Greetings, children!

Get yourself settled down because your Uncle Sea Hawk is HERE in the area formerly known as the Fright Zone with another exciting tale of ADVENTURE! While the Super Pal Trio and their assorted spouses enjoy a peaceful evening reminiscing about how most of them used to be evil, my darling Mermista and I are here to read you a classic story full of ROMANCE!

Why a classic, you ask? Well, because, let's face it if there had been a little more focus on the humanities around here, we all could have avoided a lot of problems.

So, without further ado, I bring you the classic tale of… Pride and Princesses!

NARRATION!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a sword must be in want of a wife. And so our story begins with Adorabeth Boomnets, an accomplished swordswoman and sometimes pretend scholar, and her many siblings. While their one mother was calm and breezy and just wanted her girls to be happy, the other was VERY competitive. Mrs. Boomnets wanted all of her children to net the BEST and RICHEST suitors!

BOOM!

NETS!

So you can imagine Mrs. Boomnets' delight when she found out their new neighbor would be the single, rich, and sparkly Miss Glim Blingley.

(Come on, darling, not even a chuckle? BLINGley? Because she sparkles and she's got that gem right in the middle of her… It is NOT stupid, it's a very good joke! Fine, then next time you can tell the story!)

Where was I? Oh, right.

EXPECTATIONS!

Mrs. Boomnets was quick to pin her hopes on the lovely Miss Blingley falling in love with one of her children and invited the noblewoman to call. She had hopes both her eldest son and daughter had a good chance because the young woman who would be swinging by also swung bi if you know what I mean.

(I thought you'd like that one. Took me twenty minutes to get it right! I hope you appreciate that kind of dedicated joke craftsmanship, darling.)

As it turned out, the Boomnets family was in luck. Miss Blingley was immediately taken with Adorabeth's oldest sibling, the handsome Bow, who was so sweet and kind you could just punch him right in the face and he'd probably apologize for hurting your hand. She flirted with him while he blushed into the net he was knitting for his trick arrows and a delighted Mrs. Boomnets expected a proposal at any moment.

But, to everyone's surprise, Miss Blingley did not come alone! Oh, no! She brought with her a friend, the even richer Fitzmeowmoew Catsy who I guess you should be picturing in a suit which is a shame because think about how cute her little ears would look in one of those bonnets like on the cover here, I mean come on!

ADORABLE!

But rich though Miss Catsy was, she was also quite rude, committing all kinds of social faux pas like kidnapping and trying to end the planet with red lightning and opening an unstable portal because she was in a bad mood and generally being a very bad kitty. But, even with all of that, every lady and every man with no gaydar in town hoped to catch her hand in marriage.

FURRIES!

Then, one day, just when it seemed like an engagement between Bow and Miss Blingley was imminent, the lovely lady disappeared! Kidnapped by an alien warlord guy we're going to call Horde Primeberley because I think it's funny while Catsy distracted Adorabeth at the ball by dipping her in a sexy but also kind of menacing way.

ROMANTIC TENSION!

Then along came the devastatingly handsome, charming, and not even a bit awkward and off-putting Mr. SeaHawkins who would be the ideal person for any of the Boomnets to marry because he was going to inherit their castle for some reason just go with it. At first, the dashing fellow turned his attention on the oldest Boomnets. But while Bow found himself taken by Mr. SeaHawkins' dashing good looks and enviable mustache, he was pretty hung up on the lovely Miss Blingley and unfortunately had to decline.

REJECTION!

So then Mr. SeaHawkins turned his attention to the next oldest. But, as a Friend of Mara, Adorabeth could not properly appreciate his roughish charms. Then Mr. SeaHawkins met Adorabeth's best friend and the Boomnet's neighbor, the lovely Mermistaaaaa Fishcus!

Mermista was immediately taken with the fellow saying, "Ughhhh, I can't believe I have to marry this doofus."

"Uh," Adorabeth said, "you don't have to."

To which the refined young lady replied, "No, I'm gonna."

And so they did.

But, OH, THE SADNESS! Now the Boomnets would lose their castle and none of the Boomnets children were getting married to anyone rich so nobody could triumphantly yell BOOM. How Mrs. Boomnets despaired! And as time went on and Miss Blingley never returned, poor sweet Bow's heart broke—the real one, not the one embroidered on his cravat. The poor love-sick boy couldn't even concentrate on his lute lessons, mending his pinafore or making needlessly complicated weaponry.

Adorabeth was FURIOUS at Catsy because she was certain this whole thing was her fault. She'd clearly set out to ruin her life just because she hated her! So imagine her surprise when the next time they saw each other Catsy proposed!

MARRIAGE RELATED PLOT TWIST!

"Your friends are all losers and your tiara is dumb and I hate your stupid hair poof so will you marry me, you dummy?" Catsy asked.

"What? That's the worst proposal I've ever heard!" Adorabeth shouted. "I'm still furious at you for breaking up Bow and Miss Blingley. They were my OTP!"

"Do they even like each other like that? It was kind of ambiguous, a little forced. I felt like it came out of nowhere, you know?"

"Out of nowhere? Did you even WATCH the Princess Prom episode? Pulse? Reunion? Stranded? The way they're always touching and hugging and looking at each other? The parallels! The hands! I swear to Mara, I will fight you right now about this! I ship them so hard you have no idea!"

And so they battled. It was very violent and people got scratched and corrupted by portals and it was a whole big thing until finally, Catsy left with her tail between her legs. Literally. BUT ALSO figuratively.

But then Adorabeth got terrible news from home! Her little sister, Entrapdia, had run off with the scoundrel Lord Wickdak, a character I probably should have mentioned before now but didn't feel like it. Surely now Entrapdia's reputation as a serious scientist would be in tatters because of Wickdak's ethically dodgy cloning practices and terrible habit of trying to conquer planets to try to soothe his daddy issues.

Adorabeth despaired! Wickdak would ruin her entire family by bringing Horde Primeberly to Etheriangland. Whatever would she do?

REGENCY ERA DRAMA!

During all this excitement the evil Lady ShadowWeaver de Blergh came and told Adorabeth that she was forbidden to marry Catsy because she was a distraction and, besides, Catsy didn't want to marry her anyway, because she wanted to marry Scorpianne and maybe kissed her in the desert that one time depending on who you ask.

Adorabeth was very confused by all of this as Catsy had been the one to propose to her and also she was pretty sure Scorpianna was in love with her sister Perfumary. Alas, her hero complex was telling her saving Etheriangland was more important than any enemies to lovers slowburn that might be going on here, but she told Lady de Blergh to stuff it anyway.

(What? Stuff it? That's kid-friendly language, it's like what you do to a teddy bear or a… Oh! Oh, does it? Well then, why d'you let me say that, dearest, that's not appropriate at all. You really should have known better. Quite right, dear, I am number one.)

So, let's see… ah! Adorabeth raced home to save the universe!

But, to her surprise, when she arrived, she discovered that Entrapdia's reputation had been RESTORED! The villainous Wickdak had reformed for the love of his lab partner and there was some vague hand-waving in the direction of redemption and him focusing his efforts on something hopefully slightly less evil going forward.

Then suddenly Miss Blingley returned and, after a brief period where Bow was really pissy, he forgave her and gave her a forehead kiss. Which, back when this story was written, was basically third base! So the two of them were engaged at last and Mrs. Boomnets was so excited she grabbed the other Mrs. Boomnets and they kissed in every title card after that, which was very nice for them even though several other couples didn't even get a single on-screen kiss and were bitter about that.

(Aw, thank you, darling! See that, kids? She does care. Now, don't hide, dearest. It was only a peck on the cheek and it was very sweet of you to—Oh, really? Well, then let me just hurry and read the ending so you and I can, uh… )

Right, lets wrap this up, so the Boomnets all had their happy endings and Adorabeth realized it was all due to Miss Catsy and her slightly rushed but no less heartfelt redemption arc. And Adorabeth realized that if it had not been for Miss Catsy's pride that caused her to refuse to come with Adorabeth in the first place and her own prejudice against people who commit multiple evil acts on purpose, everyone could have avoided a lot of trouble. So the two of them decided to get married too, and they all lived happily ever after!

The End.

See, and they say the classics are boring. Not nearly enough fires for my taste, mind you, but still a tale of PASSION FOR THE AGES. But now, children, you must go to sleep and I wish you all a great deal of luck with that because this is a very freaky place. Inspected the whole thing once, you wouldn't believe the stuff that went on around here, you'd never be able to close your eyes here if you knew the kind of… what's that? Oh, right, yes, well… another time, my little sailors!

Dearest, can we at least wait until we're on my boat until we're… Well, yes, but the children are still… anyway, uh, gotta go, kids! Goodnight!