Poppy O'Possum

Poppy O’Possum is a webcomic created by I.S. Everett. It focuses on an opossum. A very strong opossum.

Taking place on Flora, a World of Funny Animals, the comic is about Poppy Odeletta Possum, a single mother who'd like nothing more than to find somewhere to comfortably settle down and raise her daughter, Lily - something she's been trying to do for quite a while, with little success, requiring her to move out very frequently. Her recent attempt is in a little town in the Fenneclands called Eggton. Here, surely, will be the place she can find the low-profile she's been seeking.

This fails immediately.

See, opossums are considered by most all to be the lowest of filth in Flora, and this has resulted in more than her fair share of rough knocks over the years (including having her daughter's eye injured by a BB gun); Eggton is no different. However, she manages to find favor with the mayor's assistant/daughter, the cat Petunia, after effortlessly knocking back the local mafia's bagman, a burly bird out to collect an impossible sum of protection money from Eggton. The comic focuses on Poppy's life in town from there, and all the troubles of the world out to get at her.

It can be read here.

Unfortunately the comic has stopped, with the author having no plans to continue it. The last update was on 11/02/18.

Everett's latest webcomic, Shallowskin can be found here.

Tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Most of the small-time street gangs trying to woo Poppy in Chapter 3. The only one that outright scares her is the crocodile, who really is a big fan of hers.
• Accidental Misnaming: Poppy thinks Betrand's name is Brandon.
• Affably Evil: Chicadino. He's quite polite and level-headed, having a similar demeanor to a jolly businessman, and is surprisingly a decent boss to his henchmen, all things considered...but he's also a ruthless, incredibly cunning mob boss who employs exceedingly dangerous and intimidating individuals that do his dirty work in very gruesome ways if he thinks it's necessary.
• Alt Text: Of the second-punchline variety, similar to how The Adventures of Dr. McNinja handles it.
• Ancient Tradition: Kissing under the Gristletoe.
  Alt Text: Nothing says holiday cheer like a gross turkey bone just casually strung up in the foyer, right?
• And I Must Scream: The Dragon that the Egon Monastary was built on is still technically alive...but a fungal infection ate most of its nervous system and took over most of its brain. Meaning that even if it was conscious, it'd be completely incapable of doing anything and would be better off dead anyway.
• Anti-Climax:
  • It seems pretty clear that as Ewe-lala keeps getting more and more belligerent with Poppy and Lily, she's planning on using a hammer to bash them in. Turns out, it's a prop, and she's actually not really a fighter at all.
  • In chapter 3, after Poppy tries to bully Chicadino into releasing the Quibbles from the contract, he implies that he sent a henchman to hurt Lily, prompting Poppy to race home. The henchman was actually Boris making a friendly house call, and Chicadino was already going to cancel the contract. He just pranked Poppy for kicks.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Common long-tailed opossums can't use magic, spells don't work on them, and can drain or negate magic by touch. A shopkeeper kicks Poppy out, fearing that she would ruin any magical antiques in his store. Queen Kit, on the other hand, wants to provide opossum equality, while having a personal gain of having one [Poppy] around to negate the magic that is been blinding her since birth.
  • In contrast, short tailed opposums such as Friedrich (who call themselves "Gamba") are perfectly capable of using it, despite having small reserves. This creates another layer of Fantastic Racism: Friedrich refers to Didelphi as the 'traitor goddess' and suggests she stole the magic out of malice. Poppy suggests his version of things is fraudulent.
• Art Evolution:
  • Between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, lines become thicker, details are more distinct, and colours become bolder while the character designs for Petunia and Poppy are changed somewhat. (The change is rather sudden—compare Chapter 1 Page 24 to the very next page.)
  • Chapter 3 switches to black and white style with detail hatching.
  • And then Chapter 4 goes back to full colour, much like Chapter 2. (This may be a matter of convenience: Morbi was working on an exhibition during Chapter 3.)
• Artificial Limbs: Birds use magic patches than create magic floating hands. Friedrich as has one to replace his missing arm.
• Art Shift: While Petunia is explaining what Lucky Stars are to Mary, they both briefly turn into hand puppets.
• Ass Kicks You: Poppy in Chapter 2 wins her first tournament fight using this method. And only this method.
• Author Filibuster: Played for laughs. Alvus in a background scene discusses Morbi's apparent love for Mashed Potatoes whilst eating some.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Chicadino tends to force underlings that have failed him to babysit his daughter.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Most of the cast. Everyone wears human clothing, but while shoes do exist in the world, and some characters are seen wearing them, the vast majority do not. Poppy's character bio explicitly points this out, contrasting it with her interest in collecting socks (which she also doesn't wear). This even extends to the comic's only human character.
• Battered Bouquet: On Poppy's first day as opossum ambassador she finds a vase full of roses on her desk, and once she finds out they're from Mr. Chicadino she dumps them straight in the trash. Given the later revelation that Chicadino can essentially turn anything he touches into a magical bug that was a smart move.
• Becoming the Mask: As a non-conventionally birthed wolf, Ewe-lala had to convince the people around her that she was a sheep using her lucky star powers. While it's never truly stuck, it's implied she's used her lucky star powers on herself so she could not only be accepted by outside influences, but the ones inside as well.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Poppy thinks this of the Queen, since she's the only one she's met in quite some time who doesn't automatically hate her guts because of her race, and believes she "owes" her.
• Beneath the Mask: Queen Darling is cheery and giggling in public appearances, but in private she's morose and frustrated over her virtual blindness.
  • Ewe-Lala uses a subtext-laden song to reveal her literal nature.
    Ewe-Lala: We're all afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf; That old figure of our fears, But that's because we don't come too close, to see her silent tears...
• Big Eater: Lily shoves about six lollipops in her mouth at one point. Most of which are just half as tall as her.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Not a huge one, but Ewe-lala's emoticon logo uses the greek letter Theta to give the impression of a sheep's eyes. In ancient greek, theta was considered a symbol of death.
  • Poppy was also raised up in the country of Trance, and and is able to speak, sing, and curse in the language of Trench fluently. It's yet to be seen if her daughter shares the same ability in speaking the language though.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Looks like it for Ewe-lala, but it turns out to be more of a case of Spoiled Sweet.
• Blessed with Suck: Almost every Lucky Star power mentioned has a specific drawback for the people who were born with them. For example...
  • Valente's Lucky Star power turns all magic that touches him into fire to channel. Which is awesome when you want to impress the ladies, but not so fun when healing spells don't work on you and you have to recover the old-fashioned way.
  • Boris' Lucky Star power makes him near invulnerable, monstrously big in bulk and size, and incredibly strong...but it's tied directly to his self-confidence. If he's emasculated or embarrassed, he'll shrink down to the size of a child. Made even worse for him, he's not exactly that self-confident in the first place.
  • Queen Darling can see everything at its most basic, atomic level as well as all potential reactions. This makes her fantastic as an alchemist and a chemist. ...but she can't turn it off, meaning she sees nothing but abstract bundles of particles (except for common opossums, who cancel the power and thus can be seen normally by her, which is part of the reason she empathizes with them so much). It requires substantial effort and special glasses to simply read. She can't see her own reflection, she can only see the glass and silver of the mirror..
  • Ewe-Lala's lucky star power is the ability to convince people through speaking or song of practically anything...But the circumstances of her birth means she can't convince herself she's actually a sheep.
  • While Poppy has incredible Super-Strength and can even Temporary Bulk Change, as an opossum she can't be healed magically, use magical transportation, has poor heart health and the lack of magic means she will only live for 30 years or so.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Lampshaded when Poppy lists off her abilities, as Poppy quietly mentions that she can lift roughly 300,000 kilograms.
  Vixen Secretary: Hmm... Well, unfortunately, none of those are really useful for desk joI'm sorry what was that last one
• Calling Your Attacks: Inverted. The announcer for the tournament calls out Poppy's opponents by their stage names (presumably named after their signature attacks), and Poppy proceeds to take them out with the corresponding attack.
• Cat Ninja: Petunia is revealed to be one in Chapter 6.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The candles Poppy buys early in Chapter 2. Almost exactly four months later, Poppy reveals that they're to count down the time until she dies.
  • A tiny one: on ''Friedrich Intermission'' Page 11, Lila uses a Spatial Ticket and a key, inserted into the back of physical Friedrich's neck, to erase some of his memories after saying something he shouldn't know. Now, knowing that, look at the back of Mary's neck in panel 4, almost three years ago, just before she mentions the fighting tournament to Poppy. And that single panel creates a something of a Xanatos Gambit— if Mary hadn't mentioned the tournament, Poppy wouldn't have entered; if she hadn't entered, Chicadino would still run Eggton and Kit Darling wouldn't have seen Poppy and invited her to the palace; Poppy wouldn't have been present when Poda attacked, and likely would have never come to Friedrich's attention. And that's just the largest points.
  • Back in Friedrich's Intermission, Pipo casually mentions being pregnant.◊ Skip forward just over 9 months, and Fredrich is watching a gaggle of baby mice for some reason...
• Cloning Gambit: According to Word of God, Aria Chicadino is actually an Opposite-Sex Clone of her "father" and has his entire brain, acting as a decoy and an emergency backup.
• Colourful Theme Naming: Chiaroshiro and Kuroscuro's names respectively translate as "LightWhite" and "BlackDark", matching their colour scheme.
• Combat Tentacles: Poda's weapon of choice are her extremely flexible tentacle limbs and their razor-blade ends.
• Computer Voice: Despite being organic, Fazzi's voice has this effect, sounding like a low quality stereo system with a faint static humming, with immediate pitch shifts due to operating on square waves instead of sine waves.
• Conversation Cut: Subverted in chapter 6. On the day of the fruit-bearing festival, Kit claims over the phone that she's in the bath, when she's actually nowhere near it. But when she finishes the sentence in the next panel, she's already jumping into the bathtub. Friedrich's reply is: "I'm… going to ignore the fact that it took you three minutes to say a five word sentence."
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Mr. Chicadino’s favorite method of punishing subordinates who have failed him is to have them babysit his daughter.
• Crapsaccharine World: A moderate example. Flora may be bright and shiny and in some ways socially progressive, but just behind the veil it's not hard to see the darkness. Rampant Fantastic Racism, check. Rampaging monsters just outside the cities, check. A major power source relies on Cold-Blooded Torture of sentients (albeit monsters), check. There's more where that came from.
  • According to the author's blog, organized law enforcement is pretty minimal in a lot of countries; the various royal families are usually content to leave law and order in the hands of bounty hunters, vigilantes, and crime families.
• Crazy-Prepared: Fredrich.
  Fredrich: What kind of paranoid soldier would I be if I didn't charm every single blade in my armory?!
• Creation Myth: Opens up with Poppy telling Lily one about the opossum goddess Didelphi. When her fellow gods and goddesses reneged on their plans to free their creations from their magical mind control and give them free will, she stripped her own creation (opossums) of their connections to magic, rendering them immune to it entirely. She then absorbed the magic, used it to fight off all the other gods and goddesses, and took all of creation into her pouch. The end result was free will for everyone, at the cost of opossums using magic, and making opossums the scapegoat for all other species, who were confused at what to do with their newfound freedom.
• Curbstomp Battle:
  • With the sole exception of Boris, everyone Poppy fights in the tournament.
  • Poppy is practically crippled by Fazzi in just one page, and is saved only by Chicadino calling his enforcer off.
• The Cutie: Queen Kit Darling's appearances herald claims of diabetes among the comments. Though it was hinted to be at least partially an act.
• Cut Himself Shaving: Petunia and Poppy tell Lily that her mother's injuries are from 'falling down the stairs'. Lily doesn't seem to even notice, and is more confused by Petunia's panic trying to maintain the blatant lie than anything.
  Poppy: Oh, uh...I...fell down the stairs.
  Lily: I learned about Tardigrades!
  Poppy: ...into this large sack of money.
  Mary: And I helped!
  Petunia: Stop
• David Versus Goliath: Poppy's entrance into the tournament is expected to be a complete beatdown on the poor old girl. She proves them very wrong.
• Death Glare:
  • Best explained by the Alt Text:
    If you can count the rings in Poppy's eyes, you are probably about to die.
  • Becomes a Slasher Smile at Fantomet after Poppy stops the elder Darling from slapping Kit, ring-eyes and all.
• Death World: Various background comments suggest that outside of the cities, Flora is absolutely swarming with monsters. Poppy is most likely okay because of her titanic strength.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Boris becomes a friend of the Quibble household after Chapter 2, largely because his niece becomes friends with Lily.
• Disappeared Dad: Lily's dad is currently AWOL, and Word of God is that neither she or her mom has any idea of what happened to him.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: It zig-zags. Poppy is well aware of her own strength, and treats it like no big deal (to the incredulity of everyone around her). That said, she sometimes misjudges the amount of strength needed for a given situation (like when opening the heavy iron door to Eggton, accidentally unhinging it and sending it flying off into the nearby countryside, Hallia comments she's "seen her walk through a drywall by accident").
• The Dreaded: Steel Heel Ofelia. She's only mentioned once, but she's apparently scary, crazy, and brutal enough to make sure that a Mob Boss steers well clear of her.
  • The Specter of Fate is also implied to be unbelievably untrustworthy and VERY dangerous.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Chiaroshiro and Kuroscuro, who are first introduced in chapter 8, appear as background characters in chapter 6, in the last panel of this page.
  • Rose Rani, mentioned obliquely a few times, and by name for the first time in chapter 6, is finally revealed in a chapter 8 flashback. However, a few details in her introduction suggest that the silhouetted cat on panel 6 of this chapter 2 page is actually her.
• Emoticon: Ewe-lala's logo. It can be seen on Marche's sweater and can easily be mistaken for a face.
• Engagement Challenge: See Impossible Task.
• Evil Virtues: While not The Family for the Whole Family by a long shot, the mafiosi are not without points of decency. Chicadino is pragmatic and forgiving for a mob boss; Valente is courageous and polite to clergy; even Fazzi, abrasive racist though she is, is loyal to her friends.
• Exactly What It Says On The Tin: Chapter 3 is entitled "Poppy Incites a Gang War". And such, she unintentionally wanders into a back alley and has a bunch of different gangsters fighting over her within 15 pages.
• Eye Am Watching You: Lily to Bert after the latter's informed he needs to stop grouching and enjoy the tea party.
• Face Death with Dignity: Master Mouf dies when A dragon appears and smashes the Monastary. He takes it well.
  Mouf: Ah well. I had a good run.
• Family Theme Naming: All the Darling family members revealed thus far (except for Twee, and Fantomet if you count her) have fox-themed names: Kit (a term for a baby fox), Vix (a female fox is a vixen), Renard (French for "fox"), and Zerda (an archaic word, and the specific epithet, for "fennec").
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Opossums are considered the lowest of low classes on Flora. There are many places where they're not even people according to the law. Poppy claims it's because of the Creation Myth at the beginning of the story, but regardless of whether it is or isn't, there's definitely racism toward opossums going about, primarily due to their anti-magic capabilities. On the flipside, racism against other species isn't particularly evident.
  • Additionally, there are the gamba (or short-tailed opossums), who can use magic to a degree. While they are also discriminated against by the public to some degree, there's some tension between them and the regular opossums, with Poppy criticizing them for distinguishing themselves from regular opossums, or thinking they're superior for being able to use magic.
  • Following Poppy's (one-sided) fight against Fazzi the sheep, the latter had regarded Poppy's kind as anything but "people", surprising her after hearing news that changes this[1].
  • Takes a tragically nuanced step deeper as Lily is discriminated at school by teacher and student alike.
  • Bounty hunting is how criminals tend to be dealt with, but it's implied that bounties on opossums in general are not uncommon in Canine territory. As if that weren't bad enough, Poppy says that some officials have gone so far as to remove the bounty as a trap — once they attract enough opossum immigrants to meet a quota, they reinstate the bounty and round everyone up.
  • Steel Wool is an "ovine-supremacist" group that doesn't like anyone but other sheep. They were the only gang that didn't try to recruit Poppy, and one of them attempts to assassinate High Queen Vix Darling. According to the creator[2], the Ovine kingdom that preceded the Fennec kingdom was very xenophobic even before they were taken over by the Canine Empire, so it's not just a reaction to colonization.
  • It's implied that some species naturally run into conflict with each other on certain issues. For example, a snake has a bone to pick with cats, for taking up space on the city's sunbathing patios when they "don't even need to sunbathe" (and previously, a cat is likewise seen complaining about reptiles hogging all the good sunbathing spots). More broadly, relations between reptiles and mammals are heated due to a devastating war between them centuries ago.
• Fantastic Slur: The most common one for opossums is "clockbelly". The artist comments that if you understand why it's used, "You know way too much about opossums."^noteIt's because opossums have twelve nipples, arranged like the numbers on a clock in their pouches.
  • Occasionally we see slurs for other species as well, such as "malkin" for a cat, "shedhead" for a snake, "leatherhead" for an alligator, etc. Notably, two of these are said by a member of a sheep supremacist gang, and one arises during an argument between a cat and a snake (who have been shown to sometimes butt heads on the issue of sunbathing spots), so it seems such slurs are not very common in everyday life.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The country of Trance is at least linguistically equivalent to real-world France, from the similar name to the languages being phonetically identical.
  • Flora's equivalent of the English language is called "Oonglish", and has an alphabet not too different from ours.
  • The Fenneclands' equivalent of the mafia features characters with Italian or Italian-sounding names, such as Chicadino, Aria, Valente, Fazzi, Chiaroshiro, and Kuroscuro.
• Feather Fingers: Averted. The wings on birds work exactly as that - wings, not hands. To get around this, they use their magic to create hands around their alulae.
• Fictional Currency: This comic's flavor is called "nibbles" ("nibs" for short), and even goes a step further by having a currency symbol; a lower case N with a line through it horizontally, though the same slang for American dollars (such as "bucks") applies to it. Also, a nibble is apparently equivalent to 10 "nips", or 1/100 of a "chomp".
• Foe Romance Subtext: Boris's taunting in the tournament arc is, by his own admission, part-intimidation and part flirting
• Food as Bribe: Poppy manages to bribe the actual Mrs. Shiba with food once she begins raging against Poppy getting a dress she worked on, due to the effect her Anti-Magic would have on the materials. She even manages to get 50 nibs out of the deal.
  • Madama Silvana ominously says that "I know how to get children to keep secrets" - meaning she just gave Lily a bunch of lollipops.
• Foreshadowing: A wealth of it in this strip, with the final panel and Alt Text both lampshading its intent.
• Freudian Excuse: Chicadino did not have a good childhood until he destroyed his abusive, corrupt parents. Also, he found out his father was a major embezzler and his mother had affairs with anything within two miles of the house.
• From the Mouths of Babes: Poor Mrs. Lam gets an especially tough one from Lily.
  Lily: I wanna learn how to stop loving my mom for real so I won't feel bad when she dies.
• Full-Body Disguise: Two at the same time: the Rough Rodent Rogues use a terrible one to distract Friedrich while Poda is skulking about with a far better, magical one.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Nearly any page with Lily has her doing something adorable, like doing dives into the pillows while Petunia and Poppy discuss finances. ...at least until her whimsical spirit is crushed, anyways...
  • A particular comment from Ms. Chort makes Hallia^note who is a very bright yellow rather uncomfortable.
    Ms. Chort: Like most birds, the female Gogo has much duller plumage than the male.
• French Maid Outfit: Poppy is VERY excited about the prospect of owning/wearing one and jumps at the chance the second it's brought up as an option.
• The Gadfly: Mary. For example, she goes to a concert, heckles the performer, and then shoves Poppy into the limelight and runs away.
• Gang of Hats: There are a lot of them in Canopy. Bald fetish cultists, fashion-conscious punk feminists, degenerate housewives, and more. Oh, and all of them want to recruit Poppy after hearing how strong she is.
• Hand Phone: Mobile phones are magic gloves, where the user talks into their pinkie and listens to their thumb, like the silly hand gesture.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • Friedrich. He lost his dominant sword arm (how, we don't know yet); he is still more than capable of destroying people, with his tail and his feet if necessary.
  • After Poppy loses her temper in Chapter 3. Even with a pair of broken arms, she's forcibly embedded two or three gangsters into a wall. And lamenting the fact she could have killed one of them had her arms been working.
• Hand Puppet: Ms. Nora Chort, the elementary school teacher, seems to own one of everyone in town, including the two mentioned above, and she insists on making them physically accurate.
• Happily Married: Friedrich has a wife and children. Lily and Poppy find this adorable.
• Hidden Depths:
  • As much of an alcoholic gambler without anything resembling a moral that she is, Mary is apparently quite astute in her criticism of Ewe-Lala's music. Unfortunately...she says it right to a microphone and blames Poppy for it.
  • Lily, as silly and undoubtedly childish as she can be, when she starts school she's getting excellent grades.
• The High King: Queen Kit Darling is one of several monarchs who rule under her older sister, High Queen Vix Darling. Who is, herself, one of twelve High Kings in Flora, subservient to the sovereign of the Canis Empire Emperor Lord Pom.
• Implied Death Threat: Poppy barely restrains herself from starting a fight with Kit's Wicked Stepmother, instead acting like she intercepted her slap to shake her hand, introducing herself as "that lady who threw a mountain at a dragon."
• Impossible Task: This is how Renard Darling, once a mere upstart nobleman, became King of the Fenneclands. Another fennec nobleman named Folly promised him his only daughter's hand in marriage, in exchange for a kingdom of his own. It was intended to be an impossible request. But Renard used Guile Hero tactics to earn King Dolphense's trust, help him win the war against the Canine Empire, become a hero to the Ovine nation, and inherit the kingdom when the heirless Dolphense died in battle. He then immediately gave the crown to Folly, thus fulfilling the challenge. And since Renard was marrying Folly's daughter, he got to continue being royalty despite giving up his crown. A Magnificent Bastard if ever there was one.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Poppy ends book three with a truly awful one.
• Interspecies Adoption: Poppy's photo album shows her growing up with a family of cats, conveniently named "Possum".
  • The Magic Trees grow fruits that can give adoptive children to families who would otherwise be infertile, see below.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: Subverted. Poppy is insanely strong and durable, so she can punch any way she likes - and yet, when she punches Boris, she breaks one of the bones in her hand. To quote the author, "when you have bones like reinforced steel, something being durable enough to break your hand should probably be considered "very concerning."
• I Never Said It Was Poison: The first indication to Poppy that Arthur Chicadino is dishonest is when she tells him about the pie she baked for him, and he offhandedly mentions it being Brooberry flavor without being told. She sits on this information for a while before pointing it out as a counterargument to his claim that he would never spy on anyone for personal information.
• I Read It for the Articles: There's a girly magazine in the mail in one shot, and Word of God confirms it's for Poppy. This is her reaction.
  "Well, I read it for the articles, of course… The articles about naked ladies."
• Kill and Replace: Poda's modus operandi, via You Are Who You Eat. In fact, she only became who she is by eating and replacing one of the Mothers of Magic who created her as part of an experiment.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • Chicadino abandons his extortion racket in Eggton after finding out how Mr. Valente's last trip went, deciding to focus on a much bigger plan.
  • Also abandons his contract with the city altogether after the earnings Chicadino's assistant made ended up making him four times the money he would've made if Alvus paid the cancellation fee.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Petunia's response to Poppy's punnery at the end of Book 3 is "...you're fired."
• Large Ham: High Queen Vix Darling's first lines are delivered as loud and theatrical as possible.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Chapter 2, Page 5 has an example:
  Mary Moonshine: ...Do you ever feel like the universe is trying to warn you about a whole bunch of important stuff all at once? Or is that just me?
  Petunia: I'm almost entirely sure that's just you.
  Alt Text: H-hey, wait a minute! Don't just waltz right past all of that worldbuilding and foreshadowing! I put a lot of effort into that!
• A Lizard Named "Liz": A number of examples:
  • The most obvious being Poppy herself, with the Species Surname O'Possum. However, "Possum" is actually her adoptive family's surname, and they're cats, not opossums.
  • Eggton's gatekeepers are two dogs named Bow and Wow. (The latter's name is actually Wowzowski.) The alt text jokes that they were actually chosen as gatekeepers purely because their names are puns.
  • There's a minor character named Tabs, who is a tabby cat. He was seemingly named this so that both the comic and the alt text could make puns about "keeping Tabs on" things.
  • A few members of the Fennec royal family. The Queen is named Kit (a kit is the young of certain species of animals, including foxes; and there is a species of fox called the kit fox); her older sister is named Vix (a vixen is a female fox); their father is named Renard (renard is French for "fox"); and Ren's second wife was named Zerda, which is an archaic word (and the specific epithet) for "fennec".
  • Sir Friedrich is an opossum, and his last name is Zarigüeya, which is the Spanish word for "opossum".
  • The opossum goddess is named Didelphi; opossums belong to the zoological family Didelphidae.
  • Poda is an octopus; octopuses belong to the zoological order Octopoda.
  • Miss Shiba is, of course, a Shiba Inu.
  • Ms. Chort is a hyena, and according to the creator[3], her name is short for "Chordata", the phylum that hyenas belong to. (Of course, all vertebrate animals belong to Chordata; the creator just picked it for Ms. Chort's name because of liking the sound.)
  • Harry Hopperfield, a rabbit.
  • Arthur Chicadino is a chickadee.
  • Mr. Vol, one of Chicadino's lackeys, is a vole.
• Made of Iron: Most opossums in general (their bones set themselves efficiently), but Poppy in particular. The doctor who tended to her wounds had to rebreak one of her arms in order to re-set it.
• The Mafia: Run by Avian-Italians.
• Magic Knight: Friedrich, though over-relying on his magic is liable to disable him.
• Mama O'Possum: Suffice to know that harming Lily O'Possum is not a good idea. As Petunia finds out, even mentioning a past event of such tends to get Poppy's dander up, especially since the Alt Text implies that this is why Lily is now blind in one eye.
• Marshmallow Hell: One of the gang members who tries to recruit Poppy repeatedly hugs the possum up against her breasts and stomach as she fawns over her.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Opossums have a life expectancy of 30 due to their lack of magic. Kit is 33 and Poppy has seven years to live when they get together.
• Meaningful Name: Chapter 8 introduces two siblings, a white cat named Chiaroshiro and a black cat named Kuroscuro. "Shiro" and "kuro" respectively mean "white" and "black" in Japanese; while "chiaro" and "scuro" respectively mean "clear, bright" and "dark, obscure" in Italian. (Also, the combined word "chiaroscuro" is an art term that refers to "the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition", which is quite appropriate to the scene the characters appear in.)
  • The Alt Text explicitly points this out: "Yes, their names really are 'BlackDark' and 'LightWhite'."
  • For more examples, see A Lizard Named "Liz" and Species Surname.
• Meta Guy: Hallia, to some extent. Alt Text indicates that becoming one may be an even more meta attempt to stay relevant now that Petunia has taken over most of her former, pre-comic job duties.
• Mistaken for Special Guest: After Mary heckles Ewe-Lala's concert and pins it on her, Poppy gets mistaken for the opossum hired to fake-heckle, and unwillingly pulled into the show.
• Motifs: Eggs. The symbol on Poppy's overalls, Eggton, their language, "Oonglish" (oo- being Greek for "egg"), etc.
• Motor Mouth: Marche talks for HOURS about Ewe-lala's musical output.
• Multiboobage: Vix's mother wears an outfit with two cleavage windows, though only the top pair is human-sized. Author commentary suggests that all canines have six nipples but current fashion minimizes the lower pairs.
• Naughty Nuns: Mary enjoys dressing as and pretending to be one because she lives in an old converted church, but she actually can't even remember the names of all three of the Mothers of Magic, despite being the descendant of one.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Averted in general. Avians and reptiles are both anatomically correct.
  • Subverted with Poda. Her 'breasts' are actually tentacles positioned to look like that.
  • Poppy herself stuffs a pair of balled-up socks down her top to make it look like she has humanoid breasts like the placental mammals.
• Non-Indicative Name: Subverted. While Poppy O'Possum would seem at first like Species Surname, her birth name was just "Odeletta", and she was adopted by a family of cats named "Possum".
• Non-Standard Character Design: Poppy herself in comparison to the few possums seen is very widely set, especially around the waist and stomach. Possibly to get across the thought that her body can indeed withstand and dish out the punishment she takes. She's also stated to be quite short compared to the average opossum, and indeed is shorter than every other adult opossum seen thus far.
• Noodle Incident: The fighting tournament has a firm rules that combatants must keep their pants on. At all times. You know what you did.
• Not Afraid to Die: Poppy and by the same token all opossums—because they don't have magic, they live but 30 years. She chooses to Face Death with Dignity, as it's just part of life.
• Not What It Looks Like: Walking in on Poppy sucking Kit Darling's fingers, because she was holding one of her heart pills.
• The Nondescript: Somehow, after being blamed for publicly thrashing Ewe-Lala, the entire entertainment media of Canopy can't identify Poppy, in spite of the fact that only thirty possums live in Canopy. Thirty.
• Octopus Blood: Poda bleeds blue. The Alt Text suggests it's because as long as it isn't red, blood is family friendly!
• Offscreen Inertia: Actually invoked by Morbi when pausing/cancelling the comic: because the story won't reach that part, characters who were slated to die, such as Fazzi, don't (and thus nobody will have to see a particular favorite character die).
• Older Than They Look: Queen Kit appears to be about 16 at the oldest, which is partially due to her short stature as a fennec and partially due to her Princess Classic outfits. She's actually 33.
• One Free Hit: Boris opens his match with Poppy in the tournament finals by allowing her to take a free shot at his midsection. She happily takes him up on this... and is shocked when hitting him as hard as she can only momentarily knocks the wind out of him and injures her hand.
• Organic Technology: Braindead and paralyzed Dragons can have their blood drained to create electricity and their bodies can be turned into a monastary slash power plant.
• Our Dragons Are Different:
  • Whoo boy, where to begin. The Egon Monastary is built right on top of a still living dragon, which in this universe can power whole cities with it's blood, grows eyes to cover all its blind spots once it starts getting too big, grows a whole other dragon if its heart starts beating too fast... It's pretty much an elder god with a power plant on it's back. Also they're cephalopods.
  • Poppy is told about her epic efforts against a dragon by a fading ghost, "...not enough to kill a dragon." Not 'that's not enough'. it's not enough.
• Our Souls Are Different: For one thing, they're tied to consciousness and state of mind, but not the afterlife, which supposedly works differently.
• Papa Wolf: Suffice to say, Petunia's father DOES have his limits.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Ewe-Lala is a wolf in a sheep costume. While her powers keep most of the crowd from noticing, Poppy and Lily notice that something's up
• Physical God: Silvana is implied to have a physical form, and Poda claims to be a god (which is supported by her interactions with Silvana).
• Pimped-Out Dress: High Queen Vix Darling puts everything that previously appeared to shame.
  Alt Text: Nothing says "Look how rich I am" like a miniature sun on your dress.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Chicadino realizes that going after Poppy is more trouble that it's worth and decides to focus on a much bigger plan instead.
• Precision F-Strike: The f-word has appeared exactly once as of chapter 8, said in chapter 6. It appeared at all because the Poppyverse equivalent ("chuck") wouldn't have had the right amount of gravitas and impact; and it will appear very rarely (possibly only the one time) precisely because of this trope.
• Precocious Crush: Lily has one on Friedrich…who Poppy immediately tells.
• Prehensile Tail: Both kinds of opossums. Friedrich even uses his and a magic glove to wield a sword as well as his feet.
• Princess Classic: Queen Darling seems to play up the trope.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Poppy assaulting the suddenly revealed evil Poda, who's just nearly killed her and threatened Lily.
  Poppy: I have no tolerance! For monsters! Who lie! To! Children!!
• Punny Name: Ewe-Lala. Say it out loud.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Of a sort. While Poppy defeats Boris and wins the tournament, the prize money won't cover all her medical care, her dress, Lily's treatment, and repairs to Eggton, leaving her essentially where she started.
• Rabbit Magician: One bit character is a rabbit magician who dresses like a stage magician, with two scantily clad assistants, though he does have actual magic.
• Rags to Riches: Ewe-Lala.
• Reality Warper: Silvana teleports an small segment of the room to take the key back from Poda's severed tentacle (as well as the floor underneath it), then the bends the space around her to create a convenient cannon to launch Poda through. All while not affecting Friedrich in the least. Poppy, on the other hand, seems quite effected. (All with the implication that this is nowhere near the extent of Silvana's power.)
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Poppy, speaking to a character who can't see:
  Queen Kit: I'm just saying, people might start getting weird ideas about us.
  Poppy: "Start"? Have you seen the articles these past couple of months?
  Queen Kit: (waving a hand before her eyes) No.
  Poppy: (going red) Oh, uh. Right.
• Sarcastic Confession: Twice so far, both times as an April Fools joke where the author announced imminent "changes" to the webcomic:
  • The first time, the "changes" were: Poppy becoming deliberately sexier, Lily being adopted (and her eyepatch switching to the other eye), Petunia's character being replaced by an actual tuna, and Queen Kit actually being blind but having the Lucky Star power of "being able to see really well" despite this. Except the last one actually was true, as revealed only 3 pages later. Kit can see so well that she can see atoms individually, but because she can't turn it off she can't see the things and people that the atoms make up, except for possums.
    • The one about Lily being adopted might also be true. In "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing", when Lala's father comments that "Lala is as much my child as that cute little girl there must be yours", Poppy mutters, "Well. Not that I'm doubting you, but act–"; she is then interrupted and never finishes the sentence. There's also the fact that the two other opossum mothers we've seen so far clearly had litters, not single children, just like real-life opossums; yet Poppy has never mentioned having or losing other children. (Other litter-bearing mammals seem capable of having single children, but like so many things, that could be due to magical medicine. And for that matter, even Petunia, who at first seems to be an only child, is revealed in Chapter 8 to have siblings; so single children might not be as common as they appear.)
  • The second time, the "changes" were: Humans being added to the story (to make the setting more relatable — "maybe Flora was actually just Earth all along!"), Friedrich getting married to the only other short-tailed opossum in the comic, the whole cast being replaced with "cute robot versions of themselves", and "every single Mary Moonshine theory" that fans have sent being true (including: Mary is Madama Mystana; Mary is secretly a member of the Possum family; Mary isn't real). The very next chapter introduced Magi Lila Moon, the comic's first human character — who quite resembles the silhouette seen in the original "announcement". And when the announcement joked "Pay no attention to that (hu)man behind the curtain", that turned out to be a reference to the Veil of Ignorance, the organization Lila works for.
    • The Alt Text: "Now I know what you're all thinking. 'Are we doing that thing again, where there's secretly a real spoiler hidden inside all of these joke changes? Is it the really obvious, kind of normal one? Is that one TOO obvious and normal?'"
• Say It with Hearts: Both Miss Shiba and Queen Darling have done that effect, for one panel apiece.
• Shipper on Deck: Complete with Speech-Bubble Censoring hiding the imaginary kissing.
• Shout-Out:
  • Among others, the spectators at the tournament include Isabelle and Digby, Pogo, and Toriel.
  • Zipher and Domika also appear among the tournament crowd, returning the favor for the Poppy cameo in Pandemonium.
  • Toriel returns in the ID checking queue to see Queen Vix just behind the Steel Wool suicide, um, bouncer.
  • On the incoming side, a Three Panel Soul strip established (Non canonically, anyway) that Jo and Tank were there too.
  • One of the combatants in the tournament is Viewtiful
  • Poppy's doctor in Chapter 3 is clearly based off of Black Jack
  • One of the Degenerate Housewives is pulling off Giorno's pose from JoJosBizarreAdventure.
  • Possibly: Chicadino calls his information-gathering network "Little Birdy" (which may or may not be literal).
  • The Egon Monastery owes its ability to produce dragon blood to spores, mold and fungus.
  • THROUGH FIRE, JUSTICE IS SERVED! No sign of the other two lines... yet.
  • "Yeah, no slip, Slylock."
  • Millie, an advocate for baldness, is seen passing out Chick Tracts, complete with "HAW HAW" visible when Lily looks at it.
  • The baby mice appear to be watching Sparkster.
• Sinister Silhouettes: there are three figures in the background of Chapter 4's title page, referred to by the Alt Text as 'those odd but vaguely familiar silhouetted figures glaring from that tree'.
• Sore Loser: Poppy during Chapter 3. Turns out she went all that way to get Chicadino for nothing but a phone call. She informs him that she trampled his flowerbed and hangs up.
• Species Surname:
  • A not-remotely-subtle case with the title character: "Poppy O'Possum", an opossum.
    • An interesting example, since Possum is actually her adoptive surname, and the Possums are actually cats. Poppy's original surname is Odeletta.
  • A more subtle (and straight) example with the leader of the Fixer Chicks, Miss Rufus: Lynx rufus is the Latin name for the Bobcat.
• Spoof Aesop: Naturally following up on a good one.
  Poppy: But, you know, a good thing done for selfish reasons isn't any less of a good thing. Even if you're just helping someone out to feel better about yourself, maybe that's good enough sometimes.
  Alt Text: So remember kids, ALWAYS be selfish.
• Stable Time Loop: According to Word of God, Mary Moonshine is actually a (functionally) amnesiac Madame Mystana, rather than her descendant, and also Poppy's adoptive mother at a later point in her life; Poppy would also later meet her before she suffered a Literal Split Personality and became two of the three Mothers of Magic.
• Stage Magician: Harry Hopperfield (M.G.) is an actual witch (a unisex title in this world) who acts like a stage magician, complete with a pair of lovely assistants. Nobody other than Poppy is impressed by his feats of genuine magic, as that's commonplace, but they're all astonished by simple sleight-of-hand.
• Stealth Insult: Kit's stepmother drops a harsh one that only the two of them understand and that Kit has to ignore as it's a slight against her pseudo-blindness, which no one outside her family is aware she has.
  Madame Fantomet: The leaves are a lovely color this year, wouldn't you agree, Kit?
  Kit, grinding her teeth: They're...yes, honorable stepmother.
• Stealth Pun: One pops up here, as Poppy shouts to Petunia that she and Lily are going to see the Queen - Petunia mistakenly thinks she's talking about Mr. Shiba.
• Stupid Good: Alvus. The whole reason Chicadino was/is in town running a protection racket is because he wanted insurance for fire protection and heard Chicadino had a firm. He then proceeds to skim-read the contract, and finally, signs it the same friggin' day. It's a wonder the city hasn't collapsed under this kind of inspiring leadership.
• Superpower Lottery: Those born under 'lucky stars' have strange, powerful abilities. This means some characters are vastly more powerful that others. Boris has super strength, toughness and size increase, linked to his confidence.
• Super-Strength: Poppy states that she can lift up to 200,000 kg (441,000 pounds or 200 metric tonnes).
• Tactful Translation: Played for Laughs, as "Ricky" makes sure to edit the Queen's letter to give himself the appropriate title.
• Taught by Experience: Chicadino's assistant, Mr. Vol. At the end of Chapter 1, Poppy punts him off into the night after demolishing Valente. Come Chapter 2, he's seen betting a huge amount of money on her in the tournament, knowing full well how strong she really is. He nets 15,000,000 nibs for it—more than Poppy made for winning.
• Telepathy: Connecting the dots between a few details on these three pages suggests that Rose Rani has this ability.
• Teleportation Sickness: The text beneath this comic suggest teleporting, or rather the feeling of being in two places at once, is "an incredibly unnerving experience"
• Temporary Bulk Change: Poppy's inherent super strength allows her to grow and shrink her muscle mass on command, though it takes some effort to do so.
• Tournament Arc: In the second chapter, in an attempt to pay off the debts Poppy has rapidly accrued. It doubles as a Shout-Out by bearing a resemblance to Dragon Ball's Tenka'ichi Budōkai events.
• Troll: Mary. Full stop. Most of what she does is for pure amusement or out of drunken belligerence.
• The Unreveal: The Alt Text describes a certain giraffe contestant in the tournament as the most beautiful character in the comic. Due to her height, her face is hidden by the panel cutoff.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Word of God stated that, despite her incredible strength, Poppy can't fight too effectively because of her general tendency to avoid fights. As such, things tend to go wrong when an opponent can either shrug off or avoid a punch from her.
• Unusual Euphemism: Many of our swear words, or phrases that contain them, are replaced with alternatives that are inoffensive in our world: The f-word becomes "chuck", "scared shitless" becomes "scared slipless", "no shit, Sherlock" becomes "no slip, Slylock", etc. There's also a moment where someone says "Aw, scat" instead of "Aw, shit". Interestingly, according to the author the actual f-word does exist in the Poppyverse in addition to "chuck" (which isn't merely a family-friendly alternative in the Poppyverse, judging by the fact that someone covers Lily's ears when Poppy says it). The f-word has appeared exactly once, mostly for impact.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Mary and Petunia go at it constantly whenever they meet, but they're somehow friends or at least acquaintances.
• Walking the Earth: Poppy and Lily are implied to have been doing this, in search of a new place to call home, although only one such journey is actually depicted in the comic proper (Poppy's trek to Eggton). They aren't shelter-less, at least, as Poppy's super strength allows her to carry her entire house as if it were a mere knapsack.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Boris the Pompaboar is nearly invulnerable. He can take a blow that would shatter metal and just shrug it off. He can swell to immense size and bulk—his strength might potentially be infinite. But if you expose him as a Closet Geek, he'll fold like a deck of cards.
• What the Hell Are You?: Poppy to Poda, last of the octopi people when she discovers she isn't fighting an exact normal opponent.
  • Later on, Petunia to Poppy, as their attacks only seem to do cosmetic damage to her when they should be knocking her senseless.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: "Miss" Howard Shiba and the "boys" working in his studio. According to one of the author's comments on their blog it's just a gimmick for his store that started when he couldn't afford to hire a model.
• Who's on First?: Petunia and Poppy attempt to explain what Je ne sais quoi means to Mary, but she keeps misinterpreting the definition as them not actually knowing what it means.
• Wicked Stepmother: How far she takes it remains to be seen, but Kit's stepmother quite obviously prefers her biological daughter Vix far more.
  • Interestingly, she does seem to actually care about her husband, too, as she's genuinely (if unfairly) upset that Kit hasn't found a cure for his disease yet.
• Wingdinglish: Flora uses its own internally consistent alphabet, similar to the Latin but with numerous letters altered or swapped.
• Work Off the Debt: The catalyst for the entire story: Poppy needs to pay for the damage she caused by working as Petunia's house servant.
• Would Hurt a Child: Poda is more than happy to murder Lily and everyone one else for that key.
  • Valente threatens to eat Lily in full view of Poppy and Petunia. Cue the first time we see Poppy get mad enough to resort to violence.
• Younger Than They Look: Ewe-Lala. She looks fully grown but Because Wolves are usually huge in comparison to most of the other animals, she's actually just 17.