#things just got INTERESTINK

[chaossmagic]

you can literally see robert’s brain short-circuit when aaron says he’s gay.....iconic (TM)

[brawltogethernow]

Neutral Element - Outside the Castle

Installment Masterlist

Characters: Rescue Party, Gil, Klaus, Lucrezia, Agatha; Relationships: Wulfenbachs, Agatha/Lars and Agatha/Gil; Length: 2k. Immediately after no bless obli cheese.

The Jägers are definitely going to go after Agatha, so Zag jumps them before they’ve even started conferring. Because he knows Jägers well from working with the ones crashing with the Empire, and once they decide to plot the turnover rate from plan to action is functionally nonexistent. He sneaks up where they’re listening in from a wagon roof like creepy gargoyles and leans over the silent trio. “You’re going to get her, yeah?” he says. “Take me with you.”

They exchange looks. “He iz hendy,” says Oggie.

“He iz Miz Agatha’s friend,” says Maxim.”

“Yah, you iz coming, keedo,” says Dimo.

“Ve couldn’t schtopp you enny vay, yah?” says Maxim, grin fierce.

“Come on den,” says Oggie cheerfully. “Toot-sveetie!”

“Nobbles and wobbly cheese, honestly,” Dimo mutters to himself for some reason.

 *

Circling the castle doesn’t tell them anything good. Zag scouts around and then shares the rundown of what people are saying, and what they aren’t, and how no news is bad news.

“And I’ve heard things around,” he adds, nodding up at the Keep of Storms. “About that place. Things I do not like.”

“Hyu mean like, in repports from somevere, mebbe?” says Ognian, trying for sly.

“Yes, alright, I get news from damn reports to my father,” says Zag. If they’re asking leading questions, they already know. They smirk at him sharply, but it seems approving. “That doesn’t matter right now. Right now we have to get her out of there. And that means we have to get in there.”

“Hm,” hums Dimo, looking through the arcs of lightning barring the way to the keep. “Hyu know, ven she was out-like, the other day, Miz Agatha met op with a pretty gorl — hoo, she looked like she could rilleh fight! — mit a verreh pretty little airship.”

“No, Hy dun tink dat vould be enny good,” says Oggie.

“Dot ting, hit looked pretty small, yah?” adds Maxim. “How many pipple you figure it fit?”

“Hy dunno, brodder,” adds Oggie, doing a show of looking Maxim up and down speculatively, “mebbe if ve start cotting bits off uf hyu —”

“Hoy dere!”

“She could get in, though,” Dimo reasons, demonstrating seasoned experience ignoring tomfoolery. “Hy think ve should be tellink her habout dis, before ve go in. Hyu know, in case she vants to help Miz Agatha, like.”

Zag stares up at the sky above the castle. “Hm. I think they would still notice a dirigible, even a small one. It’s dark out, and the lightning moat is going to kill visibility a bit, but this is a town square. It’s not that dark.”

“Iz not a dir-rigy-bill, zo much,” says Oggie.

“Hyu’s be growink op in de sky, yah?” says Maxim. “Mebbe hyu will like it.”

 *

“They have Agatha?!” says Gil, looking overwrought, and Zag thinks, Hmm, to himself, quietly. His friend should have options, is all. Lots of options. Lars is a real sweetheart, and the wild woman Agatha apparently found in the Wastelands does not look like a sweetheart, but she’s a spark, and Agatha is giong to need someone who can keep up with her….

Zag regards Agatha’s friend (hee) as she waves her hands and explains that her flying machine definitely would not get off the ground carrying five people and a lobster. “But I could make modifications,” she says, staring at it speculatively like she’s considering ripping it apart then and there. She was patting it earlier, so it’s kind of unsettlingly like watching someone turn that look on a baby. Sparks, amirite. Sparks in ~love~, possibly. Zag is assessing.

“See, the vertical blades spin to get it off the ground straight up, and then I basically drop it and then it stays airborne.”

“Iz dot…safe?” Oggie asks, goggling.

“So!” Zag cuts in before Gil can find some acceptable-to-her way to say, Well, no. “I’m glad you’re going to help us help Agatha! Apropos of nothing, how do they feel where you’re from about having three or more people in a relationship? Good? I’m asking for a friend.”

Gil drops the wrench she was gesturing with on her foot.

“You don’t have to answer!” Zag calls back to her when they finally take their leave. “Just think about it!”

 *

“Huh,” Gil says to Zoing after the odd party of Agatha’s friends starts  back the way they came, getting into some sort of scuffle that involves a lot of gentle elbow-checking, as she starts to prep her ship. “I didn’t think you got that hair color around here.” She looks at the Jägers. “Uh, in humans.”

 *

The way back is a trudge, but Dimo seems pleased with the results of their detour. “She iz definitely good beckup for Miz Agatha to keep hendy,” he says. “En mebbe also odder things.”

Oggie leans over into the green Jäger’s personal space. “Hyu tink she can help her vit dot vagon she kept svearing at de odder day?”

“Dot vos some spicy language, dot vas,” muses Maxim. “Vere hyu tink she learn dot?”

Dimo shoves at them both. “Hy am sayink —” He breaks off into a gusty sigh. “Zott, hyu are so dense.”

“Hy am not dense!” says Oggie, dramatically offended. “Hy am very schooled in matterz of luff! See? Hy even knew vat hyu vas tokking about. Hend you thot hyu vas beink schneaky. Heh.”

Dimo rolls his eyes. “Yez, yez, hyu heff shown me op. Woe, woe.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate the free entertainment,” says Zag (the Jägers shrug, sheepish at being caught at it), “but when did you three see that ship, anyway? She was explaining it to you like she’d never met you before.”

Dimo rubs the back of his neck. “Oh, hyu know.”

“Ve vas in de neighborhood,” says Maxim, eyes on the sky.

“Hy vas not op to ennything!” Oggie insists, distressed. “Honest!”

“…So you were following Agatha,” says Zag.

Maxim shifts, uncomfortable. “Vell…mebbe.”

Zag meditates on this, then reasons that the wild Jägers are pretty good guys and are also turning out to be surprisingly adorable about their real master. They were spying on Agatha on her dates. “Take me next time,” he settles on.

“Ey, vusn’t very interestink,” says Oggie, trace readings of shame gone. “Dey mostly tokked science schtuff.”

“Dot type, dey tink de interestink part iz de science schtuff.”

Everyone present groans.

 *

When the assembling rescue party gets back to the middle of Sturmhalten, again, they practically miss Lars. Also again, apparently.

“Been following you,” he says, breathing hard. “You keep moving around.”

Yeah, Zag can’t imagine an actor, capable point man or no, moving as quickly as three Jägermonsters and him, especially since he seems to have acquired a furry legwarmer, hooked into his leg for dear life. “You brought Krosp.”

Lars shrugs, a stage gesture. “He wanted to come!” Then he grimaces with his whole body when Krosp responds by flexing his claws. Also a stage gesture. Zag loves the Circus people, he honestly does. He thinks he could be at home in their “the world is a stage, so why not mug for the audience” mindset.

“So if you grabbed the Jägers because you knew they would come after Agatha,” says Lars, shaking out his cat-burdened leg (no joy) “— Uh, how did you know that?”

They’re Jägers, and she’s the Heterodyne. “They seemed to like her!” Zag says. He grins (leers, he leers) and nudges Lars with a playful elbow. “You like ‘er too, don’tcha?”

“I — !”

Tormenting Lars is a delight. Zag hasn’t known him very long, but he’s certain the guy isn’t normally this easy to fluster. Except about matters of life and death, which, whatever Agatha obviously privately thinks, is perfectly reasonable.

Krosp groans. (Krosp trying to make traditionally low human noises always sounds adorable, and this is no exception.) “I thought catching up with all of you might be better than being stuck with this genius, but I was wrong.”

Zag looks down at him. “…You’re gonna have to tell me what happened on your way here sometime, buddy.”

Lars and Krosp exchange a look of mutual, recent horror. Which is just the look of a half-decent story, so no regrets.

“Sewers,” Krosp whispers to himself quietly, his expression haunted.

 *

The Baron is framed by a brightly colored circus wagon, and it only makes him look more menacingly enormous. His swathe of silver hair is a chin-length version of Zag’s fluff without the two strands that frame his son’s face like thick ribbons. His gaze is riveted on Agatha and Zag, cutting out the rest of their crowd of allies. The Jägers finger their weapons; Lars looks like he’s on the edge of panic; Gil landed on the field nearby earlier but hasn’t approached. Krosp’s flicking tail detracts from the severity of his expression, and the Sturmhalten Sewermen look like they’re only still on the scene because bolting just then would make them the only moving things around, and if they were that dumb they wouldn’t have lived to be Sturmhalten Sewermen. To a one, they all stand around awkwardly. Gil hovers awkwardly to the side, and everyone else hovers awkwardly in the center. It’s not a brave day for rescue parties. The Baron’s speech to Agatha swallows up impetus for action.

“My son trusts you,” the Baron says meaningfully. His eyes cut back and forth between the swordsman and Agatha at this point, but Zag has always responded to Klaus’ allusions toward his romantic prospects by upping the ante and making the conversation as awkward and graphic as possible, so by this point Klaus is too subtly well-trained to ask about his motivations in running off with Lucrezia’s daughter. “If you both come back —”

Zag shakes out his shoulders, tense. “…You talk like it’s a given that I’m coming back with you, father.”

“Oh, no,” says Klaus. “The Lady Heterodyne, should she agree to talk terms, has her own responsibilities, but you will return. It’s time we had a long talk, young man.” The Baron looms forward, expression forbidding, and wraps his massive hand around Zag’s wrist.

And then chokes on something.

Agatha springs into action before anyone can blink. “Why are you all standing around?!” she shouts. “He’s choking! Let me through, I can help him!” The footsoldiers confer frantically and okay her, and she darts in.

“I’ll help, I’ve got medical experience!” says Gil, leaping forward.

“Oh, great!” chirps Agatha. Turning, she elbows Gil in the nose. “Oh, sorry! Here, I’ll just deal with it,” she says as the princess reels away, clutching her face.

She kneels to the ground, pressing a hand to Klaus’ chest.

“Stay back!” shouts Agatha. “He’s, uh, fructivorous!”

“Wot’s dot mean?” Oggie asks Gil, leaning over to consult her.

“Fzzrk,” says Gil, possibly trying to set her own nose. Her inarticulate response has a whistle in it.

Then the tide of the entire negotiation flips over in a breath, and everyone is moving.

 *

There’s a storm of motion. Lars and Agatha form its eye. The Jägers have leapt into the fight. The Sewermen  have vanished. Gil, her nose purpling, is bent over her ship ranting, and appears to be trying to refit it to use as an impromptu crowd disperser.

Klaus has given up on subtlety and negotiation, grabbing for his son. “You cannot stay with her!” he shouts at Zag, who grimaces and barely dodges. “You do not understand how dangerous — !”

“Hey!” says Gil, abandoning her ship and lunging forward with something she grabs from its backseat gripped in her right hand — it looks like a big fork with electricity dancing on the end — and one of her swords fisted in her left. “Get away from him!”

“Do NOT interrupt — !” starts the Baron, only half-turning from Zag. Gil darts into the space Zag has put between the two Wulfenbachs, fork thing aimed at the Baron’s torso, sword up to defend. Klaus raises his sword arm, his greatsword dripping crimson, then hesitates, eyes snagging on Gil’s snarling brass circlet, then darting to the bifurcated blade of her katar. His complexion turns from a red fury to an only arguably better putty color. “You — Djorok’ku Skifandias von?!”

Gil looks like she’s been smacked. “What — S’vek? Zur bakken Skiff?!”

“Kar!” The Baron presses a hand to his chest, greatsword mostly forgotten. “Mor bakken Skiff!”

“Morbukinskif vok!” says the blue coat by the Baron’s leg, which really puts a cap on Klaus’ day.

“What —” he says, and then is interrupted when the entire battlefield is overtaken by an upset like someone has picked it up and shaken it. The Baron and the Skifandrian dodge debris in opposite directions.

 *

The debacle with the chicken house and assorted other circus wagons ends with the Baron’s son, the Heterodyne Girl, and the mysterious foreign spark all unaccounted for.

Gil: What — What? You speak Skiff?! Klaus: Yes, I speak Skiff! Zoing: I speak Skiff too! Klaus: Augh what the shit

I do not feel bad about adding more pointless doubling back to the Rescue AT ALL, because the Rescue Party mostly runs in ineffective circles and facilitates a lot of really great comedy.

Lars’ arc is not significantly impacted by this AU. Unfortunately? I tried to scootch events surrounding “Showtime!” around to save him, but it didn’t work out.

Why did I structure this so I have to make up Skiff and then render it in Zoingspeak. @ me: What is this. Oh, right, Zoing is present and color-inverted, I’ll get into it later/earlier. Learlier.

When asked in an AMA whether all Skifandrians had green hair, both Foglios answered differently. For the purposes of this AU, the answer pretty much has to be no.

[oosteven-universe]

Charlie’s Angels #03

Charlie’s Angels #03 Dynamite Entertainment 2018 Written by John Layman Illustrated by Joe Eisma Coloured by Celeste Woods Lettered by Taylor Esposito     Somethin’ ain’t right with Charlie, and not only are the missions he’s sending the Angels on also “not right,” but they are downright treasonous as well. It hasn’t taken the Angels long to figure out this Charlie might not be their Charlie— which means the next mission he sends them on may very well be a suicide mission!     I hope that these guys (and gal though I'm guys as a general group of people) I do you have leave some holes in your calenders so that at least once a year we’ll be getting a Charlie’s Angels limited series. John’s ability to capture the essence of the show and it’s characters well that’s no real surprise but it does make any one of us who ever watched it feel nostalgic in the best of ways. For those coming into this only having seen the films, I'm sorry, it’s time they fell in love with the original source material too. Then there’s Joe (yes the Maude theme just came out of my mouth as I was typing that) who is smart enough to know that he’s not going to be a portrait artist but he can capture the spirit and a general likeness to keep us firmly rooted in the 70’s.     Well it seems that the Angels are in a world of trouble and don’t know quite how to extract themselves from it. Don’t get me wrong it is extremely entertaining and it’s pushing the girls into a scenario they never faced on the television okay well outside of Mexico and some drug running. Hey wait a minute the more I think about it the more I begin to realise that this case is right up their alley, well John you sneaky devil you. The girls are very capable to figure out anything that happens to be thrown at them. Also finally is anyone beginning to suspect that these phone calls to Charlie aren’t really with him!     So it should have been Bosley who figured out that the Charlie situation was off. To be honest I also don’t remember him staying behind like this either. There is a lot going on here that I find (in my best Arte Johnson on Laugh-In) very interestink. With only two issues left however we need to move things along and John does that nicely as the pacing quickens but you don’t notice that it has. Good writing is capable of hiding the tricks of the trade from readers and John certainly can do that and much more.     Joe’s and enigma for me because I really am one of those people who wants all the attention to detail and the varying weights of linework used in surprising ways. Joe he’s got a much more simple style than that but it totally works and he’s able to convey emotions, feelings and tension in his work without it being “worked.” Bring us more fashion Joe, find some 70’s Sears Catalogues (yes I know a guy) and go to it. Oh by the way Bravissimo with the Newspaper that was extremely well done and a surprise wow moment. Joe has a great eye for storytelling as we see in his constructing the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels. ​     The cliffhanger ending here is spectacular. I cannot wait for next issue damn you all because this is why we read to begin with. This story has all the mood, tone and feel of the seventies series but it also feels modern at the same time. John’s storytelling ability is sensational as he takes the girls on a retro modern adventure that will test them and their skills to the max!