Journal: The Remarkable Doings of Cannonby
Final Fantasy IVth Wall
Narrator
Cannonby, Bevan, Boris and a partially broken ZX Ilfracombe are still combing the surrounding area for signs of Teal and Bludonna. Although ZX is still Ilfracombing. And the Smiths sang still ill, between backcombing. Will they find them this week, or will I just get bogged down in silly wordplay? You'll have to watch the results show to find out.
BORIS: There they are!
BEVAN: Really? How fortuitous.
BORIS: Actually, on second glance I can see that it isn't them.
BEVAN: Oh bin bags, I suppose it would really be too early in the episode to actually find them, especially considering no one really knows where the story is going yet.
BORIS: Well, considering that the script is now fully written and in the hands of those Welsh blokes in rhonddaradio then clearly we NOW know what is going to happen, because the script is finished.
BEVAN: Yes, but I mean that NOW as this script is being written we don't yet know what the story is going to be.
BORIS: And what if this script is never finished, what if the person who is writing it just stops writing now?
(long pause)
BEVAN: Yes well that's not going to happen is it. Obviously it is finished otherwise they wouldn't have started acting it out.
BORIS: How can you be sure!? Look, I am going to look further down the page and see whether there is a full episode or whether it just cuts of sharply.
BEVAN: Boris, you can't do that! Even given the added imaginary freedom of the radio medium the hypothetical situation you are suggesting is completely unworkable, come back.
BORIS: Right, apparently Teal and Bludonna get captured by the Priests of Vinehaven.
BEVAN: Oh for heaven's sake, we aren't even mean't to be aware of the Priests of Vinehaven yet.
BORIS: Don't worry about it, Doktor Li Faiseas and Uh Nurse are going to fill us in about them later on.
BEVAN: How is that even possible? They won't ever find us in this dense jungle.
BORIS: Yeah they will, the Narrator will jump in any minute now when the script editor realises that the characters have taken the script down a fourth-wall exploding and fairly self-indulgent tangent -
BEVAN: (interrupting) Again.
BORIS: And he'll sort it all out. It also becomes apparent that the scripteditor is annoyed that the writer has only been using you and me to talk, when Cannonby is mean't to be right next to us, and if we're all being honest we know that Cannonby wouldn't stand silently by while such unfettered meta-analysis is flying around.
BEVAN: That's very true, the Captain does love his unfettered meta-analysis, especially when it unfolds play-by-play, as it's happening.
CNBY: Very true, Bevan, I absolutely adore unfettered meta-analysis.
BORIS: (excitedly) I just read in the script that there'll be some more poetry later on!
Narrator
Oh god, this is as poor an excuse for a script as we've ever had for Cannonby so far. I suppose at the very least it sounds as if it's being clever, which is one of the ways to excuse the fact that it certainly isn't funny. Hopefully there'll be something poignant later on as well, that also distracts very well. I'll have to have the characters fitted with a self-awareness alarm so I can put a stamp to these tangents as they happen. Luckily, at that very moment Doktor Li Faiseas and his trusty Uh Nurse burst into the clearing. Meaning that they walk out of the undergrowth, not that they enter the clearing and then burst. Although that would provide some gore, which the story has been missing of late.
DOKTOR: Aha! Just the folks for which I was searching / Captain, clubber, cyborg, urchin.
BEVAN: I do not look like an urchin.
DOKTOR: Hush man, we've no time to squabble / We've come to the forest from where the ground is cobbled.
BORIS: Digh-dunniaets, yeah, we met you there.
BEVAN: Indeed we did, although we never met Uh Nurse. But since he was added into the story with a minimum of fuss we'll just behave like we did meet him.
BORIS: Well of course you didn't meet him, you had to stay outside of the clinic with the Captain because you were both causing a ruckus and punning.
CNBY: (laughing) Yes, yes! We do that don't we?
BORIS: Uh Nurse was busy inside the clinic, treating Bludonna.
BEVAN: Well that's conveniently cleared that up. Good job everyone.
Spider Narrator
Oho, everyone celebrates with a slap on the back and smiling.
NURSE: Argh! We're all celebrating like hubristic cretins / There are things we must be getting on with.
DOKTOR: True! We have come to warn you of the vilest priests / Who within Vinehaven stow their seats / Who brew their wine with the aid of manmeat.
CNBY: What in the name of Snow's cretinously mawkish dialogue are you talking about?
BEVAN: Yes indeed, what in the name of Vanille's wildly wandering accent are you talking about?
BORIS: Yohoho! What in the name of the restrictively linear gameplay are you talking about?
Announcement
If you've just tuned in, you are listening to a segment of a long-running comedy serial entitled Cannonby. In the prior exchange, the characters were spouting a long string of contrived in-jokes referencing the newly released game Final Fantasy XIII. If you find this annoying, or if you feel left out by the incredibly niche aim of these jokes, then The ACRE apologise sincerely, then proceed to two-facedly tell you to play some Final Fantasy games, you foolish dweeb.
CNBY: What in the name of a newly overhauled active time battle system was that announcement?
NURSE: While this silly sausagery is a lot of fun / We're getting absolutely nothing done.
DOKTOR:
This may not be the jingle for a section called Made Up Word
Yet it is undeniably absurd
Now shut up and listen so that I may be heard.
While you think it's very funny,
To make niche references to a new RPG,
It may amuse you, but it don't amuse me.
It devalues the tradition of Tales of Cannonby.
In the studio you have Adam and Dafydd,
as well as a guest, and probably a squatter,
Whose name is probably Conor,
But its in the story we characters live,
and we wish you'd ruined the script with a blotter,
or at least found Teal and Bludonna.
But no! They've been captured by the priests,
That you wrote in on a whim,
And on their captives flesh they'll feast,
As sure as an Agian Spider can swim.
But you don't care, oh writer of mine,
When they use their captives blood to make wine,
and when they boil their spleens in a soup tureen,
You won't care.
Narrator
Because I'll be playing Final Fantasy XIII.
Spider Narrator
Bye bye now, come back next week when there'll be more references to Final Fantasy XIII, in a not-so-final Cannonby!
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