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Feb. 17th, 2013 07:39 amI found out just after typing up yesterday's entry that I've had an account in this site called Swagbucks, after earning 50 Swagbucks for my birthday to be added to 130 that I had already accumulated. Decided to check the site out, and then spent all of it on Swagstakes for gift cards and more Swagbucks. To buy giftcards, you have to spend about 100 SB to gain $1's worth, and I'm not interested in much else that the site has to offer.
http://www.swagbucks.com/
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Started a new prototrope, currently called Game Gourmet:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=cmc3i4chdkskqe4bj7yzn9vv
Before I bring up why I created that, let's look at what it roots back to:
It's a well-known fact that what goes on in video games is not meant to be taken literally. For some aspects, given how repetitive things can get when you're fighting bosses or some number of the same enemy, that would be for the better. However, there are other things I wish could work the same way in fanfiction as they do in the actual games.
To start off, each game in the Earthbound trilogy has such a nifty array of items to use in battle, too hard for me to just ignore. Cans of insecticide, bags of Dragonite, toothbrushes, rulers, mummy bandages, handbag straps, explosives, saltwater pistols, "Made-You-Looks", you name it! I even managed to come up with a handful of things on my own. Admittedly, Earthbound Zero has far fewer items in all categories (including food and equipment) than either of its sequels, but what it does have is still interesting, including flea bags, ropes, flashlights that create darkness, and even two "message" items.
(Worth noting in EB0 is that bombs, like bottle rockets and firearms, are something only Loyd can use. In Earthbound, anyone can use bombs, but only Jeff can use bottle rockets and anything he crafts from broken items, and in Mother 3, anyone can use bombs and pencil rockets. In Starbound, all of these will have their use restricted to the ninth member of the party, a military gynoid named Billie.)
I brought this up with Chelle shortly before posting the first chapter of Starbound online, suggesting that maybe this could be what Tsukasa and the one guy could be in charge of, since neither of them will be able to wield psionics or formal weaponry. (Others in the party would likely carry some of their own as well, in case they run out of or need to preserve energy or ammunition.) I promised (at least for the fanfic) that the party wouldn't rummage through any garbage cans, given how unbecoming that would obviously be of them (unless they were struggling to survive on what they do have), but gift boxes, a staple in all three games in the EB trilogy, would still be found and contain various things for the party to make use of. She suggested they also loot enemies they defeat (which the party in any given RPG does anyway, although the actual prizes are usually improbable for the defeated foe in question to have), and that a few boxes be rigged in some way or another (which a few in Mother 3 are).
Well, while a lot of what the EB trilogy had to offer would be quite useful for the party, there are a few that, realistically, wouldn't be so much. For example, Toothbrushes in Earthbound let you solidify an enemy by brushing your teeth and breathing your minty-fresh breath onto them, costing them one turn. In a fanfic, the midst of battle would be one of the worst times to be doing that. And, even in the games, several things such as Rulers, Protractors, and Trivia Cards don't actually do anything in battle, even though the narration says something other than "but nothing happened" when someone uses them.
That, though, is pretty minor, compared to the many, many kinds of foods that Earthbound and Mother 3 feature along the way. In fact, even in the games themselves, there are lots of things that most players never do bother with, due to either redundancy (if a member can't have as much HP as it recovers) or better stuff available. Having more food in one's inventory gives those with PK Lifeup more freedom to spend their PP on other moves instead, and/or gives those without Lifeup a way to maintain HP. And then we have certain foods that recover PP instead of HP, such as PSI Caramels and Magic Puddings. Making things all the more interesting is that among all the unused content in Mother 3 is a Rotten Bavarois, which would have been to give ghosts in Osohe Castle.
Realistically, though, both the ideas of actually carrying food around everywhere (save for hammerspace, which Lucky Star doesn't feature), and actually eating during battle, are pretty much unfeasable. Not to mention that characters in non-game media don't have HP, the measure used in RPGs to determine how much punishment more a character can take. The whole point of other media to begin with, and especially non-game adaptations of games, is to portray more realistic and less artificially-restrained combat (save for sharp or otherwise particularly deadly stuff becoming less and less accurate the more critical a target is to the story and/or outcome).
That, my friend, is where the aforementioned prototrope comes in. In a possible game version of Starbound, while they're still in Japan, along with onigiri (which they get their first few from Yutaka), the party would be able to get their hands on things like taiyaki, ramen, yakisoba, melon bread, mont blancs, burgers, stuff from the cake buffet, and of course, Konata's favorite food, chocolate cornets.
http://www.swagbucks.com/
-----
Started a new prototrope, currently called Game Gourmet:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=cmc3i4chdkskqe4bj7yzn9vv
Before I bring up why I created that, let's look at what it roots back to:
It's a well-known fact that what goes on in video games is not meant to be taken literally. For some aspects, given how repetitive things can get when you're fighting bosses or some number of the same enemy, that would be for the better. However, there are other things I wish could work the same way in fanfiction as they do in the actual games.
To start off, each game in the Earthbound trilogy has such a nifty array of items to use in battle, too hard for me to just ignore. Cans of insecticide, bags of Dragonite, toothbrushes, rulers, mummy bandages, handbag straps, explosives, saltwater pistols, "Made-You-Looks", you name it! I even managed to come up with a handful of things on my own. Admittedly, Earthbound Zero has far fewer items in all categories (including food and equipment) than either of its sequels, but what it does have is still interesting, including flea bags, ropes, flashlights that create darkness, and even two "message" items.
(Worth noting in EB0 is that bombs, like bottle rockets and firearms, are something only Loyd can use. In Earthbound, anyone can use bombs, but only Jeff can use bottle rockets and anything he crafts from broken items, and in Mother 3, anyone can use bombs and pencil rockets. In Starbound, all of these will have their use restricted to the ninth member of the party, a military gynoid named Billie.)
I brought this up with Chelle shortly before posting the first chapter of Starbound online, suggesting that maybe this could be what Tsukasa and the one guy could be in charge of, since neither of them will be able to wield psionics or formal weaponry. (Others in the party would likely carry some of their own as well, in case they run out of or need to preserve energy or ammunition.) I promised (at least for the fanfic) that the party wouldn't rummage through any garbage cans, given how unbecoming that would obviously be of them (unless they were struggling to survive on what they do have), but gift boxes, a staple in all three games in the EB trilogy, would still be found and contain various things for the party to make use of. She suggested they also loot enemies they defeat (which the party in any given RPG does anyway, although the actual prizes are usually improbable for the defeated foe in question to have), and that a few boxes be rigged in some way or another (which a few in Mother 3 are).
Well, while a lot of what the EB trilogy had to offer would be quite useful for the party, there are a few that, realistically, wouldn't be so much. For example, Toothbrushes in Earthbound let you solidify an enemy by brushing your teeth and breathing your minty-fresh breath onto them, costing them one turn. In a fanfic, the midst of battle would be one of the worst times to be doing that. And, even in the games, several things such as Rulers, Protractors, and Trivia Cards don't actually do anything in battle, even though the narration says something other than "but nothing happened" when someone uses them.
That, though, is pretty minor, compared to the many, many kinds of foods that Earthbound and Mother 3 feature along the way. In fact, even in the games themselves, there are lots of things that most players never do bother with, due to either redundancy (if a member can't have as much HP as it recovers) or better stuff available. Having more food in one's inventory gives those with PK Lifeup more freedom to spend their PP on other moves instead, and/or gives those without Lifeup a way to maintain HP. And then we have certain foods that recover PP instead of HP, such as PSI Caramels and Magic Puddings. Making things all the more interesting is that among all the unused content in Mother 3 is a Rotten Bavarois, which would have been to give ghosts in Osohe Castle.
Realistically, though, both the ideas of actually carrying food around everywhere (save for hammerspace, which Lucky Star doesn't feature), and actually eating during battle, are pretty much unfeasable. Not to mention that characters in non-game media don't have HP, the measure used in RPGs to determine how much punishment more a character can take. The whole point of other media to begin with, and especially non-game adaptations of games, is to portray more realistic and less artificially-restrained combat (save for sharp or otherwise particularly deadly stuff becoming less and less accurate the more critical a target is to the story and/or outcome).
That, my friend, is where the aforementioned prototrope comes in. In a possible game version of Starbound, while they're still in Japan, along with onigiri (which they get their first few from Yutaka), the party would be able to get their hands on things like taiyaki, ramen, yakisoba, melon bread, mont blancs, burgers, stuff from the cake buffet, and of course, Konata's favorite food, chocolate cornets.