Susan Pompoms

Susan
Full name	Tiffany Susan Pompoms
Age	18 years old (as of 2013-10-07) 17 in first appearance
Birthday	January 1
Hair	Originally blonde, long time dying dark blue, naturally dark blue from her awakening
Eyes	Blue
Eyes (in older sources)	Green
Aura	Unknown, possibly a reddish magenta.
Species	Human
Height	5'6" (before growth spurt) 5'9" (after growth spurt)
Occupation	Student (Moperville North)
Family	Mrs. Pompoms (mother) Mr. Pompoms (father) Adrian Raven (ancestor) Pandora Raven (ancestor) Blaike Raven (ancestor; deceased) Diane (distant relative)
First appearance	EGS Main Story Comic for 2002-05-29

Tiffany Susan Pompoms; usually just called Susan; was the last of the eight major characters to be introduced in EGS. Initially a friend of Sarah and a stalwart feminist, Susan has developed friendships with all other major characters. As a reaction to seeing her father's affair with a blonde woman and her parents' subsequent divorce at an early age, events that have been partially shown in the Sleepy Time storyline and in the Grace's Birthday Party arc, she dyed her hair dark blue (until magic made the color permanent). She does this to avoid similarity with the blonde woman.

Susan lives with her mother in a three-story mansion and works in the Video Rental Store (with Mr. Tensaided as boss). Susan prefers and enforces the use of her middle name instead of her first name. She does this to distance herself from a cheerleader stereotype and because it was her father that picked her first name.

History

Sister

Susan first appeared in the comic as a feminist friend of Sarah. When Elliot was turned into a girl, Susan tried to recruit him into the school's feminist group and ranted about how men were awful. Later, when the Omega Goo attacked, Susan pulled the school's fire alarm to evacuate everyone, then called Nanase to come and fight it. After the fight was over and everyone had calmed down, she was surprised when Elliot showed sensitivity by defending Ellen from what he thought would be a punishment and incarceration. When she got to Tedd's house, Jeremy quickly found her and forced her to pet him while he slept on her lap. She was trapped until Justin told her that cats prefer to be where they are least wanted. Taking this advice to its extreme, she expressed over-the-top affection toward Jeremy and succeeded in driving away not only the cat, but Justin as well.

New And Old Friends

The next day at school, Susan was invited to have lunch with Sarah, Elliot, and Tedd. While there, she revealed that her full name is Tiffany Susan Pompoms, she's a natural blond, and her parents are divorced.

Night Out

During the events of Night Out she invited Ellen, Justin and Nanase to her house to watch movies. When her mother came and found Justin, she defending him by claiming he was gay, not knowing that he was. Before the movies were started, she asked Ellen to come to her room; while there, she asked Ellen to transform her. After she and Ellen had a little talk about how lesbianism could be a solution to the pain of dealing with men due to Susan's feminism, Susan realized that all the guys she knows personally have redeeming qualities. When Ellen told her that the Venus form makes one bisexual and enhances their original preference, Susan asked Ellen to turn her back, only to realize that the V5 beam did not restore her hair dye and thus her hair was now blonde. When Nanase asked Susan about her hair, she said it changed spontaneously. After the first movie was finished, Nanase asked Susan if they could talk privately. When they got to Susan's room, Nanase complained about Ellen's pheromones attracting her. Susan revealed that Tedd told her that Ellen does not release the special pheromones that attract people, implying that her attraction was genuine, but also saying that it was probably due to confusion over the matter. After Nanase "went fairy-doll" on Susan, Susan panicked and revealed their conversation to Ellen and Justin, the implication of which they had both already suspected.

Painted Black

During the events of Painted Black, Susan met Grace outside of a combat situation for the first time. She previously believed her to be an android of Tedd's design. When it was realized how Elliot transformed Susan correctly deduced the other form he can transform into (female) and mused on the implications for his relationship with Sarah. After it was decided that Nanase and Ellen will accompany Grace to save Elliot, Susan was left behind and had her blonde hair braided by Justin.

Shadows After Dark

After Painted Black Susan had the dream shown in the Sleepy Time storyline which concerned her past. In her dream, Susan was a young girl who couldn't sleep one night. When she went to her father, she found him with a young blond woman. When her mother got back the next day, she told her about it through tears.

Because of the dream, Susan subsequently came to school wearing a Star Trek shirt, Sarah took this as a warning that she was upset because such shirts are like Susan's security blanket and she is highly irritable when upset. When Tedd unintentionally provoked her with what he sees as friendly teasing, they got in a slap fight that was broken up by the principal. When he learns that fight started because of the shirt he got an idea and ran away in a flurry of activity. After Tedd expressed relief at not being in trouble, Susan said they were "at least out of the frying pan...". After Tedd revealed that he thought their friendship is based on teasing Susan revealed indirectly that she had been dwelling on her dream. After hearing this, Tedd pledged to support her for at least for the time being and she accepted this pledge of support.

Before The Party

When Tedd was recruiting people for Grace's Birthday party Susan initially didn't want to go, until she had an internal mental debate in which both her logical and curious side convinced her to do it. When the principal of Moperville North High revealed his plans to have school uniforms, including skirts and vests for girls, Susan vocally opposed the idea and out right refused to wear the girl's uniform and ended up trading uniforms with Tedd who already had clothes that fit the dress code.

Grace's Birthday Party

During the birthday party she took notes on her experiences as a man, realized that men are not ruled by their physical desires, that her father's infidelity was due to his own conscious choice and not just because he was male. He also realized that her misandric outlook on men originated from her mother's blame on her father's gender for his actions. She also managed to comfort Justin by letting him know he is not alone inadvertently kissing him in the process.

Hidden Genesis

Having traded uniforms with Tedd, she wore the boy's uniform to school, and almost had the students on her side, until she revealed she only intended to fight for the right for women to wear pants and make vests optional for both sexes; most of those who supported her were under the impression she intended to have the dress code removed entirely.

Sister II

Later, due to there being a news crew covering the aftermath of the Bloodgrem, Susan was able to voice her concerns to a larger audience which resulted in the dress code being lifted, only for the reason being related to laundry instead of sexism.

Hammerchlorians

When Susan realized the hammers stopped working she, Sarah and Grace travelled to the cave where the artifact powering the hammers was kept. While staying at a hotel, Susan explained to Grace and Sarah how she met Nanase and what happened in France. When she arrived at the cave she met Jerry and discovered the true purpose of the hammers which led to her awakening and was a cathartic experience for her. She also received a promise of aid from Jerry, who was enraged that the French Immortals had essentially used her and Nanase as child soldiers and felt that the Immortal race as a whole owed her a great debt. As a result of her awakening Susan can now hammer anyone she wants for any reason.

Summer

On May 27th, Matt Cohen asked Susan out on a date and Susan panicky rambled off an excuse of why she could not accept his offer and ran away. At lunch Susan told Sarah the Matt just wanted to sleep with her. While walking to her locker, Logic, Curiosity, Nature and Nurture debated whether they overreacted to Matt's request. They all decided that they did and Susan banged her head against her locker in regret. Susan told Sarah she needed to apologize to Matt without getting his hopes up, but said that Matt freaked her out and scared her which Matt overheard. Susan apologized to Matt and said she had never been on a date before.

Relationships

Justin

Susan and Justin initially bonded over a shared love of Star Trek. When staying over at her house, Susan "lied" to her mother about Justin being gay, which she didn't know was true until he confirmed it a few moments later. During Grace's party, while both were transformed, they kissed and might have gone farther if not for a light burning out (thanks to the Demonic Duck). They have shown to be good friends ever since.

Catalina

Catalina was initially introduced as a member of Susan's feminist club. She asked Susan out on a date. Susan explained that she is not gay (though often wished she was), which upset Catalina. Susan however imagined how the date might went, and later Susan expressed an interest in being friends with Catalina, which she readily accepted.

Susan told about this to Justin, who summarized it as Susan wishing being bi-curious with Catalina and she later used Catalina in her though-test of sexuality.

Tedd

Initially Susan's opposite, they both learned to tolerate each other after Sarah and Elliot started dating. They've become friends, each one lessening the other's extreme attitudes and views. Tedd considered their relationship to be based on mutual teasing but showed his support for her when he wore a woman's vest and told the students off for mocking her when she was trying to get the uniform policy changed. Upon seeing this, Susan actually had to fight the urge to hug him.

Sarah

Susan was the one who taught Sarah how to summon hammers, as well as the one who had her join the feminist club. Sarah went with Susan to check on the status of the hammer artifact and, while traveling there, learned about Susan's France trip.

Nanase

Susan and Nanase were paired up during their school trip to France before the events of EGS, where they encountered a vampire-like aberration, as well as the French Immortals who helped them slay the aberration. During the stay at Susan's house, when Nanase asked Susan to talk with her about Ellen, Susan revealed Nanase's true orientation to her in panic. However, Nanase never blamed Susan for doing so.

Elliot

Susan was initially dismissive of Elliot, thinking him as an insensitive jerk for seemingly treating Sarah with disrespect. However, after his defense of Ellen at the conclusion of Sister she reconsidered her perception of him. After she helped him get a job at the video store, the two of them began making online video reviews of movies at the request of Mr. Tensaided. Currently, Susan has a crush on Elliot, but has little interest in going after him yet, because she's not ready for romantic relationship. She seems to enjoy watching Elliot get along with other women, despite her jealousy. (Note: Dan mentioned she may be autochorissexual.)

Ellen thinks that camera is making her weirdly cheerful and smiling, but seems more likely it's Elliot.

Grace

Susan initially thought Grace was an android built by Tedd, but once she discovered the truth behind her existence she was more accepting of her and later grudgingly agreed to spend over sixteen hours with her during the Hammerchlorians storyline, in which she got to know her better. Susan seems to find her slightly annoying, but nevertheless likes her.

Ellen

Susan first met Ellen during the Sister story arc and got to know her during the Ellen's Crew storyline. Ellen showed her what she looked like blonde again and made her realize all the males she knew had good qualities, which helped Susan grow emotionally.

Diane

While not directly confirmed, it was heavily hinted at, almost directly said by Jerry and widely believed by both readers and characters that Diane is Susan's twin sister. They were identical twins in appearance until Susan awakened, but they dress differently and Diane doesn't dye her hair. After Susan's awakening, Susan's natural hair color changed from blonde to the dark blue color she had been dyeing it and she grew three inches taller than Diane.

Edward Verres mentions that the hospital records indicate that Susan and Diane are not twins, but that they might plausibly be half-sisters by different mothers, given Susan's father's penchant for infidelity. Regarding Jerry, he didn't actually know for sure, he just reached the same conclusion based on the same reasons.

Diane is 20 minutes older than Susan: she was born 31 December at 23:50, while Susan was born 1st January at 0:10. Diane is adopted and knows it.

Another difference about Diane and Susan is that where Susan is a proud Star Trek nerd, Diane considers "nerd" an insult.

Note: While Diane is sure about it, it took some time before someone tried to tell Susan (not counting the initial rejected attempt.) When she was finally told, she didn't took it well, but the argument with Jerry convinced her.

Pandora Raven finally revealed that they are related, but not closely: Diane is a daughter of Adrian Raven, while Susan is a much more distant descendant, making Diane Susan's great-to-the-double-digit-nth-degree (meaning at least 10 "greats") aunt. Note: The approximate minimum number of familial generations separating them can be deduced based on how old Pandora was at the time she most recently reset (at least 599 years old) and the number of generations of humans could have lived in that time (assuming a generation length of at most 30 years) to arrive at about 20 generations (599 divided by 30).

Cousins

While she denied caring about any other family than her mother when texted about Diane, later Susan admitted she spent Christmas watching surprisingly not awful cartoons with her cousins. Sounds like they are considerably younger ...

(A)sexuality

No touching

Susan doesn't like physical contact, although she's trying to get better with it. Even her idea of ideal date does barely include any touching.

(Despite that, her score with Hugs is quite high - but it was all special circumstances and mostly after she decided she needs to get better.)

And when she said she's not ready for romantic relationship, it was likely the physical part which was problem.

This might obviously be related either to her experience with vampire or the divorce, likely both, but not completely explained by it. On the other hand, it is hinted that her nature would have less problems with hugging than her nurture.

Likes to watch

Meanwhile, she seems to enjoy watching Elliot get along with other women, despite her jealousy.

Asexual

In Q&A, Lisa wondered if Susan even have a sex drive normally (when not transformed). Later Sarah worded the same wonder when planning her breakup with Elliot.

While technically the "no touching" desire could be hiding her sexuality, both her own introspection and Dan suggests she's actually asexual, specifically autochorissexual.

Except when transformed

Exceptions include being under influence of FV5 pheromones (even more strongly before retcon), possibly FV5 itself, or when transformed to guy - which makes sense, considering the general mechanism of adding heterosexual attraction [according to their new gender] on top of existing one TF gun has. (And, if we count non-canon, under influence of wishing well.)

Susan's mind

Similar to shoulder angel and devil traditionally depicting people's good and evil side, Susan have four anthropomorphic personification of different sides of her personality.

Curiosity

Curiosity looks like a catgirl. She first appeared to convince Susan to go to Grace's Birthday Party. She reappeared in an NP comic, gathering swag at a comic convention. and she also joined the others to say that Susan shouldn't have reacted as she did to Matthew William Cohen asking her out.

"Screw morality!"
—EGS Main Story Comic for 2005-01-17

Logic

Logic looks like a Vulcan from Star Trek. She first appeared to counter Curiosity's arguments in favor of going to the party, but was persuaded to agree with her. She reappeared briefly during the party itself, bemoaning her uselessness there. She next reappeared in the same NP comic as Curiosity, saying that she went to a Veronica Mars panel before Susan questioned her. And she joined the others commenting Susan's reaction to Matthew.

"I knew I'd be useless at this party"
—EGS Main Story Comic for 2006-06-28

Nature and Nurture

Nature and Nurture represents her natural nature, and who she's been nurtured to become. Unlike her Curiosity and Logic, Susan does not consciously acknowledge her Nature and Nurture. In appearance, her Nature is a blonde version of Susan with bright clothes, while her Nurture has blue hair and darker-colored clothes. They appeared to show Susan's mental conflict over how she should respond to Tedd's show of support for her cause during the uniform plot of Sister II. They also join the others commenting Susan's reaction to Matthew.

Hobbies

Susan likes Star Trek. In her words, It is an optimistic, silly mix of technobabble, goofy makeup, social commentary, fun and adventure and It. Is. Beautiful. She owns all the movies and whole Next Generation, and possibly other series as well. She does NOT, however, like the J.J.Abrams movies - although it has nothing to do with the skirt uniforms.

Note that she considers the Star Trek TNG movies to happen in different continuity than the TNG itself and have very good reasons for that.

Speaking about uniforms, the mandatory dress code started because she wore shirt with ST:TNG label - she used to wear such shirts as a "security blanket" when she was upset.

Hair

Susan dyed her hair dark blue because her dad had affair with blonde. It became naturally dark blue after her awakening.

The specific shade she uses is actually named in comics as Gloomy Gus Blue and is dark enough to look black unless under proper lighting.

She also likes keeping it impractically long for adequately logical reasons. She also likes other color variants, although it took her time before she got over them reminding her the blonde.

Despite really wanting to, she didn't get any hair related powers yet, not counting badass-hair-in-wind-without-wind. Her hair definitely can't mind-control people in canon.

Job

Susan works in the video rental store under Mr. Tensaided. She keeps odd- and even-numbered Star Trek movies separate.

In the Summer story arc, Elliot started working there as well, based on her recommendation. She had to use Tensaided's interest in meeting Cheerleadra to get Elliot hired, but later it turned out he was very good at this job, and Susan and Elliot even started doing movie reviews together.

Cleaning

Susan has issues with germs and cleanliness. It's first shown when she objects to Nanase sitting on the kitchen counter, later she was cleaning the hotel room in Hammerchlorians. Both are not so extreme - in fact, Dan didn't originally plan anything, but when people reacted that she's a clean freak, he decided to go along with that. Therefore, she later washed hands after helping Elliot with chopsticks or after shaking hands with Mr. Tensaided.

Susan shares this trait with Dan and he directly states that his intention was not for her to have some specific problem but people diagnosing her are also diagnosing Dan.

Abilities

Susan is a master at using hammers (and is therefore known as the "Hammer Queen"). Her use of the hammers has lessened as the comic, and specifically her most common target, Tedd, matured. Since the Hammer Artifact lost its power, Susan is the only one who can still use hammers.

Growth Spurt

At start of the comic, Susan was 5'6". Then she got a growth spurt, growing to 5'8" and later 5'9". In Family Tree, Nanase speculated that because it happened after her awakening, it's actually caused by magic.

Susan doesn't like her new height and gladly accepted a magic watch with her original height ... and a few other options.

Magic

Item Summoning

While in France, Susan was attacked by a monster due to having affinity for summoning and had to have Nanase save her. That night two French immortals came into their hotel room and offered them the power to stop the monster. Susan was given a Magic Mark (sort of magical tattoo) on her back which allowed her to summon objects kept in storage as long as the storage has her mark on it. Susan can only summon one object at a time and the object will disappear when it is struck by sufficient force, and the storage space has to be refreshed or they will stop working. The chest she was given had a sword, mace, and axe in it to begin with. Currently her chest has a couple swords, a bat, some tools, a crowbar, and one of Nanase's fairy dolls. The mark on her back was first seen in part 2 of the Grace's Birthday Party story arc.

Fairy Summoning

During the second part of the Hammerchlorians storyline, Susan demonstrated her item summoning to Sarah and Grace, but was surprised to discover that the magical copy of Nanase's Fairy Doll was not only animated, but appeared to act out Susan's subconscious, much like Nanase's Fox Clone does when not directly controlled. Whether this is a result of Susan's spell interacting with Nanase's magic, a side-effect of Nanase's temporary magic burnout, or entirely different reasons was speculated on by the characters but remains unclear. It takes direct orders(like a retrieval of soda), and has the nickname of Nase, just as Nanase's Fox Clone takes orders and is called Fox.

In canon newspaper story Playing With Dolls, Susan asked Nanase to create her different doll with Tedds help. She also found out that she's supposed to periodically check her spellbook for new spells.

Tedd looked at her spell and mentioned few more details: she already can control how much sensory feedback she get from her doll and she might even be able to possess the doll just like Nanase does. End of the story suggest that she is now able to summon multiple fairies at once.

Hammers Unleashed

Susan and Nanase were the two of main cast who were originally taught about the Hammers by immortals in France. Susan was the one who got most proficient with them, able to juggle three hammers and lunch plate at once and earning nickname Hammer Queen. She was also the one who noticed they stopped working.

Susan's first spell upon her Awakening was the ability to summon the hammers again, but for use against anybody for any reason, instead of just when someone is offensive towards a woman.

Aura doing ... something

During the time she was not checking her spellbook, she got possibility to summon items with aura that does ... something. Which might help against aberrations. Susan's book might've been written even more confusingly than Elliot's.

Summoning multiple things

The way she formulate it, she can now summon multiple things in general, not just fairies.

Quotes

"Equality? Who said anything about equality? Female superiority all the way, sister!"
—EGS Main Story Comic for 2002-06-28

"KITTY!!"
—EGS Main Story Comic for 2003-01-28

"I have concluded that this illusion is fuzzy."
—EGS Main Story Comic for 2010-07-09

Trivia

• As Dan Shive states in the follow-up to the Painted Black arc, Shade Tail was initially supposed to be a hot tempered blonde. He says that the Shade Tail character changed to the Grace we all know and love when he combined her with a pre-webcomic character, also named Grace. A remnant of the original, sardonic Grace character found its way into the story in Susan.
• Susan is not able to resist the power of puppy dog eyes.
• Susan is capable of using puppy dog eyes successfully, but only unintentionally and subconsciously.

• Susan's mansion is located in the Snoot Creek subdivision.
• Susan doesn't like vampire romances. Probably due to her actual personal experience in France.

Picture gallery

Susan during Sister 2

Susan trying to repel Jeremy through affection.

Susan's angst-induced awakening, phase 1

Susan's angst-induced awakening, phase 2

Susan's angst-induced awakening, phase 3

Susan during Bringing Silly Back

Susan in her Video Store uniform

Susan's Forms

Canon

Venus Susan

Male Susan

Non-Canon

Chibi Susan

Trill Susan

Tiffany

Susan-Diane Fusion

Melotian Susan

Justin Susan

Jeremy Susan

Halfling Susan

Cat Susan

Cow Susan

Centaur Susan

Catgirl Susan

Bunny Susan