YMMV / Wilde Life

• Awesome Moments: When the truth of Carl beating Cliff finally comes out, Oscar wastes no time in taking control of the situation.
• Crack Pairing: A popular ship in the fandom it may be, but realistically, Oscar/Clifford is this. Oscar has so far shown to have a healthy romantic / sexual interest in people around his age, see his one-night-stand at the beginning of chapter 4 and later his fling with Lorelei, his Ship Tease with Sylvia, his initially a bit flirty behavior towards Eliza, and his date with Hazel, all women visibly older than twenty. There is literally no hint of him being bisexual, and absolutely no reason why he should suddenly be into a sixteen-year-old boy, who has only shown interest in one particularclassmate so far.
  • Commenters have repeatedly joked that Oscar and Hanyi were dating. Hanyi, mind, is a giant frog. But she still gets listed as one of his many romantic interests.
• Cry for the Devil: Several fans sympathize for Hanyi on pages 1072 and 1073 as she is seen waiting patiently, hoping Oscar might come back after she let her anger take over and she assaults him demanding to know where her missing heart is. Even moreso after she reveals she has been waiting for a friend for more than a hundred years.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Darcy quickly grew in the heart of the fans with her quirky attitude, kindness, and fun personality.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The fandom has taken to calling Oscar "man-man", which is what the Thunder Children named him to differ him from the "wolf-man".
  • Puppy-Puppy for Cliff, the teenage werewolf.
• Friendly Fandoms: With The Lonely Vincent Bellingham, back when it was still running. Both involve a normal human running from family drama who subsequently finds himself dealing with supernatural creatures. People were particularly prone to compare and contrast their redheaded werewolf children.
• Funny Moments:
  • On page 459, Clifford gets caught showing interest in a girl. The adults waste no time teasing him about it until he's red in the face from embarrassment.
    Waitress: How's it going gang? Y'all ready to order?
    Clifford: YES!
    Caption text: QUICK A DIVERSION
  • Darcy's facial expressions continue to fail to disappoint, such as seeing Cliff turn into a wolf.
    [After being told to respect Cliff's personal space] Darcy: But ... How will I know how soft he is?
  • On page 799, after the dark moments of Oscar nearly dying from the spider-woman attack Oscar wakes up to a relieved Clifford. When Clifford rushes to tell Eliza and company Oscar is fine, he says this:
    Clifford: He's alive! And he's barfing!
    Caption text: IT'S A MIRACLE
  • Emily ealizing that common sense will once again be absent tonight.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Oscar, after talking to Sylvia and learning about her interests, immediately gets a CD-player with audio books, a deck of cards, and a polaroid camera solely because she'd expressed interest in them. Her face in the final panel is pure gold.
  • During a Breather Episode, we get Taki's reunion with Bonnie, a ghost-boy with his ghost-dog, who he'd been searching for for 33 years, and graces us with another glorious smile.
  • Even a giant frog named Hanyi the World Eater can have an Odd Friendship with a young animal person strong enough to stay in the same spot for a hundred years.
• Genius Bonus: Most supernatural creatures and monsters are based on obscure folklore and Native American mythologies, with some non-American stuff thrown in, like Barbara Yaga.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Lorelei asking Oscar "I hope you didn't hear me singing" appears to be out of embarrassment over being heard singing to herself. A few pages later, it turns out that Lorelei was more worried about unwittingly bewitching someone within earshot and thus essentially brainwashing them into being enticed by her.
  • Every time Cliff has cuts and bruises in the earlier chapters is this after the reveal that his stepfather hits him.
  • Oscar repeatedly giving up his jacket is this after the reveal that he did the same, with the same hoodie he would give to Cliff, for his late mother when she was in chemotherapy.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • No one can ever seem to remember what Oscar's name is. He's been called everything from "Oliver" to "Scott" to "Roger" in the comments section, and in one or two areas in our own trope page! This has turned into something of a running gag in the comments, where people will deliberately refer to Oscar as "Roger".
    • Similarly, Oscar's Fan Nickname is "man-man", due to the Thunder Children calling him this early on.
  • People react dramatically and emotionally to (admittedly rather poignant, if subtle) moments with "FEELS" and gifs of characters from movies and shows, and cats acting in a dramatically distressed manner.
  • "Clifford is a cinnamon puppy": Cliff is surprisingly gentle for how stoic he tries to play himself as. The fans absolutely adore this side of him.
  • The Man-Man example above started as a single line from a Thunder Child when they first appear, to distinguish him from the "wolf-mans".
  • Commenters suggest that "Turn into a wolf at it!" should be Cliff's go-to response to supernatural threats.
  • Oscar's series of rapid-fire nopes upon seeing Sylvia for the first time was turned to a reaction gif.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Most of the chapters involve some monster that tries to eat one of the heroes or something along this line, or even the Devil himself appearing. Then there is the chapter featuring Cliff's abusive stepdad, which is just as terrifying as the others because it is realistic.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Chapter 10 is a chapter full of them, especially given the subject matter.
    • Taki, his parents and his dog were all killed by a drunk driver on the same day, and Taki has been unable to rest for 33 years without his dog. Them reuniting and moving on is extremely bittersweet.
    • Especially sobering is finding Sylvia's gravestone. Being a ghost doesn't change the fact that she's dead and opens the question if she too, will have to move on.
  • Chapter 12 doesn't let up.
    • Carl's abuse of Cliff is one for anyone who's had an abusive parent. Especially distressing is Clifford's reaction when it's revealed and how he fears that his family will fall apart because he finally fought back.
    • Oscar's mother is revealed to have died of cancer before he came to Podunk. Making it somewhat less tearjerking is that he is far enough along in the grieving process to laugh about it, though he burned down his life and left behind his family and a fiance.
  • In Chapter 14, Blackwolf, a young animal person, loses his mother and is taken away by hunters who shoot out Hanyi's eye in the process. Hanyi has been unable to move on from this and waited in the same spot for a hundred years for Blackwolf to return, not even eating the world as she promised.
    Hanyi: Why would I ever eat anything that has no goodness in it.

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