Absent Minded Theater

Read it here.

Do it now.

Because Absent Minded Theater is a Standard Fantasy Setting Low Fantasy dark comedy about a girl with one arm and no legs and a few other people who are being slowly and tragically (and hilariously) destroyed by all the worst aspects of a standard Renaissance-Europe fantasy setting. You know, like the awful medical care, and the evil forest, and the magic (which-you-can-only-get-by-selling-your-first-born-to-a-witch), and the crops to grow, because you've got crippled kids to feed. Even in fantasy-land.

Contains examples of:

 * Belief Makes You Stupid: Stanford
 * Blue and Orange Morality:
 * Brilliant but Lazy / Refusal of the Call / Somebody Else's Problem: Ray, a perfectly capable soldier, will not bother helping his own uncle from being kidnapped by a witch because, well.... he didn't feel like it.
 * Butt Monkey / Chew Toy: Almost everyone, to varying degrees.
 * Crapsack World and Standard Fantasy Setting. Who knew they could be one and the same?
 * Go Mad From the Revelation:
 * Handicapped Badass: Daisy. Duh. She has a VERY mean punch. Ted is pretty cool too, but he hasn't matured enough, so says the author.
 * King of All Cosmos: Stanford worships one of these that makes explosions.
 * Knight in Sour Armor: Quincy, of all people, is showing shades of this. He started out as a snarky voice of reason amongst his brothers, but once
 * Our Fairies Are Different: In this case, 'fairies' are nosy bug-type things that get in your face, and 'Fey' are more like The Fair Folk.
 * Prophecy Twist / The Unchosen One / Prophetic Fallacy: The son of Farmer Brown will be a hero. Problem is, he doesn't have a son, but a crippled girl. The other problem is, she might just make herself into a hero through sheer force of will. We're not sure what's going on quite yet.
 * The Reliable One: Quincy, in spades.
 * The Reveal:
 * Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Garvan shows all the signs of being one to the witch.
 * Younger Than They Look: Quincy.
 * Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Garvan shows all the signs of being one to the witch.
 * Younger Than They Look: Quincy.