El Goonish Shive

Yeah, I doubt he'd do that.

You know, I could see all of the drama going on in her head. As has been pointed out, she's not very socially experienced. Add to that a pride of being logical at all times and I could readily see her looking at aspects of A, B, and C of the situation and saying to herself, "Oh God, he thinks I'm hitting on him" while Elliot is actually thinking, "Mmm... popcorn. And hey, I can use chopsticks!"

I dunno... She's never really had any experience with flirting or hitting on people, as she's rather serious and until meeting Nanase didn't really have any friends. The amount of time in the comic has been around 6 months, and in that time, she's become a little more open with more people (Tedd, for one), but not many.

There's a chance this could happen, but would Dan go for something so cliche?

And back to Sarah and Grace.

And once again we have Sarah and RELATIONSHIP ISSUES. *sigh*

What in the world can be the problem now? For the most vanilla couple they seem to have quite a few issues.

The issues are all with Sarah. Apparently Shive feels that the best way to make her unbland is to make her needlessly neurotic.

It's just teenage angst stuff, guys.

This is more personal outlook than criticism of the strip itself, but I've never been a fan of the train of thought that someone should stuff it about their problems, however legitimate and worthwhile they might be, simply because someone else may have gone through something worse.

Sure, griping about your arguably relatively less damning problems while the person who's suffered more is right there is callous, but getting offended to a serious degree always struck me a bit self-centered.

And trying to deal with such a thing tends to drive a wedge between people unless they don't talk about their problems at all, which drives a wedge as well - as we're seeing here.

edited 18th Nov '12 11:54:49 PM by KnownUnknown

I think she was more giving a "What did I just say" face than being offended in any way in the last panel.

I'm currently dating a guy who also sucks with taking initiative, and had to go through my own relationship issues to take care of it. Does that mean I can be the authority on whether this sucks or not?

Sure. I mean, everyone else will be the authority as well, but you can too.

Yay my life is awesome.

I might go on an El Goonish Shive hiatus foe a while. Stuff in Questionable Content has really rocked the boat, and this arc - hilariously misinterpretable Susan and Elliot scenes aside - is boring in comparison. Hell, this Sarah stuff was boring the hell out of me BEFORE the QC stuff happened.

Good idea, EGS works better being binged.

Exactly.

> And trying to deal with such a thing tends to drive a wedge between people unless they don't talk about their problems at all, which drives a wedge as well - as we're seeing here.

Well, yeah... slice-of-life is always a bit of a sitcom. As long as it doesn't slide either into status quo freezer or into Idiot Plot, all is well.

Is it bad that I had some serious trouble trying to follow the logic on today's strip? Because seriously, the dialogue lost me.

Wrong thread. Sorry

edited 20th Nov '12 7:30:34 AM by tricksterson

I could understand it pretty easily, it was the previous strip that confused me.

The size conversation was nonsense, this one was child's play.

The conclusion is simple: Elliot is horrible at taking initiative in the relationship and seems like a sucky boyfriend.

I think he's too simple minded to know any better, like he can't understand that being in a relationship will change their interactions habits, it's not just the same as they were as friends.

Disagree. Some people are nonconfrontational by nature. Sometimes that makes for a healthy relationship when you have someone who has a desire to have control. Like I said, my current relationship is like that. If you have to act "differently" in a relationship then you're prolly doing it wrong.

To an extent, anyway.

Point is, nothing is necessarily wrong on either end, it just seems like they flat out don't work together.

edited 20th Nov '12 9:18:49 AM by MrAHR

Comic.

Okay, I don't like how it's bouncing around between the characters like this, but I'm looking forward to Ellen and Nanase's part.

edited 21st Nov '12 3:20:23 AM by MrMallard

I had to laugh at the way Ellen's holding her ice cream in the last panel silhouette.

I agree with Mallard about the perspective shift, it feels very sitcommy. (Although it's not like EGS has ever pretended to not have sitcom elements...)

edited 21st Nov '12 8:06:50 AM by JackAlsworth

Communication, passive aggressive ignoring until they talk to you...same strategy...

Also, I think Grace is kind of being judgmental here. She is in no place to give relationship advice.