Let Yourselves Feel 2014-01-14

[GlytchMeister]

There was something our Nu Gui let slip back in late May of last year:

Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!"

EDIT: And I fully expect a cookie from Pablo for remembering that line.

Ooh, I forgot that! You get a cookie from me, at least!
*strokes chin where a beard would be, if Native American blood hadn't nipped it in the bud*
Most interesting...
*checks Wapsi chronology wiki page*
"A descendant who will set the powers right"...

Where is Bia going with this?

[Wapsi]

Pix

Phix.

As for the rest of it - Bia ticked off two sphinxes: one of them her mother-in-law, the other her own daughter.

And we all have a vested interest in her daughter.

By the way - in case you'd forgotten, Bia does have an ulterior motive. There was something our Nu Gui let slip back in late May of last year:

Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!"

EDIT: And I fully expect a cookie from Pablo for remembering that line.

You win the Phix Cookie award! =D

[Aleister Crow]

Pix

Phix.

As for the rest of it - Bia ticked off two sphinxes: one of them her mother-in-law, the other her own daughter.

And we all have a vested interest in her daughter.

By the way - in case you'd forgotten, Bia does have an ulterior motive. There was something our Nu Gui let slip back in late May of last year:

Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!"

EDIT: And I fully expect a cookie from Pablo for remembering that line.

Aw crap. Would that be the same prophecy that Tina ("one of five winged beings prophesied to be...") is part of?

Heh, what am I asking for? Of course it is...

[txmystic]

Your name is Tina Rosario Aldaco Guzmán.

You killed your host.

Prepare to live.

WIN.

I'm suspending judgement until I know more about what is going on...that said, the above revelation of the nu gui does give me the chills...on the other hand I'd love to hear the ending of the "five winged beings prophesied to..." bit!

[DilyV]

In addition to her eyes, her skin is apparently feeling the sunlight unlike before. Something could go very right or very wrong with this new world of sensation she is experiencing, like when the Borg queen tempted Data.

My Wapsi-Fu is weak today, i tried looking but couldn't find it... i'm thinking that this is just the next stage in her evolution from the strip where her kitty cat scratched her and she was contemplating on the metaphysics of just *how* she felt it, rather than just, "letting herself FEEL it" as Bia would say... so it's probably NOT that she has never felt the sunlight before, it's just that she's never *felt* it before, it was always being observed from a third-person perspective (that of the Demons), but NOW it's in the FIRST-person mode... and it's driving her bonkers with the *extra* sensations that she's never had before... kinda like Cmdr. Data did right after he got his emotion chip turned on for the first time... it's not so much that she's actually being hurt by the sunlight on her skin, it's that for someone who's NEVER FELT IT in the first place, or, has felt it, but only second-hand thru a filter (her host body's nervous system as compared to her Demon body's equivalent) then it can be extremely disconcerting to NOT be able to STOP FEELING IT!!!

I think it bears clarification that "Tina" is long dead and gone, killed by her demons in the accident that almost killed Monica had Jin not saved her. All that was left of "Tina 1.0 was her demons, who got the body up and out of the morgue (apparently, Nudge was the driving force behind this act), moving eventually to Wapsi Square and setting up a coffee shop (as "Tina 2.0). As punishment for their involvement in killing their host, her demons were sentenced to the loss of all their memories until such time as "Tina's body truly is destroyed, or until her demons are assigned other beings. So while "Tina 2.0" is up, moving around and running a coffee shop, the covey's memories are extremely limited, save for the information they gathered on her themselves. After Phix ejected Nudge from the mix, Tina 2.0 became Tina 2.1. Now, it seems that Tina's demons have evolved, as Phix had predicted, into Tina 3.0. Still and all, the real Tina has been long dead and gone... What Tina has become has been the result of her demons experiences and gained knowledge. Phix alluded to the direction she thought Tina's demons were evolving and it wasn't all that bad.

Personally I liked "Tina's" attitude when Phix came in after Tina helped Becky get her medication. It showed that even demons can evolve into something good... a fact seemingly proven when she evolved into Whitewing. I say seemingly because we have yet to see if the alignment of the demons have changed to match the wings. After all... a bad guy can put on a white hat and still be a bad guy, right? I'm eager to see how this all plays out. Tina has long been my favorite character in Wapsi Square. I'm not too fond of her new look, it takes away from the sweetness and seeming innocence Tina is known for. It belies something harder... sharper... and hopefully not decidedly more evil or uncaring as Bia is seen to be...

[NOTDilbert]

Pix

Phix.

As for the rest of it - Bia ticked off two sphinxes: one of them her mother-in-law, the other her own daughter.

And we all have a vested interest in her daughter.

By the way - in case you'd forgotten, Bia does have an ulterior motive. There was something our Nu Gui let slip back in late May of last year:

Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!"

EDIT: And I fully expect a cookie from Pablo for remembering that line.

Aw crap. Would that be the same prophecy that Tina ("one of five winged beings prophesied to be...") is part of?

Heh, what am I asking for? Of course it is...

^^That^^ Suprised it took this long for someone to mention the Prophesy Tina mentions practically in passing....

[KnightDelight]

The thing is we knew that the Nu Gui's motives were malevolent. Would that not mean her goal was equally malevolent? She was using one path to fulfill the prophecy, while Bia was using another. Logically, to me this means Bia's goal is also malevolent, at least to humans. It may not seem that to Bia, of course. She has her own standards and they don't seem to include the well being and happiness of others. Whatever this prophecy is it seems to foretell a bad thing. The prophecy also seems to have two parts, one bad, one good, again where humans are concerned at least. As noted before, Bia may have a very different view of "setting things right" than we would. It may be Tina's role as one of the five winged whatever is something counter to the bad part of the prophecy. Bia could be trying to thwart that from happening by speeding up Tina's "evolution" as a part of messing with the prophecy. Notice the wings are gone. Now may be the time for Bia to act, given white wing's recent appearance. This may indicate the five winged creatures part of things is coming to pass. Of course it may be that black wing was an integral component of the bad part and it being gone or transformed to white wing is a bad thing to Bia and must be corrected. This may have something to do with Tina's wanting to be killed before. Instead she was transformed, or whatever, to white wing.

Also, even though the Nu Gui is gone, she was a master manipulator. It could well be that some of her plans are still ongoing. Plans unknown to Bia. Can one malevolent plan cancel out another malevolent plan resulting in a net good thing? Or at least an okay thing?

I also wonder if they are in Tina's room or has Bia transported her somewhere else and is lying about the light being sunshine. The light may be something else entirely. It does seem to be much brighter than simply a sunlit room, Now we see nothing but light. No room, no nothing.

[Julie]

Yep...strapping in and just sitting back for the ride now. VERY interested in where this is going though!

[GuySmiley]

Also, even though the Nu Gui is gone, she was a master manipulator. It could well be that some of her plans are still ongoing. Plans unknown to Bia. Can one malevolent plan cancel out another malevolent plan resulting in a net good thing? Or at least an okay thing?

Doubt it. Probably more like a large amount of matter and anti-matter coming together.

I think there's still a lot we don't know about the Nu Gui's grand plan. Based on the quote "Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!" I have to assume that Katherine was the 'mortal descendant' she was talking about. (Shelly being the immortal heir) If that's the case then it makes no sense for her to later try and kill Katherine in the melt down at Mapini. She'd just be undoing her own work. I'm thinking that the whole plan was a controlled exit on the Nu Gui's part. So, not only would her plan still be ongoing, she may very well still be directly in charge. (I have my doubts about agent Pratt's credentials as an expert on the workings of stargate buffer crystals)

[kingklash]

I hope Bia learns something positive from Tina in exchange for whatever these new eyes are supposed to do.

[GlytchMeister]

Also, even though the Nu Gui is gone, she was a master manipulator. It could well be that some of her plans are still ongoing. Plans unknown to Bia. Can one malevolent plan cancel out another malevolent plan resulting in a net good thing? Or at least an okay thing?

Doubt it. Probably more like a large amount of matter and anti-matter coming together.

I think there's still a lot we don't know about the Nu Gui's grand plan. Based on the quote "Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!" I have to assume that Katherine was the 'mortal descendant' she was talking about. (Shelly being the immortal heir) If that's the case then it makes no sense for her to later try and kill Katherine in the melt down at Mapini. She'd just be undoing her own work. I'm thinking that the whole plan was a controlled exit on the Nu Gui's part. So, not only would her plan still be ongoing, she may very well still be directly in charge. (I have my doubts about agent Pratt's credentials as an expert on the workings of stargate buffer crystals)

If the Nui Gui had accurate enough information on the future, then it wouldn't be too difficult to manipulate someone in advance into stumbling upon that buffer crystal and plugging it in, thus releasing the Nui Gui.
However, Brandi (the Chess Grandmaster to the Nui Gui's Chessmaster) could have possibly still have been conscious, just repressed while her Golem body was possessed by the Nui Gui. This is supported by the wierd seizures Brandi's body occasionally during that plot arc. Brandi was fighting to regain control.
If this is true, then it is possible Brandi may have been able to either mentally eavesdrop on the Nui Gui, or possibly deduced the Nui Gui's plan from the actions the Nui Gui was taking. After the Nui Gui was contained, Brandi could have used this knowledge to defuse and negate any remnants or secondary plans the Nui Gui had set up.

This is a whole lot of conjecture based on ideas, plot devices, and concepts I've seen in other stories.

With these two characters, both of whom are mentioned in separate prophesies, talking directly to each other and Bia messing with Tina, I can't help but think of the Belgariad and the Malloreon. The prophecies in that universe were for two possible outcomes of the same events. Perhaps this is a similar concept: Tina's prophecy could be the one that "sets the powers right" in a way favorable to humans, while Bia's prophesy could be one that leads to "setting the powers right" in a way more favorable to the Titans and elder gods.
Perhaps two outcomes, or the same outcome by different means. Or the two prophesies are tricking the two sides into doing certain things that, when put together, cause a single, correct outcome.

[sheik]

Also, even though the Nu Gui is gone, she was a master manipulator. It could well be that some of her plans are still ongoing. Plans unknown to Bia. Can one malevolent plan cancel out another malevolent plan resulting in a net good thing? Or at least an okay thing?

Doubt it. Probably more like a large amount of matter and anti-matter coming together.

I think there's still a lot we don't know about the Nu Gui's grand plan. Based on the quote "Bia may have heard the prophecy, but she is directing her energy in the wrong direction! All towards an immortal heir, and not a mortal descendant!" I have to assume that Katherine was the 'mortal descendant' she was talking about. (Shelly being the immortal heir) If that's the case then it makes no sense for her to later try and kill Katherine in the melt down at Mapini. She'd just be undoing her own work. I'm thinking that the whole plan was a controlled exit on the Nu Gui's part. So, not only would her plan still be ongoing, she may very well still be directly in charge. (I have my doubts about agent Pratt's credentials as an expert on the workings of stargate buffer crystals)

If the Nui Gui had accurate enough information on the future, then it wouldn't be too difficult to manipulate someone in advance into stumbling upon that buffer crystal and plugging it in, thus releasing the Nui Gui.
However, Brandi (the Chess Grandmaster to the Nui Gui's Chessmaster) could have possibly still have been conscious, just repressed while her Golem body was possessed by the Nui Gui. This is supported by the wierd seizures Brandi's body occasionally during that plot arc. Brandi was fighting to regain control.
If this is true, then it is possible Brandi may have been able to either mentally eavesdrop on the Nui Gui, or possibly deduced the Nui Gui's plan from the actions the Nui Gui was taking. After the Nui Gui was contained, Brandi could have used this knowledge to defuse and negate any remnants or secondary plans the Nui Gui had set up.

This is a whole lot of conjecture based on ideas, plot devices, and concepts I've seen in other stories.

With these two characters, both of whom are mentioned in separate prophesies, talking directly to each other and Bia messing with Tina, I can't help but think of the Belgariad and the Malloreon. The prophecies in that universe were for two possible outcomes of the same events. Perhaps this is a similar concept: Tina's prophecy could be the one that "sets the powers right" in a way favorable to humans, while Bia's prophesy could be one that leads to "setting the powers right" in a way more favorable to the Titans and elder gods.
Perhaps two outcomes, or the same outcome by different means. Or the two prophesies are tricking the two sides into doing certain things that, when put together, cause a single, correct outcome.

And so who is the real manipulator?
The one who made up the self-fulfilling prophesies of course!

[GlytchMeister]

Darn prophets... Seeing into the future just muddles it up and confuses the heck out of the cleverest of us.
...
You lot should just keep quiet and make money on the stock market.

[Mark N]

Something that has been missed here about Tina. Tina 1.0's soul was not lost to the ether but was attached to form Shelly's companion (also called her sister), That would mean that Tina (1.0-3.0) is also in a way Shelly's sister and therefore Bia's child. Her MORTAL DESCENDANT. (I know I'm going on a big limb here but here I am anyway). The prophesy of setting the powers right may have nothing to do with Titans and Elder Gods but everything to do with all life on Earth human and Paranormal alike. It is the stopping of the developing races from continually destroying most life on the planet as they did At Lanthis.

[Catawampus]

Tina's (referring to the demons) connection to her body was confusing even to Tina. She could obviously feel through it in some way, such as when she broke her arm or fell on the ice. She couldn't just turn off her senses. Who knows how she saw things; she could read books and see colours and all that sort of thing, but she saw without using eyes. She went through her whole getting ready to go to work while her eye-sockets were totally empty. Presumably, the demons somehow individually "saw" the world around her from within her body, and they saw more--or at least some different things--than we do.

Now they get to have fun trying to see through human-like eyes.

Truth be told, the Olympians were also not exactly the epitomes of benevolence, but have been friendlier to humans than the Titans.

Depends on the Titan in question. Bia's mother, Styx, was one of the first to help overthrow the Titan order, and Prometheus made humankind and then gave them fire. Then there's this guy named Epimetheus. . .

Bia's not a bad-intentioned person (otherwise she wouldn't get through the Library). Heck, she seemed rather emotionally torn up when the chimera killed who knows how many thousands or millions of people. She's just apparently very, very bad at empathy. Just because she doesn't have bad intentions doesn't mean that she can't do bad things from others' perspectives.

We know that Bia was involved somehow in the whole plan to fix the time loop; I wonder just how closely she was involved in the death of the original Tina, and how much responsibility she feels for what happened with Tina and her demons?

I also wonder if the Library's filter excludes people who it thinks are up to no good by its own standards, or if it keeps out people who think that they are doing wrong by their own standards?

It may be Tina's role as one of the five winged whatever. . .

Hmmm, how many winged individuals have we met so far? I can think of a number who have shown wings or could metaphorically be considered winged. Then we have ones such as the ursamorphs, who could probably have wings if they wanted to.

We have to be careful considering the prophecies, because not only have we never actually heard the full prophecy, but we don't even really know how many different prophecies there are all going around.

[lake_wrangler]

Let's see...

First, Shelly leveled up to become a sphinx (well, technically, she already was, but didn't know it...)
- She took a level in Badass and in Wisdom (the sage of the forest)

Then, Monica leveled up, to become the Jaguar Girl (and assumes her role as Demon Shephard, role which may have been the result of her leveling up earlier, either with the calendar episode - key in the head - or even before - I get confused, with this...)
- She took a level in Badass, Power, and probably a few more attributes, including handling astral fire and regeneration

Later, Jin leveled down, gaining human attributes in her programming, including feeling cold, pain, etc., and a limited lifespan

Some time later, Katherine leveled up and out of her shell, going on an adventure, and adopting two paranormal kids
- She took a level in confidence, inner strength, and probably a few more (feel free to contribute...)

Atsali and Castela leveled up, from being orphans, to being adopted into a single-parent family.

Atsali then leveled... out...


And now, Tina 2.1 leveled up to Tina 3.0, complete with new sensory input.

Care to guess what other character will level up next? Almost seems to be a trend...

[GuySmiley]

Care to guess what other character will level up next? Almost seems to be a trend...

I'll put $5 on Dietzel.

[Atomic]

By the way, I've got a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies over here in Confusion Corner, and a gingerbread is in the oven.

Help yourselves and no shoving please. The Pusher robot doesn't like it.

[Grantwhy]

Later, Jin leveled down, gaining human attributes in her programming, including feeling cold, pain, etc., and a limited lifespan

I'd say Jin levelled up, trading away immortality, power (and insanity) to gain human attributes in her programming, including feeling cold, pain, etc., and a limited lifespan (and love).

[Julie]

It may be Tina's role as one of the five winged whatever. . .

Hmmm, how many winged individuals have we met so far? I can think of a number who have shown wings or could metaphorically be considered winged. Then we have ones such as the ursamorphs, who could probably have wings if they wanted to.

Something tells me that the prophecy wasn't referring to beings who can shape-shift to have wings but don't have them in one of their "natural" forms (i.e. Tsillah) or people whose wings were not real but symbolic (i.e. Lily...IIRC). That narrows your list down to Tina, Atsali, Phix, and Shelly (not sure about your reference to Katherine since I don't remember her with wings and don't know who "Ms. Vespa" is). We might have 4 of our 5 (or however many) right there...but then there might be some we haven't met yet. In the end, you're probably right about being careful about prophecies when we don't know the full prophecy...and even then people have to be careful about prophecies.