El Goonish Shive

To me it looks like Elliot's goth form, or Ashley's friend. They're the only goth girls in the comic I can think of, aside from NP characters like Felix.

Her friend usually has nail polish though, right?

NP Fantasy Wasteland 5

Does This Remind You of Anything??

I hope Grace also has the spell Burn, which conjures a brutal and debilitating insult from which the recipient may never recover.

And Shock, which causes them to be stunned and amazed by whatever's in front of them.

So, what blew up while I wasn't posting?

I kid... mostly. The only thing I'll note from the Q&A is that the appearance of Grace's antennae could easily be established if they had her magically lose her hair briefly for whatever reason (side effect of a spell or something). Mishaps happen.

For the new storyline... there are a lot of things that I could see coming, but there are enough possibilities that randomly throwing out guesses seems pointless.

Incidentally, looking at the story page again, my favorite part of the construction worker bit is in panel 1, where the moustache guy is standing there fake-grunting with exertion while not doing any actual work.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 18th 2019 at 7:55:50 AM

Comic Party 002

...not sure if this is better or not...

Givin what smokeycut had said this makes a little more sense. But that dosen't make the deliberate fake-out any better.

I'm more interested in that Ashley doesn't seem happy with her transformy revenge story. What's changed?

Edited by Daremo on Apr 19th 2019 at 6:17:25 AM

She received a software update to remove the one thing that could almost be considered a character flaw if you turned your head and squinted.

Ashley 2.13 doesn't do revenge fantasies.

It always weirds me out how, when people transform in this comic, their body language immediately changes to reflect their new gender. Look at those construction workers in the background, all of a sudden moving like stereotypical teenage girls after being transformed, instead of the construction workers they just were.

Next Q&A: "Why body language?" "Because magic, probably."

Wasn't that already covered with Justin's transformation at Grace's birthday, where it's said the transformation mechanism (in that case the tf gun) compensates good that kind of thing.

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 19th 2019 at 8:06:28 AM

It could also be that Ashley wishes she was malicious enough to actually do that type of thing.

I was giving the body language a pass in this one because this scene is explicitly a teenage girl's fantasy and not a real actual event that is happening in the story.

I guess the main question is, is Ashley writing this story, or is she just reading it? Based on the naming of the story as well as the opening, maybe it'll finally be Shive addressing the awkward disconnect between some of the earlier EGS strips and the modern comic.

Whether she's writing it or reading it, I wonder if her dissatisfaction comes from the fact that whatever happens next will either be too cruel (realism - dysphoria, statelessness, a naïveté that might lead them some very dark places) or not cruel enough (if their "punishment" is to live as fit women ten years younger, and the darker aspects of this are minimized, a plot familiar to those who've taken wrong turns on the Information Highway).

I’m positive it’s that she feels guilty about fetishizing it, and is wondering if she fetishizes Elliot because he can shapeshift like that.

I doubt there is a "next" for the construction workers. For the story within the story, this scene feels "complete", so to speak.

It's presented like an Establishing Character Moment for the sorceress character in the story. The construction workers are hapless extras who exist to give the sorceress a chance to show off what she can do for the audience's benefit, and would likely now f*ck off out of the story forever.

So I don't expect whatever her concern is to be what would follow either way.

Comic Party 003

Awkward trauma dancing.

NP Fantasy Wasteland 6

NP Fantasy Wasteland 7

Ah, she's disillusioned with magic due to trauma. Got it.

This might actually be an interesting place to take Ashley's character.

Oh, shit. If Grace has Khajiit unarmed buffs mixed with New Vegas's OP unarmed mechanics, she could basically punch out gods. The Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds has descended upon the Fantasy Wasteland.

Also, I really like the angle of Ashley having Magic PTSD. That's a new and surprising direction to take her character. I mean, not entirely new 'cause it's basically OG Sarah, but it'll be interesting to explore that.

Sarah never got to have her thing explored because her thing was a wacky Noodle Incident. It was eventually revealed, swept under the rug, and never spoken of again. This is a more dramatic version of that story with, like, stakes and shit.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 22nd 2019 at 6:46:28 AM

The way Ashley is acting all hesitant feels like a bit of a Character Check. I'm interested to actually see where she goes with this for once.

I think it might be slightly less magic PTSD, and more "I don't want to go to places that remind me of that night" - I could see her also not wanting to ride in the same car.

That said, upon rethinking the last strip, it probably is magic-related, which would explain her expression there - she was no longer into something she'd previously loved because of what happened.

And given that she's a wizard now because of that night... it's going to be tricky to work with the talking wand.