YMMV / Zoofights

• Adorkable: There's something endearing about how enthusiastic Croctopus is about building boats.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Elohim isn't evil, he was just trying to save us from Seanet!
• Badass Decay: Some competitors actually become less impressive after their post-round upgrades.
  • Ultraphant was rendered brain-dead after its fight with Drillbjorn, so its Losers' League incarnation was just its mindless body being controlled by a series of tubes with no other upgrades.
  • Dreadnautilus and its subsequent form Aggronautilus were both extremely powerful fighters. However, its incarnation in the Royal Rumble, Squidiot, was a complete Joke Character.
  • Brut-05 was always fragile thanks to its lack of armor, but it was also highly maneuverable and had a ton of firepower at its disposal. As Hog Wild in the Losers' League, however, it was reduced to a gun-wielding warthog in a wheelchair pulled by hyenas. As a result, it did very little to Snake Pilgrim and lost badly.
  • Black Rabbath's incarnation in the Losers' League, Thumperstruck, is far weaker than the Metal-powered monstrosity the Pangolins fought against.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: During the voting for Sturgeon General and Smash Gordon, some people voted for Smash Gordon's bulldog, Nelson, due to Gordon's implied unintelligence. To the fans' delight, Nelson survived.
  • Among the many monsters that have appeared, Wolfbike, Steamcrab, Oh, the Huge Manatee! and Croctopus have gained a substantial amount of fans.
  • The Mangolin' Pangolins gained a whole lot of popularity from their glorious first round victory against the Hippos. Their victory against Black Rabbath just fueled the Pangolin hype even more.
  • A couple of the spectators have themselves acquired a following, especially Gezora the giant squid bartender. Zoofights 5 also offers the ridiculously nonsensical rivalry between, of all characters, Matthew Lesko and Dr. Robotnik. Lesko managed to win all seven of Robotnik's Chaos Emeralds and used them to transform into Super Lesko, forcing Robotnik to face down the now dangerously powerful salesman for the good of the world.
  • Among the WCW fighters who showed up in the Zoofights VI Royal Rumble, Biguana stood out from the rest for being charmingly oblivious to what was going around him. Also, he was the only WCW creature to kill a Zoofights competitor: specifically, Angsteater. And he now returned as Giguana.
  • Teslacorn (sorry) Only because we don't know anything about her.
  We know not what she cares about, or even if she cares at all. We do not even know how she functions, although we do know she is a horse.
  • After his epic struggle against Hyperfauna, Once Were Walrus flew right into this territory.
  • Of course, one can't ignore the original darkhorses of Zoofights, Mechos and Red Banana.
• Game-Breaker: Seanet. Fortunately, Seanet decided to pull out of the tournament to face down the other Game Breaker of Zoofights 4, Elohim, instead.
• Genius Bonus: Several competitors are based on decidedly obscure creatures (Dunkleosteus, anyone?). Another great Genius Bonus is the name of Slammonite's finishing move: The Cambrian Explosion.
• Hilarious At That Very Moment:
  • ZFV fighter Smash Gordon (a rules-skirting cave man) debuted at the same time Gordon Brown was being smashed in the UK elections. Major Failure swears this was completely coincidental.
  • Mr. and Mrs. Major Failure are Brits so this has to be a coincidence: The symbol of the San Diego Chargers used to be a rearing horse and now it's a lightning bolt. If Teslacorn gets to the semifinals but loses the penultimate match she's the perfect unofficial mascot. She did, and has now been defeated by a ball of water.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Did reading Zoofights 4 and 5 make you want to see Space Amoeba for a better look at a certain spectator?
• Memetic Mutation: A number of phrases and running gags have caught on amongst the fans.
  • "We sort of cloned a seventh tapogre. :shobon:"
    • In its early months, the Zoofights Forum was plagued with spambots, which were affectionately referred to as tapogres after the pathetic Zoofights 3 entrants.
  • "Happy to be a wolf. Ecstatic to be a motorbike. Wolfbike."
    • Wolf. Bike. Wolf. Bike. Wolfbike Wolfbike WOLFBIKE AROOOOOOO
  • "A Gorillion Dollars" was originally just a one-off joke picture. It eventually evolved into a much sought-after prize (15 votes redeemable on any match!) and even an emoticon on the Zoofights Forums.
  • Croctopus' Catchphrase, "I'm building a bote".
  • The Snapture acting like a very angry Kanye West.
  • After Bull Market's osmium phone weapon and the in-fight reveal of Luchadillo having an osmium shell, osmium itself became both an oft-suggested upgrade and an Ascended Meme.
  • "X? X?! FUCK X!!!
  • The Manglin' Pangolins were given quick one-line descriptions of their personalities on their blueprints. It soon became common practice to refer to them by always including the tagline, as in "Drillz (he's the leader)". This meme also ascended.
• Moral Event Horizon: Hardcore Prawn crossed the line when he threw Fight Rider to his death right after he had offered his hand to save Prawn from the pit of lava below. Even though combat pragmatism is a perfectly acceptable tactic in Zoofights, this act was considered below the belt by a lot of those who voted for the Prawn, costing him a good chunk of his fans.
• Never Live It Down: Barbarramundi is best known as "That stupid fish that screwed over Sting Kong."
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • It's emphasized both in-universe and in people's votes that Burger Lord is bad news.
  • Huggles T. Bear weaponises it in the second round, with his laser being upgraded into a device that causes waking nightmares as well as its regular beam.
  • What a few SA voters put for Hippos With An Eating Disorder instead of its proper name: Whatever the fuck that thing is, PANGOLIN-HIPPO-ABORTION, fuckmaremonstrosity, Hippo Monstrosity, and Weird Hippo Thing.
• Replacement Scrappy: Hyperfauna for Swanmass. This trope is probably the reason why Hyperfauna lost to Once Were Walrus in a landslide.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Thumperstruck was booed by the Zoofights spectators for general lameness and past failures. He took all of this to heart and went balls-out crazy when it was actually time for him to fight. Needless to say, people gave him a lot more respect when he was rampaging.
• Rooting for the Empire: There are always people who vote for the competitors that are likely to become tournament-ending god-beasts, or have already become tournament-ending god-beasts. All the major Big Bads have or had a good deal of votes and fans. The only exception seems to be Hyperfauna, which was a rare case of a villain receiving absolutely no support once it was revealed.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: In 2007 Major Failure wrote an acid trip report with Al Swearengen as his "spirit guide" (the "actual" Al Swearengen, not rollplaying him).
  MrGreenShirt: Zoofights suddenly makes much, much more sense.
  saberwulf: Holy shit, now I understand how he came up with Achilles Eel and Croctopus. The Major does a fuckload of drugs.
• The Woobie: Croctopus. He is completely delusional and believes that he is at Zoofights not to fight and kill, but to build boats. He is made to be a sympathetic creature, depicted in a positive, non-bloodthirsty light.
  • Iron Woobie: Croctopus.
  • Monster Truck/Delorelion also fits on both counts. He is a shoddy hybrid of tiger and car cobbled together on minimal funds, who "sort of" transforms from car to tiger and vice-versa. He spends every second of his existance in unimaginable pain, especially when transforming. Despite this, he somehow managed to make it all the way to the semi-finals. Tragically, when he was eventually upgraded into something that can actually function without falling to pieces over time, his own honor immediately led to his downfall at the claws of notorious Combat Pragmatist Hardcore Prawn, who tricked him into falling into a volcano.