Girl Genius

Weaselsprilla, the sarsaparilla made by(not from) weasels.

Creed of the Happy Pessimist:Always expect the worst. Then, when it happens, it was only what you expected. All else is a happy surprise.

Why do I feel we will have enough Weasel puns before the update?

Edit: Starting to ink Tarvek and the letters but still fixing the weasel suit... but at least the hat is almost done.

Edit 2: Seems the longer I'm up the later the update will come so I'll only finish Tarveks head then hitting the bed. I guess tomorrow you will see the Ginger Weasel Beer can. Still struggling with the suit if full of weaseling or the full size weaseling...

edited 28th Mar '13 9:12:14 PM by Mauri

Well here goes nothing

Tarvek has shown himself to be basicly good. We have known for some time that he is basicly sneaky. Also prone to get into hapless situations. Bang's prisoner, The Wasp Queens adversary armed only with a wooden sword. Up against Zola w/o a gun and before that w/o a big enough gun. Stab by Geisters, caught in a lie by Agatha, shot by Lucrezia, infected with a rare resplendently lethal disease. Snookered in Paris by this Holzfaller guy who turns out to be the Baron's son. Not to mention Violetta's punching bag. Plus when he gets a chance to use the Zappy stick the Baron has already found a way to counter it.

He has had his moments but when does he get a true moment of awesome? So far he has mostly been/played the Butt-Monkey.

Levity is what keeps airships afloat. Everything else is just ballast.

Seems I'm adding insult to the injury... still awake (so sorry no update yet) and put him in a weasel suit and penciling it... added some Doraemon paws at the end of the fake arms.

Well here goes nothing

Tarvek is a marvelous jumble of contradictions. He's sneaky, but tends to be insanely honest with friends, and he's not all that skilled at making things come out his way. He's better at seeing the domino chains other people build and subverting them than he is at forcing people to build the chains he wants. He's bad to a degree: I do think he may still want to depose Klaus...though I'm less and less sure what he wants to see happen after that. I think he probably was willing to make use of both the wasps his family had planted and maybe even the spark wasp, if it would free Europa and give the continent peace for a generation or so. He can kill without compunction if handed an enemy who threatens him and his. He's capable of totally devastating infatuation, but it's early days when it comes to seeing if it's durable: it could yet prove "easy come, easy go"....though I gotta say his commitment to his crazy father, his sister, Gil, and Violetta would suggest where he loves, he abides, even in the face of powerful reasons to stop loving. On that basis I think Agatha's got a faithful lover.

Tarvek's bashful and willing to give up when he's not wanted — but when he decides not to give up he impresses even the Jagers with his courtship. We know there are things he may not have told, but we still can't confirm them or assess why precisely he does the things he does. He's amazingly kind even to those who pound on him or snark at him — but he's got a wicked tongue and the ability to push buttons sooooo hard!

I think he's too complicated, and still too veiled, for easy "good/bad" discussion. I still live in real concern that we're going to find that the ultimate Foglio stunt is to find the one unforgivable sin he could commit that would be entirely in keeping with both his virtues and his vices. Just as I find Klaus willingness to use Gil's love as a tool, both in his childhood and now, close to unforgivable, there are things they could do with Tarvek that I would find hard to let go of.

I'm waiting to see what's revealed.

Mostly Harmless.

Page!

Ah. And we finally get a real look at what is meant by Coded Tarvekian Sturmvoraus-ese.

Awwwwwwwwww.

Poor all of them. ;_;

Mostly Harmless.

postern. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda...

---

It occurs to me that when Tarvek first befriended friendless Gil (age 8) he was befriending, not looking for a lackey. Which is to say Tarvek was taking care of the world from an early, early age. But he never had permission to do so. Only to look out for number one. So he always has to frame his altruism as selfishness or power politics.

---

The last panel shows a great deal about Agatha's feelings toward Tarvek. A scene worthy of a bodice ripper.

---

I foresee another flight for the firefly. What better way to infiltrate Castle Wulfenbach castle than with a castle built flying machine. Of course I wonder if there is enough left of CW to keep it in the air. Ah well, it will be held aloft by narritivium until it is time for narrativium to bring it down. It would be good to go up there with weasel. Particularly a certain ginger one that always says "dook".

edited 29th Mar '13 12:20:08 AM by Rejfan

Levity is what keeps airships afloat. Everything else is just ballast.

(Amused) Ok. I try not to say "I told you so" quite so boldly. But on this one, Rej...?

I TOLD you all so. I said so. I said, "You gotta take all that "Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Boy Detective" stuff as being told in Sturmvorausese. The talk is gruff, but if you look at the pictures you see a sweet kid trying to take care of the guy who was crying....

And (squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) I. WAS. RIGHT.

YES!

Mostly Harmless.

Awww Look They Really Do....You know how it goes.

Doodles

AWWWWWWWWWWWW! Tarvek really does care about Gil.

The good ship Trimaran bobs hopefully on the waves.

Never mind a knife, the Ho Yay is so thick, you'll need a chainsaw to cut through it.

Trump delenda est

I wouldn't go that far, there isn't really any indication Tarvek is hot for Gil's bod, only that he cares.

I am wistfully hoping for an ending where neither of them has to lose Agatha (or worse, die of acute hypotenusitis) , and if they like each other well enough to tolerate having them as a co-consort I'm all in favor.

Aww, Tarvek.

(...And, um, speaking of Franz, he could come back any time now. I'm starting to worry about him again.)

What does it say about me is that the first thing I thought when reading the page was: It's "They've gotten to him", not "They've got to him"

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

I was in the REM monitor but then I'm fetching the idea that vitriolic best buds gets into this. I am thinking of adding little weaselings to the can before showing it up.

Well here goes nothing

So, absolutely explicit that Tarvek cares about Gil. He's showing that caring as he does so much of the time by wanting to keep the loved one safe. The anti-wasp potion is something real that Tarvek was trying to create, not some poisonous trick. So if Bang is poisoned, it's not from that (with both Gil and Tarvek believing it's not poisonous, I'll trust their expertise).

Very interesting that Tarvek thinks it possible that Agatha could kill Gil, that he asks without judgment about that being good or ill. He is still affected by his family, expecting even his nearest and dearest to kill people for annoying them.

Agatha doesn't want Tarvek to think badly of her and goes into her justifications before admitting what she did. I am amused that she felt Gil could take on Franz, that's trusting somebody to be self-sufficient to the nth degree. But she gives what she wants to get, that's for sure. She cares about both her friends, and is sorry that she put Tarvek's friend in danger, not just for her own friendship with Gil. She'd be apologizing even if she'd never cared a whit for Gil at all.

So now these two can get down to saving Gil.

This is a rather sweet page, not the usual Friday cliffhanger.

hippogrif Yah, you did. I took me till Phil wrote the weasel rescue scene to catch on. As I noticed before that was a total reframing of Tarvek's purpose. There all along, but hard to see (except for you). Also Tarvek did do some major lying. Plus handing the spark wasp over to Lucrezia didn't do the Baron and by extension Gil a lot of good. So he has penance to do. My guess is he has gotten Gil into trouble before (like in Paris). Gotten himself involved to get Gil out of trouble. Then excused the involvement by blaming it on Gil. Course there was the penance that Bang got him to do. And I want to know if he jumped airship or walked a plank to get out of that.

Right now I would be perfectly happy with Agatha choosing Tarvek over Gil. He has sort of wormed his way into our hearts. However the Foglio's won't go that way. Plus Tarvek would be sad if Gil is left out anyway. So it is SVV forever.

Besides Gil's character has undergone a major and unacceptable reversion. That needs to be rectified. He is not all there and that means that he feels half dead at the moment. Zombified a little. All the parts there but part of his will is missing. Very unsatisfying. Just ask Zoing or the goldfish.

Levity is what keeps airships afloat. Everything else is just ballast.

Tarvek knows Sparks. He knows Sparks well. Gil was interfering with a Reigning Spark in the middle of trying to save her people and her domain while dipping into the Madness Place. Not just interfering: trying to stop something absolutely vital that she (and he!) had been working days to accomplish. And he was doing it in the middle of a war, with high odds of some of Agatha's people dying in the streets below.

"Did you kill him?" asked in a wary voice with a worried face is about the right question to ask at that point. And, no — no judgement. At that point if she had killed him it would have been something other than murder or even manslaughter.

For all the regrets, Agatha still did pretty well to even think of a way of dealing with Gil that kept him safe from her wrath. Yes, she should have had Franz take Gil into custody: but there's a real chance that far from keeping Gil safe they'd have been putting everyone into danger by bringing in the equivalent of a truly brilliant live bomb: Gil as an enemy behind his own enemy's lines would be terrifying.

@Rej? Thanks for tolerating my victory dance. I've waited a long time for that prediction to be fully confirmed, and taken a lot of harsh body blows while waiting. I appreciate you putting up with the tango-of-vindication.

Mostly Harmless.

I think Tarvek recognizes Agatha had been in the madness place at the time, where the usual social niceties might not apply.

Well the Ginger Weasel Beer ad will be ready in a while (if I don't derail myself again) but got wondering... Should I add a weaseling plushie while at it?

Well here goes nothing

So. Now, to proceed.

Violetta nailed Tarvek's core personality here. (Does one more smirking tango, muttering "I called that one long before this page, too, hee-heee-heee.... No. No maniacal laughter, girl. Cut it out...")

Tarvek now faces a hellish problem: the two people he loves most (that we know of) are both at risk — on opposite sides of the conflict. But Tarvek will burn down hell to protect the people he really loves. He's got to secure Agatha's well-being first: if nothing else he's smart enough to know that if he saves Gil but not Agatha, Gil will be furious in a way Agatha would not. And anyway, Tarvek loves Agatha for sure...he will want to save her, and she's the current first order of business.

But he's going to be worrying and fretting and plotting and sparking to figure out how to save Gil.

And, (she said, sadly) I think this really does open up a high probability of Tarvek dying trying to save Gil, because that way he's saved both people he loves and ensured they'd at least have each other. I do hope I'm wrong. I want the boy to live and have some happiness.

Mostly Harmless.

I will be horribly upset if such a thing happens. Heroic death or no, that is not the way narrativium is supposed to play out in a comic.

If it moves, eat it!

Ah but only in this timeline. In Othar's twitter Tarvek outlives most of Europa. Alone. Very sad. Happily he had a hero/gentleman adventurer to send back to rectify things. Um maybe that was a hero to send back to really muck things up. I wonder how Othar and Sanaa are doing just about now.

edited 29th Mar '13 10:12:16 AM by Rejfan

Levity is what keeps airships afloat. Everything else is just ballast.

Tarvek would get the same treatment as Chump in any case... *wry grins ahoy*

Well here goes nothing