Anonymous time-consuming project #2, on the other hand, is on hold, which means that I can officially make my 2013 New Year’s Resolution MOTHER 2 novel-centric.

Click here to download/listen to the Fangamer Podcast’s Earthbound episode.

You can download every episode directly to your iPod from iTunes or subscribe to the RSS Feed.

the creepiness combo pack, by fangamer

You know the Tenda—about yay tall, green, sticks for arms, hate talking. Saori Kumi, on the other hand, saw them as an opportunity to anticipate that weird Japanese hyper-real-videogame-character meme by about ten years.

Because while you may think of Tenda as a race whose existence is predicated on firing Chekhov’s Library and looking like plushies before Fangamer even got to them—a race so cute that their name, in Japan, evokes gummy bears, fruit snacks, and other things you might find packed next to the note in your elementary-school lunchbox—Saori Kumi has different ideas.

Saori Kumi thinks they look like tiny, creepy men.

Take a trip with me to the area just past Tenda Village, nestled deep within the Uncanny Valley.

The hallways finally opened up into a remarkably large room. Poo was already inside with a group of small people with heads sharpened into a point like a chestnut. Both men and women were garbed in simple, primitive fabrics woven from tree bark. Their black hair, dangling down to their shoulders, looked wet and shiny and was pulled together in the back. None of the people had any facial hair, but their feet looked strong and muscular.

Wet hair, muscular feet, sharpened heads, shut up shut up shut up!!!!!

Among all of them was a single elder with a white necklace of bones draped around his neck. Well, wrinkles from prolonged exposure to the sun might give a person the appearance of an old person, but his hair was also thin and frizzy, although still an elegant jet black. His posture was also still impeccable. A dignified expression graced his face, so he was probably the elder-role in the community, at least.

Saori Kumi won’t shut up with all these physical details—I can’t stop thinking about their strong feet, ughhhhhh—but the Menda, as is their way, won’t start talking.

Welcome, Ness. We are the Tenda tribe.

A stern voice—no, a thought that felt like a voice—echoed clear as day through his head!

Angry, we are not. We are mute. We hold not words with sounds.

“Telepathy!” Paula cried. “These guys are sending telepathic signals!”

Of all the people on earth Paula should actually find this the least exciting. But after she breaks their years-long silence by telling them something they already know—right into their muscular ears—the Tenda are given a dose of Kumi backstory. Exposition dump:

For tens of thousands of years, Tendas have lived across every corner of this jungle called the Underworld. They lived a quiet and peaceful life… However, one day their land was invaded by outsiders who, to the Tenda, were a deafening group, yakking incessantly.

The Tenda tribe hated fights, but they would not just be driven out from their own homes. They had no choice but to learn the language of the enemy. First they had to practice pronunciation, which in itself was an incredibly daunting task. After all, the Tendas were the kind of people who would even snore via telepathy!

Eventually they managed to interpret; at that point they quietly suggested everyone respect the interests of one another. For the Tenda that was a given. The enemy, too, nodded at the advice. Yes, you’re quite right, they said. But actually, those villains had told a flat-out lie. They spoke sweet words to the Tendas, and smiled as they offered their friendship to the tribe, but all the while their hearts cackled as they thought to themselves, Look at you chumps! We’ll wipe your stupid race off the planet!

Kicking, punching, hitting, looting. They envisioned these scenes of violence in their imaginations—wouldn’t you know it, they were actually looking forward to it!

Now then, these violence-loving enemies, naturally, had no idea that every single sly thought in their minds was leaking right to the Tenda tribe. Had they known, they would have flown off the handle even more. And the Tenda tribe would have received a shock like a violent slap across the cheek.

But the Tenda tribe had already forfeited before the battle had begun. Either way, the outcome was clear for these creatures who were not only unwilling to hurt another being, but could feel the pain inflicted upon others—even a group of people who actively sought out violence.
It was sad, but they ran away. They left the forest and went into hiding. The enemies, having gotten excited about wiping out the tribe in a sweeping war, set out on a furious search for the creatures. It was impossible, though, for them to sneak up on the telepaths.

The enemies snapped into a fit of rage at the sudden disappearances; their trifling arguments escalated into heated fights until finally they turned on one another, punching and gnashing about until they eventually killed each other. Hundreds of lives were lost, all in vain. Hundreds of children lost their parents, hundreds of wives lost their husbands, and hundreds of parents lost their children.

The wails and cries of despair filled the entire forest. The kind-hearted Tenda were greatly affected by this and fell into a deep despair that emptied their hearts. They descended further into hiding. Never again would they be caught up in the affairs of anyone else. Never again would they be seen by another creature…

Until Paula said, “Hey, you guys!!! You’re mind-readers!!!”

I can’t blame her for ruining the poignant moment, though; I, too, get talky when I’m thrown into a situation with terrifying, pseudoreal homuculi. Especially when I was told they were going to be adorable.

My faithful assistant LiarX will be back soon with a final excerpt from chapter eight before we move on to the mighty story climax. Doo doo doo doo doo!

Winters brings us to Jeff, who we already established in an earlier blog post as, well, this:

Jeff pushed his covers aside and placed his feet flat on the cold floor with a clang. Peeking out from the bottom of his pajama pants was a support harness made of aluminum, steel, and leather, wrapped around each of his shins. The noise echoed horribly in the depth of the darkness, and just as he always did, Jeff scorned his own unpleasant body—Frankenstein’s modern-day monster. An unshapely, pitiful monster dragging around a ball and chain the weight of a bowling ball around his ankles.

And upon leaving on his journey, he had to deal with, well, this:

By the time Jeff climbed the gray carpeted staircase of the abandoned dormitory, down another staircase, walked through the long hallway, and climbed another staircase to finally reach the entrance hall, he was already panting for breath and out of energy. The iron around his legs made them nearly impossible to bend, and he couldn’t lift them up very far, so he struggled when he didn’t have a handrail to walk against. His joints creaked like an unoiled robot, and his calf muscles were swollen and throbbing in pain.

He realized how Tony had always been by his side, casually supporting him for everything. At the time, he was annoyed with how Tony would meddle into every little thing he did, but now Jeff realized that he had been totally reliant on Tony. It even stopped him from getting proper exercise on a daily basis.

How is a guy like me supposed to make it over fields of snow? Jeff worried. I’ve got to cross the ocean all by myself to go save these people I don’t even know.

–Leading to Maxwell handing over the school’s greatest treasure. But not before Tony gets to him.

“Sorry I’m late.” Maxwell was already at the front door and had opened it for him. A cold wind blew inside. Outside, it was terrifyingly pitch black. “What’s wrong, Jeff? You don’t look so good.”

“…It’s nothing. Thank you very much. I’ll see you later.” Jeff forced a smile onto his face and passed through the door.

Thwap! Thwap! Jeff was bombarded with a barrage of snowballs. He jumped in surprise, slipping on the ground and falling flat on his butt.

“What?! And you call yourself a warrior?”

“Don’t go soiling the name of Morris School, now!”

“Good luck, Jeff! Keep your chin up!”

“…You guys…” Jeff sat with his mouth agape. A large crowd of pajama’d boys had come to see him off. Boys with otherwise outstanding grades, behavior in good conduct, primly pressed uniforms and perfect posture. During class and tests, they had their secret burning rivalries among one other, looking for loopholes to set traps and get ahead. Even when Jeff wasn’t involved in that, he had a dark, lonely wall around him, so Tony was the only one that ever came to talk to him. All the other boys in school acted like they had no interest whatsoever in anyone else.

And that Tony was standing in the group, even though he was supposed to still be in the lab. Naturally, he was the one to dash forward to help Jeff to his feet.

“If you’re falling down at every little thing like that, I worry about your future, Warrior,” Maxwell sneered playfully as he walked up to them. “I’ve got the perfect present for you.”

Four students hi-ho’d as they pushed forward a large silver object. It was like some mix between a snowmobile, an off-road bike, and a transforming mecha from some robot anime.

“Wha—that’s—!”

“Yep. The headmaster’s predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor Hawking’s beloved Hyper Wheelchair! I snatched it from the Memorial Hall—it’s a shame to let such a treasure sit and rot like some kind of showcase item. I’m sure you’ll make great use of it.”

Jeff climbed onto the vehicle. The red leather seat adjusted through air pressure. It was six-wheel drive and solar-powered, and steered through a joystick. The cockpit was lined with meters and switches. The glove compartment was impressively stocked with a first-aid kit, a kettle, some snacks and meat pies, and a cluster of bananas.

One of the boys let out a whistle. “Aren’t you lookin’ hot!”

“Suits you great, man!”

“Don’t be reckless, you run that into the ground and you’re expelled!”

“…Thank you…” Jeff swallowed back the lump in his throat. “Everyone… thank you so much! …Maxwell, you too…”

“Alrighty then,” Maxwell gave Jeff a firm handshake. “Time for this man to set off—I must say congratulations. Just don’t go dying some stupidly unimpressive death.”

“Okay. …Oh, Tony!”

“Wahhh, Jeeeff!” Tony wrapped his arms around Jeff’s neck. “Ahhh, if it’s come to this I’ve got to tell you now. To tell you the truth—to tell you the truth—I like you, Jeff! Like, um… in that way! I really really like you!”

“Yeah.” Jeff ran his fingers through Tony’s messy hair and ruffled it up. “I like you too. Just not in that way.”

“Really? Yeah—yeah, I figured. Oh well.” Tony rubbed the tears from his eyes. “But we’ll always be friends! Best friends!”

“I know,” Jeff nodded. He started up the engine. The comforting roar gave him courage. “Well, I’m off! I’ll see you guys later!”

He looked for the switch with the snowman logo and pressed it. Ssshuuu! The vehicle grew taller as powerful spikes slashed outward from within the rubber tires.

This round of illustration will portray Jeff setting off on his wildly non-canonical journey, the whole student body of Morris School wishing him well as he zooms off on the Great Hawking’s Hyper Wheelchair! I know the description of the fake snowmobile thing isn’t much, but it’s all the novel provides. The only other addition later on is that it has retractable headlights and a front windshield with wipers.

I’m hoping someone who likes to draw/design machines, etc. can come up with something Earthboundy and fun.

The band continued playing an endless medley of music as the bus rolled on. Ness remembered a night long, long ago when he awoke in the middle of the night. He could recall hearing the radio playing some of this from his parent’s bedroom. Paula recognized a few songs she had heard while lying on her dad’s back. The music continued to blast, so everyone in the bus was so caught up with the tunes—not to mention the bus windows completely blocked by costumes and instrument cases—that they didn’t even notice they had already passed through the ghost-ridden tunnel.

The seemingly endless inner-bus gig casually changed to the closing song of auld sang lyne. They took turns with solos; the trumpet, then bass, followed by harmonica, each playing with master technique. Before they knew it, the bus had come to a stop.

“Alriiiiight, we made it to Threed!”

The bus door opened, and the kids climbed over the bodies and the tour gear to exit the bus.

“You come on by and see us in Fourside! We’ll be playin’ there for ‘bout a month.”

“Take care, now! We’ll be cheering you on, no matter where we are!”

“Go save our planet!”

The low voices of the five men sang an acapella chorus of “We Are The World” as they jumped in the bus and sped off, leaving the two standing alone in silence.

Seeing as they had been completely immersed in an environment bursting with excitement and happiness, standing here and looking around, they felt the stark contrast with the dull darkness of the town around them. It was not raining, but thick, dark clouds covered the sky and hung strangely close to the ground. Unlike the peaceful towns of Onett and Twoson, the town was lined with cold, sullen buildings standing tall and curtly square, as if it had been urbanizing. A yellow glow flashed onto the wet stone pavement from the overhead broken streetlights blinking and buzzing loudly like a giant bug. There were barely any people coming and going through the dark shadows between the tall buildings.

“So this is Threed.” Ness looked around. “What a lonely place.”

“Well, let’s figure out where we’re going to stay tonight.” Paula let out a sneeze. “I’m freezing. I want to rest early tonight.”

They walked down the sidewalk a ways and came across a guide map. The entire city was drawn out.

“Here. Hotel Threed. It looks pretty big. Three blocks north of here, looks like.”

“…Ahhhh…” Paula responded blankly.

“What’s the matter? You really don’t feel well? Let’s hurry up, then.”

“…Look.” Paula’s white hand pointed to the top part of the map. “Graves.”

It was indeed a graveyard. It took up an enormous area of the north part of town.

“Of course a town this big is going to have a graveyard.”

“It’s moving,” Paula whispered. “Can’t you see it? Right over there, it’s moving around. Under the cold dirt of those graves, people that have died long, long ago are slowly coming back to life… one, and then another, they’re getting ready to come out… Ahhh, no! Stay away! Stop!!” A painful groan escaped from Paula’s lips and she dropped to the ground.

“Paula!” Ness held her up and put his hand to her forehead. “Ahh, you’ve got a fever! You must have caught a cold. That bus was so hot, you must have caught it when we got off and had such cold air all of a sudden. Or maybe you’re carsick from the bus? You want me to take you to the hospital?”

“Ahh… s—scary… Ness, I’m so scared!” Paula clutched at Ness’s shirt with alarming strength. “Someone’s there. Something’s there. Some wicked—treacherous—thing is…watching us from beneath the dark slime with its—dark, twisted, sulky eyes. It’s so filthy, it’s getting me nauseated. Ahhh… what is that?! No! It’s so disgusting!”

“…Didn’t you say you weren’t scared of ghosts?”

“I don’t care about any old ghost. I’m not even scared of dead people. Everyone dies someday…but, this thing… it’s pukey…and spewing vomit and gushing filth and—ngh!”

“We better get going.”

Ness looked at the map. There was a hospital, but it was quite far from where they were. The hotel was much closer. He figured they might as well hurry to the hotel, get her changed and warmed up, and rest a little bit first. If she was still in bad shape, he could always call an ambulance.

“Well, we can’t just stand here forever, so let’s get to the hotel. Can you walk? Should I carry you?”

“I should be able to walk a little… I’m sorry, Ness…”

“It’ fine. Here, hang on to me. It’s not far, you can do it!”

Now it’s time for our illustration excerpt.

Paula, overcome with illness, leaned half of her weight onto Ness as they headed toward the hotel. A light rain began to fall, and as the rocky sidewalk smoothed out, it became very slippery and incredibly difficult to walk on. They managed to walk two blocks when a neon sign came into view, shining foggily through the rain. Ness smiled in relief. But.

“H         E  L           L        ”

He stopped in his tracks, smile frozen and twitching. Paula weakly rose her head and whispered, “What’s wrong?” Her body was shaking, and it seemed she could no longer see very well.

The bright red neon light buzzed off, and a moment later turned back on, this time neon blue.

“H O T E L T H R E E D”

“…It’s nothing.” Ness let out a deep sigh. “I thought we were lost for a second. It’s fine, I see it right over there.”
The neon sign switched off again, flicking back to the red letters, with various parts of the letters burnt out to once again display the ominous sign.

What was really impressive about this part is how visual the text in the novel actually is. When HOTEL THREED turned back on, the text in the novel had it so an L shape was bolded within one of the E’s–I didn’t even know that was possible.

This scene, I thought, was really neat. With the way Kumi writes, I’m also pretty relieved she didn’t go with the Zombie Chick because I don’t doubt that she would make too much of a connection between Ness and prostitution than I would have liked.

Carpainter and the Happy-Happyists (a fantastic band name) have just completed their Outstanding Believer Awards Show, wherein believers win awards for outstanding acts of innovation and courage in demonstrating unparalleled faith such as setting free 300 blue coral snakes in a neighborhood area, striking down 50 people–pitiful, unknowing sheep astray from the ways of Blue Blue–with loving smacks until they were covered with so many bruises their skin turned black and blue, and, most Japanesely of all, rewiring every single traffic light in town so that all of them would always display that lovely color of blue-green at all times.

It’s always bizarre when this game novelization, which takes place in the very epitome of America, throws out strictly Japanese cultural cues. I’m not even talking about the Buddhist props being used by Happy-Happyists. I’m talking about the fact that Japanese people, to the chagrin of all non-native Japanese speakers, call the green light of traffic lights “blue”, not green. And now I’m trapped having to convince people that a traffic light has even a vague tint of blue to it.

Anyway, interrupting this village-wide major event is our heathen red-capped hero. Carpainter, who is our host on stage, flies into a rage and throws the doors of the zushi open to blind all the robed men, women and children in the crowd like some kind of Pokemon episode.

“So, the little bug likes to fly into fire, eh? I’ll show you who’s Happy!” A fierce, dark grin crept onto the priest’s face. He dashed over to the zushi behind him and threw his hands onto the doors. “You’re not getting out of here alive this time! Taste the Super Aura of our holy ghost, Evil Mani Mani!”
BANG! The doors were flung open so violently they smashed off into pieces. A concentrated blue light was reflected off of the golden statue and shone bright enough to induce blindness. Shards of gorgeous, brilliant light radiated out from it.
Father Carpainter took the statue and hoisted it up onto his back. The ominous rays of light spread out from behind his back gave him the splitting image of an enormous peacock. Shrieks and moans from the crowd of believers echoed throughout the hall. The large crowd, as if being physically struck, began to fall to the ground from the overwhelming power and blinding light.
“Carpainter, you coward!” Ness roared at him. Just as the altar doors had opened, Ness had happened to have his head down with the bill of his baseball cap shielding his eyes, clenched shut, protecting him from most of the shock. All around him, people had fallen to their knees and were now scrambling wildly to escape. The entire hall was a pile of squirming bodies. Just imagine, for a moment, that you are standing entirely still on a staircase in the middle of a downtown train station at the peak of rush hour traffic. “Leave these people out of it!”
“Mwaha, mwahahaha! Say what you will, boy!” The priest’s face, lit up now with a bright blue light, was that of a demon. Any remnant of the timid, good-natured priest had completely disappeared. “I will not forgive scum who defy me. I am the priest. I am the leader. This world shall become awash in blue, and it shall all be mine! Hohoho! Ahhhahaha! Oh, the power—this feels so good! Everyone, come, bow at my feet! I’m so powerful! I am the best!”
“Oh, Lord Carpainter… Our Dear Lord Carpainter!” Next to Ness, a woman with dark circles under her eyes whispered as tears welled up in her eyes. “I will follow you. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.”
“Everything will be blue!” A brawny woodsman-looking man spat on the ground. “Blue is wonderful! It’s beautiful! Everyone will live happily on a planet enveloped in blue!”
“Mwahahaha, you see this, boy? My power?!” The priest became more and more ecstatic, and the blue light around him grew even stronger. “Ohh, I can’t sit still! I feel it crawling in me! I’m just getting started, I’ve got a lot more where that came from! There’s so much power I can’t even keep it all in! That’s it. I’m sick of this. All you people can have this supreme blue power. Take it and go to Mani Mani’s heaven! I can get another batch of believers afterwards, anyway… Ah, here it comes, here it comes… Mani-Mani!”
*Shriieeek!*
“Wahhh, Mommy!!”
“It’s too much! Gahh!!”
A tidal wave of Happy Blue gushed out and swallowed the swirl of people it enveloped. Some people began twitching from an overload of happiness, some people’s eyes rolled to the back of their head as they screamed. Then, suddenly, a thick bolt of lightning sliced through the air across the room! But.
Ka-chiiiin!
“Gyaaahhhh!!”
At that moment, the small amount of people left who still had their senses watched what happened. The boy in the bright red cap had stood firmly in place, without flinching, as the blue torrent charged straight at him. As if protecting as many people as he could, he even had his arms outstretched protectively, chest stuck out, and took the blunt of the lightning bolt. It was then that the small, silver, coin-like item pinned to his chest took the brazen spear of light straight on—the bolt bounced off with a sharp ‘ching!’. Seems he had survived the heavy impact. But not only that… the bolt was instantaneously reflected back, and the priest standing up at the altar was hit with his very own lightning bolt! The form of a skeleton shone through the blast of light like an x-ray image. There was an explosion of blue.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with our illustration excerpt:

The glass of the windows and lights shattered instantly, and an enormous crack dashed along the walls of the temple. Peeled-off plaster and loose boards shattered and let loose a shower onto the people below like a cold, quiet rain. The unsettling blue color that had lingered stagnant in the air now scattered downward and disappeared into thin air. Suddenly everything became quiet, and the air began to clear with a refreshing transparency. One by one, people slowly began move around and slowly get up. They raised their eyes.

Then they saw it. The soft, gentle, natural sunlight shone a single beam of faint-orange light onto the podium, where a young boy softly held the fallen priest in his arms.

Ohh, Ness.

One of the great things about EarthBound is how much it leaves unexplained, and how indifferent it is about showing you it’s not explaining anything. A lesser game might run into the ground the fact that we never see Ness’s dad, that he appears to actually be an incredibly rich series of pay telephones, but EarthBound just accepts it as a fact of Ness’s universe.

This is the novel, though, and Kumi has turned up the volume in a way we can’t even begin to evoke on this blog. So I knew going into this lowly-co-editor gig that Ness would eventually be reunited with his dad. But I had no idea it would be… so anticlimactic.

Scene: The Chosen Four at a reception in their honor, for that is what’s done when four children slay a vicious kraken off the coast of a certain resort town. Ness sees a guy who looks kind of familiar, and is excited about it for a minute:

When evening came, the best hotel in town, the Great Southern Hotel, passionately welcomed the crew with a dinner party.

Oh—but when they went to the grand hall, it was a standing-room dinner party, packed with people and banquets. In true southern country fashion, the speech was not long, the toasts were toasted, and, without formality, everyone began their pleasant chatting. But people from every-which-way came and sought out the captain and the kids. They couldn’t quite get the opportunity to have dinner.

“We can’t hold back at a time like this, we’ve got to eat as much as we can!”

Paula took Ness’s hand and knocked everyone around as they made their way to the buffet line along the wall. “Sushi, curry, tempura… Oh, I can’t decide! Hey, Ness! Look! There’s a burger stand!”

“Huh? …Ahhh~!”

“Ah? …? …Aahhhh!!”

In your best faux-Japanese: Ehhhhhhhhh????

That’s right: Ness’s dad just happens to be running the burger stand at a festival being held in his son’s honor. “Oh,” he must’ve thought upon accepting the gig, “it’s some coincidence that some other boy named Ness Mylastname with psychic powers just slew a kraken being controlled by the Universal Cosmic Destroyer.”

But it turns out it’s the same one!

A scream spilled out from Ness as he instinctively pointed at the burger stand. The tall man in a red and white striped shirt and a cook’s hat who was busily frying burgers noticed the scream and looked up—he instantly pointed and screamed back.

“Dad!” He charged forward. The crowd parted in shock.

“Ness! Is it really you?!” It was really Dad, and with the spatula still in hand, he opened up his arms.

Next to the iron stovetop sizzling with hot burgers, the father and son clutched each other tightly.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! So the heroes who exterminated the monsters were you guys, huh? What a surprise.”

“You surprised me, too!” Ness smiled. “Your overseas business trip was here, Dad?!”

“Here,” incidentally, is the bustling capital city of Deep Darkness, but for this and other geographical god-playing I’ll have to leave you in the capable Japanese-speaking hands of Chewy.

[Mixed-Metaphor Clarification Note: Chewy does not actually speak Japanese with her hands. But I'm going to suggest it to her ASAP.]

Meanwhile, Ness and Mister, uh, Ness continue to share a reunion that sounds more or less like the phone call I get once every two weeks from my dad, who has no idea at all that I’m the only boy prepared to use the power of love against the personification of evil.

“That’s right.” He looked at Ness with an embarassed look in his eye and nodded with a smile. “Mr. Aloysius ordered me to all different places, and finally I landed on the other side of the ocean, but… it turned out to be worth it coming here. Turns out almost no one in this country has ever seen a hamburger before! They all just eat it up and tell me how delicious it is. I feel like the chef of some five-star restaurant.”

“I see…” Ness remembered the Bio Ness Burger incident in Fourside. It was clear that the one and only Aloysius was involved in that, but there was no need to distress his dad about it, Ness figured. He decided not to mention it. “But, I think Mom’s really lonely.”

“Hey, Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“Someone’s stolen your trademark and used it in a terrorist attack on Eagleland’s biggest city to create a race of murderous burger-zombies who—aww, shucks, it’s not important. But, I think Mom’s really lonely.”

“Yeah…” Ness’s dad looked troubled and he picked at the end of the napkin folded around his neck like a necktie. “I call Rachel on the phone sometimes. So that’s how I knew you had left on a journey to fight a bad guy. I thought that we’d be able to meet up someday, but I never thought I’d see you today.”

Ness’s dad ran his large hand across his son’s cheek. “You got so big on me. You’re working so hard, Ness. Your dad can’t just go and lose, either… I’m going to make our beloved Ness Burger the number one burger in the whole world!”

And then they just kind of go their separate ways. If I’m talking to my dad in this situation we each mention the weather in our own location one more time, then there’s a pause, and then we both remember an errand that needs to be run away from the phone.

And he leaves the conversation none the wiser about my PSI powers.

Editor Dan Moore, crew of Fangamer, my fellow Earthbound fans: Major combat operations in the official MOTHER 2 novelization have ended. In the battle against the Japanese language, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing this novel.

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for peace in a world dominated by Japanese-only gaming merchandise. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment — yet it is you, the loyal readers of this novelization blog, who have helped me achieve it. Your patience — your willingness to face dangerously long periods of time between updates — made this day possible. Because of you, our nation has one more piece of history. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Earthbound: The Novel is in English.

Excerpts will continue to be posted while editing is underway. I’m setting a very rough timeline of final touches to be complete by around February, during which time I’ll also be discussing and brainstorming with others possible methods of distribution.

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the updates, and please participate in the illustration project! I’ll do my best to keep providing the excerpts to illustrate, so you guys do your best to send in awesome novel-centric fanart!

Excerpts have been scarce lately, but rest assured–this is because I’ve had my hands full with actual translating. Chapter 9 is done, leaving the final–and the very shortest–chapter all that’s left! I’m forecasting a finished translation draft by the end of the week!

Editing is going to take another long time, but in the meantime we’ll keep posting excerpts and continue to share the book.

Now go back to the illustration excerpt and SEND AWESOME PICTURES!