Webcomic / Precocious

Most of the main and recurring cast.

"Where cognitive dissonance thrives! Cute furry little animal children will lead us into chaos!"

Precocious is a Furry Webcomic by Christopher J. "Chrispy" Paulsen that stars a rather large group of "superintelligent" children who live in two separate neighborhoods, and who just happen to be anthropomorphic canines and felines. The main characters are known for being completely (but lovably) insane in one way or another. Not very serious, but very funny, the comic is about those children/mad scientists in their everyday lives.

The comic is presently on indefinite hiatus.

Read it here.

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Tropes:

• Acme Products: Chrispco, represented by a triskelion logo, makes tablets, children's toys, and soft drinks.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services: At a parade the Sapphire Lake kids address the firefighters by first name and schedule something for next Tuesday.

• Added Alliterative Appeal: Jacob goes above and beyond here.
• Adults Are Useless: The comic sometimes subverts and sometimes plays straight this trope. Most of the parents are just as smart as their kids, but the stuff those kids can get away with is astonishing sometimes.
• Alt Text: Used mostly for Lampshade Hanging (especially in regard to lacking backgrounds, Spoof Aesops, and incredibly egregious puns).
• An Aesop: "Actions have consequences. Who knew?"
• All Just a Dream: An arc of what turn out to be the kids' nightmares, starting here and culminating in a Shout-Out to St. Elsewhere.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Inverted and subverted. Jacob (as Target Man) takes down the Supervillain Union and takes control of the Fortress of Evil...only to be taken down by Suzette (as villain Mylytant Femynyst) three seconds later.
• Apple for Teacher: Tiffany offers Ms. Monster an apple, then Jacob brings her flowers, Bud gives her a cake, and Rodney provides footage of what they did.
• Art Evolution:
  • Compare Strip #1 to Strip #28. See a difference? Good. Now look at an even later strip, like #87. Big difference, eh?
  • An even more dramatic comparison is at the bottom of this page.
  • It later regresses, at least in detail. In chronological order: eliminating color strips altogether; eliminating almost all backgrounds or inanimate objects; positioning all characters at the same depth (with few exceptions). Color is back, for now, thanks to a fan contributor.
  • However, now backgrounds seem not to be as much of an issue anymore, and there's even some varied perspective.
• Asbestos-Free Cereal: Hiram's Grocery Store sells "Cruelty-free" orange juice. (A durian, however, is always cruel.)
• Ascended Extra:
  • Kaitlyn Hu was referred to by Chrispy as the central character of another strip. That other strip (Copper Road) , featuring her and the other side of the class, was eventually made.
  • Expanding on this, Kaitlyn and her Copper Road friends (Yvette Nutley, Quincy Wozwax and Vincent Iddenstein, plus one of Yvette's moms, Candy), have all risen in prominence in the main strip.
• As You Know: Played for Laughs in a strip, aptly titled "Relive those memories".
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • Chrispy states in his sketch blog that Vincent has an undiagnosed case of ADHD.
  • Tiffany's short attention span is directly responsible for half of her destructive rampages and the main reason they never last long.
• Author Avatar: In his FAQ, Chris states that Bud was originally "a cartoony avatar of myself." However, a more straight example would be Kaitlyn Hu, especially in the Copper Road strips.
  • A more literal example is the unnamed artist at the career fair.
• Bag of Holding: Quincy's supervillain persona "D20" carries his comically oversized dice in a normal-sized dice bag, which causes Jacob to make a sanity roll.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: The entire cast. Shoes are sometimes mentioned in the Alt Text but to this day the only only articles of footwear seen (outside of guest strips) were part of a spacesuit, and some snowboards and skis.
  • Yvette's Halloween costume seems to include socks with embroidered toe-lines to make her feet look doll-like.
• Batman Gambit: "See?" A battle plan that depended on what the enemy was likely to do.
• Bedsheet Ladder: All she wanted to do. Which is why her parents planted roses under the window.

• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Et clan. Every member of the Et's extended family seems to be either a kook, a crook, a thrill-seeker, a mad scientist, or just a bit touched in the head. And each branch of the family has their own dysfunctions:
  • Gene and Sky Et are barely able to keep their five kids under control, frequently failing, their oldest daughter Tiffany is "artistically destructive" at the best of times and might be a serial killer. Gene spending most of his time at work playing video games while Sky is left to manage things at home doesn't help.
  • Joseph Oven's mother is an Et so his family counts. Joseph and Sydney frequently leave their son Bud at home by himself for days on end while Joe is working on his "projects" in their absurdly spacious basement and Sydney is managing apartments in the city. Bud has suggested he gets groceries through mob connections but claims to be used to it. While older daughter Casey voices her hatred for their house every time she has to come home from college.
  • Aunt Bernie (Gene's sister) is half-Con Artist and half-Stage Mom who drags her daughters all over the country on her crazy schemes for fame and fortune, and to keep a step ahead of the law.
  • The Et family elders are treated like the Illuminati by the junior clan members, and it's not unreasonable to believe they actually are.
  • And even more Ets appear during the family reunion. Including the vaguely menacing Lesser-Ets, an uncle who lives in a stolen delivery van, an aunt who runs an herbal supplement scam, and Aunt Freya (Joseph's sister) who claims to have orchestrated the whole chaotic mess like she orchestrates coups in South America, but is still outclassed by her mother.
• Blackmail:
  • Autumn has huge binders full of blackmail material. For each and every person she knows.
  • Ms. Monster has some too, apparently.
• Bob from Accounting: Few realize that in addition to his years of accounting expertise, Bob is also a talented movie critic.
• Body Paint: The comic has one of these somehow. Except that when the model, Sydney Oven, arrived, the painter, her future husband, used her as the BRUSH. Her opinion? 'How many other families are able to hang a nude portrait of the mother over the dinner table and get away with it?' Said to...the parents of her son's classmates.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The conflict where the kids staged a revolt in the school to be able to unionize can be viewed this way. Ms. Monster's been largely holding her ground against it because compromising her authority would dampen her ability to teach, as well as the fact that her students resulted in escalating their revolt to a chaotic riot with little regard for the damage they're causing makes it difficult to justify letting them unionize. On the other hand, the kids have tried more diplomatic forms a protest and they were left merely ignored with no tangible results, so the kids weren't wrong to think the escalation was the only option they had to stop the school faculty from ignoring them and actually agree to negotiate on the matter.
• Brick Joke:
  • In the Alt Text of a strip, after Mike gives Tiffany a computer, Sky says that next time she sees him she's going to punch him in the face. 333 strips later, she does.
  • When Bud said that he would put crayons in the closet and forget them he wasn't kidding. Bonus points for joke spanning multiple months.
  • The kids use a poker game to push their chores onto each other. Tiffany takes 20 days to deliver.
• B-Movie: Or if you're assigning letter grades, F- movie. Bud finds a late night T.V. program called "$100 budget horror film theater", which is showing "Psychic Death Aquarium". Chrispy explains in the comments, "The movie consists of a static shot of an aquarium, with people constantly walking up behind it, looking weird, clutching their heads and falling over. The soundtrack is a really slow version of Yakity Sax."
• Burger Fool: A parody of Wendy's called "Wendigo's" which has a fanged and red-eyed mascot.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes:
  • Cole in the summer camp is introduced as a pair of eyes hiding under a blanket, though Bud eventually yanks the blanket off, showing him to be a black cat so dark he looks like a living shadow.
  • Myra is never seen any other way. Appropriately she's Cole's mom.
• Call-Back:
  • The Weekend at Bernie's story has a high concentration of these.
• The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House: Referenced.
• Calvinball:
  • They call it "Suicide Kings", and it's complicated, so don't ask them to explain it. You wouldn't get it anyway.
  • There's also this guest strip, the alt-text of which mentions the Trope Namer.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Most of the children who even play as the Super Villain Union, but a special mention goes to Dionne, who even freely admits her selfishness and evil intentions in a debate for class president.
• Cats Are Magic: It's only one character, but Yvette makes a lot of what appear to be voodoo dolls of her classmates.
• Cats Are Mean: Well, not particularly. Though it's probably no coincidence that the three nicest Gemstone kids are dogs (well, two dogs and a wolf), while Dionne (said to have no soul) is a cheetah.
• Cat Smile:
  • On occasion the feline kids will do a rather menacing one.
  • Tiff, Bud, and Autumn (despite being a fox) here.
• Character Alignment: There is a chart, (made by an In-Universe character).
• Children Are Innocent: Averted. Most of the children in the main cast are each evil in their own special ways. Special mentions go to Autumn (who uses this trope to her advantage; she even wears a schoolgirl outfit in order to heighten people's perception of her innocence) and Dionne (who takes great pleasure in crushing the souls of others due to her lack of one).
  • Perhaps even more telling is its treatment of the children who aren't evil. Jacob is a sweet, caring young boy who is so kind and selfless that his being selfish or mean for a change has been a punchline unto itself and there was even an arc about it. He's the strip's resident Butt-Monkey, who is constantly hurt and never really treated with respect. Max is even nicer. He seems oblivious to the existence of bad or evil in the world. He's considered kind of strange by the rest of the kids, and although respected for his abilities, he's also frequently manipulated by the others or resented for the consequences of his Incorruptible Pure Pureness. The moral of the story? Children are evil, and those who aren't will end up used or mistreated by those who are.
  • Jacob's become more and more like his friends as time's gone on. He's still rarely the instigator of the evil schemes, but he's proven more than happy to take part in the planning of the group's immoral activities. The newest member of the class, Ursula Xane, is even more of a straight example than Max, having been raised in isolation by parents who have carefully controlled her knowledge of the outside world. She's so innocent that in one Copper Road strip, she actually believes Fox News Channel's claim of being "fair and balanced."
• Commuting on a Bus: Xander transferred to a private school, but still appears in the comic just about as often as he did before.
• Companion Cube: The On-Cue Ball, which is like a Magic 8-Ball...but talks! And makes fun of everyone! It even burps!
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Tiff's parents send her to the box o' shame after Kaitlyn's party. It back fires to some extent, though.
• Crappy Carnival: The comic has the kids putting one on for their school's "Fall Festival" fundraiser. Being the way they are, they naturally set it up to con the goers out of their money.
• Creator Career Self-Deprecation: Kaitlyn wants to be a cartoonist. Everyone else tells her it's a terrible idea.
  Wen: So I thought you were supposed to be smart.
  Kaitlyn: Cartoonists are smart. They're just not rational.
• Curse Cut Short:
  On-Cue Ball: All signs point to I don't give a—
  Shii-An Hu: KAITLYN!!
• Deep Sleep:
  • During break, offering such chances
  • And again.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Autumn uses a schoolgirl uniform to try to invoke this in others. Dionne is also said to do this when enrolled a beauty pageant; off the clock, she prefers her throne of bones.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Autumn violently rebuffs Max when he attempts to turn his extravagant birthday party into an actual pity party for her.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: When the Sapphire kids start a coffee shop Bud starts freaking out when he sees a bunch of cops out in front.
  Cop with bullhorn: "I swear we're not investigating anything this time! No cop can resist a place with good coffee and highly-praised danishes!"
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: Muffins of doom, their inverse appears to be cupcakes of bliss.
• Drinking Game: In-Universe. "With a little bit of creativity, anything can be turned into a drinking game!" so sayeth the On-Cue Ball.
• Embarrassing Last Name:
  • Joseph Oven considers his original last name of "Brungster" to be one, so he Took the Wife's Name. His sister turns out to have taken things a step further and changed her first and middle names as well, from "Tanya Brungster" to "Freya Moon Dancer DiVanir".
  • Aunt Bernie considers "Et" to be one, combined with her first name at least. "Bernadette Et" sounds like a stutter, "Bernie Et" just sounds like her first name, and "Bern Et" is too much like an invitation to pyromania for her family. Her first marriage was allegedly for the sole purpose of changing her name.
• Especially Zoidberg: The comic has one about sharing information on Noodle Incidents:
  Dad: Hey, Kids! Rule #17: "Always check with your parents before sharing any family stories!"
  Kid: Even the Orlando one?
  Dad: Especially Orlando!! ...And you shouldn't know about Orlando!
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Why Bud's plan to destroy the Turquoise Lake summer camp falls apart. It hinged on the campers acting like the Gemstone kids.
• Evil Lawyer Joke: Candy enjoys making these jokes about herself, in her second appearance alone she claimed she works best without a soul. Another time her wife (who was smoking something hand-rolled) claimed that she breaks more laws daily than she does.
• Exact Words:
  • Autumn offers to wash the dishes. She did not say anything about washing pots, pans, silverware...
  • Later, Bette orders the kids to run one mile(approximately), but forgets to specify they do it in the designated track. As the other kids dash away, Max notes that they are following directions... approximately.
• Expressive Ears: Many characters, but of the main characters Autumn's "mood ears" are the most versatile.
• Facepalm:
  • Courtesy of Ms. Monster.
  • Not her first, either. To the EXACT same group.
  • An unintentional example, courtesy of an annoying fly.
• Fearful Symmetry: A few strips' worth during the Gender War. Broken rather decisively, though.
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: Downplayed. Of the kids who make up the main cast, female cats outnumber the males, and male dogs outnumber the females.
• Flanderization: Inverted (sort of). Most of the minor characters are introduced pre-Flanderized. Played straight, however, for Shii Ann Hu. Mentioned by trope name in the alt-text for strip 237.
• For the Evulz: Dionne's impetus to do pretty much anything. Example. Not that the Gemstone Estates kids usually cite any other reason..
• Foul Cafeteria Food: Poppinstock Academy has only slightly better than standard cafeteria food, with most of it in the form of cubes. The kids once used the vegetables as substitutes in a drinking game.
• Fourth-Wall Portrait: Done in the name of caricature in this strip.
• Free-Range Children: The comic has the Sapphire Lake kids (and on occasion others) wandering around the neighbourhood, and in one arc they go downtown. Tiffany's thoughts? 'I was told lowlifes and villains hang out here [the corner of Cruelty Ave and Evil Rd]. But it's only us! Where are they?'
• Full-Name Ultimatum: The comic has a full arc about full-name ultimatums: The names of several kids are revealed, then some try to invoke the trope to learn more middle names...
• Funny Animal: The whole cast, but only felines and canines (including vulpines).
• Funny Background Event: In the "The Protest" story, Tiffany is found in both the "down with Jacob" and the "Team Jacob" groups.
• Fun with Acronyms: Time Advancement Device Associated With A Relative Position. T.A.D.A.W.A.R.P.
• Furry Confusion:
  • One of the many reasons Chrispy made all the characters either cats or dogs was to avert this.
  • The comments for 'Normal Clothes' raises this point; when Principal Blessure decides to dress up as Cruella DeVil it was theorized that in the Precocious world that the movie is about a woman who kidnaps children (of a specific race) in order to skin them and wear their pelts. In the real world, family movie; In a furry world, horror movie.
• Furry Lens: Brought up in the alt-text here.
• Furry Reminder: Suzzete wears a dog collar with a bell. She also beats up Jacob using only her tail, just to prove it was strong enough to be used like a third leg.
  • When the kids play a life sized game of Monopoly, the cat token is a statue of Tiffany.
• Gender Equals Breed: Inverted. Bud is a Scottish fold like his mother, while his older sister is a white American shorthair like their dad.
• Generation Xerox: Autumn is fighting a losing battle not to become one.
• Genius Bonus: Gene and Sky's combined password for the tool shed uses military code words to spell "No! Stop!"
• Gentle Giant: Bud's dad Joseph.
• Girls Have Cooties: A comic-within-the-comic Subverts this, C.O.O.T.E.E.S. means Camera Outfitted Observational Trackers Embedded Espionage Systems.^note The last two words are cut off in the comic and are only known through Word of God.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  • Bud and Tiff during Autumn's paranoid delusion about their museum trip. Tiffany again after consuming an entire pot of coffee.
  • The attic minis do this. They're white at first but turn red when their creepyness gets to higher levels.
• Grounded Forever: The Sapphire Lake kids' antics usually get Autumn grounded for eternity, though after a few days or weeks her parents usually open to negotiations.
• Guest Strip:
  • During the "Party crashers" arc, while Chrispy had a broken finger. The guest artists included Matt Dawson (Sometime Alone), Brooke Eggleston (Also Bagels), Irene Pitcairn (Sun Elves), Robert McConnell, Carl Sjostrand (Ginger's Bread), Terrence and Isabel Marks, John Peters (Gypsygirl Press), and Roman Utkin (who does a Russian translation of Precocious).
  • A new set of guest strips began in March 2013, with a couple of twists on the theme.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Bud's parents. His dad spends all his time in the basement working on art and hydroponics, while his mom is always in the city managing the apartment complexes she owns. As a result Bud is a much better cook than either of them. It gets to the point where Autumn even forgets at one point that he even has parents.
• Hard Head: You must have a pretty hard head
• Helicopter Parents: Ursula's parents, who basically raised her in an opaque, home-schooled bubble.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen:
  • In the main comic, Vincent was formerly given this treatment. He appears more often in voting incentives◊ and in the Copper Road strip.
  • Also, the Rights, the Hus' neighbors (mentioned only as another Who's on First? gag).
• Home Sweet Home: Escaping appointments
• Hurricane of Puns: Occurs whenever Kaitlyn Hu (or anyone in her family) appears in the comic. Typically, Chrispy channels Abbott and Costello for these jokes. Lampshaded in this Copper Road strip.
• I Know You Know I Know: Autumn's plan.
• Impact Silhouette: Following a blizzard, Jacob goes outside to make a snow angel and sinks out of view.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Despite having been in the same class as them for who knows how long, Max still has trouble understanding that the Sapphire Lake crew don't like being good sports.
• The Ingenue: Ursula, due to her terminally sheltered upbringing.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Suzette resorts to it when she's short of things to be righteously outraged about.
  • Also, insomniac logic is a special kind of logic.
  • And Casey's "skipped a grade" antics here.
• Insult Backfire: The comic features the inevitable student council election, narrowing down to Roddy versus Dionne. Roddy starts describing Dionne as 'a soulless beast with malicious intentions!' Dionne's rebuttal? A happy "It's true!".
• In the Blood:
  • The Pingos are often joked to reproduce by cloning. As they all look similar and are great at library science.
  • Joseph, Casey, and Bud Oven are all dangerously creative scientists.
  • Yvette's two moms are a Granola Girl and an Amoral Attorney. She has a lot more in common with her birth mother, the hippie.
• Is This Thing Still On?: Ursula manages to accidentally combine this trope with Quote Mining here.

• Lampshade Wearing: Tiffany sports a lampshade at Kaitlyn Hu's birthday party.
• Limited Wardrobe: Most of the cast. Bud has his jeans, black vest, and wifebeater. Tiffany her green dress with a smiley-face pin. And Autumn with her Catholic schoolgirl outfit (their school doesn't have uniforms, she wears it to make people underestimate her), though she sometimes wears a tanktop and sweatpants in summer.
  • Used to effect when the kids are assigned to study each other. Each one dressed in the subject's usual attire. Which explained the relative cold open of seeing Jacob wearing a schoolgirl uniform (and standing by a box of blackmail).
• Look Behind You: Kaitlyn, watch out! ...
• Mad Scientist: The kids have been known to experiment with electronics, explosives, biohazards, and radioactives.
• Magic 8-Ball: An arc parodied this with the "On Cue Ball," which didn't so much give advice as it ridiculed everything and everyone.
• Medium Awareness:
  • Ms. Monster apparently has a rule against students saying her name in Chiller font.
  • Ivy Pingo can also hear when her daughter uses an asterisk in her speech.*
  • There's also a gag involving the script in this guest strip.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Kaitlyn here.
  Kaitlyn: I just wanted my best friends (and Roddy) to come over and play our favorite games.
• Mythology Gag: in a debatably In-Universe example, Tiffany names her imaginary friend after her former split personality.
• New Jobs As The Plot Demands: Mat Sherer's cameo character has a new job basically every arc he appears in, thanks to the Sapphire kids costing him one job after another.
• Nice Guy: Max Zeit is nice to a fault. Though he does have enough of a self-preservation instinct to know when to go along with everyone's schemes.
• Noble Wolf: Max is the resident source of Incorruptible Pure Pureness.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Whatever the Sapphire kids did preceding their hiding out at Kaitlyn's birthday party. One by one, supporting characters learned the details in tiny whispers indecipherable by the audience. But all the readers learn is that Ivy was colored jet black.
  • Or how about the time they set the lake on fire?
  • Almost all of the children's unseen escapades are treated as Noodle Incidents unless the joke or plot specifically requires otherwise, as well as a wealth of Noodle Implements in play when their schemes have yet to come to fruition.
  • Subverted with Tiffany's aging. Strip 893 presents the accident that halted Tiff's aging as a Noodle Incident, but strip 896 provides an explanation.
  • The "Orlando Incident", where aunt Bernie did something that the other Ets refuse to speak of for fear of surveillance equipment overhearing, showed that the adults are not free of this trope.
  • Heck, there are so many Noodle Incidents in the comic that it's even addressed in the FAQ!
  Question: Will we get to see what happened when _____?
  Answer: Probably not. I think some things are funnier when you have to imagine what crazy stuff went down yourself!
• Odd Friendship: Max and Dionne. The nicest kid in the school and the personification of evil. Apart from being in wealthier families than the others, they have almost nothing in common, yet they hang out together all the time.
• Older Than They Look: Tiffany in this request strip showing the kids as teenagers.
• One-Word Vocabulary: Cole, the homesick kid at summer camp, only says "I want to go home" over and over. It's implied to be all he wrote in his post-camp letter to Bud as well. Though after his first arc he adds a few more words to his vocabulary.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Kaitlyn Hu. Her time spent observing the others has built up remarkable insight into the social dynamics of the class. She employs this to great effect starting in this strip. The ensuing conversation provides her with justified time in the spotlight.
  • invoked Although Kaitlyn is the Word of God entry in this category, Max has played the role from time to time.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The kids once broke Ms. Monster by pretending to have been acting constructive and cooperative when she arrived late.
  • Also, the reaction when Tiffany is seen without her button.

• Our Slogan Is Terrible: Apparently accepting their status as boring, Do-Dah's Ice cream has "Look, it's ice cream. Isn't that enough?"
  • It's later replaced with Pooters which has "It's Country Kindness Y'all!"
• Painting the Medium: This strip is all about Chiller Font.
• Parody Retcon: In-Universe. Tiffany seems to do this with a resume, but it could also have been her plan from the start.
• Phrase Catcher:
  • [accusingly] "Roddy! What are you doing here?"
  • "You have no soul, Dionne."
• Pilot Movie: The "Disorganized Sports" arc was partially used to introduce some of the main cast of the spinoff strip Copper Road.
• Please Subscribe to Our Channel: In June 2011, the characters broke the fourth wall for several strips in which they asked readers for donations.

• Post-Kiss Catatonia: Vincent stumbles around in a loopy daze after his puppy-love crush Autumn kisses him. Still leaves Vincent's love unrequited, though: Autumn just wanted her blackmail folder back.
• President Evil: Dionne makes a campaign platform out of promising to be one of these when running for class president.
  "Those who support me will be exalted. Those who do not will be destroyed. The minority is irrelevant. They have no voice. I can and will take from them and give to the strong. It's majority rule!"
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "THE BAKE SALE IS SCIENCE!!"
  • Brick Joke: It's also salable.
• Punny Name:
  • The Hu family, leading to many Abbott and Costello-style jokes. The most blatant example is the matriarch of the family, Shii Ann Hu, for whom Incredibly Lame Puns are used shamelessly.
  • The alt-text mentions that the rights live next door.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: this is Yvette's reaction to the prospect of being water-ballooned.

• Retcon: Word of God is that the neighborhood is more compact than it used to be, partially so as to let Gemstone Estates and Copper Road interact more.
• Royal "We":
  • Suzette speaks like this while going mad with power.
  • Inverted later on, when a rare Jacob Slam slings it right back at the self-proclaimed royalty.
• Rule #1: The parents have compiled a series of numbered rules to try and reign in the kids.
  • Rule #1: No dying!
  • Rule #4: No dynamite.
• The Runaway: Tiffany decides to run away from home after spilling soda on her mom's medical journal, with the final page of the arc showing her hitchhiking in the rain. Afterwards she leaves the comic for two months before returning, apparently having stayed at her grandmother's.
• Running Gag:
  • When Bud encounters Roddy, he often says "Roddy! What are you doing here?" And boy, does he spin it and spin it - until it is spun right back at him, at long last.
  • Running gags involving Autumn and her family include jokes about her family reproducing via cloning and library science.
  • In the "internEt" mini-arc, Rule #4 (first introduced in this strip) has become a running gag and is regularly used in the comments section.
• The Scapegoat: Down with Jacob!
• Second Place Is for Losers: Check out the trophy stand and alt-text in this comic - poor, poor Roddy.
• Secret Handshake: Joseph traces an Eye of Provenence on his forehead in order to get the kids access to a secret passage at the carnival.
• Serial Killer... or at least, Tiffany is POTENTIAL Serial Killer... Which becomes even more disturbing in the context of a later strip where she's seen carrying a dirt and blood-stained shovel.
• Serious Business:
  • The bake sale is science!!
  • Also, in the intro arc, a simple competition about who the better supervillain is turns into the famous "Gender Wars".
  • And the arc where Mr. Et discovers that Quincy killed his World of Warcraft character...not pretty.
  • '"Go Fish" is not a contact sport!'
• Sinister Silhouette: Ivy Pingo pulls this off rather formidably at the end of Kaitlyn's birthday party...or so we were led to believe.
• Shmuck Bait: What else would you call a big red button that says "Do not press"?
• Slapstick: The only thing stopping the girls joining in the Big Ball of Violence is a good enough excuse. One strip even featured a Mêlée à Trois where Bud, Roddy, and beauty pageant queen Dionne took turns doubleteaming each other or having a free-for-all.
• Sleazy Politician: Dionne Crup runs for class president on this platform. Her campaign quickly turns negative.
  Roddy: ''My opponent is a soulless beast with malicious intentions!
  Dionne: It's true!
• Sleep Cute: Tiffany; She is Exceedingly Cute.

• Smoke Out: Done here by Vincent, of all people.
• Speech Bubbles: Speech with asterisks.
• Speech-Bubbles Interruption:
  • Here
  • And here
• Spinoff: Copper Road, about the character Kaitlyn Hu and the "other side of the class" that lives on Copper Road.
• Spiders Are Scary: A really scary one here.
  Ms. Monster: Extra credit to the kid who kills it!
  Dionne: Forget it! No grade is worth dealing with that!
• Spoof Aesop:
  • Evil's triumph over goodness is absolute
  Alt-text: This one goes out to all the impressionable children!
  • Also: "Moral of the story: Women are inferior?"
• Stab the Salad: Can you match Bud's skill with a blade?
• Stealth Pun: The bottle Bud finds in this strip has a whisk, and a key on its label. Whisk key. Whiskey.
• Student Council President: Dionne manages to win the student council elections on a campaign of open corruption. Considering that they only have a council because the students revolted, it shouldn't be too surprising.
• Sunday Strip: For a long time had double-size colored strips on Sundays before the weekday strips were colored, which were often a separate storyline from the weekdays.
• Tagline: "Because knowledge is a weapon!"
• "Take Your Child to Work Day" Plot: * A story story was dedicated to following the all the class girls to a bring your daughter to work day. Originally the boys were not happy that they didn't get out of school like the girls. However, once all the girls came back jaded from their experiences, with the possible exception of Yvette, the boys conclude that they don't need a special day because society is already rigged in their favor.
• Theme Song: A fan composed a theme song for the comic. Chris liked it so much he pretty much made it the official theme.
• Thumbtack on the Chair: Implied, the cashier at the school supply store tries to sell Mrs. Monster a pair of tack-proof pants.

• Throw the Book at Them: The show features Autumn (and some other Poppinstock Academy kids) being teased by an off-screen kid. She mocks his pretty lame insults, and suggests that "Maybe a dictionary will help you!" Since it's being described on this page... And a reference to the sticks and stones bit too: "Your words have hurt me."
• Title Drop: Here.
• Toilet Humor: Pooter's Ice Cream keeps accidentally falling into this, making the customers extremely hesitant to eat there, despite the fact that the place is apparently perfectly health code compliant.
• Took the Wife's Name: The Oven family's surname came from Sydney. Joseph changed his when they married. The reason is quoted below:
  Joseph Oven: I mean, my last name was Brungster! I couldn't subject my kids to that with a clean conscience.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Homeowner's association at it again? Though surprisingly that specific one is directed at Bud's parents rather than the kids.
• Trade Snark: Mommy Relaxation Time™
• Unfazed Everyman: Soren excels at this.
• The Un-Smile: Used to great effect here.
• Unwanted Assistance: Ursula's speciality, demonstrated especially during the Fall Festival.
• Villain Episode: The comic has two Villain-centric story arcs. Though it is the main cast playing villain.
• Wall of Blather:
  • An example.
  • Another.
• Wall of Text: Played for Laughs. It happens whenever Suzette goes into a rant (could be about anything from her Straw Feminist philosophies to someone forgetting her name and believing it to be snobbery) It also uses Wall of Blather.
• Water Guns and Balloons: The first major arc was a "boys vs. girls" water balloon war.
• We Can Rule Together: More than once.
  • Di-Va (Dionne) tries to recruit Jacob in this strip and this strip (both are rife with Double Entendre).
  • Bud to Colleen here.
• Welcome to the Big City:
  • Ursula meeting the Sapphire Lake kids.
  • Also, Tiffany meets the Internet.
• White Void Room: Chrispy leaves out backgrounds a lot. It's not as much of an issue in the strips that are in color, though.
• Who's on First?: Crops up whenever Kaitlyn Hu (or her family) is mentioned. Lampshaded in the strip "Hu's on first".
• World of Mammals: Exaggerated, it's only dogs and cats that are anthropomorphic here.
• Would Hit a Girl: Max is probably the only one who Wouldn't Hit a Girl, and that's more from not wanting to hit anyone. The rest? An early strip shows one detail of the Big Ball of Violence as Bud popping Autumn in the jaw with an uppercut. Even the beauty pageant queen Dionne will dive in when sufficiently angered.

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