PREVIOUSLY...
~
CURRENTLY...
The two blondes looked down on their dark-haired sister, passed out and foaming at the mouth.
"Wow. Saphy usually only gets like that during tax time."
The taller of the two sighed and shrugged, ripping the notice up. "I'll grab the smelling salts. Opal, start brewing coffee."
"Okay, Emma. Double-strong. Three creamers."
"Make it four. And get out the sugar - the GOOD sugar."
"Alright. Want me to call and get a table at VA-11 Hall-A?"
"I know that's my usual answer to everything, but not this time. We'll have to do with this sober."
"Terrifying thought."
~
LATER...
Two women sat around the table looking at the notice that had been given to all residents of their building. Tails twitched as they considered their options, a deadline looming over them.
The tallest, Emma, tapped her temple impatiently, a large 3-ring binder labeled "Olympia Housing Regulation" sitting open next to her. "I'll start looking through and see if I can't find something, Sapphire, but I'm pretty sure they're legally allowed to give everyone the boot. I think the best I can do at this stage is get a hold placed on it, hold it back a few weeks to give myself time to find a better solution, but I'm not too confident."
The dark-haired Sapphire leaned back in her chair, letting her blue tail balance her. "What about putting all our things in storage and using a room at the office to stay in?"
Emma shook her head, her golden locks waving from the motion. "We, uh, could do that, but we'd have to not get caught doing it. We'd also have no shower, so...."
Sapphire groaned until a donut was dangled in front of her face in perfect chomping range. As she chewed, their other sister, Opal, set down steaming cups of coffee, taking a long gulp as she sat down.
"We COULD just find a new apartment in another part of town," Opal suggested. "They're not IMPOSSIBLE to find."
"A place with this much space doesn't exist at this price," Sapphire countered. "And a place at this price is going to be smaller."
"Not to mention there's nothing nowhere this close to the office," Emma added. "We'd have to fly and pay for the airspace, walk, which would take FOR EV ER, or take public transportation and never hear the end of 'such an indignity' from Lord Dad if he ever heard about it."
The three sighed and refilled their coffee...
~
EVEN LATER...
"No, we're NOT closing the firm!" Sapphire protested, slapping her hands on the table.
"I didn't say we should," Opal countered, also slapping her hands on the table. "I said we should MOVE it so that we can maintain an optimal home-to-work distance, which would SAVE us on rent monthly."
Sapphire slapped her hands on the table again. "But your proposed location is in a worse part of town! Most of our best clients wouldn't step foot into that area if only because they'd look poor! WE'D look poor!"
Opal slapped HER hands on the table again. "We ARE poor! Well, not as wealthy as our five-year plan would suggest. This might be the shake-up we need to inspire new avenues of income by appealing to a less-aristocratic customer base! Besides, you can make house calls to the big wigs if you want! It'll make them feel important to have you go to them."
"But I don't want-!"
Emma held up her hands in between her sisters. "Alright, this is getting out of hand! The table's suffered enough and, at this point, arguing about this over drinks will be, at the least, as unproductive as we are right now. Agreed?"
The other two dragons sighed and said in unison "Agreed."
"Excellent!" Emma clapped her hands together. "Jill's been trying to recreate Kobber drinks before they arrive, so let's go be supportive and try some!"
Opal and Sapphire glanced at each other as they were almost-literally dragged out the door and to their sister's favorite bar.
"At least someone's happy about the Kobbers coming."
"Oh, relax. They have rich people with money. Who knows? Maybe them coming will be a good thing."
"We'll see," Sapphire sighed. "We'll see."
Monday, December 31, 2018
Friday, November 2, 2018
October 2018 Ticker Quote Archive
[̨͕̰̟̤͙͉̥̤͇̌ͭ̄͋̚Ŗ̶͔̰̪̲̬̳̭̞̻̎̓ͭĘ̼̼ͪ̓͡D̙̺͍̮̺̺̺̳ͨ̉̌̉̄ͦ́͘͜A̴̳̮ͦͤ̉̓́ͭ̋̎̾C̛̘̥͚͓͇̖̥̠ͬ͗ͨ͊̌́T̸͇̦͍͈̰̠̯͉̻̾͂̉̅̎E̸̛͑̃̓҉̣D͐̎͂̉̓҉̩̭̣̣̬ͅ?]̷̡̲̜̣̟͐ͬ̉ͣ̽͌͜ͅ
edible underwear and spray paint
"THERE'S NO NEED TO WORRY! RANDY IS FINE!"
"I'm Hecatia Lapislazuli." "I'm also Hecatia Lapislazuli!" "And I'm Hecatia Lapislazuli. We're three people."
Technically, this is a Seven Wonders trip.
LASERS, MOTHERFUCKER
"What is September?"
He doesn't have a phone, you silly. :I
"I am a professional. I packed bags of bags."
The armor looks like a packet of Capri-Sun.
Crabtain Phoenix
And best of all, quarter water is forever safe now.
"Don't worry! I'll shoot the alien lady!"
Way to ruin the mood, Prier.
Since his actual salvage ship had been obliterated by a space alien, this was a rental.
Dawn SMELLS.
Do consider joining our webring, old chap!
"Who's actually in charge of Zoofights Corp?"
Stop projecting yourself onto insects, you weirdo >:U
"Hi, your doctor called, and he says you have a terminal case of Go Fuck Yourself."
"The Phantom Thieves are in her head!"
Spray on some paint,Attach some eye lasers... Maybe bolster up its armor...
Don't eat the candy trail. We need that.
"Why, I am just as fine as the sunshine"
"I can go be a SUPER COOL KOBBER... tour guide?"
"Alright, I'm only going to say this three times, so PLEASE listen this time."
His mandate is more flies.
Phoenix is not there, because he died years ago
but all he had to say about it was “…”
the only downside to this is that Murdoc is back
It's all ogre.
edible underwear and spray paint
"THERE'S NO NEED TO WORRY! RANDY IS FINE!"
"I'm Hecatia Lapislazuli." "I'm also Hecatia Lapislazuli!" "And I'm Hecatia Lapislazuli. We're three people."
Technically, this is a Seven Wonders trip.
LASERS, MOTHERFUCKER
"What is September?"
He doesn't have a phone, you silly. :I
"I am a professional. I packed bags of bags."
The armor looks like a packet of Capri-Sun.
Crabtain Phoenix
And best of all, quarter water is forever safe now.
"Don't worry! I'll shoot the alien lady!"
Way to ruin the mood, Prier.
Since his actual salvage ship had been obliterated by a space alien, this was a rental.
Dawn SMELLS.
Do consider joining our webring, old chap!
"Who's actually in charge of Zoofights Corp?"
Stop projecting yourself onto insects, you weirdo >:U
"Hi, your doctor called, and he says you have a terminal case of Go Fuck Yourself."
"The Phantom Thieves are in her head!"
Spray on some paint,Attach some eye lasers... Maybe bolster up its armor...
Don't eat the candy trail. We need that.
"Why, I am just as fine as the sunshine"
"I can go be a SUPER COOL KOBBER... tour guide?"
"Alright, I'm only going to say this three times, so PLEASE listen this time."
His mandate is more flies.
Phoenix is not there, because he died years ago
but all he had to say about it was “…”
the only downside to this is that Murdoc is back
It's all ogre.
Friday, October 19, 2018
Dracoplot 2018
First things first, I think the best thing I did this year from focus on having one big plot as opposed to trying to do multiples in previous years. I had the Labrys side plot that got to pop up now and again, but it worked better for my schedule just doing teasers and ending with the big finale, but more about that later.
Katteloxplot
I'm typing out my thoughts on the plot as I think, so there's not a ton of cohesion here.
As I mentioned last year, I wanted to do a lot more with The Deadly Six last year, so the plot that would've been about them last year was done this year. They got a few appearances last year that set up their antics on Kattelox Island, but scheduling and what have you got in the way of me doing more plot events, the biggest of which was joining a Pathfinder game that took over my Sundays, leaving me only Saturdays as my only dependable plot day of the week.
I enjoyed getting a chance to bring back Labrys to be the "star" of the plot. She did a fine job as the quest giver character, especially since she got to have some extra plot development in the form of her side story involving her dreams and her sisters. Giving her the title of Silver Shroud was tied in more to the angle I originally wanted to do with this plot, which was Fallout 4's Far Harbor meets Mega Man Legends. The mystery aspect of the plot fell largely to the wayside in favor of thwarting the Deadly Six's evil plans and fighting big monsters.
Speaking of big monsters, I originally had more plans to use the Gear Gigant X and its upgraded form from the Yu-Gi-Oh card game along with more involvement from the Geargianos. Trying to squeeze in more appearances from it was hard to do with the limited numbers of events I had, so I didn't use the bigger form.
The real star of the plot ended up being totally unplanned at the beginning: the Globglogabgalab, whose name I had to learn how to spell to avoid needed to look him up every time I did an event. The memeslug kind of appeared out of nowhere, cropping up with his annoying, ridiculous song that really rustled my jimmies when I first saw it. I swore to myself that I would work him into the plot somehow and he stole the show, becoming the REAL villain of the plot.
I knew I wanted to do another callback, bringing back Gentleman Draco's enemy/brother from Season 1, Big T, but originally he was going to be just a ghost who possessed people, originally coming from Final Fantasy X's Farplane to bounce from body to body until he could learn to play the piano. It wasn't until probably after the first battle against the Glob that I hit upon the idea of Big T reincarnated as the Globglogabgalab. Until then he would have used mind control/possession to make Felix help him do thing, get the Glob (originally an innocent victim) to do evil things, and eventually take control of FFX-2's final boss, Vegnagun.
Having Big T be extremely bitter about being a Memeslug was the perfect motivation for him to want to destroy Kuwahawi in the process of hunting down his brother. He got a fine amount of #Comeuppance in the end. I'm especially fond of the "finally squandered his life" line I wrote. :)
Brachiosaurus Dopant was born from an actual Kamen Rider W monster from a manga that was really unique to me in that it was a GIANT MONSTER and not the conveniently-human size that the TV monsters are. It also let me use Gaia Memories as something besides a plot device that almost never got mentioned except as a potential (and intentionally fruitless) way to give Kaede powers.
SPEAKING OF KAEDE...there was originally going to be a different ending to the plot that got...well, derailed might be the best way to put it. Through no fault of his own, Cornwind changed the ending of Dracoplot by having Kaede use a piano to defeat The Centre's human evolution. The original ending was going to be that the Kobbers would fight Suzie, the Deadly Six, and then Big Fau. I ended up combining Suzie and 4/6 of the Deadly Six into one boss fight and then had Big Fau and Big T the next day, with all villains being defeated there and then. Originally, Big T would've escaped to be confronted later as...
...KING GHIDORAH. I teased during the infiltration event that they had Mecha King Ghidorah in their base. The Glob would somehow take control of it and be a powerful boss fight that, for the first round of combat, couldn't be hurt because it had a powerful force field. In order to take down the force field, Kaede would have used a piano.
A piano named Vegnagun. If you've played FFX-2 you'd be familiar with the giant bug robot that's controlled by an organ (the instrument) on its head. It would've been a fun way to let Kaede save the day with the skills she already had. Cornwind got to the idea first though, so I scrapped actually using it in plot. No fault of his though.
Why The Deadly Six? If I remember correctly, I'd watched all the cutscenes from Sonic and The Lost World and liked their designs.
Big Fau got in because Chao and I geeked out about Big O one day and I said I'd have a giant robot/monster fight for Miu to use her Brawl prize against. I'd used the trio of robots used to build Big Fau in a previous season, so I figured why not.
I actually hired someone in May/June to draw the MegaMan Suzie picture, because I liked the combination of Kirby's Suzie and MegaMan Juno enough to want it depicted in plot. She could've potentially been fought during the Infiltration Event, but ultimately no combat was necessary.
Speaking of which, I really liked the Infiltration mission. I was inspired by a Pathfinder Module I'd played years ago called Library of the Lion, where your job is not to kill things, but to infiltrate a secret library and recover information without being caught. If you did that adventure without combat, you achieved perfect success. So I wanted to do an event like that for a chance instead of the usual Dracoplot "go fight a boss" events.
Labrysplot
This gets its own section because it wasn't part of my old Season 7 plans. Once I'd decided to make the Kattelox plot happen the next year, I decided to bring Labrys back as the quest giver, but I didn't want her to do nothing but Kattelox stuff, so I decided I wanted to explore more about her. It didn't really tie in to Kattelox, so I didn't have it crop up during those events.
So I decided to have the "spirits" of her sister units waking up for reasons which, ultimately, I decided were her involvement with the Phantom Thieves and going into Palaces somehow waking them up. The battle with the Meme went through a lot of different versions in my mind.
Originally, the Palace was a laboratory full of the kind of faceless humans Persona 4 Arena had in its backgrounds. Unfortunately, my incredible unfamiliarity with Persona 5's Palaces meant the end result wasn't that great to me. It was cool and tied in to her RP debut though, so I'm not wholly unsatisfied with it. That's a minor complaint though.
The battle was always going to involve the "Shadow" androids, though in one version it wasn't a battle. There would have been the option to try convincing them that their hatred and anger were misplaced with possibly some actual investigation being performed.
Cornwind asked me one night though if Labrys could fall victim to Mr. Down's robots brain virus and I agreed, deciding it was a pretty perfect way to bring about needing to go into Labrys' head. Originally, she was just going to go "Hey, I'm haunted. Go into this TV and beat up my ghosts." (or something to that effect) and Shadow Labrys would just show people around. Having the Meme really screw up her brain providing the perfect reason to need to go in: she can't start up as long as the Meme keeps driving her and the 40-ish souls inside her insane. Destroying the Meme in a battle within Labrys' mind also meant it could be destroyed and she could be cured without anyone going "Hey! This is how we resolve that plot too!" because it'd be impossible to fight that many Memes and keep the memetic virus from coming back to that person.
The Meme itself went through several iterations, even on the day of the plot at first. I liked bringing back the Songbird whistle due to the negative effects it had on her mind, but originally the Songbird would've been brought back as the Meme! At pretty much the last second though, I decided bringing that guy back was a boring idea. Fighting Songbird in Columbia again? Been there, done that! So I started looking for a new badguy, something mechanical and creepy, almost landing on Metroid's Nightmare but Chao used that guy YEARS ago.
I ultimately ended up picking a Decepticon because they were traumatic to Labrys too and I picked one who, in his home series, is associated with Unicron. One black recolor later and Soundwave became a great avatar for a sound-based virus.
Labrys' speech also went through a few versions in my head, but it never strayed too far from what you got.
DeMonde
Minor character ends up playing a large role in Downplot. I appreciate Cornwind indulging me so much on having her investigate and combat Mr. Down. She's kind of unique in that the Kobbers do most of their healing with magic and aren't equipped to fight diseases and stuff, so she got to have a lot of moments with a badguy who seemed tailored to fit her. She won, she lost, and ultimate will grow as a person, I'm sure. It was a lot of fun writing body horror stuff, because that's absolutely the kind of weird science she's into. X)
I planned a lot of her "anti-Down" measures ahead of time and PM'd the entire list to Cornwind about a week in advance so he could build Mr. Down's pre-finale showdown with DeMonde to fit both our ideas.
The plot in general was a lot of fun for me, because the doktor got her moment to shine.
Also, I allowed the possibility of her perma-dying at the hands of Mr. Down to be there if nobody went looking for her. She would've been found later, having left behind some notes and a partially-reconstructed tape recorder. Magic wouldn't have worked because she's really old and it would've failed due to the gods not wanting to waste their energy.
But someone looked for her and found her and saved her. Yay!
Hazel
I don't remember exactly how I came up with Hazel beyond "give generic Plasma Grunt a background." This was in between Sun/Moon and the Ultra sequels, so I ended up tying her background into the Alola region. Goops helped me flesh out her character during the off-season and eventually offered to give her a minor starring role in the plot, even scheduling events on Saturdays just so Hazel could be there.
There's a lot of Hazel stuff I wanted to do but didn't get to for reasons. Like, part of her background is that she used to have a YouTube show called Hardware Hazel where she, Sandy, and Pawny built stuff. A lot of her background didn't come out until towards the end of the season, like why she gave up Pokemon training to become an anti-training activist: she fell through an Ultra Wormhole and found a Guzzlord on the other side that killed her starter Pokemon. I even checked with Goops to see which Ultra Beasts he was using just to see if I wanted it to be something she'd have to deal with in plot, deciding that her being scared of Celesteela and overcoming that fear was good enough.
That death would give her some PTSD and cause her to give up Pokemon training, giving her Gardevoir to a friend and releasing the others to move to Unova, where she ended up being Team Plasma's handywoman, building their bases and stuff with her new Pokemon, with whom she never battled except once, which was more than enough. Then Pokemon Black/White happens and she goes on the lam as a broke migrant worker who gets paid in cash at the end of the day, barely scraping by until she met Celestia, another event Goops and I worked out after he got tired of seeing her ordering Quarter Water and Bir.
Another thing I wished I'd covered more of was what Hazel did after the Colress event. She flew to Ontario with Mix the Kyurem and then....just returned later. I'm going to actually write about that during the off-season though, so I won't talk too much about it except to say that I wish I'd thought of it sooner in the year, because then I would've also given her a Zygarde cell (one of my favorite things about Moon was getting a Zygarde) as part of a bet between Legendary Pokemon to see if a human could actually care about a Pokemon.
Every Pokemon Hazel grabbed after Pawny and Sandy was one she actually uses in my Ultra Moon run (which I still need to finish). I used Pawniard and Sandile in my White run, so they're all Pokemon I've used at one point.
Deb
Deb was a character I'd made for another RP and decided to bring into ZFRP as a support character, an average, ordinary lady with no powers or special skills besides being an engineer. She got to do some stuff though and had her own small arc after the Brawl. Since the Kattelox finale got altered, she also ended up driving the giant robot to fight Big Fau instead of Labrys, who was too busy fighting Big T. She's currently slated to have a bigger role next year.
RPing Stuff
Not directly related to in-universe content, but I did two things differently that I think I'll keep doing in the future. The first was to use my own characters to give bonuses to others. Instead of trying to give Labrys her own attack, I make her assist another character with theirs, turning a miss into a hit.
The second was using my paid time off to attend plots. I did this for Chao's Yorigamis event, part 1 of the Kattelox Invasion, and the Mr. Down finale. Having events scheduled in advance and pretty much always starting at the same time makes it easy to submit a time off request a week or two in advance and take the afternoon off to RP. :)
Cut Content
The Zygarde Cell was also considered as something DeMonde would've found and eventually used to fight a "Clone Zygarde". That particular plot aspect did not get developed much. Just would've been something neat.
DeMonde was also considered as a potential plot VILLAIN at one point, having been driven insane by something like Season 7's plot and prompted by an outside force (Big T) into making Pacific Rim monsters to open a portal to what she though would be her own world, but would actually be the Farplane. Zeldoten would either make a monster of her own or join forces with Irys to fight DeMonde. While monster fights would've been cool, the plot overall didn't seem great and was cut. The Rampage monsters would've either been DeMonde monsters for Irys to fight or Zeldoten's own beasts, taken from DeMonde's home back in their homeworld. When the talk of our next setting, Olympia, began, I considered carrying this plot over to Season 9, but Kuwahawi's islands setting is a lot more conducive to hiding big monsters than a flying city, so I decided to just bring the Rampage monsters in as experiment/pets of DeMonde's.
I've mentioned Ghidorah. Ever since the brief scene last year with Clownpiece looking at Ghidorah's body, I decided I wanted to find a way to actually bring him into a boss fight. I think the way Kattelox ended was better than my original plan though, so I'm not too torn up about not having this boss fight.
I was seriously bringing in Dark Eclair from the Disgaea games to mostly be a talking head, but I'd asked Harpy if she had plans for Dark Eclair. She didn't specify if she did, so I ultimately brought in Magnolia to take her place as a "do stuff, hang out" character not tied to any particular plot.
I feel like I should talk about the Big Zam too. This guy was actually on my Brawl entry for awhile before I swapped him out for "Alternate Dame." I really liked his concept too: the Big Zam would be a mindless vehicle driven by the three Zako Zako commentators who have appeared in the past. They would have been its "assist" so they'd have an excuse to run away like cowards if it got destroyed. I'm sure they would've been KO'd anyway, but I really liked the idea of someone entering a vehicle as a Brawler. I even checked with JRM ahead of time if it'd be okay; it would've been permissible because the operators were actually in the Brawl and not watching from the stands.
One idea I had for a Zeldoten plot this year was someone finally trying to arrest her: two law enforcement officers from her home world tracking her to Kuwahawi to finally put her behind bars! They would have arrived in May and tried, only to be told that they were out of their jurisdiction and needed to fill out proper extradition paperwork, so they'd pop up every so often filling out forms and waiting to hear back. At the end of the season, all of their paperwork would finally have gotten approved and they'd confront Zeldoten and her friends, if she had any willing to say "I know they're cops, but screw them." or something to that effect. Ultimately got cut after bouncing the idea off of Goops and deciding that not very many people would enjoy having to fight obviously good characters for the sake of a not-quite-evil one.
Katteloxplot
I'm typing out my thoughts on the plot as I think, so there's not a ton of cohesion here.
As I mentioned last year, I wanted to do a lot more with The Deadly Six last year, so the plot that would've been about them last year was done this year. They got a few appearances last year that set up their antics on Kattelox Island, but scheduling and what have you got in the way of me doing more plot events, the biggest of which was joining a Pathfinder game that took over my Sundays, leaving me only Saturdays as my only dependable plot day of the week.
I enjoyed getting a chance to bring back Labrys to be the "star" of the plot. She did a fine job as the quest giver character, especially since she got to have some extra plot development in the form of her side story involving her dreams and her sisters. Giving her the title of Silver Shroud was tied in more to the angle I originally wanted to do with this plot, which was Fallout 4's Far Harbor meets Mega Man Legends. The mystery aspect of the plot fell largely to the wayside in favor of thwarting the Deadly Six's evil plans and fighting big monsters.
Speaking of big monsters, I originally had more plans to use the Gear Gigant X and its upgraded form from the Yu-Gi-Oh card game along with more involvement from the Geargianos. Trying to squeeze in more appearances from it was hard to do with the limited numbers of events I had, so I didn't use the bigger form.
The real star of the plot ended up being totally unplanned at the beginning: the Globglogabgalab, whose name I had to learn how to spell to avoid needed to look him up every time I did an event. The memeslug kind of appeared out of nowhere, cropping up with his annoying, ridiculous song that really rustled my jimmies when I first saw it. I swore to myself that I would work him into the plot somehow and he stole the show, becoming the REAL villain of the plot.
I knew I wanted to do another callback, bringing back Gentleman Draco's enemy/brother from Season 1, Big T, but originally he was going to be just a ghost who possessed people, originally coming from Final Fantasy X's Farplane to bounce from body to body until he could learn to play the piano. It wasn't until probably after the first battle against the Glob that I hit upon the idea of Big T reincarnated as the Globglogabgalab. Until then he would have used mind control/possession to make Felix help him do thing, get the Glob (originally an innocent victim) to do evil things, and eventually take control of FFX-2's final boss, Vegnagun.
Having Big T be extremely bitter about being a Memeslug was the perfect motivation for him to want to destroy Kuwahawi in the process of hunting down his brother. He got a fine amount of #Comeuppance in the end. I'm especially fond of the "finally squandered his life" line I wrote. :)
Brachiosaurus Dopant was born from an actual Kamen Rider W monster from a manga that was really unique to me in that it was a GIANT MONSTER and not the conveniently-human size that the TV monsters are. It also let me use Gaia Memories as something besides a plot device that almost never got mentioned except as a potential (and intentionally fruitless) way to give Kaede powers.
SPEAKING OF KAEDE...there was originally going to be a different ending to the plot that got...well, derailed might be the best way to put it. Through no fault of his own, Cornwind changed the ending of Dracoplot by having Kaede use a piano to defeat The Centre's human evolution. The original ending was going to be that the Kobbers would fight Suzie, the Deadly Six, and then Big Fau. I ended up combining Suzie and 4/6 of the Deadly Six into one boss fight and then had Big Fau and Big T the next day, with all villains being defeated there and then. Originally, Big T would've escaped to be confronted later as...
...KING GHIDORAH. I teased during the infiltration event that they had Mecha King Ghidorah in their base. The Glob would somehow take control of it and be a powerful boss fight that, for the first round of combat, couldn't be hurt because it had a powerful force field. In order to take down the force field, Kaede would have used a piano.
A piano named Vegnagun. If you've played FFX-2 you'd be familiar with the giant bug robot that's controlled by an organ (the instrument) on its head. It would've been a fun way to let Kaede save the day with the skills she already had. Cornwind got to the idea first though, so I scrapped actually using it in plot. No fault of his though.
Why The Deadly Six? If I remember correctly, I'd watched all the cutscenes from Sonic and The Lost World and liked their designs.
Big Fau got in because Chao and I geeked out about Big O one day and I said I'd have a giant robot/monster fight for Miu to use her Brawl prize against. I'd used the trio of robots used to build Big Fau in a previous season, so I figured why not.
I actually hired someone in May/June to draw the MegaMan Suzie picture, because I liked the combination of Kirby's Suzie and MegaMan Juno enough to want it depicted in plot. She could've potentially been fought during the Infiltration Event, but ultimately no combat was necessary.
Speaking of which, I really liked the Infiltration mission. I was inspired by a Pathfinder Module I'd played years ago called Library of the Lion, where your job is not to kill things, but to infiltrate a secret library and recover information without being caught. If you did that adventure without combat, you achieved perfect success. So I wanted to do an event like that for a chance instead of the usual Dracoplot "go fight a boss" events.
Labrysplot
This gets its own section because it wasn't part of my old Season 7 plans. Once I'd decided to make the Kattelox plot happen the next year, I decided to bring Labrys back as the quest giver, but I didn't want her to do nothing but Kattelox stuff, so I decided I wanted to explore more about her. It didn't really tie in to Kattelox, so I didn't have it crop up during those events.
So I decided to have the "spirits" of her sister units waking up for reasons which, ultimately, I decided were her involvement with the Phantom Thieves and going into Palaces somehow waking them up. The battle with the Meme went through a lot of different versions in my mind.
Originally, the Palace was a laboratory full of the kind of faceless humans Persona 4 Arena had in its backgrounds. Unfortunately, my incredible unfamiliarity with Persona 5's Palaces meant the end result wasn't that great to me. It was cool and tied in to her RP debut though, so I'm not wholly unsatisfied with it. That's a minor complaint though.
The battle was always going to involve the "Shadow" androids, though in one version it wasn't a battle. There would have been the option to try convincing them that their hatred and anger were misplaced with possibly some actual investigation being performed.
Cornwind asked me one night though if Labrys could fall victim to Mr. Down's robots brain virus and I agreed, deciding it was a pretty perfect way to bring about needing to go into Labrys' head. Originally, she was just going to go "Hey, I'm haunted. Go into this TV and beat up my ghosts." (or something to that effect) and Shadow Labrys would just show people around. Having the Meme really screw up her brain providing the perfect reason to need to go in: she can't start up as long as the Meme keeps driving her and the 40-ish souls inside her insane. Destroying the Meme in a battle within Labrys' mind also meant it could be destroyed and she could be cured without anyone going "Hey! This is how we resolve that plot too!" because it'd be impossible to fight that many Memes and keep the memetic virus from coming back to that person.
The Meme itself went through several iterations, even on the day of the plot at first. I liked bringing back the Songbird whistle due to the negative effects it had on her mind, but originally the Songbird would've been brought back as the Meme! At pretty much the last second though, I decided bringing that guy back was a boring idea. Fighting Songbird in Columbia again? Been there, done that! So I started looking for a new badguy, something mechanical and creepy, almost landing on Metroid's Nightmare but Chao used that guy YEARS ago.
I ultimately ended up picking a Decepticon because they were traumatic to Labrys too and I picked one who, in his home series, is associated with Unicron. One black recolor later and Soundwave became a great avatar for a sound-based virus.
Labrys' speech also went through a few versions in my head, but it never strayed too far from what you got.
DeMonde
Minor character ends up playing a large role in Downplot. I appreciate Cornwind indulging me so much on having her investigate and combat Mr. Down. She's kind of unique in that the Kobbers do most of their healing with magic and aren't equipped to fight diseases and stuff, so she got to have a lot of moments with a badguy who seemed tailored to fit her. She won, she lost, and ultimate will grow as a person, I'm sure. It was a lot of fun writing body horror stuff, because that's absolutely the kind of weird science she's into. X)
I planned a lot of her "anti-Down" measures ahead of time and PM'd the entire list to Cornwind about a week in advance so he could build Mr. Down's pre-finale showdown with DeMonde to fit both our ideas.
The plot in general was a lot of fun for me, because the doktor got her moment to shine.
Also, I allowed the possibility of her perma-dying at the hands of Mr. Down to be there if nobody went looking for her. She would've been found later, having left behind some notes and a partially-reconstructed tape recorder. Magic wouldn't have worked because she's really old and it would've failed due to the gods not wanting to waste their energy.
But someone looked for her and found her and saved her. Yay!
Hazel
I don't remember exactly how I came up with Hazel beyond "give generic Plasma Grunt a background." This was in between Sun/Moon and the Ultra sequels, so I ended up tying her background into the Alola region. Goops helped me flesh out her character during the off-season and eventually offered to give her a minor starring role in the plot, even scheduling events on Saturdays just so Hazel could be there.
There's a lot of Hazel stuff I wanted to do but didn't get to for reasons. Like, part of her background is that she used to have a YouTube show called Hardware Hazel where she, Sandy, and Pawny built stuff. A lot of her background didn't come out until towards the end of the season, like why she gave up Pokemon training to become an anti-training activist: she fell through an Ultra Wormhole and found a Guzzlord on the other side that killed her starter Pokemon. I even checked with Goops to see which Ultra Beasts he was using just to see if I wanted it to be something she'd have to deal with in plot, deciding that her being scared of Celesteela and overcoming that fear was good enough.
That death would give her some PTSD and cause her to give up Pokemon training, giving her Gardevoir to a friend and releasing the others to move to Unova, where she ended up being Team Plasma's handywoman, building their bases and stuff with her new Pokemon, with whom she never battled except once, which was more than enough. Then Pokemon Black/White happens and she goes on the lam as a broke migrant worker who gets paid in cash at the end of the day, barely scraping by until she met Celestia, another event Goops and I worked out after he got tired of seeing her ordering Quarter Water and Bir.
Another thing I wished I'd covered more of was what Hazel did after the Colress event. She flew to Ontario with Mix the Kyurem and then....just returned later. I'm going to actually write about that during the off-season though, so I won't talk too much about it except to say that I wish I'd thought of it sooner in the year, because then I would've also given her a Zygarde cell (one of my favorite things about Moon was getting a Zygarde) as part of a bet between Legendary Pokemon to see if a human could actually care about a Pokemon.
Every Pokemon Hazel grabbed after Pawny and Sandy was one she actually uses in my Ultra Moon run (which I still need to finish). I used Pawniard and Sandile in my White run, so they're all Pokemon I've used at one point.
Deb
Deb was a character I'd made for another RP and decided to bring into ZFRP as a support character, an average, ordinary lady with no powers or special skills besides being an engineer. She got to do some stuff though and had her own small arc after the Brawl. Since the Kattelox finale got altered, she also ended up driving the giant robot to fight Big Fau instead of Labrys, who was too busy fighting Big T. She's currently slated to have a bigger role next year.
RPing Stuff
Not directly related to in-universe content, but I did two things differently that I think I'll keep doing in the future. The first was to use my own characters to give bonuses to others. Instead of trying to give Labrys her own attack, I make her assist another character with theirs, turning a miss into a hit.
The second was using my paid time off to attend plots. I did this for Chao's Yorigamis event, part 1 of the Kattelox Invasion, and the Mr. Down finale. Having events scheduled in advance and pretty much always starting at the same time makes it easy to submit a time off request a week or two in advance and take the afternoon off to RP. :)
Cut Content
The Zygarde Cell was also considered as something DeMonde would've found and eventually used to fight a "Clone Zygarde". That particular plot aspect did not get developed much. Just would've been something neat.
DeMonde was also considered as a potential plot VILLAIN at one point, having been driven insane by something like Season 7's plot and prompted by an outside force (Big T) into making Pacific Rim monsters to open a portal to what she though would be her own world, but would actually be the Farplane. Zeldoten would either make a monster of her own or join forces with Irys to fight DeMonde. While monster fights would've been cool, the plot overall didn't seem great and was cut. The Rampage monsters would've either been DeMonde monsters for Irys to fight or Zeldoten's own beasts, taken from DeMonde's home back in their homeworld. When the talk of our next setting, Olympia, began, I considered carrying this plot over to Season 9, but Kuwahawi's islands setting is a lot more conducive to hiding big monsters than a flying city, so I decided to just bring the Rampage monsters in as experiment/pets of DeMonde's.
I've mentioned Ghidorah. Ever since the brief scene last year with Clownpiece looking at Ghidorah's body, I decided I wanted to find a way to actually bring him into a boss fight. I think the way Kattelox ended was better than my original plan though, so I'm not too torn up about not having this boss fight.
I was seriously bringing in Dark Eclair from the Disgaea games to mostly be a talking head, but I'd asked Harpy if she had plans for Dark Eclair. She didn't specify if she did, so I ultimately brought in Magnolia to take her place as a "do stuff, hang out" character not tied to any particular plot.
I feel like I should talk about the Big Zam too. This guy was actually on my Brawl entry for awhile before I swapped him out for "Alternate Dame." I really liked his concept too: the Big Zam would be a mindless vehicle driven by the three Zako Zako commentators who have appeared in the past. They would have been its "assist" so they'd have an excuse to run away like cowards if it got destroyed. I'm sure they would've been KO'd anyway, but I really liked the idea of someone entering a vehicle as a Brawler. I even checked with JRM ahead of time if it'd be okay; it would've been permissible because the operators were actually in the Brawl and not watching from the stands.
One idea I had for a Zeldoten plot this year was someone finally trying to arrest her: two law enforcement officers from her home world tracking her to Kuwahawi to finally put her behind bars! They would have arrived in May and tried, only to be told that they were out of their jurisdiction and needed to fill out proper extradition paperwork, so they'd pop up every so often filling out forms and waiting to hear back. At the end of the season, all of their paperwork would finally have gotten approved and they'd confront Zeldoten and her friends, if she had any willing to say "I know they're cops, but screw them." or something to that effect. Ultimately got cut after bouncing the idea off of Goops and deciding that not very many people would enjoy having to fight obviously good characters for the sake of a not-quite-evil one.
Friday, October 12, 2018
September 2018 Ticker Quote Archive
Gino still lays there ded.
"...Y-yeah. I'm used to it by now."
"Wait, Woppy is down! They can be heroes!"
"It's not murder if you're a good guy!"
"SKATING! Absolutely radical, dufe."
"Hey, this place looks like kind of a major bummer. You wanna get outta here and, like, get a smoothie?"
Probably the worst part was the words she chose to use were "ARGLEBARGLE OR FOOFARAH!"
...Sometimes that golem worries me.
"NO HE'S RIGHT I TOTALLY SUCK!"
(Ataributt.)
He was a magic dragon granddad.
If you're wondering about the chickens...
"We got one voice, bro, and it's gangsta."
Oh, you poor soul. You really shouldn't. You'll just- "earn some heartfelt thanks, beyond what you were expecting!"
<Can I be a General too?> "Nope!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAA" -slam slam slam slam-
"What an interesting digestive tract!"
"Really?" How did you get out of that one?!" "I didn't."
"Notice me, Shadow-senpai!"
"Please no bazookaing around the island!"
Or, if one got the sun out of their eyes and remained sober for a minute
Cerise offers them an egg in this trying time.
"Other than, and may dear Sonia forgive me for this, fuck you."
"Why, I may be a simple, island mutant, but even I am aware"
fite the pins and needles
Hopefully that was nerdy enough for you nerds to make nerd noises about.
For those of you playing along at home, Eternal Mothra is the final form of Rainbow Mothra
Dia easily crushes Gino with garbage blocks.
Tom rolled his eyes. Discreetly.
"Oh look there's that pumpkin again, ooh so scary."
"...Y-yeah. I'm used to it by now."
"Wait, Woppy is down! They can be heroes!"
"It's not murder if you're a good guy!"
"SKATING! Absolutely radical, dufe."
"Hey, this place looks like kind of a major bummer. You wanna get outta here and, like, get a smoothie?"
Probably the worst part was the words she chose to use were "ARGLEBARGLE OR FOOFARAH!"
...Sometimes that golem worries me.
"NO HE'S RIGHT I TOTALLY SUCK!"
(Ataributt.)
He was a magic dragon granddad.
If you're wondering about the chickens...
"We got one voice, bro, and it's gangsta."
Oh, you poor soul. You really shouldn't. You'll just- "earn some heartfelt thanks, beyond what you were expecting!"
<Can I be a General too?> "Nope!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAA" -slam slam slam slam-
"What an interesting digestive tract!"
"Really?" How did you get out of that one?!" "I didn't."
"Notice me, Shadow-senpai!"
"Please no bazookaing around the island!"
Or, if one got the sun out of their eyes and remained sober for a minute
Cerise offers them an egg in this trying time.
"Other than, and may dear Sonia forgive me for this, fuck you."
"Why, I may be a simple, island mutant, but even I am aware"
fite the pins and needles
Hopefully that was nerdy enough for you nerds to make nerd noises about.
For those of you playing along at home, Eternal Mothra is the final form of Rainbow Mothra
Dia easily crushes Gino with garbage blocks.
Tom rolled his eyes. Discreetly.
"Oh look there's that pumpkin again, ooh so scary."
Monday, September 3, 2018
August 2018 Ticker Quote Archive
"I want to kill you so fucking bad my nipples are hard."
Cicadas aren't welcome here. GET OUT.
"You can’t throw a rock around here without hitting a big ol’ lesbo."
Doo Pie Dur
"Beware of geeks bearing gifts."
"WHO COOKS HER DINNER?"
"I don't think I can do much s)c)i)e)n)c)e with only a pair of hooks and my feet!"
money torture
Hecatia, no sneaky! Hecatia, no sneaky! HECATIA, NO SNEAKY!
"MIGHT AS WELL GIVEN THEM A MAP AND RESTAURANT SUGGESTION!"
"THE DEAD SIX."
"Your kid can't English, Dawn."
http://dracowritesthings.blogspot.com/2018/08/super-spooky-creepypasta-edition-ticker.html
"Hiiiiii Beatriiiiiiiiice."
"THEY DESERVE THE TRUTH, BRANDON"
"HURRY! NO TIME TO EXPLAIN JUST NOW! I NEED TO REMEMBER TO CONSTRUCT PROPER SENTENCES!"
Regigigas pelvic thrusts.
TURBOLIES, LIES FROM THE FUTURE.
"That would be very rude if we saw you got voicemail and just laughed at you for choosing the wrong person to call!"
"I thought I might've gotten you killed. For Ice cream."
"Yes, not even the train wrecks were quality enough to meet their metric."
"I'm just thinking about what my schedule is now that I don't have to plot a murder or two."
"So, wait, this is... a drinking contest. With weird drinks. How do you people even function?"
"But where do you bite a big ol' sea snake to say hello?"
"I'mma go KICK HIS ASS in the name of TOURISM!"
The voice of Li’l Jon was distracting enough that Gentoku’s punch went wide.
"It's a really nice eye."
"Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving"
Dawn.exe has encountered an error and needs to close
"My emotional reaction is befuddlement."
"Do you remember that bullshit fite? Pepperidge farm remembers"
Cicadas aren't welcome here. GET OUT.
"You can’t throw a rock around here without hitting a big ol’ lesbo."
Doo Pie Dur
"Beware of geeks bearing gifts."
"WHO COOKS HER DINNER?"
"I don't think I can do much s)c)i)e)n)c)e with only a pair of hooks and my feet!"
money torture
Hecatia, no sneaky! Hecatia, no sneaky! HECATIA, NO SNEAKY!
"MIGHT AS WELL GIVEN THEM A MAP AND RESTAURANT SUGGESTION!"
"THE DEAD SIX."
"Your kid can't English, Dawn."
http://dracowritesthings.blogspot.com/2018/08/super-spooky-creepypasta-edition-ticker.html
"Hiiiiii Beatriiiiiiiiice."
"THEY DESERVE THE TRUTH, BRANDON"
"HURRY! NO TIME TO EXPLAIN JUST NOW! I NEED TO REMEMBER TO CONSTRUCT PROPER SENTENCES!"
Regigigas pelvic thrusts.
TURBOLIES, LIES FROM THE FUTURE.
"That would be very rude if we saw you got voicemail and just laughed at you for choosing the wrong person to call!"
"I thought I might've gotten you killed. For Ice cream."
"Yes, not even the train wrecks were quality enough to meet their metric."
"I'm just thinking about what my schedule is now that I don't have to plot a murder or two."
"So, wait, this is... a drinking contest. With weird drinks. How do you people even function?"
"But where do you bite a big ol' sea snake to say hello?"
"I'mma go KICK HIS ASS in the name of TOURISM!"
The voice of Li’l Jon was distracting enough that Gentoku’s punch went wide.
"It's a really nice eye."
"Thanksgiving isn't Thanksgiving"
Dawn.exe has encountered an error and needs to close
"My emotional reaction is befuddlement."
"Do you remember that bullshit fite? Pepperidge farm remembers"
Monday, August 13, 2018
Super Spooky Creepypasta Edition Ticker Quote Archive
everyone was happy but then he turned EVIL and killed everyone!
That night, I had a nightmare about being Reimu
Also there was a werewolf.
'okay I have sum fud....IN MY STOMACK!!!!!!!!" then she tured itno A GODZILLA
I can't breathe
moorder
but before we could scremam it said "dont scraem" so we didnt
first - I’m British
There were so many glitches there were even glitches comin outta zeldo's butt.
The monster is on the bed with me.
(he wont really do that but my brother said to add something really scary)
"Mmmmmm that was some CRISPY PASTA"
but... IT WAS CHOCLATE FLAVORED
the DVD had vanished! I would never have any proof of this.
'ALWAYS TOGETER!' i giggiggle and play instead of eat.
That is, of course, until she turned into an aardvark.
That night, I had a nightmare about being Reimu
Also there was a werewolf.
'okay I have sum fud....IN MY STOMACK!!!!!!!!" then she tured itno A GODZILLA
I can't breathe
moorder
but before we could scremam it said "dont scraem" so we didnt
first - I’m British
There were so many glitches there were even glitches comin outta zeldo's butt.
The monster is on the bed with me.
(he wont really do that but my brother said to add something really scary)
"Mmmmmm that was some CRISPY PASTA"
but... IT WAS CHOCLATE FLAVORED
the DVD had vanished! I would never have any proof of this.
'ALWAYS TOGETER!' i giggiggle and play instead of eat.
That is, of course, until she turned into an aardvark.
Friday, August 3, 2018
July 2018 Ticker Quote Archive
"I'm guessing she's not talking about gang warfare, max."
"I think we might have convinced Keahi that you're a lowkey furry."
"What do they say about your chances?" "Almost nonexistent!"
...my, hasn't he grown?
"I hate them. I can’t stand them. Ruined my last relationship, at least in part. I’d be happy to join!"
Wow, everybody put on their best googly eyes for this one!
Fresh blood is needed.
"I'd like an explanation that doesn't make me wanna slice off my wiener with a katana, but I doubt I'm going to get one."
“Thank you for including me!” Kiibo says, perking up.
*See the Big Bar Brawl Edition post*
"I eat, sleep, and BREATHE video games!!' Y'know, to show how hardcore they are?"
"Like 'Spank 'Em'."
"YEAH! GIVE ME SOME OF THAT! Wait. No, don't give me-"
Kaede's idiot hair fully droops, lying flat on her head.
DUMPED ON THE GROUND LIKE WIDOW MAKER'S LAST GIRLFRIEND
"Eat healthy while you're young." he muttered darkly
burning pink flames conjured from an eviiiiil zippo
"Dang. Nobody's here to appreciate me being alive and cool. This must be how Cirno feels all the time."
Iodine's Isolation Cube Of Starvation And Sadness
we don't talk about the Great Regi Frat Party Of '92
"I had no faith that would work."
Big hugs, big kisses! Is this too much for Zoofights Roleplay?!
"Then behave and fite the nice man! And not to the death!"
Damn it, where do I hire one of my characters to narrate? It's extra work for me...
"PLANESWARENS KIDNAP POOR LIZARD CHILD AFTER MURDERING HIS COUSINS"
I'm not just being a rude boy to precious machine girl.
THIS IS HALLOWEEN THIS IS HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN
strangely charmed by the murderer of her people.
Missing and hitting the wall? Not on the menu.
"That, or one of our past or future selves is messing with the timeline." "I hope we meet them! I could do with another gun."
"BANG BANG BANG!"
"I think we might have convinced Keahi that you're a lowkey furry."
"What do they say about your chances?" "Almost nonexistent!"
...my, hasn't he grown?
"I hate them. I can’t stand them. Ruined my last relationship, at least in part. I’d be happy to join!"
Wow, everybody put on their best googly eyes for this one!
Fresh blood is needed.
"I'd like an explanation that doesn't make me wanna slice off my wiener with a katana, but I doubt I'm going to get one."
“Thank you for including me!” Kiibo says, perking up.
*See the Big Bar Brawl Edition post*
"I eat, sleep, and BREATHE video games!!' Y'know, to show how hardcore they are?"
"Like 'Spank 'Em'."
"YEAH! GIVE ME SOME OF THAT! Wait. No, don't give me-"
Kaede's idiot hair fully droops, lying flat on her head.
DUMPED ON THE GROUND LIKE WIDOW MAKER'S LAST GIRLFRIEND
"Eat healthy while you're young." he muttered darkly
burning pink flames conjured from an eviiiiil zippo
"Dang. Nobody's here to appreciate me being alive and cool. This must be how Cirno feels all the time."
Iodine's Isolation Cube Of Starvation And Sadness
we don't talk about the Great Regi Frat Party Of '92
"I had no faith that would work."
Big hugs, big kisses! Is this too much for Zoofights Roleplay?!
"Then behave and fite the nice man! And not to the death!"
Damn it, where do I hire one of my characters to narrate? It's extra work for me...
"PLANESWARENS KIDNAP POOR LIZARD CHILD AFTER MURDERING HIS COUSINS"
I'm not just being a rude boy to precious machine girl.
THIS IS HALLOWEEN THIS IS HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN
strangely charmed by the murderer of her people.
Missing and hitting the wall? Not on the menu.
"That, or one of our past or future selves is messing with the timeline." "I hope we meet them! I could do with another gun."
"BANG BANG BANG!"
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