Later. First, we've got the Curse!
CHAO CURSE
When Goops introduced the Curse, I knew I wanted in on this, I just didn't realize HOW MUCH I'd want in on this! The Curse was a great way to throw in all sorts of miscellaneous ideas that I didn't have a better place for, spur of the moment hype bursts, and recycled plot ideas. And it worked out great for shoring up their numbers and expanding the reach and intensity of the Curse, especially with the upper city. And with regards to Chao Curse, it basically all traces back to one man!
Don Genie is the epicenter of Chao Curse... and yet, originally I was going to use him for RP without any connection to the Curse! He would have been a member of Trillion Starlights in the first draft of that plot (which I'll explain later), and he would have bankrolled it. Eventually, he would have started thinking the investment wasn't panning out, and would have challenged the Kobbers to an F-Zero race to test whether or not he should stay in. When Goops mentioned his F-Zero plans to me, he gladly gave me Don Genie, and I went with planning to have him invested in both the Curse and TS, but over time the changes to TS caused me to drop the latter point. Funnily enough, he was originally not supposed to be that important when it came to the Curse! Just an additional source of funding. What changed was connecting him to Funky Plot, for simplicity in writing scenes since I didn't need to write stuff for Goopcurse in that blogpost.
That... that snowballed. I ended up making basically all of the Chao Curse working for him, and that plus me playing up his significance really caused the Don to rocket in importance, to the point of Goops making him one of the Curse elites! Heck, he was originally supposed to be defeated in August, and he wasn't necessarily going to be arrested because he wasn't planned to be that level of involved heel! All in all, though, I'm happy to have the Don as my biggest bad guy all year long. What a ride!
Mononobe no Futo, a protagonist who became Curse. Goops shared the basic story in chatzy, but I didn't have much planned for her "be cool" thing originally beyond "she hangs out with Dolby and wears shitty fashion, and Miko shows up to react." Then one fateful day, we were talking about Plague and Futo, and the idea somehow arose that Futo would think Plague was cool. From there, everything snowballed, and we ended up with Futo joining the Curse! She was a good pick for it, considering she was new to Kobbering and clearly a dumbass who improved over the course of the season. There were possibilities that she could have fought against the Kobbers had the Sedusa event gone that way, but instead Kobbers and Curse teamed up, so she just beat up a villainous lady. It was a really significant aspect to her, considering she got KOF Plot, a lot of development, and even her confirmation for Season 10 out of it. I'm looking forward to more Plague/Futo friendship!
Miror B was the third Curse idea I had! I thought it'd be a fun early plot to do with a noncombat gimmick of some kind, in this case a dance-off, and I liked the idea of having a plot with a villainous confrontation take place entirely in the bar - and a dance-off works for that! I had actually jokingly suggested him to HP before I used him properly myself, and I'm glad I did, he was a good first Chao Curse confrontation. I might follow up on him down the line - after all, he just got chased out of the dance scene, nothing more. (And I highly appreciate Goops bringing back Fernando the Ludicolo for this) Mirakle B was introduced first, last, and only for that gag about him being nowhere near as good as Miror B. It was a surprise to me when HP decided to use him for Natasha's event... but I wasn't about to say no!
Catbert, Stan S. Stanman, and Steve Castle, the Kawashiro Trio! Originally, it was going to just be a Kawashiro duo! Catbert was the first one to come to mind, and the one where the Kawashiro infiltration idea started, but playing Monkey Island was what gave me the idea to use Stan as well. Right after I posted the interviewees montage, I got the idea to use RX-3 for the Kawashiro event, and that's why I decided to make Steve one as well! I had to quickly justify why Catbert only implied one other infiltrator, but a casual chat with Spy gave me the idea that Castle was the backup plan, and I went for it! I wasn't expecting people to just straight up want Catbert dead or the kappas to keep RX-3, but I was happy to satisfy both urges! So you get a ded catte and the mech is alive.
Keith Preston is the first (well, second after Stan, but he's the first where it really mattered) of a recurring trend - Chao plays a video game and then poaches things for the Curse. Aheheheheh. In his case, it was spending a hundred hours (a good chunk with the game in the background while I multitasked) in Tropico 4! He's one of the guys who initially supports El Presidente, but then backstabs him in the Campaign Mode, resulting in El Presidente bringing his vengeance upon Preston and the others. Here, he was brought in as an exclusive opponent for the Argyris sisters as a way to give them some more screentime and for the idea of them having to work together to win against him. Originally, I was gonna use Polonaise for that, but he didn't work for it either personality or business field wise. Preston, however, was perfect for both! He took longer than I wanted to take care of, but it happened - that's the important part.
Dane Gustavia was brought in largely due to the Rejectplot making me want to use all my rejects. I didn't have space in the plot itself for the Chef, so instead I made him a Curse member! There was a short bit where I considered Gordon Ramsay being the Curse member, but that didn't work out - instead, we got Gordon cameoing for his plot. Gustavia himself ended up less heel than I expected, more of an arrogant jerk than a full-on bad guy, which is why I had him cameo for the Curse finale. For those wondering, Don Genie recruited him by bankrolling a cure for a taste disorder the chef had developed, thus saving his career and future. An easy way to get a grip on a man.
Jack Diamond, like Dane Gustavia, was added because of the Revue of Rejects! I didn't have room for the Private Eye on the Rejectplot or the roster, but where I did have room was in the Curse. When I first added him as the Curse's corrupt PI, I didn't have much plan for him long-term - he was going to be Don Genie's gofer primarily, and outlast the Don himself, only to get cleaned up in the Reaperplot event afterwards. Then I suddenly got hit with an Ace Attorney hyperfixation for three weeks, during which I decided to go ahead and do an actual trialplot collab, and I realized that Jack Diamond was the perfect guy to have as a criminal. So I focused on that instead, and we finally got a nice quick and effective trial sequence!
Lydie Malen and Suelle Malen came about because of one of my "this game is being sold for cheap, I'll pick it up" whims. That's how I got my first Atelier game, starring the twins, and had a lot of fun with it! It helps that I've been trying to make full use of the Playstation 4 I have, eheheheheh. Gotta make a console count, right? They were originally slated to appear as Fite Club opponents for Josephine, but Fite Club closed up shop with regards to Gooper stuff, so instead I remembered an idea we had joked about with regards to the sisters joining InGen. I took that and ran with it, and had Lydie and Suelle working for the company - they were the technicians specifically because we were seeing the scientists behind the work, and I thought it'd be neat to see the best ones who actually carried out the work. It didn't come up in RP, but their reason for joining was simple; they wanted steady cash. It was actually Goops who suggested incorporating them into the De Loco/Myra event; when I revealed them he thought they'd be a great fit as a fantasy fight crew - and he was right!
Magnus Muzzleflash, traitor to the Space Police!! He'd been in the works since late 2018, ever since I knew I wanted to bring Kotohime in for 2019 and make the Space Police a full thing. Originally, though, he would have been one of the Trillion Starlights foes when he was on Earth! He would have appreciated the upgrades he got from them, and used them against the cops. Then he would have been a solo opponent when I reworked how TS was going to go, and finally I thought "hey he makes a good Curse guy". So here he was. Not much else to say - very straightforward character.
Shank and Weasleby go together in a weird way; they were both considered for the "original 18" (which is the major Chao Curse minus Colonel Bogey, these two, the four Tower Guardians, and the Insecticons), but rejected for one reason or another... and then I got the idea of making a cutting room floor reference by using them in the eventual Reaperplot (at the time I only knew it as Curse Cleanup)... and then I decided to debut them early because I had ideas for scenes... and that snowballed into both of them getting used in some way! Shank's the simple one - I decided to partner him with Bison to help make Bison's event a bigger deal, because he's all about violence for hire, and beat 'em ups and fighting games go together well! As for Weasleby, that was actually a bit more of a surprise. Originally, I had nothing special for him, but when I reworked my September plots I had some spare space, and Sheep helped inspire me with the idea of a plot that's all about a bunch of Curse from a bunch of people. So those came together with Weasleby being very much the type to be out for himself to create the mutiny plot - for which I'd like to thank Goops and Draco for also giving Major Curse eliminations on the plot! Definitely helped make it a big deal. As a fun fact, I never got to put it in RP, but Don Genie was aware Weasleby planned to betray the Curse, just due to his personality. He was confident whatever Weasleby pulled could be easily put down, so he decided to wait and let Weasleby assist the Curse in the meantime.
Thok was... not what I expected in terms of what I caused. He came about because I was listening to the Phendrana Drifts Ambiance, and I got the idea for "cold-based enemy fought in a cold storage facility". That was actually another potential Trillion Starlights opponent, until I shifted them to Curse too. It wasn't until much later that I went through Bionicle stuff and pulled Thok thanks to remembering the Piraka quite well... and accidentally caused Sheep to add a bunch of stuff. Sorry, Sheep! Anyhow, not much to say about Thok himself, beyond that the Trillion Starlights foreshadowing would have probably worked better if I knew where I was going with it. Ah heh heh heh heh.
Monsoon is another "inspired by the game I played" pull when I cleared MGR in April, but not JUST that this time around. Namely, in Revengence, he, Mistral, and Sundowner form a trio of bosses, and we'd seen Hypotenuse use Mistral as a faceclaim and Goops use Sundowner as a Neo Kobber, so I thought hey, I'd complete the trio with Monsoon as Curse. He was one of the most fixed and unchanging in terms of his role - even as early as the start of the season, I had already planned that he'd be the antagonist of Faito Dayo and it would be Honoka's big moment in her magitech acceptance arc.
Lance Banson was my second Hatsworth pick after Weasleby, but the first one to make it into RP! He was mainly there to drive the concert plot and just be an arrogant blowhard, as well as to put more pressure on Olympia TV. I also just liked the idea of his fighting style being based around A REALLY LOUD VOICE!!! and went for it gleefully. Much more interesting thanks to how things played out was Ol' Skool, who was NOT meant to be quite as significant as he was! The old DJ was intended for a defeat at the concertplot alongside Lance Banson - myself and Pitohui even prewrote a scene set afterwards and had Ol' Skool mentioned as defeated! We had to edit that pretty quickly. It worked out, though - Ol' Skool moving to the Underdome made for some neat connectivity during Hibiki's boxing match with Gearless Joe by having him as the announcer, and not only did he get to have a proper fight during the Bonechill event, it also meant that we got some really good Pitohui character development with the weird one-sided rivalry she developed with Ol' Skool. As for why he showed up in RP in the first place? Well, way back in 2008 or 2009, I got the idea of a DJ with a weaponized turntable, and my mind associated Ol' Skool from Get Ed with said ideas as the visual reference. It laid in the back of my head for a decade, and the Curse was the perfect place to finally indulge my desire. The two events let me do all the DJ turntable fighting style I wanted to do for so long, so I'm happy it's finally been taken care of!
Polonaise was yet another pick born because I played or replayed a game recently, combined with my natural interest in subways! Specifically, playing Railroad Tycoon 2. I've actually owned that game since 2001 or so, and I played it a bunch as a kid... and I had no idea what I was doing, being that I was young and foolish. It made it hard to actually do anything, and I usually just fucked around in the editor. Then back in April of this year, I dug up the game and decided to give it a proper shake - and it turns out that when I'm playing it while old enough to understand all the details, it's REALLY fun. I blitzed through most of the game before the season started (and then set it aside for now), and really wanted to do something train-based because of it. Polonaise himself is from GaoGaiGar, as one of the four Zonderians; each of the ones in the show has a different type of vehicle they focus on, and naturally Polonaise's is trains - plus he just perfectly captures the robber baron aesthetic I was looking for! The Insecticons were just a last-minute addition to help make the event work when I decided it should be both noncombat and combat. I asked Draco to help me find some train Decepticons, and lo and behold, he knew some.
Colonel Bogey had a hilarious origin. It all started when early in the year, I had a dream about an ancient society being converted to the side of a villain by... golf. Namely, by the villain claiming to have golf heritage of theirs, which was enough to make them join the villain, and the chairman renamed himself the Earl of the Links. I tossed around the idea of doing this as an opponent for Camilla for a while, but ultimately couldn't make it work, and abandoned it... until as I went to bed at late night, an epiphany struck, and I frantically PMed Goops my thoughts for making it the Colonel Bogey of golf myth and legend, giving me a name and face with the idea. At that point in the season, I just threw him in, thinking it was too late to do a thing with Sheep. Sheep thought otherwise, though, and we made the collab happen! A fun fact: originally I considered making him a Golf Spirit like Time Spirit and Sewer Spirit, but JRM didn't think that worked and rightfully shot it down. You have him to thank for pointing me to the Joyce Jr. style of "manifested idea", which I realized was PERFECT and ran with gleefully!
Project IF is also a game-playing inspiration! Doing the Neptunia vs. Sega Hard Girls game gave me plenty of appreciation for the Hard Girls (bring them back, JRM!), but I also grew to appreciate the design of IF, especially the fire power form that she can change into. I decided to poach it for RP, but the name - IF - gave me the idea of making it an artificial person, thus Project IF. It was another big step in me making Don Genie a huge deal, as when I asked Goops if Dr. Wu would make a human, he said not by default... and when I asked "if Don Genie paid him a lot?" the answer was a resounding yes. I didn't expect people to get so attached to her, honestly! I thought she'd be a normal villain and get punched and thrown in jail. But no, Eadis decided to adopt her instead, and so she has a new lease on life now. As for why she's only heat instead of regular fire? We've had a lot of pyros. I thought it'd be more interesting!
Don Genie's Security showing up here started as a spur of the moment joke idea - they showed up for Profiteur and Azure Sea, why not for Don Genie as well? Originally, though, they would have simply escaped yet again, the quintet heading off to work for another corrupt capitalist sometime in the future. What changed that? Symphogear. At some point, I'm not even sure when, it hit me that I had five main Symphogears not in RP and five security guards, and I thought it'd be a fun way to power them up. Naturally, once that was decided, I had to go ahead and make this a final showdown with them; any more after this would just be too much! So they became the final foes of the Tower event, and met their end once and for all. And now all six main Symphogears exist in RP!! Five in police custody.
The four Tower Guardians! A very lategame pull thanks to me deciding on the spur of the moment that it'd be neat to make Don Genie's Tower more difficult than just Iffy on 1F and the guards on 100F! Silver Watchman was the first pull, thanks to Iconoclasts being a VERY fun game (if surprisingly very dark), as seen by all the music I yoinked from it as well - it helps that climbing up a long tower where the Watchman ambushes you three separate times helped inspired the Tower Guardians to begin with. Allen O'Neil got to show up because I like Metal Slug, but when I decided to incorporate General Morden into my 2020 stuff, he also got to become foreshadowing for that! You Watanabe is kind of hilarious - I saw a picture of her in that captain getup, which along with an Iconoclasts (again) boss fight, inspired a desire for a water fight like the one we got, with her on a bote. I kept trying to think of someone, kept circling back to Captain You, and ultimately shrugged and decided to go with it! And to finish it off, we have Hearts Boxcars, largely inspired by the appearance of Clubs Deuce and Diamonds Droog for Those Left Behind. Naturally, I couldn't leave that as just an OOC connection, and I gave him the IC connection of looking to take revenge on the Kobbers for busting up the Midnight Crew. There's not that much more to say about the Tower Guardians - they came in so late they didn't have much revision. They definitely made storming the tower feel a lot more climactic, though, and I'm happy for that!
Mixer Taitei started as a potential low-tier Curse to join an event, for the sole reason that Kinnikuman has a ton of unique designs that are perfect for fodder (see: old Fite Clubs i did). Then I decided to give Weasleby's event a preview and Kabal an "oh shit" moment, and so he died. Moaidon and Islandman operated on similar principles - expendable designs I thought were cool, since the Sheep event wanted expendable Curse who could withstand Green Hell and I'd already blown up Rilldo. So instead, the Piraka killed off these two guys.
Big Iron Wyatt, General Rilldo, and Fukuroda were all misc. Curse ideas of one form or another. Big Iron Wyatt was a picture I thought was cool and considered for one of the Tower Guardians, but didn't go with - he just didn't feel right. So instead, when Sheep asked for extra Curse, I was happy to provide! General Rilldo was literally just "I like his design and his power, I wanna use him in some event", and I thought the Peacock event would be good - it fit that he was just randomly dropped in both IC and OOC. Fukuroda was actually JRM's suggestion to reuse as one of his rejects, and I felt he'd be perfect for an introduction to the Under Circuit and a cheating cheater. Thanks, JRM!
Hydro-Man was chosen on the day of the Reaperplot event! I had used up all my existing Garbage Curse ideas, but I really wanted to go out adding a few more, so I grabbed two at the final stretch for it. Picking Hydro-Man was entirely based on remembering him from the 90s animated Spider-Man (which used him because they couldn't use Sandman)... and asking some other people, that's basically the only reason anyone remembers him! I had forgotten about the Liquidator at the time, but once I remembered him, I threw in some dialogue to imply a rivalry between the two who were all wet. Mr. Dominion was chosen to advance my goal of using all Metroid content in RP. In one of the spinoff mangas, The Dominion is an organization of evil weapons dealers who do all kinds of evil things to make money off their weapons. So Samus blows them all up! For RP, I condensed them into one man who made weapons for the Curse and had fun with that. Cassette Girl was actually considered for a more important role this year, but I could never figure out a good one, and she couldn't be just a throwaway because Dolby haaaas to encounter her. So instead, I repurposed her as Deathborn's spy in the Curse, and we'll learn a lot more about her deal next year!
The noncombat Shrapnel were an idea I came up with early in the year as I introduced more business opponents besides just Don Genie. They were basically a way to explain how Don Genie and company could have such big business reach without having to do it all themselves - a lot of their employees and allies were also card carrying members of the Curse! They ended up being a major force in implying the Curse's reach, and I was happy to see lots of other people use them. Goops informed me that he didn't have any ideas for cleaning them up since I had come up with the concept, so I made sure the Don Genie's Tower event tidied up that entire wing of the Shrapnel.
Wilkins and Wontkins showed up entirely because of that Chatzy Madness sequence where Sheep talks about daydreaming that they had joined as Weyland hitmen. So I had them cameo as Curse members for the hell of it.
FUNKY PLOT
I honestly don't have that much to say here. Funky Plot was a very straightforward and fun pre-Brawl plot, though I wish I'd been able to give a little more time to focus on the Funky Cops, Kennedy, and Cirral in San Francisco. It was originally just going to be pure gangland action, but once I came up with the idea of Curse connection, I was able to make each event more unique with it - De Loco's contributions to King Charles' crew, the dinosaurs for Wang Chen, and Luigi Carbonara being helped by a Curse member.
Parker and Walker! Probably my personal "I shoulda done more" point when it came to Funky Plot. These two really could have used some more screentime for proper antagonizing, but I was trying to avoid overdoing it - after all, beating them up wasn't in the cards. I was worried that if I overshot their heelness, I'd end up making people frustrated. I thought about checking in with them late in the year, but honestly? I just never got around to it.
Fly is a character from the second season of Funky Cops, which I have never seen in English at all. There's a few french episodes up, but I didn't really bother with canon anyway. Making her a dirty cop wasn't really meant to be a big twist or anything, I just thought it'd be a more interesting way of wrapping her up than having her also see the light. As for Chief Dobbs... well, part of why I didn't use him much was that design, but mostly because he just felt superfluous during the actual plot stuff.
King Charles, Wang Chen, and Luigi Carbonara... hoo BOY are they awkward in the original Funky Cops, very very awkward. It was 2004, things shouldn't have been this bad! But I did the best I could with the source material, dropping the "ethnic" accents, and just playing the three of them as gangsters. King Charles getting killed was honestly a bit offputting with the general tone, which is why I ultimately threw in as a gag that he got revived for interrogation.
I wanted to work Kennedy and Cirral in a little more, but ultimately I wasn't able to come up with much - luckily, it worked out for Kennedy, as he would eventually get Natasha stuff. As for the Funky Cops, they're beginning to fall off in my personal interest thanks to the Space Cops, but I can't just yank them out now! Most likely (though it might change), Dick and Ace will stick around in Olympia after Season 10. We'll see!
TRILLION STARLIGHTS
Ohhhh boy. This is the big one. This plot went through THREE main iterations, which is why I ultimately felt dissatisfied with it. I'll lay out the three versions, and then get into characters and how their roles changed with each.
The first version was a basic, low-level Kobber plot. Trillion Starlights was the organization that had created several things, such as Nova's skates, Kalcyon's body, and Hibiki's Symphogear, and now they were up to some shady things. This part never changed, but in the first draft, it was your average bad guy organization. The as-yet-undecided Director and the AI were working together, with the Director planned to be shown as largely the final boss and the AI only revealed in lategame. There would have been a bunch of underlings, such as Don Genie and Magnus Muzzleflash, and a few more I'm gonna get into. Ultimately, I didn't like how this was shaking out, so...
Version two! Which was the version I went into RP with. This version was meant to have a fake Director, and then three characters who I would drop hints about, and be a much smaller group. One of the three would be the real Director, and the big bad of the plot! But I didn't feel I had enough planning/setup to make it work, so I ditched that, and made the new-established fake Director into the real Director. And that's the version we got in RP! I don't think the concept was bad, but I changed to the final version very late in the game (it was already August!) and as a result my dissatisfaction is "I didn't have time to make the execution as good as I wish it was". Now, to go into detail on connected characters.
First character, and probably the one I wanted to most talk about here: Kanade Amou! Mostly because of how WILD the changes were. You see, she was always planned to be part of Trillion Starlights plot, but in the first version, she was going to be working for TS with full knowledge that they were the bad guys. Kanade V1 was in a bad spot - she had the original prototype version of Symphogear, which was more powerful and came with a weapon compared to Hibiki's (these would be the only two Symphogears to exist in this version), and the prototype was beginning to malfunction, slowly killing her and damaging her psyche. For that reason, she desperately wanted to get Hibiki's gear back by force, in order for the Director to use it to cure her. The plan for Kanade V1 was that she would eventually start suffering severe physical mutations (in the form of crystals growing out of her) and would jump off the deep end, eventually bursting into the Kosaka Bakery and trying to violently kill Honoka and Hibiki, and the Kobbers would be forced to kill her. It was all very dark and depressing!
By the time of RP, though, I'd already scrapped Version 1 of the plot, and Kanade V1 went with it. Instead, for Version 2, she was going to be one of the three potential leaders of Trillion Starlights. I included her as the "obvious swerve and thus people probably suspect her" red herring - I made one cute anime girl super evil, I can do it again! Her first few appearances were meant to set her up as a suspect, which is part of why I had her thrash Pitohui in her fighting debut - it was meant to be a "could she be tough enough to be the final boss?" question. Unfortunately, it was only a week after that plot when I cut the concept, and thus I was left with a Kanade that so far had just shown up and shitstomped an established character.
So, it was time to fix that! First, by sending her on other plots to show weakness - Mean Emcee and Natasha's plots made it clear she wasn't invincible, she just had everything possible stacked in her favor against Pito. And of course, there was Dr. Doyle. Second, by showing her in casual stuff, such as with Pito, in order to make her more developed and not some Untouchable Badass. And third, by having her lose to Pitohui in a rematch - that was something I had planned for weeks before it happened. It actually worked out really well as the culmination to Pitohui's development this year, too! Aaaand by that point I had gotten really attached to her and had ideas for how to continue this stuff, so that's how I ended up with a new season 10 Chaoacter. Sheesh that was long.
Okay, next! Specs! The guy in charge of the Olympia Transit Authority! He didn't have much to do in the final version, and it worked out fine, but originally he was gonna be more important. Version 1 had him as an antagonist, one of the members of Trillion Starlights - they provided his suit (which looks so much like machine parts I had to make him at least somewhat of a cyborg), and he would have gone up against the Kobbers at some point. V2 had him as the second Suspect - he would have been built up as the Obviously Evil one, and thus also been a swerve. For V3, there wasn't any room for him in the plot anymore, so I just had him as the subway guy.
La Mascara de la Furia, the luchador! Unlike the two above, he didn't exist in V1 of the plot, only being introduced in V2 to be the third suspect. With both Kanade and Specs ruled out for the reasons I said, does this mean he was the true director? Yes, it wasn't some silly twist where it was none of the above. He was going to be the true director, working with the AI. Then I cut that whole plotline, and I didn't know what to do with him... until I got the idea to work him into next year as one of the people working for Deathborn. We'll see him more then!
Doctor Doyle was a later idea for trying to make my Mariaplot stuff better by repurposing it in a later plot, the same way I did with Adelaide and Seruro. It... kinda sorta maybe worked? A little? At least they got screentime... ahem. I had bigger plans for Doyle, such as having an event where he piloted a giant mecha, and having multiple encounters (one in the junkyard and then the mecha fight), but ultimately I didn't feel they were working out, so I scrapped everything I had for him and threw him into the Weasleby event. It felt less lackluster than his first death, so I probably won't bring him back for a third time! Proooobably.
Hunter was a relic left over from one of the ideas I had, which was that villains who didn't really care for Trillion Starlights were working for it in exchange for tech. I didn't come up with many good ideas after him, so he ended up being the only one who acted like that. He's from the sonic comic, but I liked his design, so I swiped it and gave him a bunch of energy weapons. Fun fact, the junkyard had multiple boss fight ideas before him!
Palparepa, the Director. If I had come up with him earlier, I would probably have been able to expand on him more! I liked the idea I had of him being just a parrot who recites ideas programmed into him by the AI, and I wish I had been able to show that off more, as well as emphasize his artificial personality. It didn't get to be fully expanded on in RP, but the intern who found the AI was completely replaced by the created Palparepa personality, who was just a tool for carrying out what the AI wanted. He was a good fit for the role, he just didn't have the time I wanted because of how laaate it happened! As for the AI, well... we'll find out next year what its deal is! Originally it was going to have a boss fight this year, but thanks to time crunch and not wanting it to be too lackluster, I decided to make it a to be continued. Chaoplot 2020 will explain things!
They're heroes, not villains, but I gotta finish this up by talking about Hibiki Tachibana, Dr. Kalcyon, and Nova Solaris. All three got added into Trillion Starlights at different times - ironically, the one added last was the one most connected! One of the early plans for Hibiki was that any time she was under extreme emotional stress, she'd go berserk and rampage - we'd see this most notably when she fought and probably killed V1 Kanade herself. I cut this around the time I cut the whole V1 Kanade idea in general, but when I decided to make the Palparepa fight the final Chaoplot of the year, I decided to bring the berserker back as a quick but emotional boss fight beforehand. Dr. Kalcyon was always planned to have his body lost after the Brawl, but originally it was going to be remote-controlled, and recovered in August at the junkyard event! Instead, I ended up making it Dr. Doyle, and having it in September... which wasn't good for Kalcyon's screentime. I think he'll be better off next year. And as for Nova... I didn't end up doing much with her TS connection! I'll try to explain it next year, Nova really got shafted for a while due to the enormous focus on serious RP and plots. Here's hoping 2020 doesn't bury her too hard!
THE EVENTS
You know how normally I talk about every event? Well, this time, since I covered so much in the characters, I won't! I'm just going to go through the list and talk about ones I have something notable to say about.
5/25: Jurassic Yacht - This one's just notable as an example of the power of Curse. I didn't have ANY ideas for how to make Wang Chen special until the dinosaur auction. All I had to do was give him some dino mooks and a dino steed, and presto, he was unique!
7/13: Heck's Kitchen - The format of the Gustavia event was entirely decided by me going with the Gordon Ramsay cameo. It took me a lot longer to write than normal, mostly because I was trying to reply to everyone - if I ever do something like this again, I definitely have to figure out how to streamline it. Also, I really appreciated BK having awful food; it's just not Ramsay if there's not something to yell at!
8/5: I Know Why The Caged Bird Screams - This plot was originally going to be Lance Banson and Ol' Skool springing a trap on Kanade in public for... some reason! Yeah, the sticking point was "it makes no logical sense for them to out themselves over Kanade". Luckily, discussing it with HP gave the idea of Pitohui crashing the party, and considering how well the results worked out for Pitohui, Kanade, AND Ol' Skool, it was really a good call. Collaborative RP~
8/14: Scrapyard Scuffle - The Zoofights stuff here ended up not really mattering, huh? It was going to be a foreshadowing bit for my original plot idea next year, which would have been delving deep into the Zoofights Corporation, but that plot has since been scrapped. The original boss fight here would have been a remote-controlled Kalcyon body, but once I made it Doyle, I pushed that back later and we got Hunter instead. Frost was a bonus Goops suggested later on, and I'm glad he did!
8/17 and 8/18: Kennedy Wilson's Murder Trial - The moral of this was that trial sequences work best as focused collaborations that happen quickly. Also, I wanted to mention for anyone who might not have understood the joke; I had Miles Edgeworth appear as the prosecutor as a callback to 2011's infamous Trial of Devil Ed sequence (a very... confused sequence that never had a payoff due to Devil Ed departing from RP), where he was the prosecutor for that case. This time, however, it actually went fine for him!
8/22: Battle For Kawashiro - In an earlier draft, I had a lot more focus on Don Genie here, and it would have established that he had a major issue with Kotohime, as part of my development angle for him. Ultimately, I had too many characters here already and her thing was minor, so I cut the Kotohime angle from Don Genie entirely.
8/29: The Trains Run On Time - A large part of why this plot took so long to happen was having trouble figuring out what I wanted it to be! I considered just having some kind of a subway battle, but I didn't think I could make a good unique one, especially since Draco did a VERY good one earlier in the year. I thought about a Railroad Tycoon-style subway controlling thing, but that alone didn't feel like a good plot. It took combining both and refining the idea for controlling the trains to come up with what I honestly think was one of my best plots this year.
9/10: Faito Dayo - Way way back when Don Genie wasn't going to be a major heel, I considered having Balrog or someone else go behind his back to get Monsoon to attack Hibiki, so that the Don wasn't the one calling the shots. By the time the plot rolled around in RP? He was definitely heel enough, so I went right ahead with Don Genie masterminding Monsoon and Magnus Muzzleflash's actions.
10/1: The Genie's Last Wish - As mentioned, this was originally going to be Don Genie testing the Kobbers, but it no longer made sense for his in-RP stuff, so instead it was a desperate gamble for money. The elimination gimmick was basically to mix it up and make it more like actual F-Zero. Originally, there was going to be a second day for the face to face showdown, but since people felt that was stretching it out, I reworked that into a collab with Bree and JRM and did it all in one post since it didn't feel in-character for Don Genie to just roll over and give up. He needed some pressure!
10/6: Flickering Stars - In the earliest, EARLIEST drafts of this plot (we're talking Version 1), I had the plot idea that the Director would have fought with puppeteered corpses of the previously killed members of Trillion Starlights, such as Kanade and Magnus Muzzleflash. I was sitting on the idea of puppeteered corpse opponent for literally years and Goops beat me to it before I could ever actually do it in a plot and not just scrap it!! ..Ahem. Fastfowarding to the earlier drafts of the plot that we got, during Version 2 of the plot (false director and true director) the as-yet-unselected Palparepa would have fought the Kobbers in a giant mecha as well as on foot, and would have died - only for his controlled body (AGAIN!) to ambush Hibiki, giving people the indication that the real boss (True Director, and then in version 3 the AI) was still around. Ultimately, though, I cut the mecha and that whole aspect due to delaying the AI to next year.
And... that's that! I don't have anything else to say, beyond thanks for reading, and thanks for plotting me with this year! If you have any questions about anything (including stuff not even covered in the blog), please don't hesitate to leave overly long comments with all your thoughts you could possibly have! Or even if you don't have questions!
Monsoon is another "inspired by the game I played" pull when I cleared MGR in April, but not JUST that this time around. Namely, in Revengence, he, Mistral, and Sundowner form a trio of bosses, and we'd seen Hypotenuse use Mistral as a faceclaim and Goops use Sundowner as a Neo Kobber, so I thought hey, I'd complete the trio with Monsoon as Curse. He was one of the most fixed and unchanging in terms of his role - even as early as the start of the season, I had already planned that he'd be the antagonist of Faito Dayo and it would be Honoka's big moment in her magitech acceptance arc.
Lance Banson was my second Hatsworth pick after Weasleby, but the first one to make it into RP! He was mainly there to drive the concert plot and just be an arrogant blowhard, as well as to put more pressure on Olympia TV. I also just liked the idea of his fighting style being based around A REALLY LOUD VOICE!!! and went for it gleefully. Much more interesting thanks to how things played out was Ol' Skool, who was NOT meant to be quite as significant as he was! The old DJ was intended for a defeat at the concertplot alongside Lance Banson - myself and Pitohui even prewrote a scene set afterwards and had Ol' Skool mentioned as defeated! We had to edit that pretty quickly. It worked out, though - Ol' Skool moving to the Underdome made for some neat connectivity during Hibiki's boxing match with Gearless Joe by having him as the announcer, and not only did he get to have a proper fight during the Bonechill event, it also meant that we got some really good Pitohui character development with the weird one-sided rivalry she developed with Ol' Skool. As for why he showed up in RP in the first place? Well, way back in 2008 or 2009, I got the idea of a DJ with a weaponized turntable, and my mind associated Ol' Skool from Get Ed with said ideas as the visual reference. It laid in the back of my head for a decade, and the Curse was the perfect place to finally indulge my desire. The two events let me do all the DJ turntable fighting style I wanted to do for so long, so I'm happy it's finally been taken care of!
Polonaise was yet another pick born because I played or replayed a game recently, combined with my natural interest in subways! Specifically, playing Railroad Tycoon 2. I've actually owned that game since 2001 or so, and I played it a bunch as a kid... and I had no idea what I was doing, being that I was young and foolish. It made it hard to actually do anything, and I usually just fucked around in the editor. Then back in April of this year, I dug up the game and decided to give it a proper shake - and it turns out that when I'm playing it while old enough to understand all the details, it's REALLY fun. I blitzed through most of the game before the season started (and then set it aside for now), and really wanted to do something train-based because of it. Polonaise himself is from GaoGaiGar, as one of the four Zonderians; each of the ones in the show has a different type of vehicle they focus on, and naturally Polonaise's is trains - plus he just perfectly captures the robber baron aesthetic I was looking for! The Insecticons were just a last-minute addition to help make the event work when I decided it should be both noncombat and combat. I asked Draco to help me find some train Decepticons, and lo and behold, he knew some.
Colonel Bogey had a hilarious origin. It all started when early in the year, I had a dream about an ancient society being converted to the side of a villain by... golf. Namely, by the villain claiming to have golf heritage of theirs, which was enough to make them join the villain, and the chairman renamed himself the Earl of the Links. I tossed around the idea of doing this as an opponent for Camilla for a while, but ultimately couldn't make it work, and abandoned it... until as I went to bed at late night, an epiphany struck, and I frantically PMed Goops my thoughts for making it the Colonel Bogey of golf myth and legend, giving me a name and face with the idea. At that point in the season, I just threw him in, thinking it was too late to do a thing with Sheep. Sheep thought otherwise, though, and we made the collab happen! A fun fact: originally I considered making him a Golf Spirit like Time Spirit and Sewer Spirit, but JRM didn't think that worked and rightfully shot it down. You have him to thank for pointing me to the Joyce Jr. style of "manifested idea", which I realized was PERFECT and ran with gleefully!
Project IF is also a game-playing inspiration! Doing the Neptunia vs. Sega Hard Girls game gave me plenty of appreciation for the Hard Girls (bring them back, JRM!), but I also grew to appreciate the design of IF, especially the fire power form that she can change into. I decided to poach it for RP, but the name - IF - gave me the idea of making it an artificial person, thus Project IF. It was another big step in me making Don Genie a huge deal, as when I asked Goops if Dr. Wu would make a human, he said not by default... and when I asked "if Don Genie paid him a lot?" the answer was a resounding yes. I didn't expect people to get so attached to her, honestly! I thought she'd be a normal villain and get punched and thrown in jail. But no, Eadis decided to adopt her instead, and so she has a new lease on life now. As for why she's only heat instead of regular fire? We've had a lot of pyros. I thought it'd be more interesting!
Don Genie's Security showing up here started as a spur of the moment joke idea - they showed up for Profiteur and Azure Sea, why not for Don Genie as well? Originally, though, they would have simply escaped yet again, the quintet heading off to work for another corrupt capitalist sometime in the future. What changed that? Symphogear. At some point, I'm not even sure when, it hit me that I had five main Symphogears not in RP and five security guards, and I thought it'd be a fun way to power them up. Naturally, once that was decided, I had to go ahead and make this a final showdown with them; any more after this would just be too much! So they became the final foes of the Tower event, and met their end once and for all. And now all six main Symphogears exist in RP!! Five in police custody.
The four Tower Guardians! A very lategame pull thanks to me deciding on the spur of the moment that it'd be neat to make Don Genie's Tower more difficult than just Iffy on 1F and the guards on 100F! Silver Watchman was the first pull, thanks to Iconoclasts being a VERY fun game (if surprisingly very dark), as seen by all the music I yoinked from it as well - it helps that climbing up a long tower where the Watchman ambushes you three separate times helped inspired the Tower Guardians to begin with. Allen O'Neil got to show up because I like Metal Slug, but when I decided to incorporate General Morden into my 2020 stuff, he also got to become foreshadowing for that! You Watanabe is kind of hilarious - I saw a picture of her in that captain getup, which along with an Iconoclasts (again) boss fight, inspired a desire for a water fight like the one we got, with her on a bote. I kept trying to think of someone, kept circling back to Captain You, and ultimately shrugged and decided to go with it! And to finish it off, we have Hearts Boxcars, largely inspired by the appearance of Clubs Deuce and Diamonds Droog for Those Left Behind. Naturally, I couldn't leave that as just an OOC connection, and I gave him the IC connection of looking to take revenge on the Kobbers for busting up the Midnight Crew. There's not that much more to say about the Tower Guardians - they came in so late they didn't have much revision. They definitely made storming the tower feel a lot more climactic, though, and I'm happy for that!
Mixer Taitei started as a potential low-tier Curse to join an event, for the sole reason that Kinnikuman has a ton of unique designs that are perfect for fodder (see: old Fite Clubs i did). Then I decided to give Weasleby's event a preview and Kabal an "oh shit" moment, and so he died. Moaidon and Islandman operated on similar principles - expendable designs I thought were cool, since the Sheep event wanted expendable Curse who could withstand Green Hell and I'd already blown up Rilldo. So instead, the Piraka killed off these two guys.
Big Iron Wyatt, General Rilldo, and Fukuroda were all misc. Curse ideas of one form or another. Big Iron Wyatt was a picture I thought was cool and considered for one of the Tower Guardians, but didn't go with - he just didn't feel right. So instead, when Sheep asked for extra Curse, I was happy to provide! General Rilldo was literally just "I like his design and his power, I wanna use him in some event", and I thought the Peacock event would be good - it fit that he was just randomly dropped in both IC and OOC. Fukuroda was actually JRM's suggestion to reuse as one of his rejects, and I felt he'd be perfect for an introduction to the Under Circuit and a cheating cheater. Thanks, JRM!
Hydro-Man was chosen on the day of the Reaperplot event! I had used up all my existing Garbage Curse ideas, but I really wanted to go out adding a few more, so I grabbed two at the final stretch for it. Picking Hydro-Man was entirely based on remembering him from the 90s animated Spider-Man (which used him because they couldn't use Sandman)... and asking some other people, that's basically the only reason anyone remembers him! I had forgotten about the Liquidator at the time, but once I remembered him, I threw in some dialogue to imply a rivalry between the two who were all wet. Mr. Dominion was chosen to advance my goal of using all Metroid content in RP. In one of the spinoff mangas, The Dominion is an organization of evil weapons dealers who do all kinds of evil things to make money off their weapons. So Samus blows them all up! For RP, I condensed them into one man who made weapons for the Curse and had fun with that. Cassette Girl was actually considered for a more important role this year, but I could never figure out a good one, and she couldn't be just a throwaway because Dolby haaaas to encounter her. So instead, I repurposed her as Deathborn's spy in the Curse, and we'll learn a lot more about her deal next year!
The noncombat Shrapnel were an idea I came up with early in the year as I introduced more business opponents besides just Don Genie. They were basically a way to explain how Don Genie and company could have such big business reach without having to do it all themselves - a lot of their employees and allies were also card carrying members of the Curse! They ended up being a major force in implying the Curse's reach, and I was happy to see lots of other people use them. Goops informed me that he didn't have any ideas for cleaning them up since I had come up with the concept, so I made sure the Don Genie's Tower event tidied up that entire wing of the Shrapnel.
Wilkins and Wontkins showed up entirely because of that Chatzy Madness sequence where Sheep talks about daydreaming that they had joined as Weyland hitmen. So I had them cameo as Curse members for the hell of it.
FUNKY PLOT
I honestly don't have that much to say here. Funky Plot was a very straightforward and fun pre-Brawl plot, though I wish I'd been able to give a little more time to focus on the Funky Cops, Kennedy, and Cirral in San Francisco. It was originally just going to be pure gangland action, but once I came up with the idea of Curse connection, I was able to make each event more unique with it - De Loco's contributions to King Charles' crew, the dinosaurs for Wang Chen, and Luigi Carbonara being helped by a Curse member.
Parker and Walker! Probably my personal "I shoulda done more" point when it came to Funky Plot. These two really could have used some more screentime for proper antagonizing, but I was trying to avoid overdoing it - after all, beating them up wasn't in the cards. I was worried that if I overshot their heelness, I'd end up making people frustrated. I thought about checking in with them late in the year, but honestly? I just never got around to it.
Fly is a character from the second season of Funky Cops, which I have never seen in English at all. There's a few french episodes up, but I didn't really bother with canon anyway. Making her a dirty cop wasn't really meant to be a big twist or anything, I just thought it'd be a more interesting way of wrapping her up than having her also see the light. As for Chief Dobbs... well, part of why I didn't use him much was that design, but mostly because he just felt superfluous during the actual plot stuff.
King Charles, Wang Chen, and Luigi Carbonara... hoo BOY are they awkward in the original Funky Cops, very very awkward. It was 2004, things shouldn't have been this bad! But I did the best I could with the source material, dropping the "ethnic" accents, and just playing the three of them as gangsters. King Charles getting killed was honestly a bit offputting with the general tone, which is why I ultimately threw in as a gag that he got revived for interrogation.
I wanted to work Kennedy and Cirral in a little more, but ultimately I wasn't able to come up with much - luckily, it worked out for Kennedy, as he would eventually get Natasha stuff. As for the Funky Cops, they're beginning to fall off in my personal interest thanks to the Space Cops, but I can't just yank them out now! Most likely (though it might change), Dick and Ace will stick around in Olympia after Season 10. We'll see!
TRILLION STARLIGHTS
Ohhhh boy. This is the big one. This plot went through THREE main iterations, which is why I ultimately felt dissatisfied with it. I'll lay out the three versions, and then get into characters and how their roles changed with each.
The first version was a basic, low-level Kobber plot. Trillion Starlights was the organization that had created several things, such as Nova's skates, Kalcyon's body, and Hibiki's Symphogear, and now they were up to some shady things. This part never changed, but in the first draft, it was your average bad guy organization. The as-yet-undecided Director and the AI were working together, with the Director planned to be shown as largely the final boss and the AI only revealed in lategame. There would have been a bunch of underlings, such as Don Genie and Magnus Muzzleflash, and a few more I'm gonna get into. Ultimately, I didn't like how this was shaking out, so...
Version two! Which was the version I went into RP with. This version was meant to have a fake Director, and then three characters who I would drop hints about, and be a much smaller group. One of the three would be the real Director, and the big bad of the plot! But I didn't feel I had enough planning/setup to make it work, so I ditched that, and made the new-established fake Director into the real Director. And that's the version we got in RP! I don't think the concept was bad, but I changed to the final version very late in the game (it was already August!) and as a result my dissatisfaction is "I didn't have time to make the execution as good as I wish it was". Now, to go into detail on connected characters.
First character, and probably the one I wanted to most talk about here: Kanade Amou! Mostly because of how WILD the changes were. You see, she was always planned to be part of Trillion Starlights plot, but in the first version, she was going to be working for TS with full knowledge that they were the bad guys. Kanade V1 was in a bad spot - she had the original prototype version of Symphogear, which was more powerful and came with a weapon compared to Hibiki's (these would be the only two Symphogears to exist in this version), and the prototype was beginning to malfunction, slowly killing her and damaging her psyche. For that reason, she desperately wanted to get Hibiki's gear back by force, in order for the Director to use it to cure her. The plan for Kanade V1 was that she would eventually start suffering severe physical mutations (in the form of crystals growing out of her) and would jump off the deep end, eventually bursting into the Kosaka Bakery and trying to violently kill Honoka and Hibiki, and the Kobbers would be forced to kill her. It was all very dark and depressing!
By the time of RP, though, I'd already scrapped Version 1 of the plot, and Kanade V1 went with it. Instead, for Version 2, she was going to be one of the three potential leaders of Trillion Starlights. I included her as the "obvious swerve and thus people probably suspect her" red herring - I made one cute anime girl super evil, I can do it again! Her first few appearances were meant to set her up as a suspect, which is part of why I had her thrash Pitohui in her fighting debut - it was meant to be a "could she be tough enough to be the final boss?" question. Unfortunately, it was only a week after that plot when I cut the concept, and thus I was left with a Kanade that so far had just shown up and shitstomped an established character.
So, it was time to fix that! First, by sending her on other plots to show weakness - Mean Emcee and Natasha's plots made it clear she wasn't invincible, she just had everything possible stacked in her favor against Pito. And of course, there was Dr. Doyle. Second, by showing her in casual stuff, such as with Pito, in order to make her more developed and not some Untouchable Badass. And third, by having her lose to Pitohui in a rematch - that was something I had planned for weeks before it happened. It actually worked out really well as the culmination to Pitohui's development this year, too! Aaaand by that point I had gotten really attached to her and had ideas for how to continue this stuff, so that's how I ended up with a new season 10 Chaoacter. Sheesh that was long.
Okay, next! Specs! The guy in charge of the Olympia Transit Authority! He didn't have much to do in the final version, and it worked out fine, but originally he was gonna be more important. Version 1 had him as an antagonist, one of the members of Trillion Starlights - they provided his suit (which looks so much like machine parts I had to make him at least somewhat of a cyborg), and he would have gone up against the Kobbers at some point. V2 had him as the second Suspect - he would have been built up as the Obviously Evil one, and thus also been a swerve. For V3, there wasn't any room for him in the plot anymore, so I just had him as the subway guy.
La Mascara de la Furia, the luchador! Unlike the two above, he didn't exist in V1 of the plot, only being introduced in V2 to be the third suspect. With both Kanade and Specs ruled out for the reasons I said, does this mean he was the true director? Yes, it wasn't some silly twist where it was none of the above. He was going to be the true director, working with the AI. Then I cut that whole plotline, and I didn't know what to do with him... until I got the idea to work him into next year as one of the people working for Deathborn. We'll see him more then!
Doctor Doyle was a later idea for trying to make my Mariaplot stuff better by repurposing it in a later plot, the same way I did with Adelaide and Seruro. It... kinda sorta maybe worked? A little? At least they got screentime... ahem. I had bigger plans for Doyle, such as having an event where he piloted a giant mecha, and having multiple encounters (one in the junkyard and then the mecha fight), but ultimately I didn't feel they were working out, so I scrapped everything I had for him and threw him into the Weasleby event. It felt less lackluster than his first death, so I probably won't bring him back for a third time! Proooobably.
Hunter was a relic left over from one of the ideas I had, which was that villains who didn't really care for Trillion Starlights were working for it in exchange for tech. I didn't come up with many good ideas after him, so he ended up being the only one who acted like that. He's from the sonic comic, but I liked his design, so I swiped it and gave him a bunch of energy weapons. Fun fact, the junkyard had multiple boss fight ideas before him!
Palparepa, the Director. If I had come up with him earlier, I would probably have been able to expand on him more! I liked the idea I had of him being just a parrot who recites ideas programmed into him by the AI, and I wish I had been able to show that off more, as well as emphasize his artificial personality. It didn't get to be fully expanded on in RP, but the intern who found the AI was completely replaced by the created Palparepa personality, who was just a tool for carrying out what the AI wanted. He was a good fit for the role, he just didn't have the time I wanted because of how laaate it happened! As for the AI, well... we'll find out next year what its deal is! Originally it was going to have a boss fight this year, but thanks to time crunch and not wanting it to be too lackluster, I decided to make it a to be continued. Chaoplot 2020 will explain things!
They're heroes, not villains, but I gotta finish this up by talking about Hibiki Tachibana, Dr. Kalcyon, and Nova Solaris. All three got added into Trillion Starlights at different times - ironically, the one added last was the one most connected! One of the early plans for Hibiki was that any time she was under extreme emotional stress, she'd go berserk and rampage - we'd see this most notably when she fought and probably killed V1 Kanade herself. I cut this around the time I cut the whole V1 Kanade idea in general, but when I decided to make the Palparepa fight the final Chaoplot of the year, I decided to bring the berserker back as a quick but emotional boss fight beforehand. Dr. Kalcyon was always planned to have his body lost after the Brawl, but originally it was going to be remote-controlled, and recovered in August at the junkyard event! Instead, I ended up making it Dr. Doyle, and having it in September... which wasn't good for Kalcyon's screentime. I think he'll be better off next year. And as for Nova... I didn't end up doing much with her TS connection! I'll try to explain it next year, Nova really got shafted for a while due to the enormous focus on serious RP and plots. Here's hoping 2020 doesn't bury her too hard!
THE EVENTS
You know how normally I talk about every event? Well, this time, since I covered so much in the characters, I won't! I'm just going to go through the list and talk about ones I have something notable to say about.
5/25: Jurassic Yacht - This one's just notable as an example of the power of Curse. I didn't have ANY ideas for how to make Wang Chen special until the dinosaur auction. All I had to do was give him some dino mooks and a dino steed, and presto, he was unique!
7/13: Heck's Kitchen - The format of the Gustavia event was entirely decided by me going with the Gordon Ramsay cameo. It took me a lot longer to write than normal, mostly because I was trying to reply to everyone - if I ever do something like this again, I definitely have to figure out how to streamline it. Also, I really appreciated BK having awful food; it's just not Ramsay if there's not something to yell at!
8/5: I Know Why The Caged Bird Screams - This plot was originally going to be Lance Banson and Ol' Skool springing a trap on Kanade in public for... some reason! Yeah, the sticking point was "it makes no logical sense for them to out themselves over Kanade". Luckily, discussing it with HP gave the idea of Pitohui crashing the party, and considering how well the results worked out for Pitohui, Kanade, AND Ol' Skool, it was really a good call. Collaborative RP~
8/14: Scrapyard Scuffle - The Zoofights stuff here ended up not really mattering, huh? It was going to be a foreshadowing bit for my original plot idea next year, which would have been delving deep into the Zoofights Corporation, but that plot has since been scrapped. The original boss fight here would have been a remote-controlled Kalcyon body, but once I made it Doyle, I pushed that back later and we got Hunter instead. Frost was a bonus Goops suggested later on, and I'm glad he did!
8/17 and 8/18: Kennedy Wilson's Murder Trial - The moral of this was that trial sequences work best as focused collaborations that happen quickly. Also, I wanted to mention for anyone who might not have understood the joke; I had Miles Edgeworth appear as the prosecutor as a callback to 2011's infamous Trial of Devil Ed sequence (a very... confused sequence that never had a payoff due to Devil Ed departing from RP), where he was the prosecutor for that case. This time, however, it actually went fine for him!
8/22: Battle For Kawashiro - In an earlier draft, I had a lot more focus on Don Genie here, and it would have established that he had a major issue with Kotohime, as part of my development angle for him. Ultimately, I had too many characters here already and her thing was minor, so I cut the Kotohime angle from Don Genie entirely.
8/29: The Trains Run On Time - A large part of why this plot took so long to happen was having trouble figuring out what I wanted it to be! I considered just having some kind of a subway battle, but I didn't think I could make a good unique one, especially since Draco did a VERY good one earlier in the year. I thought about a Railroad Tycoon-style subway controlling thing, but that alone didn't feel like a good plot. It took combining both and refining the idea for controlling the trains to come up with what I honestly think was one of my best plots this year.
9/10: Faito Dayo - Way way back when Don Genie wasn't going to be a major heel, I considered having Balrog or someone else go behind his back to get Monsoon to attack Hibiki, so that the Don wasn't the one calling the shots. By the time the plot rolled around in RP? He was definitely heel enough, so I went right ahead with Don Genie masterminding Monsoon and Magnus Muzzleflash's actions.
10/1: The Genie's Last Wish - As mentioned, this was originally going to be Don Genie testing the Kobbers, but it no longer made sense for his in-RP stuff, so instead it was a desperate gamble for money. The elimination gimmick was basically to mix it up and make it more like actual F-Zero. Originally, there was going to be a second day for the face to face showdown, but since people felt that was stretching it out, I reworked that into a collab with Bree and JRM and did it all in one post since it didn't feel in-character for Don Genie to just roll over and give up. He needed some pressure!
10/6: Flickering Stars - In the earliest, EARLIEST drafts of this plot (we're talking Version 1), I had the plot idea that the Director would have fought with puppeteered corpses of the previously killed members of Trillion Starlights, such as Kanade and Magnus Muzzleflash. I was sitting on the idea of puppeteered corpse opponent for literally years and Goops beat me to it before I could ever actually do it in a plot and not just scrap it!! ..Ahem. Fastfowarding to the earlier drafts of the plot that we got, during Version 2 of the plot (false director and true director) the as-yet-unselected Palparepa would have fought the Kobbers in a giant mecha as well as on foot, and would have died - only for his controlled body (AGAIN!) to ambush Hibiki, giving people the indication that the real boss (True Director, and then in version 3 the AI) was still around. Ultimately, though, I cut the mecha and that whole aspect due to delaying the AI to next year.
And... that's that! I don't have anything else to say, beyond thanks for reading, and thanks for plotting me with this year! If you have any questions about anything (including stuff not even covered in the blog), please don't hesitate to leave overly long comments with all your thoughts you could possibly have! Or even if you don't have questions!
