(no subject)

Managed to plan out most of the opening events in Kazumi's fic yesterday morning. Decided to have a break from it now, before I come back to iron them out some more.

And naturally, I found myself defaulting back to Starbound. It obviously says something when I continually obsess over my ensemble of protagonists for that fic as much as I used to over that for Monster Collection Chronicles, barely defined as the characters in either set may be.

Thought about why I can't think of any actual events in any given arc or location. Long story short, it's because I have nothing left to draw from. Will go into that for the existing chapters in a bit, but so far, I did consider taking trips to the respective locations... if only that was actually within my budget.

Even if it was, though, would it actually be necessary for the party to travel across borders between each mana spot? I mean, I've been planning for them to head to France once they recruit Maria within Great Britain, but only because of a college term paper I once did on the channel-tunnel. Most arcs in Earthbound do involve navigating between different areas, and even returning briefly to places you've already been to before, but only because the plot actually requires it. And, whereas its world was entirely a fictional one built up as needed, Lucky Star is set in the real world, which is even emphasized by illustrations of real-life houses, buildings, and locales.

And to think that I added in some woods where there aren't any in real life, for the sake of the plot in chapters 1 and 2, though that was before someone showed me these sets of photographs (after I asked on the forum about the GPS coordinates that the wiki specifies for various locations):

http://www.cuso4.org/photos/20070511-tyo/20070511-tyo-rakisuta.htm

http://www.cuso4.org/photos/20070905-tyo/20070905-tyo-rakisuta.htm

But anyway, let's take a look at how I was able to think everything up that goes on in what I've put up so far:

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Asked Jake in a convo last night whether he'd assume that the writers came up with stuff to utilize first and then a purpose for everything, or stuff he wanted to fulfill and then everything through which to carry it all out. What he surmised was this:

"Okay, so what kind of threat could happen to [Onett]? Maybe the police are completely useless. In fact, let's have them be a boss fight! But it would be dumb for them to be the first boss fight. Maybe their uselessness means teen crime is at rise. And the mayor wants them gone, and he's so corrupt you have to deal with them AND the police punish you over something you're supposed to do! That's brilliant!" *does some drugs* "AND MAYBE THE FIRST SERIOUS BOSS IS A GIANT ANT!!!!!"

For Threed...

"ZOMBIES! And... they trick Ness and co. into being captured! That's a good way to get Jeff in the plot. They're probably radiation zombies, so they come from some other place... a place led by an alien, let me think..." *does more drugs* "HIS NAME IS BELCH AND HE ENSLAVED THE MR. POTATO PEOPLE!!!!"

We already talked about this before, but not only does this kind of stuff not come naturally to me, but while I did acknowledge the room there is for "pockets" (see my 10/12/15 post in this thread on LSSF; I'm McKnight, btw), there are so many things I'd just rather not combine with Lucky Star (such as an ice-cream-cone-shaped tank that Nintendo Power mentioned offhand in a preview of Earthbound 64). I will admit that I never really paid attention to the humor behind everything whenever I played Earthbound during my childhood or teen years, but I often wonder if it was all a mistake to choose Lucky Star as the show from which Starbound continues in the first place. Initially, the fic was conceived as a giantess story, was going to be based on either LS or Pani Poni Dash!, I'd be more inclined to go all-out with the humor if I had chosen the latter, and I didn't stick with MCK because most of its mons' designs are too much more complex than most enemies throughout the Earthbound trilogy. But then again, I was still even more interested in writing something w/ the Lucky Star girls' hair done up into beehives.

Still, I am glad I scrapped the Hunt Club arc after having written that, given how overly serious it was (including its resolution), even though it did feel good at least to be writing something at the time. I am also willing enough to keep Jake's idea to involve a Hooters restaurant, even if he thought it up for reasons besides humor; even Chelle suggested I keep it, while suggesting I do away with a scene where Tristan somehow gets powered up and kicks ass to save some of the girls deep within its underground factory (something I admittedly took from both Yoshi's Island and one of the old Superman films that involves Supes racing a train on foot as an infant). There are lots of things throughout the Earthbound trilogy that were conceived mainly for humor but could easily translate over into Starbound to be chalked up to other things. (Walking mushrooms and weeds, for example, could easily be alien-induced possession of some sort.)

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One more thing I'd like to mention, is that in the first list in the hyperlinked entry two paragraphs above, the fifth item that I specified was "the general atmosphere". I still can't quite place a finger on what I mean by that, but to take a shot at it, I suppose one could say how relaxing and lighthearted (albeit with its darker side) the world as a whole feels as you explore it, from the small-town neighborhoods of Onett and Twoson, to the scenic frostscape of Winters, to the vast desert of Scaraba. I guess that could be true with just about anything, but I used to feel something similar whenever I played Super Mario RPG (even more surreal the Marioverse may be), such as the view of the open sea when Mario is sent flying from Bowser's Keep, the general scenery of Rose Way in particular, and the music you hear whenever you navigate the map screen. Ditto with Zelda, particularly everything prior to Majora's Mask.

I also mention every now and then, how Earthbound 199X seems to read somewhat reasonably while carrying its own share of humor. That would at least be in comparison to the Lucky Powers series (here Miyuki's fic, the first of its), but Magus523's novelization series of Mega Man (which begins with game 3) also reads similarly while maintaining all the cartoon physics that defined those games.

In any case, I'll be sure to bring this all up with Brian next time I see him.

(no subject)

Writing this early so that it's not an issue tomorrow morning when I go to the gym with Mom and Dad. This morning's entry took from 2 to 7 (including a few hours that I had gone back to bed), and it would also help when I show this and last entry to Brian and Marie next month (if not earlier on) if they appeared together and apart from any other entries.

So anyway, Jake did say that I could have kept Tristan's moment to shine for a bit of humor after reading the previous entry. I proceeded to email him an email exchange I had with Chelle more than a year ago, where she had cited some complications that would arise. Technically, what she said towards the end of said exchange, is that I might have to drop that idea if it doesn't serve any purpose for character development or the plot, but I figured it would be best not to grasp at straws at that point, lest I exasperate her like with Jake right beforehand.

Here is what Jake has suggested:

I can see it working, given the situation, actually, but it would have to be an emergency case (as you presented it) and justified by there being no other choice.

Namely, since he's the only one who can do *anything*, [Mikami] act[s] through him while he's unconscious, using the stone as a conduit, and keep him safe at the same time.

They can't do this to the other girls because they are normally able to protect themselves, and they wouldn't really do it at all because of the great expectations.

Originally, Miyuki was going to stay behind with him at the newly-defunct Hooters restaurant while waiting for the others to safely return. I should note that, quite by coincidence, it was after I was talked into dropping the idea of Tristan kicking ass that I upgraded Desiré from a minor character to a protagonist, and with Tristan off the table as the others' savior, this would be a better time for her to receive her Magé Stone and then sense the trouble that the party is in.

Even if both Desiré and Tristan are equally responsible for stepping in (assuming Jake's ideas actually hold water), though, this might beg the question, what was Tristan even doing with the mains at the restaurant, instead of in the care of her family, or even Patricia's (whom Konata and Miyuki would have also gotten to meet around there, having already befriended Patty herself)? If he in fact was at either family's house at the time, the party could still come back for him to bring back to Japan with them to show to their friends (and should anyway, mainly to say goodbye), allowing him to fulfill another role planned for him at the upcoming New Year's festival.

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Also glanced through a .pdf I found recently of the Earthbound player's guide. Adding to what I said before about atmosphere, said guide sports a nice variety of photographic imagery alongside all the screenshots and clay figures. The two prologue pages feature a nice view of some medieval-looking structure and the meteorite as they would have looked like in real life, and the first pair of news pages for Onett contain a life-like picture of that rundown seaside house and one more each of a lighthouse and a pier (neither in the actual game) among other stuff.

http://earthbound.nintendo.com/playersguide/#/16

Leaves me to wonder if the guide for Earthbound Zero would have contained similar stuff, had that game's original U.S. release gone through. Or for that matter, if any of the numerous guides for Mother 1 or 2 had anything like it all.

I did used to feel something similar from all the different illustrations in the manual and player's guide for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but it's stuff like this that makes me hope to see both Starbound and Day of the Beehive through one day.

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As for what I'm willing or not to accept...

Well, let me first start off by mention that, along with comparing the games themselves to Monty Python (I myself compared them to The Simpsons, Bloom County, Nichijou, and The Triplets of Belleville, in an email to Brian that I shared with him during last night's convo), Jake also said that I might as well have cosplayers be a major threat by taking something too seriously because of the aliens. Not that I hold that against him, but that did leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Really, I think this is a matter of control, subjectivity, and finding some kind of balance.

Let's take cartoon engineering in general, for example. Apart from Earthbound, there's stuff like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and the cartoon adaptation of Back to the Future, that I find overly comical and slightly irritating in and of themselves (one can easily tell how stupid they're meant to be), and then there are the likes of Mega Man and Sonic the Hedgehog that, for some reason, don't rub me the wrong way. With Starbound, I might be okay with some stuff (especially if it's geared more towards cuteness than goofiness, like this star-shaped alien spaceship at the beginning of Lucky Star: Ryouou Gakuen Outousai), but on the same token, I'm bound to veto at least some things along the lines. (For the sake of balance, it does help that Earthbound itself has a few robot models that would fit just as easily into Mega Man Zero or Sonic the Hedgehog '06.)

(There's also the issue of trying not to be cheap. For example, while the Magé Stones do promote communication with others, they have limitations that I would rather the characters not overcome simply by having someone invent "The Universal Translator".)

Another example of stuff would like in the exaggeration of actions and facial expressions. This is the reason I can't stand Mon Colle Knights like I used to. I did have more tolerance for it when watching something like Galaxy Angel or Pani Poni Dash! years ago. However, all the different characters I had once conceived for Monster Collection Chronicles were conceived to be either cute or serious, and while I could tolerate the idea of the Supporting Mon Colle Knights looking or acting similar to most of the normal characters from Lucky Star, I wouldn't want them to take it as far as the in-show staff of Anime Tenchou and Comiket. (Not that it's likely to be necessary anyway, given how even any possible FMV sequences will keep the characters in line with Lucky Star itself, but relevant as an example of my aversions in general.)

But anyway, yeah, the way Jake suggested that Itoi used to come up with stuff for the Earthbound trilogy, I've actually heard of that before. Brainstorming the most ridiculous things one can think of, and then seeing if anything genuine comes of it. Chelle did suggest before that I draw ideas from dreams, given the surreal nature of the Earthbound trilogy, and I have to agree that those are a better source than any for stuff. Will still consult Brian and Marie for any other strategies they might suggest.