Fairy Tale Fix - 58: Murder Ballad ft. Textual Tension

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

It’s Valentine's Day - do you need a break from the gooey romantic vibes? Rachel and Margie from Textual Tension come on the pod to share a 1700s murder ballad (The Twa Sisters, or Bonne Swans), and the Japanese fairy tale that was the inspiration for an InuYasha villain (The Bamboo Hewer). The sexual tension is nil, and the romance is unrequited (at best) in this hilarious episode.

Well, also, I usually strip down naked for every episode that we do, but I figured that might make you a little uncomfortable. It's a little weird. It brings out the best I can tell. But I bare my skin to the world just as I'm bearing my soul to the world. Oh, my goodness. It's very cathartic. You guys should try it. 🎵 Hey there, I'm Abby. I'm Kelsey.

And this is Fairy Tale Fix, the podcast where we read classic fairy tales and then quote unquote fix them for a modern audience. And today we also have special guests joining us, which is always an exciting time. It's Margie and Rachel from Textual Tension. Hello. Please introduce yourselves and tell everyone where they can listen to the amazing podcast, Textual Tension. Hi, I'm Margie, and this is my co-host, Rachel, and we are both from Textual Tension. And it's the podcast where one of us reads a romance novel and then summarizes it for the other unsuspecting co-hosts. There is not an unsuspecting co-host this week, but usually there is. And together we unpack what the fuck

just happened. I love it so much. It's so perfect. It is kind of like fairy tale fix. A lot of the times we do try to fix these horrifying books. Some things have never changed. The original Cinderella, they were cutting off toes and horrifying books you know and some things have never changed like cinderella and the original

cinderella they were cutting off toes and heels and i think some of these romance novels they're just cutting off my will to live oh nice yeah you're not wrong yeah yeah yeah yeah that is such a great line such a great way to such a great way to frame romance novels yes no no to be fair to be fair there are some we we because i feel like we get this sometimes like marty and i genuinely love romance novels we do we really do and there are some really great ones out there and we do cover really great romance novels but sometimes it's just a lot more fun to actively seek out trash and share it with your friend yes and break it down with your friend it's not that the trash wasn't enjoyable yeah exactly sometimes it's not sometimes it's just trash look margie are you saying that you don't want to read

an entire novel about someone that can turn into a shark and is also the son of poseidon maybe what no i'm saying that i read it no no he's not a poseidon he's the son of peribdis okay i love that even more which episode is that it's the next one our most latest episode i believe well as we're recording this so the one that comes out on december 20 20th 20th i think yes yeah it's it's it's a lot it's a lot it was it was a good it was a good time it was a time it was a gift to rachel because rachel has always had a dream of hugging a shark and i wanted her to be able to imagine that the one good crossover is there were an awful lot of little mermaid uh uh references in the in it see which witches and all.

I cannot wait to listen to this episode. Because it's actually perfect timing that we're having the two of you on and your podcast is all about romance novels because this episode is our Valentine's Day episode. Oh, such a romantic day. Oh, my story is not romantic. Yeah, neither. Well, mine is called a romance and I was kind of confused as to why. I was

like, this... Good. Perfect. Yeah. That is okay. If you want romance, go over to Textual Tension and listen to all of your episodes. And you can find us on all of your favorite podcatchers. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all the rest of them.

Are there any other ones? We don't know. But like we assume we're out there. I have to say you guys are my absolute like favorite new podcast. I do not like romance novels. Like I don't read romance novels. I'm a horror person. I like awful things.

Fairy tales are like as romantic as it gets which is almost never which is never they're not romantic like unless you consider kidnapping romantic oh what do you do have you listened to our podcast oh my gosh my favorite my favorite episodes are definitely um are definitely the ones with the cryptids. I have to say that's where I started. I haven't been listening in order. I kind of was like Mothman, like Mothman to a flame. I have to read this or I have to listen to this right now.

And then I kind of like... Mothman portends consent. He does. He does. He portends consent. We stan Mothman.ends consent he does no he does he does consent and we stand mothman we recently actually um we did that one on bigfoot and the author of the book found us and reached out and was like hey you had a great episode this was. And we're like, that's so great. It was really great.

They're so sweet. They were so sweet. Their pen name is Honey Cummings. I know. That's so good. Oh my gosh. We love that. Chef's kiss. Beautiful. You know. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. That was such a hilarious episode. Every time. What was it, Ted what was it ted sasquatch i just like i died i don't know it was the anyhow he couldn't find sasquatch ever like and he was right there just how bad i mean he was right there literally right there fucking his girlfriend so you know like right in his car fucking his girlfriend and this guy ted still couldn't find sasquatch you know the sasquatch that was fucking his girlfriend sounds like ted can't find a lot of things yeah i still maintain ted definitely couldn't find the clip i did want to ask both of you a couple of questions um it is a fairy tale podcast so I

wanted to ask what is your we ask all of our guests this what is your favorite childhood fairy tale and do you have any fixes I grew up as a anxiety riddled child that was afraid of most Disney movies. You're so cute. Oh, man. That's so precious. I was adamantly against The Lion King for most of my childhood because I was convinced that if anyone opened the door to our garage, hyenas would come out and get me. So it was the hyena door. Oh, my God.

That is such a little kid mindset. I love it. The only reason i'm not laughing is because i have heard this before and i love you but weirdly enough what i did grow up on was we had this little book of irish fairy tales and they weren't like sunshine and rainbows there was a lot of death and oh you had yes yeah you know the oh you accidentally unwittingly walked you know on something that this fairy was using well you're gonna die now like not great and i was totally fine with it so i i remember reading like um one of my favorite favorite ones was uh I don't remember the name of it, but it's the one where the guy like falls in love with this woman and is whisked off

to like the land of the fair folk and come and he's like, no, I really want to go see my family. And it turns out that every year he's been on the island was a hundred years that, you know, passed back home. Oh my God. That's such like scary fairy nonsense. It's such an Irish fairy nonsense thing.

Absolutely. Apparently, it's also like a... It reminds me of this dragon princess fairy tale we read a little while ago, Kelsey. That was on one of our bonus episodes. On our Patreon, if you follow us on Patreon. Yeah yeah that was a great fairy tale

where it's like he comes back to his regular life and realizes that he's been gone for like 300 years or something yeah and he spent three days with this woman in her underwater kingdom yeah that's so cool but like i love one of my favorite things so far has been seeing how like different storytelling patterns and tropes appear in different cultures all over the world because that other one was like a japanese story yeah because i remember that was one thing i always found interesting when i heard that the japanese like that story for the first time it was like i kind of did a double take so it's like wait, wait a minute, Ireland and Japan aren't close to each other. Hold up.

Hold up. Yup. Yup. Some of those like tropes just transcend. Well, now that said my favorite childhood fairy tale is actually the one that I'm going to tell you all about. So that's one that I really,

really liked from that. I'm so excited. Awesome. Was it something about having it written down for you that made it less scary than having a visual? I've always been that way. I don't do well with horror movies or horror, like scary video games, but if it's, if it's written, I'm fine with it. I don't know why. Just how I've always been. You kind of control the visual in that aspect. Just how I've always been. You kind of control the visual in that aspect.

Yeah. Absolutely. Because I love reading horror novels. And I like darker stories on the page. I don't want... And I love suspense on the page. I don't love it in film. So I get that.

I get fighty when I get scared. So if I have a book, I can set it down and not punch somebody. I don't like either. Honestly, I don't like either things because being scared on screen or in book, but especially on screen because sound really gets to me. If it's really silent in a scene and even if it's just a creek in the woods, I feel like I can feel it through my whole body. And I'm like, this does not

spark joy. See, I'm the exact opposite. I actually wanted to study horror music specifically because they, they use sound in such like a creative way to scare you. Like if you watch a horror movie without the sound, it's not nearly as scary.

Yes. I do think that that's very cool. And I like how in, there was like this, like, uh, like dissertation that I watched and it was like a video dissertation about the shining.

And it was about not about the music, but actually about the architecture of the building and how the director made it so that if your subconscious is looking more closely and seeing that the building doesn't make sense. That physically, that hallway is not supposed to be there. That staircase is not supposed to be there. And even you're not like picking up on it in your conscious mind your subconscious is picking up on that and it gives you this degree of anxiety because you literally going to find i'm writing a note for myself right now to find that documentary because that sounds so cool it actually wasn't a documentary it was like somebody somebody's dissertation or something. I remember watching it on YouTube a long

time ago and I was like, this is absolutely fascinating. There's also a really great series that was on Shudder that is a five-part documentary series about the making of five different horror movies.

I don't even different horror movies. And it was, I don't even, and I don't even like horror movies, but I love behind the scenes stuff. And man, oh man, it was really interesting. So highly, highly,

highly recommend that as well. If I find, if I remember what that is, because I don't even know if Shudder exists anymore, but it does. Oh, good. Okay.

Yeah. So if you have a Shudder description, it's on there um yeah oh that is so cool yeah thank you for telling me about that i'm going to hunt that down like i literally grabbed a notepad and pen and was like i'm gonna find this it really it was it was really fascinating and he has examples and he even did like an architectural like build out of what the building would look like. And he's like,

this, it doesn't make sense. Like this is not structurally sound and stuff like that. This is a doorway. This is a doorway to nowhere. Like, and a lot of it is from the perspective of the kid on the trike. And that's where,

how he got the map. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So what's your favorite childhood fairy tale um i actually funnily enough so while we were talking i went over i have a um an old old old copy of grim's fairy tales that um i'm actually gonna pull my camera back on just so you guys

can see it but like it's been in my family forever it's very cute and i pulled it out and i and i used to like open it up and just like read like original fairy tales like this is where i learned with like oh cinderella is bleak but if we're going with like the classic like Grimm's fairy tale kind of fairy tales. I really like Rapunzel. Oh, yeah. Because I loved the idea of a mom saying, I want a salad more than I want my own child. She was really dedicated, okay? That garden was her whole life she was hungry she wanted that rampian real bad and uh you know i've never felt that way about rampian but i have felt that way

about black raspberry chip ice cream i thought that that was grim but also somehow hilarious and i also always thought that it would be and i always thought that rapunzel's mother gothel i felt like that there was a story waiting to be told about her because i always felt like there was obviously some sort of curse or something or some sort of something that she was under that isn't told in the story that we don't know about and i thought that was interesting. That's why Into the Woods is always such a fun watch

because it does kind of go into the witch's backstory a little bit. Yes. I was going to say everything I know about Rapunzel is from Into the Woods. Like that's like of the original story or like you know the oldest story. Oh have you not of the original story or like you know the oldest story oh have you not

read the original story i have i mean i'm i probably did a long time ago but i just love that here have a constant reminder that your mother loved salad more than you that's so cursed i do and i think also why i like it is because I always did like, like darker humor when I was a kid. Like one of my favorite books was James of the giant peach. And at the very beginning of the story, James's parents are, is eat or eaten on the streets of London by a wild rhinoceros that got out of the zoo.

And I thought that was the funniest thing. It horrible, but so funny. That's my favorite fairy tale amazing yeah um do either of you have any fixes for your favorite fairy tales don't sell your children for arugula well sure grow your own arugula i i think that for mine, I mean, honestly, communication is so important in a relationship. We say it all the time in our podcast.

Maybe if you're going to take someone to your home, and maybe if it's going to cause all of their family to die, maybe just tell them that. Warn them a friend. Say, hey, time's different here. You know. Honesty. Every hour you spend with me is like a decade back home. But I'm a great lay.

I had a romance novel. It might be worth it. Worth. Continuing with the questions we like to ask all of our – Well, this one is specific just to the two of you what if any is the most romantic fairy tale in your opinion um oh that's tough i think little red riding hood is the sexiest fairy tale i know we've talked about that already yeah not romantic at all. A lot of the Russian fairy tales that involve Vasilisa, who just is reused all the time in Russian fairy tales.

And there's a lot of them where usually she, like, the prince fucks up somehow, and she has to go and meet with Baba Yaga and, like, do all of the impossible tasks and everything and go back. And she's the one that's totally bad-ass. And there's a version of that where the, the, uh,

she is masquerading as a dude and the Prince is trying to like, you know, Oh no, it's definitely a woman. And so he's doing all of these things like putting pearls on the ground and like, Oh yeah, a woman will definitely go for that.

And I really like a bad bitch. So I think that, that, you know, that, ground and like oh yeah a woman will definitely go for that and i really like a bad bitch so i think that that you know that that fairy tales that involve strong independent women that uh don't need to prove themselves to anyone else is uh pretty sexy personally absolutely i also love and respect that you pronounced baba yaga. We just say Baba Yaga. You pronounced it like the correct way. Abby has had a coworker. Oh, no.

I have a Ukrainian-born coworker who, you know, I was telling him about my podcast. And also, both of us have Baba Yaga's, like, chicken-legged hut tattooed. Yeah. So we were comparing tattoos. Oh, cool. And I was saying Baba Yaga's like chicken-legged hut tattooed. Yeah. So we were comparing tattoos and I was saying Baba Yaga and he kept laughing at me going like, what an American pronunciation.

Which I'm honestly going to keep doing. Yeah, you have to at this point. He still corrects me though. Probably my favorite character in all folklore

ever. I love Baba Yaga. She's wild. She's incredible. I have goals. I want to be just like her when I grow up. You want to fly around in a mortar and pestle? That sounds great. I just want to live in a chicken hut with bones like with skulls

and I want everyone to fear me but also be very intrigued and also need my help you want to be a minor forest deity yes absolutely that's a dream i have this is maybe a deep pull i have a uh an embroidery pattern that i'm going to be starting soon that is baba yaga's hut with chicken legs and around the edge it says uh turn your back to the forest your front to me and i love it because it's just so metal send us a picture so we can post it on our feed because that sounds awesome. Margie, what about you?

What is the most romantic fairy tale? Gosh. Okay. Hear me out. I'm listening. Let's do it. What you got? Actually, one of my favorite fairy tales is Peter Pan.

And I would so I have a really also have a very pretty copy somewhere around here of Peter Pan and Wendy. I love that story. Oh, yeah. But actually, the story that I really like in it is Mr. and mrs darling i think their love is hilarious like the reason why they end up together is because there were a lot of boys chasing her but he got there first and he's always kind of chasing her around looking for and the the like the i think it's like the 2005 or 2006 version of movie caught this where it was the hidden kiss where he's always like there's always this kiss on the corner of her mouth that he can't quite get and he's always kind of like

i don't know it's just kind of like this love where he absolutely adores her and she's just content and she's content to be with him and like they just make each other happy in a very silly way and i think the humor of the book really carries that i also like peter and wendy because like it's the same thing where it's like very simple things for like every year wendy comes back to Neverland to do spring cleaning. Like it's a very like simple summer camp love. Yes, exactly. Childish,

childish, silly kind of love. Like at Mr. And Mrs. Darling, when the children go missing, Mr. Darling literally goes into the dog house and like sits there for days.

I remember that from the cartoon. Yes. Yes. Like, um, it's kind, it's silly, but it's also kind of,

I like, I think that we should ground our love and things that are like more every day and achievable. And I am very much guilty of not doing that. So, uh, where I'm always kind of like I want passionate adventure and all of those things but I'm also like but Mr. Darling at the dog house because he feels so bad it's kind of cute I don't know that's sweet I like that their story at all and I've never actually read peter pan so i need to check that out there are a few like different the peter pan is kind of strange just because i think of uh i don't remember how

they were originally published but peter pan and wendy is kind of like the one that you want i think people should go to first because it's like all that neverland stuff it's got the wendy stuff it's got the stuff that's in the disney movie um and uh but there are also other tales of him where it's like Peter leads kids like halfway to heaven on their way as they pass you know that's sweet as they die but other people say like oh no he's like he's killing children and taking their souls and I'm like that I don't think that that's I don't I don't think that that's what he's doing like a little dark not a little dark for me and my peter but okay that's what you want hashtag not my peter not my peter so yeah that was the first thing that came to my mind oh i love that sure come with a

fucking wholesome well thought out answer fine no i feel like that's the perfect answer for fairy tale fix you've got like kind of the like because abby and i have both of these moods where we get really into these fairy tales and we get really like attached to them and like feel wistful about the stories and then sometimes we're just like just become a fucking witch just go over the woods and become a witch. What are you doing? So the last question we wanted to ask is why did you start a romance novel podcast? Like how did the podcast textual tension like begin? I literally was like, I will admit that I think I came up with the original idea for this podcast.

And I went up to Rachel and I was like, I have this idea and I just don't know who to do it with. And she was like, me, me, who else? We have all the equipment. Let's fucking go. threw together some equipment, threw together a recording booth in her house that like, I think I'm still sneezing at to this day because it just would, the allergies is so bad. At the time we just, we were just hanging blankets in my office. Yeah, right. Which was a terrible place to do it.

But you know, we learned. I think the point of it now is more like there are a lot of unhealthy, like much like fairy tales. There are a lot of unhealthy relationships that are portrayed in romance novels. And because these are marketed towards people who are so impressionable, we just want to be, we wanted to, we now kind of want to get out there and say like this is bad and it's funny because it's bad but it's also bad because like it's telling people that this is an okay behavior like an example of this is that a book that we just i just read where the guy was like a mafia a mafia boss which like let's get out eight mafia romance novels later i could tell you a lot about it but um he was rewarded for his behavior of stalking this young woman oh no and she was quote unquote protected because he was stalking her classic and classic and so you're kind of like, and so we were like, hey,

you can't, because let's imagine this happened in real life and someone was watching a woman on, a man was watching a woman on CCTV cameras like outside her home. Oh, God. Which is what he was doing. Which is what he was doing. Like, that's absolutely

horrifying and is not going to end up, end with anything well. You'll murder her, with anything well. So murder her probably. Probably. So Margie came up with the original idea and it sort of I think that correct me if I'm wrong, but it kind of spawned because whenever we would hang out, we would just be walking down the street and be like, hey, can I tell you about this book I just read? And we just do that. Yes, we just made it into a podcast. Yeah, it was, you you know i'm sure many people

with podcasts have done um and we read a lot of trash the other thing is that in a lot of cases like it's interesting because there are books like that where it's like okay this behavior is very obviously 100 not okay and then you get the books where it's like, okay, this is like written well and within the story and you empathize with the characters and like, yeah, the behavior is still not okay. But I still like this book and I can acknowledge that the behavior is not okay. And this is like a guilty, not even a guilty pleasure. This is just something that I still enjoy as long as I know that it's based in maybe not great behavior. And I think that's the important thing because like we can all be kinky little freaks as much as we want and enjoy

whatever the hell we want. But it's the understanding that in popular media, that is not necessarily always presented in a way that is healthy. And that if someone has no background on the subject, they might not know that it's not healthy. Right. So that that's kind of, I feel like the part of, I mean, for me, it's a big reason that we kind of i feel like the part of i mean for me

it's a big reason that we kind of do a lot of this stuff and also they're just fucking funny really a dude that turns into a shark that his dad is charybdis which is definitely just poseidon and charybdis yes together that is so dumb i love it come on you can only you can only join the merfolk if you're a virgin if you're a virgin well it's so good for people like me who i'm like i'm never gonna read that but i still get to enjoy the stories thanks to you too and you just tell the story so well i'm really glad that you said that because uh sometimes i'm like i don't know what i'm doing never the power of good editing yeah seriously girl i do also like think you know

because you do you do i think you do a really nice job the two of you of walking that balance that you were talking about rachel between between engaging with what's fucking hilarious about this romance novel but also but also being some somewhat serious about like this is hilarious and kind of sexy depending on how well written how well written it is but also like and here's also in case you don't know, stalking is bad. Stalking is bad. Consent is important. But also, it's fine that you like this as well.

I don't know. I like your show. It's adorable and hilarious. And I'm awaiting the shark romance novel with bated breath oh baby i did i was gonna edit it today but i got caught up in another romance novel so i'm gonna edit it tomorrow oops all right i'm so excited let's go okay i'm so excited so first we have rachel what um What fairy tale are you telling us? My story is actually,

it's called the Twa Sisters or the Bonnie Swans. It is actually a song that I grew up with. So it's by Lorena McKennett, if you've ever heard of her. Yeah, she's awesome music, but she does a lot of like medieval music and traditional Celtic music and like all of that kind of stuff this song like the version of the song that she does is like really really awesome and it has these really cool like violin soaring violin and electric guitar like riffs that just pass back and

forth throughout the entire thing and it's really really cool i love incredible a lot yeah my mom loved her like growing up so we listened a lot like to her a lot and it was really really cool i love incredible a lot yeah my mom loved her like growing up so we listened a lot like to her a lot and it was a toss-up between this or the one where everyone dies so you know i went with this one um live is what you're saying who knows but um so the song actually like started showing up in like the 17th century so 1600s kind of time frame, in England for the most part. So that's kind of... I won't go... I have other information, but I'm not going to say it until y'all do your predictions because it kind of gives some stuff away.

Okay. I will go first. Okay. I will go first. Okay. My first prediction, just based off of a different English swan story that we read, and I'm hoping to have a repeat of the swans murder someone. Swan murder. I like animal murder. Well, animals murdering. Animals murdering. Yeah, animal murder is less fun. Right. I was attacked by a swan once.

My mom made a vlog. Swans are vicious. Prediction number two. I think the Twas sisters can transform into swans. Oh, okay. Good prediction. Swan maidens. I love it.

And prediction number three i'm just gonna go with a a favorite a favorite here on fairy tale fixed my third prediction that we just throw in there if we can't think of anything and that is there will be a talking cat that's what i wanted i was like is she gonna do it is she gonna do it talking cat that's what I wanted I was like she gonna do it she gonna do it talking cat talking cats and fairy tales are literally the best thing

it's like that doesn't happen super often but when it does happen it's worth it always good never wrong talking cat I will go second so Margie be thinking about your Hepscus, always good. Never wrong. Talking cat. All right. I will go second.

So Margie, be thinking about your predictions. Okay. My first prediction is I'm going to guess that there is some fairy nonsense. And I feel like that is like a prediction that's up for debate, but that's fine. Like you usually know fairy nonsense when's up for debate, but that's fine. Like you, you usually know fairy nonsense when it happens. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Um, I also want to project that there are three sisters. Okay. I know that's, that's pretty basic, but I actually was thinking that there would be two. So I'm going to guess three three they always come in threes and then my last prediction is um that there's gonna be some sort of deep swan rage that is oh oh that's a good one

that's a very good one i like it i don't want to go as far as murder necessarily but swans are absolutely vicious yeah that bitch tried to kill me all it was doing was swimming five in a lake fucking swan headed out for me it knew that i was prettier genuinely traumatic and i. No, it was funnier now because I just imagined my mom, my 100-pound mom, flinging off her clog and banging the swan in the head. Oh, no. Carrie would totally do that. Carrie would totally do that. Is it my turn to predict?

Yes. What is your first prediction? My first prediction, just because it's based england and it's about two women i'm gonna say that they're gonna fight over a man and i absolutely hate that but i think they're gonna fight over a man okay um i think there's gonna be some evil twin action oh oh i love the telenovela direction you're taking this yes i think evil twin action is is is on the horizon and because of this evil twin action i also think i'm i'm picturing like black swan movie natalie portman like we're going down and we're we're we're seeing like we're dancing with evil monsters in the street and stuff like that i don't know i'm just seeing like a good swan and an evil swan and they have to fight. Yes.

I like it. 10 out of 10 would watch. Thank you. That's what I got. Swan madness. Swan rage. And swan murder are our predictions. Can we add swan rave?

Like go to a rave. Swan rave. Bonus prediction. I'll allow it for all of us. It's not necessarily not true. So let's get into it. All right. So before we start, I have a tiny bit of a confession to make. I've lied to you. I've lied to myself. In the end, we all got hurt. I learned throughout the course of researching this that this technically isn't a fairy tale. You whore. But I want to say...

Well, okay. So the story of the Bonnie Swan or the Twa Sisters is, and I quote, a 17th century murder ballad. Yes! That is, we accept. That was amazing. That was amazing. But I will say, it sniffs of fairy tale. Like, I would not be surprised if this is based off of some sort of oral

tradition something that existed previously and absolutely yeah that's kind of like a ballad right yeah yeah yeah oral tradition is like legit this is just the first time that it showed up like in writing was like 17th century murder ballads oh my goodness fuck yes oh my god metal as hell all right please so i told y'all while we were taking a wine break um so i am not going to be reading this story per se word for word because i know it in song form and if i read it i'm gonna want to sing it and i can't do that it's just it's a lot so i'm just gonna tell the story um and sing it for us later maybe yes i might sing it for you later we'll see um i probably will so uh this story there are many versions but the version i'll tell the version that i know there is a king all right he's in the north of

england and he has three daughters we have a correct prediction um these three daughters are obviously beautiful and fair and of course there's always three of them. And one day... Is the youngest the hottest? That's the real question. Yes, she is. The nicest and the prettiest. Yes. She is.

She absolutely is. And the eldest sister is, of course, the one that is dark and, you know, the evil one. Eldest sisters. Naturally. We're real bitches. Am I right? Yeah. So, one day,

they are walking by the river together, all three of the sisters, and the eldest shoves the youngest into the water. Jesus! Sworn murder, maybe. That sounds, honestly, like an oldest sibling, like 100% something my sister would do.

So, you know what? The youngest sister. Younger siblings, you come along and you take up all the attention that used to be ours. Do you? Counter argument of maybe we deserved it. Maybe we had earned it. Maybe we were just better i'll also say as the youngest sibling i was super super fucking annoying it definitely oh i was an asshole hell yeah oh no i was uh i don't know what y'all are talking about i was fucking adorable

and perfect so was my youngest sibling it was annoying there was there's literally a picture on my fridge of me clapping a hand over my cousin's mouth to shut her up she is four i am six so good oh my god iconic Iconic and amazing. Iconic and incredible. Okay, so the oldest sister shoves the youngest one into the river. Yes. The youngest sister, obviously, calls out to her older sister. And the exact quote is, Sister, pray sister, pray lend me your hand, and I will give you house and land. And the sister says,

I'll lend you neither hand nor glove, lest you give me your own true love. Oh, Jesus. Okay. Whoa, bitch. They're fighting about a man. The next line of this. Is this a point for Margie? They're fighting over a man.

Fighting over a man. The next line of this song is, sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam. Because bitch drowned. Totally just died. She's dead now. Metal as hell. And that's not usually what happens to the youngest. No.

No, this is very surprising. This is... I love it. Okay, so this song says a lot about me as a human. She's not the youngest anymore. Yeah, not anymore. This song says a lot about me as a human growing up and you'll see why um so so she the the youngest sister uh drowns because she's not

willing to give up her true love and floats down the river and eventually she gets caught in a dam a miller's dam like her body does yes her body does okay so the miller's daughter uh goes out to get water to make her bread and she says and man 17th century was a wild time because i don't know what you think when you see a dead body floating in the river but to me it's not hey dad look there's a swan that's not what I think of was she like really young

or it's father oh daddy here swims a swan it's very like a gentle woman it's like a woman but it's a woman, but it's a swan. But it's a swan. Was her skin that fair or something that it looks like maybe? That's my guess. Is this the fairytale version of you seeing a dead body and automatically

thinking, Oh, is that a mannequin? Yeah. I mean, obviously they didn't have mannequins in the middle. It's never a mannequin. It's not a swan.

Oh my God. It's never a swan oh my god it's never a swan gross to be coarse maybe because she was lying face down in the water her ass was sticking up at that so you think that that's like you know you know margie that actually that's a possibility well but i feel like what kid get inside oh my god we got another one yeah that's what i want to know too you know they don't specify obviously i mean old enough to make her own bread i guess whatever that was like five in the middle ages that's true when you were 14 you've been an adult for three years so So, you know, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe if she's half submerged,

it'd be hard to see her as a swan, but it gets a little harder when the next part happens and they pull her out of the water and layer on the bank to dry. At that point, you probably know it's a lady, but they still think it's a swan. Huh? Yeah.

So I'm thinking, and here's my guess. Here's my, my best analysis of this is because of what happens here in a little bit there's got to be some sign of some kind of magical woo-woo happening here where they think it's a swan and not like a black swan or wait what is that movie is a black swan where like she starts like plucking feathers out of her back? Yep.

Yeah. Oh, spooky. That's the one. But like, is she really or is she just delusional? Is she imagining it? Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. So, who comes along while this dead woman is drying out on the bank? Let me guess. Let me guess.

Let me guess. Let me guess. Yeah. Yeah. It's Prince. Prince. Okay. okay okay anyone else have any guesses i was gonna say her lover because she she had a lover right she had she did yes my mom ready to whip out that clock well unfortunately none of you are correct it's a harper someone who makes harps okay so a harper comes along and is like damn that's a good looking body i'm gonna make a harp out of that oh no don't make it and I quote

he made harp pins of her fingers fair so they know it's a human at this point they totally do he made harp strings of her golden hair he made a harp of a breastbone and straight it began to play alone so basically he makes this harp out of this woman's dead body and the minute he's done making it

it starts to just play on its own this isn't a russian fairy tale no it's english baby it sounds russian i i love it i mean it's a really good one so okay so all of these people are like holy shit that harp's playing on its own we better go take this to the king huh absolutely right so they better go take this to the king, huh? Absolutely. Right. So they do.

They bring it to the king's court and all of his courtiers are assembled and the king and all of his family is there and they lay it down on the stone and it immediately begins to sing and play. And this is my personal favorite part of the song. Of course, it's the most fucked up part probably. Oh, I'm going to go ahead and and quote so in case you can't tell i have this song memorized so i'm gonna go ahead and quote the song um and the way the way that the song actually works is it's a little bit

of like a call and response kind of situation so you say a line and then it's yee hee ho and me bonnie oh you say another line and then since the swan swims sabonnie-oh so it's like kind of a back and forth kind of thing um so this entire section is they later on the stone and straight up again to play alone it's yonder sits my father the king yee-hee-ho me bonnie-oh and yonder sits my mother the queen the swan swims sabonnie-oh there does sit my brother hugh yee-hee-ho me me bonnie oh and by him william sweet and true the swan swim sabanio and and there does sit my false sister anne who drowned me for the sake of a man and that's the end of the story hell yeah that's the end yes yes using all of all of your

fairy nonsense and I don't know to call out your sister yeah it's the entire I love it the pettiness I know I am literally gonna become a magic harp

to fuck you over this like what it's a cursed object now. Because it was made out of a dead, out of a murdered girl's bones. Good for her. Yeah, good for fucking her. The angriest of sisters. Just, that's so good.

So there are other versions of this story. Some where there's two sisters, some where there's three. And then there's some that are a little bit more fleshed out at the end, where it's anywhere from the sister gets away with it and nothing happens. Or in some stories, the sister is identified as the person that committed the murder and is tortured to death like any good fairy tale. And, you know in in the standard fairy tale ways so hot iron shoes on her feet um somebody asked her hey what would you do in this exact situation that you're in and she's like oh i would totally fuck this person up that's

terrible and they do it to her yeah exactly yeah so so there are other versions that end in a little bit more of a satisfying fairy tale style ending but this is the one that i grew up on and i love it so much because it's just like the biggest mic drop at the end of it yes yeah that was a great i came back i honestly don't i know that that's where it ends i think that's that's where it's like good to end though i don't think it needs like because i think that your imagination fills it up with justice kind of at least in my mind i'm kind of like oh no after that like the sister was like fucked over that guy either like didn't either the guy didn't love her anymore or she was like found like guilty of her crime of killing her sister and either way like that's justice to

me because she didn't get what you know either she didn't get what she wanted or she like is tortured cool in my mind the exact next like the next moment is this in this story is where like because everyone's like oh looking at ann as the harp sings about her and then it says and drown me for the sake of a man and everyone in the court like stands up from their chair like that's the moment where everyone like like oh my god and freaks out and i'm like yeah that moment i love it so much yeah it's such a i want to know if anything happens to the person that made the harp like Like that's fucked up that you used. Yeah.

Like did the, did the King know that? Did he find out? Dead girl. The King probably loved it and wanted like 10 more. Honestly, probably. I mean,

and I think that, and this is going to sound terrible, but I know that the, I believe there is a history of like using bones for musical instruments. So yeah. Yeah. I don't think that that's actually entirely crazy. I think more what would be crazy is that I think so. I think that I,

I think that way, way, way back in the past, maybe. Okay. Internet. Oh, we look at it.

I know. I'm Googling it in a practical way it does make sense because like human bones are extremely strong didn't they used to make harp strings out of like cat guts or something yeah violin or violins they used to be good yeah i started yeah for the bow i started googling human bones used as and the first suggestion was sugar in uh in like some processing thing and i'm like what i heard about that recently actually on another podcast where well it wasn't i think it was an accident or something like that where they used it was something during a war or something like that where they used... It was something during a war or something like that where they used human tissue or bones to create a certain compound. I want to be made into sugar when I die.

I genuinely love that. That would be the biggest fuck you. Cool. Make a note of it. Oh, that's a good one. Put it in your will. I want to be sugar. Generally, I think that yes.

I want to be sugar. Generally, I think that yes. I don't know about like in the medieval times, like harps, but there are definitely examples of instruments and stringed instruments like made out of human bones. So maybe. Creepy.

The thing that I think is kind of interesting is if you think about it, William is still up on the dais like at the end of this right which to my mind means that he's still part of the family and somehow which means that he probably married her sister or is i thought that was the implication yeah definitely yeah that's like that's that's how i read it yeah is that well because also like she killed her so she got her way because like it probably takes a while to make a harp out of a human girl's body

so there was some time who knows how long she was going down the river at least six weeks i mean yeah really pushing it. And travel, you know, travel time took a lot longer, you know? Yeah. What I want to know. Yeah, the word had to get that there was a singing harp. No, wait, they just saw the singing harp. They just took it. Yeah.

It was just an, oh shit, we got to show this to the king moment. The thing that I want to know, and this kind of goes with my fix a little bit the fuck happened to the second sister all three of them were walking by the river that's a good question i'm not in i'm not involved she's probably honestly she's probably scared of the sister who got who pushed the other one into the water she's like i'm gonna keep my head down that bitch is gonna kill me the middle child the middle child is the appeaser anyway she's just lucky that like it was oldest and to youngest and that oldest middle to youngest in that line that's gonna be both of them in the water she could have pushed two in with once and one good push i just i love how fucking hard this thing goes because it doesn't pull punches like the lines go from like oh yes three three sisters

they walked by the river's brim the eldest pushed pushed the youngest in. Okay. Cool. Didn't see that coming. Do you think the harp ever, like, played Wonderwall? At her sister's torture. Torture, public death. Absolutely. Anyway. Made her death to Wonderwall. Hot iron

shoes. Yeah. Oh, wait. No. My heart will go on. Oh, wait. No, my heart will go on. Oh, that's a good one. Even better. We don't know this song, but man, it bops. It slaps. What? It slaps. What happened to the harp afterwards?

Because, like, now it sings songs on its own. It is assumingly sentient. It's a member of the family. No, see, I think it's done. I think that it's served its purpose and now her spirit has kind of left it. It's still a family relic,

but I don't think that it plays anymore. I like that. I like that maybe the sister can find some peace and let's move on to the afterlife. She's like, that bitch got what was coming to her. Carrying her clog is coming. I'm just going to keep doing that. I'm sorry.

I still think the king wanted ten more after that, though. He was like, ooh! Can you kill the rest of my kids, please? That'd be great. We want to keep him, but... Daughters are pretty much useless. Daughters are fine. They could be harps.

They're about the same worth when we marry them off to other kings. Daughters could be harps. Episode title. Well, at least they'll talk less. They'll make more pleasant noise, is what the king says. I don't know. I feel like they're going to bitch about anything. I feel like if I were a harp... Here's a question.

If you were made into a harp after being killed, what's the one thing that you would like really just let all, let it all out there. I would be the most petty harp ever. It would be like, Oh quick. Look, we found this harp that could play on its own.

Set it down. Hello. Yes. Cheryl ate my sandwich in the company fridge. Like that would be it. Petty shit. Just calling everyone out wherever you go. I would just play Lil Nas X all day.

Good choice. Beautiful. Industry baby. Yes, all the time. All the time. That, Lady Gaga. Lizzo. All excellent choices.

I'd probably play Evanescence over and over and over. Yes. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Bring me to life, baby. Oh, now there's a fun, ironic song.

I, I would be, I would be mostly silent so that people just put me in corners and then they'll talk in front of me and then i'll whisper their secrets to other people as they walk by it would be really fun to just like haunt a house be totally silent the entire time and then they go into another room and just ding and then get silent again just wait for them to freak out i always tell my husband if i die before him i'm going to haunt him by playing our piano in the middle of the night oh good good it really ups him. He hates his edges so much. What are you going to play, though? What are you going to play?

Are you going to play Evanescence? Bring me to life. You know, I'm probably just going to do like a do-do-do. Just like the smallest amount just enough to be scary. Oh, yes. But also have you questioning yourself?

You're like, did I hear that? Did someone... What's going on? Or like if it's a really strange moment, just really loud, like, just like bang on the keys. I guess I'd probably do the same as her. He brings any other girl home, like after you're dead, just be like, God, no. Oh my God. All of a sudden you just silent. It's totally, totally totally silent you just hear

wasn't me it wasn't me oh wait wait wait like hello it's me it's me man I don't know that sounds fun being a haunted instrument not the worst way to spend your eternal reward no

yeah I could think of worse ways but Rachel is that how you would fix the story like how would you like talking about

who the middle sister is like well so here's the thing i feel like when i fix the story i want to keep that core moral which is don't murder your sister because it'll come back to bite you in the ass and i i don't love that there's murder in it but i don't necessarily want to take out the murder because I feel like that's kind of the murder. Then it's not. Yeah.

It is what the story is. The fix is really just what makes it like a better story for you personally. Yeah. Which is what we do often. Yeah. I personally, for me,

want it to be gay. Yeah. I personally, for me, want it to be gay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want it to be William. I want it to be like Willow or something like that. I want it to be a chick. I want it to be gay. I because ladies shouldn't be fighting over men they're not worth it i don't know let's make it all gay yeah ladies should fight over ladies or alternatively like maybe we make the moral of the story that like women should lift each other up yes you know there shouldn't be a fighting over a partner or anything like that so maybe at the end the story that she sings is something along the lines of like, there's my sister. She drowned me for the sake of a man, which is super not cool.

And like, we need to fix this systemic issue in our society. You know, it's a longer story. To re-include. It's a great song. To re-include the middle sister,

it would be kind of cool if she like ran away because she knew what her eldest sister had done and she found the harp and brought it back she's the one who brings it to the castle oh i love that that's a great kind of like on this side quest and she comes upon this harp and maybe she and the person who made the harp fall in love cute oh and then that could be gay it's like she like the miller's daughter is like an amateur harper and so she makes the girl's body into a harp and then she and the middle sister fall in love we love it we stan we i love it because I feel like the middle sister is kind of like she's

like she's lost right because she's like okay my youngest sister's dead my eldest sister just murdered my youngest sister I'm probably next and so she runs off and she maybe she runs into like the the whole Miller situation and then she takes the heart

to the king because he's like I can't do anything, but I guess the man can. And it's also the side story of her never having been on her own before or having to make these decisions and kind of finding herself as a person. Ooh, see? I'm here for this. I like this. This is a good one. So good. It's an excellent story. I like it yeah so that's that hey that probably explains a lot about do it i love that story that's all i was gonna say i adore that that the story you told us rachel i adore it is all i was gonna say

it's very good story as is too yeah honestly it's hard to fix because it's pretty petty and great. It says a lot about me as a human, but this was one of my favorite songs growing up. So one last comment on it is that honestly, if I were a dead girl and someone was like, Oh look, it's a swan. I'd be like,

what are you trying to say about my body? Like what? Yeah yeah that is pretty weird once again like like unattainable standards for women now i have to look like a fucking like what what is this do i have to look like a swan do i not look like enough i really wonder if that's like a little kid like not being able to comprehend what they're seeing because it's so horrific yes oh that's sad i just sorry yeah bringing it down well let me like the murder didn't already do that no that's normal margie what are you telling us but can you follow up that incredible fairy tale nonsense like is it possible nonsense yes yay so god i'm so ashamed okay so though i actually struggled a little bit to find a um fairy tale to talk about so you know what i I did? I looked deep. I went back to my roots.

And you know what my roots said to me? Margie. Margie. Margie. Did you get this from Inuyasha? Please tell me yes. Did you know that the tagline to Inuyasha

is a feudal fairy tale? Yes, did you know that the tagline to inuyasha is a beautiful fairy tale yes i did know that because i too was obsessed with inuyasha in high school margie margie margie yeah yeah my friends yeah i just i get you i understand were you were you a sishomaru person no i was an indiasha girl hardcore indiasha interesting we would have fought a lot in high school as soon as you started saying that i was like it's either h2o or it's indiasha let's fucking go i love it i because i knew weirdly enough that Inuyasha was based off of a legend, but I couldn't find the legend. I couldn't find enough information off of it.

And I don't know how I came upon this story, but it is based off of something that is from Inuyasha. And the story is called, for your predicting powers, The Story of the Old Bamboo Cure. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Gosh, there's really not much. It's just really fucking old and from Japan in the really fucking old times.

I was going to say, I have some predictions. I will go first. Okay, yeah, go for it. Oh, knock yourself out. Please do. All right. No, bear in mind, I have seen exactly one episode of Inuyasha that Margie has showed me. So, okay.

I am predicting that there is going to be some Oni shenanigans. What does that mean? Oni being like Japanese fey like what we would call fey okay japanese culture oni kind of thing so like spirits um like mythical creatures yeah fairy nonsense but japanese flavor okay okay i'm going to guess that there is going to be a hot priestess of some sort. Fuck yes. But is she dead? Ooh.

I'm gonna say no. Is that a leading question, Marjorie? No, it's not. My gut reaction is no. I'm sorry. That was just an idiotic answer. And then my last one is I'm going to guess that bamboo

is used to imprison a demon. I know that is kind of a stretch, but that is what my brain has come up with. I like it. Alright. Alright. Who's next? Me. Okay. Okay. I'm trying. I've been trying to decide if my

all of my all if my intense knowledge of Inuyasha is going to help or hinder me. Probably hinder me. So I'm just going to say what I want. Okay, please. I want there to be a hot dog demon. Ooh, okay. Don't we all?

a hot dog demon. Ooh, okay. Don't we all? I know that Sashomaru is a wrong person to thirst after, but like we were talking about earlier, just sometimes you like stuff that's not good for you. You're only into full-fledged

demons, okay. I like the full-blooded ones, baby. Baby? I want them mean, I want them cold, but I want to be the one that really cracks that nut, youblooded ones, baby. Baby? I want them mean. I want them cold. But I want to be the one that really cracks that nut, you know? Oh, God. I can't wait to have y'all on our podcast. Me neither.

We're going to have so many more idiotic discussions. I want a hot dog demon. Okay. All right. I want there to be... I'm trying not to completely copy rachel's thing sorry rachel's first prediction but i do think that there is going to be a a romance involving a priestess and a yokai or demon of some kind because i'm pretty sure that's what they based inuyasha and kikyo on there's going to be a magic well oh don't give it away things that i desire i love the well okay

oh my gosh i have never i have no idea what any of you were talking about it sounds like an anime it is an anime and i will give a little bit of context to the anime. I probably should have done that a little earlier. I apologize. No, no, because I think it might help Kelsey not to know. That's okay. I'm going to go with fairy tale rules because I know nothing about anime or any of what you were all just talking about. So my predictions are going to be a little bit more vague.

My first prediction is that there's going to be some good old fashioned fairy tale violence. Again, that's debatable. But, you know, you know, you know it when you see it. I'm going to guess I'm going to predict that there is going to be an important animal of some sort to the story. I hope it's a tanuki. I hope we just get huge raccoon balls um and last but not least i have no idea so i'm gonna say that this fairy tale this particular fairy tale has a happy ending okay all. All right. That's very vague, but no, that's fine.

That's brave though, for a fairy tale to have a happy ending. I will say mine technically did technically. All of the Japanese fairy tales we've read so far. Well, no, that's not true. They haven't been that happy.

My Lord bag of rice had a very happy ending. It's been about 50,50 on the happy ending. Yeah. Sometimes they're very sad. And I am actually going to go in the same vein as Rachel as I... This story is actually... It wasn't something that I could actually read. I will have to just tell it to you, which is fine.

Trust me. There is a lot of details that we do not need so um let's uh uh let me take you into the world of the bamboo hewer yes please oh my god i'm so excited we have our bamboo hewer who, while hewing bamboo, you know, as you do on the daily, finds, quote, a tiny creature, a palm's breadth in size and of rare loveliness. He finds a baby inside of a stick of bamboo. I just realized that I do know this story. You do? I do. that I do know this story. You do? I do.

How do you know this story? There is a video game called Okami, which is based after the sun goddess Amaterasu, and there is a side plot that is this story. That is wild. Oh my god, that's so exciting. Yep. Man, Rachel knows it. well okay i don't know

the official story i know the story as told through the lens of a video game which means probably about as much as inuyasha does i i think that's honestly less so so so this guy this bamboo hewer he takes this little creature back to his wife to like be raised as a baby because it's just this little creature that he finds and um and lo and behold very convenient with the next day when he goes out to you know uh what is it uh hue bamboo he finds that within one of the stocks there's a stock of gold and that continues to happen every day after he finds this child inside the bamboo is someone paying him to raise this child it's the foster care system it gets weirder after three months the little one that they found has become a full-grown maiden a full-fledged woman if you would and uh so like renez may's

got nothing on her i went super fast little little yeah that girl takes seven years to age to full maturity or something like that. This is super fast. Reconnaissance is lagging. Little incontinence. Little ranch dressing. Ranch dressing. Resentment. Yes. Oh my god. That was my favorite one of the names you used.

Republican was my favorite. In case you're wondering, Textual Tension covers uh the best romance of our time twilight truly a formative read for us all yeah oh my god talk about a fairy tale uh so they named this little little creature that they find. They named her Lady Kaguya. Oh my god! I was wondering if you would respond to that. I can't believe that this is... What a beautiful name! I can't believe that this is a story that Inuyasha is based off of.

I had no idea. No, no, no, no. So it's not based off of it. We'll get into it. I'm going to explain it at the end my god i was not expecting kaguya i am so hype right now yes go on so anyone anyone that played in uh okami that's also the name of the character in the okami game so we got that going for us all right so now that she's three months old uh men from all over Japan are looking to hit that.

Yeah, that tracks. But Kaguya wouldn't let, like, good for Kaguya. She's like, I am three months old. None of you are going to so much as look at me. So, like, I think that she walked outside one day. All of the men of Japan were there. They all fell in love instantaneously and then she went inside because she was like none of this none of you are worth it i i just know

none of you are worth it girl know your worth know your worth and uh unfortunately her and it's very clearly stated that he's her foster dad. Like the guy who found her in the bamboo. It's like, hey, my little adorable daughter who is so beautiful and so perfect and everybody is in love with her. Listen, I'm not getting any younger. Can you like get married so I don't have to worry about you anymore because only a man can protect you? It's been fucking three months. It's been so long. I know.

I was going to say like. I was just born. Wow. back to you it's been fucking three months it's been so long i know i was gonna say like i was just born wow it's good thing you didn't have kids like like a regular kid i think that there may like she like yeah so i think that there was some courting that happened where like a bunch of men came and she was like no no no and that happened for a while but it's like at this point i would say she's a maximum five years old and so it's like hey dad how about you like chill so kaguya is like all right but like men are trash so i'll find some so dad i'll find someone to marry but they have to like they have to be someone worthy and they have to like have to do a task that I set for them.

Which all of the tasks are impossible. Classic. All of them. Classic fairy tale, dad. For Prince Ishizukuri, she wants the bowl of Buddha, which is literally a bowl that the Buddha ate out of. she wants the bowl of Buddha, which is literally a bowl that the Buddha ate out of from Prince Kira Mochi.

She wants, uh, the tree branch of jewels, which is literally a tree branch that grew, grew jewels. I like it. I want that too. Me too.

Uh, from the Dana goo, which is basically the, um, an, an advisor to the emperor. She wants the pelt of the fire rat. Does that sound familiar at all?

I want that too. R-O-U-S-S? R-O-U-S-S. Well, so the I don't know if you know this, but in the Idiyasha lore, Idiyasha actually wears that pelt, the pelt of the fire rat, because it makes him it makes it so that he does not feel flame

like he can never get burned or anything like that. That's a dope pelt. I want that. Deep lore. Deep lore. Deep lore. The second advisor to the emperor, she asks him to bring the rainbow jewel in the dragon's head.

And the Lord of Iso, the cowrie shell that the swallow brings out over the seaplane. Are you surprised that all these men fail? I know. I was like, how many suitors are there? the cowrie shell that the swallow brings out over the sea plane. Are you surprised that all these men fail? I know. I was like, how many suitors are there? There are a lot.

God, she's hot. She's hot. Also, that rainbow jewel sounds pretty fucking cool too. Yeah. I want all of these items. She's good taste. They all like,

they all go on these journeys and they all come back and well, quote unquote journeys. And they act like they've like suffered and they've toiled these journeys and they all come back and well quote unquote journeys and they act like they've like suffered and they've toiled and they've done all this stuff and they like and literally the thing that's supposed to be the pelt of the fire rat which is again fire resistant like it like she sets it on fire like immediately it's like yeah of course dog like this is not so they try to trick her they try to trick her yeah it's like what do you think i'm stupid yeah exactly but there's no way for me to test whether or not these are the right items yes like lighting the irrit the fire resistant

pelt on fire well it's still the jewel like the jewel-encrusted tree branch, literally the guys who created it come and are like, hey, that prince had us make that? Like, and he didn't pay us. Oh. Oh. Cheap ass. Oh. You're right. We've got a liar and a cheap ass, so you two are right out.

Well, the other ones, they did it. They faked it, too. Like, none of them could get what they actually set out. So she's like, cool. None of them got it. Sweet. I don't have to get married to any of these losers. But so unfortunately, though, or maybe fortunately, the emperor of Japan is now into her.

He saw one glimpse of her on that one day that she went outside, and he's like, oh, yeah, that's for me. I'm going to hit that. She is six years old now. It's got to be time. Just my type. Just my type. Six years old. That's my type.

Oh, boy. but kaguya so like the emperor sends like one of his like ladies in waiting or whatever to look at kaguya and kaguya will not come out to see this lady and the the lady in waiting is very offended by this and she goes back to the emperor and tells a story and the emperor goes to her foster dad and is like hey dude like your daughter won't come out and meet me and her foster dad's like um i don't know what to tell you bro i found her in some bamboo i have's like, oh, so you found her. This is what I interpreted from the story. This was where I got a little confused.

I think it's a little bit of cultural context. But the emperor is basically like, oh, so you found her in the wild, right? So I'll have a quote unquote hunt for her. And so that's what he does. So-unquote hunt for her and so that's what he does so he has a hunt for her where he but he it's like a very quote-unquote like silly hunt where he like brings out a carriage and is like oh yeah it's a hunt and so he like it kind of for whatever reason it forces her to come out of her home and he comes out to look upon her and literally she does not want to be perceived and so she vanishes yes i love that i love that journey for her i wish i could do that i do not wish to be

perceived um but then the emperor asks that she like resume being visible and so she's like i guess fine it's like beyonce swiper no swiping she kind of likes it maybe maybe she likes it a little bit but so but he like stays like not through the night but very late into the night like begging her like will you please come back and like live with me and be one of my ladies or whatever? And she's like, no, I want to stay here with my dad. Like, no, you're not cool enough for me. And eventually, like, they come to an impasse. The emperor just goes back home. He's like, fuck that.

Fuck that. She's a bitch anyway. She's not even that pretty. So a day comes when Lady Kaguya and I think it's been like I think at this point she might be like

nine or ten. So you know she's like she's getting up there. She's an adult. She's a really mature at this point. Lady Kaguya just starts watching the moon. Just starts watching it go across the sky back and forth back and forth every day every day and uh then she starts crying every time like all day every day whenever she sees the moon she starts crying and uh her dad's like yo what's wrong and she's like oh this world just sucks yeah absolutely same and he's like i mean valid but also like it's always been this way

and she's like no but it like really sucks. And it makes me sad. And so eventually, though, after eight months of crying, just like rotation crying. Girl, she's crying. The only time she doesn't cry is when the moon isn't in the sky. Hmm. When it's a new moon. Hmm. New moon. Oh, God. No more. isn't in the sky when it's a new moon hmm new moon no oh god no more sorry that was another idiasha reference but no uh so i thought you were referencing twilight again

that's where i went with it because i don't know any ash hey whatever yeah finally after eight months of crying over the moon uh she's like father and her ladies like her ladies in waiting learned the truth quote that she is no maid of this mortal land but the capital of moon land is my birthplace long ago it was decreed that i should descend upon the earth and abide there some while. But now is the time at hand when she, I must go back whence I came. For when yonder orb shall be at its fullest, a company of moonfolk will come down from the sky to bear me away. I love this. Also, duh, she's not from around here.

He found her in a bamboo shoot. Man, this side plot suddenly makes so much more sense from this video game. Because it's just in the middle of this whole-ass video game. Granted, you're playing a dog. It's a weird game. But in the middle of this whole-ass video game, you meet a girl with bunny ears, and you're like, who the hell are you? And she's Kaguya, and she's a moon lady. And it's a weird game but in the middle of this whole video game you meet a girl with bunny ears

and you're like who the hell are you and she's kaguya and she's a moon lady and it's like what out of nowhere well it makes so much more sense now kaguya tells her dad all of this and she also tells her dad i love you but you're not actually my dad my moon parents are waiting for me and they want to be real oh this is totally sailor moon i know i haven't known in here that it's totally sailor moon and so therefore we do have a talking cat because if we're vaguely referencing sailor moon there is a talking cat in sailor moon so it all comes together um literally the emperor sends troops to her home to like guard her against the moon people who are coming and she's like the moon people are gonna come bro like you can't stop she's not even my moon parents are coming for me moon mom moon dad will you come pick me up i'm scared i don't want to be here anymore

she's actually super sad she doesn't want to leave because she loves her earth dad she's like really upset to leave her earth dad and so like the moon people come they and it's described in the translation as angels you know that doesn't i don't know of course yeah yeah that sounds very like european influence to me yes well it's not pagan it's fine it was an old translation and when i say oh like yeah so anyway they're described as angels in this translation you know whatever they like make everyone put down their weapons because they're fucking like moon beings and uh they give her they give her a the there's like a robe of feathers that they give her that would like that she becomes a moon being again essentially when she puts it on and they also give her an elixir

that like takes away all of her pain and agony, like, from living this life. And what the moon beings say to her father is that, like, hey, she was here as a punishment for her, but as a gift to you. Punishment for her crimes. She did, and that's what they say.

There is something that she did. What did she do? They don't they say there is something that she did in she killed a guy they don't say she did something she had some sort of like indiscretion she killed her youngest sister by pushing her into a river and then her sister killed a guy

because of her they're all together well so she's six years on planet earth is a fitting punishment for that crime yeah it is yeah um and so they take her back to well so and it's really sad because her dad her foster her quote-unquote foster dad they offer him like this elixir that's supposed to take away like his pain and sorrow and he's like i, I'm not taking it. No, like, I don't want to forget about her. I don't want any, I don't want to lose it. Get rid of her in the beginning. Wasn't he like, you've been with me

long. You're old enough. Well, he wanted to marry her off so she would be safe. He was like, I don't want to die. And it was out of love, not out of like, no, he was like, he was like i don't want to die and it was out of love not out of like no he was like he was like i want you to be married so that someone will be there to take care of you and the emperor wanted to marry her that's pretty good i know but she's like people but well that's a good catch yeah i mean it's the best catch you can get, you know? I mean, I don't know. But anyway, so she goes and he's like, no, I don't want it. No, thanks. And so she goes back to the moon people.

Her dad goes to the emperor and explains what happens. And the emperor is like, well, this fucking sucks. I loved her. Aw. Did you? Did you still? He's really obsessed with her still he's really obsessed he's really obsessed and so he takes a scroll and takes it up a mountain and like burns it and so the message

is basically sent up to her to the moon somehow like it's a it's just like i will always love you kind of message and um yeah i know you said story i heard squirrel i may have said squirrel at this point i am over halfway through a bottle of wine so uh and i just told that story to send a message i do want to give a little bit of like people to the moon people but i do want to give some context of like in like because the funny thing about this is okay so the way that this relates back to inuyasha because i am trash is that uh this they use this character of Lady Kaguya for their second movie. Yes, there are movies. There are five of them. Of course there are.

The first two are the only ones worth watching, in my personal opinion. The first, yes. No, I actually, I totally co-signed that, 100%. Yes. And, uh, but she's actually an evil character who can stop time basically using the moon, I think. And, uh,

yeah. What? Yeah. It doesn't matter. It's fine. Yeah. So that's, that's it.

That's it. I'll be honest. I don't see a lot of ways in which this can be fixed. She comes down to Earth, sure. But then she's like, no, I'm not into you. Bye. And then goes back home. That sounds great.

Yeah, I love that. And I also love that the Emperor is still into it. And she's just like, okay. Okay. Sorry about it. I don't. I think that i the thing i would change is that i think that there are some pretty weird laws going up in moon land like i don't know why she was sent down there

i don't know why i want the whole backstory on her crimes yeah sounds like it's a badass story. It has to be a fun short story to read. It has to be something Sailor Moon related. Oh, yeah. It has to be. She came from the moon. Margie, did you have any, besides that, did you have any other fixes? I think in the writing of the story that I read, it makes Kaguya seem like a much weaker character,

but that I'm telling this story to you guys. And you're like, no, she was saying no to everyone and doing what she wanted. And so I think that I would like change the way it was originally written so that she's a little bit more of like a dynamic character of like, cause I don't think,

I think that all that we heard from Kaguya was what we, she didn't want. We never heard what she did want. So like the only point you so like i think that we knew that she loved her dad but that was really it which is kind of sad like she her the character of kaguya is all about the people other people like how much she loves her moon parents how much she loves her moon parents, how much she loves her, like her foster dad. And, but not really about what she wants. Yeah.

Maybe what she wanted just wasn't on earth. Just was same. It's back home. Fair. Maybe she wants it. Wanted a, um, dog,

a dog demon, a hot dog demon. I mean, honestly, that's how I fix the story. Where's, where's the hot dog demon a hot dog demon that's i mean honestly that's how i fix the story i don't think any of us were right i have a question we're half team no i think well rachel you you okay you had predicted some fairy nonsense which is or oni yeah oni nonsense Or Oni? Yeah. Oni nonsense. Was that Oni nonsense? Eh. It was wild. I knew that you guys were not going to predict the moon people coming in.

Because I wish I had. No, I'm so smart. Rachel also predicted bamboo used to imprison a demon. And I don't see that. I don't think there's enough evidence that that wasn't right. That's true. Because it was used to imprison her. I will say see that. I don't think there's enough evidence that that wasn't right. That's true. That's why I used to imprison her. I will say, the minute you said that he found her in bamboo,

if I had known that going into it, I could have predicted it. But totally off the mark. Yeah, because that's how predictions work. Well, yeah, you're right. It just took me a minute to remember what it actually was. No, the thing that I think I would change is, if the bamboo cutter was getting old, like he was worried about dying, why not let him come hang out on the moon too? And like hang out with his daughter. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, that's very sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes me sad. I don't know. Yeah, he wasn't allowed to go to the moon's great. I don't know. He wasn't allowed to go to the moon. I got the feeling

that the moon was kind of like the elves in Lord of the Rings. I was going to say he wasn't a ring bearer so he didn't get to go. He physically can't be on the moon. Or spiritually. But he should have been because he was

really sweet and he was just looking after his like little little you know nine-year-old foster daughter um nine-year-old human adult daughter they found her bamboo but if she would but honestly that actually made me feel better when the moon people came down they were like yeah this is a punishment for her prior crimes like okay so she's older than nine she's older than nine like wait how old was she when she committed a crime she was a baby when she came to earth well yeah they like put her in a baby mortal body but presumably she's been like around for a while yeah she was what do you guys okay last my question to you guys what is her crime that's what i want to know i know i'm giving rachel one and a half points i i love that i feel like that was so close

yeah you can't prove she's not a demon i sorry. You can't prove that she didn't murder her younger sister either. So, you know. She is a demon in the Inuyasha movie. So, yeah. Well, is she a demon or is she like some sort of weird being? She's like a yokai. She's sort of, well, she's some sort of weird being that like, well, Doraku wants to eat.

Yeah. It's a good movie. It's a weird it's a it's a good movie it's a weird movie but it's a good so weird it's so weird it's a show more even in that movie no no it's a bummer no so i didn't watch that one as much as i watched the first one yeah the first one is really good but anyway that's enough we should stop tangenting about. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm sorry. I will say this. I,

uh, the, the, that was the funny thing about it though, is that like I used any Asha as a jumping off point, but it had nothing like literally the only thing to do with this, nothing to do with it, which is good because the other two people who don't watch any Asha or have never watched it,

like in the room, you room, equal footing there. I mean, honestly, it was the most on-brand and perfect jumping off point for us ever. That was wonderful. I loved it. That was a very beautiful story. I mean, it was sad. It definitely didn't have a happy ending. I wouldn't say that it had an unhappy ending.

Yeah, it was just sort of neutral. Here's the weird thing about it is that when she drinks that elixir, she no longer has any sorrow or woes. So she's not unhappy. It's really her dad down on Earth who's unhappy because he misses her. Which makes me unhappy. He chose it. He chose it because he didn't drink the el me unhappy. He chose it. He chose it because he didn't drink the elixir.

He had the choice. They were like, you can drink this elixir and not feel any more sorrow. And he chose to not drink it. What if he drank the elixir and that was his ticket up to the moon? He missed his ticket to the moon. I feel like that's pretty duplicitous of the moon people then. Because you should never drink something that if you don't know exactly what it is. That's very true.

It feels very Fae. Because like with her, she drank an elixir and her sorrow and stuff went away. So they give it to him and be like, oh, yeah, your sorrow and stuff will go away. Like, I don't know. Maybe that's the trick. Yeah, that feels like the trick yeah man japanese like folklore and fairy tales are so much they're just so awesome because they're so buck wild and i love it so much i do try to think every time though when i read a fairy tale or something like a folklore or something like that I'm like this is meant to

teach some sort of lesson like to children or young adults or whatever about life or whatever and I'm like and in this way I'm like I don't know what the lesson is I'm really struggling to find a lesson that happens a lot in fairy tales though we've kind of we started trying to do that where we're like what's the moral of this

and it's not so much that it's trying to teach children something it's just they're more like just folk stories like oral stories like meant to explain more than meant to yeah teach or just straight up meant to entertain like we kind of did it we did a bit of a a dive into the history behind a lot of Grimm's fairy tales and how they collected these stories. And a lot of the stories were told by adult women to other adult women just to pass the time when they were spinning or doing some other chores. Or very, very often a drunk dude in a tavern. Or that, yeah. But it usually was stories being told by adults to other adults and children in in in other contexts but like you know these stories are mostly

folk stories to entertain and not necessarily like teach a particular lesson i kind of love that like it's kind of comforting to know that we've been doing that for millennia because oh yeah with all the social media and stuff like tiktok and everything out there it's kind of comforting to know that we've been doing that for millennia because oh yeah with all the social media and stuff like tiktok and everything out there it's kind of like but we've always been doing this like we've always been trying to distract ourselves from reality exactly it's like they didn't have movies back then so they told each other stories like dope stories yeah yeah well that's what i got that's amazing yeah that was a great story bargy thank you for that i love that you guys loved it because i was reading it and i was like this is freaking wild what is this the moon when the moon folk came in i was like when the

moon people come in and you're 90 into the the story. That is honestly why we started the podcast because we read fairy tales. That was a common interest that we had and we would constantly be like, what the fuck? Just happened. Exactly. Just the best. Well, thank you both so much. It was so much fun having you on the show um we adore you tell our listeners where they can find you and go listen um oh man we are on all of your favorite

pod catchers at textual tension and we are on all of social media textual tension pod um pretty much across the board i think technically our twitter is textual no. It's T-Tension Pod, but who goes on Twitter anymore anyway? Yeah. And if you search for Textual Tension Pod, it's the second one that comes up. So we just say it's Textual Tension Pod across the board. Yeah. We have a Discord. Yeah.

Yeah. We have a Discord that you can check out through our Instagram. The link is in our bio. And we have amazing conversations over there. And it's just a really wholesome little tiny community. So we love it. It's really fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Everyone there is just delightful. We share everything from book recommendations to food that we're making to projects like crochet projects. Cats and dogs and other furry friends. Pets. It's just a good time. So check that out.

It's pretty wonderful. Sometimes we read really, really insane romance novels together. Like my personal favorite, Love, Laugh, Lich. It was way better than you'd expect it to be. It's a good time.

Love, Laugh, Lich. It was honestly better than you think. honestly better than you think. Much better than you think. Yeah, we have a good time. So we love to get book recommendations and to hear from y'all. Yes, we do. Hit us up.

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sister kills your younger sister and you run away, maybe fall in love with a musical instrument out of your sister's corpse. Sounds great. If you're an old man who finds a little baby in a bamboo in a piece of bamboo and you raise that baby as your own and she becomes beautiful and perfect and the emperor even comes after her but hey

the moon people come and the moon people take her away maybe she should just drink that elixir maybe she just should maybe she should give it a try you know and they all lived happily ever just should. It's been a trip. You know? And they all lived happily ever

after. The end.