If all of the spell’s targets are illegal when the spell tries to resolve, it won’t resolve and none of its effects will happen.

A card with a splice ability can’t be spliced onto itself because the spell is on the stack (and not in your hand) when you reveal the cards you want to splice onto it.

You reveal all cards you intend to splice at the same time. Each individual card can be spliced only once onto any one spell.

You choose all targets for the spell after revealing cards you want to splice, including any targets required by the text of any of those cards. You may choose a different target for each instance of the word “target” on the resulting spell.

Desperate Ritual isn’t a mana ability. When cast, it (or the spell it’s spliced onto) goes on the stack like any spell and can be responded to.