MiSTed: Jaded Views, Part 9

Last time in Stephen Tramer and Thaddeus Boyd’s late-90s Sonic the Hedgehog fan fiction Jaded Views, Kabuki’s magic ring revealed secrets of her recent kidnapping. She had come across a badger screwing around in the woods, whose magic ring split it into three badgers. Two of them — Maxl and Tracker — fought the third, Jade. Kabuki took over the fight for some reason, leaving Maxl and Tracker free to come back for her someday, they swear. And now? What comes next?

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>
> Chapter 6 Badger Hunting

TOM: [ As Elmer Fudd ] Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heeeeuh

>
> There was a long period of silence.

JOEL: We now pause to remember those video game systems that have died before us.

> Tails was the first to
> break it, with one word:

TOM: And for some reason the word was "eolith."

> "Whoa."
>
> "That about summarizes it,"

JOEL: Apart from the stuff about the bagel chips.

> Kabuki said. "I was pretty
> surprised, too, when I got the letter from one of them."
>
> "Hence the catatonic stupor," Bookshire finished.

CROW: For… reasons that might make sense to somebody else.

>
> "Y’know what I think?" Sonic asked rhetorically.

TOM: If they had made a Ghostbusters III, it should’ve been a 3-D movie. That’s what I think.

>
> Just about everyone in the room replied, "Let’s go find those
> badgers!"

CROW: You know where I’d look? The treasure of the Sierra Madre.

TOM: Good answer, good answer.

>
> "Let’s set up the away team," Sally said.

CROW: Just as soon as this turns into a Next Generation fanfic.

> "We can’t have too
> many gone,

JOEL: You can never have too many gone.

> but we need a sizable amount, in case of trouble."

TOM: Need at least eight hundred. Maybe four.

CROW: But no more than three, so let’s say eighteen thousand, at a minimum.

>
> "I’m going," Kabuki said.

JOEL: I got an offer to be in a "Samurai Pizza Cats" fanfic.

> "After all, it’s my past."
>
> "I’ll go," Amaroq said.
>
> "Count me in," Knuckles said.

TOM: This could be our chance to get rid of all the characters.

> "This should be fun!"
>
> "In that case, I won’t go," Amaroq said in disgust. Knuckles
> was the one Freedom Fighter who he not only needled, but loathed.
>
> "I know where they are," X3 said,

JOEL: So what are you organizing a search party for?

> "so I have to go, too."
>
> "I’ll go," Hedgehog X said. "After all, I’m a bit of a schizo
> myself!"

CROW: X, you and X check in the attic. X and X, you go out back and see if anyone’s there. X, X, and X can check the neighbors, while me and X will call and see if X or X learned anything from talking with X, X, X, and X.

>
> "Hey!" came Zero’s voice. "Just cuz we’ve got two minds in one
> doesn’t make us schizo!"
>
> "It kinda goes without saying that I’m going," Sonic said.

TOM: No search party’s complete without glib quotes insulting Robotnik and whining about chili dogs.

>
> "I think I should go," Sally said.

JOEL: So we can make this more needlessly risky.

> "After all, one
> level-headed individual — or two, depending on how you look at it
> — isn’t enough.

CROW: This isn’t saying a lot for the Mobian brain trust.

> HX could use some help in controlling you four.
> Besides, I’m the only one here who can use Nicole…without messing
> with it, that is."

JOEL: Without getting it all chewy.

>
> "Sounds good to me," said Kate.
>
> "Have a good time!" X said.

CROW: Write if you get subplots!

>
> The group jumped into one of the Warp Rings that were the exit
> of the Hidden Palace

TOM: ‘Cause they have warp rings to exit the Hidden Palace, you know.

> (where the Freedom Fighters had been living
> ever since the destruction of their second Knothole),

JOEL: They blew up Knothole!

CROW: Bet it blowed up lame.

TOM: Real lame, or it would’ve been in the backstory.

> and found
> themselves a mere mile from where the badgers were living.
>
> They came to where X3 had seen Maxl and Tracker.

CROW: Hey, this spot’s an optical allusion!

> The hut was
> still there,

JOEL: Huts rarely move more than four feet per day except at the height of mating season.

> but the badgers weren’t! All they found was a note on

> the door:

CROW: [ Reading ] Doorbell out of order, blow trumpet to the right.

>
> Deer Cabookee

TOM: The least popular Pokemon.

>
> Im sory if you came by wile i was goNe.

JOEL: I hear this note was donated by SonicFan.

> i’m at the opra,

CROW: Opra, The Okra Opera, starring Ochre Oprah.

> pleez
> com joyn me n tRacKer.

TOM: [ Elmer Fudd ] In holy matwimony. Eh-heh-heh-hheh-heeeeeh.

> uSe the tikkets I gave u.
>
> Luv, M@)( |_

JOEL: Oh, now that’s the smiley representing a carpenter’s square.

> (the Wandring SyKKo)
>
> "Yecch," Kabuki muttered.

CROW: She’s good at that. She should write the parody names of TV shows and movies for Mad magazine.

>
> "Hey, wait," X3 said. "There’s another note below that!"

JOEL: And… and there’s a little *more* dust on it!

>
> Deer Jayd
>
> This wasnt riten by Maxl,

TOM: It’s a plant by a power-mad Sid Meier.

> but an eevil fayk Maxl. Pleas do not
> pay any attenshin 2 it! PLEAS! Thanx.
>
> Sined,

JOEL: Two cosine half-theta sine half-theta.

> Not M@)(|_

CROW: Sneezing on the keyboard, dramatically represented.

JOEL: Anyone else get the feeling we’re not going to see all the backstory here?

>

CROW: Like where Maxl and Jade and Tracker came from, why they’re in one body, what that stuff with the rings was?

JOEL: [ Picking up TOM ] Exactly.

TOM: Get the Super-8 projector, we can do something about that.

[ ALL file out. ]

[ COMMERCIAL BREAK ]

[ To continue … ]

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The whole of the MiSTing of Jaded Views should be at this link. If you want to get the whole experience.

An eolith is a rock formation that was thought, for a while, to be among the earliest, crudest stone tools. They’re just rocks. I was probably right about Ghostbusters III but in 1998(?) we had better things to think about.

Samurai Pizza Cats was one of very many attempts to make Our Own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this time by redubbing some other show without regard for what it was actually about. I liked it at the time and I’m sure the villain being a crossdressing guy who sounds like Paul Lynde hasn’t aged badly at all.

“They blew up Knothole” references SCTV’s Farm Film Celebrity Blow-Up. “Doorbell out of order, blow trumpet to the right” is lifted from a Bizarro strip. SonicFan was a fan fiction writer of the late 90s with a casual attitude toward spelling and grammar.

There is no deeper joke in referencing Sid Meier besides I played a lot of his games. Joel’s joke about two cosine half-theta sine half-theta is a correct application of the double-angle formula; this number is equal to the sine of theta.