Cutting Room Floor 9: Rejected Characters Depot II

Well, you know how we are with bandwagons. JRM's latest blog post reminded me that I've got a few characters in the reject pile. Unlike JRM, I usually can't completely rule out a character or plot unless I made a replacement character/plot that fulfills the same purpose (Clippy instead of Cedric the owl) or if I do something that contradicts what the rejected thing would have done (Ariel as a dark knight instead of an archer). There IS a possibility some of these characters may show up in some form, but the most likely fates for them are Fite Club cameos or simply being on display here.


Franziska von Karma
Origin: Ace Attorney
Franziska von Karma is a coldhearted, short-tempered firebrand of a woman. Not only is she a certified prosecutor, but she's also skilled with a whip, and carries said whip into court to intimidate and even attack her adversaries. On top of that, she was trained by her father, the legendary prosecutor Manfred von Karma, to pursue victory at any cost. As bitchy as she is, though, spending time with Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth slowly began to help her understand that winning isn't everything.
Franzy came quite close to making the cut for 2014 - she was even at one point planned to be the surprise entrant in the 2013 Rumble. What did her in was a three-pronged attack consisting of Silence's design being finalized, Myriam Scuttlebutt becoming a possible character, and the overall size of my planned 2014 roster once those two joined Celestia, Helios, and Gloria. If she HAD appeared, I'd considered bringing back Electra alongside her and the two of them teaming up because whips.


Agrias Oaks
Origin: Final Fantasy Tactics
My idea for Agrias was essentially "medieval Samus" - although this was in 2012, before Samus became a major character in ZFRP. In sum, Agrias would be a knight who took her job seriously and would be used primarily as a straight man for goofier characters to bounce off of. She would have played a part in the Garland plot, but 2012's decaying RP and the complexity of the plot made cutting her an easy choice. With 2013 RP featuring a medieval theme, I briefly considered Agrias a second time, but ultimately ditched her due to having too many female Final Fantasy characters already.

 
The Necromancer
Origin: Castle Crashers
Instantly familiar to any veteran of Castle Crashers, the Necromancer is the second-to-last boss and is one of those villain right-hand-men who is more popular than the villain themselves. Dude even got his own collectible statue.
The Necromancer may have appeared at some point during the Garland plot, but like so many other frivolous extra characters that could have appeared there, he didn't. He might have shown up on Ardea in 2013 as an antagonist, but I decided not to do it because he was ultimately too similar to Garland in looks and abilities - since Mysidian summoners can only summon those which they have killed in battle, they are essentially glorified necromancers. He also looks a lot like Garland, and I decided to use Sir Periwinkle instead because Dirksephine.

Sir Killalot
Origin: Robot Wars
Killalot was considered for both 2012 and 2013 RP due to fitting both a 90s theme and a medieval theme, but it never materialized. He would have been similar to Refbot in that rather than being controlled via remote or even having any master at all, he would be an automated robot living on his own. I never got further than "gruff and kind of an asshole, but honorable" when trying to figure out his personality.

Letty Whiterock
Origin: Touhou
ICE TO MEET YOU

I'd considered cashing in on the Touhou madness when a bunch of them started appearing in the latter half of 2013's RP, but since Letty here is a winter spirit who normally only appears when it's cold, she's nearly impossible to use in ZFRP properly due to our offseason containing the entirety of winter. I would have had her cameo if we'd done any Christmas RP, but that didn't happen either.

Kururu
Origin: Keroro Gunso
Kururu (also known as Kululu) is a froglike alien from another planet. While he is part of a task force that is nominally supposed to be working on conquering the earth, both Kururu and his fellow aliens are exceptionally bad at actually getting off their asses and doing some conquering, and their plots tend to fail before getting out of the starting gate. Despite his laziness (and his tendency to be a huge dick), Kururu is a bona-fide genius and can use computers and robotics in ways that would impress even Celestia.
I seriously considered this guy back in 2012, but failed to find a place for him to fit. As an alien, he's still thematically appropriate, but my roster is almost entirely ZFS passengers already and doesn't need more. Kururu is therefore stuck in limbo here.

Violet
Origin: Original/MySims
Heavily inspired by the Violet from MySims and that game's gothy, spooky Sims in general, Violet here is a fairly stereotypical goth girl. She tends to look on the dark side of life and finds peppy, optimistic people silly at best and infuriating at worst. She doesn't have any special powers, but she would be backed up by a "familiar". My most solid idea for this familiar was a giant scorpion. The familiar would act as Violet's bodyguard, similar to if Gloria only had one summon but it was always by her side.

Violet was one of two characters I considered bringing in for 2013's Halloween season. The other was of course Samhain, who got the nod.

You won't be seeing Violet in 2014, but the reason for that is that I found a replacement. I guess you could say Violet was not the one.

Dr. Welward, Sir Barnaby McManus von Buxton the Third, and Allison
Origin: Original
These characters are all linked to Dr. Bulgrave. The first two have appeared here on the blog in my Gunningshire short stories, but Allison has never appeared in any form.

Dr. Welward is a doctor who specializes in studying death and dying. He's a bit of a morbid sort, but not a bad guy once you get to know him. Sir Barnaby is a wealthy and successful man who gleefully enjoys flaunting his superiority. Allison is a maid employed by Barnaby who has an interest in steamworks. In Gunningshire, it's rare for the younger generation to care about Dr. Bulgrave's outdated technology, making Allison a rare breed and a strange friend for the doctor.

All of these characters can appear if Dr. Bulgrave gets a chance to be heavily used in a setting that suits him. I'm not certain Ardea is that setting.