Basic Trope: Male animals tend to have messy fur/feathers, while female animals are more well-groomed.
- Straight: There are two cats in the work, named Alice and Bob. Alice the cat is very well-groomed and clean while Bob the cat is unkempt.
- Exaggerated: Alice always looks like she just got back from a cat show, and Bob is a walking mass of fur to the point in which it's hard to tell that he's even a cat.
- Downplayed: Alice looks like a relatively normal cat while Bob is somewhat scruffier.
- Justified:
- The female animal is one with shorter fur, while the male animal is a long-haired breed.
- The male animal is a kind of animal with wire-textured fur, while the female animal isn't.
- Alice is a housecat, while Bob is a stray cat (or otherwise cannot keep himself clean as easily).
- Alice cares more about her appearance than Bob.
- Inverted: Bob is the clean one, while Alice is the unkempt one.
- Subverted: Bob gets adopted and becomes a much cleaner cat.
- Double Subverted: But he still retains some of his trademark scruffiness.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: The male animals and female animals aren't any more or less scruffy than each other.
- Enforced: The writer wants the audience to know which animals are male and which ones are female, and doesn't want to rely on tactics such as Humanoid Female Animal or most Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob's owners keep him clean regularly.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "I wonder why the girl animal is always so clean, while the boy animal gets to be messy."
Back to Messy Male, Fancy Female
