Where We Stand

So Erebus recently did a thing where he basically listed off all his characters and his current thoughts on them and where they're going. I liked this idea so I'm doing it too!

I had kind of wanted Widow Maker to remain in baby form for longer, but alas various fites and plotline requirements forced her to grow up fast. I know the baby has her fans, so don't fret - eventually I'm sure she'll slip up in the arena or out in the city, and we will once more be graced with her baby form in all of its baffling cuteness. I'm glad the mantis finally got her plot thread - her never getting a real one was something that bugged me last year, especially since the plot I had planned for her got scuttled due to... outside circumstances.

Writing Sarah without Alex has been less of a challenge than I'd anticipated. I once said that with Alex gone I would retire Sarah because there wasn't enough to her character beyond the pairing, but I feel that's been proven false by this year. Alex and I were going to collaborate a little on a proper explanation from the knight himself on why he's been gone and will remain gone, but she's been too busy I suppose.

I think Celestia is really starting to come into her own now. For too long she was used almost exclusively as a robot-fixing plot device, not really getting a chance to do much else. Lately, though, she's been making more appearances and doing more interesting things with her technology, and her current connection to Pit and his alter ego is certainly entertaining. I believe she's risen up to equal footing with Widow Maker and Sarah.

Skeiron was pretty active in the first chunk of this year, playing a role in the biker plot and pirate adventure, but he's done little more recently. Last week I downgraded Skeiron to the Secondary Characters section in the Ensemble to reflect his lesser role (I think Josephine has passed him in importance as well). I like the rivalry he's built with Artemis. Skeiron usually doesn't get that sort of character interaction.

I've got a good idea of how to use Browny. The one-night post office adventure is an example of what I think Browny'd be good at - he'd wander into the bar with a police case, and people could assist him and/or Samson with the job. Simple, one-night encounters and battles, the sort of plot Jumpropeman says he likes. Good to just jump right in with.

Clippy has been quiet recently, but I have a few ideas of what to possibly do with him. I can't retire the character yet - third place in the Big Bar Brawl deserves better than that!

Making Sarah's sisters unique was a great idea. Josephine is fun to write and a nice contrast to Sarah and it's nice just knowing that Sarah's sisters are seeing the same sort of benefits she is from abandoning some of their old world's values and traditions that no longer apply in Manhattan. The main thrust behind Gloria and Ariel as well as Electra is that they have fairly interesting lives just like the kobbers, but only know the bar through friends/family (Sarah, Celestia, and Widow Maker). Sort of a "but that's a story for another day" thing. You don't know everyone's story in real life, so it stands to reason the RPverse would also have minor characters that are still interesting, it's just their lives happen "offscreen", if you follow.

If you were curious as to what's become of The Swarm, I'm not certain myself. Best guess is that they're holding down the fort at Widow Maker's summer home. When Del posted that the Beer Garden Frogs had all died and were replaced by their offspring, that made me look up praying mantis and stag beetle ages. Regardless, tarantulas can live for decades so at least those are fine.

In case anyone is wondering about Gust, M Sheep is preparing a sendoff for the character. As always, it's amazing to think what the whim of the tractor can accomplish. If Gust hadn't gotten a string of good rolls, he would have gone down like a bitch just like all the other bikers, and the Dr. Bulgrave plot may have ended very differently. Gust was instrumental in making the villains of that plot more likable and less "BLARG I AM THE DARKNESS THAT CRAWLS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN". He was an ordinary guy wrapped up in events he only sort of understood, and he met a lady along the way. As for the good doctor himself, he is essentially retired, but due to him still being alive, one never knows when he could cameo.

While our current very small player base practically requires everybody to manage a stable of characters to keep the place from being a ghost town, I still definitely don't need any more dudes. I've got at least one more character I've considered bringing in a few times, but the roster is just too crowded, even with Bulgrave and Gust out of the way. Maybe Sarah and pals will go on a family vacation...

Cutting Room Floor 6: Dr. Bulgrave Edition

The Dr. Bulgrave storyline, my longest and most-developed plot ever, has finally ended. And in unique fashion, too. I was getting kinda choked up there, honestly.

An absolute shitton of stuff did not make it into the plot, or was done differently than planned. Here's a look.

The Best of Zoofights Forum Spambots

I've got a few choice tapogre posts from last year saved on my computer that were deleted off the forum by Gravitas. Allow me to share.

First, here's an argument held in the topic where the infamous TRAMADOL made its first appearance.

Honk on Honk Bag: But what are TRAMADOL's abilities? How would it stack up against Ned Killy?

RedSpy: Nothing could stack up against Ned Killy. A giant, pissed off fish who does anything to win and has a whole arsenal of weapons? He earned his position of champion of Zoofights IV.

Gooper Blooper: Ned Killy is nowhere near as affordable or effective. Ned Killy no chance.

#TRAMADOL

Gezora: Gezora can't believe its found such a bargain. Gezora will pour TRAuMADOL Slammers all around!

Gentleman Draco: Ned Killy doesn't stand a chance against Traumadol. He's from Australia, right? Well, Australia is populated mostly by criminals and criminals are not to be trusted, therefore Zoofights would not give them access to the best surgineers for Ned Killy. Meanwhile, Traumadol is "U.S. Licensed" and thus has big money backing him up. His speed is also greatly superior to Ned Killy's! "Fast overnight shipping" versus...what? 20 km/h? 30? Traumadol has the speed and endurance to cross an entire continent in just a few hours! "Free prescription included" also means he's smarter; if he's giving out prescriptions, he must be a doctor, right? Finally, he's got Ned Killy beat in the stealth department. "Discreet unmarked packages" give him the ability to hide in plain sight; you wouldn't know you were looking at him until you were already dead.

#TRAMADOL all the way!

RedSpy: When I said Ned Killy would win, I forgot his latest upgrades.

He is now frontman of Ned Killy and the Kings of Beasts, his body replaced with that of a rockstar. What are rockstars known for doing?

POPPING PILLS

Ned Killy will seem to win the fight against our proud new contestant via consumption, only to overdose on Tramadol and die for it. It'll be like Steamcrab vs. Reanimamut or Drillz vs. Hyperpotamus, the victorious pill bottle bursting right through Ned Killy's now humanoid gut.

Tramadol is truly the future godbeast of Zoofights. It will make From Hell, Seanet, Elohim, and Gamma Constrictor wet their pants with terror. God help us if this . . . beast is ever released to the public.

Character Debuts

The GB Ensemble now has dates for when every major and secondary character first appeared. Because people care about when I started pretending to be a WarMech.

I'll also post the dates here in a timeline format:

August 15, 2010: The ZF5 bonus match between Widow Maker and Marlin the Magnificent is announced.
May 30, 2011: Hella Jeff demands to know where the nanchoes are.
June 9, 2011: Four white mages make their first appearance to surgineer Widow Maker.
July 1, 2011: Jumpropeman bets the Five-Mantis Band on Cash Cow.
July 3, 2011: The Necronomitron awakens.
July 12, 2011: Sweet Bro makes his first appearance.
July 14, 2011: The Nostronomitron is born.
July 30, 2011: WarMech-1 appears, communicating to Tiamat about finding Sarah.
July 31, 2011: Biollante appears in rose form.
August 1, 2011: The WarMech Leader is introduced.
August 3, 2011: WarMech-3 says his first line.
August 15, 2011: The Martian and Biollante combine into Biollante's final form to combat the Lord.
August 31, 2011: Marilith attacks the bar.
September 9, 2011: The first of Kraken's multiple attempts to accomplish something. Anything at all.
September 16, 2011: Cagnazzo crosses the ocean.
September 17, 2011: Lich's first line.
October 9, 2011: Shuma-Gorath pranks Oceanus by dumping live tarantulas on him. Sarah gathers up a few to give to Widow Maker as a get-well gift.
October 14, 2011: Zephyrus gives Widow Maker two beetles as gifts.
March 2, 2012: 'Unit 1' appears in a blog post.
March 22, 2012: Dr. Bulgrave makes his debut in the blog post "Origins".
April 15, 2012: The Storm Bikers drive out the Excite Bikers from Manhattan.
May 8, 2012: Browny makes his first forum appearance to arrest Blade.
May 16, 2012: Dr. Bulgrave introduces himself to the Storm Bikers.
May 24, 2012: Sarah is reunited with Josephine.
June 12, 2012: Clippy leaves Widow Maker's PC for the first time.

Cutting Room Floor 5

Here's some stuff I forgot to talk about in the last post!

-Browny was almost introduced early twice. I had an introductory post all written up where he dove into the bar to use it as cover, then headshotted a thug before noticing all the people behind him and awkwardly introducing himself. He was introduced for real a few days later during one of the first 2012 season events.

-The other possible Browny introduction is far weirder and goes farther back. He almost showed up during the 2011 season when Cornwind sent that giant alien to the bar. He would have appeared unannounced during the fight and shown a friendliness towards Zephyrus, and afterward Celestia would appear and reveal that Browny was actually a drastically upgraded Skeiron. However, I decided to keep Skeiron in his current form with his limited dialogue and love of bread.

-Speaking of Skeiron, he almost became a tagalong fanboy of Starscream, but wound up being one of sorts for Zephyrus instead when Starscream took like two weeks to recover after his Fite Yer Mates victory.

-The Necronomitron was going to lurk in the shadows for the whole tournament, then there'd be a Fite yer Mates event or something similar where a bunch of bargoers fought him. This was scrapped for two reasons: One, Air Man challenged Necro to a fight. Two, the RP Explosion rapidly made the Necronomitron small fry (and a hero).

-Who remembers this snippet from Hephaestus last year?

("FOOLS, I HAVE CAPTURED THE GIRL, AND SHALL USE HER TO-"

"Get back in thine jar, swit, or I shalt be forced to inject you into that pig I keep in the corner. It has Down's Syndrome.")

Yes, Hephaestus had somehow acquired a small, powerless fragment of Mr. Evil Midnight and was keeping him for (I'm guessing) experimental purposes.

At the end of my introductory post for the Tiamat event, after introducing all those bad guys, a pig with Down's syndrome was going to pop into existence, flying high in the air above the city, then squeal a squeal of challenge. LordPig would have had all the abilities of the Lord, but vastly weaker (although nearly as durable).

I removed LordPig for two reasons: I didn't want any Lord-related drama of any kind to taint the event, and I didn't want Cornwind to feel like I was making fun of him or something, bringing back everyone's villains and then doing this to his.

-Blade was supposed to be the important Storm Biker, what the hell :psyduck:

Cutting Room Floor 4 and Ensemble Update

The GB Ensemble has been significantly added to and upgraded since it was first posted, and not just because the Dr. Bulgrave plot has created tons and tons of minor characters to write mini-profiles for. If you wanted to review the cast, check out their pictures, or just find out where the hell that sunglasses-wearing T-Rex with guns for arms came from, you can check it out here.

Now it's time for a quick Cutting Room Floor, with scrapped and altered storyline ideas!

* An old mini-plot I considered last year was about Widow Maker challenging Sarah to go a certain length of time without any sweets - either one or two days. Her success would probably have been tractored. Scrapped after Sarah went a day without sweets of her own free will to prepare herself for her fite with Draco.

* Project 29 was originally slated to be the "final boss" of the Projects - the last one to appear and the last one the bargoers fought. However, while drawing additional mutants I wound up making some that are even more dangerous-looking and powerful, so 29 was downgraded slightly and got to be unveiled early for the dinosaur hunt sequence.

* It was possible for the bargoers to tame Kasai Rex instead of killing him, but I didn't want to state it outright because if people knew it was an option they would obviously go for it and avoid killing him. Instead I figured maybe a T-Rex wearing sunglasses would get people to go "Wait, can we spare this one?". Sort of a secret bonus, if you will. Instead Jaxx Tantra punched him so hard his flesh vaporized. Welp.

* I have several scrapped RP characters, but I might use them someday so I won't say who they are. One I will mention is Cedric from King's Quest V, who I rejected in favor of Clippy, who fulfills a similar role.

Lastly, a few random RP thoughts.

* I was pretty much making the clockwork spider thing up from day to day. At first I thought about just making the spiders appear friendly. But then I thought, what if they actually were friendly due to glitches in their mass-produced AI?

* Dr. Bulgrave's name comes from a steampunk name generator. I took "Franklin" from one name and a last name from another was tweaked to "Bulgrave" from something else.

* I can't believe Lotta has nothing to do with the reincarnated Operatives.

* I actually thought Jonesy died when she was kidnapped by the Zerg. I normally would have been skeptical, but there was literally no way for her to escape. I figured it was a joint decision between Deleter and Erebus because they were bored of their main characters and wanted them to leave for a while, so this is how it would be accomplished, and after a lot of moping maybe Erebus would come back and there'd be a revival mission. What I didn't take into account was the possibility that the Zerg wanted her alive for something.

* The anniversary of the first RP couple forming (Saralex) is July 1. You can pretty much peg that as the starting point of the RP Explosion, as well, although it was a gradual thing that happened over the course of a month or so, starting in late June and reaching full steam by the end of July.

The Death Toll

Because I like useless statistics and because why not, it's time to count up how many times each of my characters has been killed!

Widow Maker - 3
- Sliced in two vertically in the Big Bar Brawl by Alexander Triden
- Bisected by the Lord
- Bisected by Urkrathos' chainsword

Wow, Widow Maker gets cut in half a lot.Yesterday's death at the hands of Urkrathos is the first time someone besides Elohim revived her, which means it's the first time she's avoided baby form.

Sarah - 2
- Gunned down during the Terminator Squadron fight
- Soul eaten by Atma

Sarah managed to go a seriously long time before her first death, but it did eventually come. She also came VERY close to dying after defeating Draco in Fite Yer Mates, but only just hung on.

Celestia - 0 (!!!)

I think Celestia might be the only major character of the 2011 season to never be killed. Everybody else I can think of either lost a Fite or died in RP. Rebecca could possibly count, although she didn't appear too often. After her you have to go down to characters like the Kirby Brigade and the Five-Mantis Band to find people who weren't killed at some point.

Skeiron - 4
- Crushed by Devastator
- Destroyed by Jaxx in the Fite Week Rumble
- Ripped to pieces by the Servitor shadow clone
- Blown up by Blade

Skeiron seems to die or be severely crippled very easily. I think it's because I can play fast-and-loose with him since he feels no pain and can just be rebuilt by Celestia.

The Martian/Biollante - 3
- Necronomitron - defeated by Zephyrus in FYM
- Nostronomitron - shot down by Celestia during the WarMech fight
- Biollante - Roasted by WarMechs

I'm not certain how many of these can be considered deaths. The Martian and Biollante have never needed outside help to recover from injury.

Hella Jeff - 2
- Destroyed by ROB in the Big Bar Brawl
- Killed by Doomrider in Fite Yer Mates

Hella Jeff also lost to Ironichide in FYM, but this was before losing a Fite was pretty much guaranteed death. I portrayed him as just really FUBAR instead.

Villains - 10
- Marilith - Destroyed by Alexander Triden
- Cagnazzo - Obliterated by a group effort from the bar
- Lich - Taken out during the Tiamat event
- Tiamat - Her death capped off the Tiamat event
- The Storm Bikers - Gale, Hurricane, and Tornado killed by Devil Ed, Doomrider, and Marcus
- The Projects - Projects 30, 31, and 32 murdered by Chet, Marcus, and Widow Maker

What's more notable are bad guys who manage to escape with their lives. So far that's limited to the Excite Bikers and some heel-face turns from Celestia, her Warmechs, Kraken, and the Martian.

The 2012 season has so far handed me two non-villain deaths. I expect quite a few more as we go through the summer - especially because I know my current perfect FYM record of 2-0 is not going to hold if I keep entering characters.