Misfile/YMMV

"Emily: The only things I know she wants are things I just can't give her..."
 * Alternative Character Interpretation - Emily is either a heterosexual girl attracted to Ash but unable to go further in their relationship because Ash is currently a girl OR a lesbian/bisexual in denial who simply doesn't want to accept that she's attracted to another girl. Which interpretation of her character you believe depends upon which side of the shipping war you fall on.


 * There is also Rumisiel who is either a textbook alcoholic stoner who needs to be pummelled at every opportunity for being such a massive Jerkass loser, or he is a pretty decent guy who has some major self-esteem issues which caused him to take refuge in aforementioned substances and is actually of at least above average intelligence.
 * There are some that take that former even farther: plenty have noted that he could easily be an Unreliable Narrator about the story behind the misfile, especially in regards to his supervisors. If you take this to a radical extent, it could very easily be that he was flat-out lying when he said the people in charge of the Celestial Bureaucracy would make the changes permanent to cover their own asses; Rather it's really he who is lying to cover his own ass by making the two people that remember the change afraid to let anyone know about it before he can fix it/cover it up himself.
 * This is probably way off the wall, but God: an omnipotent slacker who passed off his job to the Celestial Bureaucracy, or an active deity going out of his way to set up circumstances to improve the lives of a bunch of humans and help a pair of angels atone for mistakes while fixing up an imperfect filing system prone to a misfile.
 * Missi: Rich kid so used to getting what she wants she refuses to accept anyone dumping her, or does she genuinely love Ash?
 * A meta-example proposed on the forums: Is Missi deliberately a character that splits the fanbase?
 * Angst What Angst - Ash angsts constantly about the problems from his-now-her Gender Bender. But she never angsts (or even notices) that her pre-Gender Bender life was much worse; he had no mother, his father was cold to him, he had a grand total of two friends (or, for that matter, people he even talked to), and so on.
 * Worse is up to debate. He (yes, he) was apparently satisfied with his life. You don't need those things to be pleased with your life you know. Particularly if you're as monomaniacal about something as Ash was about street racing.
 * You have to keep in mind the intense mental and emotional effect of suddenly becoming the opposite gender and having your entire life and past changed to something you don't even know everything about overnight.
 * Furthermore, a fair amount of angst is due to the fact that his life is better as a girl.
 * Okay, but how about Emily? She just lost the last two years of her life. Oh, and all of her former "friends" didn't make the jump back. So, she's isolated, stressed, and confused, and she never complains about it. (Okay, she does, but it's very infrequent and I'm unsure where in the comic it is).
 * She even says so, which pisses off Ash since he's NOT happy with the change. Then they have a big "I want to help you, but I like my own life" thing, where she probably was about to admit she'd love for Ash to be a boy again, because she wants in his pants, but not as a girl.
 * Anticlimax Boss - Out of the racers Ash has faced so far, Sheldon seems to have been the easiest to beat. That could just be because of all the lead up though.
 * This troper didn't consider it an anticlimax, this just wasn't Ash's story arc, it was Rumisiel's- who did a smart, unassisted Big Damn Heroes moment at the end. The race was the set up, the sleazeball move Sheldon pulled at the end was the real climax.
 * Anvilicious - While Chris is usually pretty good about it, there are a few strips that make it more than clear that Ash's character is supposed to be read as a FtM transsexual, and that everything he goes through is supposed to drive home An Aesop about accepting transsexuals, except for the ones that are supposed to drive home An Aesop about accepting homosexuals.
 * Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped
 * Archive Binge
 * Completely Missing the Point - Many fans can't understand why Ash would ever want to be male again.
 * Missi badgers Ash into answering why Ash prefers to be around Emily and gets her answer in that Missi is overly aggressive sexually and Ash hates that. Missi takes this to mean she needs to continue this behaviour so Ash can be the same way.
 * A recent story looked like it would finally resolve the Ash and Emily romance when it the subject was suddenly dropped and the scene changed. The fans got enraged at how poorly this scene was resolved and how stagnant the series was becoming, so Chris decided to write a post commenting that... we shouldn't be so upset that Ash and Emily didn't get together in that moment.
 * Designated Villain - Heather, of The Resenter variety.
 * Die for Our Ship - Some fans consider Missi The Scrappy depending on how much attention she's paying to Ash.
 * Dude Not Funny - Cassiel's treatment of Heather at the pajama party split the fanbase with half declaring Crowning Moment of Funny and the other half declaring this.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Kamikaze Kate.
 * Evil Is Sexy - The traditional evil conscience female uniform, Cassiel.
 * Filler Arc - Book 13. It doesn't contribute to anything over all and Ash learns a lesson he learnt back in book four.
 * Funny Aneurysm Moment - Rumisiel's line from very early on, "Enjoy all the extra time you've got", takes on a whole new meaning once you learn that without the misfile, Emily would be DEAD.
 * Game Breaker - Ash's Monster XR, which is so wickedly over-the-top for a high school street racer that it must remain parked, lest it suck all of the dramatic tension out of the storyline and threaten her underdog status.
 * Hollywood Homely - Missi is supposed to be flat-chested. Of course if it were drawn too subtly, you couldn't see her breasts at all… which is apparently not the point.
 * Informed Attractiveness: Ash's mom is supposed to be a supermodel, but just looks like every single other woman in the series.
 * Memetic Badass - Doris became popular on the forums after her first (and at the time of this writing, only) appearance.
 * Memetic Mutation - "THE POWER OF BOOBS COMPELS YOU!"
 * Moe - Ash, especially with Missi . For that matter, Missi herself.
 * OT 3 - The series is now having Ash, Emily, and Missi hanging together so much that this has begun to enter the minds of several followers.
 * Nightmare Fuel - How the Celestial Depository works.
 * Periphery Demographic - Misfile seems to attract readers who don't typically like Gender Bender stories because it deconstructs or inverts the usual Gender Bender tropes. Crosses over into Misaimed Fandom with Christians attracted by the whole angel thing despite the heavy lesbian subtext.
 * Recycled Script - One of the complaints about the series is that stories where Ash has to remember he is no longer a boy kept being re-used and none of the lessons he learns seem to take effect.
 * The Scrappy - Missi.
 * Shipping - More than the Panama Canal handles per day. Often lampooned as actual shipping (of freight by sea) on the forums.
 * Ship to Ship Combat - How many comics have fans argue over the same pairing? (male Ash/Emily vs. female Ash/Emily)
 * Tear Jerker - When Kate talks to  I dare you to not feel anything!
 * Wangst - Much of the comic finely treads the line, but so far it hasn't really stepped over.
 * The Woobie - Rumisiel and Ash take turns; Emily, when she's fighting with her mother. Aiden to some. And Missi has recently had even the haters wanting a plushie to hug and comfort.