Quote Originally Posted by Rysto View Post
It's extremely common in manga and anime, so I assume that's where Jeph got inspiration for that look from.
Maybe, but a) that would mean there's some actual conditioning going on here, and that would be quite something, and not just Hanners shutting Roko down and not talking about it, the only way she knows and b) why did Jeph only show the eyes like this in 2 of 4 panels in which she has that look?

As for her reaction, remember Hanners still got terribly social issues. She trained herself to be functioning in CoD's environment with customers, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's sort of a routine she goes through. Not as in "playing down a script", but she's been in the situation before and can handle it. Now she's confronted with something new, and doesn't want to talk about it. Other people might be a bit nicer about it, but for her maybe just "shutting down" is the only way she can do this. Alternative is freaking out.

So her going from chipper to this mode isn't actually that out of character for her.