#all this because i wanted to make a monty python joke

[hollowwhisperings]

The Mythology of Keyblades: Riku the Beach Boy of Avalon

This theory is partially Crack and partially a genuine investigation into the usage of Arthurian mythology within the KH series.

(this line from Monty Python & the Holy Grail inspired this whole theory: all i had to do was replace the referenced [Lady of the Lake] with Riku)

If you've loitered about the Kingdom Hearts fandom enough and read enough interviews with Tetsuya Nomura, you'll soon conclude that Riku is Tetsuya Nomura's Favourite Child in this series. Riku is the driving force for most of KH's story beats & Riku has played deuteragonist to Sora, story-wise if not in gameplay, in every game that isn't a prequel. Riku seems to gain a new & unique special ability with every game (often at a harsh price). Yet, for all the time the audience spends with Riku... the series is very careful about revealing anything about the boy beyond his utter devotion to Sora. The game even encourages players to Forget and Overlook the integral roles Riku plays in the series, typically via throwing a Kairi between him & Sora.

Jokes aside, while Riku's Secret Anime Prince coding is STRONG, it is not the point being explored here: there are 2 seemingly nonsensical Disney Crossovers established prior to most everything else: 'Alice in Wonderland' (something somewhat explored in my 'Princesses of Light as Stars' series of tinhattery) and 'The Sword In The Stone'. This post shall examine the latter, an animated adaption of the King Arthur myth, and how it is represented in KH not solely through the character of 'Merlin' but as the underlying principle behind the x-blade, Keyblade Wielding & how Riku acts as Kingdom Hearts itself.

Boy at Beach Distrubiting Swords

Let's start with Riku's Keyblades: he has had more than one, not due to gears or keychains but due to... apparently being able to churn fresh swords from his Heart as the Plot Requires.

The different keyblades used by Riku throughout the series thus far are the following:

Kingdom Key (Sora's default keyblade)

Souleater/Way to the Dawn (Riku's default from KH1 until KH2.9)

the Keyblade of Heart (while possessed by Apprentice Xehanort's Heartless, AKA Ansem Seeker of Darkness);

the [Combined Keyblade/"Gayblade"] (alongside Sora)

Braveheart (Riku's current keyblade)

(given that King Mickey found Kingdom Key-D in the Dark equivalent of the Destiny Islands & the whole "x-blade was made of light & darkness" thing... THAT keyblade, currently wielded by King Mickey, may ALSO come from Riku)

That's 5 different keyblades (6 if we include Kingdom Key-D), and ALL have been seen onscreen with at least 1 other, typically Kingdom Key, marking each of these keyblades as being 'distinct' and 'separate' from each other. Before figuring out what Heart Maths may be at play here... a brief interlude.

Young Adult Gifts Toddler Giant Sword: More Wholesome than it Sounds

Supposedly, the ability to [manifest] & "wield" a keyblade is only possible through a successful Bequeathing Ceremony: Terra performed such a ceremony for Riku in BBS. This, however, is a method passed on by the Master of Masters & subsequent schools of keyblade masters: given... literally EVERYTHING seen on "traditional" schools of keyblade mastery, this Premise is Factually Dubious. The series shows multiple characters manifesting or otherwise wielding keyblades without any such ceremonies: even assuming that these rites "carry over" through acts of Posession and Cloning, the Need for a ceremony becomes questionable. This would not be the first (nor last) time in the KH series that the "knowledge" of Foretellers, Mentors & Scholars prove to be Assumptions rather than Absolute Fact.

Exhibit A: Axel & Accidents

Axel is the best example as, unless we are later informed that Subject X performed the ceremony on Lea (or that Roxas or Xion did so without knowing), Axel has never been part of nor possessed by an existing keyblade wielder: his keyblade is entirely his own, a surprise to all.

Sora & Kairi were never formally bequeathed a keyblade though the latter "accidentally" inherited the ability from Aqua in BBS. Sora never had such a ceremony, the KH Wiki (dubious resource that it is) explains Sora's keyblade wielding as being a result of Ventus sleeping within Sora's Heart: I think it is more likely that, unlike the Formal Ceremonies of past keyblade schools may have taught, Hearts do not actually require outside recognition of "worth" in order to manifest a keyblade.

Once Upon A Meteor Shower

Riku's Heart entrusting Kingdom Key to Sora in KH1, a last-ditch effort from its Light to keep to its Oath of Protection, strikes me as being more "faithful" to what we have observed of keyblades in-game. For all that the formally schooled Keyblade Wielders past recited "May Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key", no one embodies the intent of this principle more than the entirely self-taught Sora: Riku and King Mickey likely next closest in trusting their Hearts over what they have been taught.

A Heart entrusting its physical manifestation to Another due to the Connection between them seems a "Truer" bequeathment than the (admittedly heartwarming) recitations of a stranger. Keyblades may NOW be deemed "weapons" to conquer Darkness... but the original x-blade was made of Light AND Darkness, a union of forces working in balance rather than opposition. The first x-blade was a tool for Protection, not Hurt: a creation of Heart and, thus, of Love.

Exhibit B: Body & Hearts

A creation of "Heart". As in, 1 heart = 1 keyblade. Multiple hearts in 1 body? Multiple keyblades.

Roxas is the Go-To example: the Nobody Twin of Naminé, created when Sora "unlocked" Kairi from his Heart whilst Ventus slept within it.

Roxas, in his every appearance, is capable of Dual Wielding: a keyblade from Sora, a keyblade from Ventus. Upon gaining an independent, replika body... Roxas can still, apparently, dual-wield.

...despite no longer sharing the Hearts of Sora nor Ventus (nor Xion).

(as this is a Riku speculation post, not a "what the heck is up with Roxas" one, i'll just... put a Pin in this mystery for now but the "maths" of 1 heart = 1 keyblade are, indeed, still facts of canon: Nomura confirmed as much when revealing the Above Album Art he made for Utada Hikaru's KH3 songs)

Exhibit C: Proof of Concept

Then we have Aqua: she lost her keyblade between saving Ven & falling into Darkness. The keyblade of Master Eraqus came to her aid: this is consistent with the established concept of Bequeathing Ceremonies. It's uncertain whether the same person can bequeath keyblade-wielding to multiple persons but it seems likely given the scale of the Unions in KHX.

(At that same point in time, the Heart of Eraqus was hidden within a Nort'd Terra: 3 Hearts existed within Apprentice Xehanort, all of them in conflict with each other, to varying degrees.)

The keyblade Aqua receives, the keyblade of Master Eraqus, is named 'Master's Defender'. This was originally the keyblade of the Dandelion Brain but was passed onto Ephemer and from pupil to student until eventually being inherited by Eraqus. This seemingly aligns with the concept of Masters 'bequeathing' keyblades to students, specifically THEIR keyblades.

Interestingly, Riku has never wielded Terra's keyblade (or its likeness, via keychain) 'Earthshaker/Ends of the Earth' after its being bequeathed to him, likely due to its remaining with Terra's 'Soul', the 'Lingering Will' within his armour. If this is the case... NONE of the keyblades Riku has conjured or wielded are a result of his Bequeathment Ceremony. Terra's Keyblade becomes a 6th (or 7th) keyblade connected to Riku, albeit an unused one.

Speaking of Terra...

Xemnas (the Nobody of Apprentice Xehanort AKA 'TerraNort') is NEVER seen wielding a keyblade, let alone two.

...but he DOES wield two [lightsabers]/'Ethereal Blades'.

If Xemnas had ever believed in his own personhood, it's plausible that he could have dual wielded keyblades like Roxas... though the conflict between the Hearts of Xehanort & Terra are unlikely to have cooperated long enough for dualwielding to be sustainable in combat.

Back to the Beginning

Kingdom Key was formed by the Light within Riku's Heart. That Light entrusted itself to Sora while Riku himself was lost in Darkness. Riku is later seen wielding a different keyblade, 'Soul Eater'. Given that KH1 sets up a premise of there being 'two' Kingdom Keys, one of Light & one of Darkness... perhaps 'Soul Eater' was made from the Darkness within Riku's Heart. Maleficent or Ansem SOD would know better than most anyone how to create such a thing.

(it's still Weird that Riku's Heart is the ONLY Heart we see capable of manifesting TWO, simultaneously existing & separately wielded keyblades: Riku using Souleater never prevented Sora from using Kingdom Key; Souleater becoming 'Way to the Dawn' did not affect Kingdom Key; and Riku & Sora use each other's keyblades interchangeably in KH2, even dualwielding at times)

While Riku is possessed by Ansem SoD (the heartless of Apprentice Xehanort), he wields a keyblade forged by the hearts of 6 of the 7 Princesses of Heart: this keyblade is named 'Keyblade of Heart' or 'Keyblade of People's Hearts'. This is an artificially made keyblade, wielded by an entity made up of at least 4 people's Hearts (Riku, Xehanort, Terra, Eraqus) and it does not seem to survive past Ansem SoD's defeat.

During the events of KH2.9 (at the 'Drop Point' between the first timeline of KH3 & Sora's First Retcon), Riku and King Mickey find themselves struggling in the depths of the Realm of Darkness. They had hoped to find the missing Master Aqua yet their journey has only proven the point of Master Yen Sid's preventing such a rescue 10 years prior: alone, surviving the journey to the abyss would be all but impossible. Similarly, Sora immediately post-DDD would not have survived the pace set by Mickey & Riku: Sora needed the lessons and confidence boost he found through Herc & Meg before he was truly ready for Aqua's Attempted Rescue.

Before Sora has his Hero Moment (complete with Riku's slow-mo heart-eye reaction to it), Riku's keyblade 'Way to the Dawn'... breaks. Riku also spontaneously gets a Hair Cut. Not due to any attack landing on him from the Demon Tide nor due to any bout of Gay Agony: just... "randomly" (Sleeping Realm Theory covers this).

So then Riku casually manifests a BRAND NEW KEYBLADE, while not at all possessed nor acting as a Heart Hotel, and that keyblade is Braveheart.

(which is basically Kingdom Key but Make It Modern)

It's also in the Realm of Darkness that Sora & Riku first wield their Combined Keyblade whilst in the same plane of reality: in DDD, they wielded their blade across parallel dreamscapes. The [combined keyblade] in KH3 looks exactly as it did in Dream Drop Distance: half Mirage Split, half Nightmare's End.

How Many Hearts Does 1 Riku Have?

The highest number of "hearts" occupying 1 Riku is 10, in KH1: his own, Xehanort's & Terra's, the ghost of Master Eraqus (still biding his time for Maximum Drama), with the 6 Disney Princesses of Heart smooshed within the 'Keyblade of Heart' the Riku Vessel is wielding.

By that time in KH1, both Sora and Riku have wielded Kingdom Key. Riku had also acquired & begun wielding the 'Souleater' keyblade.

Kingdom Key is the keyblade born of the Light in Riku's Heart: a sword entrusted to a Crowned Prince from someone hidden within water, a gift that marks its wielder as a saviour and a fate-chosen king. Sora bears Riku's Crown, a pendant he is never seen without, and Riku (& his Heart) was sinking within both literal (storm and tide) and metaphoric (falling into darkness/sinking within deep waters) waters when Sora receives Kingdom Key. When Sora arrives in Traverse Town, the Final Fantasy & Disney characters there hold Kingdom Key in reverence: the Key follows Sora so THEY follow him too.

There is an Irony about every keyblade-related argument Sora & Riku have in KH1: Kingdom Key WAS Riku's before it was Sora's, the authority of the sword & reverence given to its wielder WAS on "loan" from Riku... but, ultimately, the wielder chosen by the Physical Representation of Riku's Heart & the Light within it?

Yeah, no, sorry Riku: your Heart Likes Sora More.

After KH1, Riku never attempts to "reclaim" Kingdom Key: it's probably during the events between KH1 & KH2 that Riku realises that Kingdom Key is not only a literal manifestation of his own Heart but that he believes Sora to be the best person to wield that "Heart", that "Destiny".

Even if Riku had not somehow managed to manifest the Souleater/Way to the Dawn keyblade, needing to "borrow" Kingdom Key during his year-long vigil at Sora's bedside... I doubt he would have KEPT the sword or that it would let itself be "kept".

Riku's unique connections to both Light AND Darkness make it somewhat reasonable to conclude that 'Souleater' is the Dark counterpart to Kingdom Key: a keyblade formed by the Darkness of Riku's Heart, a keyblade that evolves to 'Way to the Dawn' and Riku's efforts to master his Darkness and return to the Light.

(this still begs the question: how the heck does Kingdom Key-D fit into all this?? no, i'm genuinely asking: what is up with that keyblade)

ALTERNATIVELY! Kingdom Key-D was very logically forged by Riku's Darkness, manifesting in the Realm of Darkness alongside the Fallen Destiny Islands. This makes it Interesting that Mickey could carry it around prior to personally meeting Riku but, regardless of any realizations on its nature & likely relationship with Riku (or Sora), Mickey wields this keyblade-D from KH1 onward.

(This potentially leaves Mickey's Original Keyblade, seen in BBS, as yet ANOTHER keyblade available for Riku's use: the count has risen to 9, 8 if excluding Key-D.)

So... if Riku's Darkness forged Kingdom Key-D, what was Souleater & what IS Braveheart?

Alt #1: Riku, like any Strange Pond Person, can summon as many Magic Swords as Destiny Requires because... he is Literally Kingdom Hearts & that leaves ALL hearts "free" for his use.

Alt #2: The keyblades Riku wields (Souleater, Way to the Dawn & Braveheart) are all manifestations of SORA'S Heart. Sora may be oblivious as to why he is so fixated on Riku but, if Chain of Memories is anything to go by, Sora's HEART knows what it wants, damnit! Even without any allegedly required Bequeathment Ceremony, Riku is a "Child of Destiny" and had already crowned Sora as one too: just as Riku's Heart reached out to Sora, Sora's Heart may have reached BACK for Riku. Thus both boys end up with Keyblades: each holding onto a piece of the other (somewhat literally).

This gives additional explanation to their easy trading & wielding of each other's Keyblades in KH2: the keyblades "belonged" to BOTH boys and always had.

This interpretation easily applies itself to Sleeping Realm Theory, too: 'Way to the Dawn' still "broke" because of Riku's Sacrifice but instead of figuratively representing Riku's Heart "breaking" via his actually Dying, it would represent physically the effect that Sacrifice had on Sora: his Heart broke, "dying" with Riku.

Alt #3: Riku's extra keyblades were from Maleficent, "Ansem", Ansem &/or King Mickey. The timeline allows for Maleficent's providing Riku with the 'Souleater' keyblade: it does not QUITE align for the broken connection between Riku & his Would-Be Fairy Godmother that we can assume happened upon her death in KH1, nor account for any effects caused by her subsequent "resurrection". The timelines required for the other candidates to be involved are not consistent with that of the games nor supplementary canon.

Before wrapping up, let's acknowledge the Giant Crowned Rainbow Sword in the room:

The [combined keyblade], wielded by Riku & Sora in DDD & KH3, is a manifestation of "their Hearts [beating] In Tune". It is That Simple: any efforts to straightwash its existence WILL cause plot holes so just Accept The Gayblade is Gay.

That the Gayblade just so coincidentally resembles both the Ultima keyblade(s) and various x-blades, definitely fit most description of what the x-blade is & how it can be made?

These are also Just Gay. Kingdom Hearts has been building up to (gay) Love being the Ultimate Power of the series from its very beginning: it has ALWAYS used heart imagery and symbolism, used Disney Couples to mirror the changing relationship of Sora & Riku, used "the connections between hearts" as a child's understanding of love (in all forms).

The logical evolution for a Coming of Age journey about a Boy & his Best Friend, in a series that repeatedly uses & is named for 'hearts', who have become stronger as their hearts became more attuned... is for said Boy to realise, acknowledge and recognise that the connection of their hearts has Changed into something less platonic: romantic love, like that between couples in Disney films, like Riku (& Selphie) brought up to Sora through star-shaped fruit before ever exploring those stars personally.

The [combined keyblade] was naturally forged through mutual devotion: its existence implies that the fabled x-blade of legend was ALSO forged by mutual love, that Kingdom Hearts chose its guardian because of Love, that the x-blade's legendary strengh came from its need to protect its dearly Beloved: there is no Straight Explanation for Sora & Riku being able to make the combined keyblade.

[drchucktingle]

Being trying to describe your works to other people, and I think I finally found a good one, want to know what you think of it: The Monty Python of short-form erotica.

first of all this is very kind of you and i appreciate the love and thought you have put into this. it is good question and i am glad you see my trot this way so right off that bat just want to say thank you for proving love to me.

that being said i very much disagree buckaroo BUT THAT IS OKAY

please take this as KIND DISCUSSION that it is intended, because i think this is great opportunity to chat. after all you directly asked what i think of your analysis so i will say this:

what i write is joyful and wild but it is not a joke. YES i know how to be funny sometimes and i can lean into this trot, but my belief in my art is genuine and sincere. i understand way of irony has soaked through the layers of the internet into the absolute depths, but i am telling you the truth.

there are a lot of 'knock off chuck tingles' out there who see that i am very popular for writing the erotica that i write, and they try to get in on the action. they think my formula is just 'make some kind of silly combination of mad libs erotica that is ridiculous so people will laugh at it.' but those who try this never ever succeed because that is actually NOT MY FORMULA. if you take a moment to go below the surface you will see that the tingleverse is nothing without a genuine belief in love and the celebration of diverse sexualities from across all kinds of timelines.

all that being said, it is OKAY if you laugh. i KNOW buckaroos laugh both at and with my way, and sometimes i even try to be a funny jokerman, but that is not my central intent. comedy is not the drive behind any of this, therefore i do not think i am much like monty python.

i think my work is about bold SINCERITY in face of those who will see you as strange, and about how maybe strange is a good thing and not really that strange at all. it is about queer joy and neurodivergent joy and just plain old JOY joy. and even if others think this is some kind of long form satire, that is okay. but that is not the truth.

thank you for writing LOVE IS REAL buckaroo this was good question

[tehamelie]

Various fine opinions on the meaning of life contained in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life:

*Unionize your workplace, alternatively turn it into a pirate ship and take to the high seas. It'll piss off management either way.

*Question everything.

*Look at what you think you know from a different perspective.

*The pursuit of profit at all costs can and will ruin the meaning of any work and also make you worse at it.

*Gender roles are not necessarily assigned at birth.

*The Catholic church is not well.

"God has blessed us so much I can't afford to feed you all any longer."

*Just because you're allowed doesn't mean you should.

*You should not, and will not, die to "keep China British."

*God has many ways to cook you to death, if He wants to.

*Straight sex is so damn boring.

*Don't just stampede towards the clitoris, Watson.

*Sport, like sex, only works between equal parties. Any other way and you invite horror and depravity. (That kid is definitely dead and the upperclassmen are just stomping on him anyway.)

*Actually, getting murdered playing rugby against adults two or three times your size is an excellent way to prepare you for fighting in a war.

*Even a good captain will be hated by their subordinates. This is the burden of command.

"We'll always need an army, and may God strike me down were it to be otherwise." *is immediately struck down by literal the hand of God*

*A fighting force is better served by a single soldier who actually wants to be there than twenty men who doesn't.

*There's a fine line between keeping one's cool in a heated situation and acting like you're on a bloody different planet when people are dying in front of you.

There are less than 4500 wild tigers left in the world. The "A tiger? In Africa?!" bit is less of a joke every year.

*In less than surprising news, killing people is bad for you. (It turns out, for psychologically healthy people, doing violence really hurts you as much as the victim.)

*Where is that fish?

*Theme restaurants could do with a bit of randomly mixed themes.

*Don't be afraid to ask the most idiotic questions about things you don't understand. That's how we learn.

*Oh ho it's the meaning of liver donation I get it now.

*The Galaxy Song is fun and all but don't give in to misanthropy.

*Matter is energy, the human soul grows with care and attention, and people aren't wearing enough hats.

*Actually, the movie makes a staggering point here and buries it with distracting nonsense jokes, while also making the point that we get sidetracked from self-actualization by distracting nonsense jokes. It's a point sandwich with joke filling.

Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis? Shout out to happy penis havers, though I'm not one myself.

*M Creosote shows us that single-minded devotion to one's mission in life (eating an entire upscale French restaurant in one sitting, for example) will leave you unhappy and alone.

*Dunk antisemites in buckets of vomit.

*Gaston, the middle aged waiter, delivers a coherent personal philosophy as he walks us to the cottage where he was born. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. He decided to be a waiter, you see. Because he believes in something. It's a simple belief of giving, of loving people and bringing them joy. But be believes it with all his heart and he'll fight for the right to live the life he chose.

*If you have to die, but can choose the manner of your execution, try being hounded to death by naked women.

*See the world in a grain of sand, or a maple leaf as it were.

*Terry Pratchett was a great man and a great writer, but he's wrong about one thing: Death is relative. No, no, you can't argue away Death or shoot him, but he is subject to the laws of relativity. Consider the stars in the sky; at least one star that's visible to the naked eye I hear may be dead right now - it's 500 light years away and they think it may go supernova at any point within 500 years from now. But here, locally, the star still lives; there's no possible reality where it's gone until the light of its explosion reaches us.

*Heaven is a fantastically cheesy musical theater performance with angel santa claus strippers and a lead singer you just want to punch. Clearly we need to build something better here on Earth.

*Be nice, read books, take a walk sometimes, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations. Obviously.

*[The producers] hope that other fish will follow [the example of the movie] so that, in future, fish all over the world will live together in harmony and understanding, and put aside their petty differences, stop hunting and eating each other and live for a brighter, better future for all fish and those who love them. Yes, clearly this is about fish.

[storyseek]

Roleplaying Ironically

This is about reading the room and tone. It's also about the subconscious disconnect and dissatisfaction so many roleplayers feel when they're attempting to engage either with a story via a Dungeon/Game Master, or with fellow roleplayers - whether that's at a tabletop session, or in a LARP environment, or online - with a game platform like Conan Exlles, Red Dead Online, or Final Fantasy. Everything you come up with for yourself (as your character) to do, is going to be motivated in some way by feelings. Feelings you have, or feelings you want to have - and feelings in others (have or want). Sociopathic roleplay involves merely doing what you feel or want to feel, and represents whole extra layers of problematic psychology - so for the sake of this thought, let's acknowledge that the best roleplay does have to incorporate other people's feelings to some extent.

Accepting that everything is done from and/or to cause feelings, the next obstacle is tone - or register - or genre - or any of the other words that mean the 'stylings' of action, element, expression. This is a vast topic as well, but if the players and story-collaborators aren't in some way aware of the tone of the story, their contributions are likely to be off-key. Sometimes this helps, and creates a complexity, like jazz - to continue the music metaphor - but often times this can be incredibly destructive. And here's why. The meaning being created in an interaction involves the collision of values, and the affirmation or contradiction of those values causes emotion in the observers and participants. See something beautiful and heroic? ...you might get misty-eyed. Have your expectations diverted? You may laugh or become angry. See something innocent getting wantonly destroyed? You'll likely feel the fear or rage as it's been failed to be protected. Now, add in multiple contributors each with their own value system, and you can see how different aspects of a story will evoke different emotions, depending on the observer. I was watching District 9, and the scene where the main character's fingernail came off made the guy behind me in the theatre burst out in laughter, my friend next to me nearly crawled out of his chair, and I was engrossed in the story because things were getting intense and interesting. Three different reactions all within a meter of each other to the exact same stimuli and content. Alright, so roleplay 'tone' actually needs to be a collective construct. The DM or GM can initiate it, but the players have to uphold it. Conversations about session 0's aside, this is absolutely an ongoing responsibility of everyone. In large unmoderated environments, like LARP or online games, it's even trickier to navigate, but my personal suggestion is to watch for the tonality of roleplay other people are consistently leaning into. Be honest with yourself about whether their direction is the same direction you want to go. Do you have the same shared values when it comes to story? Final thought - there are three different types of story value combinations. 1. Singular - You both want the same thing. If you're going to craft a story with someone as your Nemesis, it's absolutely important that they actually have the same story values as you, or you'll never get the conflict off the ground and it will be incredibly dissatisfying. 2. Cooperative - This is where you have different values, but they're alongside each other. You want to tell a story about good conquering evil. Your friend wants to explore complicated combat mechanics with a min-maxxed character build. Guess what? You can cooperate and both still make it work. 3. Counter-Productive - You get the idea. This is the main point of the title and reason for writing this. But the old joke about the DM creating Lord of the Rings while the players enact Monty Python is exactly the point. They'll be upset everything's so bloody serious all the time - and the DM will be frustrated that their carefully crafted motivations and plotlines of epic truth are being completely missed or openly sabotaged by slap-stick roleplay.

In short - be honest with yourself about what you want. Know what you want! Know when you're getting what you want and when it's being completely missed or messed-up, and while we are none of us story-tyrants (or shouldn't try to be), we all do deserve to realistically get out from a roleplay experience what we come to get from it. Sure, be realistic and humble and cooperative, and endure the small shifts of tone that happen in nearly every story ever... But in the end, communicate what tone you're going for, and once agreed upon, be consistent. Stories are arguably one of the greatest social forces ever, and when done right, collaboratively, it can be an incredible experience that creates, keeps, and shares meaning like nothing else we've yet discovered.

[the-boney-rolls]

The Great Covid Beatles Binge, Day 3: The Rutles

This is gonna be short and sweet because it's just a good, funny movie! There's not much to say about it.

The going from car to car to car is very good and already I'm giggling. I know this was made before Broad Street but that's what this license place makes me think of. I'm gonna go off on a limb and say Paul was not making a Rutles reference and this was a funny coincidence.

All of the names are fantastic but I gotta give the award to Leggy Mountbaton.

I like how some things just aren't jokes, like Ringo saying he wanted to be a hairdresser.

“Goose Step Mama” !

Why is Eric Idle actually the best Paul I've seen? Petition for Monty Python to cast the biopics.

“Shoot me down in flames if I should tell a lie” I love how insane the joke lyrics are.

Another thing that isn't a joke, Dick Jaws  “an unemployed music publisher of no fixed ability." Brutal. chef's kiss

The references in this are so specific. Almost complete shot for shot remakes of The First US Visit. This was made by people with deep Beatles knowledge. If I had watched this when I was a teenage fan I wouldn't have gotten 90% of the jokes.

And damn this is cram jammed full of jokes. I almost lost it at "A Cellar Full of Goys"!

Bill Murray the K! Incredible. The casting in this is a work of art.

Oh look, a Beatles podcaster

"Four Oxford history professors on a hitchhiking tour of tea shops in the Rutland area." I don't know, sounds like a great idea for a Beatles movie to me.

Eyyyyyy, there he is! The George character meanwhile is conspicuously under the radar. They gave him Paul is Dead instead of anything of his own! Hmmm

Can't not acknowledge "Things had gotten so bad that both Dirk and Nasty got married. Not to each other! To women." No comment needed.

Is this scene the entire reason Paul didn't like this movie? It is an odd take on Paul. It's almost like someone knew that portraying him as awkward around women would particularly irk him.

“The art had all been dropped out of tall buildings and then put on display” sounds like a plausible modern art exhibit.

The Yoko stand in is a literally Nazi damn!

The feet film! Oh my god, George, what did you tell them??

John Belushi as Alan Klein, another genius casting choice.

I'm just gonna end on this shot of punk Dirk, stand in for glam mullet Paul, my beloved.

What a great time! Even if they did have George spilling the tea to them behind the scenes, I feel like this was made with a lot of love, by and for the hardcore girlies.

[adarkrainbow]

As I have been reblogging and looking back at Sleeping Beauty stuff around the Internet, I realized the thing that is bothering me a bit... When it comes to the you know "original" format of Sleeping Beauty.

Everywhere on the Internet you have these posts and videos and whatnot about "The dark truth behind Sleeping Beauty" or "The Horrifying Origins of Sleeping Beauty!", and they all refer to the fact that in the "original" version of the tale, she got raped in her sleep. This is the "dark fact" everybody LOVES to spread around and talk about. Except... Except the version they refer to is Basile's "Sun, Moon and Thalia".

Why does that matter? I'll explain.

Everybody depicts "Sun, Moon and Thalia" as this sort of dark, horrifying tale of a grim and gruesome crime. They will have in their video a dark background, and creepy illustrations, and they will take an ominous horror movie voice and whatnot.

But there's a big problem with that. Basile's stories were all except serious. They were humoristic tales. Or more precisely, they were farcical stories. Farces. There's a reason its "twin compilation", Straparola's fairytale collection, is called "Facetious Nights". So the very idea of presenting these stories as if they were meant to be taken seriously is completely misreading the story's tone. Yes there was a rape - but if you extract this from the entire context and storytelling, you make this tale sound like something it is absolutely not.

"Sun, Moon and Thalia" is not meant to be a horror story. It was not meant to be read as "serious" story. It has nothing to do with either the Grimm or Perrault fairytales. The entirety of the "Pentamerone" is basically a folk-sex comedy. If such a thing can exist.

Every fairytale of the Pentamerone is opened by a small recap of the story announcing what it will be about - and already from the get-go the very two lines opening this recap give the humoristic nature of the tale away. "Thalia dies because of a splinter". I mean come on - the joke is obvious. A girl gets a splinter, she dies. And if this wasn't enough the rest of the sentence can be translated as following: "she is left in a room where the son of the king penetrates and makes her two children". The choice of the word "penetrate" is to highlight the pun in the original line where the prince entering Thalia's bedroom and the prince entering Thalia's body is resumed in one same verb.

For more breakdown of the jokes of the story, see below the cut:

As I said before from the get-go the "curse" is treated as a joke. You have this king that summons scholars to make his daughter's horoscope, right? And what does it say. "She is in great danger... BECAUSE OF A SPLINTER!". This is literaly the killer rabbit of the Monty Pythons.

In this story, what does the little old woman that offered the princess the spindle does, once the princess falls dead? (Because she is dead in this version, a magical death, but dead still). Does she warns everybody and cries for help as in Perrault's version? No! "She was quick to find back the stairs [from which she came in]" and she runs as fast away as she can without warning everybody, because she's not going to get into trouble because of some random girl that wanted to see how to spin.

The whole arrival of the prince is very, VERY unprincely and part of the joke. (Well it is a king here but I'm going to call him "prince" so as to not lose people). So he is hunting, right, and his hunting falcon enters the countryside building in which the king locked up his daughter's corpse. The prince wants to get back his bird, so he knocks - because he believes the house is inhabited. And since nobody answers and he REALLY wants his bird back, he fetches a ladder and is forced to climb up a window like a vulgar thief. And he is royalty, remember.

What is the prince's first interaction with the dead Thalia? Believing she is asleep, he starts talking to her. And since she doesn't answer he kind of shakes her around in trying to wake her up. And then suddenly, realizing she kind of looks good (an that she is visibly not alive anymore), he "does his little business" and promptly puts her back where he found her and leaves. Because he is, like most men in the Pentamerone a stupid horny dog without much morals that has the most sudden and bizarre bursts of sexual desire. Cause again the Pentamerone is a sex comedy.

In fact, in the story of "Sun, Moon and Thalia", the prince is MEANT to come off as quite stupid. He is stupid. First off he didn't get that Thalia was dead when he saw her. Then, as soon as he leaves the funeral-house, it is said he "forgot all about this adventure". Like literaly, he forgets all about it - and only suddenly remembers it randomly when Thalia wakes up. (The narration itself highlights the randomness of the events - the fact the prince remembers Thalia is random and for no reason, and in the same way there are two fairies that randomly appear out of nowhere to take care of the two babies and we are never explained anything about them - they even frighten poor awakened Thalia because she doesn't know who brings her magically food every day). When he sees back Thalia, he is all joyful and happy and he is like "Let's start a family! I'm a dad, woohoo!" ; and then the narration drops the bomb that nothing had foreshadowed: "Now, his wife was waiting for him back at the palace." The randomness of dropping the fact he has a wife is meant to be the joke, since we were led to believe he was a bachelor. But given the prince's tendency to forgetfulness it is very likely that he simply forgot he had a wife.

More of the prince's obvious stupidity and air-headedness. On one side how he betrays Thalia and her children's names to his wife - because he just can't stop repeating and singing their names out loud, day and night, even when eating or sleeping, due to how silly-happy he is. On the other, the reason why he is absent while his wife tortures Thalia: he got angry at a comment of hers, and because he was furious, he literaly had to go to ANOTHER LAND just to vent his anger. Literaly, he leaves his palace and moves to another of his domain just because he got pissy. And why did he get pissy? Because his wife kept ironically singing to him "Eat, because what you eat belongs to you" when she served him his "children" - and the stupid prince, unable to understand what she meant, literaly answers "Of course it belongs to me: I'm the bread-winner of the family, while you're doing nothing and bringing nothing to the house". [Which by the way, highlights the fact that in this couple, the wife is depicted as profiting off the king's wealth and power].

Speaking of the dinner around the fake "children": this meal is another sex joke. Because the two of them, the wife and husband, are "panting with desire" around the dishes, and keep singing stuff like "Oh that's good, oh that's good!" and "Come on, eat, come on eat!" making it all an erotic scene. A ridiculous, grotesque, perverse erotic scene around what one character believes to be a cannibalistic meal, while the other just very loudly appreciates good meat.

When the queen tries to have Thalia killed, Thalia tries to defend herself by the fact she didn't know of the queen's existence, and that any sexual thing that happened between her and the prince was in her sleep - which the queen of course does not believe because of how ridiculous it all seems. I mean you catch who you believe is your husband's lasting extra-marital mistress and what is her excuse? "Oh no you see, he made me my kids when I was asleep. Well kind of dead. I didn't know. No he did not wake me up. I didn't wake up either when the kids were born. I'm a really deep sleeper. And it was because of a splinter you see..." Literaly, imagine yourself in the place of the jealous queen hearing all that.

Thalia gains time on her execution by asking the permission to remove her clothes, and the queen accepts, but as a joke she accepts out of greed because she literaly wants to take back Thalia's dress and jewels for herself. And each time Thalia removes a piece of her clothes, she screams. She screams in hope of alerting the prince. But since the prince is far away, he doesn't hear until the very last scream. Meaning that Thalia literaly strips herself in front of the queen, while screaming every time she takes off a piece of clothing, to visibly no effect (which must leave the poor queen quite confused), and it is only when Thalia gets naked and pushes the final scream that the prince suddenly arrive. You can imagine Thalia going: "FINALLY! I've been screaming for hours now!" (especially when you consider how much pieces of clothing princesses wore at the time).

Literaly one of the threats the prince gives to his wife is "Get ready to go fatten up the broccolli". As a metaphor for being dead and buried underground. Tip-top manly threat. In fact the prince is here quite proficient in ridiculous poetic metaphors: when the cook reveals he saved his children, the prince says "Get ready to move out of the small kitchen of my castle to the vast kitchen of my heart."

And of course the final "moral" of the story is also part of the entire farcical joke that is this story. "People who are lucky receive good fortune, even in their sleep". You literaly have a girl who is randomly raped in her sleep and gives birth to children in her dead-sleep, and then is almost murdered by the rapist' wife... And THAT'S the moral of the story? If you take it all literaly, then you are a fool. Or at least Basile would have called you a fool.

Again, people tend to forget that when it comes to literary fairytales (but also a lot of folk-fairytales) there is a TONE that is important. It is the brothers Grimm and other collectors after them that imposed the idea that fairytales were meant to be read "seriously". A lot, LOT of fairytales were originally humoristic - even going into dark humor or sex comedy. And whenever you go by Straparola or Basile, you HAVE to look at them under the angle of a joke or humor, and search for the puns and caricatures and ridiculousness within these tales. Because these books were meant to be read as such. They are like Rabelais' Gargantua or Shakespeare's comedies. You can of course reinterpret them as "serious" tales... But it won't remove the fact the original was humoristic.

[asteria7fics]

Can we have some of your personal style headcanons?

Why yes, dear anon, you absolutely can!

I'll only share SFW ones here, but if you're interested in NSFW ones please let me know d(･∀･○)

This also contains some mild spoilers for the fic I'm currently working on - NOT The Song of Broflovski. If you'd rather go into that totally blind, then maybe skip this answer. Otherwise, read on!

Alright, so let's start from the beginning. I personally write Kyle as figuring out his feelings first, while Stan acts on them first. Neither one is stoked on the idea of coming out (Stan for Randy-trauma related reasons, Kyle for Cartman-trauma related ones) so they don't publicly come out/start actually dating until late high school when they know they're about to skip town and move away to college.

That doesn't stop them from messing around of course, but I'll save that info for a NSFW drop. (¬‿¬)

I also really like the idea of their relationship not changing massively even after they've become an official couple. They still fight, they still do a lot of the same activities together, and they never really adopt any pet names outside of still calling one another 'dude' all the damn time. Just two straight dudes in love, honestly.

Kyle is Stan's #1 defender, and will go to war with douchebags in the comments of Stan's social media posts (hard headcanon him as still being a musician/leaning really hard into his passion for music. Crimson Dawn is definitely still a thing in the Asteriaverse). You dare to talk shit about Stanley Marsh on the internet?? In front of God and everyone?? Baby you're getting doxed. Bye.

He also just unironically loves the music Stan makes, with Crimson Dawn and otherwise. Like, shitty phone recording from a performance as his ringtone kinda love. I think Kyle would have pretty eclectic music taste in general, but I like the idea of them bonding over the kind of stuff Stan would want to make.

I like to think Stan is more of a bad/freeing influence on Kyle. My Kyle has a little bit of a stick up his ass, especially as he gets older and there's more pressure on him to excel in school. Stan really becomes the person that wraps him up in a blanket after a long day of studying, passes him a drink and puts on Monty Python so they both can just relax and have fun together.

And they're absolutely the guys at the party standing in the corner by the drinks, cracking jokes to one another while they watch everyone else make complete asses of themselves. Just in their own little world, until they get properly drunk and end up making out in a bathroom or some shit. Just messy bitches.

They simultaneously communicate extremely well and absolutely horribly. They have the kind of connection where one look says it all, but when it comes down to deeper issues and arguments they're both trash at communicating their feelings. Kyle gets too heated and just starts RANTING while Stan can barely articulate a singular feeling. Eventually Stan figures out that he kinda just has to let Kyle get his shit off his chest and eventually he'll calm down enough to help Stan sort out his feelings too, but those first couple years? Rough haha no smooth sailing for my boys I'm afraid.

Alright, I'm gonna stop here because I could probably sit here and talk about these losers all day. These are pretty surface level, both because I don't want to spoil too much and because I'm always forming new headcanons for them! Really specific ones usually come to me in the moment while I'm writing, so I'll definitely come up with more before this next project is finished!

Thank you very much for the ask!! ( ´⌣`ʃƪ)

[flowery-laser-blasts]

My not so serious KP villain headcanons:

Personal headcanons that I have for the Kim Possible villains (not all of them). Long post.

Shego loves horror movies and podcasts and once scared the living hell out of Drakken after watching Ringu. She hid under the bed and once he almost drifted off to sleep, she reached from underneath to grab his hand and reveal her with hair covered face.

Shego hates cooking and rather orders take out than go through the effort of prepairing meals. The worst part is cleaning up dishes.

Shego can warm/radiate heat through her hands with her powers in a non-harmfull way. This comes in handy when massaging Dr D's stiff shoulders.

Shego's favourite chickflick is Legally Blonde. She showed it to Drakken once, he too, likes it. Now after every defeat they watch this movie while patching themselves up.

Dr Drakken loves British comedy such as Monty Python, the Mighty Boosh and Little Britain. He often quotes their jokes.

Dr Drakken has a complex bedtime skin care routine that he never skips and follows to a T. Though he only does it before bed, so if he stays awake for several days in a row, he won't do it until actually going to bed.

Dr Drakken actually plucks away stray hairs around his eyebrow to keep the look 'clean' and 'on fleek'.

Dr Drakken's shampoo smells of Lush' sugarplum fairy bodyspray.

Dr Drakken always sings the Mighty Boosh' 'Soup Song' when preparing soup. His secret ingredient to his vegetable soup with mini meatballs is tiny elbow macaroni.

Dr Drakken's 'take over the world by plants' scheme was stolen/inspired from Duff Killigan's failed attempt at turning the world into a golfcourse when the two were over at his place to discuss plans on the Tempes Simia idle and Monkey Fist was away to use the restroom.

Duff Killigan has one of those 'golf-on-your-toilet' golf sets in each restroom/bathroom.

Duff Killigan's favourite Disney movie is Brave, but more so because of the mother daughter bonding aspect of the story. He's a sucker for those kinds of movies.

Monkey Fist loves Shakespeare's works solely because of the infinite monkey theorem.

Monkey Fist has an incredible hatered towards the song "Banana Man" by Tally Hall and 'Day-O' by Harry Belafonte. It's an earworm that never leaves within a day and makes the monkey ninjas dance uncontrollably.

Monkey Fist takes extremely good care of personal hygiene and regularly cuts his nails.

Adrena Lynn's actual name is Adrien.

Adrena Lynn called out the Jackass cast for being fakes.

Adrena Lynn's favourite non extreme sport is table tennis.

Adrena Lynn started the 'girl dinner' tend.

Gill's favourite animals are sharks.

Gill bullied Ron because he wanted to look cooler in front of other camp kids. At his school, he would be the one being bullied.

Gill actually didn't dislike Ron at first but it changed when Ron grabbed an extra (and the last) chocolate pudding cup during dinner on their first day of camp.

Professor Dementor shines his helmet with a hand held waxing device, he never takes it off though.

Professor Dementor's favorite snack is caramel seasalt pretzels.

Professor Dementor wanted to become a children's book writer when growing up.

Dr Drakken, Monkey Fist and Duff Killigan play Dungeons&Dragons. Monkey Fist DMs most of the time, second is Drakken; Duff never DMs. The big bad evil guy is Kim Possible but they almost lose every campaign except for the rare occasion in which the BBEG dies due to accidental environmental circumstances out of their hands. They tried to replicate it irl but where do you find a giant dragon, three gnomes an enchanted blueberry pie and a catapult?

Motor Ed uses WD-40 for his hair instead of conditioner, seriously.

Motor Ed is a diehard Meatloaf fan (the artist, not the food).

Motor Ed despises Meatloaf (the food, not the artist).

Frugal Lucre loves pineapple pizza with extra ham

Frugle Lucre's arch enemy is Kim's cousin Larry.

Frugal Lucre collected cuddlebuddies but his mom threw them out because "you're too old for these toys, so I gave them away to your niece Pamela for her baby room" and that's his villain origin story.

Frugal Lucre has a Dr Drakken cosplay that he sometimes wears to (Hench co.) conventions (inspired by @gothicthundra 's Halloween chapter)

DNAmy's biggest inspiration for fashion is Velma Dinkley from the Scooby Doo franchise.

DNAmy hates Tom and Jerry because it promotes 'violence'.

DNAmy actually is pretty chill and wouldn't mind Kim Possible's company as long as Kim apologises for destroying her work. Kim is a fellow cuddlebuddy collector after all.

After Monkey Fist turned into stone, DNAmy tried reviving him. It didn't work out. She eventually moved on and started dating Frugal Lucre. They're in a happy committed relationship now.

The Bebe bots have their own reality show in Japan and are content with the attention and admiration from fans. They were offered a contact as idol group but they denied it because they didn't want to collaborate with Hatsune Miku.

Señior Senior Junior became a top model and worked with the fashionistas but when they got arrested again, SSJ used his privilege to continue his career.

With the help of Bonnie, Señior Senior Junior wrote an autobiography about his life under the influence of his father. It's titled "I didn't want to be a criminal, but Daddy made me do it." And it is said to become an autobiographical movie (but once again, Junior can't star in it).

Señior Senior Junior and Bonnie got married after Bonnie graduated from college.

Señior Senior Junior loves My little Pony friendship is magic and writes wholesome fanfiction. He likes PinkPie because she likes to party. He also realises that a lot of his youth is missed out on because of his father's wealth. He is semi thankful for villainy because it introduced him to Shego and their friendship. He tried making her watch it but she didn't seem into it.

Señior Senior Senior could actually give up villainy for his future grandchildren. This was Bonnie's initiative, because she doesn't want her kids to grow up around inmates and prisoners.

That's it for now, if I've got more I'll add it here!!

[yonderghostshistories]

A Post talking about writing my first Monty Python AU fanfic (of sorts)

This is my first time wanting to write a fanfic. Hope it turns out well! Especially since this particular (albeit kinda morbid) topic of mine has interested me for a while, also because I want to get it out of my chest due to having nightmares about it a while ago, so it'll be better for me to write it down and probably make my health and mind better mentally. Anyway, uhh rambling over. Please do let me know your thoughts on the fanfic idea for when I actually make the idea a full fledged fanfic (maybe with the help of my friends, if they're comfortable with it that is), criticisms and all, just so that i can fine-tune some aspects of it! Thank you.

The working title for the fanfic is called "POV: John and Michael have Ceased to Be...." (A Monty Python AU fanfic)

Age Rating: 13+ and older

Tone: Angst (mostly angst but with some humour in there)

CW/TW: Assassination mention, grief mention, survivors guilt mention.

Synopsis: Today is Friday, 9th November, 1979. You and your friend are watching the "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" debate on the TV, where John Cleese and Michael Palin are up against Bishop Mervyn Stockwood and Interviewer Malcolm Muggeridge about the film "Life of Brian" discussing the accusations of the film being "blasphemous". Along with them, a weird-looking yet somewhat humble and somewhat quiet person called Benjamin Haroldson, a member of the public who was brought in to share their thoughts on the film "Life of Brian", stares at and is mostly fixated on John and Michael. You notice how Benjamin almost always has his hands in his coat pockets, never letting them out. You don't mention this to your friend since, to be honest, it's just a minor detail that you've noticed. Whilst your friend goes to make sandwiches for you and them, you're still at the couch enjoying the programme. One the TV, Benjamin asks for a glass of water, and gets up. That's sounds normal, right? Well, as everyone gets on debating with each other, Benjamin brushes past John and Michael. After Benjamin has his glass of water, he suddenly stands behind where John is sitting, and to your shock, you see him calmly pull out a gun, John at first not noticing and Benjamin shoots him in the head, bits of his brain spread across the floor, blood flowing down his forehead. Michael, in shock, shouts out "J-Joh-" before he too is shot next by Benjamin, his head split with a bullet wound, blood gushing out through his cold, dead face. Everyone in the studio is screaming in horror. Your face is covered by your shivering hands, trying to believe it's not true. That it's just some horrible prank, a joke even. But no.... it's really happening. The last thing you see is Benjamin's cold, emotionless face. The last thing you hear from him is ".....you shouldn't have made that film, you blasphemous twats..." .

[alpaca-clouds]

Kings made little difference

(In the life of most people.)

I guess I am doing another history ramble again. I originally wanted to put in a picture of some sort of actual king, but you know what? King the little titan is actually pretty good there. xD

But it is something I really want people to understand about history: To most people who ever lived under a king, it did not really make much of a difference, who that king was. If you went anywhere in the middle ages into some village and asked a random farmer, who the current king was... There was a good chance, that he would not have known about it. Because it made little difference in his life.

Farmers at any point in history usually got their instruction of what plants to cultivate from higher up, yes. Be it a king or a landlord. But it did not matter if the king died and his son or grandson or brother or whoever picked up the crown. It only started to matter to them, when there was a war of succession, because then it was mostly the farmers that got drafted to fight.

Which is also a misconception a lot of folks have. That medieval armies were all knights, who were trained soldiers and what not.

It wasn't. Sure, Hungary's Black Army was actually a standing army. But most wars were fought by peasants, who maybe got armed or maybe just carried their fucking pitchfork into battle. No big armor. No nice swords.

Monty Python made some jokes about this in Monty Python and the holy grail. And they are obviously right about it.

You have to see, that in the middle ages there was a good chance that a peasant would not see the king ever in their life. Not even a picture of the king. Because traveling took a long while and people just could not afford it. And there was no mass media. No news papers. Just folks who were travelling and might tell you news from the capital.

It did not matter to the farmer, if in a war the borders shifted and suddenly they were part of Hungary instead of Austria or the other way around. They would still speak the same language as before (which would slightly differ from the language spoken in the next village over, because dialects were stronger due to the lack of travel).

We look at history focusing on the noble families and what they did. But... I kinda hate that. Because in the end... While it certainly has formed the world we have today, it did matter surprisingly little for most of the people living in the past.

So maybe we should talk about the life of the normal people. Because they mattered. In a way they mattered more than any stupid king ever did.

Just a thought.

[smimon]

Dunno what kinda of movies you like but here you go.

Horror: Wolf Creek. Backpackers getting murdered in the outback of Australia kinda inspired by real murders that happened.

Not horror:

Grand Budapest Hotel. Very stylistic (cause wes Anderson ) but also just a really fun story. Mostly love it for the visuals and the dialogue makes my brain happy with how it's delivered. Very snappy.

Flying high/aeroplane (it has different names depending on the country) has super dry humour and some of my fave jokes in any movie. I reference it a fair bit. Parody film basically but from like the 70s/80s

Muriel's wedding: classic story of an outsider finding her place and trying to not be a loser. Not my fave ever but a pretty iconic movie most people should watch at least once if you haven't already. Has some pretty good disability rep too!

Mad max fury road: one of my fave movies ever. Very action heavy but shot beautifully and the women are all bad ass.

Mitchells vs the machines: inventively animated and the family dynamic is fun with good humor. Kinda reminds me of gravity falls which is a great tv show

(Another great tv show is over the garden wall. Beautifully atmospheric and complete. I have a google drive if you want to watch it for free)

Also anything by monty python (especially holy grail and life of Brian )

Sorry these are very random suggestions but I was trying to think of things you probably haven't seen. Let me know if there's a genre you like and I can maybe get more specific?

Thank you for reminding me of Wes Anderson because I forgot I was supposed to rewatch Fantastic Mr. Fox ahaha

Yes thanks for all of these! Muriel's wedding sounds like something good for now 🧡 the rest for later

(And btw the entirety of Over the garden wall is available on cartoon network's yt channel with PL dub, how very kind of them)

[fkyumerica]

devin ot Dylan to mate "inbreed" with his kid anyways so devin didn't have to inbreed, he said it about himself so his family would leave after, because he hates them and he said he wanted to cheat with me to steal my families guns and he said it about everyone, to fuck people for their families guns said it after and after he said it, Dylan could only think of stephanie leaving him and the kid that was Devin's daughter he wanted to inbreed to Dylan was Emily and if they both died, kid alive, she would make it a joke anyways and is a asshole, so she is more like, a gay guy she grew up with two lesbians as mothers and gay family members and if the grandparents did not stay in the marriage left each other, and did not be parents with maturity all their kids were gay and it turns out yea they all are and would say swing to the left, swing to the right walking with their kids so they could cheat rape whoever and it was always alright with their parents the old couple

and here. serve us. Charlie brown. its your kid right? it meant believe it is, so she/he can get in his car approach him, and then have sex and stay with it for a day or so and pizza? I let him in the Italian house with me and monty python the pope died this is when they attack us more of them, with their kids they had more kids screaming over the fence KILL MY KIDS! all the houses are empty here, and they moved in breaking in homes from the back window all Mexicans sitting on porches all day not going in the home riding on small motorcycles they stole too older people mating with infants older, anyone older than a child fucking outside hey look orgy sex with a infant and a younger girlfriend saw it backyards with piles of stuff in the back like horders hiding it in there and see it, crucify it killed his wife to stay inside it was vinnie and Lydia's family moved back in, now its all Mexicans across the street killed his wife to stay inside so he can sleep with the woman across the street and lesbians, did make Mexicans and her dad, left them there flordia and Mexico and went to celebrate with their parents in California spring break and they lost the fight will not fight didn't believe it, isn't against it are it and will be it, and kids will be it mated with it? wont fight after logan paul married and mated with Emily

logan paul lost and looks like. it too. left right for what? a vacation spot and stephanie? married and had kids with someone else

here is Emily, jean, and jake jake is one of her boyfriends she was allowed to have more than one jean is one of her lesbians living at home with her mom and she is gay with her too jake is Emily's husband, one of them Emily married devin too and devin is her dad, alix married devin and is Emily's mother jean is Alix's grandmother Emily had plastic surgery at 5 alix had plastic surgery at 7 then they got out of the car and said it was vegas but it was gay new Mexico made it into a mansion after said it was a pyramid then back for the fight Mexico apacolypto and green inferno women with those men and children mating area chicken area, men called it it looked like it they would push their nose in the girls asses and lift them up with their nose and face meant i am fucking you now dope head down, she does it and they did that to everyone

[patinathing]

I can't laugh very loudly because it's the morning, hooting might alert the guards. Exquisite.

I have no such lofty Halloween sagas, more just moments of a very strongly steeped nerd family having our yearly artistic expression night.

My father might be of mythical nerd proportions, a PHD in giving 3rd year graduate lectures on his latest fixation to his 8 and 11 year olds. My template for "mildly nerdy" was a vaulting bar I've yet to be seen cleared by another human. My dad's great.

And he liked making things, and the stores certainly didn't carry the costumes he wanted. So he'd improvise. And he'd commit.

One year I think he dressed up as a 'Lounge Lizard' - I was too young to remember the full details. But he focused on the lizard part, REALLY FOCUSED ON THE LIZARD PART. But the constraints of materials and makeup skill might have gotten in his way. He ended up in dark green face-paint and a suit. I was told he rode public transportation that day, no doubt winning the prize for the 'is this racist or just a socially awkward nerd? award.' I am almost certain nobody got that joke.

One of his favorite costumes was a purple sea urchin - and I think he dropped the face paint after a year or two (my mom - now divorced - may have informed him that dark face paint at night is a little risky.)

This outfit was whatever purple clothing he could find, matched with his magnum opus: a cut up purple kick ball with bamboo skewers poked through it - all spray painted purple. This was his hat. He was already 6ft 2in - add another foot and a half of spike ball and you've got a very strange silhouette of a man. Flanked by a mad scientist/pirate/ghost and a ninja (my outfit of choice for many a year.)

One year in middle school we decided to make something of ourselves. I was embark on a shared mission of a cobbled together costume, one that might reap many a reward.

We were fond of Monty Python. I'll assume that caught no one by surprise.

My father had shown me the Spanish Inquisition bits, very silly - I had only a little context for the horrors of the non-silly history. And the OUTFITS WERE FANTASTIC.

I decided to be the one with the big brimmed hat! We spray-painted a hat red, stuck a feather in it, very much did not make the actual costume, but I GOT A CAPE. And off I went to middle school - clearly referencing a joke of mythical proportions.

I was 4ft 6in? Curly hair, buck teeth, innocent eyes and a cutting tongue. A fantastic creature.

Everyone thought I was a pimp.

I mildly attempted to correct the record, but I'm not sure going to bat for THE SPANISH INQUISITION would have been too much better.

I don't think anyone expected it though.

The Halloween Story

As with most of my life stories, I have to clarify beforehand: Yes, this is real, and it is real because (and ONLY because) I am stupid. This is not something that happens to normal people because they wouldn't ever get close enough to a situation like this for it to happen. That being said, without estrogen my brain's "keep this idiot alive" switch was not turned on and I was, I think, biologically incapable of making good decisions.

Another thing to know is that I did not have a lot of friends as a kid because I'm terminally awkward; additionally, most of the friends I did have were maybe better described as "people who tolerated me but who I would take a bullet for." This is important for later.

Anyways, I was like 9 or 10 when this happened, and my littlest brother was like...5 or 6? This was his first Halloween where he was allowed to Trick-or-Treat past the end of our block, and he HAD to be accompanied by me or another older kid so he had begged me for DAYS to take him. And while I held the title of oldest brother, I feel like I put my whole pussy into being a good oldest brother, so I of course took the family's babiest of babies for his first ever trick-or-treat adventure!

I went dressed as Dartanian because I've been gay for a while, and he went dressed as a skeleton because he's adorable. We went trick-or-treating only in areas I knew, so mostly within the boundaries of our l'il Mormon ward, and we had fun. About a half-mile away from home, he started saying he was getting tired, so I told him we were gonna turn back and watch "Scary" movies, which was actually just two old VHS Scooby Doo episodes my mom let us watch because she only let us watch episodes where the monsters were fake because if they were real we'd get nightmares. So we start walking back. It's not too far and we know the way so it's going great. Littlest bro's first trick-or-treat adventure went swimmingly, we've got pillow cases full of candy, and we're about to watch scooby doo and eat skittles until we pass out. Life, for us, literally could not have been better.

BUT

As I walk around the corner of my old street, the far end of it, by a bush, I hear my best friend whisper-shout at me from a bush:

"Lizard, Lizard, stop, hide, quick!"

In most cases, my thoughts can be summarized by a humble: "Bwuh?" and in this case I'm pretty sure I said something like that out loud. I look into the bush, and I see it is JAM-FUCKING-PACKED with kids my age. Like 6 of them hiding behind this tall oleander bush shaking like they just saw a ghost. I wave to them, because I don't know what's going on, and tell them that Littlest Brother is tired so I'm going home. That's when one of them angrily grabbed me and littlest brother and tugged us into the oleander with them.

I think they thought we were hidden, but this was one shrub currently occupied by like 7 kids and despite how small we all were that was still more shrub-per-kid than the shrub could hide so me and littlest brother didn't actually fit. And I was squirming trying to get away because it was poky and scratchy and smelled bad and also I didn't know why I was being pulled into a shrub to begin with.

The ruckus of my squirming was freaking my friends out, who were all telling me to shut up and hide, and I was telling them I wasn't playing hide-n-seek and Littlest Brother was REALLY getting tuckered out so PLEASE let go so I can go home, when around the corner came three Big Kids on bikes.

These kids seemed HUGE and SCARY to me at the time, although realistically they were like in 8th grade and also dork-ass losers. They were on bikes with handlebar breaks, though, and they were wearing costumes ironically under hoodies, so they seemed scary at the time. They see me thrashing in a bush and correctly deduced that the kids they had been hunting down were in the bush too. This is when I learned that my friends were all scared because they'd been being hunted for sport by older boys. Like, actually, for real, we were being bullied on Halloween by kids who called us "dweebs" and shit, I cannot explain how that was actually happening in the early 2000s, that was a worn-out trope in the 80s, but it for real, actually, swearsy-realsies, happened to me.

They're bigger than us and have at least started puberty so they're a lot stronger than us. They fished us all out of the bush pretty easily and made us all line up. This was all happening on a well-lit suburban street in a Mostly Mormon neighborhood so again, I don't know how it all got this far, but it did.

Once we were lined up, they start quipping about our costumes and harassing us a little bit. Again, this is like STRAIGHT out of a shitty campy overdone 80s sitcom so I get that this sounds fake, but we were literally getting pushed around and called dweebs and nerds by some fuckass 8th graders who were all smoking a cigarette one of them stole from their mom. Finally they were getting bored so they told us that their terms to releasing us were that we give them our candy.

My friends, who are smart and wanted to be alive, immediately started grabbing fistfuls of candy from their buckets or bags to hand them. But I am stupid, and was trying to be a good older brother, and didn't understand the concept of mortality because HRT had not yet flipped that switch in my brain, and I saw littlest brother getting scared. His lips were trembling like he was about to cry, he was clinging onto me for dear life, and one of these kids comes over and is being all mean and calling him a baby (which he basically was, so like what even is the point?) and I got mad. So I took my prop rapier from it's sheath and started jabbing his ribs and head until he rips it out of my hand.

"Jesus Christ, you little faggot. I'm keeping this, you're not getting your sword back."

"K, fine, just leave my brother alone."

"I leave him alone if you give me ALL your candy."

He says it with this shit-eating grin, like he's got the upper hand. But I'm mad and suicidal in the same way a horse is suicidal, which is to say I don't care if I die as long as this fucker dies too, so I tell him if he wants my candy he can have it, and I wallop him with the candy sack. Hard. I put all 70 lbs of 9-year-old rage into that whump, and to my credit it caught him off guard. He steps back and rubs his face and the biggest kid in the group steps into his place.

"You wanna fight?" He's trying to act tough but he's also trying to square up with an unquestionably faggy 9-year-old Dartanian so it's tough. It's also a stupid, stupid question to ask, since I literally DID want to fight and he was just posturing.

So I hit him too. Again, all the rage my 9-year-old body possessed channeled into a pillow case filled with Dum Dums and skittles slaps into his face. I move to smack him again, because he's looking at me all incredulous like he doesn't think I'm serious. He tries to grab the bag but I kick his shin and he has to step back for a second because he was on his bike with only one leg on the ground and I had just kicked it so he was trying to keep balance. I took advantage of the momentary distraction and whapped him in the belly. That, I think, was the final straw for him, because he (seriously, yes, for real) took out an actual knife.

It was a real folding knife, I could hear the little mechanical click as he flicked the blade out and the locking mechanism secured it in place. He looks at me with murderous intent for like a tenth of a second before one of my other friends asks,

"Dude, are you serious?"

And it clicks that he just threatened someone with a real weapon. He takes a step back and tells me, trying to sound brave but now far enough out of his own comfort zone that he's starting to wonder what happened in his life to bring him here (which is dangerous, confused people do confusing shit).

But I'm horse-style suicidal and I honestly didn't think it was real, so I swing at him again. Full-body swing right for the face, and he slashes at the candy pouch and it tears. And I'm like "Oh shit, that's a real knife!" and he's like, "Oh shit, this kid is gonna beat me until I stab her or run!'' And that's when my Knight-in-Emo-Armor arrived!

The kid was like the archetypal "Bad Boy" of my childhood. He wore black hoodies to church and said "damn" instead of "dang" and "shit" instead of "shoot." He listened to metal music and told his grandma (who adopted him after his mom lost custody for drug use stuff) to shut up sometimes. He smoked. He was a moody goth/emo/scene/whatever enigma of rage from his shitty family life. He was also known for being actually real-life dangerous. The kid in front of me was contemplating stabbing me, but my Knight had actually broken someone's jaw in a fight before.

The whole time we were getting held up, he was just walking down the street listening to an honest-to-God MP3 player, stoned as all hell, angry at the world, and watching this all unfold. And he recognized a bunch of kids from church he barely gave a shit about, but then he recognized *me* and although he didn't know *me* super well, he fucking LOVED my dad because my dad was super nice to him at church, and he knew I was my dad's kid. And he knows the kids talking to us are bad news because he's friends with some of their friends and he knows they're all wannabe tough guys. And he makes a decision.

This guy, my knight, was tall, mean, scary, and crabby, and EVERYONE knew that, not just the Mormons in my life. And in all black, with black hair and black nail polish, he had remained almost perfectly hidden as he walked in the middle of the road on the tar-black Arizona asphalt until he suddenly emerged from the shadows right behind the kid with the knife.

"Bruh, what the fuck are you doing?"

This kid whips around and sees my knight and just blanches. Like, all-the-way white-as-a-sheet scared.

"Oh, Knight, h-h-hey, I didn't see you. You know these kids? We're just teasing them!"

"Hilarious joke, cocksucker. That's a real knife. Fuck off."

They almost left a cartoon dust cloud in the shape of their bodies as they left. My friend and "friends" from church all followed suit - Knightboy was BAD news with a capital B-A-D and they were probably more scared of him than the original trio. But I knew Knightboy because he teased me a lot in his last year elementary school and sometimes came over to talk with my dad so I knew he wasn't a bad kid. He bends down and picks up the plastic sword the first kid dropped and gives it back to me.

"This is yours, I think."

I took it, sheathed it, and said, "Thanks! You shouldn't swear."

"Man, I'm too stoned for this shit, just get out of here."

"Ok, thanks Knight! See you at church tomorrow!"

And I toddle off with Littlest Brother. I take him to some of the best houses on our street for a second round of trick-or-treating so he can calm down, and we go home. My mom puts Scooby Doo on and asks me how everything went - I tell her it was fine, it was fun. She said that Littlest Brother said something scary happened, and I said "Oh, I think he got spooked by Knight is all." And she just shrugged and walked off. By the end of the night, I honestly forgot it even happened. I was more invested in trying to figure out how to grow up to be like Velma and lining my skittles up by color so I fully did not even remember.

BUT.

My mom is friends with all the other moms at church - she has to be because she has a master's degree in a church that teaches that employed women are failing God and their families so she ended up as a high-achieving woman working as a stay-at-home mom and if she didn't make friends at church she would fully go insane.

And at church the next day, my mom is approached by a tiny pack of mothers all saying "Wow, Lizard is so brave, aren't you so proud of her?"

And because she's a Good Mom who Loves Me So Much, she says, "Yeah, totally, why do you ask?"

And they say, "Because she tried to fight off some muggers last night! She hit them with her candy bag!"

And my mom says, "Haha, Yeah, she's fierc-wait what in the fresh hell did you say?"

And they all tell her the story, and my mom is PISSED that I didn't mention, but she also knows I am capital-D Dumb, so she pulls me out of Sunday school and asks me,

"Lizard, baby, did you scare off some muggers last night?"

And I said, "Oh yeah, kinda! Knight was the one that actually scared them though."

And she says, "Lizard, baby, why did you not tell me?"

And I said, "Oh, I forgot."

And she just nodded and tried unsuccessfully to push my little "Alfalfa sprout" strand of hair down, and gave up, and then pushed me back into class. And later that day she made like 3 lbs of chocolate chip cookies and drove them all over to Knight's house to thank him. And basically ever since then I was in Knight-in-shining-armor's good books (although he wasn't very good at showing it for a bit), and I had an undeserved reputation among the kids in my church as a badass for like a year, which I felt pretty good about.

Anyways, the Halloween Story is so weird that sometimes I question my own memory of it, but I am telling it now based on my memory as best as I can recall and after fact-checking it with my mom a few times.

[hardworkandguts]

Asobi Asobase

あそびあそばせ

(Anime + manga)

Surreal comedy by Rin Suzukawa

Era: 2010s

Rating: S (manga: B)

Plot: Olivia, an american transfer student is discovering traditional Japanese pastimes and games and is playing a game of rock-paper-scissors with added slapping with the energetic Hanako. Meanwhile, Kasumi, a bookish girl who is traumatised by losing at games with her older sister and has been putting up with their noise, receives the results of the last English test and gets 2. Not #2, 2 points, and tries to recruit Olivia to help her, and after failing to convince the others to create an English studying club, she offers to teach games to Olivia if she helps her with her English, creating the "Pastimers Club". Unfortunately for her, Olivia was born and raised in Japan to foreign parents, her thick accent is just a ruse, and she can't even speak any meaningful English.

Length: 12 + 1 episodes, 132 chapters

Thoughts: You know how in these sort of shows the girls are usually quirky but generally nice to each other? Asobi Asobase answers the question "what if they constantly abused and pushed each other over the limit as often as possible" and the result is probably one of the few shows I rewatched scenes just to see that again.

While something like Mitsuboshi Colors has girls (although a bit younger) on occasion acting mean but for not knowing any better, this is middle school meanness on full display. Hanako, while very book smart, wealthy and good at sports, is unable to transfer that to a rich social life, making her extremely resentful of any popular girl (or with a boyfriend or more endowed in the chest area), doesn't help that she is socially inept and misses many queues (such is what is a "virgin killer"), and is the first to escalate things to unreasonable levels often at the lightest provocation. Olivia is slightly more suited at social navigation, even considering her fake accent was derived from freezing during her introduction and deciding to lie about her proficiency in both Japanese and English. Other than lying, being terminally lazy and bad armpit smell, she's the most normal of the three, although if a situation got worse, you can often look in her direction. Kasumi, the one who decided to start the group to trick Olivia into teaching her English, is generally calm bringing up something embarrassing, like her yaoi novels or her attraction to not Hibari-kun Aozora is enough to send her off the rails. Making things more complex is being afraid of men, and being unsure just who Aozora is. The three cajole their English teacher, Chisato Higuchi, into becoming their club advisor, a generally sweet person who mostly laments always being at all-girls schools and never meeting men and desperately wanting to get married, and also a bit of a pushover when it comes to certain going ons in the club.

If lot of the humor is very referential, I don't think anyone would expect a reference to Monty Python having another reference to the ED of Miyuki, the kinda forgotten adaptation of Mitsuru Adachi's non-baseball romantic comedy from 1983 (which i'll probably get to someday after reading the manga) in typical AA style, also introducing the incredible "a girl's friendship is as flimsy as a sheet of calligraphy paper drenched in black ink", and also Hanako suggesting shojo manga girls act differently "behind the scenes". While it draws from many Japanese and western influences, it goes further beyond manatee jokes, and writing has some incredible moments. What starts what could be a throwaway joke about Hanako not knowing what Shogi is - she truly thinks it's a game involving firing lasers from your butt - next episode we see why is that: Maeda, her butler/ nanny, who was in a position he couldn't say "I don't know" to her, was once asked about Shogi, and knowing she'd ask how to play and he doesn't know, comes up with the "firing lasers from your butt" because for some reason.... he can do that, Hanako not amused after discovering what Shogi really is and realising she made herself a fool in front of others. Then in the next episode, we learn it's a weapon aliens stuffed up his ass, and he was saved from homelessness by her grandfather, because he couldn't control it.

Then, we have maybe one of the most chaotic sketches I've ever seen where everything that makes this great truly come together, where Hanako arrives and finds Olivia flirting with cutting her hair, and pleads her to not do it, it won't fix her armpit smell problems. But she wanted to cut it because it is hot, and took offence to that and asks Hanako to repeat what she said, so, very casually, she slams her forehead in the blackboard and claims she forgot. After Kasumi arrives, both plead her to visit a stylist, but she ends up cutting a bit on the side and freaks the fuck out. Kasumi assures her that nobody will notice and calm her down, when Hanako suggests her to practice cutting her bangs. She does, but rather than just the ends ends up cutting far too much, and freaks out even harder, and Kasumi can't help but point out it's hard not to notice, sending her on another tailspin, and suggests her to comb her hair forward and trim to the length of her bangs, which doesn't work. Their teacher arrives, and suggests putting her hair on a hairband, which Olivia doesn't like because of forehead acne, so the teacher suggests she could trim her bangs, since she does it to herself. Next sketch with the two confusing Olivia with her teacher because they have the same bangs. This is perfection, the compounding mistakes and over the top reactions really make the scene, but you really have to check it in episode 6, I've found the scenes uploaded to YouTube take out the pauses that really heighten how messed up everything is getting and the pure chaotic energy.

Visually, it is a treat. It has a very soft and bright pastel color look and the girls look the same style of cute you'd see on every slice of life anime, even the intro suggests it's another of those shows. Then things start happening, contrast and vivid colors suddenly appear and faces get deformed into things out of horror manga, and this in combination with absolutely stellar work by the VAs (Hana Kino as Hanako, Konomi Kohara as Kasumi, Rika Negae as Olivia) provides an absolute unhinged, complete dynamite of a mix.

Moving on the manga, it's actually surprising how the adaptation got its own style while being very faithful to the manga and as mentioned, the voice acting and superb animation elevate what's already an funny manga. You can basically watch the show and skip the first third of the manga to ch45 when the first unadpted chapter comes out, with just some a couple after and a few extra chapters making technically a 13th episode. Is it a shame it didn't get at least a second season? Yes. Olivia turning into the Cookie Monster (you know she'd do the voice too), the new Spiderman, Chisato's magic trick, return of Koichi, going full meta with the OP, the Pegasus mascot, or, let's be honest, any chapter Hanako loses her shit, but the expanding (if not kinda bloated) cast would probably make it less suited for a full adaptation, particularly by the later third where things get weird but not as fun.

Recommended to: fans of unhinged schoolgirls

Plus:

Yeah, it's incredibly unhinged.

The contrast between when everything looks very soft when it's calm and bringing in the harsh shadows and vivid colors when it goes completely off the rails is a terrific stylistic choice

The VAs really elevate the material from the manga to the point it doesn't feel the same without their screams

Minus:

Manga gets a bit bloated by the end, and maybe not as fun.

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 12th July

Well, we got to our first EP, the All Star Hit Parade (EP), credited to "Various artists". This is sufficiently vague that I can't seem to find a version of it, and in any case, I have no intention of covering EPs. My blog, them's the rules. Which still leaves us with...

I'm Walking Backward for Christmas - The Goons (double A-side, peaked at Number 4)

The Goons! I didn't actually know all that much about these guys, before listening to this, except that they were a 1950s British comedy troupe who did mostly radio comedy? They had a show called The Goon Show, and I know it heavily influenced Monty Python and just about every other act coming out of that same slightly daft/surreal British comedy tradition.

So yes, I'm expecting comedy here - which maybe explains the otherwise out of place title? We're about as far from Christmas as you can get, but I think you can get away with that if you're doing a comedy thing. This was a song that apparently was originally sung by Spike Milligan on the Goon Show during a writers' strike, and he's got a pretty legendary rep.

That said, I don't actually think I get this song? It starts with some very fast, chaotic big band jazz, but then cuts rapidly from that to a very nasal, annoying voice singing about how Across the Irish Sea, / I'm walking backwards for Christmas. Apparently sideways and forwards doesn't work, as people just look at me / And say it's a publicity stunt. Which... huh? I just don't fundamentally get what's funny or why that works as a joke, I don't think.

Anyway, we get a brief sketch of an Irish lad who falls in love with a girl, and he's apparently walking backwards across the sea for the sake of this girl? But again, I don't really followthe logic of the song. And my good will towards it - what little I had - is absolutely used up by the repeat of the first chorus bit, when the already nasal voice starts to sound a little bit like a buzzing fly, and gains a chorus of people making weird "ooooooh" groaning noises in the back. It's giving me a headache, just in time for the loud swing to return, and then some random piano thumping.

Yeah, I don't like this song much. I wanted to, but nope.

Bluebottle Blues - The Goons (double A-side, 4)

Oh boy. If I was irritated by the buzzing-fly sound on the last track, how much more so will I be annoyed here, on a track that is literally named for a type of fly?

Okay, there's a lot of speaking at the start of this, and I'm really not doing great at following the plot of it all. I don't know if people were just better at following radio conversations in the 1950s, or if I'm just personally bad at it, or if the recording quality that I'm listening to isn't helping, or if these were characters and voices people benefitted from knowing ahead of time? Because Bluebottle, it turns out, far from being a fly, is a recurring Goon Show character, a sort of irritating Boy Scout from East Finchley. Except I can't quite get a handle on what the joke is with him, except that he's irritating?

I know a lot of comedy is just "look at this irritating character", but this one really feels thin on the ground. He just gets tricked by the other unnamed character, which gives him the eponymous blues, except that basically is just him singing - in a not massively bluesy style - about how he doesn't like being the butt of various slapstick jokes and mischief. Which is not famously a genre of comedy that works in an audio format.

Yeah, I'm very irritated by this one too. The voices are minorly more palatable, but only minor, and I don't even manage to be charmed by the bit at the end where a man starts singing about walking backwards for Christmas, only to remark Oh no, that's the other side, isn't it? which is normally the sort of detail I'd eat up with a spoon. Grrrrr.

Okay, I am absolutely not going to name a favourite here. Not least beacuse it's so clearly a comedy record, and not a song. You can't sing along to this, half of it is spoken, and it relies heavily on you knowing the characters and context for the jokes. I wanted to enjoy this as a bit of silly fun, but it really didn't click. Sorry!

Least amusing song of the bunch: I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2007): It Only Gets Worse

Br1: It Only Gets Worse

Main author(s): Wills

Release date: July 6th, 2007

Version played: ???

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 19 (14 regular ones, 3 secret ones, a cutscene one, and a hub one according to the textfile)

Once again, we welcome Wills, who, once again, won the Mockaward for the funniest WAD of the year. Winning two of these in a row makes him deserve some respect, not gonna lie.

This time, instead of adapting one of the Monty Python’s sketches, we are going to have something completely different. Something much more nonsensical – It Only Gets Worse. In-making for almost half of the year since January. And with the plot about you ending up as a scavenger for a dude that you own money.

Let’s see how far the rabbit hole in this WAD goes.

Starting with how this WAD looks – basic and zany at the same time. While it does sometimes look like the WAD from the mid-1990s, it does come up with the style of the location. Once you end up somewhere that feels like you are under lava, and after that, you are standing next to the U with umlaut.

The same can be said about the music. Almost all of the time it’s something that surprisingly fits to what’s happening on the map. We got speed-up versions of the original tracks, MIDI covers from other games/media, and some original stuff among others.

This WAD plays like nonsense (as it should be). You never know what will happen next; what the next map has to offer.

Now, I won’t be talking about what happens in every map like in TurboCharged ARCADE, because we will be here forever. Instead, I will take a slightly closer look at four regular maps and one secret map (three of which you can access from the hub map).

So, for instance, we have:

the map where you seek out a treasure while checking the toilets,

the map where you look for the crack pills in Mancubus’ apartment,

the map where you are suddenly small,

and the map where you end up shopping.

As for the secret maps, one of them takes place in a bowl of soup that will kill you as soon as you step your toe there while getting bombarded by Cyberdemons.

As for the other stuff in this WAD, you can... sigh... I can't believe that I’m saying it...You can find an Impse Easter egg on almost every map. Look people, if you want to look for these, prepare four gallons of bleach just for sure.

Also, if you have epilepsy, skip Technoseizure Mountain. It’s what you can expect from a map called like that.

Usually when you reach the hub map, after playing the secret maps you can go back and start the WAD all over from there by entering the exit dedicated to it. But if you manage to find a secret switch in Final Battle of Awesomeness (it’s near the Megasphere before taking the portal) you will unlock the real ending.

And now for the most important question in this review – how funny is It Only Gets Worse?

Uhm... I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s funnier than TurboCharged ARCADE, but at the same time, I don’t think I laughed even once while playing this WAD. Maybe it’s due to me not being interested/sharing no nostalgia towards the Internet culture before 2008/2009 since this is when my family got access to the Internet. The closest map concept that feels like it’s the funniest is Wormhole Laxatives. At least there is something positive to say there.

It Only Gets Worse is easier than TurboCharged ARCADE. Is it hard? Maybe? Is it fair? Most of the time, I guess, despite being a joke WAD.

And since this WAD is zany, we also need some new, zany enemies.

Like bigger versions of Zombieman, Imp, and Caco that have twice as much health as their regular versions. Or floating heads made in MS Paint that are tougher variants of Cacos (bigger heads) and Lost Souls (smaller heads). Or Baron of Hell called Bob Nimwich, who comes in two flavors; the regular one and the shadow monster one, and you can only hit the latter variant with hitscan weapons. There is also Sjasface... I guess it’s the floating Burger King’s head that you encounter in The King's Woods.

I ain’t gonna talk about bugs in the case of this WAD since I think that any bug you will encounter was probably placed there on purpose.

And... that’s it for It Only Gets Worse. More ambitious than Wills’ previous Mockaward winner; probably better than that. But if it is funnier than How Not to be Seen or not, I think I’ll leave that decision for you.

And since this is the only WAD from the bronze league, it won’t be surprising that it gets promoted to the Platinum Revenant section of the Revenant Awards.

As for me, time to take a day-long break from the WADs. Good thing it’s Saturday tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll finish the last magazine I have to read (for now).

See you all next time.

Bye!