Housepets! / YMMV - TV Tropes

Accidental Innuendo: In this comic Grape is captured by ancient cats, Bound and Gagged, and led through an underground tunnel ... and she thinks to herself that she better hide the fact that the scenario is pushing all her buttons. Really, Grape? All of your buttons? The alt-text though, makes it seem a little less accidental.
"Just don't think about what will obviously be his angelic pecs."
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Pete, the Spirit Dragon, and Kitsune are supposed to represent Evil, Good, and Neutral, respectfully. However as the Cosmic Game came to a close, Spirit Dragon seemed a lot more neutral (she didn't really care about mortals really, she was just playing the game) and Kitsune seems to more closely follow the idea of the Big Good (he goes out of his way to help the mortals and their Loophole Abuse of the game). Of course, some readers also see the end of the game as a subversion of these labels, and show all three of them are really Above Good and Evil (Spirit Dragon can be kind of a jerk, Pete can be sympathetic, and Kitsune is just a trickster). And then there are the readers who consider them as all being jerks who toy with the lives of "lesser beings" for their own amusement, and that Kitsune only looks good because his goals happened to align with those of the mortals.
- Bino is either a huge jerk who deserves everything he receives, or he's a sad sack who subconsciously views himself as a failure or at least inadequate.
- What if this whole comic is just a gigantic Take That! at people who are too serious about treating their pets like children?
Aluminum Christmas Trees: A surprising number of fans were unaware of the existence of calming treats for dogs when Peanut spent the entirety of the arc "The Hot Springs Episode” under their influence.
Peanut: Hey Grape, something surprising is happening outside.
Grape: I know, it woke me up... Why aren't you freaking out like usual?
Peanut: I got bored, and it turns out there's a reason Mom only gives me one treat at a time from the medicine cabinet supply.
Arc Fatigue:
- The Temple Crashers II arc for some which began in spring of 2017 and took a little over a year to conclude in 2018.
- Heckraiser fell into this for some. The story arc started in September 2020, got interrupted during December of that year for Heavendropper (a filler arc starring Fox), and was interrupted again in June 2021 when the comic went into a hiatus which ended in September 24th. It ran into five parts, with the fifth part in particular having started right after the hiatus and running until May 2023, only breaking for a Christmas strip and the yearly Valentine cards.
Audience-Alienating Ending: HECKRAISER REVELATIONS ends with Keene, Marion, Lois, and several other characters inflicting forced transformations on thousands of people across the world in order to bring about equality between humans and animals. Many readers found this to be tonally and morally out of step with the rest of the comic, and a disappointing conclusion to one of the main plot lines.
Broken Base:
- The supernatural and magical elements that become central to the story through King's arc were either the comic Growing the Beard and becoming more dynamic than the Slice of Life silly fun it started as, or when the comic declined in quality. There also those who believed the latter but have slowly started coming around, since it’s obvious the supernatural shenanigans are not going anywhere and are now a recurring element of the comic.
- The portrayal of the anthros as a Fantastic Underclass that's enforced by the humans has many readers locking horns. One side finds it horrifying given how rarely it's called out or fought against and thinks it messes with any charm or light-heartedness the comic was trying to get across. Another side finds the treatment little different from how animals are treated in real life and not meant to be taken seriously.
- The ending of HECKRAISER REVELATIONS has proven controversial. Some readers view thousands of humans getting turned into animals as a tonal misstep that flies in the face of the comics Central Theme,^note while others view it a beautifully cathartic Break the Haughty moment for the humans of the Housepets world and are hopeful the change in the status quo will be permanent and lead to someone properly challenging the oppression the animals in this world endure.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Joel was a fairly undeveloped character who seemed to just play the role of a PETA lackey. King, on the other hand, quickly gained a disproportionate number of fans. Part of that might come from his being an absolutely adorable corgi. The author has taken note of this; when he allowed members of the comic's forum to vote on the plot for the next major story arc following "Imaginate, Too!", he specifically excluded King from the running because he knew everyone would vote for him, and a future King arc was already forthcoming.
- Despite only appearing in a few strips early on, Rufus was considered such a fan favorite that he was brought back as in angel in the Temple Crashers 2 arc.
- Daisy is a big hit on the forums, especially after she opened her mouth and said something besides "Hi, I'm Daisy".
- Tiger Arbelt became more popular after he got his own arc as a mentally unstable kids' show host.
- Breel quickly became a fan favorite due to his adorable design, sweet personality, shipping with Keene and the fact that he turned into quite The Woobie after revealing that he died by getting hit by a train and Keene made him cry.
Epileptic Trees:
- Alvin and the Chipmunks somehow escaped from the Housepets world. Ironically, we now have expies of them. Alan and the Ground Squirrels.
- Lifespans are a confusing detail in the comic. It's insinuated that animals don't actually have that different a lifespan than they do in the real world, but this isn't actually said outright. Not only that, but when Pete and Dragon are sentenced to no less than 70 years of mortality for both losing the Cosmic Game, Kitsune considered reincarnating them as King and Bailey's puppies, who should realistically have lifespans much shorter than 70 years. Then again, no one ever said the 70 mortal years had to be served consecutively in a single lifetime. Later though, when Breel is allowed to come back to life as a boon from heaven, he states his expected lifespan will be around 40-50 years in spite of the fact he's a pine marten, a species that typically has a lifespan of around 15 years (domesticated). Then again, there's no way to know if Breel was a pine marten before he died, as Keene's adopted human father Mr. Milton elected to become a ferret in the afterlife, and even if he was it's been established Breel is ignorant of how mortals live since he's been dead for around 200 years.
Fanfic Fuel: Tiger's backstory. All we know in canon is that he's a mood-swinging, socially awkward, food-obsessed Ax-Crazy Jerkass Woobie. What sort of traumatic incident or treatment caused him to be the way he is? Just how bad was the bullying that he endured on both a physical and emotional level? Being a PG comic, we'll likely never get the answer. That being said, Tiger Arbelt is pretty much fertile soil for a Hurt/Comfort Fic or two.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Grape and Peanut, and to a lesser extent, Sasha/Fox and King.
Foe Yay Shipping: Fans tended to ship Pete and Spirit Dragon, or speculated that they were an item at some point in the past. It turned out they were brother and sister.
Fridge Brilliance: While it may have been a bit of a cop-out at the time, it makes sense that Death Is Cheap in Pete and Dragon's temples; in every other manner, they're constructed like RPG dungeons, including granting powers to those who wear outfits inside. When you die in an RPG dungeon, of course you'd respawn outside.
Fridge Horror: It's said Babylon Gardens is very much both a novelty and a rarity as far as places that are so open towards giving pets a lot of freedom. It's been heavily insinuated pets in other places of the world are not always treated as nicely, and animal abuse does happen, despite the fact animals in the Housepets! universe are fully sentient. It's also been insinuated animals have very few personal rights over humans, although the ferrets seem to be working to try and introduce more rights to animals over time.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- All the well-meaning things Pete says to King here seem somewhat harsher once it becomes apparent that teaching King a lesson was more of a side effect than the actual plan.
- Pete's first appearance in the comic, as he appears to be a big friendly griffin who lets Grape and Peanut ride on him. Later, he admits that he was trying to make Grape or Peanut into his host.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Earl Sandwich teases Peanut in this strip, defending it by saying Peanut will understand if he ever becomes a father. Thirteen years later, that's exactly what happened.
Ho Yay:
- The many Mr. Bigglesworth cats all look identical, even the boys from the girls. One comic had two Mr. Bigglesworth out on a date, only to realize well into the night that neither of them were actually female.
- The first time King met Fox^note after King became a corgi, that ishad Fox presenting his rear end to King to 'give him the first sniff'. While scent sniffing isn't unusual for dogs, shippers quickly latched onto the pair because of this initial interaction. The webcomic author himself even acknowledged the pairing in a post on the comic's Facebook page, specifying that while he felt taking taking their relationship in that direction might have been cute, it would have been too predictable given how many people shipped them already.
- When Keene Milton briefly gets sent to heaven, he immediately befriends a male pine marten masseur named Breel. In the next page, though Breel is merely suggesting he get a massage, it definitely sounds more like he's hitting on Keene. It only gets more suggestive from there, with Breel holding Keene in his lap as they eat and being the only one besides Keene's mother and (adoptive) father to see him off when he heads back to earth. After the final temple arc, however, Keene and Breel are now an Official Couple.
- As it turns out, Rufus and Maxwell had some sort of history together, the initial reveal of this connection punctuated with Rufus giving Max a smooch on the cheek before heading back to heaven. We do eventually learn their history: Max was a lost kitten who was taken in by Rufus, and through a harrowing course of events, Max was introduced to his current owner through Rufus. As if a wink to the fandom shipping the two, the other characters after hearing this story actually accuse Max of having a crush on Rufus, and that that's where Maxwell gets his attraction to older animals from.
- And a growing ship now is Fungo — Fox and Mungo. Mostly due to Mungo being huggy & openly affectionate to Fox as his partner in the K9 unit, while Fox is prone to blushing whenever he does so. As with Max and Rufus, the webcomic author has made some nods to this pairing, particularly during the Hot Springs Episode wherein Mungo casually admits he's more comfortable undressing and sharing a bath with Fox than with the others animals, and Fox becomes hilariously flustered when he does just that. What's more, the author later released a print that takes the alluding even further, depicting the two sharing a bath while surrounded by other characters making out, Mungo happily putting his arm around Fox's shoulder while Fox can do nothing but blush and wag his tail. And as of the strip released for Christmas 2020, there's the implication that Fox and Mungo will be each other's companions in Heaven when they go there. The specifics of their companionship is kept ambiguous, but given that Fox is already romantically involved with both other members of the group they'll make up, it causes one to wonder.
- While King's hitting on women while drunk (in the "Universes and Unrealities" arc) throws some doubt on his romantic interests, earlier in the comic King and Fox were shipped by some of the audience. King falling in love with — and ultimately marrying — Fox's cousin Bailey pretty much killed any canon basis for this (and it's worth pointing out that Fox was completely in favor of their relationship). Probably won't stop the fanfic writers, though.
Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
- "King of Hearts" for the earlier King/Sasha ship
- "Jessica Rabbit" for the Zach/Jessica ship (which is now an official couple)
Iron Woobie: Sasha manages to stay optimistic and cheerful despite the fact that her owner is an absolute Jerkass. Look at her boyfriend. She has experience.
Jerkass Woobie:
- Tiger Arbelt. Despite being mainly portrayed as a secondary comic relief character, he has some serious psychological issues to work though. He's been a victim of bullying and is basically a social outcast among the dogs simply because he has a catlike name. This in turn has made him irritable, aggressive and temperamental to the point of being borderline Ax-Crazy at times while at the same time, struggling with binge eating and depression. Tiger may have a short fuse and a big mouth but he could also really use a big hug and a shoulder to cry on. As one forum member put it: "Tiger is an emotional wreck and responds to his problems by being a jerk."
- Bino. Sure, he's a temperamental, speciest jerk who loves bullying others and playing cruel pranks but he's also had to deal with a concussion, getting punched in the face by Bailey and a shock collar to name a few things. It's rather difficult to tell if Bino is either this or Love to Hate. His new girlfriend Duchess most likely views him as disposable and somewhere down the line, will likely break his heart.
- King, considering he's an ex member of PETA and as Bino put it has a Napoleon Complex but the poor corgi just can't catch a break.
- Joel's pets. Sure, they turned their backs on Joel after kidnapping him but they were also abused by their owner.
- Pete at the end of the Cosmic Game. He may be a jerk and some fans even feel he already crossed the Moral Event Horizon long ago, but seeing him driven to Broken Tears from losing the game and his comment about how mortals always get happy endings and gods don't can be a bit heartbreaking.
Magnificent Bastard: "Call o' th' Wild": Gale is a fierce mountain lion and the most scarily competent antagonist in this comedic webcomic. Formerly a friend of the wolf Miles and his family, as well as their improvised medic, she would have an argument with Miles, feeling betrayed by him, resulting in the wolves leaving the forest. Having remained as the undisputed apex predator, alongside her cub Pueblo, when Gale sees the Wolf Pack returning to her territory to go camping, the cougar sets off to have her revenge on Miles and the others through a mix of feral strength and feline cunning, all while mentoring her son. Capturing Miles' family through ambushes, traps, hand-to-hand combat and even seduction, she then confronts her old friend in her cave and, after an honorable duel, uses Miles' bluff against him and overpowers the wolf. Gale only allows Miles and his pack to live upon finding out that joining human society is an option for her and Pueblo, by which point she becomes a successful, self-made businesswoman in less than a year. Wealthy, feared as ever and planning to join medical school, Gale is now willing to patch things up with her old wolf friends.
Moe: Most of the cast is this due to the art style but Peanut, Zach, Res, Joey, King, Tiger, Dallas and Sasha in particular stand out.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Adorable though King's new form is, when Pete informed him that Pete has no intention of changing him back into a human, there were plenty of horrified fans.^note
- The fat PETA guy (Joel's partner) crosses this when he attempts to smother Fox to death.
- Bino came close to crossing it when he tried to break King's watch, though had he actually succeeded and King died in front of everyone, he'd probably be more shocked and horrified then anything.
- Jack "Four Finger Discount" crosses this in the Wolf's Clothing arc where he eggs Bino on to steal from humans only to abandon him and try to sell his collar off to a well-known con artist. Say what you will about Bino, but what Jack did to him was just plain cold.
Nightmare Fuel:
- Keene, you really did it this time.◊ In short, he, through his selfishness, unlocked a gateway to Hell.
- Just the way Gale silently and menacingly gets near King and his family to abduct them here. Also, note that their puppies are still toddlers whom she might have done anything to keep them quiet.... Good thing the page ends with Bailey's Mama Bear and Spider-Sense ready to protect them.
Older Than They Think:
- A number of commenters on this strip think that a many-tailed kitsune showing up means Rick has watched too much Naruto. Never mind, of course, that kitsunes show up in a lot of old Japanese folklore, and that said folklore is the origin of stories of foxes with nine tails, such as Naruto... Or, to be very blunt, that the one in Naruto isn't nearly as powerful as the original source material. The more you know!
- "Hi! I'm Daisy!" was not originally from Housepets!, as some seem to believe.
Portmanteau Couple Name:
- Grapenut for the Grape/Peanut ship.
- Kingley for the King/Bailey ship.
Squick: King is a frequent target of shipping — usually with Sasha or Fox — and King himself gradually gets used to being a dog as the comic goes on. However, some fans still can't look away from the fact that King is not a dog, but a human trapped in a dog's body. It makes his eventual marriage with Bailey still too weird to accept for some.
Stoic Woobie: Fox is this given that he's been a victim of kidnapping not once but twice. He's usually pretty good at keeping his cool in spite of his hardships.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some fans called foul over the revelation that Sasha's actions in Keene's attempted murder were strictly her being Brainwashed and Crazy, with some even enjoying the original idea of Sasha willingly turning against the establishment after years of being a Stepford Smiler and dealing with an emotionally abusive "daddy". There are also those who hoped her actions would at least be partially More than Mind Control, instead of her just being a completely Unwitting Pawn. Some of these complaints also stem from the Broken Base over the comic having too many supernatural elements.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: While the the comic hasn't reached Cerebus Syndrome status and most of the characters are considered generally likeable, some readers found the Fantastic Racism the anthropomorphic animal characters endure in their world difficult to ignore. These readers have become frustrated and perplexed by the characters' unwillingness to rebel against such poor treatment, as well as Keene's lack of progress in remedying such perceived bigotry. These same readers are also often baffled by the fact that most of the "pet" animals seem either apathetic or oblivious to the oppression they endure.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Most of the humans in the webcomic are either meant to be viewed as minor characters or the pet-owner equivalent of Good Parents (with abusive owners being rarely encountered). But given that the pets live as second-class citizens or worse and that their sapience is rarely taken seriously or respected by even the "good" humans, some readers view the human race in the Housepets! universe as arrogant bigots who feel little to no remorse over perpetuating their pets' status as a Fantastic Underclass.
Unpopular Popular Character: Bino is hated in-universe by nearly everyone for his massive ego and self-righteousness, and a Butt-Monkey to the entire universe. Out of universe, he has quite a lot of fans endeared to him for those very reasons.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Generally, the only way to tell if a character is female in the strip is whether she has eyelashes or not. And there are some that don't even have those, like Grape (much of the time anyway), who is more a Tomboy. Even then, some readers remained confused. As a result, the webcomic author started giving the female characters more feminine features.
The Woobie:
- All pets who are mistreated in this comic count as such, but King's shaping up to be the top dog for this trope. However, Sasha at Christmas is definitely a close second. Made worse when seen against the other Christmases.
- Applies to Res, though owner mistreatment was quickly quashed as a possible reason. His feeling under pressure to produce more Prdelands books clearly weighs heavily on him.
- Zach gets mistreated at times... but as Jessica points out, some of it is his own fault.
- Marion's story has been one long Trauma Conga Line.
Woobie Species: Some readers consider the anthropomorphic pets in this comic to be abused. Despite their being sentient, they're seen as being treated like 'lesser' beings by their human counterparts in ways that make the the Moreau Universe look progressive. This is not helped by the fact that too few of them work to fight against this oppression or even acknowledge that they're being oppressed — coming across as if most of them are in denial, if not brainwashed into seeing nothing wrong with their lives.

YMMV / Housepets!

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