El Goonish ShiVe: Look! Squirrel!

[Maat Mons]

Things are proceeding just as I predicted. Now Diane will reach the inevitable conclusion that Rhoda being assertive means she has magic.

Tangent: Is there any art of Lucy and Diane cosplaying as Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor Xena and Gabrielle?

[Vinyadan]

I am waiting for Diane to understand that, unlike Rhoda, she literally has a magic voice.

That would be an interesting temptation, I think. She's a teen, and she could be the best liar in the world. "My cat ate my homework." "Sounds legit."

[Qwertystop]

I am waiting for Diane to understand that, unlike Rhoda, she literally has a magic voice.

That would be an interesting temptation, I think. She's a teen, and she could be the best liar in the world. "My cat ate my homework." "Sounds legit."

Yeah, but her first reflex was that it was really creepy, and that didn't really go away when the details got explained. And it doesn't actively convince people; at most she'll be able to say something absurd with a straight face.

[Kish]

Indeed. Diane knows she has a magic voice. She's not tempted by it--(that's Jay, except that for her it seems to be less "tempted" and more "using it freely except when something would cross Dan's pretty low threshold of willing to write a not-pure-evil character doing")--she's creeped out by it.

Edited to avoid double posting: If Dan actually goes with "Catalina's sleep for the previous two nights was disrupted because of sex," I'll be impressed.

[Maat Mons]

For the first three speech-bubbles of Justin and Luke's conversation, I was thinking of the Dune books.

[Vinyadan]

Yeah, but her first reflex was that it was really creepy, and that didn't really go away when the details got explained. And it doesn't actively convince people; at most she'll be able to say something absurd with a straight face.

I somehow forgot she ever found out about it. So the main takeaways from the party were the smoke wizard's identity as pizza girl, how the voice spell works, Diane finding out about it, and Tedd's mom having been hurt in the past?

[Gez]

For the first three speech-bubbles of Justin and Luke's conversation, I was thinking of the Dune books.

Yeah, could be a lot of things, really.

And the author comments are weird.

Were I being more specific, the author Justin was looking up would be Timothy Zahn, and the revitalization Justin referenced would be the original Thrawn Trilogy.

... what referenced revitalization? It made me feel whether I missed a comic or something, but now, this is the first in that scene.

[Ibrinar]

Revitalization= the duology getting sequels - i assume

[Kish]

Justin is saying that the Thrawn Trilogy is the only Star Wars EU he recognizes.

[Gez]

There we go, looks like the commentary for page one was really meant to go with page two.

[Kish]

Susan seems to have been counting on Catalina being freaked out by the idea of her having the magic she actually does have, and letting that slip.

It is actually kind of surprising how blithe she is, unless...well, from what we've seen of her "cat magic," it's entirely possible that she doesn't even think of it in terms of "I have magic," rather "I am cursed with inconveniently and undesirably manifesting cat features if I'm careless about controlling it."

[PoeticallyPsyco]

When it comes to acting, never bet against the girl who's taken Drama class*.

*Of course she's taken Drama class. Get your "lack of textual evidence" arguments out of here!

[Maat Mons]

My understanding of the plan is that they were counting on Catalina being nervous when she realized they were onto her. But she didn't realize they were onto her, so she wasn't nervous, and didn't need to "act normal." I'm not reading this as Catalina having an amazing power face. I'm reading it as her being a tad oblivious.

But later, when shenanigans inevitably lead to everyone knowing about everyone else, she should definitely claim she saw through their plan and played dumb to throw them off.

[Rater202]

Oh hey, look, another thing that makes my blood boil.

when I rule the world, teachers who treat students like that—especially the detention for "back talk" will be required by law to lose their jobs and pensions, tenure be damned.

Severe cases of power tripping teachers, the ones that crossover into legitimate abuse, will be imprisoned for a minimum of ten years.

I'm not traumatized by school, you're traumatized by school!

[Lord Fullbladder, Master of Goblins]

Alright, I think I see how things are going. These dudes are Luke & Crew, looking to find superheroes in the dumbest way possible. This is gonna be why Luke was all beat up last time we saw him in the future. Good for Rhoda and Catalina, you can't go around creeping like that.

[Windscion]

Seeing in my minds eye Catalina, catform w/ fangs forward, 12 feet tall, in uncertain lighting, being loud!
Edit: Okay, seems like we'll have to imagine it. I got my headcanon locked and loaded!

[Maat Mons]

I'm hoping specifically for a giant kitten.

And on the topic of running away...

[Maat Mons]

Prediction: Luke starts crying, and Catalina finds herself awkwardly comforting her (perceived) attacker.

If what happens next is anything other than that, things are going to be awkward later when Luke and Catalina find out they're part of the same friend group.

[Vinyadan]

So, is Luke is a furry? Guess we're about to find out!

[Lord Raziere]

So, is Luke is a furry? Guess we're about to find out!

Doesn't matter, he's gay and Catalina's still clearly female in that form.

[Fyraltari]

Doesn't matter, he's gay and Catalina's still clearly female in that form.

Also she looks like she's going to brutally kill him.

[Kish]

Prediction: Luke starts crying, and Catalina finds herself awkwardly comforting her (perceived) attacker.

If what happens next is anything other than that, things are going to be awkward later when Luke and Catalina find out they're part of the same friend group.

Given that we've already seen what was going on with Luke after this, I suspect, rather, the rest of this scene will be "Luke flees, incorrectly believing that the terrifying metahuman his friends ignored his warnings about is a few feet behind him licking her chops."

[Qwertystop]

Given that we've already seen what was going on with Luke after this, I suspect, rather, the rest of this scene will be "Luke flees, incorrectly believing that the terrifying metahuman his friends ignored his warnings about is a few feet behind him licking her chops."

Depends how well he can keep up his indignation at what *could* have happened if he knows it wasn't actually a risk.

[Kish]

*headdesk* Yes Dan the information that Rhoda is hugely powerful was already provided multiple times and it wasn't hard to get from there to "Luke is probably scared of her, not of her girlfriend who has never been described as particularly powerful." It was annoying enough when just the comment section continually spelled out "one plus one equals two, in case you didn't get what I was going for"; now you've dedicated an entire strip to an unneeded clarification.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

...because changing things when people successfully guess and/or deduce right is just good writing.

Ah, I see Dan subscribes to the Game of Thrones school of writing principles.

[Fyraltari]

All this jumping up and down the timeline is confusing me.

[Celestia]

All this jumping up and down the timeline is confusing me.

Yeah. I have no idea what's going on. I'm going to need to reread this whole thing once it's done.

[Windscion]

The two unknown off-screen persons are almost certainly the two seers who learned about the second purpose of seers and became ineligible for consultation.
This makes sense because one pair of seers learning means that two seers didn't independently learn it. Since seers are experts and ultra-wizards, it makes sense for them to be in research positions. Further speculation: they are siblings. They could have been drawn together because of their work, but the "the[y] agree, for ONCE." sounds more like siblings, lol. (Edit: FWIW, I'm thinking voice #1 is brother, voice #2 is sister.)
I considered immortals, but "taught to manually control their spells" sounds like mortal casterrs.

[Maat Mons]

My prediction is that the off-screen characters are Larry and Rick. And that stuff Dan said about "changing" their identities to Larry and Rick was just clever misdirection.

[Rater202]

If it wasn't for the "they're law enforcement" line I'd have thought it was Agent "My god I'm a Jackass" and agent "I'm a sadistic mosnter pretending to be a good guy."

I can't remember their names. You know, from the beginning of the arc. The woman agent is transparently a female Lord Voldermort.

But the one line about "they're law enforcement" would be weird if it was them.