El Goonish Shive / Tropes F to L

Tropes A to E | Tropes F to L | Tropes M to R | Tropes S to Z

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El Goonish Shive provides examples of the following tropes:

• Face Palm:
  • Sarah does a face palm in the face of Tedd's and Grace's antics.
  • Elliot and Sarah do synchronized facepalms when they realise Tedd is going to do another rant about why he has long hair. Susan does a facepalm after hearing the whole thing.
  • Susan's fairy summon does the tiniest facepalm when Susan hears Zelda gets kidnapped right after shapeshifting back into a girl.
  • Edward does a facepalm when Wolf completely misses his sarcasm when he says he forgot about the dimension-hopping walrus.
• Fanservice:
  • Usually kept to a minimum in-story, but anything outside of canon is fair game. The Sketchbook section of the comic in particular tends to be rife with fanservicey pinups (that's only a small selection).
  • In just about every one of her appearances, Amanda ends up transforming, usually shrinking or turning into a Half-Human Hybrid. This appears to be Fanservice for a particular segment of EGS's fanbase and Dan himself.
  • Sometimes averted: "Believe me, if this was simply fan service, Elliot would have wound up in something much more revealing than that.
• Fantastic Racism: The gryphon world distrusts Uryuoms, supposedly due to a war (centuries ago) in which they tried to Take Over the World, but really just because they're different. It's also the case that the specific magical aura that makes someone "royalty" in The Magocracy just happens to only be posessed by humans, despite the fact other races (such as the gryphons) are inherently magical.
• Fantastic Slurs: Unicorns do not appreciate being referred to as horses.
• Fashion-Based Relationship Cue: Early on, Justin wore an earring in an attempt to advertise he was gay. He stopped wearing it after a while but wore it again to gain the attention of one guy whom he's sure is gay.
• Faux Paw: Ellen playfully swipes Nanase's ponytail several times, starting here.
• Faux Yay:
  • Lisa theorizes that Elliot's Party Girl form isn't a lesbian, but acts like one to "put on a show for the men". This is currently the trope's page image.
  • These two girls start out kissing to draw attention, but it turns out they liked it more than they thought they would.
• Female Gaze: Guineas' transformation provokes some... reaction from both Ellen and a female trooper. The next page has the latter blushing and demonstratively looking away while the Uryuom trooper, obviously, comments on this.
• Figure It Out Yourself: Ellen's approach to help Elliot realize what kind of relationship he truly wants is to tell him he needs to figure it out himself as she knows he would likely reject the conclusion if she just tells him.
• Fights Like a Normal: Scarf may or may not have special powers or strength due to being an aberration, but prefers man-made firearms over exotic measures his state might allow him.
• Finishing Stomp:
  • Ellen crushes Goo Cell #0012 beneath her feet to permanently defeat it. Squishtality!
  • Magus gives the Urteronc golem a double-tap kick to finish it off.
• Fire Alarm Distraction: During the "Sister" arc, Susan pulls the fire alarm to evacuate the school when a giant goo creature attacks. Discussed by Ellen, who assumes someone pulled it to get out of a test.
• Fireball Eyeballs: When characters are mad or focused, fire appears in their eyes, such as with Ellen here and here, or Susan here.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Susan and Nanase, of all people, are Fire Forged Vitriolic Best Buds, having been buddied while on a joint school trip to France and having to face an aberration together. Now that Susan's secret is out, she's even opening up to her.
• First Contact: Elliot first meets the Uryuoms in Tam Eh Tedd.
• First Girl Wins: Grace is the first girl to show any romantic interest in Tedd, and they are the longest lasting relationship in the comic.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Abraham defies 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.
• 555: Sarah's number is 555-7272.
• Flat Joy: When Elliot discovered that his "girly powers" could include becoming a superheroine who can ''fly''. Of course, he's in the middle of a fight scene, but still, he did just discover he can fly!
• Flat "What": There are many instances of characters reacting to something with a flat "what". There is the reason why the Flat "What" page image is from EGS.
  • Susan reacts with a flat what upon encountering the Santa Claus Immortal in the cave with the hammer artifact.
  • Justin here reacts with a low key "what" upon suddenly seeing a fire monster thing.
• 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.
• Food Coma: Grace went into a "pancake coma" for a few hours shortly after eating a huge meal (shown here) at a pancake house.
• The Force Is Strong with This One:
  • Adrian Raven has the ability to measure magical power without devices, which all but confirms a common wild guess on who his "random favourites" are. Later, it is elaborated that he can sense magic from people...through his ears. Taste, precisely. Don't ask.
  • All humans can naturally sense magic power, but it's a subtle thing that's contextual and easily confused with something else. A powerful magic user who gets angry can be sensed by the person they're angry at for example as demonstrated here. It has also been implied that powerful magic users are slightly more attractive due to people subconciously sensing their power.
• 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.
• Forced Transformation: Occurred on-screen and in backstory, though more discussed.
  • In the comic's prehistory Sarah was once accidentally turned into a Cat Girl, due to Tedd's unsafe handling of a Transformation Ray gun. Cue an E grudge. See also the commentary of a filler image.
  • 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 (it is hinted that his emotions were being manipulated by Magus even back then) that he resorted to using a magical artifact, which had unexpected side effects.
• 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 Venus "tattoo" (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).
  • Two the cryptic (and hard-to-spot) ones for Ellen's creation and initial despair are explained here.
  • This page shows a French-dressed Nanase being empowered by one of the Immortals following Elliot around. This foreshadows that both the Immortals appeared towards Nanase when she and Susan were in France and that's how she awakened.
  • Adrian Raven is really fond of this one boy with long, blond hair. Long foreshadowing a connection with Noah before it is confirmed in New and Old Flames.
  • Carol's boss tells her that they "can only report on ''confirmed'' monsters, like mega hogs, or bigfoot. A mega hog will appear as the centrepiece of the Death Sentence storyline.
  • The photographs on the cabinet in the comic from 2011-12-13 show, from right to left, Max (Raven's spikey cat who may be related to Jeremy, first revealed on 2011-12-22), Noah with a basketball, and Raven standing behind both Tedd's parents... whose breakup he feels personally responsible for.
  • Way back in 2004, a non-canon sketchbook had some female characters as kittens, with Ellen explaining "Dan has wanted to do a story with me as a cat since 2002, but he backed away from it to keep the transformation gun from becoming 'overpowered'". Six years later...
  • By the author's own words, it was unintentional, but Adrian Raven casting an illusion on Grace to make her look like a theoretical niece made her look like a dead ringer for Susan. It was dismissed at the time since Adrian said half-breeds like him can't have kids. Years later, it's revealed half-breeds can have kids, and not only is Susan a distant descendent, but her Identical Stranger Diane is his daughter.
  • Back in 2013, when Diane first set her sights on Elliot, one of the selling points was that he was "unlikely to pressure anyone for physical romance". In "The Legend of Diane", five years later, she's shocked to realise she has a reputation, thinking "But I'm a virgin!" with later strips in the sequence establishing that, while she had dated a lot of boys, sex simply hadn't been a factor for her. While it's not stated, the specificity of that thought makes it entirely likely that she dumped at least some of them because they had pressured her (and subsequently lied about it, but she didn't know that).
  • On the rare occasions Noriko Verres appeared on-screen, her face was never shown. Turns out, there was a reason for that...
  • Regarding Noriko, when Not-Tengu talks about her, he mentions Tedd as her "first-born" son (here) and talks about her children, plural (here). This pays off six years later, when we finally get to meet Noriko's other son.
  • In this strip when Magus is admitting his involvement in Ellen's creation, Sirleck, posessing Ellen wonders why his pulse is elevated. It's later revealed that Ellen is more present than Sirleck thinks.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The Q&A strips are all outside of continuity and meant for reader to send questions where certain things can be clarified.
• Fourth Wall Psych: In one strip, Tedd appears to be commenting on a stupid mistake that Elliot made despite not being around to witness it. However, he is quickly revealed to instead be commenting on a similar situation in the sitcom that he was watching, meaning that he was merely Leaning on the Fourth Wall rather than breaking it.
• Freakiness Shame: 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...
• Freak Lab Accident: The Goo was originally written as a random accident 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 Couch: Elliot dreams of himself on a therapist couch when he decides to become introspective.
• 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.
• Friend of Masked Self: Susan tells Mr. Tensaided that Elliot knows Cheerleadra, describing him as "the Lois Lane to her Superman." It would be more accurate to say that he's the Clark Kent to her Superman.
• Frustrated Overhead Scribble: When Sarah is pissed about being asked to strip she's got an angry scribble above her head as she marches off.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Panel #3 here shows an Uryuom soldier teasing the human women soldier over her having the hots for Guinneas.
  • Panel #3 here shows Justin stress-braiding Susan's hair.
  • Panel #1 here shows one of the fire monsters holding Grace's jacket in confusion in the background.
  • During the Card Game Tournament arc, while Sarah and her opponent are stuck in a stalemate, Sarah's summoned monsters keep themselves occupied.
• Fun with Subtitles: "[See? I can speak the alien language of the Uryuoms.]" (subtitles: Translated from TAKE A WILD GUESS.)
• Fusion Dance: Lespuko-chimera can acquire and combine forms.
• Gag Censor: During the MV5 EGS:NP arc, rather than use weird camera angles, Dan just had the Angelic Tweeting Bird hover in front of Grace whenever she was topless.
• Gaming Webcomics: Not primarily but a lot of EGS:NP's are about Grace playing video games especially recently with her attempts at pacifism.
• Gas Leak Cover-Up:
  • And a mysterious stalker from the mysterious girl's past. But not a crazy wizard attack. Not at all.
  • And Mr. Verres already contemplated using swamp gas as a random coverup.
• Gay Romantic Phase: Nanase's mother thinks her relationship with Ellen is something she'll grow out of, an opinion Nanase is not happy with.
• Geas: Immortals are able to inflict this on themselves by making a vow. Even so much as considering breaking a vow results in intrusive thoughts telling them to keep it. If they irreparably break a vow, for example: vowing not to kill someone, and then killing them, the resulting cacophony of thoughts about breaking their vow would be debilitating. And given that they're immortal, they may be stuck with this for a very long time. The vow is also capable of carrying on to their later incarnations should they so choose, much to Zeus' chagrin.
• Gender Bender: The entire main cast, at least once, were turned into the opposite biological gender. 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.
    • Tedd as a female deserves special mention, as "she" is just about the hottest character in the comic. Conversely, Tess in Newspaper complained she became "so androgynous she wasn't even sure it worked."
  • 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
    • 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 current 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, ogling Perky Goth form in a mirror, and more recently dating Ashley, a girl who discovered her own bisexuality by way of Ranma ½ at a young age, 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. Later on justified when Tedd realizes he's gender-fluid, but was uneducated on non-cisgender identities. He just has access to technology that allows him to shape-shift when he feels more like a woman than a man.
    • And when Pandora does ... something that causes him to transform? The response is a BIG smile. And a gripe that her opponent in the card game, who keeps hitting on her, is 'totally ruining the fun of being inexplicably turned into a girl by some terrifying unknown power'.
  • 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 few times anyone is gender bent, their thoughts will be 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.
    • A better example is Tedd; in fact, Grace has less dresses and skirts in her wardrobe than he does despite most of her first clothes being selected by Ordinary High-School Student Sarah. He even prides himself on how sexy he looks transformed. And cooks better while female, just out of habit.
    • Magus Ellen offers an interesting twist on this trope. As a result of permanent gender-bending spells being readily available in his home universe, people who wish to pursue a career stereotypically associated with the opposite gender will often switch genders. Ellen himself was born female, but wished to become a battle mage and decided to shift to male for the enhanced physical power.
  • Opposite-Sex Clone: Ellen.
• Genki Girl:
  • 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.
  • A more literal example is Susan's curiosity, seen here.
  • 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.
• Gentle Giant:
  • 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.
• Gilligan Cut: "Please don't be on World War II...Dammit!"
• Girlfriend in Canada: Grace brings up the fact that some people thought she made her significant other Tedd up to turn down people asking her out in Hope Part 4. Jay think many of Grace's "friends" will abandon her as soon as they learn Tedd is in fact real.
• Girl of My Dreams: A realistic twist on this. Elliot dreams of Tedd turning into a girl and then the two kiss. However, he doesn't remember the full dream, in particular who he had kissed. So when he first encounters Ashley he mentally fills in the blank and thinks that she was the one he kissed in his dream.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot:
  • Tedd the self-confessed pervert loves seeing girl on girl action. He often mixes gender-bending antics with that.
  • A group of kids dreamed of dating Nanase someday, but they weren't too upset to learn she's a lesbian because they like seeing girl on girl action.
  Kid 1: You know how we all dreamt of dating Nanase someday?
  Kid 2: Yeah?
  Kid 1: That dream is dead, but something magical has taken its place.
  • Subverted during "Family Tree"'s third part: at the start of Part 3, a pair of girls try to get attention by fake-kissing (though one comments that she might need a few more drinks first). Fast-forward a few pages, and apparently they enjoyed it more than they expected, because now they're making out in a stairwell. Apparently, Dan had a whole story comic planned to showcase the two realizing their feelings for each other, but scrapped it as he believed that the single panel conveyed the twist just fine.
• Girl Posse: Alpha Bitch Diane and her hangers-on Lucy and Rhoda are a trio of gold diggers. Well, Diane and Lucy are. Rhoda is actually quite nice. The trope is later subverted when Diane and Lucy reveal Hidden Depths and receive character development.
• Girls with Moustaches: Several non-canon examples.
  • An Imagine Spot showed Nanase as a man, looking exactly like her normal self only sporting a moustache.
  • Grace had a Jamie Hyneman 'stache as a part of a Mythbusters-themed filler arc.
  • The gypsy woman who sells Tedd dangerous magical objects in the non-canon NP arcs has a moustache at one point.
  • Sarah is shown with one when playing as Mario.
• The Glomp: In the earliest days of their relationship, Grace constantly tackled Tedd in a show of physical affection. Frequently. Tedd calls it the "Tackle Cuddle".
• Godwin's Law of Facial Hair: Principal Verrückt used to have both a toothbrush moustache and a dark black toupee with a dramatic side parting that made him look even more like Hilter. When Ellen pointed the toupee part out he was horrified and realized that's why children would cry at the sight of him. He later embraces his baldness and grows out his mustache into a large bushy one to avert this.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: Tedd's glasses, which can do just about everything except correct vision. Its features include enhancing vision, video recording, and a (removed) X-ray vision mode.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel:
  • Susan's Curiosity and Logic (Curiosity is a Catgirl and Logic is a Vulcan.) They end up agreeing, to her chagrin. Later, Susan's Nature and Nurture do not agree, and Nurture ends up gagging Nature.
  • Later played straight with Diane having an actual shoulder angel and devil after insulting a friend.
• 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.
• Got Volunteered: Susan and Nanase (especially Susan) were manipulated by two Immortals into helping slay an Abberation during their trip to Paris. Susan is later driven to tears when she realizes they were deceitful in their recruiting methods.
• Graceful Loser: Principal Verrückt pushes in all the wrong directions, but doesn't mind when he's repelled. At least if it's not about murals.
• Grand Theft Me: Sirleck is a serial body-snatching vampire who can seize control of a person and did so to many people in order to maintain his own parasitic existence, up to and including :Ellen.
• G-Rated Drug:
  • Involves a Cat Girl with catnip.
  • Random magic potion party. Because drugs're bad, m'kay?
• Grammar Nazi: Mr. Raven is presented as one in the cover for the Sister II arc, declaring there is nothing cool about improper grammar.
• 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 lasted longer, but as of Squirrel Prophet, he's got, to quote George, "cute girly fairy hair."
• Groin Attack: Sarah delivers a very impressive kick to the balls to Hedge.
• Guilt-Tripping: Grace manages to get Sarah to hang out with Ellen, whom she never hanged out with without it being part of a larger gathering, by pointing out that due to the unique circumstances of Ellen's birth, she has memories of growing up with Sarah and suddenly lost all of that. This succeeds in making Sarah decide to go through with it despite the awkwardness involved.
• Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty: In a non-canon NP storyline, the Writer's Block is suspected to be the killer until the real killer is arrested.
• Hair Antennae: Grace's default form's antennaes are covered in hair. She is part Uryuom though, and they have antennae, so... it makes a kind of sense. Also, Grace in squirrel form and General Shade Tail.
• Hair Wings: The Mysterious Cloaked Figure, Noah makes hair wings (called by name in the commentary) that are actually hair.
• Half-Human Hybrid:
  • Grace's brother Guinneas is created using precisely 50% human DNA and 50% guinea pig DNA.
  • Nioi is half-human, half-skunk.
  • Adrian Raven is half-human, half-Immortal. They are common enough to have the term Elf to formally refer to them.
• Half-Identical Twins: Invoked as a cover story. Biologically and genetically, the only difference between Elliot and Ellen is that the former is a boy and the latter is a girl, and for everyone not in the know, they are claimed to be twins. However, this is all to hide that Ellen is in fact a magically-created female duplicate of Elliot.
• Hand Behind Head:
  • Lavender has her hand behind her head in embarrassment when a tongue-slip reveals how she feels about her boss.
  • Tedd in Cat Girl form sheepishly has her hand behind her head, when its revealed he stored a form backup on Grace, without the form owner's permission.
• Hands-Off Parenting:
  • Mr. and Mrs. Dunkel are capable of taking the most bizarre things in stride, to the point where it becomes a Running Gag.
    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. Perhaps they had a bigger reaction the first time something happened, but since there was no permanent harm from it, or any of the subsequent incidents, they've learned to roll with it, even as it eventually escalated into Ellen's birth and Elliot becoming a costumed superhero.
• 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.
• Hard Truth Aesop: "Death Sentence" has one. Blind idealism and hope is not an option, because of reality. That doesn't mean trying is futile, but it can be misguided, even harmful.
• Harsher in Hindsight: An in-universe example: On hearing that Susan fought a vampire in France, Grace immediately dubs her Susan the Vampire Slayer. Given that she still has lingering trauma from the evebt, it was exactly the wrong thing to say.
• Healing Magic Is the Hardest: Despite the magic of the main world practically specializing in transformation magic, healing magic is close to non-existent. If anything, enchantments tend to hinder the healing process. In the gryphon world, healing magic exists, but anything beyond superficial wounds isn't automated and requires extensive training to use.
• Hedge Mage: A systemic problem is Pandora granting magic to as many people as she can, then leaving them without much, if any, instruction. The people she empowers typically have no guidance on how to use magic, or even of whom they could turn to to teach them, and so have to figure it out themselves. Some of them don't even know they were given magic spells:
  • Luke's friend group suddenly discover that they were granted magic, and as they have no connections to the established magic community they have to figure out how their spells work through experimentation.
  • Rhoda and Catalina are two of many magic users in the setting. Everything they know is almost entirely self-taught from experimentation because they don't know who they could ask for help. Despite this, Rhoda manages to become one of the more powerful magic users around.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Ellen suffers a breakdown following her creation due to her thinking she was going to disappear in a month, and decides to do the whole Evil Twin thing. She quickly gives up on that. She was never very good at it, anyhow.
  • Once Damien was no longer around to control them, Grace's brothers surrendered peacefully and now live comfortably in a new government facility.
• Heroic BSoD: Elliot is stunned into paralyzation after he realizes he loves Sarah like a sister, not a girlfriend.
• Hero with an F in Good: Abraham, despite his good intentions, mostly caused problems. He wanted to cure his friend of his curse and created an artifact for it. Said artifact "cured" his friend by separating the curse into its own being, making the issue worse. He also committed himself to murdering Ellen in spite of knowing she's guiltless due to being bounded to his oath.
• Herr Doktor: Doctor Germahn is a stereotypical German scientist, down to his very name being a blatant parody of the trope.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Elliot and Tedd are and will always be best friends in any Alternate Universe where their genders and sexual orientations are incompatible with each other, and when they are compatible, they'll almost always be dating.
• Hidden Depths: A major theme of the comic to an almost absolute degree. As a general rule, any named character who is introduced as a one note asshole will probably get the camera pulled back to reveal that they have friends and their own, possibly misguided, motivations. The one aversion to this is Aberrations—humans who have made the premeditated decision to become an immortal being who subsists on the life energy of other humans.
• Hide Your Otherness: Naturally occurs in a setting where knowledge of magicians and aliens is kept hidden from the public. Grace, in particular, does not take it well.
• High on Catnip: The mini-arc "Catnip" mentions, but doesn't show, Tedd and Grace playing around with catnip; also, the plant itself reappeared later.
• High School: Two of them of the cross-town variety, complete with uniforms, bizarre teachers, odd mascots, and most of the other associated tropes; notably absent is any mention of sports rivalry, or indeed the existence of sports. Half the cast attends Moperville North and the other half goes to Moperville South.
• Hired on the Spot: More or less the plot of the Nepotism arc is Grace being hired by Justin's uncle after a single quick interview due to being vouched by Justin. Uncle Jim outright admits some nepotism is involved, but Justin's word is good and it saves him the trouble of going through the whole process of what it usually takes for a new employee to be hired.
• Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure: Grace uses Seymours as a unit of measure for sadness.
• His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Sort of. The stereotypical German scientist's real name is quickly revealed as Dr. Germahn.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: On this page, Magus compares the first few Immortals he encountered in the spirit plane to "mermaids in chummed water".
• Hollywood Board Games: Unwittingly, Elliot always ends up spelling swear words when playing Scrabble. This funnily highlights how he's Sir Swears-a-Lot. Also, Tedd mentioning that he could've been playing Strip Scrabble goes to tell how much of a cloudcuckoolander he can be at times.
• Homage: The demonic duck looks very similar to a major character in Goats, the comic strip by Jonathan Rosenberg.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Tara believed everything Voltaire told her, because Immortals in her world cannot lie, and she assumed the same thing was true on Earth. It's not. Bonus points for actually having been informed of this difference beforehand, only to get Distracted by the Sexy.
• Hot in Human Form: At the end of the Painted Black arc, one of Grace's "brothers", who was otherwise only seen in his were-guinea-pig form, switches back to human, and is revealed to be surprisingly handsome. Ellen and an agent don't even pretend they're not Eating the Eye Candy.
• Hug and Comment: Nanase hugs Ellen and says "You're better than a Neanderthal." Ellen for her part has no context for the comment and is confused.
• Hybrid Monster: Uryuoms' eggs have the unique properties of accepting DNA from multiple species, resulting in hybrids called Seyunolus, which can be used to create monsters by unscrupulous organizations like the one that created Grace and her siblings.
• Hybrid Power: The Uryuom breeding method pretty much inevitably results in this. Uryuoms frequently have several parents adding their genes to an egg, as they don't have typical genders. This ultimately results in a character being a hybrid of four different creatures, conserving many of their powers.
• 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.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: In the B-Side Comics, Minion is this to Shive himself, being the one to keep Shive on task.
• Hyperspace Mallet: In the earlier storylines, anytime someone said or did something sexist against women, a mallet would appear to be used against the offender. As with everything else in the series, rules for when, where, and why it can and can't appear eventually were provided. 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.
• Hypno Pendulum: In the Pokemon parody arc, the Hypno anologue uses a pendulum just like the Pokemon she's based on. We see her use it to hypnotize Justin, as well as herself.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • A meta-example. The story derides George Lucas for giving the Force an explanation no one asked for, only for the story to provide an explanation for where the anti-misogynist hammers came from that no reader asked for. The story arc being called Hammerchlorians cements it, the name alluding to the midichlorians that was the explanation for the Force.
  • Jerry derided immortals who use fancy names, such as Zeus. One re-incarnation later, and guess what he's calling himself.
• Identical Stranger: Susan seems to be some sort of fundamental archetype within the EGS universe. Diane at MSHS is a very close match, barring dress sense (note: Susan is naturally blonde). Even stranger, she is also a dead ringer for a hypothetical niece of an elf (i.e. half-immortal). As it turns out, Diane is Raven's daughter and Susan is a more distant descendant. Which makes Diane some form of extended great-aunt to Susan.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Said in reverse by Susan when talking about Elliot teasing her over a sexy outfit.
• I Gave My Word:
  • Abraham really does not want to kill Ellen, but his oath to kill the duplicates created by his diamond was too inclusive. He's quite happy to be pushed into what sounds like a legitimate loophole.
  • Immortals in general turn out to have this magically enforced. If an immortal vows, any attempt to break the vow will result in "a deafening bombardment of intrusive thoughts", and if they manage to actually break it the thoughts persist forever. This was displayed by Jerry, post-reincarnation and much later spelled out by Edward.
• Ignored Enemy: Downplayed. Grace and Greg briefly ignore the fire summons when discussing how to safely defeat Dex. They quickly remember about them, and proceed to use them as training dummies.
• I Have Nothing to Say to That:
  • When Grace tells Tedd why she lied, he does the 'mouth open and finger-in-air' version after he hears her compelling reasons.
  Tedd: You should have told me where you were going.
  Grace: I didn't want you to worry.
  Tedd: But you lied to me.
  Grace: It's okay to lie to people if you think it's for their own good!
  Tedd: Who gave you that idea?
  Grace: Everyone I have ever known ever.
  Tedd: ...
  Tedd: Fair enough.
  • When discussing asking Edward if he knows whether or not Susan is adopted, Nanase says her uncle doesn't know everything. Elliot agrees, but counters that the guy who works as a government spook would have done a background check on every friend his son has, which causes Nanase, to do a head tilt, with tiny pupils to boot.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • Grace had shades of this at first but quickly let go of this, and once she did start a normal school life with Ellen, Nanase, and Justin, she actually found it a little restrictive.
  • Vlad is abnormal even among shapeshifting chimera in that he was made using the DNA from so many different animals that he can't transform without risking death. This leads him to be jealous of his "brothers" ability to transform into human forms and blend in with society. He gets his desire partially fulfilled when he is transformed into a human woman by Ellen's beam becoming Vladia.
• 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.
• I Just Write the Thing: Dan occasionally mentions disagreements that he had with his characters over a particular strip in the commentary. This is usually simply complaining about his characters ruining a perfectly good dramatic moment, but sometimes it is as extreme as him actually losing an argument with one of his characters.
• The "I Love You" Stigma: When Sarah confessed her love to Elliot, he began dating her, but he didn't really examine what he actually felt for her. When he realized he loved her like a sister, it finally became clear why he hadn't been a very active participant in the relationship.
• Imagine Spot: Quite a few.
  • Parodied at one point by showing how Scrubs' Imagine Spots would look to anyone not involved in them.
  • Sarah imagines seeing a MV-5ed Grace naked here.
• 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. Which is a good thing, as Pandora Chaos Raven is a case study in why the Immortals shouldn't go far past the recommended two-hundred year mark. When she's young, she's a playful prankster and the worst her victims will ever suffer is mild embarrassment. After living for at least five-hundred years, she becomes highly unstable, more prone to indulging in whims that can be very harmful to the affected people, and is extremely powerful.
  • Ironically, half-immortals (elves) largely have the advantage over true immortals. Since their power is not constantly increasing like their parents', they don't have to worry about resetting, but get ageless immortality and powerful magic. The downsides are that they are bound by similar rules as the immortals, meaning that they can only interfere directly when a situation involves magic, or to defend themselves and others.
    Raven: You are a homicidal wizard attacking a school. No one will care if I kill you.
  • There are also various "aberrations" that immortals ruthlessly destroy, who obtain a pseudo-immortality through either body stealing or parasitism.
• Immortality Hurts: In Wrath Of God, Nanase must keep Abraham from killing Ellen using only her Fairy Doll and Fey Punch spells. Because she feels everything that happens to the dolls as if it had happened to her own body, she is essentially hacked to pieces over, and over, and over... The page is titled To Die a Dozen Deaths.
• Impact Silhouette: 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.
• Implausible Deniability: Susan definitely didn't summon a magic sword. Just ignore the glowing sword.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The TFG is Uryuom technology.
• Impossible Insurance: George has car insurance that covers monster-related damage (obviously just to advertise "completeness"). The result: surprise, they have to pay for repairs of a car damaged in a fire monster's attack (and on camera at that).
• Improbable Taxonomy Skills: The principal of Moperville South High School apparently knows the taxonomic family of squirrels. Despite the fact that that is easily recognized by biologists, the fact that he and several others recognize the word "Sciuridae" with presumably little biology experience is notable.
• Incompatible Orientation:
  • A whole chain of them: Catalina ->Susan ->Justin ->Elliot ->Nanase (not all at the same time, mind). Allows rather funny Sketchbook entries, though.
  • 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.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Diane decides to get some drinks in this comic from "Family Tree" after realizing she wants a real relationship with Elliot.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Technically, Magus apparently was behind theFV5 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. He knows it, too.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Susan was already starting to grow suspicious of Tom's behavior, but it comes to a head when she realized he apologized for missing her online the night before. She hadn't said for certain that she would even be on, concluding that he had been online, but in invisible mode.
• 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.
• Info Drop: Sarah's last name of Brown was revealed in this manner; the principal used it to refer to her while rebuking her for breaking the dress code.
• 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.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Grace initially didn't understand that nudity embarrasses people, or that shapeshifting can be weird to those unaccustomed to it. She figured out why nudity bothers people with a bit of help from Susan, and now likes to use her No Nudity Taboo to tease Tedd. Although that's not to say she's grown out of it entirely, either.
• Insane Troll Logic
  • Tedd justifies him having longer, stereotypically feminine hair as a way to make the rest of him look manlier by comparison. His own friends thinks that logic doesn't work.
  • 95% of what comes out of the Principal Verrückt's mouth is nonsensical. Most of it is his genuine belief that murals are necessary to keeping his students on the straight and narrow, to the point of prioritizing murals over making sure the emergency systems like the sprinklers and the fire alarms work properly.
• Instant Emergency Response: Elliot expects this trope to happen even though it doesn't. After a battle between a spider vampire and a griffin ends in an explosion, Elliot assumes that the explosion must have attracted attention, and "The police will be here at any second." It turns out that no one even called the police, as we're treated to a montage of different people dismissing the explosion as fireworks.
• Instant Sedation: Abraham got a useful spell that allows him to put all living mortal beings in an area to sleep. However, the drawback there is that it affects him too if he isn't careful and can be resisted by powerful enough magic users.
• Instant Turn-Off: Elliot trying to find a sexy form that he enjoys being, but feels guilty about all of them.
• Insulted Awake: Ellen once gave a misogynistic rant to snap Susan out of her trance at her own beauty here.
• Insufficiently Advanced Alien: The Uryuom made a lot of cool stuff, but… Three words: "Sanctioned Programming Languages." After banning OOP wholesale out of certain areas, it's no wonder even a little kid on Earth can help them with their technical problems.
• Internet Stalking: Tom tries to do this during his ultra-manipulative attempts at wooing Susan. A slip of the tongue lets Susan know that he was quietly stalking her whilst his messenger was set to Invisible, and his whole attempt falls apart quickly.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • For Uryuom it's quite normal to create chimerae, fertile ones at that. It isn't done obliviously, as at least psychophysiology matters even with shapeshifting seyunolu.
  • Downplayed between humans and seyunolus that have human DNA like Tedd and Grace and Second Life Ellen and Archie.
  • The demonic duck admits to preferring human women.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Susan and Justin are interrupted by The Demonic Duck.
• 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.
• I Read It for the Articles: Helena the Immortal tells a stream of Blatant Lies to prove that Immortals are capable of lying. The last one is "Men buy adult magazines for the articles."
• 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.)
• Irony: Tedd successfully convinces the Will of Magic to not change the rules of magic, but this results in a whole lot of changes in how it is used in practical terms. Firstly, it is no longer feasible to grant everyone even the extremely minor boost to magic resistance. Next, old systems of magic become available once more, and this includes Uryuoms and hybrids descended from them regaining access to magic. Additionally, Tedd informed the Will of Magic that the spellbook descriptions are hard to understand, resulting in it simplifying the descriptions. Finally, the Will of Magic can no longer find it feasible to assist people in the actual magic casting, changing spells from auto to manual. It gets to the point that In-Universe, the characters refer to magic not changing in air quotes.
• I Sense a Disturbance in the Force
  • Greg, up to becoming rather jumpy from a shapeshifter's exercises without being in the same house.
  • Tedd sensing anything sexy involving Grace.
• Is That What He Told You?: Elliot learns about the other side of the story of Justin's outing. "She told ''one person''." (who then told everyone)
• I Think You Broke Him:
  • Elliot, with his "Gracelyn" form, once "broke Tedd."
  • Two Ellens can cause a sensory overload.
• It Makes Sense in Context: "Pressure release chopsticks." Lampshaded in The Rant where the author is proud to be able to make a comic where those words make sense.
• It's a Small World, After All:
  • Grace seeks out Tedd for help after reading about him in the newspaper, not knowing he is Edward's son until she sees Edward. Both Grace and Edward are stunned to see each other.
  • Jerry is shocked to learn one of the girls he just met is dating Tedd Verres, son of Edward Verres who is a VIP in the magic community.
  • Dex, a character introduced in New and Old Flames, once saw Greg cosplaying as Chun-Li.
• I Was Just Joking: In El Goonish Shive: NewsPaper: Non-gratuitious Nudity - Part 3, Susan once told Sarah to buy a cheap adult magazine instead of more expensive official reference materials and Sarah likes the idea. Susan quickly says she was just joking.
• I Will Show You X!: During the Wizard Duel between Terra and Magus, Terra promised to show him "potential."
• Jaw Drop: There are lots of instances where characters can only react with a stunned open mouth in response to surprises:
  • The last two panels of this strip show Elliot's jaw dropping when Susan figured out the girl in a guy's uniform was him.
  • Susan's jaw drops in pure flabbergastment in response to their principal allowing Sarah's beret.
  • And this shows an Immortal being dumbfounded by all the crazy things Grace narrates.
  • Tedd's jaw drops in shock when he learns Ashley saw Elliot transform in this strip.
• Juggling Loaded Guns: Sarah is scared of Shapeshifting and holds a grudge against Tedd after his "just joking around" with a supposedly "not charged" Transformation Ray gun.
• Jumping the Gender Barrier:
  • Elliot and Nanase's relationship had no spark and eventually failed, and she couldn't explain why...until Ellen showed up having all of Elliot's personality traits that she likes, and is female.
  • Though this trope is never actually invoked and the trope will probably never be played straight in this case, but Elliot and Tedd's odd connection twists it. 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. An exception was the world of "Second Life", but even then Tedd has a crush on her and she, while Oblivious to Love, considered him a good friend.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Magus, when begging Sirleck to help him in his last (ultimately successful) plot to regain a corporeal body, dangles the prospect of having a powerful wizard in his debt. When Sirleck appears reluctant, he appears to emphasize the value of the debt by pointing out that he literally has no one else to turn to; it's Sirleck or nothing. With this, Sirleck accepts... but not because he wants Magus in his debt, but because he notices that Magus's body is young, fit, magically powerful, and utterly undocumented and without allies. A perfect crime. Except it was exactly Magus's intent that Sirlek would notice this, get greedy, and agree to help.
• Karaoke Bonding Scene: Ellen and Nanase sing a duet at Grace's birthday party and are the only people to get a perfect score from the karaoke machine. By the end of the party, they realize they're in love.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: In general, hair can spontaneously change colour as a result of magic, to the point the government spooks pushed to have spontaneous hair colour changes as an official medical condition to help keep the masquerade intact. Specific instances:
  • When Nanase suffers a magic burnout, her hair turns black from red.
  • When Susan goes through an angst-induced awakening, her hair colour goes from blond to blue.
• 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 variant with shooting 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.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks:
  • Grace hates having to hide who she is.
  • Ashley discovers how much she doesn't like having to lie to her friend.
    • Discussed later on in the same storyline.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Almost made literal in Elliot's imaginary scenario of Tom manipulating Susan into date him. Of course, Elliot thought Susan's most likely answer.
  • Played for Laughs in the B-Side Comics. Susan plays a game with a Karma Meter that changes your appearance based on your morality. After accidentally setting her alignment to good, Susan decides that she prefers the devil look over the angel look. She tries to set her Karma Meter back to evil by literally kicking a dog, but she doesn't have the heart to go through with it.
• Kicked Upstairs: Mr. Verres winds up in a position created just for him when his boss decides that it's best that he not be directly involved with the frequent cases involving his son, niece, and their friends, and keep away as a cover-up specialist from the limelight. The last part may yet backfire due to Broken Masquerade, but as Dan put it, "There might be a good reason why they kept Mr. Verres employed" either way.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: While not exactly romantical, Dex gets rather attached to his semi-autonomous fairy companion, despite knowing exactly what she is.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Elliot describes Susan as willing to do the right thing and help people even if she's grumpty about it.
• 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.
• Kudzu Plot: The comic has several long-running multi arching plot threads, most of which were revealed as actually being inter-connected in Sister III and resolved in that arc:
  • Lord Tedd's multi-dimensional activities.
  • Uryuoms and their relation with human society.
  • Pandora's plans, which she makes complicated out of boredom.
  • Magus' desire to regain a physical body and return home.
  • The connection between Susan and Diane.
  • Tedd's goals of making magic safely accessible to the general public instead of a select few.
  • The surge in ambient magic energy in Moperville.
  • The other side of reality from which the griffins came from.
  • Voltaire's plans.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • Mr. Verres' lampshades himself being the Mr. Exposition when he calls himself "an endless barrel of exposition."
  • And a Star Wars fan ranting about writers deciding they need to explain things that no one was questioning. (In the middle of Dan trying to Cerebus Retcon hammerspace.) 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.)
  • Mr. Verres lampshades one of Grace's attempts to be Miss Exposition.
  • Ellen's hair changes color, but we have to take Elliot and Kevin's word for it, as the comic is in greyscale. Kevin is remarkably emphatic about the hue change to make sure the readers note it. Dan lampshades the lampshade in the author commentary.
• Large Ham:
  • Mr. Verres gets his moment, even if only for one panel, when he loudly declares himself to be an endless barrel of exposition.
  • Tedd can have his moments too. With a Queen quote at that.
    Commentary: Tedd has the blood of kings inside of him and he will rock you because he is the champion!
  • "The Child Left Behind" and the same character later. He speaks very formally and with an advanced vocabulary.
• Last Het Romance:
  • Melissa is the first, last, and only girl Justin ever dated before he found out he is gay.
  • Out of all the boyfriends Nanase ever had, Elliot is the last of them and the longest-lasting. He was almost perfect, but the fundamental issue is that Nanase is a lesbian while Elliot is not a woman.
• Last Breath Bullet: Faced with her impeding reset, Pandora uses her final moments to commit Abberation genocide.
• Latin Is Magic: Invoked when Tedd builds a set of Magic Wands. He can pick anything to be their activation phrase, but he specifically chooses (poorly-translated) Latin because it's easy to remember, it's not something you'd say by accident, and it sounds cool.
• Laughing Mad: Ellen gives a maniacal laugh when she's first created and thinks she's going to die due to a misunderstanding of how the curse-removing diamond worked.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When Tedd and Sarah are talking about shipping, Sarah acknowledges the possibility of people shipping them, and suggests being meaner to each other to prevent it. Tedd informs her that it would just make it worse.
  • In another comic, after Elliot accidentally reveals information that he wasn't intending to due to jumping to conclusions, the strip immediately cuts to Tedd who appears to be calling him out on it despite being in a completely different location. However, it turns out he's just watching an old sitcom, and commenting on a similar mistake.
  • When Tedd discovers that Diane has a charisma boosting spell she didn't know about, they comment on how a piece of entertainment media would even show it is happening, like changing the font if it is a comic, which is how Dan actually shows the usage of that spell.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again:
  • Elliot tells Tedd to never bring up the former being attracted to the latter's feminine face here. Not that it stopped them from speaking of it again.
  • Grace's suggestion that Elliot turn into her to be sexy in front of a mirror is also something Elliot refuses to talk about again.
• Life Drinker: Aberrations are a variety of monsters that are all actually former humans who achieved immortality by stealing it from other people. The monster in France was one such monster who achieved immortality by draining the lives of young women.
• Lighter and Softer: One chapter is titled, "Bringing Silly Back." It starts off substantially lighter than the previous chapter about life and death struggle with a simple arc about a race through an IKEA parody. Then, after "Hammerchlorians" explores some of the darker parts of Susan's backstory, "New and Old Flames" followed it up with a goofy super hero story
• A Light in the Distance: Abraham sees a light in the distance which turns out to be Angel Nanase coming in fast to stop him from killing Ellen.
• Locked Out of the Loop: The main characters make the deliberate decision to not tell Edward, their in-guy with the local magical law enforcement, everything about what they do or their capabilities. They do trust him, but Pandora told Sarah, who told the others, that Edward has been passing on everything he knows about them to his workplace. Every details Edward found out about them or was told about is in a file that the government spooks have access to and they want to limit what's in those files.
• 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 cellphone and even adults are shown using landlines only at their workplaces.
  • At the beginning of Grace's birthday party (2005), Sarah gleefully details the specs of the digital camera with which she intends to document the evening. A 512 MB memory card and a computer with "gigs" of space to back up said card onto means lots of pictures, sure, but it also looks positively quaint next to the phones some characters are using much more recently (and within less than a year of in-universe time).
  • Susan still works in a video rental store, despite them being very rare these days. Lampshaded near the start of the Our Future arc (2023), when Tensaided mentions that he doesn't know how long he can stay in business now that streaming is commonplace. The commentary adds to this by mentioning that the only reason the shop is still open is because only about a year has passed in-universe.
• Look Behind You:
  • The characters sometime distract each other by asking "Is that a demonic duck of some sort?" Subverted, there really is a demonic duck of some sort except during the strike.
  • Also, used without the duck during Elliot vs. Noah Epic Race, where they try to distract each other by pointing out to various things for sale.
• Loophole Abuse: The immortal laws that restricts them to "empowering and guiding" has one of the biggest loopholes in the universe — it's enforced automatically, and only if the violator breaks it on purpose. If they can utilize Insane Troll Logic to convince themselves that they're abiding by the laws, they can do whatever they want. Unsurprisingly, Pandora exploits this, to cause the energy clog on the grounds that it's "empowering" all of Moperville.
  Emissary of Magic: So... so long as you don't think you're breaking Immortal law...
  Pandora: Then I'm not!
• Love at First Sight: Played with. Tedd and Grace were attracted to each other since they first met and quickly got into a relationship the day after they met. However, when asked by Elliot almost a year later, Tedd admits it was not love but attraction. Tedd mostly liked Grace was a girl in his house. Grace mostly liked Tedd was a guy that isn't one of her brothers. But they fell in love for real as they got to know each other properly.
• Love Epiphany:
  • Elliot realises he likes Susan after listing several qualities he likes about her. Uh-oh indeed.
  • Inverted when Elliot realizes he loves Sarah like a sister.
  • Here, Diane realises she wants a real relationship with Elliot instead of the long-string of shallow ones she had with various other men.
  • Diane finds that the romance she has been wishing for is actually the kind of relationship she has with Lucy.
• Love Dodecahedron: Among the main cast many have shown a obvious attraction to more than one of their friends, even if they don't ever plan on acting on those feelings. Then once you add the occasional side character with an attraction to someone from the main cast it can get pretty confusing as to who likes who.
• Love Is in the Air: The super-pheromones of the Variant Five settings. "Male, female, gay, straight... female variant #5 cares not."

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