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31_days2006-08-05 08:49 pm
mythicbeast.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2006-08-05 08:49 pm
[Aug. 5][Girl Genius] Ordinary Guy
Title: Ordinary Guy
Day/Theme: August 5: Make up for that one: a courageous heart, a bare blade, and a long and yellow bow.
Series: Girl Genius; unspecific spoilers for current Advanced Class chapters.
Character/Pairing: Lars
Rating: G
Lars is an ordinary guy, and sometimes, he wonders how things ever turned out like this. Because really-- he doesn't have the same fear of Sparks the way most people do (though he's afraid of enough other things to make up for that) and he certainly isn't one himself. By all accounts he should be on a farm somewhere, living a nice, quiet life interrupted only by the excitement of the occasional Wulfenbach conquest tromping through the countryside.
Instead, one way or another, he's ended up getting himself into the kind of life where miscalculated experiment implosions, crittery revenant things, and giant deformed sewer monsters are all entirely realistic and horrible ways to die.
It's not like he's special, or anything. Not just the fact that he isn't a Spark, either: after all, not everyone in the Circus of Adventure is a Spark themselves, but between them they can do a pretty amazing job. Nah, Lars just doesn't have much of anything, if it comes down to it. He can do oddman jobs, sure, and from a certain point of view, his sense for things likely to kill him works even better than the most advanced clank's. Nothing really useful.
It kind of fits, that he's best at telling stories.
There's not much you can do to make a Heterodyne story bad, partly because they're just that good, and partly because the audience won't tolerate a whole lot of changes from the script-- efforts at any kind of creative license are generally met with swift (usually nutritious) retribution. Originality isn't the point of a Heterodyne show.
The point's to make the people believe, for as long as you're on the stage, that you're the real thing.
Even if it's the umpteenth time they're running through Race to the West Pole or The Socket Wench of Prague, or any other Heterodyne story, Lars doesn't get tired of it. He knows more than what happens on the stage; he knows the lore that goes with them, too, the kind that people are too afraid to put in the plays. Things about the Jagermonsters, and Revenants-- even useless things, like how bad eyesight runs in the Heterodyne family, or how Barry had a weakness for pickle sandwiches.
Lars has always liked playing Bill in the plays because it gives him a chance to be the hero. Oh, he doesn't think it ever lets anyone forget that he's a chicken through and through. Anyone from the circus knows better than to believe that Lars is anything like Bill Heterodyne in real life.
The audience, though, doesn't, and it's for them that Lars is acting for.
He wonders what audience he's trying to perform for now, and just what it is he thinks he's doing. So far everything's more or less run like a Heterodyne story, and he can't figure out if he should be excited or afraid-- maybe a little of both. He's pretty sure the real Bill never felt like this. Then again, the real Bill wouldn't have had to sneak up through a sewer and a hidden headquarters just to get past a piddling little electrical barrier.
Nah, if he were really Bill, he'd have gotten to the castle, beat the tyrant king, and gotten to kiss the girl already, and just in time for dinner too. The thought reminds Lars why he's even doing this in the first place: to save a girl he's only kissed on stage.
Does he love Agatha? Could be. The stories aren't so clear-cut about things like that. Seems to him that they always paid more attention to things like how Bill and Barry heroically escaped from so-and-so, or invented such-and-such, and not hardly enough time on just how Bill might've begun starting seeing something more than the spark behind Lucrezia's eyes.
Come to that, Lars thinks it would've helped if the stories had been more informative on Lucrezia herself-- maybe he'd know better about how to treat Agatha, if they did. On stage, he gets this weird feeling that they're almost the same person. In a way, it's true that Lucrezia's closer to being Agatha than any other girl he knows. They've got a lot in common, like the Spark, voices strident enough to make a nation bow, and the ability to create death ray guns from scratch. Among other things.
If Agatha's like Lucrezia, the thought suddenly occurs to him, she's probably more than capable of escaping on her own.
The idea lingers for a moment before he shunts it to the side, with about as much vehemence as Krosp used to shovel manure. It's possible, Lars knows. Possible but... even Lucrezia needed Bill to save her. Sometimes.
Well, Lars isn't Bill Heterodyne.
But he's willing enough to try.
Day/Theme: August 5: Make up for that one: a courageous heart, a bare blade, and a long and yellow bow.
Series: Girl Genius; unspecific spoilers for current Advanced Class chapters.
Character/Pairing: Lars
Rating: G
Lars is an ordinary guy, and sometimes, he wonders how things ever turned out like this. Because really-- he doesn't have the same fear of Sparks the way most people do (though he's afraid of enough other things to make up for that) and he certainly isn't one himself. By all accounts he should be on a farm somewhere, living a nice, quiet life interrupted only by the excitement of the occasional Wulfenbach conquest tromping through the countryside.
Instead, one way or another, he's ended up getting himself into the kind of life where miscalculated experiment implosions, crittery revenant things, and giant deformed sewer monsters are all entirely realistic and horrible ways to die.
It's not like he's special, or anything. Not just the fact that he isn't a Spark, either: after all, not everyone in the Circus of Adventure is a Spark themselves, but between them they can do a pretty amazing job. Nah, Lars just doesn't have much of anything, if it comes down to it. He can do oddman jobs, sure, and from a certain point of view, his sense for things likely to kill him works even better than the most advanced clank's. Nothing really useful.
It kind of fits, that he's best at telling stories.
There's not much you can do to make a Heterodyne story bad, partly because they're just that good, and partly because the audience won't tolerate a whole lot of changes from the script-- efforts at any kind of creative license are generally met with swift (usually nutritious) retribution. Originality isn't the point of a Heterodyne show.
The point's to make the people believe, for as long as you're on the stage, that you're the real thing.
Even if it's the umpteenth time they're running through Race to the West Pole or The Socket Wench of Prague, or any other Heterodyne story, Lars doesn't get tired of it. He knows more than what happens on the stage; he knows the lore that goes with them, too, the kind that people are too afraid to put in the plays. Things about the Jagermonsters, and Revenants-- even useless things, like how bad eyesight runs in the Heterodyne family, or how Barry had a weakness for pickle sandwiches.
Lars has always liked playing Bill in the plays because it gives him a chance to be the hero. Oh, he doesn't think it ever lets anyone forget that he's a chicken through and through. Anyone from the circus knows better than to believe that Lars is anything like Bill Heterodyne in real life.
The audience, though, doesn't, and it's for them that Lars is acting for.
He wonders what audience he's trying to perform for now, and just what it is he thinks he's doing. So far everything's more or less run like a Heterodyne story, and he can't figure out if he should be excited or afraid-- maybe a little of both. He's pretty sure the real Bill never felt like this. Then again, the real Bill wouldn't have had to sneak up through a sewer and a hidden headquarters just to get past a piddling little electrical barrier.
Nah, if he were really Bill, he'd have gotten to the castle, beat the tyrant king, and gotten to kiss the girl already, and just in time for dinner too. The thought reminds Lars why he's even doing this in the first place: to save a girl he's only kissed on stage.
Does he love Agatha? Could be. The stories aren't so clear-cut about things like that. Seems to him that they always paid more attention to things like how Bill and Barry heroically escaped from so-and-so, or invented such-and-such, and not hardly enough time on just how Bill might've begun starting seeing something more than the spark behind Lucrezia's eyes.
Come to that, Lars thinks it would've helped if the stories had been more informative on Lucrezia herself-- maybe he'd know better about how to treat Agatha, if they did. On stage, he gets this weird feeling that they're almost the same person. In a way, it's true that Lucrezia's closer to being Agatha than any other girl he knows. They've got a lot in common, like the Spark, voices strident enough to make a nation bow, and the ability to create death ray guns from scratch. Among other things.
If Agatha's like Lucrezia, the thought suddenly occurs to him, she's probably more than capable of escaping on her own.
The idea lingers for a moment before he shunts it to the side, with about as much vehemence as Krosp used to shovel manure. It's possible, Lars knows. Possible but... even Lucrezia needed Bill to save her. Sometimes.
Well, Lars isn't Bill Heterodyne.
But he's willing enough to try.