User:Monika/explainsshit

WARNING: This page is 84 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. But honestly, why the fuck would anyone else edit this page?

I am going to use this space to explain all the jokes in my articles, thus rendering them unfunny.

Don't read this unless you are retarded and don't get jokes.

Japan-France

This article takes Japanese stereotypes and French stereotypes and combines them. I cannot take all the credit for the jokes on this page - most of them came from a brain-storming session with friends and I just put them down.

• Japan-France is a small island nation in Eurasia.

Japan is in Asia and is a small island nation. France is in Europe. Japan-France would then be a small island nation in Europe-Asia. Coincidentally, Europe and Asia aren't really two separate continents, and combined, they are actually called Eurasia. This is funny because Japan-France is not a real country, but Eurasia is a real continent.

Flag of Japan-France. The Rising Sun over a blue ocean as seen while napping on a beach This is the old Naval flag of Japan (the red and white parts) with added color to make it the same color as the French flag (red, white, blue.) The Rising Sun is the real name of the Japanese naval flag, and napping on a beach is a real French pasttime.

• Frapan

The local name for Japan-France comes from combining the words France and Japan in that order.

• Motto: 銃士値

This translates to "Musketeer Values", a twist on the phrase "Samurai Values" from Japan, and Musketeers from France, since France has Musketeers and not Samurai.

Map of Japan-France This map is an outline of Japan overlayed with an outline of France.

• メガパリ (Megaparis) and メガベルサイユ (Megaversailles)

Paris and Versailles are real cities in France. Putting "Mega" in front of them and writing that in Japanese makes it a joke about France and Japan at the same time.

• Jançais

"Français" is French for "French". "Jançais" is "Français" replacing the "Fra" with "Ja".

• Japan-Franco culture is one of extreme ostentation. Every citizen holds a place in a complex social hierarchy. There is a very strict system of etiquette dictating exactly how rude you must be to members of each social class.

Japanese Culture is really one of extreme ostenation, and every citizen holds a place in a complex social heirarchy. And there is a very strict system of etiquette dictating exactly how polite you must be to members of each social class. In France, people are rude instead of polite.

• As often pointed out by xenophobic gaijin,

This part is a joke about Japan only.

• the women of Japan-France do not shave their armpit hair or their legs.

This part is a joke about France only.

• However, this is really okay, because they are naturally hairless in these areas.

This part is a joke about Japan only.

• The proper offensive stereotype is that they do not bathe very often,

This part is a joke about France only.

• and when they do, they do so in public.

This part is a joke about Japan only.

• Japan-France consumes nearly 50% of the world's cigarettes, even though they only make up around 2% of it's population.

Japanese people smoke a lot, and French people smoke a lot. So, Japan-French people smoke even more.

• The indigenous people of Japan-France are thought to have been a benevolent race of pacifists who had discovered the principles of thermodynamics far before their European overlords. They have since been systematically enslaved, poxed, and exterminated to the point of extinction. The interbred Island-Japano's or Island-Franco's are treated as second class citizens and can rarely find work outside of manual labor in the grape/rice fields or as servants. Also, porn stars, but only in the really obscure stuff. And that's saying something, because Japan-France has some really messed up porn.

Japan has really messed up porn. (And also, a native benevolent race of pacifists.)

Jançais Kana: The alphabet of the language of Japan-France, along with associated pronunciations. (Kana with no englangi following are silent) This is really Japanese Kana with some of the pronunciations erased.

• Jançais is a syllabic language where most of the syllables are silent. This has led to two schools of thought on how haiku should be written.

Japanese is a syllabic language. French is a language with a lot of silent syllables. Haiku, a form of poem with strict but simple rules on how many syllables should be in each line, originated in Japan. The presence of "silent syllables" in a language would confuse the notion, leading to two possible interpretations.

• Japan-France is the home of the largest and most kawaii art museum in the world, the Rurufu.

"Rurufu" is how The Louvre would be pronounced in Japanese.

Ceiling of the Rotunda of Apollo, in the Rurufu Museum, in Megaparis. This is really the Ceiling of the real Louvre with some Japanese art replacing the original French art. The smaller image is Sgt. Keroro building a Gundam model. Thus, it is meta-Japanese-art.

• The country is also the world's largest producer of ridiculously pretentious films.

Both countries, but France more so, are known for pretentious films.

• One of its most famous directors is Kurosawa Lukube-san.

The "san" at the end of the name is an honorific. So his name is really Mr. Kurosawa Lukube. Mr. Kurosawa Lukube is a combination of Akira Kurosawa (pretentious filmmaker of Japan), and Luc Besson (pretentious filmmaker of France.)

• His most well-known film outside of Japan-France is "The Fifth Samurai", in which a poor village must recruit five Samurai to protect the village from an alien invasion, only the fifth Samurai is a naked confused chick named Reeroo, played by a naked confused Jobobichu Mirachan.

"The Fifth Samurai is a combination of "The Fifth Element" by Besson, and "The Seven Samurai" by Kurosawa. In "The Seven Samurai", a poor village must recruit seven Samurai to protect them. In "The Fifth Element", some people need to protect Earth from an alien invasion by gathering the five elements. The first four elements are earth, wind, water, and fire, and the fifth element is a naked confused chick named Leeloo played by Milla Jovovich. Japanese people replace ls with rs and vs with bs, and reverse the order of names. "Chan" is another honorific, so her real name is Little Miss Milla Jovovich.

• (In 2005, Gonzo remade this as a Franime in which 4 of the samurai were given giant robots, and Reeroo was given giant hooters.)

Gonzo really remade The Seven Samurai as anime with giant robots. If Milla were in it, they would have given her giant hooters too. Gankutsuou, their remake of The Count of Monte Cristo with giant robots, is good. You should watch it. I can't say the same for Samurai 7. Because I haven't watched it. But also because I assume it's terrible.

• Other works include Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and The Baka.

KKJ is an anime about a magical girl who is the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. Besson has made a film on Joan of Arc. "The Baka" translates to "The Idiot", which translates back into "Hakuchi", which is a Kurosawa film.

• Franime, or Japan-French animation, had its roots with Herge's たぬたぬ, a popular comic about a flying atomic robot boy reporter.

たぬたぬ is a combination of the French comic Tintin, about a boy reporter, and the Japanese anime Astroboy, about a flying atomic boy.

• The most well known Franime in America is DragonGaul Z*, the adventures of a warrior named Asterix as he travels the Roman empire in search of the seven mysterious dragon balls created by the wizard Getafix-sensei.

DragonGaul Z* is a combination of the French comic Asterix, about a Gaul warrior named Asterix who travels the Roman empire and drinks a mysterious potion created by the wizard Getafix, and the Japanese anime Dragon Ball Z, about a bunch of guys going around in search of the seven mysterious dragon balls. "Sensei" is another honorific, so his real name is Professor Getafix.

• There are two opposing forces in Japan-French fashion. Gothic Lolita is the aesthetic of powdering your face white and dressing up like a young but sexually attractive girl, and oppressing the masses. The trend started with Marie Antoinette in 1772 and continues to this day, because everyone loves Marie Antoinette.

Gothic Lolita is a real fashion trend in Japan. Here, it is explained in decidedly French terms.

• Kogal, the opposing trend, involves tanning yourself beyond belief and dressing like a hideous slut trying to regain her youth. It is rather popular among smokers and beach-dwellers who cannot pull off "young and pale" any more and need some trend to latch on to.

Kogal is a real fashion trend in Japan. Here, it is explained in decidedly French terms.

• It is said Monet really liked this style, and that Girl with Watering Can was a fluke. (And it would be, seeing as Renoir was the artist.)

Girl with a Watering Can is a painting by Renoir, and the girl featured looks retroactively Gothic Lolita. Monet really didn't draw it. Renoir did. They are French.

• Japan-France has never won a war, preferring to commit Seppuku immediately rather than risk any dishonor.

Seppuku to avoid dishonor is a Japanese stereotype based in fact. France never winning wars is a French stereotype based in fact. Combining them gets us a joke about Japan-France.

• Originally a monarchy centered around a Sun Goddess Amaterasu du Soliel, the Japan-Franco people revolted against the oppressive rule of their monarch in 1792 and attempted to guillotine their ruler. However, no one could figure out how to build a guillotine high enough to reach the sun and so the revolution fizzled out.

Japan was once a monarchy centered around the Sun Goddess Amaterasu. "Du Soliel" is French. France once revolted against the oppressive rule of its monarch, and guillotined him.

• Three years later, during Japan-French Revolution II, both sides were exterminated by their own weapons. The usual custom for this type of battle is that opposing rulers gut themselves seppuku style and the one who dies quickest is the winner. All soldiers in attendance then commit suicide in the same manner as their respective leader.

This is a repeat of two jokes ago.

• 1945 saw this strategy reborn in the modern age. Five minutes after finally entering World War II, Japan-France began crashing planes into its flagship, the AG-Fubuki. The other side got confused and went home.

This is a repeat of three jokes ago reborn for the modern age. In WWII, Japan really crashed planes into enemy ships, and France really surrendered. The Fubuki was a Japanese warship, and the "AG" stand for "Arcade Gamer".

• Japan-France has a standing army of 12.

Understandably, very few people would want to join an army that keeps killing itself.

• One of those is the penguin mascot 戦友たん

Penguin mascots are common in Japan. This one's name is "War Buddy-tan". "Tan" is an honorific, so his real name is "li'l missy War Buddy."

• who is way cuter than Nils Olav, the penguin mascot of Norway's army.

Actually, Nils Olav is the commander-in-chief of Norway's army. Really. And a penguin.

Mr. Sandman

This article in its current form was inspired by the joke on the Neil Gaiman page linking to it. On that page, they rename "The Sandman" to "Mr. Sandman" and make references to the song from the 50s. Here, I take the series and reframe it as a comic book about teens from the 50s. Most of the jokes are Sandman-as-50s-teen jokes, and visually, there are also Archie (and Josie and the Pussycats, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch) gags. Besides the general stereotypes of 50s teenagers (the big football game, vacations at the beach, and prom), the only Archie gag that made it into the text is the inclusion of the character "Jughead" in the list of characters.

A page from the critically acclaimed Mr. Sandman. In this volume, Dream creates The Corinthian as a girlfriend for his friend Jughead. She turns out to be a "collector", which is 50s teenage code for "girl with a lot of boyfriends". Sandman is really drawn pale with black holes with blue centers for eyes. He also always talks in black squiggly speech bubbles. However, his hair is rarely this neat. The Corinthian is also a real character from the Sandman series, only he is a male, and the mouths where his eyes are are full of much pointier teeth. He is really a "collector", which is serial killer slang for "serial killer". An observant reader might catch a reference to the anime show "Urusei Yatsura" in the first panel, refering to Jughead's predilection for girls who wear animal print bikinis, like the one Lum wears, or the ones worn by the girls in Josie and the Pussycats.

• Mr. Sandman is a comic book series by Neil Gaiman and is not to be taken seriously.

From the refering Neil Gaiman page.

• In publication since 1952, Mr. Sandman chronicles the day to day life of Dream, the anthropomorphic personification of the concept of dreams.

This moves the publication date from the 90s to the 50s. It also implies that the comic is still going, which almost counts as an Archie gag. The rest of the statement is true about Sandman, but goes here on this joke page because it is necessary to frame the rest of the article. (I am personally of the belief that lies are funnier the closer they are to the truth, and this is almost certainly reflected in my writing.)

• Dream, though immortal and existing since the beginning of time, is your standard everyday teenager from the 50s.

Basic joke setup to make it clear to people who are reading this what is going on. I was once given this advice: "Say what you're going to say, say it, and then say what you said." It was advice on how to present scientific papers at scientific conferences if you're a scientist, but I think it applies to long-form jokes as well.

• He enjoys such activities as going on dates with Calliope and Nada (rivals for his affection)

In Sandman, Calliope and Nada are two girls Dream has dated in the past. He sent Nada to hell for eternity because she didn't want to be his queen, and Calliope got herself imprisoned of her own accord by a series of writers. Dream eventually (when he finally got around to it) helps set them both free.

• meeting up with his old friend Jughead (a mortal granted everlasting life) at the same soda jerk every 100 years,

The real character's name is Hob Gadling. But Jughead isn't a stretch. The soda jerk is really a bar.

• and bringing into existence desirable new teenagers at the request of existing ones.

A reference to the song Mr. Sandman.

• The Endless are a family of seven immortal siblings, each anthropomorphic personifications of his or her own unique universal concept. Dream is the third oldest of the Endless.

100% true, but useful information for getting the joke, and also for making the joke read like a proper article on the subject matter.

• Destiny is the oldest of the Endless, in the sense that he existed since the beginning of time first. He is the most responsible of the Endless, and is always watching out for his younger siblings,

True.

• but he is also a prankster and will pick on them given the chance.

Not true, but makes him more believable as a character in a comic book about teens from the 50s.

• He carries around with him a book that lists everything that will ever happen ever, and uses it to play tricks on his siblings and their friends. Destiny is blind, the result of an amusing incident involving Destruction and a football.

This is indirectly inspired by The Brady Bunch. Indirectly as I only have a fuzzy feeling in the back of my head that I got this idea only because The Brady Bunch is part of the general pool of pop culture floating around. And Destiny is blind.

The Endless, Dream's siblings. Left to right from top: Destiny, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, Delirium. (Yeah, their parents thought it was funny.)

Image 1: Destiny - A non-edit of Alexander from Josie and the Pussycats. He makes a good Destiny because he looks older than the other Endless, wears sunglasses so he looks blind, and has his right arm hidden so I don't need to edit in a book.

Image 2: Death - A paleification of Veronica from Archie. She looks like a serious older sister who could be popular and intelligent here. She usually doesn't. Anyway, for that one frame I used, she makes a good Death.

Image 3: Destruction - A non-edit of Archie, falling over. It didn't need an edit. This is what Destruction would really look like if he were in a 50s teenage comic book.

Image 4: Desire - An ever-so-slight paleification of Alexandra of Josie and the Pussycats. Doesn't she look like a dickgirl?

Image 5: Despair - Perhaps my strangest choice, Sabrina from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Lots of color correction on hair, skin, and eyes. She really should be much fatter and nakeder. But I liked the idea of someone who looks like this being Despair. She does look a little like she's about to snap.

Image 6: Delirium - Josie from Josie and the Pussycats, with color edits and FISHNETS! I love her expression.

• Death, the second oldest of the Endless, is a fun-loving girl who enjoys the life of a personable socialite. This beautiful, intelligent, and witty high school senior is the class president and the Grim Reaper, and is much sought after by guys. Her closest friend in the world is her younger brother Dream.

Death in Sandman is a nice and personable girl, but she would hardly fit in a comic about 50s teens. She dresses in all black, like a subdued goth. Simple tank tops and black jeans. She also has huge hair, but not huge in the 50s way (see image of Despair), huge in the late 80s way. Her Mr. Sandman rewrite is quite different from the original visually, but not terribly much so in spirit. She is in fact the Grim Reaper, and her best friend is Dream.

• Dream is the Sandman. A little on the dorky side, he gets along well with his peers and is well liked, but is not as popular as Death. While he never hesitates to do someone a favor, he can be a little undependable and isn't the best at reading people.

Totally true in every way, only the real Neil Gaiman would make it sound more emo.

• Destruction is a nice fellow, but a notorious klutz. He is a redhead and fancies himself an artist (He had a beard once, but shaved it off during a failed attempt to make the football team.) He is quite accident prone, which earned him the nickname Destruction the Bumbling Fool. Destruction dropped out of high school and ran away from home at the young age of infinity because he felt his little accidents were causing too many problems at home.

The real Destruction left his realm because he didn't think humans needed any more help destructing things. He is in fact a redhead who fancies himself an artist and used to have a beard but shaved it off. He lives with his talking dog.

• Desire is a dickgirl.

Rather, Desire can't pick a sex and switches back and forth. Also, am I the only one surprised that Uncyclopedia doesn't have a dickgirl article?

• Despair is a fatty who wishes she were a dickgirl.

True.

• Delirium, formerly Delight, is the youngest of the Endless. Feeling overshadowed by her older siblings, she became a rebel and began to dye her hair crazy colors and act out, spontaneously creating butterflies and the like at inappropriate times. She is a sweet girl though, and all the other Endless love her and nurture her. She was perhaps most hurt when Destruction left, because the two of them shared a special bond.

Totally true. I might get tagged for too much true.

• Calliope is a perky young blond muse who goes to school with Dream. She is the mother of Dream's son, Orpheus, who lived in Greece a long time ago.

I envision Calliope in Mr. Sandman as looking like Betty and being really perky but other than that being exactly like the Sandman character.

• Nada is a Nubian princess and a wealthy socialite. She's best friends with Calliope, but all bets are off when they're fighting for Dream.

Nada here is a mix of Veronica and Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats. As I mentioned before, Dream really sent her to hell for rejecting him (He's so emo!) but imagine her buying expensive clothes and storming off in a hissy fit when Calliope gets dates with Dream.

• The Corinthian is one of Dream's creations. She likes to dress in bikinis, and has mouths where her eyes should be. She is very attractive and will eat people.

Especially the eyes. She likes eyes the most.

• Jughead is Dream's dorky friend. He is dating The Corinthian.

In the original Sandman, Jughead... Jughead is a character from Archie who has a funny hat and nose.

• Luci is a blond prettyboy and a recent graduage from a rival highschool. Because he was the captain of the crew team, and the crew team has ridiculously early morning practices, he is nicknamed Lucifer, The Morning Star. He now owns the diner "Hell's Milkshakes" and the spinoff nightclub "Hell's Milkshakers".

Luci is Lucifer, The Morning Star in Sandman. You know, ruler of hell and all. He is in fact blond and pretty.

• Bast is the lead singer of the band Bast and the Pussycats. She is the Egyptian goddess of pussycats.

Bast is a friend of Dream's. She in turn is based on Bastet, the real Egyptian Goddess of cats.

• Cain and Abel are two brothers who go to school with Dream. Abel is on the football team, but is rather shy and stammering. Cain is in the knitting club, but can and does beat up and kill Abel on a regular basis.

Cain and Abel, based on the biblical characters of the same names, are two dreams who live in Dream's realm. Abel really stutters, and Cain kills him all the time. (aside: WTF. Did I change anything for this article?)

• "Neil Gaiman" shamelessly writes himself into the comic book at every possible turn. He can't keep continuity straight and has been killed by Death on three separate occasions. Originally, Neil Gaiman intended for the Endless to encounter a new character coincidentally named "Neil Gaiman" in every story, but that fell through when he ran out of character designs. "Neil Gaiman" was then revconed into one guy. A night partying with "Neil Gaiman" was what turned Delight into Delirium.

This has two inspirations. One is the amusing idea that Neil Gaiman is a dorky fanfic writer. The second, the idea that a writer would introduce a new distinct character by the same name in every story and then stop and make it one character, comes from Lupin III, where Monkey Punch originally started the character of Fujiko that way. Bonus trivia: Fujiko's boobs are much larger than "Neil Gaiman"'s.

• Batman, aka The Goddamn Batman saves the day whenever the Endless get in over their heads.

Batman is in fact a character in Sandman. He appears for one panel in the first volume. The original pitch for Sandman involved a lot of regulars in the DC-verse, but Neil Gaiman drifted away from this and included them less and less as the story went on. "The Goddamn Batman" is an actual Batman quote. The entire sequence goes guy in car with Batman: Who the hell are you anyway, giving out orders like this? Batman: What are you DENSE? Are you RETARDED or something? Who the hell do you THINK I am? I'm the Goddamn BATMAN.

• The Mr. Sandman series has been collected into 11 volumes, which may be read as self-contained works.

...

• Volume 1: Preludes and Summer Nights When a gang from a rival high school attempts to kidnap Death the night before the big game, they accidentally break into the wrong bedroom and kidnap Dream instead! Not knowing what to do with him, they lock him in their basement for 50 years. When he escapes, he discovers that most of his stuff has been stolen, several of his dreams have escaped and are causing problems, and Death has been worried sick about him.

Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes - A cult tries to capture Death and instead captures Dream. Not knowing what to do with him, they lock him in their basement for over 50 years. When he escapes, he discovers that most of his stuff has been stolen - most importantly, his funny gas mask thing, a bag of sand, and a jewel he put most of his powers in. Volume 1 is mostly about him getting these things back. In chapter 8, "The Sound of Her Wings", we're introduced to Death, who was worried sick about him. Several dreams did escape and are causing problems, but that's mostly dealt with in Volume 2.

• Volume 2: A Doll's House After returning to school, Dream meets the new girl Rose, who is a dream vertex and a total doll. He attempts to court her, and unwittingly attracts the affection of her grandmother, Unity.

Volume 2: The Doll's House - Rose is the new girl, and a dream vortex, and a total doll. He tries to kill her but ends up killing her grandmother Unity instead. Something about Unity being the original vortex. Go read the book.

• Volume 3: Dream Beach Over summer vacation, Dream reminisces about the summer years ago he and Willy Shakespeare would write and perform plays at the beach to amuse girls.

Volume 3: Dream Country - Among other things, this includes the chapter A Midsummer Night's Dream, about Dream commissioning the title play by Shakespeare and inviting all his friends to watch it.

• Volume 4: Season of Misses Out of a sense of duty and friendship, Dream sets out to rescue Nada from the clutches of Luci, owner of "Hell's Milkshakes", a popular diner among creeps and demons. Calliope, of course, gets jealous.

Volume 4: Season of Mists - Replace "Hell's Milkshakes" with "Hell". Calliope was rescued in Volume 3.

• Volume 5: The Big Game of You Barbie, a classmate of Dream's, begins dreaming up a string of jocks one after another in an attempt to give the school an edge in the upcoming football game. Dream is willing to help at first, but later begins to feel used and believes Barbie is abusing his powers and his friendship.

Volume 5: A Game of You - In fact about the character Barbie. But the joke from this chapter comes mostly from the play on "game" to "big game", something teenagers in the 50s were always really concerned about.

• Volume 6: Fables and Recess Dream volunteers at a local elementary school, watching over kids during their breaks. When they discover his powers, they encourage him to indulge their whims - and they do have quite the imagination.

Volume 6: Fables and Reflections - A series of short stories. Again, the joke is a title pun expansion.

• Volume 7: Brief Drives Over spring break, Dream (equipped with new car and driver's license) and Delirium head out on a road trip to find Destruction. When they find him, they are relieved to find he is doing quite well for himself, working as an architect. He is, however, afraid to go near any of his own creations, and has only seen them in pictures.

Volume 7: Brief Lives - Really about Dream and Delirium heading out to find Destruction. Of course, now that Dream is a teen from the 50s, he has to go on road trips with his new license.

• Volume 8: Schoolyear's End On the last day of school, Dream and his friends get blocked from leaving by a severe hurricane warning. They sit around in the school cafeteria and tell stories to each other.

Volume 8: Worlds' End - A bunch of travelers get caught in a "reality storm" (WTF) and sit around in a hotel bar and tell stories to each other.

• Volume 9: The Kinky Ones Luci sells "Hell's Milkshakes" to Dream without really asking, and opens up a nightclub down the street. Dream struggles to figure out what to do with his new diner and eventually ends up selling it. Desire starts a petition to shut down Luci's club, citing that it is not exclusive enough to the pretty people.

Volume 9: The Kindly Ones - The part about Lucifer giving Hell to Dream really happened in Volume 4, but what the hell. The rest is made up. I'm not going to tell you what actually happens in Volume 9.

• Volume 10: The Prom Death, a shoe in for Prom Queen, gets sick in the weeks leading up to Prom. Then she gets better, and Dream catches what she had. The afterparty involves lots of toasts to the sick friend.

Volume 10: The Wake - Not going to tell you what happenes here either, other than that it does involve a lot of toasts to Dream.

• Volume 11: Sunny Days and Endless Nights The gang goes to the beach for summer vacation again. Each chapter tells the story of a different Endless on the last night of the Summer Carnival.

Volume 11: Endless Nights - A story per Endless, oddly enough not set at the Summer Carnival.

• Death: The High Cost of Dating Death signs up for a charity date auction, and the resulting bidding war takes up the entire day. Death: The Time of the Night In an attempt to teach her sister organizational skills, Death allows Delirium to manage her schedule for a week. Delirium fills up the schedule with rapidfire social obligations that Death finds impossible to break and difficult to keep.

Plots made up to match titles based on "Death: The High Cost of Living" and "Death: The Time of Your Life".

• The Chibi Endless Storybook A story from when the Endless were younger. Delirium loses the dog Destruction left in her care while he was at the beach with some friends. She sets off to find the dog and gets lost herself. The dog comes back the next day.

Included this for completeness. The real title is "The Little Endless Storybook".

Super Smash Bros: Xtreme Beach Volleyball

Okay, I'm going to explain this one a little differently.

Cover Art for SSBX DOAX. It features Princess Peach (in the Cyclamen suit), Samus (in the Phoenix), and Jigglypuff (in the Lamina) Hitomi in the, shit, I think it's the Leo? Tina in the Jade? And Lisa in, fuck, I don't even remember. I'll fact check later., three of the characters from the game. note: I can't be fucked to change the image.

Super Smash Bros. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball is a spinoff game to the popular Super Smash Bros. Dead or Alive fighting game series. SSBX DOAX, unlike the rest of the series, is not a fighting game, but rather a "Sports Fantasy Simulation" game, a cross between a dating sim and a somewhat Pong-like volleyball simulator. The events of SSBX DOAX take place between Super Smash Bros. Melee DOA3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl DOA4, and are considered canon to the overarching storyline.

Story

Using his winnings from the SSBM DOA3 tournament, Mr. Game&Watch Zack heads off to Vegas for some gambling. He hits the jackpot playing slots roulette and wins a rather large sum of money. Using this money, he procures himself an island and names it Mr. Game&Watch Zack Island. He then sends out invitations stating that the next SSB DOA tournament, SSBB DOA4, will be held on Mr. Game&Watch Zack Island. As the competitors begin to arrive, however, they realize that he's tricked them. He only sent out the invitation to the female competitors, there is no tournament, and the girls are now stuck on the island for two weeks with nothing to do but play volleyball and shop.

Gameplay

Zelda Kasumi prepares to serve the ball. At the top of the screen, character icons indicate the character's mood, which affects how well she will play. Also shown is the score and the percent damage each character (and the ball) has taken. The ball's damage is reset each point, while the character damage can only be cured by an item such as a heart container or an M tomato, or reset if the character is hit by the ball so hard that she flies off the screen. note: I am not going to do this twice, so it's up to you to determine what of what gets crossed out applies to Super Smash Bros. Hint: just about all of it.

Volleyball

The object of volleyball is to knock the volleyball to the ground on your opponent's side. As the volleyball gets spiked back and forth, it takes damage. The more damage the ball has, the faster it will fly, and the harder it is to return. In addition, characters hit with the volleyball without blocking take damage, and if they go unhealed, will fall harder and take longer to get up. Randomly appearing items such as mushrooms and baseball bats may affect gameplay. Different characters damage the ball at different rates. The game is played first to 7 points by 2 or to 10, with money earnings based on score spread. In addition, nice points can be earned if your teammate likes you and you hurt the opposing team.

Collecting

The true object of SSBX is to collect each of the 1243 300 some bathing suits for each character. Each character has a unique set of bathing suits that they can purchase and give to the other characters as gifts. However, the skankiest and most expensive bathing suits also tend to be the most hated, and often will get tossed in the trash by the recipient. In order to prevent this, you must first butter up the character by giving her many many love items. If she likes you enough, then she can be tricked into wearing even the skimpiest and most embarrassing of bathing suits.

Characters

Princess Peach Helena

A young princess Opera Singer and heir to the Mushroom Kingdom and SSBTec DOATEC (Super Smash Bros. Dead or Alive Tournament Executive Committee, a front for an organization experimenting in Genetic Engineering with the goal of creating a perfect soldier), Princess Peach Helena originally entered the SSB tournament to find out who killed her mother. She was originally disinterested in the politics of her father's company and wanted nothing to do with the tournament, but was left with no choice when Marth Donovan sent an assassin after her. Peach Helena believes Bowser Ayane is the assassin, but in truth, Samus Christie is.

note: Not explaining profiles. Be happy knowing that they are in the style of DOAX profiles.

Samus Christie

Originally disguised as Princess Peach's Helena's maid, Samus Christie is later revealed to be a bounty hunter an assassin originally hired by Marth Donovan to spy on Peach Helena and eventually kill her. Although seemingly a strictly for-sale killer, Samus Christie has her own reasons for getting involved with SSBTec DOATEC; her parents were murdered by Ridely, an associate of Marth, when she was a young girl. She was then raised and trained as a bounty hunter by the Chozo. Or maybe not. I think she's just really just an assassin in DOA. ::shrug::

Zelda/Sheik Hayate/Ein

Zelda Helena in the "Venus" bathing suit. The Venus is the most expensive and whorely suit in the game.

note: Hayate is male and does not, strictly speaking, appear in DOAX. This bio is from the rest of the Dead or Alive series.

Zelda Hayate is the Princess a ninja of Hyrule the Mugen Tenshin ninja clan, but was once kidnapped by Ganondorf and SSBTec DOATEC, where she was experimented on, brainwashed, and crippled. When she came to in Dreamland Germany, suffering from amnesia, she was taken in by Kirby Hitomi and Waddle Dee her father and trained in their dojo under the name Sheik Ein. Link Kasumi has abandoned his her village to find Zelda Hayate, a course of action that makes him her an outcast and earns him her the scorn of Young Link Ayane.

Nana Leon

Nana Ayane wearing the bathing suit "Pixie", a one-piece suit cut down the middle to the stomach. She is accessorizing it with her favorite jacket and hat headband.

note: Leon is male and does not, strictly speaking, appear in DOAX. This bio is from the rest of the Dead or Alive series.

On his herdeathbed, Popo Rolande, Nana's Leon's lifelong ice-climbing partner, uttered the words "The girl man I love is the strongest girl man in the world." She entered the SSB DOA tournament because she is insecure.

Jigglypuff Lei Fang

Jigglypuff Lei Fang, the spoiled only daughter of the famous Jigglypuff some rich Chinese family (and did I mention earlier that Helena is a famous opera singer?), is considered a child prodigy in the martial art of Jigglypuff Tai Chi Quan. She was onced saved from a gang of street thugs by Pikachu Jann Lee. While grateful, she feels that she didn't need the protection and could have taken care of the thugs by herself. She entered the SSB DOA tournament in order to beat Pikachu Jann Lee for her own pride.

Pit Lisa

Pit Lisa, while actually male female, is mistaken for a female by Mr. Game&Watch Zack. SHe seems to work for Mr. Game&Watch Zack, showing the girls around the island as they arrive. (SHe did not appear in SSBM DOA3, and is first introduced in SSBX DOAX.) Little is known about Pit Lisa other than that she and Samus Tina seem to be old buddies, and that she played volleyball in College. In SSBB DOA4, it is revealed that Pit Lisa is really the mysterious luchadora Kid Icarus La Mariposa and a former research scientist under the employ of SSBTec DOATEC who left when Marth Donovan tried to recruit him her for his anti-King Toadstool Douglas faction. And I haven't even played DOA4 so that might just be wrong.

Trivia

In the opening movie of SSBX DOAX, Jigglypuff Christie does some naked cliff-diving in the dark. These five twenty seconds got the game its M for nudity rating.

• This is not the first game where Samus appears in a bikini. She's been doing that since 1986.
• There is no nudity in the game, nor is there a nude cheat. The game is rated M for nudity because Jigglypuff Christie does a little nude cliff-diving in the opening movie.
• In the English language release of the game, Mr. Game&Watch Zack is played by Kobe Bryant Dennis Rodman.
• If you play as one of the girls in Super Smash Bros. Melee Dead or Alive 3 on a Gamecube an XBox with a SSBX DOAX save on it, it will automatically deposit money in that character's SSBX DOAX account.
• A sequel is planned for the Wii 360. Super Smash Bros. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 drops the "Volleyball" from its name, since no one cared. It is rumored that the Wiimote can be used to bitchslap the other girls if you do not like the gifts they give you.
• "Xtreme" is not a real word.

Bleach

I'll do it later. I'm lazy. Leave me alone.

License Note

This article is a little strange, It takes the framework of a Death Note parody and applies it to commentary on the current state of the R1 anime industry. That is, it's a serious article disguised as a joke article disguised as a serious article. Also, at this point, monika explains shit has officially lost any semblance of what it once was. I'll begin with a brief discussion of Death Note and Death Note parody. Then I will explain the R1 industry in ways that pertain to the article. Unlike Death Note, I will leave all the value judgements to the reader.

Death Note is an actual manga written by Ohba Tsugumi and illustrated by Obata Takeshi which ran from December 2003 to May 2006 (a year offset earlier than License Note is reported as running. I offset for two reasons - so that License Note would match up with the licenses I use, and so that the series would still be running when the article was written.) The character names as reported in the License Note article are unchanged, and the bios are fairly accurate, with the major changes being that the Death Note kills people instead of licensing anime, and L, Near, and Mello work for the ICPO instead of ADV and fansub groups. Also, in Death Note, Light is fully Japanese, and Misa is a pop idol who dresses in Gothic Lolita instead of a "Goth Idol", and she falls in love with Kira when he kills the guy who murdered her parents.

Death Note is a favorite of parodists, for several reasons.

• Death Note is popular.
• L/Light is a favorite of yaoi fangirls, and anything that's a favorite of yaoi fangirls is a favorite of parodists.
• Death Note has a fair degree of intrinsic quality to it. However, this is overshadowed by an equally high degree of failure.

• Death Note makes some fairly heavy-handed moral judgements.
• The conflict in Death Note is propelled forward by a Princess Bride-y logic game of "he must know that I must know that he must know..."
• The characters of Death Note are all given a fairly interesting set of a priori character traits but nowhere near an appropropriate amount of character development after that.

• Who dies in Death Note has been heavily spoiled. If you feel out of the loop now and really want to know, L and Light die as do , among many others, Penber and his wife (though she's never confirmed), The Yotsuba group, Watari, Rem, Wedy and Aiber, The US President, Light's dad, Takada, Mello, Mikami, and Misa, the last two shortly after the story ends.
• Light really does look like Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Misa is really annoying.
• The Rules of Death Note are just asking for it.

The License Note article primarily borrows plot elements from Death Note without going too far down the direction of the standard parodies, mostly because it's all been done so much there is little to add. (I can't beat, for example, the <&Light|Hungry> chatscript where Light debates whether to go to McDonalds or Burger King based on how many clues L will find in the choice that point to Light being Kira.) But of course, I point out how annoying Misa is, make a handful of gay jokes, and rewrite the rules. I couldn't not.

And now, The State of the R1 industry. I start with the companies mentioned in the article.

ADV, is one of the oldest and most successful R1 licensee companies, known for its fun, extras-filled releases and quality dub-work. Much of ADV's fortune, like Gainax's in Japan, comes from milking the Evangelion property. ADV is often seen as trying to create a monopoly in the US, with its many subsidiary companies and its strong ties to the Japanese industry, but in recent years, ADV has been cutting back, causing many to speculate on its financial stability after a string of years of excessive licensing of questionable shows. In License Note, ADV takes the role of the rich corporate entity whose success can be attributed to L, who works autonomously gathering licenses. The questionable licenses, however, are the result of Light's experiments with the License Note.

FUNimation is the R1 company that has undergone the most positive change in public opinion in recent years. Once known as a silly company famous for properties like Dragon Ball Z, FUNi gained credibility with good releases of shows like Kitty Grade, Fullmetal Alchemist, Case Closed, and Kodocha. However, FUNi always seems to have amusing licensing "issues". (These issues are attributed to Light in License Note.) They are currently working on their release of Beck, a show that required a significant amount of licensing negotiations, so we shall soon see if the FUNimation curse is lifted.

Geneon, formerly Pioneer, is the choice of R1 companies when you want a quality release with a straight dub but you don't care about the price. (Despite the imagecast, though, this doesn't necessarily hold, except the part about the price.) In any case, um, Geneon releases tend to have pretty cover art.

Bandai is a Japanese company with an American branch. It gets first dibs on Sunrise titles since they are children of the same parent family. For the properties it really cares about, Bandai tends to go all out with spectacular releases, special editions, and the like.

CPM is an oldschool company with a history of unconventional licenses. In the early days of DVD, CPM was plagued with problems stemming from a poor understanding of the new medium. In recent years, CPM is known for providing affordable release of forgotten classics (and other, not so good old shows no one ever licensed.) However, their business model is not particularly profit-getting, and recently CPM suffered a near-bankruptcy, and is currently working on selling off its old releases and getting back on its feet.

Japan-X is a new hentai company which distributes through Hustler Video and doesn't dub their releases, much to the annoyance of people who like their moaning in English.

And the anime listed in Licence Note (There are a number of continuity errors in the license dates in reality and the license dates in License Note, and I'm not going to hide from them.):

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi

Unlicensed, currently confirmed the subject of a bidding war.

Haruhi is the story of a Japanese School Girl who also happens to be God and doesn't know it. All she wants in her life are time travelers, aliens, psychics, and a hot sardonic guy to bang, so she starts a club and recruits one of each. It's a quality show despite how overrated it is. R1 fans are really worried about how it will be handled by the licensee. One problem is that the show has two proper viewing orders. The order it was broadcast in Japan has the core of the story in chronological order, but a number of filler episodes interspersed as flash-forwards. The R2 DVD release order is almost completely chronological with the exception of a teaser episode to start the series. The explanation is that the broadcast order is ideal for a first viewing and the DVD order is better for subsequent viewings, (and given this, the R1 release should be in broadcast order,) but it's unclear if the winning licensee will understand this. (Furthermore a release schedule of six episodes to a DVD, four in each order, has been proposed but it's unlikely the R1 company would do something so nice.) Itsuki, who Light uses as the Kira company mascot, is really a fag psychic.

Tsukuyomi -Moon Phase-

Licensed by FUNimation, announced 10/28/2005

A cute show about an underaged, cat-ear-wearing, gothic loli vampire girl. It's not a very good show, but it wins hard with its excessive levels of cuteness and addictiveness. In License Note, Light licensed it to FUNi as a guilty pleasure of his, but it is the kind of show that Misa is an unabashed fan of.

Ghost Stories

Licensed by ADV, announced 10/24/2004

A positively crappy children's show that no R1 company in its right mind would license. ADV got this cheap, tacked on to another license (as stated in License Note) and, realizing it sucked, gave it a raunchy, ad libbed, Steven Foster dub.

Kodocha

Licensed by FUNimation, announced 4/10/2004

Kodocha was a popular show when it began airing in 1996, but common sense indicated that it would never get licensed. (It is long-running shoujo.) In 2004, FUNi announced the license, to everyone's surprise. However, there were some catches. The band TOKIO was asking far too much for the popular first opening theme song, and FUNi refused to pay for it. Also, one of the band members made some cameos in the show, and, when FUNi wouldn't pay for the song, they were told that they could not use his voice either. Rather than cutting the dub completely, FUNi just muted out his scenes and replaced the opening with the second opening themesong. Such things cannot be coincidence, and are obviously caused by the License Note.

Fighting Spirit

Licensed by Geneon, announced 11/01/2003

Ippo, like Kodocha, is a show that will never get licensed, until Geneon did. (In this case, it is a long-running sports anime.)

Planetes

Licensed by Bandai, announced 7/31/2004

ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ is an existential/office humor anime about the lives of Garbage Collectors in space. It is very good and you should watch it. It is very popular among NASA employees, and a bunch of them approached Bandai with offers of doing special features about how garbage collection in space is very important, which they were taken up on. The first three volumes of Planetes were release as two-disk special editions with fancy slip covers and really nice packaging, but halfway through the series, Bandai gave up on it and downgraded it to more pedestrian packaging. No wonder Light is bitter.

Votoms

Licensed by CPM, re-announced 12/26/2005 (originally released a long while ago)

Votoms is a classic mecha show. This isn't really a new license, but this rerelease is the power of License Note. In 2006, CPM rereleased Votoms as a 4 sets x 2 disks-per-set x $35 MSRP sub-only collection. The set is completely with an ammo can (lunch box, really) stuffed with special features. It is really the ideal release structure for a show of this (awesome) quality and (lack of general) appeal. Unfortunately, the top of the ammo can keeps falling off.

The Fuccons

Licensed by ADV, announced 7/5/2005

The Fuccons is a show about Americans living in Japan. It is animated in the sense that humans are portrayed by mannequins. It's not worth your time. I keep getting copies of the promo disk that I can't get rid of fast enough. If you want one, ask me.

Full Metal Panic!

First season and spinoff licensed by ADV, second season licensed by FUNi, announced 7/29/2002, 5/15/2004, and 5/26/2006

Honestly I think FMP! sucks, and can provide my reasons, but no one ever listens to me, but whatever. People like it. And everyone was shocked when FUNi got second raid.

Macross

Licensed as part of Robotech by, let's see, Streamline who rewrote and dubbed it and kind of gave it to ADV, and as Macross by Animeigo with the caveat that there be no dub since they didn't like Robotech, and then Animeigo lost the license and ADV got it and dubbed it as Macross in a completely different way from the Robotech dub, and I'm not even going to try to find all these dates, but the last ADV license was announced 7/2/2005

Yeah. Macross. This is License Drama in its purest form.

Princess Tutu

Licensed by ADV, announced 4/9/2004

This is a seriously good show despite its name. After the first volume didn't sell well, ADV delayed the second DVD for like a year. No wonder L is bitter.

Sister Princess

Licensed by ADV, announced 7/5/2003

This is about a guy who has 12 (or 13) younger sisters that want him. Or something like that.

Cyberteam in Akihabara

Licensed by ADV, announced 8/9/2003

This is about a 12-year-old girl in the future who wants a robotic pet but she can't afford one so she becomes a magical girl. Or something like that.

Akiba Girls

Licensed by Japan-X, announced late 2005

The first hentai licensed by Japan-X.

Ranma ½

Licensed by Viz since forever

Just giving this a shoutout since I use a character's name for L's pseudonym.

xxxHolic

Licensed by FUNi, announced 10/6/2006

A Gothy Clamp show that isn't very good. The kind of thing Misa really likes but Light despises. This got licensed in the chunk of time between me thinking I might want to use it in the article and my writing the article. Such is the power of License Note.

Akagi

Unlicensed

Akagi is about yakuza playing mahjong. It's really good. Like Death Note, it has a lot of "I knew he'd expect me to do this so I was going to do that instead, but of course he knew that and I knew he knew that and he knew that [...] so I did this other thing instead and now he's dead!" going on, but it's much less annoying than in Death Note. It's the kind of show both L and Light like, but since L is dead now, it'll probably never be licensed.

Best Student Council

Licensed by ADV, announced 10/2/2006

This is a show about a retarded girl with a hand puppet who gets elected to the student council of her high school because the lesbian president wants her. Or something like that. Seriously, do you expect me to watch all this crap? Everyone was shocked by the license, because so many GOOD shows came out that season and ADV picked this one that sucks. A fitting "fuck you" sendoff to L from Light.

Anime Sanjushi

Unlicensed

A remake of The Three Musketeers only Aramis is a hot chick. It's a very good show, only no one's fansubbed it. It's also the kind of show Light will eventually license, which is what prompts Mello to pull a gun on Near when Near suggests it as the next project. It is also probably the case that Light hasn't licensed it yet because he hasn't seen fansubs of it and so it is not as high on his licensing list as it should be. This is the balance between fansubbers and legitimate companies that Mello wishes to restore.

Phew. That's it. That's all the background information you need to get most every joke in License Note.

I am so sorry...

PS
LIGHT WAS RIGHT
LIGHT WAS RIGHT
LIGHT WAS RIGHT
LIGHT WAS RIGHT
LIGHT WAS RIGHT
LIGHT WAS RIGHT

UPDATES

So, um, I'm going to keep the explanations as given, accurate to October '06, and use this space all the way down here to update news and whatnot.

• The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi was licenced by Bandai on 12/22/2006.
• Death Note was licensed by Viz on 01/10/2007.

That was less news than I thought I'd have.

Moë

David Ellefson of Megadeth, with a Hello Kitty Bass, modeled after his actual real life custom bass, and Lisa Loeb's custom Hello Kitty Fender guitar. Athena is the name of David's daugher, and the Greek goddess of War.

Varg Vikernes holding a cat. In the original image, he's holding a spiked bat.

Rick Allen is actually missing that arm, but in order to get the effect I wanted for the image, I used an image of him from before he lost the arm, and edited the arm out. The badage pattern is based on Rei's from Eva. The "penis with MS Paint added" picture is based on the 4chan TEH REI meme, making fun of people who moe all over Rei.

Yuki of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi placed third in the 2006 SaiMoe competition, beating out co-characters Haruhi and Mikuru in rounds two and three. Here, she has been edited to wear corpse paint in the style of Abbath from Immortal.

Let me tell you the story behind this article.

It must have started in '83 or '84, when, during one of the many regular visits to my great-grandmother in New Jersy, my mom decided it was time she could begin to leave her toddler in the care of her middle-and-high-school-aged cousins while she and the other adults did adult things. What better way, my first cousins once removed must have thought, to entertain a two-or-three-year-old than to let her watch cartoons? And by cartoons, they meant the n-th generation VHS fansubs they were planning on watching anyway. And Robotech. (Robotech was in English.)

And so, during my formative years, I was exposed to some of the manliest anime of the '70s. Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Lupin III, Aim for the Ace... Okay, that last one isn't so much manly as about high school girls beating the crap out of each other with tennis balls. These shows had a lasting effect on my idea of what manliness is. Manliness is a tall, thin, early-30s, girly-looking boy with pretty hair who will totally kick your ass and everyone else's if he feels like it. But he'd rather be alone in his room brooding over sake. Also, space pirate.

(As a side note, I was highly disappointed by the '80s and '90s anime industry's selection of men. In the 80s, they were all accident-prone jokester perverts, and in the '90s they were all spineless nancy-boys. Luckily, the industry seems to be moving back in the right direction. In case you didn't read my explaination of Licence Note, Gankutsuou is a good show and you should watch it.)

Anyway, in late high school and throughout college, I began to get into metal. Specifically, I began to get into having the hugest fucking crush on Cliff Burton. Man, that guy is hot. I'd so do him if he wasn't dead. Damn. So fucking hot. Anyway, metal has a similar aesthetic to '70s anime manly shows. Here we have a bunch of scrawny boys with hair down to their asses wearing leather and spikes and wielding axes (given the right sub-genre) and stuff. It worked for me.

But not every metal musician made me want to jump him. A significant number of them brought forth an "awwwww! how cute!" reaction from me. Mostly because I'm completely screwed up but also because they are really really cute. David Ellefson was probably the first where I really realized how strong the reaction could be. He's really, really, really cute. Like, really.

Early in the 21st century, the term "moe" gained significant popularity in the anime fandom. Precisely what it means is up to some debate; some will tell you it means a fatherly, non-sexual love towards a cute anime character, others will tell you it means a perverted, sexual love towards a cute anime character. The first group is right. The second group won the revert war at Wikipedia. (There you have it people, proof that Wikipedia is an unreliable source.)

Well, when I got to grad school I kind of moved away from metal. My life was depressing enough, and I tried to compensate by listening to happier music. (This method doesn't work. I know that now. Your best bet is to listen to music that is one or two steps above you in cheeriness. I've been listening to a lot of Black Metal lately, and it's really been helping my mood.) In my third year, though, the show Metalocalypse began airing on TV. And DAMN if Toki isn't the most adorable thing ever. I believe it was some time during the second episode when I let out my first ever involuntary "moe~~~~~~~~~!" And then it struck me. THIS, despite its odd, non-little-anime-girl choice of target, is what EXACTLY moe is.

Anyway, about the jokes in the article... They're all true with the exception of moe being spelled with an umlaut, and moe being something common in metalhead girls instead of otaku boys. And every time a word is a portmanteau of two other words, I change the source words. A few of the jokes are my standard take two unrelated things and pretend they're one thing kind of jokes. Most notably:

• Varg Vikernes is combined with Nevada-tan
• Rick Allen is combined with Rei Ayanami of Evangelion
• Metalocalypse has been combined with your choice of Miyazaki works. Perhaps you liked Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke? I'll go with Castle of Cagliostro (which, according to Spielberg, is the best action movie ever) as the quote I have him saying is based on something he said about character Clarisse
• Gorillaz has been combined with Negima!?

Also, Jason Newsted really whines a lot like that. Poor guy was compared to Cliff Burton for most of his career, and he really isn't nearly as fucking hot.

Oh man is Cliff hot.

Varg Vikernes

Explaination coming soon. Sooner than Bleach's, anyway.

Marty Friedman

or HowTo:Construct an article that spans 27.5 subpages and that no one will ever read.

Then again, I've been writing this page for a long time, so I'm used to people not reading things.

The general structure of the article

The Marty Friedman article is a meta-article. The joke is not completely within the text of the article, but also within the story of the article. This is the story of a little Japanese girl a guitarist who finds himself the subject of an encyclopedia entry, an entry he feels doesn't convey who he really is.

The story begins with the original article, followed by our protagonist's first edit, a sloppy but well-intentioned edit expanding upon what our protagonist considers to be his defining moments, and then the first revert, in the spirit of Wikipedia's "no original research" policy. This first act introduces the characters and the conflict between our protagonist and the encyclopedia.

In the second act, our protagonist, enraged at this affront to his own self-image, begins to fight for his right to define himself against the overpowered encylopedia in the only way he knows - vandalism. He starts with a few small, well-placed changes to the article, taking the opportunity to knock those who have done him wrong, grandstand his own accomplishments, and rave against that which has abanoned him (and which he has abandoned.) The encyclopedia, omniscient as it is, quickly reverts these changes. Our protagonist counters with a swift blank-and-smilie vandalism, and is once again shut down.

In act three, our protagonist has decided to play the encyclopedia's game. Instead of making edits to the original article, he writes a new article, one that, to him, is truth. He is, however, shut down one final time, his article locked for eternity.

The story is told over 9 revision (and 15 diff) pages, a history page, and a user page for our protagonist.

A revision page

With the exception of the final page, each revision page starts with a header that looks like this:

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hebimeta-san (Talk | contribs) at 23:44, 20 October 2023. (history)
It may differ significantly from the current revision.

(diff) ←Older revision | Current revision (diff) | Newer revision→ (diff)

You might say that this looks nothing like Uncyclopedia's old page headers. That's because it was copied from Wikipedia's old page headers. And the incredibly well-thought-out reasoning for that is that they are more eyecatching and I'm worried enough people won't get what's happening. Anyway, yeah, I just jacked that from Wikipedia.

(That section is, by the way, encased is a big <noinclude></noinclude> tagset because the pages are included in the diff pages, and that part isn't needed there.)

Of the nine revisions, seven of them are based on the "unvandalized" page. In these cases, this header (or in the case of R8, the locked template (similarly jacked from wikipedia but made more obvious for the purpose of making sure people get it by beating said people over the head with it)) is immediately followed by a {{User:Monika/Marty/Marty unvandalized}} or a {{User:Monika/Marty/Marty unvandalized|1}} or {{User:Monika/Marty/Marty unvandalized|3}}.

(Note from the future: Even after this was all moved to the main namespace, the {{templatey bits}} were kept as my user space, so I wouldn't need to move things to the template namespace. I might fix this differently later, but ah fuck it.)

The "unvandalized page" explained

The unvandalized page is a giant-ass huge-ass template. Contained within is the entire original article and the two edits based on the original article. To call the original version, you simply include the page. To call revisions 1 or 3, you include the page modified by a | and the revision number.

It works using parser functions that look like this.

{{#ifeq: {{{1}}} | 1 | Text for revision 1 | {{#ifeq: {{{1}}} | 3 | Text for revision 3 | Unvandalized text }} }}
{{#ifeq: {{{1}}} | 1 | Text for revision 1 | Unvandalized text, untouched in revision 3 }}
{{#ifeq: {{{1}}} | 3 | Text for revision 3 | Unvandalized text, untouched in revision 1 }}
{{#if: {{{1}}} | Text for revision 1 and 3 | Unvandalized text }}

If you can't figure out what that means, then you'll never need to use it.

Also, there are a lot of <ref> calls in the page. For annoying formatting reasons, they are all written <nowiki></nowiki><ref> blah blah blah </ref><nowiki></nowiki>. For some reason, without the empty nowiki tags, they'd look fine in preview, but, when included in other pages, would generate

text that looked like this. Only not just one line. The whole article. And they'd then nest.

The diff pages

The diff pages were a pain in the ass. Luckily, because I rigged the history page, I only needed to make 15 of them.

I started by generating "static copies" of each revision page in my sandbox. This meant replacing all includes with substs and all #ifs with subst:#ifs, then saving and repeating until all of them were gone. I also replaced all <nowiki></nowiki> pairings with, um, nothing. And categories were left in the original [[category:some category]] format instead of the modified format described in the next section. After doing that, I let uncyclopedia calculate the differece between the pages and then I jacked the table from the page source.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it. See, the pages source is html, which is not quite the same thing as wikimarkup. Kept as is, anything in <a href=http://linky.com>linky name</a> tags ceased to be a link and anything in [[linky|linky name]] became one. Images expanded, '''formatted text''' came out formatted, and all sorts of bad things happened.

To fix this problem with the minimum amount of actual work required, I simply ran some find/replaces on the text. I replaced [ with <nowiki>[</nowiki>, ' with <nowiki>'</nowiki>, { with <nowiki>{</nowiki>, toc with <nowiki>toc</nowiki>, and http with <nowiki>http</nowiki>. For this reason, the page source is huge and unreadable. But it looks good on wiki and that's what's important. For the same reason, I went through and added spaces to long links so that the diff table would stay within the page width like it's supposed to instead of expanding the page sideways like it does in reality. Just for you.

Categories

This article belongs to the following categories: [[Category:Japanese]][[Category:Guitarists]][[Category:Pop musicians]][[Category:Awesome People]][[Category:Judaism]][[Category:Heavy Metal Maniacs]]. More specifically, the original version belonged to [[Category:Judaism]][[Category:Guitarists]][[Category:Heavy Metal Maniacs]] and the rewrite belonged to [[Category:Japanese]][[Category:Guitarists]][[Category:Pop musicians]][[Category:Awesome People]]. Or more more specifically, before I came up with the thing I'm about to explain, seven revision pages and thirteen diff pages belonged to [[Category:Judaism]][[Category:Guitarists]][[Category:Heavy Metal Maniacs]] and one revision and one diff page belonged to [[Category:Japanese]][[Category:Guitarists]][[Category:Pop musicians]][[Category:Awesome People]]. This is clearly stupid.

To fix the problem, I replaced all the category sections in the pages that are not revision 7 with something that looks like this:

which behaves exactly like the category section but doesn't actually add the articles to the categories.

In revision 7, I added all six categories the regular way, and then added:

in such a way that, in Firefox, it covers up the real categories. This doesn't work in IE, which makes me want to stab people. Dr. Skullthumper is magic.

Anyway, this way, each page links to the categories it's pretending to be in, and each category links back to the main page only, even if the main page isn't in that category (unless you use IE).

Dynamic dates

This revert war took place between 8 days ago and yesterday, no matter when you look at it. Why? Because I can.

How? Well, every time I needed an edit date, I used something like XX:XX, {{ #time: j F Y | -D days }}. where the XX:XX is whatever time the edit took place, and the -D is how many days ago the edit took place.

What I'm kicking myself for not doing

Even with the extensive use of parser functions and includes in this article, there was still a lot of stuff that was painstakingly copied from one subpage to another, stuff that could have been templated, such as usernames and times of edits. And those header thingies. And formats for diff pages and shit. Next time I do an article like this (NEVER), I will use a shitton of templates. But since doing that would otherwise create a shitton of subpages for the article, I'll just make them all one big template (say, [[articlename/onebigasstemplate]]) and make one of the options which subtemplate you intend to use. Then I'd stick the whole thing ine one big parser function, and you'd call it like this: {{articlename/onebigasstemplate|whichfuckingsubtemplate=thatonewiththething|blahblahblahotheroptions}}. Feel free to steal my idea, since I was stupid enough to post it.

I am going to use this space to apologize for all the jokes in my articles, thus clearing my conscience.

Don't read this unless you think I might feel bad I made fun of you.

Megadeth

Once this article is out of the feature queue, this image will have no more purpose. I apologize to the image for creating it knowing it would only be useful for a few days. It is a very nice picture of the entire 1990-1998 lineup. (Left to right: Friedman, Mustaine, Menza, Ellefson)

I've hurt a lot of people I deeply care about in this article.

Dear Dave Mustaine,
         I am sorry for gathering together all your hypocrisy together on one huge page and making a big joke about it. I understand that you have a lot of trouble with personal relationships stemming from your childhood raised by a single mother who wasn't always there for you and her unsuportive family. I don't judge you for what you've done to everyone; that's between you and God and I know you talk to him daily, like, for real now and not just because it worked in a song. I hope you can forgive me.

-monika

Dear David Ellefson,
         I am sorry for constantly making fun of how young you used to look when you were younger. I am also sorry if this or any other article I've written makes you look like a pushover or a pansy. I actually admire your patience, your tact, your ability to deal with people like Dave. You're the ultimate bassist. (And don't tell anyone else, but you're my favorite member of Megadeth. Also, I will be buying that new F5 album the day it streets. Please tour it and come somewhere near me.)

-monika

Dear Marty Friedman,
         めんご.

-monika

Dear Don Menza,
         I'm sorry for implying that letting your young child hang out with Buddy Rich was child abuse. Nick turned out fine and I would like to thank you for impregnating his mother. I'm also sorry for calling you a footnote. The Pink Panther theme is awesome, and I also like a lot of the other things you've done. I wish I could breathe circular. That is a seriously awesome skill.

-monika

Dear Nick Menza,
         I'm sorry for making fun of your cancer scare. I too have been kicked out of stuff for trying to take a medical leave. I'm currently dealing with it in a way that'll hopefully result in me getting un-kicked-out, and if I end up getting kicked out again a few weeks later (likely) then I will totally know what it's like to be you. You are just as adorable as David. You are my favorite former Megadeth drummer alive.

-monika

Dear Jeff Young,
         I'm sorry for not making fun of your cancer. You're probably thinking "Couldn't she have just said 'Jeff Young has testicular cancer' and left all the other stuff out?" Yes, I could have, but it seemed too much with the Menza stuff shortly after it. I felt for balance I should leave it out and instead make fun of all the other stuff. If it makes you feel any better, I am also in a world music band.

-monika

Dear Chris Poland,
         Your finger is creepy. Stop letting Dave convince you to rejoin Megadeth. By the way, I like collecting music made by former members of Megadeth, and the one thing I've been stuck on for the longest time (both because I am super-interested in it and because it is a lot harder to find than everything else I've looked for) is the Jazz-Fusion stuff you did before Megadeth. If you have anything, please send it to me.

-monika

Dear Chris Broderick,
         I like that your favorite album ever is Perpetual Burn. I really like that album too, and an appreciation for Jason Becker is something I look for in a Megadeth Guitarist. You are my third favorite Megadeth lead guitarist ever, and that's seriously saying a lot. I honestly really really hope you spend a very long time in the band. Don't let Dave abuse you too much.

-monika

Dear Gar Samuelson,
         I'm sorry for implying that Dave only speaks highly of you because you're dead, and I'm super super super sorry for implying that he only speaks highly of you because you're dead because he's worried you'll come back as a zombie and attack him. Please don't eat my brains.

-monika

From here I am going back to explaining things. I'm creating this new section so I can keep my articles in order.

If you aren't sure if you should be reading this or not, read the introduction to #I am going to use this space to explain all the jokes in my articles, thus rendering them unfunny.

Fermat's Penultimate Theorem

If you don't like math or big words or things like that, here's a version of the article just for you.

Fermat's Second-To-Last Theorem

---

Pierre de Fermat has the handwriting of an annoying teenage girl. He is also fat. Even other nerds made fun of him.

"4chan" thinks this is funny according to this article because it is a chimp with a log up its butt and log is a math pun and it's a picture of an animal with text on it. 4chan invented lolcats, but they don't call them lolcats over there.

Fermat's Second-to-Last Theorem is a thing that says:

Something simple but in complicated terms (like the unabridged version of this article) in big letters.

This thing is stupid and nobody cares. Also, Fermat was stupid because some already solved this problem. This is an easy problem and Fermat wasted lots of space on it. Because if this, he couldn't write down his proof to his last theorem. Nerds think this is really funny for some reason. On math humor sites, they make fun of it the same way people make Oscar Wilde jokes at Uncyc.

Fermat's Last Proof

---

Because Fermat didn't prove his last theorem, his last proof is for his second-to-last theorem. He wrote it in the copy of some really old math textbook that his wife got him because she doesn't understand him. He used this book like a diary, which was what they used to call blogs.

Dear Diary,
I was thinking blah blah blah math math math

math math math
math mistakes blah blah blah
backtrack and start over...
math math math
It's dinner time and I'm fat and hungry. I'll finish this later.


Back. I don't understand what I wrote above this.
math math math
I don't know how to solve so I'll write to a friend.

Oh wait. The footnotes say he's dead.

Then Fermat's dad told him to get a real job.

The Proof Someone Else Did First

---

All that thing says is that when you add two numbers together, the result isn't xbox huge compared to the other two numbers. Even I knew that and I'm reading an article version that was written just for people who don't like math and big words.

Fermat's Second-To-Last Theorem in "Popular" Culture

---

Only nerds think this is funny.

• Star Trek nerds think this is funny.
• People who listen to nerd rock think this is funny. Also people who listen to nerd rap.
• Something about a program only math people use.
• Something about "mathworld" but really about Uncyclopedia. That's one of those self-hating Uncyclopedian jokes.

Again, only nerds think this is funny.

What would Cliff Burton do?

I wrote this article entirely under the influence of Nyquil and Cēpacol. That's my explanation.

UnNews:Obama unveils education reform plans asplained

[explained]

This is a video game, which is not the same thing as anime.

Then again, what do I know?

I almost didn't write this article.

I almost wrote an article for Best Illustrated but I was having hard drive issues at home and at work only have access to GIMP, which is just like Photoshop only it hates me. And even if I had had a working Photoshop available, I probably would have realized that the particular article I had in mind would only serve to confuse and annoy the judges and everyone else, much like my last attempt at PLS did. (I would have realized it, but I probably would have entered anyway. Hell, I'll probably consider it again next time around.)

I almost considered finding another category and topic based just on the judges. Nothing against any of them. In fact, Led and Gerry are total sweethearts and also completely rational people, and my interactions with have been pleasantly minimal. It was more of a percieved incompatibility of subject matter and style with taste.

Anyway, I wrote this article. I almost regret it. I don't really like it. But whatever.

I also almost didn't write this explanation. I seriously just deleted it and wrote about my experiences with standardized testing (all pleasant or profitable) and then hit the back button a few times.

Drugs are bad. Stay in school. That's what everyone always told me.

User:Monika/explainsshit#UnNews:Obama unveils education reform plans asplained

I was having a bad day. Keep scrolling for an actual explanation of the article.

UnNews:Obama unveils education reform plans explained

Let's try something new, and by something new, I mean something I used to do on this page a lot.

UnNews:Obama unveils education reform plans

Now this is how you teach civics.

This article starts with a press conference quote from Obama that hints at what is to come. It makes a quick swipe at Bush's No Child Left Behind policy (which is really the primary target of this article) and then suggests that the strength of an education system is measured by the smartest kids, not the dumbest kids. There are also a few "uh"s in there and some slightly-awkward-when-transcribed speech patterns for Obamarealism. It also sets up the premise that Congress and America was presented with this legislation on Friday, March 20th, and provides a brief outline of the process of how this proposal will becomes law.

Second paragraph furthers the premise that this proposal is the polar opposite of NCLB and also starts the joke that the media coverage of this bill is going to be silly and partisanish. Third paragraph makes the joke that congress is super-inefficient, even when it comes to the children and other important topics. It also makes fun of a particularly stupid real congresswoman who, despite never graduating from college, thinks she knows what is best for education, and vocally promotes basing public school curricula on the bible.

The You Can Lead a Child to Education but You Can't Make Him Learn Act

This section explains the basics of the proposal. The main point is that catering an education to the smartest single kid in the class makes for a better education than catering to the dumbest. (Of course, there is no middle ground to consider.) Like NCLB, the act is primarily concerned with alloting federal funding for public schools based on performance.

"Florida Drift" is a real problem, although it's neither called that nor quite that extreme in the real world. A lot of states, especially Florida, rewrote the tests each year to be easier, in order to empirically show that they were improving education. NCLB as written actually encouraged this. This lowering of standards, in addition to other curriculum adjustments made in response to NCLB, led to measurable decreases in the quality of education children received. (Also, lots of college professors bitching about how incoming students have the writing skills of ten-year-olds...)

The test descriptions I included just to keep up the premise. They are closer to AP tests than SATs, and that's not necessarily a bad thing if only top tier students are taking them. The "teacher salary" thing I figured needed to be touched on a little bit, and the federal government sending enforcers to clean up stupid schools I thought was a cute idea. Class of 1999 is a fun movie and you should watch it. First you should watch Class of 1984 though.

The Finally, Some Sense in Elementary and Secondary Education Act

A short clip of the film adaptation. Ignore the number after the title. It's just a short clip for reference, not the entire movie in six minute intervals and Greek subtitles on youtube or anything. (Try google video.)

This section focuses on pro-policy arguments. The intro paragraph's description of the ignorant and proud of it crowd is far too real for Uncyclopedia but I included it anyway because it makes me sad. (By the way, for those of you who don't follow American politics (or civics), Sarah Palin, poster child of all that stuff, can't run until 2012. This is one of those "actual jokes" I get accused of not making enough of.) The paragraph ends with a bit of delusion that it used to be much better than this, when it reality, it was merely a bit better than this.

Second paragraph I didn't want to make too obvious, but if you're here, that's what you're here for. The first "administration official" is Malia Obama, the president's older daughter. The third is Sasha, his younger daughter. If you're unfamiliar with Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, check it out. (It's very short, if you don't like to read, but if you don't like to read, you won't get it. I don't know what the plan was there...) The movie with Sean Astin also good. And there's a short film coming out soon called 2081 that's going to be more faithful to the original story.

Better for the smart kids

During NCLB's reign, there were stories of parents with very smart children (think "can read perfectly by age four" type smart) who reported that their children's teachers would attempt to get the children held back a year so as to increase the teacher's students' average performances on standardized tests. Luckily, most parents with that kind of child are also good, involved parents, so teachers were rarely successful, as far as we know.

Anyway, I skipped over that part of NCLB criticism for a joke about bloggy internet movements, the priorities of children, and an "Obama reads Spiderman and that's funny because he's the president and Spiderman is a comic book" joke. Freedom!, by the way, was one of my favorite MECC video games, even though it was recalled shortly after it came out. In the game, you played a runaway slave who had to reach a free state by means of the Underground Railroad. It was a very difficult game, and most of the time you ended up dead or recaptured (often crippled beyond hope of ever re-escaping) and it had a lot of interesting game-theory and probabilistic elements. At the beginning of the game, you were randomly assigned as being able to read or not. If you could not read, all signs along the way were translated into gibberish, and by "translated into gibberish" I mean hit with a substitution cypher. This, of course, meant that the smarter player could learn how to read pretty quickly even when the character could not. It was a fun and challenging game.

Better for the dumb kids

Here, I go the easy route of actually presenting the argument against NCLB, specifically that the students who couldn't keep up with the requirements were actually left behind by being dropped from or encouraged to leave the public school system.

Better for the average kids, even

An actual argument with a bit of fictional flourish from an actual child psychologist who might actually agree to some extent with the words I put in his mouth.

And if you think that last Olbermann rant is distressing, check out some Quiver-full movement rhetoric. Or watch Idiocracy. (For future readers who have the benefit of not being stuck in our current news cycle, the other references are to Nadya Suleman and the Palin Bunch.)

The Why Do You Hate American Children Act

This section is wharrgarbl based on increasingly stupid conjectured real arguments from hypothetical people opposed to this proposal. wharrgarbl.

The Blue Penis Act

And finally, to top it all off, we have the kind of "media feud" that the media likes to cover these days. I'm with Rachel on this one. I don't know how many times I've had to say "Blue Penis" in reference to this article, but it doesn't even come close to being a proper reflection of the actual reaction to blue penis. The blue penis is really just a small part of this article and while important symbolism in and of itself, is one of the least meaty bits of the article. But of course, not only do people not understand why there is blue penis or what purpose it serves in the article, they also focus on the blue penis as if it were the only part of this article worth mentioning.

Blue penis.