If you’ve been anywhere near Pinterest for the last 50 years, you know that Disney characters are even more interesting than smoking meats, building your own water filtration system, or ripping down Confederate statues. And the ability to draw a Disney character (really, any Disney character) elevates you to the level of godhood. In fact, no matter how new you are at art or how little experience you have, it’s essential to upload everything you have ever drawn to the internet so that the entire world can scoff at your incompetence.

So with that in mind, the Czar decided to run an experiment to see how each of the major Castle dwellers could draw a Disney character. We shan’t spoil the results, but we will say efforts were somewhat mixed, like that’s some surprise to you. The Czar didn’t require much effort to find a suitable subject: he simply did what he always does, and looked through an 11-year-old girl’s bedroom window to see what artwork she had on her wall. And there among all the pictures of someone named “Aiden,” he found a Disney character. This was easy to find on the internet, and the Czar could have simply done that, except that’s not nearly as fun. The picture you see here is a fish named Dory, from a movie the Czar recollects is named Finding Minnow. It seems she is a forgetful fish, and her character is hilarious because she suffers from obvious trauma to her hippocampus, which is always funny.

Dr. J.’s effort is pretty darn solid, even if he did apparently manage to set fire to the paper. We’re not quite sure he’s got the eyes right, but when you’re possessed by the Dark Side of the Force, or whatever, you probably assume everybody has crossed over. We asked him how he felt about his attempt, and he said it was “Good,” even “Gooood!” This is probably worth printing out and hanging up on the refrigerator. So go ahead, and we’ll wait while you do that.

He signed it, too, which is surprising. He sent us a very nice thank you note the other day, and it took like 6 attempts to read it because his handwriting is so terrible. Volgi has good handwriting, by the way. It’s very cool; it looks like he wrote the Voynich manuscript…which, as you know….

Speaking of obvious head trauma, Ghettoputer did a very nice job and managed to keep his paper clean of fecal smears. That’s definitely a fish, although it’s orange and not blue, and is facing the wrong way entirely. Also, the Czar is pretty clear that this fish has boobs. We have to give ‘Puter some credit for understanding Dory is a female character.

The Czar asked ‘Puter if those are bubbles around her head, since fish live in the water. He didn’t seem to get that, despite several attempts to explain, and finally confessed that, as he interprets the character, the fish is drunk because she’s a girl. We had GorT find the movie in his thumb drive (it’s literally his thumb), and ‘Puter has been watching it constantly for the last few days. His goal is to memorize and sing all the songs in the film for our annual talent show, and he continues to watch hoping a song appears in it at some point.

And that mention of GorT brings us to his attempt. Here it is. Basically, it’s a four-bit scan of the image that he wirelessly sent to a printer located somewhere in his lower back. Yes, he still uses thermal paper, but it’s what you would expect.

“You know, I could have done better,” GorT said to us, “but I just didn’t have the time.” This cracks us up: for a time traveling robot, who can go back in time repeatedly as often as he pleases, he never seems to have much time for anything. You’d think a time traveler would have better time management. As you frequently hear us mutter, if you don’t have time to do it right, you don’t have time to do it over. GorT chose to do neither, and, well, there we are. Fish have gray scales, apparently. And like ‘Puter’s fish, this one is pretty pixelated, too.

The Volgi, who apologizes for being so busy but he requires an entire week to get the stuff done that you typically do in a single afternoon, looked at the picture, nodded, and turned to head up to his room. “Are you doing one?” we asked. “Verily, I shall,” he replied. “Um, don’t you want to take the picture with you?” we suggested. “The master needs no model for his efforts; he merely looks within.”

He says crap like this all the time, and calls them analects. Anyway, he came downstairs about three weeks later and handed us this. It’s very nice, but it’s a carp. Personally, we think he really should have taken the fricking Dory picture upstairs with him, maybe looked at for more than ten seconds, but whatever: this picture is for sale in our gift shop and it’s worth probably $200 at a minimum. So we all win.

Hey, here’s the Czar‘s attempt. The Czar does like to draw, and he spent a fair amount of his younger years sketching and doodling stuff. Unfortunately, most of our efforts wind up looking like this. Not sure what we were so upset about that caused us to ruin another sheet of paper like this, but it was almost certainly related to that idiot cousin of ours who stole the true throne of Muscovy from us back in 1283. We know this looks bad, but don’t be grossed out: that isn’t fish blood.

Of course, we know you think we just grabbed something off the large pile of blood-soaked papers in our chambers, but if you look carefully, you will see that we took the time to write «Доры эта рыба», which helpfully informs the casual viewer that “Dory, that is a fish.” We must have been pretty pissed at somebody that afternoon.

“What the fresh hell is this?” you’re probably asking, and you’d be right. The Mandarin doesn’t exactly see the universe the way we do since he spends so little time in it. We keep looking at this, and from certain angles it kind of gets interesting, but it’s really not any type of fish we’ve ever seen. “Look closer,” the Mandarin said. “Maybe it’s one of those stupid magic eye things where a three-dimensional fish appears,” we said, and like a dumbass we walked around the Castle with this inches from our nose, bashing into things. “Well, sorta,” the Mandarin admitted. “But if don’t limit yourself to three dimensions,” which is the sort of crap he says all the time.

Great, so here are stumbling into furniture and guests and whatnot, and the Czar not only fails to see Dory in n-dimensional space, but he sees almost no blue at all in the picture. We showed it to some passing guest in the lobby, and we asked her “Does this look like a damned royal blue tang?” and all she did was say “I obey him in all things.”

So there’s that. Anyway, we have all but Volgi’s laying around the lobby of the Castle, so swing by and take a look. It does appear that GorT’s is being used as a coaster, at the moment, but maybe he could have spend more than 4 milliseconds on his. And maybe his would be in the gift shop, too.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.