i love in fantasy when its like “king galamir the mighty golden eagle and his most trusted advisor who would never betray him, gruelworm bloodeye the treacherous”
When my sister and I were kids we had this one action figure, who was actually a brutalized batman doll without his cape (the dog chewed half his head, too), who we dubbed ‘Evil Chancellor Traytor’. The idea was that in the fictional society of our toys, ‘chancellor’ just came with the word ‘evil’ in front of it, as a matter of ancient tradition. Like ‘grand’ or ‘high’ or something along those lines.
Anyway, the running gag was that the king (an old Power Rangers knock-off doll) had absolute and unwavering faith in Evil Chancellor Traytor, who basically comported himself like a mix between Grima Wormtongue and Jafar from the Aladdin movies. Everyone was always sure that Evil Chancellor Traytor had something to do with the nefarious scheme of the day. The dude even carried around a poisoned knife called ‘the kingslayer’.
The additional twist on the joke, though, was that he never was behind anything. The king was actually right. Evil Chancellor Traytor was the most devoted civil servant in the entire Action Figure Dystopia. He spent his nights working on writing up new legislature to ensure that broken toys had access to mobility devices, was always on the lookout to acquire new shoeboxes for expanding city infrastructure, and drafted a proposal that once got half the ‘settlement’ in my sister and I’s closet moved to the upper shelf so that vulnerable toys were less likely to be snatched up by the dog.
The knife, as it turned out, was as symbolic as the ‘evil’ in his name. See, Action Figure Dystopia had a long history of corrupted monarchs getting too big for their thrones and exploiting the underclasses. The job of the Evil Chancellor was to always remain vigilant, and loyally serve a good ruler – or, if the regent should became a despot, to slay them on behalf of the people.
But since killing the king would be a terrible crime, the Evil Chancellor had to be the kind of person who would willingly die to spare the people from the plight of a wicked leader; because the murder would be pinned on them, in order to keep the ‘machinery of politics’ working as smoothly as ever.
Anyway, Evil Chancellor Traytor had a diary, in which my sister I would take turns writing out the most over-the-top good shit he’d done behind the scenes. Usually after everyone else had finished talking shit about him. I don’t know why but we got the biggest kick out of being like:
Barbie With the Unfortunate Haircut: Oh that Evil Chancellor Traytor! Why can’t the king see how wicked he is?!
Charmander From the Vending Machine: Char!
Jurassic Park Toy of Jeff Goldblum With Disturbingly Realistic Face: At least if someone puts a knife in the king’s back, we’ll know where to look!
Evil Chancellor Traytor’s Diary: Today I was feeding ducks at the park when I noticed another legless action figure sitting by the benches. I put a hundred dollars into his bag while he wasn’t looking. I really need to increase budgeting to the medical treatment centers. If only we had enough glue, I think we would see far fewer toys trying to get by without limbs… *insert iconic evil laugh*
Anyway, Evil Chancellor Traytor eventually fell victim to one of my mom’s cleaning sprees, and she decided he was too busted up to keep and tossed him out. My littler brother, who tended to follow my sister and I’s games like he was watching a daily soap opera, cried so hard that we had to do a special ‘episode’ where one of the toys found the Evil Chancellor’s diary, and so he got a big huge memorial and the king threw himself into the empty grave and then ordered the toys driving the toy bulldozer to bury him so that ‘Traytor’s grave would have a body’ (this seemed very important for some reason).
And then we had the Quest For a New King. Somehow or another that ended up being a giant rubber snake called ‘Tyrant King Cobra’.
::closes tab, shuts off computer, and proceeds to have the best day ever just by knowing this exists::
me nervously opening an email i just got from my old creative writings class teacher titled Class Isn’t Over Folks that he sent at exactly 1:25am in the morning on a Monday
what the fresh hell
this is such a golden opportunity omfg i need to know what happens next
character being all “you expect me to do X?” Gilligan Cut to character doing X
the squad gets captured and interrogated separately, and they’re all telling equally terrible, completely contradictory lies
people completely missing the completely unsubtle, very visible dangerous thing in the room with them
alternatively, people absolutely seeing the completely unsubtle, very visible dangerous thing in the room with them and just not giving a shit
bonus points if it’s a beleaguered minimum wage employee who just goes about their business like “yep same shit as always”
someone pretending they don’t know another character is eavesdropping, only to casually reveal at the end of the scene that they know (*leaving* “tell tom that he can come out now” *tom drops from the ceiling in spy gear, irritated*)
choosing to deal with the villain by just leaving them alone in a room with another character
the “hands go down” trope
example: “any questions?” *everyone’s hands go up* “…that AREN’T sarcastic?” *everyone’s hands go down*
how could all y’all forget “ACT NATURAL!”
These are all great but let’s not forget two characters giving extremely biased flashbacks to the same event that each paint the other as an incompetent loon
i would like to respectfully add: scenes where a character walks into a room, sees something scary, and turns around and walks out with no reaction or change of expression
a high-stakes zany action scene forced to come to a complete halt while some characters take a very, very long elevator ride
labradoodles are nice and all but combining the food obsession of a lab with the intelligence of a poodle creates the ultimate stealth unit whose sole mission in life is to get into the pantry and Eliminate All Bread
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