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Kevin And Kell / Tropes J to R

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Kevin & Kell by Bill Holbrook
Tropes: A to B | C to I | J to R | S to Z
Main Character Page | Core Family | Kindle Extended Family | Dewclaw Extended Family | Lindesfarne's Peers | Rudy's Peers | Coney's Peers | Younger Characters/Turvy's Peers | Other Characters

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    J 
  • Jaw Drop: R.L. had one when he saw how much money the gardening team pulls in for (what's left of) Herd Thinners. Apparently the league got a lucrative streaming media deal not long after Angelique bought the Tidewater Pitchforks, the team Carl is on.
    R.L.: Herbivores actually pay to watch grass grow?
    Angelique: Only if they can eat it.
  • Jerkass: Several characters, such as Vin and Angelique, who are often motivated by pure spite against Rudy(later, R.L. and Angelique) and Kevin, respectively.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rudy can be fairly snarky, especially with the herbivore members of his families, and is often self-centered, but can be counted on for help when it's needed.

    K 
  • Kansas City Shuffle: In one strip, Lindesfarne sets a trap to catch a group of predators...consisting of a box with a string and bait under (the bait being Corrie), the predators talk about how this is an obvious trap and that they will simply lift the box and take they prey, at that moment they fall into a trapdor, and the kids drop a tree over it so they cannot escape.
  • Karmic Jackpot: Once Ralph stopped trying to hunt Kevin, he would eventually be hired by Kevin's ISP, Hare-Link, and quickly rise to the position of Vice President. He would also find love with Martha, and even discover his daughter, Corrie.
  • Killer Rabbit:
    • Coney, being outwardly a rabbit but having the DNA—and matching diet and appetite—of a wolf. As she's grown up, she has developed other skills and intelligence to deal with threats in diverse ways.
    • Her father, Kevin, also has shades of this with his unusual size and physical power, as well as his relative lack of typical rabbit survival instincts.
  • Klingon Promotion: Promotion to Herd Thinners CEO requires a battle against the currently seated CEO, ending with the loser being devoured by the winner. In recent years, a series of succession challenges became important to the plot. After Kell intervenes in a succession battle between R.L. and Frank Mangle, she is promoted to Herd Thinners CEO because she was the least injured. Kell breaks the rule of killing either opponent, sending them to a hospital instead. She later has to fend off a challenge against herself, in which she effectively defangs her challenger instead of eating him and points out that if the board doesn't support her decision, the resulting succession fight will doom the company. She wins.
  • Known Only by Their Nickname: R.L.

    L 

    M 
  • Maligned Mixed Marriage: The title characters, of course. It's shown that mixes of various sorts receive different levels of difficulty - within the same taxonomic family (such as Fiona's parents before their divorce) are generally accepted, and the further the drift from that, the more likely they are to deal with prejudice (both of Kell's marriages were mixed; her first, to a fox, only got mild disapproval from her family. The second caused her dad to disinherit her).
  • Married to the Job: Aby. At one point it became a Literal Metaphor, but eventually she fell in love with Mark, and married him.
  • Meaningful Echo: Lindesfarne turns a response about plans for grandchildren into a joke about preparing for actual intimacy with Fenton. Later, she requires a similarly long shower before family can hug her when they found out she was pregnant.
  • Meaningful Funeral: When George Fennec has the original Danielle buried.
  • Meat Versus Veggies: To its logical extreme.
  • Mic Drop: When Miranda challenged Leona to try to patch up her relationship with Edgar over the summer, she finished with this.
  • Milestone Celebration: The 25th anniversary of the comic was celebrated as Lindesfarne's 25th birthday.
  • Milholland Relationship Moment - Kevin and Kell discover that they've been having an internet "affair"... with each other. The truth comes out on a Jerry Springer show parody and ends up with the two of them on Oprah instead.
  • Million to One Chance: Danielle says "There's a one in 9,758,496,382,101 chance" of a plan for her and Kell to disguise themselves as each other while Kell acts as a diversion to allow Danielle to escape with Kevin succeeding. Naturally, it works.
  • Miniature Senior Citizens: Dorothy, who had to have Kevin via C-section.
  • Missing Mom:
    • Corrie's mother, Wanda Woolstone, died in childbirth.
    • Vin Vulpen's mother, Gladys Burrows, died when he was child. With his father Randy Foxglove being out of the picture even before he himself died, Vin was raised to adulthood by his stepfather.
    • Leona's mother, Frank's first wife, died when Leona was 8 years old after a long illness.
    • Onk's mother, Honk's first mate, was taken by Herd Thinners before he hatched.
    • Miranda, Tyler, Carla, and Ophelia all also count as orphans
  • The Missus and the Ex: Martha, George's ex, and Danielle, his current wife, became unlikely friends when Danielle asked Martha to be a bridesmaid, and even choosing as her bridesmaid dress one Martha already owned.
    • Then Dorothy starts dating Douglas. When he's discovered to be D.B. Cooper and jailed for the crimes they can prosecute on (many passing the statute of limitations), his cellmate is none other than Dorothy's ex, Bentley, and the two start to get along. This, with Elanor's friendship with Bentley, irritates Dorothy to no end. Bentley later reveals to Kevin that he used his connections to get Douglas as his cellmate to make sure he was good enough for Dorothy.
    • Yet another variant when Leona, Edgar's ex-girlfriend, and Miranda, Edgar's current girlfriend, end up moving in (back in, in Leona's case) with Fiona and Greta.
  • Mob Debt: Kevin Dewclaw couldn't secure a legitimate bank loan to launch his internet startup Hare Link, so he turns to a loan shark for the funding. Kevin gets a routine reminder to make payments from an actual shark that enters his home via the commode. This practice stopped once Killer Rabbit Coney ate one of these sharks.
  • Morning Sickness:
  • Mr. Exposition: Rudy acknowledges being this during a summer break comic:
    Rudy: Bleah. It's way too early for all that exposition.
  • Mugging the Monster: Because predation is legal in society as a whole, being a criminal is far more dangerous than it is in the human world. Homeowners are perfectly entitled to devour burglars (in the earliest part of the comic, Kell actually deliberately sets it up to lure burglars in to sate her pregnancy cravings), mugging victims will eat their muggers if they can turn the tables (as shown when Danielle blithely avoids a puma and then grinds him up into mince for supper), and generally it's very difficult to figure out why anyone would be a crook in this world when the law basically says that police officers and victims alike can simply eat you rather than put you on trial.
    • Predators attack Kevin, expecting an easy meal, only to discover that he prefers fighting to running away, and as a former WWF wrestler he has more than enough skill. One storyline involved a would be predator actually suing Kevin for using methods unnatural for a rabbit.
      • Kevin also crosses into Bullying a Dragon: Even if he's clearly a prey species, he's also four times the size of normal rabbits and as big as many predators.
  • My Biological Clock Is Ticking:
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Seen here:
    Martha: Ralph? Honey?
    Ralph: I just sensed a great disturbance in the "Force..."
  • Mysterious Animal Senses: usually played for laughs

    N 
  • Name and Name: Kevin and Kell
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It happens. After all, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
    • Angelique divorced Kevin for someone she knew as "User #458". Who was that? Why, it was Kevin's estranged father, Bentley.
    • When Beige University won the national gardening championship in 2023, the various sabotage attempts of George Gopher's criminal family actually supercharged their stadium's field, resulting in record crops that were so good, even a last-second attempt to ruin their crops left enough intact to win.
  • No Biochemical Barriers: Hybrids abound through the strip, and it's implied there are many more if the size of the Interspecies Marriage Support Group is any indication. And that's not even getting into Danielle Fennec's complicated genetics. This has been established as the case very early on, as one of the earliest "weird" examples (as in, both parents aren't even the same taxonomical class) came in 2000 when it was revealed that turtle Sheldon "Teapot" Dome had gotten his weasel secretary/campaign manager pregnant.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Many celebrities of the real world have appeared as fictional versions with the names slightly altered.
  • No Name Given: Despite having plot relevance at times, the following characters' full names are not known:
    • Desdemona Fuscus's husband/Fenton's father
    • Mei-Li Lee's husband/Lin's father.
    • Miranda Hutch's fathers (one is biologically her uncle)
    • Frank Mangle's wife/Leona's mother
    • Carl's mother and father (we don't even know Carl's last name, much less if Leona took it or gave it to Savanna)
    • The head coach of the gardening team at Beige University
    • The native names of "Honk" and his current (as of 2021-22) girlfriend
    • Full names for Dr. Caduceus, R.L., Reverend Bruinooge, Hockley, Crockett, or Todd
  • Noble Bigot: Kell has some difficulties dealing with felines, although she strives to remedy this. To an extent, Rudy towards herbivores, although with Character Development, he gradually accepts his stepfamily.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Angelique is the least angelic recurring character.
  • Noodle Incident: When asked if Kevin and Kell's human counterparts are seen as "unique", Danielle says yes but never explains why.
  • The Nose Knows: Characters have been known to communicate by scent. Kell's sniffer is apparently keen enough to track someone by smelling their website.
    • Rudy and Fiona discovered that Lindesfarne is pregnant because they were able to smell her morning sickness while driving past her house.
      Lindesfarne: (facepalm) You smelled my barf.
      Rudy: Mad canine skills.
      Fiona: You okay?
  • Now What?: Rudy asks this of Fiona following Their First Time, after they agree not to rush to the altar:
    Fiona: We'll finish up college and get our degrees. Then we'll see just what path life puts us on.
    Rudy: I've always had difficulty following tracks.
    Fiona: No problem, 'cause this one's really random.
  • N-Word Privileges: Apparently, "herbivore" is Domain's version of this.
    Rudy: Kevin, in these old magazines and texts I keep seeing references to "the H-word". What is that?
    Kevin: "Herbivore".
    Rudy: "Herbivore" used to be a slur?!
    Kevin: We took it back as our own.

    O 
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: R.L. knew the Feline language the entire time, and knew about Frank's plan to challenge him, along with Kell's knowledge and failure to warn him. It does make one wonder why R.L. didn't act on it, though...
  • Obsessed Are the Listmakers: Candace is really strict about procedures. In one story arc, Candace and her husband adopt a child, whose morning rituals, such as getting out of bed, brushing teeth and getting dressed, become strictly listed and timed. There are even lines on the floor of the child's bedroom detailing where to go in fulfilling the tasks!
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse: After Kell counters R.L.'s patent infringement suits against Dewclaw's Fine Meats with a countersuit]] based off their own insectivore patents against Herd Thinners, she meets with R.L.'s legal counsel, a shark. They barely get past introductions before two texts come from R.L. for each of them: the shark's fired and Mei Li's offered his job (with six-figure permanent salary). She realizes it's an attempt to hurt Kell — and only a picture of R.L. getting a sharkskin wardrobe convinces Mei Li she MUST refuse. It helped Lin was Coney's friend — and saved Mei Li from making the biggest mistake of her life and R.L. realizes she'd have made a good tiger-skin rug in a spot. Kell knew from experience R.L.'s persuasiveness.
  • Offhand Backhand: Kevin's usual reaction to Ralph's attacks.
  • Oh, Crap!: The characters do this at various points when they find out about various unfortunate developments. George does this when he learns that his wife is pregnant, and again when Kevin tells him that rabbits have litters (his child turns out to be a single birth, though).
  • Omniglot: R.L. Well, Domain's equivalent to this trope, anyway.
  • Omniscient Morality License: The Great Bird Conspiracy keeps order by manipulating society and kidnapping people who find out too much about their project while claiming that they're dead.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Rudy's coach, a pig, dated Dorothy way back when she was the Easter Bunny. She spurned his wedding proposal because she had just become the first female Easter Bunny, and would have had to give up the position if she married outside her species. This, of course, led her to marry Bentley. The coach frequently gives her grief for it.
    Douglas: Is that why he starts off your phone conversations with "Told you so"?
    Dorothy: ...for the past forty years...
  • One-Steve Limit: It's been averted frequently. There are two important characters named Frank (Kell's father, and one of Kell's associates), two important characters named George (Fiona's father, and one of Rudy's gardening teammates), and Carl shares his name with several named background characters.
  • On One Condition: A December 1998 arc reveals that Franklin Dewclaw had a clause in his will that Kell would only inherit their family heirlooms if she divorced Kevin. If not, they'd go to Ralph... who promptly starts listing them for sale online, until Kevin takes up a temp job as a mall Santa to earn the money needed to buy them himself. Franklin's spirit soon returns to apologize for his actions after seeing Ralph and Kevin's respective actions.
  • Open Mouth, Insert Foot: With a dash of My God, What Have I Done? when Ophelia realizes George is a gopher... which she had just said she was hungry for.
  • Oppressive Immigration Enforcement: Caniche the French poodle is being pursued by M.I.C.E. agents, who refuse to accept that she's in the country legally — which, to be fair, is because Lidesfarne Un Personed her to protect her from her former employers — or that the Kindles' tree is a sanctuary area.
  • Orphan's Ordeal: Several different levels:
    • Miranda Hutch lost both her parents to predation, but was adopted by her uncle and his partner, so she's remained in a stable family situation, and doesn't have any angst about it.
    • Tyler Meadowvole is a bit more of a traditional situation, as he lost his parents, and his uncle Mark had to work to adopt him, convincing social services — and Tyler — that he could make things work despite being in a relationship with a cat.
    • Taken to the extreme with Ophelia Stoat, whose family was gradually exterminated by pelt hunters, leaving her vagrant from age 13 to adulthood.
    • Corrie Dale was subject to a weird version of this. Her single mother, Wanda Woolstone, died in childbirth (and she was set to be given up for adoption anyway, as she was a Teen Pregnancy who was also the result of an Interspecies Relationship). She was adopted by scientists who cloned her, but escaped as a lamb, and became friends with Bruno Lupulin. She would make do by acting as his "sheepskin" until she entered civilization in her early teens, and eventually discovering that Ralph Dewclaw was her father, who immediately took her in.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Kevin periodically roleplays online as a giant herbivorous dragon, which uses its fire breath to clear fields and make room for planting or to vaporize a lake, turning the water into clouds for fast irrigation. It also uses its claws for reaping the harvest and has detachable gardening implements in place of normal horns.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Vampire bats in the K&K-verse are analogous to vampires in the human world, complete with stigmas, superstitions (such as the ones about garlic, mirrors, shapeshifting). About the only difference is that vampire bats are not undead creatures. The stigma in society led to Fenton's mother hiding her heritage from him so he would grow up as a normal bat, though her son shows no vampiric traits. Desdemona was later shown running a website dispelling various myths about vampire bats, pointing out that mirrors and garlic myths came about due to both being affected by sonar. Which, as she pointed out, affects normal bats as well.
  • Outclassed at the Gym: In a January 1999 strip, the titular characters have gone to a fitness club where an alligator walks up to them to try and win Kell over, telling her to ditch "that weakling rabbit" and come with him... only to suddenly change his mind and run off. In the last panel, it's revealed he ran off because he realized he'd underestimated Kevin, who'd proven his strength by lifting a massive barbell with only his ears.

    P 
  • Painting the Medium: A pair of human scientists (from another web comic, General Protection Fault) were able to travel to Domain through the internet. (It might also have involved piggybacking on an existing portal, but for the most part the transport was internet-based.)
  • Papa Wolf:
    • Do not cross Kevin when it comes to Lindesfarne. Fenton found that out the hard way early on when Kevin discovered he was cheating on her.
      Kevin: For a split second there, I almost became a carnivore.
    • Miranda's fathers were also like this, and for good reason, since they all were rabbits, and Miranda's biological parents were both claimed by predators. It didn't help that she had an adventurous streak, and tended romantically toward carnivores. They hired Carl as her bodyguard after a high-school romance with a fox went sour. Her uncle's partner shipped them in the hopes of a Bodyguard Crush, to no avail.
      Miranda's Uncle's partner: (to Kevin) Not all of us have daughters covered in quills, you know.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Most disguises used by characters are pretty flimsy. However, they're still effective because most species go by senses other than sight. As long as you generally look the part and use pheromones to disguise your scent or similar precautions, you stand a solid chance.
  • Parental Obliviousness: Bruno's parents, who are so caught up in watching television that they never even noticed that Bruno became a herbivore-or that they gave permission for him to have stomach implant surgery.
  • Parental Sexuality Squick: The titular couple are very openly loving. Rudy is usually the victim of the squick.
  • The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Double subversion. After Vin gets a crush on Corrie (in her "Dale" persona), he changes his password from the obvious "die_rudy_die" to "mr_and_mrs_vin_and_dale_vulpen". While the second password would be obvious to anyone who knew about Vin's crush, Corrie only gets it by dating him.
  • Pet the Dog: Despite her selfishness and spite toward Kevin, Angelique does want to reconcile with Lindesfarne.
  • Phlegmings: R. L.; his drooling jaws are almost all we ever see of him.
  • Pick a Card: In the 2022-01-29 strip, for the stage magic-themed wedding of Edgar Carnassial and Miranda Hutch, Miranda asks her dads (biologically her uncle and his husband) to do this... then proceeds to subvert most of the trope by revealing that instead of putting the cards back, whichever of them drew the high card won the first dance with her (she loved them both so much that she had to choose randomly, and this was the method).
  • Pietà Plagiarism: Done for Danielle I's death.
  • Planet of Hats: To a degree. As long as someone is a member of a species, or a type of diet, or history... they have to share all the traits of that subtype. Usually prefaced with "As you know, since I'm a..."
  • Playing Cyrano: Parodied when Martha and Ralph meet online and have Fiona and Rudy give them advice and then eventually take over for them. Lampshaded when Martha and Ralph meet at a cyber cafe and their waiter is a rhinoceros named Cyrano. The relationship ends up working out because thanks to Fiona and Rudy essentially re-enacting their relationship, Martha and Ralph end up mirroring theirs. Fiona even lampshades it:
    Fiona: Not that it's such a bad relationship to re-create...
  • Pocket Dial: In one strip, Kevin and Ralph note that the amount of calling usage has gone up in their area ever since a hippo family moved in, and it's revealed to be a result of this.
  • Policeman Dog: The local police force consists of various types of dogs, including at least two bulldogs.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Carl kept his plans to go pro early close to the vest so he could announce it after proposing to Leona. But his gardening intentions were leaked, leading to Leona becoming the last to find out, and getting upset over it.
  • Post-Kiss Catatonia: Hockley was in this state when Lin smooched him to try to get Wendell jealous in a 2018 Valentine's Day strip. It was demonstrated when Jess stopped Wendell from socking Hockley, then tipped Hockley over effortlessly with her tail.
    Hockley: Hammina-hammina-hammina-
  • Professional Maiden Name: Lindesfarne has chosen to keep the name Dewclaw, likely because she's already a published scientist under that name. But her daughter, Turvy, was given Fenton's last name.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Pretty much a rule of the comic. Kell and Rudy killing and eating sentient creatures is played for laughs. When someone threatens the family or one of their friends, they're evil.
    • When Vin Vulpen was set to get a stud contract, he suddenly was rendered sterile. A joke was added to suggest that Fiona may have used her then-latent technopath powers to sterilize him without his consent, on the insinuation that her powers might work because of his steroid-enhanced physique.
    • Another good example: Lindesfarne committing wire fraud to help Angelique's skunk children.
      Gweneth: MOMMY! SANTA CAME!
  • Puppy Love:
    • Coney and Nigel. They use the time machine to grow up for a few hours, and it turns out? It works. There was also hints regarding Coney and Harcourt Silvertip, the vegetarian bear who was the grandson of the Dewclaws' nieghbors, the Ursals, until the bears were Put on a Bus to Florida. (And again once The Bus Came Back.) For a baby that only recently aged into a five year old, the carnivorous bunny sure gets around.
    • Hints on a future relationship between Coney and Harcourt in particular have been dropped on occasion. Example: this 2014 strip where Coney dresses up as Fiona, and Harcourt dresses up as Rudy.
    • Now Coney's protectiveness of Francis could be interpreted that way, despite their being biological cousins. And yes they count as related even though his mother is from an alternate universe and he recently turned into a human.
    • And now there's the recent ship of Coney's cousin Wendell and best friend Lin (a rabbit and tiger respectively).
    • This was threatened when one of Wendell's classmates, a bovine named Jess, was revealed to be a girl. But she was quickly paired off at Herbivore Camp with a herbivorous bird named Harold after he helped rescue her from a Damsel in Distress situation.
    • A Flash Forward suggested a potential future pairing between Turvy and Onk. And when they first met, Turvy took Onk on a flight in a way very similar to how her parents flew together (even though she would've never seen them do that herself, since Fenton's wing injury took place during her gestation).
  • Put on a Bus: A significant number of the supporting cast have departed the strip over the years, with varying excuses. Some of the more notable long-runners are Candice, who outsourced to New Zealand, the Ursal family who retired to Florida, Vin Vulpen, Rudy's longtime nemesis and half-brother (last seen in 2003 living in the Wild and having abandoned his old identity entirely), Rhonda who married Lindesfarne's fiance and apparently ceased to exist after moving in with him...the list goes on. This is a really common trend in Holbrook's comics.
    • Rhonda made a one-shot appearance in the lead-up to Lindesfarne's wedding and will make at least a few more as she is part of the wedding party. She is also regularly mentioned on Lindesfarne's blog.
      • Rhonda eventually went to work with Kell's company, so these days she's more Out of Focus.
    • Candice, her husband, and Mary appear as wedding guests.

    Q 
  • Quicksand Box: invoked Discussed by Rhonda when she enters college and gets rather poor mid-term grades, where she mentions that she is terrible with studying because in high school, she was used to having to do homework all the time and found herself doing nothing in college, which involves more reading outside of class than in-class work.

    R 
  • Rags to Royalty: Played around a lot. First they think Lindesfarne's the lost heir to the British throne. Then she finds Chertsey, who could also possibly be the heir. Then DNA proves Lindesfarne's the heir, but she conspires to switch her blood sample with Cherstey's so she could stay with her family. Then it turns out that both of them are the heir-because Lindesfarne is Chertsey's counterpart from the human world.
  • Ready for Lovemaking: There are a few jokes about how couples prepare to do things that rise above the comic's implied rating. But truer to this trope situationally, just three words from Fiona were required for Rudy to get the clue prior to Their First Time together:
    Rudy: Fiona, you asked me to make dinner...
    Fiona: ...with your very best vegetables. The stew is lovely.
    Rudy: Thanks, and I'll clean up afterwards.
    Fiona: Wait 'til morning.
    (*beat*)
    Rudy: (his hat lifts noticeably) Oh...
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Since Domain is on an anthropomorphized parallel Earth, there are many things that have been referenced from real-life events. From the Millennium Bug, to The War on Terror, to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Even Rudy's gardening is subject to this: he had to stop selling his crops after he accepted his scholarship to Beige, but could resume after the 2022 season in an analogue to college football permitting student athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL).
  • Red Herring:
    • Lindesfarne used a glider while Fenton was away at a convention, and referred to it as cheap. But the glider wouldn't prove to be the problem: it turned out her maps were out of date and she crashed into a tree that had grown unexpectedly.
    • Kevin's father and Angelique frame each other for Sid's murder. It turns out that Danielle was sent to kill him but couldn't do it, and he accidentally killed himself.
    • When Rhonda graduated, Quinn noted that she was torn between job offers by Kell and Herd Thinners, since they had another mouth to feed. Fenton asked if she was expecting. Quinn said he was referring to Dip.
      Dip: Wait, I'm not going to be dinner?
      • Kell would fix the issue by offering Dip a job as well, putting him immediately under Rhonda's charge as a personal assistant. It's here that he got his name.
    • When Fiona returned to Beige for her sophomore year, she found Greta full, and initially no sign of her boyfriend Todd. He showed up in the next frame.
    • When Ophelia and George Gopher were engaged, someone anonymously sent them gift cards, enabling them to have a more lavish wedding than they were originally planning. They went along, not knowing if they were being led into a trap (but with their friends, for protection). When it came time for the reception, it was a large group of turtles...who were elated by the "fast turtle" rumors that had been perpetuated by an earlier incident when Ophelia ran unnaturally fast (for a turtle) to protect Savanna from poachers.
  • Red Shirt / Monster Munch: Most of the time, deer and elks are the only species types that gets actively hunted.
  • Relationship Upgrade: Naturally, any engagements or marriages in this long-runner.
  • Rescue Romance: This is how the relationship between Carl and Leona began. She saved him from drowning at the Summer Camps in the summer of 2016. By the time the year was over, she'd saved his life an additional two times.
  • Retcon: On occasion. For example, Kevin's parents and siblings supposedly meet with him for an online Thanksgiving, but it turns out that Kevin's father was acting as his wife and other children, in the hopes of Kell devouring Kevin and him inheriting his money.possible handwave
    • Rudy's age was retconned from twelve to fourteen because Holbrook felt his attitude was appropriate for a teenager instead of a younger child. The comic eventually lampshaded it with a storyline in which Rudy had to find a way to prove he was really fourteen and not twelve after learning that his mother had claimed him as two years younger to make up for his small size as a cub.
    • Herd Thinners has been stated in various strips that is a company that has been running for a long time (the prehistory), but in the strip that revealed that Douglas is D.B. Cooper shows that R.L. founded the company himself.
    • Rhonda's name was actually "Rhoda" in her first appearance.
    • Lindesfarne originally fretted that, since she was originally human, she and Fenton would bear human children. However, their first child is definitely a bat. There may be other forces at play which are best left to discuss in WMG until/unless they are made canon.
    • Edgar was originally Rhonda and Lindesfarne's age, but was aged down to Rudy's age to give him more development.
  • Right in Front of Me: At an online costume party, Martha remarks that she broke up with Ralph because he had a teenage daughter while chatting with said teenage daughter (who was in a costume that made her difficult to identify).
  • "Risky Business" Dance: Rudy does one when Kevin and Kell leave for their second honeymoon. Except he forgot that his sisters and grandmothers were still home.
  • Rousseau Was Right: Manages the impossible, combining this with Humans Are Bastards. But any character who appears for an extended period of time WILL get a Heel–Face Turn eventually.
  • Rule of Funny: Holbrook has explained that the size and relative anthropomorphism of any species depends entirely on what's funniest. Hence why Lindesfarne can be friends with an anthropomorphic moth and firefly the same size as her, as well as eating realistic bugs that are the same size you would expect.
  • Running Gag: Quite a few people have bad timing.
    • Take out the comics which start with a character going about day-to-day life, and then equating it to animal behavior in the last panel. Then take out the comics which reverse that. What you're left with is almost entirely the story arc comics.
  • Running into the Window: Honk tries to hurry to the Dewclaw household, where Ack was hatching, and slams into a window.

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