The Bagges Take Ostania
is a 2022 crossover fanfic between Courage the Cowardly Dog and SPY×FAMILY by RobbyA. It concluded on March 28, 2024.
When Muriel is invited to work at a candy factory in Ostania, the family moves there and conveniently meets the Forger family. Around that time, Loid receives intel that the recently-opened factory could be harboring a dark secret that threatens the peace between Ostania and Westalis.
The fanfic provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: The one already present within SXF exacerbated by adding Courage's late 90s/early 2000s set Fantasy Kitchen Sink to the mix.
- Big Bad: Jumping Jack Deen is the owner of a candy factory that has a sinister purpose. He is later revealed to be a robot being programmed by the real villain of the fanfic Katz.
- Clothing Damage: Loid gets his shirt and pants shredded during his ballgame with Katz.
- Comically Missing the Point: Much like how she misinterpreted Keith and the terrorists as child traffickers, Yor misunderstood the letter she received from her daughter's kidnappers as them intending on cooking her in reference to Hansel and Gretel.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Loid relays his story of finding his home destroyed by an enemy strike and his mother in the rubble to Courage to explain why he was so determined to stop a potential war. Courage, in turn, remembered the circumstances of how he became abandoned when a deranged veterinarian launched his parents into space. Courage was not even given the benefit of knowing whether they were still alive.
- Everyone Can See It: Muriel notes how much Loid and Yor appear to be a loving couple and they openly deny the accusations that they flirt with each other.
- Evil Plan: Jumping Jack is working with a Westalis terrorist organization by mass-producing candy laced with nanobots which prove to be catastrophic. Once around 75% of Ostania's citizens ingest the candy, they will take them, hostage, as a means of having the country bend the knee to their rule. Jack himself would be receiving a large chunk of the profit from the scheme.
- Force Feeding: Katz uses his robots to force Yor, Muriel, and Anya to assume massive quantities of candy containing the nanobots.
- For the Evulz: While he was mainly working with the Westalian terrorists for monetary gain, Katz commits murders and other atrocities largely because he enjoys it. He drops Anya even after getting the briefcase since it would be crueler for Loid.
- Greed:
- The whole reason the Bagge family decides to go to Ostania is that Eustace overheard that Muriel could earn up to a thousand dollars from her work hours. He also steals some candy bars from the factory as a means of selling them.
- Jumping Jack's real goal by mass-distributing his candy is so that 75% of Ostania's citizens would be forced to bow down to the Westalian terrorist group under the threat of exploding. Jumping Jack would receive 50% of the profit.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Loid forces Katz to consume a lollipop containing some active nanobots.
- By sneaking some candy bars and selling them, Eustace is nearly harmed by the nanobots.
- Humiliation Conga: Upon fighting Agent Twilight/Loid, Katz gets one of his own lollipops shoved down his throat and falls victim to the nanomachines. He then gets one of his arms fractured and heavily beaten, and all the bones in his body are broken when he crashes into solid concrete.
- I Lied: Katz does this twice:
- After promising some henchmen that they would receive half the profit after helping him to kidnap Anya, Katz leaves them all to the mercy of the Thorn Princess.
- Despite promising to spare Anya when Yor and Loid complied to his demands, he drops Anya anyway.
- Interspecies Romance:
- Once he is brought over to Ostania, the Computer starts flirting with Sylvia who in turn offers to tell him more about herself.
- After arresting Katz and his accomplices, and rewarding both Loid and Courage for their action, the Computer picks up the Handler for a date.
- Jerkass: Eustace as with the original. When meeting the Forgers, he rudely ignores Loid when the latter tried to strike up a conversation; ridicules Yor for the burnt cookies, and Anya overhears him calling her annoying when she read his mind.
- Lampshade Hanging: When Courage tries to explain to the others what Bond had seen happening in the future, he shapeshifts into different forms much like in the original television series. When Loid asks Muriel if that was always something he did, Muriel confirms it.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After being exposed for contributing to the distribution of the candy, Eustace is arrested by the State Security Service and presumably tortured by Yuri as a means of extracting information from him.
- Lethal Chef: Yor tries to bake some cookies for the Bagge family when they move into the apartment complex, but she ends up burning them to a crisp. Eustace even accuses her of deliberately poisoning the cookies.
- Mama Bear: Yor completely massacres several of Katz's minions when she realizes that Anya was kidnapped.
- Mythology Gag:
- While explaining the extent of collateral damage Jumping Jack's plan could prove, Loid mentions Keith Kepler, an Ostanian terrorist who tried to assassinate the foreign prime minister of Westalis to spark a war. He even tried using dogs for the scheme.
- Loid disguising himself as a pizza deliveryman and Courage hiding in the box is a reference to the Courage episode "The Tower of Dr. Zalost" where Courage does so to infiltrate the tower.
- Jumping Jack lures Muriel to work for him due to her winning the Sweet Stuff Contest numerous times.
- Courage is shocked to discover that Cajun Fox and most assuringly Katz, survived falling in the crevice at the end of "Ball of Revenge."
- While threatening to kill Yor and Anya should Loid not surrender, he has them both over the taffy-making machine from the episode Katz Kandy.
- Nanomachines: The Westalian terrorist group creates some nanobots to infect the citizens of Ostania. They multiply quickly and will detonate should Jumping Jack have a reason to.
- Narcissist: Katz thinks highly of himself a trait commonly shared by many sociopaths. While he was working with Westalian terrorists through a disguise, Katz could not help but secretly write his name all over the semi-trailers. His blimp was even made in his likeness.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
- The Handler savagely beats the Cajun Fox after a combination of him sleazily hitting on her and showing indifference towards hundreds of Ostanians dying as a result of his boss's plan.
- Loid is on the receiving end of a brutal clawing by Katz, but Loid returns the favor in response to him threatening to drop Anya from the blimp.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Katz quotes this by verbatim explaining why he was leaving his minions to the mercy of the Thorn Princess.
- Not Quite Dead: Cajun Fox survived falling into the crevice at the end of "Ball of Revenge" and is now complicit in the candy scheme.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Several of Katz's minions have this moment when Yor arrives to retrieve her daughter.
- Eustace learns that word went around about him selling candy bars to customers. While trying to get away, he ends up getting arrested by the Secret Police and is taken to be interrogated by Yuri.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: The very public announcement of Katz's nanamomachine-involving plot is much more in line with the Tuxedo and Martini flavor of Spy Fiction than Spy X Family's usual flavor of Dray Martini with a touch of Absinthe. Downplayed as this is a shift within subgenres.
- Papa Wolf: Loid savagely beats Katz when he threatened his daughter.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Cajun Fox does not like police officers and coldly expresses apathy towards the possibility of Ostanians dying should Jumping Jack achieve his objective.
- Robotic Reveal: Jumping Jack turns out to be just a robot that Katz was piloting.
- Secret-Keeper: Computer learns of Anya's telepathy and promises to keep it a secret when she explains her reasons for wanting it hidden.
- Spiders Are Scary: Jumping Jack Deen has a genetically-modified spider with bat wings.
- The Unintelligible: Courage has the habit of babbling as in the canon series. This makes Anya incapable of reading his thoughts.
- Villainous Breakdown: After Loid forces him to eat some of his own candy, Katz becomes a deranged ball of violence angrily lashing out after trying to appear sophisticated.
- What Does She See in Him?: Yor openly asks Muriel why she married someone like Eustace to which Muriel states that he had some good qualities.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- As he was aware children would primarily be eating his candy, Katz anticipates several children in Ostania getting infected by the nanomachines stating the upper-class families would scramble to pay the terrorists to save their children.
- Katz threatens to turn Anya and Yor into taffy and later uses Anya to force the two into handing over the briefcase. Even when he got what he wanted, he drops her from the blimp anyway.
