Are these two seriously having a “my boyfriend candidate is better than your” argument in the middle of the Castle of Crazies, because I can’t think of a better use of our time.
listen…..i want in-universe girl genius Discourse™, set in the gg version of our time period, about how All Your Historical Faves were Problematic. p l e a s e.
I’m sort of picturing something like this:
did-you-kno:
DID YOU KNO In the 19th century, Agatha Heterodyne took down the First Wulfenbach Empire with a coffee engine?
i-left-my-heart-in-ada-kaleh:
lmao is this actually true, history side of tumblr pls confirm
thinkodancer:
Only technically. Agatha Heterodyne was a catalyst for the instability which characterized the transition from First Wulfenbach Empire to the Second Wulfenbach Empire, but you have to remember that her appearance in Mechanicsburg was mostly a pretext which a lot of the Fifty Families latched onto in order to rebel against a rule they saw as illegitimate. Baron Klaus was largely unpopular with the aristocracy, and even somewhat unpopular with common people, despite how many people nowadays seem to think the First Wulfenbach Empire was a utopia and the sun shone out of Baron Klaus’ ass.
So it’s debatable if Lady Heterodyne actually ‘took down’ the Empire. Arguably, the First and Second Wulfenbach Empires were the same political entity and only the ruler changed, but a lot of historians don’t see it that way (or at least, don’t talk about it that way) because of all the geopolitical changes between Baron Klaus and Baron Gilgamesh’s rule. It would also be unfair to describe Baron Gilgamesh’s empire as somehow lesser version of his father’s empire.
dingadoodledoo:
Ok but how does a coffee engine fit into this
thinkodancer:
It doesn’t, that’s just a story they tell to dumb tourists in Mechanicsburg.
notachurchdoor:
bullshit. I’m from Mechanicsburg, and the coffee engine story is 100% true. my great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle Mikli is a Jaeger and he confirms
loreleileilei:
Oh my GOD, the Jaegers weren’t even allowed into Mechanicsburg until a few days after the fighting had already started?? How can you not know this if you’re really from Mechanicsburg??
notachurchdoor:
come up to Mehcanicsburg and call uncle Mikli a liar to his face 🙂
do it 🙂 🙂 🙂
balanstoothgap:
I went to Mechanicsburg last summer and I even had the Castle Heterodyne tour. I can’t confirm or deny the coffee engine story, but I can only say that based on what I’ve seen, not only could it be true, but I seriously hope it is.
Also I hope I don’t have to actually say this for anyone, but DO NOT go to Mechanisburg and call her uncle Mikli a liar to his face.
Okay shut up loreleileilei everyone knows the jaeger were bending the barrons law all the time and if the jaeger waited till a few days after the fighting started (as if) theyed of missed the time stop and not of been loked in
imma gonna need sources on that dude. S O U R C E S. and not wikipedia, either, you /know/ the jaegers are always fucking with their page.
well there’s
Secretary to the Empire, TPU Press. “This Was Not Supposed To Be My Job”: The Collected Notes of Boris Dolokov, Stormlight Publishing. chapter 13 which has a whole section on the jaegers various method of using technicality in their favor and while it mostly deals with the dispatched jaeger maintaining the Jägertroth there a part there on disagreements with how far down property especially heterodyne goes
there’s
Memoirs of a King, Vol.3, King Tarvek Sturmvoraus. Pressoir d’Élyseé, has both accounts of how short the battle was (it didnt even last a “few days” it was over in less then a 24-48 hour period depending on what your counting as the start and the end) and of jaeger both during the battle and being pulled out with Tarvek Sturmvoraus 2 years later.
and finally the official Mechanicsburg destination guide and coupon book 19[x]8 edition Castle Press, Mechanicsburg Publishing Group. and the official black market edition Mechanicsburg destination guide and coupon book 19[x]3 edition Castle Press, totally not Mechanicsburg Publishing Group. both explicitly state
Mamma Gkikas invaluable aid in quick jaeger delivery to the surface during the battle of mechanicsburg and previous editions sarcastically implied it for many years. also if your not comfortable with jaegers theres plenty of townsfolk from back than still kicking around in the crypts you could ask
also Seneschal by Vanamonde von Mekkhan has a first hand account of the coffee engine and its effects on the townsfolk’s trust in the hetrodyne which while important probably wasn’t a key piece of the destruction of the empire
PURPOSE IS THAT WHAT THERE CALLING HAVING SHITY HARMONIC RESISTANCE NOW
⚙ I BET YOUR KNEES QUAKE ANYTIME ANYONE WITH EVEN A JOULE OF SPARK SNEEZES BY YOU
⚙
oh are you seriously going there
mistress maya and i have a wonderful working relationship built on mutual respect, and like hell i’d tie myself to any two-bit spark that walked by! i have STANDARDS! that’s why i picked mistress maya to begin with!!
WHAT I DO WITH MY PERSONAL LIFE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH “””””SHITTY HARMONIC RESISTANCE””””””” AND YOU’RE BEING A FUCKING ASSHOLE OKAY
*the art gets kinda weird: -the artist isn’t interested in super realistic body proportions but more in dynamic movement, which means sometimes you have weird perspective or lopsided limbs or two people who are supposed to be on the same plan but one looks oddly bigger; -the faces, especially the noses and the eye position, are pretty deformed and some people find them really ugly. since this is a visual story, a visual urgh reaction is a perfectly good reason not to get into it, though most people do get used to the style — some don’t.
*it gets pretty over the top plot-wise? :X (BUT IN A FUN WAY ;_;)
*you don’t like steampunk/adventure/political clusterfucks.
*it’s HELLA FUCKING LONG and only entered the story’s second part after TWELVE YEARS ahhhghgu kjkkjj. Some of the arcs can drag on a bit too. if you like short stories or stuff that has payoff pretty soon, it’s probably not for you.
*probably others idk.
—
Now have some proselytizing! REASONS TO READ GIRL GENIUS.
-It is unfailingly updated three times a week and has been for 12 years. *also it won several prestigious awards, to the point the authors decided to refuse the following Hugo Awards nominations cause that wasn’t fair for the rest of them.
-The universe is a ton of fun. This runs on the premises that mad geniuses are real, that they do attract minions, and they do break the laws of physics and cause havoc with their unchecked creations. There are automatons, some sentient, there are constructed or altered beings, there is strange “science”, and most of Europa is a wasteland due to aforementioned unchecked creations. Towns have to be protected by walls.
-The writers knows their tropes — and fuck with them joyfully.
-tons of jokes! this is not a glum story. It does have its moments of angst and rage and woe, but it also gets pretty hilarious.
-THE CHARACTERS OH YES PLZ TAKE ME.
-the art! *the first two colorists were pretty good, and the third — who has done the majority of the work — is downright excellent. *backgrounds are full of details, some fun jokes, really nice backgrounds in general *super lively style! (if you can deal with the faces.)
-AGATHA HETERODYNE, the hero of the story. I say hero not heroine because
She really doesn’t. *She doesn’t know it to start with, but she is the daughter of The Hero and The Evil Scientist’s Beautiful Daughter, and she has to deal with both sides of her heritage. (it doesn’t help that her father and uncle were heroes, but every single ancestor on their side of her family before them were, actually, the evil conqueror type, and everyone is afraid she will revert to type.)
*She is described and drawn as a big girl — curvy and meaty. (actually most of the girls are pretty statuesque.) *She starts out as a normal-ish town-living girl with insecurities and fears, but even when she was a normal girl she WOULD try to fight — and after she gets the tools to fight with? Boy does she not hesitate. *AGENCYYYYY EVERYWHERE. She decides where to go, what to do — and when people block her options? She makes more. —She has two suitors. SHE decides to encourage them (or not). SHE tells them to cut the stupid flirting they have more important shit to do. They both respect and admire her (sometimes they’re dumb macho boys, and she tells them to can it.) A man manages to intimidate her with physical threats that verge on the sexual — once. (she gets him back.) After that she starts learning to fight back effectively and wowza. She’s not a martial artist but she does not hesitate.
-female friendships~ actually all sorts of friendships but yes *also female competence and badassitude
-The other characters: *The Heroic Son Of The Despot (suitor 1) *The Sneaky And Treacherous But Noble Underneath Snake (suitor 2) *Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, reluctant despot but by god if he’s going to have to be a despot he’s going to be a REALLY GOOD ONE. takes his peace through superior firepower thing very seriously. The antagonist, and what a competent one. *WARRIOR-PRINCESS ZEETHA >:O *THE PACK OF CHEERFUL, IMMORTAL WAR MONSTERS WHO ARE LOYAL TO THE DEATH TO THEIR MASTER’S FAMILY~ and play dumb and silly to relax people who are scared of them or cause them to be underestimated and and and JAEGERS FUCKING RULE oh my god is my loyalty kink getting a workout with them. *Moloch Von Zinzner, eternal straight man (“I AM NOT YOUR MINION!!!” “yeah ok but can you help me” “oh, yeah, sure.”) *the castle T^T you crazy bastard you *idk everyone oh god i love them all T^T
-EPICNESS ALL UP IN THAT BITCH.
-also the romance ahhhh. both suitors have their good points and their not so good points, Agatha doesn’t let it distract her, and THERE ARE BOTH IN AND OUT OF UNIVERSE HINTS THAT IT MIGHT BE RESOLVED BY A THREESOME 😀 😀 😀 😀 *ok it might also end in a classical twosome because one of the guys is given a bit more markers that he’s “the one” but the two guys have a complicated past that has nothing to do with Agatha and they’re massively important to each other in pretty painful/hopeful/messy ways, people are taking bets on who she’ll choose (one in five that she’ll keep both! several of her ancestors had harems, there’s in-universe precedent!) and there’s a non-canon Cinderella sidestory AU where she does end up keeping both. anyway there’s no “make one of the options secretly evil or thoroughly unlikeable”, and both options come with major political complications that she MUST keep in mind. Love triangle done right!
My favorite detail from the third Girl Genius novel is that one of the things that passes through Tarvek’s mind when he thinks he’s about to meet gruesome robot-cat death is regret that he’s wearing a tattered bedsheet and not the outfit he planned to be wearing when he dies.
1) Of course he picked out an outfit for that.
2) He had to have been working off the assumption that he’s not going to live long enough for it to have gone out of fashion.
3) Like. He’s devoted some thought to this? “He had always planned to die while ranting atop a tower or something – he had a very nice outfit all designed for the occasion and everything – and now all that effort would be wasted.” He’s not suicidal, he just. Assumes that he has an early-ish expiration date, and has planned accordingly. Being perpetually unsafe is just a basic fact of life for him.
4) Tarvek is remarkably stable for someone whose life is a boundless cornucopia of horror, is what I’m getting at.
This post is wrong bc it assumes that Tarvek doesn’t constantly redesign his planned death outfit to keep up with emerging fashion trends
Ooh, good point. He probably has an entire portfolio by now, with different variations depending on which season he gets assassinated in.
One day the apocalypse occurs, as written in the old texts by the gods. A few people are left standing, one of them is a necromancer. They must use their power and bring everyone back to life.
Max knows the prophecy can’t be ignored. They know that and they fully intend on resurrecting everyone soon. How they’re going to go about resurrecting over 7 billion people, they don’t know yet, but they’re going to do it. Starting tomorrow.
Or maybe the next day.
The day after that? Definitely.
“Pass me a coke, would you?” Donovan asks from the other side of the couch. He’s lazily scratching his bare stomach, eyes glued to the TV where the fourth season of Archer is playing. He doesn’t see Max’s eyes wander, which is good because that’d be super embarrassing.
Who knew it’d take the end of the world to realize that their next door neighbor is crazy hot?
“Sure thing,” Max says and fishes one out from the tub of ice next to them. They’ve got pretty much unlimited ice since no one else is staying at this motel (for obvious reasons) and the mini fridge is already packed full of perishables from the small market downstairs.
“You’re the best,” Donovan says, catching the soda without looking and cracking it open. He takes a long drink and sighs. “What are we going to do when the junk food runs out?”
Resurrect everyone, Max almost says before biting their tongue. Donovan doesn’t know about magic or necromancers. They think he’d be acting very differently if he did know. “Oh, I’m sure that’s a long way off.” They push down the stab of guilt.
Cheloneuniverse 