YMMV / Sandra and Woo

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Zoey deserve all of the things done to her by Larisa, or is Larisa just being an outright bully to her and she's just a Jerkass Woobie?
  • When Michelle rejected Zoey's affections after her sudden kiss, was her reaction just trying to remain calm and in control of the situation, or was she just painfully Oblivious to Love?
    • Her reaction that night lends itself more to the former idea.
  • Michelle's huge Oh, Crap! face at the end of Zoey's arc, has spawned quite a few theories from Zoey being a Closet Key, to Michelle becoming a Heteronormative Crusader. But judging by the later strips (using the homophobia of Landon's mom to get her to allow Landon dating Larisa), she was most likely shocked of how she hurt her friend's feelings. It is also an educated guess that she apologized to her.
  • Did Sandra already know about Larisa's Wolfram syndrome? She doesn't seem that surprised when Larisa brings it up, and Larisa doesn't seem like the type to keep something so important from a close friend.
  • Some of Larisa's behavior around Sandra is easy to interpret as her being attracted to her in some way, doubly so since she's canonically bisexual.
• Arc Fatigue: The Butterfly arc suffered from this, going on for four months. While it wasn't boring, it was fairly long and an interview with a fan even stated that it suffered from this.
• Broken Base:
  • A number of readers have stopped following the comic due to feeling that the political references and humor of certain strips just don't work (fairly understandable since many date back to 2009). Early criticisms of the comic being "too political" were "addressed" in this strip. Not helping matters is the fact that some of their political jokes come off as rather surface-level and/or inaccurate.
  • Some story arcs have faced some serious criticism. Cloud being teased because of a Raging Stiffie, that of Straw Feminist Dorothy Cambridge, and that of Woo and Shadow getting revenge on a photographer by making him look like a furry seem to be the most divisive.
  • The gradual decrease of focus in the title characters, who often don't appear together in the same strip anymore.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The 2012 Halloween arc. To elaborate, Larisa goes to a school Halloween party as a stereotypical pedophile, and it just gets more outrageous from there.
• Designated Hero: Ye Thuza is starting to become this. While her actions of dismantling a safety harness already caused a bit of a Broken Base, it's what she does after that plants her here. She also appears to have killed an overzealous feminist for being mean to her son, but that incident might benefit from Refuge in Audacity (and from the victim being resoundly hated by the readers).
• Designated Villain: Zoey is spoken of as a popular jerk, but the most we've seen of her so far is being a victim to Larisa. Apparently, her meanness takes place off-screen.
  • Not always, though.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • According to this, fan interest in Zoey went up a lot when she was confirmed to be a lesbian, with an unrequited crush, to boot.
  • Michelle as well has garnered a significant fanbase, most likely helped by her pulling a Moment of Awesome to help along Larisa and Landon's relationship.
  • Joe Miller only appeared in two strips, but because of the funny (and heartwarming) twist at the end of his arc, quite a few want to see him return. See the strip and the comments here.
• Fanfic Fuel: There seems to be a lot of speculation, especially in the form of◊ fanart◊, as to what Larisa would be like once she dies and becomes a succubus.
• Genius Bonus:
  • This strip, which actually rewarded readers for figuring it out.
  • In this strip, Larisa thinks Yuna's interest in black holes sounds perverted. Larisa is Russian, and in the Russian language, the literal translation of "black hole" is very vulgar and perverse (they refer to the space object as a "frozen star").
  • Larisa claims to be a descendant of the biblical Eden serpent. This is, in fact, a reference to a controversial religious belief called "serpent seed", which states that some humans (often Cain and his own descendants) are descended from the serpent.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Hazel's cute little fall when a branch broke.
  • This strip, after poor Luna's situation was revealed.
  • Larisa's words in this strip: "Because we live in a hostile world that's run by a merciless God. "The Divine Comedy" arc shows just how merciless this God is: Thomas J. God is willing to kill Sandra For the Evulz and turn Cloud into a criminal mastermind. Thank Jesus that Odin killed Thomas... Thomas' replacememt, John, was no better, being killed by Fortuna for messing with Sandra's destiny (The Devil stated that, should Sandra survive Thomas, she'd become Fortuna's protegee).
  • Though already harsh on its own, Zoey getting rejected by Michelle becomes a lot worse when this strip was revealed.
  • This strip, which isn't as funny when you realize that Woo hasn't appeared as much since Sandra and Cloud became a couple. However, Sandra still likes being with Woo and spends time with him, so it isn't as terrible. And even after they became a couple, Sandra is still most often seen with Woo than with Cloud.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Landon's mom, Harriet, believed Larisa to actually be "a succubus that'll give birth to the antichrist". Fast forward to the Divine Comedy: Larisa makes a deal with the devil to save Sandra, and will become a succubus if she succeeds because it'll be a waste of her talents to be anything less than that. Jury's still out on the antichrist bit, though.
  • This strip, as of Friendship is Magic's final episode, which hints at Applejack and Rainbow Dash becoming a couple.
  • This comic having a parody of transgender character in a shooter game—though mostly poking fun at Blizzard's inclusive policies in contrast to its deals with Chinese government—became a foreshadowing of Catalyst from Apex Legends.
• I Knew It!: Really, who didn't expect Hitomi's arc to have Richard fall in love with her?
• Jerkass Woobie: Zoey. She may be a snooty Alpha Bitch, but she's also struggling with gayngst and a lack of luck in love. Just look at how she feels after she gets rejected by Michelle.
• Les Yay:
  • Played for humor here. See also Moment Killer, of which the title is a pun.
  • At first it seems that Sandra reciprocates said Les Yay when admitting Larisa is a better kisser, but ultimately subverted when she takes it as a sign that she and Cloud simply need "practice."
  • "You're looking in the wrong direction".
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Exaggerated (to the point of possible parody/satire) in the Armin Fish arc. The titular payment collector demands Sandra as payment of Richard's Internet service. Why? To eat her.. Thanks to Woo's surprisingly strong bite that actually rips off Fish's forearm and only leaves part of his upper arm bone visible, the situation is avoided, with Armin threatening to cut off Richard's connection so he won't have any choice but to switch to Comcast. It was still very inhumane, though.
  • Although with what she has seen of Larisa, Landon's religious mother has at least some justification for disliking Larisa and not wanting her son to see her... but then she sees her son with a painting given to him by Larisa for his birthday that she does not like, and proceeds to deliberately destroy the painting and threaten to beat her son if he ever sees Larisa again. She apparently backs down on this after Michelle tells her that Landon was actually gay until he began dating Larisa, and the next thing we knew about her was that she and Landon's father got a divorce and Landon no longer lives with her.
  • In the eyes of The Devil and Ganesha, Thomas J. God crossed it when he decide to kill Sandra. Although, according to Ganesha, it's not the first time Thomas crossed it:
  Ganesha: "God's crossing all the lines again!"
• Seasonal Rot:
  • Touched upon in the post for this strip, where Novil believes the comic hasn't gone stale at all since the start of the comic.
  • In general, once Woo's overall arc seemed to reach its conclusion with him having kits with his lifemate the series shifted focus almost entirely to Sandra and her classmates exclusively, to the point where maybe the fact Sandra owns a talking raccoon comes up once every 50-100 strips. Many fans of the series see this as the comic losing its way and stagnating its original concept.
• Squick: Zoey writes fanfiction between herself and Sandra, one of her classmates that she has only ever been shown to be neutral to antagonistic towards. Not to mention the stories she writes range from romantic to hardcore pornography.
• Strawman Has a Point: Although the city council were portrayed as villains in the Roundabout story arc, they do have a point since Ye Thuza could have hurt her daughter. Not to mention her questionable methods.
• Toy Ship:
  • Despite the characters' ages, there was a Love Triangle among Sandra, Cloud, and Larisa early in the comic, until Cloud chose Sandra and Larisa started a relationship with Landon.
  • They are careful to depict the relationships of the main human cast (and their peers) in an age-appropriate fashion. Relationships are strongly suggested never to go beyond french-kissing, and even Larisa, who is depicted as being rather... er, precocious, is probably not going to do anything beyond that, since keeping her virginity is her mother's only concern. By this strip, however, is apparent that Larisa wouldn't mind actually taking the "next step" with Landon, but he is clearly not ready.
• Values Dissonance: Because of differing viewpoints on the nudity taboo, this strip passed in Germany without much issue, but in English-speaking countries, got Knörzer and Powree briefly accused of playing an 11-year-old up for fanservice.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Would you have guessed from this strip that Justin was a boy?
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: As time passes, more details of this world become clear. While they are rather tame, if you don't think too much about it, the world is fairly realistic when not using Rule of Funny, with all the things that entails. Half the stuff Larisa does is Troubling Unchildlike Behavior and she's an avid Pyromaniac. You tend to love her for the last part.
• The Woobie: Luna. Her introductory arc shows that Zoey's comments, insensitive as they already are, get a whole lot worse when you take into account her financial situation. That, combined with her shyness and the fact her mother was murdered, makes you want to give the poor girl a hug and assure her that everything's going to be okay.
  • Unfortunately, it seems that Luna's Woobie-ness continues even after some Pet the Dog moments for her — after getting hooked up with a crush of hers, she finds herself casually dumped afterwards.
• Woolseyism: After comparing the German and English text, it is safe to assume, that most, if not all of the text is written initially in English and then translated into German (sometimes the cultural references, slang, and word plays can be translated, sometimes not [both the ones in the text or sometimes even those drawn ones]).

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