Doing something a little different this year for my post-RP blog - I'm going to go through the enormous cast of characters I brought to the table this year and give my thoughts on their performance this year. Including the plot characters and villains means my events will get discussed along the way, too.
While working on this list, I certainly noticed how many times a character either didn't get used much or only got one or maybe two plots added to their resume. This is what comes of having a cast that's too dang large, and it's increased my resolve to heavily trim down the Ensemble for Season 15 as I try to do more with less instead of dumping every cute girl I see into RP. From the hospital crew to the witches to the solos and duos to the characters that joined up with DALI, it seemed like everyone was fighting for scraps of airtime...
Stella
And then there was Hoshii freakin' Holdings, which is somehow stronger than ever. So strong that Stella gets to be above the jump break. Stella has gone from secondary character, to main character, to the point where she's outright my current flagship, the star of GB RP and probably one of the first characters you think of when you think of my writing. This isn't all just Stella herself, either, but the people who work under her, considering the company features multiple breakout characters who did more than expected this season. Stella herself is certainly a powerhouse at this point, though. More than just someone who attends a bunch of events, she's in the tier of someone like Dia or Dawn in that she actively organizes Kobber forces to align against problems. Also, due to the circumstances of Del's cancelled Tau plot and the point it reached before being cut short, she might have prevented a planetwide assimilation attempt with nothing but a sternly-worded warning, which is a completely insane trophy for her already-stuffed trophy cabinet. We are very lucky the cat boomer is a benevolent soul.
To the surprise of no one, Stella is coming to Argo, and a number of the ideas floating around in my head for some kind of plot or conflict in the next season directly relate to her, mostly in the form of some potential new competition.
Before this season started I kind of expected Dorothy to start winding down, but her involvement in The Clovenix Conundrum and pairing with Sue revitalized her a bit for me and she's going to Argo for at least one more season! Dorothy has softened and sweetened with time, but she's still a total flirt in the right situation, don't worry.
Attami
I was certain Attami would be less important this year, but then she went and dominated a good chunk of my RP again. As one of my strongest regular characters, she provides some heavy firepower when the Kobbers are faced with major threats, and her Mega Attami form made her my go-to option for any kaiju or giant mech battles. I kept her out of most of the OCGA events because that plot was meant to be a showcase for Kokoro, Kate, and Sekibanki, but she did appear a few times for it and I'm glad she did. Can't leave the gourmand robot out of something like that entirely!
Anna Graem and Tella Graem
Anna saw some early action as a regular during most of Brine's events, though she stopped showing up for the final arc in lieu of Stella herself stepping in to be a diplomat. Anna managed to remain relevant in the fall, though, when I hit upon the idea of explaining her backstory with 'Ms. Lost'. This was a very late addition to my finale, which initially didn't have an NPC to provide any answers on the situation. While planning my final event, though, I decided to try fighting against the general "I'm sick of fighting all these idiots who won't stop being evil and think they can defeat the Kobbers" malaise by focusing more on worldbuilding and moodiness, making the fight feel almost like it played second fiddle to the discovery of the true nature of The Backrooms. Tella also ended up being a useful angle for Chao to have some fun with poor Justine, and we got some interesting moments out of her and Sabriye as a result.
Mikoto Misaka
The Orb user who wasn't. Mikoto, whose name is very confusing thanks to Japanese name structure and me seeing people use both "Mikoto Misaka" and "Misaka Mikoto" (Death Battle calls her 'Misaka', maybe I should have gone with that...) was genuinely intended to be my principal Orb user at season's start. However, as the plot progressed, she developed in ways I hadn't quite predicted.
Mikoto started off very smug and confident. She'd been on the Kobber periphery before and knew they dealt with serious shit. Once she was given great power and formerly terrifying enemies became easy prey, though, the strength and success went to her head and she became the cocksure battler we knew and tolerated for a couple months. As the plot continued and Cornwind made the villains stronger and better able to counter Dragoons, Mikoto began to flail as I shifted focus to a different tactic: the idea that we could potentially defy what destiny says and fight the villains without orbs. Attami and Leviathan, two of my strongest characters, began attending Dragoon events and trying to make an impact without "following the rules", and their success came at Mikoto's expense. In the event where Dias accidentally kills Azucena and runs away, I felt the time had come for Mikoto to give up on the power fantasy the Orb had offered, as it was turning out to be a lie.
...So instead she made her OWN power fantasy, with hookers and blackjack! Seeing that Mikoto actually had a canonical armored super form was all the excuse I needed to give her Moonsetter, my custom name for the Anti-Art Attachment faceclaim.
H'aanit
I'll stick H'aanit up here since she's connected to Dragoon stuff too. She ended up pretty defined by it this year, without many events this time around where she could go monster hunting. I would have preferred her to shine on her own merits, but you gotta work with what you're given, and it was nice she was on deck to take the Purple Orb after Mikoto rejected it.
Reina
Sometimes a character isn't meant to be a star. Reina exists more for flavor and an excuse for me to tip the hat to a cute River City Girls enemy than anything else, and while she was briefly considered as my Orb representative for Cornwind's plot, I quickly settled on Mikoto once I decided I wanted the electric orb. There have been a few Hoshii characters like this who don't really do much. Yuuko and Tomo are two other examples, and those two might get elevated at some point. Tomo was seriously considered to make some appearances this season, but there was just too much competition.
Leanne
There's not a whole lot to Leanne. She's mostly a jokey Battlebots reference, as she sort of resembles someone who competed on the show, so I gave her the same first name. Like Reina, she's a flavor addition who pops up now and then just to emphasize the scope of Hoshii Holdings and how it's more than just the usual suspects like Stella, Attami, and Dorothy, though she ended up being somewhat important a few times as I worked out how exactly I wanted to handle the ability for Attami to turn into Mega Attami and Leanne became the keeper of the big, barely-portable cannon laser thing that does the impossible and makes Attami even bigger than she already is.
Kokoro, Sekibanki, and Kate Hicks
Can you believe these three weren't even supposed to be here this year? I was feeling they were close to done and was ready to phase them out, but Chao requested they be regulars on his main plot this year, the OCGA, and thank goodness for that! Kokoro would have just kinda drifted out of RP otherwise, but Chao's plot was essential to properly wrapping her up, nine years after her first appearance in RP and three years after I adopted her. Kokoro initially joined RP as a regular in an effort to learn how to emote, and although years of being around the Kobbers was slowly helping her, in the end it took a villain to force the emotion out, and Asahi Saiba's completely morally bankrupt insanity over food was what Koko needed to finally show the world how she really felt, her true passion bursting forth when it all became too much.
You may wonder, why are Kate and Kokoro an item? I don't often pair up my own characters with each other, but Chao and I somehow hit upon this one while swapping PMs (I don't even remember what made us think of it, or who thought of it first) and he thought it was adorable, so I went ahead and canonized it since they weren't really likely to get paired with anyone otherwise.
Sekibanki was a goofball as usual. She's the shitposter of the trio, but it just works.
Ashley and Magilou
Our BBB13 champions! Like Katekorobanki, last year was meant to be the end of the Agama coven for the most part, but then they went and won the 13th Brawl, and so they stuck around a little longer. They didn't do a whole lot besides attend Harpy's plot, though. Probably their most notable moments revolved around addressing the running gag of other Coven members showering Ashley with affection but treating Magilou neutrally or negatively. Magilou got a little Brawl Season arc as she worked to improve relations with the rest of The Coven.
Allison and Angelica
These two didn't do much, but I never expected them to. They were mostly just here to hold the fort and run the Betting Corner, waiting for the setting change. I plan to push the Gunningshire girls more in Argo since it's steampunk-friendly.
May
May was basically done last year after she got her happy ending via a pairing with Captain You, and only made a few token appearances this year. She stuck around basically just because it didn't make any sense for her to leave her hometown, but we only saw her a handful of times. You might remember I initially teased some May backstory early last season: the reason it never materialized is because I never came up with anything solid. Sometimes I consider possible hooks for a character and leave some spaces blank thinking "oh I can fill that in later", but occasionally when I do that, "later" never comes as I fail to come up with anything. This was one of those times.
Murasa, Pa-Patch, and Ann Glerr
Pa-Patch and Ann really suffered from my cast bloat and didn't get to do much this season, but Murasa at least hooked onto DALI and the Undead Uproar and so made a number of appearances. I'm glad to have finally given her a spin after getting the "rights" to RP her so many years ago, but I think I'm satisfied.
These three were strongly considered for a Brawl slot either this year or last, but it never lined up, and now it's too late.
Frost
Perhaps I should have made Stella the new Brawl analyst after all? Frost has petered out despite Whalestrand being a great setting for her, partly due to too many characters and partly because other characters who've done less over the years needed the time more. Frost will continue analyzing the Brawl and sticking to her role there, but she would absolutely hate our new setting, and that combined with her seeming to have run her course makes me think Frost ought to finally depart from the Kobbers' inner circle. What a success story, though. A hell of a run for a character who debuted as an annoying jerk.
Burnin and Justice
Less important than I expected, Burnin and Justice didn't do a whole lot this year besides enter the Brawl (where they turned in a mediocre performance) and pop up in a handful of events, mostly earlier in the season. I expected them to be evergreen characters, and they can be very easily re-deployed, but current plans are to keep them in the background for now and rotate back in Patty and Denise for what I expect will be the main use of my ZFPD characters in Season 15: the Space Police Plot that Chao's been brewing.
Laila and Lynn
The sisters got their big moment last season with the Jormungandr miniplot, and this year ended up more of a postscript for Lynn, just showing her living life and enjoying herself, occasionally helping DALI. Laila, though, got a few more chances to shine thanks to being the more capable of the two in both a fight and an argument. Laila was one of my go-to choices when it was time to lay on the #Words. HP told me earlier this year that he considers Laila to be an iconic part of Whalestrand RP as a whole. and I'm flattered for the praise! I'm glad my little run with The Elevator Girl bore out so well.
Elvira
Elvira certainly has been kicking around for quite a while, hasn't she? Six seasons is pretty good for a character that was almost cut from The Curse. She was never super prominent, but Elvira came in handy to toss in the occasional quip or observation in the bar and with DALI she finally found a passion to pursue. A solid hand in the staff, but I'm ready to move on from both her and Frost... and go back to the ex-Curse well yet again to dig up Cordie for next season. The Curse just keeps enduring!
Chara
I'd been excited to use Chara in Season 14, but she ended up doing less than I expected, particularly because she got her pairing taken from her! Originally planned to angle for a hookup with Vita, Chara ended up getting friendzoned in favor of Margit. Don't worry, though - neither I nor Chara really mind. It frees up my roster for Argo that little bit more knowing she doesn't have to follow Vita there, and Chara's such a laid-back, casual person that she's totally fine with being just friends.
Helios and Dr. Blooper
Helios is one of those characters you just kinda figure will putter around in the background forever, but I got the idea to have a lonely Celestia be the force that finally gets him to retire. I needed a replacement main GB doctor before I could let him go, though, and Castti filled the role perfectly!
Dr. Blooper was a lot of fun in his run. He always seemed to pop up when you least expected him, didn't he? Maybe we'll see him again someday, but Argo is not Blooper-friendly, so he's staying in Whalestrand for now.
Castti
Oh, Castti! I chose Castti as my lead hero in Octopath Traveler II and BOY did I chose correctly. Castti is everything I love to see in a protagonist. She's pleasant, sweet, kind, and wholesome, but also a stone-cold asskicker, courageous, intelligent, and - although certainly an incredibly good person - not completely free of the occasional vice and indulgence. She's just about perfect, and before I'd even finished Octopath II I was absolutely certain Castti was going to join us in ZFRP. While she was originally meant to be mostly just an early preview in Season 14 before joining up properly and doing stuff in Season 15, she still found several moments and times to shine even in this crowded cast of soon-to-retire characters, most notably Prismriver Plot and the vampire arc in Dragoon Plot. The former was good for showcasing her warmth and caring, while the latter focused more on her fighting skills. Together the two showings basically tell you everything you can expect when Castti shows up for something.
Dr. Welward
Thank Chao for this one. I liked the concept of The Bellringer reviving old, potentially redeemable villains and antagonists, but hadn't been able to come up with anything on my own that I liked. Chao offered Dr. Welward as a suggestion, and he was perfect - a sympathetic antagonist who had tried to call off his villainy at the final hour only to be overridden by a much worse entity. A plague doctor also fits in quite nicely with both the gothic Whalestrand and steampunky Argo, too, so he's quite at home in both settings. Welward won't likely do much going forward but he's on the med staff ready to help out with folks that Castti's magic and herbs can't fix!
Palette and Adeleine
Though they did have a tie to The Backrooms, and Palette was a major force in the early part of the season thanks to the Sony Hard Girls plot, it was clear these two were running out of steam and I was mostly just running out the clock until we left Whalestrand so I could retire them sensibly. I do love these two goofy artists, though, and I'm glad Palette made such an impact on RP. Adeleine didn't do as much, mostly continuing in her role of being a straight man to other characters' eccentricities, but I'm really just happy I finally got her into RP after years of considering using her but not actually doing it.
Bow and Bootler
Second time's the charm? For a while Bow was almost the poster child for "character that got no traction and didn't really do anything", alongside the likes of Shroud and Josuke. With those two both redeemed through later runs and appearances and a playthrough of Paper Mario 64 still fresh in my mind this past spring, I opted to go ahead and give Bow one more crack at RP, this time as part of DALI. Her low power level kept her from engaging with the tougher bosses of the plot, but she popped up here and there, had a little arc with Bootler where they learn to work better together instead of constantly bickering, and... well, frankly, Tubba Blubba's appearance as the Mystery Fiter alone was enough to make me pleased I brought them back. Though even if I hadn't done that, I still would have put them in the audience for BBB14 to react to that because how could I not.
Piyori
What a year for Piyori! She didn't do much besides attend all of the Neokama Plot events, but she didn't need to - that plot was great for Neokama's resident big fat idiot and she forged a heck of a bond with Alex in the process. Piyori's time with us is likely to be over soon, but the Neokama is persisting into Season 15 in pursuit of a fun goal - get every single member into the Brawl. Look for a big Neokama alliance next year as they try to somehow top Potemkin's completely bonkers "Can't Stop Winning" BBB14 run.
Ramlethal Valentine and Evil Eye Sigma
You win some, you lose some. The other Neo Neo Blood Bowl character I brought to RP did almost nothing this season, pushed out by too many other characters and leaving us with some unanswered questions about who she is and where she came from. I was planning on dropping her and cutting my losses, but just before I made the final cast-cutting decisions, Chao suddenly started pushing Ramlethal and telling me he liked her, all while unaware she had a sword hanging over her head about to drop. His last-ditch burst of enthusiasm for Ramlethal saved her and I decided I'd give her one more chance in Argo to accomplish something.
Piper
Piper herself isn't around a lot, but her rental shop got more popular the longer the season went on. I'm happy to see it, and Piper will continue loaning out Battlebot parts in Argo where they may prove more useful than ever. Maybe next year we'll actually get a look inside her shop - I'd always planned to do a post about the store itself and what it looked like, but it just never came together.
Viola
Tenshi's thicc goth GF was mostly only here for Pokemon-related shenanigans, and there was less of that this season than last season, but half of Draco's plot was still devoted to it so we still got some Viola out of what is likely her final run as a "regular" cast member. You can tell I didn't have much time or space for Viola since she didn't even build a full team of six in Whalestrand despite having two years to do it. In most Pokemon games I have a full team of six like an hour in. C'mon, Violes, step it up.
Garfield, Jon, and Odie
There I go again, making Garfield central to my plot. This was a payoff a long time in the making. I knew from the moment I first decided to add Garfield to RP that he needed to be a boss fight at some point, and initially the plan was to turn him into a Gorefield form. We very nearly got a battle with Gorefield, but plans changed after I trimmed the Tenna event from two days to just one. Initially we were going to deal with Dae Man and Sansfield on Day 1, then Garfield would shift into Gorefield and Tenna would join the fray on Day 2.
It was nice to get a non-combat plot (Iono vs Raihan) that Jon and Garfield could engage in. At one point I'd planned for Jon to show up at a whole bunch of big bad boss fights for a running gag of him blundering into extreme danger and always escaping unscathed, or nearly so. Instead he only did this once, on a Cornwind event.
Odie didn't really do anything. Not much a normal dog can do, though my oversized cast didn't help matters. I think he was going to show up for one of the Iono/Raihan events at one point, but he never did.
One of the enduring mysteries of this trio is that I confirmed this year that Jon and Garfield really have been at it since 1978, just like in real life, but they don't seem to have aged a day in forty-six years. The verified world record for the longest-lived cat is 38 years, so Garfield still being alive would be flatly impossible in real life (not that RP follows real-world rules too terribly often), and Jon should be elderly even if he was only 20 in 1978. Maybe they feed off the energy of Garfield's massive fanbase of nostalgic Gen X'ers to preserve their eternal youth...
Samhain
Samhain has had a truly tremendous run, but like Helios, I was starting to feel like it was about time to move on, and this is his last year as a "regular" who sits in my profiles and is expected to show up. It was specifically his Brawl entry that gave me the closure I needed - he'd been requested by JRM for the Brawl for many, many years, and thanks to Samhain's transition from an exclusively-Halloween character to one associated with holidays in general, I'd finally hit on a gimmick for him that made him interesting enough to use a precious Brawl slot on even after he'd been in so many other Fite Yer Mates matches over the years. His nature makes him very easy to slap in as a cameo so we'll get a dose of ol' Pumpkinhead should he be needed to help out with some holiday hullabaloo, though, so you never know when next you may see him!
Spamton
Revisiting The Backrooms for 2024 meant of course that Spamton was on the table for a comeback, but the ever-present cast glut kept him from doing much besides a Big Damn Heroes moment to help stop Tenna in the penultimate event of my plot. He did get to enter the Brawl, though! And placed in the bottom five. Well, can't win 'em all.
Gel and The Darkclaw
Both of my Secret Fiter Scuffle entrants were planned as potential characters, and both of them did get to pop up elsewhere (Gel did my Honorable Mentions for BBB14 voting and The Darkclaw made a couple plot appearances in both Whalestrand years, most notably attending the La Squadra police chase) but, like so many other characters in this blogpost, they could have done a lot more in a less-clogged roster. I think The Darkclaw in particular still has potential so we may yet see him again someday, but at least he had an excellent run in the Scuffle if nothing else.
Lucifer
The devil finally gets her due. I teased Lucifer as a GB character years ago, and even cameoed her in Olympia to deal with Malina when she was a Salvager under Chao's control. At last she appears as a proper character, and I'm very happy with how she turned out. Tying her to DALI was a great idea, not least because it meant the literal actual devil (from The Bible) got to help the Pope. Lucifer is a great character for me to use when we go up against gods and other mythical and religious figures, so she may see reason to come back in the future. For now, though, she's content with her lot in life. Especially since her lot includes the lovely Beelzebub.
Loremaster
Probably the breakout star of all the Helltaken I've grabbed for RP these past two years. Assigning her the task of researching The Backrooms was the perfect way to get them back into RP and solve their mysteries. As I mentioned in last year's plot blog, The Backrooms are one of those malleable universes where people are basically invited to make up their own canon, and I'm happy with my version. It's a bit more benign and much easier to escape the GB Backrooms, but they retain their melancholy nostalgic feelings and that palpable sense of unease you get when you're deep inside a large public building by yourself and are getting turned around trying to navigate it. Loremaster even picked up a total cutie-pie of a girlfriend! All in all, I'd say it's another successful adoption. When I asked Harpy last year if I could have Loremaster, she actually forgot who Loremaster even was. I think by now I've managed to turn things around, don't you?
Leviathan/The Maneater
Poor Leviathan really got screwed by our next setting. She seems popular enough, she debuted halfway through the year after spending the first half of the season as a mute shark, and I sure wouldn't mind using her more, but an aquatic-based character has a tough row to hoe in an environment built around badlands, deserts, mountains, and caves. Leviathan is a likely return for next time we do a water-heavy setting, and we've had several of those so I'm sure another will come up soon enough.
Verosika Mayday
A character I'd wanted to stick in RP for quite some time, pretty much as soon as I first saw her. It took a while, but I found a great role for her as a fake-out antagonist. She was too cute for me to want to make her outright evil, so she was just a jerk who got character developed into a good girl. One concept for an event that got scrapped was that she'd escape the concert that Zdrada and Pandemonica ruin, only for Tenna to use his remote to hijack her electrical powers and use her own body's electrical signals to puppet her to his will, up to and including forcing her to fight the Kobbers while making it seem like she was actually evil and Tenna himself was supposedly innocent. Lucky for Verosika, this got cancelled.
Malina
Thanks to Chao for letting me have his Helltaken! Chao has mentioned to me before, and may have said it to others as well, that Malina was originally meant to be more than just a minor Salvager and just didn't click. She wasn't one of my big promotions either, but since part of my plot's purpose was to round up most of the Helltaker characters, it felt important she be present for continuity with The Salvagers and how she was defeated there, via what turned out to be a very Early Bird Cameo from Lucifer dragging a truant employee back to work. Her main purpose was to offer a more friendly face on Hell Inc despite being The Sour Demon, Malina still not exactly cheerful but not against us any more. I also enjoyed digging into the relationship between her and her sister, which wasn't a healthy one, but she was still upset in her own way when Zdrada finally went too far and got herself killed.
Pandemonica and Zdrada
Speaking of Zdrada! These two are my least favorite Helltaker girls. Pandemonica is cute, but her sadistic side brings back uncomfortable memories of my least favorite character from Neptune Vs Sega Hard Girls, Plutia. People who remember my review of that game may recall I was a fan of Plutia until she revealed her sadist streak, and the fact that she primarily targeted Mega Drive, my personal ultra blorbo, of all characters for her sick sexual abuse was completely beyond the pale and I refused to use her in my party after that. On top of that, I've also resolved to, if I ever play another Neptunia game, to avoid any games where she's a major character, ideally not appearing at all. So being presented with another "is cute, secretly a sadist" character really set me against Pandemonica from the start.
Then there's Zdrada. On a superficial surface level, I have a dislike for most forms of... I guess you could call it body customization? Painted nails, heavy makeup, piercings, tattoos, those kinds of things. Zdrada is big into body mods, piercings in particular, so I was kinda against her from the start. She also smokes, another minus. Did you notice that when I put Jill Stingray, a character strongly tied to smoking, into RP I had her explicitly kick the habit as soon as I possibly could? Stella was the same way, abandoning her trademark pipe except for use as a weapon. Smoking doesn't super repulse me but due to personal reasons it's not something I like my protagonists doing. Anyway aside from all that superficial stuff, Zdrada is also just an asshole and completely unrepentant about it, so she's ugly on the inside. This in particular was what made her the perfect choice for the one truly despicable Helltaker character in RP!
The Pandemonica/Wilkins gag was set in stone pretty much as soon as I decided to use Pandemonica. Her character is tied to coffee and there was no better way to have fun with that than to whip out our old friends Wilkins and Wontkins, who appeared with Chao's permission (though funnily enough he and I have swapped them back and forth a couple times now). Pandemonica survived the plot to contrast with her more reasonable demeanor compared to Zdrada - she was a nasty jerk, but she's not beyond hope, while Zdrada was wholly dedicated to tearing things down and making people's lives harder for her own amusement.
Black Doom
You may recall Black Doom was once slated to appear as a member of The Curse, as one of the major leaders in fact. This didn't happen, and I'm glad, because the Black Doom we got this year was so much more fun than what we would have gotten in 2019. Obviously, the extremely goofy Black Doom we faced this season was a direct pull from the SnapCube dub of Shadow the Hedgehog. There, Black Doom is transformed from a generic evil demon into a ridiculous card-carrying villain who declares himself "The Devil, from The Bible" and judges how sinful various actions are by assigning them "Sin Points". While still evil, he's a lot more affable and fun to write, and so this was what got him into RP at long last.
I hadn't planned to kill him off, but I didn't really try to stop it when people started leaning that way and really kind of encouraged it as his boss fight began to wrap up. I mean, he DID try to steal people's souls to make them his slaves, even if he was funny, so in the end memes couldn't save him. Like Vanterviper, though, he probably came back as a spirit and got put to work in Hell Inc to start paying his dues.
Oh, and Black Doom was planned to be in this plot before Sonic X Shadow Generations was announced and revealed he was making an encore appearance in the Sonic series nineteen years after Shadow The Hedgehog. That was just an amazing coincidence.
The Vanterviper
Definitely one of my most out-there pulls for an RP character, I was dead certain no one would recognize them and when Sheep did I was baffled but also delighted. I haven't actually seen the Gallavants film or owned any of the toys - I knew about the franchise from a picture book. The Vanterviper has a striking design, so when I found that excellent fanart of them, I saved it and waited years for a chance to use them in RP somehow. I believe the Vanterviper was initially part of one of the many incarnations of my Cabinet of Curiosities plot, but eventually they wound up here. As for how I even found that art, I think what happened was I had a vague memory of the book, went searching for it, found Gallavants, and then looked up the Vanterviper from there.
Edil and Fice were, like Black Doom, a goofier antagonist to face off with earlier in the season. This was another villain I wasn't sure at first would end up dead, but unsurprisingly the Kobbers showed them no mercy for trying to kidnap a "child". I figured it'd be okay to show them coming back as ghosts in my wrapups, though. They certainly didn't get away with their crimes!
Dae Man and friends
I think I've spoken before about how much I like that old "woodcut" style of art. It's so evocative of times long past, and there's this uncanny and haunting quality to it that makes it perfect for illustrating myths, legends, and monsters. It makes illustrations from a time before photography feel otherworldly. Before we kicked off Season 13 I even got my hands on a book about the art of old maps and the fanciful sea monsters depicted on them and read it cover to cover eagerly. You've probably also noticed the sea monster map that's been this blog's background wallpaper for the last two years! I'll be retheming it soon, though, since I give my blog a fresh coat of paint every time we move to a new setting. Probably something steampunky and/or industrial coming up soon, so look forward to staring at machinery next to Chatzy Madness quotes for two years!
Anyway, some of the most iconic woodcut monsters have got to be the beasts of Dictionnaire Infernal. This old book was worked on and revised many times by Jacques Collin de Plancy, and in its' initial 1818 printing, it lacked the famous illustrations and Jacques was a skeptic who treated the subject rationally: while he was religious, he didn't buy all the stories of fanciful, monstrous demons and claimed no one but God himself could know for sure what might lay in the afterlife. After years and years of researching demons and demonology, however, Jacques fell down the rabbit hole and by 1830 was a devout Roman Catholic. By 1863, Jacques was an old man who had rejected his early work and rereleased the Dictionnaire Infernal one last time, this time with the drawings, and he was utterly convinced that all of the demons in the book were real.
The story of Jacques and his shift in attitude towards the creatures in his book adds an extra layer of spooky to the already uncanny drawings... but in the end, I had a lot more fun playing these weirdos for comedy instead of horror. They're creepy, but also ridiculous, and considering "ridiculous" was the order of the day for an event that also included a battle with Evil Salesman Lyman and freakin' Sansfield, that seemed like the way to go.
Radiola and Camellia
It might not surprise you to learn that early on in my planning of Devil May Care that Camellia was the final boss. She was still a significant part of the finale in the final version of the plot, but initial plans made her far more malevolent and conniving. In the original version of the story, things would be set up as a conflict between Hell Incorporated's forces (led by Verosika) and Backrooms denizens (led by Camellia and Radiola). The latter group would seek out the Kobbers' help and work to stop Hell Inc, but then when we finally defeated the company and overthrown Verosika, Camellia and Radiola would reveal their true colors and take over Hell Inc for themselves, seeking eternal life via being rulers (and consumers) of human souls. Essentially the concept was "What if all the Nostalgia Elementals were actually evil?". Instead Camellia was made more sympathetic (though she still schemed her way into power so that she could track down Destoroyah) and Radiola was an outright good girl that never troubled anyone.
Tenna/Lyman
Considering he basically tied everything together, it's shocking how late I added Tenna to the plot. He wasn't written into it until just before it kicked off, and him actually being Lyman was also a late addition. I think he'd even appeared several times before I locked that idea down! Lyman was always going to show up this year, but originally I had him as basically a Backrooms hobo who'd been lost in there for years, maybe decades. As I worked on streamlining my plot, though, I realized I could use Tenna as a surprise reveal the way I'd planned for Rikako's sock puppet form to be one. It was perfect - it condensed two characters into one, it would be foreshadowed by Rikako, and having multiple mutants like that added to the worldbuilding and made it feel less like a one-off incident and more like Destoroyah had done this many times.
Rikako and Rosemary
The roots of my 2024 plot begin here, with the Rikako event being a carryover from last season that I didn't do at the time. I'm glad I waited, because tying Rikako into The Backrooms made her much more substantial and interesting. In the 2023 version of her event, Rikako wasn't Rikako. She was O. Vermina, which is the actual name of the Deltarune fan character she faceclaimed when in puppet form. O. Vermina would have been a warped ghost of a human teacher who had died of stress while trying to keep her tiny schoolhouse afloat. Rosemary was added slightly later, a more level-headed entity to help explain the situation since Vermina was almost unintelligible. I eventually hit upon the idea of Rikako being the faceclaim of Vermina's human form from before she died, then when the event got reworked for 2024 I opted to swap the identities so that the puppet was the faceclaim and Rikako was the actual character. I chose Rikako because of the numerous similarities between the two characters. The similar color schemes, glasses, education background, and so on made them surprisingly great fits for each other.
There's not a lot to Rosemary, aside from me simply enjoying her. She's from a series of Backrooms exploration videos and is notable for being a friendly entity that isn't interested in murdering the protagonist. I dislike using The Backrooms as nothing but a haunted house to dump scary murderous horrors into. I had to put a few monsters into it to make it work better for RP since we're big on combat here, but The Backrooms are at their best when it's more about just exploring them and soaking in the existential dread and wistful nostalgia.
Teddy
I originally had plans to use five Playrooms Guardians in RP, but scaled things back to just the one. The other four were based off of this mysterious image depicting what appear to be four crude caricatures meant to resemble cartoon characters. There's a generic cartoon mouse, a storklike bird, an obvious ripoff of Spongebob, and a goofy yellow humanoid who has some undeniable Homer Simpson DNA. I've searched for the origins of this image and came up empty - I have no idea if it is a legitimate photograph of some mysterious real-world playroom or if the drawings were created by an unknown Backrooms enthusiast on their computer and pasted onto the walls digitally.
Teddy himself comes from a specific duo of unrelated Backrooms videos that were both inspired by this image of an unsettlingly large and oddly-designed teddy bear in what appears to be a waiting room for a children's hospital. One of the videos even recreated the photograph, and by comparing the two you can see how the original is more realistic and that the latter, while good in a vacuum, betrays its' artificial-ness when placed side by side with the OG, particularly in how stiff the teddy bear is, betraying how much easier it is to make it look like that as opposed to how it slouches convincingly in the original photo.
The Rot/Destoroyah/Salvation
Oops, I did it again. As I was working out the details of my plot, I eventually hit upon the idea of Destoroyah and Salvation both coming back, though this idea took many forms. I know rehashing old villains is a delicate art, and that if done poorly it ends up more an annoyance than a cool callback. I think the length of time between returns and whether or not the villain was controversial or polarizing in their initial run are the most important things to consider. It's something I'm kind of known for, though, considering how many times I've done it (Mr. X, Clippit, Gust, Tiamat...), and in recognition of that I decided to try and make this the "ultimate GB villain return" as a way to kind of close the book on the whole lot of them for good... especially since I've been reconsidering how exactly I do plots, and I don't know how many more times I want to do my usual schtick of stopping the super mega evil guy because after fourteen seasons of super mega evil guys it's starting to feel old hat.
The main reason I went through with this angle, though, was because of how incredibly well it dovetailed with DALI stuff. We were already doing plots about the afterlife and gods and devils, and we even had The Bellringer bringing back deceased antagonists to give them a second chance to use their lives better. But with all this talk of reforming underworlds and rehabilitating villains, a question came to mind: What do we do about the souls of dead people who seem completely and utterly irredeemable? Not to mention Salvation's angle during Sarah Plot of forcing the will of the gods upon mortals and forcing them to accept their role as toys of the divine. It was just too perfect, I had to let DALI have a crack at Salvation!
I try not to bring back villains just for the hell of it. Mr. X and Clippit's returns were because their initial defeats were weak and I felt like I could do better. Gust was a loose end who felt doomed to eventually realize the hell he was trapped in, even if it fooled/contented him for a time. Tiamat's return was meant as a capstone to over a decade of Tiamat jokes (though I did tip my hat to the old running gag of a yearly Tiamat appearance by having Titanus Tiamat, an unrelated being with the same name, make a cameo appearance early this season!). I also always make sure to not let them hang around for long after the reveal. Tiamat in particular wasn't revealed until the night before her battle. I figure that in the event someone is a little turned off seeing an old villain again, they can take solace in the fact that they get removed once more almost as soon as they arrive.
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And that about does it! Pretty much everyone in my gargantuan roster given at least a glance-over before getting sent off. I'm looking to streamline going forward, with fewer characters and a different approach to plots. I have a plot for 2025 in the early stages right now and while a lot of it isn't settled yet, expect something pretty light that's probably more in line with the sorts of plots we get from Hooded Pitohui. Less focus on "fight the evil guy" and more focus on unique situations and challenges that aren't just fighting.
The GB crew will return next May!
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