Days Gone By: All About Format Wars

How the hell.

How the hell, you guys.

When I first dreamed up an idea for a plot about nostalgia, I had no idea what I was in for. I went into this thing with very loose plans, questionable direction, and very little confidence I could deliver. Instead, I wound up with what seems to be the most well-received of my three plots in Season 6. Not only that, but I got a new main character out of it, who then proceeded to be largely responsible for someone else's character becoming a main, as well as helping enable ANOTHER character who did a lot more a lot earlier than planned. I'd expected a hot mess we'd muddle through and people would be all "yeah good plot, now let's... not do that any more" but I plunged ahead anyway and was rewarded with what Format Wars became.

In fact, Format Wars almost didn't happen. Last winter, due to a lack of direction and confidence, I began considering scrapping the plot and expanding a dayplot about Tiffany into a larger plot to fill the space. What kept me from doing so was the fact that I teased Format Wars at the end of Season 5, in my ending post. Fortunately, the idea to expand Tiffany's plot was part of what helped me get my act together and help Format Wars take shape.

Now that the season's over, I've finally got some time and energy to reflect on this plot (and, later, Sarahplot will get a post as well). Let's go over Format Wars from top to bottom.

THE CONCEPT

The basic idea was simple enough - I love old stuff, particularly stuff from the 80s and 90s. I'm a very nostalgic sort who likes to remember my childhood. Unlike a lot of folks my age, I never "put my childish things away". Instead, I put them in temporary storage, then hauled them out years later and worked on finishing what I started as a child.

And you've seen me in action over the years. I tried to complete my childhood Pokemon card collections (and kind of have - I now own semi-complete sets of Base, Jungle, and Fossil, missing only certain holo or non-holo variants!). I found an Atari 2600 at the side of the road, repaired it, and bought a whole mess of games for it. I've RPed as the mothership from Space Invaders, and I still regularly use Pokemon pencils from the Pokemania era. Retro ain't my whole life, but it's a big part of it! That's why I decided to do this plot - to pay homage to my musty interests while also highlighting that retro alone can't carry a life in the modern day.

THE CAST

DJ CANDY
In some early talk of Format Wars, I called the plot "DJ Candy plot", and she's front and center on the teaser image I made before the season began. The plot was initially conceived as a vehicle for DJ Candy to achieve the importance and recognition I felt she needed to have before retiring.

The thing about Candy is her lack of conflict. She doesn't have any serious faults or rivals, which is probably partly why she wasn't too important during her two years of active RP duty. Early ideas for Format Wars involved the Nostalgia Elementals going after Candy specifically, trying to run her out of business or otherwise screw her over. As Candy is something of an audiophile and music tech geek who is frequently seen with vinyl records, however, this didn't fly - she was already on their side! Candy was then considered as a sort of example of what the Elementals could aspire to - Candy is mostly a modern gal, but the records and her wide range of musical tastes made her well-rounded enough to help bridge the gap and convince the Elementals to calm down. This was, however, before I determined what exactly the Elementals were - the "sick and drained by modern stuff" aspect came after this idea, and trying to get the Elementals to meet you halfway isn't going to work when they're literally dying because of technology marching on.

DOLBY
Hoo boy.

Dolby's initial concept was simply "retro DJ Candy" and spun out from there into Dolby's final form, a being that looked human on the outside but was actually just an empty rubber sack filled with old electronics. Dolby's character concept is extremely bizarre by my usual standards and could very easily be played for horror, which I did do a handful of times when Dolby was especially pissed off.

I initially conceived Dolby as being the most sympathetic character in a group of mostly unsympathetic Nostalgia Elementals, and this is seen in the buildup to the plot where Dolby is sort of ignored or dismissed by the others as she tries to avoid an encounter with the Kobbers. After her first appearance at the Praline concert event, though, I quickly began to realize I had created a monster. Bree liked her, Jumpropeman liked her, Harpy liked her, and Chao LOVED her, and I didn't see it coming. Deciding to go ahead and give her a test run as a real character (and also to build up some steam for Format Wars), I sent Dolby to every event of Segaplot. By the end of it, she seemed to pass the test, so I entered Format Wars with the knowledge that Dolby was going to outlive the plot, which had not initially been the plan - she was a plot-only character meant to exist for Format Wars and little to nothing else, vanishing before the season was over. Obviously, that didn't happen.

DJ Candy was a friend of Dolby and attended every event because I didn't think Dolby would be of any worth on her own. I predicted people would see her as just another character to save and be forgotten, since heroes save people. Candy was there to provide that link that could make Dolby seem worth peoples' time, and so she had someone to call a friend. Again, obviously, THIS DID NOT GO ACCORDING TO PLAN.

Dolby's friendship with Maria was initially suggested as a joke between myself and Chao - she would surely be anathema to Dolby, with her smartphone and all, right? But the more we thought about it, the more fitting we realized it was, and Dolby and Maria's friendship not only served as a great parallel to Format Wars, it also saved Maria's life, making her too lovable for Chao to go through with the reveal that she was evil. Diadem also got involved with both characters, debuting and doing much more than Harpy had planned.

I had expected Dolby to fade away, and instead she's not only returning for next season, but she will join Maria and Diadem in July - she's going to enter Big Bar Brawl 7, and no doubt the three of them will form a team. These three unlikely friends are a fantastic example of how you never really know where RP is going to take you if you're willing to go with the flow.

SINCLAIR
The first challenge with Sinclair was finding a design I liked. The second was "okay, this looks cool, but how the HELL does it drive a car" which led to the crazy contorting power Sinclair has. RPing as Sinclair is what really sank in for me that all five Nostalgia Elementals were going to be sympathetic and not act as villains - more like friendly rivals at most. And that, in turn, made me start to panic a little bit. I had some "real" enemies for the Kobbers to fight, but they were all bunched together at the end of the plot. I had to come up with a way to carry the plot from Point A to Point B without a standard-issue fight. Fortunately, Sinclair and Odyssey's events had some pretty easy structure to them and I wasn't worried about those - it was Dolby and Noir that were the real problem...

Sinclair was originally tapped for the fight with Halley due to his vehicle and therefore a connection to speed. I later told Chao the plan was tabled, however, because of how serious an asshole Halley was and her very late position in the plot, meaning it seemed like sending a minor, unconnected character like Sinclair would come off as a waste. But then, after Maria got revealed as a Council member, Dolby became very strongly invested in the plot, so I went ahead and added Sinclair back to the event - but without telling Chao, so he'd be surprised!

ODYSSEY
Initially meant to represent all old video games, Odyssey became more specialized as Dolby developed her secondary affinity with games in addition to her affinity with music. It works for him, though - his design is meant to evoke Space Invaders, and as the only Nostalgia Elemental to seem truly antagonistic on the surface, the philosophy of "only the very earliest generations of gaming are any good" was a good fit. Odyssey's purpose was to show that nostalgia for the old cannot by itself carry a medium for most people - I may enjoy and be fascinated by the earliest days of video games, but there's no pretending that musty old arcade relics like the original Pac-Man and Space Invaders can hold a candle to modern-day epics like Bravely Second. Honestly, the comparison is kind of unfair, it's so lopsided! That said, there is certainly a place in gaming for simple, fun "twitch" games that are just about racking up a high score. Not everything needs to have state-of-the-art graphics, funny characters, or a story full of twists and turns - but it's certainly good to have the option.

MOTHERSHIP
Odyssey partnered with Mothership because Mothership was actually going to be a significant character in Season 6! I once confided to Chao I was considering doing another "Fite Club Promotion" like the two I did in Season 5 (Edea and Sumireko), and Mothership was the character I had in mind! However, my roster was simply too crowded to support another character (though Mothership DID get to go on the MALP Draco finale, because they were perfect for a space battle). I felt the two also provided a nice contrast for each other. Odyssey was stubbornly clinging to the old ways. Mothership, although it still evokes a retro appearance, has learned new techniques in recent years instead of just relying on the tried-and-fried "drop down, increase speed, reverse direction" battle formation, and has spoken of the importance of evolving to match your enemy (the techniques are from Space Invaders Get Even, while the evolution talk is from Space Invaders Infinity Gene - two games that came out in the past ten years that took the Space Invaders franchise in new directions).

NOIR
Of all the Nostalgia Elementals, Noir is the one that gave me the most trouble. First of all, there's that name - the other four Elementals are named after longtime names in industries connected to their interest. Zenith is a television manufacturer, Sinclair a gas station franchise, Dolby an audio engineering company, and Odyssey shares his name with the Magnavox Odyssey, the world's first home video game system with interchangeable cartridges (as opposed to plug-and-play systems with all games built in).

Second of all, I had a hundred ideas for Noir's plot, but none of them seemed to form a coherent whole. I'll talk about those in the plot section. And third, his character kept changing on me as I flailed desperately to try and produce something people would give a crap about when it came time for his plot day. Was he a gangster, or did he just talk like one? Was he good or evil? Would he fight? What sort of movie does he want to make? I eventually settled on the "noir narration" gimmick, and even that was used very sparingly. Noir wasn't easy, lemme tell ya, but people seemed to like him well enough.

ZENITH
I first thought of Zenith as a Rex Maximilion-esque corporate executive villain. However, I moved away from this portrayal as the ideas for the plot shifted and it became clear the Nostalgia Elementals were in no position to act all hoity-toity. The five of them shared a home in the slums somewhere, with four of the five (six counting Egghead) struggling to get their careers off the ground. Wealthy businessman he wasn't.

Oddly for me, Zenith is the only Nostalgia Elemental with no combat ability to speak of. Not willing to pull out the old "can summon themed objects and fight with them" trick yet again (which I've previously done with Samhain, Morgan, Lily, Sumireko, Rachel, and Odyssey), I instead made his power a little different - he can still create stuff based on a theme (retro stuff with an ad) but it takes him so long to do it it's of no use in combat. As for exactly how long, probably something like half an hour to an hour depending on how complicated/big it is, with that time decreasing if he makes the same thing repeatedly. Due to his lack of fighting skills, Zenith's event was more about Mascot Force than him, and when he resurfaced for a plot he went on one I was reasonably confident would not have fighting (Maria's Council event) and I was correct, though if he'd wound up in a fight I would have tried having him use his TV head in some way, perhaps by broadcasting flashing lights or a loud noise to distract the enemy.

Zenith was originally named Analog, and sported this design partly inspired by King TV Dinnah, who was a recurring character in Zoofights 5's talking heads RP and made several appearances in the first half of Season 1. I changed the name to better fit the others (sans Noir), and found a new design because I was very unhappy with this one from the minute I finished the MSPaint.

MASCOT FORCE
Ah, finally. Mascot Force was my way of at last introducing standard combat to Format Wars (barring the Space Invaders battle at the end of Odyssey's event). When it seemed even they would prove sympathetic, I brought in those not-very-well-explained electronic doodads that forced them to fight. The actual explanation for those is that they were modifications on the hard drive brains the Nostalgia Elementals have, with a program inside courtesy of Clippit that would force their hands if they held back too much. A detail I don't think I got around to mentioning is that a Windows logo was hidden on each one, perhaps on the inside.

The characters that made up Mascot Force were chosen based on a number of factors, such as recognizability and diversity (of appearances, abilities, and time periods). As you might expect, a number of mascots were considered but didn't make the cut. Let's meet them!

Boo Berry is a cereal mascot and comrade of Count Chocula. He was considered because Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy, part of the same "family" of mascots, had already made RP appearances. He was dropped mostly just because too much else was happening.

Cool Spot is an old mascot from 7-Up, perhaps best known these days for his old video games.

Fido Dido, another 7-Up mascot, wouldn't have fought anybody. He's too chill for that. He was instead considered to be the character who leads the Kobbers to Odyssey and Zenith, but I opted to just reuse Wontkins instead, for simplicity's sake and because Wontkins didn't get to do much prior to that.

The Honeycomb Robot, representing (what else) Honeycomb cereal, was considered but dropped due to being too obscure, as well as a lack of good images/videos featuring him.

EGGHEAD/CLIPPIT
The plot's big surprise! Jumpropeman was the first to figure out that Egghead was secretly "Hotel Room Clippit" from Season 2 making a return as a far more serious villain. Chao was the second to figure it out.

Similar to Mr. X from the year before, this was an attempt at reusing a Season 2 villain that I saw mileage in bringing back. Mr. X came back because his initial event had been kinda lacking (he only lasted one turn - the majority of the event was just fighting his mooks in the street) and he got a much bigger, more exciting event as a proper send-off for a great 90s gaming villain. Clippit, meanwhile, pretty much only ever interacted with Morgana, and barely even began his villainy before getting subjected to a very serious defeat.

So how did Clippit wind up in Format Wars? That music video. Found late last offseason, it was Ghost that allowed Format Wars to start taking on its' final form. The events of the music video are more or less identical to ZFRP canon until the Recycle Bin scene. Basically, Clippit was motivated by a glimpse of the modern world to try and beat his curse, navigating out of a computer-themed region of Dimension's Hasp to access the modern Internet, which left him dazed, confused, and overwhelmed. Seeing the dead faces of computing's past in the Recycle Bin changed his motive from freedom to revenge (and you can see in the video itself that this is when Clippit gets mad). Outraged at the world seemingly getting dumber while abandoning the past and leaving it to rot, Clippit teamed up with Dahlia to help break free and take back the wheel from the present. In this way, Clippit embodied the bad side of nostalgia, the angry conservatism that leads to demanding that tradition remain in place no matter how progressive or improved the future is. We may reminisce on the good old days, but a lot of nice things have happened since the 90s that we would be loath to scrap in a hypothetical situation where the clock could actually be turned back.

After I made the decision to bring Clippit back, I then had to think about how to stop the curse. Draining the elementals? Running a certain program? But then along came Hina, and I realized she was the absolute perfect plot device to deal with something that happened two years before Bree even joined the community, let alone RPed Hina.

Egghead's name was a hint that he wasn't a real Nostalgia Elemental. It was initially just a nickname and his real name would have been something else, but I didn't go for it partly because I never thought of a name. Someone later suggested "Commodore", which I loved, but it was too late to bother. "Gateway" was another possible name. His absence on the teaser pic, however, was actually not a hint to that but rather an attempt at keeping him secret. Egghead was initially going to be a very late reveal, and would have been shown to be the true leader of the Nostalgia Elementals with Zenith just a figurehead. Instead, I introduced him earlier to build him up as an "innocent" character before unleashing the big twist.

Also, yes, his text gimmick was a pain in the ass. But I'm sure you'd figured that out already.

SILENCE
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

I knew I wanted Silence involved in this plot in some way, hence her inclusion on the teaser image, but it wasn't until the plot had already gotten started that I finally figured out what to do: A second, darker half of Silence's arc from Season 5. After her rise to superstardom, it looked like nothing could stop Silence... but her absolutely pathetic placing in the sixth Brawl followed by her (planned months in advance) VEW title loss to Aggie made it very clear Silence wasn't the mighty hero of last year. This plot showcased the vulnerability of a human who has pushed herself physically for too long - with a decade of brawling under her belt, Silence was getting worn down, and her performances both real and kayfabe were suffering.

I decided to let the New, Better Olympics seal Silence's fate. If she placed well, she would be encountered by the Kobbers in time to save her from becoming Parts Unknown, Dahlia's final Nostalgia Elemental project. If she did poorly, it would be too late, and the Kobbers would have to save her. She placed 10th in a field of 13, and so she was added to the finale as a boss fight. As a bonus, this painful incident was the catalyst for Silence admitting it was time to change course in her life and deciding to seek out help in regaining her ability to speak - which she found in the form of Lauren, resulting in what was basically Silence's retirement as she was transformed into Sally in a sequence that actually managed to make JRM cry, so invested had he gotten in Silence's well-being since her Brawl victory.

A question some may have: Why did Dahlia care about Silence? It's simple - Silence was unacceptably popular and successful. As a large, disfigured, and disabled woman, Dahlia considered her far, far too ugly and flawed to be worth anything. Yet she won the Brawl, held the VEW championship for an entire year, and was one of Las Vegas' biggest celebrities. Dahlia mutating her would not only put a permanent end to her career, it would also put her in her place where she belonged - Dahlia's obedient lapdog and servant. The ugly serve the beautiful, so Dahlia believed.

Dahlia was a horrible, horrible person. Let's talk about her!

DAHLIA VANDELAY
Initially "Vandalay", but later made "Vandelay" due to a typo. But the typo caught on and it was a little easier to remember (plus a pun Chao thought of - she was trying to "delay" old age!). Dahlia was initially not part of the plot at all - the original idea was to have Format Wars with Clippit as the antagonist, as well as an unrelated two-event plot about Tiffany. The first event would have been breaking Rex Maximilion's Psyche-Locks - Tiffany would have come to him for answers about her past, and he'd clam up, not wanting to upset her. The second event would have been a fight in a fashion show venue against Dahlia, and she would have fought by using a jetpack and a few other gadgets based on cosmetics (like a flamethrowing hairdryer or giant comb-shaped battleaxe). However, I later began coming up with possible ideas to tie Dahlia to Format Wars, and decided to add her in as the Man Behind The Man, the true villain pulling the strings behind Clippit. The picture was drawn before this, however, so I had an odd detail to explain. Dahlia's smartphone initially seemed like it wouldn't be very compatible with the Nostalgia Elementals, but I solved that by having them not even really be aware of her - she didn't associate with them. The way their personalities shook out, this made sense - if they'd all been proper antagonists, it might have been harder. Instead, she communicated and worked with solely Egghead.

Dahlia was created to be the mega-heel that Tiffany proved too sympathetic to be - in essence, a second go at getting the reaction I'd expected from Tiffany during Neo Kobber plot. This time, it worked!

When I decided Dahlia would be the final boss of the plot, I waffled on how she would fight. She ultimately became a cyborg, having had electronic parts similar to the Nostalgia Elementals installed in her body so she could hijack them and use the Drain.exe program. An earlier draft pegged her as a Generation 2 Mutant, and Tiffany would also have been a mutant - the earlier claim that she wasn't one was not direct and could have easily been retconned or explained as "Tiffany thought that was true, but she was mistaken". I later reused the idea of having a mutant in my cast by making Shifty Whodunnit, who will get his day during the Sarahplot blogpost.

THE EVENTS

Get Your Kicks On Route 66
This was the only plot of the first four "meet the elementals" plots that was neither severely rejiggered nor agonized about, which is why it was first. I've done "tractor races" before, and doing another was a no-brainer. A simple, fun way to compete with Sinclair that made sense and had one hell of a finish - not only did Sinclair do very well (like Asmodeus before him), placing third, but Dirk edged out Stacy on the last turn to win by a single point!

Christine has been considered to appear as an enemy in my RP for a long time, and got a quick reference back in 2013 when Samhain used a non-alive, prop version of it to drive through a wall during the Spooky Scary Scuffle. I'd considered using it again sometime as a possessed car that wasn't pure evil, only rowdy, but Komachi shut that all down when Bree took Christine at face value and Komachi demanded an exorcism followed by dismantling, scuttling any future possible plans for it.

Have You Played Atari Today
Another fun one. An older version of this plot featured a fight against Odyssey himself, but the Space Invaders were fought instead. Older versions of the plot featured an Odyssey too far gone to reason with, with Dolby urging the Kobbers to defeat him so he could be jailed or perhaps even killed.

As you'd expect, numerous games were considered to be part of the event but were dropped due to time. In addition to the games that made it (Frogger, Donkey Kong, Impossible Mission, and Space Invaders), other possible games were Mario Bros, Pac-Man, ET, Combat, 1942, Space War, Pong, Tennis For Two, and Bertie The Brain.

Impossible Mission seems like kind of an odd choice compared to other games that could have been picked, I know, but I went with it for a few reasons:

1: It was a unique premise for a challenge.
2: It threw a curveball into the lineup of otherwise very predictable history-making games.
3: I played Impossible Mission on a Commodore 64 as a kid, so it had that personal indulgence angle going for it - the first but not the last time I included personalized nostalgia in this plot.

Battle Of The Bands
A huge thanks to folks like Bree and FV for helping fill out this plot. From the beginning, I knew what I wanted to do, and eventually I hit upon a decent way of doing it, but the big stumbling block was the playlist of music, since I'm not a music buff. Bree was a huge help in giving this plot music! As for FV, his third-party stance was a neat way of adding to the plot in a positive way, and so we got three completely different concerts.

We've done plenty of "just having some fun, no real conflict" events in the past, but rarely are they tied in to an actual plot like this one was. The oddness of it made me incredibly nervous going in, but everyone's positivity and contributions made it into a well-received event. My deepest thanks to everyone for bailing me out of my worries!

I'm Gonna Be A Star
This was the one. This was this year's version of Fact Sphere Plot. Changed around again and again as I panicked with no direction or ideas, it wasn't until the day of the plot that I finally figured out what to do and how to do it. Previous ideas included fighting Noir seriously, fighting Noir as a joke, and battling through a movie studio in a remixed version of the "Smash TV" style plot I planned for Fact Sphere last year but abandoned. Here's a pic of a camera robot that would have appeared in these earlier versions of the plot.

What we ultimately got was a very goofy plot featuring complete jokes of "fights" and a golden opportunity to push Komachi X Nitori further. While I was initially lukewarm at best to that pairing due to finding it coming off a bit too much like "I want a pairing, let's slap these two together", further interactions and development of Komachi's character turned my opinion around, and at this point in the season I was very excited to help them along!

Where's The Beef
I wonder... if Wal-Mart had gone out of business somehow in the late 90s or early 2000s, would people wax nostalgic over it today? I think it's possible. People mourn long-gone businesses all the time, especially small-time operations that only ever had one location. Many stores I visited in the 90s and 2000s are gone now. Ames entered the plot due to this odd nostalgia for advertising and businesses, and for Ames being by far the highest-profile store I visited and subsequently lost. From my infancy to when the store closed in 2002, Ames was THE store to buy things in my town. They had it all! I was so sad to see them go. Now, after fourteen years, a new department store is finally rolling into my hometown, but it's a Wal-Mart - nice, but not exactly a fresh new face. It'll be cool to have a one-stop shop in town again, but it won't be quite the same.

You know, it's said that vaporwave/webpunk is meant to be taken sarcastically - it's supposedly a dig at consumerism and being attached to big businesses. It's social commentary. That may be true, but I'm enough of an emotional, wistful, nostalgic fella to take it completely at face value. Hell, I do miss those old commercials and companies!

This plot was more about Mascot Force than it was Zenith. Despite being the leader of the Nostalgia Elementals, he ultimately did the least of the five. No doubt part of this is because he has no combat ability, while another part is that he was a decoy antagonist. While early teaser posts built up Zenith as a big deal, he was ultimately just a pawn of Egghead and Dahlia, the true villains.

Zenith was another possible "Smash TV" plot, but that too was dropped. Maybe someday I'll finally do a twisted game show!

Ghost
Harpy saved the day here and didn't even know, I bet. While I had the setup planned out for a very long time, I suddenly realized as the plot got underway that I didn't know how the Kobbers were going to fight a digital foe. I probably would have bullshitted something involving Clippy or netrunning, but Harpy's plan to get us into the digital realm worked like a charm, so I took it and ran with it!

Gloria made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in this plot. An earlier comment in Chatzy said Gloria should appear for Format Wars due to her own views on modern technology. And indeed, the initial plan was to split up guide characters - DJ Candy would attend the first three plots, Gloria the second three, and both of them would show up for the finale. Gloria wound up not being important to Format Wars because her tastes aren't quite lined up to how the plot worked, plus I had too many other characters invested in the plot anyway (Time Enough At Last featured four guide characters plus an appearance by Mary).

I had hoped to snag Morgana making a special guest appearance for this plot, but mistimed Brine's days off. As pointed out in Chatzy, however, it could have led to people confronting Morgana over her curse (since she was an antihero/sympathetic villain for most of her time with the Kobbers in Season 2, and the curse WAS rather mean-spirited). I'm glad we didn't get a snafu like that, so perhaps it's for the best she was only mentioned in passing.

Time Enough At Last
The big finish! I'd kinda wanted to delve a bit more into what exactly a "wrestling nostalgia elemental" could do, but ultimately Parts Unknown was just a big brute, with the nostalgia only factoring into her creation. The steroid tank was meant to underline just how far gone Silence was, since in 2015 it was emphasized she was drug-free and doesn't take steroids or anything like that (Ash asking if she took some form of performance enhancers resulted in Silence getting offended).

I'd wanted the final fight with Dahlia to go a little longer, but it was pretty brief due to being the second phase of a two-phase plot. I was glad nobody tried to save Dahlia or beat her non-lethally, since I'd heeled it up as much as I could and wanted to see some military-grade #comeuppance thrown down, which was what I got!

Originally, the Tiffany mooks with blockheads were going to look more human, appearing similar to Tiffany but with various defects and handicaps like mismatches eyes, lopsided limbs or a missing mouth. This was dropped when I realized people would want to save them instead of fight them when they were only meant as fodder mook color, so I gave them square heads and rudimentary AI to try and illustrate that they were disposable. A bunch still got saved, so I shrugged and let them be taken. :V

CONCLUSION

What I had expected to be my weakest plot of the year ended up being my most well-received. It sparked a three-way friendship, saved a character's life, furthered a pairing, wrapped up a question from last year (Tiffany's origins), and more.

I'm grateful to everyone who helped me shape Format Wars into what it became. This was a true example of how ZFRP's unique collaborative medium can make a plot drastically better. Thank you all!

As for Sarahplot, that too will get a blogpost in due time. Look for it... I dunno, eventually?