Comic 853: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

[Comic title: Consecutive Vowels; alt text: But the windows! What if there's a voyuer (sic) watchi--wait, now I'm turned on too.]

Megan has another boyfriend. This has filled Randall with untold jealousy, and Randy will deal with it the only way he knows how: by writing comics in which Megan deeply desires to fuck him, but is also insane. She must be insane--what other reason could she have for loving a man who is not Randall Munroe?

"But my alt texts, Megan! Read them, and see how clinical, how stilted my love for you could be! MEGAAAAAN!"

This comic means a great deal to Randall. You can tell, because it has a chart in it, and also because it contains a swear in large and italic prints. But the most important way to tell is this: in the comic, Megan is rendered helpless before Randall's use of a word with five consecutive vowels in it. Yes, she is the one demanding that Randall employ his "Black Hat Guy" to "Install BSD" in her "ball pit," but he has all the power. The power of the word queueing.

In this fantasy Randy even pretends to be shocked as she flings herself at him. "Oh, no, we mustn't," he says. "No, don't, stop," he says.

"What's that? Don't stop?" she replies.

The chart is there, but meaningless, as Megan acknowledges in the first panel. This comic contains only two characters: Randy, and the unbridled lust-machine that is Megan.

Lesser men may read this most erotic of porns and assume that Randall forgot to put in an actual joke, or that he is too lazy to even bother with some basic spell-check on the word "voyeur," but they miss the point entirely. This is not a comic, but the fevered, inspired passions of a brilliant artist. It needs no joke--the burning passion of the characters, ripped directly from the tormented mind of the author, stands on its own as the greatest work of art since that one lady just sat there stared at a bunch of people in MoMA.

Comic 852: Of Poles

[Noted Satanic carrion fowl "Ravenzomg" has emailed me this work of perfection. Look upon its works, ye mighty, and despair. -Ed.]

Rob fumbled with his keys, anxious to open the door to his apartment. The air was cool, but he knew he'd find warmth in his home. Sliding the door open, he tossed his fingerless gloves (so not Hipster, they're just really convenient) onto the table and pushed the door behind him, arching his back to stretch his stiff, swollen muscles.

The day of biking hadn't gone according to plan (the biking keeps me fit, he reminds himself, it's totally not a Hipster thing), and he'd just barely escaped a two-car collision that could've pounded him into limp, lifeless man-meat.

Rob took the time to slip the shoes of his perfectly formed feet, standing a moment as the blood flushed into them in the absence of their binding, his long, curved appendages now free to enjoy the hardwood floors (See? Totally not Hipster, he nearly said aloud to the room).

As he walked into the living room the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, raised with anticipation of the unforeseeable. He paused, as if stopped by a barrier, and pushed himself with concerted effort through the doorway into the dark beyond.

“Hello, Rob,” a voice called, and he gasped.

“It can't be!”

“But it is I, Rob, indeed.”

“That stilted prose! I'd know it anywhere!” Rob lurched forward, and with a jerk swung his arm at the light switch, hammering it on as his pulse raised. He could feel it, he thought, pulsing in his entire body. Despite his injuries— or perhaps because of them, he thought with a mad grin— he felt eager and ready to face his enemy. “Randall!”

“Yes it is, Rob.” He lay there, lounging on the couch with a laptop on the angular coffee table, the networking window still open, flashing with a pulsing necessity. His wi-fi! The bastard!

“How did you get in here?” Rob ejaculated hoarsely, gritting his teeth in a mix between shock and agony, tweaked with the slightest pleasure. At last, here was his chance to show the Man what he truly felt.

“I know quite a lot about you,” Randall moaned.

“The blog! You know how I feel about you?” Rob stepped closer, clenching and unclenching his fists in time with his pulse. Thump. Thump. Thump. The rhythmic beat was ecstasy to him, and he knew that it was only just beginning.

“I know how you think you would like me to think you think of me,” Randall replied with agonizing pronoun use.

“That's what she said!” Rob retorted, and Randall's face for the briefest moment, those perfect contours before so controlled and suave, slipped into wide-eyed pleasure.

“You remembered!”

“Number 174, it was always my favourite.” Rob sat down, mere inches from Randall, his eyes beginning to water. “I used to love your work, I used to be your holy warrior! But you've changed! And — I just can't stand to see you desecrate your holy relics, those sacred 300 comics of ere!”

“But Rob,” he says, his voice now a whisper, “It was all a lure. I'd become so popular, that I— I....” his voice broke and Rob's hand flung to Randall's bony shoulder, gripping it with an intensity he didn't think possible.

“I always thought you'd forgotten me...” Rob moaned, but Randall shook his head, eyes glistening.

“No, Rob, you were always my favourite. This was my way.... to reach you.”

They sat in silence only a moment before the inevitable occurred, and Rob was all too pleased that he lurched forward first, his lips all to eager to meet their match, the match he knew was always destined —Fated! He wanted to scream. This union was ordained by a Fate the universe could not explain.

Randall pushed Rob back, straddling him in one fell motion before Rob could feel slighted, instantly knowing that that riding position had been used on no other before him. Randall leaned in, and Rob sighed, tasting his breath on his lips. Cheetos. Not the cheap knock-off brand, but the real thing. But as Randall leaned closer, their lips mere inches apart, Rob's joy a throbbing reality that threatened to envelope both of them, when Randall paused, uncertain.

“What is it?” Rob whispered softly, his hand caressing Randall's side.

“Pole-vaulting.”

“You.... you want to try that?” Rob asked, his cheeks flushing. How did he know his every desire? Truly, no other man could love Rob like Randall could.

But Randall had swung his shapely thigh over Rob's tender midsection ( and not from the accident, he realized, grabbing the laptop and typing away hurriedly.

“You know gravity's different depending upon where you are?” Randall asked rhetorically— he was at work now, and he needed no input.

Rob sighed, tears flowing all too eagerly. But these were not the tears of anticipation, nor ecstasy: They felt like his lifeblood, flowing straight out of his eye sockets. His hand reached all over Randall, daring a response.

But none would come; the man was at work now, with no time for that sweet distraction. His fans depended upon him, Rob realized. And that's why there could never be a Mrs. Randall.

“What if someone re-evaluated the old records based upon that?” Randall's voice called from the living room, as Rob poured himself a heaping mug of whisky.

“I bet they'd be really aaaaaaangry!” he continued. Rob was silent. He knew it had to end, he always knew it. But he'd bought a second laptop, and damn straight he was going to use it. Holding the whisky in one hand, he walked to his room and withdrew that laptop, used only the night before.

“And, since they're athletes, they'd be great at athlete stuff! Y'know?”

Rob sat down next to Randall, setting his laptop besides his. He opened the window and typed the words into his browser slowly.

He closed his eyes, and opened them to see the XKCD site on the computer in front of him. To the right, the second laptop was open to XKCDsucks, ready to post a scathing comment on the thread he'd created. But that would come later— for now, he had to draw his XKCD comic and upload it before midnight.

As he sat alone in the room, his midsection still numb from an accident he barely remembered, he started to wonder: Did I create Randall, or did I create Rob? Who did I used to be before all this?

But there never would be an answer. Just as there could never be a Mrs. Randall, there could never be a Mrs. Rob. The dichotomy of the man meant that he would be all that he ever required.

With a sigh, he hit upload and scuttled over to his second laptop, loading the XKCD site as if it were something new. His comic was up; of course it was. Ready to be torn apart with meaningless ad hominem attacks, because really: what in this perfection could genuinely be disenchanted?

Title: Local G. Tool-tip: In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, the same jump will get an athlete 0.25% (>1cm) than in London four years prior

Comic 851: NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA

[Comic title: Na; alt text: I hear that there are actual lyrics later on in Land of 1,000 Dances, but other than the occasional 'I said,' I've never listened long enough to hear any of them.]

I was conflicted when I started writing up the HTML for this post (I, too, am a programming enthusiast, Randall!). For, you see, I could not decide which version of the comic to link to, or which image to display. As a diehard originalist, I naturally opted for the original, but it was a near thing. This marks the first time that Randall Munroe has ever changed his comic or alt text in any way, and I wanted to commemorate it somehow--perhaps I will still do so, with a song, perhaps featuring the word "na" prominently.

In any case, this comic continues Randall's attempts to tell jokes by being as unfunny as possible--this time without any subversion of any kind to speak of! I expect that the subversion is on a much deeper, more "meta" level than any other subversion--you are expecting a joke, and he fails to deliver. Surely that is why, when I walked through the labyrinthine corridors of MIT this evening, the only sound I heard was peals of laughter.

The comic came about, as so many of Randall "My Ping Is Measured In Months Rather Than Milliseconds" Munroe's comics do, when he was reading through some old things on the internet, and discovered the actually rather amusing Hey Jude Flowchart.

"That's good," thought Randall to himself, "but it's not quite hamfisted enough. And it doesn't have enough references. What if my readers, who, let's be fair, have the cultural awareness of a bag of potato chips, haven't ever heard of Hey Jude?" It was not too difficult to come up with some other songs which contained the word "na." And so the flowchart was born.

But so caught up was he in the joy of references that he forgot the most important reference of all: the one to the original flowchart that he ripped off in an inferior fashion! And, since Randall Munroe is a conscientious individual who would never just go back and change errors or quietly add a "zing!" to the end of an offensive alt text, he made certain to point out his error and add a link to a corrected version. The world was right once more.

Comic 850: Randy Drew The Maps

[Comic title: World According to Americans; alt text: It's not our fault we caught a group on their way home from a geography bee. And they taught us that Uzbekistan is one of the world's two doubly-landlocked countries!]

If there is one thing Randall Munroe dislikes more than being rejected by Megan, it is being told that he is dumb, even indirectly. And while he enjoys laughing at the stupidity of others, he is also dimly aware that he, too, is an American, and he certainly doesn't match the stereotypes presented in one of the maps he is here satirizing. Affronted by this, uh, affront to reality, Randy set out to prove everyone wrong.

Of course, Randy doesn't know the first thing about geography, but this is the webcomic "Randall Munroe Knows The First Thing (And Several Subsequent Things As Well) About Everything," so he couldn't let his readers know that. So he opened up Wikipedia and possibly some previously unused books, and began his work. He ultimately spent several hours of painstaking research to bring us his final product, a map which is meant to look as if it was drawn in a few minutes by some people who have an expert level of familiarity with the subject.

Then he sat back and did that thing people do when they're done with projects where they dust off their hands, even though there's no actual dust on them, and said, "Yes. Yes, I am incredibly brilliant and clever. Nobody could have ever done this, and now the world knows how smart I can appear to laymen when I have unlimited and undisclosed time to do the research."

But then a disaster occurred--how could he convey this message to the world while making them (a) want to buy it as a poster and (b) burst into fits of hideous laughter, Natalie Portman-style? Fortuitously, his original inspiration would serve him there. Randall "I Know My Audience Exceedingly Well" Munroe did not earn his nickname by not knowing his audience exceedingly well--they had no doubt laughed at the maps that earned his ire, just as he once did before his startling revelation. So he would prepare them to laugh at the stupid, as is their wont, and to marvel in the greatness of Randall Munroe, at the same time.

And then, because Randall Munroe is a firm believer that the only element to humor is subverting one's expectations, he would pull an epic subversion on them by making the map in no way funny. Oh, how they would laugh!

UPDATE: Noted Hitler fan "ray" has sent me this map, which removes all of Randy's sad attempts at commentary on this one.

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On an unrelated note, I was watching Fox News the other day, as is my wont before I write angry, racist comments anonymously on news items about the president and go to bed, and I was alarmed to hear about this new, terrible thing which is happening online, called "trolling." I wanted to warn you all about this serious problem, and to assure you that if any of these so-called "trolls" are found here at xkcdsucks, they will not be given a "bridge" to "hide under"! You have my assurance of that!

Comics 848 and 849: Inappropriately Physical

[As is traditional with these, no pictures for you. -Ed.]

848. If there is one thing that makes Randall feel better after getting rejected by Megan again, it's talking about nerdy things. And while Randall Munroe is an enthusiast of all things nerdy, there is no nerdy thing he likes better than physics in all its many forms. But Randall wouldn't be Randall if he didn't remember that the "X" in "XKCD" stands for "crossover." Merely mentioning physics will invoke joy in his devoted followers, of course, but he wants more than joy. He wants rapture so complete that they are rendered listless--and what do nerds like more than physics? Complaining about things. So Randall deftly went to work satirizing 3D movies and their decadent wastefulness.

But it felt incomplete. What else was missing?

The answer, of course, was Black Hat Guy, everyone's favorite well-developed fictional character. He would be responsible for the movie which was technically 3D! Will his sinister plots know no bounds?

849. Randall has discovered a pun, and delivered it with uncharacteristic subtlety.