Spoiler: update Hmm. So Klaus is against Gil getting with Agatha, no matter what happens. Not surprising, really - I suspect he'd have been reluctant to allow it even without everything else that's happened. And he definitely doesn't think that she can overcome her family history, which is disappointing - you'd think he'd figure her father and uncle would be sufficient examples of good behaviour. So, Ms Thorpe might join the boys in the seraglio (since I rather doubt that Klaus is going to get that much say in whether or not Gil and Agatha team up, if the time window from Forever Ago is any indication), which is going to make things interesting.
I figured out why I think Rakethorn is going to fall flat on Agatha. Agatha is about her agency, where she's her own hero and person. Rakethorn is being a "hero", that will probably overstep and underestimate her and she's going to find that really, really annoying.
Looks like Agatha's not interested in Rakethorn at all! And Maxim is, I think, nnnnot impressed that Zeetha's forgotten about the really good reasons Agatha has for not wanting to stop and appreciate the hot boys. Especially considering that Zeetha's seen Lucrezia bounce out a couple times when Agatha's control slips.
Spoiler: Today's update!! Help! Tarvek pretty much declared he's devoted to both Agatha AND Gil. (also he needs a drink. Sooo many drinks.) I want that poly triad dammit. Give us the poly. I mean, that one lady who's distracting Gil can come along too, if she likes. And the dude who is failing to distract Agatha (I mean Castle does have that seraglio) but I want me Agatha/Gil/Tarvek.
Already linked this on the discord and in the writing thread, but it fits here, too: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18362906 Girl Genius, Heterodyne Boys centric, vaguely post-Other future.
Ok I really don't know what the folks who supported Lord whatshisname to get there expected. He was obviously never going to share that power
Spoiler Is he... is he crushing on Albia? ... he does realize that Albia would just absolutely destroy him rather than entertain his courtship?
Spoiler I'm pretty sure he's crushing hard on Albia, yeah. And definitely does not realize that Albia is more likely to destroy him out of hand (or at least to consider him a serious threat) than to consider entertaining his courtship.
Spoiler: Really good at loyalty, hm? Well, I imagine Vapnoople would have to be good at instilling loyalty into his creations, if he's in the habit of building monsters for fun and/or profit and was good enough at it to actually frighten the Empress. But I think Krosp is overlooking something: Vapnoople seems to have missed a loophole and his creations are capable of transferring their loyalty to other people if those people are deemed worthy and/or the creations are capable of at least starting out reasoning that this isn't Really Truly betraying Vapnoople if they do X or Y when he'd have wanted Z. (Or possibly he left that loophole in on purpose, so that meddling heroes can't force his creations into a breakdown over a loyalty paradox. Or so that, if he's dead or his creations have good reason to believe he's dead/out of commission, they don't get stuck like broken-down clanks and are capable of going out into the world and surviving on their own - like Krosp and the bears did.) (And I'm thinking, now, of how the Jaegers are unshakably loyal to the Heterodynes...but they're certainly capable of deciding for themselves how that loyalty is expressed. The really good, properly loyal minions and creatures have to be able to think for themselves, past the instinctive loyalty, don't they? *chintap*) Whatever the case: Krosp's loyalty appears to have transferred away from Vapnoople and to Agatha. And lbr, Agatha's earned it. And even if Krosp is justifying it to himself as Agatha being his....well. Selfishness is a healthy trait, for a cat. (Or a witch, for that matter.) And he only resorted to biting Vapnoople when it became clear that 1) Vapnoople was not respecting Agatha's 'no', and 2) Agatha wasn't going to be able to get herself out of this in time without his help. If both those hadn't held, he'd have stayed out of it because he clearly doesn't want to hurt Vapnoople. But he got pushed into a corner where he had to. Also, Tarvek appears to be acting much more sane now, which is (hopefully) a good sign! Maybe the insanity was only temporary, as a result of the exposure to the energy being thrown around there.
I'm liking the worldbuilding that Oggie's dropping here: that he's unusual for having settled down long enough to have descendants at all, but that he doesn't blame his brothers for not doing the same because Jaegers live for centuries and most humans don't. "Fifty years, a hundred at most, most people are gone." (Even the Heterodynes don't live as long as the Jaegers do.) And also that his focus is less on 'okay, here's how to cope with potentially living for decades or centuries longer than you were originally expecting' and more on 'look, if you get Jaeger traits and he doesn't, never ever let him see that you're disappointed'. It's practical advice.
Hm. I'm suspecting that the 'poison waters' are going to turn out to be caused by something radioactive. Which will be interesting to see, since I don't think we've seen anything dealing with radioactivity in the Girl Genius universe yet; the Dyne water's effects are theorized to be caused by radioactivity, but that's out-of-universe theorizing. No one in-universe seems to be aware of what might have caused it, and I don't think anyone's really had much time to sit down and investigate it. The Heterodynes probably didn't want anyone poking at their personal wellspring, either.
...I think Albia is absolutely using this as a chance to embarrass Sephie a little bit. There's no way she bought "ah yes, the people of Paris have started putting sugar candies in their hair". But she admires it as a bold strategy! (Couture de sucreries. Hee. Candy sewing.) It's just that she'd really have preferred it if Sephie, y'know. Were upfront enough to go "gosh, I had a distressing and tragic accident which definitely could not have been prevented, and I need to clean up from it before I am anywhere near presentable enough to be seen in front of the Queen's august presence". Instead, Sephie's going to be the latest model of Parisian fashion, and hopefully it's a while before anyone from Paris hears about it.
