
Vegan Artbook is a webcomic started by Priya "Yerdian" Cynthia Kishna. It is presented as a series of strips that focus on "veganism, ethics, the environment, food, peace, love and animals".
Vegan Artbook contains examples of:
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A - E
- Abhorrent Admirer: Many male characters who eat meat Shawn being the most common example are portrayed as predatory creeps who can't comprehend why vegan women are not interested in them
, and get too uncomfortably close to them.
- Ad Hominem:
- The comic often times resorts to mocking omnivores, in order to counter their arguments. With Shawn being a common target, who has been belittled
on various occasions for sometimes bringing up legitimate points against the protagonists' stances
.
- On the flipside, they then project this flaw onto ominvores
, including Shawn.
- The comic often times resorts to mocking omnivores, in order to counter their arguments. With Shawn being a common target, who has been belittled
- Aerith and Bob: You've got names like Mike, Shawn, Wendy, and Rohit...or Sterk, Dashling/Dazz Ling, Plausibell and Cuntons.
- All-Loving Hero: The narrative's portrayal of the vegans is supposed to be this, especially Brie/Plausibell, Mike, and Legua, who are often cited as being the most compassionate and loving of the protagonists. However, any reader who isn't already in agreement with the comic's message is likely to conclude that their so-called kindness is restricted to people who agree with them and animal species that are widely farmed for food.
- Animal Wrongs Group: The vegan protagonists, despite decrying eating meat as "needless violence," have no problem advocating violence
against and even outright murdering
anyone who's not vegan.
- Animals Not to Scale: The animals drawn in the comics are way smaller than their real counterparts, especially the cows and pigs, who are chibified in order to make the omnivore characters look heinous for eating them.
- Animesque: It has an anime-like style, but Yerdian toned it down in order to make it appealing to a general audience.
- Anthropomorphic Food: In some comics, plants are depicted as anthropomorphic
to ridicule the concept of plant perception.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The character of Scourge is supposed to be the personification of the meat industry, which he even gleefully gloats about.
- Appeal to Nature: One common argument given by the "carnists" against the vegans is that eating meat is natural due to carnivores doing it, with the vegans responding that just because it's natural doesn't mean it's ethical and that nothing about factory farming is natural
◊.
- Appeal to Tradition: The omnivore characters also point out that humans have been eating meat for a long time and that there is nothing wrong with that. The common retort is to equate meat eating with past barbaric behavior and say that humans should move on from it
.
- Appeal to Worse Problems: The omnivores sometimes argue that vegans should be concerned with other problems of the world rather than animal abuse. This is seen as trying to bring up irrelevant issues
to distract from the subject.
- Art Evolution: Starting with her title, Pupa Vegan, the comic shifts to a simpler and less colored art style
that keeps the
Animesque look to it. The reason for this change was that Yerdian said her followers preferred this style over the previous, which they found to be too girly.
- Art Shift: Sometimes switches to a more realistic style.
- Ass Shove: In this
strip, Shawn somehow manages to simultaneously hide his head in the sand and stick it up his own butt.
- Asshole Victim:
- Whenever a character who eats meat (most commonly faceless and Shawn) gets attacked or even murdered, the comic portrays them as assholes getting what's coming to them for not being vegan.
- After Shawn states that veganism isn't the pinnacle of animal welfare, Sterk in response ignores pleas for help from the vegan characters. As a result, everyone beats up Shawn for his inaction. This is not seen as wrong, because Shawn is a "carnist" and it's supposed be shown as him getting what's coming to him. Even worse, is the fact that Sterk later all but stated he deliberately didn't help so that his friends could pummel him.
- Author Appeal: The vegan lifestyle.
- There are also a lot of video game references: see the Shout-Out section.
- Author Avatar: Both Legua and Brie/Plausibell, to some extent. Legua shares Yerdian's ethnicity and looks somewhat like a stylized version of her. Brie/Plausibell, however, is Yerdian's usual mouthpiece; additionally, Cuntons stalking and harassing her in an attempt to silence her is based on Yerdian's account of a conflict
between herself and a critic.
- Author Filibuster: Every few pages the comic will just stop so Yerdian can draw cute farm animals
and overlay them with text spelling out her beliefs.
- Ax-Crazy:
- Expect every meat eater to be depicted as a deranged lunatic at some point, due to the fact that the vegans and Yerdian believe that killing animals for meat is inherently bloodthirsty.
- Sterk is a very interesting example, in that he will kill a "carnist" at the drop of a hat. Special mention to when he killed a rich farmer's wife and son after the farmer claimed he treated his animals like family. Thing is, he never raises his voice or anything when he does this. He is just eerily calm and controlled.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Since this is an Author Tract comic that promotes veganism and strongly condemns other lifestyles, anyone who kills and eats animals (or just uses animal products) is portrayed as evil. There are many times that Shawn and the other omnivores are seen brandishing a knife before killing an animal
in order to hammer in the perception.
- Bedlam House: Lilith kicks Shawn into one
-where Alice and Maura are housed as well, when he makes a smart remark about a vegan expose of the animal industry making him hungry.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Frequently invoked when it comes to the subject of artificially inseminating cows
in order to produce milk, which is (erroneously) labeled as being rape.
- The Bet:
- Shawn has made bets with the vegan protagonists when it comes the topic of meat vs vegetables. He invariably comes out making a fool of himself in the end.
- Averted in one case
, where he makes one with Cherry, on which diet can survive the best in the woods. However, she rejects it, and deflects to make up her own challenge that she deems relevant, without considering what her brother said.
- Big Eater: Shawn, among the original main cast. Mike's younger brother, Tommy, as well, due to his mother constantly feeding him junk food.
- Bilingual Bonus: The headband that Lilith wears in the Pupa Vegan comics has the Hindi symbol for "die", which is a Mythology Gag to her original characterization in Yerdian's first story with her.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- In Yerdian's narrative, "humane" meat is luring animals into thinking you're their friends then slaughtering them
.
- In Yerdian's narrative, "humane" meat is luring animals into thinking you're their friends then slaughtering them
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: This is the strip's view of labeling organic farming as humane slaughter
. It is seen as being Not So Different in principle from factory farming.
- Blank White Eyes: Used when "misinformed" omnivores say something allegedly wrongheaded.
- Blue and Orange Morality: From the series' perspective, our "carnist" society
is viewed as selectively compassionate to animals
for not treating them as equal to human beings and justifying humane slaughter .
- Bowdlerise: After hearing complaints about how Shawn was Mistaken for Gay by his sister, Yerdian changed it to her dissing him as doing
Cruella De Vil cosplay
. However, the Fridge Logic then sets in on why Shawn would be that insulted by being compared to Cruella, since the comic takes pride in him being a loud critic of his sister's veganism and it would make more sense for him to take it as a compliment.
- Broken Aesop: Many examples:
- The series continually denounces killing animals for meat is violent, but the protagonists often times have been shown willing to hurt (in Sterk's case, kill) people who disagree with them.
- Has frequently talked about how animals tend to practice pretty horrific actions, then goes back to its typical message about being compassionate towards animals and scornful of humans.
- Brie/Plausibell is supposed to live by the motto of "Live and Let Live", however, every time her brother Shawn gives her the opportunity to tolerate each other's lifestyles she rejects his offer and refuses to see eye to eye with him or any other non-vegan, due to believing that respecting the right to eat meat is equal to supporting victimizing animals. The narrative treats this hypocrisy as adhering to her views, and frames Shawn as being "anti-vegan."
- The author continually advocates against bodyshaming, and often depicts Shawn engaging in making fun of those who are thin or fat. However, she portrays pre-redesign Cuntons and Tommytwo of the three recurring characters who are overweightas grotesque, and implies that their girth is due to eating meat. Even her positively-portrayed vegan Fat Girl character, Mike, is a junk-food junkie (which can be seen as enforcing stereotypes about fat people being obsessed with food) whose weight is attributed to what her mother fed her before she went vegan.
- The characters and narrative speak out against the evils of bigotry, while displaying disgust for anyone who isn't vegan, callously comparing farming to the greatest atrocities in human history like the Holocaust and slavery, objectifying women to spread an anti-meat message, and using sexual orientation as an insult. Even worse is the fact that they compare animal rights issues to sexism and racism, due to the fact that both prejudices have been historically rooted in comparing the marginalized to prey animals to justify their oppression, mistreatment, and dehumanization.
- Killing and eating animals is decried as preying on the weak and defenseless
, however, this doesn't stop stronger vegans like Rohit from beating up on weaker non-vegans in order to make a point
or misplace their anger on them
◊.
- Yerdian preaches a lot about compassion and nonviolenceof which she sees veganism as the pinnacleand condemns omnivores for allegedly being violent and callous. It falls flat when she also endorses
Gary Yourofsky, a man who's infamous
for unabashedly advocating violence (including rape as punishment for wearing fur) against everyone who's not vegan.
- One of the main messages of the series is how animal agriculture or hunting is inherently cruel and abusive. But support forcing inherently carnivorous species to go vegan, which can actually be seen as an abusive practice due to how dangerous it can be to them
.
- In addition, it also contradicts the message about how people shouldn't force their wills on animals. In this case, the vegans are forcing animals to comply with their lifestyle, even if it can possibly harm them.
- When called out on the vegans' many assaults and murders, Yerdian excuses them as being fictional, and therefore no big deal. Yet when a non-vegan does something harmful, it's treated exactly as heinous as it would be in real life.
- Her "Evolution of Man" comic blows its Aesop by showing the human in the "Good" version of evolution wielding a spear.
- Brown Bag Mask : In a strip featuring a self-insert of herself, Yerdian finds old work she made before she became a vegan
. She gets so flustered about younger self's "absurd justifications" that she hides her face under one in shame.
- The Bus Came Back:
- After not appearing for a while, a silhouette
of what looks like Cuntons shows up in a strip that talks about Yerdian's encounter with trolls and her stalker.
- Sterk comes back into the series
after not appearing at all in the Vegventures comics, due to a popularity poll where the majority of fans chose him to be brought back.
- The purple edition sees the return of Lilith, after only appearing once in Vegventures, sporting a
new look.
- The faceless vegans that were regularly used in Vegan Artbook and Vegventures disappeared in the early Pupa Vegan comics. They eventually come back in Pupa Vegan Purple.
- After not appearing for a while, a silhouette
- Butt-Monkey: Dolly was sometimes this when she was an omnivore, but that status disappeared after she officially become completely vegan (and not a moment earlier.)
- Captain Obvious: Invoked by the guest character, Erik, who says "Animals are slaughtered so people can eat meat" in order for the narrative to make a point about vegan stances being considered propaganda
.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Literally every omnivorenamed or otherwisein the comic is portrayed as an evil, sadistic victimizer who openly gloats about abusing animals
◊. The most exaggerated example is Scourge,a personification of the meat industry, who is portrayed as a grim reaper like figure who continually gloats about how he likes to thrive off the misery of animals and brainwash people into accepting his "propaganda" about meat.
- Catchphrase: For the Anti-Vegans, it's "Mmmm, bacon", "Plants, Tho", or "Lions tho".
- Character Development: Dolly starts out as a "carnist" character, but through spending time learning about veganism from Brie and the others, she becomes a vegan.
- Characterization Marches On: According to
Yerdian, she changed Brie/Plausibell from being sarcastic in order to make her more peaceful, kind, and gentle
.
- Children Are Innocent: The vegans and narrative believe that children have an natural empathy towards all animals, until the meat industry brainwashes them with their propaganda and makes them into meat eaters.
- Clucking Funny: Chickens are one of the most common animals featured in the series alongside pigs and cows. Like with the rest of the animals in the series, they are sometimes seen be able to talk, often to spread the series' vegan message
and snark at the omnivores.
- Comical Angry Face: A lot of the non-vegans and Dolly make these kinds of expressions something
offends them
. In the case of Dolly, it's supposed to be seen as righteous anger at non-vegans, while with the former it's supposed to be an example of them lashing out in ignorance.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Poor Shawn. He really should find a better group of friends.
- The Conscience: The vegan characters are portrayed as this for non-vegans
.
- The Conspiracy:
- Expect any evidence thatno matter what one's views may be on farming animalshumans are, in fact, omnivores to be treated
as a conspiracy controlled by the meat and dairy industries.
- The various times Yerdian has
accused
critics of being the sock-puppets or minions of her stalker may count as meta examples. She even believes that said stalker single-handedly created this entire TV Tropes section.
- "Big Pharma" has occasionally been mentioned and denounced for not considering plant based diets a valid treatment for autism.
Doctors who advocate eating meat are also seen as unreliable due to their education having been "heavily subsidized by big Pharma."
- Expect any evidence thatno matter what one's views may be on farming animalshumans are, in fact, omnivores to be treated
- Cool Boat: Shawn and Lilith are seen on one in Pupa Vegan Purple 590
.
- In Pupa Vegan Pink 415
, Bunny and Raziel are seen talking on one as well.
- In Pupa Vegan Pink 415
- Country Matters:
- One of the Straw Loser "carnists" is called "Cuntons". No, seriously.
- When she was still a non-vegan, Dolly called Brie one
, when she showed concern for her health.
- Crapsack World: According to Bongo's twin and by extension all vegans, this is what life is like for livestock
.
- Cruella to Animals:
- Cuntons wears a wolf skin hat because...who knows?
- The use of leather is also treated to this trope
.
- Cult: The "carnist" characters frequently claim that vegans are very cult-like, while the vegans themselves in turn treat omnivory as being a cult
.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Yerdian's fictional counterpart is depicted as one in a strip dedicated to her fifth year as a vegan
, which is used as a sarcastic potshot at her non-vegan critics, who believe that meat is essential to survive.
- Dark Is Evil: The Grim Reaper like character of Scourge is supposed to be a straight example of this in contrast with Sterk, who represents everything Yerdian hates about the meat industry.
- Deadpan Snarker: All the vegans from time to time. Early in the comic, Brie/Plausibell was more sarcastic in the beginning until Yerdian dropped that aspect of her in order to make her nicer.
- Demon Head: Non-vegan characters (and Dolly) frequently make these faces when they get really angry or offended
. Since Dolly is a main protagonist, her anger
is treated as justified, unlike the omnivores.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The same arguments get repeated word-for-word over and over again.
- Depending on the Writer: When it comes to personal stances on factory farming, the omnivore characters can be supportive or against it in favor of organic farming depending on what message the strip is trying to convey.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The comic portrays not being vegan as "senseless violence" that merits violent retaliation. Sterk even seems to believe
that eating animal products is worthy of death.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Controversially invokes imagery and arguments that compares the Holocaust
,prostitution
, and slavery
to animal agriculture.
- In one Pupa Pink strip, we see Bunny being (literally) slathered with praise from nameless omnivores
in a way that feels highly sexual.
- In one Pupa Pink strip, we see Bunny being (literally) slathered with praise from nameless omnivores
- Double Standard: Omnivores are frequently accused of having double standards
when it comes to their treatment of livestock and views on veganism. From the other side of the coin, a lot of critics find that label to fit the protagonists better, due to their morally questionable actions and stances against non-vegans contradicting their supposedly peaceful, tolerant ideals.
- Drama Queen: When Diva explains how she still got an iron deficiency
from doing a vegan diet rightwhich, in Real Life, tends to indicate a limited ability to process non-heme ironshe is dismissed as being overdramatic and admonished by Brie/Plausibell for having not eaten enough iron-rich foods.
- Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe: "Mmm bacon" jokes
are treated as if they were on par with racist, homophobic, and sexist jokes.
From their perspective, it is making fun of animal suffering
.
- Easy Evangelism: Ironically, often times subverted, none of the non-vegans are easily swayed by the vegans' preaching. Even Dolly, who eventually became vegan, took a year before she changed from being a omnivore.
- Eats Babies: Since eating meat is portrayed as being irredeemably evil, slaughtering and/or consuming young animals is treated by the narrative and vegans as on the same level as harming a human baby or child.
- Edutainment Show:
Yerdian states that the purpose of this series is to educate people about veganism. Despite that claim, it is infamous for spreading common vegan myths and misinformation.
- Egomaniac Hunter: Yerdian frames hunting as an act of egotism, anthropocentrism, or both, even going so far as to suicide-bait
management hunters on the grounds that "humans are the most overpopulated and destructive species of all." She dismisses any suggestion that hunting is ever anything except a sadistic blood sport centered primarily around taking trophies, and views hunters as an entire category
as nothing but poachers with licenses.
- Embarrassing First Name: Lilith hates her real name "Lily", and changed it as a result.
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: In one comic, after Shawn rejects eating some vegan nuggets,the vegan characters use this as an excuse to rudely snatch all the non-meat food from his plate
.
- Enraged by Idiocy: After becoming vegan, Dolly sometimes snaps at "carnist" characters for spouting in her eyes ignorant statements that are meant to refute veganism
or portray vegans as hypocrites
.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Korean Monk guest character is just called "The Korean Monk".
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Though Uncle Pimples is portrayed by the narrative as being evil for being a cattle farmer and justifying his occupation by saying he views his animals like family, he rightfully is distraught when Sterk callously kills his wife and child
in order to make a cruel point about killing livestock for meat. Since he's also Diva and Dolly's uncle- the former works on his farm, he might have a strong relationship with his niece.
- Evil Makes You Ugly:
- Cuntons is pimply, has discolored teeth and jaundiced-looking eyes, and is one of the fattest recurring characters in the strip (although Mike, being the only fat vegan of the lot, is portrayed as cute). All of the above are implied to be the result of eating meat. (As her oddly-shaped nose and buckteeth can't be attributed to that, they're more likely just products of Yerdian's spite).
- Chanel is easier on the eyes than Cuntons, but still buck-toothed and pimply.
- There are also the weird Off-Model ways in which every omnivore in the comic will get drawn at some point or another in order to mock or demonize their position.
- Evil Poacher: As per Egomaniac Hunter above; Yerdian views literally every hunter as such.
- Evil Tastes Good: A common argument by the non-vegan characters is that meat is delicious and sod the consequences.
F - J
- The Faceless: One-shot characters tend to appear as silhouettes.
- Facepalm: Brie/Plausibell sometimes does this in response to comments
made by Shawn.
- Farm Boy: Gender flipped example: Diva works on a farm
owned by her uncle, despite not looking the part for it. Like with Shawn's Lazy Bum characterization, she's never seen working on it onscreen.
- Fat Girl: In contrast with Mike, Cuntons' weight is implied to be the result of a omnivore diet, and she is portrayed as an unkempt slob.
- Fat Slob: Cuntons is the obvious example (see Fat Girl entry above); additionally, Shawn gains weight in one strip as the result of trying to show up Lilith by tripling his meat intake. Both characters, being
omnivores, are portrayed as disgusting and slovenly.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: The characters often times express open disdain for omnivores and people who work in animal agriculture, and treat their lifestyle choice and professions as inherently oppressive
and worthy of contempt at best. Yerdian, in turn, has claimed that vegans' existence exposes "cognitive dissonance" inherent in omnivory, thus making the "carnists" feel somehow threatened.
- Female Angel, Male Demon: Raziel and Sterk; however,except for the halo, both characters have similar design and clothing themes to each other.
- Femme Fatale: Despite having an off-screen boyfriend, Legua has flirted with Shawn a few times...in the interests of trolling or assaulting him a moment later.
- Fictional Counterpart:
- An unflattering caricature of doctor and Internet personality Zubin "Z-Dogg M.D." Damania appears in the series, and is mocked as being
misinformed about veganism.
- A drawn version of an animal rights activist named George Martin
, with whom Yerdian has partnered up, appears in the comics.
- Sonia Sae, the vegan YouTube activist who made her pet fennec fox go vegan, has been featured in her Pupa Vegan strips.
- An unflattering caricature of doctor and Internet personality Zubin "Z-Dogg M.D." Damania appears in the series, and is mocked as being
- Flat Character: Outside of their devotion to veganism and appearances, the vegans in story are often times interchangeable mouth pieces to spew the author's views.
Yerdian says it's deliberate, since it's focused on activism and not character development or story.
- Flower in Her Hair: Wendy is always wearing one in her hair in order to emphasize her status as being a Nature Lover.
- Food Porn: Yerdian sometimes has some pages where she shows some delicious vegan based dishes
or fruits and vegetables
. On the other hand, animal-based products are portrayed as disgusting
.
- For the Evulz: Cuntons/Maura hates wolves just because.
- Friend to All Living Things: The vegans are often times seen surrounded by cutesy farm animals, who they defend from meat eaters.
- Frying Pan of Doom: In one of her self insert comics, Yerdian invokes using one against a caricature of an (alleged) troll
, who gave her rape threats.
- The Fundamentalist: The vegan characters, who vocally (and sometimes even physically) bash people for being meat eaters or working in animal agriculture.
- Fun T-Shirt: Wendy shows off a new t-shirt of her that forms the word "vegan" from the letters of other words
, much to the delight of Brie/Plausibell and the distaste of Diva.
- Fur and Loathing: Anyone who wears fur is morally bankrupt in this universe.
- Gasshole: One splash cover depicts a woman farting
, in order to make an analogy about justifications against giving up meat. (Never mind that not only is eating meat not always elective, but a fart is usually involuntary.)
- Generic Cuteness: All the vegans plus Shawn and Diva.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Dolly and Diva. The former is a hardcore vegan, while the other is an omnivore who works on their uncle's farm. Subverted with Plausibell/Brie and her younger sister, Cherry, who are both vegans and get along with one another.
- Godwin's Law: This comic portrays the meat industry is comparable toif not actually worse
◊ thanthe Holocaust.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Despite Shawn and the other omnivores being at odds with the vegan characters, there are times when they are willing to tolerate one another and hang out together. One example is in an early strip, where Shawn is seen with the vegan characters unwrapping the first prints for the strip
◊.
- Good Victims, Bad Victims: One of the splash covers
portrays those who got an eating disorder from veganism (and had to recover by eating meat) as bad victims who "didn't eat the right alternative sources" and are just craving an "addiction".
- Gorn: The comic is regularly interspersed with photos of skinned carcasses, roadkill, and industrial slaughterhouses, usually overlaid with the usual comparisons of omnivory to genocide. Even when there are no photos, there are the occasional cutesy piglets with knives sticking out of their backs.
- G-Rated Drug: The comic continually treats and calls meat an addiction/ craving
.
- Green-Eyed Monster: In one comic, it shows Shawn is jealous of Legua's unseen love interest, Sanc
.
- Grey and Gray Morality: Despite the narrative trying to make the series into a Black and White Morality setting, the conflict between the vegans and the omnivores is much closer to this. Even though the protagonists being portrayed as virtuous stewards and guardians of all animal kind, they harbor great hatred for anyone who don't share their values and are not above violently attacking others who disagree with them. Likewise, the main antagonists, who are depicted as cackling animal abusing villains with no redeemable traits, often times are seen by non-extreme vegans as being the more tolerant and reasonable faction.
- The Grim Reaper: The character of Scourge is the comic's incarnation of the meat industry and is portrayed as a grim-reaper-like figure, which is even pointed out in his first appearance. He is a straw Card-Carrying Villain who gloats about abusing animals and indoctrinating the masses with "meat propaganda"
.
- Handsome Lech: Shawn tends to perv on Legua, due to the fact that he's had a crush on her before she became a vegan.
- Hate Sink: Most of the omnivores in the comic are portrayed as stupid jerks with no redeeming qualities.
- Hazy Feel Turn: Dolly was originally a "carnist," but later went vegan after a brief interval of fluctuating back and forth between Butt-Monkey (getting mocked by Lilith
◊ for being "merely" vegetarian or accused of "ignorance" for having no energy
when her only available options were rice and ramen) and mouthpiece (stealing Shawn's mushrooms
when he makes the mistake of expressing distaste for "vegan food" while eating them). This is treated like a HeelFace Turn due to the comic's stance on omnivory, but is better defined as this trope in any other context.
- Hell-Bent for Leather: Shawn tried to invoke this trope in order to troll his sister
, but it ended up backfiring on him.
- Herbivores Are Friendly: All common prey animals
(even though pigs and chicken are omnivores) are portrayed as being cute and harmless
with the vegan characters having no issues with going up to themto pet or cuddle them
.
- Hiding Behind Religion: "Carnist" characters often times appeal to religion to justify why it's okay to eat meat
, which is often shot down by vegans as being nonsensical and immoral. Shawn especially, since he's been confirmed to be an atheist
.
- Historical Domain Character: Leonardo da Vinci tells everyone about the future of the murder of animals
.
- Horns of Villainy: Some "carnist" characters, especially Shawn
, are sometimes depicted as having devil horns in order to portray their status as villains. Raziel and Lilith in her redesign, however, are supposed to be a subverted case of this trope, due to being supposedly anti-heroine vegans.
- Humans Are Bastards: The comic portrays humans — especially non-vegans — very negatively. It even claims that humanity is more like a parasite, and believes all animal species would benefit from our absence
.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Invoked on occasion, in order to hammer in the message that eating animal products is stupid
, because of the alleged devastation it causes the planet.
- Idiot Hair: Mike, who has a strand of hair in the shape a heart.
- Ignored Aesop:
- The lessons Shawn learns about veganism never stick.
- Subverted with Dolly, who eventually switched sides.
- Same with Diva, who from her last appearance in the 30 page barn was implied to be considering veganism, but in her next appearance
is still a "carnist".
- Ignored Epiphany: Anytime the non-vegans are dwelling on issues concerning animal abuse, they always reject going vegan as an option, which is treated as this trope.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Non-vegans often bring up the practice of cannibalism, in order to make inane comparisons between it and eating animals for meat
.
- I Resemble That Remark!:
- Commonly used in-comics to argue against the "carnists" claims of not being cruel to animals. Meta-wise, Yerdian claims that the comic is not used to attack people and that vegans are not extreme...then commonly shows strawmen omnivores in many unflattering ways, while her vegan protagonists are not above assaulting or even killing people who disagree with them (and even at their best, they spout dubious arguments).
- The vegans time and again always state that they care about both animals and humans equally, then in one strip Legua outright proclaims that she loves animals more due to interacting with non-vegans like Shawn
.
- Informed Kindness: Brie/Plausibell and Legua are both billed as absolute angels of sweetness and compassion; both can more accurately be described as sanctimonious, mean-spirited, underhanded, and occasionally outright violent the latter's case. While Mike is less insufferable, she's also had her moments.
- Insistent Terminology: The narrative and vegan use certain terms to to describe omnivory and veganism.
- Omnivores are "carnists," and a "frugivore" is a naturally vegan animal.
- The reason why they also keep using unflattering descriptions of non-vegan food
, is due to the belief that they are just telling people what animal products are actually made of and that it's really non-vegans who are using feel good marketing names in order to make them more appealing.
- The characters have been known to sometimes call omnivores "necrovores" and omnivorism "necrovorism"
, due to their disgust at the idea of eating a dead animal.
- The series often insists on labeling fruits and vegetables
as vegan food, when omnivore characters object to eating vegan alternatives to common dairy and meat products, and claims that non-vegans would eat it if wasn't specified as vegan.
- Health-based vegan diets are called "plant based", while ethically-based vegan diets are considered the genuine label.
- Insult Backfire: When Shawn tries to compare Mike to several animals, she converts it into a positive compliment
.
- I Reject Your Reality: The comic as a whole:
- Rejects any notion that humans could possibly be physiological omnivores, and uses faulty information to back up its stance that humans are naturally "frugivores."
- Dismisses out of hand any suggestion that the environmental impact of industrial agriculture might not, in fact, be inextricably connected specifically to farming animals (and uses outdated, erroneous, or openly biased sources to "prove" this).
- Insists that the concept of the "food chain" was "devised so that we can make our exploitation of animals look as though it has some basis in the natural world." (The
more current and accurate "food web" is never used or acknowledged.)
- Treats the concept of plant perception (a topic of active discussion among botanists) as nothing but a deflection tactic from "ignorant" people who just want to keep eating meat.
- Claims that any doctor (Zubin "Z-Dogg M.D." Damania, who criticized What The Health, for one) who discourages (or even doesn't push) veganism doesn't know what they're talking about.
- Strongly against the concept and term "animal welfare"
, due to believing it's just a label to make people feel better about themselves instead of actually helping animals.
- Irrational Hatred: The comic narrative has claimed
, several times over, that veganism exposes the "cognitive dissonance" inherent in killing animals for meat, resulting in "carnists" feeling offended and threatened by vegans' very existence. Conversely, what any reader who's not an extremist vegan sees is the vegan characters trying to nonsensically tie all of the world's problems back to the meat industry, and bashing all meat eaters as irredeemably evil. They hold animal farmers and slaughterhouse workers in particular contempt, demonizing them as twisted, sick, and sadistic
.
- I'm Standing Right Here: In Pupa Vegan Purple 651
,
Cherry ponders ,after hearing the featured quote by Leonardo, if she is hanging out with with "future criminals" (aka omnivores), while Shawn,Diva, and Bindiya are standing right in front of her looking justifiably pissed.
- Insult to Rocks: In Pupa Vegan comic 330, Yerdian says how many negative aspects
attributed to animals (like pigs, snakes, sheep, and vermin) can better describe humanity.
- I Take Offense to That Last One!: Mike feels complimented when Shawn compares her to a cow, pig, and even worm, but when he tells her she is the most human person he knew, she then puts on her scariest Nightmare Face and chucks her tea at him
.
- It's All About Me: As seen in the page image, Yerdian repeatedly accuses "carnists" of being egocentric
for their reasons
behind eating meat.
- Jerkass: The intended default portrayal of all of the omnivore characters, which plays into the series' notion that you can't be a good person and eat meat. However,despite how the author tries to depict them as the opposite, all of the vegan characters come off as an unintentional example of this trope.
- Jerkass Ball:
- Although Mike is one of the nicer protagonists, she does have moments where she can be just as mean to Shawn as the others. The two most prominent examples are stealing Shawn's fries when he refuses to eat fake meat
, joining her friends in beating him up after Sterk uses him as an excuse to be apathetic
, and scalding him with tea
for calling her "human."
- Although Mike is one of the nicer protagonists, she does have moments where she can be just as mean to Shawn as the others. The two most prominent examples are stealing Shawn's fries when he refuses to eat fake meat
- Jerk Justifications: Anytime that omnivore characters give a justification for eating meat and supporting non-factory animal agriculture
, it will be treated as enabling animal abuse.
K - O
- Karma Houdini: The vegans never get punished at all for how they treat non-vegans, due to to the fact that their actions and behavior aren't ever treated as wrong by the narrative.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover:
- Subverted with Cuntons/Maura, whose old character page says she loves cats (even though she is never shown interacting with any). However, the overall narrative treats this trait as an example of her not being a true animal lover because she eats meat.
- On the vegan side, Rohit owns a white cat, while how kind he actually is considered debatable.
- Knife Nut: The faceless and named "carnists" are shown wielding knives over animals
with a psychotic smile on their faces, in order to hammer in the message that killing animals for meat is sadistic.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The "carnists" are often treated as being this by Yerdian. However, the vegan protagonistswho spout inaccurate, outdated, and biased information that has little backing from legitimate sourceswould seem to more accurately represent the trope.
- Lack of Empathy: The "carnists" are regularly accused by the vegan protagonists (and the narrative) as lacking any empathy for the animals they eat. On the other hand, the vegans (and the narrative) seem to not care about non-vegans and the reasons why they're not vegan...which apparently include allergies, the inability to properly absorb non-heme iron, and lack of access to vegan prodcuts.
- Lame Excuse: The narrative and vegan characters treats any arguments for omnivorism as being this, due to believing it's based on a victimizer mindset
.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Aside from the comic in which the vegans rough up Shawn over Sterk's apathy, there's another in which Legua tells Shawn that Dolly is vegan
(which, at the time, isn't true). Shawn proceeds to boast about how he can tell, because Dolly is flat-chested and sickly-looking. Legua then admits that she was lying...only for Dolly to show up and clobber Shawn for insulting her. What the reader is apparently intended to get from both of these is that Shawn lost the argument.
- It happens again with Shawn, when he boasts that "vegans are weak"
and Dolly suggests that they do a friendly boxing competition, which he believes is going be between him and her. She then underhandedly calls over Rohit (telling him that Shawn thinks he's weak), then proceeds to knock out
him out with no effort.
- It happens again with Shawn, when he boasts that "vegans are weak"
- Literal Metaphor: Dolly literally finds herself arguing with a wall
, which serves as a straw omnivore stand in.
- Long Neck: Shawn has been shown the ability to stretch his neck out
, in order to stand in for his unwillingness to listen to the "facts" presented by a vegan. The Z-Dogg M.D. caricature also shows the ability to do this when he tries to avoid discussing matters about health education
with Brie/Plausibell.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Of the unintentional kind. There are times when Diva comes off as friendly to the vegans and actually tries to extend a leaf to them or even shows interest in the welfare of animals. One example includes where she actually tries to console Dolly after hearing about the insurance fraud occurrences, then states that meat eaters do care about animals and that she hoped that someone could have rescued the livestock that were burned in the fire
.
- Makeup Is Evil: Diva is usually seen wearing a lot of makeup, and according to one comic it's non-vegan
.
- Manchild: Yerdian depicts anyone who eats dairy as being an overgrown baby who should have outgrown the habit
.
Lilith:"It makes even less sense than a toddler with a beard! Oh wait...those do exist: adult male dairy consumers."
- Manipulative Editing:
- One strip, intended as a rebuke to hunters, features a photo of a dead doe with her dying fawn curled up next to her. When confronted with the fact that the doe was actually roadkilled, Yerdian admitted to having known as much beforehand...but defended her usage of the photo on the grounds that it got her message across and hunting was worse.
- Just like with the dead doe and its dying fawn, Yerdian passes off a malformed fetus, ritualistic killing of halal meat, and a possible outdated photo from thirty years ago as standard practices of a slaughterhouse
◊.
- Another example of Yerdian's manipulative editing, is trying to pass off a sickly cow with an oversized udder as an example of genetic engineering
.
- Meaningful Name:
- Cuntons aka Maura Clemmons. She's not a nice lady.
- Diva, who is often times billed as a drama queen.
- Brie being abruptly renamed "Plausibell" was doubtless intended to invoke this. In light of her being an Author Avatar whose purpose is to spout propaganda, it comes off as quite the opposite.
- Bunny, who is named after a derogatory term for vegans, who tolerate non-vegans consuming and using animal products.
- Meat Versus Veggies: The regular arguments that the vegans and "carnists" get into. Due to the nature of the comic, the vegans' stances are always depicted as being right even when the "carnists" bring up valid or even stronger points.
- Might Makes Right: George Martin regards the notion of man being superior to animals and any justification to use products made from them as adhering to this mindset
.
- Misplaced Retribution:
- In one strip, the vegans beat up Shawn due to Sterk's inaction, due to the latter wanting to make a point about veganism and animal cruelty
. This also serves as a meta example: Despite Sterk all but admitting
to having deliberately provoked the vegans to attack Shawn, the comic frames it as Shawn getting his just deserts.
- Non-vegans who continue to eat meat to get back at rude vegans
are portrayed as taking it out on animals.
- In one strip, the vegans beat up Shawn due to Sterk's inaction, due to the latter wanting to make a point about veganism and animal cruelty
- Mock Meal: Mock meat is frequently brought up in the comics, and it's one of the few cases it's shown in a positive light. The non-vegan characters, especially Shawn, have a great distaste for it and prefer the real stuff.
- Moral Dissonance: The vegans regularly hate on Shawn and other non-vegans for being supposedly cruel to animals, but never call out Sterk for his violent actions against people who disagree with him.
- Moral Event Horizon: So much as thinking about an animal in a way the vegans don't like is pretty much regarded as this in-universe.
- Moral Myopia: Invoked in-universe by the vegans against the "carnists", who they accuse of having selective compassion against animals and say they only care about cruelty when they are not responsible for it
. Conversely, the vegans are always upset when a "carnist" character appears violent to an animal, but feel self-justified in hurting people to make a point about their views.
- Mr. Fanservice: Rohit, a vegan bodybuilder, who often wears sleeveless shirts which expose his well-toned muscles.
- Legua's off-screen Love Interest Sanctuar, who's portrayed in auxiliary art as shirtless and well-muscled.
- Nature Is Not Nice: Oddly enough this comic has done this, when comparing the eating of meat to a list of horrific things
◊ (such as rape, killing rival males or their own offspring, stealing from each other, and living in trees and caves) that animals do. But then, it contradicts itself with its typical message of compassion towards animals and scorn for humans.
- Nice Girl: Brie/Plausibell, Legua, and Mike are supposed to fit this archetype, with the emphasis on their refusal to eat meat and their love for animals. However, to anyone who doesn't share the same views as the comics, they come as judgmental hypocrites, who are selectively compassionate towards people who are in agreement with them, dogmatically shove their views down people's throats, and show no sympathy or empathy for non-vegans. In the case of Legua and Mike, they have also shown to be willing to commit violence in order to prove a point.
- Nightmare Face: Mike makes one when Shawn calls her one of the most human person he knew
.
- Dolly has on various occasions made some nightmarish faces when she gets enraged
at people who tick her off
.
- Dolly has on various occasions made some nightmarish faces when she gets enraged
- No Fourth Wall: It happens very often, especially after Priya made a drawn version of herself that regularly interacts with the cast. In one strip, Bindiya berates Yerdian for changing the logo in the middle of the book
.
- Noodle People: When a straw omnivore is being depicted as a simpleton or over-reacting, they go noodly.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Many omnivore males are depicted as predatory creeps
, who get too close for comfort to vegan women
who want nothing to do with them.
- No Sympathy: In one three part comic focusing on two bulls in Germany who escaped from a truck and got shot by the police, the narrative blames the whole situation on omnivores and frames the world going vegan
as the only way to prevent further scenarios like this. The calves, meanwhile, are depicted as innocent victims seeking freedom; the danger that they could have posed to those around them
is Hand Waved aside as a non-issue.
"Even if the animals had injured someone (out of self-defense) while fighting for their freedom...who could blame them for wanting to stay alive? It's not their fault, but that of meat eaters!"- In contrast with a later strip about the Boxtel protest
, where many animal activists set up shop to protest the alleged abuses at the farm. While Lulu takes the group's account at their word and shows sympathy for the pigs, Bunny on the other hand feels sorry more for the farmer and this is treated in-universe as myopic by the narrative.
- In contrast with a later strip about the Boxtel protest
- No True Scotsman: In the eyes of the author, no true environmentalist can be a meat eater
. She's also insinuated that vegans who don't proselytize or tolerate animal products aren't genuine.
- This also coincides with the belief that ex-vegans were never real vegans in the first place
.
- In addition, she also believes that spiritual non-vegans are hypocrites and fakes
.
- This also coincides with the belief that ex-vegans were never real vegans in the first place
- Not So Different: Even though the narrative tries to paint Brie as being morally better than her "carnist" brother, Shawn, she has shown she can be just as smug and rude as him on many occasions.
- No, You: A common type of comeback that the vegan characters resort to when omnivores criticize certain issues or viewpoints on veganism.
- Nutritional Nightmare: Any omnivorous junk food is presented this way, in order to depict how inherently unhealthy animal products are. Predictably, this is averted when designated vegan junk food is shown.
- Off-Model: Expect any character who's not a vegan toat some point or anotherbe drawn either in a wobbly distorted fashion
to indicate that they're silly and irrational, or with
sharkish or vampirish teeth and glowing red eyes to indicate that they're downright evil. (The vegans will also sometimes be drawn in that latter fashion, to indicate righteous fury.)
- Only Friend: According to a past character page, the only person who is willing to befriend Sterk is Legua. Although in-comic he comes off as more of an Informed Loner, due to the fact that none of the vegan main characters have any problem approaching him.
- Only Sane Man: Shawn and all the omnivore characters come off as this, due to often times having more sound arguments in their cases and not subscribing to the extreme ideology of the vegan characters.
- Only Six Faces: Thanks to the chibi-esque style.
- Oral Fixation: Sanc, Legua's offscreen love interest, is often seen chewing on a piece of straw in side art
.
- Raziel always has a lollipop in her mouth
whenever she appears.
- Raziel always has a lollipop in her mouth
- Ostrich Head Hiding: Shawn does an odd combination of this and sticking his head up his own butt in in one strip
, in order to depict him as trying to remain ignorant as his sister lectures him about eating fish.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Although Shawn has been shown in the past to object to killing people and pets, in Pupavegan comic 319
he murders a disabled person along with some dogs and cat in order to prove to Azusa he's consistent with killing lesser beings. This comes out of nowhere due to the fact that Shawn as been portrayed as a pathetic Butt-Monkey, who is all talk but no game and is easily beaten by everyone.
- Out of Focus: Depending on the book, some characters are not featured at all. For example, Cuntons, Dashling/Dazz Ling,and Sterk, who were common recurring characters in the Vegan Artbook comics, have been mostly absent from the rest of the series, though Sterk came back for Pupa Vegan. In addition, Chanel and Legua, despite appearing in Vegventures, have yet to appear in Pupa Vegan. Lilith who appeared frequently in Vegan Artbook and only appeared in one strip in Vegventures, finally came back in the purple edition of the Pupa Vegan series. Likewise, Raziel, who was absence for an early part of the Pupa Vegan comics comes back in Pupa Vegan Pink and Black.
P - T
- Parental Abandonment: As it turns out, Plausibell, Shawn, and Cherry's dad abandoned the family, left with a younger woman, and put them into debt.
- Personal Horror: Anytime an omnivore character points out that vegans view them as bad people
, the protagonists smugly claim that they never do that and it's only the "carnists" who are labeling themselves evil
, which is supposed to show that it's the result of their guilt due to having cognitive dissonance towards killing animals for meat.
- Pet the Dog: Cuntons/Maura loves her pets. Though Yerdian argues this love doesn't really exist because Cuntons/Maura isn't a vegan.
- Given how much of a Jerkass and unsympathetic to meat eaters she can be, it is surprising to see Dolly be concerned over Shawn when he's knocked out by Rohit
, even though she set him up to fight him in the first place.
- Given how much of a Jerkass and unsympathetic to meat eaters she can be, it is surprising to see Dolly be concerned over Shawn when he's knocked out by Rohit
- Pimp Duds: Uncle Pimples dressed up like this
in order to compare the meat industry to slavery and exploitation of sex workers.
- Playing the Victim Card: Yerdian believes this about omnivores
and their defense of meat. Considering, however, how her mouthpiece characters constantly whineand even occasionally cryabout how they have to put up with being criticized for their extreme (and sometimes even violent) stances and interacting with omnivores, it could just as easily be stated to more accurately fit them.
- Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: A downplayed example, is that while the "carnists" can act as rudely as the vegans, they also seem to be more willing to be tolerant of others who make the choice to go vegan
and actually agree with the point about the horrid practices of factory farming
. The vegans on the other hand, who are presented as being the best that humanity can offer, often times treat anyone who eats animals products as the lowest of the low and believe asking them to respect omnivores' choice to eat animals is akin to asking them to stop caring about animals
.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Of the unintentionally insensitive kind. Although they say they promote tolerance and respect for others, they obnoxiously compare the meat industry to the Holocaust
, meat eaters to slavers
, and are not above objectifying women
or using sexual orientation as an insult
in order to get their point across. The first two are exceptionally insensitive, due to the fact that historically oppressed demographics have often been dehumanized and compared to prey animals in order for society to justify their marginalization and mistreatment. Particularly concerning since the artist is a member of a fairly recently historically-oppressed demographic. The only one she acknowledges as being out of line was using sexual orientation as an insult, and changed it as a result
.
- Pool Scene: A variant appears in Pupa Vegan 602
, where instead of a pool, Shawn and Lilith are swimming in a cup of tea.
- Practically Different Generations: After the post age retcon, Plausibell is over a decade older than her younger siblings (Shawn by 10 years; Cherry by 16 years).
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: Any character, who doesn't adhere to the vegan character's extreme beliefs, are treated as unsympathetic villains. Likewise, any vegan is automatically given the sympathetic treatment, even Raziel (who is portrayed as a Misanthrope Supreme, who hates other vegans for being too peaceful) .
- Psychological Projection: Most, if not all, of the complaints and criticism that the vegans have against the "carnists" could better fit them.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil:
- The vegans claim that artificial insemination is comparable to rape, and see the dairy industry as sexually exploiting cattle in order to increase milk production.
- In some of her self-insert comics, she alleges that tons of trolls
have sent her rape threats
, due to her vegan activism.
- However, Gary Yourofsky, an actual rape apologist, is portrayed in a positive light.
- Real Men Eat Meat: Inverted with the vegansespecially Rohit, a bodybuilder
who sees eating meat as cowardly and barbaricbut invoked more than once, in so many words, by Shawn. Which, of course, gets him mocked:
Legua: Then tell me, oh "mighty hunter"...what kind of dipping sauce do you like on your McNuggets? - The Right of a Superior Species: A common defense of omnivorism
is that since humans are the dominant species of the planet,it gives people the right to able to eat other animals, since no other creature has the same level of sapience. The vegans have retorted by saying that humans are the only species which all life on Earth would benefit from the removal of as a retort.
- Ripped from the Headlines:
- A 30-page storyline revolves around the subject of barnfire trends going on in Holland
,with both vegan
and non-vegan
characters reacting to the news. Without any proof, the vegans and the narrative assumes that most of these fires are caused by farmers seeking insurance money due to
their bias against people who work in the animal agriculture business. Due to these assumptions, the farmers are depicted as one-dimensional villains who crackle and relish in the fact that they can make money off of burning their farm down
. They are even depicted as being Karma Houdinis, who are swimming rich in money made from the fire and have other farmers following their lead in order to build brand new farms.
- Before that, there was a 3 paged strip
that focused on two bulls that escaped from a truck and were shot by police. Shawn argues with Dolly that if the bulls were not put down, then a child would have gotten hurt. However, Dolly lacks any sympathy for anyone who could have probably been hurt and believes it wouldn't have happened if the world was vegan
.
- A strip
depicting Diva and Weeb going shopping while listing off items with misnomer names, which ends in the latter crying about how "vegan food" is deceptive when the former brings up "vegan burgers, is based on how legislation is trying to made to make vegan food stop using meat terms for their products.
- In Pupa Vegan Pink, there is a strip that focuses on the Boxtel farm protest, where many animal activist occupied a farm to find any alleged abusive practices
. Lulu is shown (biasedly) telling Bunny the event, and she sympathizes more with the farmer than the animals. There is also real life pictures from the farmer, including photo of a protester named Shakira who is in touch with Yerdian.
- A 30-page storyline revolves around the subject of barnfire trends going on in Holland
- Ron the Death Eater: In-universe: Malon, like many dairy farmers in the series, is demonized
as a heartless card carrying animal exploiter.
- Scare 'em Straight: Tries to do this to non-vegans with (often made up or inaccurate) statistics and real life photographs of animal suffering.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: After Diva goes into a tangent about how veganism isn't manly, Rohit skedaddles out of there
.
- Selective Obliviousness: Yerdian claims that omnivores are willfully ignorant of the environmental damage that she blames on the meat industry
. Which is itself an example on her own part; while some of the statistics in the image are more-or-less accurate, the culprit isn't animal farming but industrial agriculture (which, for all that some vegans may conflate them, are two quite different beasts).
- Sex Sells: Parodied in Pupa Vegan 335
, which is a Shout-Out to a vegan meme.
- Shout-Out:
- A splash page
has a picture of a cat in Joker make up when discussing the perceived double standards in regards to people's reactions to killing cats and dogs in comparison to farm animals.
- In the bowdlerized version of the leather strip
with Shawn, Brie trolls him by saying if he's trying to do Cruella cosplay.
- Grass Pokemon and Piranha Plants appear in a strip with Shawn mocking the idea of plant perception
.
- Scar and Shawn as Mufasa makes an appearance in a
panel
trying to argue that humans are not natural predators.
- Link and Malon show up in an anti-cow milk strip, where the latter is
portrayed as the series's typical depiction of a dairy farmer and tells the former the vegan propagandized version of how milk is obtained on an organic farm.
- Mike mentions Hannibal when ridiculing the idea that meat eaters can truly love animals
.
- In Pupa Vegan Comic 332
, the butcher ,that Shawn pays to kill a cow, bears a strong resemblance to Leatherface.
- A splash page
- Sibling Yin-Yang:
- Shawn and Brie. Shawn is a hardcore omnivore with a love for bacon, while Brie/Plausibell is a vocal vegan with a distaste for any kind of meat. On a character-design levelwhile they do have some visual elements such as blondness in commonShawn is a spiky-haired boy who tends to dress casually, while Brie/Plausibell is a neatly-coiffed girl who seems to never wear anything except fancy dresses.
- Also when it comes to personal views: Shawn is actually the more tolerant sibling, supporting a "live and let live" situation when it comes to different dietary preferences; the narrative frames him as a horrible, egocentric Jerkass who irrationally hates vegans. By contrast, Brie/Plausibellwho is treated by the narrative as a virtuous angel who serves the greater good and can do no wrongconsiders it her right if not her duty
to harass and dogmatize at anyone who's not vegan, and actually does seem to irrationally hate omnivores.
- Sickening Slaughterhouse: A common tactic of the series to is show (misleading or even outdated) photos
◊ of slaughterhouses in order to demonize the animal agriculture industry and anyone who works in it.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Being what the series is, any vegan woman is seen pining for a vegan man
due to the belief that veganism equals goodness.
- This is the reason why Legua isn't interested at all in Shawn after becoming vegan, due to seeing him as a "speciesist asshole"
◊.
- This is the reason why Legua isn't interested at all in Shawn after becoming vegan, due to seeing him as a "speciesist asshole"
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: In general, the "carnists" and the vegans tend to treat each other as this, due to their opposite stances on omnivorism. For a more individual example, Diva and Lilith tend to but heads with each other
, with the former having a great distaste for the latter due to her sarcastic attitude.
- Skewed Priorities: According to the narrative, all "carnists" care more about their taste buds and self-pleasure rather than the supposed danger and destruction that comes from the meat industry.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: For the vegans, they see human farming as the moral equivalent of slavery and have compared themselves to the abolitionists who advocated for slaves
.
- Sleazy Politician: Discussed in one strip
by grouping them in with cavemen and lions in order to criticize some arguments for eating meat.
- Smarter Than You Look: An unintentional meta case with the omnivore characters, especially Shawn, who are ridiculed as being ignorant and misinformed about every topic that is discussed in the series, but are actually correct. Inverted for the vegan protagonists, who are always treated as being right and educated on the subject matter, when in reality they spout tons of misleading information that have little basis in facts or are cherry picked to fit their stances.
- Smoking Is Not Cool: In one strip, it depicts Shawn as having a nonchalant attitude towards a guy with a smoking habit
,but freaks out about his health when he goes vegan.
- Smug Smiler: Both sides can be seen smugly smirking, with the most prevalent ones being Shawn and Dolly.
- Smug Snake:
- Shawn tends to be smirking at the start of his appearances.
- Dolly comes off as this the most, especially when she's insulting or replying to carnists.
- The Social Darwinist: The vegans believe that omnivores promote preying on the defenseless and weak
due to eating meat.
- Stepford Smiler: On one page, Legua puts up a (literal) fake smile after secretly crying about animals being slaughtered, while Diva was talking about what she had to eat recently
.
- Strawman Emotional: Both sides have accused one of another of basing their arguments on emotions
,with the narrative siding with vegans by making it (falsely) seem like they are they only ones bringing up logical stances in contrast with how "carnists" just argue how they don't want to give up bacon.
- Strawman Fallacy: Big time. One the main reasons why the omnivores always lose against the vegans, is due being terrible debaters whose positions are deliberately misconstrued by the narrative in order to make them sound illogical, hypocritical, or like Card Carrying Villain.
- Straw Hypocrite: All omnivores, especially Shawn, are always portrayed as (supposedly) hypocritical when it comes to anti-vegan stances
.
- Straw Loser: Anyone who doesn't agree 100% with Brie/Plausibell and the other vegans. Even vegetarians and farmers that practice humane methods (in fact, Yerdian vehemently denies the existence of the latter) aren't safe.
- Sudden Name Change:
- Brie was changed to Plausibell in Pupa Vegan. One wonders if it had anything to do with her originally having been named after a type of cheese.
- Downplayed. Dashling was given the more punny name
Dazz Ling.
- Sugar Apocalypse: The cutesy,Animesque artstyle is contrasted with bloody imagery of real-life
and cartoon animals
being slaughtered.
- Supreme Chef: Dashling/Dazz Ling, who cooks organic vegan meals that cater to every known food allergy and "[make] even hardcore carnists like Shawn succumb".
- Brie/Plausibell as well, who is said to love cooking and making cakes, and brings her own homemade vegan cupcakes to school.
- Surrounded by Idiots: The vegans towards the "carnists", who they see as childish buffoons lacking in "logically
good arguments
" for eating meat
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Chanel and Tommy for the now-mostly-absent Cuntons (both also being omnivores who are portrayed as unhealthy as a result); Diva for pre-Hazy Feel Turn Dolly (or, at least, the claim that she "struggles with cognitive dissonance" over being an omnivore has carried over from her sister).
- Take That!: The comic never wastes a minute to give out pot shots against omnivores
and animal agriculture.
- Pupa Vegan Pink is dedicated to bashing "apologetic" vegans
, who don't preach to non-vegans and allow them to eat animal products.
- Pupa Vegan Pink is dedicated to bashing "apologetic" vegans
- Take That, Critics!: There has often times been ugly caricatures of the series' critics that have shown up, which includes Cuntons, who is supposed to be based on one of them. They are often times depicted as Card Carrying Villains who love hurting animals For the Evulz or willfully ignorant to any suffering said to be caused by animal agriculture.
- Talking Animal: A lot of background animals are shown to able to speak in order to state vegan morals and to humanize them.
- Tears of Fear: Any drawn animal is seen crying before they are slaughtered
, in order to drill in the notion that killing animals for meat is cruel.
- Teens Are Monsters: Chanel, Diva, and especially Shawn are this in the narrative's eyes, due to being "unapologetically" non-vegans.
- Tender Tears: How it's presented whenever Legua, Brie/Plausibell, Mike,and Dolly tear up when languishing about how animals are killed for food.
- Think of the Children!: In one strip, Dolly invokes this when confronting a nameless non-vegan by (falsely) stating that animal agriculture is the leading cause of all ecological issues in the world-after he stated that his children mean more than bacon-and that people must go vegan so that their children can have a future
. Of course, he changes his stance to bacon to make it look he has Skewed Priorities.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Ever since she has become a vegan, Dolly has become just as bad as her friends in being an arrogant, condescending, and self-righteous prick. A notable case is the fact that she lacks any empathy for the people who could have possibly been hurt when a bunch of calves got loose, and shows more sympathy for the escaped cattle. The narrative of course sees it as the opposite example, and never criticizes or even acknowledges her newfound character faults.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Dolly after her conversion to veganism is supposed to be seen as this, due to in her words that she now cares more about animals than her palate
. However, non-extreme vegan readers believe her flaws like her temper haven't changed that much when she became a vegan, and she has actually picked up new ones.
- An invoked downplayed example is Brie/Plausibell, who lost her sarcastic trait due to Yerdian wanting to portray her as a nicer person, which a lot of non-extreme vegan readers think didn't really change her character.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Shawn's is bacon while Diva's is hamburgers, which proves that they're evil. Dolly is stated to love energy drinks (but has only actually been shown drinking fruit juice, milk before she went vegan, and vanilla soymilk after). And Mike likes "vegan junkfood," which seems to mean "French fries stolen from Shawn in order to make a point."
- Troll: In one of her self insert pages, Yerdian depicts herself being bombarded by straw trolls
, who are supposed be based on real-life trolls she's dealt with.
- Troubled, but Cute: Sterk, who fits every criteria of the archetype, although due to his violent tendencies he can be consider a dark version of this type of character.
U - Z
- Unfortunate Names: Of course, the most obvious example is "Cuntons", which used to be Maura Clemmon's fictional self's previous name. Obviously a nasty Take That! at her expense.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: According to Yerdian, a vegan utopia would be worth the deaths of a few "carnist" straw men.
- Veganopia: What this comic thinks the world should and would be if everyone just stopped eating meat. Considering the kind of vegans that appear, it's actually much more likely it would go horribly wrong.
- Vegetarian Carnivore: Jumanji, Sonia Sae's pet fennec fox,
◊ which is kept on a vegan diet, even though its species are obligate carnivores.
- Villainous Glutton: A lot of the omnivorous characters, especially Shawn,are given this treatment by default due to their choice of diet. They often times display multiple Jabba Table Manners, and are willing to eat anything non-vegan no matter
how disgusting it is.
- Wall of Text: In some strips the vegan characters go on a tangent on a certain subject relating to veganism, ominvorism, or animal products, which is even lampshaded by Shawn
on one page.
- The War on Straw: The confrontations between the vegans and "carnists" never go further than the latter yelling something stupid then being made to look even moreso when the former calmly puts them in their place.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The best thing you can say about the often insufferable (or just outright murderous) protagonists is they're this.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The vegans and the narrative believe in the concept that all "sentient beings"
,including animals, should be treated as equals. Which is a viewpoint not shared by the omnivore antagonists of the series, and are labeled "speciest" for putting human life above animal life.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Cherry, Shawn and Brie/Plausibell's sister, is mentioned on her character profile to be "bright for her age". However, since she's one of the vegan characters, it's more like she's treated as being smart by the narrative, but is really a Know-Nothing Know-It-All like her sister and friends.
- Work Info Title: The comic can be considered a collection of art if you like it, and the creator has published several books of it.
- World of Jerkass: From the eyes of anyone who is a non-extreme vegan, the strip can come off as this. Despite being praised as being compassionate animal lovers, the main protagonists come off as an unlikable intolerant lot, who have a great hatred for anyone who is an omnivore. They are often seen aggressively preaching, ridiculing, and even committing acts of violence against them. However, the narrative wants the reader to make it seem that the problem with the world are the non-vegans, since they support animal slaughter, hence it goes out of it's way to try to portray them as being amoral as possible.
- Writer on Board: Completely. The vegans are really no more than mouthpieces for Yerdian and the "carnists" her critics.
- X Called; They Want Their Y Back: Dolly responds to Shawn's vegan joke
with "The dark ages called! They want their jokes back!".
- You Are Number 6: As seen in one strip where Brie/Plausibell names a tagged cow Clara
, in order to hammer in the notion that the animal agriculture industry objectifies livestock.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Dolly and Mike have pink hair; Lilith's is bright purple with neon green streaks.
- You're Insane!: A common sentiment and reaction that the vegan characters have towards anyone who eats meat or works in the animal industry.
- You Keep Using That Word: Yerdian's recurring claim
that humans are not omnivores but "frugivores," which she defines as "a naturally vegan animal." Not only does no such creature
exist in nature, but the actual definition
of "frugivore" is "any herbivorous or omnivorous animal for which fruit is a preferred foodstuff."
- Younger Than He Looks: Before he was retconned to be 33 years old
, Rohit was depicted as being only 18
.
- His cousin Legua could pass as a twenty something year old, but her real age is sixteen.
- You Remind Me of X: Brie says this to Diva about herself before she became a vegan, when she asserts that omnivores feel a disconnection between the animals and the meat they consume
.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Sterk seems to be trying to start one.