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May. 12th, 2013 07:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedHelped Uncle Robby plant some trees near his driveway and move the dirt and grass clumps I dug up back into the trench. Rob has planned to take me out to buy some new sneakers, given how muddy the ones I have have gotten. In the meantime, he did find two other pairs for me to wear until then.
Went with Rob and Cousin Adam out to dinner. Ate out at some Italian place, where we got some salad, bread, and a half-cheese half-Buffalo-chicken pizza. I had two chicken slices, and then got a canole to take home with me.
Rob dropped me off at the house before taking Adam to see Iron Man 3. During the ride, it was raining, and we saw two lightning bolts all the way down the street in front of us.
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Been having a discussion with Chelle about Starbound, and also got Jake involved a little on it. Main point worth bringing up here is about contrived coincidences.
What happened, was that I described the railroad situation in Earthbound Zero and the bus system situation in Earthbound, while saying that I'd like some kind of "creative" way (i.e. not necessarily involving the invading aliens) for the party in Starbound to be initially confined to Kasukabe. Chelle suggested that, in fact, the aliens could have disabled the trains in order to curb the pollution that they produce, which is not only logical but also consistent with the reason they're invading in the first place (that being because their home planet is about to self-destruct, given what it really is, and they need planets with other life in order to sustain themselves). However, she also said that creativity is not an excuse for contrived coincidences, and we had a little discussion about that until I showed Jake the relevant stuff for his opinion.
As it turns out, he actually agrees with Chelle, that while they are abundant in Earthbound and EB0, and while there is humor in them, the humor is mainly in the things involved in them, such as the metal pencil statue in Peaceful Rest Valley and the Pencil Eraser that you get from Apple Kid back in Twoson to vaporize it with. To quote him:
There's comedy deriving from the coincidences, but the really hilarious part is that the things involved in the coincidences are silly. The trains being incapacitated because the aliens happen to hate trains isn't very funny; the trains being incapacitated because someone invented a giant magnet and it happened to draw all the electricity from the rails is funny; the trains being incapacitated because a giant alien is using their electric lines for pasta is hilarious.
Not that the aliens really need to be involved. Could be something is wrong because of a human distraction at their own station and they can't deal with it.
Well, the reasons why Ness and Ninten are bound to their hometowns in Earthbound and EB0 respectively aren't comedic, don't involved anything coincidental, and have nothing even to do with the aliens in those games. It's because the only real paths out of town are blocked off by the police. The rest of both towns are surrounded by woods, canyons, and bodies of water. (And no, there is no swimming whatsoever in EB0, not even across simple narrow streams.)
In any case, I've decided to just give Starbound a rest for now, until I've transcribed and translated Mother: The Original Story. Once I'm done with all that, along with me finding somewhere to host the translation for free, Chelle has agreed to let me share part of the first chapter with her personally, and if she likes it, either she can read it where I'm hosting it, or I'll share more of it at a time with her. If she doesn't care too much for it, I'll just make a list of humorous moments from the book to share with her, since she did ask how the humor works in the Earthbound trilogy.
Went with Rob and Cousin Adam out to dinner. Ate out at some Italian place, where we got some salad, bread, and a half-cheese half-Buffalo-chicken pizza. I had two chicken slices, and then got a canole to take home with me.
Rob dropped me off at the house before taking Adam to see Iron Man 3. During the ride, it was raining, and we saw two lightning bolts all the way down the street in front of us.
-----
Been having a discussion with Chelle about Starbound, and also got Jake involved a little on it. Main point worth bringing up here is about contrived coincidences.
What happened, was that I described the railroad situation in Earthbound Zero and the bus system situation in Earthbound, while saying that I'd like some kind of "creative" way (i.e. not necessarily involving the invading aliens) for the party in Starbound to be initially confined to Kasukabe. Chelle suggested that, in fact, the aliens could have disabled the trains in order to curb the pollution that they produce, which is not only logical but also consistent with the reason they're invading in the first place (that being because their home planet is about to self-destruct, given what it really is, and they need planets with other life in order to sustain themselves). However, she also said that creativity is not an excuse for contrived coincidences, and we had a little discussion about that until I showed Jake the relevant stuff for his opinion.
As it turns out, he actually agrees with Chelle, that while they are abundant in Earthbound and EB0, and while there is humor in them, the humor is mainly in the things involved in them, such as the metal pencil statue in Peaceful Rest Valley and the Pencil Eraser that you get from Apple Kid back in Twoson to vaporize it with. To quote him:
There's comedy deriving from the coincidences, but the really hilarious part is that the things involved in the coincidences are silly. The trains being incapacitated because the aliens happen to hate trains isn't very funny; the trains being incapacitated because someone invented a giant magnet and it happened to draw all the electricity from the rails is funny; the trains being incapacitated because a giant alien is using their electric lines for pasta is hilarious.
Not that the aliens really need to be involved. Could be something is wrong because of a human distraction at their own station and they can't deal with it.
Well, the reasons why Ness and Ninten are bound to their hometowns in Earthbound and EB0 respectively aren't comedic, don't involved anything coincidental, and have nothing even to do with the aliens in those games. It's because the only real paths out of town are blocked off by the police. The rest of both towns are surrounded by woods, canyons, and bodies of water. (And no, there is no swimming whatsoever in EB0, not even across simple narrow streams.)
In any case, I've decided to just give Starbound a rest for now, until I've transcribed and translated Mother: The Original Story. Once I'm done with all that, along with me finding somewhere to host the translation for free, Chelle has agreed to let me share part of the first chapter with her personally, and if she likes it, either she can read it where I'm hosting it, or I'll share more of it at a time with her. If she doesn't care too much for it, I'll just make a list of humorous moments from the book to share with her, since she did ask how the humor works in the Earthbound trilogy.