"Easily the most perverted squeaky clean comic on the net."
—Tangents Reviews
"I grew up in Moperville. Weird stuff happens here..."
—Carol Brown the reporter
El Goonish Shive is an ActionAdventureDramedyWebcomic, written, drawn, inked and colored by Dan Shive. He has stated that all of the comic can be summed up in one of the main characters' quotes: "Because it sounds like one big awkward moment." Oh, and pay no attention to the art quality of the early strips. It gets better, drasticallybetter.It's about a cast of characters and their relationships while in the middle of spellcasting, Shapeshifting (voluntary and otherwise), gender-bending, and blatantly disregarding the laws of physics. Or, alternately, it's about a cast of characters who occasionally take time off from obsessing over their relationships to cast spells, change shape, and break the laws of physics. The gender-bending is pretty constant, though.The series has a heavy focus on interpersonal relationships; it's easy to get so wrapped up in the characters' lives that you forget that an inter-dimensional Evil Overlord has possibly been attempting to attack them since his last appearance (seen in a picture) when he sent monsters to kill his dimensional counterparts in one of the first story arcs.It has its own wiki, Shiveapedia, which contains the definitive timeline of the comic (which is considered canon by Word Of God) plus practically exhaustive arc summaries and character bios.
Hints dropped at Ellen taking up drinking were later explained away because the creator didn't like the direction it would take. Thus, the hints are stuffed back in the refrigerator... behind the Red Herring.
The "Lord Tedd" arc will presumably pick up again some day, but it's more or less indefinitely on hold because the author realized he introduced it too early.
Susan's crusade against the school uniform policy dropped out of focus and then ended abruptly not because nobody in the school wanted to wear the uniforms (Even if only Susan was willing to openly act on the matter), but because the parents of the students complained about the increased laundry costs.
Averted somewhat in that Dan had always intended to end the arc in a lame way, but admitted he didn't intend for it to be so abrupt.
Abusive Parent: Damien ended up making himself a sort of twisted father figure to Grace and her brothers, but there is nothing "fatherly" about him at all. He is an abuser pure and simple, able to control his "children" through fear and constantly hitting them whenever they displease him. And like any parent whose children are young enough, he's too powerful for them to do anything about it. And the reason he wanted Grace back? He wanted to breed with her so that he could raise an army. Whether she wanted to or not. (She didn't, by the way.)
Ellen and Grace's math teacher pretends to deduce facts about his new students, and concludes that "the end result appears to be a duplicate squirrel of some sort." The girls are rather shocked about how close to the mark he is until he says he was just messing with them and it had all been gibberish. Then again, this isMoperville High, so he may well have been lying/unknowingly magical.
A variation. Susan flashbacks to an earlier encounter with an 'Aberration' — a person who has used magic in order to become immortal through parasitically leeching off the life-force of others. She starts to describe to her friends about how it had some vampire-like characteristics, realizes her description sounds like it is of a vampire, and decides to say it was one. When her friends ask if it really was one she said 'No, not really, but it was a monster that used to be human, hypnotized young women and sucked blood out of their necks. It doesn't matter what I say. You two are going to hear "vampire."' The accompanying comments say no, it's not a 'real' vampire.
Aerith and Bob: Jerry the Immortal thinks you should be glad he's a Jerry, because most immortals go for elitist names from ancient mythology. "Let me tell you, there is nothing more hilarious than the legendary hissy-fits that result from two or more immortals named Zeus running into each other."
A God Am I: Big Bad Damien, who believes he was summoned to Earth to be the Messiah of the Chimera. The realization that he isn't triggers his Villainous Breakdown.
Air Vent Passageway: Noah uses the school's air vents to hunt a magical creature.
Alpha Bitch: Subverted. Diane is set up to be this, but she's revealed to actually care for her friends (and be concerned for random crying strangers), as seen here, and is thus really a Lovable Alpha Bitch. Her friend Lucy, on the other hand, fits the bullying part of the archetype but isn't the leader of the group.
Susan seemed to be an example of this at first, being portrayed as a snobby mean rich girl... but the moment she was given more screen time she quickly got one hell of a character development. She was also revealed to have a traumatic backstory, so it would be more appropriate to call her a Broken Bird, or, more recently, a Defrosting Ice Queen.
Flash Sideways: "Sleepy Time" with Lord Tedd, "Second Life" with Ellen and Kaoli.
Ambiguous Gender: Noah, whom we know as a boy only because it was said and in comparison to whom Tedd doesn't look "that androgynous" at all, despite this being an old Running Gag.
Elliot: Who's this... guy? I think? Student: Oh, it's that weird girl.
Unfortunately, the school uniform subplot, one of the few subplots to actually receive a conclusion so far, suffers from this. In the commentary, Shive blames poor planning on the abrupt end, but insists the tone would have remained the same regardless.
The Anime Style Martial Arts dojo is located in the same neighborhood as a strip club, cigarette store, adult bookshop, abortion clinic, and ice cream shop.
In the commentary section of one comic, referring to an Obviously EvilEldritch Abomination: "It probably ate a puppy for breakfast right before it burned down an orphanage and talked loudly on a cell phone at a restaurant."
He's also shifted from grayscale to full-color and back multiple times.
As You Know: One of the immortals following Elliot recaps the plot points related to them. When her companion calls her on it, she points out that it helps compensate for their Easy Amnesia.
Author Filibuster: The Legends of Celida arc so far seems to exist for the sole purpose of allowing Dan to rant about the true nature of Sheik from Ocarina of Timeand whether Zelda is simply casting an illusion or out and out transforms into a male.
Author Guest Spot: Dan has appeared as himself as he appears in real life as the "super smart" guy in panel six of this strip but as he only revealed that it was him in the commentary and calls it a cameo it is more like a Creator Cameo.
Awesome McCoolname: Pandora Chaos Raven. She chose it herself, and claims that it matches her personality.
Beware the Nice Ones: Grace, who can shapeshift into any number of extremely lethal forms when provoked. And when she's reluctant or unable to enter close combat she just uses telekinesis instead.Beware, indeed.
Tedd looked like Lord Tedd when he discovered Damien's mistreatment of Grace, which wasn't one-off event, he learned from this. As "One Way Road" shows, he wants to be able to help his absurdly powerful friends, and is not satisfied with roles of a reclusive ballast or Mission Control. And as a Mad Scientist he's able to climb the Super Weight ladder if he really wants... and does, as The Stinger to the same arc shows.
Pretty much needed for this comic to make much sense beyond "ominous dream involving the Big Bad."
In a more recent comic, the Uryuomoco in the comic was shown translated. In the commentary, Dan stated that it was because he felt it was irresponsible to alienate readers who didn't know how to translate it.
Black Eyes of Evil: Elliot and Sarah display these here to indicate extreme anger at Tedd.
Nanase, Ellen and Grace aren't amused by Nanase's ex-almost-boyfriend interrupting their double date. Could you tell?
Blessed with Suck: Sure, Elliot and Ellen will get pretty sweet magic powers, but the Power Incontinence (especially embarrassing for Elliot) means that for a while, life will be just a little crap for them.
In Elliot's case it's not helped by people who've read too much Ranma ½ dumping buckets of water on him.
Broken Masquerade: Breaks on a semi-regular basis to individuals. Of late, it's showing more cracks, and may completely break for the entire world.
Brought Down to Normal: Nanase, after "burning up" her magic in order to defeat Abraham. This is, however, temporary.
Bully Hunter: Elliot Dunkel has fought bullies in the past to protect their victims, including both Justin and Tedd. He lapses back from time to time when a friend of his is bullied nearby, though circumstances always manage to deal with the problem before Elliot can get started.
But Your Wings Are Beautiful: Grace worried about her "monstrousness", until she discovered that the only reaction Sarah and Elliot ever show is blaming Tedd (due to specific experience), while Tedd ogles her in hybrid form even more eagerly than in human form. Even after the remark about "furry fetish and a half-cat girlfriend" she had a fit of concern about her three-tailed omega form. As if there could be any problem.
Grace: I didn't scare you, did I? Tedd: (visibly spaced out) so... hot...
Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: Averted — Dan decided to concede and call his not-exactly-a-vampire thing a "vampire" because he knew the readers would accuse him of trying to pawn a vampire off as something else.
Calling Your Attacks: What else would you expect from "Anime Style Martial Arts"? Elliot and Ellen do this on several occasions—in Gratuitous Japanese no less. Lampshaded when Elliot wanted a do-over after he forgot. And mocked once.
Cast of Snowflakes: Dan's had to come up with lots of new designs for extras recently.
Cat Girl: In various ways, ranging from the appropriately-named Catalina, to Ellen's online persona, to Grace's werecat form and the variants thereof to normal form of Nioi and Kaoli (they're skunks, but this looks close enough). Not to mention Elliot's catboy form....
At some point in the backstory, Sarah was stuck as one for a day thanks to Tedd being careless with the TF gun.
Cat Scare: Parodied and Justified at once — Jeremy defending his territory is not a critter to be trifled with.
Well, unless you can project your spirit energy into a force field.
Catalina yells "JACKASSES!" enough for it to be one
Cerebus Retcon: Dan is famous for this trope. Before this series developed Cerebus Syndrome, many hyper-zany elements were present in the story, and now that the series has become more serious, Dan is having fun going back and deconstructing lots of the ridiculousness of the earlier strips. The self-deprecatingly titled "Hammerchlorians" arc is devoted to one particular instance of this.
Cerebus Syndrome: The Painted Black arc was the turning point. Word Of God states that he is going to attempt to undo/turn this down in upcoming arcs. Ironically, the "Bringing Silly Back" is (self-admittedly) more serious in some ways than previous arcs.
Chain Pain: In his original appearances, Hedge wielded a chain as a weapon - specifically, the very chain that had once bound him in captivity in the laboratory that created him. Very symbolic. Very quickly forgotten, too. Only really appeared in one scene, if memory serves, though Grace references it again later.
Chekhov's Gun: A lot of 'em. It got to the point that Shive redesigned a character who would have had certain "suspicious" traits (such as an eyepatch) specifically so that nobody would sit around waiting for those to be explained.
Possibly lampshaded in the commentary for this strip: "On the plus side, should the fact that there's a photo of Grace on the wall of a pancake place where a TV show episode was filmed ever come up again, the high-res version is already drawn." Definitely lampshaded in this page's commentary.
Chekhov's Gunman: Hedge, among others. Noah was even worse — he showed up, gothic font and all, and then... completely vanished. For years.
Chekhov's Skill: It took nearly eight years to explain how Susan made a sword appear back during the Sister arc.
The Chessmaster: Pandora. Dan even says in one commentary that she's not someone you want to play at chess. Her desire to manipulate events rather than getting directly involved actually makes sense for two reasons: the other immortals get cheesed off if one of them does anything more than assist people on the physical plane, and she prefers things to be as unpredictable as possible (Chaos is literally her middle name). Doing everything herself would either earn her severe retribution or just make things too boring.
Children Forced To Kill: Susan and Nanase when, during a class-trip to France, they wind up being targeted by an aberration. He's not technically human, but he LOOKS human - mostly - and while Nanase does most of the fighting, it's Susan who ends up having to kill him - with an ax, even. Unsurprisingly, she was somewhat traumatized, and the storyline that featured the flashback culminated in an Immortal decrying the irresponsibility of the two French Immortals who originally equipped the girls for the battle, while giving them no apparent alternative save dying at the hands of the aberration. Apparently, they could have simply informed the French Government's anti-supernatural-creature-squad instead, but elected to drag two pre-teens into a battle in order to 'recruit them for the fight against evil'. Omniscient Morality License, anyone?
Child Soldier: After a monster attacked Susan in Paris, two Immortals empowered her and Nanase, and instructed how to kill it, though it impliedand in the Hammerchlorians arc, confirmedthat they could have gone to an experienced local magic-user instead. Susan... didn't take it well.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Word Of God states he is attempting to avert this. The author did finally properly introduced Noah, a character who was first mentioned (and then ignored) 6 years beforehand.
The best example in this series was likely Sensei Greg. Despite having played a fairly decent role in early arcs, he was reduced to a brief cameo in Painted Black, and only got a short, non-plot critical scene in the party arc before it got into full swing. However, this has been averted as of 8/18/2010, which marks Sensei Greg's re-introduction to the storyline.
Exaggerated with an incredibly lame (but apparently successful) government campaign to hide the presence of aliens on earth by such methods as having them wear T-shirts that say "Homo Sapiens."
In the New And Old Flames storyline Elliot got a superheroine form spell. Later, it was revealed it comes with its own alter ego form which seems to allow this trope. However, it is subverted in that in the form Elliot actually requires glasses and his speech patterns are made mild mannered. This means he doesn't really need engage in Clark Kenting consciously; the form does it for him.
Cloning Blues: Played depressingly straight at first. When Ellen was accidentally created, she freaked out, with good reason. She had all of Elliot's memories, but suffered Loss of Identity since she could never get back his old life, and all of his friends were now essentially strangers she only knew about secondhand. She was permanently stuck in female form, something the original Elliot was so desperate to escape that he resorted to using a dangerous magical artifact he clearly didn't understand rather than risk spending (at most) a few more weeks in that form. Ellen also had reason to believe she might have less than a month to live, and feared she'd spend that time locked up in a research facility as a test subject. She went a little crazy, and as a coping mechanism, tried being an Evil Twin for a while, which only made her more miserable. However, this trope was heavily subverted in the long run. Ellen learned her fears of an imminent demise or being locked up for study had no basis in reality. Elliot's friends welcomed her warmly and treated her like a normal individual, rather than just an accidental female copy of someone they knew. Elliot became fiercely protective of her, treating her as a cross between a little sister and a daughter, rather than the Evil Twin she had tried to be. Even Elliot's parents accepted her surprisingly easily, given the circumstances. Ellen eventually developed her own personality and became a major character in her own right, as well as an unprecedented solution to an earlier Love Triangle.
Code Name: Grace originally didn't have a real name, but went by the code name 'Shade Tail'. 'Grace' was the name her Dr Sciuridae gave her, after the dead daughter who had been her gene-parent.
Both for Grace and general Tail variants, Tail as the last name is not arbitrary, it's family name, since their Uryuom parent's name translates to Tail from Uryuomoco.
Color-Coded Multiplayer: When Nanase creates one shadow copy of herself, the copy is colored with one of the primary additive colors (red, green, or blue), while Nanase is colored with the corresponding primary subtractive color (cyan, magenta, or yellow, respectively). This actually makes sense from a scientific standpoint: The real Nanase is absorbing the color the fake one is producing.
Color Failure: Nanase has one at the party when Ellen goes to get her change of clothes.
Congruent Memory: Tedd is supposedly better at cooking while female. He seems fully aware of the absurdity of this, however, admitting that it's probably all in his head. Doesn't stop him from doing it.
Convection Schmonvection: Averted. The "fire monster" summons in the New and Old Flames arc aren't really made of fire because they would incinerate themselves. They just look like they're on fire and takes on fire-related vulnerabilities. It's a beginner's mistake when summoning certain monsters to just go with what looks cool instead of what actually works.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Mr. Verres and Agent Wolf. In early comics, the two characters were pretty goofy and usually played for laughs. That changes a bit later on:
We've gotten hints for some time that Mr. Verres is a very prominent figure in the paranormal area (possibly even enough to qualify him as the Big Good of the EGS world), and his Crowning Moment of Awesome near the end of the Abraham encounter demonstrates that he has enough skill with magic that you really don't want to mess with him or anyone he cares about.
The encounter with Abraham has also shown that, when he's not obsessed with aliens, Agent Wolf is very professional, and Raven has identified him as one of the most powerful wizards in the Midwestern United States.
Damsel In Distress: During the "Painted Black" arc, Grace becomes one when she's captured while infiltrating Damien's base... at least until Damien makes her really, really mad.
Elliot, due to his self gender-bending abilities, temporarily becomes a damsel in distress as well, if only to escape.
Dawson Casting: Tedd invokes this in an EGS:NP strip by claiming to be twenty-one outside of continuity due to Comic Book Time. Grace counters the gap might be up to a year, making Tedd eighteen. She then goes on to say that it doesn't matter anyways since none of them are likely to look any different before they turn 30.*
Though the revelation that he may be under the drinking age causes Tedd to excuse himself so that he can dispose of a keg in the fridge before his dad finds it.
The Principal: So you're saying you can't make me an army of goo-based hall monitors? Tedd: Even if I could, I would not give into the dark side so easily.
This has become easier to notice thanks to Dan's consistency in displaying 'imaginary' panels with rounded corners. The last example portrays this perfectly.
Deus ex Machina: Subverted or maybe deconstructed mildly with the Dewitchery Diamond. It seems like a plot device at first, but then it solves it in a way completely different from the way everyone expected, and caused more problems than it solved, in the form of Knight Templar Abraham.
Magic is stated to have a flair for the dramatic. The characters are actually Genre Savvy enough to expect magic act this way.
Abraham's diplomatic efforts. He doesn't tongue-slip, but still manages to annoy one more hell out of Adrian Raven with every phrase, starting from the second.
A V5-ed Susan gets distracted by her own sudden-sexy in this strip. Understandable, as in addition to the appearance this form has a rather... unusual hormonal status, which she wanted to experience in the first place. She stood enthralled until Insulted Awake... and only from the second attempt.
Genderbent Sarah also has one of these moments here.
NO! BAD Sarah! Stop thinking of yourself as a sex object!!
The Ditz: Grace on occasion. She learns VERY quickly, however.
Doing in the Scientist: At first, the plot was fairly silly all transformation weirdness was due to the Transformation Gun, an invention of Tedd's. Then it was revealed to come from Uryuom technology. Then that was revealed to be based on magic, a fundamental form of energy which had already cropped up in earlier storylines.
Doing in the Wizard : In a way. Magic has actually become more prevalent after the Sister 2 arc, but it's also become less silly and more systematic. See Cerebus Retcon above.
Don't Try This at Home: The commentary for this comic goes out of its way to inform readers of the potential hazards of using a sleeper hold.
Dramatic Wind: Susan is particularly good at it. Tedd too as of late.
Dramatic Thunder: Happens whenever Nanase's mother says something emphatic. Played seriously the first time, and then for laughs in one of the Q&A comics.
Dream Sequence: An entire Story Arc of them, each revealing something personal about one of the main characters.
Dysfunctional Family: Not only has Tedd's mom gone to Europe and abandoned her family, but when Nanase's mom is asked about her sister, the answer sounds much like Pandora-Chaos at her worst.
Eleventh Hour Superpower: Three times. One is Justified in expansion, other is justified in previous development and the last one was built up in more than two years so that it was bound to appear and could not be anything less than Summon "Oh Crap."
In this comic, zooming in on a photo and using the brightness command results in visible pixels and artifact.
Discussed in the commentary of this comic, inclusing a jab at CSI's usage of this trope.
Of course, if this was CSI, some dude would magically multiply the resolution of the image, clean it up, and get the license plate of a nearby car from a reflection in Elliot's pupil.
Epiphany Therapy: Lampshaded. Tedd gets over his homophobia long enough to kiss guy!Grace, but Grace is quick to point out that just recognizing he has a hangup isn't enough to instantly make it go away.
The Empath: Uryuom (and greater chimera) has empathic abilities they use instead of pheromones, as well as low-grade telepathy. Both are related to antennae.
Evil Twin: When she's first introduced, Ellen tries to be one of these for Elliot in an effort to give herself some sense of identity. She turns out to be spectacularly bad at it.
Exposition Cut: Its frequent use is lampshaded in this comic from late in the "Sister" arc.
Exposition Diagram: Both Mr. Verres and Elliot's parents have used the Type 2 version.
Expy: Grace definitely has nothing in common with Squirrel Girl... oops. On the other hand, "cat girl"-to-"squirrel girl" substitution doesn't leave many options anyway.
Mr. Raven comes across as Snape with better style, at least at first. Tell me you don't imagine Alan Rickman delivering some of his lines.
Raven: You are a homicidal wizard invading a public school. No one will care if I kill you.
The Nudifier: Dr. Germahn once invented a potion that caused your sweat to dissolve clothes.
Playboy Bunny: Let us not forget this one, which is the first bit of Fanservice Shive gave us (as well as what he claims is "the first and last violation of the 'No Cleavage' part of Sarah's contract").
Sensual Spandex: Uryuom clothes give a considerable protection and are made for shapeshifters. The net effect, however, is that three Action Girls have to wear outfits guaranteed to remain skin-tight in all and any circumstances. Later Grace starts to wear this just in case. And that's before adding some fun poses.
Family Unfriendly Aesop: "Death Sentence" has one. Blind idealism and hope is not an option, because Reality Ensues. That doesn't mean trying is futile, but it can be misguided, even harmful.
Faux Paw: Done by Ellen to Nanase's ponytail several times, starting here.
Fire-Forged Friends: Susan and Nanase, of all people. Now that Susan's secret is out, she's even opening up to her.
First Girl Wins: Elliot and Sarah, Tedd and Grace (that we know of anyway), Ellen and Nanase, if you count Ellen's "birth" as taking Sarah out of the picture.
Fish Out of Temporal Water: Abraham averts this by having spells that give him modern knowledge and clothes, given how magic works in this series it makes sense that he would have them in conjunction with his statue spell.
Flat Joy: When Elliot discovered that his inconvenient "girly powers only" time ended and he began to acquire cool magic. Of course, he's not only in a female form, but in the middle of a random encounter, but still.
Flight: Many characters are capable of this. Nanase, in three different ways: wings in her fairy form, magical levitation in normal form, and wings in her "angel" form. Grace — levitation, though only in Omega form. Nioi — magic. Vlad — wings plus levitation. Immortals (so far, all) — either magic or it's an inherent quality. Elliot — while in his superhero form.
Follow the Chaos: Need to know if Tedd is upstairs or downstairs in his lab? Listen for an explosion.
Forced Meme: Shive attempted to turn "sexy awesome" into a catchphrase, but never caught on outside the fan base, and even the characters have all but stopped using it.
Foreshadowing: Tends to get lampshaded a lot. What is left is usually cryptic or already blatantly obvious.
What's seen here translated with this. "Death. It Is Time For The End Of Man. This Master of Fire Shall Inherit The Earth. My Very Presence Eats Away At Your Flesh" Other than the two bizarre words in the end, it's pretty creepy.
Susan's sword (5th December, 2002) and "tattoo" Venus (5th October, 2005) were good hints that she isn't as simple as she looks, but were proven to be plot points and not throwaway gags only in much later flashback (26th May, 2010).
Freak Lab Accident: What the Goo originally was before a Cerebus Retcon turned it into an attempt by Lord Tedd to kill this universe's Tedd.
Freak Out: Susan wasn't amused to discover what the hammers were made for — and what they in fact do. Of course, that being in the presence of an Immortal, she just caught an Instant Sedation spell in the face and got spaced out for her efforts.
Freudian Excuse: Most of the cast have really screwy home lives. Specifically, Susan's hatred of men is very nearly outright said to be her making an excuse for her father cheating. Her mother's hate-filled "because he's a man" when lil' Susan asked her why probably helped this along a little.
Functional Magic: Nioi is a powerful sorceress, as is Nanase. Nanase in particular uses it very often and quite openly at times.
Magic A is Magic A: A significant portion of the "Sister II" arc is devoted to explaining exactly how magic works in EGS.
Squishy Wizard: Specifically averted. Two of the three wizards seen so far are also swordsmen (Abe also used shield and axe), for third it's unknown, but as a FBI operative he's likely to have at least basic handgun training. The rest of magic users in the comic practice Supernatural Martial Arts, and one that doesn't is at least pretty badass and is competent enough with melee weapons.
Wizard Duel: Magus vs. Terra's duel appears to be either sparring or a non-lethal quarrel. Abraham vs. Raven, with spells and weapons both.
Fun with Subtitles: "[See? I can speak the alien language of the Uryuoms.]" (subtitles: Translated from TAKE A WILD GUESS.)
And Mr. Verres already contemplated using swamp gas as a random coverup.
Gender Bender: The entire main cast, at least once. They even did this as a theme for a birthday party. Ellen is a special case, since she's an Opposite Sex Clone of another main character with all the memories of the original, and she has the innate ability to turn men into women. Pretty much anything in the EGS universe will get your gender bent, including fixing a toaster.
Attractive Bent Gender: Pretty much whenever anyone is transformed, goes in both directions. It helps that the person behind the gender-bending technology is an unrepentant pervert who custom-designed transformation variants to appeal to certain fetishes.
This issue was explored in rather disturbing ways in one of the Q&A sessions.
First Law of Gender Bending: EGS, while not as casual or frequent about it as The Wotch, certainly pays the Law its dues. According to the rules governing the comic's main sex-changing phlebotinum, only male-to-female sex changes can be made permanent (pregnancy); female-to-male sex changes, even of someone trapped by pregnancy (for whom it's only even possible afterwards), cannot exceed a 30 day time limit. The second time a boy - the main character - is turned into a girl the device breaks, leaving "her" stuck for the full thirty days; the attempt to circumvent this creates an Opposite Sex Clone and the permanent ability to change sex at will, something the rules of magic eventually force him to do on a regular basis.
Also, much later, a "seyunolu" (chimera) member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad, Vlad, is hit with a Transformation Ray and is turned female, but more importantly to him/her, human. "She" has no desire to change back, and since Bizarre Alien Biology overrides the time limit (and, implicitly, gender identity), Vladia, as she is now called, is treated as a woman from then on.
Moving on from Elliot being a double victim of this, we get to Tedd. Who probably wouldn't know this was a law: the "circumstances" usually equate to "Dad's out of town" and "As a girl, I'm hot."
Second Law of Gender Bending: Largely averted, despite all of the constant Gender Bending: Elliot has no interest in remaining female for long and considers his gender-bending Power Incontinence distasteful, Justin specifically rejects the idea even though it would make him sexually compatible with the object of his unrequited affection, Ellen accepts it without expressing any preference (though there are hints that the Loss of Identity associated with Opposite SexCloning Blues was a sore point until she got a new set of memories).
It's touching in Vlad/Vladia's case. There's nothing kinky about her accepting the change — for the first time in her whole life normal people aren't terrified by the sight of her, so she's willing to accept any form provided it's human, which her old, male form decidedly was not. And given that her one attempt to use her supposed shapeshifting powers was a painful, near-death experience she's not about to experiment even given the chance.
The curent theory is that Elliot will acquire new female forms again and again until he really likes one of them — then again, it was Tedd's idea. Between flying around as a superheroine and ogling Perky Goth form in a mirror, he may have found this already.
Tedd is the only straight example. He likes this form of shapeshifting because his androgynous face becomes an advantage while close enough to Tedd's own form and he likes to feel attractive. Once this problem became moot it was revealed that Body Swap is #37 on his fetish list.
Third Law of Gender Bending: Grace's Birthday Party arc, part-masquerade where the various characters deliberately chose stereotypical outfits for each other in keeping with the 'walk a mile in my shoes' theme of the occasion.
Susan starts acting macho and aggressive to Nanase very soon after becoming male. Sarah points out that Susan is simply a highly competitive person; now that she's male, and feeling stronger, it takes the form of an arm wrestling match.
Tedd does note that the first time gender bending their new genders thoughts are exaggerated, which played a part in everyone's storyline during the event, but the only one whose gender bending mental state was a major plot point was Susan, as it helped her recognize her hangups with men.
Later, when Elliot develops the power to morph his clothes and appearance along with his gender his female forms tend to end up wearing girly outfits because he apparently just can't help visualizing them that way.
Grace is usually defined as "bubbly." Although, Jerry the Immortal implies that she lost her innocence a long time ago, and she's simply overcompensating.
Elliot's superhero spell comes with a "party girl" form whose default state is hyper and apparently slightly drunk.
Genre Busting: It crosses a few. It starts out like a comedic slice-of-life comic, quickly adds sci-fi and drama, then fantasy (later explaining the sci-fi as magic)(except it's not the same magic). Currently it's kind of a mix of the lot. And weird.
Justin, from Rhoda's point of view. She's normally scared of people bigger than her (and his 6' to her 5' is quite a difference), but also knows that he's friends with Nanase, and that Nanase wouldn't be friends with anyone bad.
Sensei Greg is an imposing 6'10'' (208 cm) but is a perfectly decent guy.
So decent, that he is bothered by not being a "traditional" perverted anime sensei.
Good Is Not Nice: Raven is a strict disciplinarian, quite caustic and doesn't suffer fools gladly. He's also a ruthless fighter, and won't hesitate to risk his life to protect his students.
Grandfather Clause: Several of the boys originally had very '90s/early '00s hairstyles; while Elliot's mullet and Justin's bowl cut have been toned down to generic medium-guy-length hairstyles. Tedd's curtains are just as curtain-y as ever, though.
Mrs. Dunkel: Why are there two Brownies? Ellen: I'm Ellen, Mom. I turned into a cat. Mrs. Dunkel: Oh dear. Can you change back? Ellen: Sure, anytime I want. Mrs. Dunkel: That's good.
It's implied that Tedd has been doing some WEIRD stuff to and involving Elliot for years, meaning they might just be used to beloved family members becoming small furry animals (or something equally bizarre) on a regular basis. After all, if no permanent harm has come to them so far, why would they assume it would start happening now?
Hard Head: Lampshaded here. Upon learning that he was knocked out by a blow to the head, Elliot starts worrying about brain damage, but Tedd tells him he's overreacting.
Sarah: He's not your cousin! He was a cat because... his ex-girlfriend was mad at him! Hedge: What? Sarah: Yeah! His ex is a crazy red-headed macho witch woman! She got mad, and turned him into a cat! ...He got better... Hedge: Not buying it.
Hero with an F in Good: As well as F in enchantment. And the same in strategy. Abraham. He thought he was the good guy there, but...
High School: Two of them of the cross-town rivalry variety, complete with uniforms, bizarre teachers, odd mascots, and most of the other associated tropes. Half the cast attends Moperville North and the other half goes to Moperville South.
Homage: The demonic duck looks very similar to a major character in Goats, the comic strip by Jonathan Rosenberg.
Hot Amazon: Elliot has no problem dating Nanase, a black belt who's the only student at their dojo who's a better fighter than him.
Hyper Awareness: Information gathering is Hedge's strong side. Maybe he's no Sherlock Holmes, but he grasps any clue present, like occasional slips of Elliot knowing Grace or Grace being in a relationship.
Diane also displayed this ability when determining that Ellen and Grace were new to Moperville South. She was even wearing a Sherlock Holmes outfit for one panel.
Dan lampshaded his reasoning behind changing the hammer origin in the later story arc. The old guy who looks vaguely like Santa explains his initial reasoning for using the hammer gag to humorous effect... that is, the same as out of the 'verse.
I Gave My Word: Abraham really does not want to kill Ellen Dunkel, but his oath was too inclusive, so... and he's quite happy to be pushed into what sounds like a legitimate loophole.
I Just Want to Be Special: Sarah has a bit of this, mostly because she couldn't spend so much time surrounded by shapeshifters, magical martial artists, and mad scientists without getting jealous or at least curious.
Immortality: The Immortals are basically spiritual beings who never die, but the way they go about it is almost a deconstruction of the concept. They continue to get older, smarter, stronger, more bored and less sane until the point comes where they basically become Persons Of Mass Destruction. To prevent this, they voluntarily undergo a kind of ritualistic death/rebirth cycle every couple centuries to lose most of their power and memories so they can start over and keep things interesting.
The Elliot/Nanase dilemma, at least, is neatly resolved with Ellen.
The gender-bending complicates this, with bisexual male Susan and straight female Justin making out at Grace's birthday party. Also, at least one of Elliot's female forms has a crush on Justin.
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Technically, Magus apparently was behind the v-five Elliot incident and tries to manipulate Ellen within some plot that sounds quite dubious. And is not very good at this. But he's in desperate straits, which isn't even his own fault (unlike Abe's case). And he's still reluctant to kill a guy who stands in his way even when pushed hard to do this.
I Never Told You My Name: Painted Black arc. After Elliot is captured he refers to Guineas by name. Guineas then tells Hedge that Elliot knew his name even though he hadn't been told it. This causes Hedge to realize that Elliot must know Grace, who's the only one who could have told him. Hedge then turns this around on Elliot by only referring to Grace as "my sister", so when Elliot refers to her by name, it proves Elliot's spoken with Grace since Elliot and Hedge first met.
Infodump: Shive is really thorough when it comes to describing the capabilities of Tedd's technology, the mechanics of alien and hybrid genetics, and more recently, magic. Anything left for the readers to guess about is practically guaranteed to be a Chekhov's Gun.
The so called Trapped in the Basement portion of New and Old Flames (so-called due to the just under two months real time spent infodumping in the Verres' basement) and the entire Hammerchlorians arc (essentially an entire arc devoted to nothing but infodumps and backstory exposition for Susan and her summoning abilities) are probably the most notorious example of Dan's tendency to slip into infodump territory.
Informed Ability: Susan's magical powers, which are seen exactly once and then aren't visible for many arcs. Then Susan explains that Nanase's powers are of a different order than hers ("Awakened" vs. "Dreaming") without going into detail.
Until much later Susan explained her magical abilities with a big flashback. and she is properly "Awakened".
Interspecies Romance: Tedd and Grace; Ellen @ Second Life and Archie; the demonic duck also admits to preferring human women. For Uryuom it's quite normal to create chimerae, fertile at that. Isn't done obliviously, as at least psychophysiology matters even with shapeshifting seyunolu.
Ironic Name: Tiffany "Susan" Pompoms always goes by her middle name, because she considers her actual first- and last-name to be too "perky and upbeat" for her cynical, sardonic personality. (Ironically, it's been made quite clear that if it wasn't for ONE traumatic childhood event, she would've wound up fitting her name just perfectly.)
Jumping the Gender Barrier: Elliot and Nanase's relationship had no spark and eventually failed, and she couldn't explain why...until Ellen.
Though this trope is never actually invoked, Elliot and Tedd's odd connection teases this. It seems like in any universe where they were born opposite genders (such as one where Elliot has always been "Ellen," and the technically non-canon story where Tedd accidentally and retroactively became "Tess") they are inevitably dating. A partial exception is when Ellen begins living through a "Second Life" in her dreams, but even then Tedd has a crush on her. The trope will probably not be played straight in this case, as historically neither is super-keen on giving up their "real" sexual preference while transformed.
Kamehame Hadoken: As a practitioner of "anime-style martial arts," it's no big surprise that Elliot (and Ellen, who "inherited" his abilities) uses a variety that emits short-range force blast. He needs to have free hands to do it.
Ellen has a modifying variant as an outright beam from her hand. Sensei Greg is, of course, jealous when he sees it. It turns people into attractive girls, and lately can turn HER into whatever she hits.
Knight of Cerebus: Damien. It's sort of a subversion as Dan killed off Damien because he didn't want his comic to develop Cerebus Syndrome. It did anyway, just with seriousness developing within the characters' personal demons rather than fantastical conflict.
Just to make sure nobody misses the lampshade, this sequence is titled 'Hammerchlorians'.
It turns out the lampshading goes deeper than that, as the whole arc sets the immortal Jerry up to lampshade the Hyperspace Mallet gag, including Dan's reasons for initially using it as well as the reason why he stopped using it.
George: Fans willingly suspended their disbelief for years, and out of nowhere Lucas figures he has to explain it. Any writer who takes something no one was questioning and tries to explain it is a hack. (Cut to Susan on the phone expositing the hell out of the Hammers.)
Long Runner Tech Marches On: In Shade (2002), Elliot had a landline phone extension in his room (with then-old-tech corded handset); later on all telecommunication among the teenage cast is via Cell Phone and even adults are shown using landlines only at their workplaces.
Knowing that Adrian Raven is half-human and half-immortal, Abraham managed to draw only one conclusion, and mostly wrong one. The prospect of facing said immortal's reaction after he'd beaten her child within a hair's breadth of death somehow escaped his attention in all this haste... Isn't it surprising — where all those heavy boots flying toward his butt came from? And it's still not enough for her.
Because anyone who isn't a hapless hysterical wreck is one of the lowest dregs (and probably a murderer).
Pandora would also qualify.
Man-Shaped Hole: Damien and Adrian Raven both made big holes part in the window and part in the wall by being blasted through. Both survived this and flying one story down to the ground after, both being tougher than normal humans.
Pandorais now hellbent on causing this. Also, it will let her son Adrian participate fully in society. Whatever form it's going to take after this, anyway.
Justin is very much into geek media. His last name, Tolkiberry, is a portmanteau of Tolkien and Roddenberry.
Nanase's last name is Kitsune and she ends up calling her magical clone Fox.
Also, Grace's last name, Sciuridae, is the scientific name for various species of squirrel. In addition, her codename is "Shade Tail," a rough translation of "Sciuridae."
A few minor characters, such as Susan's geeky boss Mr. Tensaided (ten-sided) and Ellen/Grace's math teacher Mr. Alephnull.
Tedd's last name, "Verres," is French for "glasses" and translates into Uryuom as "Bulloc" which is appropriate to his father's cover-up jobs.
M.I.B.: Until the end of the "Sister II" arc, Mr. Verres was the head of the Paranormal division of the FBI. Now he is the "Director of Paranormal Diplomacy" a position that was created just for him when Kicked Upstairs because his extensive paranormal connections prevented him from being fired.
The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: About halfway. Gender Bendersface the consequences of the new hormonal status and reactions on pheromones, whether they are comfortable with this or not. But Shape Shifting does not turn the subject mentally in a cat, guinea or squirrel. On the other hand, both innate and artificial Shape Shifting have some safeguards.
This trope is explored more seriously in the "Grace's Birthday Party" arc, when Susan allows herself to be gender-bent specifically to find out whether being male really does make people act like Jerkasses. (Answer: nope. Evidently her dad had no excuse for his jerkiness.)
Mind Screw: Lots of it. When done intentionally, usually involves attempts to project the normal family tree onto Ellen's case in several equally disturbing ways.
Minored In Ass Kicking: Mr. Raven, though this is more of a Crouching Creeper Hidden Badass
Missing Mom: Where exactly Tedd's mom is, why she's not around, and what the nature of their relationship is continues to be one of the strip's biggest mysteries.
Morality Pet: Lord Tedd looks almost normal and even rather nice when he looks for Nioi, as opposed to most other scenes with him, while Nioi is convinced he's not that bad and it's all only the corrupting influence of General Shade Tail.
Motionless Makeover: Justin likes doing this to Nanase when her body's unconscious during the use of her Fairy Doll spell. He limits himself to the hairdo, however.
Mr. Exposition: Dr. Germahn and Amanda during the Q&A segments, Tedd when he explains the TF/TG gun.
Ms. Fanservice: In just about every one of her appearances, Amanda ends up transforming, usually shrinking or turning into a Half-Human Hybrid. This is Fanservice for a particular segment of EGS's fanbase.
Mysterious Parent: All that's known about Tedd's mother is that she's somewhere in Europe, and that there's some bad blood between her and her sister Mrs. Kitsune.
To a lesser extent, Susan's father. It's eventually explained that he left after being caught in an affair, which was the root of Susan's ultra-feminist tendencies.
New Powers as the Plot Demands: The magic system explicitly allows any "Awakened" character to develop any power the plot needs, any time it's convenient. The characters acknowledge living in a world where Rule of Drama is an observable phenomenon akin to gravity.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Abraham and his great idea to make the Dewitchery Diamond. What he needed was to remove or suppress the lycanthropy of one guy. What he did is create a Booby Trap for unaware shapeshifters and users of cosmetic magic, with side effects that in turn suffer several other side effects in such a way that whatever problem caused its activation spreads. And it's nigh indestructible, so all this fun never ends.
Lets not forget the fact that good ole' Abe thinks it might be intelligent!
Not sure if this is what the above example is referring to, but in this comic, being subject to a Gender Bender causes one to gain heterosexual tendencies appropriate to the gender being changed into (basically, straight people become bisexual while homosexuals see no real change in which gender they're attracted to), so El Goonish Shive is an aversion of this, as much of the cast have been bi, albeit only temporarily. Ellen (a magical duplicate of Elliot permanently turned into a girl) is also bisexual but has decided that she isn't able to deal with dating men, largely because she realizes her attraction to guys is a purely artificial construct forced onto her by Sufficiently Advanced Technology.
Noodle Incident: Two if you're just counting the main cast, whatever happened in France (and how exactly French speaking immortals are related to this) and the series of events that led to Sarah becoming a Catgirl. The France events were narrated in details only May 2010 — five years later. The Catgirl incident was never told in sequence or flashbacked, but alluded enough to give a very good idea what happened. Few months before the comic started, while Tedd and Sarah worked on a project for school together. He was just joking around!
Not Helping Your Case: When Mr. Verres has given permission for Grace to have a birthday party while he's away, on the condition that Elliot supervise (instead of Ellen):
Mr. Verres: The clincher, however, was that crazed look you got on your face when I first suggested the party. Ellen: That crazed look could have meant any number of things. Mr. Verres: That doesn't help your case.
This is Tedd'sreaction to the thought of Nanase, his cousin, involved with anyone.
In the 'Hammerchlorians' arc, it looks like Sarah may need to settle occasional feelings in this area regarding Elliot's less manly times, too.
Justin is less than thrilled with Elliot's less manly times as well.
Elliot and Tedd at Grace's saying she wouldn't mind Elliot turning into her if he wants to experiment with making his 'turn into a girl' magic sexy.
Oblivious to Love: Done twice, played with and played straight, with the same character. In an early storyline, Elliot pretended to be unaware that Sarah was in love with him, in a complicated (and failed) attempt to spare her feelings when she found out he had a girlfriend. They work it out. He also seems to be genuinely unaware that Justin has feelings for him.
Odd Friendship: Susan and Tedd. One is the result of a Straw Feminist upbringing. The other is an enormous pervert who openly objectifies women. To say they got off to a rocky start would be an understatement, but once they found common ground (Parental Abandonment and Star Trek), they actually get along okay.
"Oh Hell," actually, when Jerry turns around and discovers that Susan has gained a (somewhat freaky looking) hair-Battle Aura after he pointed out that he created the hammer system not to prevent sexual harassment, but to encourage it.
Elliot/Heidi, realizing that he just kissed his girlfriend's sister when in an alternate identity. After calling her sexy. On TV. Yes, it was just a goodbye peck on the cheek, and he could blame it on his magical disguise messing with his head, but there's still reason to be concerned, as Elliot's girlfriend is very insecure when compared to her older sister.
The first one ever came in this comic. Of course, it's more of Elliot saying it in sympathy to Tedd.
Older than They Look: Raven looks 40-50, but he's old enough to have taught Nanase's mother. Thesecomics make it clear he's also arguably Younger than They Look, since he evidently uses an illusion spell to look older (being half-immortal basically means eternal youth).
Greg: For alas it is my greatest of shames as an anime martial arts master that I am not an old man or a pervert!!!
One Gender Race: While some Uryuoms living on Earth adopt gender roles, they really are ambisexual; any two Uryuoms can form an egg together, which can then be 'fertilized' with any available DNA sources.
Open Minded Parent: The Dunkels, whose idea of punishing Elliot involves deciding he can only have one brownie with dinner, then forgetting that decision when the time comes and letting him have as many as he wants. There's also a Running Gag where something utterly bizarre happens (like Elliot turning into a girl for the first time) and they respond with indifference, amusement, or immediate acceptance, usually after everyone else has made a much bigger deal of it.
Our Elves Are Better: Elves are what you get when you breed humans and immortals (read: small-g gods) together, with all the power that implies. Raven happens to be one, which explains how he's been teaching since Nanase's mother was in high school.
Subverted though, since elves are bound to similar rules as immortals, being disallowed from directly interfering with mortals when magic is not involved.
Parental Abandonment: Mr. Verres is often away from home on government business, and the former Mrs. Verres is in Europe somewhere. Meanwhile, Mr. Pompoms has only been seen in Susan's memories, and significantly, his face is always obscured. Finally, all of Grace's parents are dead; her human gene-mother actually having died before she was conceived, her Uryuom father being murdered by Damien, and her other two parents being non-sentient lab animals which presumably would not have survived.)
Partial Transformation: Grace can transform to any stage between full squirrel and full human, can selectively morph away her furry antennae, as well as routinely pull off various Shape Shifter Mashups with any or all of her continually growing number of humanoid forms.
Poor Communication Kills: Averted by Justin when confronted with an angry, incomprehensible fire monster; his first response is to try and work out a way to communicate, rather than go straight to beating the tar out of it. It attacks anyway, but it's the thought that counts. Later his sensei Greg tries to talk as far as possible too.
Post Historical Trauma: Done self-consciously for Grace's first day at school. Subverted when it turns out to be not about World War II as such, but related personal experience.
Power Glows: Mostly subverted. The glow is optional and only used to indicate that said person is using his/her powers. This is the case with Nanase's fairy doll, and by Word Of God, with Elliot's and Nanase's martial art skills.
The reason or meaning of occasionally glowing Tedd when he thinks of Grace is (as yet) unknown. As is his glowing during a Eureka! moment and a personal revelation. Apparently it's a real glow and not artistic convention, as Grace can see it too.
Mr. Verres: Elliot, your concerns are based on incomplete and false information. We have been addressing the Lord Tedd situation, and I can assure you, it wouldn't make sense for him to be behind it. Elliot:You have?! Mr. Verres: Of course I have! Did you honestly think my strategy after hearing that someone from another universe was allegedly out to kill my son was to ignore it and hope for the best?! Elliot: That... seemed like what we were doing... Mr. Verres: Well, it wasn't. But that's not important right now. This is all complicated enough as it is with-out dragging Lord Tedd into it.
Dr. Germahn. Also lampshaded/hand-waived by the man himself here.
And it turns out that Dex wasn't the BigBad, either. He was being possessed.
Relationship Reboot: Towards the end of the Sister arc, Ellen and Nanase do this, though Nanase doesn't get it at first. Ellen then goes on to reintroduce herself to the entire cast, with Nanase threatening to bitch slap anyone who laughs.
Relax-o-Vision: Used in-universe and weaponized by Jerry. Causes both calming and illusory fluffy animals to cuddle.
Replacement Goldfish: Grace; Dr Sciuridae replaced the original gene sample that was to be used for Shade Tail with one from his daughter, after she was killed in a car accident.
Romance Inducing Smudge: Subverted when Ellen goes to wipe a smudge off Nanase's face and she freaks out because she was having trouble admitting her attraction to Ellen, and moments like that only made it more awkward.
Rousseau Was Right: After Tedd calls out half the school for making fun of Susan when she's the only one trying to change the uniforms, most of them are quick to apologize, with one saying that "we aren't a Borg Hive Mind." Earlier, when Grace runs out of class (due to not having heard of WWII) and is very embarrassed upon coming back, the other students are quick to offer their condolences over her leading such a sheltered life, and are angry at the people who subjected her to that rather than her. In fact, this comic demonstrates in many places that, with a few exceptions, high school students aren't the bastards that most media would have us believe. They're just normal people, with basically good natures.
Rule of Cute: The only problem with Art Evolution is that Dan is almost incapable of designing a female character without making her dangerously adorable one way or another.
Vladia also has little fangs, though it's harder to tell.
Cuteness Proximity: Jeremy tried this on Susan, but failed. See also Sarah's reaction to Grace's full squirrel form
Cuddle Bug: Grace and Ellen occasionally fall into this — they hug someone all the time, while The Glomp was performed not by one of them only twice: by Nanase (to Ellen) and Catalina (to Tedd). In the Second Life it was said to be fairly typical for a greater chimera. As to Ellen, at least Justin thinks it's pretty normal for girls. Or she's just that uninhibited.
Meganekko: Chika, the newly introduced colleague and sane partner of Amanda. Or at least looks like one most of the time.
Much to his chagrin, Tedd gets this at times when he's wearing his glasses.
Dan commented that he's been doing this more and more lately with random female background characters.
Rule of Drama: It's been stated explicitly that magic is "overly dramatic," such as when all dark blue dye from Susan's hair ran out of her hair and into her clothes, followed by the magic making dark blue her natural hair color. Just because.
Grace: But why did her hair grow? Jerry: See "over the top emphasis."
Rule of Fun: The author's stated reason for just why transforming is ridiculously, absurdly safe.
Ellen is an Opposite Sex Clone created by a magical artifact in conjunction with Gender BenderMagitek, but those around her keep trying to describe her parentage with traditional mother/father roles. For example, Ellen could be considered the daughter of Elliot and Tedd. Elliot's the mom because Ellen came from him and Tedd's the dad because he made it happen. Turned serious with this strip.
Schedule Slip: Part of the reason arcs seem to take forever. Dan's been all over the place with it, but at the bare minimum a strip usually comes out twice a week, baring hiatuses or serious slips.
Zig-zagged recently. There's no set schedule yet, but there's frequent updates.
Elliot was turned into a girl just before the Transformation Ray broke. He would've automatically turned back after a month, and Tedd probably could've rebuilt the device sooner, but Elliot was so desperate to return to normal that he resorted to using a magical artifact, which had unexpected side effects.
Involuntary Shapeshifting: Multiple examples. Elliot, for example, has shapeshifting Gender Bender powers, but he's at a stage where his body doesn't know its limits, so basically, he needs to transform every day to burn off excess magic, or else it'll overload at some inopportune moment, causing him to involuntarily transform with barely any warning.
An attempt to transform from living genetic salad of six kinds of beings to human was nearly lethal for Vlad. Part of Grace's design supposedly was to counter this problem. Though it may be partially because Project Lycanthrope seyunolu were not just made by eggs but also tinkered with.
Required Secondary Powers / You Can See Me?: Greater chimerae seem not to have much problems with identifying people they know in different forms. Uryuom once failed at this, but it may tell more about mental changes in Tedd after acquaintance with Grace.
Shapeshifter Default Form: Artificial transformations are temporary, in normal conditions new forms expire and the subject snaps back. A chimera may keep other forms for a good while, but is born in hybrid form and deem these the most "natural" i.e comfortable. Though Grace appears to have no problem remaining in her human form (plus antenna) for long periods.
Sherlock Scan: Diane does it while cap-and-piped. So much for being introduced as an Alpha Bitch two and half real-time years earlier.
Shipper on Deck: Sarah, with Nanase and Ellen. Interesting because she's essentially returning the favor: Nanase helped Elliot get together with her. Grace is just as enthusiastic about pairing them up. In fact, the only person who doesn't like the idea is Tedd, who considers Nanase his "ugly cousin" and therefore can't handle the thought of her being in a relationship with anybody.
Shoo Out the Clowns: If they can't be milked for drama, they're gone. At present, this means the Hammers are gone, and Greg is closing his dojo. Also leads to Doing in the Scientist with both Hammerspace and Anime-Style Martial Arts being explained by magic.
Shrouded in Myth: Grace, at times, at least as far as the Child Left Behind is concerned.
Grace: You can call me Shade Tail. (whump) Greg: Are you okay? CLB: I'm fine! I tripped! Grace: But you were sitting. CLB: Yes I was. Sorry, mistress. Ma'am. Shade Tail.
Word of Dan: I'm not saying a more "gritty" approach is wrong in general; I speak only of what is appropriate for this comic. The world is full of cynical, gritty and dark comics full of brooding, angst and doom, and while I'm sure many of those comics are good, one of my specific intentions for EGS is for it to not be one of those comics.
Single-Target Sexuality: While admitting that she does like other people, Grace is pretty much a Teddsexual. This was even pointed out in universe. With huge clues to the reasons before it's fully revealed.
Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness: The early strips had No Fourth Wall. As the years progressed, any mention of the author or even fourth wall breaks in general were dropped and are now relegated to the newspaper and filler strips, which are out of canon.
Smelly Skunk: Averted with two seyunolu girls who are part-skunk. Apart from names translating to "scent" and "fragrance", there is no mention of how they smell one way or another.
Spit Take: So close. Mr. Raven held the tea inside his mouth only with a heroical effort. As The Rant points out, Grace sometimes have such effect on people.
Spontaneous Weapon Creation: For a long time, women who were offended by sexist men could conjure hammers from out of nowhere and use them to pummel the offender. This lasted until the person who originally created this ability passed away.
Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Nanase and Ellen have kicked pretty much the rest of the cast out of the spotlight. They even had the most screentime in Painted Black, Grace's backstory arc.
Tedd even lampshaded it.
This seems to have decreased somewhat lately, as Ellen and Nanase only appeared 12 times (together or alone—Nanase appeared 6 times alone, Ellen appeared 2 times alone, and they appeared together 4 times) in the latest mini-arc (which has lasted for 43 strips). Today's spotlight stealer might instead be Justin, though Elliot beat him by 2 strips (31-29). Susan was becoming this during Hammerchlorians, but has had 4 appearances since then.
Now in One Way Road the plot, while seemingly focused on Tedd, keeps derailing for Ellen.
Mr. Raven's Murder Shroud spell creates a cloud that exploding crows come out of. A flock of crows can also be called a murder.
Steven Ulysses Perhero: The Latin word 'Sciuridae' translates as 'Shade Tail', which was also Grace's Code Name, though it was not in reference to Dr. Sciuridae.
The Stinger: It looks like Dan acquired the taste for it by the latter arcs (which somewhat improves Rotating Arcs side in itself). After all was said and done in "New And Old Flames", the last page has a good hook. "One Way Road" got an even better "postscriptum" in the last panels.
Straight Gay: Justin, and also Nanase. There are no flamboyant stereotypes to be found in this comic.
Well, except for Justin really likes to play with hair. Though Dan tried to explain that it wasn't because he was gay it's just he happens to have a strong emotional link to hair...and it just happens to be a gay stereotype.
Straw Feminist: Susan's mother, who instilled it into her daughter. Susan is a Deconstruction of this, as her stereotypical views on men were influenced by an event where she walked in on her father having an affair. It turns out she doesn't actually hate her father for this, but was trying to excuse his actions by believing that he couldn't help it because he was male (a notion that her mother helped to reinforce). Eventually she realizes that people just make stupid mistakes, no matter what their gender.
Stupid Sexy Flanders: Any straight Gender Bender becomes bisexual for the duration. A certain male-to-female setting - which can also be used on women - will, for 48 hours, make you extremely attractive, even to people who normally don't like girls. Not to mention the Stupid Sexy Flanders overtones of Gender Benders in the first place. Even without gender-bending, Tedd is constantly getting this; Justin once joked that he shouldn't worry about gay men being attracted to him. Also, while removing his glases was enough to make V5-ed Elliot blush:
Sarah: In Elliot's defense, your face isn't really the best barometer of whether he was really into guys...
Noah seems to trigger this among the fans.
Sudden School Uniform: Due to Webcomic Time, the uniform policy Moperville North announced in March 2005 and abolished in January 2010 was really in effect for two and a half days.
Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Tedd is attempting to treat magic just like any other area of the (mad) sciences — physics, chemistry, robotics, etc. So far, we've seen him trying empirical testing of transformation spells, running numbers instead of hoping that things "just work", and so forth. It's heavily, heavily implied that "Lord Tedd" resulted in one timeline when he forgot the value of friendship in lieu of obsessing over magic-turned-science — and thus, power — to the exclusion of all else.
Supernatural Aid: Immortals work this way rather than interfering more directly.
Super Soldier: Grace's brothers and Grace herself; the older chimeras were meant to be super-assassins, while Grace was created specifically to fight Damien.
"Why, father! I have been in this bathroom the whole time, and not sleeping with the squirrel girl as you previously suggested!" "Oh, well, that's good to know."
Sword Cane:Raven has this, but carries it only when expecting serious trouble.
More to the point, there obviously are therapists - it just seems nobody knows when to get one. This is most apparent with Susan, who obviously has some serious issues, but could probably have been therapized (whether that is still possible now cannot be said).
There Can Be Only One: Possibly subverted; while Lord Tedd is supposedly out to kill the "weak Tedds," Nioi insisted that he was misunderstood, and it is clear from various hints that he has a Freudian Excuse lurking in the shadows. Unfortunately, due to the Kudzu Plot, he's been Put on a Bus, so it'll be some time before we find out why.
Too Spicy for Yog Sothoth: In the off-continuity Goonmanji arc, the main cast pisses off the evil cursed Reality Warper game by being far too perverted/accustomed to the Mad Science to treat whatever it does to them as something more than Fetish Fuel at best and petty annoyance at worst.
Trans Equals Gay: The author indicated in a non-canon piece that Justin would love being a girl so he could pick up guys. After receiving complaints, the author corrected this assumption in a follow-up piece and kept it from entering the comic's canon. Later on in the canon story Justin addresses the fact that he doesn't actually want to be a woman, even though it would make his life easier.
Unskilled, but Strong: Damien and Grace. Damien became overly reliant on his super-strength and fire-based powers, so when Grace used her stronger, fireproof Omega transformation, she easily outclassed him, despite having no real combat experience.
Grace has now begun training with Greg, so that if she gets in fights in the future she'll be able to take down opponents without ripping them to shreds.
Unstoppable Rage: After Grace finds out what happened to her real father, she goes utterly ballistic on Damien. She snaps out of it before actually killing him, though. Also happens to Nanase when Abraham tries to destroy Ellen.
Jerry: Angst-induced Awakenings are usually triggered by things like murdered loved ones or a village burning down, not disappointment over origin stories.
Webcomic Time: Eight years of EGS as a webcomic is just over two months of time in-comic. The Birthday Party was a particularly jarring example; a year of EGS was one day of in-comic time. This makes Ellen's character and Nanase coming out slightly odd.
This comic has the most epic clicking of "do not like" ever.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Susan's fairy doll acts on her subconscious. Sarah and Grace have a field day interpreting how its actions show things that Susan tries so hard to hide.
What Have I Become?: Tedd asks this of himself after saying that he would rather figure out the science behind Elliot's transformation magic than ogle his breasts (yes, the pronoun is correct).
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Grace is this in all things including nudity, and so was Susan before meeting the aberration. Literally so — her eyes change into her current half-droopy state when she looks down at his corpse, and while she still haswideeyesquiteoften, they do tend towards the "half-droopy." After the encounter of a weird kind with Jerry led to Freak Out, though, she now tends to having wide open eyes more often than not.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Revealed to be the reason why Immortals "reset" every two hundred years. As time goes by, they become "more bored, more powerful, and less sane," which as Jerry notes is "kind of a bad combo." This could explain why Pandora acts the way she does, since alleviating boredom through certifiably insane plots is her entire reason for doing things. She may have never "reset" in her life.
Weaksauce Weakness: The fire-summon mooks have a weakness to water, despite not actually being on fire. Trying to make flaming creatures with a summon spell that can't allow it (the creatures would incinerate themselves) causes the effect.
Tedd: They're... um... rehearsing a play... Pizza boy: A play? Tedd: Yes. A play. Pizza boy: About two guys fighting over skirts? Tedd: Yes..No! They're staying true to the play's Shakespearean roots by having men play female roles!
Writer's Block: Shive has this, and many filler strips consist of him chasing a box-like creature labeled as such.
Xanatos Gambit: Though very simple compared to many other gambits, Ellen considered her fight with the goo to be a "win-win", given that loosing the physical fight would have resulted in a "noble death".
Well, in the guy's defense, Tedd is scrawny enough to warrant the phrase, just the big dimwit didn't realize he was accompanied by 3 of the most powerful characters in the comic (even if one of them has been Brought Down to Normal recently)
Magus: I can totally hook you up with straw turned to gold. Aberration: I'm already worth millions, and you'd just be devaluing gold in general if you made more.
You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The Verres's purple hair is natural. Nanase's red well, black now is natural, despite her dominant Asian genes. Susan's (dyed...well, natural now) hair is actually dark blue, not black, and this is seen as a natural hair color.
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