El Goonish Shive

My take on the first three panels:

Heartwarming Moment.

Peace out.

My take was Suddenly Sexuality on Dianne's part.

edited 6th Feb '16 5:47:13 AM by tricksterson

Or at least Stupid Sexy Flanders.

It's the eye reveal. It makes panel 3 look like Diane's been rendered speechless by the reveal that Charlotte's Beautiful All Along. Her mouth is even hanging open.

It could just as easily be intended to be Diane re-evaluating her definition of friendship based on Charlotte's comments, however. This is probably Character Development, it's just unclear whether its Charlotte's armor-piercing statement or her sudden pretty features that Diane is taken by.

edited 6th Feb '16 6:16:42 AM by TobiasDrake

It's pretty clearly "oh, she considers me a friend when I've been kind of a bitch to her".

Yeah. It's not "holy crap she's pretty." It's "holy crap she considers me a friend." Charlotte not having her glasses is so we can see her eyes, and see the sincerity. It's to add a little more emotional weight to the moment, and humanize Charlotte that little extra bit.

But what about Shive's line about shipping?

It's weird, it's like the intent is different with each picture. Charlotte's face conveys a Beautiful All Along moment but Diane's indicates a "oh no I was awful to a person that thinks I'm a friend" moment. It's a little all over the place.

edited 7th Feb '16 6:31:27 AM by MousaThe14

It seems pretty straight forward to me, as Ninety and Tiamatty have said. Just because glasses coming off is a frequent element of Beautiful All Along, that doesn't imply The Glasses Gotta Go, or for that matter The Glasses Come Off. Sometimes it's just a Windows of the Soul moment.

As for the, "The shipping can now cease" line, that was in reference to the previous comic, where angles made it seem as though Charlotte and Diane thought the crazed spider vampire versus singing griffin mage fight was the perfect time to make out under a tree. Now we can see it's Not What It Looks Like.

I thought he was being tongue in cheek about this page ceasing any shipping.

Yeah, I think Shive knows that people are going to ship, no matter what he says. Especially since his comic has a lot of romance going on already, with tons of ship-teasing. Really, everyone just gets shipped with everyone.

In fact: I'm just going to ship Demonic Duck and Angelic Tweeting Bird. Don't think about the mechanics of how that would actually work.

TOO LATE.

NP: I've been in Ellen's position before.

And, in the main strip, Cartoon bombs.

How did he light those? All of his hands are full.

Pedipalps.

Cartoon bombs come pre-lit?

Duckbird is new best ship. They will stand united against all attempts to pay attention to things.

edited 8th Feb '16 7:19:22 AM by TobiasDrake

But you guys know what every ship needs?

Fan art!

Hm this is a thing Shive posted about himself writing ace characters.

FYI by "ace" AHR means asexual (as opposed to The Ace, which was my first thought).

Didn't he talk about Susan potentially being a form of asexual a while back?

Autochorissexual, if I remember correctly.

Edit: Found it. Not definitive, but possibly canon in the future.

edited 8th Feb '16 11:34:21 AM by smokeycut

Noah's explicitly not asexual. He's Best Friends With Benefits with Melissa.

Susan's also not asexual. She has sexy feelings and desires, she's just uncomfortable acting on them due to childhood trauma.

edited 8th Feb '16 11:38:37 AM by TobiasDrake

Yeah, it's weird considering how Shive looooves people to act awkward around sexual things. Even the confident sexual people. You'd think an ace person would fit right in there. Then again Shive makes it pretty clear he doesn't really know things about it, which is a pity.

Autochorissexual means that you have sexual feelings and desires, but do not want to act on them or have them involve you in any way.

Which is actually fairly accurate for Susan.

The main assumption is that orientations like that are still in the ace spectrum, and what classifies and what isn't can be sketchy.

For instance, someone who is incredibly sex-repulsed and doesn't want to have sex with people, but still EXPERIENCES sexual attraction to people are technically not asexual. But they might still be accepted into the community for any variety of reasons.

Likewise, someone who might have a lack of attraction due to trauma are often allowed to take on the moniker, even if it is not entirely accurate.

Furthermore, many people in the ace spectrum are not 100% ace, hence the term "gray ace" for anyone who is "more or less" ace but not quite. This might mean their sexual attraction is so insignificant it doesn't really bother them, or it happens very rarely.

And that's not even getting INTO aromanticism, which people often lump asexuality together with, even though they are fundamentally separate.

edited 8th Feb '16 11:44:39 AM by MrAHR

Yeah, reactions could range from grossed out to bring the only person not freaked out. Options are there. But I guess it just isn't in his range of interests.

Though for some reason it made me recall a quote I heard about from a writer whose view was along the lines of "asexual people aren't interesting to write about" though I can't remember by who or in what context. But I guess if one's interests in writing heavily involve people having physical attraction to one another in some capacity then I could understand it, even if I didn't care for the reason.