#oggie girl genius

[bigasswritingmagnet]

The End - Or Lack Thereof

Fandom: Girl Genius

Pairing: Oggie/Oggie's Wife

Summary: Radka has a surprise for Ognian, but before she gets a chance to figure out how to tell him about their little plot twist, he surprises her with one of his own: it's his turn to be offered the Jägerdraught.

If he lives, it's a comedy.

If he dies, Radka gets to be the main character in her own romantic tragedy, complete with a child to remember him by.

If she leaves and never comes back, she never has to know.

AO3 Link

Radka had been standing in the road for approximately ten minutes, staring blankly at the Jӓger camp that sprawled before her like a rotting wound on the once-green farmland. Crops had been uprooted, fences smashed, animals...well. The less said, the better. Judging by the column of smoke, somewhere in the heart of the clusters of tents was a farmhouse, and it was burning.

It was a familiar sight, one that usually inspired excitement and anticipation—of new stories to trade, coin to be made, a bed to be warmed.

Her hand pressed against her abdomen.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Everyone knew you drank your maiden’s cup anew each morning, but Radka, in her great wisdom, had acted as if it ran on a clock. As if it kept working right up to the last second, that she would be just as safe at 23 hours and 59 minutes as she was an hour after she drank.

Radka realized she was berating herself as a way to delay the inevitable, and forced herself to walk. Her feet were almost as heavy as her mind, which was struggling to think of how to even begin this conversation.

Hey Oggie, guess what?

Oggie! Remember how you said you liked surprises?

Hello Ognian, so good to see you. How are you? I’m pregnant.

Damn it all.

They had never put a word to this thing between them. Red fire, Ognian was still, after three years, always pleasantly surprised when she walked into his tent and began to take his clothes off. The topic of children was not something that came up casually in conversation—and why they ever think to speak of such a thing, when there was no they to be doing the thinking? It was just her and him, two lives that occasionally intersected.

And he was…what he was. Thrilling and dangerous in a not-dangerous-to-her-personally sort of way. She could not even take an educated guess as to how he might react.

Abruptly she shot out of her revery and realized that she was alone. The tents were empty. Cooking fires had gone out, even the coals gone dead from neglect. It was not a case of everyone dropping what they’d been doing, though—she could see tent flaps tied down neatly, weapons stored away.

In the distance, she heard revelry.

It was a muddle of laughter and shouting that spoke of more excitement than high spirits, the kind she heard on the times she had come across them before they’d struck a town, rather than after. Normally, Radka would change direction, find a town they had already passed and try again later. Long before the Jӓgers, Radka had learned that pre-fight nerves in soldiers made for a boisterousness that did not lend itself well to listening.

But she knew for a fact this wasn’t the case. She had just passed through Tottenburg—or what remained of it.

She pressed her hand to her abdomen again, and followed the sound.

The farmhouse was indeed aflame, a roaring bonfire around which every monster, human-shaped or otherwise, was carousing, drinking heavily and laughing and chanting soldier’s songs of blood and sex and brotherhood. The fire burned so hot she could feel it even at a distance, the wicked heat of flames run wild.

For once in her life, Radka did not want to be the center of attention, so she hovered at the edges, moving carefully and quietly, searching for Ognian. So frenzied were the Heterodyne’s men, no one even noticed her.

She found him as one of five humans half-lost under a pile of Jӓgermonsters, who were all slapping them on the back and ruffling their hair, howling with laughter and excitement.

A sick certainty filled her, ice flooding her insides.

Their eyes met, and Oggie’s face lit up in a way that was normally very pleasing; he squirmed out of the tangle of bodies and charged towards her.

Ognian snatched her up by the waist and lifted her off the ground, whirling her around as he laughed wildly. The light of the fire gleamed off his teeth and shadowed his eyes, making him look sharp and dangerous. For the first time, she could see him for the nightmare he was to Europa—and could imagine him as the nightmare he wanted to become.

“It’s my turn!” he cried. He dropped her back down on her feet and kissed her, hard. Breathless with exhilaration, he said “Tonight, Hy drink de Jӓgerdraught.”

The cold feeling turned to a sweeping numbness. She forced a smile.

“Congratulations,” she managed. Oggie did not notice the strain in her voice; too caught up in the moment.

“Come drink vit us!” he said, grabbing her hand and tugging her forward. She dug in her heels and and tugged back.

“I have a better idea,” she said. “Let’s go to your tent and burn off some of that energy; I don’t want you to explode before you even get a chance to—” Her throat closed on the words, but again Oggie didn’t notice. He just laughed and soon they were racing through the empty rows of tents.

They tumbled into his tent, mouths locked together, but Radka’s mind wouldn’t shut up. She couldn’t remember the exact numbers—was it a little over half who survived? Less than half? One in ten?

“When tonight?” she said when she managed to get her lips free.

“Vut?” Oggie asked.

“You said tonight, the sun’s already setting.”

“Midnight,” Oggie said and burst out laughing, the kind of laugh that was less about something being funny and more a way to let out all the emotions boiling inside of you before your chest exploded.

Radka tossed her bag aside and buried her hands in his hair, dragging her teeth against his lip, trying to kiss him hard enough to quiet the thoughts in her head.

It was such a coincidence. The timing was perfect. The day, the exact day, and this time, just after the announcement, within hours of the event. If she’d gone a little slower, decided to wait until morning, the deed would have been done. She could be told that the father of her child was already dead, and she could leave some lover’s trinket to be buried with him, then wander off and grieve in peace.

But this.

Ognian, utterly ignorant of the maelstrom in Radka’s mind, tumbled them both down onto the bedroll—taking care as always to not land directly on top of her. He tried to untie her belt, but fumbled the knot so badly she had to slap his hands away and do it for him. Ognian grinned sheepishly.

“Nervous?” she asked. His grin widened.

“Nah,” he said, with utter confidence. “Hy’s too stupid to die, remember?”

She was going to have to be there when he died.

No, she wouldn’t be allowed to be present; she’d have to sit in the tent and wait for someone to come tell her. Sitting on the edge of her seat, waiting for the end. Would he live, would he die? Tragedy or comedy?

She was going to have to watch them bury him. Oh, but take comfort, dear audience, for she has someone to remember him by.

“Not if Death himself took you by the hand and showed you where to go.”

Radka dragged his shirt up over his head and he put his mouth to her neck, teeth dragging against her skin. She canted her hips to allow him to slide her trousers off. His hands moved slowly, his touch gentle, incongruous with the desperation of the mouth that was dragging teeth and tongue across her collarbone and breasts.

Nerves made her impatient; the moment her legs were free, she wrapped them tightly around his waist, pointedly. Though he held her close and trembled with need, he still moved so slowly.

Enough, she snapped at herself, enough. One way or another, this could be the last time, so pay attention.

Radka was not going to think about the future. She was not going to think about what would happen at midnight. She was not going to think about stories and endings.

She was not going to think about the fact that, however it ended, she would always have a piece of him with her.

They were both too full of nerves to be able to lay still and hold each other, so once they’d caught their breath, they got up and got dressed. Radka snuck glances at Ognian from the corner of her eyes. He was still tense, still excited, but no longer seemed like he might vibrate out of his skin.

“You’re really not nervous?” she asked, unable to stop herself. Ognian shot her a grin.

“Hy’z a comedy, remember? Ken’t be a tragedy unless Hy die.”

That’s not how it works, she wanted to tell him. It’s the other way around. You don’t know it’s a tragedy until you—

She paused, partway through buttoning up her top.

You never knew til it was over. If you got up and left the play partway through, then for you, the story never ended. The actors stayed where they were, suspended in that moment forever. Not living, but not dying, either. You never had to know.

Ognian suddenly stepped in, nudging her hands aside and doing up the buttons for her.

“Hy got a qvestion,” he said.

“Uh oh,” she said, automatically.

“Hyu still goink to let me kiss hyu vhen Hy get de new teeth?”

Ognian was not subtle. He might as well have just asked the question he was actually asking, for how it was written all over his face, and the way he wouldn’t look at her.

Will you still want me, when I am no longer human? When I have fangs and claws and wild eyes, will you still desire me? If I grow spikes and extra eyes, a third arm or a pair of antlers, will you still…care for me?

They’d never put a word to it.

She pressed her hand to his cheek. He glanced at her, then back down to the buttons, pretending to check if they were all done correctly.

That would be his tragedy, she realized. To survive the Jägerdraught, to get what he had wanted so much for so long, and have it cost him her…affection. For her to drift away, out of reach, as day by day he grew less and less human.

And Radka could not allay his fears because Radka wasn’t sure. The Jӓgermonsters did not repulse her, but neither did they attract her. Perhaps that…affection for Ognian would overcome it, but she would never know until they got there.

Questions you didn’t want an answer to were always questions you desperately wanted an answer to—but only if it was the one you wanted. They both wanted to know this would be a comedy. They did not want to know if it would be a tragedy.

Lying by omission was still a lie, but she did it anyway.

“Just promise you’ll learn to be careful with said teeth.”

He grinned and laughed and pulled her in close and she felt like a monster herself.

“Come up vit me to de party,” he offered, but she shook her head.

“No, I’ll just get in the way.”

“Vould make a real good story,” he wheedled.

“It’ll make a better one if I’m not getting in the way. Besides, I’ll have to leave for the big event anyway. Go,” she insisted. “Go have fun.”

She kissed him, and let the kiss linger, trying to lock every little bit of it into her mind.

Then he left.

Then she left.

And she did not look back.

[big-ass-magnet]

Oggie: vut kind ov animal iz de pink panther Oggie's wife, already taking off her clothes: Ognian you’re so fucking stupid

[pythonmelon]

A monster themed RP game I spent a lot of time in between 2016-2022 is closing, so I wanted to redraw all the characters I played there over the years- I met a lot of cool people through it, made a lot of longterm friends and learned a lot.

[inbarfink]

[sparkyarmadillo]

[jagervitdefonnyhat]

(Short form fics, to help me write more regularly, maybe. Off of a list of reverse tropes prompts. Helpful crit, and comments welcome.)

"Iz barely spring, vhy iz it zo hot already," Maxim grumbled into the peachy colored arm acting as his pillow.

"Nah, iz goot" Ognian, owner of said arm, purred back. "Move in a leedle closer, mine side iz cold." He curled around Maxim's shoulder to pull him closer to his bare chest. Thick fingers tipped with claws dug into long purple hair. Maxim reached behind and pulled it out of the way. His back was already starting to sweat through his shirt, his hair certainly didn't need to get tangled up in it.

"Iz only colt cause hyu dun vear nottink more den a vest."

"Und hyu's only varm cawse hyu insist on vearink more," rose a grumble from Dimo, occupying Oggie's other side. They lay pressed together shoulder to rib to waist to hip to Dimo's leg thrown atop Oggie's.

Maxim shifted onto his side so he could see his third companion. "Ho, vhat’s hyu excuse, den? Hyu gots fur to keep hyu varm."

"Ho, vell, iz cawse iz cold hyu dumkoff." He scoffed. "Hyu chust run varm like zum furnace on legs. Zo get back to vork."

Maxim sat up and crossed his arms. "Hy ken't!" He whined. "Mine back iz a sveaty, mine hair is shtickink to everyting, de ground is stabby vitout vearink sometink," his voice went soft at the end. "Is-" he sniffled, "is too varm! Demmit, I miss de hall!" He kicked out at his neat pile of cape and sword and boots, sending it flying across the cave. The rapier clattered against the wall. Dimo and Oggie sat up. "Is too varm too cuddle und hy hates it. At least give me de dignity of complaink."

"Brudder..."

Dimo inturrepted, "eediot. Sleep on oggie's jacket, he isn't uzink it. Can put hyu cloak on top if hyu needs. Den strip down und get over here."

"Vhat? but-"

"Ho, dun vorry. Hy iz fine vit it gettink all dirty!"

"Vell?"

Maxim slumped and dragged the back of his hand across his eyes. "Ja, ja hokay." Stripping off the long shirt and tight pants was more an ordeal than he'd have liked with shaking hands from now all that anger built up for nowhere to go. The energy from it buzzed under his skin. He stumbled getting his foot out the leg. Gathering everything back up and laying out the jacket and cape helped, as the slight draft cooled over his sweat damp skin. He looked up from his bed arrangement to see Dimo and Oggie still sat up. Dimo patted the space in front of him, so he sat.

"Hy gets dis in a braid qvick, dat should help, ja?" He asked.

"Ja, dat should help." He took his hat into his lap.

"Hyu gots a hair tie?"

"No," he said quietly. "It broke months ago. Vas mine last vun. Ve haven't had spare fabric fer a new vun yet."

Dimo huffed, and Maxim knew an eyeroll followed. "Oggie, cut a strip off de market leadder, vill hyu."

"But dat ruins de value!" Maxim twisted to stare with raised eyebrows.

"Vhat, like some townie vill notice a leedle strip done later inshtead ov vhen ve skinned it. It vill shtill sell."

Oggie handed Dimo the strip, an arms length long and dark brown on one side. "Here hyu go!" A bit thin but functional enough. Dimo put his hand atop Maxim's head and swiveled it back around.

"Tenks." He put it between his teeth as he seperated the sections and braided down a few inches. Then took the folded strip, adding each half to a section. Maxim shifted. It slipped. He took it out and put it back in. A few sections down a section fell out when he shifted again. It was slow, from there. With it braided in the rest of the way down, he took the leather ends and tied them around the tail. "Dere hyu go. Better?"

"A bit, ja." He pulled the braid forward, stroking over it, other hand tapping the brim ofhis hat. Dimo glanced at Oggie and raised an eyebrow. Oggie bit his lip and smiled, then moved into a crouch.

"Hy know chust de ting." And with a heavy shove, Dimo flung Maxim into Oggies waiting arms. Both fell back at the impact as Maxim let out a shout of surprise, hat clutched firmly in hand. Oggie reached for it.

"Hoy! Vatch vhere hyu's puttink hyu hands!" Maxim slapped the reaching hand away and leaned back into Oggie, pressing him firmly into the floor. Oggie wrapped a leg around his hips and pressed to the side, flipping them over.

"Ho ja, hy's vatchink verra carefully!" Oggie giggled. "Come here hyu!" He reached forward, where Maxim was attempting to keep it out of reached. He squirmed and dragged himself forward, out from under Oggie.

"Looks like hyu's loosink over dere!" Dimo called. "Hy bet tomorrow's cookink hyu dun effen touch his hat!"

"Hoy! Hy can manage dat, et least!" Oggie turned to defend himself.

Maxim used the opportunity to shove Oggie off and fling him onto his back. "Hoy, vhat do hy get out ov dis?"

"Snails dun get anyting out ov de bets, deys de subject ov dem."

He stood up and put his hat back on his head "So hy dun gots to cook if hyu vin?"

Dimo raised an eyebrow. "Hy tinks dat iz a goot ting."

"Hey! Umph-!" Oggie tackled him back to the floor, atop the laid out jacket and cloak.

"Ha!" He lay a had on top of the hat, pressing it over Maxim's eyes. "Iz sleepy time now, hokay?"

"Ja," Maxim nodded. He smiled. "Ja, hy's goot now."

"Great, now get hyu asses over here. Hy'm cold." Dimo dragged Oggie off of Maxim and resumed his position, half on top of the other jäger and shoved together at every possible point. Oggie lay an arm out an Maxim curled up in it, hat placed carefully above him.

A moment passed and their breathing evened. In the quiet, bugs chirped and distant sticked snapped and the whistling scream of the auralnautic owls echoed through trees. The cave wasn't as cold as stone should be.

[artataliaf]

peepshow at the bar

[calmingpi]

More jager business

[mysticnachophilosopher]

Ooh, also, the comic Girl Genius has some good representation of that in the character Ognian. You should read it for many reasons, but Girl Genius does have one of my favorite examples of this phenomenon.

it's always "immortals always lose the ones they love!" and never "this family has had this incredible, powerful, loving figure present through generations of their lineage, all because they are descended from someone the immortal loved long ago" and i think that's a shame!!

[minister-of-silly-walks]

OGGIE BEFRIENDED SOME GEISTERS????? When did this happen? How did this happen? Good lord I’m overdue for a reread

[bigasswritingmagnet]

The Jagerfrät, Part 2: Lunch and Learn

Modern day AU Agatha goes to Mechanicsburg University and discovers another part of her family legacy: The Jägerfrat. After rescuing/being discovered by three of the fraternity members, they buy her lunch, and Dimo gives her an impromptu history lesson.

Chapter 1 | AO3 Link

It was technically Theta Phi Theta Fraternity, but they were known to one and all as the Jägerfrat. It was the oldest fraternity in the country, and probably the most notorious. They were popular on Mechanicsburg University grounds, and absolutely nowhere else. On their own, they were a troublemaking rabble, known for drinking bars dry, picking fights, and tipping poorly.

But when a Heterodyne arrived…

Agatha had heard the stories. They’d burned a bar down. They’d terrorized every university within driving distance with “pranks” that usually resulted in real bodily harm and property damage in the thousands - minimum. They were the reason the Galați Goats no longer had a live animal mascot.

Every Heterodyne who had ever gone to Mechanicsburg University (which was all of them) had been a member.

Except for the last two.

“I mean, I wasn’t there, but we’re big on like, oral history and shit, y’know, so I know how it went down. It was like...everybody can’t like everybody, but the dudes didn’t even want to know us, y’know? We were embarrassing to them.”

Dimo had won the most emotionally charged game of rock-paper scissors Agatha had ever seen, and therefore was the one who got to ride with Agatha and give directions to a place that served ‘the most dope-ass sandwiches you ever ate in your life, no joke’. He sat slouched in the seat with his knees pressed against the dashboard, twirling his baseball cap on his finger. With each revolution, the enamel snarling demon face pinned to the brim caught the sunlight in a brief flash of gold.

“They made everybody tone it way, wayyy down. No more ragers, no more raids, no more anything . And the frat was not happy about it—I heard one guy straight up tried to knife them.”

“ What?”

“Yeah! Got expelled and everything, it was wild. The house heads burned his name off the wall with a fuckin’ blowtorch.”

Agatha knew why Uncle Barry had never told her stories about things he and his brother had done, but...maybe he could have squeezed in a few? Dropped casual hints? Something to prepare her for the inevitable reveal, the day she would have to face her legacy.

“If everyone was so unhappy about it, why did they do it?”

Dimo looked blank.

“Do what?”

“My father and Uncle Barry didn’t even join the fraternity; what authority did they have to tell the Jägers how to run it?”

“They were the Heterodynes,” Dimo said.

“But they weren’t in the fraternity.”

“But they were the Heterodynes,” Dimo said again. Suddenly he grinned and sat up, jamming his hat back on his head. “Turn here! This is it!”

“ This is the place?” Agatha exclaimed. Despite her trepidation, she obeyed the instruction and pulled into the parking lot of what she had assumed was an abandoned shack left over from a horror movie set.

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting on a half-rotten picnic table and staring down, wide eyed, at the perfectly pressed ham and cheese panini she had just tentatively bitten into.

“This is...the best thing I have ever tasted in my life,” she marveled.

“Told you, bro!” Maxim said. Beside him, Oggie managed to shove half a triple-decker club sandwich into his mouth in one bite.

“The guy who runs it used to be in the frat, sorta, so we get free sodas,” Dimo said.

“Also his granddaughter is smokin’ hot and totally into me,” Maxim said, preening.

“She is so not,” Oggie said.

“How the fuck would you know?” Maxim demanded.

“Cause you flirted with her and she hit you with a side of meat.”

“That was an accident, and she gave me her number after,” Maxim said, glaring.

“How can you sorta be in a fraternity?” Agatha asked, taking another bite of her sandwich.

“You hang around the house and help out with the parties, but you don’t do any of the pledging or drink the Jägerdraught.”

Agatha’s brow furrowed.

“Drink the what?”

The three boys glanced at each other, and Agatha sighed.

“I know very little about what my family used to do,” she said. “Outside of rumor and what I got off of the internet, I know almost nothing. Uncle Barry never liked to talk about it. He and my father worked hard to distance themselves from all of it, and he tried to do the same for--to me. You said they were embarrassed about it, I'm starting to think they were ashamed of it."

“Are you?” Dimo asked.

The table went quiet. The three Jägers were staring at her with startlingly solemn expressions. They didn’t know it, but it was a question that Agatha had been considering for a while now. Even not counting the college shenanigans, her family had been responsible for shady business deals, violent corporate take overs, and more tax fraud than you could shake a stick at.

But when she’d visited Mechanicsburg University last spring, she’d found herself drawn to it in a way she couldn’t quite name.

“I still have to go sign in and get my dorm keys,” she said, “but I’d like to see the fraternity house when I’m done.”

Their eyes lit up, and there was as much relief as excitement, but before a word could be said, a shadow fell over the table.

“ Where the hell have you idiots been?”

The girl standing over them was a few years older than Agatha. She had flaxen-blonde hair that was almost white, and furious brown eyes that bored into each young man in turn. Agatha could see the sunburn on her cheeks, despite the large sunhat on her head. Which—Agatha almost couldn’t believe her eyes—had a Jäger symbol pinned to the purple ribbon on the top.

“Jenka!” Maxim cried, winningly. Oggie let out an oof as a shaggy brown head the size of a toddler shoved itself over his shoulder, black eyes fixed on Oggie’s sandwich.

“Ayy, Füst, my man!” Oggie said with delight, and pulled out a slice of chicken for the dog.

“Why are none of you assholes answering your phones, where the fuck is my car, and who the hell is this?”

The three boys grinned broadly.

“This,” Dimo said, and Oggie and Maxim drummed their hands on the table in a drum roll. “Is Agatha. Heterodyne.”

“Tadaaaa!”

[regallibellbright]

Today’s Girl Genius:

… So… Weaponized, artificial suns?

And hm. Not just polar cold, eldritch “void between stars” cold that is therefore specifically weak to starlight (even simulated.) Very interesting.

Like also these guys are creepy as hell in general obviously but. Hmmm.

And then note that they were supposedly working with Zola (and that’s why the Geisterdamen are working with everyone else, as we were reminded with that scene with Oggie, because she’s a false Lucrezia,) who’s currently calling herself “Queen of the Dawn.” Not sure if that’s anything meaningful, but. Interesting.

[shavynel]

I was going to say this is so incredibly unfair. WHY would you pit jägers against each other? And then I realized, no no, 100% fair to have jägers fight. THEY'D LOVE THAT.

SO

VOTE OGGIE! Oggie wins this one for me simply cause of this supremely casual moment of I bite a hat.

(What? Deja Vu? I posted about this last week? Caught me red-handed you did. But then you'll understand my bias and why I'm landing with Oggie this fight.)

BUT HOKAY. MAXIM wins The Hat off Ol' Man Death mit de sottle no less!

(From Maxim Buys a Hat)

Poll Administrator... I'm realizing now you've caught them without their hats on... and I'm here posting about them getting hats... Which means there's only one way to end this post!

Look at how proud they are of their new hats. LOOK AT THEM! LOOK AT THEIR SWAG!

(Is this post actually hat acquisition propaganda?)

(Yeah, yeah it is ...)

Round 1

[iztarshi]

Character asks: Oggie Girl Genius! 8) What kind of car they would drive.  22) How they spend their money. 

8) I think Oggie would drive an SUV and he does drive it off-road. In fact, you would be amazed at some of the places he has driven that SUV. Especially after Agatha repaired it multiple times and added some new features.

22) Oggie would just spend his money on fun stuff, mostly food and alcohol. And then, when he runs out of money, he steals the food and alcohol instead.

[quotablefanfiction]

“Ho, look et de time!” Maxim exclaimed loudly, looking up at the ceiling as though checking the position of the sun. “Hy iz late to Oggie. Hy mean to vash mine hair. Und Oggie’s hair. Hy iz verra late und must go, iz vot Hy mean. Nize to see you!”

Maxim has a very valid reason to be not here (chp. 1)

The General by adiduck (book_people) (AO3) Girl Genius – Teen #Mentions of Gore and Amputation #Mentions of Suicide #Sheep Abuse #Gross Misuse of Live Sheep

It takes six months for Dimo to officially become acting general of the Jaegermonster army after Baron Klaus Wulfenbach locks Mechanicsburg, and himself and their Heterodyne with it. A lot can happen in six months.

Part 2 of the Dimo Becomes a General series (AO3)

[dafukdidiwatch]

Part 58 End

And so we end Volume 20 of Girl Genius. What a ride people.

We find out that the bath water is leaking in the ocean and fucking up the whales like come 90s environmentalist movie. Fish People were 100% down to eat people but instead is joining in and forced to do jaegar dancing to not die.

Agatha is the only sensible spark there is, because basically she did the equivalent of working customer service before actually sparking out.

And Oggie's romance! Him giving out jaegar relationship advice to Zeetha about Higgs! That's really really sweet. I love their friendship together.

Whelp, I'm now officially at the part of Early Pandemic Comic in April 2020. So I have 3 years to go before I'm caught up. This will be fun.