Komachiplot Finale

 https://pastebin.com/3vn8m8FE

the part I forgot is actually important. basically, komachi points out yukari had proposed another plan that meiling vetoed earlier, the "just throw her in the sanzu" plan. meiling understandably still hates that plan.

I remember now that the thing about "I'll go to mayohiga and kill her myself" was actually a line that got edited out :V

at one time it was part of it but the segue into yukari showing up got changed

right. so, when yukari said she spent time researching, what she doesn't say is the research is more for meiling's benefit. yukari is as sure of her suggestion as she always was, because she was always sure it would be safe and would work. but hina told yukari to try to see things from other perspectives, to try to compromise. so yukari had been scarce precisely because she was trying to put together enough information to satisfy meiling and get her to agree

anyway, she asks meiling to be patient - which is a BIG ask - because it's easier to approach the topic in a sort of roundabout way. (meiling isn't thrilled about this. she hates yukari being obtuse and yukari's like "if you'll allow me to be obtuse, that's the best way to discuss this")

she first asks komachi and meiling about their experience visiting the grove. they both got the sense that the heart tree had a will of its own, that something drove it to act and react. and they're like "yes..."

when enid talks about the force that powers the grove, she's very clear on one thing, that she doesn't manipulate or control it. at best, she interprets it. it is something independent of her, it can think and feel. it isn't human and doesn't have a mind that a human can exactly understand, so that's why it needs enid, but it is an entity that makes its own choices to some degree.

komachi and meiling are both like "okay, we get that, where are you going with this?"

yukari asks komachi if the sanzu has ever spoken to her. meiling is like "wat" but komachi is like, "sure, all the time."

komachi explains that the sanzu doesn't really talk but it, you know, makes sounds at her. it absorbs entire identities and memories, so it's full of little phrases. it's kind of like talking to a parrot. it repeats things.

yukari asks her "what kind of things does it repeat?" and komachi is like "well all kinds of things, but usually it sings." yukari presses her for more again and komachi explains that she spent a lot of time alone when she was doing her job, and she would often sit by the river and play her guitar and/or sing. sometimes the river would try to "accompany" her, by making little sounds that could sort of pass for music. sometimes when komachi was having a particularly bad day, and she was too unhappy to even make music, the river would make music for her.

yukari zeroes in on this, she's like "so we've established the river could recognize when you were having a bad day and that it tried to comfort you?" and now it's komachi's turn to be like "wat" and then she's like "oh. well I guess sort of yeah."

komachi figures out yukari is trying to draw a comparison between the river and the grove. and she's skeptical. meiling is also skeptical, she's like "so you're trying to convince us the soul-destroying river is alive and it just destroys souls because it wants to?"

yukari and komachi are both like "no :I" (komachi doesn't like meiling being rude to the river :V how dare). komachi's like "I think it's more complicated than that. I don't think the river is like the grove, it has thoughts maybe but it's not cohesive."

and yukari is kind of like, yes, but, it doesn't really need to be exactly like the grove, the point is that it's capable of making choices and it cares about komachi specifically. effectively, it's safe for komachi to throw herself in the river because the river WANTS to help her.

komachi is still like, extremely skeptical, but yukari also reminds komachi that she was on board with this plan before, it's meiling that wasn't. and meiling is like "you still haven't addressed the soul destroying part!"

yukari is like "listen, research only got me so far but I think the soul destroying is mostly power incontinence. the water isn't actually water, it's liquid thoughts. take a swim in liquid thoughts and you'd probably be pretty overwhelmed right?"

the river is how each soul is scrubbed clean so it can be reborn anew. so the river is made of everything that made up those souls. metaphysically, it's like getting lost in a crowd, there's just so much in the river that it's impossible for a soul tossed in there to really handle it

and meiling is like "and komachi is different because...?" and yukari's just like "because she's just different! I'm working on guesswork here but it's REALLY GOOD guesswork, okay."

yukari sums up her point as, we think the reason komachi is different from other shinigami is because she absorbed some of that soul-stuff via contact with the river. the essence of komachi's identity, the komachi we all know and love, already came from the river already - it was the sanzu that imbued komachi with feelings and personalities.

yukari thinks the source of komachi's nightmares were an unintentional side effect. komachi called them nightmares, but they were actually memories - she explained this once on-forum (komachi did, I mean), that she was basically dreaming about being a different person and experiencing a life that wasn't hers.

that's because they were the memories of the dead that had been discarded into the river. the memories were tinged with sadness and grief because those souls were giving up their lives, saying goodbye to their lives. so the dreams made komachi sad and so she called them nightmares. she was dreaming them because her shinigami soul was like "this doesn't belong here" and was trying to get them out.

anyway, komachi has been away from the river for a while since she quit her job. she stopped having nightmares because she had no more alien memories to shed, but the things that made her unique among shinigami kind of went with it. the traits the river had imbued her with were fading away because it was, well, wearing off?

and as yukari posited at the start of komachiplot, the only way to stop this from becoming an endless cycle is to complete komachi's transformation into...whatever the absorption of the river essence was turning her into.

so she needs to just absorb a bunch of the river. and that's why we need to just toss her into it. :V

it's kind of hard to explain which is why I got stuck on writing the post. it's definitely easier to say all this in my own words than try to put it in yukari's words though.

suffice to say a lot of yukari's theory goes over meiling's head, but she gets the basic idea that the river likes komachi and accidentally made komachi komachi, so the only way we can stop komachi from unbecoming komachi is to let the river re-komachi her. basically. very simple amirite

there's still a serious risk involved because the river doesn't destroy souls intentionally, it's just a natural consequence of the river being what it is. yukari thinks it will try its hardest to help komachi - it will actively refrain from hurting her because it loves her. but there's no guarantee of that.

meiling doesn't like that but... she thinks it over really hard and agrees. at this point something needs to be done or she'll lose komachi anyway, and komachi begged her earlier in the same scene to not try and make this decision for her. this is komachi's problem and ultimately it isn't meiling's place to call the shots here, it's komachi's.

and that's the end of that scene! that just leaves the actual finale itself.

~

a small group has come to the gensokyo side riverbank of the sanzu. there's komachi and meiling of course, yukari, nitori and mizuki, and norio. norio is here because He Works Here.

meiling insisted on being there, komachi wanted nitori there as moral support and mizuki is there because... probably because she's nitori's moral support. she's the moral support's moral support.

komachi is komachi and just had to warn nitori that she might die or something

prepare her for the worst case scenario

we have only seen the sanzu shore once or twice, so, to set the scene... imagine an impossibly huge cavern. it's also really, really dark. it's so dark that you can't see the ceiling or walls so you can't see how big the cavern really is, but you know you're in an underground cavern because you went underground to get here, and you're on a beach.

the beach is sandy, but the sand is very fine and white like... powdered bone. because it is bone. it's bone sand :V

there is a short, rickety dock with a familiar rowboat moored to it, and the sandy shore stretches off into the distance to the left and right, but ahead is just this endless expanse of water

the water is slightly glowy! and there's mist everywhere, which is also a little glowy. the mist seems to be given off by the water, and the mist is just everywhere

oh yeah, also there's spirits haunting the shore. nitori and mizuki and meiling are probably unnerved by it because there's just... so many ghosts, just drifting around. they don't seem to notice anyone and are just ghosts doing ghost things. some of them are weeping or talking to themselves or whatever.

not all souls of the dead cross the sanzu immediately. each individual soul has to decide when it's ready to make the journey. so the shore is populated by random souls milling about, being sad about being dead, coming to terms with the need to move on to the afterlife and all that.

but the group of not-dead people (and two shinigami) stand on the dock. komachi hugs everyone and is trying really hard to resist the urge to say goodbyes because this isn't supposed to kill her but there's a non-zero chance that it might and komachi is a pessimist.

yukari is bored.

actually correction, komachi doesn't hug everyone because yukari is also there and she doesn't hug yukari.

komachi hugs everyone else though XD

everyone else backs up and komachi stands at the end of the dock and tries to psych herself up to jump in. like imagine a long, tense minute or two of komachi standing there staring into the water, working up the courage.

even if this doesn't kill her, it will change her life radically forever, and the unknown is always very scary. she doesn't want to be stuck in this malingering state forever so she has to take the plunge, the leap of faith and just do something but she doesn't know what will happen and that's scary.

she takes a couple uncertain steps so she's on the very edge of the dock but then hesitates again, paralyzed by that fear.

and then an arm comes out of a gap behind her and just fuckin shoves her :V

and komachi falls in the water with a surprised shout

yes it's exactly what happened, yukari just fucking pushes her

so just to be clear, although they're only at the end of the dock, the water is still really deep. almost as soon as the shore ends there's a steep dropoff, it's like a foot or so where you can see the bottom and then it's just Deep Deep Water

the sanzu is claimed to be literally bottomless

so komachi falls in the water and meiling runs to the edge of the dock and norio grabs her by the arm and pulls her back a bit, he's not sure if meiling was going to reach after her but she could trip or something and so norio has a vise grip on meiling's arm to make sure she doesn't fall in or try anything. nitori and mizuki and yukari come up, everyone looks in the water. no sign of komachi.

it's hard to see very far into the water, it's murky. super murky.

the group waits in tense silence for a minute... waiting for komachi to come back up... yukari insisted this was safe and komachi would be fine... still no sign of komachi.

they're just waiting and waiting and finally meiling's rage boils over and she can't hold it in anymore and she turns and punches yukari in the face

'cause, you know.

well, maybe you don't. yukari doesn't, she's like "wtf?!" and meiling is just like "YOU KILLED HER!"

yukari is like "I didn't kill anyone, what are you talking about" and meiling tries to hit her again (and fails). meiling's eyes are red. she repeats that yukari killed komachi.

yukari is like "I gave her some encouragement" and meiling's like "fucking BULLSHIT. you KILLED HER." yukari is like "she was going to jump anyway!"

I promise komachi's not actually dead :V the characters are just supposed to think she is and the users have to entertain the doubt. but she's not.

anyway.

meiling screams "IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HER DECISION!" and yukari actually flinches.

yukari weakly responds with a repeat of her previous statement ("she was going to jump anyway") and meiling rants that we'll never know if komachi was going to jump or not because the choice was made for her. and she hasn't come back. and that means yukari killed her.

yukari has this... conflicted expression on her face. and meiling basically says, she promised to accept komachi's decision. she didn't like this plan but she could have lived with it, if it was komachi's decision. if komachi jumped and the river destroyed her and she was gone forever meiling could have tolerated it because that was komachi's decision.

but now, regardless of what happens, it is not komachi's decision. it's the difference between suicide and murder. yukari killed komachi.

and this time when meiling goes to punch yukari, yukari doesn't dodge it at all, it's not a glancing blow or anything, meiling decks her square in the face - with no element of surprise or anything.

it was like telegraphed from a mile away and the hit still lands. yukari has this expression of dawning horror on her face like she has just realized for the first time in her life ever that She Fucked Up.

granted, meiling punches the sense back into her and when meiling goes to hit her a third time this one doesn't land and yukari gets her composure back, and goes like "I did what had to be done."

meiling was already Maximum Angry but somehow becomes Overmaximum Turboangry. she's like "no you didn't, you did whatever the fuck you wanted, just like always. that's the only thing that matters."

also idk what kappa are doing

norio is still watching seeing if komachi resurfaces

emotions are very new for norio and he's experiencing some emotions for the first time ever :V

he rates the experience 2/10

so yukari responds to meiling with "I was trying to help komachi!" and meiling is like "no, you WEREN'T. because if you CARED, you would have let her make her own decision. you were trying to get rid of the problem, prove yourself right, so you could go home or whatever. don't call it helping like you're some kind of altruist, you only care about yourself. komachi was a hundred times better a person than you and YOU KILLED HER."

at this point meiling stops talking and just goes all in on beating the absolute shit out of yukari

yukari is off kilter, she's upset, it's hard to tell because yukari is hard to read but meiling's words have gotten through to her. yukari isn't used to experiencing things like self-doubt or regret, which are her two primary emotions right now, she is just analyzing and re-analyzing the past ten minutes like if she thinks about it hard enough then her actions will make sense and be perfectly justified

but it doesn't work like that. she can replay the scenario in her head all she likes, it'll always boiil down to she did something stupid, rude and selfish, and she can't undo it.

it's the last part that's really throwing her off because no matter what she has to live with the consequences of the fact she pushed komachi, now. if komachi ends up not being okay then there's nothing she can do about it

at some point the kappa are supposed to join the fighting, I dunno if they do though

but nitori is supposed to join team beat the shit out of yukari, and mizuki being the rational one realizes two things, that we were Explicitly Told that killing yukari could destroy all of gensokyo, and that meiling is Way Too Angry to remember that important fact

mizuki is team this is seriously not helping right now

team everybody calm the fuck down

honestly? draco ain't wrong. if mizuki tried telling them not to kill yukari, idk about nitori's reaction, but meiling wouldn't care, she's 2angry

we all know meiling is a very good fighter, that kind of goes without saying. yukari isn't shabby but her fighting relies heavily on gimmicks, she might be able to match meiling in terms of raw power but meiling massively outclasses yukari in skill and technique

and more importantly, yukari isn't trying to fight back. she's mostly avoiding attacks, and is not even doing that well at it because she's having an antiheroic(?) BSOD

yeah her face hurts

:V

she lost a couple IQ points

it's fine, she has ten blajillion left still

mizuki is trying to get people to stop fighting, so no offense to mizuki but she's probably nearly useless :V

I assume she's slapfighting nitori in the corner because she'd look at meiling and have no idea how you stop an angry murder dragon

ordinarily that'd be a pretty effective strategy draco! but 1) meiling is just that angry and 2) mizuki's rack is not impressive enough

mizuki's chest is still excellent but it just isn't powerful enough

to counter meiling's fury

need bigger tiddy for that

speaking of komachi, it was planned the fight would go on for a couple rounds and then we'd cut to what's going on with komachi!

komachi......... is drowning!

it's a new experience for her and she does not care for it. would not recommend.

shinigami don't have to breathe, that includes komachi, this is an entirely different, new, more esoteric kind of drowning, where it's literally komachi's sense of self that is drowning.

komachi's mind is being flooded with so many memories that she can't remember her name or what was going on or why she's currently drowning in a river. it's just a billion different disparate thoughts and feelings crowding into her brain and chasing out every last shred of anything that makes any sense

she can in fact swim, it's just she has no control over her body right now because she can't form the presence of mind to actually move

her mind is busy experiencing being everyone that ever lived all at the same time

it sucks!

komachi doesn't notice it at first because it's hard to notice things in her current state, but the stuff going through her mind, the "feedback" she's getting, starts to be... different? gradually it starts getting more relevant to her as a person. first it's vaguely related, like random people singing, or random memories about random stuff komachi likes, like a person looking at her favorite flower, for example. vague stuff.

it starts getting less vague in its relation to her, then it's memories and stuff from people she recognizes - spirits she interacted with. then it's memories of her, because every soul that has crossed the sanzu has interacted with komachi at some point.

she starts regaining the ability to think/move as her brain isn't so overwhelmed, it's still a massive deluge of thoughts but there's a semblance of sense to them now and it clears her head a bit. she's seeing herself through the eyes of others, memories of her comforting the souls that wander the riverbank, memories of her chatting with the souls as they're crossing the river, memories of her singing to them or singing to the river

there's even one memory that seems to be one of meiling's memories. that is significant but I wasn't going to explain in the scene exactly why it's relevant, maybe you can guess :V

but it's a memory of when meiling had just been freed from being soul-eaten by miraak, and komachi helped restore strength to meiling's soul so she could be resurrected.

anyway, as this flood of memories keeps going through her head, komachi starts to hear something else. a voice. but weirdly, it's her own voice.

the memories of her singing to the river are being pieced together and played back to her. almost like she's... singing to herself?

this shit is hard to explain. I'm kind of glad I didn't have to write this in a post. thank fuck humansville plot isn't this ambitious, jesus.

https://pastebin.com/dGFWffLZ

basically it's komachi's own voice but the river is singing to komachi by handpicking memories of her singing to it

these are the lyrics, they're cobbled together from actual real songs

it was still a WIP but obviously no more progress will be made on it so I guess this is technically the finished version but if it's a bit rough it's because I wasn't sure if I was done with it

I spent a long time working on it

anyway, the last part is all from one song, so there is a link with a timestamp, listen from the point it starts at through to the end for the final part of the sanzu's song

anyway, as the river is "singing" to her, the memories going through her mind are slowing down and becoming less overwhelmed, but also now it's not memories of her... it's her own memories

memories of her triumphs, like defeating alan anderson and don genie. memories of happy times hanging out with her friends, doing fun stuff with them, them laughing and smiling. memories of sakuya, memories of dolby, memories of ibuki, memories of hina and meiling and mizuki and chiharu and everyone else she's ever cared about, and so so many memories of nitori. all of it memories of times when she felt happy or at peace or just felt... alive

komachi realizes that she has been resisting this whole time. the memories flooding through her, she has been struggling against it, like a drowning person trying to fight to swim and stay afloat. intuitively she knows that's the dangerous part, letting her identity get lost in the deluge, that's how the river un-makes souls and so she has been trying not to give in

but she realizes that the river is trying to help her and that for it to do so, she needs to give in to it. she has to trust it and surrender to it. so... she does

and we cut back to the group on the shore :V

some of that komachi stuff was a flashback - stuff that was happening while they all stood around waiting and then started arguing, etc.

so the fight has still been pretty short but it's still going on, and no one is paying attention to the river anymore. no, not even norio

norio is the first to notice that something weird is happening though. the glow is getting brighter.

the mist that permeates the whole area is glowing brighter and there seems to be more of it, making it foggier and harder to see, but then all the mist is drifting toward the water and the water is glowing brighter too, and it's turning into this swirling whirlpool/waterspout/tornado

of glowing water and mist

the glow is concentrating in the waterspout and the rest of the water isn't glowing anymore but that one spot is getting brighter

it becomes so noticeable that meiling and nitori and yukari all stop in their tracks (and mizuki)

they all move toward the dock to see wtf is going on

so now there's this big swirling water-tornado that is glowing, and it starts changing shape. instead of being round, it's like stretching and distorting in weird ways and it's starting to take on a vaguely humanoid shape... a female humanoid shape... a [s]marshmallow[/s] komachi shape.

the glowy water forms into a komachi standing at the end of the dock. a dry komachi :V and then all the glowyness stops and everything goes back to normal

and of course komachi gets rushed. nitori shouts in relief/joy and runs and bear-hugs komachi, and then norio gets there second and hugs them both because nitori's still hugging komachi, and then meiling gets there third and hugs all three of them and it's just a big bundle of hugging people

also keep in mind norio is hella fast so nitori somehow getting there before him is like. the power of love.

eventually while everyone's hugging people notice that komachi looks (and feels!) different. her skin tone is still pale, but it's like, a healthy human pale, not a "this person might be dead" super ultra pale

there's like a healthy hint of pink to it

and she's warm! her body temperature used to be cold. like touching something that just came straight outta the fridge or something

nitori is the one that notices that, because norio can't really tell a difference, he's still a shinigami, and meiling has too many layers of person in between her and machi

and komachi weighs more! meiling notices that because she picks up all three of them in her hug :V she can still do so easily, and admittedly she's ever picked up norio and nitori and komachi all at the same time, but she's picked up nitori and komachi enough to know their respective weights, and she can sort of hazard a guess at norio's, and the three of them are way heavier.

so they all finally let go and start asking questions and komachi... is not really sure what happened either, but she feels different now! she feels... human? but also sort of not? but mostly?

it's kind of weird. she has to breathe now and stuff, that's new and will take some getting used to.

beyond that I wasn't really sure how to wrap things up... it's just a bunch of everyone being relieved she's okay and being like "wtf happened? wait nevermind that's not important" and stuff.

except yukari. yukari poofed, she is nowhere to be found

at some point komachi is like "can we go home now, I'm tired" and everyone goes back to olympia and komachi gets to have her first night's sleep as a real human cuddling her snugglebug :3

there would have been an epilogue of just komachi being happy and experiencing old things with her new fully human senses. like magnolia making a bunch of food for komachi to try and be able to really taste things for the first time

and meiling turning into a bunch of animals so komachi can pet all of them and see what it feels like

the epilogue would have included yukari showing up and actually apologizing to komachi! (?!?!?!? shock and awe)

very awkwardly and she might have still been a tiny bit rude accidentally or something

lel, well I don't think meiling would have been satisfied with the apology, you're right, and meiling and yukari are not going to be frands anytime soon. however, the apology is to komachi and meiling is if nothing else genuinely impressed that yukari admitted she did a bad thing and apologized at all.

yukari doesn't admit her mistakes often so it's a big deal that yukari actually admitted it and said she was sorry

like, yeah it doesn't mean she's at all fixed her problems, but wao! progress!

also komachi is komachi and she says that she forgives yukari. like pretty much immediately forgives her. and it leads to a short but maybe kind of interesting exchange because yukari legit is like "really? just like that? you forgive me?"

and komachi's kind of like "you think I shouldn't?" and yukari doesn't know how to respond to that. and komachi just goes, "well things could have turned out much worse, but it didn't. I want to move on and be happy about my new life, not poison it by holding a grudge. and in the end your theory was correct and you did help me and you helped medicine."

and yukari takes a moment to process all this and thinks a lot of things that she doesn't say and finally just replies "you are a good person, komachi."

and komachi's like "it doesn't come as easily to everyone. but hey, keep trying."

October 2020 Ticker Quote Archive

 battle-brother

Jetpack Butt

"But you're great at being a koala! JUST BUTTON MASH AND GO!"

metal meta metal

I guess Sally is happening now.

MAGIC is slamming that NEED button. Oh, there is no NEED button?

Thankfully, she’s insane

Dark Matter murderstick

The Kobbers had words of encouragement for Plumbum, despite his role as an antagonist

"I WOULD RHYME TOO BUT THESE EYEBROWS ARE DRIVING ME NUTS!"

"Well... we found Tiktok."

-The Great Marsello Battle! Hello, My Eternal Friends!-

PLATFORM LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT

"C O N S U M E

P R I L O S E C"

"you loli goth killjoy."

Labrys' call brings a GRAND HERO to the rescue!

"No, I don't need another world anymore."

"GO, SEHAGAGA!

GO, SEHAGAGA!

GO, SEHAGAGA!

GO, SEHAGAGA!"

"I'm a Clipper!"

"I haven't gotten to do nearly enough maiming lately. Everyone's just been too nice!"

"Pelswick"

GOD KING CHOCOBO BUBBA

So she does what any self-respecting vastayashai’rei would do in this instance. And that is to turn into an elephant

an anti climb ax

"Yeah, but I can't, and that's what matters."

Mary starts collecting all the collectables...and then turns the game off.

Well, they can't all be winners. You spoony bard!

"If any body snatchers come looking for some fool, well, too bad!  This seat’s officially taken, ‘cause I’m your fool!"

"These memes are irrelevant!"

"...I guess it's time to poyo, motherfucker."

Turtle power

Just another night...

Somewhere, a phone rang...

Normally, this would not be an issue for the recipient. Also normally, it wasn't 3:14 AM. The slight blonde woman's eyes slowly opened as the sudden sound woke her. Reaching over to her nightstand, sleepily turning on a lamp and answering the phone.

"This is Carol."

"Professor Elfnein! Hello!"

Professor Carol Elfnein sighed, instantly recognizing the voice of Yoshiko Tsushima.

"Good morning, Yoshiko. What's up?"

The line went quiet for a moment except for some ambient noise. Somebody was yelling and shouting. Carol was about to ask about the noise when she heard gunshots, nearly dropping her phone in surprise.

"Oh! It's...oh...it's very early. My apologies, Professor!" Yoshiko said. Carol could practically hear the Getter pilot bowing. "I wouldn't have called if it weren't important though, I promise! You can trace my signal, right?"

"Yes." Carol rubbed her brow. "If you call the LAB and not my personal number."

"Sorry, sorry!" Yoshiko apologized again. Carol could almost make out another voice yelling at Yoshiko. "I'll call back then! Sorry! Bye!"

The line went silent and the professor sighed, climbing out of bed, slipping on her slippers, and quietly walking from her bedroom, heading deep into the rebuilt Stratford Institute, going past the hangar with the new combat robots, and entering the control center. As they were not technically a military installation, there was only one person in the heart of the Institute supervising the surrounding area. They began standing as Carol entered, but she waved them off.

"Don't mind me," she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

Carol made a face after taking a sip; not cold per se but it had been sitting out for awhile. She found a seat next to the room's phone, knowing Yoshiko would call as she as she remembered the number. It was only a few minutes before the phone finally rang, the professor promptly picking up.

"Stratford Institute, this is Professor Elfnein speaking," she said if only for the sake of ceremoney.

"Hello, Professor! Thank you for answering so swiftly," Yoshiko said, the background only full of more gunshots.

"You're welcome, Yoshiko. How can I be of assistance?" Carol answered, knowing the question.

"Okay! So...did you know...there are Dark Matter Cults?" Yoshiko asked. "The ones that cry and moan because we got rid of Dark Matter completely?"

"I'd heard of them, yes."

"Well...I found one! They're...very interesting," Yoshiko continued. "This one found the remains of a creature that once had Dark Matter in it and now they're worshipping it."

"Sounds...yawn...horrible."

"It is, it is. Anyway...this cult's leader is a robot that Dark Matter had reprogrammed and now it's-" Yoshiko's phone emitted the high-pitched whine of an energy weapon. "It's got some kind of salvaged mech or something and they're all trying to kill me, so..."

Carol reached over and began hitting a few buttons. The Stratford Institute's satellite began searching for Yoshiko's cell signal across the globe, linking up with the major phone carriers of the world to find its GPS. Ah, somewhere in Africa. A few more button pushes later and the Institute rocked gently as the sounds of Getter Robo taking off faded into the night.

"It'll be a few minutes," the sleepy professor reported. "Try not to die."

"Thank you, Professor!" Yoshiko chirped. "I'll be by tomorrow with it. Thanks!"

"You're welcome. Good night, Yoshiko."

The call then ended and Carol yawned, looking at the time. It was...time to go back to bed. So she did, her footsteps softly ringing out as she returned to her quarters, falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Just another night on Heart Star.

Three Vignettes Between November and May...

Silver Tribute, Captain's Quarters...

On the right was a skilled pianist. Maybe not virtuoso quality, but enjoyable to listen to and skilled at playing the keys.

On the left was an eager but clumsy player, knowing all the keys by heart but hitting them stiffly and inaccurately.

They played in perfect synch, going through the music one note at a time in harmony. Neither would stop for any misstep, acting as if nothing wrong had occurred. To them, there was nothing wrong with the music as long as they played together.

"Captain Silvania."

Silvania ÆæØøÅåß (pronounced Abby) Véulunar sighed and stood up from her lovingly-maintained harpsichord, looking down at her hands and flexing her fingers. The ones on her right curled immediately; the metallic, artificial replacements on her left moved slowly, the joints gently grinding against each other. She'd need to take a look at them later, she thought as she walked over to the intercom, the voice of her assistant, Steve, emerging.

"What is it, Steve?" she asked, gently applying a bit of lubricant to her left hand.

"I know you were up all last night trying to get used to 'Kobber Hours' as you put it, but applicants for the jobs are here. Figured you, uh, might want to talk to them yourself. Maybe."

The owner of the Silver Tribute hotel and the Accidental Hero bar sighed inaudibly and nodded as she began throwing on her work clothes. For years, she'd mostly tended the bar herself. She'd had a bigger staff back when she'd first gotten into the business, needing it to attend to the large amount of adventurers Agama had, back before a lot of the exploration outside the capital had dried up and factory farms for the most crucial alchemical components had been established. She'd tended the bar herself for almost a decade after that, she thought fondly, taking care mainly of the needs of students from the various magical colleges.

Then Agama had been 'discovered'. A bold proclamation considering the Agamans had known where they themselves lived for ages. Contact had been renewed with the outside world and almost immediately a group had come to her asking for business deals. Zoofights, they'd called themselves, seeking contracts and agreements to accommodate a group called Kobbers. Not a race of people or a Secret Society she'd ever heard of, but they'd agreed to refurbish the old grounded airship with something called "WiFi" and energy plug adapters in exchange for providing these...Kobbers...with favoring room and meal rates.

Silvania sighed at the memory of accepting the deal. Hopefully she hadn't come across as too desperate. She'd had arrangements keeping her afloat, but...change HAD been needed before she'd completely stagnated. Now though...now she was having to hire more help after reading a bit about the Kobbers and their strange hours. An all-day bar and kitchen? Even the students slept eventually. She herself hadn't been able to pull the kind of shift needed to accommodate these newcomers; as much as she hated to admit it, she WAS getting old. Thus...she had put out a call for applications, Steve, with more experience with the outside world, getting a small chuckle as he hung up something called a Neon Sign saying Help Wanted.

Help Wanted. Whether she liked it or not. Still...new customers meant new stories and she loved new stories.

"I'll be down soon, Steve. Give 'em a water or something while they wait."

A moment to put on her leg and she was off.

~

Elsewhere in the Silver Tribute...

"Don't see why we gotta get you set up now," Zeldoten Renstim complained, hauling a box of stuff into one of the suites ZFCorp had reserved for Brawl champions. "Kobber stuff doesn't usually start for another couple of months."

Behind her, Doktor Lucy DeMonde carried a similar box, wiggling a couple of fingers to magically open the door. "We didn't have someone starting up a business in Olympia or Kuwahawi," she answered, bringing the huge box in and setting it down as gently as she couple. "But Missy has her Midnight Shop or Store or whatever it's called to get ready too, so I wanted to get our new home set up before she has to deal with a rush of those miscreants."

Zeldoten nodded as Nibbles happily chittered behind them, carrying most of the items himself. The Master Thief had been a bit annoyed to have to interrupt her world tour with Sumireko, but family was family.

"No bu! No bu! No bu!"

She stepped aside as the last member of the loading crew marched past, Pudge carrying a small box with her own things in it. Zeldo was certainly surprised by the cow costume though.

"Why does she get to wear her pajamas while doing this?" the grown-up adult Tiefling asked her mother with a bit of petulance.

The doktor paused for a moment as she began opening the box to start getting out her alchemy kit, the corners of her lips twitching as she shrugged. "What, do you need permission? You haven't asked for that in years."

Defiantly, the doktor even took a moment to step out of the room, re-entering in a t-shirt and sweat pants, continuing the unboxing without giving her daughter so much as a glance.

"Alright, alright. Point made," Zeldoten sighed, looking over at her tumor familiar with a shrug. "Alright, Nibs, let's hurry up and get this place in order. I've got a date tonight with the esoteric and then we're going to look for a Minhocão."

~

?????

Her footsteps echoed through the halls of the old facility as she gave it one last inspection. Her plans were proceeding quickly now that Shin Godzilla was once more within her custody, currently sitting in a forced coma deep within the bunker. So many memories, good and bad, played through her mind. You could almost call it nostalgia, except nostalgia was inefficient, the unwillingness to give up the past in favor of more efficient methods a human trait she thought she'd purged from herself. Now the entire place was nearly empty, most of the machines having been moved to the new Agama installation with its access to the specimens needed to continue her work, the natural resources available for exploitation.

And magic. Oh so much magic. She didn't understand it much herself, but she would eventually. She hadn't earned degree after PhD after Doctorate for nothing. She would study, catalogue, and master it just like every other field she'd applied herself to.

"Doctor Bergman."

Melissa Bergman, formerly of the CURSE and now a self-employed scientist, turned to face an approaching figure, seven feet of armored muscle marching professionally towards her. The doctor looked up, hands behind her back.

"Report," she said simply.

The suited figure saluted and nodded. "There's been a discovery in one of the old store rooms: a storage container with a Synth inside."

Bergman snorted, one of the human gestures she preferred. "A Synth is nothing special here, Yukine."

"Indeed," the figure replied. "But it's a Mark III Synth, Doctor. It appears to be human, but the container's records indicate that it is in fact a Synth."

Bergman curiosity was now piqued. A Mark III Synth, one designed to mimic a human in every way. A Synth like herself. She could have sworn she'd gotten rid of the rest of them. She'd personally confirmed the destruction of the rest of her production line. This one though...completely off the records.

"Very well. Show me this mystery Synth."

The two went back down the hallways, passing by room after empty room, stripped of everything useful and shipped off to Agama. Soon enough, Bergman noted, all that would be left was the one laboratory chosen to contain Shin Godzilla, the last experiment and use the old bunker would serve. The walk was quiet, the armored guard knowing the doctor's preference against small talk and, as far as the doctor herself could tell, shared it. An excellent acquisition, she thought to herself, satisfied as they entered a room that was still quite full, packed with countless crates full of old technology: energy weapons and armor that for now lacked a force to use them. It was almost anticlimactic when Doctor Bergman was led to a corner, well lit but as far back into the store room as one could get.

Motioning for her escort to stay back, Doctor Bergman stepped forward to look into the pod. A synthetic human, appearing to be a blonde girl in her mid-20s. She looked familiar, though not matching any of the personnel files of the bunker's previous owners. Fully developed, in perfect condition according to the monitoring equipment. No serial number, no identification, no records beyond a date and a name.

Polendina.

"Curious..." the doctor said, looking over the Synth. Reading that name filled her mind with a flurry of emotions, making her tempted to pull out a laser rifle and bring its existence to an end there and now. There was a reason she'd killed every other Synth like her and Polendina had everything to do with it. Something about this one though...wasn't quite right. The diagnostics weren't telling her anything yet; the files regarding this Synth's condition encrypted far more heavily than expected or necessary, considering how deep into The Institute they were. Curiosity began getting the better of the doctor, her need to know overriding her desire to pull out a weapon and end the Synth's existence before it could cause her problems.

"Doctor..."

Melissa looked over her shoulder and shook her head. "Grab a rifle if it makes you feel better." The doctor began to work, putting her sophisticated codebreaking techniques she'd been 'born' with and ones created by herself beginning to decipher the locks and crack the encryption. Whoever had hidden this Kirika away hadn't wanted anyone to find her and wanted even less for her to be woken up. Why? If there was something Bergman hated more than anything else, it was not getting to know what she wanted.

The container began to hiss as its defenses were breached, the guard raising a laser rifle in a firing stance, ready to gun down a potentially-dangerous weapon. Melissa stood patiently, watching the door swing open, hydraulics hissing quietly. Cautiously, the Synth lifted itself from the container, looking about with equal parts amazement and disappointment. 

Melissa cleared her throat, calling over the Synth's attention. "My name is Doctor Melissa Bergman. I am in charge here at The Institute. What is your designation?"

"My des...what?" it asked, confused.

"Your name. Your identification number," the guard said from behind Bergman. "What do we call you?

"Ooooooooh! Des!" The Synth paused, its eyes glowing for a moment as it searched its memory. "You can call me Kirika, Des! Akatsuki Kirika!"

Neither guard nor Bergman seemed to know what to make of the new Synth, Kirika, especially after she began doing cartwheels around the storeroom. She was an odd device to be certain, but - quirks or no quirks - her secrets would be revealed, eventually.

Addendum to 2020 Plot Post: Deleted Scene

 A thousand pardons! I remembered after I posted the previous write-up about my 2020 plot that there was one more scene that was deleted, because while it was really cool to me, it just seemed really unlikely that y'all would have let it happen. What makes it significant though? I had planned to give someone a heroic sacrifice to destroy Don Karnage and the Cease and Desist to save Olympia: the Fallen Angel Yohane!

Originally, Yohane and Yoshiko were intended to get along more poorly, Yohane thinking it odd to see another of her and Yoshiko annoyed and disappointed that her Prime counterpart wasn't very heroic at all and was instead an out of shape computer nerd. I preferred their dynamic of not being sure how to feel about each other until their heart-to-heart. Somehow she would have actually talked everyone else into leaving the ship (except everyone who was there would be too good to leave Yohane behind). Instead we got the cool scene of Yohane using the Cease and Desist to punch battleships while Yoshiko unlocked the power of a Heart Star.

I had the scene imagined well enough though I wanted to write it out now roughly as it would've been then.

~

Yohane let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as the sounds of bulkheads slamming shut echoed through the halls, getting tighter and tighter as they sealed themselves tightly. A quick scan showed the Kobbers leaving the Par Seas vessel, making as much noise as they could to distract the enemy. Now the small control huge felt...huge, empty. Lonely except for herself and a laser gun one of the cops had given her to defend herself.

"A-all according to plan," the Fallen Angel muttered nervously as she worked, her fingers flying over her computer at lightning speed.

On one monitor, the starship's main weapon continued to charge, the ship adjusting to account for the damage done to it by Mogera. On another, Yohane scrolled and searched through screen after menu after directory, giving out authentic-sounding orders to charge up the shields. Time was of the essence; she couldn't hide herself if she wanted a chance of success. The enemy HAD to know where she was by now! Any halfway competent operator would be tracing her already; her code would keep the Zonders from bringing down the shields AND powering down the gun. The latter command, at least, was unlikely to be noticed in time.

She shivered when the walls trembled. She hadn't heard anything, but she could guess what was happening: when the pirates couldn't open the doors, they'd begun blowing them open. Well, let them, Yohane decided, hitting the button to execute her program. The display lit up with numerous little chibi Yohanes, each clad with adorable bat wings and fangs, taking off into the battleship's systems. All the Fallen Angel needed to do now was keep watch and occasionally give the program some guidance. It was a task that didn't demand too much attention or effort, but when she needed to watch it, she really needed to.

"This...this is as good a time as any, isn't it?" she asked herself, loading up a new program.

The Fallen Angel Yohane was a very minor internet personality. She had her own little podcast where she talked about the occult, only a few thousand listeners but they were eager fans, her Little Devils. One more broadcast for their sakes - and for her own - as she hacked into the communications systems, managing to connect to Olympia's networks and sending out the call. Maybe five-hundred people were tuning in, obeying the impromptu summons as Yohane reached back and began doing her hair up into the nicest braid she could imagine. She had to look presentable after all as the camera came on, showing her image to the world.

"Good evening, my little demons! Thank you for answering my call. May the blessings of darkness be upon you! Evil has descended upon the fair city of Olympia, so I, YOHANE, have ascended from the underworld to mete our justice as only a Fallen Angel can!"

She gulped as she heard the bulkheads rattling again, clearing her throat and trying not to look afraid. This was the last time people would see her, after all.

"We're going to be doing something a little different for this episode...our last episode," she continued, trying to keep her voice steady. "Although the supernatural world is my first love, I...I also wanted to someday sing opera, so..."

She took a deep breath and sat up straight, holding the gun close to her.

"My name is Yoshiko Tsushima and this is a my application for the Olympia High Opera. I will be performing 'Time to Say Goodbye' by Andrea Bocelli."

There was no music to accompany Yohane as she began to sing. Her terminal could do quite a few things, but she hadn't installed any music in it. She'd never expected to need it.

"When I am alone I sit and dream

And when I dream the words are missing

Yes, I know that in a room so full of light

That all the light is missing

But I don't see you with me, with me

Close up the windows, bring the sun to my room

Through the door you've opened

Close inside of me the light you see

That you met in the darkness"

Some faint percussion cut in behind Yohane as she sung her piece. Closer and closer, the pirates were closing in. She clutched the pistol and nervously looked over her shoulder.

"Time to say goodbye

Horizons are never far

Would I have to find them alone?

Without true light of my own with you

I will go on ships overseas

That I now know

No, they don't exist anymore

It's time to say goodbye"

A few button presses to keep the programs working. The shields were up, the gun was almost charged, and the pirates were almost in. Yohane turned and opened fired, causing the infiltrators to shirk back. Up on the bridge, Don Karnage was screaming to his men to shut something off, ANYTHING. Despite a battle raging on in the auxiliary bridge, the Fallen Angel refused to quit singing, even after taking a hit that almost knocked her over. Sweat dripping down her forehead, blood trickling out of her shoulder, Yohane looked at the camera.

"Thank you...for your...consideration..."

Outside, the Cease and Desist had finally finished charging the weapon, surrounded in a shimmering force field that refused to come down even as the giant gun fired. Energy powerful enough to destroy the floating city and everything around it crashed like a wave into the shield and reflected, being pushed away as the blast continued, bathing the vessel in energy. It was almost a beautiful sight, colors and lights swirling about until the Unstoppable Force/Immovable Object gave out at the same time, the battleship exploding into bits.

Olympia...was safe.

Dracoplot 2020

 After another successful year of RP, it's about time to write about another successful year of Dracoplot! Yaaaaaaaaaaay! Overall, I think my RP went very well this year! There wasn't a lot of cut content (there was still some) and I was mostly satisfied with how things turned out. Last year I started with what I disliked, but this year I think the most appropriate topic to start off with is probably the most shocking and controversial thing I've done in RP (At least, I think it is. Maybe you really were shocked and appalled a few years ago when Commander Fox got in the Brawl.).

The Life and Death of Zeldoten Renstim

Just gonna start this section off by saying it wasn't my intention to kill Zeldoten off and make Sumireko sad when the first Sumidoten seeds were planted. There are currently no plans to kill off DeMonde, Yoshiko, or any other pairing members.

I think I made it pretty clear early on when she was first introduced that Zeldoten had a serious allergy to one of the staples of RP: the extreme presence of white magic and its...um...magical ability to cheat death. I even introduced another character entirely to explain how she could possibly be revived from dying in the Brawl, her mother, DeMonde. There haven't been many characters to whom death is a potentially-fatal consequence and Zeldoten was going to be my one character that it was going to be a big deal for, refusing all death battles except Brawl 7 after winning Brawl 6.

The decision to have Zeldoten make a huge sacrifice was conceived...I think it was sometime in July. I'd already had plans to have DeMonde be manipulated by Mr. Mind and used to aid the Zonders in their plans (though her role wasn't as big at the time) and started making my "lol random" barposts where Zeldoten tried to get Nibbles to talk followed by Zeldoten having the impromptu concert (I'd just heard My Hero Academia's "Hero Too" song recently and had to include it somehow.) Later came Pudge being told Zeldoten's history, something largely not touched on besides how she came to meet DeMonde before then.

Zeldoten started RP as a Chaotic Neutral semi-jerk, a selfish sneak who was more interested in fame than actually stealing stuff. Stealing stuff was, at the time, how she got fame though...then she won a Brawl and her world turned sideways, slowly pushing her up in the alignment chart to...I guess you could it the Lawful Evil of Neutral Good...due in part to her friendship with A NERD. So, after years of learning to use her powers for good and getting beat up by Black Shadow and Robbie Rotten's gang for Sumi's sake, I decided it was time to cash in on the "Zeldoten can't be revived" card and give her the ultimate heroic moment, a noble sacrifice to protect the most important people in her life, the first person to ever see value in someone who'd been otherwise considered a curse since her birth. Beside, who else but a Brawl Champion is powerful enough to single-handedly cripple a godbeast? Hu hu hu hu hu~

If Jumpropeman hadn't let her take a couple of the TE Pills during the finale of the magnificent Blastoplot, I had other things in mind for how she could have crippled Mr. Mind in much the same way, but it felt a lot more appropriate that she use something she stole to help deliver the blow rather than me having to introduce a relic that played a large part in DeMonde's pre-RP adventures: a magical rod that her party had to reassemble to give them the power to kill the God of Magic and that would cause a magical explosion with a minuscule chance of the breaker being thrown to another dimension.

On Chao's wise counsel, I did tell Goops a week in advance that something really bad would happen to Zeldoten during the finale, though I had to be vague so as not to totally spoil the moment. I'd be lying too if I didn't confess that even on that Saturday morning I was struggling to decide if I could actually go through with it. I'd been writing cutscenes for two weeks leading up to the Zonderplot finale and still had cold feet about the whole thing, but ultimately it felt necessary that for it to have the right impact, Zeldoten's sacrifice had to actually BE a sacrifice. I was rereading parts of that scene earlier tonight and just thinking about how I felt when posting it made me cry a bit.

I think I took y'all by surprise when I did it and I appreciate Gooper being a very, VERY good sport about me killing Zeldoten. Reviving her was, admittedly, always part of the plan, even if it was uncomfortable in the interim and while I would've been alright doing that solo I think the scene we cooked up was an amazing way to formally conclude Dracoplot 2020.

The day we scheduled the revival, I reached out on Discord and commissioned that picture. I normally love sharing RP artwork I get as soon as I get it, so it was both joy and AGONY having to keep it a secret. The looks on y'all's faces...

Parsee might've been my first serious RP character, getting a big role in my first big plot, but Zeldoten's been without a doubt my star, my first truly original ZFRP character and one of the most prominent faces on my cast for years. Literal YEARS. She's brought in a lot of other great characters and done a lot of fun and exciting things.

It's going to be hard retiring her, even if she IS scheduled to cameo a couple of times in Agama and even if it is only temporary.

The Invasion/War of the Zonders

When I first teased this plot, it was Invasion of the Zonders and then I called it War of the Zonders in at least one post towards the end of it. Either way, it was a chance for me to do my own silly, over-the-top Super Robot Plot. I'd had mechs appear plenty of times in RP before Season 10: Gundams, Transformers, Macross/Robotech, Patlabor, Big O, and Xenogears. GaoGaiGar stuff in Season 9. Probably some others I don't recall off the top of my head. This was the first plot though that really revolved around having giant robots being an important part.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with how it turned out. There wasn't a lot of cut content: one big event, a smaller event that ended up being a cutscene, and some characters. The pacing went very well too. I had important moments and a few "Monster of the Week" style events that Super Robot anime is so fond of. It was a lot of fun writing the big cutscenes too where I could take my time writing out these cool action scenes full of hot blooded yelling and fighting without having to worry about taking up your time too.

Cut Content

Machinedramon was originally considered to be one of the Zonderian Generals because of how much he contrasts with the other two characters I'd already picked for the other generals, Mr. Mind and Gerbera. Where Mr. Mind was a manipulator and Gerbera used subterfuge and trickery, Machinedramon would've been far more direct in his approach to trying to take over Olympia. Harpy ended up using him during Season 9 though as a member of the Curse. The position was, after plenty of deliberation, given over to Don Karnage instead.

The one major event of Dracoplot 2020 that got cut was...the original finale! I joke about plot stuff in chat all the time and one that came up a bunch was Deb being the Dracoplot Final Boss!

Because she was going to be. During the first Don Karnage attack, Deb was hit with some shrapnel that put her in the hospital for awhile. The shrapnel was supposed to be laced with Zonder metal, quietly infecting her and incubating within her for months while using her exposure to her own technology and the G-Stones as a way of eventually adapting to its natural enemy. I admit that idea was taken from GaoGaiGar, except there's not much foreshadowing to that happening in the anime that I can recall. It would have taken place about a month after the battle with Cathedral Terra, slowly letting you all think that the Zonders were defeated. There would have been small mentions of Deb doing solo jobs around the city from time to time throughout the year to foreshadow the final battle.

Deb would have woken up, covered in Zonder metal, and gone for Olympia's core, the power generator for the entire city, and begun merging with it. Bundles of Zonder Metal, hidden throughout the city's infrastructure in places that detectors couldn't find, would have exploded as a surge of power emanated from the core to begin transforming the entire city into a Devil Gundam. Except Deb, being a brilliant engineer who knows actual robots instead of a die-headed gangster who build some Gunpla, would have been actually threatening, generating full-sized, fully-functional Death Army mobile suits to destroy the city so it could be converted into a flying Zonder Metal factory in order to rebuild the Zonder forces. Phase 1 of the plot would have been fighting off the Debil Gundam and the Death Army, including a new set of generals so I wouldn't have to reuse the same four from the King Dice Plot.

Phase 2 would have been a battle with Deb herself, merged with Olympia's power grid to give her unlimited self-recovery and self-modification powers. The Devil Gundam's final form would likely have been part of this battle if it had occurred and she would have been weakened enough to be defeated when someone, probably Nia assuming she was spared like what actually happened, arrives at the battle with Deb's kids on speaker phone, weakening her resolve and the Zonder Crystals' ability to tap into her for power.

This event was removed for a variety of reasons, including that I thought up something better to be the big finale, it really was a bit TOO similar to the King Dice finale (even if Deb is way more threatening), and I'm pretty sure I've been way too mean to Deb already. It worked out for the best too since part of the big twist in Sheep's plot was also that someone was trying to assimilate with and take over Olympia. And he did it better.

Fun Fact: I originally came up with the "Debil Olympia" plot finale in October 2019. When I suggested it to Chao, he said it was TOO big for a finale and that it shouldn't be able to affect all of Olympia so non-participants wouldn't have to react. Then Gooper Blooper, his best friend, had a finale where a giant mecha squid tried to sink the entire city and Chao withdrew his objection.

Part of my Season 10 teasers was DeMonde finding and keeping a Zygarde Cell. The Pokemon side of the plot got pretty sidelined considering how much I had going on otherwise with the admittedly more-important giant robot side of things, but I was able to put most of that into cutscenes. The backstory of Necrozma and Eternatus was completely my own creation, written out long, long before the Crown Tundra DLC released. Eternatus was originally slated to take on Necrozma's role as the Mr. Mind magic mushroom until Harpy said she wanted Mr. Bones for herself and was kind enough to play along with my backstory stuff. The Sealanders would potentially have made a comeback too for a small event where Necrozma awakened and needed to be contained before it could eat Alola's light, with Gerbera capturing it and teleporting away. Zygarde-form Necrozma was briefly considered as a way of getting Zeldoten out of Mr. Mind before the TE Pill detonated using the power of Ultra Wormholes, but the Hero's Sacrifice was more important to the story.

Sorry again for killing Zeldoten, however brief it lasted.

The Plot Itself

Mecha anime has been one of my biggest entertainment loves, second possibly only to giant monster fiction like Godzilla and Gamera. I grew up watching Power Rangers, I had Battletech toys, Metal Warriors for SNES was one of my favorite games, and then Gundam Wing aired on Toonami around the time we got the Internet for the first time and changed everything for me. I've wanted to do a full-on giant robot plot for awhile  - and not just individual events happen to have a lot of big robots, like Harpy's Greed invasion in Vegas. This being the big anniversary year, I figured why not? I was going to have my big, stupid, awesome giant robot plot and only Lord Timzonius was going to stop me!

Turns out he was busy and couldn't stop me.

Action! Drama! Giant fights! The Invasion/War of the Zonders was everything I'd hoped it would be and, while there were cuts and some hiccups along the way, I think it went very well.

Zonders

When I say Zonders here, I mean the Monster of the Week grunt type enemies like you'd see destroyed by a cool special attack in the last five minutes of the episode. The ones who were the average joes with a tragic backstory that got turned into monster robots. I deliberately only took two from the show itself and that's because they were the ones with the best connections to the rest of RP: the GaoGaiGar Zonder and the Zaku-looking Zonder that both appeared in, as the Barchives call it, The Spiral Queen's Betrayal. The original idea behind the Zonders' form (that I think the anime kind of slacked on after the first episode) is that the negativity in a person's heart is supposed to shape their form. A guilty adulterer turned into a snake, an old man sad about not getting to share his toys turned into one, an obnoxiously-lucky duck turned into a slot machine, etc. I got a few good events out of these and that was enough; RP is too busy for nothing but Monster of the Day events!

Mr. Mind

The first Zonderian to be revealed. I saw the Captain Marvel movie at some point in 2019, flying to or from my cousin's wedding, I think, and I enjoyed it. Not sure how that Billy Batson got to be Captain Marvel, but this isn't the Film Hoard. Anyway, seeing that got me looking up Mr. Mind on Youtube and Google and saw some funny stuff. My RP's usually rather light-hearted so he seemed like a good choice. There WAS another reason for picking him though and Gooper (and Cornwind too, I'm sure) knew it: Mr. Mind has a godbeast form, perfect for a boss of some sort. He got to be the little man of the Zonders, bitter that despite his power everyone looked down on him, even beings he considered beneath himself. He got psychic Starmen from the Mother/Earthbound series to be his minions.

While he ended up being the Final Boss of Dracoplot though, he and Gerbera were originally slated to, well, NOT be the last event. They swapped places with the Spiral Queen and would originally have been just a one-day event in which the Dark Axis launched its betrayal and tried taking Olympia over for themselves. Neither Gerbera or Mr. Mind would have been as powerful in this version and been defeated a lot more easily.

I'm rather proud of the backstory I crafted for Mr. Mind and his fictional race, the Sivana (named for Dr. Sivana from the Captain Marvel comics). Would you believe I more or less came up with a lot of it on the spot? Chao asked me to help set up Kanade finding some way to use the Godzilla Symphogear from the mobile game (RIP in Peace), so seeing as I already had two kaiju who associated with humans in RP (Mothra and Gamera) I threw together a story of a kaiju war where each side had human helpers using magic artifacts to gain powers. Kind of like a Symphogear! It also became a great way to get Baragon and some other smaller kaiju some respect, tie Mr. Mind to some of the kaiju, and unnecessarily explain why modern kaiju are so much bigger.

Don Karnage

While he wasn't my first choice to round out the Zonderians, I can honestly say that I don't regret casting Don Karnage as a badguy in an anime-style plot where flashy fights are the norm and style is a bit more important than substance at times. He provided a colorful flashiness to counter the too-serious Gerbera and the petulant Mr. Mind, a flamboyant duelist who enjoyed winning fights, especially if he cheated to win. He was a perfect fit for capturing the Cease and Desist from Parsee and being the villain of an event featuring ship to ship combat in the skies of Olympia.

Being, admittedly, the least important villain on the plot also made him a perfect Zonder to kill off and get the ball rolling on the Spiral Queen's big invasion. That it also served to awaken Yoshiko's Heart Star and demonstrate her growing power was just a bonus. The Air/Sky Pirates were a good addition to the Zonder forces because they provided a counterpart to the Beastmen of Gurren-Lagann. #Spoilers The Beastmen of Gurren-Lagann were an artificially created race of animal people designed to not have any Spiral Power so they can be used to suppress humans without contributing to the Spiral Nemesis themselves. #End Spoiler. Throwing in the transforming Biplane-esque Seekers from Transformers: Hearts of Iron also made it so I could consider this another year of Deceptiplot after last year's baddies were...GASP...Go-Bots!

The Spiral Queen, Nia Teppelin

What's a good Super Robot Story without a villain AND a tragic figure? The reason that Olympia was targeted with Zonder invasion and the reason that the Zonders didn't just try to destroy it immediately. Nia got introduced in Season 9 specifically so she didn't just appear at the beginning of Season 10 for people to start pointing fingers at her and going "There's the badguy!" She got to appear early to establish herself as being Deb's assistant, to establish herself in RP before the Zonders even appeared (publicly; King Dice was one all along) so she'd have an alibi, using Spiral Powers to teleport between Olympia and the Cathedral Terra as needed. She was both mastermind and victim, an unwilling tyrant that nevertheless was doing her best to balance her love for her former home and the Anti-Spiral's demand that she carry on his mission of suppressing life in the name of saving the universe.

#Gurren Lagann spoilers begin

While I borrowed HEAVILY from Gurren-Lagann, the series Nia originated in, I did change a few things. In the second half of the series, Nia is chosen at random (according to the story but c'mon) to be the emissary of the Anti-Spirals when humanity reaches one million people again after being suppressed by Lord Genome, the Spiral King, Nia's dad. She does a lot of bad stuff with hints of her original self popping in just enough to keep the Anti-Spirals from winning. The Spiral Nemesis isn't really defined in the series itself beyond having too many "Spiral lifeforms" will cause it to destroy the universe; I think supplemental materials say it's a giant black hole caused by too much Spiral power creating too much stuff. Anyway, Lazengan, Cathedral Terra, and the Anti-Spiral fighters and ships were all taken from Gurren-Lagann and used pretty much in their original roles, though Cathedral Terra was from the movie version; the series version was just the moon until the heroes took it over.

#Gurren-Lagann spoilers end

I deliberately avoided using Gurren-Lagann itself because while it's appropriate for the kinds of craziness ZFRP usually gets into, I didn't want the badguys having it and the heroes already had GaoGaiGar. Sanae DID get to use its signature attack, the Giga Drill Breaker, though. I enjoyed getting to write the scenes where her backstory was explored too. Her fate was never sealed in stone either; she could have been destroyed or spared without the event itself changing. Some of the aftermath might have been different and my epilogues would've changed too.

A small cut scene would have had Cathedral Terra stopping by where the Maw died, but I don't recall what purpose it was intended to serve.

Professor Gerbera a.k.a. Nu-Alex of the MALP-verse

Before I say anything else about Gerbera, I need to state that the original intention was that his home universe was the City of Beasts ultra grimdark RP universe that is sometimes joked about in chat. His references to "Cobbers" (pronounced like City) are to that original intention, but as time passed it really just made more sense to have him be from the MALP-verse, which was established in RP already and was also really, REALLY shitty already. We didn't need to add yet another universe to our lore. Making City of Beasts an in-universe nickname for MALP Zoofights City worked out for the best though when Goops surprisingly and kindly made Sectonia the MALP Widow Maker.

With that out of the way, Professor Gerbera was practically made to be in RP. He's a robot, he's evil, he has a really cool theme of his own, his in-show backstory was pretty ripe for the taking (just turn some time travel into dimensional travel), and he had the perfect Prime universe counterpart already in Nu Alex. This did cause some people to think he was a Dark Star, but that didn't happen because I already had my own universe to have copies in and Goops didn't want too many Dark Stars that weren't his, so Gerbera was (eventually) from MALP. Giving him an assistant in Metis aka MALP Aigis also worked out because - and it's easy to forget - that the Labrys that's been in RP since Vegas is also from MALP!

Even I forgot sometimes, I'll admit.

I'd originally picked him because I think he's a cool villain and I wanted an evil genius on the Zonder team, hence his efforts to research powerful, esoteric Pokemon and use them to turn Mr. Mind into a fully-frown Sivana. As time between seasons 9 and 10 went on though, I got more and more ideas about how to turn him into the real villain of the Zonders, someone who had had a shitty life and was using it as justification to do evil things to unrelated people until it was just utterly rubbed into his face that he was being a hypocrite. I'm rather surprised he was given a chance to surrender, honestly. He schemed and backstabbed, but after an exciting fight to write (I was up an extra hour or two the night before organizing screenshots after tracking down the episode Gerbera appeared in as a Gundam).

I was worried that the reveal that he was a Gundam would be spoiled by Sheep before I got a chance to do it myself. Cobramaru and the Cobra Colors are from the same series as Gerbera; I was concerned that he'd spend a lot of time randomly browsing the SD Gundam Force part of Gundam Wiki to see Gerbera.

Because he was spared though, I decided he was going to take advantage of it...and genuinely try to face turn. He went on a plot and got a decent ending that I'm tickled was referenced by Sheep during his wrap ups.

It didn't get a chance to appear in RP, but during a flashback and a...hallucination, I guess...Gerbera appeared in his original Gundam colors before turning evil. SD Gundam Force was a fun show, but one thing about Gerbera that I was NOT going to bring into RP was calling him...Madnug. Gundam spelled backwards. Captain Gundam, who was Nu-Alex's last faceclaim, called Gerbera that when he shed his armor for no reason and even for this silly show it was a bit TOO silly for RP.

Said the guy who had DeMonde and Zeldoten fight Meaner Weiner on Day 1 of Kuwahawi.

As Gooper pointed out to me though, Professor Gerbera and his little insurrection marked me finally bringing in the Dark Axis from the Rejected Content list! It's not just Sanae who got to ascend to being in RP thanks to Olympia. Grunt minions aside, I also tried to use some of the lesser characters from the anime for Gerbera's Dark Axis; he got the knightly Mercurius and Vayeate prominently as his bodyguards instead of the show's evil trio Zapper Zaku, Grappler Gouf, and Destroyer Dom, though those three did appear in the finale (with Dom even getting some dialogue). I almost used Cobra Color Black as a stealthy way to mark Gerbera as actually a Gundam, but at the time I had thought Sheep used Black already. It worked out though; having Cobra Color Black cameo in the Green Hell Zone was a nice touch.

Wriggle Nightbug

Wriggle is, admittedly, someone I threw into RP because I liked her design. It was pure fortune that I was able to come up with a fantastic role for her, a quasi-mystical character with ties to Mr. Mind that she wasn't aware of until Suwako, who was originally there just to cameo, made her more aware of what the little bug was. She was also a great reason to bring yet another Mothra into RP: the 2000s one who starred alongside Baragon! She might not have gotten to do a ton of stuff outside of the plot, but she'll be coming back to help Kanade in her quest to become Godzilla.

Sanae Kochiya

As has been pointed out in chat a few times, Harpy's Revue of Rejects plot from Season 9 has had plenty of ripples! It gave all of us a chance to bring back characters we'd considered and passed on for just one plot and quite a few stuck around! Byakuren ended up being Futo's cool aunt and helped win the King of Fighters tournament, Baragon's gotten to stick around and make a few more appearances, and for my own part I got to bring Sanae Kochiya, the Dr. Pepper to Reimu's Pepsi/Coke, into RP after she and Suwako had been mentioned in posts from time to time in previous seasons. Part of the fanon, as I understand it, is she's not just from outside of Gensokyo originally but she's also a HUGE nerd, including enjoying mecha anime. She got to appear a few more times in Season 9, mostly for the Revue, but when I decided I was going to do a Super Robot plot, she was primed and ready to be the star! She was going to pilot the robot and beat the bad guys and...

...and then got replaced as my Main Character by a certain Alternate Universe Meatball. Don't get me wrong, Sanae still got to be important! She was on the frontline of the Zonder Invasion and got in all kinds of great robot battles, including fighting Hanamaru's Big DuO first. She just ended up getting fewer appearances than she would have if Yoshiko weren't around. She got to be the hero though, using her Shrine Maiden powers to outpunch a moon-sized mech. Few of my characters have done something that cool and it'll be awhile before that achievement gets topped.

Ironically, in the GaoGaiGar anime, GaoFighGar is supposed to be the improved, upgraded version of GaoGaiGar. I once heard GaoGaiGar the robot described as being rather slapdash and thrown together while GaoFighGar was planned. It got to be a fun twist turning the roles around since GaoFighGar got introduced first because, frankly, I like it better, but then it got destroyed and a "slapdash" robot made in a hurry with the best tech Deb could remember replaced it, which I think is fun. Should I do more GaoGaiGar stuff in the future, there's a couple of upgraded versions I can pull on. Someday.

Suwako was brought in for a cameo or two after after the previously-mentioned Spiral Queen's Betrayal and just...stuck around. Not really doing much at first, but then she got to participate in Hinaplot a bit and then became a bit more important when she got her own role in Dracoplot, dispensing knowledge and then filling in for Baragon as a Guardian Monster alongside Ghidorah and Mothra to battle the Sivana.

Doktor Lucille Gear-DeMonde

Whew! What a roller coaster this old gal has been on now that she's...not so old.

Originally brought in to serve as a plot device for why Zeldoten would be able to come back to RP in the likely scenario she'd lost Big Bar Brawl 6 thanks to a 3rd Party Feat the GM allowed, even recommended, the use of that allowed DeMonde to bring someone back to life with a sufficiently-difficult skill check instead of some magic power, leading to her RP incarnation being prone to prefer mundane means of medicine and treatment supported by alchemy rather than going magic first like the White Mages did in early RP; Helios has since proven himself capable in non-magical doctoring and we have other guys like Dr. Stegz in the hospital staff, but I like to think that DeMonde was original in her approach when introduced!

It still feels a bit...cheaty to give her a de-aging from Midwich when it didn't any other character that way, but I don't think anyone is complaining. It also gave me the chance to have her go through a rather unique experience in RP: a second chance at a mid-life crisis! Y'all know I'm a bit overeager when it comes to pairings, but even I was caught off-guard when suddenly DeMonde and Game Gear were hooking up over after a snarky, confrontational courtship and they have made for a surprisingly decent couple despite not having much in common. They fit well together, I think, because they don't have unreasonable expectations for each other and still have their own lives. I also find it funny to make Step-mom Gale jokes; just when you think they're old, they pull a DeMonde and are fresh again. I've always tried to portray the doktor as minimal nonsense, grumpy, and intent on doing the right thing no matter how much it annoys her; suddenly she found herself in a more emotionally-vulnerable state of mind with a love interest, hobbies, a bigger family, and potential threats to all of those (Dreamcast, Nobu, probably other stuff) that were mostly in her head, vulnerable to the manipulations of a psychic worm that her troubled daughter had shrugged off.

I'm pretty sure it was obvious that she was the Gene Queen even if I tried to portrayed her alchemy in new ways. That awful generated accent was probably more than enough; even I could barely understand it and I was the one using it and even manually toned it down a bit. Yeah, it made its brief appearances and went away so we could understand her.

A thing I didn't really do well was trying to imply that the Sirenhead was a creature created by the Gene Queen to mimic Kira*Miki long enough to draw some Kobbers into a trap and get rid of a few. It was also kind of vague that the Gene Queen personality needed Mr. Mind to jumpstart it.

One of the most consistent themes with DeMonde is her growing family. Seemed like every year she adopted a new kid: Zeldoten (technically just introducing her), then Oda and Missy and Miu. I guess you could say she 'adopted' Gale and Sumireko too, but that'd be weird. Years of a growing family warming up her heart and making her less of a curmudgeon, all leading up to frankly one of my favorite moments all year long: DeMonde vs. her family in a battle to save her from the Zonders. It's rather hard to have a scene with all of them together though, seeing as that's four other users' characters in the family, so it really meant a lot to me that Brine, Goops, Chao, and Jumpropeman let me write these big, giant family scenes with their characters and minimum oversight. I consulted with their about particular things and the overall tone, but for the most part they let me unleash my terrible evil upon their girls.

Because as characters appear in more seasons, there's less and less for them to do and eventually they'd start getting retired. Hell, Zeldoten is taking at least a temporary break and if not for GaleMonde the doktor herself would be taking a bow. (If you're worried that I'm keeping her around with nothing to do, don't be! Bree's idea to have Medicine learn...um...medicine from her is just one thing to keep her busy.) So before anyone retired, I really, REALLY wanted them all to have one big moment together as a family, risking life and limb to save a woman who had all touched their lives and been touched right back, a grand spectacle of a heartfelt battle to show off as much of all of their powers and skills and courage as I possibly could!

I've mentioned before in chat how much I really, REALLY like Final Fantasy 14: Heavensward and I really LOVED the music for its final boss, Nidhogg, to the point where it had to be the music. The drama and action, the way it built tension over the three acts. The battle against DeMonde was the Final Boss Fight of five years of Zeldoten and DeMonde RP and it needed music to match the scale and intensity of the occasion. Hell, I've been listening to it as I write this part of the blogpost.

I love a GOOD fight in my fiction, one where both sides are evenly matched, honestly trading blows instead of the bad guy inflicting a brutal beatdown only for the hero to, at the last moment, get a sudden power-up or super skill that wins them the battle in a single, undeserved blow, and I did my best to make sure Zeldoten vs. DeMonde was specifically the highlight of the event for me, even if Zeldoten inflicting an irreparable wound on Mr. Mind was the climax. A great to show off their alchemy like I'd never done before; I had the Alchemist formula list open as I wrote, going up and down looking for interesting spells for them to use in creative ways, showing a brutal fight between mother and daughter, two geniuses locked in a brutal struggle with nothing silly to be said and nobody to distract them. Victory not through random chance or "The Power of Friendship", but through cunning and sacrifice, like using an indestructible crab as a hidden shield.

Frankly, if that's the last big thing she does in RP, I can be satisfied. Hopefully it won't be though.

Yoshiko Filia Tsushima and Samson

Yoshiko, the Yohane of Dark Star, noisy martial arts lady, pilot of Getter Robo, Tsubasa's Precious Meatball, and considered by some to be one of stars of the Dark Matter plot!

Would you believe that Yoshiko didn't even exist until APRIL 2020?

...which would be a bit of an exaggeration. Only a bit though.

The first concepts of the character that would eventually become Yoshiko was seeing a lot of neat Skullgirls art. I'd already RP'd as Big Band as part of the Curse and there wasn't much I needed to read on the Skullgirls Wiki, so I decided I would RP her in Season 10. At the time, I had no idea what I'd do with her except what ended up being the first post of The Invasion/War of the Zonders: crash landing in the middle of the city being chased by a Starman. Not much of a role, but then she'd wander around being a talking head (of hair) for awhile.

Meanwhile, Gooper had stated that it'd be okay for people to have their own characters from the Dark Matter universe, just not to the extent that he allowed participation in the Curse or JRM allowed people to have Salvagers. One hero, one villain, and I had no idea who I would pick for either, so any time the subject came up I just shrugged and went "I dunno." And this continued for awhile until I started getting ideas and listened to a lot of super robot anime soundtracks. It didn't hurt that Covid meant I was working from home starting on St. Patrick's Day, giving me a lot more time and freedom to think of RP ideas in-between working on work stuff. Chao had shared with me some of his ideas for his Dark Matter characters, including bringing in an alternate of his Season 9 star, Hibiki, a version drawn from the Symphogear mobile game that was Hibiki but...sullen, moody, withdrawn. The two Hibikis looked alike but were almost complete opposites in terms of personality.

So with ambitions of bringing in more super robot stuff, because honestly Getter Robo Armageddon was a great show, I decided in early April that I'd take inspiration from Chao and...bring in a few Yohane, one who was just as eccentric and weird, but in vastly different ways. It was about the time I wrote my introductory blogpost that I'd made a couple of deals, trading one picture of Yoshiko for a referral in a mobile game and then outright commissioning the picture of Yoshiko's Getter Team. So a couple of weeks away from the beginning of Season 10, I had a second meatball but with one issue: how would I introduce her?

It was a surprising epiphany when I came up with the solution: I had a character with an introduction but nothing to do and another character that had things to do but no good way to introduce her. So...why not make them THE SAME CHARACTER? Filia ended up being Yoshiko's middle name (subtly alluded to when Yoshiko put her initials into Congorilla) and she'd been brought to this Earth by Zonders! A bit of a clumsy origin, but I think it worked out really well.

If I had one regret about it though, it's that I didn't do a great job of providing reasons for her to sometimes be Yoshiko and sometimes be Filia before revealing they were the same person when Gerbera turned her into a Gigantimax Grimmsnarl. I gave some reasons in chat, but they weren't well considered, IMO. Something about swapping identities to keep from being followed, something like that. Oh well.

Another thing I meant to do is make her a bit flirtier overall, chatting up a few other folks as a way to show her being different from Yohane, but this just led to one of the biggest mistakes of RP: Tsubasa x Yoshiko. We might be phasing out tractors for most things, but the day it gave me a 21 for Yoshiko liking the rice balls and Samson a 1 for liking them was a precious gift to illustrate that Yoshiko and her hair are both the same person and different people, sharing a body while each getting part of her mind. This I hope to explore more in Season 11; I feel like I really underutilized Samson outside of events where he helped Yoshiko.

Making my Dark Star villain her friend Hanamaru was also rather spontaneous. Sure, she'd been introduced in the blogpost and mentioned in a couple of other posts, but actually deciding to make her a bad guy to the post where she fought Sanae was maybe two or three weeks apart. Maybe less; not 100% sure on that. But it was a great way to show off how broken Yoshiko was. Sure, she'd mentioned it in the bar at least once, but a great writing tip I hear a bunch is "show, don't tell". Yoshiko needed a chance to show her Survivor's Guilt and just how personally important it was to her to defeat Dark Matter. Big DuO was a pretty obvious choice in my mind too; Chao and I are both big fans of the anime Big O and we'd discussed in private the possibility of one of us using it, bouncing it back and forth like a tennis match until one of us pulled the trigger. We'll eventually get everything from Big O into ZFRP.

Yoshiko is just way too fun to write though sometimes and she'd probably have come back even if Tsubasa wasn't getting her own big plot next year. They're both adorable dorks who take themselves way too seriously and need someone to awkwardly hang out being awkward. Hopefully she'll be able to contribute meaningfully to Tsubasa's Destiny and I've floated an idea or two to Pitohui about it. (Okay, it was a cool one-liner, but it was a GOOD cool one-liner.)

Vincent and Koakuma Simmons

Almost forgot to write about this! I never would've forgiven myself if I didn't say something about it.

So to start: I think it's great that the relationship between the most flamboyant Kamen Rider and a demonic library assistant is quite frankly the most normal pairing I have in RP. Springing from a chance meeting where Koakuma just wanted to talk to someone else who had experience with sentient buildings to fighting strange ghosts in an arcade and eventually palling around enough that Vince mustered real courage and asked for a date. Del put it very well in the speech he wrote for the wedding: they meshed together in a way they could build upon each other and help each other improve without relying on villain attacks or Kamen Rider stuff to push the relationship along.

The day Del PM'd me asking what Koakuma would say if Vincent asked for her hand in marriage was just perfect. If Zeldoten vs. DeMonde was a way to cap off their years together, Vince and Koa getting married was the perfect destination for an unusual friendship and a colorful romance and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Sorry we weren't able to do it soon than the literal last minute, but that's life. Thank you, Del, for collaborating on a fantastic pairing and a great wedding to go with it.

In Conclusion

It was a long, hectic year of awesome action scenes and ridiculously melodramatic people yelling at each other. While I could be more satisfied with how things went, it wouldn't be MUCH more. I'm glad I got things wrapped up in early October though instead of trying to elbow my way into reserving the last two regular days; what I ended up doing would've torpedoed my plans. Another huge takeaway after pre-writing all of those huge battles and events and cutscenes is that Jumpropeman really deserves SO MUCH credit for writing the Brawl every year; I had only a few characters to work with and didn't need to write that much at a time compared to him. I don't know how he does it and, frankly, I'm not sure I WANT to know!

Hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on my plots as much as I enjoyed writing them down!