"Fractured Tales of the Rose Bride"
Each one more implausible than the last
Sventeen: 1002, A Revolutionary Odyssey
Once upon a time, a bunch of burly Greeks won a war using a wooden horse, and there was much rejoicing. When the war was over, everybody went home—everybody, that is, except for our hero Touga! For you see, when Touga achieved victory, he gave thanks to all the gods except Poseidon, and since he was such a pagan, the Christians back then excommunicated him and sent him off course. For years he sailed around the Mediterranean, endlessly searching for a way home, with only a handful of brave, hardy, muscular, sweaty, burly men as company. …Cough.
"Come now," Touga said, "do you really think we'd resort to…that? I have a wife waiting for me at home." Unbeknownst to him, this wife he spoke of so dearly killed herself at once when she heard rumor of her husband's death, even though there was no proof! However, a nice young man took her place, and since all of the suitors for Touga's wife no longer had any prize to fight over, they went back home and lived very nice lives. So now Touga had a man waiting for him back home!
"As you can see," he proclaimed while sailing one day, "I'm simply thrilled and fulfilled. Hey, wait, what's that over there? Why, it's land! Everyone, put this ship down! This may be our home!" And so, the sailors put the brakes on the boat (what? Don't look at me, I don't know jack about ships) and went ashore, but instead of home, they found themselves in the realm of the lotus-eaters! And the island was completely populated by men!
"What is it with ancient Greeks and homosexuality?" Touga muttered. Assuming that eating the lotus-flower had no homoerotic connotations, his team set sail again, this time accidentally ramming into another island (take a look at a map of the Aegean sea and tell me you wouldn't be able to run up against something!). Once all the dust had settled, Touga and his loyal crew of shirtless men (heh-heh) set foot on the island. This time they had no choice, because most of their supplies were gone!
"I swear," he grumbled as he helped hunt and gather, "my crew has way too many men on it. We'd solve so many problems if they were all gobbled up by a monster, or…seduced by some fish-donkey."
"A fish-donkey?" murmured one of his crew.
"Oh, you know! It's ancient Greece! There are all kinds of weird animals running around!"
"Yeah, tell me about it. I thought I saw a pelican-giraffe somewhere, and didn't we run afoul of a chicken-octopus?"
"Quite. That one-eyed monster over there seems normal by comparison."
"The one-eyed monster?" Touga grimaced as he looked at his crewmembers.
"It's a Cyclops, you pervert!!" The men were yelling and running in fear, but it was too late—the Cyclops was upon them, and he was eating them too, just like Touga wanted!
"Oh sure, blame me!" he cried out. Things began to look bleak for Touga's men as the great one-eyed beast gave his crew chase, but suddenly, the monster tripped and fell, impaling himself on a conveniently-placed spike. The quest to return home could continue.
……
Because he had been away from home for so long, Touga was beginning to experience some…urges. And of course, since his only company were strapping young men, he was forced to…concede to their, um, will, in order to satisfy these, erm, cravings. MANSEX! There—whew! And what an orgy, too—but I'm getting off track. Their next destination was the Underworld, because they were all psycho like that. Touga got to see his parents, and even a few of his old war-buddies, especially dear Saionji, who had played the role of Achilles.
"Ah yes, we shared many lonely nights together, Saionji and myself," Touga reminisced. Saionji's ghost snorted.
"Hmph! The only thing more insulting was the way I died! Honestly, a sprained ankle?! What's up with that?"
"At least you didn't live long enough to see how pathetic life was once the war was over," Touga muttered. "Anyway, could you please tell me how to get home from here?"
"Dude, you're in the Underworld! What do you think I've been trying to do since I got here? Who sent you here, anyway?"
"Just another unappreciated young man, susceptible to my seductive charms."
"Ah yes, I forgot how big a whore you were. Anyway, what you want to do is head out on by the Siren's place, where you will be tested with unbearable noises. After that is Circe's place, where a powerful witch will try to eat your men. But don't let the name fool you! Circe is also a man."
"So a man will try to eat my crew…" Touga mused. Saionji coughed.
"After that, you must brave the passage of the smashing rocks, and then you must pass through Scylla and Charybdis, two of the harshest Utena critics imaginable! Only then, after facing these unreasonable trials, may you come home to your beloved husband."
"But I had a wife."
"Not anymore!" came a disembodied voice. It was Utena! "Darn it, Touga, the papers said you were dead! Now what am I supposed to do?"
"I dunno. Go haunt Sappho on Lesbos or something."
"Oh, wow, I thought that was just a made-up place! See ya!" Utena vanished at once, presumably to take her widower husband's advice. Touga sighed and rubbed his face until the irritation faded.
"So I no longer have a wife."
"Correct," Saionji replied, "but there is a nice man waiting for you."
"Oh well," he grumbled. "Better than nothing, I suppose. Goodbye, Saionji. I hope we don't see each other again for some time, if you know what I mean."
"Hey, that's not very nice! And just so you know, you'll get crushed underneath a piece of wood when it's time to die!!"
"That's…really unnecessary, old friend. And yet so eerily fitting considering what else has happened."
"Pervert!!" he screamed as Touga's vessel emerged from the darkness. Yes, no sexual implications there, either…
……
Even though they were taking things "out of order" (so sue me, it's been awhile since I've read it or seen any parodies), Touga and his crew still managed to hit all the hotspots that Saionji had mentioned. The Sirens were a nice bunch, though a bit too loud for their own good (yes, they consisted of all men as well), and Circe was actually a really pleasant guy once you got past the whole cannibalism thing. No doubt there was more than one innuendo running through the men's minds as they glided their ship through the straits of…uh…that place where the rocks go smashy (like I said, a long time), and Scylla and Charybdis were just mean.
"Revolutionary Girl Utena encourages homosexual lifestyles and rampant incest! It should be banned everywhere!"
"The Japanese are a bunch of perverts! And nothing on that show makes sense!"
"What's the deal with the movie, especially the ending? Why couldn't everything be explained simply and clearly where you don't have to think about things so much, like an American film?"
"Showing them nude like that was bad enough, but displaying two women kissing while riding naked on a bobsled through a dystopian landscape was downright unacceptable!"
"And Miki and Kozue were taking a bath together! Now that's just wrong."
"It also has rape. And cows. And urine!"
"Don't forget all the violence with the duels involved, and the swear words."
"Yes, and most importantly, all the cross-dressing."
"Sir Touga," said the crew, "are we almost finished? I can't take much more of this criticism!"
"Stand firm, men! Remember, they're just close-minded right-wing Republicans who wouldn't know art if it smacked them in the face. (Grumble-grumble they didn't even mention me grumble-grumble)"
……
Finally, after going through all those obstacles and losing every last member of his crew (not to drowning or disasters; they just left him to go have hot lovely mansex with all the pig-sharks and deer-monkeys), Touga returned home to his loving husband, Ruka, who makes his one and only appearance in the series here. They had several orgies (because the ancient Greeks did that sort of thing) and lived happily ever after, but not nearly as happy as Utena, who was revived just so she could live on Lesbos.
She was the only woman there.
The EndStay tuned for the next part!
No biologically impossible animals were harmed in the making of this story.