Topic on Talk:Melton Telephone

The Yellowstone Magic chat has recently finalized the vote on Melton Telephone's initial concept, after the usual 24 hour process! The final result of the community poll is as follows:

"Melton Telephone is an upbeat, dilapidated payphone dryad. Their tree, located near the Prismatic spring, has an abandoned payphone embedded in its trunk. While dryadic, the forces that brought them to Yellowstone left them a little incomplete, filling in the rest of them with telephone parts and forest flora as needed.

Long ago, a one-in-a-million flux of the Parkpark's natural arcane currents brought sentience to the combination of Park and Nature, and thus one Melton Telephone entered the world. Before joining the Magic, they spent their time tending to the Spring, often giving a stern lecture and occasional bonk on the noggin to any visitors who disrespected it by littering or otherwise harming the long-term integrity of the Spring. One day, Merlinmeyer misdialed a call for backup. Now Melton is a shy but enthusiastic rookie who loves prank calls. They look forward to the their new teammates and experiencing the epic highs and lows of professional Blaseball!"

Keep in mind, this is only for their first interpretation, decided by community vote! Any other ideas can be added as an IRM once this has been posted, as well as further details, and are just as important.

The flow of "Before joining the Magic, they spent their time tending to the Spring, often giving a stern lecture and occasional bonk on the noggin to any visitors who disrespected it by littering or otherwise harming the long-term integrity of the Spring. One day, Merlinmeyer misdialed a call for backup. Now Melton is a shy but enthusiastic rookie who loves prank calls" feels awkward. Maybe you could have that Melton is a shy but enthusiastic dryad who loves prank calls earlier in the entry and then have the sentence about Merlinmeyer misdailing be where it is, adding in something about Merlinmeyer recruiting Melton when they were the one to answer.

To get the ball rolling, I would like to expand on the Merlinmeyer call. Who was he calling for? General Call or somone in particular? And how did Melton get involved?

What if Merlinmeyer had to do PBS-style phone drives to get players?

Edit 1 will be to a phrasing error on the last paragraph, where "They look forward to the their new teammates and experiencing the epic highs and lows of professional Blaseball!" was meant to be. "They look forward to being with their new teammates and experiencing the epic highs and lows of professional Blaseball!" Whoops.

For the phrasing that Malgic pointed out, do you have an idea in particular on how to manage that? My writing juices are a little tapped out at the moment as may be obvious, so I'm wondering how best to shuffle those words around to lessen awkwardness.

I think you could fix it by making it a new paragraph.

"One day, when Alf Merlinmeyer misdialed a call for backup, Melton answered. Charmed by the young dryad's enthusiasm, Merlinmeyer signed them to the team on the spot."

(I would continue but that would require me typing out a riverdale reference with my own hands and I can't bring myself to do it. /lh)

Actually, I searched the wiki for the phrase "Epic Highs and Lows" because I thought, surely this isn't the first time this joke has been made. The only other place it appears is Curry's page if you can believe it.

Viva's fix was perfect.

Alrighty, I think that can be done easy enough!

In summary, with these edits in mind, the entry would be: "Melton Telephone is an upbeat, dilapidated payphone dryad. Their tree, located near the Prismatic spring, has an abandoned payphone embedded in its trunk. While dryadic, the forces that brought them to Yellowstone left them a little incomplete, filling in the rest of them with telephone parts and forest flora as needed. Long ago, a one-in-a-million flux of the Parkpark's natural arcane currents brought sentience to the combination of Park and Nature, and thus one Melton Telephone entered the world. Before joining the Magic, they spent their time tending to the Spring, often giving a stern lecture and occasional bonk on the noggin to any visitors who disrespected it by littering or otherwise harming the long-term integrity of the Spring.

One day, when Alf Merlinmeyer misdialed a call for backup, Melton answered. Charmed by the young dryad's enthusiasm, Merlinmeyer signed them to the team on the spot. Now Melton is a shy but enthusiastic rookie who loves prank calls. They look forward to being with their new teammates and experiencing the epic highs and lows of professional Blaseball!"

Does that look about right to everyone?

A possible addition to the end of the entry could be:

When pressed about the similarity of their last name to the widely known Telephone Twins, the response varies from a simple "No relation" (which is immediately followed by a series of five claps coming from an undetermined origin) to "It's pronounced [some variation of Telephone]", which despite protest is the same pronunciation.

While I agree this is something that'd be worth entry somewhere, that sounds like the place for a more detailed IRM, unfortunately! Or our fan culture page (which is well cultivated). This one is just our template that we base a lot of other diverging interpretations off of!

Makes sense to me! Thanks for the feedback!