El Goonish ShiVe: Look! Squirrel!

[Rater202]

Tedd at beginning of comic: Bitter, lonely young man who whole-heartedly embraces the idea of being a pervert because it means his desire t be a girl sometimes or otherwise alter his body isn't weird, one friend and one acquaintance, kind of a jackass. Definite mommy issues.

Tedd now: Sensitive young man/woman/other(depends on how she feels at the moment) with a close-knit circle of friends, decent sized extended family, and loving SO that she might as well be married to. Still has issues, but has tools to deal now. No longer bitter and has mostly accepted who she is.

No wonder she's crying.

[Mith]

Tedd at beginning of comic: Bitter, lonely young man who whole-heartedly embraces the idea of being a pervert because it means his desire t be a girl sometimes or otherwise alter his body isn't weird, one friend and one acquaintance, kind of a jackass. Definite mommy issues.

Tedd now: Sensitive young man/woman/other(depends on how she feels at the moment) with a close-knit circle of friends, decent sized extended family, and loving SO that she might as well be married to. Still has issues, but has tools to deal now. No longer bitter and has mostly accepted who she is.

No wonder she's crying.

On other platforms, people were wondering why she was crying at all. I made a similar point to yours (look at her situation from the beginning of the story to now), and then realise it's only been a year + year and a half.

On top of this, the tensions that resulted in Noriko leaving wouldn't have come out of no where. And kids pick up on that stuff. So the build up starts up well before the start of the comic.

To top it off, 5 minutes ago in-comic, she was face to face with her mum missing half her face and honestly considering that the abandonment issues she was facing were possiblyinvalid. At the very least, that is my read on one of the thought paths Tedd goes down right after the reveal.

Tedd got really ****ed up right here.

[Maat Mons]

Don't worry Diane. Your dad is emotionally mature enough not to feel insecure if you bond with Raven

Noah's the one ho will be devastated. Poor kid.

[Rater202]

That, and as noted before Tedd made friends with Elliot, Tedd was shy and quiet enough that people thought he was mute, which Edward blames solely on Tedd's mother leaving.

Not too long ago, Pandora came into Tedd's life and made herself a maternal figure at a moment when Tedd really needed a mom.

"Great Godmother's granddaughter and descendent, who is already my friend, are family" seems obvious but this isn't exactly the point the situation where that would be Tedd's first thought and Diane saying it... And saying by calling her cool and accepting her as family when they literally just met?

Yeah.

[Vinyadan]

Don't worry Diane. Your dad is emotionally mature enough not to feel insecure if you bond with Raven

Noah's the one ho will be devastated. Poor kid.

Now that's a trip, one is Raven's biological child raised by someone else, the other one was raised by him, but made by others...

I wonder how often this sort of thing happens in real life.

About Noah, he probably would feel scared and jealous. However, he looks very lonely. Even his relationship with Melissa or whatever Justin's ex was called looked lonely to me - we don't love each other, but at least we get companionship. So maybe having a new connection with a very social person could do him good in the long run.

[Maat Mons]

It's probably not too rare in real life. You get divorced, you could wind up with biological kids you're not raising. You get married to a widow(er)/divorcé(e), you could wind up raising kids who aren't biologically yours.

[Rater202]

Well, there's the whole "I just worked up the courage to call him dad and now there's this new girl" thing.

[Gnoman]

About time Susan talked about that.

[Windscion]

I think Tedd's ideas about his strong glamorous cousin are getting blown to smithereens.

[Celestia]

I think Tedd's ideas about his strong glamorous cousin are getting blown to smithereens.

It might not be that. I don't remember, but how many people actually know this story? I know Susan and Grace do. They found out the same time we did: during the road trip to the hammer cave. But I don't think anyone else knew beyond maybe a vague picture.

[Kish]

Susan didn't need to find out during Hammerchlorians. Sarah and Grace did not find out the part of this story that Susan and Nanase are upset about; they knew about the plan to kill the aberration in France, and that Susan abruptly stopped wanting to talk about it, leaving the part between "the immortals gave them basic magic and a plan that involved Susan conjuring weapons for Nanase to use" and "the aberration is dead yay!" a blank. The readers knew because Dan put a flashback at what, for Sarah and Grace, was the "Susan abruptly stopped talking" part.

[Calemyr]

I think Tedd's ideas about his strong glamorous cousin are getting blown to smithereens.

For my money, for Tedd, this isn't about Nanase. It's about Tedd. His feelings towards his mother and his Seer status have been complicated, but I think right now he's remembering Pandora's impassioned rant about how far a mother will go to protect her children from danger. It used to be a detached concept, applicable in the mind but not really the heart. Seeing these two veritable badasses driven to tears over their frustrations regarding protecting each other, from not just the inherent danger but the raw emotional damage of having to kill, is the link in the chain that makes Pandora's words very real. Now Tedd can see it. The torment a muggle son might cause a monster hunter may not match two mages struggling over who let down who, but the anguish paints all the picture you need.

The one things about this page that I like most is the fact that Susan is the one hugging Nanase. No reservation, no hesitation, no revulsion, she just dove in to that hug. It is a beautiful panel to look at.

[Rater202]

I don't know if anyone's following Dan's twitter, EGS might go on a week or two long haitus once the party storyline is over.

[Taevyr]

Makes sense, considering his regular issues with staying on-schedule. Man deserves a break, or some time to build a proper buffer.

[Rater202]

I'm gonna take a guess and say that Thursday's NP and Friday's main comic are also going to be "post during the day" comics, based on Dan's pattern the last couple of months.

[Gez]

I don't know if anyone's following Dan's twitter, EGS might go on a week or two long haitus once the party storyline is over.

So, in a year or two.

[Rater202]

his NP is a cop-out... I don't think that's a wrong answer.

[Fyraltari]

his NP is a cop-out... I don't think that's a wrong answer.

George is just spitting hard, cold facts.

[Rater202]

George is just spitting hard, cold facts.

And the commentary, Dan says that "no" was the most interesting answer that cold have been given... Which implies that "no" is a wrong answer.

Which doesn't mean that they are a polyamorous relationship, but...

[Celestia]

And the commentary, Dan says that "no" was the most interesting answer that cold have been given... Which implies that "no" is a wrong answer.

Which doesn't mean that they are a polyamorous relationship, but...

I think the commentary says the opposite of what you're claiming. He said "no" would be the most interesting answer to give, yet he didn't go for it and, instead, went for the second most interesting. There's a reason for this. It implies that a wrong answer of "no" would, itself, imply things that Dan didn't want to imply. "No" is not an incorrect answer, and Dan is saying, with as much indecisiveness as he can muster, that the polyamory ending is not currently planned. It's not canon, but he's leaving the door open a crack in case he changes his mind. Many commentaries have included statements of the story going in places he hadn't intended because he felt it would be more appropriate for the characters. If Dan decides that polyamory is the way these characters would realistically go, it'll likely happen, but Dan is not actively pursuing that angle.

[Lord Raziere]

......this discussion is already making my head hurt trying to comprehend wrong answer logic being used here. >_<

[Radar]

......this discussion is already making my head hurt trying to comprehend wrong answer logic being used here. >_<

Have you ever watched Yes Minister?

[Celestia]

......this discussion is already making my head hurt trying to comprehend wrong answer logic being used here. >_<

It took me a few years to reach a point where I can understand double, triple, and more negatives without too much difficulty. I do still get tripped up sometimes and need to work through it. Simple yes and no is so much better.

[Rater202]

I'm just gonna reiterate that I'm expecting the comic to end with cuddle-piles

[Gnoman]

Technically, having a single character not being involved would make this a wrong answer. In a friend group that includes Susan, who is borderline asexual.

[Celestia]

Technically, having a single character not being involved would make this a wrong answer. In a friend group that includes Susan, who is borderline asexual.

Susan is irrelevant. The question only asked about Tedd, Grace, and Sarah.

[Qwertystop]

Susan is irrelevant. The question only asked about Tedd, Grace, and Sarah.

The question only asked about those three, but the answer expanded to the whole group. This worked well to avoid the way "wrong answers only" would have made a simple yes or no reveal too much - at most, we now know that the cast as a whole are not one big mostly-nonsexual polycule.

[Gnoman]

Exactly - the question was "Tedd, Grace, Susan", but the answer was "everyone in that friend group". Meaning the entire cast.

[Gnoman]

Exactly - the question was "Tedd, Grace, Susan", but the answer was "everyone in that friend group". Meaning the entire cast.

Note that he specifically says "that they're not related to" which is meaningless in the original three as none are related, but quite relevant in a group that contains a pair of cousins, a guy and his sister-clone, etc.

[Rater202]

Sarah, bot Susan.

Sarah is Elliot's childhood friend who used to be with him until they realized that Elliot saw her as a sibling.

Susan is Sarah's feminist friend with the stun hammers and a lot of issues regarding walking in on her father having sex with a strange woman and her bitter, toxic mother doing the exact wrong thing to explain what was going on.