El Goonish Shive VII: The Comic is 20 Years Old, but the Cast is Still 18

[Gez]

That guy would do well to wear a cup.

You know, just in case.

[Windscion]

Yes, yes, Sarah likes wands. We get it, she's the token het.

[Fyraltari]

Yes, yes, Sarah likes wands. We get it, she's the token het.

Take my approval and get out!

[Celestia]

Yes, yes, Sarah likes wands. We get it, she's the token het.

OMG :O

That's hilarious.

[Radar]

Yes, yes, Sarah likes wands. We get it, she's the token het.

Not quite as she considers herself 1 on Kinsey scale, well... at most 2.

[Celestia]

Not quite as she considers herself 1 on Kinsey scale, well... at most 2.

Yeah, I do get the impression that she's a bisexual in denial. She may be straight-leaning, but I don't think she's entirely straight.

Which does mean that this comic doesn't have a cishet main character. The closest is Elliot, and he's probably not het or cis.

[Rater202]

Yeah, I do get the impression that she's a bisexual in denial. She may be straight-leaning, but I don't think she's entirely straight.

Which does mean that this comic doesn't have a cishet main character. The closest is Elliot, and he's probably not het or cis.

Elliot has outright stated he identifies as "gender casual" and Susan postulates that he means agender when he saysthis after he explains it, so... No, Elliot is not Cis.

As for his seuxuality... If he doens't have a gender, I don't think that terms like hetero or homo accuratly apply to him.

I think. Don't quote me on that.

...This might be a question for the LGBTAI thread.

[Windscion]

Yeah, I do get the impression that she's a bisexual in denial. She may be straight-leaning, but I don't think she's entirely straight.

Which does mean that this comic doesn't have a cishet main character. The closest is Elliot, and he's probably not het or cis.

Finding Noah hot is ... kind of an unfair test of heterosexuality? I mean, Noah has the androgynous thing going, probably due at least in part to his Uryuom heritage. My point here is that he may well be NB, even if he presents as male. (Given his prehensile hair, he must have some Uryuom heritage, even if he isn't an alt of dream-verse Archie.) And yeah, Elliot isn't really cis anymore.

Sarah is maybe less in denial and more unwilling to (in her eyes) get between Grace and Tedd. For any value of "between" that you choose.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, I do get the impression that she's a bisexual in denial. She may be straight-leaning, but I don't think she's entirely straight.

Which does mean that this comic doesn't have a cishet main character. The closest is Elliot, and he's probably not het or cis.

Yeah, Sarah is somewhere between hetereoflexible and bi/pan. Elliot is NB but his attraction leads female (same for Tedd, I think), we've got two clear cisgender gay characters, and whatever Ellen identifies as.

Grace, I think, is cis-het but also demi? I've never understood if uyrom-style attraction is supposed to be different to being demi or if Dan/Tedd just didn't know the term.

[Rater202]

Yeah, Sarah is somewhere between hetereoflexible and bi/pan. Elliot is NB but his attraction leads female (same for Tedd, I think), we've got two clear cisgender gay characters, and whatever Ellen identifies as.

Grace, I think, is cis-het but also demi? I've never understood if uyrom-style attraction is supposed to be different to being demi or if Dan/Tedd just didn't know the term.

Tedd is explicitly genderfluid, feeling more male or female on some days than on others or in different situations.. And not accounting for the effects of the TF gun, is exclusively attracted to females.

Grace has stated that she's attracted to Tedd regardless of form due to sensing his emotions but is otherwise attracted to boys when in female form and attracted to girls when in male form. Or well, at least she leans towards that way.

Grace's gender identity hasn't been specified. Dan has gone on record as stating that Will and Gill's "Uryuoms don't have genders" is becuase he didn't know the difference between sex and gender at the time and that Uryuosms do have gender identities and assume gender roles among cultures that have them, so... Since Grace is almost exclusively in female form I'm gonna assume she identifies as female until specified otherwise.

If only by default

[Fyraltari]

SO Kevin is disappointed in Ashley, confused by Grace, willing to train Sarah and can tell that Tedd needs no more training.

Do I have that right?

[Gez]

I'd tend to think it's more that Kevin accepts that Sarah is here for the lessons, but I'm not sure whether it will actually attempt to train Sarah because she's not a wizard. While Mittens is.

[Windscion]

He's disappointed in Mittens, and is willing to accept that Sarah is just a wizard groupie. And maybe Grace is a wizards familiar?

[Anonymouswizard]

Tedd meanwhile probably just registers as a fully trained wizard. They might not have a lot of power, and they might not be able to cast them, but they do know a lot of spells.

[Rater202]

Tedd meanwhile probably just registers as a fully trained wizard. They might not have a lot of power, and they might not be able to cast them, but they do know a lot of spells.

Tedd explicitly has an absurd amount of power. Luke wa blinded by Tedd's aura when Grace, "the most magically overpowered thing in Moperville," only had a slightly thicker and more defined aura than other users.

Pandora states that the reason the wand didn't detect Tedd's power is becuase Tedd was powerful enough to reflexively resist the detection spell and that Tedd is a font of power.

Also, Dan has stated more than once that Tedd prefers whatever pronouns match the sex of the form she's currently in, so... She.

[Anonymouswizard]

Tedd explicitly has an absurd amount of power. Luke wa blinded by Tedd's aura when Grace, "the most magically overpowered thing in Moperville," only had a slightly thicker and more defined aura than other users.

Pandora states that the reason the wand didn't detect Tedd's power is becuase Tedd was powerful enough to reflexively resist the detection spell and that Tedd is a font of power.

Also, Dan has stated more than once that Tedd prefers whatever pronouns match the sex of the form she's currently in, so... She.

We know there's something up with Tedd, we don't have any confirmation that they're a massive magical generator yet. I'd honestly been working under the assumption that Seer enchantment nullification powers were the reason the spell filed, it honestly felt like the simplest solution.

Plus I don't even know what year the comic's set in, Tedd could be in any form at 15:37GMT 4/2/2022 and I wouldn't have a clue.

[Rater202]

I think a guy who can see power levels as auras being blinded by Tedd's aura couple with Pandora explicitly stating that Tedd will never need to draw on ambient energy because she is a "Font of Power" is hard confirmation that Tedd is in fact a magical powerhouse.

Also, Dan edited the comic with a note in the commentary

EDIT - Kevin originally told Tedd "YOU PASS!" with the same intent, but that seemed to confuse readers, and I wasn't going for ambiguity. Kevin is reacting to Tedd's immense magic power as a seer.

Kevin now says "graduated."

[Kish]

Tedd has immense magical power. The text part of the comic says so.

Pandora also said that Luke's magic detection spell didn't "work properly" on Tedd. She didn't say why. Of course, that was back when "Tedd is a wizard with a quirk" hadn't been revealed.

[Maat Mons]

Elliot's there? And he's not in one of his female forms? I had been thinking all these girls hanging out with a magical instructor could be the origin story for a group of Magical Girls. But Elliot's ruining it. Elliot, stop being so selfish and transform into a girl!

[KillianHawkeye]

Well, we now know that Grace doesn't have Captain America's ability to predict where a bounced object will end up.

[Celestia]

Well, we now know that Grace doesn't have Captain America's ability to predict where a bounced object will end up.

I could be wrong, but I believe she has been stated as having enhanced intelligence and is particularly good at math. If so, she should actually be able to do just that. However, she didn't know how hard she'd hit the ball and, thus, didn't take the ball's trajectory into account. Intelligence only matters if you use it.

[Fyraltari]

I could be wrong, but I believe she has been stated as having enhanced intelligence and is particularly good at math. If so, she should actually be able to do just that. However, she didn't know how hard she'd hit the ball and, thus, didn't take the ball's trajectory into account. Intelligence only matters if you use it.

Math has nothing to do with that kind of ability.

Do you know how many Newtons of force you've exerced on a ball you punched? No, then it doesn't matter how good your are with equations, you won't be able to calculat its trajectory, you'll have to guess based on isntinct and experience, like the rest of us.

[Celestia]

Math has nothing to do with that kind of ability.

Do you know how many Newtons of force you've exerced on a ball you punched? No, then it doesn't matter how good your are with equations, you won't be able to calculat its trajectory, you'll have to guess based on isntinct and experience, like the rest of us.

What the actual f***? It's geometry.

[Lord Raziere]

What the actual f***? It's geometry.

Yeah but you don't have a ruler or anything, how could just tell the measurement by sight then match your throw to that? that sounds like fictional genius stuff not actual math.

[Fyraltari]

What the actual f***? It's geometry.

No, it's physics.
Edit: What's the weight of the ball? What's its air resistance? What's the immediate speed you're imparting to it? All the math skill in the world won't help you solve m*a = m*g - r*v if you don't any of those values.

[Celestia]

Damn. You all make some very compelling arguments. I guess that's why billiards is literally impossible to play. No one can possibly calculate the angles of a shot without knowing air resistance. :eyeroll:

[theNater]

Damn. You all make some very compelling arguments. I guess that's why billiards is literally impossible to play. No one can possibly calculate the angles of a shot without knowing air resistance. :eyeroll:

The point is that virtually no one is calculating the angles of a shot. They are roughly estimating them, and Grace's array of computational abilities are not helpful in making those rough estimations.

[Gnoman]

Billiards is also a bad comparison because you have all the time you need to plan out your shot and apply precisely the amount of force you intend to. You're not having to hit the ball in a split-second window.


Even then, if you put the world's greatest math genius who has never played before in front of a pool table and hand him a cue, he'll have a pretty difficult time succeeding on pure math.

[awa]

If all you needed was geometry than pro athletes would all be math majors, heck if math was even a little bit useful geometry would be a hard focus for every sports team but its just not useful not for this. Humans rely a lot on instincts and muscle memory for physical actions and in general athletes perform worse when they spend time thinking about the mechanics of what they are doing rather than just doing it.

I mean pick a ball and try to bounce it off a wall back into your hand, now go through what you actually did, did you consider the geometry at all or did you just eyeball it?

Fictional super genius often do that kind of stuff all the time but well its just fiction.

[Celestia]

The point is that virtually no one is calculating the angles of a shot. They are roughly estimating them, and Grace's array of computational abilities are not helpful in making those rough estimations.

What in the world do you think your brain is doing when you're "estimating?" It's calculating angles.

Billiards is also a bad comparison because you have all the time you need to plan out your shot and apply precisely the amount of force you intend to. You're not having to hit the ball in a split-second window.

"It's a bad comparison because you're doing literally the exact same thing just slower. Therefore, it's completely invalid to your argument that Grace is good at doing this thing quickly."

Even then, if you put the world's greatest math genius who has never played before in front of a pool table and hand him a cue, he'll have a pretty difficult time succeeding on pure math.

What's your argument here? Either you're trying to say that math is useless in billiards (proving you have no idea what you're talking about) or this statement is just irrelevant. Whatever the case, you're not winning any points here.