El Goonish Shive/Headscratchers

• What's up with the colored pages in this comic? They seem to show up without rhyme or reason.
  • That's just a case of reality getting in the way, the same reason the schedule keeps changing. He does color pages when he can do color pages, black and white when he can't.
• It just now hits me: Tedd and his father have purple hair, and they're the only characters with unnatural hair colors. What's up with that?
  • Refutio: Mr Verres, firstly, has blue hair. Secondly, what about Liz, the apathetic goth chick from Moperville North? Thirdly, Dan Shive stated that blue, green, purple et cetera are natural colours in the EGS-verse.
    • We've now seen several background characters with blue, purple and green hair around Moperville South HS, more than one would expect as just a fashion statement.
  • Not to mention that Susan can find large amounts of blue hair dye with no difficulty, and nobody remarks on it. In fact, several people are surprised she dyes it at all.
    • So dark everyone thinks she's a brunette. And Susan can find large amounts of almost anything -- she lives in "the Snoot Creek subdivision" and all that.
    • Susan dyes her hair black, not blue.
    • Wrong.
  • I think Dan Shive said in the forums once that back in the day, he couldn't draw black hair well, and went with purple for Tedd. But officially, as someone said above, the various strange colors are natural in the EGS verse.
    • Something like that anyway.
• As much as I like this comic (and I do) there's one thing that always irks me. Why don't they ever let Justin fight? He trains in the same dojo as Elliot and Nanase and we know he has, at least, minor magical martial arts abilities (at least he has illusion powers, which were revealed here: http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2003-03-06). So, why? In fact, in Painted Black, he is specifically told not to help fight. He tries and claim that they're being homophobic, and Susan reminds him how stupid that argument is, but nobody makes another argument.
  • Just because Justin can fight, that doesn't mean he can fight the likes of Hedge, Vlad, and Damien. He pretty much said that the main reason he's in the dojo is for the opportunity to interact with Elliot, so he probably doesn't take it nearly as seriously as Elliot(and thus early Ellen) and Nanase do. I agree that it would be interesting to see Justin fight, but that was definitely not the place to do it.
  • A recent comic has Greg mention that Justin was coming along more slowly in his training than Elliot and Nanase. In fact, Ellen's argument at that time was that he wasn't strong enough to fight Damian and Co.
  • Looks like he's gonna fight
  • They also probably figured that during the "Painted Black" story line, it was better to send just a small group of people to rescue Elliot because the smaller the group, the less chance of attracting attention to themselves (of course, we all know how THAT turned out). Grace was a given, being the central figure of the story line, as well as by far the most competent fighter of the group. Nanase is the most powerful person there after Grace, and Ellen is still a better fighter than Justin; also, it's her brother they were rescuing, so it made sense for her to go. Justin was the only other one who could fight well at all, but he still wasn't a match for any of Grace's brothers and definitely not Damien, so bringing him would have been a liability. Anyway, it's a moot point now since Justin's badass display during "New and Old Flames".
• Where did Jeremy come from? Did Tedd make him? Did Mr. Verres bring him home from work? Did he just show up on their doorstep one day? Are there more like him? (I hope so, Jeremy-kittens would rock.)
  • Mr Verres brought him home from work (from Filler Strips).
    • See "All your yarn are belong to us" fact sheet.
  • Jeremy is most likely a cat-hedgehog chimera.
  • Looks like theres more too http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2011-12-23
• Where is Mrs. Verres?
  • Divorced and somewhere in Europe.
• What's going to happen to Grace's brothers? Will we ever see them again? Hedge at least seems like he could like a normal life... Why not let him?
  • Hedge and Vladia will open a restaurant. Well, according to Fanfic, anyway.
  • More definitively, Grace talks to them again in this arc, which implies they're definitely on the road to a happy ending.
    • Agreed. Hedge does mention that they were all about to be allowed back into normal society at the time of Grace's birthday, and they had jobs offered to them. We'll probably see them again at some point, but only as a cameo. They've had a happy ending already; they probably won't be playing a very big part in the comic again.
  • Don't forget, its only been 1-2 months, 3 at the outside, in the comics. While its been forever since we have seen Hedge and co., they are still probably evaluating them and haven't released them yet. They'll show up when Dan needs The Cavalry to save everyone.
• Grace and her brothers are supposed to be genetically engineered Super Soldiers. So why are their skills optimized for melee combat when every weapon in the Army's inventory short of combat knifes and bayonets would easily be able to outrange a melee fighter?
  • Two answers: One, trying to genetically engineer anyone who would be a good ranged combatant is very difficult, requiring subtle changes such as increased hand-eye coordination, improved vision, or possibly internal drug feeds to reduce stress and calm the shooter. Why go through all this effort to engineer the use of weapons that are primarily skill-based rather than physiology-based? Second, one should note that while they're engineered to be superior warriors, there's nothing that says they were intended for main battlefield usage. In irregular combat such as indoors or in cities, there's a lot more opportunities for close-quarters fighting. And, of course, physical strength is a very useful trait- it means you can carry more gear and guns. Their skills and modern weapons aren't mutually exclusive.
    • Rebuttal: Even in irregular combat situations, close-quarters fighting still isn't very useful, mostly because if the enemy is that close to you, then you probably screwed up somehow. Plus, armies already have perfectly adequate close-quarters fighting techniques and weapons (like combat knifes and bayonets), and such fights are more often decided by skill then physiology (look at the fight between Grace and Damien). Also, there is no real indication that they are far stronger then normal, and their Shape Sifting abilities would make it difficult to wear body. Furthermore, it doesn't look like Vlad and Guineas could wield modern weapons effectively, if at all. Finally, you can't seem to make a whole lot of Super Soldiers this way, rendering their impact on anything other then very small battles extremely low.
      • As stated below, they weren't really super-soldiers, just super-assasins. Being able to transform into a harmless-looking animal would certainly be helpful for a stealth-killer. The halfway form may not have even been intentional, it could've just happened--after all, Grace gets the halfway form automatically whenever they give her a new animal form with the transformation gun without having to also program in a halfway form. A bit more work was thrown into Grace, but that was specifically tailoring her to fight one person, and proved successful (mostly because they made her immune to his main weapon).
        • While super-assassins make more sense then super-soldier, Grace and her brothers wouldn't make very effective assassins. While being able to turn into a small, harmless animal is useful for stealth reasons, there's more to being a good assassin being stealthy, especially for one in the employ of a large nation-state. The assassin would also have to be able to kill silently, so they can get away for another mission, and kill the target in such a way that it isn't apparent that the target has been assassinated. Otherwise people are going to get suspicious when the nation-states enemies start dieing mysteriously, even if they can't figure out how that nation is killing them, which would defeat the whole propose of killing them stealthily. Furthermore, the smart enemies would increase their security after a few successful hits, making it harder to kill the people the nation would most want to kill.
        • Also, creating an assassin like Grace to fight one person is a massive investment of resources and time for one goal, especially considering that: Damien was only a rumor, so tailoring someone to fight him would be extremely difficult at best; there would be a very long lag time between the creation of the fighter and the time when that person would be able to fight Damien; and there was never any indication that he couldn't be killed by anything else, sure he had healing powers, but I'd imagine that a bullet to the head would still be lethal to anyone that isn't explicitly immortal.
          • It seems to me that the real threat of Damien is his regeneration. The only thing unique about Grace is that she has Lespuko poison claws, which allows her to get around that problem. Even if Damien was just a rumor, I imagine the scientists would want to preempt any regenerating combatant.
            • Well, that and being fireproof.
        • Why hand someone a gun when you can make him invulnerable and on fire? Let’s not forget that, for all intents and purposes, the whole project was a spectacular failure anyway.
  • Grace's brothers were designed to be assassins by incompetent mad scientists. Of course their design doesn't make any sense.
    • Agreed. They were shapeshifters created because the company needed a gimmick to stand out in the assassin market, and people are looking for effectiveness?
  • Also do not forget that:1)They were prototypes,not the finished product,so the main problem of the scientists was to make them transform easily(they would focus to efficiency after solving such problems)2)Persons with above-average physical abilities are always useful(sure,damien was a pushover when his abilities proved ineffective ,but he was not part of the experiment,while the other three where far more effecient due to training,so what is better, atrained human,or a trained human with superpowers and stealth mode?)3)The prototypes may have not been able to use it,but it is logical to expect that the original scientists were probably going to keep experimenting and ,eventually they would create someothing able to either dodge or survive and regenerate bullets and explosions(heck,for all we know,Grace might be able to do exactly that.)
• On a related note, the scientists are making a Half-Human Hybrid Super Soldier, and for the non-human part they choose a hedgehog, bat, guinea pig and a squirrel? They really couldn't find more fearsome members of the animal kingdom then those? While I can believe that there would be trouble getting a large predatory animal, like a bear or tiger, they couldn't simply go to a animal shelter get a dog or a cat?
  • They were supposed to be assassins; a squirrel is small, and agile in trees. Vlad is not a mere bat, but a rather explosive cocktail. As for Hedge and Guineas, I dunno...
    • Been a while since my archive binge, but if I remember right, Guineas was basically a test of the process -- a literal guinea pig, if you will.
      • As was Vlad. Actually, the whole project was pretty much still in beta when it collapsed.
        • And Dan Shive admitted that Guineas was a bit of a throwaway in the supplements after "Painted Black" ended - apparently he was stuck for what animal to use, and a friend of his who owned a guinea pig suggested that.
          • Er... Maybe because it's silly? This is supposed to be a dramedy, after all. Besides, compared to some of the stuff dreamed up by the real US Department of Defense (incendiary bats, pigeon guided missiles) maybe squirrel and guinea pig based assassins aren't that far-fetched after all. Dr. Scuridae as much as admits that the whole animal based assassins thing was just a marketing gimmmick anyway.
        • Shive also admitted that hedgehogs were his favorite animal, hence Hedge. He said that was also why Hedge had such a cool design.
• Something bugs me about the fact that Tedd expresses his worry of getting hit on by gay males due to his girlish looks to Justin, and Justin replies that he's "attracted to masculinity," which satisfies Tedd. Um, okay ... now, I understand that Justin is personally attracted to men if and only if they are masculine. I understand if Tedd's worries are dispelled merely on Justin's account, but I got the impression he was relived about gay men in general, and ... well ... people are varied. Gay men, by definition, are attracted to other men. Being gay says nothing about what kind of men you are attracted to. There are plenty of butch lesbians and effeminate gay guys, and I'm sure they have no trouble finding romantic partners. Then there's the fact that there are bisexual people (like me!), some of whom are attracted to femininity regardless of gender (like me!). And yes, I'm aware of the No Bisexuals trope, but I nevertheless cling to the belief that Dan Shive has put slightly more thought into EGS than that. I'm open to the idea that Tedd didn't think things this far, but if this was the case I'd have liked there to be some actual indication, and as things stand it seems like Dan himself made a sweeping generalization about all men who are attracted to other men which doesn't stand up under even a glance.
  • Maybe he was just worried about Justin being attracted to him?
  • Or maybe Tedd's generalizing, not the author.
    • Or Justin is.
      • I can think of zillions of possibilities offhand Maybe Justin is just trying to set Tedd at ease and doesn't want to go through all of the possible ramifications. Or maybe they're both just naive kids who have yet to figure out all of the nuances inherent in their own sexuality. Or maybe they simply aren't omniscient or even sophisticated, Or, maybe it might even be possible that the author was just trying to set up the joke in the next panel! Sheesh.
  • Justin states explicitly that he can't find any other gay guys. He probably simply doesn't know that such a spectrum exists and assumes that all gay men are attracted to what he's attracted to. Being gay doesn't confer knowledge of the broad spectrum of sexual preferences under the homosexual banner.
  • It's also possible that this was the first time Tedd had actually dealt with a homosexual, and finding that Justin wasn't instantly enamored with him made him feel more comfortable about gays in general.
  • It bugs me that Tedd was concerned about it in the first place. It happens, and unless you're insecure in your sexual identity it's not a big deal.
    • If I recall correctly, Tedd is insecure about his gender identity, leading to his freakout at the birthday party when he (as a girl) makes out with Grace (as a guy).
      • Exactly, being insecure in his sexual identity is a huge part of his character, it's almost the first thing you'd say about him after "mad scientist" and "prettier than most of the girls" ...which probably didn't help his confidence.
        • And this is the guy with the gender changing gun? That's a setup for tragedy and a potential Lord Tedd backstory.
          • You might say they're ...NotSoDifferent.
• Why does everyone cry all the time? Honestly, there are other ways you can react to bad things.
  • Other ways such as retreating into your shell, hating all people of a certain type irrationally, not wanting to do anything that might remind you of said bad things...
    • Well, yeah, but I think every major character (with the possible exception of Elliot) has broken down into tears at some point, as well as several minor characters. True, it's sometimes justifiable, but it gets kind of old.
    • It's a character based series that's been running since January 2002. You're gonna get waterworks.
• Why has Ellen gone from "playful and irreverent" to "uncaring bitch"? It hit me when she laughed at the thought of Elliot being forced to transform (a situation she has experience with). She's gotten less and less nice since she calmed down, and at this rate she'll be a full-blown Jerkass by this time next year.
  • I just figured it was her trying to distinguish herself, personality-wise, from Elliot. Plus, as mentioned above, she's probably not entirely stable.
  • She could have distinguished herself through the arts, or taking an interest in local politics, or 1001 things Elliot doesn't do. Choosing to be a loud, obnoxious jerk doesn't seem like the best option seeing as, you know, it loses you friends.
  • Sisters like to laugh at their siblings' pain. Simple as that.
    • In fact, in a more recent strip, after realizing that Elliot's problems are much worse than she thought, she feels extremely guilty, even though Elliot seems to take it in stride.
    • I don't see why she feels so badly about it, anyway. Elliot's situation is worse than hers, but still isn't exactly bad. Temporary inconvenience in exchange for learning magic? I'd take that deal.
      • I think you're forgetting that transforming hurts like hell, so he would have to endure extreme pain multiple times per day and doesn't even get the luxury of sleeping in his own body
        • Beg pardon? Turning into his cat-hybrid form hurts, but when has mere gender-swapping ever been painful in this comic?
  • So Elliot's a masochist? Seeing as that's what Ellen's schadenfreude implies. Also, this is Ellen laughing. Elliot didn't get hit by V5-with-added-jerk way back in Sister.
    • • Transforming via the belt hurts. The kind of transformation he does now is essentially painless.
      • A recent page clarifies it. Transforming into an animal via anything other than the gun (or being Grace) hurts like hell. But his female transformation is painless.
  • Mind, while Elliot doesn't hold it against her at all, Ellen now feels badly about that in recent updates.
• Related to the above, why is it that whenever someone on the EGS forum says Ellen is a jerk, they get branded a "hater"? From what I've seen, nobody actually hates her, it's just that some people dislike her. Should I just chalk it up to Fan Dumb?
  • Yes.
  • There are people who hate Ellen. Although from what I've seen, it mostly has to do with her and Nanase being part of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad over the other characters, not her personality.
• It bugs me just a little that the title would have been perfect as Ell-iot (later Ell-en) vs. The Goo, written by Dan Shive, but a random reference to his past that everyone was guaranteed to not get, and the perfectly arbitrary change of "the" into Spanish... It makes sense, but to reveal that a potentially meaningful title always was and always will be meaningless just bugs me.
  • I don't blame you for the last part (though, to me, distinctiveness is a worthwhile substitute for meaning). For the first one...would you change the name in the 7/8 of the comic that doesn't involve the Goo? Or when the focus character shifts to someone besides Elliot or Ellen (after all, Grace is a bigger character than they are until the end of "Painted Black")?
  • I can see your point, but it still strikes me as a very shaky connection. It's something like confirmation bias, you could probably use similar logic to make a connection with any random nonsense title.
• Uryoms and uryomoco. Why is it that their own word for themselves translates directly to "alien"? Is the substitution cipher setup just halfway translation convention?
  • It doesn't; Uryom is a proper noun and proper nouns stay as they are in Uryomoco. It's just a joke.
• What is up with Nanase's mother anyhow? Its one thing to push your daughter really hard to study, (I know its not uncommon for Japanese mothers to be this way) but it makes no sense to demand such high educational standards when she has made it clear she wants Nanase to be just a housewife not a career woman. If anything, you think she would discourage Nanase from going beyond the basic level of education required by law.
  • It's actually what I'd expect from a very traditional first-generation Japanese mother. The drive towards academic excellence is a near-universal aspect of Japanese culture, and the idea that a woman should give up her career path after marriage is still widely held. It's a natural perspective for an older, conservative Japanese like Mrs. Kitsune...even as it's considered abhorrent and mutually exclusive by a young, acculturated American like Nanase.
  • Alternatively, HER Mom was a bitch to her, so she's trying to get back at her by doing the same thing to Nanase.
  • Also, being smarter than other women would (Mrs. Kitsun would think) make her more appealing to the menfolk.
• Mrs. Kitsune has since been revealed to have a hidden agenda. Apparenly she already knows Nanase is a magic user and may know that she's gay.
  • She thinks it's a phase...
    • She says she thinks it's a phase...
    • More accurately she thinks it's a 'Class S' relationship, which is an understandable reaction given Mrs. Kitsune's conservative bent.
  • While we're on Mrs. Kitsune, we're left to assume she immigrated to the US as an adult until it's revealed she went to Moperville South HS and had Mr. Raven as a teacher. If she came here that young, why isn't she more Americanized? Or conversely, if she's that traditionally Japanese why did she stay after high school?
• It's not a big deal, and I shouldn't be bothered by it, but the fact that a huge deal of Grace is younger than she looks was made(By Mr. Verres, no less) bugs me, not for the fact itself, but for the ages given... 18 looking 16 is not really that uncommon, there are * lots* of people who look younger(Or older) than they are without them being hybrids.
  • I'm not entirely sure I understand your complaint, but Grace is actually older than she looks. She is 18, but looks about 16. The closest thing they made to this being a big deal was Grace exclaiming that that made her older than Tedd.
    • Aww man, I always confuse those two, sorry. The point is, that looking younger than what she is is implied to be part of her hybrid nature, with Mr. Verres explicitly saying that it's remarkable that she is 18 and looks 16... it would be remarkable if she was in her 20's, but looking 2 years younger than her actual age is really nothing out of the ordinary
• Elliot being angsty about having to transform into a girl... yeah, it's hard, and it kind of sucks, but the fact that no one has thought of transforming into a masculine girl(Hell, he could transform basically into a flat chested wide shoulder-ed, taller version of his girl-self, and no one would be able to tell he has transformed into a girl)
  • He stated in one of the comics that his female form is naturally busty, which is why him imitating Sarah wasn't perfect.
    • His female form is naturally busty and he was concentrating on Sarah's face rather than her chest. From what we've seen, there's no reason why he couldn't change any given aspect of his "default" female form if he tried hard enough, he's just not experienced enough with the spell to manage it with any consistency.
      • While the inexperience can be used to explain it(Two times had he failed in making a "perfect" copy, the first becoming taller than intended and the second in the bust area). But that's no what bugs me, but the fact that no one has acknowledged the existence of masculine girls, or flat chested girls.
        • Let me better explain it: he got that ability from touching the diamond while being in Female Variant #5 form, which modifies men to have normal female measurements for their age and changes height and such, so he can't make his bust size smaller as a girl, because that would violate the rules of FV5. If he were blasted by FV1 or maybe even FV2-4, maybe that would be different. I am not Dan Shive, and he hasn't done a Q&A of this, but does that explain it better? (Granted, he can modify his form, but I think that becoming a masculine-looking female would go far out of bounds regarding FV5, and here are my sources.)
          • True that, but the diamond seriously screwed up the magicks. Remember that, Ellen is supposedly the "anthropomorphic representation" of V5, Yet she never had the pheromones... and her magic awakened as "clone-rays"(So far) Likewise, Elliot's magic isn't limited to "transform into a V5 version of yourself" but rather into any girl he wants. Like someone explained above, it seems like if he isn't paying attention while transforming, he will morph into Ellen. If he tries to copy someone he will transform in accordance to what he's thinking, even if he makes mistakes.(He didn't take into account the high heels, and the second time, he was focusing on the fase)
          • She's not in FV 5, she's in her default form based on Elliot in FV 5 -- that's why she can V5 herself once more (and maybe why in her case it looks rather exaggerated). That, and by the time Elliot touched DD pheromones were normalized long ago anyway. Other than this, only basic "twisted curse" effects DD gave them are linked with FV 5, they both got derived spells soon enough (because they had to discharge every day), and those aren't related to FV 5.
        • Another thing is that Ellen is made out of magic, so that's why she was able to get a "clone beam" when Elliot is still turning into girls with the Most Common Superpower. Seriously, how many times before his awakening has he transformed without the gun? Now how many times before her awakening has Ellen fired her beam? Ellen's natural alignment with magic and her frequency in using her beam would explain that.
        • Ellen was created by magic, but every character that has had direct contact with her and expresses knowledge about the situation, has explicitly refer to her as a human being, and other than her zapping abilities(Which are kind of "normal" on this setting anyway) she doesn't seem to have any magical design. And the other stuff, Elliot can change into any girl she wants. Or doesn't) It's been explicitly shown that he will become Ellen if he just transforms, and he will became someone else(Or someone that doesn't even exists) if he thinks hard enough. either he can change everything about "her" appearance, or he can't change nothing. Granted, the simplest explanation could be that he hasn't thought' of that.
        • Or, you know, he could just be bothered by the fact that he has to turn into a girl multiple times per day, as opposed to his/her actual appearance as a girl...
• Super Elliot. It doesn't bug me because Elliot has now become Ranma, it bugs me because it undercut Justin having a major moment of awesome after being Out of Focus for much of the last few arcs.
  • If you read the commentaries, Dan clearly wants to show more of Justin's potential badassery, but was planning Super Elliot for a while. Hopefully this means he's building up to something later.
  • Apparently, in-universe Justin's badass rating has gone up. 'Way to kick fire's ass!' indeed.
• The TF Gun was not legally sold on the Uryuom parent planet. Was it not legally sold on the parent-planet, or not legally sold on the parent-planet?
  • Neither. See the next comic: It was made before those laws were in place.
  • It was not legally sold on the parent-planet.
• Ellen is told that she was born when she touched the diamond, and had a life-time of false memories. Nobody contradicts this. They may know what happened, but that's hardly the only philosophical understanding. Perhaps they're both Elliot, and he just has a branching world-line. Perhaps neither is, and personal identity is just an illusion. Perhaps she's the real one and he's the duplicate. After all, she was more like pre-diamond Elliot than post-diamond Elliot was. Also, why does it matter? Who cares which person the pre-diamond Elliot was? It doesn't affect who she is now.
  • Magic A Is Magic A. See the whole thing with Abraham and the Dewitchery Diamond- it makes an uncursed person and a manifestation of the curse. In this case, the curse is femaleness, so the female version is the manifestation of a curse and the other one is the uncursed person. Whether it matters is a more open question, but I'd say who you were is extremely important in relation to who you are, and I can imagine identifying as That Guy when another person is also That Guy would get really weird; I think that's why it's a big deal that Ellen needed to establish her own identity.
• Why does Ellen stay a girl? Is it so mjuch of a bother to get zapped every month that she decides to become a transexual?
  • The existence of the TF Gun creates a whole host of moral and ethical issues when you try to look at it from a real world perspective, but most any questions along that vein can be answered by "What is funniest?" Now, it makes sense from a real world perspective that Ellen could still identify as a male despite being biologically female at this point, creating the potential that she could be, as you observed, trans. However, it doesn't seem to work like that in-universe. When Elliot was initially transformed in the beginning of the Sister arc, his concern with being a girl for a month didn't seem to relate to his sexual identity, but to the fact that he is not a girl, and thus, being a girl and trying to pretend not to be for an entire month promises to be a massive pain in the ass. When Ellen showed up, her issue wasn't with being a girl, it was with the fact that she was a magically created duplicate: thus, she didn't identify as male, she identified as Elliot, which was problematic because she wasn't him. Even if she did turn back into a boy, it wouldn't address the problem at hand, which is that she is not Elliot. Right now, her character development is less about her gender identity and more about her individual identity, i.e., making peace with the idea that she is Ellen and not Elliot. It gets brought up in the Grace's Birthday arc: her friends very pointedly don't expect her to shapeshift because it would fuck with whatever process she's made on becoming comfortable with not being Elliot.
• So, each time the TF gun is used, it sets someone to one of the states programmed into it. Does that mean if a guy is turned into a girl with an intact hymen, and that hymen is broken before he turns back, it will be intact again if the gun is used on him again? (I'm guessing Tedd gets around this by not giving hymens to female forms, since they don't seem to be one of his fetishes, but this will probably never be addressed in the comic itself for content reasons.)
  • The gun has two types of forms: Complete changes and edits. A complete change transforms the target into the exact form in question, which would include an intact/broken hymen. Edits simply change the target in more minor ways, justifying Morphic Resonance. In the latter case, unless Ted specifically programmed data on the state of the hymen (doubtful, he doesn't seem to have any fetishes in that area), it would remain unchanged. There has been evidence that certain things are linked between the forms. Ted's female forms have larger breasts (secondary female sexual characteristic), and the male forms have larger muscles (secondary male sexual characteristic). This also relates to Justin's (cut-off) question about whether the male-form has a large penis. Since that is a primary characteristic and Tedd has shown no fetish for the vagina, we can assume the answer is "no."
    Back on topic, it probably depends on whether the male is circumsized (think I spelled that wrong) or not.
• Is Everyone Is a Super at this point? Its like everyone has some sort of super power now it feels like.
  • No, not Sarah, and not most of the muggles at the comic book shop. Everybody else though.
• What ever happened with Diane? They make a big deal that Diane looks just like Susan, and they even text Susan to tell her, but then they get distracted by the Bloodgrem (sp?) and completely forget about it. Are we ever gonna get any resolution as to why Diane resembles Susan so much?
  • Probably. There've been other things that turned up again significantly later.
  • We saw her briefly when Rhoda was relating why she changed her appearance, so Shive clearly hasn't forgotten about her.
• Is it just me, or is Justin the single whiniest bitch in history? So, a girl he considers his best friend and who had an obvious crush on him finds out he's gay. Now I could understand if she had gone around telling everyone as a form of petty revenge. But she only told one person, who then told a bunch of people. This minor slip is worth breaking off what appeared to be most of ten years of friendship? Oh, sure, one could argue that her telling her sister resulted in a lot of grief for Justin. Except it totally didn't. Aside from one particular group of three or four dickheads, does anyone in the comic seem to care? And they were only a problem for a couple of months before Elliot beat the living crap out of them. So, now Justin has basically no reason to not forgive his best friend since childhood for something that wasn't even her fault in the first place- and he doesn't. WHY? Because later, after all the rejection and trauma and general Jerkass -ness, she goes decidedly insane? Whose fault is that? Well, okay, really nobody's, she was probably inherently unstable to begin with, but he could at least have tried to handle it like an adult instead of constantly avoiding her and being rude where the former was impossible. And now, in the latest comic, he's got the sheer balls to be upset when she finally just lets it all go? Seriously, what is with this guy?
  • First of all, it should be noted that Justin's back story essentially mirrors everything Nanase has been going through since she showed up in the comic (more precisely, when she started to wonder why she wasn't attracted to Elliot, and probably for some unmentioned time previously in back story), except that in his case it all went horribly wrong. So the short version is: Look at everything that happened to Nanase, and then take the parts that went right, and have them fail to do so (though maybe not technically in the worst way possible). To elaborate:
    • They both realize that they are gay, and tell the one person they think they can trust (their former lover, not counting Susan who finds out mostly by accident), and then their secret gets out because someone they trusted to keep it (Nanase did not jump to the conclusion that Susan told the others until told that was what happened, remember) told someone else. Susan technically told more people than Melissa, even. However, for Justin the difference is that the person Melissa trusted told everyone else. Nanase would not have adjusted as well if the gang had decided to spread this gossip about her.
    • From what Justin has said, and therefore certainly from his perspective if not in objective reality (which we cannot be sure of), it was more than just those four people that Justin got in a fight with that were treating him badly. Further, we know for a fact that Diane seems to think less of Justine because he is gay, so factually there is at least one other person besides those four whose opinion was colored by his sexuality. Even if she may or may not have an actual problem with his homosexuality herself, her personal rejection of it only seems to go as far as "he won't pay attention to me," the fact that she is worried he will drive other men away from her just by being there says a lot.
    • Just like how Nanase feared her mother's reaction, Justin's parents seem to have a problem with his sexuality. When Justin calls his parents to tell them he is sleeping over at Susan's place, his father apparently expresses disappointment that Justin does not want to sleep with any of the women there. So where as Nanase's coming out to her mom was at least under circumstances where her mother didn't decide to impose her will on her (time will only tell how it plays out further down the road), Justin does apparently face some difficulties at home as well (even if they don’t try to actively repress his sexuality like Nanase fears her mother might, the mere act of showing disappointment when he’s already vulnerable could easily hurt him rather badly).
    • Even taking all that into account, the idea that Justin just flat out didn't listen to Melissa when they finally do talk is a little imprecise. Considering the circumstances, it isn't much wonder that Justin doesn't want to talk to her throughout the arc. However, during their scene together, while he does snipe at her a little in the beginning (given the circumstances and the fact that he really isn't an adult, and therefore holding him up to perfect standards of behavior under all circumstances is actually pretty unfair, one could argue he did an alright job by listening to her at all), the last panel shows him being shocked to silence at her words, and not in an angry way either. It would be speculation to say so, of course, but it seems apparent that he's wondering if he was being hard on her, or at least showing some empathy for her by caring that she had it bad too. Perfect human being? No, he's not, but Justin did go through hard times, and he really could have handled things worse.
  • It doesn't matter if Melissa told one or a hundred person, she still broke Justin's confidence, which, no matter how long, it made Justin's life living hell.
  • Expecting Justin to handle any of it "like an adult" is not entirely fair, either; he's not an adult. He was what, sixteen when he was forcibly outed? And Moperville doesn't seem to have much of an active LGBT community; I'm willing to bet that Moperville South does not have a GSA or similar organization. Even if it was only "three or four dickheads" that were actively harassing him, that was still three or four more enemies than allies that he had until he met Elliot. And it clearly wasn't just those few kids who cared - if Justin's own parents found out via overhearing people in the grocery store, there was pretty clearly a good deal of widespread gossip going around, which yes, can be as damaging psychologically as can direct aggression.
    • Not to mention that it was literally endangering him, as evidence by the fact that said dickheads physically attacked him. There's a reason LGBT people take getting outed really seriously, since if someone does it without your permission they are in many cases literally endangering your life. Just look at what happened to Matthew Shepard for the worst-case scenario.
    • You forget that they didn't go that far until Justin attacked them first. Granted, they went on him considerably more than necessary, but even Justin notes that he had no one to blame but himself for that particular instance. From the side of the original entry, though, it should be noted that Melissa was Justin's best friend for almost a decade. He also knows that Melissa had her heart set on having a romantic relationship with him, so he knows why she would be so upset and why she might have a lapse in judgement. Yes, he had plenty of reason to be pissed at her regardless, but at this point in the storyline, he should at least be able to consider forgiveness to be a possibility, and yet not only is he not, he actually goes off on Elliot, of all people, for merely suggesting it. The above is all well and good, and yes, he's not an adult, but the recent story arc has been trying to paint him as fairly mature, and if you can't even let your best friend of that long get an explanation in edgewise, you just might fail as a human being.
    • She got her explanation in edgewise back when the whole thing started. She then proceeded to make a complete ass of herself while Justin went on to actually suffer from that "lapse in judgement". Considering the timeframe, it's been at most two years since he was outed, and he's still feeling the affects of what she did to him. That's a rather short time period to get over a betrayal on that level. And he got mad at Elliot for suggesting it because Elliot doesn't understand what it was like firsthand and it is rightfully an extremely touchy issue. Considering what happens to people in Justin's situation in real life beyond just getting into fights, the only thing Melissa has any right to do in this situation is be thankful Justin didn't make himself just one more point on a long and rapidly growing line of statistics. He did admit to Susan that he was considering it.
  • It's also worth noting, if I got it right, that Justin didn't know that Melissa only told her sister and that her sister was the snitch - until Elliot told him, Justin though Melissa herself had spread his secret all over the school. That's a lot harder to forgive that telling one person while extremely upset.
    • He did know before Elliot told him as shown in the latest flashback. He's still mad because Melissa of all people should be aware of her sister's total inability to keep her mouth shut.
      • And this was always the case, because when Justin told the story to Susan during the birthday party, he said that Melissa told "someone else", and that someone spread the story across the school.
• What did Nioi really do in this strip?
  • She gave Ellen a lifetime(up to her current age) worth of life experiences that were essentially her own, rather than just a copy of Elliot's. Seriously, we've been over this already.
• Did Dan forget his own canon? Ellen had Tedd as a close friend in her second life; even if she was upset about being conflicted between Ellen and having Elliot's memories (judging from the last panel she's apparently going to launch into her Wangst fueled introduction to everyone), why is she okay with Justin and Grace and everyone else. One would think that having something like 30 years of good friendship from Tedd would convince her he's a good kid as opposed to 3 months of not talking to him much.
  • She's clearly decided that those second life memories as much not her's as Elliot's, and is as such trying to distance herself from them and behave according to the memories of her own three months of life as much as she possibly can- and seems to be succeeding in getting emotional reactions more from those three months than the rest. She knows he's a good person quite well... but she also knows that her own personal experience, bad things happen to her when he's around.
    • One would think 30 years would overpower that, but chalk it up to Rule of Drama I guess.
    • The "second life" memories shouldn't be included in that total: That was an alternate universe version of Tedd, with his own personality. They may be similar, but "SL-Tedd was a good person who I knew for a decade" does not necessarily guarantee that "EGS-Tedd is a good person". Her memories from Elliot should still be valid, but she's essentially overcompensating for her "Piece that does not fit" issues by denying anything that involves acknowledging herself and Elliot as formerly the same person.
    • If I remember correctly, she said that once she got her own memories from Nioi, she still had Elliot's memories but instead of really feeling like hers, they felt more like something she read in a book rather than had experienced, since they were replaced by her real memories. Added to the fact that alternate!Tedd is different than real!Tedd, it's more like she knows all about him and knows that he's a good person, but she's really only known this Tedd for 3 months and is still detached because, as she put it, "the day we met was the worst day of my life".
    • Admittedly, that explanation falls flat when you consider she's only known Nanase and Grace for that long as well.
• Maybe I missed an explanation or something while doing my 2nd Archive Binge of the comics, but does Grace still have her telekinesis powers? She used them at the end of "Sister", and I don't recall ever seeing her use them again or hearing them ever get referenced. They could've come in handy in situations like "Painted Black" or the fight in the dojo in "New and Old Flames", I'm just wondering if Shive forgot that they exist.
  • Perhaps it's related to her magical flight? An equally rare phenomenon, though occasionally Played for Laughs.
  • As the boar situation proved, she isn't able to instinctively use flight (such as when she dodged to the side instead of flying straight up). Presumably, she has the same problem with the telekinesis. She's done pretty well without it so far. Though I'll admit it's possible it could be retconned away, I think the idea is that its sort of an extension of the levitation, so its probably still around.
• Why Tedd didn't give himself more masculine form with TF gun? All that requires is to do minor changes to his face.
  • Because if he did it all at once he'd call attention to the fact he had it but if he did it subtly over time to mimic natural growth he'd quickly use up the variants available?
• Before she was hit with the transformation ray, Grace had the same mass in all of her forms. Wouldn't that cause a lot of problems in squirrel form?
  • Probably. Maybe that's why she didn't take that form often.