A/D-Cups Angst: Cherry Li, a were-racoon, is between flat and A in human form and up to D's in her wereform. Her self-esteem about her breast sizes goes down quite a bit when she sees Sarah go from small to her giant form.
Abusive Parents: Butch's father was already a lazy, redneck Jerkass. When we found out he was making Butch act like an Innocent Fanservice Girl and his own personal maid, it was disturbing but mostly ignored by the fanbase, cause Butch was kinda a jerk antagonist too — and we're shown that most of the werewolf women are nudists when shapeshifted. Then we discover Gus has been sexually abusing her, shoving him right over the cliff and dragging Butch back.
Peter's dad also counts, to a lesser extent. He's not happy about having a runt for a son, and makes absolutely no effort to hide it. Of course, Peter's dad has otherissues that make him almost sympathetic.
Animesque: the art style, especially in the early arch’s
Arbitrary Skepticism: In the omake about a werewolf serving King Arthur, Sarah asks why Peter didn't talk about any dragons. Peter replied that everyone knows dragons don't exist. This coming from a man who knows wererats, werevixens, weretigers, werelions, werebears, werekitsunes, and weretakunis, and possibly vampires exist.
Attempted Rape: Butch with Peter; she backs out at the last possible moment.
Author Appeal: Kris Overstreet famously has breast expansion, muscle growth (and matching decrease in intelligence), and oversized penis fetishes. All three are near-constant presences in the comic (and, well, pretty much anything else he has any involvement with).
Bigger Is Better In Bed: All weres, Peter specifically, benefit from this. The new Casanova Wannabe werelion is shocked and dismayed to find that Jean wasn't impressed with the size of his equipment (or was she...) after she lifted him off the ground and sneaked a peek. And then stole his loincloth for good measure.
Boobs of Steel: All the Zoothrope women (save the were-rat) gain enhanced secondary sex traits (larger breasts) while transformed, which corresponds with their enhanced physical powers quite nicely. Continuing to play the trope straight, Sarah is by far the most physically imposing Zoothrope woman and her petite form gains the most absurd Gag Boobs in the series when she transforms, too.
Cerebus Syndrome: Played Straight, though some would argue it zig-zags a bit, due to the comedy and other things.
Character Development: Mostly, Sarah as she learns little by little to control her were form, and even Butch gains some of this after not going through with the rape, though she's constantly taking a few steps back and a few steps forward.
City of Weirdos: Jean is caught out in public partially transformed. Passers-by just think she's a furry and ignore her.
Domestic Abuser: Gus Cramer is one - both emotionally and sexually'' to Butch.
Double Standard: Several. Early in the comic you see the local Werewolf convention — all the men are wearing pants or loincloths. The women, with the sole exception of one of the main characters, are naked.
Here's what happened:Early on they used to post a "dirty" and a "clean" page. The werewolf convention was originally only in the "clean" section and was latter added to the "dirty" one because people were annoyed at having to check both sections to see all the updates. This is why there are two pages showing at the same time and why they sometimes share scenes.
When Sarah ends up in a burger joint in full wolf-form, the patrons are at first shocked by The Park Monster but when they realize she's just hungry and isn't that dangerous, they give her food and get photos taken with her.
Juniper Stebbins daughter of a werewolf hunter not only loves the idea of werewolves, she wants to become one.
Foreshadowing: In a rather quickly forgotten panel, Carla confronts Gus publicly about his sexual molestation and rape of Butch in this very early comic, causing him to back down. It completely paints the rest of the comic in a different light.
Gag Boobs: Sarah, when transformed. All a part of the proto-sentient, 11' tall werewolf bimbo package.
Gag Penis: Peter, who takes after his big bad dad in only that way.
To be specific, a recent comic has him being straddled by a werewolf girl who is around 6 - 7 feet tall. His erect penis reaches her chesthis chin.
But it actually makes a twisted kind of sense if you think that he was supposed to be as big as Sarah. If not for a random gene kicking in and turning him into runt anyways. Also, he is of a MUCH more normal size in his human form.
Genius Bruiser: Hal Halbjornsen, a werebear. He is over 6' in human form and well over 12 feet from his butt to head. But despite his size, he is quite reserved and enjoys reading Locke, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein in his spare time.
Good Angel, Bad Angel: Butch has two little werewolves on her shoulder after her attempt to get Sarah outed near a werewolf hunter ended up outing Peter instead and he had to run off. Butch saved him from the situation she caused but left without a word. Her "good" side urged her to apologize. Her "bad" side told her to go back and screw Peter. Butch tells both to shut up and continues on.
Good Bad Girl: Jean, although wolves in the Peterverse are of the "open about sexuality" variety. For example, Jean's mother idly teases Jean's father in front of Jean saying that she idly wished she had taken Peter as a mate once she had found out her daughter had slept with him (and that his nickname of "two bats" isn't a pun) — and warns Jean that she should probably not let Sarah know that Jean and Peter had sex in the past.
Good Ol' Boy: What Gus comes across as. In reality, not so much.
The Hunter: The Stebbins family is one of werewolf hunters. The daughter Juniper has gone against the trend to not only believe there is good in werwolves but wants to become one as well.
Sarah, when in werewolf form. Doesn't help that she's so big, any clothing she was wearing at the time is destroyed.
Butch is a particularly effective aversion or Deconstruction: Her father insists (through violence) that Butch act like this in their home, since it's a "traditional werewolf" lifestyle. That was disturbing but almost ok — after all, most of the weres shown are effectively nudists, after all. It's later shown that he's doing it to make it easier for him to possess her completely. And we mean, completely.
Peter's friend Jean is similar, having little qualms about walking around wearing a fishnet top and nothing else. Having a built in modesty-covering fur coat helps with things.
All of the werewolf women have elements of this — we see a local pack gathering ("the Howl") at the start of the comic. All the men are shirtless but wearing loincloths and pants. All the girls except Butch (who has her own reasons]] for not doing so) are nude.
Involuntary Shapeshifting - Though training, herbal therapy, and time can provide a measure of control over their personal lycanthropy, it's still virtually impossible to remain human during the full moon.
Light is Good: When Carla Goodwin, Jean's mom, comes to Butch after Butch tried to rape Peter and nearly got him killed Carla told Butch she has a choice of staying with her father, after revealing Carla knows Gus has raped Butch, or coming with Carla into protective custody.Cue a rainbow and tiny bird behind Carla. Butch lampshades this with "Yer shittin' me."
Peter doesn't lose his clothes because, as a runt werewolf, he's about the same size in both forms. Other characters wear clothes specifically designed to fit or stretch for both forms. Sarah, on the other hand, destroys her clothes repeatedly and utterly, and other characters damage or destroy clothing in transformation.
Ditto Jean, who isn't exactly huge in were form — it's shown her fishnet shirts and cut up blue jeans are that way cause they offer some wiggle room when she expands.
Masquerade: Zoanthropes in general. Fortunately, common wisdom holds that anyone who believes in werewolves is insane.
Broken Masquerade: Sarah finds out that there are such things as werewolves. And she had slept with one.
Killed To Up Hold The Masquerade: The danger of thralls is they are uncontrollable, untrained, but powerful weres. If the were who made one cannot teach the thrall to control itself, both will be killed.
Mate or Die: Peter has to keep Sarah under control as he's responsible for her — and being outed as a werewolf is punishable by death. Werewolf Sarah is basically only controllable by Peter snogging her silly. (Wolfsbane also helps, but she's highly resistant.) Ergo — Peter has to calm Sarah down or die once Werewolf Sarah is caught.
The Men in Black: Seen since chapter 1. Mysterious vans popping up and coming after usually Peter when he ends up in wereform.
My Beloved Smother: Peter's father has so many issues due to his grandmother, who raised him, being a very overbearing, alpha personality who crushed his hopes and dreams of going to college and playing football out of some sort of misguided desire to protect the pack to control him like she couldn't control his father. Amusingly, he married a woman who is the exact same way, complete with Smug Snake grin and horrible justifications as she torments her own kid.
Narrator: Peter and Sarah narrate the openings to each part giving the readers a brief summary the story.
Nipple and Dimed: Often the only difference, if any, between an adult-version and clean-version page is the miraculous vanishing or concealment of nipples (among other things). If a page is just too pornographic to be saved by editing it will simply be removed. This, naturally, causes the reader to miss out on (small) parts of the plot.
Not What It Looks Like: Sarah bursts in on Butch's aborted attempt to rape Peter, and not knowing what happened to him, promptly breaks up with him.
One of Us: Both BAR-1 and Overstreet are devoted tropers, and make frequent mentions of various tropes on their discussion boards.
Only Sane Man: The role of Pack Alpha is delegated to these rare individuals within werewolf society, as evidenced by Jack and his predecessor.
The Quiet One: Werebears are generally quiet, reserved beings. They enjoy reading and solitude excluding family.
Our Werebeasts Are Different: Features all kinds of werebeasts, although the predominant one remains werewolves. Whatever their animal type, their bite is not infectious: it is a trait inherited genetically.
While a were's bite may not be infectious, the comic kicks off with Peter having unwittingly infected Sarah by having sex with her. (Apparently, his parents never got around to mentioning that little fact of life to him.) Because this dumps a were's full powers and animal instincts onto a person who has no experience at all in dealing with them, this is generally considered a bad thing, especially in lights of maintaining the masquerade.
Power of Love: Jean realizes that Sarah does deeply love Peter as she didn't kill him after thinking he cheated on her, like an uncontrollable thrall should have.
Rape as Drama: Butch's father has been raping her for years. This is on top of the things we already knew about their relationship.
Schedule Slip: Although new pages are supposed to come out once a week, it's not surprising for them to miss a week. Or two. (Readers of the strip have accepted that both Kris and BAR-1 have a lot on their plate and, since the strip generates little to no revenue, bitching for updates is not going to solve anything.)
Sexual Karma: Played with. Sarah slept with Peter as a final fling before college with the intent of dumping him afterwards... only to be infected with lycanthropy by it, have to give up on her dreams of going to a big school, and has to live with the boyfriend that she was ready to end it with.
Social Darwinist: Butch and her father. Tragically, it leads to Butch trying to express feelings of affection through this — she's stronger than the boy she likes, so why can't she just take him? Taken to it's horrifying extreme in the most recent comics — she kidnaps Peter, ties him up, and tries to rape him. However, she can't go through with it; see Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest, above.
Statuesque Stunner: Juniper Stebbins stands at 6'4" and is a normal human.
Super Senses: Part of the werewolf package. Unfortunately, smelling the results of child molestation doesn't count as evidence.
The Nose Knows: When Carla comes to Butch to confront her after the recent events, she points out that she's smelled Gus "on her" 3 times, but has no evidence.
Throw It In: The artist has a habit of "ad-libbing" character dialogue when finishing pages.
Peter and Sarah in wereforms. Peter is near 6' tall. Sarah is a lot taller than him.
A brother-sister pair. The twenty year old Fortitude Lee Stebbins is about 4'10" (or so he claims) and his elder sister by two years is 6'4" and that isn't including her large pig-tails which knock her up to 6'8".
Tsundere/Yandere: Butch. Yep, she's both a MAJOR Type A Tsundere (thanks to her home life) and a Type B Yandere.
Unlucky Childhood Friend: Butch again. She was always abusive towards Peter because Love Makes You Evil (and due to a general crappy home life) but actually likes him, when Sarah came into the picture and dashed her longstanding dream of Peter taking her away from her psychotic father, she started slipping into outright Yandere mode.
Averted with Jean, who just doesn't care.
Victoria's Secret Compartment: The werewolf-enthusiast Juniper Stebbins who appeared after Sarah's big reveal at a restaurant with photos being taken of her puts a card of a local college professor between her breasts.
A minor example: Jean's father to Peter's mother, after they smugly announce they've already redecorated his room as a nursery for his replacement and he's going to have to literally live in a dog house outside, despite there being a perfectly good garage, and presumably a perfectly good couch nearby. Given the look his mother had explaining this in the previous page, as well as his father accidentally letting it slip that their (vastly improved) sex life being a factor as well, it's nice to see someone call her out on it.
Another minor one when Jean calls Sarah out and tells her that while her life has been hell the past few months, Peter has had it bad for years since he was a kid. And when he has finally found someone who respects him, he is kidnapped and almost raped. And after Sarah saves him, she thinks he was cheating on her and just leaves him in his own depression, back to two parents who have been putting him down for years.
Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Although the creators have made a deliberate decision to not name or locate Peter's town, the artist draws certain landmarks which strongly suggest a Michigan locale...
has an NSFW version with graphic sex. However, it also has a SFW version. Overstreet writes, while Benjamin Rodriguez (also known as BAR-1) illustrates.
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