#>> there are random sea monsters in the world you can exploit and blame for just about anything and have fun abusing how about that :\

[slimyenemy]

if you're trans and someone feels uncertain and doesn't want to fuck you and give control over its whole life to you and would probably feel way more comfortable just being friends with you then it must be because it has some secret evil motives for it and therefore deserves to be trapped and tortured that's how y'all sound about your fish

[tanadrin]

Patch Notes for World of TanadrinCraft

Patch Notes for World of TanadrinCraft

Patch 1.0: Release

Welcome to World of TanadrinCraft! The game has officially moved out of its beta phase, and the servers have been reset. Explore the vast, exciting world of Tanadria with your friends, as one of nine classes, including Wizard, Axe Wizard, Religion Wizard, Edgy Wizard, Goth Wizard, Pirate Wizard, Tree Wizard, Bow and Arrow Wizard, and Pokemon Trainer. Join one of three rival factions and compete in fast-paced player versus player combat, where you will get stunlocked and die before being able to do anything, because fuck you for not rolling a stealth class.

Balance changes:

-Axe Wizard specialization “Barbarian” now gets a bonus armor multiplier for each armor slot they leave empty. Armor of Chainmail Thong of Skullcrushing nerfed to compensate.

-Goth Wizards now permitted to wear cloth gear in colors other than black (but don’t push it).

-Edgy Wizards have been given three additional stun abilities and can now move at 125% speed while stealthed. Because fuck you, that’s why.

-Bow and Arrow Wizards now 10% more impossibly cool.

-Religion Wizards are now forbidden from taking quests that require killing sentient creatures to complete. To compensate, their experience gain has been increased by 0.5%.

-Due to player complaints about realism, Tree Wizard’s Tree Mode ability now renders the caster immobile. Carbon dioxide uptake increased by 4% to compensate.

-Secondary professions like Fishing, Darts, Coin Flipping, Juggling, and Whistling have had their skill gain reduced by 50%, to make them more rewarding.

-As players have expressed a desire for the world to “feel bigger,” all movement speeds have been reduced by 20% (except for Edgy Wizards).

Patch 1.1: Balance Changes & Bug Fixes

After a slightly bumpy rollout, we’re proud to announce that the World of TanadrinCraft subscriber count continues to increase! Thanks to everybody who helped make our launch a success!

-Wizard class renamed to Regular Wizard to avoid confusion.

-Regular Wizard specializations renamed to “Blow Shit Up,” “Freeze Shit,” and “Blow Shit Up, But Purple”

-Religion Wizard’s new “Snake Handler” ability allows pacifying all Snake-type creatures within 8 meters for 15 seconds.

-Tree Wizard’s ability “Evapotranspiration” has had its mana cost reduced by 15%.

-Axe Wizard’s “Ye Olde Chivalrie” specialization now requires composing 400 lines of courtly love poetry to unlock, up from 350.

-Due to major balance adjustments, Pokemon Trainers have had their talent points refunded.

-Elite monsters in the Swamp of Annihilation will no longer spawn immediately on top of the player and kill them in three hits. This was a bug and has now been fixed. Player should now die in a single hit.

-It was previously possible for non-stealth classes to occasionally defeat Edgy Wizards. This was a bug and has now been fixed.

-Pirate Wizard’s “Crippling Rum Addiction” debuff can now be managed by regular visits to the Pirates’ Cove Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, but, alas, can never be completely cured.

-The Farming profession has been buffed, and to compensate, all other sources of food in the game have been removed.

-The Shivering Wastelands of N’Zakoth are now 12% more Shivering and 6% more Wasted. Experience gain in this zone has been reduced by 2% to compensate.

-The Coin Flipper Epic Questline has now been fully implemented, allowing Coin Flippers to discover (and flip!) rare and magical coins from various corners of Tanadria.

Patch 1.2: First Content Patch

-New Contested Zones designed around PvP have been added to the game! Compete with the players of the other two factions to control these strategic territories and unlock their secrets, or remain neutral and sell your services to the highest bidder!

-Deciduous Tree Wizards must now hibernate during winter. To compensate, their Stamina has been increased by 6%.

-Religion Wizards who take the “Inquisitor” specialization now have a special resource called Intolerance. At 0%, Intolerance gives a debuff to attack power, stamina, and offensive abilities. As Intolerance increases, these stats are buffed, although at high levels other drawbacks may occur, like reduced reputation gain with non-aligned factions. At 100%, the Religion Wizard may be forced to attack all books other than the Holy Word of Sithrak on sight, or cease to believe that Tanadria is round.

-Bow and Arrow Wizards have been given a variety of Trick Shot abilities. These abilities deal no extra damage, but oh man, they look so fuckin’ sick, you have no idea.

-To avoid interfering with the pet training mechanic, Pokemon Trainers now cannot deal or be dealt damage in PvP.

-The Cavers of Gloaming instanced dungeon is now available to explore! Inhabited by the fearsome Gloam-Orcs, who hate and fear the living, players can now form parties of up to seven to delve into these treacherous pits and carefully explain to the Gloam-Orcs why their animaphobia is an antiquated prejudice in the Age of the Gryphon, and how external trade and openness to tourism is a healthy part of any subterranean economy.

-The Mining Profession now generates 1% less toxic runoff per skill level, up to a maximum of -50%.

-The Wyrm-Jungles of Annelidia are now accessible through the Pass of Defile. The Earthwyrm Lord requests your aid!

-The Pirate Wizard class now offers the “Venture Capitalist” specialization.

Patch 1.3: Hotfix

-Toxic runoff from gold farmers strip-mining the Hills of Morning has forced the Kingdom of Glywyspryn to declare the entire region a Superfund site, closed to further exploitation. Despite the objections of the Glywyspryn Free Trade Party, Mining is now disabled in this zone.

Patch 1.4: Bug Fixes & Balance Changes

-Alliterative verse sometimes previously sufficed to unlock the “Ye Olde Chivalrie” specialization; this was a bug and has been fixed. Only iambic pentameter in royal couplets is permitted now. Players who unlocked the specialization using this exploit have had their class changed to Barbarian Axe Wizard to reflect their taste in poetry.

-The armor bonus for leather wristbands has been doubled for Goth Wizards.

-All offensive abilities and talents of the Pokemon Trainer class have been removed, as they have been deemed unnecessary. As a consequence, their talent points have been refunded.

-Edgy Wizards have had their gold gain increased by 2%. Their experience gain has been increased by 4% to compensate.

-The Heavily-Greebled War-Sword of Gh’k’lazko the Perforated now has a 33% chance to deal twice as much damage to the wielder as to an opponent.

-The Corrupted Phlegm debuff has accidentally spread beyond the Blood-Spattered Altar of Gr’oth instance; as our QA team has been unable to determine the source of this bug, a new specialization has instead been added for Goth Wizards: “Plague Doctor.”

-Players who kited the Me’ga-Dra’go’n world boss to faction capitals have been issued 3-day bans and been awarded the title “The Irritating.”

-Edgy Wizards previously could only roll “Need” on items their class could use. This was a bug. Edgy Wizards now roll “Need” on all items automatically. Their armor has been increased by 3% to compensate.

Patch 1.5: Content Patch

We’re very excited to announce our first major expansion. Coming soon: Tanadriaclysm!!! New classes, new world quests, zone redesigns, and more, so you can experience Tanadria as you’ve never experienced it before! In preparation for the upcoming expansion, new world events can be found in both major cities and high-level zones.

-The Great Necropolis of Yrrr raid instance is now open! Tackle unparalleled challenges for unparalleled rewards with 199 of your closest friends! Defeat the 43 Generals of the Great Army of Yrrr, and confront the 62 Lords of the UnderDeath!

-Players mourning the death of the Lord of Annelidia will be pleased to know that both halves have now regenerated! Unfortunately, this has sparked a succession crisis and a vicious civil war, with the Front-Halfers locked in an intractable conflict with the Back-Halfers.

-Lack of player interest in the Farming profession has resulted in fully 15% of world NPCs starving to death. This is not a bug. Get farming, people.

-Tree Wizards can now produce food for themselves and their party members, if they choose a fruit-bearing specialization.

-New world bosses have been added to several zones, dangerous monsters which you will only be able to defeat by careful strategy and cunning tactics; or, failing that, by getting a sufficient fraction of the playerbase on your server to unionize.

-The Unseemly Portal is now open! It leads to the back garden.

-To reduce distracting from the core mechanic of the class, all random monsters are now invisible to Pokemon Trainers and vice-versa. Pokemon Trainers have had their talent points refunded.

Patch 1.6: Bug Fixes & Balance Changes

Congratulations to the world first kill of ArchCommander Bly’a’rgh by the guild <Abstract Noun>, 37 minutes after the Great Necropolis’s release. All members of <Abstract Noun> have been awarded the title “The Weirdly Intense About This Game.”

-Too many Pirate Wizards choosing the “Privateer” specialization has resulted in a 10% decrease in trade on the Sea of Mirrors, causing the Western Principalities to enter a prolonged recession. Some have blamed this for the rise of the populist Blooddrinker Tyrant in the region, while others have argued it’s the result of the failure of elites to pay attention to anxieties about Elven immigration.

-The Unseemly Portal has been sealed again. A carpenter has been called, but it’s likely all this wet weather we’ve been having lately.

-The Annelidian Civil War has entered a new phase as outside arms have flooded into the region. Player attempts to broker a peace conference have so far failed.

Patch 2.0: Tanadriaclysm!!!

-Six new leveling zones: The Squealing Pits of G’neng, the Obligatory Cheap Viking Ripoff Zone, the Obligatory Cheap Ancient Egypt Ripoff Zone, The Glittering Spines of the Bonechewers, The Undulating Surfaces of Pa, The Zone We’re Pretty Sure Is Going To Be A Big Hit In The Chinese Market

-After meeting with the temple-scholars of TZWPSIGTBABHITCM, the leaders of the Religion Wizard class have developed a new specialization: “Orientalist Mysticism Thing”! Note that players who choose this specialization will, if their characters is of the Caribbean Accent Cannibal Monster race, suffer a 4% penalty to their I’m Not Sure This Isn’t Racist rating.

-A new Dungeon Group Finder has been added! The Dungeon Group Finder will automatically put together a party of your level from other players looking for a group, and teleport you to the dungeon, eliminating such tedious activities as “socializing” and “spending time in the game world.” Simply choose a role--Toxic One Who Calls Other People Noobs, One Who Doesn’t Say Anything or Respond When Asked Direct Questions, One Who Is AFK Until the Final Boss then “Has To Go, Sorry”, One Who Keeps Pulling Even When The Healer is OOM, One Who Rolls Need On Everything “By Accident”--and the Dungeon Group Finder will fill in the others automatically.

-After meeting with the stealthy ninjas of TZWPSIGTBABHITCM, the Edgy Wizards now have access to the “Super Stealthy and Twice As Deadly” specialization! This specialization can be active at the same time as any other specialization. Edgy Wizards have had their game subscription cost reduced by 50% to compensate.

-New primary professions: Logging, Oil Drilling, Textile Production, Thaumaton Harvesting, Chimera Herding, Hippogriff Milking

-New secondary professions: Dog Petting, Doodling, Humming To Yourself, Masturbation

-To keep from distracting from the core class mechanic, the game is now single-player for Pokemon Trainers.

-Two new hero classes have been added! Extremely Edgy Wizard, and Ultra Edgy Wizard!

-New city: Sh’alkimar, of the Golden Spires! Home to the mysterious and alluring Wizard Elves, Shalk’im’ar offers convenient access to all the new zones, and a new starting experience for Wizard Elf characters.

-All old end-game content has been abandoned for the time being, and probably won’t get updated at any time in the next fifteen years, except clumsily to appeal to nostalgia, in a way that’s scarcely coherent to the game’s diegesis. It will be a fond but distant memory, and when you log in years from now, and look over your guild roster, which is entirely inactive--if, indeed, not empty--you will yearn for the happy evenings of your youth spent with people from all over the world who you never met face to face, yet you could still, somehow, count as a kind of friend. You will wish that the past was somehow reclaimable; that we were not destined, as mortal creatures of a mortal world, to have all happy hours slip irrevocably away from us, with the uncertain promise of future joy as our only comfort. You will wonder also, perhaps, what it says about you that such happy memories are tied up in an inherently commodified context, one inseparable from a crass commercialism doomed forever to seek maximum profit rather than truly fulfilling experiences. But such is the eternal dissatisfaction of the world: we exist as best we can, in conditions no one finds optimal, but everyone must somehow make tolerable, seeking a real, permanent happiness that is perhaps forever out of our reach.

-Pokemon trainers have had their talent points refunded.

Patch 2.1: Hotfix

-The entirety of S’halkim’’ar, the City of Golden Spires has been quarantined as a “NSFW RP zone.” All players inside S’h’al’k’im’ar at the time of this quarantine are forbidden from travel outside the city and vice-versa.

Patch 2.2: Bug Fixes & Balance Changes

-The Pirates’ Reef encounter now has 16% more scurvy.

-The “Citrus Tree” specialization for Tree Wizards now does 10% more healing to Pirate Wizards.

-Three hundred new hairstyles have been unlocked for Bow and Arrow Wizards.

-All Bow and Arrow Wizard tier sets have been redesigned. These new armor sets offer no stats or protection from damage, but they look flippin’ sweet.

-The armor art for Barbarian Axe Wizards accidentally crossed the line from “sexy 70s paperback cover art” to “actual porn.” We apologize; this change has been reversed.

-Edgy Wizard’s latency has been reduced to half of whatever yours is.

Patch 2.3: Content Patch

-The Economy Update is here! The Auction system has been reworked. Now each city’s Auction system is separate, and prices are tracked independently. All NPC vendors have been removed. All in-game resources will come from player professions and world drops. New land is being cleared by the Kingdom of Glywyspryn in the Annelidian Jungles for players to grow cash crops, and despite the protest of both the Annelidian Provisional Government and the Annelidian Unity Government, the Wyrm kingdom has proven too weak to resist.

-The Gnomish Bank has moved off the gold standard, causing the Mistweave Woods agreement to break down. All in-game currencies now have variable exchange rates.

-The Patriarch of Jorung has repealed local anti-trust and employment protection regulations in order to attract foreign investment and make the economy more competitive.

-An investigation in the Blooddrinker Tyrant’s foreign connections has yielded mixed results, disappointing the Western Principalities’ middle-class liberals.

-NPC populations of major cities will now vary slightly with time, to reflect their prosperity. Prolonged nearby conflicts, including PvP, will decrease a city’s prosperity. Lots of trade and farming, and long periods of peace, will increase it.

Patch 2.4: Bug Fixes and Balance Changes

-The economy of the Jorung Patriarchate has collapsed. A Gnomish Monetary Fund rescue package has been put together, requiring the Patriarchate to commit to considerably austerity measures for the next 10 years.

-Volatility in the in-game commodities market has led to a production shortfall in two of the three faction capitals. A rise in economic uncertainty has led to political instability that threatens to plunge Tanadria into war.

-Sorcerers from the Skovind Academy of Magical Research have issued warnings about the possible ecological consequences of unrestricted use of mana-based magic; they say the economy should try to move toward renewable forms of magic based on spell memorization and not appropriating poorly understood concepts of Polynesian native spiritual beliefs.

-The Populist Party of Glywyspryn have denounced the Skovind Academy as a hotbed of out-of-touch, elitist, liberal thought.

Patch 2.5: Bug Fixes and Balance Changes

We’re pleased to announce our SECOND upcoming major expansion: Tanadria: INVASION! Coming this fall!

-The Kingdom of Glywyspryn has announced far-reaching sanctions on the People’s Republic of Jorung after it expropriated all foreign assets in the country and renounced the debts of the old Patriarchate. This has resulted in severe shortages. Also, from now on, any time a player brings up socialism in in-game chat channels, a Glywyspryn NPC will tell them to “just google Jorung, if you want to see how well socialism REALLY works.”

-Pokemon Trainers have had their talent points refunded.

Patch 3.0: Tanadria: INVASION!

The Gothmarg Sea Peoples have begun their invasion of Tanadria! Fleeing a dread enemy in their homeland, the Gothmarg are intent on conquering Tanadria and making all free peoples of the continent their subjects! Players will have to bury old enmities, forge new alliances, and work together to repel the invaders--or else, join them! The invasion will play out over a series of updates and world events, and we hope will add an exciting new dimension of ongoing storytelling to World of TanadrinCraft!

-Invasion! Gothmarg advance fleets have landed on the eastern and southern coasts of Tanadria, and are already clashing with the local barons. Join the fight by taking breadcrumb quests in your faction capital, or traveling to the Invasion Points directly.

-New Faction system! In addition to the three major factions, players can now form their own faction! Unaligned players who belong to a guild can create an alliance of guilds, establish settlements in the wilderness, build up their towns and fortifications, and fight for territory.

-New Resources system! Each zone now has a fixed quantity of resources that replenishes based on a timer; over-exploited zones will take longer to replenish, and do so in smaller amounts. Some resources may have a finite quantity, so be careful!

-New economy-oriented Professions include Merchant, Surveyor, and Economist.

-The Pirate Wizard class has been greatly expanded with several new specializations: Landlord, Executive, Neoliberal Pundit, Banker, Small Business Owner

-New politics-oriented professions available to player factions! Politician, Columnist, Cable News Anchor, Lobbyist, Consultant

-Regular Wizard talent rework! Regular Wizards can now blow things up in any of seventeen colors. As a consequence of this rework, Pokemon Trainers have had their talent points refunded.

Patch 3.1: The Invasion Continues

-Working together, players have repelled the Gothmarg advance fleet--but now the main force of the Gothmarg is here! Bringing with them devastating new magickks, and a thirst for conquest, the forces of Warlord Gro’Akka will be very difficult to defeat--but if you fail, all of Tanadria will be threatened!

-New Invasion system will allow Gothmarg and Gothmarg-aligned players to conquer territory, including that held by NPC factions, even to the heart of Tanadria. World PvP and large-scale PvE encounters will make this one of the most exciting chapters in World of TanadrinCraft history!

-Seizing the opportunity opened up by the Gothmarg Invasion, the People’s Republic of Jorung has overthrown the feudal government of several neighboring states, and formed the Jorung Pact. A rival bloc, GATO, under the leadership of Kingdom of Glywyspryn, has declared that they will combat the influence of Jorung in any neighboring country, even if it means supporting the likes of the Horrendous Murderking of Chu.

-A series of ill-considered tarrifs by the Blooddrinker Tyrant has triggered serious inflation in the Western Principalities. The Blooddrinker Tyrant’s approval rating has risen by 6%.

Patch 3.2: Gro’Akka’s Conquest!

-Warlord Gro’Akka has successfully conquered more than a third of Tanadria, including the Jorung Pact, but his invasion has finally been slowed by players working together. Congratulations! It remains to be seen whether the Siege of Glywyspryn City will be lifted, or whether Glywyspryn will fall to the enemy!

-The Gothmarg forces have been reinforced by the arrival of the last of their ships. As these forces comprise primarily women and children, the direct increase to the fighting capacity of the Gothmarg armies will, in fact, be modest.

-Players have complained that the new Resource system has caused much of southern Tanadria to become depopulated during the current war. We’ve examined the issue, and currently everything is working as intended.

-The Skovind Academy has reissued their warning, in slightly stronger terms.

-New PvP rewards are available to players fighting on both sides of the Invasion!

Patch 3.3: The Gothmarg Aftermath

-The defeat of Warlord Gro’Akka, the burning of Glywyspryn City, and the shattering of the Gothmarg military mean that peace is restored--for now. All players who fought on the side of the Gothmarg are now marked as Hated with every non-Gothmarg faction, and will have to work hard to restore their reputation.

-Players have noticed that the unfamiliar climate of Tanadria and the incoming winter means that most of the remaining Gothmarg population is starving. This is WAD.

-The Blooddrinker Tyrant has refused to admit Gothmarg refugees into the Principalities. GATO has condemned this move but taken no other aciton.

-PvP armor sets have had their stats adjusted to make them slightly more useful in PvE.

-The sorcers of Skovind said something about “immanent disaster, we really have to do something.” I don’t know, I wasn’t listening.

Patch 3.4: Bug Fixes & Minor Updates

-The development of a new Gothmarg-Uqqashith creole language in southern Tanadria has begun.

-The post-Gothmarg Kingdom of Gorbal has been established through an alliance between the Gothmarg survivors and local barons. Gro’bag Gromakka has been named Elected King For Life.

-Depopulation through war has increased the bargaining power of the rural population, resulting a loosening of laws around serfdom and an increase in peasant wealth. The nobility, sensing the increasing precarity of their position, have turned to religion to reinforce the feudal hierarchy. Religion Wizards now have a 10% bonus to all offensive abilities.

-The entire faculty of the Skovind Academy was last seen furiously rowing south, something about “getting as far as possible from here before disaster strikes.”

Patch 3.5: Mana Winter

-Overuse of mana-based magics has depleted the natural magical resources of Tanadria. Food production, wildlife, and natural resource regeneration has been reduced to almost zero.

-The Blooddrinker Tyrant has finished his Blooddrinking Ritual, resulting in the Blooddrinker Ascension. The population of the Western Principalities has been devastated. Pundits in Glywyspryn have described the move as “controversial.” Players will have to work together to defeat the Tyrant and prevent the final destruction of all life in Tanadria!

-Please note that until the Blooddrinker Tyrant is defeated, it will not be possible to create new characters, lest the Blooddrinker Tyrant simply drink their blood.

-We have received numerous bug reports about the in-game skybox. This is not a bug; the sun is no longer visible in Tanadria, and won’t be, until the Blooddrinker Tyrant is slain.

Patch 3.6: Mana Winter II

-Several small oases of life were left in the wilderness. This was a bug and has been fixed.

-All player classes have been removed, except Pokemon Trainer. All player characters are now Survival Wizards, with the following specializations available: Hunter, Scavenger, Highway Robber, Pillager, Wanderer, Mad Prophet, Cannibal, Gruff Loner With A Heart of Gold, Ex-Military Guy Who’s Totally Suspicious From the First Time We Meet Him But Only Later We See That He Runs A Compound of Insane Zealots, Cannibal But Pretends To Be Friendly, Swamp Witch, and Zombie in a Top Hat.

-Failure to slay the Blooddrinker Tyrant has resulted in the death of 12% more of the NPC population.

-Pokemon Trainers have had their talent points refunded.

Patch 3.7: Hotfix

-Players were still able to return to life after death by speaking to a Necro-Healer. This was a bug, and has now been fixed. Death is permanent.

Patch 3.8: Mana Winter III

-The last wildlife has died, and zone resources will no longer replenish.

-The Blooddrinker Tyrant continues to grow stronger with each player and NPC permanently killed. Players should be aware that ill-coordinated raids against the Tyrant will only hasten their demise.

-The seas around Tanadria have begun to freeze.

Patch 3.9: Mana Winter IV

-The sorcerers in the Ruins of Glywyspryn have established a portal system that allows the surviving players and NPCs to fast-travel to (but not from) the Ruins. All remaining questgivers will be found there. We have received several reports that currently all quests are variations on “Gather food,” “Gather firewood,” and “Release me from my misery.” This is WAD.

-We wish <Abstract Noun> good luck on their final attempt to down the Blooddrinker Tyrant tomorrow.

Patch 3.10: Twilight

-As there are no surviving members of <Abstract Noun> left, and not enough remaining players attuned to the Palace of the Blooddrinker to attempt the raid, the Blooddrinker Tyrant has departed Tanadria to drink the blood of other lands.

-All remaining NPCs have died.

-Players are free to wander the frozen wasteland until they, too, succumb to cold and hunger.

-Ice is advancing from the north, and will soon cover the last traces of civilization.

Patch 3.11: Ice Advances

-The ice has advanced.

Patch 3.12: Ice Advances

-The ice has advanced.

Patch 3.13: Ice Advances

-The ice has advanced.

Patch 3.14: Ice Adva

[mst3kproject]

507: I Accuse my Parents

This is apparently tied with Hercules Unchained for Joel's favourite episode.  It begins with a surprisingly depressing short in which the narrator is downright proud of the exploitative and ecologically destructive nature of the vegetable industry.  Then we cheer up with the heartwarming tale of Jimmy, a young man who blunders obliviously into crime because his parents never hugged him – just one of the many excuses that only work for rich white kids!

Jimmy Wilson is a bright, popular student who likes to tell lies about his home life, and when you consider that his parents are drunks who hate each other, it's hard to blame him.  Things seem to be looking up when he gets a job at a shoe store and begins a whirlwind romance with a singer named Kitty Reed, but this only leads him further into trouble.  He gets mixed up in the criminal dealings of mobster Charles Blake, eventually having to flee from the law and ending up on trial for manslaughter.  At the trial he blames his parents' neglect for his behaviour, and the judge accepts it and suspends his sentence because he's a Good Kid With a Lot of Promise. In the world we live in, that will apparently get you forgiven for all kinds of things.

The final shot in the film is a card telling us that this movie will be sent overseas to entertain the troops in Europe.  What?  Why? This is a movie about how important it is to be involved in your child's life.  Why would you show that to soldiers who've been away from their wives and children for months and don't know when they'll be going home?  Way to guilt trip the guys who are trying to fight a war for you.

One thing you'll notice about this movie, even if only by reading a plot summary, is that it goes to great lengths to make sure Jimmy never actually does anything wrong on purpose.  He considers stealing from his boss at the shoe store when he's sent to the bank, but doesn't.  He plans to rob Al's diner, but Al talks him out of it. All the crimes he committed for Blake he did in blissful ignorance, believing he was merely a delivery boy.  He doesn't even realize he's not supposed to be dating Kitty, since he has no idea that she and Blake are in a committed relationship.  The writers seem to fear that if Jimmy were to knowingly commit a crime we would immediately lose all sympathy for him.  Rather than take that risk, they keep him in the dark about what's going on, and as Joel and the Bots repeatedly observe, he therefore comes across as rather dim.  This has the opposite of the intended effect, making it harder to sympathize with Jimmy as we feel he really ought to know better.

Something kind of similar is done with Kitty.  She works for Blake at the Paradise Nightclub, which he appears to own, but all we ever see her do for him is sing.  If she's involved in any of his criminal activities, we are not privy to it.  She is presented as somebody who is fully aware of the world she's fallen into and wanting out of it, and Jimmy, the innocent, good-hearted shoe salesman, may just be her ticket to a more wholesome life... yet she, too, avoids knowingly doing anything wrong outside of her illicit affair.  The writers probably did this so that we would feel she 'deserves' upper-class Jimmy, but again that's not quite the effect they achieve.  Instead, Kitty Reed ends up seeming a whole lot more interesting than her blandly nice beau, and I found myself thinking she could do way better!  I actually kind of want to see a movie about how she got where she is.

So that's I Accuse my Parents, a movie in which the main characters are criminals who never commit crimes.  It reminds me of The Sinister Urge with its PG pornography, even though the moral of the story is much more like The Violent Years.  As in The Violent Years, the movie is also rather contrived.  The situations we're seeing never feel natural – they're always things the film has set up on purpose to teach us a lesson.  Naive and responsible Jimmy just doesn't feel like the product of a broken home.  Sunny Kitty doesn't come across as a mobster's moll, except in the scene where she breaks Jimmy's heart, and then we know she's putting it on.  Al offering a job to the kid with a gun is absurd.  Jimmy's fall into crime happens as a series of coincidences.  These aren't real people living out real events, they're actors in a morality play, and we are never quite able to forget that.

Yet despite all that, for some weird reason I Accuse my Parents is actually a pretty engaging movie.  Even the Brains seem to have gotten into it, judging by the host sketches.  When the movie was boring we tended to get things like Monster A-Go-Go's random games of keepaway or Viking Women and the Sea Serpent's celebration of waffles, but almost all the sketches of I Accuse my Parents are based on the movie itself. How does such a silly, artificial film draw us in like that?

I think a lot of it has to do with the pacing.  Every scene in I Accuse my Parents actually does something, establishing character or moving the plot along.  Bits that could have been tedious, like Jimmy's deliveries or his time on the lam, are glossed over with montages.  The closest the film comes to wasting time is with Kitty's three songs, but even these serve a purpose.  They're not very memorable but they're not bad, either, and each is chosen to speak to both Kitty's and Jimmy's emotions in the moment they're performed.  By keeping both of them in sync with the lyrics, the movie helps build the bond between the two characters and makes us want to root for their relationship.

The entire purpose of I Accuse my Parents is, of course, the moral.  Unlike many of the movies featuring old-looking 'teenagers' that appeared on MST3K, I Accuse my Parents is not targeted at a teenage audience.  Instead, it's looking to say something to that audience's parents, reminding them that their children need them. The Violent Years tried to do the same thing, but failed.  I Accuse my Parents is a bit more successful, because of another thing it does right: it explores exactly how Jimmy's relationship with his parents works, and gives us specific examples of things they could have done differently.

In The Violent Years, Paula Parkins' parents are chronically absent, but what we do see of them suggests that they love her and are trying their best.  In I Accuse my Parents, the mother and father seem to have no interest in Jimmy whatsoever.  Paula is able to have reasonably warm conversations with both parents.  They don't know she's in trouble, but that's because she deliberately lies to them.  Jimmy, on the other hand, would be happy to tell his parents what's going on in his life, both the good and the bad, but he can't get a word in edgewise.  Paula's parents probably tried to help her when they found out about her life of crime.  Jimmy's parents don't even let him tell them he needs help.

Although the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are exaggerated in order to make the movie's point, there are moments in their relationship with Jimmy that feel uncomfortably familiar.  I think we can all remember a time when we tried to share something with a busy parent and were brushed aside.  We can also all remember lying awake in bed reliving an embarrassing moment over and over, thinking of all the million ways we could have prevented it if we'd seen it coming – which we feel we really should have.  These moments ring true, and that gives the entire movie a big boost.

The end of the movie suggests that Jimmy's parents have realized the error of their ways and will be more attentive to him in the future... but we are only told this, and so it doesn't make the impression that the earlier events did.  I would have kind of liked to see them find the note he left them, and realize that something's been going on, or maybe have them apologize to him at the end of the courtroom scene.  As it stands, his forgiveness of them for their neglect – and theirs of him for calling them out in front of the court – seems to come far too easy.

The other thing that seems to be missing from the movie is any sign of the resentment Jimmy displays in the courtroom scene, when he declares his parents should never have had a child.  I think this is supposed to be manifested in his compulsive lying about his home life, but that never actually seems bitter.  It's more of a fantasy world he has created for himself, and comes across as wistful rather than angry.  If Jimmy were in the habit of telling people that his mother never showed up at the PTA because she was chronically ill, or that his father wasn't around because he ran off with the nanny, that would seem resentful.  Writing an essay about how everthing at home is wonderful just makes it seem like Jimmy is unable to cope with reality.

I give a lot of left-handed compliments on this blog, and it feels really wishy-washy to say that I Accuse my Parents is pretty good for a bad movie.  I can't think of a better way to put it, though – like The Magic Sword or The Black Scorpion, it's not by any means a good movie and yet I quite enjoyed it. I probably won't watch it again, at least not without Joel and the bots at the bottom, but that's more because it's just not the sort of movie I watch than because it's particularly awful.  The music was fun and things moved along fast enough to keep me interested.  I even lost my place in my knitting a couple of times.  MST3K movies come a lot worse than this.