Cutting Room Floor 7: Garland Edition

ColorChange: Question for Goops: is there a cutting room floor for the Garland fight?
GB: There is quite a bit of stuff that got left out
GB: Partly because of general circumstances not coming up
GB: And partly because so much insane shit was happening at once I just had no time
ColorChange: Ah
ColorChange: Show us D:
GB: Well
GB: The biggest thing that didn't happen is based off this foreshadowing from the bar
GB: 2 months ago - Mystery Knight slays the Great Ahriman of Earthgift Shrine
7 months ago - Scrap Metal Dug Up by Dr. Unne - Believed to be a Piece of the Legendary Omega
14 months ago - Infamous Scarmiglione Found Dead Outside Hellfire Chasm
3 years ago - Mysterious Purple Tentacle Washes up on Beach
5 years ago - Phantom Train Off the Rails - Mystery Challenger Derails the Fearsome Ghost
8 Years Ago - Graveyard Desecration - Corpses Litter Corneria Cemetery, Sword Marks on Local Grave
SteelKomodo: CORNERIA NO D:
SteelKomodo: WHERE'S STAR FOX WHEN YOU NEED THEM
SteelKomodo: (i may have made this joke before)
GB: See, Garland didn't kill Sarahdad
ColorChange: Wait, didn't we fight a few of those summons?
GB: We did
GB: But look at the last line
GB: This is from after we fought the summons, when Zeph and Gloria were doing research in the bar
ColorChange: . . . I don't like where this is going ;A;
GB: Garland didn't kill Sarahdad
GB: But he might have killed a necromancer along the way
SteelKomodo: ;^;
ColorChange: . . . Oh god what
ColorChange: No no no no no that's too sad
TheDeleter: well
GB: The idea was that he would go to the gravesite, summon the necromancer, and kill Zombie Sarahdad so he could summon Sarahdad
TheDeleter: that's terrible
GB: (It would probably have been the necromancer from Castle Crashers)
SteelKomodo: in the words of Orson Wells, "Why, that's terrible!"
GB: But due to having literally no time to write anything long like that during the fight Garland just beat the shit out of the girls instead
ColorChange: Ouch
GB: Next, here's a few unused summons Garland did not bring into any fights
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/Golem.png
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/Odin.png
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/Rubicante.png
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/SteelGiant.png
ColorChange: Oh fuck the All-Father
SteelKomodo: aw shit, I could have had Saxton Hale deck Odin in the face
SteelKomodo: "Don't you know you've been replaced by the globe-encompassing power of AUSTRALIAN CAPITALISM?!"
GB: At some point, Electra was going to do this: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/ElectraCharge1.png
SteelKomodo: she still needs to do that
SteelKomodo: swear to god
GB: There's also this guy: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/GreenNinjaFFTMugshot.png
SteelKomodo: NINJAS =D
GB: This ninja was going to be working for Garland as an assistant
GB: maybe
ColorChange: RAIN YOU FIEND
GB: In truth I was confused about what his alliance would be
GB: I think at one point he was actually a concerned Mysidian coming to warn people about Garland, but he's one of those weird Japanese types who only gives up information if you prove yourself worthy
GB: So yeah, didn't know what to do with him and I had more than enough characters running around anyway, so he got dropped
ColorChange: I was going to have this be Zephyrus' swan song, but with Antoinette already dying I figured it'd end up just feeling like a repeat. So I axed it.
ColorChange: Oceanus would've lived to see the fight's end if he didn't deal with the fearsome foot of the tractor.
GB: Also, there is a major villain possibility for Browny if he ever does anything prominent again
ColorChange: So I had to emergency-draft Wheatley for a slow speed boat chase
ColorChange: . . . I read that as Browny being a major villain
SteelKomodo: ^
SteelKomodo: D:
GB: I saw that wording too. No, he doesn't have it in him
ColorChange: So now instead of Zephyrus becoming a corpse, he becomes a mechanic
ColorChange: Lets hope he can figure out how to fix a deadbro!
GB: He dropped off later in the year because people kept joining the police force and I wanted to do things with all of them together
ColorChange: D: Browny
GB: Browny was also very difficult to make a strong character out of, it seemed like
GB: He's so formal

---

GB: Hey, wanna know a couple more things that got left out of Garland and such?
ColorChange: mhm!
GB: I was fully prepared to have either Destroyah or a huge cloud of dragons completely raze Tridenland
GB: This would be used as an excuse for rebuilding it elsewhere if we both changed settings and I brought back the whole family
GB: Another thing: One possibility was that the ghost of Sarahdad would appear, saving a family member from an attack from Garland at a critical moment
GB: But then Sarahdad would surprise attack the same girl, revealing it was a summoned ghost
ColorChange: D:
ColorChange: What a dick Garland
GB: Another: Gloria's Secret Weapon
GB: In the event that Gloria was in a vulnerable position with no summons and no mana, stuck in close quarters with Garland, she had one last attack
ColorChange: Kick In The Nads?
GB: She would pull the rubber summoner horn off her forehead to reveal that it's actually a sheath for a steel spike strapped to her head
GB: (No, Sarah already did that)
GB: And then there would be a headbutt to rival Dewgong
ColorChange: That explains what the hell the horn is for, at least
GB: Yeah, summoners have those for some reason
GB: My guess is it helps channel the spirit
ColorChange: ah
GB: Hahahaha Google has "have horns" come up in autocomplete when you type "why do summoners"
GB: "In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, where the Summoner class is limited to the Viera race, the explanation given is that the horn supposedly acts as an antenna of sorts to the gods (summoned creatures), allowing Summoners to interpret divine signals. It is also explained in Final Fantasy XI that the horn gets them "higher" than normal people and allows them to translate divine beings."
GB: I WAS RIGHT
GB: The other explanation seems to be from Final Fantasy 9, and it's that the horn symbolizes great power
ColorChange: Good point
Harpy joined the chat
GB: I see what you did there
ColorChange: I'd say it looks silly but summons are OP and I don't want my ass kicked
GB: I thought it looked silly too
GB: Then I RPed as Gloria
GB: it's not silly anymore
Harpy: DID SOMEBODY SAY FINAL FANTASY TACTICS ADVA- i mean hi
GB: I summoned Harpy!
GB: lol summon

MORE STUFF NOT COVERED IN THE CHAT:

-If Destroyah had gotten a good string of tractor rolls, he would have permakilled Biollante - but the Martian's soul would have escaped and possibly made one final cameo in a robot body or a return to the Nostronomitron by inhabiting another UFO.
-A few Final Fantasy Tactics characters were considered to make an appearance, possibly related to the plot, including Queklain, Agrias Oaks, Meliadoul, and Worker 8/Construct 8. Scrapped for lack of ideas and character overabundance.
-If Widow Maker had patched things up with Bulgrave earlier and I'd had more time, she might have arrived to fight in a giant steampunk mecha based off New Marlinnium.
-The dragons had a leader besides Shinryu - a normal-sized three-headed dragon that would have been a comic relief second-in-command to Garland. You can see this character in the picture I used to introduce the dragons. He may or may not have heel-face turned. Since he didn't properly appear, this was my first major plot to not feature a villain reforming.
-One way for the battle to go was for Garland to face and defeat each Sarahsister separately, defeating each in turn until he comes up against Celestia, who has armed herself with one of Sarah's hammers. When all looks bleakest, the ghost of Sarahdad - the REAL ghost of Sarahdad - would have powered up Celestia along with her fallen daughters and she'd have her entire family's spirits pushing her to a level of power enough to be Garland's equal.
-Garland, the hydra, and the dragons were going to re-enact Be Prepared with altered lyrics, but lack of ideas for redone lyrics and the whole thing seeming a bit too silly for such a dark villain rendered it unused.
-One possibility for Garland was a final 'fuck you' spell that inflicted seemingly-permanent silence on one or more of the mage family, with a "restore their voice" subplot pushed to the blogs or next season. Reminder: Silence makes magic impossible to cast.
-And of course the obvious thing left out for anyone who's actually played Final Fantasy 1 - Garland was going to transform into Chaos. This was likely to be the form Ghost Family Powered Celestia would have fought.

CHANCES OF CHARACTERS RETURNING:

You probably already know I can't resist a good callback or cameo, but this is less a straight yes-or-no and more of a "will they be a major or recurring character".

Widow Maker is both fun to write and has experience as a drifter. She may stumble across the new setting.

Sarah Triden and her extended family will no doubt make at least a minor appearance, and the "lesser" sisters that got less time than Sarah and Celestia are likely to make larger appearances.

I see a lot of potential in Dr. Bulgrave. He is by far the most likely 2012 debuting character to make a return, and has the best chance of anyone of being a "new" major character.

Second place for 2012 returns is Browny, because he had a plot that never materialized. He might come back for it.

X Demolition played an important background role as the team that rebuilt stuff after the kobbers and villains tore it up. Our next setting may have a different method of rebuilding, though, and it might not be from me.

Biollante may make a cameo, but aside from that this martian's pretty much done.

Missingno and Clippy will most likely only be used for the occasional quick gag, similar to Hella Jeff's cameos this year.

No idea about Electra. She may make a minor appearance, but might not.

So yeah, these things never work out exactly as I plan, but a possible main roster next year would be Ariel, Dr. Bulgrave, and a couple completely new characters with no ties to my existing ones, with Gloria and Josephine being strong secondaries. That's just a possibility - one never knows for sure what ZFRP will be like until it's happened.