[The “MOTHER,” She Wrote theme ends]

CAT

I’ve been living that latchkey life in the swamp; no parents, no rules, and I turned out just fine - it’s your favorite lost girl from the Floridian Neverland, Cat Blackard.

JESS

You know, Cat, there’s something very strange about your co-host. 

CAT

Oh yeah?

JESS

Something very strange indeed. I may not be a Dragonborn, but I can Fus Ro Dah-molish one with the right tools. 

[The Mother’s Day Times theme starts]

CAT

…Okay. But before we embrace Oblivion, let’s get the latest from The Mother’s Day Times!

[The theme flourishes and ends]

JESS

First off, we want to give a shout out to the students of Nashville Children's Theatre Fall Break 2023! You’re all amazing. You brought Youngtown to life!

CAT

Yes! It was so great working with all these brilliant young actors! You’re absolutely wonderful and the work the Nashville Children’s Theatre does to celebrate and uplift the creativity of young people is astounding. Special thanks to Anisa, Paul, Elen, Lucas, Katherine, Kalyani, Asher, and Ruben - it was so cool to perform with you - and to Nashville Children’s Theatre Director of Education, Colin Peterson for coordinating this and helping make this crazy dream a reality. I really can’t overstate how incredible the work of NCT is. Their performances of She Kills Monsters and The Old Man and the Old Moon were some of the best stage performances I’ve ever seen, full stop - and the casts were all young actors. For any of you out there in the area, seek out their shows, or heck maybe even enroll your kids? It’s an incredible, supportive, and inclusive institution that fosters creativity and young minds in a way I’ve never seen.

JESS

It really is. Now, this episode is our last EarthBound Beginnings travelog episode until early next year.

CAT

So, you know, we thought… why not make this audio drama segment EVEN BIGGER!?

JESS

Well, you obviously had some fun filling in on some holes in the story.

CAT

I did… “Which holes,” you ask? We’ll get there in this episode’s discussion. But, hey, speaking of holes, you won’t have to go months with no “MOTHER,” She Wrote! Between now and then we’re filling that hole by adventuring into more Dimensional Slips and expanding our exploration of the MOTHER series at large. And of course, those episodes also contain Mother’s Day Times segments like this one, so you’ll be kept abreast of all our goings on, neat stuff happening in the EarthBound community, AND cool facts… like this:

JESS

Last episode we mentioned EarthBound Beginnings' three gynoid robot enemies, which had American women’s names in Japan, but then were changed to completely different American women’s names in the US translation.

CAT 

Clearly purposeful, but I didn’t know what the story was.

JESS

Fortunately, Biozilla and Thane Gaming swooped in to the rescue. They both wrote in to share that MOTHER’s Jane, Caroline, and Suzy became Nancy, Kelly, and Juana in EarthBound Beginnings. Phil Sandhop’s localization team at Nintendo of America renamed them after Nacy, their team’s administrator, Kelly, their licensing director, and Juana, the vice president of licensing.

Thane Gaming pointed out: “In the case of Juana & Kelly, it’s funny that the tougher enemy was named after Juana, because she’s the director and Kelly [the less powerful enemy] is named after her assistant!”

CAT

Unfortunately, Phil Sandhop didn’t credit their full names, and I didn’t have time to dig into that particular detail. Buuuut we’ve got more fun facts! Thane shared a localization change that I totally forgot to mention: all the gynoids had their sprites slightly censored because Nintendo decided that the shading pixels on their chests looked… too much like nipples. Sandhop said: "I'll claim that one. While I personally have nothing against nipples, they are robots and carried no function other than to suggest female-ness. Smoothing down the ol' sheet metal sounded like it would be easier and look better than having them wear a top." Oof.

JESS

Both Biozilla and Thane pointed out an intriguing mystery: no one, at least on the English side of the Internet, knows who MOTHER’s enemy names Jane, Caroline, and Susie are a reference to.

CAT

Sure, they could be random names, but that’s usually not the case when it comes to Itoi’s work. So if you can figure it out or find a clue, let us know! Write in at dearmothershewrote@gmail.com Biozilla also shared that Yucca Desert’s music has a cool story behind it: When developing the game, memory space had to be carefully divided between the visuals and the audio, and at times, those two teams working on those parts of the game would bump heads. Yucca Desert’s Tejano music that I highlighted as my Memorable Melody last episode, was nearly scrapped due to space issues. However, because composer Keiichi Suzuki was dead set on having the music change when you enter the desert, he actually wrote a letter of request to the programmers to ensure that it would stay in the game.

JESS

Thanks Biozilla and Thane Gaming for that expert psychic sleuthing, and be sure to check out Thane Gaming’s YouTube channel, home to their extensive Dark Aspects of MOTHER series and a recent interview with Aaron Cargile, a producer of the EarthBound, USA documentary. It’s a fantastic discussion that goes deep into the nuts and bolts of documentary filmmaking. 

CAT

And also into the Mayonnaise Hole, one of my favorite subjects.

JESS

And… a discussion for another time.

CAT

Aw…Gosh, I hope so. More to the point: our next episode is a Dimensional Slip interview with EarthBound, USA’s director, Jazzy Benson. Where we’ll discuss the artistry and passion of the MOTHER fan community, how it’s evolved, Jazzy’s early fan films, and the way that art and artists communicate with each other through creation. So many works of art inspired the creators of this series, and MOTHER has likewise inspired generations of fans since - to make their own radically different art. 

JESS

That episode comes out November 20th, one week before the film’s online debut, which is Monday, November 27th. Head to earthboundusa.com for more details on where to watch it. 

CAT

Hey, Jess! We forgot to mention something in the last Mother’s Day Times

JESS

What’s that?

CAT

Last episode’s audio drama segment had a deleted scene that didn’t make the final cut! 

JESS

Oh, right! In it, the kids meet Mr. Wimstein, the Twinkle Elementary science teacher who sells them super bombs and the sticky machine.

CAT

The scene has been fully voice acted and sound designed and you can hear it… if you subscribe on Patreon or Fable and Folly Plus. Patreon, well you probably know the drill - go to patreon.com/omniversemedia to support us and get early, ad-free episodes, weekly updates, access to exclusive channels in our Discord community, and a lot of bonus content from all our shows - past, present, and future. Now, Fable and Folly Plus is something we don’t talk about as much, but is a really cool service. If you love audio drama and want to listen to it ad-free along with bonus content? Head to fableandfolly.com/plus. You can listen to all the audio dramas in Fable and Folly’s massive roster of shows, totally ad-free - supporting all those creators and that includes “MOTHER,” She Wrote and our other series: The Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program.

JESS

If you love this show and are able to toss a few bucks our way, it means a lot. It takes countless hours to make every episode.

CAT

And it’s not cheap!

JESS

Not at all! But, there are plenty of ways to support the show where you don’t have to spend a dime, just a little time, and we really appreciate it. Wally90802 left us a review on Apple Podcasts. They said: “I am not a gamer by any means and I don’t play this game, but wow is this interesting! Makes me want to play! But I don’t have a Nintendo!”

CAT

That’s what we’re here for Wally! The Cat and Jess Entertainment System - here to take you on uncanny adventures.

JESS
But we only play three games. 

CAT

Yeah, there is that… Schnozzbun wrote in from Australia and shared that she found us by following the #earthbound tag on Tumblr - which is a hot tip. There’s amazing stuff happening there.

JESS

And we recently posted a bunch of your childhood EarthBound art to our Tumblr account. 

CAT

Yeah. It’s fun. Check it out, why not. Anyhow, Schnozzbun shared that she wasn't born when the first two games were released, but in discovering creators like Stephen Georg and chuggaconroy, she learned about MOTHER. She says, “their love for the series was absolutely infectious and made young-me ravenous to learn more… opening me up to engaging with the fandom, where I've met some of the loveliest, most creative people ever. (Shout-out to the Queen Mary's Castle Discord server! You guys PK Rock!)”

Schnozzbun says “[EarthBound] really kicked my confidence into becoming a fanfic writer and hopefully a published writer one day. There's just something about MOTHER games that make people want to dramatize their events and characters.” Huh! Funny that! And then she goes on to say that our travelog sections of the show remind her of the fun she had listening to archived episodes of Fobbies are Borange and Tree From My Youth and asks if those shows were an inspiration at all?

JESS

Uhhh. What are those, Cat? 

CAT

Why they are fan projects from Starmen.net a little after my time, actually! I’m aware of them, but haven’t listened to them. Starmen.net used to host an online radio show put on by Jami Lynne and Fobbies are Borange was a segment on that show that was a kind of live, unhinged adaptation of EarthBound, if I understand correctly? And Tree From My Youth is that, but for MOTHER 3. 

Fun fact: my only interaction with Fobbies are Borange was at Camp Fangamer. Some of the cast reunited and made a short film called “Fobbies are Borange 2: This is Canon”, which you can watch on YouTube. And that’s where I met Jami, who played Jeff in the show, and is a lovely person and makes cool music you might like. Check out her record under the moniker Clover & Sealife or the score to the hit MOTHERlike game, OMORI!

JESS

Speaking of MOTHERlikes, Schnozzbun says that MOTHER “has also introduced me to other pieces of media that drew inspiration from it, mainly LISA: The Painful. You should maybe talk about it if you ever do an episode covering media that’s been influenced by the MOTHER series.”

CAT

And wow - somehow I’d never heard of LISA: The Painful. Gosh! Haha! What a game. I watched videogamedunkey’s piece on it am… absolutely floored? Terrified? Enamored? We’ve gotta play that some day.

JESS

[Laughs] Yeah, totally. That looks wild. 

CAT

Schnozzbun also shared that she’s playing the demo of the MOTHER fan remake, MOTHER Encore and has used our show as an “informal guide”. She says, “I actually know where I have to go and what order to do things haha!” 

JESS

Happy to help, Schnozzbun! 

CAT

Just doin’ our jobs, m’am. We round up all the infotainment polecats ‘round these parts.

JESS

Why are you a cowgirl now?

CAT

I dunno, little miss, but it’s time to mosey.

JESS

Well yee-haw! Okay then!

CAT & JESS

We’ll see you next Times!

[Mother’s Day Times outro fanfare]

CAT:

When last we saw our heroes, they had stumbled haplessly into Magicant again - somehow for some reason.

JESS:

Yeah. We went through that mystical monkey cave and we ended right back up in Magicant again. And so that happened, and I'm thinking to myself, "all right... we're back here again. Uh, that's weird. Something's supposed to be different?"

CAT:

And it's not really. Though, if you haven't, as a player, made a habit of going to Magicant, I suppose there's a couple things that you might tend to, like, for example, the cat that swims in the ground. If you communicate with them telepathically, because you have Ana in the party, just like there was a special gift for Lloyd who's, you know, "a weakling", you get a special ribbon that only Ana can wear. And, of course, if you are level 26 or higher, then you could go sniffing around the dragon.

JESS:

Well, I did go sniffing around the dragon, but I did have to level up a little bit first because Ana was still like level 16 or 17? So I went and explored Youngtown and some other places and spent actually quite a bit more time in the desert, just fighting enemies to get Ana leveled up. And eventually I got her to level 20. I did go back - I collected the melody from the singing cactus. I did find the landmine and got the hidden message.

CAT:

Ayyyy.

JESS

It was just lucky I could kind of do some things, be productive, while I was still leveling Ana up a bit. So I got her to level 20, I learned some interesting new PSI abilities... And before I went back to Magicant, I did swing back by Marysville so that I could pick up some items for Lloyd. I went back and visited the mysterious inventor in Twinkle Elementary and bought one of everything that he had, including the real rocket, which was a fun experience. It just like took off, shot into orbit, and was gone and, you know, just wasted that money. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. It was a good time and I had plenty of money, so I wasn't super worried about it. But I got one of everything else including the super bomb, the last weapon, and the sticky machine.

CAT:

Yeah, we did the sticky machine a little bit in the prior episode. It's a good utility for Lloyd. Ninten and Ana have the ability to alter status effects of an enemy and like kind of control the battle situation a little bit more. It gives Lloyd some battle control. It is very successful, generally speaking, at rendering an enemy inert except for mechanical enemies. The super bomb is, I mean, you could buy bombs before. Super bombs are crazy useful. It's the equivalent of PK Fire Omega, which his cohorts will not get for.... A while, and and gives Lloyd a huge advantage if you've got the money for it.

JESS:

And then last weapon, I don't know what that does. I tried using it and it just was like, "you can't use this right now." So I'm like, "okay, well maybe that's the last weapon that Lloyd will use." We'll see.

CAT:

Um... I'm... I don't know how to break this to you <laugh>.

JESS:

Okay...

CAT:

The last weapon is... It's one of those items that just kind of crowds things up.

JESS:

Mmm.

CAT:

So when you're in a battle, it just says, "you can't now." But when you're out in the world and you use it, it says, "if that's true, push the power off. But remember to hold reset."

JESS:

<Laugh> what?

CAT:

It is effectively a world ending weapon because it tells you how to destroy your universe.

JESS:

Oh, wow. <laugh>.

CAT:

You push the power off and restart the NES.

JESS:

Wow.

CAT:

It's the ultimate way to not have to fight any enemies.

JESS:

This game! It is so clever and so infuriating all at the same time.

CAT:

[Laughs].

[Plucky chiptunes music starts playing under hosts]

JESS:

It's frustrating, but you just gotta laugh at it.

CAT:

Yeah. That's what it is. [Laugh]

JESS:

Oh boy... "Last weapon." Okay. I'll put that in the, uh, trust of my loving sister, and let her take care of it.

CAT:

Yeah, Mimi's gonna have fun with that. One day, the world's just gonna end because she got curious about what the hell Ninten's been giving her [Laugh].

[Music stops]

JESS:

So after loading myself up, I went back to Magicant, I saved, I rested, made a plan, went to the dragon. So the dragon says, "you must defeat me to earn my musical note." And then you fight. And the dragon is my smashable enemy of this section of the game because, you know, it's like, okay, this this big intimidating dragon - And that sprite is so cute, it's so wonderful.

CAT:

It's goofy.

JESS:

It is goofy. And it's just this goofy little dragon with this big smile on his face.

CAT:

To play up the childishness of Magicant, like most everything, when you get into like, kind of the deep darkness of the Underflow, things get kind of spooky in there, but the dragon looks like a child attempted to draw a dragon. It's design, makes no sense.

CAT:

<laugh>,

JESS:

It has two thick haunches like legs, but no arms, and it has wings, but they're not particularly big and they have seven of like what would be on a bat's wings, like digits. So they just kinda like spring out in a way that doesn't make any kind of sense as an animal.

JESS:

Well, it's like, you know, the, the wings are the hands for a dragon.

CAT:

Oh, yeah, yeah. So the wings are hands, but these wings, they're just like awkward seven digit things on your back. It's like you make jokes about the tyrannosaurus rex's tiny arms. This is worse.

JESS:

Yeah. The dragon just spins. Its time just sleeping down there in the Underflow...

CAT:

There's nowhere to fly to. So yeah...

JESS:

There's no, you know, hoard that I can see that it's guarding or...

CAT:

It's a musical hoard. He's got a big record collection.

JESS:

Yeah. <laugh>. He's guarding the melody and uh, that's the only thing he's got to offer, so you gotta defeat him. But unfortunately the dragon has some really strong attacks and has a lot of HP. But Dear Catherine-

CAT:

Yes?

JESS:

What if I told you that I one shoted the dragon?

CAT:

Uhhh... Well, I've got some questions. <laugh> I know of a weakness that it has, but it didn't exactly allow me to one shot it <laugh>.

JESS:

Let me tell you how this fight went down.

CAT:

Okay.

JESS:

So I started the encounter. I had Ninten cast defense down. I had Lloyd attempt to use the super bomb, and I had Ana cast... I think it was brain shock.

CAT:

Okay.

JESS:

Is what I tried to use. The dragon killed Lloyd in one hit.

CAT:

Whoa.

JESS:

Took him down completely.

CAT:

Poor guy.

JESS:

And did a lot of damage to Ninten, but Ninten was still alive. So at that point I'm like, "okay, this is gonna be tough and I'm probably just not ready for this." However, Ana had a new ability called "super healing" and super healing will wake somebody back up who's been knocked unconscious.

CAT:

As illustrated in our prior episode.

JESS:

That's right. And so on the second round, I had her raise Lloyd back up, and I had Ninten cast a heal on himself. For the third round, I had Ninten drop another heal. I had Lloyd try to use the super bomb again, and I had Ana just try to use like a big PK attack on the dragon. Well, the dragon attacked Lloyd again and knocked Lloyd down, but not all the way to zero. He still had like 20 HP left or something like that. Lloyd's turn comes up, he uses the super bomb and the dragon is defeated.

CAT:

Wow.

JESS:

That's it. One shot. Dragon goes down.

CAT:

Good job, Lloyd. Super bomb's powerful. Like I said, fire omega is not learned by Anna until level 35.

JESS:

Wow. And then afterwards it said, "the dragon crooned his tune without much hesitation, the song went something like this," and you get another part of the melody.

CAT:

Yeah. Well-

JESS:

So <laugh> That was my experience of the dragon. How did it go for you?

CAT:

I mucked about with the dragon in prior sessions, just kind of noodling him after level 26 and seeing if I could get very far, and it wasn't working out. But this - this last time, oh, I took the dragon down real fast because, well, it's a dragon, so I thought, "why don't I use a PK freeze on it and see how he likes that?" Ana had learned PK freeze gamma, which the ability reduces the enemy's hit points to a critical status, which is usually like 1. And there's every reason it wouldn't work on a boss, but I suppose because it's a dragon and because it was a freeze ability and did, so Ana took the dragon down to 1 and all it took was just a flick and it was dead.

JESS:

Wow. So this dragon is really, it's a.... I don't wanna say it's all bark and no bite because it is clearly difficult if you don't know what you're doing, but it does seem to have some pretty substantial weaknesses.

CAT:

It casts PK fire beta, which attacks the entire party. Like, that's real bad. But if you have the money to spend on a super bomb or you've leveled Ana to a certain degree, you can just nuke it before it nukes you.

JESS:

Yeah. And I don't see how you wouldn't have that much money. I mean, honestly, with as much leveling as you do, as much fighting as you do - I have way more money than I know what to do with. I guess maybe I'm not spending a lot on healing items and things like that, but there's no armor really to purchase other than what's in Magicant. And I already have everybody outfitted with the best stuff. So it's like, I have all this money to just kind of sitting around. So yeah, I can go spend it on some really potent stuff to use when needed.

CAT:

No, you're right. I can buy all the plasma beams and super bombs I want and not really worry about it. That leaves us with just two more melodies.

JESS:

So close to having them all.

CAT:

And then you exit Magicant and find yourself in a new exit cave, like one that's close to Youngtown, which is now where the players exit Magicant every time that they go there now, as opposed to Marysville.

JESS:

Yeah, that was surprising. So you're saying that does that every time now it's kind of like-

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

You enter into Magicant from a certain place and that changes where you come back out. Now, if you go back to the pink Spire that's near Podunk and you enter Magicant through that, and then you exit again, do you think you come back out at Marysville?

CAT:

You know, Jess, that's something I don't know. Similarly, you could follow the train tracks all the way down past the desert and get to the Magicant spire from the back door-

JESS:

Hmm.

CAT:

-The one near Youngtown. And what does that do? I don't know the answer to that either.

JESS:

<laugh>. So you can get to Youngtown without going through the desert into Magicant.

CAT:

You can skip the desert entirely. That's the free form, open world of the game at this point. Of course, you still need to get the singing cactus in order to beat the game, but you don't actually need to do any other things in the desert.

JESS:

I would be really curious to see what an optimized speed run of this game looks like and what path you could potentially take to complete the game, bypassing so much of this really interesting content.

CAT:

I would imagine, for the sake of simply beating the game quickly, aside from using glitches that it's just leveling Ninten intensely and then smashing your way through the game.

[Plucky music begins playing under the hosts]

JESS:

After I left Magicant and exited the cave, I appeared back out kind of on the outskirts of Youngtown and I traveled south a little bit from the cave exit

CAT:

And eventually walk along the train tracks until you find yourself in a dense conifer forest.

JESS:

And inside that conifer forest is the train station for Youngtown.

CAT:

Yes.

JESS:

And inside the train station there is an attendant.

CAT:

And this station agent speaks my Mother She Quote of this session. They say, "all the trains have stopped. The track was ruined. It's the end of the world. And you just ask questions? Stop asking so many questions or I'll start to cry!"

JESS:

That made me laugh so hard. 'Cause I'm like, all right, this is the last train station on the map. It's quite literally the end of the world. And this whole time the game has been telling you, "ah go ahead, ask questions, talk to whoever you want. It's why it makes the game fun!" And now all of a sudden you have this train attendant who's like, "please stop asking questions!" <Laugh>.

CAT:

<laugh>.

JESS:

Come on game. Make up your mind! <Laugh>.

CAT:

I mean that phrase of "stop asking so many questions or I'll start to cry," it speaks to so many situations of people being in crisis and being confronted by someone who has a totally different outlook on the situation. Or even just like neurodivergent overwhelm, or I don't know, it felt like just one of those tiny, tiny moments in the game that feels powerfully human.

JESS:

You know, it could also be that the train attendant has been having to field requests from a bunch of people wondering why the train is still not working, and they're just like, "oh gosh, please just stop asking me about it. No, I don't know when the tracks are gonna get fixed."

CAT:

True enough. It was at Union Station that we first got a sense that there was something bigger happening in the world, and little fragments of how bad things are getting - though, this feels a lot like kind of the world that we live in now, in which we can all collectively look around and be like, "yep, things have definitely changed. They're a lot more ominous." But, much like how it doesn't appear that an actual invasion has started yet, everything feels really grumbly and like a dam's about to burst, it's easy to still feel overwhelmed, but it hasn't actually happened yet. Even still, it still feels like the end of the world.

JESS:

Yeah. Well, Youngtown is definitely one of the places that's been impacted the most by this, because that place is aptly named: there's only children wandering around it. As you approach Youngtown, there is this sort of like makeshift fence or gates that it looks like the children have constructed.

CAT:

And just after you get through that fence, you get the music for the town. It's a song that I remembered and a very noticeable, distinct and eerie sonic shift.

JESS:

Yeah. That was also my memorable melody for this section of the game. It is haunting.

CAT:

It starts like a weird slow morning alarm and turns into what could be the instrumental theme to a medical drama.

JESS:

That's a good description.

CAT:

It's really cool. I love it. And I also know it from EarthBound because it's in there as well, which - when we discuss that game, we'll talk about that and the possible correlations between its use. But it's just really darn short, which is a shame. The haunting bit in the beginning, the slow morning alarm part also has kind of a leitmotif to the eight melodys song.

JESS:

Hmm. You think so?

CAT:

Yeah. [Sings the notes of the Youngtown theme]

JESS:

Yeah. I guess I could hear that.

CAT:

[Sings in the discordant tune of the Youngtown theme:] "Love is the magic. Love is the story. Love is the melody-" And then it, you know, goes off into the- I mean, that's the point of a leitmotif, right? It's a teeny little thing that's a sequence of notes that ties the whole score together as a body of work. It's in there.

JESS:

I see.

CAT:

For whatever reason.

JESS:

Yeah.

CAT:

It's kind of the outro section of the Eight Melodies, St. Paul's Cathedral Choir song from the soundtrack sung by a bunch of boy choir singers. And it has the whole, you know, the part that everybody remembers, that "take a melody, simple as can be, give it some words in a sweet harmony" - the eight melodies part. But then it has this kind of like outro section, which is the part that is referenced at the beginning of the Youngtown theme

JESS:

Actually, isn't that part in like, it's in the title screen music for EarthBound Beginnings as well.

CAT:

Yeah, actually you are right? Yeah, it is.

JESS:

Yeah, so it is part of the eight melodies, but it's not part of the eight melodies. But it actually, like you said, it's a motif that carries through multiple places in the soundtrack.

CAT:

Which is why when you hear the kind of busted version of it that starts the Youngtown theme, it might make you feel additionally uncomfortable.

JESS:

Yeah. So as you're walking into Youngtown and you start to encounter the children, they say some really interesting things. For example, the first child that you encounter says "Halt. Who goes there? Boohoo."

CAT:

<laugh> Yeah. Or also possibly, "you're sushpicious! Waa!"

JESS:

<laugh>

CAT:

That's "suspicious" with a lisp. That's like, as it's written in the MOTHER Encyclopedia, potentially the Japanese rendition of that line as well. But yeah, there's a lot of little kids here that are trying to be adults looking like some sort of like little headband Rufio kind of types, but they, uh, they're all real fragile.

JESS:

Yeah.

CAT:

Poor things.

JESS:

One of them says, "please bring back our mom and dad. Please, I beg you." And a couple others say, "mom, I miss you!" "Dad, I miss you." And another child says, "please hold me." And there's some more that say, "hold me too." And, "me too."

CAT:

I love that section of the game. And like you know, we recreated it in the in the audio drama, but specifically because of the way it happens - the game assumes if you're walking through this clearing in Youngtown and you talk to these little NPCs that are moving around in sort of random patterns. But you're gonna get into this sequence where you will watch their dialogue escalate if you talk to a kid, and then in the impressionistic way of this game, assume that you, the player, is holding that kid when they ask you to, then you're eventually surrounded by kids who want you to hold them. And that's kind of what it evokes in the way that it assumes how you will interact with that area of NPCs, which is fascinating.

JESS:

One of the children explains that, "a big ship from the sky took mom and dad away." So it seems pretty clear that the aliens came here and abducted all the adults, and that must have been what happened to Ana's mom.

CAT:

Yeah. There's no official explanation for what Ana's mom was doing there. A little bit more information on Youngtown, there isn't much: the main industry is forestry. It's in this huge forested area. The town itself is like a bunch of isolated homes in between lots of what looks like tall grass and a bunch of pine trees. It's all really spread out. You don't see any signs of like the farmlands that's outside of Reindeer or anything like that. There is a church with no one in it, and there is a Jack Shop. There's the inn and a store as was the case with Snowman. And of course Youngtown is not the name of the town in MOTHER. There's only so many major holidays. Jess, can you take a guess as to which holiday it might be?

JESS:

Let's see here. So we had Spookane, we had Thanksgiving, and it's something to do with forests and children. It's probably not something as complicated as the 4th of July, even though it's Eagleland. Um... Hmm... I don't know. I'm kind of stumped here. What other holiday could it be?

CAT:

Well, it's Youngtown. It follows the Advent Desert. It's Easter.

JESS:

Easter! Really?!

CAT:

Yep. We talked about all those resurrection myths about the second coming of Christ and so forth with the, uh, official backstory for Advent Desert. So here we are in the town of resurrection where only the young are here, just like the eggs left by the Easter Bunny.

JESS:

That's really surprising, honestly,

CAT:

I don't know much about Shigesato Itoi's background, but there is a weird amount of Christian undertones in this game. Not that it has any kind of Christian component to it, but that it appears to be observing Christianity and maybe observing Christianity as a facet of America, the same way that this whole game is a kind of like Japanese person's observation of America and American media. Also, it being Easter is... Obviously like that's a holiday that has a pretty intense religious component depending - I mean, varies from family to family, but to me that also could suggest that, based on everything from the Encyclopedia that we mentioned last episode, there was a group of Mormons in the area that looked to Advent Desert as like a sacred space. This remote town could actually be a religious camp of a kind. This could be like a Mormon town or something. There's a lot more kids here than the average town in this game so far. And, maybe that's just, you know, to prove the point of illustrating the abduction. Or maybe there's just a lot more kids here because a fundamentalist religion is, patriarchically speaking, inclined to produce a lot of offspring and so forth. So the only thing that the Encyclopedia offers in terms of details about the town of Easter is there's a photograph of what looks like an older person and a child decked out in very intense Easter parade garb - like hats with eggs and everything. And the caption says, "an Easter sight". So we don't know much about this town where they mainly do forestry, but apparently they party hard on Easter. That's all we have.

JESS:

One thing I did want to mention about the way that the town sort of appears or it's presented to you in the game... It is in a conifer forest, the main industry is, uh, forestry. And you mentioned that there's lots of like tall grasses and things like that around. I kind of took that as like... The place hasn't been kept up since all the adults are missing. Like nobody was like mowing lawns or, you know, trimming the shrubbery back.

CAT

Entirely possible. Yeah. Or something like that. That's the way that I took it - was that it was just the town was kind of starting to get overgrown because the kids weren't taking, you know - they're kids and there's no adults there kind of keeping everything up.

CAT:

Yeah. I mean it is at the least very rural. It's hard to say what they're implying exactly, but there's no roads, there's no pathways. Just a lot of trees and a lot of green fields.

JESS:

Moving on through Youngtown, One kid says, "I heard my dad's voice coming from the mountains, but the mountains are beyond the town of Ellay. It's so far away I can't make that journey." So that seems to indicate that first of all, this kid has amazing hearing, and two, the parents and the adults of this town were maybe taken to the mountains.

CAT:

Yeah. I mean, that disseminates some important information that yes, if you had any question about it, you do need to go to Mount Itoi, the abduction probably brought their parents there... Signs have kind of been pointing in that direction, but there's not a lot of tangible information in the game to say that. I'm curious what the original Japanese version said, because obviously the whole, "I heard them calling from this mountain," which is very freaking far away. That's unlikely. Was it in a dream? I don't know. I feel like we're missing some information here.

JESS:

You know what I wanna see? I wanna see a rom hack of this game where somebody replaces all of the characters and enemies in the game with characters and themes that are taken from the Peanuts cartoons. I wanna see Charlie Brown as Ninten. I wanna see Linus as Lloyd. Lucy as Ana. And they're just, you know, going around, and visiting the Peanuts holiday specials at each one of these towns.

CAT:

That is very interesting, uh, for a couple reasons. Most notably, I guess I didn't ever say it on the show, but: they edited the Sprites to make them look less like Peanuts characters.

JESS:

Really?

CAT:

Yeah. I mean if you look at Ninten from the side, he looks just like a Charles Schultz drawing. Dead on, not so much, but from the side. Yeah. And they even edited ton's mom because she looked a little bit too much like, I forget her name, but the blonde girl from Peanuts.

JESS:

Charlie Brown's sister Sally.

CAT:

Yeah. Also Ninten's mom's name is Carol. I don't think we mentioned that either. It was a translation of the game's manual says that her name is Carol.

JESS:

Could you imagine like Woodstock walking around Canary Village and-

CAT:

I mean, yeah, that's the thing. There's intentionally a lot of Peanuts in the character design for these games. And that continues on in EarthBound in a way, in one particular way that's extremely obvious. But they did make a couple sprite edits for this game to attempt to not <laugh> incur the wrath of Charles Schultz.

JESS:

That's wild. So they did that before the release of MOTHER in Japan. That wasn't a change for the-

CAT:

No, that was an American localization change.

JESS:

Oh, it was! Okay. So the, the sprites in MOTHER are different from the ones in EarthBound Beginnings

CAT:

Slightly. I mean, these are the tiniest squares, but they just wanted to ever so slightly nudge it so it would look less like Charlie Brown.

JESS:

Wow.

CAT:

But the correlation between the Charlie Brown holiday specials and EarthBound and the titles of the towns in this game... I never jumbled that together in my head before. So I think that's actually a really - that sounds like a really fun hack. And perhaps because of the correlation, someone may have even done it by now. I don't know.

[Happy music starts playing under the hosts]

CAT:

Is there, you know, is there a Great Pumpkin mod for EarthBound Beginnings? I don't know. Maybe.

JESS:

Yeah, Linus is just sitting out there in the pumpkin patch and then you gotta go talk to him.

CAT:

And of course, Snoopy is the old man in the desert.

JESS:

I was thinking the sleeping dragon, but yeah...

CAT:

No, because of the Red Baron.

JESS:

That's right. Yeah. He flies the airplane. Yeah, he would, yeah. Snoopy would fly you around.

[The music flourishes and ends]

JESS:

So you mentioned that there's Jack Shops here. There's two entrances at the Jack Shops. There's like an inn where there's a child inside of it who says, "well, dad isn't home and I don't care about money. So if you need a place to stay, feel free to stay here tonight." And then you just get to sleep there, which that's nice. <laugh>, you don't have to pay anything to stay at the inn.

CAT:

Yeah. Though you do get a little message afterwards where they say, "please come back again someday. If you do. I may not get quite so lonely out here."

JESS:

Yeah. I felt really sad. So I made it a point to come back and stay at that inn again.

CAT:

Very kind of you.

JESS:

So that child wouldn't be lonely.

CAT:

There is a translation variance between the English and Japanese version that I am aware of because there's a screenshot of this in the Encyclopedia, and whenever there's a screenshot in the Encyclopedia kenisu translates what's on the screen. So as opposed to saying, "I don't care about money," it's actually like "I don't understan' money." And I said, "understand" again, with a lisp, because the Japanese text is evoking a sort of childlike lisp.

JESS:

Next door is a shop, like an actual store where you can go and buy things. It's got an ATM and a phone in it, you can call Dad. And I'm curious, is that an adult that's running the counter there?

CAT:

It is not. According to the Encyclopedia it is the oldest boy amongst the kids. They use one of the, um, the kind of greaser looking sprites - like the same person who came up to you in Reindeer and sung a melody that Ninten did not want to remember - that same sprite is used for this like, I guess, cool older boy. Maybe old enough to grow some hair on his chin, but not old enough to get abducted by aliens <laugh>.

JESS:

Well that makes sense. I saw that person in the store and I was like, "wait a second..." But you know, we've seen strange things with shopkeepers before, so I didn't want to assume anything.

CAT:

They do sell a weapon for Lloyd that's worth getting: the air gun.

JESS:

Yeah, I picked one of those up. And also the non-stick pan, a frying pan upgrade for Ana.

CAT:

Is that better than the yo-yo? I'm not sure. I mean, I don't really ever have her hit anything physically, so I didn't buy it.

JESS:

Same. I went ahead and bought one. I just figure, hey, if it's further along in the game, it's probably better. But again, I shouldn't assume anything with this game.

CAT:

Yeah. Get to the final area and they'll sell you some like fancy new equipment that's very expensive, that has terrible stats. That's-

JESS:

Totally something they would do.

CAT:

It is not something that they did.

CAT:

Good. <laugh>.

JESS:

We'll except that one time in EarthBound kind of... But we'll get there.

JESS:

<laugh> We're talking more and more about EarthBound as we get closer and closer to the end of this game.

CAT:

It's, it's, it's - I'm teasing people <laugh>.

JESS

Mm-Hmm. I like it when you tease people. It's fun.

CAT:

<laugh>

JESS:

Apparently there are psioinc powers going around the children here in Youngtown. So maybe that's how that, uh, kid was able to hear his dad calling from the mountain.

CAT:

That's possible.

JESS:

Because one of the other children says, "something's very strange with the Garrickson baby. Something very strange indeed." And I think there's one or two other people that might make a comment about it as well. And so one of the houses that you can walk into has a couple of children and a baby in it.

CAT:

Yeah. Something we have not seen in this game before, and quite frankly, doesn't happen a lot in games. <laugh> A literal infant swaddled in clothing is sitting on the bed. The Encyclopedia says, "as if drawn by a mysterious unseen force, you decide to stop by this house. Something has been calling to you for a long time. You want to give relief to the children whose parents were stolen away. And that feeling gives power to a single baby. A power adults can't understand and which will be passed on to you."

JESS:

Wow. That's a pretty big clue because that baby teaches you something very important. But before we get to that, I wanna talk about the two other children that are there. Presumably they're siblings of the baby. One of them says, "mom told me this baby has mystic power." So... Kind of reinforcing again, there's something special going on with this baby. The other one says, what is my Mother, She Quote for this section of the game: "Oh, yes. My name is Tom Garrickson. I like to introduce myself. It's my hobby" <laugh>.

CAT:

<laugh>.

JESS:

Which I thought was great. Like, okay, I mean, what a sociable little kid just likes to introduce himself to people! It's a, you know, it's a great hobby. Sure.

CAT:

I study all forms of international introduction.

JESS:

You're gonna go places in life, kid <laugh>.

CAT:

I know all the introduction social etiquette here. Let me slightly bow and present you my business card.

JESS:

<laugh>.

CAT:

There's some weird translation stuff. I don't know exactly what's going on with it, but in kenisu's translation, as of us reading this in June of 2023, there's a caption under a photo. The photo is of a treeline with a small wooden fence. It says, "deep within these woods lies Gary's place." The Encyclopedia also says that "Tom Garrickson is Gary's older brother." So it's weird because it does reference the house as "the Garrickson house". I think the translation must actually imply that: "deep within these woods lies the Garrickson's place." And Tom Garrickson is the older brother in the Garrickson family. However, I love the implication that the baby's name may be... Gary Garrickson. <laugh>

JESS:

<laugh>. I know, that's so good. That's the first thing that I thought about when you said "Gary's house". I was like, really? Is there somebody in that house that's named Gary Garrickson?

JESS:

Yeah.

CAT:

That kid's not gonna want to introduce themselves to people. <laugh>

CAT:

In the novel, the baby's called "Noel" because in the novel, the baby was found on the doorsteps of an orphanage. There's a huge orphanage in town, that's where all the kids come from for the most part. But the novel is so far from anything to do with the games and the Encyclopedia that I can't really give any credence to anything in there <laugh>.

JESS:

But when you talk to little Gary, he says, "goo gah."

CAT:

Mm-Hmm. Bold words.

JESS:

And that's, you know, not a whole lot. Not a whole lot, you know. But if you use telepathy on the baby, the baby says, "Yes, even though my body is out of a baby, like you, I possess psychic abilities. I know the power of teleportation. Use this power to return to a place you've been to," and then plays a fun little melody. And the baby teaches you the teleportation psionic power.

CAT:

Yes. And if you talk to the baby again with telepathy, he says, "teleportation is a psychic power not to be played with." And the Encyclopedia says, "the power to leap over time and space in the blink of an eye... Nobody would blame you if the first thing you used it for was to leap back home to your dear, dear old mom." This is a feature that anybody who's played EarthBound will be familiar with. You have the ability to call up a list of all the principal places in the game. So far, it's: my home, Podunk, Marysville, Reindeer, Spookane, Snowman, Youngtown, and there's a space, presumably for Ellay.

JESS:

<Laugh> Who needs the paradise line when you can just get a running start, hit 88 miles per hour, and suddenly you're leaping through the multiverse, arriving back exactly where you wanna go.

CAT:

Yeah. What does appear to be a clear reference to Back to the Future. In order to teleport, you have to find a runway. You have to find a space that your characters can move in a straight line without being obstructed by any obstacles or NPCs. And only then, once you've hit a sufficient length, will you blast off and return - or all, all of your <laugh> all of your, your children will be brutally halted and turned into little cider children for a little bit.

JESS:

<laugh> But it doesn't do anything permanent to you. It's just sort of a funny little - oh, you ran into something better back up and try again.

CAT:

Covered in soot and surprised.

JESS:

Ah! Yeah. It's like you burned up on reentry and, uh, got stopped.

CAT:

Yeah, I love that they give you this incredible power and then make it really difficult to use. I mean, even finding a place to use it in Youngtown, there's a couple places you can, but with all the trees and, and kids and everything, it's kind of complicated.

JESS:

Yeah. You really gotta make sure you kinda start walking in a straight line and then once you kind of feel like, "oh, I think that was probably about enough room for me to do this," then you turn around and you get a running start. Now one thing I did not do, I did not back up and then run into somebody else. I don't know what happens if you run into a person. Like if they kinda wander into your path.

CAT:

Same thing. If it's at the point in which the running would be stopped and the teleportation would end, if you hit an NPC, you turn into a little cinder child.

JESS:

It can be tough to find a good place to get that big of a running start. Usually if you're in a city, a long straight street is kind of the best way to go. But it's really difficult if you are in, let's say, a wilderness area that has lots of twists and turns and doesn't have a lot of straight line shots.

CAT:

<laugh> interesting. Yeah. How funny. That's not gonna be important in just a moment. When we say "difficult", we mean actually difficult in an interesting way. Like, it's cool that they've presented us with this problem. It's not a problem that we can't get the instant gratification of leaving. It's kind of interesting to have to actually like kind of look at the path and think, "okay, I can walk this far and this far. Okay..." It's like, imagine you're trying to plan out like a cool jump on your bike from a ramp or something as a kid and you're like, "okay, how much room do I need to do this thing?" You have to think about it. And that's fun and realistic, even though what you're doing is preposterous.

JESS:

It is incredible game design, honestly. I don't know if any other game that uses a mechanic like this, but it is a very clever way to sort of limit the ways that you can use this awesome power without making it feel like an artificial limitation. It's not like, you know, "oh well you just can't use this right now because you're in a town and you have to go outside of the town to use it." There is a very reasonable sort of explanation for when you can and can't use it. And I have to think that that is at least somewhat intentional.

[Intense electronic music plays underneath the hosts]

CAT:

Oh, for sure.

JESS:

But it just, you know, it makes you think. You have to think about it and, uh, it's very satisfying gameplay. It's, it's really good game design, I think anyway.

[Music flourishes and ends]

CAT:

So... It would be really inconvenient if you got into an area with a bunch of super-difficult enemies where you couldn't use teleport, right?

JESS:

Yeah. I mean, you know, and it's not like there is a big twisty swamp that lies between Youngtown and Ellay that you have to navigate.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

Oh wait, that's exactly what it is!

CAT:

Aw! Darn! It's a weird thing. 'cause like Ellay - everybody's talking about it. Everybody says it's a big city and it's dirty and whatever, right? We know that about it. The train doesn't go to this big city. The train stops in the middle of nowhere and the only way you can get to Ellay is by crossing through a swampy wilderness preserve.

JESS:

Well, you know, maybe they're still building the train.

CAT:

Maybe. Though there's reasons they might not be.

JESS:

When you go to exit Youngtown and you enter into the swamp, there's a child that says, "suspicious guys, I will stop you. Arg!" And then doesn't do anything.

CAT:

Poor kid. Trying so hard.

JESS:

But you walk out into the swamp and it is a maze, like so many other natural areas of this game. There's lots of bridges over bodies of water. There's twisting paths that backtrack on themselves. I was making my way through there and Ana got knocked out, because of course she did. That's just, you know, what she does. I hadn't leveled her up very much at that point, and I was trying to figure out a way to get out of there. Of course, I had forgotten to like set any breadcrumbs anywhere and I knew that I couldn't use my teleportation power because there was nowhere to run around. So I kind of just kept wandering through, just hoping that I would find my way out. And eventually I did pop out the other side to Ellay, but it was quite a journey getting there.

CAT:

And through extremely harsh terrain, the enemies, some of them are awful to fight.

JESS:

Like the bison.

CAT:

<laugh>. Yeah. But we'll get there. Let's talk about the swamplands. What we're seeing, what we're looking at. The average temperature of the swamplands is 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The average humidity, however is 85%

JESS:

Hmm.

CAT:

A land with a climate "exactly like that of Finland's marshes. There are a lot of precious animals here, that even in this country, are on the verge of extinction. The huge wetlands surrounded by conifer forests on all sides are what's called 'rare glacial aftermath'. This is because during the ice age, large glaciers flowed down slowly from the surrounding mountains and piled up in this land and ever so slowly scraped away the ground until they had formed huge wetlands at zero meters above sea level. The beautiful landscape calls Scandinavia to mind, but repels people owing to the high humidity at low temperatures. The only visitors are hunters at the start of the summer open season, turning it into hunting grounds for the scarce buffalo and deer."

JESS:

And let me tell you about those buffalo.

CAT:

They're not to be trifled with.

JESS:

Yeah, it's a green buffalo with angry eyes. It does lots of damage. It has lots of HP. And I started using hypnosis to put them to sleep. That seemed to be like a pretty effective way of handling them, especially when I ran into like a group of them.

CAT:

Well there's only one way to run into them - they travel in herds.

JESS:

When I ran into a group of three bison, I just used 4th-dimensional slip and got out of there.

CAT:

A wise move. A wise move. Now, let's briefly explore all of the precious, uh, creatures who live here. We have the bison. These are, according to the Encyclopedia, the American bison. Bison and buffalo are different things, of course. Oftentimes, American bison are colloquially called "buffalo", as in "Buffalo Bill" and, and so forth or "buffalo burgers" for that matter. But buffalo are exclusively Asia and Africa. These are in fact bison. They always appear in herds. "He'll charge you using his horns for weapons and often carries out continuous attacks."

JESS:

Yeah. Do not like.

CAT:

But what's interesting though, is that in the swamp you fight the bison. However, when you leave the swamp and are on the road just before Ellay, you will then fight the water buffalo. In EarthBound Beginnings, the water buffalo is just called "buffalo", but it is listed as a water buffalo. It's the same sprite, different palette. It's not as tough as the bison. The bisons use continuous attacks. But, there's a wonderful bit of flavor text in the Encyclopedia, which says, "even the gentle buffalo will give you the stink horn."

JESS:

<laugh>

CAT:

The only other earth creature in the swamp is the crocodile, which is actually an alligator. That's not me just being specific about the shape of the snout. In MOTHER It's called "tough alligator", a palette swap of the alligator from the Podunk zoo.

JESS:

Yeah, I was wondering about that. 'cause I saw that it was called "crocodile" and I was like, "uh, I don't think that's right." <laugh>.

CAT:

Yeah. But then they got a water buffalo. So who knows?

JESS:

There's also the seagull that appears in the swamp and they are annoying because again, a seagull stole my bread.

CAT:

Yes. The seagulls, which are called "thieving seagulls" in MOTHER. In fact, it's kind of hard to make out. But they're actually wearing bandit masks. They are like the crows, but upgraded to be extremely formidable enemies. And they only travel in flocks.

JESS:

Hey, you have personal experience with this. Remember that one time we were sitting on the beach, you were eating a sandwich and a seagull stole it outta your hand.

CAT:

Yep! I was gesticulating with half a sandwich as I was speaking to you. And then I felt a weird breeze at the back of my neck <laugh> and was dive bombed by a seagull, who was being chased by all the other seagulls who wanted to dive bomb me for that sandwich. They flew out over the crashing waves in a fury, tore that thing to shreds as they fought over it, and then like descended into like a mess in the waves as they picked apart the bits that had fallen into the ocean.

JESS:

It was really impressive. It was a pretty good show, honestly.

CAT:

Yeah, I, I was, uh, you know, I was, I was annoyed that I lost the sandwich, but, but it was a fair trade. I think.

JESS:

So I guess that's a common theme with the bird creatures in this game is they all seem to steal your bread.

CAT:

Yeah.

JESS:

Which makes sense. I suppose.

CAT:

As I alluded to the, um, creatures from Earth are not the only things in the swamp. But before we talk about the other enemies, I wanna ask an important question.

JESS:

Mm?

CAT:

Where in America is this?

JESS:

<laugh> That is a really good question because on the in-game map, we are in the northeast corner.

CAT:

Uh-huh.

JESS:

And the only things that are sort of like up here... There's Youngtown, there's three little dots, and then there's Ellay in the very northeast corner. Now, of course, Ellay, I'm guessing is sort of being based on Los Angeles, which is obviously on the west coast of the United States.

CAT:

And then also we had made some assumptions about the tank battlegrounds that are sprawled over several southwestern states in regards to the Yucca Desert. So looking at this glacial-carved wetlands is a really interesting thing... And with Ellay, "Ellay" is a name chosen by localizers. That's not actually the intent of Shigesato Itoi to evoke Los Angeles with that town. So we can put that aside and, just looking at where this could be, having bison and alligators in the same place... You know, Jess, there is literally only one place in the United States that I can think of or have been able to research that has both of those things and we've both been there.

JESS:

Is it that weird little taxidermy store that we went to in Nashville?

CAT:

<laugh> Uh, no, no, no, no. It's also a wetland <laugh>, uh, that's the other part. It's, Paynes Prairie, a nature preserve just outside of Gainesville, Florida. It's a wetland, a prairie, and it has both alligators and wild bison.

JESS:

Oh that's right! Yeah. We didn't run into any while we were there, but I do remember now you mentioning that there were wild bison.

CAT:

Yeah, I've gotten up at the crack of dawn, wandered out into the misty prairie and, stumbled upon a whole herd of roaming bison. It was majestic and strange.

JESS:

Yeah. And they tell you not to approach them.

CAT:

Oh yeah. That's, that'd be a big mistake.

JESS:

They use continuous attacks. <laugh>.

CAT:

They are huge.

JESS:

Wow. So this is like right in your own backyard.

CAT:

In truth, I don't think they had anything in particular in mind because obviously there's no mountains in Florida. The glacial carve-out is not... That's not a thing that didn't happen here. And they're comparing it to Finland, obviously. It says the average temperature is 50 Fahrenheit, and that is very untrue of Florida - only on cold days. But if we're just looking at the wildlife, there's nowhere that's gonna have alligators who have certain environmental needs and bison at the same time. There's Big Branch National Wildlife refuge in Louisiana, which I don't believe has bison, but you know, is a marshland. And bison - bison are present all over the United States. They had a population of 60 million in the late 1700s and could be found from Alaska, to New York, to Florida. And then in 1889, they were cued down to just 541 as part of a calculated attack on the first people's food sources, which is... real messed up

JESS:

[groans uncomfortably]

CAT:

Throughout the 20th century, there were a bunch of restoration efforts - in the mid 20th century. And they were introduced into Paynes Prairie in 1975 as part of a plan to restore the savanna to something like its appearance in the late 1700s. But then, they're saying this is a place where you can hunt bison. Now that's technically allowed in some states, but is an impossible permit to get. However, because of the bison meat industry, there are actually hundreds of thousands of bison these days. There's only 31,000 of them that are wild, but hundreds of thousands more that are in industries and in private ranches where people who participate in the disgusting habit of trophy hunting can kill them.

JESS:

Hmm.

CAT:

This has been your nature break with Cat!

JESS:

<Laugh>

CAT:

Now, of course, also in the <laugh> in, in the swamps there are aliens and lots of them. We got the usual like barbots, saucers, starmen. It's not nice out there. We even get an upgrade of Nancy, the robot. We now have Kelly, who was called Caroline in MOTHER. Relatively the same design, but yellow and has a borg-like eyepiece. Does some different stuff like using darkness on you... And something new: my most smashable enemy - the Mook.

JESS:

Yes, the Mook! I was like, "okay, <laugh>, why is this called a mook?"

CAT:

I mean, that might be a sort of like derogatory nomenclature in this world, but on their planet I'm sure it's, uh, you know, it's very honorable. These are like three-eyed grinning Lovecraftian squid people and... The creatures that we met out in the desert; those are theoretically wild alien creatures. This is very clearly a sentient biological soldier of whatever the alien invasion is.

JESS:

Yeah. If you check them with Lloyd, it says, "uses PSI attacks," which is not super helpful, but oh boy. Do they use PSI attacks!

CAT:

Yeah. And in the Encyclopedia says, "their intelligence is pretty high up there." They use paralysis, brain shock, hypnosis, defense up, and a substantial chunk of the PK freeze family of attacks.

JESS:

Fortunately, they don't have a lot of HP, so they can go down pretty quickly, but there's still, uh, a lot to deal with when you are already struggling to make your way through this weird swamp maze thing.

CAT:

Yeah. They try to control you. It's like a control deck in Magic: the Gathering, if you will. They will make your party somewhat unplayable, and the best tactic is to use those methods against them and lock them down so you can beat them up before they do it to you.

JESS:

As you're wandering through the swamp, you've come across a little house with a trash can sitting outside of it. And that trash can is wiggling <laugh>. I thought, "okay, that's really strange what's happening here?" And I went up and checked it <laugh> and it said, "I'm Lloyd's father. I think Ninten's dad asked, but you told him your name?" And it's a "yes" or "no" question. If you say "yes", he says, "okay, that's fine. Please look after Lloyd. He is a real weakling." <Laugh>

CAT:

He's really not. Like, these people need to treat him better. It's messed up.

JESS:

Seriously. Lloyd's awesome.

CAT:

Yeah. They call it a "plastic industrial bucket" that Lloyd's dad's hiding in - something a little bit higher class than a trash can, but it sure as heck looks like a trash can, Lloyd's dad.

JESS:

Yeah, it looks exactly like it. And I was just like, <laugh>. So I just started laughing out loud when I saw that and I'm like, "what is it with this game? And never showing any of the main characters fathers?" It's just, it's always presented in this weird way where it's like a telephone. It's, you know, somebody talking to you from inside a very, uh, swanky garbage pail. Uh, it's <laugh> and I'm just like, "okay, well I guess it's like father, like son" <laugh>.

CAT:

Yeah. It's, uh, it's strange. It, it, it clearly <laugh>. Clearly it means something. It means something enough to be turned into a running gag.

JESS:

And I'm guessing if you say "no" to his question, he must ask you for your name at that point.

CAT:

Yeah. It's a chance to reenter it. And of course he only mentions that Ninten's dad asked because Ninten's dad did ask back in Snowman.

JESS:

So I guess the game is just making sure that it's got your name ready for whatever it's gonna use that for.

CAT:

Yeah....

JESS:

But then inside the house... We find an old friend.

CAT:

Yep. We sure do. <laugh>, "It's me, Pippi. We meet once again, Ninten. Don't say anything, but I didn't tell my mom I came here. You must be tired. Why don't you stay here tonight?"

JESS:

Come on Ninten! Come stay! Come stay in this house with me. Come on.

CAT:

Yeah. It could be our house, Ninten.

JESS:

Yes. Our house in the swamp. I have so many questions <laugh>.

CAT:

Unfortunately there aren't many answers. I have a little bit though. The Encyclopedia says, "an adventure life in the little house in the great wetlands," in a very intentional reference to Little House on the Prairie. "Why buy a house in a labyrinthian swampland where if you get lost, you'll never come out again? Pippi's father is a hunting enthusiast, and this is the only place in the country where buffalo hunting is allowed. It's a maze and any first time visitor will get lost in. But this family knows their way around it as if it were their own backyard. Pippi's mother enjoys making necklaces and bracelets out of the amber dug up here and Pippi never tires of making chitchat with the animals. For Pippi's family, this is paradise on earth."

JESS:

Wow. Good for them. So what's Lloyd's dad doing in the can outside <laugh>?

CAT:

Well, Lloyd's dad and Pippi both came here thinking that "the shadow of evil influence wouldn't get this far. But the further north you head, the stronger this ominous shadow becomes."

JESS:

So they went towards the big ominous shadow?

CAT:

Well, Y-yeah... I guess they kind of, I mean... It's a metaphorical shadow.

JESS:

Okay.

CAT:

Right? They're not talking about the dark cloud on top of Mount Itoi. What the Encyclopedia means here is ways that people's brains are getting twisted.

JESS:

Okay.

CAT:

Now, I feel like that's kind of flimsy. So obviously we've made some modifications in the narrative, so it all sticks together nice. But that's the official word on it. That's all we have to go off of.

JESS:

Well, it seems like Pippi has a knack for sneaking away, not telling anybody where she's going, and then getting into the middle of a very dangerous place.

CAT:

Yeah. Uh, kenisu actually translated another screen capture here that gives us a bit of a better window into what the real deal is with Pippi. As we mentioned in one of our Mother's Day Times, we learned that officially Pippi was like... Chasing around like squirrels and stuff or whatever and wandered into the graveyard because she lost track of herself. Well, in the original Japanese text, she says, "I went out to play again. That's why I'm here. Don't tell my mom though."

JESS:

It's a long way for a kid to go. How'd she get all the way over here?

CAT:

I have no idea. <laugh>. It is improbable. They're just being silly. And, unlike most of the rest of the game, they're not making any attempts to make sense.

[Energetic music plays under the hosts]

JESS:

But still, it was really nice seeing a friendly face out here in the middle of all this frustrating swampland. And it was really nice being able to spend the night somewhere and, and recover my hit points and psionic points.

CAT:

Fun fact, Jess. Not once, not once, did I fight the bison this entire time.

JESS:

Wow. How'd you get so lucky?

CAT:

I don't know. I've no idea. I fought plenty of buffalo once I got out of the swamp, but no bison, which is merciful. 'cause they are brutal.

JESS:

Once you do eventually exit the swamp, you make your way up to Ellay. Now I went into the city and I found a place to save and I didn't do anything else while I was there. 'cause that was where we agreed to stop for this section of the game. But I did make it there and I unlocked that teleportation spot.

CAT:

We have every indication that when we explore the large town of Ellay we're gonna meet a new friend.

JESS:

The last friend. Hopefully not the same effect that the last weapon has apparently <laugh> because we gotta finish this game out.

CAT:

Yeah. We don't want to embrace sweet oblivion just yet. We, we wanna meet all of our friends and also save the world perhaps.

JESS:

But until then, I'm Jess.

CAT:

I'm Cat.

JESS:

And that's all she wrote.

[The music ends, upbeat music plays]

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is made possible thanks to the generous support of our Patreon Producers: Amber Devereux, Becky Scott Fairley, Bob Hogan, C B, Joe “Tank” Ricciardelli, Josh King, McDibble Deluxe, MjolnirMK86, Patrick Webster, Sean Hutchinson, Sean T. Redd… And our Super-Deluxe Executive Patreon Producers: BigBadShadowMan, Marcus Larsson, and Jaimeson LaLone

JESS

You can join the team at Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia! And if you think “MOTHER,” She Wrote is simply smashing, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser  - and be sure to subscribe via your favorite podcast player.

CAT

This series is recorded and produced in Orlando, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky on lands stolen from their Indigenous people: the Timucua and Seminole, and Shawnee, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca-Iroquois, Miami, Hopewell and Adena.

JESS

Acknowledgement of the first peoples of these lands, and the lasting repercussions of colonization is just the beginning of the restorative work that is necessary. Through awareness, we can prompt allyship, action, and ultimately decolonization. 

CAT

For links to aid Indigenous efforts and to learn more about the first nations of the land where you live: visit omniverse.media/landback

JESS

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is written, produced, and performed by me: Jessica Mudd.

CAT

And me: Cat Blackard. Our original score is composed and performed by Jess. The role of Ana is performed by Sarah Rhea Werner, with additional voices provided by Joshua La Forge, Nat Garnett, Declan, and the students of Nashville Children's Theatre Fall Break 2023.

JESS

Special thanks to the Nashville Children’s Theatre, their Director of Education, Colin Peterson for his invaluable assistance and co-direction, to Biozilla for his research contributions, and, as always, Kenisu for his translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia. Find a link to this translation, other media we’ve referenced, and full episode transcripts at mothershewrote.earth

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is not affiliated with Nintendo, Shigesato Itoi, or any rights holders of the MOTHER and EarthBound intellectual properties. Please play the games' official Nintendo releases.

[Omniverse Audio Brand]