Misfile/WMG

The reason Cassiel doesn't reveal her powers is because they turn her emo.

In the Kabbalah, Cassiel is the Angel of Solitude and Tears. Her job is to watch the events of universe without interfering. It's possible her powers have something to do with the "solitude and tears" part.

There will be a crossover between this webcomic and the 'Collar6' webcomic

Wouldn't it be awesome?

Missi has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

She's impulsive, easily distracted, seems bright enough (she started working on cars at a very young age), but is reckless.

If Ash does turn back into a boy, then Emily and Missi will start dating each other.

Ash is doomed to be the 'girl' in relationships

(Male pronouns used for Ash)

Ash is/was a nice guy who didn't have much experience with girls. He has trouble going from telling a girl that he likes her to the stage where he does something about it. Thus, all the girls he goes out with will have to take the more dominant, ie 'male' part in the relationship. Look at Ash's past relationships: With Missi, even Ash was aware that Ash was the 'girl'. After Emily groped Ash's boobs, we saw Ash have a private 'Girly' reaction, while there was no matching scene of Emily. Plus, in the Misfile comic posted July 7, it's clearly Emily who's pushing the relationship to sharing a bed with Ash.

Ergo, Ash had better learn to accept it and, if Emily and Ash have a lesbian wedding, Ash should just accept the fact that Emily is the one people will be expecting to wear the tux. Besides, I could totally see Ash in a lacy / sexy wedding gown Ash's mom selected for 'her'.

• No, Emily would be in the dress because she has no problem with wearing dresses and wants to think of Ash as a guy so she can get used to her attraction to him. Most likely she'd want him to stay as masculine as possible. Doesn't mean she won't be the more dominant one, though.

Kay was misfiled from girl to guy

While 'gay' doesn't necessarily mean misfile (some would argue that Emily is lesbian, bi, or 'ash-sexual', Kay may have been misfiled from girl to boy by someone (likely Rumisiel since he is the only clerk in his part of the depot. During the Model Party arc, in response to him finding Ash was looking at other girl's boobs, he agrees to keep it a secret, however he states something along the lines of "Trust me, I'm the Secret King, I'd say I was the Secret Queen, but that would sound like I was trying to hide something" which the queen part might have been a joke only he would have understood, or he might suspected that Ash was a little unusual from than other 'lesbians', and might have been fishing for information. Also, Kay is a gender-neutral name, and I believe Ash's is too. It would also create an interesting comparison in the series. Ash had to masquerade as a girl to keep his cover, while Kay would have needed to masquerade as a guy. Kay's back story might have been that he had woken up one day as a guy, but without an angel to explain his situation, or someone is a somewhat similar spot (like Emily for Ash) he/she had to fly solo, and had to learn the ropes of his/her new reality by him/herself, though he still was curious to find out how it happened. Since it happened way before Ash and Em's misfile, their memories were of Kay as a guy because while they were misfiled at the same time, thus keeping their memories of each other status quo, Kay happened years earlier, both explaining why they remember Kay as a guy, and why Ash didn't suspect anything, as Kay would have had to acclimate to his/her new environment.

• • I would like to note two things: 1, Kay could have been misfiled as little as ten minutes before Ash and Emily, and they wouldn't notice the difference, because they were properly filed at the time, they would be updated along with the rest of the universe. 2, following from the first, if Kay was misfiled, his memory wouldn't have been affected by Ash and Emily's misfile, meaning he would be really confused about how his friend Marie was suddenly talking about her daughter, rather than moping over an estranged son.

The misfile was part of an elaborate Gambit Roulette by 'The Monster' car to will itself into existence and to create for itself the perfect racing team.

Ash, as male, was a talented driver/mechanic but who had no contact with his mother and whose dad often assigned him heavy chores. As a girl, Ash has contact with her mother (who paid for the Monster's engine), has met with the perfect team manager and engineer (Ash can't do everything by herself, after all), and now has the Angels for her dad to dump the heavy chores on.

The misfile was part of a divine Gambit Roulette

It has been established that God knows about the misfile, but for some reason has decided not to do anything about it. As a result of this, two angels are currently hanging around in an obscure town in the middle of nowhere that has coincidentally been haunted by two evil spirits and where an archon has recently been murdered. With the hints that the other archons are disappearing, something evil is clearly going on and only a ridiculously circuitous plan can stop it.

• Or maybe, instead of taking a direct path to solving the problem, God has decided to do things indirectly for the fringe benefits, such as rooting out corruption in the ranks, reforming Rumisiel from a pot-smoking slacker into a competent angel, and dealing with a number of supernatural disasters all at once. He probably set it all in motion by causing Cassiel and Rumisiel to meet fifty years ago as a random coincidence.
• Alternatively, perhaps God has grown bored with running the universe for all eternity and just doesn't care anymore. He's just leaving the angelic bureaucracy to do all work for him.
• Even more alternatively, you can consider the idea that God is generally defined as an entity who possesses unlimited power over the beings within the universe he created. In other words, the author is God. I think it should be obvious why the author hasn't just magically fixed things yet.
  • Hazelton has confirmed this, in the context of the Misfile Universe. (Ha.)
• Note that since God knows everything, it is logically impossible for him to execute a Gambit Roulette since there are no factors he couldn't predict.
• Maybe God is just altruistic. He doesn't want to trap Ash and Emily in their misfiled lives, so he doesn't tell the angels about the mistake. However, he also wants them to meet each other, grow from the experience, and ultimately be able to choose which life they would rather live, so he doesn't prevent the misfile before it happens. Although he probably wants to stop whoever is killing the angels, he has provided that entity with free will, which he wants to allow that person/angel/whatever to express.

The comic is actually a Prequel for Doctor Who

Rumisiel is obviously a pre-William Hartnell version of the Doctor before he got all clever and the Tardis. Cassiel and Vashiel are early versions of The Rani and The Master explaining their Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory. Heaven is Gallifrey and the Celestial Depository with it's reality altering, omniscient and omnipotent files is it's central computer. Even the absent God story corresponds to the absence of Rassilon. Ash and Emily are obviously prototype companions.

• Why is everything always a prequel of Doctor Who?
  • Why isn't everything a prequel to Doctor Who?
    • Because somethings have to be a prequel to Neon Genesis Evangelion. If you can work out a theory on how Ash is really a reincarnation of Shinji and Rumisiel is Misato please post it. Actually...
      • Other way around makes a good bit more sense.

Ash has always been a girl

Technically the way the filing system works, this is true. But before the misfile, Ash was female, the misfile did not change Ash's gender as it changed what Ash THOUGHT her gender was. Why else do we never see male Ash before getting transformed?

• So "Boy"Ash never existed, and Ash has been brainwashed into believing that she Never had boobs and always had a penis. Makes perfect sense.
  • Well, if you look at by Occam's Razor, this actually makes more sense. A whole lot fewer assumptions are necessary to accept that just Ash and Emily's memories were tampered with rather than assuming that the entire universe has been rearranged.
  • The entire universe was not rearranged. I can say without a doubt that if one of your friends was the opposite gender, you'd treat him/her differently. That's exactly what's going on with Ash.
    • I think I see what you meant now, after some thinking. Ash only "remembers" being a guy because his/her file says "male." So hypothetically speaking, Rumisiel erased the fe- from "female" and put it back in the right cabinet, creating a new set of "male" memories for Ash.
• This is what happened in the genderbending anime Tenshi na Konamaiki...
• Unsurprisingly enough, this question has already been asked to Ash himself. And yes, she just knows he was a boy...
• Ash was always a girl. Just a different girl. And now she thinks she used to be a boy.
  • Maybe with blond hair instead of red, or something similarly minor.
• Word of God says this is Jossed.
• I doubt this is the true case. Ash and Emily seemed to have been acquainted with each other before their misfiles, so wouldn't Emily have pointed this out if it was true? Finally, why would Rumisiel have been messing with the insides of the file, he said it himself the reason Ash is a girl is because he stuck in in the 'human female' cabinet in a mad dash to avoid being caught by his bosses. Here is the big one, there would have been no reason for Rumisiel to erase the 'fe' in 'female' from his file, A couple of Emily's pages were removed likely because he was checking her files before the incident which caused the misfile. If you don't answer the any other part of my reasons, please explain why Rumisiel would have erased the 'fe' in female. In fact, using Occam's Razor like another poster suggested, since Rumisiel's story of his mad dash is simpler than him messing with the file, Ash's body simply being changed in effect is supported by Occam's Razor rather than his memories being changed.
• Or Ash has misfile once before and the angel who did it never tried to fix. This would of happen before Ash knew of differences of boys and girls like 2 years old explain why she does not remember and why her male side seem weak(she the girl in relation to Missy)(the world say she male so she make a male persona) and why the female side appear so quickly(it only a month and she ask for ice cream the female drowning your sorrow aid).

Ash is bi, but too squicked to date a guy.

The misfile made a mess of her sexual preferences. She probably would still be into James if she forgot about having ever been a boy, but she'd still be into girls. (However, given the nature of the plot, it doesn't matter.)

• I doubt it. Don't forget, even though Ash is really a boy, his biology has caused him to have a few odd reactions. For example, Ash had a swoon reaction in the hallway a few moments after Emily touched his boobs since she didn't know he was just giving her a hard time. Though he realized realized that he had a girly reaction, he did still do it. This show that like he fears, he is not completely able to suppress certain parts of his new form. If Ash was bi, then he would mention that he had feelings for guys too, and even if he was too embarrassed to discuss it, he would have at least been shown trying to rationalize it in his head.

At the end of the comic, Ash will have his file put back, but Emily will decline to have her missing pages replaced.

This way, Emily still won't be dead in a car crash and someone will be left on Earth to remember everything that happened. She got the better end of the deal anyway. (This may or may not have been inspired by the ending of Midori no Hibi.)

• • It doesn't work that way. If anything, getting the file replaced, yet unaltered, would have Ash remember everything that happened, since the soul was left uninterrupted. If the missing pages are destroyed, everything gets retconned to the new Emily's life. I think that either way, fixing the misfile--whether by changing the current data to "correct" or putting things back the way they were--messes up the memories of the misfile. Although, since their memories would be the only ones tampered with, it would stand to reason that if both of them were to stay in their new states, everyone else would remember that the two of them had been hanging out together quite a bit, so that might actually be the better solution
    • Ash would be the only one that would remember the misfile. Emily would believe that she was always a year younger than Ash rather than a year older than him/her; however, the events that occurred during the misfiled time would, presumably, still happen, albeit with slight variations. Best case scenario, it's kind of like the difference between Ash's memories of his last night with James before he went off to college and James's memories of his last night with her. Problem solved.
    • And putting Emily's files right wouldn't kill her off. That only would've happened if she'd never been misfiled in the first place. The event has already passed, you know?
      • Don't the files work retroactively? If Emily's files are replaced, it's as if the misfile never happened thus she never became friends with Ash and she would have always been in the car accident and thus killed or severely injured.
• The real question is, do they get a choice? Rumisiel says early on that if the Misfile isn't corrected, then bad things will happen when/if it is discovered.
• The reason that she wasn't in the accident wasn't Ash. It was a pre-college party, so Emily wouldn't have been there, even if Ash and Emily had flew solo. It also sounds logical to me that that what Em would stay, Ash would revert. If it wasn't then the story would have made a bigger deal out of Emily's "I think I'm supposed to be dead" and " I choose to stay " statements, and there would be an 'Ash's needs versus Emily's Needs' plot element.
  • You missed a turn back there: If it weren't for the Misfile, Emily could have remained Molly's best friend and would have been a graduating senior and probably would have been invited to that party. But whether or not Emily actually would have been riding in Molly's car and thus killed in the crash is less important to Emily's choices than what she believes, and Emily appears to believe she has dodged a bullet if only to help rationalize her desire not to be restored.

Vashiel has a Super-Powered Evil Side that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

And killed Raechiel. Think about it. Raechiel ends up missing and dead after Vashiel has his Flashback Nightmare about the old days. You also see a place on fire. Vash had a destructive streak. This manifested into a Super-Powered Evil Side or I guess, just and Evil Side. Raechiel was a judge at Vashiel's hearing, or something like that. Evil Vash wanted revenge and killed Raechiel, whish is why Vash can say he didn't kill Raechiel.

• • I thought Egypt myself, could be anywhere really no shortage of heavnly fire in the bible.
  • That leaves the question of why would the archon come to his town.
  • Maybe Evil Vash sent some kind of distress signal to call him down personally.
  • Actually, Vashiel could not be responsible for any Biblical smitings. He was just earing his sword during Rumi's childhood.

Rumi is only 437 years old. Anything before 1567 couldn't be Vash's fault.

• • • It was London, 1666! That would fit Rumsiel's apparent age when he got the sword if the angels age roughly the same relative rate as humans.
      • No that fire was caused by some aliens fighting with the Doctor.
• Alternately, it was a different "Vashiel," who had his mind wiped and status revoked. Good Vashiel is so good at what he does because Not-so-good Vashiel is egging him on from his subconscious, to take over once he gets within range of anyone important enough (or close enough to realizing the mindwipe wasn't completely effective) to risk blowing his cover.

At the climax, God, and possibly Lucifer, will come to Earth.

The comic has thus far entertained a slow progression from Mundane Fantastic with a single angel and the two mortals he became entangled with. Then a little bit of cosmic intrigue came with the introduction of Vashiel and Cassandra, and Vashiel's backstory, and grew with the death of Raechiel. Ultimately, the entire heavens will be pointed at Western Massachusetts, and breasts and academics will be the least of everyone's worries.

Fixing the Misfile is an all or nothing proposition

Especially with recent events going on in the Celestial Depository something odd is going on and it's going to turn out that it's not going to possible to fix one file without the other. As such Ash will choose to remain a girl rather than let Emily die. As part of earning their happy ending this will prompt Emily to sort out her feelings for Ash and end their Belligerent Sexual Tension status one way or another and everything will work out in the end. Though Ash may or may not return to being male

• • Fixing the misfile won't kill Emily. The flow of time does not work in reverse. Restoring those files would not magically change where she was at the time that the car crash happened. Presumably, things would return to normal for Emily, and she'd already be at Harvard.
    • If she'd "already be at Harvard", then that means that fixing the misfile WOULD put Emily in a different place (i.e. Harvard), doesn't it?
    • Moreover, the flow of time does work in reverse; girl Ash contacted her mother and later visited her, while boy Ash never did, and remained in Tempest.
• How could it be an all or nothing proposition? If only Ash changes back, then Emily will have still hung out with him, and thus she would be either his girlfriend, or if 'Past Emily' had still vehemently refused to be the girlfriend, the best friend.

Vashiel is holier-than-though even compared to the other angels because he was mindwiped after the Tadfield Debacle.

Angel at the Gate. Flustered around the male-in-a-female-body. Pale blonde and the least masculine of the Misfile angels. Discuss.

• If you mean he's Aziraphale, I just can't picture Aziraphale as a teenage Bishonen and Vash hasn't been near a book, nor does he call anyone "dear", although he isn't trying to calm any nervous teenage girls and Crowley isn't around. But still. Oh, and Aziraphale is an angel. Not a pushover.

Ash and Emily will be together after things return to normal.

We've seen how reality rewrites itself to suit the new status of the world (female Ash sending the letter to her mother, where the male Ash just threw it away, for example.) We've also seen that "friendships" can also be recast--Ash and James, for example. So, while the angels obviously have to cover their own asses and erase all memories of the misfile, they will show some kindness and, in the rewritten reality, have the two of them have met (around the time that the misfile occurred) and have started going out. Besides, how else can they explain why Emily wasn't in that car crash? Because, just like in the "messed-up" timeline, she was with Ash instead.

• Don't forget, Ash wants to get back to normal, but Emily wants to keep her new life. Relationships are two sided, so even if Ash is written back to normal and Emily isn't, Emily will have hung out with Ash, likely as the girlfriend, but since it isn't said that 'Girl-Ash' and James weren't a couple, just still best friends (even if they did go for it), she could have just been the best friend (since she may have still vehemently denied being the girlfriend in 'Guy-Ash' reality), while Ash would have paired up with Missy, who Ash would have had no reason to break up with. Long story short, I support this theory, but I'm just pointing out that that your 'benevolent angels' theory isn't the only way it could have happened.

Ash can return to being a guy without giving up memory of things.

Not entirely sure this will happen, but I'm putting the idea out there in case it does. The idea is present in Emily's situation - take out a page. Assuming that Emily were to remain the same age she is post-Misfile, doing that would both ensure Ash's memories and make the two of them the same age to boot. And Ash has said it herself that if she were to lose a year of her life it wouldn't be a huge deal.

• Possibility: Ash has a sex-change operation.

Ash will have to confront his male self at some point.

Given that Ash's identity crisis is a major theme of the series, and as the matters with the Angels and Heavens escalate, I'm confident that Ash will end up having to race his former self, in the form of some kind of illusionary what-if, as part of some kind of Divine Aesop proving that Ash is Ash, regardless of what the misfile says.

God is dead.

No, not trying to be some lame Nietzsche Wannabe here. Something must've happened to God in the Misfile universe (either he died, something unknown killed him, or he just plain lost interest and left the universe completely), which is why we don't see him at all. The Celestial Bureaucracy was set up to keep the universe in order to make it seem like God is still alive, kicking, and in charge. Only the highest ranking angels know about this Masquerade and the recent assassinations are an attempt to destablize the order and unravel said Masquerade.

Emily will find out she didn't lose her virginity in this timeline.

Emily remembers having sex with Ryan from before the misfile, when she was a freshman in high school. After the misfile, Emily would have been two years younger and in middle school. That could cause some serious Squick factors. We don't know much of anything about Ryan, but if he was a decent guy, he might have stopped like Emily wished he had just because Emily is younger now. Besides, if Emily were to ever need something good to happen in the story, what better way to sheer her up than tell her she's got a second chance? She was fantasizing about sharing her first time with her best friend. Granted, she technically remembers having sex, but that could be played for angst if it's held against her anyway. It's an easy way to Throw the Dog a Bone or Yank the Dog's Chain.

Pre-Misfile Female Ash was a lesbian.

Either because of or resulting in the weirdness of what happened with James. Rumsiel and post-Misfile Ash were shown playing some sort of bikini beach game (I don't recall if it was volleyball or a DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball-style "jubble-centric" minigame pack, but either way, it was almost definitely Ash's from pre-Misfile. 1) Ash was broke from the misfile until after the appearance of the game. 2) so was Rumsiel. 3) Ash's father wasn't surprised to see her playing it, and would (despite his perversions), be unlikely to play such a game around his daughter (based on comments from Dr. Upton himself).

• So would all the yaoi magazines Ash found under Female Ash's bed have just been compensatory cover since she was a lesbian in denial?
  • Considering how androgynous most boys in yaoi manga are, it's possible - she could've been lusting over their feminine features, but been convincing herself that since they were actually male, she wasn't really gay.
• It isn't unheard of for straight girls to buy fanservicey games like that.

When they finally get the chance, both Ash and Emily won't want to be fixed

Emily has already outright stated she doesn't want things to go back the way they were. Ash is getting more and more feminine as time passes, plus she has a better relationship with her parents than what s/he said s/he had as a boy.

Rumisiel is a high-ranking Xanatos Speed Chessmaster using Obfuscating Stupidity as a cover

The original gambit was the titular misfile, which was enacted to save Emily's life and begin her magical training. (Hence turning Ash into a girl and pushing them to become friends - the former guarantees Kate's interest in Ash, and the latter ensures that Emily is present when they deal with Kate's dead sister.) This explains why Rumisiel is so Badass when the stakes are high (1. Tom; 2. Angelica; 3. Missi, which no ordinary being could have expected to work, but who did a lot to help Ash keep it together; and 4. Bronwyn), why Rumisiel always does something to make himself look really stupid right after each of those, and why the Archon came to this obscure little town when trouble started brewing in Heaven. In the original plan, Rumisiel would have had cover for returning to Heaven after taking care of Bronwyn, but what with the missing Archons he needed his superiors give him an excuse to stall.

• So then why is Kate's sister Angelica still dead? If Rumisiel had misfiled Angelica to have survived, then Kate wouldn't have gotten possessed and gone nuts, she was the cause of several injuries, such as Aiden's, and had caused people to quit racing. Also, wouldn't it have been easier to simply give Molly the same misfile as Emily so neither would go to the party rather than turn ash into a girl. Sure Molly would be pissed off at Rumisiel for altering her life, but I think she would eventually come to like the misfile for giving her of what she would likely call "two more years of parties and dating"
  • Angelica fits into Rumi's plans by being dead, and getting exorcised, after knocking Holy Avenger-sword-wielding big brother unconscious!
  • How else is a filing clerk angel going to get his hands on a Sword Of Power without people noticing?
  • With other people still racing, the dynamics of racing on the mountain get changed, perhaps to an "official" social club, not just high school kids having fun. If the mountain racers became a club, surely Kate and Angelica would wind up running it, which doesn't fit "The Plan".
  • Would Kate seek love in Harry's arms, with her sister around and without a boyfriend? For that matter, did Harry like Angelica better?
  • Just to wrap up...I LIKE this WMG, and see "wheels within wheels"

Emily will give up on Harvard and set her sights on MIT instead

Harvard offers zilch for gearheads, after all.

• I don't know anything about either school, but your description seems plausible enough. It also helps since when Emily and her mom went to look at colleges, Emily's Mom said they would also touring MIT, so it probably means that as long as its prestigious and while Harvard is the best case scenario in her mind, Emily's Mom would be willing to compromise, though they would likely argue about Emily wanting to go into a career involving cars.

Team Misfile will eventually become the world's first all-female rallying team, with Ash driving, Emily navigating, Missi wrenching, and Ash's Mom will be their sponsor.

Ash says rallying is her favorite form of racing, rally cars have navigators, and given their respective personalities it seems like a natural fit.

• Emily dreams this in Misfiled Dreams, along with other relationship developments that do come true, so this may be fanfic Fanon.

God is literally in Ash's car.

Aidan is awfully spooked by it for some reason and claims it doesn't even react like most cars to him. Ash's car has some power above and beyond what you'd expect from just the parts - it nearly was able to beat Kamikaze Kate's high-end racing machine. God is possessing Ash's car, which will be revealed with a literal Deus Ex Machina and God Was My Co-Pilot at the end.

All Real Life transexuals are victims of misfiles.

Ramael will turn out to be the true villain.

He appears shortly after an angel is found dead. Ever since he met Rumisiel, he's done nothing but tempt the poor guy further down the path of vice. Vashiel has a history with him, and clearly hates him as a result. He even looks like a bad guy. He could possibly be a fallen angel, working for Satan and trying to bring the whole Celestial Bureaucracy down.

He's either trying to tempt Rumisiel into messing up so he never goes back to heaven, because he knows about the misfile, and it's crucial to his plans. Or he knows nothing about the misfile, and is simply luring Rumisiel into a false sense of security so he can be killed just like that other angel, either because Rumisiel has a bigger part to play than would seem, or because Rumisiel's death would significantly traumatise Vashiel, who obviously would have a big part to play.

• You mean Xaphrael? Ramael is sort of suffering a case of being dead and disintegrated
  • No, Raechiel is the dead one. Ramael is Vashiel's "old friend."

Missi is about to get some serious Character Development and possibly be truly Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.

"Now" being as of comic 1448, found here ^[1]. Look. She looks way too serious, almost sad, and a four-mile walk barefoot is beyond her annoying Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies and into "This is real and important" territory. I smell Cerebus Syndrome.

• I hope you're right.
  • Confirmed! It's not deeply explored and fixed with rousing speeches, just one line, but she's strongly implied to have some security issues/an inferiority complex regarding her brother. Subtlety for the win.

Shelden is a 'devil'

So far all we have seen of hell in the Misfile universe is Cassiel, who barely constitutes a threat. Naturally of course, with all the Cerebus Syndrome starting to kick in, its a rather obvious time for a couple of red herrings to appear. So far, all of Ash's major races have had some kind of supernatural influence occur, yet we haven't actually seen any hint of it yet. Enter Shelden, who appears to be offering temptation, in the form of a position on a 'proper' racing team, provided she acts against her principles... ie throw the race.

• Hah! I don't know why it would have happened, but just the thought that Missy might have groin kicked a devil makes me want to laugh.

Pre-misfile Girl!Ash was transgendered.

The differences between the timelines were all due to hormones and body parts; they always had the same personality. Pretty much the only evidence I've found for this is that Doctor Upton's reaction to Ash shouting "I'm still a boy inside!... I'm a boy!" was "Go to bed, Ash!", which implies that he already knew but isn't angsting over it (assuming it wasn't Selective Obliviousness), but it would't necessarily have had any lasting, visible repercussions for Misfiled Ash to find.

• This could explain why he lets Rumisiel stay around even though he's a bit of a leech. He thinks Ash may be transgender or a lesbian. If she has a boyfriend and he encourages it, she might be coming out of a phase or 'cured' (I apologise in advance to all LGBT people who may be offended by that). He may not be homophobic, but it is true a lot of people are fine with homosexuality except among their family. After all, his hopes the pair of them are going to get married some day is pretty clear he's willing to accept any guy his daughter likes.

Rumisiel is God

After Vashiel messed up, we've already seen that they altered his mind so that he can't lie. God may have thought this was a perfect excuse to alter this angel's memory and escape from a lot of duties. Just had to negotiate a deal with Gabriel to go along with it. All was going pretty good. He got to be pretty lazy and just bum around without people heaping responsibilities on him until Vashiel decided to be the good big brother and get him a job. Rumisiel still just slacks off, cause that was his initial plan anyways, but because he's supposed to not be God, he finds himself having to follow the major rules anyways. Rumisiel did say that it wouldn't be a problem that God knew about the misfile. He never said God wouldn't try fixing it.

• If Rumisiel comes out as god, then Ash will have a crowning moment of funny when he finds out realizes he had slugged god about fifty times throughout the series. But this is a bit implausible, simply because if he wanted to slack, he would have created a few gold bars, sold them for cash (or create it), and spent a few centuries vacationing around his world. Alternatively, he could have made an island paradise only accessible, or even visible by him, and stayed there.

• • Would seem a bit lonely and/or he would spend all his time being stalked by various angels.

This is not the first time Rumisiel has caused a Misfile.

Rumisiel causes misfiles to improve people's lives. This, however, is not his job. He was in the process of misfiling Ash's file and had likely been finishing up Emily's when his bosses came to chew him out. He was then kicked out of heaven. He has no intention of fixing the misfile but rather making it permanent himself and is afraid that the beauracracy will change it back to its previous state. I can't really explain otherwise why the files weren't filed in the first place.

• That brand of being proactively altruistic is way out of character for Rumisiel. The guy is a slacker, an ex-pot head, had no qualms of dating Lucifer's niece for fifty years when his father disapproved, a perv, gets drunk, and has nothing against cheating using his angelic powers. Also, how would he know if their life would improve or not? Its revealed in a flashback that Rumisiel is an underachiever during his school years, so thats a strike against obfuscating stupidity, so he is likely not a hidden super genius. Also, if that is the reason why he misfiled the two, wouldn't it make more sense to misfile Kate's sister, Angelica, so she didn't die and Kate wouldn't become the broken bird? By the same token, a more obvious approach to improving Ash's life would have been misfiling his parents so that his mom wouldn't have move away, or his dad wouldn't have made the comments that caused them to.

Missy is a physical manifestation of the Miss File.

Besides the obvious clue hidden in the names, (ok fine this is mostly based off that), it does seem rather suspicious the way that its kept being brought up that Ash would have met her around now in the normal timeline. Her personality and the part where Ash specifically says dating her was making him/her the 'girl' of the relationship, comes from the file. She is literally the manifestation of Ash's male side or the Misfile itself. The dead and dying angels... well you can't expect that all the energy and power for a totally new person would come from nowhere, not to mention what it would take to alter the entire world.

• If she is a manifestation of the misfile, then what would the cause for her manifesting be.

The resolution of the misfile will be around the two-thirds mark.

Think about it. On one end, intrigue among angels, a conflict between eldritch forces in which the very fabric of existence may be changed beyond our comprehension... on the other, a Gender Bender racing cars around the Worcester Plateau and awkwardly flirting with an overachieving closet case. When the misfile is resolved, while Ash and Em get used to whatever their lives have become, it will be just a prologue to their involvement in the cosmic cataclysm that the author seems to be laying the foundation for whenever the angels show up.

Missi was a little girl aged into dead-center puberty overnight.

A little odd, but Rumisiel's initial assessment of the situation at the start of the comic might make for a Chekhov's Gun. It really explains a lot - Missi is an impulsive, demanding person who is very perky and eager but easy to depress. While easy enough to write off as a Genki Girl based on that alone, it fits well with a few other oddities.

For instance, Missi's frustration with her parents paying more attention to Tom even though he was getting ready to leave for college at the time and based on what little we've seen they don't seem to neglect her any. It could also explain her random insistance on a Halloween party and seeing large breasts as an all-powerful force; her Suddenly Sexuality, her seeking out Ash as soon as she could, and her instant hatred of Emily daring to be Ash's friend too can also explain this nicely. She could've agreed to try the dating thing in the first place due to being able to tell that Rumisiel is an angel combined with a lack of proper understand of sexuality, while she could have sought out Ash because she saw or heard about him when younger and had learned of the sudden gender change. The Emily hatred is just simple childhood jealous and a "You can only have one best friend" mentality.

As for the thing about Missi being a car mechanic? She was lying. We've never seen her bring it up beyond the one time, and Tom claimed to handle it himself - just because he's a dick doesn't mean he always lies.

This also conveniently explains the Fridge Logic of why Ash and Emily's files were out and why Rumisiel had to rush to hide them - he had messed up on a file from the same town somehow, and he was looking through theirs while trying to find and fix it.

• Heh, that plot twist would be made of win. It would also explain why as of yet, despite being an important character in the story, we haven't seen her interact with her parents: because the same awkwardness, shock (there's got to be a few things pre-misfile teen Missy might have done that kid Missy wouldn't have), and other issues that would have been comparable to Ash interacting with his parents. However, its been recently proven that Missi does have the skills she claims to have when she made Ash a knight costume (although the same plot holes could be a child prodigy (or teen genius if you want to refer to her current form instead), perfectly acceptable in Misfile's insane universe. But even a child prodigy would have issues in school after instantly jumping 7 grade levels due to a misfile.
• Makes sense, though it seems like it would be a case of cranking up the age and just not adding any events (or the opposite, whichever works) labeling her to have the age of a teenager, but with the mentality of a little girl. Depending entirely on what decides what.

A compromise will be reached between correcting and not correcting the file

When/if Rumisiel gets back into Heaven, Ash and Emily will ask him to, instead of correcting their files and erasing all memory of what happened, put details of the misfile in their files so they remember. Emily will probably want him to leave her life as it is, and Ash will get his file moved back, but since it's noted that they were out of place for a while they'll be able to carry on as normal (aside from Ash being male).

• One thing people forget about the files is that (according to the supplementary materials), most people CAN'T read the codes in the files; only a few higher-ups can. Rumisiel can't really change the files beyond moving them around.

If/When Ash does return to being a boy, his and Emily's relationship will be rewritten so that they were dating since the Misfile began.

We know Ash likes Emily and Em likes Ash back, but cannot accept she is attracted to a girl. We've seen that as a girl, Ash and James would have been together, so obviously it can work the other way. Cape Cod could be explained by Em encouraging Ash to finally contact his mother and the summer vacation was for them to reconnect, maybe with Em being the one who wore Ash's dress. James and Ash falling out could be Ash prioritizing Emily. The race against Kate could have been Kate seeing how much Emily cares about Ash, or maybe Em asks Kate not to kill Ash, which gets her to thinking about her views on life and getting over her sister. Missi, maybe Ash and Em break up for a while and Missi was Ash's rebound, but he realises he loves Emily and they get back together, he still dates Missi but remains friends with Emily and that causes some issues or Missi is trying to break the two up so she can date Ash. Oh, and Emily staying around in Tempest could be her deciding to miss college for a year to figure out what she wants to do and also to wait until Ash is old enough to come with her.

Missi's character won't evolve because she's always going to be a side character.

We've never had a section of the story devoted to Missi alone, showing her thought process and things like that. Ash, Emily and Rumisiel are the stars of Misfile, so they get character exploration and development, but Missi is just someone they know who hangs out with them. The only time we saw any depth was when she got drunk, because she let down her defences and confessed she feels lonely, but that seems to have mostly been ignored now. This could be because none of the main trio see past her bubbly personality and think she is naturally a happy child. Until she lets down her defences again or maybe we see some of her thought process, she will never be able to grow.

Rumisiel Is actually extremely lazy rather than incompetent.

It seems like Rumi really knows his stuff, when he wants to. Possibly a good 90% of the time he just doesn't care, and thus doesn't try, making him seem suddenly competent when he's actually trying to get something done.

• This is a THEORY? I gave this much for granted ever since the whole deal with Kate's dead sister...

Before the Misfile, Ash looked similar to Arthur.

It was inspired by how similar they looked in the final panel of this strip, but it would explain why he is the only guy Ash has agreed to date - it's because he subconsciously reminds her of her former self.

• It wasn't a date, Ash himself said he was trying to prove a point. (And he failed...)

Rumisiel lied about how his his superiors would react to the misfile.

Think about it. We only have Rumisiel's word that "mistakes are covered up" by his superiors. Rumi only kept the misfile under wraps because he knew it would mean he'd really be kicked out of heaven, but the files of Ash and Emily would have been corrected to their original status without any additional fuss. There would have been no reason for Rumi's superiors to cover up the misfile, since they already had their scapegoat. The only redeeming fact for Rumi is that thanks to the misfile, it looks like several people's life are changing for the better.

• Except there's more to it than just covering it up to their bosses. They likely don't want anyone on Earth to know about them, so having people with memories of their lives being screwed up would be inconvenient.

Ash and Emily are soul mates.

This is why Ash still likes girls and Emily now likes girls when she was straight before. The filing system automatically corrected their sexualities.

• My theory is that the files list people who would be attracted to Ash, or could grow an attraction. Say, in Emily's file it says "If you hung out with Ash Upton for a few weeks, you'd want to date him.' This also explains Missi, who admitted she never even considered the possibility of being attracted to girls until Rumi said Ash was interested in her. However she was probably bi or just very open since she went for it almost right away. Also, Emily has never shown any attraction to other girls and is squicked out by the idea of being with Ash in his current body.

Ash will consider a Deal with the Devil

Ash might become desperate enough for a solution to turn towards Lucifer or a demon for a way out, since Rumi hasn't done much to directly fix things. He'll try to arrange a deal to fix his gender while keeping Emily alive, then as with such deals, things will turn sour and have to be solved with a race for Ash's soul. Admittedly, this is just a wish for the racing to return, but...

Ash becoming a guy won't automatically make Emily want him

Em has always known Ash as a girl and is attracted to him as such. Her having to teach him about bras and pads and such was how they bonded, and Ash's insecurity is part of who she loves. All of a sudden, she has this guy she knows is the same person, but she can't think of as the same.

• • Alternatively, he'll be friendzoned.

Ash is going to become an amazing trans ally after/if the misfile is fixed

Because, come on. Out of all of the cis^[2] people out there, who would understand the plight of transgendered people better than Male!Ash?

Girl!Ash woke up one morning as a boy

Ash always refers to his girl self as a completely different person. So what happened to her soul when boy!Ash took over? Somewhere out there, girl!Ash woke up in a boy's body.

• Alternatively, she was pushed to Ash's subconscious and that's where the girly impulses come from.
• Word of God confirms f-Ash never existed, she's just a false memory in everyone's minds. Though there could be an alternate universe out there somewhere where this happened.

Ramael is Logan's father

Logan's father knows about angels. Something has changed Ramael since the brothers last saw him. The difference manifests itself as respect for a man's home and family. Just a short time around Eponine has had a profound effect on Cassiel, who knows what fathering a human child might do to an angel?

• He is certainly aware of Logan, and has acted to protect him.
  • And here, Rumisiel confirms that while angels aren't born, they can have children with humans.

The Mind Is Not A Plaything Of The Body

Aside from the street racing (which, as Kate and other characters have proven, is not a male exclusive interest anyway) Ash doesn't strike me as having being particularly 'macho' as a guy - I'm not say he was actually transgendered, just not stereotypically uber-masculine either. All the things that Ash has been freaking out over enjoying as a girl because he thinks he's acclimatising to his new body, were things he would have enjoyed doing as a guy anyway - he just never got the chance to try them because he was more socially isolated then, and there was more social stigma attached to a guy doing the exact same things, which could have either denied him the chance to try them or made him feel awkward about doing so.

• Alternatively, Ash has a much more macho opinion of himself and being constantly on the look out for warning signs of gorwing accustomed to his new body, he finds his old behaviours to be girly and 'unlike him.' Telling himself he would have punched Tom when in reality, it could have been that as a boy he would have done the same thing.

Eponine took the photos

Everybody is running around behind Eponine's back trying to find out who took some compromising photos of her that have recently surfaced. Nobody has thought to let Eponine know they exist or ask if she knows anything about it. Chances are that she knows where they are from, either she took them herself a while ago, or else they're a remnant of the relationship that just broke up so unpleasantly.

• Or alternatively, this is going to answer the question of what her relationship with Girl!Ash was that was so different to her relationship with Boy!Ash. Maybe Ash herself took the photos.
• Confirmed that it was the ex who she broke up with unpleasantly's doing.

Missi knows that Ash is a boy on the inside.

She obviously doesn't know about the misfile, but she might know that Ash is transgendered. She says, "I don't even like girls! Why do I have to like you?", which could be a case of If It's You It's Okay, or, it could be that she figured out that Ash isn't a girl mentally, but feels that Ash should tell Missi on his/"her" own.

If both Misfiles are corrected Ash will end up with Missi

Think about it: Emily would have never met Ash if it weren't for the Misfile. When the misfile occurred Ash was a sophomore and Emily was a graduating senior; Missi didn't enter as a freshman until the following year. Ash would never have gotten to know Emily but he would have had plenty of opportunity to meet car-crazy Missi. And Missi's behavior makes more sense if a relationship with Ash were written into their files -- hence her confusion over being inexplicably attracted to another girl. Note that this doesn't imply a permanent relationship: How many people actually end up with the first person they dated in High School?

Boy!Ash had a huge penis.

We know that code on the file is interpreted differently depending on which cabinet the file is in. So what kind of data could be reinterpreted as huge boobs?

• • Not a penis. The penis is a primary sexual characteristic; breasts are secondary. They would either correspond with upper body muscles, or just wouldn't have a male equivalent.

Rumisiel was not responsible for the misfile. Cassiel was.

After Rumisiel dumped Cassiel, she decided to have him kicked out of heaven. She knew he was a slacker and a stoner. So she snuck in, grabbed a file, some papers of a file, and put them where everyone (Rumisiel included) could reasonably believe Rumisiel would have dropped them. Even if he didn't remembered pulling out the files, he shrugged it as his natural "I-don't-care" attitude. Cassiel either called the "celestial Nazis" or timed the drop to have them see the file and loose papers. She would just have to wait. And then, Rumisiel was temporarily kicked for "lighting one on the job". Not believing he actually stashed them, she was sure Rumisiel scrambled and caused an incident. As soon as possible, she took her leave to spy on Rumiiel and was quick to figure Ash was misfiled. She cannot report it without being asked incriminating questions about how she knows, so she tries to gather evidence, or cause Rumisiel to make a fatal mistake, whichever comes first.

1. ↑ It should go to the right one, I went through the archives
2. ↑ cis= cissexual or cisgendered = not transsexual/transgendered. Or, in other words, someone who's mental gender is in line with their physical sex.