that last myth reminded me of this little doozy:

So this dude buys some wood
so far so good
he’s a carpenter, that’s what he do
where problems start happening is when he starts sawing that shit
and the wood is all OWW FUCK STOP THAT
and the carpenter is not a fucking sadist
so he sells it to someone who is:
GEPETTO THE HOBO
yeah this dude is so poor
that apparently the sole means of income still available to him
is puppeteering.
my friends
you know you have sunk low in this life
when your get-rich-quick scheme
is making little wooden midgets punch each other in the head

but so gepetto takes this wood home and starts whittling it
and all of a sudden this huge wooden dong starts growing out of it
and he figures that would only be useful for a certain kind of puppet show
so he quickly turns the block of wood upside down and makes that into the nose
but things soon take a turn for the worse
because when Gepetto is done whittling
what is sitting there in front of him
is a fucking FULLY SENTIENT TALKING PUPPET
like, this dude just invented Chucky
and what’s worse is that Gepetto HATES children
but that’s okay, because apparently Pinnochio hates everybody
so he immediately runs away and gets caught by the cops
probably fucking up a poodle or something because puppets don’t have souls
and then the cops turn around and arrest Gepetto for wooden child abuse
and Pinnochio is all alone in the house with all these knives and shit
and that’s when we are introduced to Pinnochio’s lovable Conscience,
Jiminy Cricket!

So pinnochio throws a hammer at him and he dies.
Then he burns his feet off in the fire to see what pain is like
then when gepetto gets out of jail he tells him he needs new feet
and also that he has decided to go to school
even though puppets can’t learn
then he pawns all his schoolbooks to see a puppet show
even though he could just look at himself in a fucking mirror for free
PINNOCHIO IS A FIRST CLASS CITIZEN IS WHAT I’M SAYING

then for some reason the puppeteer at the show gives pinnochio like 500 bucks
and this fox and this cat see him and they’re like YO
DID YOU KNOW THERE IS A CITY IN A FAR OFF LAND
CALLED IDIOT CITY
AND IF YOU BURY YOUR MONEY OUTSIDE OF IT THEN A MONEY TREE WILL GROW??
HERE, WE WILL SHOW IT TO YOU AND ON THE WAY WE WILL ROB YOU
and Pinnochio is a puppet, so he sees no problem with this

so they go traveling
and the fox and the cat try to rob him
which doesn’t work because he hides the money in his mouth
then they try to hang him
which doesn’t work because he is a puppet
and then the author realizes he’s gone like a million pages without any fairies
so this blue fairy shows up and scares off the filthy animals
and pinnochio is like “hey let’s be siblings”
because puppets have no concept of how families work
which is what makes them such efficient serial killers

so they decide to buy a house
but they need to make a down payment
so the blue fairy is like “do you have any money bro?”
and Pinnochio is like “what? no, i just got mugged”
and SPROING
it turns out that pinnochio has a secret disonesty fetish
that makes his dick-nose expand every time he fibs
man, doesn’t fib just sound like something really gross?
like man I went to take the trash out the other day
and there were these two naked hobos
just fibbin’ away at each other like a couple of scabby polecats
hm
maybe it’s only gross when it’s embedded in a really gross sentence.
ANYWAY
the blue fairy tells him to stop telling all those sexy lies
and he grudgingly obliges
and then the fair summons a flock of dick-dick birds
i mean woodpeckers
to whittle down Pinnochio’s raging lie-boner
and they buy the house and invite Gepetto to live with them

but then things are going to well, so the fox and the cat come back
and they’re like HEY PINNOCHIO DO YOU REMEMBER THAT MONEY TREE?
and he’s like YEAH
LEMME GO BURY ALL THE REST OF MY MONEY RIGHT QUICK
and then obviously those filthy animals steal it
and pinnochio goes to prison for being so stupid

but then he gets out of prison
he gives a snake a stroke and pranks the shit out of some dogs
and then goes back to his cottage
and EVERYONE IS GONE
the fairy is dead and Gepetto has been eaten by a shark
and pinnochio nearly drowns trying to follow him to his watery grave
and wakes up in a slave labor camp
where he has to work for the blue fairy
who is not only not dead apparently
and also his sister
but is now also his mother i guess?
cause that ain’t weird
and he’s so relieved that she’s not dead
that he agrees to go to school so he can become a real boy
except who the fuck is he kidding
who wants to be a real boy
when being a fake boy means you can’t be lynched
and you can burn off your feet in a fire and just buy new ones
and I assume this is why Pinnochio mainly uses his schoolbooks as projectile weapons
and then runs away to a vast carnival of sex, booze, and cigars
just like any real boy would

but then there’s some weird thing where the carnival turns him into a donkey
because fun is evil
and then he gets sold to a butcher
who tries to drown him
but then fish just eat all the donkey skin off him
and then he leaves
consequence-free, once again
all thanks to his wooden body and conspicuous lack of a soul
HONESTLY I DO NOT KNOW WHY THIS GUY WANTS TO BE A REAL BOY

so then Pinnochio is swimming in the ocean
and he manages to get himself eaten by a giant shark
which normally I wouldn’t consider an achievement
except that this happens to be the same shark who ate Gepetto
who is still living inside of it, on a giant boat which it also ate
(this, obviously, is why I was reminded of Jonah and the Whale)
and then the shark dies, obviously
of malnutrition
due to its apparent inability to digest anything it eats
coupled with an unfortunate tendency to eat things like boats
and pinnochio and Gepetto escape
and they end up working for a farmer
who has a donkey who actually used to be one of Pinnochio’s bros
back at the carnival, you know
and after long months of ceaseless labor
Pinnochio takes the 40 cents he has earned at this fucking sweatshop farm
and goes into town to buy himself maybe some food or something
but then he runs into a snail who says the blue fairy is sick and needs cash
and Pinnochio believes him
because snails are naturally trustworthy
because why would you spend like 36 hours crawling over to the corner
if you were going to fucking fib about it
so pinnochio wires her his 40 cents
and then the next morning he wakes up human
with a magic bag full of pimp clothes
and like a million dollars
because… it was time for the story to end?

so the moral of the story
is that being a soulless wooden puppet
may set you up for a life of rad adventures and zero consequences
but in the end
having a human heart
is super overrated

THE END.