Something Wrong 2014-12-08

[DilyV]

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/something-wrong-2/


Shelly is on to something!!! I was saying that Tina shouldn't be able to get sick last week...

[oldmanmickey]

you may be onto something. its a valid question whether she is even alive or more like a vampire.

[Yamara]

And a titan/sphinx shouldn't ever get the flu either...

I call zombie apocalypse!

[AnotherFairportfan]

Becky Does Not Know.

[DilyV]

Not to mention we've seen Monica sick too... Of course, she was in a state of flux back then too... Evolving as it were...

and Jin...

[Dave]

Not to mention we've seen Monica sick too... Of course, she was in a state of flux back then too...

Monica had dysentery??! I thought she'd just been force-fed too much of Tepoz's turkey dinner...

[Opus the Poet]

I told you guys that there was something different about Tina's eyes...

[MerchManDan]

Becky Does Not Know.

And Shelly doesn't know that Becky doesn't know. I wonder how long this Abbott/Costello routine will go on before one or both of them go crazy.

[GlytchMeister]

*I apologize in advance for the following tldr festival.

I told you guys that there was something different about Tina's eyes...

Yeah. During the sequence detailing her sleep/awakening routine, her eyes are just empty, black sockets before she intentionally fills them in.
(Odd possible memory? I think a spider once crawled in and was incinerated. I can't do an archive trawl to confirm this, I've got finals coming up.)
Here, they are... Inverted? Y'know, white pupils/irises and black scleræ. I think that's a new thing.
...
Also, I've noticed a few people seemed surprised Tina could get sick besides Shelly. What I don't get is why this seems so weird. Tina's body, as I understand it, never fully died, from a clinical standpoint.
After a quick google session, it seems like Tina's brain stem didn't completely die, and perhaps other bits of her brain survived too. I'm guessing they just sort of... Stalled out for a bit, which caused the mortician to think she was completely dead. I sorta thought the demons are puppeteering the body functions that are consciously controlled while the brain stem keeps doing its autopilot job of making the heart beat, etc.
I haven't been able to decide if the demons are doing this puppeteering by behaving as a new OS installed into the computer that is the brain, or if they are skipping the brain and zapping the peripheral nervous system to control the body, or if they are controlling all the bits of the body directly, skipping all that nerve nonsense completely.
The "New OS" theory sounds good because I like the idea of the Demons replacing the human Soul like Ubuntu can replace Windows, but that means Tina couldn't have been quasi-dead for mor than a few short moments. Which doesn't fit with the timeline of her being dead long enough to make it to the morgue and being motivated by Nudge. After that much dead-time, the brain stem would have died, along with the rest of the brain and early decomposition would have even begun to take place.
Again, sorry for the loquaciousness.

[Sphinx-Napped]

oh becky doesn't know that tina covey of demons, but wait she was reborn so i wonder if she not all 3 demons now?

then what is she now hmm interesting i get the feeling that a simple flu is not whats tina has maybe demon flu?

[Dave]

.After a quick google session, it seems like Tina's brain stem didn't completely die, and perhaps other bits of her brain survived too. I'm guessing they just sort of... Stalled out for a bit, which caused the mortician to think she was completely dead. I sorta thought the demons are puppeteering the body functions that are consciously controlled while the brain stem keeps doing its autopilot job of making the heart beat, etc.
I haven't been able to decide if the demons are doing this puppeteering by behaving as a new OS installed into the computer that is the brain, or if they are skipping the brain and zapping the peripheral nervous system to control the body, or if they are controlling all the bits of the body directly, skipping all that nerve nonsense completely.
The "New OS" theory sounds good because I like the idea of the Demons replacing the human Soul like Ubuntu can replace Windows, but that means Tina couldn't have been quasi-dead for mor than a few short moments. Which doesn't fit with the timeline of her being dead long enough to make it to the morgue and being motivated by Nudge.

Life imitates art!

Apparently the lady in question was "clinically dead" enough to fool a doctor, and remained so for hours, and yet did not suffer brain death. Not only her brain stem, but her whole cortex (and personality) seem to have survived the shutdown.

I tend to agree with your analysis that Tina's brainstem and autonomic nervous system are still alive. Otherwise the body would collapse and truly die, whenever the demons temporarily vacated it.

Dunno about the higher brain areas (e.g cortex); I'm not sure we've been given enough information to know.

It may be significant that Tina does not see images in light, as humans do... the demons don't seem to have access to images through Tina's optic nerves, if these still exist at all. Her visual centers may have whithered for lack of use, if they survived the accident and resurrection at all.

[TOMIB]

See, this is what happens when you start thinking that radiation is "light". Things start to fall apart!

[illiad]

*I apologize in advance for the following tldr festival.

nah, I think Dave is worse... BTW I linked the spider thing in yesterday..

I told you guys that there was something different about Tina's eyes...

uh hummmm!

See, this is what happens when you start thinking that radiation is "light". Things start to fall apart!

The thing is *humans* can only see a very limited spectrum of 'radiation' - from about 300 to 700 nM - Could demons actually see in a different way,
a bit like you saying "I can SEE nuclear radiation! " (gamma rays 10 pM = 0.001 nM)

[scantrontb]

i can't understand why everyone is surprised that Tina has a cold... she STILL has a HUMAN BODY!... she's not a sphinx/human, she's not a titan/human, she's not an elemental, or Siren, or anything but a pure-strain-human... yes, she's being puppeteered by Tina's personal Demons, but that doesn't "change" her BODY... her body is getting sick, so what... heck the demons themselves even pointed out that she was getting a bit chubby (we can haz Badonkadonk?) for a 36 year old body... this shouldn't be anything new.

as for Tina's eyes changing, yep that has previously been noted that they are no longer the silvery swirly ones, but are looking decidedly HUMAN. i would go so far as to guess that sooner or later, her Demons will no longer be able to LEAVE her body, and that they will (Maybe) merge into one being, no longer separate entities on the inside... remembering what Phix said to her about her being close to someone else like her, most think she was talking about Connie and her becoming one entity, possibly the same thing is going on here, but at a slower pace than what happened with Shelly/Connie.

[illiad]

um the point is what part is affected by flu?? she hasn't had dreams or seen 'light' before, and most of her 'brain' is not there, it's only one of the demons who knows how to work the cash register!!
another has control of her stomach, most likely the pizza lover making an excuse...
and we have yet to hear Tina saying anything about what awful human things she is feeling!! (too sick to realise it yet??? when I was that bad, I couldn't bother to watch TV, or even think about it!!! )

[GlytchMeister]

It may be significant that Tina does not see images in light, as humans do... the demons don't seem to have access to images through Tina's optic nerves, if these still exist at all. Her visual centers may have whithered for lack of use, if they survived the accident and resurrection at all.

I wouldn't be suprised if certain bits of the brain died from Tina's time...being...dead. (Yeah, I know.) I don't think I've heard of whole brain cortecies withering away due to lack of use. I've heard of brain plasticity, which allows the brain to repurpose structures to cope with injury. That's how people who have half their brains cut out can get back to (kinda-sorta) normal. So I guess... Maybe lack of use could cause the vision-related bits of the brain to be repurposed for other tasks. (?)

i can't understand why everyone is surprised that Tina has a cold...

That was originally supposed to be the main thing I was going to discuss in my first post. It... Kinda got away from me.
Anyway... Since her body (may have) never completely died, it's completely understandable for it to be a viable host for diseases. At it's... Um... "Deadest"... It's really just a brain-dead body with a bunch of demons screwing around with the muscles and such to make it move and operate. At its liveliest, it's just a body whose brain/computer had been formatted and had the Human Soul (Microsoft Tina 1.0) replaced with demons (Linux Tina 1.5). And then Bia went in and modded the crap out of Tina1.5 to create Tina2.0, which is apparently still in Beta.
Sorry, I find it easier to discuss things like souls, minds, and thoughts in terms of computers. The brain is the hardware, the soul is the OS, thoughts are programs.
Wow, I get sidetracked easily. Back to the matter at hand: any point between "brain dead puppet" and "new operating system installed" still has a functioning biological organism, and is thus a perfectly good target for infection.

[Sidhekin]

If her body is not biologically active, how does she process food? How does she heal broken bones, scratches, and bruises?

And if it is, how come people are surprised bugs bite her?

*iz puzzled*

[shadowinthelight]

If her body is not biologically active, how does she process food? How does she heal broken bones, scratches, and bruises?

And if it is, how come people are surprised bugs bite her?

*iz puzzled*

Don't forget her hair growing back after she lost that fight with the weed whacker. Tina's body is functionally alive but being brain dead would be a good explanation for her demons not being able to access the biologically encoded memories.

[zachariah]

Let's keep in mind the Wapsiverse rules are slightly different than our rules. Demon, and para, powers are not that simple to understand. Tina's body living through the accident enough so the demons could get it up and moving again is obviously possible since it happened. Whether her body truy died, or only partially died, is a moot point. It was able to be revived enough to get up and moving. It is alive as it functions as a living body as hair grows, food and drink are processed, waste disposal must occur as well. Finally we know Shelly can catch the flu, as she has. If Shelly can why can't Tina??

[jwhouk]

Tina 2.1, from what Connie said. After Nudge was "evicted forcibly" by Phix, Tina became a conglomerate of demons.

I also don't think it''s odd Tina can get sick. The flu can sometimes be worse than supernatural stuff.