Oh, that explains it. you’re apparently using some list from a site called Zoklet (I know you’re specifically using urban dictionary, but Zoklet is the earliest refference to that rule I found), from early 2009.
I’m referencing the one from 4chan, from around 2006.
Rule 34 – If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.
Rule 43 – It exists
… or rather, if there’s something that couldn’t possibly have porn of it, it probably exists as well, however it therefore must conform to rule 34. In other words, things don’t fail to exist because there can’t be porn of it, because there would be anyway.
… so no, God cannot make a boulder he couldn’t lift. However I wouldn’t rub it in.
Reminds me a bit of a puma at the zoo around here, who had a similar reaction after the zoo overdid the “native natural diet” idea and fed him nothing but locally-trapped jackrabbits for a month. Worst hareball problem you ever did see.
When you’ve got a soulless body controlled by a demonic collective, you’ve got to expect things like this. Sort of like anticipating that, occasionally, spiders will be incinerated…
It’s worth keeping in mind: How much of the rest of us is really our selves, rather than a loose coalition of our personal demons and angels (using those terms extremely loosely)?
I’ve sometimes caught the trained ape I’m riding around in doing things on its own. I may make nice rationalizations afterward, but the behavior exists before the reason.
Tina’s just got a more active and concrete set of selves than most of us, and is missing the one who normally keeps the others hidden.
The better question is, why is this one able to physically manifest itself (rather than just appear to others) and directly interact with the rest of the world?
Or if Tina’s internals have ‘unique’ alterations made during or since reincarnation, just how terrified was that doctor when he X-rayed her arm? (>^_^)>
Perhaps because Tina doesn’t HAVE demons, Tina IS demons.
Demons might be molded by the soul of the posessed/posessor and Tina is merely a body that a group of demons inhabit.
Maybe.
If you assume that anything about demons is supposed to be logical.
Hmmm…remember back when M went down into Tina’s basement and saw the “doll” hanging in the dark corner and Tina was so freaked out about it that she broke her arm? I’m thinking that “Tina’s” body is merely a “skin” that the demons fill up (reminiscent of Men In Black and the big bug guy filling up the farmer guy’s skin bag) and that maybe the “doll” was actually a spare or a left over from a previous incident where a person had accidentally died at the hands of these demons and that was why Tina was so afraid to have M see it. I’m beginning to get a bit of a sinister feeling about “Tina’s” demons, despite the sunshiny spin they put on…
and I’m not so sure those are tears…just a gut feeling.
(oops inadvertent pun usage, I’ll have to check the couch of confusion for some change for the pun jar!)
Nebulous: well surely she has ‘some’ vaguely human demons there, or at least a ‘fan of human behaviour’ demon?? eg..
wapsisquare.com/comic/something-in-myself/
I don’t think they are that physical.. only ‘those who know’ can see past the perception filter, that provides all the *expect* to see, including xrays !!
My pet theory of personal demons is that their appearance are reflections of their current host. With Tina 1.0 vacating her body, her demons reverted to their (un)natural forms.
Congrats and welcome to the club! 🙂
According to my calculations, with about 2370 strips, that may come out at net 15-20 hours of pure wapsi reading, depending on how much you dwell on a strip (and not counting loading times and loofing in nthe comments section. Just reading the comics :-))
What can I say? I’m one of those people who can’t stop reading something once they get hooked. It was interesting to see how the art and story evolved over the years, condensed into a single weekend.
..unless s/he is a Cthulhuist, then the would say..
R’lyeh sake, get it together, maaan… everybody stop!!!
now single file, one at a time.. when you get there, hold it open for faster access, slowly now…
I’d say they’re reasonably discreet… they were cautious about revealing themselves even to Monica, way back when, and the non-paranormally-aware citizens of Minneapolis haven’t a clue that they’re present.
yeah, i count 7 as well… starting at the top (12 o’clock) there is: The Deer, then at 1 o’clock is The Rose,then at 3 is The Skull, at 8 is The Manatee, at way up in the upper left at about 10:30 -11:00 is The Shadow… then we have the Grumpy Tentacle that’s apparently not shown, so we have a minimum of 8 Demons inside Tina, though i’m not sure where you get the “blackwing” demon from? is that the one where she’s spreading out black wings at the coffee shop? if so that *could be* any one of them, so i’d hesitate to call that one out as a brand new demon as of yet.
I’m guessing Blackwing is either one of the more frequent solo voices that pipe up, or symbolic of Tina 2.0’s developing unity. (ie, “We are allEstwald Blackwing!”)
But at this point, I get the feeling Blackwing is who makes those beautiful silver eyes look out from those otherwise empty knotholes.
Reading all this discussion is fine and all, but since noone else has asked, I will …
Forget the tentacle, how the demons should appear, etc etc …
Why did the tentacle crawl out in the first place, to open the window, when they have control of the body and could just have used the ARM, like they normally do? 😀
I assume it’s just the normal “oh crap I’m late gotta go oh no what am I gonna do” type of panicked rush we do when we realize we’ve overslept. hehehe
you know how you lose a bit of coordination when you’re in a hurry, but have to do a delicate task that requires concentration, which ends up taking longer than you normally do because you keep messing it up because you’re trying to go faster, but keep dropping things, or missing the key-hole with your keys, etc…
I think it’s more of an “i don’t want to deal with a committee just to move my arm” kind of thing. that particular demon was already outside, was able to do it, and just said to itself, “Phooey!, I’LL do it!” just to get it done faster than it would have taken to get everybody inside to do the same thing as a group, at a time when some of the other individual demons are already impatient for the missed alarm clock, and wouldn’t cooperate well enough to get it done in a timely manner and still get to work on time.
well, we already know that Doubt can do nose-flicks… so they CAN interact with the physical world… though I am curious as to what demon that one is supposed to represent.
Assuming that Tia’s not-quite-alive body reacts to caffeine the way living bodies do… she has’t had any yet this morning. Same issue for a morning stretch. Her engines are all cold… Scotty hasn’t had time to get the antimatter wared up properly.
When my body is in that state, first thing in the morning, it ain’t good for much… I tend to be clumsy, stumble into things, etc.
It may be that going directly for the blinds with a tentacle is both quicker and more precise than waiting for the body to come out of “suspend” mode and finish booting.
I think it is more like: sleeping in your clothes does not give you a good nights sleep!
– and you have this lovely cafe, where you meet nice ‘humans’ and chat 🙂
– problem is, if you are ‘naked’ you will either scare them away/ get locked up/ not even be seeen….
… so you have to pile into your ‘clown car’ :p get the engine warmed up, make sure the steering is working, you can see through the window, etc, complicated by the committee all doing different things!! 🙂
It seems we are assuming that this is completely cannon. If it is, then it is possible that the demons are becoming more and more metamorphic and physical as they change due to their unique state (as far as we know Tina is the only one of their kind) so their is no parallel to use as a point of reference.
Sadly, the tentacles didn’t faze me due to overexposure to hentai. (I blame my brother for always making me find him some.) The thing that does catch my attention are what looks like tears in the last panel. More importantly, if they are in fact tears, what’s the source? It’s been stated directly and vaguely that Tina 1.0 is gone, so what’s crying exactly? And if they’re not tears, what are they and do they have any significance at all? *ponders*
But that could merely be referring to the gender of the body, not the soul. While the demons do animate the body, I would guess it is still vulnerable to some of the usual idiosyncrasies of any other body with a human soul in it; hence the worry over stretch marks.
It also has the body’s ‘maintenance system’ – frenzied activity makes it hot, so it sweats to cool it down.. the top right panel has what looks like beads of sweat on the leg..
Yeah, I’d think they’d be concerned about pressure sores developing on her feet. Not-moving-for-hours is tough on a body, no matter what position or posture it’s in.
Note that that one where Tina is waiting for pizza seems to show a whole population – but the animal skull demon(s) from the very next day aren’t in evidence.
My guess is that the demons are highly variable in their appearance, as that’s less troublesome than assuming there’s a very large population. Half a dozen voices are enough for our favorite undead barista.
I extremely amused…both by the page and everyone’s reactions to it. Maybe I’m not creeped out because I never found Tina especially attractive with so many other females populating the strip. 😛
Am I the only one that thought possibly maggots from her eyes…?
Or maybe just saliva on her face (some is around her eyes) from the tentacle thrusting its way out to fast? (one sec pervs ^.~)
Here’s my kinda gross question… even if she were to do group sex-esque things… How do they upkeep maintenance on her… like keep blood flowing, maggots from forming, innards from rotting…. Or did they just kinda make a golem out of her so its all neat, hollowed, and packaged?
I mean we see her eyes either sink in or disappear whenever the demons pop out a lot…. on rest/snooze mode.
As it seems, Tina 1.0 is not dead, merely soulless — as in the prime mover has departed. Now as Tina 2.0, her demons are the motive force behind the still living body. Nudge got her (the collective) off the slab in the morgue, so she was thought to be dead at some point. Given their disparate abilities, at least one is in charge of general upkeep, otherwise her broken arm could not have healed, nor would she have passed the medical exam when she was treated for that injury.
The Committee problem of management still remains, since Somebody forgot to set the alarm! And the eyes? How often have we heard the eyes are the window to the soul — and what is there in Tina, now staring back at us?
The jury seems to still be out on this issue to some extent. I agree, a lot of things are more consistent if Tina’s body is still biologically alive in most respects (and upkeep would be easier for the demons in that case).
On the other hand, I recall that Tina herself referred to her body as “not quite alive”. Didn’t Monica caution Kevin not to refer to Tina as “undead” because it would be upsetting or impolite?
Possibly Tina’s body is (to quote Hunter) “alive-ish”. It might be biologically alive, but require the demons to be frequently in charge of managing things that in a truly-living person would be handled automatically by the autonomic nervous system. In effect it’s on demonic life support, and can only sustain itself for a limited amount of time without their active involvement.
I just thought the hind brain (The Medulla Oblongata et al) was functioning keeping Tina’s body working while the demons ran the functions usually controlled by the front brain(Neo Cortex). That’s how I always visualized it. Tina 1.0 isn’t in charge of things… she’s gone. The demons have replaced ‘her’ as the motive force and the current ‘her’ is the demon collective. They better watch out or they’ll wind up like ‘The Companion’ all smashed together into one.
This came up during the discussion of the spider incident. The Occam’s razor hypothesis, that the demons simply took over a semi-dead body after the soul departed, seems to be conclusively disproved. (Tina 1.0 was probably a nice girl, but she’s passed on now.) Just how much home renovation was done for Tina 2.0 is indeterminate; the answers might not even make sense to those of us who are human souls.
hmm, yeah they may well have mummified the externals of her body, for more durability.. made some sort of electrodynamic power system to make her skull a bit warmer and ‘homely’.. thus the spider incineration when it is switched on!!
there are many demons within – the physical ones, that need entry via mouth, and the more ghostly ones that find no problem just slipping in… 🙂
To be fair, though, the SOL was a framing device for snarky voiceovers and parody sketches. So the “science facts” lyrics were a self-aware tease at fans who inevitably overdo analysis.
Wapsi is actually exploring the issues of self-image and body consciousness, especially here. The plot compels our sympathy with Tina, and so we ask questions to help us understand, and vicariously try to solve, Tina’s problems.
Her problems are pretty unique, so figuring out the parameters is half the fun.
It’s a Geek sport. While waiting for the next strip to post, you whittle away at the details, examine them, postulate their meaning/context … then heatedly debate them with someone else.
All in good fun, for mental exercise … and for Paul, cheap labor because I wonder how many script ideas he’s farmed from reading the debates. ::snicker::
Huh??! in the book the entire Psychlo race was basically sentient fungus, in the movie they were in it or about 30 seconds and didn’t do anything notable, so what has that got to do with this page?
Paul mentioned over at Facebook that if he revealed everything that was going on in his mind about Tina, we’d all be creeped out. I say “Lay it on me.”
Yes, I agree. Tina is a nice woman (or whatever); she deserves to find some nice understanding man (or whatever) who will share her life and not freak out over the occasional tentacle, spider, or demonic cloud.
Every relationship involves adjusting to the other person’s needs, right? Tina should explain her physical quirks up front, if only to avoid the kind of scene Shelly went through, but this isn’t anything a healthy couple can’t deal with. Her only real problem is the small number of eligible males in the Wapsi Square neighborhood.
I have to say that I agree. I find Tina to be a very interesting, special, sweet and unique person, one whom I would love to get to know if she were real.
The student of people in me would find her personality(ies) to be endlessly fascinating, and the biologist in me would incredibly curious to figure out how she “lives” and functions (not being dirty, here).
As far as waking up next to her; I would absolutely NOT date her *because* of the tentacles and skulls – but would gladly try dating her *in spite* of them. And like Wyvern said, “this isn’t anything a healthy couple can’t deal with.”
Imagine the conversations you could have! And she’s cute as a bug’s ear, to boot. And, her eyes look like Christmas ornaments hanging in knotholes – how cool is that? =-]
What you say is a part of one of the things I find most enjoyable about Wapsi Square: the characters are interesting, complex, emotionally-realistic, sympathetic people, even when they aren’t human (or were but are no longer).
Meh. Any girl is going to bound to do something unattractive when alone. How good do ‘supermodels’ look when they’re sick and get red runny nose and bloodshot eyes like any one else?
As for ‘Rule 34’, I count five major fetishes being covered in today’s strip alone. It’s not so much a matter of *if* she could find someone, but *how* do you write a personals ad that all the demons can agree on.
Ooooohkay. I just accidentally highlighted the comic and instead of doing the normal blue highlight it was red. For whats goin on in the picture, that is scary.
Mine’s doing the same thing. I think the issue is on hanneal’s side. Something to do with either the browser or the OS. Probably nothing actually wrong, just outdated software.
Then again, I’m studying chemical engineering not computers.
I dunno, but I envy the one who goes for that spot. Kinda liked Tina from the beginning, but the pic of her standing under the misteltoe just broke my heart. Brace yourself for the zaniness, but the rest would definitely be worth it, I think.
The last time I recall the question coming up in the strip was when Shelly asked Tina if she had ever had sex (as Tina 2.0). My somewhat hazy recollection is that Tina said “no” and expressed reluctance… the idea was somewhat uncomfortable for the Collective, I think, on the grounds that it wasn’t really their body to have sex with.
I may be misremembering… but if it’s a situation which creeps out a pack of demons, it may best be left alone (at least for now).
I think she’s scared to get into a relationship, or otherwise nervous. She’s got things to be nervous about – but so do we all. The poor girl is both lonely and uncomfortable with getting too close to people.
It would be nice to see some fellow start chatting up the cute barista, though. This happens at Coffee of Doom, why not Mucho Mocha? For obvious reasons Tina wouldn’t go out with just anyone…but it might do her good to be asked.
Rule 43. It exists.
‘The more Beautiful and Pure a thing is – the more satisfying it is to corrupt it.’?
Are you sure you don’t mean rule 34?
From Urban Dictionary:
“You can find anything on the Internet if you are willing to look for it long enough.”
Which also explains Rule34!
i’d hit that! jk, in all seriousness waking up to that would quite possibly scare me into celibacy.
I’ve woken up next to worse!
Oh, that explains it. you’re apparently using some list from a site called Zoklet (I know you’re specifically using urban dictionary, but Zoklet is the earliest refference to that rule I found), from early 2009.
I’m referencing the one from 4chan, from around 2006.
If it doesn’t exist now, it will eventually. (Rule 35)
Rule 34 – If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.
Rule 43 – It exists
… or rather, if there’s something that couldn’t possibly have porn of it, it probably exists as well, however it therefore must conform to rule 34. In other words, things don’t fail to exist because there can’t be porn of it, because there would be anyway.
… so no, God cannot make a boulder he couldn’t lift. However I wouldn’t rub it in.
alt.binary.wtf?
this +1
my face = your avatar!! 😀 😀
his wife must have helped with that one…. 🙂 😛
Given the nature of today’s page, I thought that particular avie was appropriate.
Well, according to rulesoftheinternet.com that would be Rule #51.
well most are shlock fans here… 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlock_Mercenary#The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_Pirates
um, and note that those change more than wiki does! – more comic research for you 🙂 🙂
Please tell me I’m not the only person who is rather creeped out by this?
I’d call it mildly unsettling.
Don’t sweat it; it’s just Tina showing TENTACLE loving care… ;-P
>HURKCOUGHGAGetc…<
Are you channeling Selenium today, Joe?
Reminds me a bit of a puma at the zoo around here, who had a similar reaction after the zoo overdid the “native natural diet” idea and fed him nothing but locally-trapped jackrabbits for a month. Worst hareball problem you ever did see.
Pun jar for that Punjab, my good man.
(*clink*)
(makes note to go on authorized 5-minute vault-raiding expedition, or at least pick up a few credit vouchers)
{{raises hand}}
That’s the idea, I suspect.
Well, I’d hate to think that the effect is entirely accidental…
Are those tears in the final frame? If so, just who is crying?
hm, could be sweat from the body struggling to get them in??? :O :O
When you’ve got a soulless body controlled by a demonic collective, you’ve got to expect things like this. Sort of like anticipating that, occasionally, spiders will be incinerated…
At least nobody started singing this time.
But I think the big tentacle is new. Poor Tina; they have a body image problem.
Committee? Table for one!
O_o eep…
Grumpy tentacle is grumpy..
*sees japanese girl running off, scraming “tentaaaaclessss”*
I think we’ve ALL seen enough hentai to know where this is going…
Yuki’s almost over it…
That’s one thing you absolutely want to be 100% sure about unless you enjoy pain… 🙂
:: Thinks “Yuck-i” is a pretty good name for ANYBODY who’s had a close encounter with a tentacle! ::
that would be a good scene…
Tina!!! *Please* dont use a tentacle to pass me my coffee…
<:( Urgh!!
s/pass me/stir/;
now THAT would make me >HURKCOUGHGAGetc…<
(c) joe 🙂
Okayyy.
Creepy
Creepy Indeed. Yet, somehow disturbingly EROTIC!
Always knew Galifreyans were … strange.
Ya think????
“DON’T MATTER when it’s Arcturian, baby!”
Poor Tina. Not even awake yet and she’s already crying…
i was initially creeped a little, but then i thought it was kinda cool to see Tinas morning.
I was initially creeped a little, but on reflection, I find that I am seriously creeped a lot.
Lol…Like!
Yes, it’s cool to see Tina in the morning. A little creepy? Sure. Now, the spider morning, that was really creepy…
This is, in fact, the third Tina’s Morning we’ve seen, including the one where the demon sang about spaghetti.
And also an evening…
You just had to bring that back didn’t you? Oh well, I wasn’t sleepy anyway.
This is a good reminder that Tina is not who she appears to be. Which is a shame.
The *who* isn’t so bad. That she’s not *what* she appears to be, that’s creepy.
It’s worth keeping in mind: How much of the rest of us is really our selves, rather than a loose coalition of our personal demons and angels (using those terms extremely loosely)?
I’ve sometimes caught the trained ape I’m riding around in doing things on its own. I may make nice rationalizations afterward, but the behavior exists before the reason.
Tina’s just got a more active and concrete set of selves than most of us, and is missing the one who normally keeps the others hidden.
First thought: “DOTT.”
Second thought: “She’s in need of an anthelmintic therapy.”
Third thought: mononoke tako sushi.
Tentacles. Demons. Group sex. Yeah…being with her would cover SO many fetishes, I think it is easier to make a whole new category.
Huh.
Interesting line, Panel 3: “You’re going to give her stretch marks…”
Lots of people refer to their boats or planes as ‘her.’ Why should a body-vehicle be any different? 😉
Especially when the body in question is so obviously female.
It’s the third-person aspect of it that i find interesting. As if, perhaps, Tina 1.0 still might exist somewhere.
Man, that’s the worst morning-after-the-anchovy-pizza breath I’ve ever seen….
Nudge is no longer in the body, so the collective doesn’t have to deal with anchovies. (They don’t like them…)
Finally! Started reading this about Thursday and finally caught up. Woo!
Now I need to go sleep for 4 and a half hours and make a two hour drive to get back to campus in time for class. Yay.
On an unrelated note: how come none of Tina’s demons are even remotely humanoid? Everyone else’s that we’ve seen have been. :/
The better question is, why is this one able to physically manifest itself (rather than just appear to others) and directly interact with the rest of the world?
Or if Tina’s internals have ‘unique’ alterations made during or since reincarnation, just how terrified was that doctor when he X-rayed her arm? (>^_^)>
Perhaps because Tina doesn’t HAVE demons, Tina IS demons.
Demons might be molded by the soul of the posessed/posessor and Tina is merely a body that a group of demons inhabit.
Maybe.
If you assume that anything about demons is supposed to be logical.
Hmmm…remember back when M went down into Tina’s basement and saw the “doll” hanging in the dark corner and Tina was so freaked out about it that she broke her arm? I’m thinking that “Tina’s” body is merely a “skin” that the demons fill up (reminiscent of Men In Black and the big bug guy filling up the farmer guy’s skin bag) and that maybe the “doll” was actually a spare or a left over from a previous incident where a person had accidentally died at the hands of these demons and that was why Tina was so afraid to have M see it. I’m beginning to get a bit of a sinister feeling about “Tina’s” demons, despite the sunshiny spin they put on…
and I’m not so sure those are tears…just a gut feeling.
(oops inadvertent pun usage, I’ll have to check the couch of confusion for some change for the pun jar!)
Nebulous: well surely she has ‘some’ vaguely human demons there, or at least a ‘fan of human behaviour’ demon?? eg..
wapsisquare.com/comic/something-in-myself/
Because the demons are not a host to a living body that projects their shape/forms. They are free to choose their own forms as needed pr wanted.
I don’t think they are that physical.. only ‘those who know’ can see past the perception filter, that provides all the *expect* to see, including xrays !!
My pet theory of personal demons is that their appearance are reflections of their current host. With Tina 1.0 vacating her body, her demons reverted to their (un)natural forms.
Ah. A newcomer. Welcome. We’re glad to have you here.
Thanks. 🙂
Congrats and welcome to the club! 🙂
According to my calculations, with about 2370 strips, that may come out at net 15-20 hours of pure wapsi reading, depending on how much you dwell on a strip (and not counting loading times and loofing in nthe comments section. Just reading the comics :-))
Good for you 🙂
Good for you, pal 🙂
What can I say? I’m one of those people who can’t stop reading something once they get hooked. It was interesting to see how the art and story evolved over the years, condensed into a single weekend.
maybe u can help us figure out what’s going on sometimes.
especially with the voting – looks like someone’s been hacking the system (again)
It resets with the first of each month, so whoever piles on the fastest get to be Number One that day.
So — vote early, vote often!
That’s great and bad at the same time. Yeah! You’re caught up. Boo! You have to get your Wapsi in small daily doses now….so bittersweet.
I’m used to it. Did the same thing with Gunnerkrigg Court and Girl Genius.
I find it humorous that the comment thread started by the new guy (me) seems to be the longest one on here.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.
right…easy for you to say… 😉
Cthulhuists do it tendrily…
(okay okay still digging for more change!) *plink*plink*PLink*
Forget the change, just throw in the couch.
Gesundheit.
*hands Sonicthunder a handkerchief*
Now for your daily WTF.
So weirded out by this I can’t even think.
So what happened to the wake up call being one them singing on top of spaghetti?
That’s when the alarm goes off.
And when the others want to stay in bed.
For that matter, what happened to the bed?
Giving oral?
Your doing it wrong!
Whoever woke up next to that would be a stand-up kind of person, and probably would be feeling suckered as well.
..unless s/he is a Cthulhuist, then the would say..
R’lyeh sake, get it together, maaan… everybody stop!!!
now single file, one at a time.. when you get there, hold it open for faster access, slowly now…
Gives “putting yourself together in the morning” a whole new meaning.
Dating Tina would be like living in a John Carpenter directed Horror/suspense/dramedy.
Hey guys, how could it live if it was only full of gas?
(or perhaps even more appropriately…)
Good for you! You’ve decided to clean the elevator.
Nah.
“You are now leaving the after airlock…”
or, perhaps,
“How do you KNOW you exist?”
my fave!! 🙂
.. In the beginning, there was ‘the bomb’ ..
and the bomb said, let there be light!!!
Oooh! Tentacles! I know a guy who’s really into that sort of thing.
How many are in there, anyway??
By which, I do mean “how many demons, not “how many tentacles.”
There were at least five, hanging out while waiting for pizza to arrive one evening.
I don’t see any tentacles on any of them there, so the minimum may be six.
Six by my count.
Thank you! I was looking for that one, and the empty house episode.
That’s assuming that they are discreet entities that don’t merge and separate in a churn like would happen to your own personal demons.
I’d say they’re reasonably discreet… they were cautious about revealing themselves even to Monica, way back when, and the non-paranormally-aware citizens of Minneapolis haven’t a clue that they’re present.
They also seem to be discrete 🙂
I think I count seven in that scene as a whole.
Blackwing may not be represented among these, so that makes eight. Grumpy the Tentacle makes nine.
I think they began distinct, like Jin and Monica’s, but their destiny may be to merge like Shelly’s. Or maybe they’ll just struggle to the end.
yeah, i count 7 as well… starting at the top (12 o’clock) there is: The Deer, then at 1 o’clock is The Rose,then at 3 is The Skull, at 8 is The Manatee, at way up in the upper left at about 10:30 -11:00 is The Shadow… then we have the Grumpy Tentacle that’s apparently not shown, so we have a minimum of 8 Demons inside Tina, though i’m not sure where you get the “blackwing” demon from? is that the one where she’s spreading out black wings at the coffee shop? if so that *could be* any one of them, so i’d hesitate to call that one out as a brand new demon as of yet.
I’m guessing Blackwing is either one of the more frequent solo voices that pipe up, or symbolic of Tina 2.0’s developing unity. (ie, “We are all
EstwaldBlackwing!”)But at this point, I get the feeling Blackwing is who makes those beautiful silver eyes look out from those otherwise empty knotholes.
I’m quite disturbed about this one and that I must find out.
Reading all this discussion is fine and all, but since noone else has asked, I will …
Forget the tentacle, how the demons should appear, etc etc …
Why did the tentacle crawl out in the first place, to open the window, when they have control of the body and could just have used the ARM, like they normally do? 😀
I assume it’s just the normal “oh crap I’m late gotta go oh no what am I gonna do” type of panicked rush we do when we realize we’ve overslept. hehehe
you know how you lose a bit of coordination when you’re in a hurry, but have to do a delicate task that requires concentration, which ends up taking longer than you normally do because you keep messing it up because you’re trying to go faster, but keep dropping things, or missing the key-hole with your keys, etc…
I think it’s more of an “i don’t want to deal with a committee just to move my arm” kind of thing. that particular demon was already outside, was able to do it, and just said to itself, “Phooey!, I’LL do it!” just to get it done faster than it would have taken to get everybody inside to do the same thing as a group, at a time when some of the other individual demons are already impatient for the missed alarm clock, and wouldn’t cooperate well enough to get it done in a timely manner and still get to work on time.
well, we already know that Doubt can do nose-flicks… so they CAN interact with the physical world… though I am curious as to what demon that one is supposed to represent.
Assuming that Tia’s not-quite-alive body reacts to caffeine the way living bodies do… she has’t had any yet this morning. Same issue for a morning stretch. Her engines are all cold… Scotty hasn’t had time to get the antimatter wared up properly.
When my body is in that state, first thing in the morning, it ain’t good for much… I tend to be clumsy, stumble into things, etc.
It may be that going directly for the blinds with a tentacle is both quicker and more precise than waiting for the body to come out of “suspend” mode and finish booting.
I think it is more like: sleeping in your clothes does not give you a good nights sleep!
– and you have this lovely cafe, where you meet nice ‘humans’ and chat 🙂
– problem is, if you are ‘naked’ you will either scare them away/ get locked up/ not even be seeen….
… so you have to pile into your ‘clown car’ :p get the engine warmed up, make sure the steering is working, you can see through the window, etc, complicated by the committee all doing different things!! 🙂
Or maybe this particular demon didn’t have permission to control the arm just now, so it just reached out of a handy opening in the skin, and . . .
Rule of Funny. It doesn’t have to make sense if it’s funny enough. (TvTropes has enhanced my vocabulary. :P)
It seems we are assuming that this is completely cannon. If it is, then it is possible that the demons are becoming more and more metamorphic and physical as they change due to their unique state (as far as we know Tina is the only one of their kind) so their is no parallel to use as a point of reference.
Sadly, the tentacles didn’t faze me due to overexposure to hentai. (I blame my brother for always making me find him some.) The thing that does catch my attention are what looks like tears in the last panel. More importantly, if they are in fact tears, what’s the source? It’s been stated directly and vaguely that Tina 1.0 is gone, so what’s crying exactly? And if they’re not tears, what are they and do they have any significance at all? *ponders*
See my earlier comment about the line “…you’ll give HER stretch marks…”
But that could merely be referring to the gender of the body, not the soul. While the demons do animate the body, I would guess it is still vulnerable to some of the usual idiosyncrasies of any other body with a human soul in it; hence the worry over stretch marks.
It also has the body’s ‘maintenance system’ – frenzied activity makes it hot, so it sweats to cool it down.. the top right panel has what looks like beads of sweat on the leg..
*! ………… okay, that’s just wrong on so many levels…
Couldn’t they let the poor girl LIE DOWN in bed at least?
They just “Throw the breaker and Shut ‘er down” for the night.
Yeah, I’d think they’d be concerned about pressure sores developing on her feet. Not-moving-for-hours is tough on a body, no matter what position or posture it’s in.
I agree. The demons need to do better vehicle maintenance…
Please let’s not see the 3000 mile oil-change process.
Tina once had a bed and used it; why she didn’t later we don’t know. Yet…
And this one! Great use of light and shadow…and, yeah, Tina doing something creepy.
I was looking for this one for a while; it turned out to be right there between the pizza delivery scene and the morning spider. *sigh*
That was back when Nudge was around still… Nudge is apparently used to sleeping in a bed.
Well … now that I’m weird-ed out for the rest of the day …. I don’t recall seeing this before . Any one got a back reference sate ?
Haven’t seen tentacle-demon before, as best as I can remember. Many of the Collective are visible in the 2/11/2011 strip.
Note that that one where Tina is waiting for pizza seems to show a whole population – but the animal skull demon(s) from the very next day aren’t in evidence.
My guess is that the demons are highly variable in their appearance, as that’s less troublesome than assuming there’s a very large population. Half a dozen voices are enough for our favorite undead barista.
date – stupid fingers.
I extremely amused…both by the page and everyone’s reactions to it. Maybe I’m not creeped out because I never found Tina especially attractive with so many other females populating the strip. 😛
<3
Gods I love Tina!
Am I the only one that thought possibly maggots from her eyes…?
Or maybe just saliva on her face (some is around her eyes) from the tentacle thrusting its way out to fast? (one sec pervs ^.~)
Here’s my kinda gross question… even if she were to do group sex-esque things… How do they upkeep maintenance on her… like keep blood flowing, maggots from forming, innards from rotting…. Or did they just kinda make a golem out of her so its all neat, hollowed, and packaged?
I mean we see her eyes either sink in or disappear whenever the demons pop out a lot…. on rest/snooze mode.
As it seems, Tina 1.0 is not dead, merely soulless — as in the prime mover has departed. Now as Tina 2.0, her demons are the motive force behind the still living body. Nudge got her (the collective) off the slab in the morgue, so she was thought to be dead at some point. Given their disparate abilities, at least one is in charge of general upkeep, otherwise her broken arm could not have healed, nor would she have passed the medical exam when she was treated for that injury.
The Committee problem of management still remains, since Somebody forgot to set the alarm! And the eyes? How often have we heard the eyes are the window to the soul — and what is there in Tina, now staring back at us?
The jury seems to still be out on this issue to some extent. I agree, a lot of things are more consistent if Tina’s body is still biologically alive in most respects (and upkeep would be easier for the demons in that case).
On the other hand, I recall that Tina herself referred to her body as “not quite alive”. Didn’t Monica caution Kevin not to refer to Tina as “undead” because it would be upsetting or impolite?
Possibly Tina’s body is (to quote Hunter) “alive-ish”. It might be biologically alive, but require the demons to be frequently in charge of managing things that in a truly-living person would be handled automatically by the autonomic nervous system. In effect it’s on demonic life support, and can only sustain itself for a limited amount of time without their active involvement.
Rather like the late (but not VERY late) Wendell Poons…
I just thought the hind brain (The Medulla Oblongata et al) was functioning keeping Tina’s body working while the demons ran the functions usually controlled by the front brain(Neo Cortex). That’s how I always visualized it. Tina 1.0 isn’t in charge of things… she’s gone. The demons have replaced ‘her’ as the motive force and the current ‘her’ is the demon collective. They better watch out or they’ll wind up like ‘The Companion’ all smashed together into one.
This came up during the discussion of the spider incident. The Occam’s razor hypothesis, that the demons simply took over a semi-dead body after the soul departed, seems to be conclusively disproved. (Tina 1.0 was probably a nice girl, but she’s passed on now.) Just how much home renovation was done for Tina 2.0 is indeterminate; the answers might not even make sense to those of us who are human souls.
hmm, yeah they may well have mummified the externals of her body, for more durability.. made some sort of electrodynamic power system to make her skull a bit warmer and ‘homely’.. thus the spider incineration when it is switched on!!
there are many demons within – the physical ones, that need entry via mouth, and the more ghostly ones that find no problem just slipping in… 🙂
I think some folks are waaaay overthinking this thing. Relax! Enjoy!
They do seem rather preoccupied with how Tina eats and breathes, and other science facts.
To be fair, though, the SOL was a framing device for snarky voiceovers and parody sketches. So the “science facts” lyrics were a self-aware tease at fans who inevitably overdo analysis.
Wapsi is actually exploring the issues of self-image and body consciousness, especially here. The plot compels our sympathy with Tina, and so we ask questions to help us understand, and vicariously try to solve, Tina’s problems.
Her problems are pretty unique, so figuring out the parameters is half the fun.
Very true, but I’m of the mind that it’s better to let the story reveal what it chooses to reveal at its own pace.
If doing that lets me make references willy-nilly, I’ll do it to it.
It’s a Geek sport. While waiting for the next strip to post, you whittle away at the details, examine them, postulate their meaning/context … then heatedly debate them with someone else.
All in good fun, for mental exercise … and for Paul, cheap labor because I wonder how many script ideas he’s farmed from reading the debates. ::snicker::
Smart man, if he does.
Hmm.. So no one paid to close attention to the female aliens in Battlefield Earth???
Huh??! in the book the entire Psychlo race was basically sentient fungus, in the movie they were in it or about 30 seconds and didn’t do anything notable, so what has that got to do with this page?
I guess you would have had to watch the whole thing.
How about where Sil from species drives her tongue through the diabetic’s skull?
Paul mentioned over at Facebook that if he revealed everything that was going on in his mind about Tina, we’d all be creeped out. I say “Lay it on me.”
Hear hear! Totally seconding this. And now looking for his facebook. :3
Every time Tina does something wierd I love her more.
Oh, and just to answer one of the Demons:
I wouldn’t mind waking up next to this.
Yes, I agree. Tina is a nice woman (or whatever); she deserves to find some nice understanding man (or whatever) who will share her life and not freak out over the occasional tentacle, spider, or demonic cloud.
Every relationship involves adjusting to the other person’s needs, right? Tina should explain her physical quirks up front, if only to avoid the kind of scene Shelly went through, but this isn’t anything a healthy couple can’t deal with. Her only real problem is the small number of eligible males in the Wapsi Square neighborhood.
I have to say that I agree. I find Tina to be a very interesting, special, sweet and unique person, one whom I would love to get to know if she were real.
The student of people in me would find her personality(ies) to be endlessly fascinating, and the biologist in me would incredibly curious to figure out how she “lives” and functions (not being dirty, here).
As far as waking up next to her; I would absolutely NOT date her *because* of the tentacles and skulls – but would gladly try dating her *in spite* of them. And like Wyvern said, “this isn’t anything a healthy couple can’t deal with.”
Imagine the conversations you could have! And she’s cute as a bug’s ear, to boot. And, her eyes look like Christmas ornaments hanging in knotholes – how cool is that? =-]
SILVER Xmas ornaments to boot!..
What you say is a part of one of the things I find most enjoyable about Wapsi Square: the characters are interesting, complex, emotionally-realistic, sympathetic people, even when they aren’t human (or were but are no longer).
Meh. Any girl is going to bound to do something unattractive when alone. How good do ‘supermodels’ look when they’re sick and get red runny nose and bloodshot eyes like any one else?
As for ‘Rule 34’, I count five major fetishes being covered in today’s strip alone. It’s not so much a matter of *if* she could find someone, but *how* do you write a personals ad that all the demons can agree on.
She’d be an ideal swinger-type relationship candidate since there’s a different demon everytime! ^.^
Ooooohkay. I just accidentally highlighted the comic and instead of doing the normal blue highlight it was red. For whats goin on in the picture, that is scary.
I just highlighted the graphic and it’s the normal blue.
Maybe you’re the scary one.
That’s weird then… and I woulda guessed me being just crazy than scary. I’ll take what I can get though.
Man even highlighting the text is reddish pink.. the heck is up with my computer.
Mine’s doing the same thing. I think the issue is on hanneal’s side. Something to do with either the browser or the OS. Probably nothing actually wrong, just outdated software.
Then again, I’m studying chemical engineering not computers.
and this is why I don’t eat seafood.
Ummm – if anyone’s mentioned this, i don’t see it – are the Collective looking for a boyfriend?
I dunno, but I envy the one who goes for that spot. Kinda liked Tina from the beginning, but the pic of her standing under the misteltoe just broke my heart. Brace yourself for the zaniness, but the rest would definitely be worth it, I think.
The last time I recall the question coming up in the strip was when Shelly asked Tina if she had ever had sex (as Tina 2.0). My somewhat hazy recollection is that Tina said “no” and expressed reluctance… the idea was somewhat uncomfortable for the Collective, I think, on the grounds that it wasn’t really their body to have sex with.
I may be misremembering… but if it’s a situation which creeps out a pack of demons, it may best be left alone (at least for now).
I think she’s scared to get into a relationship, or otherwise nervous. She’s got things to be nervous about – but so do we all. The poor girl is both lonely and uncomfortable with getting too close to people.
It would be nice to see some fellow start chatting up the cute barista, though. This happens at Coffee of Doom, why not Mucho Mocha? For obvious reasons Tina wouldn’t go out with just anyone…but it might do her good to be asked.
Tina, let me introduce you to my friend; P.Q. Lear
Oh, I’m certain their ARE websites and interest groups for necrophiliacs… I’m just not going to look for them!