An absolute shitton of stuff did not make it into the plot, or was done differently than planned. Here's a look.
This is an early pick for a Bulgrave invention. It didn't look like it could fight very well, so I didn't include it.
The fake Bulgrave "phone" was originally going to be a battling robot with fake skin it shed a la Mechagodzilla to fight, but there had been a lot of fighting and most of the users had logged off for the night, so instead it became a nonaction character.
The original plan for the big finish, dreamed up months ago, was to make a brainwashed Widow Maker among the final wave of Projects in the castle basement. Note her return to ZF5 weaponry. The bargoers would have to avoid hurting her and instead find a way to just knock her out or restrain her until they could destroy the headgear. Other ideas using this included Widow Maker's brain being removed and kept in a jar and Bulgrave trying to crush the brain in a "if I can't have it, no one can" way.
Later my plans became decidedly more horrifying. The new idea was for Dr. Bulgrave to turn Widow Maker into the mantis equivalent of a termite queen, having her pump out eggs for Bulgrave to market as intelligent and cute pets, treated with something to stunt their growth and keep them in baby form forever. This picture would have been used as foreshadowing. This ALMOST got in - hence Bulgrave's teasing "like a queen" line to a captured Widow Maker - but I decided it went too far. There was also a brief period where I considered having Bulgrave make Widow Maker lay just one egg and then that baby becomes the giant queen.
Some of those babies, raised from birth to love the doctor, would attack in the final battle with steam guns.
Project 35 was going to be let loose in Zoofights City, but that's not how the story turned out. Instead it got in a stalemate battle with Caetus Vastitatem, the only machine of Bulgrave's to survive the ordeal.
You may notice that many of these ideas sent the doctor over a cliff into Horrible Irredeemable Monster Asshole territory. I liked the affable angle he was starting to show in his interactions with Gust and Blackbird, and I decided to run with it with various personality quirks and sketches that showed the villains of this plot as being rather morally gray, rather than black. It's this direction that was partly responsible for the finale going the way it did.
A big thanks to everyone who participated in the storyline. I like how it turned out!
Brainwashed Widowmaker is terrifying.
ReplyDeleteAlso I liked he more affable angle Bulgrave and co. ended up displaying, it really differentiated them a lot from our other villians, who seem to run the gauntlet of "Big and FUCKING EVIL."
It makes sense that so many of our bad guys - Valor, Tiamat, Mengsk, Mr. Evil Midnight, and so forth - are so clearly, obviously BAD GUYS because we like to have RP fights but we don't want to be jerks so we kill those who are obviously in the wrong. Not these guys, because I was interested in trying something different. Hell, Blade actually DID visit the bar peacefully once. He's technically a member of Antoinette's Friends, which is not the largest club in America simply because Antoinette hasn't met enough people yet.
DeleteThat said, I do have some ideas for later, smaller plots with more standard "let's kill this guy fuck yeah" villains. I'll be taking a break from storylines for a while though. Bulgrave, Blackbird, and the bikers dominated the first couple months of the summer. I need to let other people have their turn.