Penny and Aggie/Headscratchers

• Regarding Michelle's eating disorder... Why does everyone, in-story and out, blame Cyndi? I've read and reread the arc, but the closest I can find is Cyndi saying "Stan likes em healthy", which Michelle laughs off. The rest of the time seems like Michelle is just overreacting to what Stan said, not Cyndi.
  • At the beginning of "Interventions," Stan, in bed with Cyndi, asks her for assurance that she hasn't been further encouraging Michelle's body issues. Cyndi's response: "Oh, Stan. I've been a bad, bad, bad, bad girl. What you gonna do about it?" So yes, the implication is that she's indeed been continuing to hang out with Michelle and get in little digs about her weight. To be sure, it's not the clearest indication, but it is there in-comic if not on-panel.
  • Just recently Michelle says that Cyndi 'got inside her head', meaning that Cyndi really did play mind games with her until she developed an eating disorder.
  • While it still greatly misunderstands how eating disorders work, the strip again confirmed that Cyndi was deliberately targetting Michelle to get her to commit suicide. To T.'s credit, he did admit after the Popsicle Wars that he hadn't written that part of the storyline well.
• Some characters question their sexuality all of a sudden. The fact that ALL of said characters are girls bring some Unfortunate Implications as well.
  • This is factually incorrect on all points. Aggie had reason to question her sexuality prior to her Coming Out Story; remember her crashing into Karen's chest and getting "tingles?" And Penny's questioning of her sexuality has been a recurring theme ("Campaign Trail," "Second Looks," "20 2020 Pennies," "Bridge Out," "Darren, Darren Danforth, Who Are You?"), hardly "sudden." Sara's Coming Out Story was heavily foreshadowed over the two years (Real Life time) before she finally realized she was gay. Fred and Daphne have known and been comfortable with their homosexuality since long before the strip began. As for the characters in question "all" being girls, how about Stan's fantasizing about Rich while having sex with Michelle?
    • Fred comes more as a Pet Homosexual, as he hasn't done anything besides stating he's gay. No boyfriend, no flirting(Unless you count the drunken comment towards Stan...) no nothing, even the "playing the stereotypes" is just mentioned, never shown. Stan's played more for laughs than actual questioning or problematic. Daphne and Sara, well, yeah, they're kind of a given, specially since they became kind of the Official Couple. Penny, yes, she has been the only questioning I can read as happening naturally(Even Sarah was more of a surprise than her) with her dreams and stuff. Aggie and Lisa are the ones that bother me the most, as Lisa's came out of nowhere(It does fits her personality, but still...). Aggie, I really don't see as having defined herself yet but for some reason, her story was just... tired and repetitive. And now, Penny, Daphne, Lisa, Penny and Aggie Vs. Fred and MAYBE Stan. The fact that the main characters are the ones(while it was never implied it would be a Coming Out Story). Maybe I'm biased for the other works of the authors, who also focus on lesbian characters and only mention gay characters or have them as background characters. (In Cool Cat's Studio and MA 3, haven't read Fans! and it will be hella creepy if they start playing this in Eerie cuties...)
    • I see your point with regard to your last two sentences. No question, it's inescapable that nearly all the main characters are now revealed to be, or possibly to be, gay or bi, and I can see how that tilting of the scales would seem unlikely or unrealistic to some, given that, as easy as it is to forget in modern-day Fandomland, the majority of people are straight. It's really a question of how much, well, "it just bugs" the reader. In my case, not much at all, but Your Mileage May Vary.
• The whole plot (Plot? What Plot?) confusion. Seriously, since the start of the last arc, they start new stories all the time, and just when you feel it may start to make sense, they jump to another story. What do you have to do to make sense of it??
  • I agree... somewhat... After the end of the Lollipop Wars(Or wathever) a couple of arcs seemed interesting enough to go from there in new directions... Darren seemed a nice character to explore, and might have been a nice boyfriend for Aggie(Even if they have made a couple of Archie-gags of there) But no, it turns out Aggie was actually never interested.... despite all the proof that she was... The Hamlet storyline was interesting, as was the "Sara goes to Hollywood" one... and then it got cut for some other stuff.
    • The hollywood storyline is still going on. It's just that it's in the background right now and more important stuff is going on with the rest of the cast right now. Putting complete and total focus on a rather small character when she's off on her own might come off to the readers as some attempt to make a spin-off comic or something.
      • A Sarah spinoff would be AWESOME. Anyway, She is FAR from being a "rather small" character, as she has been an important part of the ensemble since day 1(And was one of the first people to be friends with both Penny and Aggie). And her plot was more interesting that having elections again and the whole cast have to join together against a common foe... again.
      • Um, no. She started out as just one of Penny's background lackey's. Now she's one of the lower level supporting characters. The rest of your statement is just subjective.
• The entry on Wrong Genre Savvy bugs me. Both "Diablo Cody" and "Disney Channel movie" aren't genres and are pretty diverse.
  • ... then fix it?
    • Without a proper discussion about why it might be correct after all? Not that big of ego here.
    • ^ But just big enough of an ego to complain about it passive-aggressively so that someone else will get the courage to edit a wiki post.
    • No, so that the person who put that there or the people who agree with the entry could explain/discuss it openly.
    • It's not like you're saying you want to rewrite the entire page. If a trope isn't relevant, fix it. If it's subjective, move it to the your mileage may vary. It's not that big of a deal that we need hold discussions over every minute edit.
• Why are people so much quicker to point to Aggie's Coming Out Story than Penny's? Penny has the Homoerotic Dream from her time with Duane, the fantasy from "2020 Pennies," the whole "rape" fiasco, the hanging-by-a-thread denial from the Darren Danforth storyline, and Aggie has briefly touching on the idea early on, getting a little flustered when she ran into Karen, Karen's assumptions, that blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the tiger dream, the single Homoerotic Dream about a mannequin, and another brief flirtation with the idea (and Xena). Still, on the forum and on this wiki, people are routinely putting her next to Sara and ignoring Penny completely. In short, Penny's thoughts have unconsciously run back to Aggie every time her thoughts have turned to romance at all, and Aggie's twice considered the idea, and those times more or less deliberately, had two dreams that rather obliquely hint she might be attracted to girls/Penny, and had one Stupid Sexy Flanders moment. I'm sorry, but all I can think of is that you're jumping headlong into stereotypes.
  • As a regular participant on the comic's forum, I can attest that there's been plenty of acknowledgement there of Penny being anything but 100% straight; indeed, the prevailing view there seems to be that she's much further along the discovery process than Aggie. But just out of curiosity, which bit did you see as Aggie's Stupid Sexy Flanders moment? Crashing into Karen's chest? That was definitely signficant in terms of hinting at her sexuality, but the trope there is more Funbag Airbag, I think. As for Stupid Sexy Flanders, while I was writing the Recap for the Hate arc, I came across this strip. What do you think?
    • Hmm... no. Not even slightly. She doesn't come off as even slightly attracted to anyone she's picturing, only horrified that so many might find a male Penny attractive.
• Katy-Ann's hair. Think of every girl you've ever known with brightly dyed hair. Think of Katy-Ann. Think of the Pennies and their ilk in general, especially in the first few arcs. Yeah.
  • What of it?
    • I think what he/she is getting at is that ladies with unnaturally dyed hair tend to be associated more with the "alt" scene, while Penny's group, "especially in the first few arcs," is of a more WASP-y persuasion than it is anything near alternative. If I'm not mistaken, Lisa said something related (hair color and "alt"ness) about Aggie's group when Sara went to them with her newfound sexuality.
      • She's a teenage girl, they bleach their hair and dye it wacky colors all the time in high school while they're still young enough to get away with it. I sort of assumed that the colored picture was more of the colorist getting a little creative than what her actual hair color was meant to be in the comic anyways.
        • Katy-Ann's hair appears pink elsewhere than on the cast page, in for example this strip, coloured by a different person (Miguel Marques) than the cast page colourist (Olivera T.). Also, in a later (grayscale) strip, Katy-Ann says "When I'm old, and dying my hair blue instead of pink [...]".
      • To be fair, Katy-Ann was introduced/joines the Pennys AFTER the "worse than Hitler" comment, which would have made Penny much more careful about saying "No, you can be friend" to anyone who looked "different"
• The whole 'The Lady And The Tiger' arc. Its main purpose is dealing with Aggie's guilt about being alive while her mother is dead; that's a perfectly normal reaction to have when you're trying to live without someone. But the story acts like Melody's perfectly justified freak-out about Aggie jumping in a tiger cage was an act of parental 'cruelty' that warped Aggie into always thinking of her mother 24/7 until it was impacting her life. For god's sake, who wouldn't clutch their little girl to their chest and never want them to leave after they tried to play with a tiger? And how many little kids saw their parents react with frantic worry and believe that they must stay with that parent no matter what? It comes off as a false attempt to ground Melody with flaws but does it in such a ridiculously frivolous manner that she still comes off saint-like. If you're going to bother with such a story, why not have Meloday act deliberately manipulative when her daughter is old enough to take it more seriously?
  • Good points. However, I think it depends on whether the Melody who appears in Aggie's dream is the "real" Melody, speaking to her daughter from beyond the Veil, or an aspect of Aggie's own unconscious. Given that the comic otherwise has avoided any supernatural or fantastic elements, I'd guess it's the latter. So the "I should never have told her not to leave me" bit, then, shouldn't be pinned on the "real" Melody, anymore than the "Hey, if only you were dead your father and I could boink again" bit should be pinned on the "real" Charisma (whom Aggie had barely met, and when she did, she saw her at her absolute worst). And in any case, I took the point of "The Lady and the Tiger" to be not "Don't wallow in grief over me and want to join me in death, because I was wrong to freak out over your almost dying, and thus I'm flawed," but rather "Don't wallow (etc.) because I would've wanted you to honour my legacy by living, and enjoying life."
    • Oh, I agree that's what the intended message was. But the whole arc was about Aggie desperately clinging to her mother because of a 'promise' when really, no 4-5 year old would take such a moment with such deadly seriousness. If Melody died maybe a year or two later, maybe Aggie would feel that way as a child, but Aggie grew up to be a young teenager before Melody died. Who in the world takes a minor incident that happened to them as a kid and holds onto it for nearly a decade?
      As for whether or not it's the 'real' Melody, the strip has flirted with supernatural/odd things, as seen in the 20/20 Pennies. In any case, the way Melody acts doesn't seem like she's just a figment of Aggie's subconscious - she acts like a realistic mother (complete with swearing!) instead of the idealsed saint Aggie sees her as. After all, why would Aggie think her mother was being 'cruel' with her freak-out?
      • The things that happen to us when we're so young are the things that shape us far more than we realize. I myself, when about 6, was highly energetic but kept getting into trouble because I didn't think about things (what 6 year old does, I ask you.) People kept saying how "bad" I was, and for the next 11 years, without even knowing it, I held a quiet but determined thought inside that drove me to behaviors I normally wouldn't have done otherwise: "Fine. I'm so bad? You'll see bad..." Aggie probably didn't even consciously remember this promise, just stuck to what it meant to her emotionally.