YMMV / Penny and Aggie

• Arc Fatigue:
  • "The Popsicle War" stretched out so long that many readers expressed concern over the extreme length of the plotline, which dominated most of the year it ran. During the run of the series, the comic updated twice a week, a reasonable schedule for a webcomic of its time. But for far more complex plots where scenes would take necessitate being longer to show all the characters roles in the story, only two updates in a week could feel like murder and filler arcs the interrupted the already long storyline caused outrage. Campbell would later state that the reactions he'd get to this and some of the other lengthy plots at this time were more positive to readers who came to the strip much later and simply did a quick Archive Binge, where this storyline can be read in less than a day. However, Campbell seemed to take the feedback from his active readers to heart. Subsequent plots were much shorter, with larger story arcs broken into more manageable chunks.
  • The much-hated "Minjung" arc was widely seen as this, with its sudden, jarring focus on some random girl on the other side of the world who indulges in navel-gazing for much of the arc. It was especially despised because it came in the middle of the intense "Popsicle War" arc with Campbell insisting that the arc was critical to understanding the main storyline. Years later he admitted he didn’t actually know how "Minjung" related to the series, though it didn't stop other readers over the years from finding meaning in it much later.
• Base-Breaking Character: Aggie, Daphne, Helen, Lisa, Marshall and Stan have been these, for varying lengths of time and to different degrees, as was clear from regular discourse on the forums:
  • Aggie: Principled activist, or preachy hypocrite?
  • Daphne: Genuinely loving towards Sara, and genuinely sorry for once having believed the worst of her? Or spiteful, jealous ditz who's only interested in Sara for the sex?
  • Helen: Misunderstood woobie, or spiteful, self-pitying traitor?
  • Lisa: Entertaining and insightful Genki Girl, or annoying, Totally Radical-talking character? In Lisa's case, however, the opinion of the fandom shifted towards her over time as she was given more depth in the later arcs of the series and she even became an Ensemble Darkhouse, leading to her becoming one of the two protagonists of the sequel series.
  • Marshall: Essentially kind and patient guy who means well? Or wangsty Emo Teen who can't get past his Freudian Excuse? Unlike with Lisa, the fandom grew more negative to his perceived blandness and wussiness over time, despite the fact that T Campbell liked the character. Over the years the fandoms reaction and the comic’s ultimate rejection of him come off particularly cruel as we see him depicted on panel as a regular victim of an abusive parent but characters who are actively dangerous people like Bob and Elmer were treated better by both the fandom and the characters in the strip.
  • Stan: Genuinely repentant, former self-centered user who at least tries to act more selflessly, even if he doesn't always succeed? Or perpetual Jerkass whose attempts at reform are merely cosmetic?
• Broken Base: The endgame Relationship Upgrade: Inevitable, or shameless Fanservice? Do the title characters have chemistry as a couple, or does their relationship seem forced?
• Complete Monster: Cyndi Kristoffer is a manipulative sociopath who almost gets off on driving people to suicide, in one case smiling while watching someone commit suicide in front of her. In a really creepy and incriminating file on her laptop, she documented how fun and easy it is to dig a hole into someone's psyche and widen it. She brags about nearly driving Michelle into starving herself to death and she had plans to destroy Daphne and Sara's relationship in the hopes of getting one or both of them to commit suicide. In the same strip this was all revealed, she successfully goaded Charlotte into slitting her own throat by using her Mommy Issues against her. Both her biggest "success" so far as well as her next intended victim, who she merely considers "practice"—Meg—are erstwhile members of her own clique from the "Popsicle War" arc.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Duane shows unexpected nobility, wisdom and charm towards the conclusion of "The Popsicle War" and in ":-)" Lisa is just so... her. Jack Kirk, despite his silent and self-deprecating nature, will surprise you with his wisdom and pragmatism.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Fans dissatisfied with the strip after "The Popsicle War" have declared everything past that point to be this trope. They use the fact that T Campbell initially considered ending the strip there as justification.
• Heartwarming Moments: The last page of "Missing Person." Also a Tear Jerker.
• Harsher in Hindsight: While Marshall’s trauma about sexuality brought on by the abuse of his mother who repeatedly and publicly berates him for interfering with her sex life was certainly brought up in the comic to an extent as a bad thing that motivates his behavior, the overall tone of the story was to portray his trauma as a character flaw that other characters forcefully try to "fix" and their rather self-centered behavior being rejected was usually turned into more evidence that Marshall was "bad". A long-term example is Aggie knowingly trying to get close to him in hopes of pursuing him romantically in spite of him already being in a relationship with Karen but disguised these intentions with the outward appearance of providing him a safe space from his bad home life. When she finally exposes her motivation to him and he takes it badly, we’re meant to take Aggie’s side even though he’s actually right about her having tried to break up his relationship in favor of dating her instead. When she later rejects him trying to reach out to her again after the implosion of his relationship with Karen, she coldly rejects him and it’s implied he no longer has friends. But this basically happens not because of him being a bad person but because every character depicted around him as trying to reach out to him is only interested in him as a romantic fantasy and not as a person. No wonder he’s so traumatized.
  • For one particular scene that’s problematic on this treatment of Marshall’s sexuality, Karen is not a good person but her relationship with Marshall was always depicted as genuine. So when she awkwardly tries to have sex with him in the shower, Marshall is shocked but understanding and calmly sets his boundaries with her while still reassuring her that he loves her. Unfortunately then the comic immediately depicts Karen crossing the boundaries they just agreed to by reaching out and jerking him off without consent, which from Marshall's expression we are meant to see as him realizing sex is okay. This ends up portraying *sexual assault* as redemptive. Given that in the real world, asexuals often face "corrective rape" as a way to "fix" their lack of sexual urges, the implication that Marshall needed Karen to "fix him" comes off really bad the more time has passed since the strip's publication. It doesn’t help either that the fandom further piled on him at this point, making many forum posts questioning what was "wrong" with him, to the point where a then-popular fanart comic depicted him as unwilling to have sex even when they were married. A rare case where the fandom reaction is *also* aging poorly.
  • It's hard to laugh off Bob and Elmer as comedy relief when their sexually-charged jokes coincide with them being depicted as raping Helen when she was too drunk to consent at one of Karen’s parties and later attempting to rape someone at Aggie’s house and then joking about it when she decides they can be "fixed." The comic never seems to understand the gravity of what they've done and still uses them for horny jokes for years after they brag about raping Helen. Aggie shows the two of them more grace for being self-admitted and proud rapists than she showed Marshall for the apparently far worse crime of not wanting to date her.
  • Stan's campaign slogan for class president, in 2006, is "Make This School Great Again". Clearly the man was ahead of his time.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In "Second Looks," Katy-Ann advises Penny not to stress over dumping Duane because "In ten years, five, you probably won't remember each other's names." Sage advice, though ironic coming from the only one of the Pennies who ends up married to her high school boyfriend.
• Jerkass Woobie: Karen is always depicted as both a growing sociopath and also a very lonely and emotionally confused girl who wants to be in control of the people around her to make up for years of social ostracization. The last bit of goodness in her is always depicted as her genuine relationship with Marshall, which she eventually sacrifices and we are told she never finds happiness again after this.
  • Charlotte is a religious zealot who acts out against multiple innocent people due to the abuse of her equally zealous mother and implied sexual abuse. The fact the first place she finds happiness is in jail should speak volumes of the quality of her life before this.
• Moral Event Horizon: Cyndi's manipulating Charlotte into attempting suicide. Many fans felt she'd already crossed that horizon in "The Popsicle War," when she exploited Michelle's body issues and manipulated her into developing an eating disorder, though it was also hard to tell at that point in the story whether she was deliberately doing so out of pure evil or whether she was simply a puppet of Karen. "Missing Person" confirmed that she was a willing participant and actually wanted to go even further.
  • Karen did a lot of morally reprehensible things (including but not limited to outright prejudice), but the fact she genuinely loved Marshall was at least a redeeming feature. That goes out the window when she willingly cheats on him at the end of the "Popsicle Wars" arc, at a party he's present at no less.
• Nightmare Fuel: All of Chapter 3 of the Missing Person arc. Page 12 may well cross the line into beyond terrifying, but pretty much every page has something horrifying on it.
• Seasonal Rot: There was and still is strong discourse about whether the series should have ended with The Popsicle War as originally planned and whether or not the stories were of the same quality after this point. The artist change alone caused intense fights, as the obvious visual change created a hard line between the "old" style and the "new" style of the strip (though whether that really exists beyond aesthetics is itself up for debate.)
• Sexy Villains, Chaste Heroes: While this isn't played perfectly straight, characters portrayed in more antagonistic roles tend to have their sex appeal played up while more heroic characters are presented more conservatively. Karen's makeover into a sex bomb by both Penny and Aggie leads to her explicitly becoming a villain, and once Cyndi takes center stage as a direct antagonist her sexuality in the story and the art increases dramatically. The first hint the reader also seems to get to Charisma's abusive side is her seductive personality and loose sexual mores. That said it's not played 100% straight. Penny doesn't change how she presents herself through the series even when she's no longer able to use her sex appeal to boost her personal profile and its even implied that part of Aggie's original negative perception of her is Aggie herself believing in this trope. Furthermore the most sexually liberated character in the story is Lisa, who wears baggy clothes and her sexuality is usually portrayed as her trying to see the best in people.
• The Scrappy: Darren Danforth. Nearly every reader on the forum disliked him for his lack of discernible traits other than clumsiness, and for his perceived role as a plot device meant to help Aggie get over Marshall.
• Strawman Has a Point: We’re meant to believe Marshall snapping at Aggie when she reveals her crush on him during Suicide Run is showing he’s a bad person when he even rants about people having no respect for relationships but...he’s completely right. Aggie was literally only going on runs with him in the hopes of stealing him from Karen and her motivation for speaking to him about Karen’s treachery was not altruistic. He correctly called her out for this and she even confirmed it to him assuming confessing her feelings would make him love her. Aggie later completely cutting him out of her life when he tries to reach out to her, despite her seeing even rapists as worthy of redemption and despite her also knowing he had severe trauma and trust issues because of the abuse she’s watched him suffer from his mom, actually hollows out any of her supposed notions of justice... and again, proves Marshal right for *not being able to trust her.*
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Aggie often falls into this. Being a Soapbox Sadie in high school is understandable, but she judges Penny by appearance, attempts to subject Lisa to Slut-Shaming when she learns the latter is bisexual, and confesses to Marshall during "Suicide Run", knowing that he's currently happy with Karen (even with No Accounting for Taste being taken into account) and despite the fact that he's dealt with people who were friends with him in hopes of getting with him. She deliberately uses Darren (in a way doing to him what Robespierre cruelly did to Helen in Omega Sisters), then ruins the play she and her friends worked hard on when she learns she won't be able to hook up with him even though she didn't even like him. She later gets upset after seeing Penny happy after having rough sex with her. While wanting peace and stability in a relationship is understandable, her immaturity in regards to expecting her partner to be a "Shangri-La" of some sort was heavily derided as stupid and selfish by much of the fanbase.
• Values Dissonance: While asexuals certainly existed in the 2000s when the comics originally ran, the strips overall hostility to characters who don't want to have sex and the implication that only people who are "damaged" are not interested in sex reads far more harshly nearly 20 years later with ace activism being far more prominent in the culture (specifically the LGBTQIA culture that ultimately formed the strip's main audience of the time.) T attempted to remedy this in Quiltbag with the inclusion of ace characters though the cancellation of the strip prevented this from being explored in-depth.
• The Woobie: Charlotte, who despite being a psychotic religious fundamentalist, is heavily implied to have had something traumatic in her past which might have stemmed from an abusive father and at some point might have included a rape. Whether she really is this or not is actually a point of debate between some of the characters in the strip. It says something for her that even when she was trying to kill Cyndi to prevent her from ever hurting anyone else again, she's still presented sympathetically.
  • The whole cast has shades of woobie from time to time. Hell, Karen's broken gaze into the past at the end of the War is sad, even when she was such a horrid witch. Also, Helen, for whom becoming part of the Something*Positive cast was actually a step up for her.
  • T confirmed in the forum that Charlotte was, in fact, sexually abused.