El Goonish Shive: Sarah
Mar. 30th, 2014 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowSarah Brown was the third of the central eight characters to be introduced, so it's her turn.
Sarah's position in the EGS ecosystem is perhaps best indicated by the following incident. On one occasion, Tedd was daydreaming of the main eight as an X-Men-style superteam. (No, seriously, the picture was very reminiscent of X-Men ads in the late '70s - Phoenix shooting up in the middle, Banshee and Storm flanking her, and the earthbound members of the team swarming below.) He gave each an appropriate nom de guerre; his was "Dr. Change". Sarah's was "Unremarkable Girl"....
Sarah's relationship with magic has always been fraught. She's long dreamed of being a mage, but she's never done anything that would lead to a build-up of magical energy, which is prerequisite to Awakening. She has had a horror of being transformed, mainly because of the time Tedd accidentally turned her into a cat and the transformation gun immediately burned out. (This time, the victim was only stuck for about a day.) It's not clear how complete the transformation was; in a discussion of the incident, Tedd pointed out that she wasn't completely furry ("except for my tail!", retorted Sarah). On the other hand, when Sarah complained about having to miss school because of her transformation, the following exchange ensued:
Sarah had a chance to gain magic, courtesy of a friendly Immortal named Jerry, but when she had second thoughts about the consequences of the spell in question, Jerry had to withdraw the offer. (I don't quite understand the dynamics of this, but apparently he could only offer her a spell which she really wanted....) Grace consoled her by pointing out that Tedd could give her something like magic by means of his artifacts. Sarah nerved herself up to approaching Tedd with an offer to work as his lab assistant (and sometimes guinea pig); she now has several magical watches with various properties, and she and Tedd have gotten over the cat incident pretty well.
Sarah and Elliot were friends since childhood; a couple of years back (internal time), she fell in love with him, and after his breakup with Nanase they became a couple. However, his passivity in the relationship began to trouble her. (For example, when they went out to dinner, she always had to pick the restaurant; otherwise, he would have been content with the same three places, over and over.) Also, she felt uneasy after he began to turn into a girl. His attempt to turn into a copy of her (at her request; she thought it might be fun) resulted in a rather bustier form than she'd anticipated. ("I was concentrating on getting your face right! I wasn't even thinking about your body!" - reassuring words, those....) She rejected Susan's suggestion that she - or rather her uterus - had begun seeing Elliot as "half a man", but there's a good chance that had something to do with it as well. At any rate, at about the same time that Elliot was coming to his conclusions about Susan, Sarah was approaching Nanase for advice on how to break up with him without losing his friendship. Elliot moved first, to Sarah's dismay, but he was equally perturbed when she revealed her own line of thought.
Since the breakup, Sarah has regained some of her equilibrium, enough so that when Elliot introduced Ashley to the group, she was prepared to push him to ask Ashley out (not knowing that he already had). There is a possibility that she will hook up with a fellow art student named Cecil, but he's only been roughly sketched so far. (Sarah is artistic; we've seen her painting, and she also draws a cartoon featuring a character who bears a suspicious resemblance to Dan Shive. She's got a cocky little French beret, too.)
In some ways, Sarah is the least interesting of the main eight, but she's developing; she's got enough snark to counter Tedd's grosser comments, and Cecil looks like he might be a match for her. Also, she plays Skyrim, which counts for a lot with me.
Sarah's position in the EGS ecosystem is perhaps best indicated by the following incident. On one occasion, Tedd was daydreaming of the main eight as an X-Men-style superteam. (No, seriously, the picture was very reminiscent of X-Men ads in the late '70s - Phoenix shooting up in the middle, Banshee and Storm flanking her, and the earthbound members of the team swarming below.) He gave each an appropriate nom de guerre; his was "Dr. Change". Sarah's was "Unremarkable Girl"....
Sarah's relationship with magic has always been fraught. She's long dreamed of being a mage, but she's never done anything that would lead to a build-up of magical energy, which is prerequisite to Awakening. She has had a horror of being transformed, mainly because of the time Tedd accidentally turned her into a cat and the transformation gun immediately burned out. (This time, the victim was only stuck for about a day.) It's not clear how complete the transformation was; in a discussion of the incident, Tedd pointed out that she wasn't completely furry ("except for my tail!", retorted Sarah). On the other hand, when Sarah complained about having to miss school because of her transformation, the following exchange ensued:
Tedd: You should have called in sick!
Sarah: It's hard to call in sick when all you can say is "MEOW"!
Sarah had a chance to gain magic, courtesy of a friendly Immortal named Jerry, but when she had second thoughts about the consequences of the spell in question, Jerry had to withdraw the offer. (I don't quite understand the dynamics of this, but apparently he could only offer her a spell which she really wanted....) Grace consoled her by pointing out that Tedd could give her something like magic by means of his artifacts. Sarah nerved herself up to approaching Tedd with an offer to work as his lab assistant (and sometimes guinea pig); she now has several magical watches with various properties, and she and Tedd have gotten over the cat incident pretty well.
Sarah and Elliot were friends since childhood; a couple of years back (internal time), she fell in love with him, and after his breakup with Nanase they became a couple. However, his passivity in the relationship began to trouble her. (For example, when they went out to dinner, she always had to pick the restaurant; otherwise, he would have been content with the same three places, over and over.) Also, she felt uneasy after he began to turn into a girl. His attempt to turn into a copy of her (at her request; she thought it might be fun) resulted in a rather bustier form than she'd anticipated. ("I was concentrating on getting your face right! I wasn't even thinking about your body!" - reassuring words, those....) She rejected Susan's suggestion that she - or rather her uterus - had begun seeing Elliot as "half a man", but there's a good chance that had something to do with it as well. At any rate, at about the same time that Elliot was coming to his conclusions about Susan, Sarah was approaching Nanase for advice on how to break up with him without losing his friendship. Elliot moved first, to Sarah's dismay, but he was equally perturbed when she revealed her own line of thought.
Since the breakup, Sarah has regained some of her equilibrium, enough so that when Elliot introduced Ashley to the group, she was prepared to push him to ask Ashley out (not knowing that he already had). There is a possibility that she will hook up with a fellow art student named Cecil, but he's only been roughly sketched so far. (Sarah is artistic; we've seen her painting, and she also draws a cartoon featuring a character who bears a suspicious resemblance to Dan Shive. She's got a cocky little French beret, too.)
In some ways, Sarah is the least interesting of the main eight, but she's developing; she's got enough snark to counter Tedd's grosser comments, and Cecil looks like he might be a match for her. Also, she plays Skyrim, which counts for a lot with me.
