Wapsi Square/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Major Humans

Monica Villareal

A young anthropologist who works as a curator at a museum in the Twin Cities, Monica is often hesitant to believe in the supernatural despite the fact that it surrounds her. She has spent some time just this side of a rubber room due to her experiences. On a lighter note, she is a bit of an audio snob and is a huge fan of 80's music

Shelly Wahnee

A tough tomboy who plays bass in the local band "Fermented Banana" and worked at her father's auto shop until she decided to become a personal trainer. She is proud of her Comanche heritage and has always had a hard time getting over her mother's death, both of which contributed to her problematic vision quest. She is Monica's best friend and enjoys innocently picking on her. Recently revealed to be descended from human/sphinx breeding.

  • Bare Your Midriff: She wears very few outfits that don't do this.
  • Batter Up: Keeps a baseball bat in her car trunk, and seems to take one with her to answer the door late at night.
  • Bi the Way: Not outright stated, but strongly implied during the arc with Heather.
  • Creepy Good: Her conscience tends to appear as a creepy little girl, so even though she is unambiguously good, she tends to frighten people encountering her for the first time.
  • Cute Bruiser
  • Half-Human Hybrid: She was recently revealed to be some sort of mortal/ sphinx hybrid, giving her the ability to turn into a sphinx, but a human lifespan.
  • Hard Head: She takes a bowling ball to the skull during the Heather arc. She does spend some time in the hospital, and the injury is treated seriously, but she suffers no permanent injury.
  • Important Haircut: After her mother died, she cut off most of her hair because it reminded her of her mother. Later, she repeated the gesture when she decided to put all chance of a romantic involvement with Owen behind her.
  • Pettanko: Makes up for it by an obsessive interest in lingerie despite her tomboyish tendencies.
  • Tsundere: She acted as a type B towards Owen, but she seems to have grown out of it.
  • Unlucky Childhood Friend: To Owen
  • Unstoppable Rage: Once threw a V-8 engine across the garage when having a jealous snit over Own.
  • Vision Quest: She went on one after her mom died. She got more than she bargained for.
  • Will They Or Won't They: First with Owen, and later with Heather. Didn't either time.

Amanda Ehrlich

A professional photographer and another close friend of Monica's, Amanda tends to think of her friend as a younger sister she has to protect. She is a bit more cynical than the rest of the cast, but is still friendly if she isn't too convinced that you're an idiot. It took a long time for Monica to introduce her to the paranormal weirdness in her life.

Golem Girls

Originally introduced in the form of a trio of drunk college girls, they eventually sobered up, developed into complex characters, and played an important role in the plot. Thousands of years before the start of the comic, they were tortured, murdered, and turned into a chimera in hopes of creating the ultimate weapon. As anyone with half an ounce of Genre Savvy can guess, their masters lost control, and they destroyed most of the world. They were eventually separated, and used as guardians. At present they are trying to learn how to be human again.

Acacia (Bud) Budur

Bud is the most impulsive of the Golem Girls. She appears as a young woman of Greek descent, though she can also take the form of a strange looking goat. She has simple tastes, a green thumb, and seems to be the most successful of the group at regaining her humanity. She also seems to be remarkably good a thinking on her feet.

Brandilyn Brandi Oduya

Brandi is a motherly figure who wouldn't hurt a fly (literally). She can come across as a bit of a ditz, for example, she flushes a fly down the toilet because it would freeze if she released it outside, not realizing that it would drown, but she is arguably the smartest cast member. A surprising number of seeming coincidences were actually the result of her plans. She appears to be a young African woman, but can also take the form of a panther.

Jin

Jin tends to act as the leader of the Golem Girls, mostly because she tends to know most of what's going on. She is the one primarily responsible for dealing with the calender machine due to witnessing her mother get ripped out of existence by it, and being aware of each repetition of the Groundhog Day Loop. She seems to be struggling with her sanity.

Other Supernatural Beings

Tepoztecal

Tepoz, as he is often called, is the Aztec god of alcohol, or at least that is how he is known. He is actually much older than the Aztecs and a simple golem rather than a god. He does however have control over anything containing alcohol. He is roughly three feet tall and blue, so a bit of a Smurf look-alike. He is well-intentioned, but not the most competent of characters.

Tina Rosario Aldaco Guzman

Tina is a collection of personal demons occupying a partially living body, as well as the owner of the best coffee shop in the Twin Cities. The original Tina died in a car crash, so the demons took control of the body, got up, and walked out of the morgue. She uses the coffee shop as an opportunity to pump people full of positive wisdom and sunshine, and she generally has good intentions.

Phix

Phix is a sphinx. Specifically, the sphinx that appears in the Oedipus story. At the start of the story, she was the librarian at the Bibliothiki. She is about as intimidating as one would expect a sphinx to be, but is surprisingly friendly if you get to know her.

Nudge

Nudge is a mythical trickster like Loki or Coyote who has pissed off quite a few people. She was the original librarian before Phix, who she tricked into becoming her replacement. Since then she has been hiding from Phix who has been trying to return her to her place in the library, most recently hiding among the collection of demons known as Tina. At present, she and Phix are co-librarians.

Euryale

Along with Medusa and Stheno, Euryale was one of the gorgons from the original myth. Despite what the myth said, she's hardly a monster and is quite friendly. She works as a marine biologist, taking advantage of her ability to breathe underwater. For whatever reason she speaks with a southern accent. She has been following Monica's adventures through some unknown source, and thinks of her as a hero of some sort.

  • Ascended Fangirl: As stated, she looks up to Monica and is quite excited to meet her hero.
  • Funetik Aksent: Her southern accent is rendered this way.
  • Genki Girl: The genkiest.
  • Gorgeous Gorgon
  • Statuesque Stunner: She is rather tall. Tina even refers to her as statuesque, although she might have been going for the double meaning.
  • Taken for Granite: She actually turns people to ice. It's voluntary, although she does tend to do it when startled. Fortunately, she can reverse the process by kissing the victim.

Other

Jacqui Bontemps

Jacqui is a friend of Monica's who plays drums in the local band "Fermented Banana." She is best described as "A daisy on Prozac." Originally, she was going to college to become a veterinarian, but she eventually dropped out and opened a yoga studio using money she inherited from her aunt.

  • Demoted to Extra: She was much more important before the paranormal elements of the strip showed up. However, she does have the most appearances of any character who is not in on the paranormal.
  • Genki Girl: She is quite energetic and absurdly cheerful.

Owen

Owen is a childhood friend of Shelly's and the lead guitarist in the band "Fermented Banana." There was a bit of romantic tension between them, but it never amounted to anything, and he is currently married a woman named Lakshmi.

  • Demoted to Extra: After the situation between him and Shelly was resolved, he stopped appearing. In March 2012, Shelly got a postcard announcing that Owen and Lakshmi had eloped.
  • Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Lakshmi is at least a foot taller than him.
  • Will They or Won't They?: With Shelly. They didn't.

Katherine Gilchrist

Katherine is a coworker of Monica's and a bit of a shut-in. Monica let her in on the supernatural weirdness rather early on.

  • Dark Is Not Evil: Looks like a younger Morticia Addams, dresses all in black, collects spiders and has a Slasher Smile but is really just shy and quite nice.
  • Jumped At the Call: She was quite excited when Monica revealed the kind of things she had been doing.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Averted; though she looks like one in the black and white drawings Taylor favors, Word of God (and the odd color picture of her) shows her to actually have relatively dark, Mediterranean skin.
  • Shameless Fanservice Girl: While little is made out of it due to her status as a secondary character, Katherine is a nudist who spends her evenings arguing with her pet fish, Oscar, while nude. Part of her introduction involves her explaining this to Monica, to boot. Most shots of her providing exposition in her apartment involve loads of Scenery Censor.
  • Strange Girl: Has a doctorate, an extreme face (that vaguely looks like something out of a horror movie—solid black eyes and a overly large, toothy mouth), is terrified of social interaction to the point of near Hikikomori status, and collects spiders (and carries said spider collection around with her).
  • Talking to Plants: Although she doesn't talk to people much.

Dietzel

Monica's pet dog Dietzel is smarter than a dog has any right to be, although Monica seems to be unaware of this fact. He refuses to try to catch frisbees due to taking a few too many to the face, and isn't particularly fond of squirrels. He also has an interesting relationship with a certain pizza girl.

Darren

Darren owns the bar that the cast used to frequent earlier in the strip, but it has become a less important location as the comic went on. He used to be an elementary school teacher, and doesn't feel that being a bartender is much different. He seems to care about his regulars quite a bit.

  • Demoted to Extra: He isn't quite as important as he used to be.
  • Local Hangout: He runs the place.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: While none can doubt his manliness, when he is watching Dietzel, we discover that he likes romantic movies.
  • Team Dad: He played this role early in the strip's run. In fact, his introduction described him as "A den-mother to us all."

Kevin

Kevin is a local photographer and Monica's boyfriend. He is socially inept in an endearing way, and is remarkably accepting of the strange occurrences that seem to surround Monica. His job sometimes results in his disappearing for extended periods of time on assignment.

Alan

Alan is Kevin's best friend and Jin's boyfriend. Despite his goofy nature, he is capable of remarkable wisdom, as he demonstrated when he first met Jin. His occupation has yet to be revealed.

Justin

AKA "Officer Tight Buns", Justin is a Minneapolis policeman and Shelly's current boyfriend. He's almost too much of a boyscout for his own good, but hides a very, very strange secret.

  • Chew Toy: literally, it seems...
  • Everyone Can See It: an unusually low-key example, in that he doesn't realize that both Shelly and his squad commander knew he had a thing for her, and the entire storyline evidently picks up in medias res. (Their initial hookup was arranged with the help of said squad commander and waaaaay too much charcoal lighter fluid.)
  • Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Major deconstruction. Justin is rather vanilla...
  • Healing Factor: ...however, most of his ex-girlfriends are not, and love him for this, because they can literally tear him to shreds and he'll be fine almost immediately. He really, really does not enjoy this.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: It's not exactly clear how tall Justin is, but Shelly isn't especially short, and he towers over her.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Justin kind of looks like a taller Owen without the muttonchops.
  • Understanding Boyfriend: Almost averted, hard. He does not take the revelation of Shelly's true nature well. You wouldn't either if you'd been a chew toy for a string of supernatural women with major issues, and then your current relatively normal girlfriend tears you open with a reflexive claw swipe out of nowhere. He gets better, though.
  • Weirdness Magnet: His kinky ex, the werewolf girl who liked to be tied down so he could have sex with her while she transformed. And she's just one of many examples.
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