YMMV / Animator vs. Animation

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Has its own page here.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • The Chosen One spend seven years being besties with the Dark Lord, yet neither have no problem trying to kill the other once their goals don't meet. Similarly, the Chosen One doesn't care at all when the Dark Lord is seemingly killed.
  • All of Minecraft was destroyed by King Orange, but nobody cares when it's all undone: King Orange is Easily Forgiven and everyone moves with no hints of being in any way affected by The End of the World as We Know It.
• Ass Pull:
  • While the ending of AvM Episode 13 is heartwarming, it is rather convenient that the Second Coming ended up in the exact same dimension as the other 4, despite going into a completely different portal. While this isn't impossible, it's still awfully convenient.
  • At the end of "The Showdown", The Dark Lord has killed all of the Second Coming's friends and badly wounded him. It looks like he won but then, the Second Coming gets healed and gains superpowers out of nowhere. He proceeds to kill the Dark Lord, destroy his ViraBots, and resurrect his friends. There are no explanations on how the Second Coming got powers. The closest we have is Alan saying that "something awakened in him".
  • While it is an unbelievably awesome and touching scene, King Orange actually giving a crap about Purple comes out of nowhere with zero foreshadowing, after he betrayed Purple and left him to die just a few episodes later.
• Awesome Music:
  • Note Blocks of the AvM Shorts. Soon after the episode was released, several people commented saying they wanted the song from it to be uploaded separately. They got their wish.
  • The track that plays in "The Showdown", made by Scott Buckley, is so awesome that it feels like it could be in a theatrical movie.
  • The music in "Parkour" has a perfect build-up, with the epicness coming in as time goes on.
  • The remix of "Pigstep" that plays throughout "The Ultimate Weapon", which sets the tone for the stick figures' confrontation against King and Purple.
  • The Warden's village theme that Second Coming plays to the Warden using a makeshift flute well represents what an ancient village theme would've sounded like as well as invoking some emotion due to said village having been destroyed long ago. It gets a stronger remix as the Warden escapes the cave with Second Coming.
    • Honorable mention to the Second Coming playing "Pigstep" to explain to the Warden that King needs to be defeated.
  • The recurring song that plays throughout "Monster School" isn't half bad, especially during the scenes where the Yellow Team shines. It also helps that it's a remix of the original Monster School theme.
  • Pretty much the entirety of "Note Block Universe", but special mention goes to the background music during Purple's backstory.
  • The soundtrack for "The King" has two really noticeable moments:
    • "Herobrine" and "Red Possession", the two-part song that plays during King Orange's fight against Herobrine, is an extremely climactic and orchestral song that showcases the awesomeness of the fight and how powerful the Ghost of Minecraft is.
    • "Purple's Last Stand", a beautiful reprise of "An Emotional Journey" from the previous episode (the song that plays when Purple explains his backstory) that plays during Purple's dying moments and King Orange's Heel Realisation.
• Base-Breaking Character: Bob. Some view his abuse of Green as Black Comedy, others just think it's unfunny and infuriating to see one of the main characters get abused while his Best Friend is oblivious to it all. Him getting his comeuppance in "Bob Is Always There" only made things worse, as while some think it's a line-crossing, hilarious moment of karma, others think it's far too severe for someone who was merely an asshole and that it makes Green weirdly horrible for doing it despite letting worse people get away with less.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Excluding some weirder theories, the majority of the fans immediately - and correctly - guessed that the mysterious grey stick figure from the end of "Wanted" is victim, as soon as they saw him. Suffice to say, "The Box" directly confirming this caused less "Wait, that's victim?!" and more "Good to have this outright said to us".
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Watching the Second Coming beat the living shit out of the Dark Lord was incredibly satisfying, given what he has done, especially killing the Fighting Stick Figures.
  • While the revelations in "The King" might make it easy to root for the villain, it's still satisfying to see Herobrine hand King Orange's ass to him after several episodes of the king getting his way, at least until the latter gets the upper hand again.
• Common Knowledge:
  • After "The Showdown" came out, many fans said that the Second Coming's newly acquired powers are the same as the Chosen One's, even though their only similar powers are super strength and a differently animated Eye Beam while none of their other powers are shared.
  • It's a somewhat-common misconception that King Orange was trying to rescue his still-living son Gold. In reality, Gold died, King Orange knew it, and he was just trying to avenge him.
• Complete Monster: The Dark Lord was created by the Animator with the intent of stopping The Chosen One's attack on his computer, but instead turned against his creator and teamed up with his target to destroy the animator's computer, killing every sapient program in it. Upon escaping into the Internet, the Dark Lord would terrorize and slaughter the citizens of various websites, before creating an army of Computer Viruses with the intentions of destroying as many computers as he could for no particular reason, uncaring of how many programs would die because of it. When the newly-redeemed Chosen One and other stick figures try to stop him, the Dark Lord tries to kill his years-long friend, temporarily kills the Fighting Stick Figures, and brutally injures the Second Coming. Wanting nothing more than to cause as much destruction as possible, the Dark Lord proves himself to be the most ruthless villain of the series.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The Second Coming accidentally killing Green in "PvP"? Sad and tragic. The Second Coming & Blue killing Green again when he surprises them? Hilarious!
  • One in "The Showdown": It's the Darkest Hour, the Fighting Stick Figures are dead, the Animator is locked out, the Chosen One is too tired to fight, the Second Coming is suffering from Body Horror and the Dark Lord is ready to start his invasion of the Internet... but the Twitch chat keeps spamming F's to pay respects.
  • In "Bob Is Always There", the reveal that Green had Bob Buried Alive underneath the desktop, only to show a montage of Bob sitting down there for months to years while old-timey music plays, is so horrifying that it loops around to being hilarious in the worst way possible.
  • In "Piggie Love", Red's pig breeds with his new wife right in front of the audience at their wedding with the only thing shown being the stick figures' horrified reactions.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • The pre-redemption Animator can get hit with this. While he's ultimately evil for the first four entries, it's tempting to excuse his actions, especially in III and IV since he spends most of them on the defensive, ignoring that he caused the problem in the first place by enslaving the Chosen One for four years in III and attacking harmless stick figures just having fun in IV.
  • The Dark Lord is beloved in the fandom despite (or maybe because) his crimes, and many fans make fics and art where he pulls a Heel–Face Turn, whether it's because of AvA V never happening/ending differently, or him just surviving it. While this mostly stops at the "Good Guy Dark Lord" fanfics, where he still ends up a rude and violent Anti-Hero, some fans try to give sympathy towards the canon, irreedemably evil TDL, claiming he's only evil because the Animator simply didn't care about his death: while that is correct, his internet-wide rampage was still caused For the Evulz than because of any Freudian Excuse. Others also try to give another excuse, saying that the Chosen One "betrayed" him (in reality, the Chosen One showed no signs of actual hostility and the Dark Lord was the one that tried to kill him). In extreme cases, some fans even say the Dark Lord is not even evil in the first place, but simply lashing out due to betrayal.
  • Purple and King Orange are three-dimensional villains who pull a Heel–Face Turn, but some fans take it even further than in canon. In general, many fans are ready to forget about Purple's acts, while King Orange's are still remembered by most.
  • Due to his ambiguous nature as a character, Dark Blue is somehow hit with both this and Ron the Death Eater. His more positive interpretations portray him as a father who genuinely tried to help Purple by training him into a warrior, and felt regret after abandoning his family, being portrayed as heartbroken by Pink's death.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • victim, while only appearing in the pilot episode, is loved by the fanbase for being the first stick figure, with many imagining what his return would be like. He officially leaves this area, becoming a major villain in AvA VI.
  • The unnamed stick figure from the Kickstarter campaign video for IV - christened "Kickstarter" by the fanbase - is also surprisingly popular, seemingly because of how strong they are. Many fans wish to see them in the series, despite them being non-canon and dead.
  • Pink and Gold - Purple's mom and King Orange's son, respectively - have more or less taken victim's spot as "one-shot, barely on-screen character who quickly dies but is still beloved by the fans", due to being genuinely nice and meeting tragic ends. Many works portray them sticking around as ghosts, watching over their still-living family while more or less adopting each other the same way King Orange did to Purple.
• Epileptic Trees: While it was largely considered a Captain Obvious Reveal, until "The Box" came out a section of the fanbase tried to argue the Boss is not victim, but the Dark Lord, whose color changed due to being burned and charred by the Second Coming's laser eyes. This theory is officially debunked, and thus largely abandoned by the fanbase.
• Evil Is Cool: Most villains tend to be too cool (or in some cases too bland) to be hated, but a special mention goes out to these ones:
  • The Chosen One is, despite all he's done, extremely awesome due to his powers and stylish fights. Even after his Heel–Face Turn, he remains awesome.
  • The Dark Lord is a complete Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac, but damn you can't hate him for reasons similar to the Chosen One.
  • King Orange is another Omnicidal Maniac, but he's such a good, powerful, threatening and successful villain that you'll spend most of Season 3 admiring him. His tragedy did nothing but help, to the point some fans admit to Rooting for the Empire.
  • The Witch, despite being a one shot character, is incredibly awesome due to her badass fighting skills down to her sword fighting as well as her potion arsenal.
  • The Orb evolved into this status in "Lucky Block Staff", being one of the most unique and powerful antagonists in the series with its One-Winged Angel form.
  • The Mercenaries are four, badass fighters who have quickly become popular in the fanbase thanks to their Non-Standard Character Design. This was actually the Intended Audience Reaction with "Agent", the group's leader, as confirmed by Alan Becker.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The Second Coming is very often referred to as TSC, just Second or, most famously, Orange. The lattermost eventually became an Ascended Fan Nickname. This caused some confusion when we were introduced to another orange stick figure: most fans decided to call him King Orange, which eventually became an Ascended Fan Nickname and the character's official title despite "The Raid" calling him simply King. That said, a certain portion of the fanbase (mostly the one on Tumblr) instead took the name "Mango Tango", based on his color on a hexcode site.
  • Some of the newer fans who didn't know about the series before vs. Minecraft came out refer to the Chosen One as "Black". It's more complicated with the Dark Lord, who is not the only red stick in the series, but he's usually referred to as "Evil Red" or something similar. Even those who do know their names tend to shorten them down to Chosen and Dark. It's also become common to shorten their names to their first letters - TCO and TDL - which also became canon.
  • If the fan-made subtitles of earlier episodes are any indication, the favored name for Red's pet pigs is Reuben, which became semi-canon for the one from Season 3.
  • Sticking with the naming theme, Purple's parents have been referred to as Pink/Orchid and Dark Blue/Navy, the latter being to avoid confusion with the Blue we already know and love. Both Pink and Dark Blue were eventually canonized.
  • Similarly, King's son has been christened to either "Dark Yellow" or "Gold", the latter of which became canon.
  • Between the Chef's harsh perfectionism and his surprising fighting skills, a lot of commenters have taken to calling him Gordon Ramsay.
  • In a weird example of a nickname towing the line between fanon and canon, Alan has stated that the real name of the stick figure world is a secret, but has submitted the name "Outernet" as a placeholder.
  • Every name for the Mercenaries is one, and this was purposefully done as so fans could have fun with their own names. The only exceptions to this are the names DJ gave them (Agent Smith, Bathroom Sign Guy, Poop and Henry Stickmin) - which were stated to not be official, with Alan Becker begging the fans not to use them - and the name "Ballista" for the pixelated one, as that's the name he was given by his original creator (him being a Guest Fighter and all).
  • victim is sometimes called Vic for short. On a more minor note, the huge majority spells the V in uppercase.
  • Before it was called the "Minecraft Game Icon" many fans commonly referred the icon as the "Master Block".
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Anything that is either installed on or connected to Alan's computer has an entire world inside of it with unique inhabitants, rules and challenges. It's practically like Wreck-It Ralph, when one imagines what the personalities of the different programs or the Player Character of the games are and how the stick figures interact with them.
  • Alternatively, the items the stick figures may find in the games are actually capable of changing their abilities, as shown in "Animation vs League of Legends" and "Animation vs. Super Mario Bros.". Anything that the stickfigures haven't touched yet is worthy of speculation. Imagine the stick figures wearing masks that turn them into different Hyrule races, for example.
  • While "Villagers" already confirmed the presence of stick figures on computers apart from Alan's, "Lush Caves" implies that stick figures can travel to computers that don't have pre-existing stick figures on them, and Minecraft works as a method of travel between them. Imagine if the stick figures went on a Multiplayer server or Realms world and visited some of the (probably very confused) players.
• Genius Bonus: The entirety of Animation vs. Math and Animation vs. Physics is one for anyone who is studying or has studied higher math and physics respectively. Give or take a few unpleasant memories.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series has a decently-sized international audience, due to the lack of any sort of dialogue bypassing language barriers. This was more or less exploited by the creator, Alan, as he wanted people around the world to enjoy the series without being forced to know English. There are episodes which feature text dialogue, but this isn't used often and is often limited to one or two scenes when it does get used.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In II, AIM gets killed and the Animator sends it to Heaven; in 'III, he is killed again and stays dead due to the computer's destruction. In October of 2017, it was announced that AIM would shut down for good in December.
  • For those who were agreeing with the Take That! against the annoying ads in Animation vs. YouTube, at least the stick figures and their adversary only had to deal with one skippable ad every few videos. The video has become a product of its time solely due to this, since viewers now have to deal with back-to-back ads (with some reporting getting up to eight unskippable ads in a row) and ads with blatantly explicit content.
  • Once we learn about Purple's abandonment issues in Note Block Universe, him taking it so personally when Green and Blue start handing out materials to his villagers takes on a more tragic meaning.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Some fans think that The Dark Lord survived at the end of "The Showdown". It's mainly because of how powerful he is and that if you look closely, The Second Coming's laser eyes didn't stop at the mountain, leading fans to think that The Dark Lord was blasted far behind the mountain, and didn't die in the explosion. Shrug of God when it comes to his fate only fuels the fans to think this.
  • Despite Word of God explicitly confirming his fate, some fans believe Gold survived the Minecraft simulation crashing.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "Potions", a pig accidentally gains superpowers after drinking every single potion possible and becomes a terrifying fighter. Come Super Smash Bros. Ultimate following the inclusion of Minecraft, you can get a Mii Costume of a Minecraft Pig for the Mii Brawler who fights in a very similar manner.
  • In Blue's New Superpower, one of the gags of Blue scattering dollar bills to grow trees out of has them driving over the ocean. Two years after TeamTrees, the next fundraiser ended up being TeamSeas, with the goal of cleaning plastic out of the ocean.
  • "The Warden" has the Second Coming calm down the Warden by playing it a familiar song. In The Secrets Of Minecraft: How We're Making The Warden, Narrator manages to stop the Warden from attacking him by playing a song on his guitar.
  • In the AvG Reaction video for "The Piglin War", DJ wonders out loud if Blue sprinkles Nether wart in his friends' food when he cooks for them, which Alan doesn't answer. In the Denouement of "The King", Blue does sprinkle Nether Wart on the feast he makes for his friends, but the portions his friends pick up don't have any Nether Wart on them, implying he only sprinkled it on his helping and the answer to DJ's question is no. The answer is confirmed to be No in "The Chef", as when Blue is making ramen for his friends, Nether Wart is nowhere to be seen.
• I Knew It!: After the end of "The Virus" showed that The Chosen One survived, many fans correctly guessed that The Dark Lord is also alive.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Major villains such as the Dark Lord and King Orange, and even the minor ones like the Witch and the Orb, are found way likeable because of their awesome soundtracks and great skills, achieving amazing things larger than life. Other characters, on the other hand, are just too despicable to admire.
  • The students of Monster School are complete assholes to Red as they make it a living hell for him, from sabotaging Red in Herobrine's classes, pretending to help him, disregarding Red despite being helpful to them, and making fun of him for failing. Though he did gain the respect of Skellington, Endie, and Spider, everyone else worked together to focus more on beating up Red for hindering them rather than finishing the final test.^note They did congratulate the Yellow Team when they won, however.
    • It should also be noted that Herobrine did not do anything to reprimand them.
  • Dark Blue is a good contender for the most hated character in the series, as his treatment of Purple is not only realistic, but also sad and rage-inducing due to Purple being a very likeable and sympathetic character.
  • The fans that don't like Bob hate him for this very reason: despite being a mere asshole, his bullying of Green is deemed extremely hate-inducing, which eventually led to Green burying him under the taskbar.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Yes, the Animator's technically the Big Bad until the end of IV where he became the Big Good instead, but given what a dangerous psycho the Chosen One is, it's hard not to feel bad for him and the icons who come to his aid, especially since the events of III are just him acting in self-defence. As a matter of fact, some viewers still think the Animator was the good guy of the series.
  • The Second Coming starts his revenge by going out of his way to insult all of the Animator's Facebook friends before escaping to his phone and destroying its UI, but considering this was prompted by the Animator basically murdering all of the Second Coming's friends right before his eyes, it's hard to blame him.
  • Purple became this in the wake of Note Block Universe, as we learn how his abandonment and consequent self-esteem issues have fueled his actions throughout the series.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of academic scholars became intrigued in Alan Becker's YouTube channel not by the story arcs or the video game content, which is what most of Alan's channel comprises of, but by both Animation vs. Math & Animation vs. Physics which featured a combination of visual effects and educational content.
• Like You Would Really Do It: No way in hell any member of the Stick Gang dies. They always get saved last second or revived.
• Love to Hate:
  • The Dark Lord is a sheer badass who also is a Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac who offed the Fighting Stick Figures temporarily.
  • King Orange is an Evil Genius capable of Reality Warper abilities and is a Bad Boss who ditched Purple once he has the Game Icon, but is still a complete badass who's fight with the Second Coming in "The Ultimate Weapon" is one of the best moments in the series. Oh, and he can tank multiple hits from the Warden. With every appearance of his, he got more fans.
• Magnificent Bastard
  • Alan Becker, aka "the Animator", is the owner of the two computers where the series takes place. For a challenge, the Animator creates stick figures with the sole purpose of killing them in a fight. Growing a particular rivalry with his strongest creation, The Chosen One, he first enslaves him and then creates the Dark Lord with the sole intention of killing his previous creation, that plan backfiring when they team up due to his Lack of Empathy. Now on his second computer, the Animator accidentally creates another stick figure and ultimately has a change of heart after seeing that his creation could teach him to be a better artist, letting him and his friends have fun on the computer. Despite all what they've done to each other, when the Chosen One reveals himself to be alive, the Animator decides to team up with him to take down the Dark Lord, who's become focused on destroying computers. When battling his creations, the Animator is just as likely to decimate the competition as he is to get decimated by them, both in a purely awesome matter and bouncing back every time.
  • The Chosen One is the most powerful of the Animator's creations. Created for the purpose of giving a challenging fight, the Chosen One immediately escapes to wreck havoc on the main computer, using a combination of his powers and resourcefulness to defeat the programs that tried to stop him. Upon being enslaved, the Chosen One frees himself several years later by using the Animator's own mouse cursor, and when the Animator creates the Dark Lord to kill him, the Chosen One traps him in Minesweeper to take him out of the fight, and later convinces him to help him destroy the Animator's computer and escape his tyranny. Upon finding out that the Dark Lord intends to destroy countless computers across the world with viruses, the Chosen One grows horrified with his former friend, and teams up with the Animator to take him down. When the Second Coming does what he couldn't by defeating the Dark Lord and his army, the Chosen One shows his respect by a Pose of Supplication.
  • Herobrine is the mysterious godlike entity hailing from the world of Minecraft. Having first been introduced possessing Red and using him to steal the Minecraft Game Icon, Herobrine serves as the first real threat that stick figures have to face, forcing them to face legions of mobs and engaging in a brutal beatdown that leaves them on their last legs. Returning years later, having come Back from the Dead, Herobrine now runs a Monster School where he teaches various mobs how to effectively kill players, as well as helping them advance in other avenues, submitting his students to brutal trials that force them to think outside of the box before ending things off with a race to the finish. Realizing that four of his students have fled the scene, Herobrine goes after them and winds up at odds with King Orange. Upon seeing that King Orange was putting his students in danger, Herobrine proceeds to engage in a One-on-One brawl with him, stopping at nothing in order to see his adversary's defeat. Proving himself to be one of the most powerful entities you could ever be at odds with, Herobrine is one teacher you don't want to mess with.
  • King Orange is a vengeful stick figure who seeks the destruction of the Minecraft world for losing his son in a simulation of the game. Researching everything there is to know about the game, King Orange constructs a staff that is capable of channeling the power of in-game blocks and using them as a source of power. He then proceeds to seek out the Minecraft Game Icon in order to accomplish his ultimate goal of destroying Minecraft. To accomplish this, he has his second-in-command, Purple, retrieve it for him, with him ultimately succeeding in doing so. King Orange stops at nothing to destroy the world, fighting off the Stick Gang, their ally mobs, and even godlike figures such as Herobrine, managing to fend them off all on his own and ultimately winning. Whenever he's outnumbered or surrounded, King Orange uses his quick thinking and distractions to turn the tables and immediately get the upper hand again. Nearly succeeding in his quest, King Orange only is stopped when he has a change of heart, gives up the staff and the Minecraft Game Icon, and instead chooses to embrace Purple as a son, ultimately getting something better in the end.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Corn Dog Guy, for whatever reason, was deemed the World's Strongest Man capable of killing any character in the series while massively holding back.
  • Those more fond of Bob tend to see him as this, him being able to beat up everyone.
• Memetic Loser: Following "The Box", a certain portion of the fanbase started mocking victim due to cheating during his fight with the Chosen One, portraying him as an extremely weak loser who needs to be boosted by the Box and/or given support by "Agent" to stand a fighting chance.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Stickman anime.^ExplanationThe series if often treated as such due to a storyline straight out of anime, while having stick figures as the main characters.
  • Technoblade canon.^ExplanationThe three powerful pigs from "Potions", "Lucky Blocks" and "The Witch" are compared to Technoblade due to, you guessed it, being asskicking pigs. Officially an Ascended Meme as of "The Witch" where one of the Pig's powers is "Techno Power".
  • Yo, where can I get that anti-virus?^ExplanationEver since "The Virus" came out, there have been jokes about the stick figures being a bunch of anti-viruses and people seeking to get them.
  • Fanon Victim vs. Canon Victim^{Explanation (major spoilers!)}Before he officially returned in Animator vs. Animation VI, fans often theorized how victim's return would be like. A somewhat-big section of them decided he would be one of the good guys and an ally to the heroic stick figures, often as an incorporeal ghost. When the real victim returned and announced himself to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive who tortures the Chosen One for information, all in his relentless desire to get revenge on the Animator, it caused a major reaction within the fans who loved "Victim, the Friendly Ghost", ranging from disbelief/anger that the canon victim was nothing like they wanted him to be, to excitement and joy, quickly accepting the canon victim.
• Moe: The stickmen are surprisingly adorable with faces in the aptly named "Faces". Special mention to Red joyfully realizing his cat features, including a Playful Cat Smile.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • The Dark Lord has two strong contenders:
    • The first contender is when he terrorized and murdered innocent people of his own kind, stickmen. Of course, the Chosen One was with him before, but he didn't go that far.
    • The second contender is when he created the ViraBots. Him sending one to Alan may be justified, seeing how Alan treated him, but outright planning to do the same to every computer in the world is one step too far. The Chosen One even came to save Alan after this.
  • The Killer Bunny crossed it somewhere before "TNT Land" by murdering and eating fellow rabbits even to the point of rigging the entire land with TNT to prevent The Second Coming from escaping.
  • victim quickly establishes he's a serious and truly bad villain by ruthlessly torturing the Chosen One for interrogation, leaving the black stick figure in the hardest situation he's ever been in.
• More Popular Spin Off: AvM as a whole dominated the host channel in later years, to the extent that many newer viewers have no idea it was a originally a spin-off for AvA and if they did, it would be ignored because it doesn't have Minecraft content.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The AvM Shorts have attracted many new young viewers who don't know about the original Animator vs. Animation videos that came out years before these short episodes. As a result, those fans were confused when seeing the AvA Shorts.
  • In An Actual Short - New Wallpaper, many people were surprised to see that Alan is a father when his daughter called him; but it's not the first time Alan has featured his young child before, as shown in this video when he was developing his video, Animation vs. YouTube.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: In III, Clippy. The usually irritating animated paperclip assistant from Microsoft Office manages to give The Chosen One a good fight.
• Ron the Death Eater: Dark Blue is both this and Draco in Leather Pants due to his ambiguous characterization. The more negative portrayals show him as a full-on abuser who treated Purple much worse than shown on-screen, often extending it to Pink (which does have some support in canon, as he did briefly raise his hand on her). In the worst cases, he is brought back as a fully villainous character and major antagonist.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: In an attempt to give Purple a complete and happy family, there is a number of fanfics where King Orange meets Pink - something that never happened in canon due to her dying a long time ago - through whatever means the author came up with, and them falling in love.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The Chosen One and the Dark Lord wrecking the Animator's computer at the end of Animator vs. Animation III.
  • Possessed Red/Herobrine building an obsidian mecha and proceeding to give a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to the other stick figures.
  • The appearance of a sixth, purple stick figure at the very end of "The Nether".
  • The Chosen One returns to fight against the ViraBot at the end of the first AvA Short.
  • Caught between a laser and a flamethrower courtesy of the Chosen One, the ViraBot flees into the the computer interface itself, takes control of it to smack the Chosen One around with various windows and text boxes, and when they all break apart, he forms the fragments into a giant spider. Shortly after that, the Chosen One basically goes Super Saiyan.
  • The Second Coming's friends are all dead, the Chosen One has been neutralized, the Second Coming themself has been beaten to an inch of their life, and the Dark Lord is about to send his swarm of ViraBots to ravage the internet. The Second Coming ends up tapping into his latent abilities, regenerating all his wounds, and proceeds to destroy all of the ViraBots and the Dark Lord with the Chosen One's repertoire of powers, except turned up since this time It's Personal. "The Chosen One's Return", indeed.
  • The ending of "The Piglin War": There is a doppelganger of the Second Coming, and Blue thinks he's the real deal.
  • There is another orange stick figure as of "Parkour".
  • Purple pouring his heart out to Green in Note Block Universe, and everything that is revealed.
  • Similarly to the above, the beginning of "The King" showcasing King Orange's past and how he's trying to avenge his dead son.
  • One of the biggest ones goes to the ending of "Wanted": victim is back.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • When it comes to something/someone (like a character) superimposed over a screenshot, it looks fine... unless it's zoomed in, then the pixellated-like quality of the image is more obvious.
  • In "The End", when the Ender Dragon and its baby return back to the End, one can notice the baby's tail "stuck" in the portal.
• Squick: The Stick Gang doing typical beach things on a beach that's more trash than sand, seemingly only mildly inconvenienced by it, in Animation vs Trash. Special mention to Red and Green playing catch in polluted water. Doubly so when they start selling snow cones to the generic grey stick figures and we see that children were brought to such a beach.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Many fans want the Dark Lord to appear again is due to feeling he was wasted in AvA V due to its "Spectacle first, story second" theme. Compared to pretty much every other story-relevant stick figure - especially his successors King Orange and victim - the Dark Lord is an incredibly Flat Character with no real depth, being just a Generic Doomsday Villain with no real motive or backstory besides For the Evulz, his friendship with the Chosen One immediately thrown away and seemingly dying too soon for any improvement. Fans yearn for his return in AvA VI so the story could expand on his character, broken friendship with the Chosen One, backstory of being abandoned by the Animator, and possibly even give him a Heel–Face Turn.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Animation vs. Arcade Games features a fictional emulator named "Classic Arcade Game Emulator". This would have been the perfect opportunity to use MAME instead, an actual well-known emulator for arcade games, as all applications up to this point have been based in reality.
  • Animator vs. Animation V - specifically "The Showdown" - is praised in the fanbase as one of the, if not the best entry in the series due to its amazing visuals, fights and ending... though note that "story" isn't listed here. Indeed, V doesn't have a big storyline compared to its successors, AvM Season 3 and AvA VI, with the huge majority of the screentime being focused on the fights, to the point one could see the whole "The Internet is in threat of destruction" premise as an Excuse Plot to see the Chosen One and the Dark Lord battle eachother. Some fans we could see more character-focused moments to explore TCO and TDL's broken friendship, or for the Second Coming to realise he shares creators with the two.
• Ugly Cute: The piglin child looks just as monstrous as the other piglins, but his youthful spirit and friendship with Blue is adorable.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The Chosen One appears, apropos of nothing, at the end of The Virus considering his supposed death at the end of AvA III.
  • Who would've thought Alan would do a Monster School episode?
  • While some did speculate his return, most fans were still surprised by victim making his grand return in "Wanted".
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Animator vs.Animation can more or less be traced year by year, given that the entire concept is a stickman rampaging across a guy's computer and desktop, with programs coming and going as a real-life tech-savvy person would adopt and get rid of them. For instance, the third short is a cavalcade of all things from the late XP era, from bundled games like Solitaire and Minesweeper, to Clippy, to AOL Instant Messenger, to Firefox being the big dog while Chrome was just taking off. The 2014 AvA IV has an operating system that looks like Windows 7, Chrome as the main browser, and Facebook and an iPhone as significant plot elements.
  • Animation vs. YouTube uses a lot of viral videos that were popular at the time it was made, as well as showing annotations still being a thing. The preview clip also used an older site layout, though the full animation uses a newer one since that changed while the animation was still in production.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Officially, every stick figure except Pink is considered a guy, but fans were free to headcanon however they want as the characters' gender was irrelevant and the Chosen One was the only one explicitly called a "he" in-series. This reached an apex with "Note Block Universe", which depicts a stick figure couple with a child; this seemingly establishes a binary gender for stick figures, but while the colors and behavior might lead one to assume Pink Girl, Blue Boy is in effect, there's really no 100% clear indication which one is which—the colors could just as easily be because Pink and Blue mix to make Purple rather than an indicator of gender. Eventually, it would be confirmed by Word of God that the pink figure is a girl while the blue one is a male.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The animation gets better in each installment, but special mention goes to Vs. Minecraft—According to the BTS, adding the diamond armor to every character required hiring additional help (it would have taken an additional month or two otherwise), and in the scene when the Creeper blows up and launches around 100 arrows that were stuck to the dirt blocks surrounding it, he took the time to animate the trajectory and landing of each individual arrow rather than taking the easy way out and copy-and-pasting the animation paths.
  • The artwork and animation for "The Showdown" is absolutely stunning—many of the commenters on YouTube were blown away by the results.
  • Just take a look at what "The Ultimate Weapon" does with its fight scenes!
  • The special effects generated by the staff when holding a gold block or a Netherite block are rather satisfying to look at.
  • The sequence of Purple explaining why he sided with King Orange and betrayed the Stick Gang is nothing short of breathtaking.
  • The visuals of the Nether slowly collapsing during The King are as incredible as they are terrifying.
  • Not only does the animation in "Wanted" look so much more incredible than even "The Showdown", sporting incredible cinematography and dynamic animation, but we also get a unique taste of various different art styles through the Mercenaries, with special mention going to "Primal" and Ballista - the cave drawing and pixel one, respectively - having a totally different art style unlike that of the rest of the series, and the Second Coming creating various fluidly animated animals to attack with.
  • The visuals in Animation vs. Physics are some of the most beautiful the series has to offer.

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