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Tom Sewell

Unsolved Mysteries of Susan and Diane

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I'm assuming, given the title and their prominent (though not foremost) positions on the cover page of Sister III, The Shive will cast some light upon the questions I'm about to bring up.

Why Are There So Many Differences Between Susan and Diane?

The short answer: Different upbringings.

  • Diane was raised with an older sibling to compete with; Susan wasn't.

  • Susan has become embarrassed by how much her mother spoiled her. Diane might have been spoiled to some extent, but her desire to get men to spend money on her doesn't bespeak being raised in a mansion.

However, we have no clue about the Diane's adoptive parents other than they don't seem to be as well off as Susan's mom. Are they a mixed couple? Are they together?

That last one is really relevant. Susan and Diane have different approaches to handling men, but the underlying attitude is fear of getting hurt. Susan tries to avoid men; Diane tries to control them. Now neither of these suggests a strong, reliable father figure. Diane just wouldn't have this attitude if she was satisfied with the father figure she grew up with.

Well, I'm interested in this, but I'll move on to something I think more of you might be interested in.

Who Are Susan and Diane's Biological Parents?

The Shive has put in a few clues, or maybe red herrings, that might lead to answers. Sometime. Maybe.

First, in a dream and then a flashback, Susan remembers the woman she found with her father. In the flashback, The Shive actually titles the strip The Woman With Susan's Face. Susan tries to cut off her hair and then her mom dyes it so she won't look like that horrid blond woman. This kind of implies that Susan realized the woman was her birth mother. She hasn't said a thing about it in any strip since, but that is quite consistent in her nature. As of now (7-22-2016 in realworld time), we still don't know if Susan knows or even suspects she was adopted.

I hope we don't get adoptichlorians.

Susan's dad? Well, her adoptive dad's face is never shown—it's actually blacked out. Now if adoptive daddy was seeing birth mommy, it's not really a stretch to think that adoptive daddy is also biological daddy.

Except...

Diane wasn't introduced yet. If Susan's dad arranged the adoption of one of his own kids, why not both?

The Raven Factor

In Death Sentence, Grace notices that the disguise spell Adrian Raven uses to hide her three-tailed form makes her look exactly like Susan. Although Raven tells her half-immortals can't have children, he doesn't say that he doesn't have children. The Shive is very cute about maybe denying that this is more than an amusing coincidence in His commentary. What's your call? Remember, by this time we know that Raven can morph to change his appearance. It would have been a necessity to have maintained the same identity as a (somewhat) normal human for as long as he's been teaching at Moperville South.

Also, why exactly does Raven choose to let Diane off when he finds her AWOL from her class in Sister II? He knows Diane isn't the ditzy valley-girl she's channeling; he tells Ellen and Grace right after Diane is gone—but doesn't call out Diane on her ploy to her face. Not proof he has special feelings for Diane, but it would fit very well if he does.

Also, in the flashback strip with Noriko and baby Tedd, Raven's face is blacked out just about the same way as Susan's dad was. This time it wasn't in Susan's mind, so the connection is spider-silk-thin. Still...

Third Sister?

I think The Shive likes ambiguous titles and titles that have multiple meanings. Do Susan and Diane have a third sister?

I don't think I would need Alien Space Bats to posit that the third sister is the mysterious sibling of Tedd, whether or not she's Susan and Diane's sibling, and whether or not Adrian Raven is her father. What, surely I'm not the only one that thought that perhaps that's the reason Tedd's parents split up and Tedd's dad hates Adrian Raven? And why Noriko can't face her son? Come on, how many of you out there aren't panting to finally get Full Frontal Noriko?

Another candidate for a third sister would be Ellen's Second Life doppelganger, possibly along with Kaoli. They're supposed to meet eventually; maybe eventually is coming up soon.

Vladia is Grace's sister, and if she's Gregs New Girlfriend, it gives an excuse to get Greg involved more.

Carol Brown is Sarah's sister, and given not one but two Immortal schemers behind the scenes (that we know of) plus Sirleck, it seems pretty likely that Carol will finally get to the scene of the latest weirdness in time to (choose one or more):

  • Find out little sister Sarah knows what's going on

  • Find out little sister Sarah has magic

  • Find out vampires are real in the worst possible way.

  • Get The Government much too interested. Hey, you didn't think Grace's siblings were the only people confined “for their own protection,” did you?

So, anyone want to add their thoughts?

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2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Diane might have been spoiled to some extent, but her desire to get men to spend money on her doesn't bespeak being raised in a mansion.

This statement really bothers me, suggesting that living without much money for nice things made Diane learn to manipulate men into buying her stuff. If anything being in a rich family where she's given anything she asks for would be more likely to encourage her to want men to buy her stuff, there is also a high chance that she just learned from other sources, TV, internet, seen other girls in school do it and family finances wouldn't have anything to do with it. Actually I like the idea that she learned from older students when she started highschool, because it would allow for her behavior to be a passing phase, whereas growing up with that behaviour it'd be much more ingrained in her.

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48 minutes ago, Scotty said:

This statement really bothers me, suggesting that living without much money for nice things made Diane learn to manipulate men into buying her stuff.

I rather agree. It would not be lack of money alone. Obviously examples of poor children who mature into greedy adults exist but there are also examples of this making them become very generous when they do have surplus. Bad examples from school strike me as a much more likely scenario.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

I rather agree. It would not be lack of money alone. Obviously examples of poor children who mature into greedy adults exist but there are also examples of this making them become very generous when they do have surplus. Bad examples from school strike me as a much more likely scenario.

Now, I can see the fact that Diane had other siblings (Rhea and maybe Rick), she may have felt like she didn't get much attention growing up, which would have lead to her taking interest in how other girls got the attention of guys.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

she may have felt like she didn't get much attention growing up, which would have lead to her taking interest in how other girls got the attention of guys.

Good point. Rick isn't positively identified as a sibling, but it would explain why Rhea hangs with him in spite of the probablility that Rick's significant other is Elijah. It would also explain why Rick gets the pass that Diane hasn't seemed to give Justin as yet.

If Rick isn't Diana's (adopted) sibling and she has an unrequited crush on him, it could explain the real reason she's so upset with Justin. Or maybe she's had a crush on him, too, which would be extra hurtful after failing to attract Rick.

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Young Susan did not catch her father half-dressed with nearly-naked "my other mommy" or "Nancy". She caught him with "a woman". So, at least at that time, she did not know the woman, and certainly was not aware of the woman being her birth-mother.

(Note: I am not asserting that the woman was, or wasn't, her birth-mother. If she was, Susan may have learned of it later.)

---

There is NOTHING consistent with the notion that Raven is her biological father or her mother's ex-husband. The latter is not totally impossible, but it seems rather out of character for Raven to be married and have an affair - even more so to be so imprudent (he's had literally centuries of practice keeping secrets) as to bring his mistress into his wife's and adopted daughter's home for a non-G-rated visit. The former we've been told is impossible, and I don't think we've seen another instance of him lying about paranormal stuff to someone whom he knew was paranormal-aware. If there's a genetic relationship between Raven and Susan, it's by separate descent from at least Blaike and more likely Blaike's parents or grandparents.

---

We know that Noriko has a second son who is younger than Tedd. For this third sister to be Tedd's sister, she would also have to be younger than Tedd. Tedd's 18, so these two would be younger. Why would they be coming to the US, and specifically to Moperville? Most likely cause, Noriko is dead - and it's too soon after Tengu for her to be killed, the legalities straightened out, and one or more kids to be shipped over. Also, why would Noriko name Edward - who lives on another continent - to take care of that sister, rather than any of her European friends and coworkers? And the title emphasis on "sister" implies that the brother would not come with - which would require further explanation. A possible explanation would be that the sister also registers magic-null. But then either she's still an infant and Noriko is tossing her out, or she's the younger of the two so the disappointment is somewhat assuaged by the presence of magical big brother. Still, that puts her probably at least four years younger than Tedd, and easily could be much younger than that. It's entirely possible that she'd be part of Akiko's adventures - Tedd's, not so much.

Seriously, I don't see it. I don't think we'll be seeing Tedd's sister. (If he has one, she's still in Europe. And at least two years younger than Tedd.)

Flip side, we have no indication that either Tedd or Edward is aware of Edward having any children other than Tedd.

---

It's entirely possible that the title "Sister 3" means nothing other than that this is the third occasion of a chapter focusing on sisters. But if there is another sister about to become prominent, I'm guessing that it'll be either - in no particular order - (a) Carol becoming more prominent, (b) Akiko sort of magically erupting, (c) the return of Vladia, or (d) not a sister of any of the main 8.

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3 hours ago, Scotty said:

This statement really bothers me, suggesting that living without much money for nice things made Diane learn to manipulate men into buying her stuff.

Maybe The Shive is retconning Diane, but He showed us Diane saying that in her very first speaking appearance, and when she was talking with Rhoda about her ideal man much more recently. If she's getting boys to buy things that she can well afford herself, it seems to me it would make her a worse person than leading boys on a bit to get what she can't afford.

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Purely hypothetically: Diane learned to get what she wanted by manipulating her (adoptive) parents, particularly her father. She figured out that with him, "no" meant "ask again a bit differently". Being that sort of pushover does not cause the kids to respect you, and she carried the lack of respect over to males her own age.

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7 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Purely hypothetically: Diane learned to get what she wanted by manipulating her (adoptive) parents, particularly her father. She figured out that with him, "no" meant "ask again a bit differently". Being that sort of pushover does not cause the kids to respect you, and she carried the lack of respect over to males her own age.

I don't think so, Diane is a softie and a closet geek, we've seen it New Years, according to Rick, she liked being called "Barbie" when she was younger. If she felt pressured into fitting in when she started high school, I can see her developing the alpha female facade to compensate for those insecurities. Susan on the other hand, seemed to embrace the fact that she was a geek, and still managed to put together a feminist club in school.

Hmm, I'm curious now, did Susan start the feminist club before, or after, she learned how to use the hammers?

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25 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Hmm, I'm curious now, did Susan start the feminist club before, or after, she learned how to use the hammers?

Hmmm...

If Susan formally started that club as a Freshman (i.e. before hammer time) I would guess that she probably did so at the urging of her mother.  This would be more likely if the club was required to have an adult volunteer.  A roll for which Mrs Pompoms would graciously volunteer.

Second option, Susan and her friends may have formed an informal clique that spent their free time bashing men for all the world's problems.  One day they realized that there were enough girls in the group to qualify as a sanctioned school club.  So they stuck Susan with filling out all the Paperwork, thus earning her the status of "Club Founder".   This could have happened before or after the hammers.

The third option is that Susan attempted to form a club from the ground up by actively recruiting potential members before presenting the club proposal to the administration.  This would have required the most work and initiative on her part.  If this was the chosen path, I strongly suspect that the club would not have been officially acknowledged by the administration or the yearbook until her Sophomore year.  This is mostly on the idea that a Freshman attempting to rock the boat would have been shrugged off long enough until the-powers-that-be could say "it is too late to do anything this year".

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What are Diane's adoptive parents like?

The most significant factor in Susan's development is that she caught her father cheating, which led to her (adoptive) parents getting divorced. Okay, they would probably have gotten divorced anyway, but Susan has to keep thinking "Maybe if I hadn't told on Dad..." This is the deepest root of Susan's suspicion of men, which is basically why she won't even consider dating such an obviously non-threatening guy like Matt.

Now Diane has dated lots and lots of guys, so she doesn't feel anything like her twin sister, right?

Well, no. Before Diane got to the point where she wanted a "real relationship" with Elliot, this is what she was looking for from a man:

  • Willing to spend money on her
  • No pressure for a physical relationship
  • Alpha male, but...
  • Doing whatever she wants him to do

Can you imagine her adoptive father filling all of these qualifications? Can you imagine any primate male filling all these qualifications?

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Not Clark Kent.

Jimmy Olsen.

The kid was so full of himself that the only time he didn't exhibit "Alpha Male" tendencies was when groveling to Perry White.  Everything else is just what you would expect from Superman's Pal the cub reporter.

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5 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

What are Diane's adoptive parents like?

The most significant factor in Susan's development is that she caught her father cheating, which led to her (adoptive) parents getting divorced. Okay, they would probably have gotten divorced anyway, but Susan has to keep thinking "Maybe if I hadn't told on Dad..." This is the deepest root of Susan's suspicion of men, which is basically why she won't even consider dating such an obviously non-threatening guy like Matt.

Now Diane has dated lots and lots of guys, so she doesn't feel anything like her twin sister, right?

Well, no. Before Diane got to the point where she wanted a "real relationship" with Elliot, this is what she was looking for from a man:

  • Willing to spend money on her
  • No pressure for a physical relationship
  • Alpha male, but...
  • Doing whatever she wants him to do

Can you imagine her adoptive father filling all of these qualifications? Can you imagine any primate male filling all these qualifications?

It's possible that Diane's adopted parents are decent folk, probably both have jobs, one of which could be a work from home type job that they were able to do while still raise the kids. Adoption agencies usually look at a number of factors when determining if a couple are able to adopt, income is a big one. So they have to be financially stable. They would have adopted Rhea first so the agency would have looked at how they were raising her to determine if adopting a second child would be acceptable.

Susan's parents were obviously financially stable. It's likely that Susan's father might have started the affair days to maybe a couple months before Susan found out. Or maybe depeneding on how long Susan's mom was away, he could have just picked up some girl at the bar to satisfy his urges. Any relationship trouble likely would have started after the adoption took place, or he did really well hiding the fact until Susan caught him.

The fact that Diane was punished for underaged drinking on her 17th birthday by having to be at Rhea's New Year's party for her 18th doesn't suggest that she was spoiled. I don't think they were overly strict, but it might have been a case of her parents wanting Diane to be a certain way and Diane rebelling, kinda like how Nanase for a while hid the fact that she would change from the clothes her mom saw her leave for school with, to something Nanase would rather wear. Heck, considering the fact that Nanase dated around a lot at school before dating Elliot, the way she dress, and the fact that Diane kept trying to get Nanase to sit at the table with her, Lucy and Rhoda, I wouldn't be surprised if the behavior we saw from Diane wasn't her trying to emulate Nanase to a degree.

Of course Nanase never dated guys to make them buy stuff, but considering Diane seemed to have a similar aversion to physical contact (at least in terms of physical hygiene) that Susan has, it's possible that having guys buy her stuff was a substitute for letting them touch her.

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8 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Well, no. Before Diane got to the point where she wanted a "real relationship" with Elliot, this is what she was looking for from a man:

  • Willing to spend money on her
  • No pressure for a physical relationship
  • Alpha male, but...
  • Doing whatever she wants him to do

Can you imagine her adoptive father filling all of these qualifications? Can you imagine any primate male filling all these qualifications?

Most alpha males tend not to be submissive, even towards alpha females.

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8 hours ago, ijuin said:

Most alpha males tend not to be submissive, even towards alpha females.

You'd be surprised.  It's something of a stereotype/trope/cliche in BDSM circles, the man or woman who is strong and powerful and dominant everywhere else, but submissive to their spouse/partner within their relationship.  For some that means only during play sessions, for others it's more constant/consistent.

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10 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

You'd be surprised.  It's something of a stereotype/trope/cliche in BDSM circles, the man or woman who is strong and powerful and dominant everywhere else, but submissive to their spouse/partner within their relationship.  For some that means only during play sessions, for others it's more constant/consistent.

Yep.  Seen it in action, more than once.

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I wouldn't know. I can't say that I've ever had the privilege of seeing any Alpha Males "behind the mask", being more of a Gamma or Delta rank myself in the opinion of most of them.

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Why has the face of Susan's Dad never been shown?

Possible Reasons:

  • The Shive is planning for the revelation of his identity to be a "gotcha" moment.
  • Susan is blocking out her memories of him.
  • The Shive never got around to creating a character design for him. If he's never coming back, why waste a face on him?

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It's more likely that Susan was mentally blocking his face, but was unable to block the woman's face because it reminds her too much of herself and she refuses to be that person.

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19 hours ago, Scotty said:

It's more likely that Susan was mentally blocking his face, but was unable to block the woman's face because it reminds her too much of herself and she refuses to be that person.

Wouldn't she be blocking the woman's face, then?

I can see a new interpretation of The Woman With Susan's Face: Susan already knows she was adopted. If she suspects The Woman was her birth mother, she would be wondering not only why she was given up, but why her birth mother never came back after that night.

And also, she would be thinking her dad was a total asshole.

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1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Wouldn't she be blocking the woman's face, then?

I can see a new interpretation of The Woman With Susan's Face: Susan already knows she was adopted. If she suspects The Woman was her birth mother, she would be wondering not only why she was given up, but why her birth mother never came back after that night.

And also, she would be thinking her dad was a total asshole.

I feel we've seen too much of Susan's direct thoughts on the matter for that to not have come up. There's no hints of her suppressing/excising any thoughts on that front either.

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