preliminary: People look at funeral services as a vehicle for bitterness and mourning, and it’s true, they are. They can be. But I’ve seen, funerals become a vehicle for celebration, getting to know this person in your life and see what everyone else saw. I think this was meant to be a study of that, but I never got far with it.

This is a funeral for a teenage Boy, Nicholas Todd. Everyone tries their best to speak on him, but everyone has their own perceptions. This story is only in its exposition phase, so it may be a bit boring.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

MR. TODD: Nicholas’s father, just about 53 years of age. He’s known to be very quiet and thoughtful, always something but tonight, he is falling short.

MRS. TODD (not appearing): Nicholas’s mother. Candid, sweet. A couple years younger than her husband, but still loves her kid all the same.

DEVIN (not appearing): Nicholas’s best friend. Last speaker of the day.

(at rise) An array of chairs sits in front a single podium as a casket lays diagonally to the audience. Everything is sort of drab as the decorations are simple and hastily put together. Everyone is dressed in black.

(lights up) A preacher steps up to the podium, says a few words, people wipe their eyes, and Nicholas’s father walks up to the podium.

MR. TODD

I’m not good with words. I’m sure my son could’ve told you that. I’m pretty sure he did. But I’ll try my best today.

I’ve been trying to come up with a story to tell, because that last thing I’d want to do is embarrass my son at his own funeral—But whenever I tried to come up with a story to tell, my mind just came back to this one. And if here I am, telling you all now, obviously, that means I didn’t kept my word.

The crowd laughs.

MR. TODD

When my son was a boy, about five or six, he was obsessed with the show on TV: Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. It had just come out the year before—we bought it on DVD, and everytime we put it on, he was ecstatic. It was his favorite show. I never saw the promise in it, but what the hell did I know, I was a man almost in my forties with a five-year-old.

Over the summer, he kept watching and watching it, and eventually just had the—the whole thing down by memory. And around August of that year, we saved up to go to the Zoo, down in—down in Pittsburgh. We saw all sorts of animals, zebras, monkeys, gorillas—But what I’m never going to forget was the tiger exhibit. What he did was he stared for about five seconds and then he stormed off. So downhearted. May tells me to follow him, so I go up to him and ask, “Nicky what’s wrong?” He shakes his head and says, “Daddy, that’s not what a tiger looks like.”

MR. TODD laughs, covering his face
with his hands.

MR. TODD

That was my boy right there. Never grew out that love of animals. Told me when he was eleven he wanted to get a frog. Bless her heart, Mae nearly fainted.

MRS. TODD is audibly heard,
laughing in the crowd.

You ever thought about how easy it is to lie to someone?

…

Look, I’m probably getting eyes right now, but I’m being so honest. It’s so easy to lie to someone! In an age where fact checking is a myth because the closest thing to a real answer was Google and then it wasn’t, and you could use AI to look something up for you, but really do you want to do that?

It’s one big mess. Your social media sites? One big episode of telephone.

Someone said on Tumblr, who got screenshotted to Instagram, who was sent around a bunch of people’s direct messages that you could save someone from an overdose before an ambulance came by pouring them saltwater. And was this correct? No, it was dangerously false, but the post from 2013 where someone read something wrong is now getting posted to Tik Tok and ohh…  You just pray to God no one in this scenario is confronted with an overdose.

That’s a horrifying system! Who profits from this!

Some videos will just serve you wrong information and what? Will your mother check if NewsOutlet.com is serving her a conspiracy theory baked as a health guide? No, she won’t. It’s just the culture of the internet but now she’s involved in buying purified teeth to loop around her neck.

Which brings us back to the question: how easy is it to lie to someone?

I mean, obviously there are boundaries, if you have enough common sense you can tell when I’m lying (but the average American overestimates how easy it is to be manipulated.)

You may think I’m telling the truth, but if I’m confident, persuasive, and pretty enough, I can tell you things you would doubt experts on. Humans love to listen to confidence. And coincidentally, if your peer tells you a statistic with full confidence, what’s your chances of actually fact checking that?

Some of the things you think you know are just another myth. Daylight saving time was started for farmers, putting your phone in rice saves it from dropping in the pool, organic food is more nutritious. And then there’s the even worse ones. MSG is bad for you, vaccines cause autism, a child can’t be reported missing unless 24 hours have passed.

And that’s just the beginning!

But we’re nearing the end of this blog, so let me make the point I was going to make at the beginning. (This one is in bold because it’s the one you’re probably actually gonna read.)

Out of the five of these, four are real crimes. One is a lie. Without looking it up, which one is LEGAL?

1. spitting at someone

2. corporal punishment (Physical Punishment)

3. not having car insurance

4. Impersonating someone online

5. downloading someone else’s content

(and you probably do too)

AMELIA BEDELIA

I really hope you know Amelia Bedelia. My roommate didn’t and I was very sad. Amelia Bedelia is connotative with gullibility, upon being left in a house with a list of expressions and idioms she takes them all to be literal: she cuts up the towels when she hears “change them [out]”, ruins their furniture and the only reason she doesn’t get fired that day is she makes a delicious lemon meringue pie. I tried not to sound mocking because I truly do love this book, Amelia Bedelia is so witty and goofy.

And then of course came what I’d call “holiday specials” e.g. Merry Christmas, Amelia Bedelia; Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping, etc. etc. It’s just a trend of the medium, you’ve noticed, once people love “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” they’ll love “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” but what I find interesting is Amelia Bedelia didn’t just get picture books she also got chapter books.

An entire franchise of them!

These were published decades after the original book was released—like the Amelia Bedelia books were being published in the 60s, the one I had as a kid was written in 2013.

Also, I love this artstyle, look at her little outfit

(side note I was looking up more books for this blog and let me just say: Harry Potter is NOT a picture book.)

KNUFFLE BUNNY: A CAUTIONARY TALE

This one is for ME, okay? and it’s the only non-serialized one on this list. This little girl leaves her stuffed animal at the laundromat and she can’t talk yet so all she can do is babble the words closest to the sounds “Knuffle Bunny.” 🙁

It’s based on the writer’s real life family and did you know this was written by the guy who’s also written, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus?” I’m so upset no one remembers Knuffle Bunny. Let’s move on.

IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE

What I brought it up and you expected me not to use it? Yeah, you’ve read it I bet. I believe it FAR greater than either of the other ones on this list but have you actually gone back? Because wow, it is cozy. Coziest book alive, as a seven year old shares some food with a mouse who trashes his house (but the book doesn’t rhyme?) Akin to most things on this list, there were obviously more books after it and you know what, I’ll go back on my word. Despite how like. Honestly sweet the original is, I remember the variations more fondly.

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake? If You Take a Mouse to the Movies?

If You Take a Mouse to School?

I’m sorry, If You Take A Mouse to School beats out the original by a MILE, no criticism accepted (I do not remember this book, so this could all be hearsay.)

PETE THE CAT

I loved this cat as a kid and I love the beat his little read-alouds were paired with. Do you remember read-alouds? Those went crazy. This cat went along with everything, his shoes are white, now they’re red, what does he say?

“I love my red shoes,

I love my red shoes,

I love my red shoes.”

Never bothered, never sad, just the coolest cat around. 10/10 Cat I don’t remember much of him but he took down the house in a single picture book.

… hey you know those “I am [historical figure]” books? They made one for ruth bater ginsberg

I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of Camp Camp—compared to RWBY and Red vs Blue (if you’ve even heard of those two) it’s the less well-known of Rooster Teeth’s production, a now defunct indie production studio. If you have, maybe you saw it on YouTube at some point where it got most of its press (don’t look it up, it’s not there anymore)

The premise of the show is best described as a conman’s summer camp. A thousand years ago, in an attempt to make as much money as possible, Cameron Campbell set up a con where he could maximize profits and turn a regular summer camp into an everything camp. What ends up happening is a bunch of kids whose parents signed them up for entirely different camps (Science Camp, Magic Camp, Behavioral Correction Camp, etc.) all get jammed into a rinky dink summer camp where the only objective out of the day is to get to the end of the summer.

We follow Max, this cynical and jaded kid whose entire thing is making every day at camp as entertaining or as miserable as possible, along with his cheerful camp counselor David who’s never met a day he didn’t love.

A not bad premise for a series and it was critically acclaimed. Especially when it started picking up traction—Fourth season wrapped up with a longer episode lineup than any season before and a finale open for a fifth season. Then dead air. The next  season they were talking about doesn’t air and the company declared a period of “mass hiatus” for a number of its shows. Somewhere in there twenty million dollars is lost and the show is “TBA” for four years. If you were watching the show at the time, you wouldn’t be unrealistic to think the entire thing was canceled and call it good while it lasted.

Behind the scenes, Rooster Teeth would face a lot of controversy, budgeting difficulties, and layoffs. You wouldn’t know that if you were only there for one show but like ehhh semantics. But what’s really weird is despite all this, there WAS news.

Somewhere 2023, Rooster Teeth has its 20th year anniversary and four years after the series went dead, they premiere the closest thing to an actual official finale Camp Camp has had which they leave open-ended and THEN announce a fifth season a few days after.

Fifth season doesn’t air until March and I’ll be honest pessimistically, I’m like “alright yeah fifth season’s not coming.” five days after the first episode of the new season airs—the entire studio announces its shutting down. two days before I wrote this blog the series aired its last episode. the last episode wasn’t grandiose or a big send off and there was no major announcement except for a little card at the end of the last episode thanking you for watching the show.

and that’s the trashiest thing I’ve ever seen happen to an animated show!

If you’ve ever gone on a field trip, (which is very likely) you remember the joy of the teacher handing out permission slips and announcing the opportunity of a field trip in the coming weeks. And then losing your mind for the next several weeks or maybe that was just me. Is there anything more exciting than a field trip? I think I could get married and still remember my trip to Ship Island better.

You get a permission slip with a little stamp in the corner and enough body text for you to just properly sell your soul or something without noticing, and a dotted line at the bottom for your parents to sign away any chance of death, sickness, or heat exhaustion.

Now at MSA, we just send in money or just sign up to pay the fee, but back then it was a big deal! Especially if you had ADHD and being responsible for your own permission slip was your own personal 7th circle but I’m sure that’s a very niche experience.

Then, they would take you all out of class (except for the kids whose parents didn’t let them go,) and line you up to get situated into separate buses: 50 kids to a bus each. All crammed into a small metal container with leather seats and no proper ventilation. And then you stay like that for an hour and thirty minutes.

Annually, one kid tries to see how fast they can get the bus turned around before their teacher snaps at them. Last 15 minutes of the ride or so, they (the teachers) stand up despite the fact you’re not supposed to do that and mention you’re REPRESENTING THE SCHOOL SO NO FUNNY BUSINESS before they let you loose. Some kid would get lost, some kid would puke up the school lunch because bugs crawled in it, the teachers would force the rest to throw out the school lunches, it was an experience!

Possibly the grimiest experience of your life but an experience!

If you’re lucky, the field trip lasts the entire day, but most of the time you’re back by 1:15 pm (to make time for the bus ride back). One kid will presumably go home with their parents because they live in the area while the rest of you get to finalize the day by sleeping in terrible leather seats until the bus pulls back into the school (or the bus driver runs something over.)

and then no one in the school ever stops talking about it. the end!

Earlier in the semester, we had some demo monologues we had to write for an assignment. Here are some leftovers

BASIL GREENE:

And I’ve always been surrounded by… You know. The thing. I think it’s just something ingrained in me, this sludge stuck to my body. Something I was born with until it grew and grew and now it’s just—me. It’s just who I am. Everyone wants to feel sorry for me, but I don’t think I even feel sorry for myself. Maybe I’m not fine with it, but I’m used to it, you know? Is it so bad to get used to it? To not be afraid of it anymore? I’m hanging my feet off the edge of a dock and know the water’s dangerous, but to not be afraid? As if the monster waiting for you at the bottom of the creek is… Friendly, even. I’ve known him my whole life. I see him clawing at the bottom of my feet, but I’d still like to believe he’s friendly. I’m never going to get rid of him, so I’d like to believe he’s friendly.

UNNAMED

It’s just… Terrifying. They’re never gonna see each other again, never gonna know each other’s faces, they were a split moment in each other’s lives. They were twined at the hip, they were inseparable, and their friendship still ended all the same. Their lives still ended all the same. Isn’t that terrifying? Nine seasons of watching something and they don’t even know each other’s names by the end. Nine seasons and it’s like you wasted your whole life.

I hate unhappy endings anyway.

UNNAMED VILLAIN

My name is one with fear. You do not hear it, do not taste it, but you know it. I know you know it well. You fought me many a time, and as we grace this song and dance, I wonder how long you will keep standing. How long before the foundation you’ve built us on collapses and you finally realize with all you’ve given, you still find nothing in this world to matter. I can reap it from the ground and rip the flowers from the weeds and I can tear the world asunder, and you’ll lose. And all this fighting, this pitiful fighting you wish to amount to, will be worth nothing. This work, this pitiful beautiful work you do, with every step and glide, as if you were a dancer, is only placing you like a buck in an open fire. And bucks can run, all they want, but everyone knows man has the gun.

Sone’t released a blog about eating food from cartoons and I realized I had a chance to one up her (that I totally didn’t run by her beforehand) and decided to look at my list of “yeah I would eat that” from video games I’ve frequented over the years. note: there will be a separate blog dedicated to ranking undertale food but for now just any valid game food I know of counts

PAPA’S GAMES

PAPA’S FREEZERIA SHAKES

There’s something monumentally wrong with this shake in a way I can describe. I think you pour it on the ground and it keeps its shape. I think you taste the whip cream and it’s as old as 1936, and I am certain they are the type of shakes that make you absolutely ill over the Papa’s Freezeria Boardwalk Siding. And I think the rustic nature forgives that. Or maybe it doesn’t and I’m deluding myself HOWEVER I cannot say with the flavor choices offered if given the chance I would turn down a Papa’s Freezeria shake.

PAPA’S PASTARIA PASTA

Yeah, this one. I cannot lie to you. Macaroni, spaghetti, ravioli, I don’t care, pasta is pasta. Let me be one of the customers here and I promise I will be a regular. Worst part is I haven’t even played this one, so I’m just speaking from the heart here. Now the actual menu items that aren’t pasta? Kinda tragic, I will not lie to you. The bread doesn’t look bad but these sauces? Who let that happen.

PAPA’S SUSHIRIA SUSHI

Hot take? (Cold take?) Idk, I don’t care, as this just looks genuinely good in a way I can’t explain. Maybe it’s the process that alluring or the fact it’s so symmetrical it’d be hard to mess up sushi from Papa’s Sushiria. I don’t even want to take a bite of the slices, give me the whole unadulterated roll and I’m good.

MINECRAFT

GOLDEN APPLE (GAPPLE)

It’s a gapple, man. Aside from the health benefits that would make me feel rich, it just looks delicious.

Enough said.

WATERMELON SLICE

This doesn’t even look like real watermelon. it doesn’t. they chose the least looking watermelon sprite and I’m so happy they did.

look at that sprite. that is a taste singular entirely to minecraft. that’s what Scott Pilgrim would eat for +10

SUSPICIOUS STEW

HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME OUT

NIGHT IN THE WOODS

PIZZA FROM THE CLIK CLAK DINER

in game the pizza is stated as below subpar. worse than fast food pizza chains, but I still want it. and idk why—maybe the experience. like.

no charm to its name. not appetizing in the slightest. it’s cheap and probably tastes like cardboard.

we need more like it.

DONUTS FROM DONUT WOLF

I’m mad; these donuts look fantastic. Like the game really didn’t need to go all out because these look genuinely magical or something almost pulled straight out of bee and puppycat? There doesn’t look to be any discernable taste but I don’t think there needs to be, I just kinda want one. I think this is the one I’m most serious about on this whole list.

PRETZELS FROM TROLLEYSIDE NEWS

Now. These are in like an underground tunnel restaurant that does have water next to it

so realistically should these be damp or worse soggy from condensation? Yes. however other than the donuts I fear these may be the only actually well-made food in the whole game. like the donuts are good but these are made by an actual chef and I can’t bring myself to be mad at them even if I really want to be.

Trigger Warning: description and depiction of dissociative episodes

Flush out all emotion as if discarding a toy. Rid yourself of hell, burdening hell, take this sacrifice and shed it, it is no longer yours. It is no longer needed. Without it, you are free. You are an angel, cutting away your ability to fly. These so-called gifts are burdens, and somehow you may be the only one who understands. Forget, forgive, buckle and scrape it off. Bury whatever you may possess like a body in the backyard.

Detach your mind from your body as if you’d been inhabited by a ghost, a ghost to carry burdens and chase away demons. Your vessel, empty and hollow, becomes the perfect nesting ground for something unrecognizable, its taste for the tormented serves it well here. Meanwhile you’re somewhere else, laughing to your friends and drinking sweet tea on a porch you haven’t seen in fifteen years. Laugh to yourself with a mouth full of glass and pretend you can only taste something sweet. Lime, licorice, cherry punch.

Escape until the stranger in the mirror becomes a painting. Your body is only experiencing every sensation momentarily, they’ll all fade away soon. You grab a table and miss the surface, your hands slipping, and it is then you fall beyond the earth. It is then you know what you are; a bundle of atoms. Atoms broken and scattered across the universe, tied together with loose string. Your hands are made of atoms, pulverized galaxies, fake pieces of earth laying the palm of your hand.

Draw a world made entirely of thought. This is now your sanctum, it’s carved out of space and time. It’s made of all of your tiny indulgences, horrific and unsightly and oh so sickeningly sweet. Hide it far away in the back of your skull where no one can find it, where every tower you’ve built leaks ichor and the rivers are made of gold. The outside world is optional, so keep building until you’re done. Keep building until your towers reach high enough to let you coast high above everyone else, observing the environment instead of bearing it.

Eradicate all together as if it did you wrong. It’s killing you, you tear it from your skin and leave it for dead like , you only have so much that keeps you alive. (It will surface some day, with claws that desecrate the earth, and it will tear you asunder, but today, it hides in your closet, like a dog asleep.)

I know your mother as well as you know mine. I do not believe your mother is good or kindhearted, and neither do you mine. You still call her “good,” as I still call yours. We have never met. We have never met.

Somehow, I know exactly whatever she’s like, it doesn’t matter. We both yearn for a comfort she never affords. Whether it be missing her or something more. Hold hands as if we understand. We still call her “good.”

I know your mother should be capable of love, I don’t know if she does. Neither do you mine.

Her weathered hands would feel the same in mine as they would in yours, soft as you massage the pleats, and maybe they never aged a day, maybe they aged fair more than they should.

Whoever she is, she cried the same tears as the river had water, she breathed the same air as the rest of the world, while she never spoke the same tongue, her words were just as soothing and still, and her heart and body crafted with the same principles, if we believe.

She had the same dimples as mine, she had the same laugh, something about her was yours and she was sacred. I know your mother as well as you know mine.