El Goonish ShiVe: Look! Squirrel!

[Lissou]

I wonder to a degree if the reason Dan had him learn about police violence was to give him a reason IC not to be a magic cop in the future.

I was thinking the complete opposite, that learning about corruption in cops would be a motivator for Elliot to become one, because he is the kind of person who would want to be a good cop to fix things, even fight corruption from the inside, and knowing that so many corrupted or corruptible people become cops would push him to want to take at least one spot away from them.

It really doesn't sound like Elliot to think "well, I would have become a cop so I could help people as cops should already be doing, but I've just learned the current cops aren't donig that at all so I will let it stay a terrible system and not try to change it, let those people be the cops people have. Yeah, I've changed my mind and won't be a cop after all"

[Maat Mons]

This may be an inane comment, but I really like the visual design of Elliot's current form.

[Fyraltari]

Oh my god, it's a unicorn.

[Celestia]

Oh my god, it's a unicorn.

I'm assuming unicorn bro came from the same parallel world as the griffons.

[Fyraltari]

I'm assuming unicorn bro came from the same parallel world as the griffons.

Why "bro"?

[Lizard Lord]

....The Unicorn has a Scottish accent doesn't it?

[KillianHawkeye]

....The Unicorn has a Scottish accent doesn't it?

I was getting a "Victorian England lower class street sweeper" vibe.

[Fyraltari]

Elliot and Ashley's couple is growing on me.

[Rater202]

Seems like somebody is resentful that Arthur decided to unilaterally take away everyone's tricks and toys.

[DeTess]

Seems like somebody is resentful that Arthur decided to unilaterally take away everyone's tricks and toys.

That begs the question though: how does she know about that in the first place? Afaik only Arthur's agency, the seers and those close to Tedd knew about that plan.

[Rater202]

That begs the question though: how does she know about that in the first place? Afaik only Arthur's agency, the seers and those close to Tedd knew about that plan.

I wasn't referring specifically to Jay.

We still don't know whose dream this is.

[DeTess]

I wasn't referring specifically to Jay.

We still don't know whose dream this is.

What I understood from what the unicorn said is that this is in fact a shared dream of every named character we've seen so far, due to some magical intersection shenanigans.

[Windscion]

I wasn't referring specifically to Jay.

We still don't know whose dream this is.

We do, however, know that the others do not have dream magic. And (https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/party-161) Jack/Jill/Jay does. Well, sort of.

[Rater202]

Tedd is glaring at the mirror in that last panel, right?

[Mystic Muse]

Tedd is glaring at the mirror in that last panel, right?

That was my assumption. Guess we'll know tomorrow.

[InvisibleBison]

Tedd is glaring at the mirror in that last panel, right?

I can't imagine what else she'd be glaring at.

[Gnoman]

The anger doesn't really fit the mirror, though. She wasn't too mad until Ellen and Nanase started talking about playing with a new spell. Until then, it was all scientific inquisitiveness. But, then again there was no great objection to them doing so either - she offered to enable it.

[Rater202]

Compare Tedd's form here with the silhouette of Noriko here and here

[Windscion]

My first thought was more along the lines of "is this a Tedd-Grace fusion form", but then I looked at it long enough to realize that no, it wasn't.
So naturally, I expect a hypermasculine form to contain traces of Elliot.

[Lord Raziere]

Ah that explains what the mirror is for....its for keeping Tedd's mother's monster hunting identity secret. with that kind of scar, you'd have to come up with a fantastically, impossibly good story to explain it if you don't cover it. you MIGHT get away with explaining the claw marks and milky eye as a bear attack, and you might explain the darker seemingly burnt flesh as fire damage alone, but both at the same time? thats too weird, and the circumstances it implies you survived too improbable, as it would mean you somehow survived something burning your face off then get clawed on by a bear or tiger on like, the same day. there is no story you could make that would hold up to scrutiny, social situations would be too awkward for it not to come up in conversation. and there is no way such a thing could be passed off being inflicted in living the life of an ordinary wife living in some surburban town.

[Fyraltari]

Ah that explains what the mirror is for....its for keeping Tedd's mother's monster hunting identity secret. with that kind of scar, you'd have to come up with a fantastically, impossibly good story to explain it if you don't cover it. you MIGHT get away with explaining the claw marks and milky eye as a bear attack, and you might explain the darker seemingly burnt flesh as fire damage alone, but both at the same time? thats too weird, and the circumstances it implies you survived too improbable, as it would mean you somehow survived something burning your face off then get clawed on by a bear or tiger on like, the same day. there is no story you could make that would hold up to scrutiny, social situations would be too awkward for it not to come up in conversation. and there is no way such a thing could be passed off being inflicted in living the life of an ordinary wife living in some surburban town.

I don't think these are claw marks, just deeper burns?

Also I think the "uphold the secrecy of magic" is really a minor concern behind "don't look like Two-Face from Batman".

[Rater202]

I don't think these are claw marks, just deeper burns?

Also I think the "uphold the secrecy of magic" is really a minor concern behind "don't look like Two-Face from Batman".

It might just be the art style, but Noriko doesn't look particularly bad here. Yeah, that's a nasty scar, but it doesn't look.

Might be less "don't look ugly" and more "don't scare the baby any more than we already have."

Of course, until the scar doesn't really make forgetting the mirror down there any better. It does make "Noriko left and cut contact to protect Tedd" slightly more probable, but...

[Celestia]

I don't think these are claw marks, just deeper burns?

Also I think the "uphold the secrecy of magic" is really a minor concern behind "don't look like Two-Face from Batman".

This 100%. Coming up with a believable excuse is a problem not even worth considering as no one is ever going to ask you about it because no one is ever going to talk to you. It's a sad fact of reality that having a big, obvious scar, especially on the face, makes people uncomfortable. Strangers will ignore you; friends will abandon you; and even family will treat you differently. You'll become a social pariah, and it will ruin the rest of your life. That's why plastic surgery and skin grafts exist: to give these people a chance at a normal life.

[Windscion]

* Looks like it could well be not-Tengu's work.
* Might explain why not-Tengu lost a eye. An eye for an eye and all that.
* After all the playing with fire, this is the first time anyone in the comic has been shown to be burnt.
* Is Noriko blind in one eye?

[Qwertystop]

* Looks like it could well be not-Tengu's work.
* Might explain why not-Tengu lost a eye. An eye for an eye and all that.
* After all the playing with fire, this is the first time anyone in the comic has been shown to be burnt.
* Is Noriko blind in one eye?

No. There is no indication that not-Tengu knew Noriko before she moved to Europe, by which point she had already left the mirror behind. Not-Tengu is relatively recent, not any kind of long-term recurring rival. He's just some regular jerk who lucked into magic, that was the whole point of never getting his name.

[Fyraltari]

It might just be the art style, but Noriko doesn't look particularly bad here. Yeah, that's a nasty scar, but it doesn't look.

Might be less "don't look ugly" and more "don't scare the baby any more than we already have."

Burn victims' scars are sometimes just (visually speaking) chunks of skin with an odd looking color but that doesn't stop them from looking horrible especially in the face area.
About half of her face is gone. Including one eye. She can't have a normal person-to-person interaction anymore looking like that.
For one, people will stare or make a (visible) effort not to meaning that every person she meets will remind her of whatever it was that left her like this. For two, so much of body language is the subconscious motions and reading of the motions of the numerous face muscles. And the eyes ain't called "the mirror of the soul" for nothing. Her face is just going to look uncanny-valley style wrong to about everybody. Defigured people have a hard life because everyone instinctively know what a human face is supposed to look like and how to read it and theirs don't match.

Also depending on how old Tedd was when she got the scar (and it's implied she left when Tedd was still a toddler) this wouldn't have scared the baby* because Mother's face (and also Father's to a lesser extent) is the one the baby uses as a baseline for what a face is like. You know how everything you grew up with seemed normal and it's a shock to discover that one of these thing is in fact unusual? It's the same.

*Not a pedopsychologist, don't take my word for it.

Edit: Also I am willing to bet a right-hand glove that this is the beginning of the story treating Noriko sympathetically, à la Box.

[DeTess]

Edit: Also I am willing to bet a right-hand glove that this is the beginning of the story treating Noriko sympathetically, à la Box.

I mean, this does start to explain a bit about why she was so worried about her child not having any powers. Before, She seemed like a bad-ass monster hunter that had nothing to worry about and who should have had no trouble protecting her kid, but if she took a hit like that to the face she must have come within a hair's breadth of dying at least once, which means she was definitely not infallible.

It's hardly a perfect excuse that absolves her of all blame or anything, but I can start to see how a flawed but not particularly bad human could have come to the apparent conclusion she came to ('I endanger my powerless child by being near them, so I need to cut myself out of their life').

[Vinyadan]

I think that inventing an explanation isn't that difficult; something like "I was in a fire and the burning ceiling fell on my face" would suffice.

About life as a burn victim, I don't think it has to be social death. I have met some working in positions of responsibility, with wife and children.

Here it might also be compounded with PTSD, as Raven once talked about veteran problems.

[sihnfahl]

but if she took a hit like that to the face she must have come within a hair's breadth of dying at least once, which means she was definitely not infallible.

Interesting take.

A certain line comes back: It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

You can be prepared to the Nth degree. But things will happen that are not in your control that will throw a monkeywrench into the gears.

The only true defense against that is in fiction, with plotonium armor.

[Fyraltari]

About life as a burn victim, I don't think it has to be social death. I have met some working in positions of responsibility, with wife and children.

I never meant to imply it was social death, just that it makes social interaction (and self-image I would guess) harder. Hence why cosmetic magic to hide that would be a priority to Noriko.