum bitchy, poo-pooing every proposal Art submits. Fortunately, Pip recognizes Hilary's name, and discovers her I Was Young and Needed the Money income: posing for lurid stag mags, which have made their way onto the internet. A Downplayed Trope, as Art merely seeks to have Hilary behave like a normal client to keep her lurid past secret, though Kat wants her to wear her panties on her head all day.
- Right in Front of Me: Pip ends up insulting what he thinks is Hilary's dragon mount, in reality, Ms. B turned her into a dragon.
- Sadist Teacher: Ms. Strinpit — possibly only towards Kat and the kids in her last school, judging by how she gave Hilary the easiest questions while giving Kat detention for answering questions right while telling her she was wrong (Then giving her even more detention for using a calculator to prove she was right). More like Evil Teacher, really.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Do not suggest to the Think Tank that they build something dangerous, even as a joke.
- Sarcastic Clapping: Once Art and Pop have purged the stupid drugs out of chicken guy and he frantically announces that the aliens are controlling them Pip retorts with this while Art just stands with an expression that screams "Gee, no shit."
- Say It with Hearts: Think Tank finally notices the Flying Trashcans:Squirrel Girls: ♥ ♥ Field test! ♥ ♥
- Scenery Censor: Scarlet originally ran around the house naked. Kat eventually got her a jumper. Her sisters wear shirts from their old science lab. They're still one awkward pose away from falling out of them.
- Scooby Stack: The squirrel girls express their fear of open spaces by hugging a doorway in a Stack.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Art's arguably justified reaction to learning that James Cameron is actually a merman at war with ugly but affable reality-show-hosting aliens over 'retardium', a precious energy source derived from human brains when they're... idling.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
- Employed by Pip at one point to trick Scarlet into going through with one of his crazy schemes.
- He does it again, this time to sell "an exquisite example of early-nineties cult decoration" — which is a singing electric sunflower.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Vanity mistakes Art and Kat for couple. Kat says Art is just a friend. Sure...
- Newer material reinforces that they might be more than friends.
- Ship Tease: Sequential Art doesn't do it nearly as much as other webcomics but every so often the readers will be teased with a little moment between Art and Kat. Some of them are about as subtle as a brick to the head. From anonymous Valentine's Day cards to finding the perfect mattress.
- Shout-Out: References turn up from time to time. Usually ranging from Charlie Brown and Dilbert and Wally watching an orbital cannon demolish a building with the PvP logo and vaporize Gabe.
- Note the village sign in this strip.
- The lab the squirrels are originally from, along with the AI that controls the whole thing, bear an uncanny resemblance to Portal.
- During a photo shoot, Kat and Vanity stay at the Overlook Hotel.
- "Tomb"?
- Combination Star Trek: The Next Generation and 1984 in this strip.
- And then there was Minecraft.
- The Martian Invasion story arc has one to Doctor Who. The Eldak are basically expies of the Daleks, their very name is an anagram of the infamous pepper-pots and they use the Dalek's Catchphrase, "Exterminate!" Then another to Star Wars when Pip finds some TIE Interceptors to play with. And it starts off with one to The War of the Worlds when the aliens land on Horsell Common.
- The Subliminal Messaging Pip encounters while Christmas shopping includes a directive to kill the phonies.
- Pip the penguin apparently has an Uncle Feathers who was a career criminal. Sure enough, his last name turns out to be McGraw.
- The storyline about DeCerto manor and immortal pirate.
- The investigation crew includes guys named Pete, Ray, Winston and Egg.
- Speaking of that trio who ain't afraid of no ghosts, the squirrel-girls have made a proton pack.
- Skull serves as a Random Encounter in Realm of Lorecraft.
- It may just be Art Evolution (no pun intended) but Art's eyebrows get larger and squarer after awhile...
- On page 142, a Dalek can be found at the bottom of the fourth panel.
- And on page 808, the characters inadvertently send a bolt of lightning back in time to Hill Valley, CA on November 12, 1955.
- Comic 831 appears to start a story arc in vein of They Live!.
- A subtle one in comic 834: the website address is a reference to Hudson's "ultimate badass" speech in Aliens, and who's on the webcam? James Cameron wearing the armor from said film.
- Art, Kat, and Pip are forced to participate in an Expy of Big Brother, which appropriately enough is shot in the Hotel Orwell.
- 896 begins a story that's a pastiche of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
- Mr. Jackson gives his malfunctioning computer a damn good thrashing.
- A Fallout 4 parody runs from 941 until 980.
- And within that: "The maniacs. They blew it up."
- And Pip encounters a woman with three breasts.
- Pip gives the Brotherhood of Squeal the door code to Vault 111: One two three four five.
- And within that:
- 988 & 989 introduce next-door neighbors, Gender Flip parodies of Roger & Jessica Rabbit. Jessica resembles a stereotypical male biker.
- In 1157, the squirrels transform themselves into an unholy amalgamate that bears a suspicious resemblance to the Huddle and the device they created to merge themselves is called the Huddle-On Collider.
- The Neutrino Wand used to split them up again is clearly based off of a proton pack.
- The Neutrino Wand
- The story beginning with 741 has the same set-up as "Button, Button", the short story that became the film The Box.
- Art buys the mysterious object from the first episode of Black Books. As the Denizens figure out, like on the show, it's a lighter.
- Note the village sign in this
- Shown Their Work: In Comic 1270, Art and Pip want to digitise their DVD collection to make space in the house, and they ponder the legality of ripping DVD disks. As they live somewhere in Britain, Pip explains that it's basically illegal, but the law is practically unenforced. All of this is true, and ripping disks has been illegal in the UK since 2015.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: Pip and Hilary, of all people.Kat: (seeing the two kiss) *urp*... Oh God... For the love of all that is good and holy, don't do that again.
- Side-Story Bonus Art: The gallery on DeviantArt — enjoy Fanservice, trolling, trollservice...
- Significant Anagram: Eldak —> Dalek
- Skinny Dipping: Scarlet does this after escaping the lab pf her captors because she wanted to catch fish. It gets her washed upstream.
- Similar Item Confusion: Strip #130 has Kat ask Pip to retrieve shears, so as to cut away bubblegum from Scarlet's fur. Pip brings large hedge clippers, at which Kat scolds, "Barber not gardening, you little cretin." Poor Scarlet nearly panics.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: After around 600 comics of basically hating each other... Turns out to be All Just a Dream. Kat was Squicked afterwards.
- Sleep Cute: After being bored to sleep by the Metrix Trilogy, Kat falls asleep onto Art's shoulder. And keeps falling.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Crazy Sven, the cab driver who brought Art home from an also-crazy village in the earliest days of the strip, is also notable for introducing Jack to the story by giving him to the heroes.
- Speak of the Devil: Pip at least believes this is the case.
- Spit Take: This guy when he sees that James Cameron is a mermaid, with a seashell bra and everything.
- Speaks in Binary: When Scarlet and her sisters reuniteas the Think Tank, this is what they do.
- Spooky Silent Library: Under the House.
- Starfish Language: Unsurprisingly, the four Eldritch Abominations speak in Black Scribbles.
- Stealth Insult: Inverted when Art gives Kat a Stealth Compliment.
- "Stop Having Fun" Guys: In-universe — Art gets very annoyed Kat's having fun with her new Wintendo system. He gets over it. We think.
- Stopped Reading Too Soon: Art asks the squirrels to restore tons of broken DVDs so that the movies in them can be watched again. When Scarlet asks if Art wants to restore a snapped disk with "SAD" written on it, Art nonchalantly gives them the ok. Amber finds the other half of said disk, revealing the movie to be SADAKO.
- Straw Fan: Both in the comic and in the various Author Tract images and journals the writer posts. Usually stuffed with sawdust made from ugly sticks just so you don't miss who's supposed to be wrong.
- Well, to be fair, he admits he has the same sort of weaknesses.
- Well, to be fair, he admits he has the same sort of weaknesses
- Straw Feminist: Art and Pip stick a set of rubber breasts onto Vanessa, Rebecca's favourite dressmakers dummy, and send her a postcard saying it "got them for its new man" in what a few students realize is clearly a prank. One female student immediately takes this to its illogical conclusion that it's an example of misogynistic ideology and starts a protest demanding the ones who sent the postcards to be expelled, leading to a full blown riot that destroys parts of the campus.
- Stripperiffic: Lampshaded by Kat.
- If Scarlet is anything to go by then the squirrel sisters go around wearing nothing but their T-shirts and panties.
- Art also has an Imagine Spot of such outfit that pretty much consists of The Thong of Shielding in this strip.
- Kat ends up doing the exact same thing, unfortunately for her it doesn't quite translate when she tries to put it down on paper.
- If Scarlet is anything to go by
- Stuff Blowing Up: Most of the Think Tank's inventions lead to this.
- Stumbling in the New Form: Kat, changed into a dragon to fight her nemesis Hilary, has some trouble moving in her new quadrupedal form.Kat: Uuuuuh! Dodge! Dodge!! Goddamnit, I don't know how these legs work!!
- Stupidity-Inducing Attack: It was what is keeping all the cast members of the reality TV show the three protagonists were thrown into from leaving. It turned out the aliens had injected something into the water that makes the victims stupid then discredit them on national TV as the victims are people who have found them out and could potentially blow their cover. Unfortunately for Art and Pip, Kat also falls victim to this....
- Swallowed Whole:
- When Scarlet and a couple trick-or-treaters get eaten by a giant bug, she uses her suit's air tank to blow it up.
- Again, Leo and Scarlet are swallowed by a dragon (a transformed Hilary) and they use the same tactic to escape.
- When Scarlet and a couple trick-or-treaters get eaten by a giant bug, she uses her suit's air tank to blow it up
Tropes T to V
- Take That!:
- Uwe Boll is ragged on in at least two comics.
- Nightlight gets one as well, when Pip is disgusted with how the movie got Scarlet and her sisters to think that all vampires are hot, sparkly, and nonthreatening. He promptly treats them to Oldman's version of Dracula.
- Of course aside from a story arc in vein of They Live!, this.
- The newsreel title for Boris Johnson reads: "Dropped Trifle."
- One about the many Disney remakes:Pip: It was made by the mockbuster studio "The Asylum". I lump all their films together.
Hilary: "Mock-Buster"?
Pip: A film created to exploit the publicity of another major movie with a similar title or subject.
Hilary: oh.
[beat panel]
Hilary: Are Disney now in the mockbuster business?
Pip: Actually... now that you mention it... - ECX, a Bland-Name Product-equivalent to the real-life CEX, is riffed on in 1275, making fun of the boxes that are oftentimes worse for wear, and the sign in the window outright states that instead of trading your media in for cash, you may as well give them away (making fun of the fact that the selling price and trade-in price have such a large gap between them). Oddly subverted in the following strip, as they managed to buy around 60 DVD's between them just by going through Aisle A for the price of two brand new DVD's.
- Teacher's Unfavorite Student: When Kat Vance takes an assignment to photograph students at Devlin Academy, she learns that the headmistress there is Miss Strinpit in strip #238. In strip #242, Kat spells out to her boss just how miserable Strinpit made her junior years. Strinpit is still a blocky, humorless witch when Wentworth and Vance arrive for the shoot.
- Tear-Apart Tug-of-War: Kat Vance and Hilary Locke get into a fight over a nice tank top, beginning in strip #113. A tug-o'-war concludes the drama by strip #117, resulting in the garment being ripped in two. Suddenly, neither female wants it, especially when a store security man insists upon payment.
- Tempting Fate: To treat his ear problems, Art tries to use an over-the-phone appointment. Art says he'll probably get to meet a practice nurse, as it'd be more likely to have an appointment with a unicorn than an actual doctor. The final panel shows the doctor happens to be an anthropomorphic unicorn.
- There Are No Girls on the Internet: Art convinced Pip the girl he meets on "Realm of Lorecraft" is really a guy. Turns out she actually is a girl — and for extra fun, is every bit as bimbo-tastic as her character's design.
- This Explains So Much: Art's reaction when Pip reveals his uncle, who he admired and wanted to go into the same line of work, was a career criminal.
- This Is Unforgivable!Pip: They made Scarlet cry. They. Must. Pay.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Well, it was a fake gun to begin with.
- Transplant: Kat and Vanity were characters from a superhero comic Jackson had done years prior.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Whenever Art and Kat are together they're either Like an Old Married Couple or Ship Tease happens. Everyone Can See It, even the squirrelgirls. Lampshaded painfully here. Not even Cupid can fix it!
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: In the aforementioned Dream Sequence, Hilary convinces a guy that Kat is really a post-op named Kevin. The guy, who was interested in Kat, squicks hard. Hilary is doing that just to ruin Kat's evening.
- Unsound Effect: Hat!
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Scarlet takes the fact that the Denizens have a trans-dimensional wardrobe remarkably well.
- Later Art and Pip exit the very same trans-dimensional wardrobe where the sight of Kat and Hilary completely nude, fighting over a curtain for modesty's sake, and screaming insults at one another only invokes mild indifference.Art: Huh.
Pip: At least they're not breathing fire.
- Later Art and Pip exit the very same trans-dimensional wardrobe where the sight of Kat and Hilary completely nude, fighting over a curtain for modesty's sake, and screaming insults at one another only invokes mild indifference.
- Unwanted Assistance:
- The squirrels all like to "improve" things the cast uses around the house. We'll start with the black-hole lawnmower as an example. See also Stuff Blowing Up above on Kat's reaction to their mad science.
- When the squirrels develop battle-suits, they end up using the headgear's simple viewing-system to overcome their agoraphobia. The HUD analyze nearby objects and provides a threat level and primary cause of threat. So we see things like Kat: 10% (Claws) or Denizen: 50% (Legion) or Scarlet: 2% (Ally).
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Neither Art nor Pip had the slightest idea that slapping obviously fake breasts on a dummy as a joke could lead to mass riots.
- Villainous Breakdown: When the Eldak's best attack simply reverts Art back to his normal, slim self, they instantly believe that he's invincible and panic.
- Villainous Legacy: The first two major arcs have an intriguing example of a recursive legacy. OZBASIC in the final stages of its gambit hacks Jack's leftover Kill Sat and intends to use it. Except that same Kill Sat comes from designs Jack got from Scarlet's handiwork, which means that OZBASIC was hacking into a derivative of Quinten technology.
Tropes W to Z
- Walking Techbane: Art, and any other artists. At least until getting the chip. This became the focal point for on entire story arc... complete with a Dalek expy race out to kill him because of it.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Scarlet's sisters were brainwashed into having a crippling phobia of the outdoors to prevent them from ever running away like Scarlet did. Of course, this being Think Tank, the limitation was eventually circumvented by tinkering up opaque visors that show everything without depth perception.
- Weirdness Magnet: Lampshaded when the cast are inadvertently drawn into a plot involving alien infiltrators.
- Wetware CPU: Amber, Jade, Violet, and Scarlet formed a four-part organic supercomputer at Quinten R&D.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:OZBASIC: You have served your purpose. Prepare for deathly laser death time..... WITH LASERS!
- Your Vampires Suck: "Oh hell no! I will NOT have one of cinema's greatest monsters belittled by hair-product-obsessed pretty boys. Not while my movie selection still stands! Oldman! You are needed!"
- Yuri Fan: Pip once tried to trick Kat and Scarlet into kissing under the mistletoe to catch on camera.
