YMMV / Luann

• Accidental Innuendo: Brad and Toni run into each other at the grocery store and Brad mentions that he was just thinking about her. While holding a pair of melons. Toni notices and lampshades it.
• Adorkable: Ox is a Gentle Giant prone to Comically Missing the Point, with a personality that approaches Incorruptible Pure Pureness and an incredibly obvious crush on Tiffany.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Toni Daytona simply a Satellite Love Interest for Brad or is she a Broken Bird who has absolutely no idea what she wants (Hence her seriously mixed signals towards Brad and her dogged defense of the indefensible Dirk)? This has been rendered moot now that she and Brad have been Happily Married for years at this point.
  • TJ. He is always smiling whenever we see him, he's shown to be charismatic (Talking Luann's family into letting him move in with Brad and in their house when he accidentally lit it on fire, talking Brad's dad into okaying a car trip), and has been shown to concoct disreputable schemes to get money. However; his parents were never mentioned, and a 2008 strip very heavily implies that he suffers from Parental Abandonment. It's easy to interpret that he's an example of a Stepford Smiler who has to resort to scams or unethical business practices to get by.
• Anvilicious:
  • A guy smoking marijuana isn't merely a druggie; he's a horrible, semi-abusive jerk to who tries to force his girlfriend (Bernice) to hide it for him. Also, Brad's inspired by 9/11 to become a firefighter and hero (to the point where he later tries to get married on September 11th.)
  • Delta is sort of an in-universe example. And her friends (including Luann) find it annoying.
  • Pretty much any arc that focuses on why Luann should choose Gunther as a boyfriend because he's nice and her mother likes him sooner or later deals out anvils about the evils of wanting a boyfriend based on infatuation/attraction.
• Archive Panic: One comic a day for nearly 40 years. It's safe to say the comic is this.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Depending how you feel about the increasingly Brad-centric nature of the comic, he can be one. On one hand, Brad received significant Character Development... but on the other, this caused the Character Development of the other cast to take a backseat.
  • Les. Though some readers enjoy his Character Development and feel he adds to the cast dynamics, others feel his past bullying and criminal behavior (not to mention his constant bullying of Gunther for being a nerd, even after they've moved in together) are indicators he's still a Jerkass and getting too much page-time.
  • Ann Eiffel. As noted below in The Scrappy, the fandom is divided between those who Love to Hate her and eagerly anticipate her next run-in with the gang, versus those who have grown tired of the character (especially her Karma Houdini and Villain: Exit, Stage Left tendencies) and feel that the strip never needed such an overt villain in the first place.
  • The same can be said of Stef, who fulfills basically the same purpose.
  • Shannon, as the fandom became increasingly divided over whether she was just a Cheerful Child with a big imagination, or an obnoxious Spoiled Brat who serves as a cautionary tale about Hands-Off Parenting.
    • And then with one strip, reader opinion swung overwhelmingly to the latter interpretation.
  • Bets is either a breath of fresh air (relentlessly positive and upbeat) or an annoying attempt at being trendy (a pushy, selfish wannabe influencer with little sense of boundaries).
• Broken Base: Jack's status as The Not-Love Interest for Luann. Some readers think it's refreshing to have a guy in her life who she isn't trying to date. Other readers think that Gunther fulfills that purpose already, and Jack would be a more refreshing love interest, as he has actual personality, and isn't just a Satellite Love Interest or Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Aaron Hill/Quill.
  • The "Tiffany seduces Kip" storyarcs. They're either hilarious, and show that Tiffany needs more Character Development, or excruciatingly unfunny, are never going to go anywhere, and ruin Tiffany's character. Making things worse is that it makes Tiffany seem like a Jerkass, ignoring Ox's crush on her while complaining about being single.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Tiffany became a surprisingly popular character, especially with The Comics Curmudgeon, who criticized Evans for putting Tiffany in situations where she was the villain (and deserved punishment from Luann and friends) simply because she was more attractive, confident, and forward than Luann, especially for situations where he drew an oversexualized teenage girl and then implied she was responsible for her own bad luck because of it.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Gunther and Les's house is known as "The Gulag" by fans on GoComics. The commenters at The Comics Curmudgeon know it as "Cockblock Cabin".
  • Luann herself is known by The Comics Curmudgeon as "Inner Beauty," inspired by a comment once made by her mother.
  • Bernice's strictness as Moony U's dorm RA got her the nickname "The Dormenführer" by readers of The Comics Curmudgeon
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • When once polled with the question of who Luann should take to a dance, readers chose Aaron over Gunther. While Evans had them attend the dance together (and even had Aaron kiss Luann after she asked him to do so in order to make an overlooking Tiffany jealous) Aaron still treated Luann more as a friend than as girlfriend material. Even after this, however, many fans still wanted her to end up with Aaron, only for Evans to permanently kill the ship later by shipping Aaron off to Hawaii. Once the college arc began, readers began shipping her with Jock (aka Jack) as well over Gunther, who they preferred with Tiffany.
  • Ox and Tiffany are considered this by fans.
• Growing the Beard: Almost literally with Gunther's return from Peru. Karen Evans had taken over as writer the previous year, and this seems to be the point she's hit her stride.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • As noted on the Heartwarming Moments page: Luann, Bernice and Delta were confident that their friendship would last forever. After Delta went to college, however, she was quickly forgotten completely by the other two. She called in the November of that year to ask if they had voted in the recent election, and then was never mentioned again.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The arc where Luann runs into Clay Aiken and mistakes a note from him to mean he's in love with her is most ironic after the real life Aiken came out as gay.
  • Same with an arc where Luann gets tickets to a Ricky Martin concert, with her and her mother making leering, sexual remarks about him (with Brad pointing out the double standard) beforehand, and Luann hoping he notices her and brings her onstage.
  • With his small stature, big hairdo, southern accent and creepy crush on the main female character, Elwood seems like a precursor to Gideon Gleeful.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Tiffany may be a bully, but underneath the confidence and smugness, she’s really just a sad, lonely little girl. She never had a mother, her father is never around and she had to spend a whole arc being Eiffel’s slave. It gets worse when in college, she completely loses her confidence after putting on weight and realizing she can’t be the same alpha bitch anymore.
  • Shannon is a child who frequently gets into trouble by making messes, breaking objects, and throwing tantrums. However, her mother has abandoned her entirely and her father is usually absent, pursuing his own interests. This leads to him breaking his promises to spend time with her and instead dumping her on the nearest adults with no warning: His sister Toni and her husband and in-laws. Even they seem annoyed by Shannon's behavior, with the punchline usually being how it's an ordeal to look after her. That she is a young child who has no stable home life and is often neglected by the adults around her rarely goes acknowledged.
  • Tara may be an authority-hating, law-breaking delinquent, but her bad family life makes her at least a little sympathetic. It still doesn't excuse her actions, though.
• Narm:
  • Luann's original songs are pretty hilariously bad.
    • Most of Luann's creative pursuits comes off as this, as she obsentiably a college student struggling with writing assignments that's more befitting of a middle school.
  • The characters' use of OHMYGAW can be unintentionally funny.
  • Bets' insistence on calling Tiffany's mansion "The Manse" reeks of the creators trying to seem cool.
  • How does Luann decide to try to help Piro's mental state? A wacky puppet show - while it's intended to show how there's a clash of personality, but it does reeks that the Evans forgot that they're supposed to be young adults, not children.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Tiffany and Luann's near-drowning.
  • Bernice taking a bad fall and hitting her head during a gym class volleyball game. Thank god Luann knew CPR.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Gunther went through major character development from dating Bets, even his jealousy towards Les and Tiffany went away.
• The Scrappy: Gunther's girlfriend Bets: a combination of Control Freak, Manipulative Bitch and Selfie Fiend tendencies has caused many fans to dislike her. Just as fans were starting to get used to her, they broke up and she was Put on a Bus. Though her plan for reuniting with Gunther (which seemed to be exist more as a social media stunt than anything else) reminded readers why they disliked her so much in the first place.
• Shipping Bed Death: Speculated by fans to be the reason why no couples have gotten together since Gunther and Bets, and why Gunther and Bets have a Relationship Revolving Door.
• Squick:
  • Stef and Kip use Tiffany's towel (without her permission) for post sex cleanup. Stef hands it back to her with it visibly dripping.
  • A Gunther and Les Sunday comic shows actual feces in the open toilet, complete with buzzing flies.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • During the July 2020 arc, Ann Eiffel finally gets her comeuppance and is kicked out of the house.
  • Luann calling out Shannon for being a brat.
  • Dez calling out Bets' Selfie Fiend tendencies.
  • Luann finally insulting Bernice back.
• Tear Jerker: Gunther and Bets breaking up.
  • Ox's unrequited crush on Tiffany.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Shannon and Tiffany could bond over their frequently absent fathers (genuine in Tiffany's case) and disappeared mothers, but they've only interacted at the talent show in high school.
  • Tiffany's inability to swim, brought up in a throwaway line during the dunk tank fundraiser, could lead to her being taught how to swim, but it was never brought up again, eventually being retconned in Summer 2023.
  • The supposed break-in at Tiffany's mansion, which added a good mystery to the story, was abruptly stopped, with no sign of returning.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • In the early days of the comic, Brad was intended to be seen as the Big Brother Bully toward Luann but usually he never bothered Luann unless she initiated it first like trying to talk to him while he's sleeping or trying to extort rides from him before she could drive. Most of the time, Luann was the one picking on Brad for seemingly no real reason except that she's bored. It does get toned down thankfully when they get older and Brad gets significant Character Development.
  • Tiffany during the dunk tank fundraiser. The comic acts like it's her fault for bailing when all Luann and Bernice had to do was fill the tank with warm water. They didn't (but lied to her and said that they had), then put the blame solely on her for leaving. What makes it worse is that this was to support Delta, meaning they put bullying someone who had previously bullied them, even though she wasn't being mean at the moment, above helping a friend.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • While there's good reason for Gunther to be concerned about Tiffany’s relationship with Les, many felt he crossed the line from concerned friend to entitled, condescending Jerkass when he sabotages his own dinner with her by trying to pressure her into not seeing Les anymore, particularly when it's clear Gunther's motives aren't entirely pure.
  • Many attempts to make it seem as though Bernice is a Deadpan Snarker keeping Luann grounded just end up making her look like a complete Jerkass hell-bent on cutting down Luann's already-tenuous confidence. She also tends to meddle in and judge the lives of others, such as her fellow students at college; while her position as RA requires her to put her foot down and enforce the rules, at times she comes off as un-empathetic, such as when she tells a distraught Tiffany that if she can't downsize to a dorm she can afford then she can just move back in with Ann Eiffel — who not only is an abusive almost-stepmother to Tiffany, but sexually harassed Bernice when she was her teenage employee. It's even less reassuring given that Bernice has shown interest in the field of guidance counseling.
  • A lot of Luann's treatment of Gunther during middle/high school has aged very poorly, particularly her Stringing the Hopeless Suitor Along. She once admitted that her dream was to have Gunther spend the rest of his life in love with her while she would continue to view them as Just Friends. She would get jealous and possessive of him if he liked another girl (especially if the girl liked him as well), declaring that Gunther was hers. This is all despite the fact that she had no interest whatsoever in dating him. Fortunately she eventually outgrew that mindset.
  • Brad and Toni immediately lose sympathy with their terrible parenting of Shannon. Toni even admits to Luann's face that they foist Shannon onto her simply because they don't want to deal with her.
  • Tiffany during Summer 2023. She's supposed to be conflicted and guilty about trying to seduce Kip. However, this doesn't stop her from continuing to try and seduce him, and deluding herself into thinking he's the one hitting on her. Making things worse is she complains about being single after having found out about Ox's crush on her the previous year, making her look like an ungrateful bitch.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The celebrity cameos can be seen as this, especially in the earlier art styles. The more realistic, caricature-style depictions of the celebrities can clash with the rest of the characters.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Luann asks Gunther if he might be gay, because he's interested in sewing and raised by a single mother.
  • In one strip, Tiffany complains to Crystal that Les won't leave her alone no matter how many times she tells him no; Crystal blames the way she's dressing for making him see "yes."
  • Many of Luann's crush objects were grown men while she was still a 16-year-old in high school. Stuart was old enough to be married and Ben was a Sergeant in the army (and therefore at least 21). Both of these men also met Luann’s parents, who apparently saw no issue with their daughter dating an adult (one strip even had Frank confirm that he was perfectly okay with 16-year-old Luann dating a 21-year-old man, as long as the man seemed respectable enough.)
• Vanilla Protagonist: Luann (and to a lesser extent Bernice) is this. Given the more interesting side characters, she comes off as boring by comparison.
• Wangst: Stef is a master of this, acting like her roommates are so unfair for not catering to her every whim, or letting her take everything from them for her own use.

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