Wapsi Square Forum

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

It might also have to do with how Suzie is well-fed, but Lily is nigh anorexic. I believe Suzie berated Lily on that point.

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

There have been suggestions that Suzi died in Roman times, probably during the roman invasion of Gaul.

--FreeFlier

GlytchMeister wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

It might also have to do with how Suzie is well-fed, but Lily is nigh anorexic. I believe Suzie berated Lily on that point.

I recall that this question came up before, and Paul confirmed that in the Wapsiverse younger vampires are stronger than older ones. But, you're right, Lily has apparently not been taking good care of herself, and Suzi has pushed her on this issue.

GlytchMeister wrote:There was a scene where Jet's Guidance told Jet that Vampires are guardians or law enforcement, and werewolves are usually artsy types.

You're right; I'd forgotten that. That seems to tell us two things:

• The way other Paras treat vampires is at least somewhat prejudicial. Vampires are seen as being like "shitty mosquitoes" and "low-lifes" by upper-crust paras, and yet a lot of them are doing Good Work (at least by human standards) and vampires in general are respecting the Para rule of "Don't stand out, don't make it harder for humans to ignore the existence of Paras".
• Suzi is apparently not alone, in her decision to follow a good path now that she's undead.

"As long as there's two people left on this planet, someone is gonna want someone dead."

Sadly, no matter what society is it, be it human or para, there always seems to be prejudice, hate, intolerance, and xenophobia.

We got ourselves a long uphill road.

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

So the longer you're a vampire, the weaker you get?

Since this is WS, i suppose i shouldn't be surprised it' opposite all the other vampire lore, if that's the case.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

So the longer you're a vampire, the weaker you get?

Since this is WS, i suppose i shouldn't be surprised it' opposite all the other vampire lore, if that's the case.

it actually makes sense if you think about it.

--FreeFlier

(Some) of what we know about vampires in the Wapsi world:

* They are not well thought of among apex predators like the Sphinx ("mosquitoes" was the term Phix used).
* They do tend to have a complex about what they are, in that they live in constant fear of others "higher up" on the food chain.
* They are more powerful than regular humans – by what magnitude isn't entirely certain.
* For some reason, they are considered excellent in areas of law enforcement - though not as lawyers, as might be expected...
* There's a relationship between needing blood and their well-being, perhaps along the lines of how humans need to drink water to remain hydrated – but this is speculation.
* They can be shot and stabbed, but since they do not bleed, damage is either minimal or non-existent.
* The manner of their "creation" starts with being "forgotten" by others, and dying alone. The death of Lily was due to the complete destruction of the Etheitian society; we do not know what Suzie's reasoning was.
* Suzie did say that draining the blood was something that would prevent her Jane Does from becoming "fertilizer and a vampire".
* "Out of sight, out of mind. No one should be forgotten, or made to feel that they don't matter. That's how vampires are made! I don't know who came up with that damn contagious bite crap, but let me tell you, you won't be forgotten."

jwhouk wrote: * For some reason, they are considered excellent in areas of law enforcement - though not as lawyers, as might be expected...

Well, we know that they can sense guilt or innocence, which makes sense in law enforcement, and, given what the sensing involves, i doubt that a lawyer vampire could/would ever defend a client who wasn't unequivocally not guilty nor work as a corporate attorney for any firm that had anything questionable in its operations, which would not be particuarly career-enhancing...

Dave wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:There was a scene where Jet's Guidance told Jet that Vampires are guardians or law enforcement, and werewolves are usually artsy types.

You're right; I'd forgotten that. That seems to tell us two things:

• The way other Paras treat vampires is at least somewhat prejudicial. Vampires are seen as being like "shitty mosquitoes" and "low-lifes" by upper-crust paras, and yet a lot of them are doing Good Work (at least by human standards) and vampires in general are respecting the Para rule of "Don't stand out, don't make it harder for humans to ignore the existence of Paras".
• Suzi is apparently not alone, in her decision to follow a good path now that she's undead.

Maybe most vampires go one of two ways. There are those who decide to take revenge on the world that abandoned them, get most of the press, and generally get re-killed quickly (about the same time they find out that vampires are not really the ultra-powerful supernatural beings found in human legends). Then there are those who say "shit happens, it happened to me this time, oh well now what?" and generally decide to try to make shit happen a bit less often.

Dave wrote: This is shaping up as quite a week of bootlegger mood-turns, isn't it? Paul has a lot of strings on that cello of his!

"Bootlegger mood-turn"?

You know there are a few readers under the age of 40.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

Dave wrote:

GlytchMeister wrote:I don't think being forgotten once you are already dead causes vampire genesis... If that were the case, there'd be a whole horde of vampires. They'd outnumber living humans by an order of magnitude.

I think it takes someone to die and already be alone and forgotten... Or maybe there's a time limit? Or a certain level of structural integrity the body must retain in order to rise again? I mean, Suzie drained the one Jane Doe, and that did the trick, right? Or was it her efforts to ensure she was remembered?

I think it's the conditions at the time of death... that no one cared about you, that no one gave a damn whether you lived or died, that you were treated by the world as being a disposable piece of garbage both in life and in death. It's something like "the whole world considers you to be nothing but trash" that does it. And, apparently, having even a single stranger like Suzi come along, and care enough to treat you like an individual, and learn at least something about who you are and were, is enough to break the "spell" or whatever it is.

Yeah - given Lily's description of her own death.

It sounds to me as if Suzi has something(s) in her backstory she's atoning for.

{BTW - have we ever been told how old Suzi is? And why is she so much stronger than a MUCH older vampire like Lily?}

If memory serves, isn't the final catalyst for becoming a Wapsiverse vampire being killed horrifically? That a cruel or agonizing death is the "something else " jwhouk mentioned.

jwhouk wrote: You know, it's funny but I was just thinking about this the other day. There has to be some other "thing" that happens in the transformation of the dead into a vampire, other than being forgotten.

So we have:

• Horrific manner of death,
• dying alone and forgotten, and
• blood still in the body (to be drained uncaringly by a vampire)

FreeFlier wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

There have been suggestions that Suzi died in Roman times, probably during the roman invasion of Gaul.

--FreeFlier

Ah, you read my story! Suzi describes herself as a Celt here and relates a story of the Roman invasion of Ireland here.

Gyrrakavian wrote:

Dave wrote:This is shaping up as quite a week of bootlegger mood-turns, isn't it? Paul has a lot of strings on that cello of his!

"Bootlegger mood-turn"?

You know there are a few readers under the age of 40.

Last I knew the correct term for skid-turning a car 180 degrees at speed was a bootlegger turn . . . even though most people using it didn't know where the name came from.

Atomic wrote:

FreeFlier wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

There have been suggestions that Suzi died in Roman times, probably during the roman invasion of Gaul.

Ah, you read my story! Suzi describes herself as a Celt here and relates a story of the Roman invasion of Ireland here.

Yeah, that sounds like what I remember . . . I thought it was canon.

--FreeFlier

Gyrrakavian wrote:

Dave wrote: This is shaping up as quite a week of bootlegger mood-turns, isn't it? Paul has a lot of strings on that cello of his!

"Bootlegger mood-turn"?

You know there are a few readers under the age of 40.

But of course! I like encouraging people to be curious and go do their own research and learn something about the world that they didn't already know.

Narrative hooks and obscure references are great tools for doing that. "Hunh? What does he mean? ....typetypetype..." And, often, those references are the most accurate terms I know for really saying what I mean.

People have been using the phrase "bootlegger turn" here in the Forum and in the Comments section before it for as long as I've been reading the strip. Paul has this habit, you see, of occasionally pulling the run out from under our collective feet by making sudden changes in either the plot direction or mood, or both.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

So the longer you're a vampire, the weaker you get?

Since this is WS, i suppose i shouldn't be surprised it' opposite all the other vampire lore, if that's the case.

Not necessarily younger vampires that are stronger, just not the older a vampire gets stronger as they age. Suzie was well fed at the time she told Liliy that she was stronger than her, Lily had not been taking care of herself and was near anorexic.

Wapsi wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Strength is apparently due to time since being deceased. She's a "younger" vampire - estimates currently suggest she's only been vamped for about a few centuries, as opposed to Lily's millennia.

So the longer you're a vampire, the weaker you get?

Since this is WS, i suppose i shouldn't be surprised it' opposite all the other vampire lore, if that's the case.

Not necessarily younger vampires that are stronger, just not the older a vampire gets stronger as they age. Suzie was well fed at the time she told Liliy that she was stronger than her, Lily had not been taking care of herself and was near anorexic.

So strength is mainly tied to how well-blood-fed they are?

That makes sense. Thanks, Paul.

For second, I hoped this was the return of Heather.
She just completely pulled a Chuck Cunningham and disappeared with not so much any further mentions.

Jobe00 wrote:For second, I hoped this was the return of Heather.
She just completely pulled a Chuck Cunningham and disappeared with not so much any further mentions.

No, Chuck Cunningham in this strip is Roy.