Posts #521-525: 23 April 2000

Post #521, by EBPoo

"Ow...my aching head..." mumbled Poo as he regained conciousness. Hmm...green atmosphere, dream-like land, smiley faces everywhere...this must be Magicant, thought Poo. "AHHHH!" screamed Poo as Pokey ran towards him. After walking a long way, Poo finally stopped at a silver tentacle.

I'm a little surprised he's using the EarthBound Magicant, instead of employing the popular IF scheme of coming up with one's own Magicant... which actually makes more sense, because why the hell would EBPoo be running around (a) inside Ness's brain, which (b) was destroyed when Ness shattered the nightmare rock, as it were?

Looking around, Poo saw what was the Sea of Eden. Poo was about to go into the beautiful sea, but stopped when he saw a Kraken. Too scared to go on, Poo walked back to Magicant land. Taking out his palm-sized laptop, Poo took notes on how he got to Magicant. Then, confident that he could find Magicant again if ever needed, he touched the silver tentacle and transported back to Fire Springs.

Not that Poo isn't still an AC and capable of doing whatever the hell he wants with no explanation. I mean, rules are rules.

Glancing around, he saw Darth's gang. Worried that they would try to stop him from further journeying, Poo hid behind a magma rock. After making sure the group couldn't see him, he left his hiding place.

He's certainly a lot less brash than Falcon24. It's refreshing to see somebody employing AC God Mode toward stealth rather than trying to kick the ass of other invincible AC's... so far. I mean, once again, rules are rules; of course sooner or later he'll have to engage in the mandatory AC pissing match.

Then, very carefully, Poo walked out of the cave with enemies falling beneath his feet.

Now that is how you do a random encounter battle sequence. Thank you, EBPoo.

Walking back to the Skyrunner II was no easy task, what with dinosaurs roaming around.

Wouldn't there be a nonzero chance one of the wandering dinosaurs would have destroyed the Skyrunner II© by now, intentionally or accidentally?

There was even a giant yellow ball.

He's referring to the Ego Orb, one of the three Lost Underworld enemies, the other two being dinosaurs. What the hell the programmers had on their minds when they stuck the Ego Orb in there is anybody's guess, but a sound guess will include the use of illegal substances.

A couple hours later, Poo finally made it back to the Skyrunner II with the Fire Springs melody in his Sound Stone replica. "Now, where do I go next? How about...Fourside? Here we go!" *WHOOOOSH* The Skyrunner II took flight and navigated towards Fourside. "Falcon!!! Watch out, because I'm coming for you!"

Falcon24 and EBPoo's breakup a few posts back was obviously planned; it's possible they have a whole plot thread planned out here. Let's wait and see.

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Post #522, by Dr. Andonuts

Acting quickly Nathan grabs Pikachu's sound stone before Falcon can destroy Pink Cloud. He runs towards Pink Cloud. "NO, Stop Fool!" the shape coming from the ceiling yells. But it was too late. The sound stone had adsorbed the melody of Pink Cloud right before Falcon destroyed it.

Well, color me shocked about that.

Nathan quickly broke the sound stone into three pieces. He threw 1 to Pikachu, teleported another to the first person he could think of, Tim, and kept the 3rd for himself.

What with all this instant teleportation everyone's capable of, you'd think they'd have polished off all the Sanctuary melodies in about 45 seconds, wouldn't you?

IF is always going to have some plot holes, but stuff like this is the sure sign of an amateur. Go to Barnes and Noble and browse any book you choose on the subject of How to Write a Fantasy Novel, for instance. You'll notice how these books invariably start off by saying, 'Don't write a Lord of the Rings clone!' and then the rest of the book is an instruction manual for how to write a Lord of the Rings clone. But I digress. You'll also notice how pretty much rule #1 is: be consistent. People don't care how outlandish your magic system is, as long as it's internally consistent.

As with any bad fantasy writing, bad IF is littered with inconsistency, even within individual posters' own posts. But thank God for bad IF; I, for one, find it far more entertaining than Lord of the Rings.

He teleported to Onett to get away from the shape coming through the ceiling. Then he teleported to Fourside.

Hey, did I mention I can teleport? Aren't I awesome? Wheeee! Watch me teleport again!

He took a moment to catch his breath and activate the stealth routine on his teleport program so that Falcon couldn't follow him with his @.

Ah, the AC pissing matches continue. Question from the Annoying Question Guy: If you can and do ignore Falcon24's teleport tracking, what makes you think he won't just ignore your ignoring of his teleport tracking and track your teleportation anyway?

One major advantage IF offers over collaborative fiction or plain ol' single author fanfiction is the unintentional comedy provided by opposing writers endlessly trying to one-up each other over pointless stuff.

He then teleported to Winters, then Summers, then Twoson. Then his palmtop beeped, and a notice came up on the screen saying that his batteries were low. "I knew I should have used Duracell," he thought. "Oh well, how am I going to recharge a fusion battery in Twoson."

I sincerely doubt your gizmo could drain a fusion battery within your youngest grandchild's lifetime. I do not believe you know what a fusion battery would theoretically be.

Suddenly he remembered that Apple Kid lived in Twoson. He walked to Apple Kid's house and went in.
"Hi, Apple Kid, i presume," Nathan said.
"Yeah, i'm Apple Kid, who are you?" said Apple Kid.

I was really more under the impression that after Giygas's fall, Apple Kid was going to hang out with Dr. Andonuts on a more or less permanent basis, rather than return to his crummy house in a town where everyone hated him.

"I'm Nathan, a fellow invertor.

Watch me invert! Aren't I great?

I don't have time to chat right now, but could you recharge this fusion battery for me?"
"Hmmm," said Apple Kid while pulling out a chemisty set. "Looks like it just needs some H-2 and H-3. There."

I'm pretty sure if some stranger came barging into my house and demanded that I recharge his fusion battery right now, I would recognize his apparent desperation and relieve him of everything valuable on his person in exchange for my assistance (even though, as Nathan apparently doesn't know, the whole idea of fusion power dictates that 'recharging' a fusion battery means pouring some water into it.)

"Thanks," said Nathan. "I'll come by and chat with you later. Bye."
Nathan walked out, wondering what had happened after he left Pink Cloud.

The only thing I can figure is that Andonuts wants us to believe his AC and Apple Kid are buddies. Well... except that he introduced himself when he barged into AK's house, so I guess he wants us to believe that his AC is a world-famous invertor that AK holds in high esteem. That's about the only reasonable explanation for why AK didn't tell him to get the hell out and go jump in a lake.

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Post #523, by Pikachu3164

Pikachu, who was way behind Nathan, came running straight into the room where Falcon was desroying Pink Cloud.
As Pikachu laid his eyes on the Sound Sapper, he realized that that stone was the negitive energy he had felt. [What the heck is that black thingy?! And why is Pink Cloud not there?] cried Pikachu.
Poryhedron ran up to Pikachu.

Floated, really. Sort of. I think. Then again, it's a safe bet 3164 knows a hell of a lot more about pokemon than I do, so take his word for it.

"I'll get a reading on it... Hmm... It appears to be some sort of device that absorbs Sanctuary power, then destroys the Sanctuary."
[Destroys the Sanctuary? Falcon destroyed Pink Cloud! We can't let that happen! The Sanctuaries are the power sources of the Earth!!! What do you think would happen if thes Earth had no more power!!]
"That would not be good, can tell you that!"

Don't sweat it, bro. Just do what the other AC's are doing and handwave it away. Tengu can teach you the way of ignoring any and all post content inconvenient to your intentions.

[Well then, help me destroy it!]
Pikachu ran up Falcom, and made the Sapper go flying. He then tried to destroy the thing. [Help me!]

Just knocking the gizmo out of Falcon24's hands risks setting him off. 3164 is either a slow learner or an evil genius.

"Ha!! You can't destoy it!"
Pikachu then stopped what he was doing, and stared directly at Falcon. [Falcon! Do you know what the Your Sanctuaries are?! They are the power sources of the Earth! If you desroy the Sanctuaries, you are also destroying Earth's Power. Were you aware of this? By desroying the Sanctuaries, you are destroying the Earth.]
"I never thought of that...." replied Falcon, who was seconds away from blasting Pikachu to 299X.

I'm leaning toward slow learner. I think 3164 is blissfully ignorant of the unwritten rules of IF, such as 'don't put words in other ACs' mouths wherever what they say is plot-important or character-important' (which is probably 90% of the time in confrontations like these). He's just trying to have a good old fashioned argument, but... this is one of those things that will piss off pretty much any writer, not just Falcon24. You should have seen the way Anthadd would flip out when people did this kind of stuff with his AC. To say nothing of guruzeth.

[This message has been edited by Pikachu3164 (edited 04-23-2000).]

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Post #524, by Godeg

Once again, sirens and alarms start going off in Mike's battlewalker. "Ahh... carp. Whats goin on now?"

You'd think he'd have developed a beast of a headache from all the alarms by now.

"Energy signal dissipating. Destination no longer a point of interest." the walker's computer stated plainly.

"Hrm... wonder whats goin on. Maybe i should just avoid that place totally. ...Nah, i'll go check it out."

Spoken like a D&D veteran. 'Yeah, I know weird s---'s going down and the whole damn place might explode any minute, but... there's probably XP and loot in there!'

More sirens started going off. "Shield harmonics haywire. Shield system powering down."

"Hrm... thats not good. That doesn't seem good, anyways. Eh, something's bound to happen." Mike had decided to continue for pink cloud, although he knew it could have been a bad decision.

XP. Loot. Easy Call. The DM wouldn't have put all this danger out there like a homing beacon if he didn't intend for me to go there right now, right?

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Post #525, by Tengu Man/Makron

Ness growled on the way to the lab as he felt the essence of Pink Cloud disappiate, but then regenerate.

Dear Falcon24:
Just in case you had forgotten, my 'f--- you' still stands.
Love,
Tengu Man

"Whoever's trying to destroy the sanctuaries doesn't realize they can regenerate infinitely[in other words, destroyed sanctuaries eventually regenerate since the Earth itself powers them].

And by eventually, I mean in three f---ing seconds, so bugger off and do something that doesn't f--- with my plot plans, would ya?

I think we need to find his menace before we go any further." he said.

"I agree... this is becoming annoying." Darth said, pulling out his lightsaber.

DUN DUN DUN

"Where was the last fluctuation?" asked Diamond Dog.

By the way, I meant to mention this last time: Tengu has employed perhaps his favorite rule-circumventing trick here, commandeering a minor EarthBound character (Diamond Dog, in this case) and using him as an extra AC. Note how Tengu is essentially working four AC's now (himself, Paula, Ness, and Diamond Dog; technically Jeff is around too, but Tengu rarely uses him for anything,) and nobody is calling him out on it.

He might get called out on it if he tried to split them up and have, say, Ness and DD go off some other direction by themselves, but even then, he might not.

"Pink Cloud. That's were we should head next." Ness teleported everyone to Dalaam.

They made their way through the cave of the Pink Cloud. They saw Falcom fighting with someone.

Wait, did Tengu actually typo 'Falcon' too, or is he making fun of 3164 by repeating his spelling error?

Ness motioned to Paula, Darth and Mani to stay in the shadows while he and Jeff went face to face with him.

"That's him..." Ness gritted his teeth and slammed him with PSI Rockin Omega. Falcon was caught off guard.

Psychic shield! Hell-oooo?!

"Who did that?!"

"It's OUR turn..." Ness appeared within his sights, "You're the one trying to destroy the santuaries. I'd like to let you know you're failing miserably."

"What're you talking about?! I destroyed the power of Pink Cloud!"

"Um, duh... These sanctuaries are powered by the Earth itself. They regenerate a little while after they're "destroyed". You can't permenately destroy the Your Sanctuaries. Sorry to disappoint you." Jeff appeared, aiming his bottle rockets at him...

I for one am eagerly anticipating Falcon24's next post. This impending confrontation between him and Tengu is the most exciting thing on the Gathering since Chris's whirlwind courtship of PSI322 back when they were having that dance.

For the record, I do not expect him to fly off the handle; been there, done that, and he's smart enough to know it won't accomplish much dealing with Tengu Man. I more expect him to accept the challenge and we'll get to see a writer one-upping contest between two of our volatile star writers. Don't let us down, Falcon24!