Girl Genius

I really doubt Lu can do anything right now - she's surrounded by, well, everyone. She's probably just gonna try and convince Tweedle to join her or something. Really, it's kinda difficult how this impending conversation will turn out.

Unless it turns out that HeadKlaus is actually wasped. Which I really hope is not the case, both from liking the characters and in terms of plot.

edited 18th Apr '15 1:55:31 PM by Geoduck

I'm going to go out on a limb and make an actual, specific, prediction: the effect is indeed temporary, and Lucrezia will be in residence just long enough to distract everyone from the train (and perhaps distribute some exposition, at least for the new readers).

I'll also be the dissent on the Brother Ulm Theory. He's dead and gone, and that's the Beast, constrained by the loss of its more troublesome talents. It's going to wake up and go crashing through the Wulfenbach siege, whisking them all off to ??? — which will be their next problem to solve. Meanwhile, the outside world will get the impression that some contingent has abducted some other contingent — likely Agatha cast as a culprit in all interpretations, but whether it is the Heterodyne kidnapping both the Baron and the Storm King, the Heterodyne and the Storm King kidnapping the Baron, or the Heterodyne and the Baron kidnapping the Storm King... I would say probably all three.

This should keep them in enough emergencies to keep them from poking into the book and the key business for months yet.

Our resident dooklet wouldn't be content with calling Tweedle bad names if Gil-Klaus gave off even the least scent of being compromised. Instead, we'd be seeing alarm mode.

edited 18th Apr '15 2:47:42 PM by Euodiachloris

I am fully prepared for you to be rewarded Moxana points for that. The only thing I'd like to add is that Lucrezia will likely flirt and/or try to seduce one or both of our Storm Kingdom Candidates before she is shut down.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. That line about Ulm "being in a better place" pretty much assures he's not completely dead, and the whole transfer they just did was described as being "organic to mechanical" which makes Ulm the only logical candidate. And, far from being constraining, they've explicitly said they've packed this new train with all sort of cool mad technology. No way they're giving the Beast's personality free access to all of that.

Well.. I suppose it might be Konig, but Ulm would really be a better candidate for the job.

edited 18th Apr '15 4:57:41 PM by Geoduck

My feelings exactly. Brother Ulm is too good a character to just kill off for no damned good reason.

Given we haven't had "the band"^note settling for Martellus as substitute Tarvek together for some time now, the train depot has no major hanging plot threads, and everybody present will have to be in Paris anyways, having the train depart with all aboard makes sense, whether soon or later.

edited 18th Apr '15 9:51:24 PM by Tangent128

I...do not think Tweedle will function very well as a substitute Tarvek, at least so far as Gil and Agatha are concerned.

Considering that Vi knows about the whole "King's Touch" thing and the circumstances, her commanding Tweedle to grab Agatha must have come as a shock to him...

I think Brother Ulm now has a case of train brain.

I don't think Tweedle and Gil will be aboard the train when it takes off, at least not for long. Having two armies following along tends to complicate things, and I don't think the Master of Paris would be happy at all to have that conflict brought to his front yard.

Now for the countdown to when the locket kicks back in....

Ooooo....

Lu has shown she has no idea what's going on when she's suppressed. I bet she thinks the locket is totally busted, not temporarily disabled. Or it's the usual "locket removed" scenario, and hasn't checked what she's wearing.

Since Gil knew about the locket due to the St Vilo-thing, that comment indicating not connecting machine-shutdown to Lu-trouble has got to be Klaus, since Klaus has at no point been shown to realize the whole complicated situation to where at least some of the dots are connected.

edited 18th Apr '15 10:15:13 PM by Candi

Plus having a Klaus/Lu interaction is a lot more interesting plotwise.

We have an inferior substitute Tarvek and a messed up Gil. I find it rather symmetric.

I agree that it's completely Klaus there, Gil knows the importance of the locket. Even if both he and Agatha hadn't thought the EMP thing through while caught up in the madness place; the minute Violetta screamed real Gil would've snatched Agatha and run. Come to think of it, does Violetta know about Klaus? Why did she scream for Tweedle to grab Agatha and not Gil? There was that mind control speculation, but was it really enough for her to trust Tweedle more with Agatha's safety? I hadn't thought about that before.

edited 18th Apr '15 10:45:20 PM by Lightningnettle

Lucrezia can wreck havoc simply by demonstrating that both Agatha and Gil are people-puppets whose mind and memories have been submerged —- if not yet over-written —- by those of their parents.

The Other granted eternal youth and The Baron his thousand year reich. The Moral Event Horizon crossed and rocketed past at Warp 10 speeds.

That is what the monks will see. That is what Martellus will see.

Nettle — It could just be that Tweedle is gimongous and Violetta knows he can do it. But I suppose it is also possible that she um, trusts(?) him more. The devil you know, and all.

Well, Vi doesn't know about the mind-copy issues, but she does know something's up since Zeetha guessed and Bang all but confirmed it.

Then there's when Vi last saw Gil, he was totally freaking her out. Tweedle's someone she knows how to deal with. He's 99% arse, but she knows how to deal with him.

Lu sneaking off with Tweedle would be an interesting plot twist.

She heard Zeetha's speculation and she knows about Agatha's 'Evil Twin Lucrezia'. I think Violetta knows as much of the situation as anyone (aside from Gil, Klaus, Bang, and possibly Higgs) could know.

Tweedle is big and burly-able to restrain Agatha- and Vi knows that if she 'wakes up' in his custody, she'll probably be willing and able to escape. (She's done so before.) Also, Tweedle's power base is not yet stable.

If Gil ran off with her, Agatha may not be as willing/able to escape. He has a stable power base and a previously established relationship with Agatha that could make it more difficult to gain support in mounting a rescue expedition. He also has something weird going on in his head that makes him a threat to our Lady.

If they need Lu!Agatha out of the picture, but want to be able to get Agatha back later- in a way that doesn't put her in another prison- it's better to have Martellus as the captor and Wulfenbach as the potential rescuer that vise versa, both politically and in terms of relationships.

If nothing else, it's time for Vi to exercise the sneaky and remove the weasel. That would give Lu problems. And Lu wouldn't be expecting it because she wouldn't realize the weasel was even more important than having Theo as a hostage. (That. was. impressive.)

I just hope no one tells Lu that Tweedle is directly responsible. Totally unneeded complications there.

She might approve...

...Pass the Brain Bleach. Please. >_<

Fantastic. So a Lucrezia/Martellus BDSM fic is now practically inevitable.

I'm assuming it will be titled Touch of the King. ;) ;)

Also scrubbing brush. Make that wire wool. -_-

Re: rescuing Theo. While amusing, it was a little too impressive and, well, cartoony. There's just no way non-Spark Violetta could have instantly conjured up a Theo dummy and perfectly matching costume like that. The novel did a better variation, with the Theo-replacement being an appropriately-sized bundle of cloth and twine.

I guess the Theo dummy is basically like Snaug's popcorn-from-nowhere.

They could have explained dummy Theo's clothes at least if Theo had ended up in a sheet like Tarvek was in for a while. Or maybe Vi has a tiny spark for sleight at hand and bends the rules of reality.