time for a well-deserved alchemization break

[bramblepatch]

The Punch-Card Alchemy Meme
a meme of ridiculous inventory shenanigans



So. You've been around the block a few times by this point, right? Picked up some sweet loot? Want an upgrade on your equipment? Just need to take some time off and mess around with what appears to be an unspeakably advanced 3D printer that operates on pure whimsy thinly disguised as Boolean logic?

Yeah, I thought so. Shit, let's be Santa.

We're (loosely) working off of Homestuck's alchemy system here, although honestly I'm not going to ask you to mess around with the comic's alchemy phernalia or worry about grist costs or anything. I mean, if you want to go dive into the mspa wiki, be my guest? But in brief:

Punch-card alchemy allows you to create new items by combining attributes of existing items. This does not consume the originals, so feel free to use the same items as many times as you like.

It's not an exact science - the punch cards that encode the items don't carry a great deal of data, and what qualities get coded for is kind of arbitrary. Usually you'll end up with something that either combines the functionality of both items, or that "reskins" one item to look like the other. Sometimes the features are things that are thematically associated with the originals, rather than actually being present; combining things with a wizard statue might give the result a wizardly aesthetic, or might just straight up make the result magical.

The resulting item is determined by approximately equal parts symbolic bullshit, rule of cool, and the fact that it's really funny sometimes to make totally useless garbage by accident. Also, give your new equipment totally cool punny names. That's how you can tell it's a valuable and unique piece of shit.

How this is going to work:

1. Post your top level! Include a brief (or not so brief, I'm not the meme police) run-down of your character's current inventory. Unique items, practical supplies, useless junk that's collected in the bottom of their bag, whatever the character has easy access to. Give us something interesting to work with!
   
   
2. Tag around and suggest amazing - or terrible - combinations of other people's items. Or combine something they have with something from your own inventory! Go into as much or as little detail about the new equipment as you like.
   2a. Repeat, as desired. You know that impractical sword and that dumb-looking gun would make an exponentially stupider-looking awesome gunblade.
   
   
3. Congratulations on your cool new stuff! Time to admire it, or test it out, or just boggle vacantly at these shenanigans.

Comments

Sophie Summerhelm | OC

[summerbloom]

Sophie's actual already an alchemist so she has all kinds of bullshit in her pockets. Here's a quick rundown!

⦿ Alchemy Supplies: A reinforced cauldron and a whole mess of basic supplies. At any given time, Sophie is carrying the ingredients to make a handful of healing salves, some basic antidotes, and some natural painkillers. That cauldron is probably not intended to be portable but she's got it in her backpack anyway...
⦿ Dried Plants and Grasses: Sophie's world has a whole bunch of its own flora and fauna that would take forever to explain, so just. Assume she has a whole ton of them in her pockets and pouches all the time.
⦿ Wooden Staff: A heavy wooden staff, with a slightly hooked end. It's about two heads taller than Sophie and has been reinforced with alchemy to be usable as a weapon.
⦿ Notebook and Quill: Sophie's notebook that she uses to plan new alchemical recipes in.
⦿ Crow Feathers: Good luck charms! The crows in Sophie's world are magical and semi-sapient and Sophie is very good friends with basically all of them.
⦿ Travelling Bits and Bobs: Some traveling supplies – a blanket, some dried meat and a waterskin.

[crowback]

[ hello, I heard you were buds with crows, what are your feelings on making them person sized and giving them opposable thumbs and also lockpicks

just joking, she doesn't actually care enough about any possible negative reactions to that to not immediately stick her beak in Sophie's business. and inventory. ]

Hmm, hmm, hmm. Mostly boring, but there's definitely some potential there! Good taste with the plumage, too.

[summerbloom]

[ bold of you to assume Sophie is ever not delighted to see a crow!!! ]

Oh? Really? What about it is boring? I guess it is a little too practical...

[ "too" practical. ]

I'm sorry to make you read baby Opal's lolrandumb commentary but NOT ENOUGH TO NOT DO IT

[crowback]

[ laughing— the noise is an overlapping mashup of a girl's giggle, a caw, and a low gurgle ]

That's it. Oh, I'm sure you could make something interesting with all that— [ indicating the alchemy materials with a headtilt, rousing her feathers ] —but that's just standard, right? Fortunately—

[ dumping out her

entire

inventory

in an small explosion of what can only be termed deeply questionable junk. ]

—I'm here to help~!

[summerbloom]

... This is...

[ Not doable, right? A total mess, obviously? ]

... Absolutely amazing! Goodness, I don't even know where to start!

[ never fuckin mind I guess

Don't mind her while she starts picking through this whole... business. ]

Is there anything I should leave alone? Or should I just really go wild?

Re: Sophie Summerhelm | OC

[fingersandteeth]

Steven here combines your dried plants and your wooden staff to make a... Dried Plant Staff. Much lighter than the wooden one, but it's kind of shit as a weapon now.

[summerbloom]

Um... thank you? Oh, it's much prettier now at least...

[ S–she's trying so hard to be polite about it... ]

[fingersandteeth]

Maybe you could hang it on your wall?

[Yeah, no, he has nothing.]

[summerbloom]

Maybe... oh! Or I could use it to hang things from! Or it could be a laundry prop... I guess if I get creative, it could still be useful for all sorts of things!

[ She's definitely stretching it a bit, there... ]

[fingersandteeth]

[He smiles at her.] It's okay. Punch card alchemy is kind of for these failed experiments, anyway.

[summerbloom]

[ All of a sudden, Sophie beams at him. ]

You know, you're right! That's what alchemy's all about too. Experimenting and being happy with the failures because it means you've learned something!

Amanda Ramirez | OC

[hazardlight]

Amanda's a mechanic, part-time ghost hunter, and lightly possessed punk daredevil, which leads to an interesting assortment of trash in her possession at all times:

• Memento Mori artifacts (ghost magic tools): Widow's Watch: silver and blue-enamel pocket watch, constantly cold to the touch. Useful for cold and air related ghost magic. Daredevil's Helmet: Old-fashioned motorcycle helmet with scuffed flame decals. Useful for ghost magic that involves machines.
  
• Clothes: Torn jeans; yellow-and-black striped crop top; dark grey Converse All-Stars; 2 pairs stainless steel stud earrings; black bandanna with glow-in-the-dark skull print.
  
• Yellow Vespa motor scooter.
  
• Misc Mundane Gear: canvas backpack; red bic lighter; slightly outdated smart phone; ear bud style headphones; key ring with assorted keys; pocket multitool; 20 oz. bottle of Dr. Pepper; bag of Takis brand chips.
  
  

Re: Amanda Ramirez | OC

[fingersandteeth]

Steven combines your Dr Pepper and your Takis to make... Limited Edition Takis-Flavored Dr Pepper.

There's probably someone out there who would actually pay good money for this and that's somewhat upsetting.

[hazardlight]

[Looks at Steven.

Looks at the terrible hybrid soda.

Looks at Steven.]

So like, you gonna drink that, or...

[fingersandteeth]

... no.

[Unfortunately, trying to recombine them in the other direction makes Limited Edition Dr Pepper-flavored Takis. Which are no better.]

[hazardlight]

Suit yourself.

[She's just gonna. Crack that thing open while he fusses with combining the cards the other way.

Mmm. Spicy. This was not a mistake and you can't prove she regrets this.]

So what are you trying to do, here?

[fingersandteeth]

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. Combining for the sake of combining, I suppose.

[hazardlight]

Hm.

[She glances through his stuff and combines her Dr Pepper with his Spell Tag to produce a bottle of Dr Plasm, a consumable that boosts ghost-type moves. And presumably manifestations too? Ghost stuff.]

[fingersandteeth]

Oh nice. That's way better than these.

[He holds up the Dr Pepper-flavored chips.]

Steven Durante | OC

[fingersandteeth]

Steven's a former local newscaster who spent five years kidnapped by fairies. Since he came back from Fairyland with nothing but the clothes on his back, we're going to use the stuff he's amassed while I've been playing him in Victory Road for this meme's purposes:

• Team Rocket uniform, with added gasmask, plus some normal clothes of the slacks and button shirt variety


• A Gengargoyle, Claw Fossil, and Spell Tag found while treasure hunting


• Various speculative fiction mass-market paperbacks


• A Smashing Pumpkaboos album


• A briefcase that doubles as his Bag


• The Cascade, Rainbow, and Plain badges

Have fun?

[righthandstand]

[Okuyasu takes the Plain Badge and the Smashing Pumpkaboos album to create...a Smashing Pumpkaboos lapel pin.]

See? Now you got something cool to wear instead of some boring square.

[fingersandteeth]

[Steven pins the pin on.]

Thank you. It's very cool.

[As long as the original badge is still there, it's all good.]

[spaghettimonster]

[After a little thought, Papyrus borrows the gasmaskand claw fossil to create: the Skeletal Gasmask.

...It's probably not as effective, but it fits a certain aesthetic.]

[fingersandteeth]

... sir? This is the coolest thing I have ever had the pleasure to own.

[He won't be able to use it while doing crime because it's too identifiable. But it's REALLY COOL.]

[spaghettimonster]

[As much as it's noticable when a skeleton is outright grinning, now's one such time.]

Nyeh heh heh, you're welcome!! If you're looking for cool, you can't go wrong with skeletons!

[fingersandteeth]

That is very, very true.

[spaghettimonster]

But we could go cooler... If only we had some flames, or spikes.

John Freeman | Half Life: Full Life Consequences

[saverofhumens]

John Freeman, whose own universe is not bound by normal laws of physics, has brought a few things:

* Motorcycle (that looks more like a bathtub on giant wheels)
* wepon gun
* Gravity Gun
* computer monitor
* rocket launcher
* lab coat
* bird's egg

[spaghettimonster]

[Papyrus is struck by inspiration, and combines the bird's egg and lab coat to create: the Undergraduate Bird Brain.

It's an egg in a labcoat, well underway to pursuing its masters degree.]

[saverofhumens]

[John Freeman saw the smart egg and gasped.]

This bird will be a super genius!

[spaghettimonster]

[Papyrus nods in agreement, holding the egg aloft.]

The newest scientific sansation!

[Okay. So maybe he's painting the egg shell to look like his brother, because the resemblance is uncanny.]

James "oh this old thing" Barnes / MCU / ota

[dyatlov]

[ JB is wearing a lot of layers, which probably contain a hell of a lot of stuff. Among the things he's willing to cop to, we find several glossy photographic business cards from a random assortment of businesses, six extra strength ibuprofen, a packet of M&Ms and a slightly squashed granola bar, a yellow smiley face sticker, a BIC ballpoint pen, and assorted change including a 1926 wheat penny. ]

PAPYRUS | Undertale

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus is a skeleton monster from an underground where a lot of their resources started as trash from the human surface, and he's the sort to go around in a costume for weeks on end. He's got some mildly eclectic belongings:

💀 "Battle body", a costume with black tights, blue briefs, red boots, white top with the Starman symbol, and a short red-orange cape
💀 MTT-Brand Fashionball, roughly spherical shoulderpads with basketball patterns on them (underneath his shirt)
💀 Red mitten/gloves, gloves where only thumb and index finger are separated, the rest in a single, mitten-like section
💀 Spaghetti...?, a plate of picturesque spaghetti, aside from the hints of stems, burning, and banana peels in it. The smell is difficult to describe, and the taste is downright indescribable
💀 Cell phone, a semi-futuristic magitech cellphone with texting, camera, social networking, and dimensional box storage
💀 Dog residue, glowing crystals secreted by a dog
💀 Dog salad, fried tennis ball...
💀 Bones, bones.

Luca Balsa | Identity V | OTA

[allegedprisoner]

Luca has been staying in a dusty old murder manor for some time, and has managed to salvage this much:

A fusebox he crafted himself. It's got some wires and a lightbulb that turns on when it's connected to something with an electric current.

A diary he had to keep while he was staying in said manor. Surprisingly useful for personal reference.

The iron shackle and chain he's wearing on his neck. Take it. Please.

A small rocket he found lying on the ground during one of the mansion's "games".

An old newspaper he found lying around inside the mansion on his downtime.

A framed picture of this symbol

Some kind of... Tribal Jungle costume? It comes with a wig and makeup and a couple of prop do-dads. Luca isn't from a jungle tribe and he's not an actor.

"Eh heh... I'll be honest, I don't remember how I found half of this stuff."