YMMV / Petscop

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Paul makes a lot of Video Game Cruelty Potential decisions regarding NLM Care, and deceiving some of the pets to catch them. Is this Paul just being a 100% Completion gamer, or is Paul not that nice a person?
    • It's bit complicated since the game forces Paul to do these actions. So it could be more because he has no choice in that regard, regardless of his actual will. He does seem to be creeped out by some of the creepier things in the game.
  • There is a lot of this in regards to who the characters are and what they represent. This is especially the case with Marvin, who, while clearly being an Abusive Parent towards Care, has multiple different interpretations for his motivations. Is he trying to hide a crime he committed? Is he trying to fix a mistake he made? Or is he trying to exact revenge for some unknown offense?
• Cliché Storm: Some detractors of the series have said that it rings of average video game Creepypasta tropes, such as it beginning with a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer, a simple looking game turning dark and dreary, the game seemingly having some sort of mind of its own^note though Paul contests that this is actually the case, and it possibly having disturbing correlations to real life events.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Pen is one of the more popular pets in the series, despite only appearing in one scene and not having much to do with the plot.
  • Hudson has become a Fountain of Memes in the fanbase after his debut, despite being an In-Universe What Could Have Been character.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • Every single nook and cranny of the series has been mined for clues, given its seemingly non-linear/overlapping structure. This includes Redditors analyzing the sociopolitical nature of 1990s Connecticut to try and glean clues. A document was uploaded to the Petscop subreddit with an exhaustive analysis; as youtuber Jordi Wild once said about the document, "there are books from the Old Testament which are shorter than this".
  • An early popular fan theory is that the series is an allegory for the tragic fate of Candace Newmaker, an adopted child who was suffocated to death in a controversial therapy practice known as "rebirthing"; the murderers, including her abusive mother, were never really punished for it. The theory kept popping up thanks to Game Theory, and while series creator Tony did intend the references early on, he regretted doing so and called using references to Newmaker an Old Shame. Fans had distanced themselves from the theory after the tonal shift of Petscop 11.
  • There's been a theory or two that suggests the game itself is growing and becoming more self-aware as more and more people play it.
  • There's evidence in the series that Paul is a trans man. He and Care share a birthday; their rooms and facial features in the Child Library are almost identical; the Guardian avatar recoils when presented with the girl poster in the school; the counselor scene, etc. In this reading, the windmill incident and references to rebirthing imply a desire by Marvin to detransition Paul and "get his daughter back"; and the final scene of the series shows Paul being adopted by Tiara's family, which allows Paul the freedom to be the man he has always been. It helps that they're both voiced by the same person, albeit at different ages.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Naul (short for "Newmaker Paul"), for the player character within the game, in order to differentiate them from Paul, the person playing the game. This was largely dropped when we later got an official name of "Guardian."
  • Pyramid Head, for the red version of Paul that appears in Petscop 12.
  • The Proprietors, the nickname given to the people that run the YouTube channel, who are unknown characters with an unknown title.
• Fountain of Memes: Paul. His flat and sarcastic reactions to the horror going on is a huge source of humour.
• Fridge Logic: If you wanted to confront someone about kidnapping their own child and concealing them in a school basement away from the rest of their own family, why would you make a video game about it, let alone one in which the intervention is hidden from the main gameplay in such an obscurely camouflaged nature?
• Funny Moments:
  • Rainer's Precision F-Strike in Episode 11.
  • Also from episode 11, Paul's deadpan reaction to suddenly getting locked in Care's closet, seemingly with no way out.
    Paul: (walking his character into the closet) I don't know, [is] there something I missed in here? I don't think so...
    (closet door closes, trapping him in; Beat)
    Paul: (chuckling slightly) That's a...that's a fun thing. Fun thing that just happened.
  • The revelation that Episode 21, whose description simply reads "The Sign," syncs up perfectly with Ace of Base's "The Sign." Doubly funny because the last four episodes were all massive game-changers, and fans would no doubt be scouring this episode for lore reveals as well.
  • Paul's segment at the start of Episode 22 has a couple of funny moments, including his increasing frustration at Belle/Tiara not giving him clear directions and his laid-back Precision F-Strike in response to the Guardian suddenly getting hit by a car. Then there's this unexpected Fandom Nod in response to a certain fan theory regarding Episode 13, asking his friend "Why would I be playing Petscop in a car?" as if it's the most ridiculous suggestion he's ever heard...which became even funnier when the scene in question was retroactively subtitled with the sound effect "[car door opens]".
• Friendly Fandoms: Due to similarities of seemingly fun and cheerful childhood stuff being revealed to have hidden horrors, video games, weird puzzles, and Creepy Cute character design, there's quite an overlap with the Five Nights at Freddy's fanbase.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The series has a surprisingly large Mexican/Spanish following, as a result of the Colbert Bump mentioned in the Trivia page.
• Heartwarming Moments: The ending of the soundtrack, after Tiara talks about after Paul was "born," she couldn't wait to be his friend. Paul's response? "Family."
• He Really Can Act: Despite likely creating the game himself, Tony (as Paul) does an excellent job of acting as just some average guy who found an unfinished game. He reacts with appropriate surprise and confusion at the game's oddities and performs some convincing trial and error for some of its more cryptic elements.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I TURNED THE RIGHT AND BECAME A SHADOW MONSTER MAN" as a form of exclamation.
  • "That's a dead kid. Yup."^explanationPaul's reaction upon reading Mike's epitaph.
  • But that one actually did solve Petscop.^explanationSomeone said it as a joke (referring to a theory that was a huuuuge stretch) and accidentally posted it twice. Then a bunch of other people also said it.
  • "Press Nifty"
  • GIRL
  • BYE-BYE! BY-BY-BY-BYE-BY-BY-BYE-BY-BYE-BYE!^note Uh-oh!^explanationIn Petscop 17, there's an entire minute of a "bye-bye" sound playing continuously, then finishing with a "uh-oh" sound. As one commenter said, "Okay but the first 2 minutes of the video was just Paul shooting a "*Bye bye*" assault rifle".
  • For some reason, someone pointed out coincidences with Petscop and Teletubbies of all things, leading to many "Teletubbies + Petscop" jokes.
  • The many, many assumptions of the series being over after a video's upload has become one.
  • MATADOR/mystery solved by petscop^explanation on May 9, 2018, A youtuber named MATA VAMPIROS uploaded a Petscop gamejack called misterio resuelto de petscop ("Petscop's mystery solved" in english, wrongfully translated to "mystery solved by petscop) A discord user found it and spread it through discord on 3/20/19. It quickly became an inside joke on Petscop discord for a scene introducing a made-to-be creepy character named “MATADOR” and a one in which multiple guardians walk together. The joke is mostly on discord and youtube, but sometimes on twitter or reddit.
• Narm:
  • In video 2, Paul finds Mike's tomb. Upon reading his epitaph and concluding he was a child from his age upon dying, Paul proclaims: "...That's a dead kid. Yep."
  • Mike's tombstone looks like a toilet.
  • Rainer's "Fuck you, and fuck me as well. Merry Christmas." note in Petscop 11.
  • The pause screen's message of "Your butt leaves a cavity in the chair." at the end of Petscop 20.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: For a very long time, viewers did not know how "Petscop" was officially pronounced. Petscop 22 was the first time Paul actually said the game's title out loud.

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