Fucking Day: Can You Take Me Maia

Well its that time a year again when my phone starts to tell me how interesting I am because of which songs it told me about did I listen to the most, and it got me thinkin: “What if we did that for books?” because, as my phone said: I am Curious and Moody. For it has come to my attention that many of those gathered here with us today will admit out loud to: reading and enjoying the fictional novel, even though anyone whos read one knows that anyone else who has also read one? and keeps readin em? Is a verified pervert. Not in a judgy way, it just seems a fact that the frequent consumer of novels has somethin between a tolerance and a appetite for weird shit that sorta makes it seem like maybe we're all privately michael swaim’s dad.

I mean, we gave that one a oscar for best book in the world in 2013.

So while were bein honest maybe we can also say that one way of answerin What’s your favorite book or song or whatever is just what your wrap-ups say: it’s whichever one you consumed the most times. You might not like it at first, but numbers dont lie, and maybe you can learn to accept and even be curious about a man that ‘parrently listened to Pink Pony Club 743 times in 2024 (that might sound excessive but dont worry i dident weep triumphantly EVERY time i heard it). So by that metrick, for me the number one novel at the top of my lifetime rick dees top forty would be:

Probably silly to try and explain why, like trying to explain why peanut butter cups are good, but just pretty much every october/november i get that feeling that its time to go back and just soak in that good good rabbit heroism and adventurenous for a while. So its maybe understandable why I might give some of the author’s other works a try. A understandable, terrible, mistake. Now some of you might already be connecting the dots here and seein some possible vectors of how were gonna get from Richard Adams’ nice little story about rabbits learning raftin technology to our Upsetting and/or Fucking Hot Dog artifact for today. Is it the famously grim animation adaption of the Watership Down, where the BBC or whoever got all artsy about rabbits getting gassed to death in there holes?

Nooooo, that’s not it!

Is it Adams’ other book and animation adaptation about the medical experiment dogs what also die and kill upsettingly and one just has his whole goddamn brain surgery out and exposed for the whole thing?

Nooooooooo, thats not it! Not to gatekeep, but these are both normie shit honestly. C’mon now, this aint buzzfeed.

Diggin deepers: Is it his one book about the girl who turns out to be a ghost I think but she still dies of a ectopic pregnacy and they made a pretty sexy movie about it with Meg Tilly?

Folks, you know I wish it was that one, and we’re gettin warmer but…

NOOOOOOO THAT”S NOT IT!!

It’s this:

Aka this:

Also aka as:

Which it is nice that you can fight off intruders with it but it maybe isent the wisest idea to pitch a comedy article on a 1000-pages fantasy novel. But also? Back around to nice again that Im livin a life where I get to learn that the hard way.

And you can probably tell from those different cover paintins that this isn’t wabbits anymore, this is quite a switch in tone. How did we get here? Well, the legend is that Adams first got the story-tellers bug when he was telling his rabbit adventures as driving-in-the-car entertainments to his daughters and they just begged him to write them down and publish them and have a writing career. (Which: I resonance with that pretty hard as I am also only here writing this today not at all because of ego and vanity but rather purely because of the plaintive pleadins of my loved ones to unbushel my light.) And then, like so many other new authors, when people loved the good adventure story he wrote right out of the gate, Rich took that as a green light that ALL of his private imagination thoughts needed to get writ down and seen by the world. You know the pattern:

“Oh you liked that one book I wrote that was honestly for young people? Well wait until you read my write-up of the decades-long single-player role-playing game I’ve been carrying around in my head!” and then before you know it we find ourselves here:

Maybe we need more Rothfuss-type exits, honestly.

Anyway all this is to say that Adams followed up Watership Down with a “Beklan Empire” series, he wrote the first book in 1974, it was called Shardik (Stephen King liked it), and then he wrote the second book in 1984 but actually that one is Book 1 you idiot and thats the one were lookin at called Maia. Adams already knows exactly how your saying it in your head and nope:

I’m not gonna put the map here I know you can all see it in your heads and also probably how proud Richard was of it. But here’s a bit of the npc wiki which seems to have kinda a theme to it:

And then we start the book proper, and honestly? People who liked Watership Down because of the detailed descriptions of every plant and nature things are not going to be disappointed…

But then we zoom in a bit and we start getting some detailed descriptions of some other parts of nature:

Which you can imagine my confusion the first time reading this, with only Watership Down formin my expectations. Fantasy babes swimmin nudely is wonderful of course, we love our Beastmasters and Sheenas and such but that cant be what this is, can it? Surely nothing untoward would be flowin from the mind of a gentlemen such as this?

Maybe it’s just a one time character description thing where he got a lil cheeky.

Alright not just a one time thing then huh. And then pretty quick we get to some descriptions of (thankfully, mutually enthusiastic) sexual congress the likes of which a brave band of rabbits could never:

So what are we dealing with here? Let’s turn to the words of the author himself: here is a pretty illuminatin interview where Richard is old and rambly and the interviewer is so droll and dry one cant help but imagine maybe somehow its Michael Fassbender exercisin some very british patience indeed with this odd writer fella:

But anyway this is what Richard had to say about what he had in mind when he wrote Maia:

You know, that part about: “And then she and then she” reminds me of another british gent who took it upon himself to apply private pen to public paper in service of erotic imagination to the delight of all.

So yeah it turns out that this book is actually a sexual epic of the low-fantasy variety, which: i dont actually know if im using that term right. Its fantasy in the sense that its a made-up world and low in the sense of actually doing anything interesting with magic or monsters. So not even as fun as Beastmaster or Red Sonja, its less like that and

In fact, I think if you were to sort of cast Lana Clarkson (RIP) in your head as Maia that would be pretty accurate. And also more ethical, i’m not going to go into a lot of detail here for my own brain health but when it comes to character ages, Adams was fine using Anime rules which: i dont say that by way of defense but rather to bury Adams and Anime together. Not bury em all the way, just a lil shovelful a dirt on the faces of Richard Adams and Anime so they know we mean it: Knock that shit off.

But anyway, whereas most of those Gutter Conan movies from the 80s werent real critically exclaimed, the establishment thought Maia was pretty good!

That is pretty fun, I hope maybe im also remembered for Keepin Above the Pulpy Mire.

And then from the new yorker:

Ah, the fantasy language makes this okay for a child to pick up? Lets test that shall we? For real: I’m just going to turn to a random page…

Yeah i dont even think Id want my mother-in-law coming across this one, let alone having to explain to Trayton that no, hes not allowed to use the glitter that way.

Okay let’s try another one:

Ok thats better, a child would never understand that deldas means boobs, this is a excellent strategy.

Yes, perfectly child safe. And don’t worry, deldas isent the only fantasy word: instead of penis he says zairn and of course kura means of performative dance-recital/slash public orgy. The exoticizin’ of black people doesn’t get code words, however. So go ahead I guess and just leave your paperback copy layin around wherever! For additional protection, even though this book has lots of weird sex stuff in it, it has 0 eff-words! Adams opted to instead use a tasteful euphanism for the coital act:

He uses it a lot:

Im grateful im writing this the day after thanksgiving instead of before.

But perhaps i am being prudish and hippocritical about all this. Dont i generally consider myself to be on the side of reducing shame about sex and sexuality and celebrating open discussion and creativities about our bedroom lives? C’mon sissyneck, Be Better. So you know what? Richard Adams, you have my blessin after all! Gold star for your imagination, for example about your character Sencho, who we learn was a poor orphan what machiavellied his way to a position of power and for ultimate revenge on the world ate all the food all the time and endulged his every whim like having a bunch of “servant” girls who did combination handjobs and enemas for him at his parties:

This makes me think that Adams had a different experience watchin the Jabba the Hut parts than maybe the rest of us did.

And another Best Lad sticker for Richard for coming up with the fantasy high priest queen Forina who: as part of their church services, everyone would watch her be just the best at riding some kind of god-statue sybian:

That one’s funny because Richard seems like he realizes just how much he might be tellin on himself and gets a lil defensive and starts high-horsin us like only a true master of the King’s Tongue and History is able:

Alright alright, calm down Richard. Ain’t none of us here lookin to take it upon ourselves to condemn what you wrote as lewd or unnatural. Just as long as you remember our talk about keeping everybody above age from here on out. But your dead so i guess its too late for that.

Or maybe not too late! I’m seein that there was a recent successful kickstarter to make a illustrated version of Maia and I think made exactly the type of change we’re talkin about:

That’s nice, but maybe don’t include em in your sex book in the first place and then your estate wont have to edit em. But i guess this means it’s good and ok to spend 10000$ on one of the original chapter-heading arts:

So after all that, it looks like what i’m sayin is: just write whatever you want i guess. But maybe one note of caution i still have for us all is: when you write a just absolute brick of a dirty dungeons and dragons book, just think carefully about who you dedicate it to. Like imagine your partner’s dad for a second. Now also imagine what if he wrote a great big wild sex book, just chockful of fantasy slave babes and bastin and shittin and pissin, and when you got the copy he had delivered to your house, because of course he did, you both opened it up and first thing saw this:

That is for real messed up In the name of jesus christ amen.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Brian Seiler, to whom we count ourselves fortunate, for without him there'd be no bastin and shittin and pissin.

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