Wapsi Square Forum

Sgt. Howard wrote:

jwhouk wrote:Is that the infamous "haircut" on Kevin?

LOL... that haircut was quite popular in the 1930's in Germany...

??.... I just noticed how 'buff' Kevin is these days- he's been working out?

And it's made a resurgence in the mid 2000s. You'll stil see it here and there these days. Mostly in the costal states.

I can recall specifically being up under a car, doing some repair work, hands all greasy and everything- and a female acquaintance of mine stopped by...

She wasn't very discrete in oggeling my lower half sticking out from under the car. Even I, oblivious as I am to many things, noticed to hunger in her gaze.

This strip brings it back to mind. I wonder how she's doing...

lake_wrangler wrote:

FreeFlier wrote:Another thought: how old was Bud when she was kidnapped? I'd expect that her social development was severely delayed after that . . . /quote]I seem to recall a conversation between Bud and Brandi, wherein it was mentioned that they would always have the body of an 18 year old...
(They were about to go to the beach, Bud was complaining about her straw hair and horse legs...)

And skinny arms, IIRC.

So yeah, hormones in hyperdrive . . .

I wonder if Bud is becoming mortal?

--FreeFlier

FreeFlier wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:

FreeFlier wrote:Another thought: how old was Bud when she was kidnapped? I'd expect that her social development was severely delayed after that . . . /quote]I seem to recall a conversation between Bud and Brandi, wherein it was mentioned that they would always have the body of an 18 year old...
(They were about to go to the beach, Bud was complaining about her straw hair and horse legs...)

And skinny arms, IIRC.

So yeah, hormones in hyperdrive . . .

I wonder if Bud is becoming mortal?

--FreeFlier

Let her go for coffee and see if Tina sees an aura

FreeFlier wrote:So yeah, hormones in hyperdrive . . .

I wonder if Bud is becoming mortal?

Probably not mortal in the literal sense. That would require a Vimana conversion of the same sort that was done on Jin, and she's opted against that... at least for now. For the time being, she's still the "immortal and invulnerable" sort of golem.

She is, by deliberate choice, trying to experience the humanity of a late-teen that she and Jin and Brandi were all denied "the first time around".

It's really nice to see that it's working out for her pretty well. After all she's been through over the last few thousand years, she was certainly overdue for some human-style happiness. A badly-delayed giddy-teen-hood has got to be better than none at all.

lake_wrangler wrote:

FreeFlier wrote:Another thought: how old was Bud when she was kidnapped? I'd expect that her social development was severely delayed after that . . .

--FreeFlier

I seem to recall a conversation between Bud and Brandi, wherein it was mentioned that they would always have the body of an 18 year old...
(They were about to go to the beach, Bud was complaining about her straw hair and horse legs...)

But they're also severely emotionally traumatised 18-year-old girls, though Bud and Jin actually seem to be shaking it off better than Brandi.

Actually, Bud was complaining about her hair, and Brandi was telling her she had racehorse legs and a pert little butt.

Dave wrote:

FreeFlier wrote:So yeah, hormones in hyperdrive . . .

I wonder if Bud is becoming mortal?

Probably not mortal in the literal sense. That would require a Vimana conversion of the same sort that was done on Jin, and she's opted against that... at least for now. For the time being, she's still the "immortal and invulnerable" sort of golem.

I don't know . . . IIRC Mayaguel (sp?) created the golems and is the one with the best grip on the way they function . . . who's to say that she knows everything?

Could be bleedover from Jin, since they were linked for thousands of years.

Dave wrote:She is, by deliberate choice, trying to experience the humanity of a late-teen that she and Jin and Brandi were all denied "the first time around".

It's really nice to see that it's working out for her pretty well. After all she's been through over the last few thousand years, she was certainly overdue for some human-style happiness. A badly-delayed giddy-teen-hood has got to be better than none at all.

Yes.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:

lake_wrangler wrote:

FreeFlier wrote:Another thought: how old was Bud when she was kidnapped? I'd expect that her social development was severely delayed after that . . .

I seem to recall a conversation between Bud and Brandi, wherein it was mentioned that they would always have the body of an 18 year old...
(They were about to go to the beach, Bud was complaining about her straw hair and horse legs...)

But they're also severely emotionally traumatised 18-year-old girls, though Bud and Jin actually seem to be shaking it off better than Brandi. . . .

Brandi also had a Nui-gon (spelling? - The Hate) in her head - by agreement. That's got to have had an effect.

--FreeFlier

Opus the Poet wrote:

Sgt. Howard wrote: I just noticed how 'buff' Kevin is these days- he's been working out?

It's the golem sex workout Jin was talking about. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/anaerobic-sex/

Hold that though for a min.

Let's take an old Kevin, like this one : old Kevin and compare to current Kevin. The hairdo is one thing, face's shape that's a totally different matter.

Old Kevin is thin faced, bit of a strong chin. This one, rounded with a small chin. So either Kevin had some plastic surgery for whatever reason or someone's hand is afoot (erm). I don't believe someone as professional as Paul would change someone's face that much without rhyme nor reason.

Now who or what is behind these changes, that is the question.

Maybe it's just been so long since we've seen Kevin, that Paul forgot how to draw him...

lake_wrangler wrote:Maybe it's just been so long since we've seen Kevin, that Paul forgot how to draw him...

Also, Paul's art has changed overall.

Compare to the original Bud...

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/11082004/

Originally, Paul's females had no chin- now they have fairly deep chins. Bud originally had a long face.... Paul's style has been evolving, remember when his characters had three fingers?

Re: Psychological Trauma and Recovery of the Golem Girls:

Jin had the base-level Pre-Chimera torture and Chimera-event trauma... But she also had many, many, many more years, as she was aware of the time loops, and she was also... Schizophrenic? Was that it? I'm not sure... It just seemed like her perception of reality broke down... At the worst point, everything became... Abstraction, to her. She could not perceive the three dimensions properly, as I recall... Faces became vaguely-face-reminiscent bunches of lines and shapes, almost like a cubist painting.

That mental illness, whatever it was, was fixed by the addition of a Vimana cell. She needed some extra power - her pre-existing mental illness persisted into her golem form, and it took the form of a higher power requirement, which wasn't met by the basic golem power source, whatever that may be. Her mortality was unrelated - Mayahuel simply scratched another symbol into Jin's LanthianGlyph program code, which I'm assuming behaved like a checkbox for "Emulate Human Mortality and Vulnerability."

I believe a lot of the damage of all the extra years might have been healed, or the healing was accelerated at least, by the return of Mayahuel. One of the big things Jin wanted was to see her mom again. Getting that helped a lot.

...

Brandi had the base-level pre-Chimera torture and the Chimera-Event trauma... But she also accidentally killed an infant. Knowing her personality (literally "Wouldn't hurt a fly"); that had to have been extremely traumatic too. And then there was the years of sharing a body and mentally battling with the Nu Gui, the spirit borne of the death of that infant. That can't have been all that pleasant either. And then there was the screwup at the Mapimi Storage Facility. As I recall, Brandi wasn't conscious for the entire time where Lily, Suzi, Kath, and Atsali fixed things. She woke up in the Library and the last thing she remembered was she was making brownies.

The Nu Gui was extracted, but I don't recall any particularly healing sorts events with Brandi, for either the death of the infant or the fusing of the six triplets and the deaths of the twelve other triplets and the six mothers. So she still has the basic level of horrible trauma as well as the additional crap from the infant death, the Nu Gui, and the Mapimi Storage Facility Incident.

...

Bud, so far as I know, only (for a certain definition of only) had the base-level pre-chimera torture and chimera-event trauma. She might have been freaked out by the dream with Bia, but that was more-or-less directly resultant of the chimera event trauma.

...

Now, I'm going out on a limb here...

I think having a healthy romantic relationship, of the kind they missed out on when they were mortal and young, is a major step toward healing. A... A healing action, if you will. Jin got into the relationship with Alan, and now Bud is having a similar healing relationship with Kevin.
Brandi, so far as I know, hasn't had any sort of additional healing for her additional problems, and she hasn't had a healing relationship, which appears to be a main step in healing the common trauma between all three of them - the torture and the chimera event.

She is in charge of MIB... But that might be just a similar situation to what she has always been in - she used to be the director of sciences or something and was in charge of the Mapimi Storage Facility. And I recall they were used as guardians and such in other civilizations.

It may be that she is recovering via a different vector... Or she isn't recovering at all. I don't know. I hope she is simply recovering in a different way, one that doesn't incorperate the same sort of things as Jin or Bud.

I doubt she will ever get the healing boost Jin got by getting her mom back or in getting the Vimana cell plugged in. I don't know how Brandi could get that... The infant died and is probably beyond communication with Brandi - I doubt there will be a point where that infant shows up and says "I forgive you". She might get an "I forgive you" from Lily... But that would only cover 1/6th of that particular event.

So... Yeah... It kinda looks like Brandi has a long road ahead of her.

Sgt. Howard wrote:Compare to the original Bud...

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/11082004/

Originally, Paul's females had no chin- now they have fairly deep chins. Bud originally had a long face.... Paul's style has been evolving, remember when his characters had three fingers?

Dangit! Or not. Clicked on the link and spent thirty or so minutes in the archives.

Hooray for changes in style! I for one have enjoyed and appreciated the trip, from start to present.

And now back to our irregularly scheduled reality.

Jasper sez, "Whut?"

GlytchMeister wrote: . . . The Nu Gui was extracted, but I don't recall any particularly healing sorts events with Brandi, for either the death of the infant or the fusing of the six triplets and the deaths of the twelve other triplets and the six mothers. So she still has the basic level of horrible trauma as well as the additional crap from the infant death, the Nu Gui, and the Mapimi Storage Facility Incident. . . .

It was quadruplets. . . Brandi had allowed for triplets, which really aren't that uncommon, but not for quadruplets. "Who the hell has quadruplets?!?"

Other than that, I pretty plausible analysis.

--FreeFlier