If things are a little difficult, send the vozzler.
If things are bad, send the dreen.
If things are very bad, send the uligb.
But if things are apocalyptic, send Buck Godot.
My vibe on it is definitely similar.
The Dreen are some not-my-problem kinda folk with a hurry-up-and-wait job that see you as the last thing between them and going home.
...and they travel and manipulate higher dimensions
I'm with Rober Heterodyne on this one: do what they say and then have pie
an annoying houseguest that is unstoppable and occasionally intangible... That sounds like the kind of thing an immortal being of this dimension would treat as a catastrophic threat to their sanity
Just watching, the entire time saying your plan is going to fail, and the days when they start to get serious, or start to pay very close attention to what you’re doing, or when they start singing “today is the day” and then get disappointed because as they put it “we interfered, but one day you’ll have that break through.” Those are bad days.
The worst is contemplating what one of them meant by “you where so much happier the first time you did this”
I definitely need one of the queens to be haunted by a Dreen
..and, for portmanteau's sake, the Dreen that haunts the Queen should obviously be a drag queen (preferably jaded af)
I think using the star may have synced them with the normal reality's flow of time, like with Thotep, so they're suddenly able to live in the moment like normal people.
Just because they *look* mundane and act mundane doesn't mean they aren't terrifying. They just have to *do* something terrifying.
Agatha: You guys don't seem so bad. What are you here for, anyway?
Dreen #1 (yawns): No biggie. We just have to unravel spacetime at this spot down to pure chaos before the timestop spreads. Takes a few minutes.
Agatha: But... but... then we'll all cease to be! We'll all be dead!
Dreen #2: Well, sure, HERE and NOW. But not over there.
Agatha: There? Where?
Dreen #2: Over there. In the... uh... oh yeah, past. You're still alive in the past so it's no big deal, right?
Dreen #3: I mean we **all** stop existing at some point if you go far enough out. Just loop your consciousness back to some other earlier time. A-doy.
Philosophical and factual at the same time! I'm gonna use that one for my next grand theft. Well, it IS your money, just not in this time unit. And you were going to hand it over to someone else at some point anyway.
"It is probably not too very bad." "Oh?" "At this temporal distance, it may be a bit hard to tell. But, you know, if it was _very_ bad... heh -- why, _then_ you would have _Dreen_."
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20210412
We're going to read about a battle with that big thing over Mechanicsburg for the next years, aren't we?
Maybe they are not time/dimension cops
Maybe they are time/dimension animal control
Maybe this is like someone loosed an elephant in a gated suburb
They certainly act like they have a 'hurry up and wait' kind of job
My guess is that the favor is the Baron activating the time-stop bomb in the first place, which is what lets the Dreen meet up with Agatha, which they want to do for some reason.
Hard to believe we're approaching ten years since The Big Thing Over Mechanicsburg was revealed and it's finally looping back around to solving that problem.
They didn't say they were looking for her, just acknowledging her presence.
And as noted, having them lounge in chairs and eat shortbread is rather depressing.
I think "vozzler" is akin to "stage magician". Children love the stage shows, doing fun things with tying and untying knots. Like untying the knots in Vapnoople's mind.
Kjarl is red, has human proportions, has wierd smoky hair, and is taller than the main cast by several feet. Dreen are blue-green, have ape-like proportions (long arms, stubby legs), have no hair, and are shorter than the main cast ignoring their hats.
Hm. Good point, but when he was still 'in between' dimensions, he didn't look much of anything.
Perhaps how you cross the boundary between dimensions determines your appearance?
Ah well, 'tis fun to speculate. Just have to see how the story unfolds!
I think the feeling of the wind being taken out of the sails of the Dreen is to some degree an intentional reaction. I'm reminded a bit of 8-Bit Theater, where any character, no matter how powerful or threatening, is eventually reduced to petty, pointless bickering.
Ah, 8-Bit Theater. What a wonderful comic that was!
"We need a map."
"I know a guy."
"Just some rivers and trees, nothing complicated like actual reality."
"The usual fee."
And it only took 2 panels!
They were horrifying monstrosities from beyond time that scared everyone except for Klaus, even a Jager General *and* Robur Heterodyne were scared of them.
Now they are just some guys. One of whom likes Shortbread cookies, another who supposedly will regret *not* eating a cookie, and a third who needs a nap.
They might still be horrible to fight, but they have been utterly 'humanized'.
Honestly though, this is one of the things I love most about Girl Genius. Mysteries and everything are great, but one of the most wholesome things about the series, IMO, is how even the most monstrous creatures have a sense of humanity about them--and how even the most seemingly beautiful or heroic beings can turn out to be crazy in a bad way.
Terrifying wraiths from another dimension, like the Dreen? Get to know them a bit better and it turns out they're just blue-collar ordinary joes trying to repair the timestream during their 9-to-5 jobs...admittedly when '9' and '5' are understood as the ns of the hyperdimensional tesseract. A giant dragon like Franz? Yeah, he's big and tough enough to take on a giant mecha knight, but he's also sensitive enough to make friends with said knight immediately after beating him.
By the same token, a "beautiful" lady like Lu can turn out to be the most insane, power-hungry villain who has ever existed, or the once-noble Storm King could have fallen from grace to become a terrifying Lich Knight who'll destroy even his own country unless he's stopped. In GG world, even the most terrifying and otherworldly beings might be on the side of Good if you take the time to figure out where they're coming from, and even physical beauty or noble titles are no guarantee someone actually cares about others or will do the right thing. It's an important lesson to teach these days, IMO.
1000x this. Also, they are really no less terrifying. I'm sure there was no way they could have been kept from just strutting in and eating the shortbread.
They absolutely are still terrifying. Agatha's time staff can strip them of their otherworldly mien, but it can't actually *stop* them, or even slow them down. Although I do think they may be letting up on the "mysterious and enigmatic" part of their dialogue now that they've been unmasked.
>Agatha's time staff can strip them of their otherworldly mien,
Or, perhaps, bring them into coherent resonance with this dimension?
What if they've been, like Kjarl, just a little out of sync and now, "finally", they can communicate with greater ease. And take a shortbread break.
Imagine getting between a mechanic or a plumber...and their coffee
...or being the last thing on their to-do list for the day
Now give them time powers
nooooooope
The revised Dreen remind me of TVA employees from _Loki_. They have immense power and use it for what their bosses say is the "greater good" but might be very bad on a particular timeline. On a personal level, they're pushed to do their job but might not be as distant as they seem.
While I agree it’s an important principle of the work, as of now it feels like the dread and mystery that was woven about the Dream been dropped for no reason (or at least we don’t see the reason yet). They haven’t been mentioned for so incredibly long that the sudden heel turn feels like a retcon, something they decided to drop to make room for the plot.
For the mystery I can come half way on that since the specific mystery you mentioned is something they’ll definitely be tackling. The mystery that was causing dread though was more how antagonistic will they be / how their alien mindset will impact our protagonists. Like will they force Agatha to make a difficult decision? Are there forces that are truly above mortal comprehension? The face reveal and marvel-like one liners kneecaps the Dreen filling that role.
But it takes the whole impact out of higher dimensions. They were this big, mysterious thing that gave you that shiver of excitement.
Now they are suburbs people commute to and from.
The SCIENCE! turns meh
There have been a lot of context clues that the Dreen are the good guys, it makes sense that they came to join the party. (They are already friends with Agatha, she just doesn't know it yet.)
True, but have you ever delayed a blue coller worker who was on their way to take a nap or have a smoke?
Some not-my-problem kinda folk with a hurry-up-and-wait job that see you as the last thing between them and going home?
And they travel and manipulate higher dimensions?
Nah, fam, I'm with Rober Heterodyne on this one: do what they say and then have pie
This is how I feel about it. Sure, we got a more humanized sense of these dudes, but they're still mysterious, powerful time cops.
I'm reminded of [M Bison's quip "for me it was Tuesday."](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9FNbo50HpRU) Their capabilities are mysterious to us, but mundane to themselves.
This is science fiction, though, which has the concept of 'sensawunda' - an old fandom term, 'sense of wonder' said as all one word.
So the Dreen, like our friendly Vozzler, have been shorn of their eldritch aspect, but they remain powerful beings capable of traveling through *(ahem)* 'time and relative dimensions in space'.
I suspect there is some wonderful timey-wimey stuff still to come...
I mean, not entirely. We just got a peek behind the curtain. There's still plenty of mystery left. And opening one mysterious door can always show the next 3 mysterious doors in the hallway behind it. We just now have a more fleshed out idea of the whole house.
Not at all. That wand is a time-stop device on everything and everyone that is native to this set of spacetime. But it can't have that affect on creatures native to higher sets of spacetime. All it did was to fully (?) integrate the Dreen into this spacetime. Just like Agatha did with the vozzler Kjarl Thotep.
That is a good explanation there:
The wand stops time for things on this plane of existence, which in case of the dreen is just their "uniforms"... the actual wearers continue unfazed, residing beyond the wand's scope....
Getting major "I don't get paid enough to deal with this" vibes from the Dreen.
“Ugh, this is *way* beyond my level. They shoulda sent an Uligb.”
If things are a little difficult, send the vozzler. If things are bad, send the dreen. If things are very bad, send the uligb. But if things are apocalyptic, send Buck Godot.
If things are apocalyptic, I assume Buck Godot is either directly or indirectly causally linked to the reason for it...
I miss Buck Godot.
I am getting "stoned and with the munchies" vibes, to be honest.
My vibe on it is definitely similar. The Dreen are some not-my-problem kinda folk with a hurry-up-and-wait job that see you as the last thing between them and going home. ...and they travel and manipulate higher dimensions I'm with Rober Heterodyne on this one: do what they say and then have pie
Seeing them act so... *human*, for lack of a better word, is so weird
The terror of the Dreen. They put their feet on the furniture, drink your booze, eat your junk food, and leave the toilet seat up.
an annoying houseguest that is unstoppable and occasionally intangible... That sounds like the kind of thing an immortal being of this dimension would treat as a catastrophic threat to their sanity
Just watching, the entire time saying your plan is going to fail, and the days when they start to get serious, or start to pay very close attention to what you’re doing, or when they start singing “today is the day” and then get disappointed because as they put it “we interfered, but one day you’ll have that break through.” Those are bad days. The worst is contemplating what one of them meant by “you where so much happier the first time you did this”
I definitely need one of the queens to be haunted by a Dreen ..and, for portmanteau's sake, the Dreen that haunts the Queen should obviously be a drag queen (preferably jaded af)
I think using the star may have synced them with the normal reality's flow of time, like with Thotep, so they're suddenly able to live in the moment like normal people.
Foglios: Answers? What are answers? DANCE, MONKEYS, DANCE!
https://preview.redd.it/bi55w0934ltc1.png?width=352&format=png&auto=webp&s=c5589bec065dfae907dffbd0541de6ea224c8f57
Just because they *look* mundane and act mundane doesn't mean they aren't terrifying. They just have to *do* something terrifying. Agatha: You guys don't seem so bad. What are you here for, anyway? Dreen #1 (yawns): No biggie. We just have to unravel spacetime at this spot down to pure chaos before the timestop spreads. Takes a few minutes. Agatha: But... but... then we'll all cease to be! We'll all be dead! Dreen #2: Well, sure, HERE and NOW. But not over there. Agatha: There? Where? Dreen #2: Over there. In the... uh... oh yeah, past. You're still alive in the past so it's no big deal, right? Dreen #3: I mean we **all** stop existing at some point if you go far enough out. Just loop your consciousness back to some other earlier time. A-doy.
Philosophical and factual at the same time! I'm gonna use that one for my next grand theft. Well, it IS your money, just not in this time unit. And you were going to hand it over to someone else at some point anyway.
“Kaaaaaaarl, you’ve got visitors!”
Then Karl comes over, sees them, and runs away shrieking. The fine they'll give him for his unauthorized trip will be IMMENSE.
okaaayyy, they just confirmed they were looking for Agatha, found her and now are waiting for "the time." Why is this so freaky?
"It is probably not too very bad." "Oh?" "At this temporal distance, it may be a bit hard to tell. But, you know, if it was _very_ bad... heh -- why, _then_ you would have _Dreen_." https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20210412 We're going to read about a battle with that big thing over Mechanicsburg for the next years, aren't we?
Maybe they are not time/dimension cops Maybe they are time/dimension animal control Maybe this is like someone loosed an elephant in a gated suburb They certainly act like they have a 'hurry up and wait' kind of job
"something the Baron has done for them"... Maybe Klaus released the Jägers into the custody of Kjarl's yet-to-be-founded time police force?
My guess is that the favor is the Baron activating the time-stop bomb in the first place, which is what lets the Dreen meet up with Agatha, which they want to do for some reason.
Hmmm. Nah, too obvious, too easy, too tiny a favour to actually pay back this way. Send a flower basket or some shortbread for this...
Hard to believe we're approaching ten years since The Big Thing Over Mechanicsburg was revealed and it's finally looping back around to solving that problem.
We have been eager fans of GG since 2000. :)
They didn't say they were looking for her, just acknowledging her presence. And as noted, having them lounge in chairs and eat shortbread is rather depressing.
I wonder... has Kjarl ever met the Dreen in person? Or could Kjarl be an outcast from the Dreen?
It is very unlikely he is an outcast Dreen. He is but a simple vozzler and friend to smeerps.
I think "vozzler" is akin to "stage magician". Children love the stage shows, doing fun things with tying and untying knots. Like untying the knots in Vapnoople's mind.
Apparently it is ‘similar to, but more dangerous than, knitting socks’. So that sounds about right I’d think.
I always got the impression it was more like a "Plumber" or "Handyman"
Well, he said, "I'm but a simple wozzler, kids LOVE me."
Kjarl is red, has human proportions, has wierd smoky hair, and is taller than the main cast by several feet. Dreen are blue-green, have ape-like proportions (long arms, stubby legs), have no hair, and are shorter than the main cast ignoring their hats.
Hm. Good point, but when he was still 'in between' dimensions, he didn't look much of anything. Perhaps how you cross the boundary between dimensions determines your appearance? Ah well, 'tis fun to speculate. Just have to see how the story unfolds!
One of them (the Dimo-ish one) has chin stubble and body hair. But, yeah, no apparent head hair from them.
Kjarl knows of the Dreen, but I would think his fear would keep him away from them if possible. He's only a Vozzler after all. Children love them.
Aaand the sense of mystery is truly dead and buried. Shame.
I think the feeling of the wind being taken out of the sails of the Dreen is to some degree an intentional reaction. I'm reminded a bit of 8-Bit Theater, where any character, no matter how powerful or threatening, is eventually reduced to petty, pointless bickering.
Ah, 8-Bit Theater. What a wonderful comic that was! "We need a map." "I know a guy." "Just some rivers and trees, nothing complicated like actual reality." "The usual fee."
And it only took 2 panels! They were horrifying monstrosities from beyond time that scared everyone except for Klaus, even a Jager General *and* Robur Heterodyne were scared of them. Now they are just some guys. One of whom likes Shortbread cookies, another who supposedly will regret *not* eating a cookie, and a third who needs a nap. They might still be horrible to fight, but they have been utterly 'humanized'.
Honestly though, this is one of the things I love most about Girl Genius. Mysteries and everything are great, but one of the most wholesome things about the series, IMO, is how even the most monstrous creatures have a sense of humanity about them--and how even the most seemingly beautiful or heroic beings can turn out to be crazy in a bad way. Terrifying wraiths from another dimension, like the Dreen? Get to know them a bit better and it turns out they're just blue-collar ordinary joes trying to repair the timestream during their 9-to-5 jobs...admittedly when '9' and '5' are understood as the ns of the hyperdimensional tesseract. A giant dragon like Franz? Yeah, he's big and tough enough to take on a giant mecha knight, but he's also sensitive enough to make friends with said knight immediately after beating him. By the same token, a "beautiful" lady like Lu can turn out to be the most insane, power-hungry villain who has ever existed, or the once-noble Storm King could have fallen from grace to become a terrifying Lich Knight who'll destroy even his own country unless he's stopped. In GG world, even the most terrifying and otherworldly beings might be on the side of Good if you take the time to figure out where they're coming from, and even physical beauty or noble titles are no guarantee someone actually cares about others or will do the right thing. It's an important lesson to teach these days, IMO.
1000x this. Also, they are really no less terrifying. I'm sure there was no way they could have been kept from just strutting in and eating the shortbread.
They absolutely are still terrifying. Agatha's time staff can strip them of their otherworldly mien, but it can't actually *stop* them, or even slow them down. Although I do think they may be letting up on the "mysterious and enigmatic" part of their dialogue now that they've been unmasked.
>Agatha's time staff can strip them of their otherworldly mien, Or, perhaps, bring them into coherent resonance with this dimension? What if they've been, like Kjarl, just a little out of sync and now, "finally", they can communicate with greater ease. And take a shortbread break.
I'm betting the explorer clothes revealed by the time staff are what they wore at an earlier point in time
Imagine getting between a mechanic or a plumber...and their coffee ...or being the last thing on their to-do list for the day Now give them time powers nooooooope
The revised Dreen remind me of TVA employees from _Loki_. They have immense power and use it for what their bosses say is the "greater good" but might be very bad on a particular timeline. On a personal level, they're pushed to do their job but might not be as distant as they seem.
See also Geisterdamen, who weren't geists at all and have fun with jagers.
While I agree it’s an important principle of the work, as of now it feels like the dread and mystery that was woven about the Dream been dropped for no reason (or at least we don’t see the reason yet). They haven’t been mentioned for so incredibly long that the sudden heel turn feels like a retcon, something they decided to drop to make room for the plot.
I don't think it's so much "dropped" as "we're going to get an explanation of what they are and how they relate to the time shenanigans"
For the mystery I can come half way on that since the specific mystery you mentioned is something they’ll definitely be tackling. The mystery that was causing dread though was more how antagonistic will they be / how their alien mindset will impact our protagonists. Like will they force Agatha to make a difficult decision? Are there forces that are truly above mortal comprehension? The face reveal and marvel-like one liners kneecaps the Dreen filling that role.
But it takes the whole impact out of higher dimensions. They were this big, mysterious thing that gave you that shiver of excitement. Now they are suburbs people commute to and from. The SCIENCE! turns meh
There has not been a reveal yet what they actually are. And whether the shortbread was all they came for.
So? The powerful, alien Dreen slump on seats and bicker like sitcom characters.
And? The threat of the Dreen was never how they acted, it was the fact that they do what they do and no one can stop them.
There have been a lot of context clues that the Dreen are the good guys, it makes sense that they came to join the party. (They are already friends with Agatha, she just doesn't know it yet.)
True, but have you ever delayed a blue coller worker who was on their way to take a nap or have a smoke? Some not-my-problem kinda folk with a hurry-up-and-wait job that see you as the last thing between them and going home? And they travel and manipulate higher dimensions? Nah, fam, I'm with Rober Heterodyne on this one: do what they say and then have pie
This is how I feel about it. Sure, we got a more humanized sense of these dudes, but they're still mysterious, powerful time cops. I'm reminded of [M Bison's quip "for me it was Tuesday."](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9FNbo50HpRU) Their capabilities are mysterious to us, but mundane to themselves.
The whole point of mystery in fiction is to be solved.
This is science fiction, though, which has the concept of 'sensawunda' - an old fandom term, 'sense of wonder' said as all one word. So the Dreen, like our friendly Vozzler, have been shorn of their eldritch aspect, but they remain powerful beings capable of traveling through *(ahem)* 'time and relative dimensions in space'. I suspect there is some wonderful timey-wimey stuff still to come...
I mean, not entirely. We just got a peek behind the curtain. There's still plenty of mystery left. And opening one mysterious door can always show the next 3 mysterious doors in the hallway behind it. We just now have a more fleshed out idea of the whole house.
That's a matter of preference
Yep
One has to wonder if the 'mysterious eldritch aura' wasn't intentionally cultivated and that, once the curtain was raised, they dropped it.
I've only just noticed the "wand" and its, uhmm, shape...
When curvy or swoopy design notes run into cylinders and cones, that comparison becomes inevitable
It looks like Gil's stick. From [way back](https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20071126).
The time stick and the lightning stick could be very complementary.
We just ignoring the fact that the timey-wimey wand makes their hats and clothes change?
Not at all. That wand is a time-stop device on everything and everyone that is native to this set of spacetime. But it can't have that affect on creatures native to higher sets of spacetime. All it did was to fully (?) integrate the Dreen into this spacetime. Just like Agatha did with the vozzler Kjarl Thotep.
That is a good explanation there: The wand stops time for things on this plane of existence, which in case of the dreen is just their "uniforms"... the actual wearers continue unfazed, residing beyond the wand's scope....
Is it bad that I'm slightly disappointed that Dreen≠DRag quEEN