It is the good characters who have the time to write down a lot at once.
A sort of fictionalized take on my parodying the Styx album Equinox - and, since there was not a lot of story to tell there, my parodying decisions after that.
There were the song-parodying pirates and their Lego counterparts. These were separate characters, but those Lego, the Comic Five, made their best efforts to make their counterparts, the Black Pearl Crew, indistinguishable from them. They believed it would help keep them in existence if people thought the Crew were the Five.
Change had been afoot for sure, however. The Five had only been parodying songs long known to their readers, until their counterparts dropped in with songs that had been discovered by those readers much more recently than what the Five had been doing, thus getting rid of a restriction that had left the Five short on material.
One such song was Suite Madame Blue, which the Five had used the tune of for a description of their enemy they called Squidbeard, titled The Hat’s Blue.
Later, they made Lorelei Horrid Sight.
The Crew eventually turned to the album that song came from. More than one of them said, I wonder what we are missing. The other Styx albums have served us well.
While the Comic Five were making songs off of the Green Day album Dookie about Squidbeard
(who was hardly the character he represented in Lego form and did not even seem to have a ship), their counterparts set out for acquiring Equinox. Apparently their audience needed to learn it from scratch, but there were not a lot of words to memorize.
And so, the Five could be convinced to take it, although they still insisted that the parodies would be about Squidbeard, and be written at the last minute.
Increasingly the new master here, Jack Sparrow was convinced this could be done better. But could he effect his better methods?
I am afraid I must decline your invitation to wait up against deadline and see what has happened to us or outside the fourth wall to give us material. What good is it all if it does not suit us? I mean, where our creator lives, there might be snow - which I never have to deal with, just to give one of many possible examples,
said Jack Sparrow to the Lego character who looked like him, but could not crack readers up nearly so well.
He and Buccaneer Blue proudly worked together now.
A covering of blank paper appeared on a desk, which could have belonged to either Jack Sparrow or Buccaneer Blue. They both so wanted to say farewell to parodying at the last minute.
Lonely Child had me realize what I could do,
Blue and Jack were saying. There’s lyrics about love to turn on their heads, to make about he who was going wild!
And so, there they were, Going Wild
and Big Blight Fright,
two parodies that could be understood by anyone familiar with Pirates of the Caribbean. The Crew had pointed out before that this could, and perhaps should, be done.
But then the Comic Five wrote their rage-filled lines into the remaining parodies. Their counterparts peered at them in a questioning way - good as it was they could finally learn to write parodies in advance, they could never stop at just an explosion to slow the enemy down - they always had to run in with their torches and kill.
What would come then, once those sets of characters who had similar names and appearances were done with Equinox? Buccaneer Blue descended upon the two versions of Jack again, shouted to them, and had to notice the one with the bandana that did not just consist of red paint was much better at dealing with the future.
With his having had fun making Lady about the creature named Davy, interest developed in checking out the rest of the album that song came from.
The Comic Five came darting out. They were sure they had encountered their dread enemy and his organ in early Styx before.* They called him Squidbeard, and said there was no excuse for anything associated with him. They followed the work their counterparts got on, but for the wrong reasons.
Jack Sparrow did not care, but that meant he did not stop them.
Having decided what she wanted, Buccaneer Blue had a friend of hers get more Styx. They came together, first for Edge of the Century, and after it, traced Lady to its source.
Bit of a close one it was, then. Blue had said Edge of the Century and Styx II
, only to find that as her friend unlocked whatever awaited her, he might have heard Edge of the Century and Styx, too.
Fortunately, no harm was done, as she supervised and thus ensured that the original Styx album was not mistakenly downloaded instead.
Confidently, fictional people, and counterparts, gathered. The Five kicked off the Equinox parodies proper with ones they had written, Blighted
and Sailor Dear,
with an Oh, all right
theatrically given by their counterparts. Any non-Lego pirate was probably resigned because he or she had no alternative ways to go.
The two sets of characters had different ideas of how to do their employer a favor.
I have to ____ for our all-powerful creator,
any of them might think, but what would they fill that blank with? Tension was waiting to happen.
Buccaneer Blue found herself only wanting to do things that would please the real Elizabeth, Jack, and the others.
Spoiler: Jack Spasm may not have been sacked yet, but Jack Sparrow would proceed.
Yes, it will be another music war
- but one with too much the Crew cannot believe the Five consider worthless. You will not want to miss the father sailing eternally to the pirate age sounding guitar. Savvy?