Wapsi Square Forum

Something is seriously wrong with me. I just made panel 5 into my new cell phone wallpaper.

Also, for an added creep factor drop the whole page into your favorite image editor and see what it looks like with the colors inverted.

So this is the "You must face your fear and overcome it" bit as seen in the motion pictures Dune and
The Empire Strikes Back.

Will she learn why the caged bird sings?

I was like "why am I thinking of a canary in a coal mine"?

Well, duh! bird cage and gas masks ... and I guess Cricket's about to go spelunking.

Drakkenmensch wrote:This is one of those Wapsi moments where I wonder "Did I accidentally skip a day?"

Nah. We're supposed to flash back to Monica's trip inside Jet's Inner Spaces.

Monica's hand turning skeletal isn't filling me with confidence either. Those two in front, Jaguar girl to the rear... Poor Crickett is definitely gonna need therapy when this is all over.

Bud_Fanboi wrote:Monica's hand turning skeletal isn't filling me with confidence either. Those two in front, Jaguar girl to the rear... Poor Crickett is definitely gonna need therapy when this is all over.

Ya mean this ISN'T therapy?

On this episode of Mythosbusters

• What does happens when you ask a sphinx a knock-knock joke?
• How much suction does it actually take to get a golf ball through a garden hose?
• and do Fey have Demons or are their powers of glamor so strong to give their subconscious form?

This is basic phych 101.

1. They are in Cricket's demon space. Why so Monica can show Cricket some of her fears that tie her up inside and fuel some of her inner rage and anger. They also are at the root of her behavior issues as well.

2. This is Crickets fear of being caged. She was caged by her parents while kept locked away from the rest of the world to be protected. Then threatened with even worse confinement if she didn't take a mentor.

3. Cricket will probably end up back in the cage. This probably is a lesson about we all live in the cages we create and accept so we can live in a world of other people. Learn self control and that total personal freedom is an illusion. After all usual Fae don't restrain them selves and accept limiting themselves. All limits on them are usually enforced from the outside.

shadowinthelight wrote:Also, for an added creep factor drop the whole page into your favorite image editor and see what it looks like with the colors inverted.

Indeed it is... What ever made you think of doing that???

-!-

*eep!*

zachariah wrote:This is basic phych 101.

1. They are in Cricket's demon space. Why so Monica can show Cricket some of her fears that tie her up inside and fuel some of her inner rage and anger. They also are at the root of her behavior issues as well.

2. This is Crickets fear of being caged. She was caged by her parents while kept locked away from the rest of the world to be protected. Then threatened with even worse confinement if she didn't take a mentor.

3. Cricket will probably end up back in the cage. This probably is a lesson about we all live in the cages we create and accept so we can live in a world of other people. Learn self control and that total personal freedom is an illusion. After all usual Fae don't restrain them selves and accept limiting themselves. All limits on them are usually enforced from the outside.

Here's the lesson.

zachariah wrote:This is basic phych 101.

1. They are in Cricket's demon space. Why so Monica can show Cricket some of her fears that tie her up inside and fuel some of her inner rage and anger. They also are at the root of her behavior issues as well.

2. This is Crickets fear of being caged. She was caged by her parents while kept locked away from the rest of the world to be protected. Then threatened with even worse confinement if she didn't take a mentor.

3. Cricket will probably end up back in the cage. This probably is a lesson about we all live in the cages we create and accept so we can live in a world of other people. Learn self control and that total personal freedom is an illusion. After all usual Fae don't restrain them selves and accept limiting themselves. All limits on them are usually enforced from the outside.

I would agree with this analysis. Especially #2. JG's specialilty is, after all, plunging beings into their worst fear. I guess that also can mean forcing them to face that fear. It may be to show her that any cage would be one of her own making and she can step outside at any time since she also holds the key. Like you said, self restraint. She just doesn't really believe that yet.

lake_wrangler wrote:

shadowinthelight wrote:Also, for an added creep factor drop the whole page into your favorite image editor and see what it looks like with the colors inverted.

Indeed it is... What ever made you think of doing that???

I put the original website and copyright on the wallpaper but inverted things so they would be white on a black background.

The one on the right is her techno demon, every teenagers fear of tech. Loosing it, being controlled by it, becoming part of the matrix. The one on the left is i think her image demon, a powerful one for teenage girls. Her fears of Fae image, being a princess, becoming or not becoming what her parents and people expect. These two are the main guards of cage that prevent her from becoming her own fully developed independent woman instead of just another faceless run of the mill dick Fae.

Of course i could be totally wrong on everything. lol just my two cents.

oldmanmickey wrote:Of course i could be totally wrong on everything.

Which you probably will be...

But then, that's about par for most of us...

[quote="Aed"]Hmmm, those two look familiar. Now where I have seen them, or someone close to them, before? Oh, I remember now:



-- or perhaps it was Doctor Who, The Empty Child?

How about inspiration from "9"? Some wicked looking constructs in that film.

The gas masks harken back to dark images from the first World War, propaganda posters intended to terrify, gruesome photographs of the carnage. Stuff of real nightmares.

Paul may be giving us subtle clues in todays and yesterdays pages. In yesterday's page, notice how Calista's and Monica's hair blows in the wind and how the wind dies down during a quiet moment.

In today's page, take a look at panel 1. The ladies hair is starting to rise as the wind picks up. In panel two we see that the wind is now strong enough to blow Calista's hair horizontal to her head. We also see that Monica's fore-arm has become skeletal. The mood is shifting and I believe that the Old Wolf has got it spot on when he says that we are deep into the "uncanny valley".

Here is a graph from Wikipedia that I think illustrates the idea nicely.



Notice how a corpse is the bottom of the uncanny valley for still things and a zombie is the bottom of the uncanny valley for moving things.

Monica's zombie fore-arm adds to the mood shift.

Panel 3 gets creepier as Calista finds herself, seemingly, alone in the windy void. Calista's expression in panel 4 is both shock and terror.

Panel 5 shows us why.

It is amazing and wonderful to me how much thought and brain power we all put into analyzing and trying to predict the future of the comic and Pauls thoughts. Why if we put only part of this power into the worlds problems we .... naaa probably would not have any better luck than we do here, carry on.

I find it interesting that Paul had to resort to WWI imagery to shock Calista.
The fact is, when it comes to the Uncanny Valley almost all of the characters of Wapsi Square would have us mere humans cowering there.
It was the merger of the motion picture film and WWI that put us beyond the simple horrors of Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster and into the realm of the unpredictably horrible where things like chemicals, radiation, and disease threatened make US into the walking dead.
I suppose, in a way, in real life we've outdone our ancestors, who could only imagine unnatural mergers of nature to create the horrible.

sheik wrote:I find it interesting that Paul had to resort to WWI imagery to shock Calista.
The fact is, when it comes to the Uncanny Valley almost all of the characters of Wapsi Square would have us mere humans cowering there.
It was the merger of the motion picture film and WWI that put us beyond the simple horrors of Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster and into the realm of the unpredictably horrible where things like chemicals, radiation, and disease threatened make US into the walking dead.
I suppose, in a way, in real life we've outdone our ancestors, who could only imagine unnatural mergers of nature to create the horrible.

How about Zombie Steam punk? That might fit better than WW I. I don't think this is to shock her, being in her demon space means these images come from Crickets mind, not an outsider. So thee images have relevance to her. We really do not have any idea of what the Fae world in Wapsi is like do we. These may be the usual palace guards royalty use for all we know.