Penny and Aggie/Recap/Fan Glam No. 21

"This world's high schools are different...though no less capable of cruelty."

This interlude, featuring art by Jason Waltrip, is a Crossover with Campbell's webcomic Fans, featuring Alternate Universe (specifically, Fans universe) counterparts of Penny and Aggie characters. In this world, as a brief narrative prologue explains, the rise to prominence of "geek super-soldiers" (i.e., the quasi-governmental paranormal threat agency AEGIS and its Team Alpha response unit) has moved SF/fantasy enthusiasts to the top of the teenage social ladder. Nevertheless, other sorts of teenagers can still feel out of place.

One of these is the Fans version of Penny, the arc's viewpoint character. As she does her best to dress "geeky" and heads to school, she reflects on how, despite her efforts to fit in, she doesn't "get" the fandom lifestyle as readily as others, like Sara and Helen, who relate to her with superficial friendliness masking, respectively, pity and contempt. Her reverie is cut short when she sees Charlotte--another social misfit, but one who in this universe has mastered black magic--heading menacingly toward the school with demons in tow. Penny tries to warn her schoolmates, but can only manage a scream.

Team Alpha members Laura, Shannon and Di arrive on the scene and speak to Charlotte, ostensibly to talk sense into her, while surreptitiously using their laser guns to seal her and the demons within a pentagram and circle. Di, a headstrong, over-eager junior team member, charges toward Charlotte in order to subdue her. Shannon saves Di from certain injury ("It's hell-degrees Fahrenheit in there") by shooting her in the leg before she can enter the circle. Di isn't particularly grateful.

As Laura assures the student body that AEGIS will rehabilitate Charlotte, members of Aggie's film-geek club comfort the shaken Penny. She becomes fast friends with them, discovering that she enjoys acting (and pretend-stabbing Aggie) in their reenactments of popular films. Penny has found her niche.

Tropes
"Penny: [Sara's] so cool, so sure of herself, all the time. I wish I was a lesbian."
 * Alpha Bitch: Helen.
 * Alternate Universe
 * Black Magic
 * Crossover
 * Filler Strip: Two at arc's end, to further extend Lagacé's Christmas break:
 * A Penny and Aggie-themed Crossword Puzzle, which has become an annual tradition for both this webcomic and Fans.
 * "Oh, That Helen!", a one-off, out-of-continuity Crossover with Something Positive, drawn and written by Randy Milholland, has Davan MacIntire tell off Helen over IRC for her self-pity, following which a sexually predatory "Redneck Tree" (a Something Positive Running Gag) comforts her and suggests they meet in person.
 * Fish Out of Water
 * Fun T-Shirt: Fred sports one with the slogan "Secretly gay," an instance of verbal Irony.
 * The Glasses Gotta Go: Inverted. Penny wears "20-20 prescription" glasses (and her hair in a bun) in order to fit in. Even Bob and Elmer are spotted with "geek" glasses.
 * Hide Your Lesbians: Inverted. In the Fans version of Belleville High, gays and lesbians are out, proud and popular.


 * Homeschooled Kids: Di was one (but not her Penny and Aggie counterpart, who appears briefly in Stickjocks).
 * Out-of-Genre Experience: Penny and Aggie is a teen dramedy set in a realistic universe; this arc, being set in the world of Fans, features Science Fiction and Fantasy elements.
 * The Pollyanna: Laura (whom Di and Shannon secretly hate).
 * Shout-Out: Aggie's film club is called the "Sweders," after the practice of "Sweding" (amateur reshooting) popular movies in Be Kind Rewind.